1422 William Caxton – Printer who was the first to print a book in the English language (Recuyell of the Histories of Troy)
1860 Phoebe Ann Oakley Moses – US sharpshooter, known as Annie Oakley, who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Oakley demonstrated an uncanny gift for marksmanship at an early age. "I was eight years old when I made my first shot," she later recalled, "and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made." After spotting a squirrel on the fence in her front yard, the young Oakley took a loaded rifle from the house, steadied the gun on a porch rail, and shot the squirrel through the head, skilfully preserving the meat for the stew pot. She was never a stereotypical Wild West woman who adopted the dress and ways of men, and instead, prided herself on her feminine appearance and skills. She embroidered nearly as well as she shot, liked to read the Bible in the evenings, and favoured gingham dresses and demure sunbonnets. Oakley gained her reputation when she beat national crackshot Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. She is said to have been able to hit the thin edge of a playing card from thirty paces, a coin tossed in the air, and a cigarette held in Butler’s lips. When the great Sioux war chief Sitting Bull briefly travelled with the Wild West show, he grew fond of Oakley and gave her the nickname Watanya Cicilia, or Little Sure Shot. The musical, Annie Get Your Gun, was based on her life
1888 John Logie Baird - Scottish inventor and TV pioneer who was the first man to demonstrate television, in 1926. He also helped develop radar and infrared television
1895 Bert Lahr - Actor (The Wizard of Oz, Rose Marie, Ship Ahoy, The Night They Raided Minsky's)
1898 Regis Toomey – Actor (Burke’s Law, The Big Sleep, His Girl Friday, Spellbound, Change of Habit, North West Mounted Police, Guys and Dolls, They Died with Their Boots On) He was in two Perry Mason episodes, playing Andy Grant in The Case of the 12th Wildcat & Sam Crane in The Case of the Loquacious Liar
1899 Sir Alfred Hitchcock – British film director known as the Master of Suspense (Psycho, Rear Window, Dial M For Murder, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Suspicion, Vertigo, To Catch a Thief, Frenzy, Notorious, North by Northwest, The Birds, The Thirty-Nine Steps) His innovative directing techniques and mastery of suspense made him one of the most popular and influential filmmakers of the 20th century. Born the son of a grocer, Hitchcock attended London’s St. Ignatius College, where he studied engineering, and took art courses at the University of London. He made cameos in most of his films
1902 Felix Wankel - German engineer who invented the rotary engine
1904 Charles “Buddy’ Rogers - Actor (Wings, Abie's Irish Rose, Varsity, Mexican Spitfire at Sea, My Best Girl)
1907 Sir Basil Spence – Bombay-born British architect who designed the new Coventry Cathedral and the University of Sussex
1908 Gene Raymond - Actor (Hit the Deck, Flying Down to Rio) and TV host (TV's Reader's Digest, Hollywood Summer Theatre, Fireside Theatre)
1919 Rex Humbard – US TV evangelist
1919 George Shearing – British-born jazz pianist (September in the Rain, I'll Take Romance, Changing with the Times) and composer (Lullaby of Birdland, Conception, Consternation)
1920 Neville Brand - Actor (Stalag 17, Birdman of Alcatraz, Riot in Cell Block II, Laredo) He was in the US Army and was the fourth most-decorated US soldier in WWII
1927 Fidel Castro - Cuban revolutionary leader and the son of a Spanish immigrant who had made a fortune building rail systems to transport sugar cane. He became involved in revolutionary politics while he was a student
1929 Pat Harrington - Actor (One Day at a Time, The Jack Paar Show, The Steve Allen Show, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Danny Thomas Show)
1930 Don Ho - Singer (Tiny Bubbles)
1944 Kevin Tighe - Actor (Emergency, Matewan, Road House, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Newsies, Double Cross, City of Hope, Another 48 Hrs., Caught in the Act, Lost, Rose Red) He was in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Defiant Daughter
1947 Gretchen Corbett - Actress (The Rockford Files, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Savage Bees)
1949 Bobby Clarke – Canadian Hockey Hall of Famer who played with the Philadelphia Flyers
1951 Dan Fogelberg - Singer (Hard to Say, Longer, Leader of the Band, The Language of Love, Same Old Lang Syne, Run for the Roses)
1959 Danny Bonaduce - Actor (The Partridge Family, H.O.T.S., America's Deadliest Home Video)
1962 John Slattery – Actor (Mad Men, Mona Lisa Smile, Flags of Our Fathers, The Adjustment Bureau, Desperate Housewives, Jack & Bobby, Ed, Homefront)
1967 Quinn Cummings - Actress (The Goodbye Girl, The Babysitter, Night Terror, Intimate Strangers)
Died this Day
1826 René Théophile Laënnec – French physician who invented the stethoscope
1834 Peter Rindisbacher, age 28 – Swiss born artist. In 1821, he and his family left Switzerland intending to emigrate to the French community of the Red River of Louisiana. Instead, they mistakenly travelled to Lord Selkirk's Red River colony in Manitoba, which was much farther north. Then 15, he helped his family by selling watercolours of daily life in the colony. After insects and the Great Flood of 1826 destroyed their crops, the family left the northern Red River settlement for Illinois. Rindisbacher was the first European artist west of the Great Lakes. He died in St. Louis, Missouri
