1530 Ivan IV – Tsar of Russia, who was known as Ivan the Terrible. During his reign he laid the foundations of the modern Russian empire. His debaucheries and oppression, in which over 3,000 were executed, gave him his descriptive title
1819 Allan Pinkerton - Scottish-born US founder of the Pinkerton detective agency. He was the son of a weaver and "sometimes" policeman. His father died when he was only 8 years old. Pinkerton then had to forgo school and worked for pennies a day as an apprentice weaver, and later a cooper (barrel maker). In his early twenties he became very active in the workers' Chartist movement trying to reform British Parliament. A vocal advocate of civil disobedience, his radical views were not unnoticed. Local law enforcement soon issued a warrant and reward for his arrest. Quickly assessing the situation, Allan married his sweetheart, packed his belongings and headed for the US. He caught a gang of counterfeiters in 1846, and was made deputy sheriff of Kane County. In 1850, he resigned, and founded the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which specialised in the relatively new crime of railway theft
1836 Brett Harte – US writer (The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar) He lived in London for a time, after serving as US Consul to Glasgow. He seldom wrote detective fiction, but his story The Stolen Cigar-Case, featuring Hemlock Jones, was described by Ellery Queen as “probably the best parody of Sherlock Holmes ever written”
1909 Michael Rennie – British actor (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Devil's Brigade, The Robe, Hotel, The Lost World, The Wicked Lady) He played Prof. Edward Lindley in the Perry Mason episode, The Case of the Libellous Locket He also played The Sandman in the Batman episodes The Sandman Cometh, and The Catwoman Goeth
1909 Ruby Keeler – Canadian born dancer and actress (42nd Street, No No Nanette, The Gold Diggers of 1933, Colleen)
1913 Bob Crosby – Bandleader with The Bob Cats (Big Noise from Winnetka, Summertime, South Rampart Street Parade) He was the brother of Bing Crosby
1913 Walt Kelly - Cartoonist (Pogo)
1913 Mel Ferrer - Actor (Scaramouche, The Sun Also Rises, War and Peace, The Fall of the Roman Empire)
1916 Van Johnson - Actor (Three Days to a Kill, Yours Mine and Ours, The Doomsday Flight, Brigadoon, The Caine Mutiny, In the Good Old Summertime, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, State of the Union) He also played the Minstrel on Batman
1917 Don DeFore - Actor (Hazel, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Jumping Jacks, My Friend Irma, The Stork Club)
1918 Leonard Bernstein - Conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and composer (West Side Story, On the Town, My Sister Eileen, On the Waterfront, Jeremiah)
1918 Richard Greene – British actor (Island of the Lost, The Castle of Fu Manchu, Stanley and Livingstone, The Little Princess) He also played Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1930 movie The Hound of the Baskervilles
1921 Brian Moore – Irish-born Canadian author (The Luck of Ginger Coffey, The Doctor's Wife, Black Robe)
1921 Monty Hall – Canadian-born TV host (Let's Make a Deal, Keep Talking, NBC Comedy Playhouse) He worked at the Canadian Wheat Board in Winnipeg in the late 1940s and early 1950s before beginning his television career
1930 Sir Sean Connery – Scottish actor (The Untouchables, The Rock, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Hunt for Red October, The Molly Maguires, Marnie, Zardoz, Highlander, Rising Sun, The Wind and the Lion, Murder on the Orient Express, Darby O’Gill and the Little People) He was the original "Bond. James Bond"
1931 Regis Philbin - TV talk show and game show host (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Live With Regis and Kathie Lee) He also played Winslow Keene in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Telltale Talk Show Host
1933 Tom Skerritt - Actor (Picket Fences, Steel Magnolias, A River Runs Through It, M*A*S*H, Top Gun, Alien, Contact)
1938 Frederick Forsyth – British author (The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol) He was a former reporter for the Reuters news agency
1939 John Badham – British-born director (Saturday Night Fever, Dracula, Short Circuit, Stakeout, Bird on a Wire, Point of No Return)
1942 Walter Williams – Singer with The O'Jays (Love Train, Back Stabbers)
1944 Anthony Heald – Actor (Outrageous Fortune, Postcards from the Edge, The Silence of the Lambs, The Client, Boston Public)
1949 Martin Amis – British author (The Rachel Papers, Money, London Fields, The Information, Time's Arrow) He is the son of author Kingsley Amis
1949 Gene Simmons – Israeli-born musician with the group Kiss (Rock and Roll All Nite, Beth, I Was Made For Lovin' You, Forever) & reality TV star (Gene Simmons: Family Jewels)
1949 John Savage – Actor (The Deer Hunter, The Thin Red Line, The Godfather III, Carnivale, Dark Angel, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, The Onion Field)
1954 Elvis Costello – Musician and songwriter (I'm Not Angry, Less than Zero, Watching the Detectives, Clubland, Oliver's Army, Every Day I Write the Book, So Young, Veronica) He is married to jazz singer Diana Krall
1958 Tim Burton - Director (Batman, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood)
1958 Christian LeBlanc – Actor (The Young and the Restless, Puppy Love, In the Heat of the Night) He played the sheriff in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Killer Kiss
1961 Billy Ray Cyrus – Country singer (Achy Breaky Heart) He is the father of Miley Cyrus of Hannah Montana fame
1964 Blair Underwood - Actor (L.A. Law, Downtown, Just Cause, Posse, Heat Wave, Deep Impact, The Event)
