1753 Sir John Soane – British Neoclassical architect who built the Bank of England, and many classical homes
1771 Mungo Park – Scottish surgeon and explorer of the true course of the Niger River in Africa
1778 Henry Peter Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux – British baron who helped to establish London University. The brougham carriage is named for him
1839 Isaac Kauffman Funk - Publisher who was the Funk of Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary
1855 Robert Koldewey – German archaeologist who discovered Babylon, which was thought by some to be mythical. He made expeditions to southern Iraq, where he began digging work which carried on with 200 workers for 18 years. He discovered the foundations of the tower of Babel
1914 Robert Wise - Director (The Sound of Music, West Side Story, The Andromeda Strain, Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
1915 Edmond O'Brien - Actor (The Barefoot Contessa, D.O.A., Seven Days in May, Birdman of Alcatraz, Fantastic Voyage, Pete Kelly's Blues, The Long Hot Summer)
1934 Charles Kuralt - Journalist (On the Road with Charles Kuralt, Sunday Morning)
1934 Roger Maris - Baseball player who held the record for home runs in a single season from 1961 to 1998
1941 Stephen Jay Gould – US author (The Panda’s Thumb, The Mismeasure of Man, Eight Little Piggies)
1942 Danny Hutton - Singer with Three Dog Night (One is the Loneliest Number)
1945 José Feliciano – Spanish guitarist and ballad singer (Light My Fire, Feliz Navidad) and songwriter (theme for Chico and the Man)
1948 Judy Geeson – British actress (To Sir With Love, Poldark, The Eagle Has Landed, Carry On England, Danger UXB, Mad About You) She played the wife of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1998 movie, Houdini
1950 Joe Perry - Rock musician with Aerosmith (Dude Looks Like A Lady, Walk This Way, Dream On)
1953 Amy Irving - Actress (Yentl, Crossing Delancy, Benefit of the Doubt, Carrie, Honeysuckle Rose) She is the daughter of Priscilla Pointer and Julius Irving
1957 Kate Burton – Swiss-born actress (The Ice Storm, The First Wives Club, Big Trouble in Little China, Grimm, Scandal) Her father was actor, Richard Burton
1958 Dan Castellaneta – Actor (The Simpsons, Adventures in Homeschooling, Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of 'Charlie's Angels', My Giant, The Client)
1958 Chris Columbus - Director (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Nine Months, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone series, Only the Lonely, Heartbreak Hotel, Adventures in Babysitting) and writer (Reckless, The Goonies, Heartbreak Hotel) He also wrote the movie, Young Sherlock Holmes
1960 Colin Firth – British actor (Pride and Prejudice, Circle of Friends, Hostages, The Advocate, Valmont, Apartment Zero, The Secret Garden, Another Country, The English Patient, Blackadder Back and Forth, Shakespeare in Love, The King’s Speech)
Died this Day
1935 Huey Long – Louisiana senator who behaved like a despot. He died from a gunshot wound received two days earlier. His assassin was shot dead by his bodyguards
1977 Hamida Djandoubi - Tunisian immigrant to France, and convicted murderer, who became the last person to be executed by guillotine, at Baumetes Prison in Marseille, France. The guillotine first gained fame during the French Revolution when physician and revolutionary Joseph-Ignace Guillotin won passage of a law requiring all death sentences to be carried out by "means of a machine." Decapitating machines had been used earlier in Ireland and England, and Guillotin and his supporters viewed these devices as more humane than other execution techniques, such as hanging or firing squad. The device soon became known as the "guillotine" after its advocate, and more than 10,000 people lost their heads by guillotine during the Revolution. Use of the guillotine continued in France in the 19th and 20th centuries. In September 1981, France outlawed capital punishment altogether, thus abandoning the guillotine forever. There is a museum dedicated to the guillotine in Liden, Sweden
On this Day
1608 English adventurer John Smith was elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Smith, a colourful figure, had won popularity in the colony because of his organisational abilities and effectiveness in dealing with local Native American groups. In May 1607, about 100 English colonists settled along the James River in Virginia to found Jamestown. The settlers fared badly because of famine, disease, and Indian attacks, but were aided by the 27-year-old John Smith, who directed survival efforts and mapped the area. While exploring the Chickahominy River in December 1607, Smith and two colonists were captured by Powhatan warriors. At the time, the Powhatan Indian confederacy consisted of around 30 Tidewater-area tribes led by Chief Wahunsonacock, known as Chief Powhatan to the English. Smith's companions were