1593 Izaak Walton – British biographer and author (The Compleat Angler, The Life of Donne) His book, The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653, has since been reprinted on many hundreds of occasions and established the concept of the sport of angling as a gentle, philosophical pastime
1631 John Dryden – British Poet Laureate, dramatist, and literary critic (The Wild Gallant, The Rival Ladies, Astraea Redux, The Indian Emperor, The Conquest of Granada, Don Sebastian, The Hind and the Panther)
1845 Alfred Bessette, Frère André – Canadian faith healer. Brother André was a lowly member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross when he started his faith healing in honour of St Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary. By 1904 he and his followers had built a small oratory on the northwest slope of Mount Royal in Montréal. From 1924 to 1955 the basilica of the Oratoire St-Joseph was built in his honour
1896 Jean Piaget - Swiss psychologist famous for his studies of cognitive development in children, and whose work with children contributed immensely to the growth of developmental psychology
1899 P. L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers - Australian-born British author (Mary Poppins books, The Fox in the Manger, Friend Monkey)
1901 Charles Farrell - Actor (My Little Margie) He also developed the Palm Springs Racquet Club, along with Ralph Bellamy
1918 Robert Aldrich – US director (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Chiorboys, Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte, The Killing of Sister George, The Dirty Dozen, Hustle, The Frisco Kid)
1922 Philip Larkin – British poet and novelist (The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, A Girl in Winter, The North Ship)
1927 Robert Shaw - British stage and screen actor (Jaws, The Battle of Britain, The Taking Of Pelahm One Two Three, Robin And Marian, Black Sunday, The Deep, Force 10 from Navarone, From Russia with Love, A Man for All Seasons, The Luck Of Ginger Coffey, The Buccaneers, The Sting) novelist (The Hiding Place, The Man In The Glass Booth, The Sun Doctor, The Flag, Card From Morocco) and playwright (Off the Mainland, Cato Street, Figures in a Landscape)
1934 Graeme Gibson – Canadian author (Five Legs, Communion, Perpetual Motion) Married to author Margaret Atwood, he was one of the founders of the Writers Union of Canada in 1974
1934 Merle Kilgore - Songwriter (Ring of Fire, More and More, Johnny Reb, Wolverton Mountain, Dear Mama, Love Has Made You Beautiful, Fast Talking Louisiana Man)
1939 Billy Henderson - Singer with the group the Spinners (Could It be I'm Falling in Love, One of a Kind, The Rubberband Man, They Just Can't Stop It)
1942 David Steinberg – Canadian-born comedian, TV host (The Music Scene, The David Steinberg Show, Second City) and TV writer (Friends, Mad About You, Evening Shade, Sienfeld, Designing Women, Newhart)
1944 Sam Elliott - Actor (Gettysburg, Lonesome Dove, Mask, Fatal Beauty, Road House, Tombstone, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Frogs, Travis McGee, The Yellow Rose)
1949 Jonathan Kellerman – US mystery author (When the Bough Breaks, Dr. Death, Over the Edge, Silent Partner)
1957 Melanie Griffith - Actress (Working Girl, Night Moves, Smile, A Stranger Among Us, Born Yesterday) She is actress Tippi Hedren's daughter
1963 Whitney Houston – Singer (I Will Always Love You, Greatest Love of All, You Give Good Love, Saving All My Love You) and actress (The Bodyguard)
1968 Gillian Anderson - Actress (The X-Files, Bleak House, The Turning, The Mighty, Playing By Heart, The Fall, Great Expectations, Johnny English Reborn)
1973 Kevin McKidd – Scottish actor (Rome, Trainspotting, Grey’s Anatomy, Nicholas Nickleby, Anna Karenina) He played David Lomax in the Kavanagh QC episode A Stranger in the Family
1976 Rhona Mitra – British actress (Boston Legal, The Practice, Sweet Home Alabama, Gideon’s Crossing, Party of Five, Beowulf, The Last Ship)
1978 Daniela Denby-Ashe – British actress (EastEnders, Magic Hour, Office Gossip, Is Harry on the Boat?, My Family)
Died this Day
1962 Hermann Hesse, age 85 – German author (Steppenwolf, Siddharta, St Francis of Assisi)
1969 Sharon Tate - Actress, who was found brutally murdered in her Los Angeles home, along with four other people including coffee heiress Abigail Folger. Tate was eight month’s pregnant, and her husband, Roman Polanski was out of town at the time. Cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime
1995 Jerry Garcia - Lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead (Dark Star, Truckin', Alabama Getaway, Uncle John's Band, A Touch of Grey) He died in San Francisco of a heart attack, a week after his 53rd birthday
2003 Gregory Hines, age 57 – Actor-dancer (Bojangles, Wolfen, The Cotton Club, White Nights, Tap, The Cherokee Kid, Waiting to Exhale, A Rage in Harlem, Eubie!)
