AD12 Caligula – Roman emperor whose name was Latin for Little Boots, a nickname given to him as a child. He is remembered for his murderous reign, and his many unusual acts, included naming his horse a senator of Rome
1852 John Neville Keynes – British philosopher and economist. He was the father of economist John Maynard Keynes
1870 Maria Montessori - Educator who developed the Montessori education system, and founded The Montessori School
1903 Arthur Godfrey - Ukulele playing, TV and radio entertainer (Arthur Godfrey and Friends)
1908 William Saroyan – US playwright (The Time of Your Life, My Heart's in the Highlands) and author (The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, Inhale and Exhale, My Name Is Aram)
1914 Richard Basehart - Actor (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Marilyn: The Untold Story, The Brothers Karamazov, Moby Dick, Being There)
1918 Alan Jay Lerner - Songwriter (Gigi, An American in Paris) and lyricist (Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, Camelot, My Fair Lady) He was half of the songwriting team, Lerner & Loewe
1924 Buddy Hackett – Comedian and actor (The Love Bug, The Music Man)
1928 James Coburn - Actor (Affliction, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, The Great Escape, Our Man Flint, The Last of Sheila, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The President's Analyst, Hudson Hawk, Charade, The Magnificent Seven) He was also in the Perry Mason episodes The Case of the Envious Editor and The Case of the Angry Astronaut
1930 Charles Kay – British actor (The Importance of Being Earnest, Law and Disorder, Henry V, Amadeus, I Claudius) He played Mr Greenway in Goodnight Mister Tom He also played Mr Padbury in the Home to Roost episode Plastic Dreamworld And he played Professor Presbury in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Creeping Man
1931 Jean Béliveau – Canadian hockey player who played his entire career with the Montréal Canadiens. He helped the team to 17 Stanley Cup playoffs and 10 victories, many as team captain. Béliveau retired in 1971 and the team retired his sweater #4 at the same time
1935 Eldridge Cleaver - Former Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican
1937 Warren Berlinger - Actor (Love American Style, Sex and the Single Parent, The World According to Garp, Ten Little Indians) Milton Berle was his uncle
1945 Itzhak Perlman - Violinist who recorded with Andre Previn and Scott Joplin
1945 Van Morrison – Irish-born songwriter and singer with the group Them (Gloria) and solo (Brown Eyed Girl, Domino, Blue Money, She Gives Me Religion)
1949 Richard Gere – Actor (An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, The Cotton Club, The Mothman Prophecies, Chicago, Shall We Dance)
1963 Todd Carty – Irish-born British actor (EastEnders, The Bill, Krull)
1967 Jonathan Cake – British actor (Marple: The Pale Horse, Brideshead Revisited, Empire, The Government Inspector, Out of the Ashes, The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall, First Knight, Cold Lazarus)
1970 Zack Ward – Actor (A Christmas Story, Titus, Anne of Green Gables, Transformers)
1972 Chris Tucker – Actor (The Fifth Element, Rush Hour, Jackie Brown, Money Talks)
Died this Day
1422 Henry V – King of England. He died from dysentery while in France. Henry VI acceded to the throne, aged nine months
1688 John Bunyan – British preacher and novelist (The Pilgrim's Progress, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, The Holy War) He died in London, from a fever brought about by riding from Reading to London in a heavy rain
1888 Mary Ann (Polly) Nicholls, age 42 – London prostitute who the first victim of London serial killer Jack the Ripper. She was found murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel's Buck's Row. In Victorian England, London's East End was a teeming slum occupied by nearly a million of the city's poorest citizens. Many women were forced to resort to prostitution, and in 1888 there were estimated to be more than 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel. That summer, a serial killer began targeting these downtrodden women. By the end of September three more victims had been found, and by then London's police had determined the pattern of the killings. The murderer offering to pay for sex, would lure his victims onto a secluded street or square and then slice their throats. As the women rapidly bled to death he would then brutally mutilate them with the same six-inch knife. The police, who lacked modern forensic techniques such as fingerprinting and blood typing, were at a complete loss for suspects. Dozens of letters allegedly written by the murderer were sent to the police and the vast majority of these were immediately deemed fraudulent. However, two letters which were written by the same individual, alluded to crime facts known only to the police and the killer. These letters, signed "Jack the Ripper," gave rise to the serial killer's popular nickname. In November of that year, the Ripper took his fifth and final victim, and in 1892, with no leads found and no more murders recorded, the Jack the Ripper file was closed
