1591 Robert Herrick – British cleric and lyric poet (Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May)
1759 William Wilberforce – British politician and philanthropist who championed Catholic political emancipation and the French Revolution. He also battled to have the slave trade and slavery abolished in British overseas possessions
1816 Sir Daniel Gooch – British railway pioneer and mechanical engineer
1886 William Gibbs – US naval architect who designed the World War II Liberty ships
1900 Preston Foster - Actor (The Time Travellers, The Marshal's Daughter, My Friend Flicka, Annie Oakley)
1912 Durward Kirby - TV announcer (The Garry Moore Show, The Perry Como Show)
1920 Alex Colville – Canadian artist who designed the special set of coins for Canada's Centennial in 1967
1922 Réné Lévesque – Québec politician and former premier of Québec who worked for the separation of Québec from the rest of Canada
1924 Louis Teicher – Pianist who was half of the duo Ferrante & Teicher (Exodus, Tonight, Theme from The Apartment, Midnight Cowboy)
1928 Penny Edwards - Actress (Heart of the Rockies, North of the Great Divide, Trail of Robin Hood) She played Julie Abbott in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Malicious Mariner
1934 Kenny Baker – British actor (Time Bandits, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Labyrinth) He was also R2D2 in the Star Wars series
1941 Ernest Wright – Singer with the group Little Anthony and the Imperials (Tears on My Pillow, Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop)
1944 Jim Brady – Singer with The Sandpipers (Guantanamera, Come Saturday Morning)
1945 Ken Hensley – Musician and composer with the group Uriah Heep (July Morning, Easy Livin')
1947 Anne Archer - Actress (Fatal Attraction, Narrow Margin, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Short Cuts, Falcon Crest, Rules of Engagement) Her parents were John Archer and Marjorie Lord
1949 Joe Regalbuto - Actor (Murphy Brown, Knots Landing, The Queen of Mean, Lassiter)
1949 Charles Rocket – Actor (Saturday Night Live, Dances with Wolves, Murder at 1600, Tom and Huck, Dumb & Dumber, Tequila and Bonetti, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Outlaws)
1957 Stephen Fry – British actor (Jeeves and Wooster, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, A Fish Called Wanda, Wilde, Longitude, Gormenghast, A Bear Named Winnie, Gosford Park, Blackadder II) and author (The Liar, Making History, Moab is My Washpot, Paperweight) He is also a Sherlockian
1958 Steve Guttenberg - Actor (Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Police Academy, The Boys from Brazil)
1961 Jared Harris – British actor (Mad Men, Fringe, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, To the Ends of the Earth, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Terror, The Crown, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) He is the son of actor Richard Harris
1965 Marlee Matlin - Actress (Children of a Lesser God, Hear No Evil, Bridge to Silence)
1976 Alex O’Loughlin – Australian actor (Hawaii Five-O, The Holiday. The Back-up Plan, Three Rivers, Moonlight)
1988 Rupert Grint – British actor (Harry Potter movies, Thunderpants, Wild Target, Cherrybomb)
Died this Day
1680 Thomas Blood – Irish adventurer who is better known as Captain Blood. He lost his estate in Ireland with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1671 he made a daring attempt to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. King Charles II was so impressed with his audacity, he restored Blood’s estates in Ireland and made him a member of his court with an annual pension. Captain Blood became a colourful celebrity all across the kingdom, and when he died his body had to be exhumed in order to persuade the public that he was actually dead
1942 The Duke of Kent – Youngest brother of King George VI. He died when his Sunderland flying boat crashed en route to Iceland. He was the first Royal to die on active duty, although not in action
1998 E.G. Marshall, age 84 – Actor (The Defenders, The Bold Ones, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Christmas Vacation, Chicago Hope)
On this Day
AD79 After centuries of dormancy, Mount Vesuvius erupted in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing thousands. In the time of the early Roman Empire, 20,000 people lived in Pompeii, including merchants, manufacturers, and farmers who worked the rich soil of the region, planting numerous vineyards and orchards. Herculaneum was a city of 5,000 and a favourite summer destination for rich Romans. Named for the mythic hero Hercules, Herculaneum housed opulent villas and grand Roman baths. Gambling artifacts found in Herculaneum and a brothel unearthed in Pompeii attest to the decadent nature of the cities. At noon on that fateful day, this pleasure and prosperity came to an end when the peak of Mount Vesuvius exploded, propelling a 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere. For the next 12 hours, volcanic ash and a hail of pumice stones up to 3 inches in diameter showered Pompeii, forcing most of the city's occupants to flee in terror while some stayed, holed up in cellars or stone structures, hoping to wait out the eruption. A westerly wind protected Herculaneum from the initial stage of the eruption, but then a giant cloud of hot ash and gas surged down the western flank of Vesuvius, engulfing the city and burning or asphyxiating all who remained, before the city was buried by a flood of volcanic mud and rock. The people who remained in Pompeii were killed when a cloud of toxic gas poured into the city. A flow of rock and ash followed, collapsing roofs and walls and burying the dead. The eruption is believed to have lasted 18 hours. Pompeii was buried