killed, but he was spared and released (according to a 1624 account by Smith) because of the dramatic intercession of Pocahontas, Chief Powhatan's 13-year-old daughter. After Smith became president of the Jamestown colony, the settlement continued to suffer. An accidental fire destroyed much of the town, and hunger, disease, and Indian attacks continued. During this time, Pocahontas often came to Jamestown as an emissary of her father, sometimes bearing gifts of food to help the hard-pressed settlers. She befriended the settlers and became acquainted with English ways. In 1609, Smith was injured from a fire in his gunpowder bag and was forced to return to England. John Smith returned to the New World in 1614 to explore the New England coast, carefully mapping the coast from Penobscot Bay to Cape Cod. That April, Pocahontas married the English planter John Rolfe in Jamestown. On another voyage of exploration, in 1615, Smith was captured by pirates but escaped after three months of captivity. He then returned to England, where he died in 1631
1621 At Edinburgh, Scotland, King James I granted all of Canada and Acadia to his secretary Sir William Alexander, who promised to set up the colony of Nova Scotia, or New Scotland
1813 US Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led a fleet of nine US ships to victory over a squadron of six British warships at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The battle was closely contested for hours, and Perry's flagship Lawrence was reduced to a defenceless wreck. He then transferred to the Niagara and sailed directly into the British line, firing broadsides and forcing the British to surrender. Perry had won a complete victory at the cost of 27 of his men killed and 96 wounded. British casualties were 40 dead and 94 wounded. After the battle, Perry sent a famous dispatch to US General William Henry Harrison that read, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." The Battle of Lake Erie forced the British to abandon Detroit, ensuring US control over Lake Erie and the territorial northwest
1823 The Champlain Canal opened in New York state, linking the Hudson with Lake Champlain, and allowing water passage to the St Lawrence and Montreal
1846 Elias Howe of Spencer, Massachusetts, received a patent for his sewing machine
1897 London taxi driver George Smith became the first person to be convicted for drunken driving. He had consumed two or three glasses of beer, and while in charge of his electric cab, he drove over the pavement and onto the entrance of 165 Bond Street. Later that day in court, he was fined £1
1898 Fire destroyed the town of New Westminster, British Columbia
1927 A US company announced it had invented a hotdog with a zipper. After the hotdog was boiled, its casing could be thrown out
1933 Jimmy Durante's long-running radio show debuted. It would stay on the air until 1950
1939 Canadian Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King announced that Canada was now at war with Germany, after remaining neutral for a week after Britain declared war. It was the first time that Canada had made her own declaration of war, independent of Britain
1940 In light of the destruction and terror inflicted on Londoners by the succession of German bombing raids, called The Blitz, the British War Cabinet instructed British bombers over Germany to drop their bombs "anywhere" if unable to reach their targets. British Home Intelligence had been alerted of how panicked Londoners were becoming at the sound of those air-raid sirens, and the prior two nights of bombing had wrought extraordinary damage, especially in the London slum area, the East End. King George VI visited the devastated area to reassure the inhabitants that their fellow countrymen were with them in heart and mind. Each night since the seventh, sirens had sounded to announce the approach of incoming German planes, which had begun dropping bombs indiscriminately in the London vicinity, even though the docks had been their primary target on Day One of the Blitz. As British bombers set out for Germany to retaliate, they were instructed not to return home with their bombs if they failed to locate their original targets. Instead, they were to release their loads where and when they could. One bomb even landed in the garden of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's minister of propaganda
1941 The Alberta government ordered all schools to be closed due to the epidemics of infantile paralysis (poliomyelitis) and encephalitis. School lessons were published in the newspapers for students to study at home
1942 Following the example of several European nations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated gasoline rationing in the US as part of the country’s wartime efforts
1955 Gunsmoke premiered on CBS
1988 A statue of Sherlock Holmes was unveiled in Meiringen, Switzerland
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