1964 Joanne Whalley – British actress (Reilly: Ace of Spies, Willow, Scandal, Navy SEALS)
1967 Tom Hollander – British actor (Gosford Park, Hanna, Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Wives and Daughters, Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Night Manager)
1977 Jonathan Togo – Actor (CSI: Miami, Mystic River, Special Unit 2)
1981 Rachel Bilson – Actress (The O.C., The Last Kiss, Jumper, New York I Love You)
Died this Day
1688 Sir Henry Morgan – Welsh buccaneer who plundered Spanish possessions in the Caribbean. He was the Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica when he died
1819 James Watt, age 83 – British engineer and inventor of condensing steam engines. The unit of power, the watt, is named in his honour
1822 Sir William Herschel, age 83 – German-born British astronomer and organist who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781
1867 Michael Faraday – British chemist and physicist. He conducted early experiments with electricity and magnetism, formulating many of the principles of electricity. He also invented the dynamo and the first electrical battery. He died a month before his 76th birthday
1896 Bill Doolin, age 38 – US outlaw, was killed by a posse at Lawson, Oklahoma.
1967 Paul Muni – Austrian-born actor (The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Last Angry Man, The Good Earth, Angel on My Shoulder) He died of a heart ailment, less than one month before his 72nd birthday
1984 Truman Capote, age 59 - Author (In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and actor (Murder by Death)
1985 Samantha Smith, age 13 - The US schoolgirl whose letter to Yuri V. Andropov resulted in her famous peace tour of the Soviet Union. She was killed with her father in an airplane crash in Maine
1990 Morley Callaghan, age 87 – Canadian journalist and author (Such is My Beloved, The Loved and the Lost, A Time for Judas, That Summer in Paris)
On this Day
AD325 The Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical debate held by the early Christian church, concluded with the establishment of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Convened by Roman Emperor Constantine I in May, the council also deemed the Arian belief of Christ as inferior to God as heretical, thus resolving an early church crisis. The controversy began when Arius, an Alexandrian priest, questioned the full divinity of Christ because, unlike God, Christ was born and had a beginning. What began as an academic theological debate spread to Christian congregations throughout the empire, threatening a schism in the early Christian church. Roman Emperor Constantine I, who converted to Christianity in 312, called bishops from all over his empire to resolve the crisis and urged the adoption of a new creed that would resolve the ambiguities between Christ and God. Meeting at Nicaea in present-day Turkey, the council established the equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity and asserted that only the Son became incarnate as Jesus Christ. The Arian leaders were subsequently banished from their churches for heresy. The Emperor Constantine presided over the opening of the council and contributed to the discussion
1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans
1785 Fleury Mesplet published the first issue of The Montréal Gazette/Le Gazette de Montréal. It’s the oldest continuous newspaper in existence in Canada
1837 The process of producing galvanised iron was patented by Henry William Crawford of London
1873 A hurricane slammed into Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, washing away wharves and destroying at least 1,200 fishing boats
1875 Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy captain, became the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel. Captain Webb accomplished the grueling 21-mile crossing, which really entailed 39 miles of swimming because of tidal currents, in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Smeared in porpoise fat for insulation and wearing a red swimming costume made of silk, he dove off Dover's Admiralty Pier into the chilly waters of the Channel. He began the race in the late evening because of the tides and kept up a slow and steady pace in the dark, using the breaststroke. Accompanying boats handed him beef tea, brandy, and other liquids to sustain him, and Webb braved stinging jellyfish and patches of seaweed as he plodded on. Seven miles from the French coast, the tide changed, and he appeared to be driven backward, but just after 10 a.m. he approached the French shore. The crew of the outgoing mail ship The Maid of Kent serenaded him with "Rule Britannia," and shortly before 11 a.m. Webb waded ashore. He was hailed as a national hero upon his return to England, and a triumphal arch was erected in his honour in his hometown in Shropshire
1878 The Saskatchewan Herald, the province's first newspaper, published its first issue
1906 King Edward VII granted a Coat of Arms to Saskatchewan
1910 Walden W. Shaw and John D. Hertz formed the Walden W. Shaw Livery Company, which later became the Yellow Cab Company. The first yellow cab hit the streets in 1915, and its distinctive colour became the company’s trademark. The company was also the first to use automatic windshield wipers, ultrahigh frequency two-way radios, and passenger seat belts
1916 The US National Park Service was established within the Department of the Interior
1943 President Roosevelt made the first official visit to Canada by a sitting US president when he arrived in Ottawa
1944 Paris was liberated by Allied forces after four years of Nazi occupation
1950 President Truman ordered the US Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike
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