1910 Florence Nightingale, age 90 – British founder of modern nursing, died in London
1915 George Joseph Smith – Britain’s “Brides in the Bath” murderer, was hanged. It was a Friday the 13th. Smith drowned his brides in a zinc bath after ensuring their finances were set up in his favour
1946 H.G. Wells, age 79 – British author (The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau, A Modern Utopia, The History of Mr. Polly, The Outline of History) He died in London
1962 Peter Fechter – East German who was shot while trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin at the Berlin Wall on the wall’s first anniversary. He bled to death, trapped at the wall, helped by West German soldiers who were only able to throw him bandages. His death sparked off protests and he became a martyr
1964 Peter Allen and John Walby – Britain’s last executed criminals. Allen was hanged at Walton Prison, Liverpool, and Walby was hanged at Strangeways in Manchester
1995 Mickey Mantle, age 63 - Baseball Hall of Famer and New York Yankees legend, died at a Dallas hospital of rapidly spreading liver cancer. He had undergone a liver transplant June 8th of that year
2004 Julia Child - Chef, author (Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The French Chef Cookbook, From Julia Child's Kitchen, In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, Julia's Kitchen Wisdom) and TV host. (The French Chef, Dinner with Julia). She had grown up in a well-to-do family, and hadn’t learned to cook until she was in her thirties. In 1948 her husband, Paul, was assigned to the US Embassy in Paris and while there, Julia developed a penchant for French cuisine, attending the world-famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. Following her training Julia banded with two fellow students to form the cooking school The School of the Three Gourmands, and together they wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Then living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Julia promoted the book on the Boston public broadcasting station. Displaying her trademark forthright manner and hearty humour, she prepared an omelette on air. The public’s response was so enthusiastic that she was invited back to tape her own series on cookery for the network, premiering on WGBH in 1962. The French Chef TV series was the first step in a successful forty-year career that has made her name synonymous with fine food. She died two days before her 92nd birthday
On this Day
1521 After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés captured the capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlán, on the site of present-day Mexico City. Cortés' men levelled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec emperor. Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325 by a wandering tribe of hunters and gatherers on islands in Lake Texcoco. In only one century, this civilisation grew into the Aztec empire, largely because of its advanced system of agriculture. Cortés, a young Spanish-born noble, came to Tenochtitlán in 1519. Montezuma suspected them to be divine envoys of the god Quetzalcóatl, and they were greeted with great honour. Cortés seized the opportunity, and succeeded in governing the empire through Montezuma. In 1520, Cortés lost power, and retreated, returning in May 1521. After a three-month siege the city fell, marking the fall of the Aztec empire
1624 French King Louis XIII named Cardinal Richelieu his first minister
1814 The Cape of Good Hope was made a British colony when it was ceded by the Dutch
1846 The US flag was raised in Los Angeles for the first time
1876 The first performance of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle (Der Ring Des Nibelungen: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) in its entirety, was staged at Bayreuth. Morse would have loved that!
1886 Sir John A. MacDonald drove the last spike of the Esquimault-Naniamo railway in British Columbia
1907 The first taxicab took to the streets of New York City. Motorised taxicabs had actually begun appearing on the streets of Europe in the late 1890s. The taxi is named after the taximeter, a device that automatically records the distance travelled or time consumed and is used to calculate the fare. The term cab originated from the cabriolet, a one-horse carriage let out for hire
1934 The satirical comic strip, Li'l Abner, created by Al Capp, made its debut
1942 Walt Disney's animated feature, Bambi, premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York
1945 The first International Conference on Civil Aviation was held in Montréal
1955 The Canso Causeway, linking Cape Breton Island to the Nova Scotia mainland, was opened
1961 Berlin was divided as East Germany began to seal off the border between the city's eastern and western sectors in order to halt the flight of refugees. At first barbed wire was used, but in two days, the wire was being replaced by a concrete wall as the official construction began. The wall snaked over 100 miles around the enclave of West Berlin and was backed by floodlights, barbed wire, tripwires, minefields and scattered guns. On November 9th, 1989, East German authorities unexpectedly opened the borders. The wall was then dismantled in sections
1980 Canadian oceanographer Joseph MacInnis discovered the sunken wreck of the Scottish-built HMS Breadalbane. The ship had been crushed in the Arctic Ocean in 1853. The Breadalbane is the world's northernmost found shipwreck
52
Responses