1754 Louis XVI – The last King of France who set in motion the Revolution with the help of his wife, Marie-Antoinette
1852 Arnold Toynbee – British economist and social reformer
1869 Edgar Lee Masters - US lawyer, author and poet (Spoon River Anthology, The Blood of the Prophets, The Great Valley, Starved Rock) He practised law, and from 1903 to 1911 was a partner with Clarence Darrow in Chicago
1875 William Eccles – British physicist and radio pioneer whose research helped establish the feasibility of long-distance radio transmission. He also studied the effects of the sun and other environmental conditions on the speed and behaviour of radio waves
1905 Constant Lambert – US composer, conductor and critic
1912 Gene Kelly – Dancer, actor (Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh, The Three Musketeers, Marjorie Morningstar, Inherit the Wind, North and South Book I, Xanadu) and director (Singin' in the Rain, Hello, Dolly!, A Guide for the Married Man, The Cheyenne Social Club)
1917 Tex Williams - Singer (Smoke Smoke Smoke that Cigarette, Shame on You, The Rose of the Alamo, Bluebird on Your Windowsill, Bottom of a Mountain)
1922 Jean Darling - Actress (March of the Wooden Soldiers, Little Rascals-Book 17)
1929 Vera Miles - Actress (The Wrong Man, Psycho, The FBI Story, Autumn Leaves, Into the Night, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sergeant Ryker, Jigsaw, Our Family Business)
1931 Barbara Eden - Actress (I Dream of Jeannie, Harper Valley PTA, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao)
1932 Mark Russell - Political satirist who has comedy specials on PBS
1933 Peter Wyngarde – French-born actor (Jason King, And the Wall Came Tumbling Down, Flash Gordon) He played Langdale Pike in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Three Gables
1936 Rudy Lewis - Singer with the Drifters (Up on the Roof, On Broadway)
1940 Richard Sanders - Actor (WKRP in Cincinnati, You Can't Take It with You, Spencer, Berrengers, Forbidden Choices, Neon City)
1946 Keith Moon – Singer and drummer with The Who (Substitute, I'm a Boy, Happy Jack, Pinball Wizard, See Me, Feel Me) and solo (Two Sides of the Moon)
1947 Willy Russell – British playwright (Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine)
1949 Shelley Long - Actress (Cheers, Irreconcilable Differences, Outrageous Fortune, Troop Beverly Hills, Night Shift, Don't Tell Her It's Me, The Brady Bunch Movie, The Money Pit, Caveman, Modern Family)
1949 Rick Springfield - Singer (Jessie's Girl) and actor (General Hospital, Hard to Hold, The Human Target)
1951 Lisa Najeeb Halaby – US born Queen Noor, widow of Jordan's King Hussein
1970 River Phoenix - Actor (Running on Empty, Stand By Me, This Thing Called Love, Sneakers, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Little Nikita, The Mosquito Coast, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) He was the brother of Joaquin Phoenix
1976 Scott Caan – Actor (Hawaii Five-O, Entourage, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Ocean’s Eleven, Enemy of the State) He is the son of actor James Caan
Died this Day
1305 Sir William Wallace – Scottish patriot who demanded independence for his country. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Smithfield, London
1926 Rudolph Valentino, age 31 – Silent screen idol (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheikh, Blood and Sand, The Eagle) His death, from a perforated ulcer, sent his fans into an hysterical state of mass mourning. Tens of thousands of people paid tribute at his open coffin in New York City, and 100,000 mourners lined the streets outside the church where funeral services were held. Valentino's body then travelled by train to Hollywood, where he was laid to rest after another funeral
1960 Oscar Hammerstein II, age 65 – Lyricist and songwriter who worked with various composers from Richard Rodgers to Jerome Kern (Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, Sound of Music, Show Boat, The Desert Song)
On this Day
AD410 The Visigoths sacked Rome and put an end to the era of Roman Civilisation and influence
1691 In Saskatchewan, explorer Henry Kelsey, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company, became the first white man to take part in an Indian buffalo hunt. He hunted with the Assiniboine Indians
1793 The French revolutionary government announced conscription of the entire male population
1818 The first steamboat to ply the Great Lakes, the Walk-in-the-Water, left Black Rock, near Buffalo for Detroit
1838 The first class was graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, one of the first colleges for women
1850 The HMS Assistance and the HMS Intrepid found the first trace of the lost Franklin expedition in Lancaster Sound, at Cape Riley and Beechey Island in Canada’s North West Territories
