1647 Denis Papin - French-born British physicist who invented the pressure cooker, and came up with the idea of the piston steam engine. He first got the idea when he noticed the enclosed steam in a pot raising the lid, and thought of using steam to drive a piston. Though he never actually constructed an engine, nor had a practical design, his sketches were improved on by others and led to the development of the steam engine
1741 Jean François de Galaup de la Pérouse – French navigator who conducted wide-ranging explorations in the Pacific Ocean and captured the Hudson Bay Company Fort Prince of Wales in the war against the British
1827 Ezra Butler Eddy – US born Canadian politician and industrialist, who became known as the matchmaker of the world. He moved his small friction-match factory from Burlington, Vermont to Hull, Québec in 1851 to be near a steady supply of matchwood and water power. He expanded, modernised and diversified to produce a variety of wood and paper products. He was also a politician and elected mayor of Hull six times
1860 Paul Nipkow – German engineer who invented a rotating disk perforated with small openings called the Nipkow disk. This invention made it possible to scan, analyse, and transmit small portions of a television image. The Nipkow disk was a key piece of television technology until the early 1930s, when it was replaced by electronic scanning devices
1862 Claude Debussy – French composer (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, La Mer, Clair de Lune)
1880 George Herriman - Cartoonist (Krazy Kat, Krazy Kat and Ignatz, The Dingbat Family)
1893 Dorothy Parker - US author, poet, critic and humorist (Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, Death and Taxes, Here Lies, Big Blonde) Funny and sophisticated, Parker symbolised the Roaring Twenties in New York for many readers. Parker was born in New Jersey and lost her mother as an infant. Shortly after she finished high school, her father died, and she struck out on her own for New York, where she took a job writing captions for fashion photos at Vogue for $10 a week. She supplemented her income by playing piano at nights at a dancing school. In 1917, she was transferred to the stylish Vanity Fair, where she became close friends with Robert Benchley, the managing editor, and Robert Sherwood, the drama critic. The three became the core of the famous Algonquin Round Table, an ad hoc group of newspaper and magazine writers, playwrights, and performers who lunched regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and tried to outshine each other in brilliant conversation and witty wisecracks. Parker, known as the quickest tongue among them, became the frequent subject of gossip columns as a prototypical young New Yorker enjoying the freedom of the 1920s. Parker lost her job at Vanity Fair in 1919 because her reviews were too harsh. She began writing reviews for The New Yorker, as well as publishing her own work. Despite her carefree reputation, Parker was cynical and depressed, and tried to kill herself twice. In 1933, she married actor Alan Campbell, moved to Hollywood, and became a screenwriter. She and Campbell divorced in 1947 but remarried in 1950. The outspoken Parker embraced radical politics, taking a stand against fascism and supporting communism. Although she never joined the Communist Party, she and Campbell were blacklisted from Hollywood during the McCarthy-era House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and never worked in film again
1917 John Lee Hooker - Singer (I Don't Want To Go to Viet Nam, Boogoe Chillen', One Scotch One Bourbon One Beer, Boom Boom) He appeared in the film The Blues Brothers
1920 Ray Bradbury – Author (Fahrenheit 451, The Toynbee Convector, The Martian Chronicles, The Ray Bradbury Theatre, The Illustrated Man)
1926 Bob Flanigan – Singer with The Four Freshmen (It's a Blue World)
1933 Sylva Koscina - Actress (Lisa and the Devil, The Slasher, Deadly Sanctuary, Hercules)
1934 Diana Sands - Actress (Three Days in Beirut, Doctors' Wives, A Raisin in the Sun)
1934 Norman Schwarzkopf - US Army General who came into the public eye during Desert Storm, and author (It Doesn't Take a Hero)
1935 E. Annie Proulx – US author (The Shipping News, Heart Songs and Other Stories, Postcards, Close Range) Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Annie lived in various towns in New England and in North Carolina during her childhood. She wrote her first short story at age 10, when she was home sick with the chicken pox. In college, she majored in history and later worked toward a doctorate, eventually abandoning academia to make her living writing magazine articles and how-to books for nearly 20 years. She married and divorced three times, raised three sons as a single mother, and still found time to write and publish a few short stories every year
1940 Valerie Harper - Actress (Rhoda, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Valerie)
1942 Joe Chambers – Musician and singer with The Chambers Brothers (Time Has Come Today)
1947 Cindy Williams - Actress (Laverne & Shirley, American Graffiti, Getting By, The Funny Side)