under 14 to 17 feet of ash and pumice, and the nearby seacoast was drastically changed. Herculaneum was buried under more than 60 feet of mud and volcanic material. In the 18th century, a well digger unearthed a marble statue on the site of Herculaneum. The local government excavated some other valuable art objects, but the project was abandoned. In 1748, a farmer found traces of Pompeii beneath his vineyard. Since then, excavations have gone on nearly without interruption until the present. In 1927, the Italian government resumed the excavation of Herculaneum, retrieving numerous art treasures, including bronze and marble statues and paintings. The remains of 2,000 men, women, and children were found at Pompeii. After perishing from asphyxiation, they were covered with ash that hardened and preserved the outline of their bodies. Later, their bodies decomposed to skeletal remains, leaving a kind of plaster mold behind. Archaeologists who found these molds filled the hollows with plaster, revealing in grim detail the death pose of the victims of Vesuvius. The rest of the city is likewise frozen in time, and ordinary objects that tell the story of everyday life in Pompeii are as valuable to archaeologists as the great unearthed statues and frescoes. It was not until 1982 that the first human remains were found at Herculaneum, and these hundreds of skeletons bear ghastly burn marks that testifies to horrifying deaths. Today, Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on the European mainland. Its last eruption was in 1944 and its last major eruption was in 1631
1572 Thousands of French Protestants (Huguenots) were murdered in Paris at the hands of Catholics, by the order of King Charles IX of France, under the sway of his mother, Catherine de Medici. Known as the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the assassinations set off an orgy of killing that resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Huguenots all across France
1660 Pierre Radisson and Médard des Groseillers decided to form the Hudson Bay Company after having a fortune in furs confiscated for illegal trading. It survives to this day, as a department store chain across Canada
1690 Job Charnock established a trading post on behalf of the English East India Company in the small village of Kalikata in West Bengal. This is considered the official founding of India’s largest city, Calcutta
1791 The British Parliament passed the Constitutional Act. It divided Canada into two provinces, each with its own lieutenant-governor and legislature. The Act was made necessary by the influx of United Empire Loyalists after the American Revolution. The new settlers did not want to live under French law or the Roman Catholic church
1814 During the War of 1812, British forces under General Robert Ross overwhelmed US militiamen at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland, and marched unopposed into Washington, DC. The British army entered Washington in the late afternoon, and General Ross and British officers dined that night at the deserted White House. Meanwhile, the British troops, ecstatic that they had captured their enemy's capital, began setting the city aflame in revenge for the burning of Canadian government buildings by US troops earlier in the war. The White House, a number of federal buildings, and several private homes were destroyed. The still uncompleted Capitol building was also set on fire, and the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress were gutted before a torrential downpour doused the flames. Two days later, General Ross, realising his untenable hold on the capital area, ordered a withdrawal from Washington. The next day, President Madison returned to a smoking and charred Washington and vowed to rebuild the city
1847 Charlotte Brontë sent her manuscript of Jane Eyre, written under the name Currer Bell, from the little railway station at Haworth to her London publishers Smith, Elder & Company
1873 William Henry Jackson became the first person to photograph Colorado's elusive Mount of the Holy Cross, providing reliable proof of its existence. Jackson had heard rumours of the extraordinary cross of snow that occasionally appeared on the face of a high mountain peak. After thousands of years of erosion, two deep ravines had formed in the steep rocky face of a mountain peak, intersecting at a 90-degree angle. The ravines sheltered the winter snow from the sun well after the rest of the mountain snow had melted away
1876 Cree Indians from central Alberta and central Saskatchewan agreed to live on reserves
1877 Alexander Graham Bell obtained the Canadian telephone patent
1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the US, travelling from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ, in just over 19 hours
1945 The last Cadillac-built M-24 tank was produced, ending the company’s World War II effort. Civilian auto production virtually ceased after the attack on Pearl Harbour, as the US automotive industry turned to war production
1949 In Brussels, Belgium, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, created by the US, Canada, and 10 European countries, went into effect
1954 The Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the US
1969 The US oil tanker Manhattan left Chester, Pennsylvania, on a trial voyage through the Northwest Passage. It was aided by the Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker John A. Macdonald
1972 In Toronto, Gordie Howe and Jean Béliveau were inducted into the International Hockey Hall of Fame
1992 Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida, causing record damage. Fifty-five deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm
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