1863 A ruthless band of guerrillas attacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing every man and boy in sight. Led by William Quantrill and William "Bloody Bill" Anderson, the guerrillas were said to have carried out the brutal attack on behalf of the Confederacy. Included in their group was Jesse James' brother Frank and Cole Younger, who would also play a large role in the James gang later on. Bloody Bill Anderson got his name for his love of shooting unarmed and defenceless people. Reportedly, he carried as many as eight handguns, in addition to a sabre and a hatchet. His horse was also outfitted with several rifles and backup pistols. Although he claimed to have political motives for his terrorism, Anderson more likely used the Civil War as an opportunity to kill without repercussion. Jesse James, only 17 at the time, teamed up with Bloody Bill after he split from Quantrill's band of killers. In September 1864, their small splinter group terrorised and destroyed most of the town of Centralia, Missouri. They also ambushed a small troop of Union soldiers whose train happened to stop at Centralia. Twenty-five Northern soldiers were stripped and lined up while Anderson proceeded to shoot each of them down in cold blood, sparing only the sergeant. A month later, Anderson paid for his crimes: He was caught by a full contingent of Union army troops in Missouri and killed in the ensuing battle. Jesse James was never brought to justice by the North for his war crimes
1877 Texas Ranger John Armstrong arrested John Wesley Hardin in a Florida rail car, returning the outlaw to Texas to stand trial for murder. Three years earlier, Hardin had killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in a small town near Austin, Texas. Webb's murder was one in a long series of killings committed by the famous outlaw, and was the 39th by Hardin's own count. Killing a lawman, however, was an especially serious offence, and the Texas Rangers were determined to bring Hardin to justice. For three years, Hardin was able to elude the Rangers, by moving between Florida and Alabama, adopting an alias and keeping a low profile. Nonetheless, the Rangers eventually unmasked his secret identity and dispatched John Armstrong to track him down in Florida. On the day Hardin was arrested, Armstrong, acting on a tip, spotted him in the smoking car of a train stopped at the Pensacola station. Armstrong stationed local deputies at both ends of the car, and the men burst in with guns drawn. Caught by surprise, Hardin nonetheless reacted quickly and reached for the gun holstered under his jacket. The pistol caught in Hardin's fancy suspenders, giving the lawmen the crucial few seconds they needed, and probably saving Hardin's life. Instead of shooting Hardin, Armstrong clubbed Hardin with his long-barrelled .45 pistol. Technically, the Texas Rangers had no authority in Florida, so they spirited Hardin back to Texas on the next train. Tried in Austin, a jury found Hardin guilty of killing Sheriff Webb and sentenced him to life in the Texas state prison at Huntsville. He served 15 years before the governor pardoned him. Released in 1894, an El Paso policeman killed him the following year
1882 Regina was established as the seat of the government for the Northwest Territories, replacing Battleford. The new capital was formerly called Wascana, which is Cree for Pile of Bones, referring to the buffalo bones that formerly littered the area and were now a cash crop. It was renamed Regina, after Queen Victoria, and is now the capital of the province of Saskatchewan
1890 Moncton, New Brunswick became a city
1913 Automobiles were legally allowed to enter Yosemite National Park, for the first time, marking a huge change in the national park system. Prior to 1913, most park visitors travelled by train to the park and then took scheduled stagecoach tours. The advent of motor tourism changed the face of Yosemite forever, for it demanded modern, high-quality park roads. The National Park Service’s landscape architects, along with the Bureau of Public Roads, developed a systematic approach to the design and construction of park roads. From the mid-1920s through World War II, a Golden Age of park road development flourished as designers attempted to create roads that would “lie lightly on the land”
1914 Japan declared war on Germany in World War I
1946 The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, debuted. The film, based on Raymond Chandler's novel, was written by William Faulkner
1947 An audience at the Hollywood Bowl heard President Truman's daughter, Margaret, give her first public concert as a singer
1979 Soviet dancer Alexander Godunov defected while the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in New York
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