1958 Colm Feore – US-born Canadian actor (The Red Violin, Trudeau, Empire, Lies My Mother Told Me, The Chronicles of Riddick, Chicago, Nuremberg)
1960 Regina Taylor – Actress (The Unit, The Negotiator, Courage Under Fire, I’ll Fly Away, The Education of Max Bickford)
1967 Ty Burell – Actor (Modern Family, The Incredible Hulk, Dawn of the Dead, National Treasure: Book of Secrets)
1967 Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje – British actor (Lost, The Bourne Identity, Congo, The Mummy Returns, Oz)
1971 Richard Armitage – British actor (MI-5, Captain America: The First Avenger, Robin Hood, Marple: Ordeal by Innocence, Malice Aforethought, North & South)
1979 Jennifer Finnigan – Canadian actress (Crossing Jordan, Better With You, Close to Home, Playing for Keeps, Tyrant)
Died this Day
1485 King Richard III – He was defeated and killed in the last major battle of the War of the Roses, at the Battle of Bosworth Field by Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond. After the battle, the royal crown, which Richard had worn into the fray, was picked out of a bush and placed on Henry's head. His crowning as King Henry VII inaugurated the rule of the house of Tudor over England, a dynasty that would last until Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603. In the 1450s, English failures in the Hundred Years War with France, coupled with periodic fits of insanity suffered by King Henry VI, led to a power struggle between the houses of York, whose badge was a red rose, and Lancaster, later associated with a white rose, hence the War of the Roses. In 1486, King Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV, united the houses of Lancaster and York and formally ended the bloody War of the Roses
1922 Michael Collins – Irish revolutionary and Sinn Féin politician who was assassinated in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland, by Republican extremists
1940 Sir Oliver Lodge – British physicist who pioneered wireless telegraphy
1991 Colleen Dewhurst, age 67 – Canadian stage and screen actress (Desire Under the Elms, Long Day's Journey into Night, Mourning Becomes Electra, The Dead Zone, Anne of Green Gables, Murphy Brown) She was twice married to, and divorced from, actor George C. Scott, and was the mother of actor Campbell Scott
On this Day
1642 Britain’s Civil War began in England when King Charles I erected his standard in front of a few hundred of his Royalists, or Cavaliers, in Nottingham. In the south, were the Parliamentary Party, or Roundheads
1749 A troupe of English actors performed the play Cato, by Joseph Addison, in a warehouse in Philadelphia. But like many colonists, the locals considered acting to be immoral, and the city council ran the troupe out of town. The troupe fled to New York, a more theatre-friendly town
1762 Ann Franklin became the first female editor of an American newspaper, the Newport, Rhode Island Mercury
1846 The United States annexed New Mexico
1851 The first Hundred Guinea Cup was offered by the Royal Yacht Squadron of Great Britain for a race around the Isle of Wight. The silver trophy was won by the 100ft US yacht, America, which beat the British Aurora. The cup became known as the America’s Cup
1864 The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field was adopted by 12 nations meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The agreement, advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, called for non-partisan care to the sick and wounded in times of war and provided for the neutrality of medical personnel. It also proposed the use of an international emblem to mark medical personnel and supplies. In honour of Dunant's nationality, a red cross on a white background, the Swiss flag in reverse, was chosen. In 1901, Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize for founding what would come to be known as the Red Cross
1884 The Calgary and District Agricultural Society, forerunner of the Calgary Stampede, was organised to promote the district's crops and the promise of the Calgary region by means of an annual exhibition
1901 In Sydney, Nova Scotia, construction started on the Cape Breton Railroad
1901 The Cadillac Company was established by Henry Leland, a former mechanic and precision machinist. It was named after eighteenth century French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, founder of the city of Detroit
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt became the first US chief executive to ride in an automobile. His first drive took place in Hartford, Connecticut
1960 Beyond the Fringe, one of the most influential satirical reviews staged in Britain, opened in Edinburgh
1964 The Beatles gave their first Canadian concert at Empire Stadium in Vancouver, BC. The show, attended by 20,000 fans, was hosted by DJ Red Robinson and broadcast live over radio station CKNW. The band played songs from their new album, Something New, and the top ticket price was $5.25. Police cut the concert short after 27 minutes, fearing a riot. Afterward, bootlegged tapes of the show were widely distributed
1986 Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit
44
Responses