1969 Rocky Marciano – Boxer, died in a light airplane crash near Newton, Iowa, the day before his 46th birthday
1997 Diana, Princess of Wales, age 36 – The former Diana Frances Spencer died in Paris' Pitie-Salpetiere Hospital after suffering massive chest injuries in an early morning car accident. Her companion, Dodi Fayed, was killed instantly in the 12:25am crash, as was driver Henri Paul, who was drunk and driving at excessive speeds in a highway underpass. Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees Jones, escaped with serious but nonfatal injuries – he was the only one wearing his seat belt
On this Day
1527 John Rut sent the first recorded letter written from Canada. He wrote to King Henry VIII noting that there were 14 French and Portuguese fishing vessels in the harbour. He also described Labrador
1673 The authorities ordered all beggars in Québec to leave
1674 Rhode Island forbade the sale of liquor to natives
1777 Samuel Mason, a captain in command of Fort Henry on the Ohio frontier, survived a devastating Indian attack only to become one of the fledgling US’s first western desperados. The son of a distinguished Virginia family, Samuel Mason became a militia officer and was assigned to the western frontier post of Fort Henry in present-day West Virginia. In the summer of 1777, with the colonies fighting a war for independence, Mason feared attacks by the Indian allies of the British. On this day in 1777, a band of Native Americans from several eastern tribes did attack the fort. The Indians initially fired on several men who were outside the fort rounding up horses. Hearing the shots, Mason gathered 14 men and rode to their rescue. This was exactly what the warriors hoped he would do, as they lay in wait and ambushed the party, killing all but Mason. Badly wounded, Mason escaped death by hiding behind a log. A second party that attempted to come to his rescue suffered the same fate as the first. All told, Mason lost 15 men, his attackers lost only one. Mason recovered from his wounds and continued to command Fort Henry for several years. Following the end of the war, though, he fell on hard times. Repeatedly accused of being a thief, he moved farther west into the lawless frontier of the young nation. By 1797, he had become a pirate on the Mississippi River, preying on boatmen who moved valuable goods up and down the river. He also took to robbing travellers along the Natchez Trace, or trail, in Tennessee, often with the assistance of his four sons and several other accomplices. By the early 1800s, Mason had become one of the most notorious desperados on the US frontier, a precursor of the later outlaws of the Wild West. In January 1803, Spanish authorities arrested Mason and his four sons and decided to turn them over to the US authorities. En route to Natchez, Tennessee, Mason and his sons killed the commander of the boat and escaped. Determined to apprehend Mason, the authorities upped the reward for his capture, dead or alive. The reward money soon proved too tempting for two members of Mason's gang. In July 1803 they killed Mason, cut off his head, and brought it into the Mississippi territorial offices to prove that they had earned the reward. The men were soon identified as members of Mason's gang, however, and they were arrested and hanged
1886 An earthquake rocked Charleston, South Carolina, killing up to 110 people
1900 Coca-Cola went on sale in Britain
1906 Roald Amundsen's ship, Gjoa, reached Alaska. It was the first ship to sail the Northwest Passage
1935 President Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of US arms to belligerents
1941 The radio program, The Great Gildersleeve, made its debut on NBC
1948 Actor Robert Mitchum was jailed for possession of marijuana
1955 The Church of England in Canada changed its name to the Anglican Church of Canada
1962 The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago became independent within the British Commonwealth
1965 The US made it illegal to burn draft cards
1976 Carallyn Bowes became the first woman to run across Canada. It took her 133 days to run the 3,840 miles from Halifax to Burnaby, BC
1981 Clifford Robert Olson of Burnaby, BC was charged in the deaths of nine children and teens. He would eventually be charged with killing eleven boys and girls aged nine to eighteen. Police made a deal with Olson to lead them to the bodies and other evidence, in exchange for a 100-thousand-dollar trust fund for his wife and infant son. The agreement caused outrage, especially from the families of the victims. In 1982, Olson pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years. It remains one of the worst serial killings in Canadian history. Olson died in prison in September 2011
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