On this Day
AD378 In one of the most decisive battles in history, a large Roman army under Valens, the Roman emperor of the East, was defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople in present-day Turkey. Two-thirds of the Roman army, including Emperor Valens himself, were overrun and slaughtered by the mounted barbarians. Crowned in 364, Emperor Valens initiated warfare against the semi-civilised Visigoths in 364 and by 369 had defeated them. Visigoths under Fritigern were given permission to settle south of the Danube in the Roman Empire but, subjected to oppressive measures by Roman officials, they soon rose in revolt. In 378, Valens marched a Roman army against Fritigern, and 10 miles from Adrianople the Romans came upon the massed barbarians. As the Visigoth cavalry was off on a forging mission, Valens ordered a hasty attack on August 9. The Romans initially drove the barbarians back, but then the Visigoth cavalry suddenly returned, routing the Romans and forcing them into retreat. The horsemen then rode down and slaughtered the fleeing Roman infantry. Some 20,000 of 30,000 men were killed, including Emperor Valens. The decisive Visigoth victory at the Battle of Adrianople left the Eastern Roman Empire nearly defenceless and established the supremacy of cavalry over infantry that would last for the next millennium. Emperor Valens was succeeded by Theodosius the Great, who struggled to repel the hordes of Visigoth barbarians plundering the Balkan Peninsula
1483 The first mass was held in the newly completed Sistine Chapel. Built between 1475 and 1483, in the time of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere, the Sistine Chapel had originally served as Palatine Chapel. The chapel is rectangular in shape and its measurements are the exact dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament. Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to repaint the ceiling, and the work was completed between 1508 and 1512
1759 Lower Town Québec was destroyed by British gunfire
1790 The Columbia returned to Boston Harbour after a three-year voyage, becoming the first ship to carry the US flag around the world
1842 In Washington, DC, US Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty settling the Maine/New Brunswick boundary dispute. The Treaty fixed the border from the headwaters of the Ste. Croix River to the Eastern Townships and from Lake Huron to the Lake of the Woods
1848 The Free-Soil Party nominated Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, NY
1854 Henry David Thoreau published Walden, in which he described his
experiences while living near Walden Pond in Massachusetts
1902 The coronation of 64-year-old Edward VII took place in Westminster Abbey after a six week delay, following an emergency appendectomy. He became king after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1901
1936 Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took first place in the 400-meter relay
1945 Three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, the US dropped its second atomic bomb on Japan, destroying part of the city of Nagasaki. An estimated 74,000 people died from the blast and its after-effects
1965 Singapore proclaimed its independence from the Malaysian Federation
1974 In accordance with his statement of resignation the previous evening, Richard M. Nixon officially ended his term as the 37th president of the United States at noon. Before departing with his family in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he smiled farewell and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory or peace salute. The helicopter door was then closed, and the Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente, California. Richard Nixon was the first US president to resign from office. Minutes later, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States in the East Room of the White House. After taking the oath of office, President Ford spoke to the nation in a television address, declaring, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over"
1982 The T. Eaton Company ended its sponsorship of Toronto's Santa Claus parade after 77 years
1988 The Edmonton Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky and two other players to the Los Angeles Kings. The Oilers received three Kings, three draft picks and more than 10-million dollars US
1989 Naval pilot Hampton Gray was the first member of the Allied forces to be honoured by the Japanese with a memorial. Gray was the last Canadian known to have died in the Second World War. He was shot down and killed while leading a daring bombing raid on Japanese warships
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