1646 John Flamsteed – British astronomer who founded the Greenwich Observatory in 1675. He was the first Astronomer Royal in Britain, and catalogued thousands of stars which later proved useful to Newton
1785 Seth Thomas – US clock manufacturer who pioneered mass production
1808 James Nasmyth – Scottish inventor of the steam hammer which he patented in 1842. He also manufactured over 100 steam locomotives and retired at age 48 to devote himself to astronomy
1871 Orville Wright – US aviation pioneer, along with his bother, Wilbur. They ran a bicycle business while investing their efforts in powered flight
1883 Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel – French fashion designer and creator of Chanel No. 5 perfume. She revolutionised women’s fashions in the 1920’s, liberating them from the corset
1902 Ogden Nash – US humorist and poet (Cricket of Cadaver, The Bad Parents’ Garden of Verse, A Penny Saved is Impossible) Some of his lines have become immortal, such as “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker”
1903 James Cozzens – Author (Guard of Honour, SS San Pedro, The Last Adam, By Love Possessed, Castaway)
1903 Claude Dauphin - Actor (Les Miserables, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Is Paris Burning, April in Paris)
1906 Philo T. Farnsworth - US television pioneer who transmitted the first television image, a dollar sign-made up of sixty horizontal lines. He went on to patent 165 devices pertaining to the television, including cathode-ray tubes, amplifiers, vacuum tubes, and electrical scanners
1907 June Collyer - Actress (A Face in the Fog, The Ghost Walks, Drums of Jeopardy)
1919 Malcolm Forbes, Sr. - Publishing magnate (Forbes Magazine)
1921 Gene Roddenberry – Creator of the many Star Trek series and movies. Although the original show ran for only three years and never placed better than No. 52 in the ratings, Roddenberry's sci-fi series became a cult classic
1930 Frank McCourt – Author (Angela's Ashes, 'Tis: A Memoir, Brotherhood)
1931 Willie Shoemaker – Jockey who holds the record for the most wins in a career with 8,833 wins out of 40,350 mounts
1933 Debra Paget - Actress (Tales of Terror, The Ten Commandments, Omar Khayyam, Love Me Tender, Prince Valiant)
1938 Diana Muldaur - Actress (A Year in the Life, The Tony Randall Show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, McCloud, LA Law, Born Free)
1940 Johnny Nash - Singer (I Can See Clearly Now, Stir It Up, Hold Me Tight, A Very Special Love)
1940 Jill St. John - Actress (Diamonds are Forever, Come Blow Your Horn, The Oscar, Burke's Law, Tender is the Night) She is married to Robert Wagner
1942 Fred Dalton Thompson – Actor and former US Republican Senator (Law & Order, The Hunt for Red October, No Way Out, Fat Man and Little Boy, Die Hard 2, Days of Thunder, Curly Sue, Thunderheart) He was a lawyer before becoming an actor, and was one of the active lawyers on the Watergate committee during the trial. He was elected to the US Senate in 1994, representing his home state of Tennessee
1946 Bill Clinton - 42nd President of the US
1948 Gerald McRaney - Actor (Simon & Simon, Major Dad, Murder by Moonlight, Blind Vengeance, Longmire)
1948 Susan Jacks – Canadian singer with the group the Poppy Family (Which Way You Goin’ Billy?, Where Evil Grows)
1951 John Deacon – Bass guitarist with the group Queen (Another One Bites the Dust, Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, We Are the Champions, We Will Rock You)
1952 Jonathan Frakes - Actor (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Bare Essence, North and South, Paper Dolls, The Doctors) He is married to actress Genie Francis
1955 Peter Gallagher – Actor (The OC, Covert Affairs, Mr. Deeds, American Beauty, While You Were Sleeping, Sex Lies and Videotape)
1956 Adam Arkin - Actor (Chicago Hope, Northern Exposure, Under the Rainbow) He is the son of Alan Arkin
1963 John Stamos – Actor (Full House, ER, Jake in Progress, General Hospital)
1965 Kyra Sedgwick – Actress (The Closer, Gamer, Secondhand Lions, Phenomenon, Miss Rose White, Born on the Fourth of July) She is married to Kevin Bacon
1965 Kevin Dillon - Actor (Platoon, No Escape, A Midnight Clear, The Blob, Remote Control) He is Matt Dillon's brother
1969 Matthew Perry - Actor (Friends, Almost Heroes, Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards)
1972 Callum Blue – British actor (The Tudors, Dead Like Me, Smallville, Zen: Ratking, The Princess Diaries 2, Little Fish Strange Pond)
Died this Day
1662 Blaise Pascal, age 39 – French physicist, religious philosopher and mathematician. The son of a judge in the French tax court, the teenage Pascal invented a calculating device to help his father's tax computations. The counting device relied on a series of wheels divided into 10 parts each, representing the integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted. His other research led to the invention of the syringe, the hydraulic press, and with it Pascal’s Law of Pressure
1876 George Smith, age 36 – British Assyriologist who deciphered cuneiform tablets and caused a sensation when he discovered text that related to The Flood. He died of exhaustion during an excavation
1895 John Wesley Hardin, age 42 –Infamous US gunslinger, and one of the bloodiest killers of the Old West. He was killed by an off-duty policeman John Selman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas
1976 Alastair Sim, age 75 – Scottish actor (The Anatomist, A Christmas Carol, The Belles of St. Trinian’s) He died from cancer, in London
