1728 Matthew Boulton – British engineer who, with James Watt, invented and manufactured steam engines
1811 John Humphrey Noyes – US founder of the Oneida Community
1814 Mark Hopkins – US entrepreneur who helped build the Central Pacific Railroad
1849 Sarah Orne Jewett - US writer (The Country of Pointed Firs, A Country Doctor, A Marsh Island, A White Heron, The King of Folly Island, The Life of Nancy) She was popular at the turn-of-the-century and her writings focused on life in Maine. Jewett was born in a colonial mansion purchased by her grandfather, a sea captain and merchant in Maine. Her father was a country doctor, and she contemplated a medical career. Instead, however, she finished high school and began travelling and writing, supported by her grandfather’s fortune. She published her first story in a Boston magazine when she was 18 years old, and from age 20 on, she had many stories published in The Atlantic. Her magazine stories were followed by several more collections and novels. Jewett travelled extensively throughout her life. On various European trips, she met Alfred Lord Tennyson, Christina Rosetti, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Rudyard Kipling, and Henry James. In 1902, on her 53rd birthday, Jewett was thrown from a carriage and suffered serious head and back injuries. The accident virtually ended her writing career, and she published only two more short pieces before she died, in 1909, in the house where she was born
1856 Louis Sullivan - US architect who designed the Auditorium Building in Chicago, the Wainwright Building in St. Louis and the Guaranty (now Prudential) Building in Buffalo
1875 Ferdinand Porsche – Austrian auto engineer and designer who designed the Volkswagen Beetle
1897 Cecil Parker – British stage and screen actor (The Admirable Crichton, The Amorous Prawn, The Lady Vanishes, The Citadel, The Lady Killers, The Browning Version) He also played the Prime Minister in the 1965 Sherlock Holmes movie, A Study in Terror
1910 Kitty Carlisle-Hart - Actress (A Night at the Opera) and TV panellist (To Tell the Truth)
1913 Alan Ladd - Actor (The Carpetbaggers, Citizen Kane, Shane, Star Spangled Rhythm, This Gun for Hire, Guns of the Timberland, Saskatchewan, The Great Gatsby)
1923 Mort Walker - Cartoonist (Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois)
1925 Hank Thompson - Country singer (Humpty Dumpty Heart, Wild Side of Life, A Six-Pack to Go, Oklahoma Hills)
1926 Anne Jackson - Actress (Lovers and Other Strangers, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Shining) She had been married to actor Eli Wallach for 66 years until his death
1926 Irene Papas - Greek actress (Zorba the Greek, Moses The Lawgiver, Lion of the Desert, The Odyssey)
1938 Eileen Brennan - Actress (Murder by Death, The Sting, The Last Picture Show, Divorce American Style, The Cheap Detective, Private Benjamin, Clue)
1940 Pauline Collins – British actress (Shirley Valentine, City of Joy, Upstairs Downstairs, Forever Green, The Liver Birds, The Ambassador) She is married to actor John Alderton
1943 Valerie Perrine - Actress (Superman, Slaughterhouse-Five, Lenny, The Electric Horseman, Maid to Order, What Women Want)
1965 Charlie Sheen - Actor (Wall Street, Platoon, Hot Shots, The Chase, Men at Work, Young Guns, Major League, Being John Malkovich, Spin City, Two and a Half Men) He is the brother of actor Emilio Estevez, and the son of actor Martin Sheen
Died this Day
1658 Oliver Cromwell, age 59 - British soldier and statesman who led the rebellion against King Charles I. Cromwell was victorious, and had the King beheaded. He abolished the monarchy and established a republic, declaring himself the Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653. He died of pneumonia and was succeeded by his son, Richard
1962 e e cummings, age 67 – US poet, playwright and painter, whose experimental style included odd punctuation and no capital letters (Him, Santa Claus, The Enormous Room, Tulips and Chimneys, ViVa, No Thanks, 1/20, i, six nonlectures)
1982 Frederic Dannay, age 76 – Mystery author. He and his writing partner, Manfred B. Lee, wrote under the pseudonym of Ellery Queen, which was also the name of their main character (The Roman Hat Mystery, The Glass Village, And On the Eighth Day, Cat of Many Tales, The Fourth Side of the Triangle, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine) They also wrote the Sherlock Holmes pastiche A Study in Terror
1991 Frank Capra, age 94 – Italian born US film director (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, It's a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon)
On this Day
1189 England's King Richard I, Richard the Lion-Hearted, was crowned in Westminster
1752 The British Empire and its colonies in North America officially adopted the Gregorian calendar. This day, September 3rd by the former Julian Calendar, now became September 14th, as eleven days disappeared from the year. The calendar was devised by Pope Gregory the 13th almost 200 years earlier, to correct the extra leap year day problem. It had been enforced by papal edict in all Catholic countries since October of 1582
1777 The Stars and Stripes was flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Maryland. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the stars and strips banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat to General George Washington's main force near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania
1783 The American Revolution formally came to an end when representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and France signed the Treaty of Paris. US independence was recognised by the British, and the boundaries of the new republic were agreed upon: Florida north to the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River
1894 Labour Day was officially celebrated in Canada for the first time
1926 Prominent gangster Harry "Lefty" Lewis was brought to trial on murder charges in Cook County, Illinois. According to eight eyewitnesses, Lewis had shot a man in the back as he was running away. The victim, who worked in a junkyard, had purportedly refused to join the union run by Lewis' gang. Although 1,000 possible jurors had been summoned to participate in jury selection, many avoided taking their place on the panel by claiming to have already made up their mind about the case. Some people argued that the jurors who ended up on the case simply weren't that bright. Throughout the marathon trial, witnesses had been intimidated by death threats, and one witness's home had even been bombed. In November 1927, members of the jury acquitted Lewis after only six hours of deliberation, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. There was widespread speculation that the jurors had been too scared to convict Lewis
1935 A new land-speed record was set by Britain's famed speed demon, Sir Malcolm Campbell. On the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, Campbell and his 2,500-hp motor car Bluebird made two runs over a one-mile course at speeds averaging 301.129 mph. According to the rules of land-speed racing, the two best times within an hour of each other were averaged. The attempt almost ended in disaster when Bluebird suffered a burst tire near the end of the first run, but Campbell managed to maintain control and then make the requisite second run within the hour. In breaking the 300-mph barrier, he surpassed the world record of 276.82 mph that he had set earlier in the year. Malcolm Campbell, born in a suburb of London in 1885, served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. After the war, he took up automobile racing and was a favourite at the old Brooklands racing track in Weybridge, Surrey. After breaking 300 mph, his stated goal, he retired from land-speed racing. He had held the world record a record nine times. However, not content with a leisurely retirement, Sir Malcolm took up water racing and in 1937 set a new world's water-speed record of 129.50 mph. The next year, he raised the record to 130.93 mph, and in 1939 to 141.74 mph. This record was unbroken when he died of a stroke in 1948 at the age of 63
1939 Britain declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland. France followed 6 hours later, and then Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. On September 5th, the US would proclaim its neutrality
1943 Allies invaded the Italian mainland, as the British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery crossed the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landed at Calabria - the "toe" of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies' terms for surrender, but no public announcement was made until September 8th
1967 Sweden changed from driving on the left to the right side of the road
1976 The unmanned US spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars to take the first close-up, colour photographs of the planet's surface
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