November 13, 1940

1940Saul Kripke, American philosopher and academic (died 2022)^[†]

Saul Aaron Kripke was an American analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emeritus professor at Princeton University. From the 1960s until his death, he was a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical and modal logic, philosophy of language and mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and recursion theory.

1940Janet Lawson, American jazz singer and educator (died 2021)^[†]

Janet Lawson was a jazz singer and educator. Her primary influences as a singer were saxophonists such as Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Sonny Rollins. Her voice was described by jazz critic John S. Wilson in a 1977 New York Times article entitled Janet Lawson: The Dream Jazz Voice writing that she "has the kind of voice that most jazz singers probably wish they had. It is a full, well-developed, remarkably pliant voice with a lower range whose dark sonorities compare favorably with the deep power of Sarah Vaughan, and a high register in which she does not have to strain to project very fast, often complex, lines."