1977 Groucho Marx, age 86 – Comedian and one of the Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera) He died of pneumonia, in Los Angeles
1994 Linus C. Pauling, age 93 – US chemist and physicist who twice won the Nobel Prize, one for Chemistry, and one for Peace. He died of cancer at his ranch in the Big Sur area of Northern California
On this Day
1561 Mary Queen of Scots returned from France to her homeland and became the Roman Catholic monarch of a country rapidly becoming Presbyterian
1809 John Molson launched the wooden paddle steamboat, Accommodation, for service on the St. Lawrence River. The boat carried 10 passengers, and was the first Canadian steamship. It was also the first successful steamboat built entirely in North America
1812 The US Navy frigate Constitution, or Old Ironsides, earned its name during the War of 1812, as it defeated the British frigate Guerrière in a furious engagement off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Constitution caught the British warship Guerrière alone about 600 miles east of Boston. After considerable manoeuvring, the Constitution delivered its first broadside, and for 20 minutes the US and British vessels bombarded each other in close and violent action. The British man-of-war was de-masted and rendered a wreck while the Constitution escaped with only minimal damage. Witnesses claimed that the British shot merely bounced off the Constitution's sides, as if the ship were made of iron rather than wood. The unexpected victory of Old Ironsides against a British frigate helped unite the US behind the war effort, made Commander Hull a national hero and provided a tremendous boost in morale for the young US republic. The Constitution was one of six frigates that Congress requested be built in 1794 to help protect US merchant fleets from attacks by Barbary pirates and harassment by British and French forces. It was constructed in Boston, and the bolts fastening its timbers and copper sheathing were provided by the industrialist and patriot Paul Revere. Launched in October 1797, the Constitution was 204 feet long, displaced 2,200 tons, and was rated as a 44-gun frigate, although it often carried as many as 50 guns. In 1855, the Constitution retired from active military service, but the famous vessel continued to serve the US, first as a training ship and later as a touring national landmark. Since 1934, it has been based at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. Over the years, Old Ironsides has enjoyed a number of restorations, the most recent of which was completed in 1997, allowing it to sail for the first time in 116 years. Today, the Constitution is the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat
1839 The successful development of daguerreotype photography was announced in France
1897 Electric-powered cabs appeared in London. With an average speed of 9 m.p.h. and a range of just up to 30 miles, they proved uneconomical and were withdrawn in 1900
1914 As World War I erupted in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson formally proclaimed his Declaration of Neutrality of the US in a message to Congress. It was a position the vast majority of Americans favoured. However, Wilson's hope that the US could be "impartial in thought as well as in action" was soon compromised by Germany's attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Britain was one of the US's closest trading partners, and tension arose when several US ships travelling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines. In early May 1915, 128 American civilians were among those killed when the Lusitania ocean liner was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine just off the coast of Ireland. In November that year, a German U-boat sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the US began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917, in a telegram intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, Germany stated that in the event of war with the US, Mexico should be asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The US State Department published the note, and US public opinion was galvanised against Germany. In late March, Germany sunk four more US merchant ships, and in April 1917, the US formally entered World War I
1914 Québec offered Belgium 4 million pounds of cheese as a form of wartime support
1942 The Allies carried out their infamous raid on Dieppe during World War II. An Allied force of 7,000 men carried out a large daytime raid against German positions at the French seaport of Dieppe. Aided by tanks and aircraft, the commando force, made up of approximately 5,000 Canadians, 2,000 British soldiers, and a handful of US and Free French troops, gained a foothold on the beach in the face of a furious German defence. During nine hours of fighting, the Allies failed to destroy more than a handful of their targets and suffered the loss of 3,600 men. More than 100 aircraft, a destroyer, 33 landing craft, and 30 tanks were also lost. Despite its high costs, the Dieppe raid provided valuable logistical information later used in planning the successful 1944 Allied landing at Normandy. For Canada, it was the costliest day of the World War II. Only 2,200 Canadians returned to England, about 900 were killed and nearly 2,000 more were taken prisoner
1960 U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced by a Moscow court to 10 years for espionage
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