1676 Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denis – Quebec-born explorer and soldier. He led a 1714 expedition from the French-held Natchitoches, in Louisiana Territory, to the Spanish town of San Juan Bautista, now Villahermosa, on the Rio Grande
1883 William Carlos Williams – US physician, poet, novelist and short story writer (Journey to Love, The Tempers, Sour Grapes, The Spring and All, The Desert Music and Other Poems, The Farmer’s Daughter: The Collected Stories)
1901 Sir Francis Chichester – British adventurer who sailed solo around the world
1902 Esther Ralston - Actress (Tin Pan Alley, We're in the Legion Now, Oliver Twist, Shadows of the Orient, To the Last Man)
1904 Jerry Colonna – Comedian and actor (Meet Me in Las Vegas, Kentucky Jubilee, The Road to Singapore, The Jerry Colonna Show)
1923 Hank Williams, Sr. – Country musician, songwriter and singer (I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Cold Cold Heart, Take These Chains from My Heart, Honky Tonkin', Jambalaya, Kaw-Liga, Your Cheatin' Heart, Lovesick Blues)
1926 Bill Black – Musician with his group the Bill Black Combo (White Silver Sands, Smokie Pt. 2) He played in Elvis Presley’s band
1926 Reginald Marsh – British actor (George and Mildred, Good Neighbours, QB VII, Mark of the Devil, Coronation Street) He played Jim Brown in the Home to Roost episode Any Questions? He also played Arnold Foss in The Sweeney episode Abduction
1928 Roddy McDowall – British-born actor (Planet of the Apes series, The Poseidon Adventure, The Longest Day, How Green was My Valley, My Friend Flicka, Lassie Come Home, Kidnapped, Cleopatra, That Darn Cat, The Martian Chronicles) He was evacuated to the US during the London Blitz, in World War II. He played The Bookworm in the Batman TV series
1930 David Huddleston – Actor (The Big Lebowski, Blazing Saddles, The Wonder Years, Capricorn One, How the West Was Won)
1931 Anne Bancroft – Stage and screen actress (The Miracle Worker, The Graduate, The Turning Point, Agnes of God, Malice, Point of No Return, The Elephant Man, Silent Movie, Young Winston, Freddy and Max) She was married to Mel Brooks
1932 Robert B. Parker – Author (Thin Air, Small Vices, Stone Cold, The Judas Goat)
1933 Dorothy Loudon – Comedienne and actress (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Garbo Talks, Dorothy, Ma and Pa, The Garry Moore Show)
1935 Ken Kesey – US author (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes A Great Notion, Kesey’s Garage Sale) In the early 1960s he volunteered for government drug experiments, and subsequently became an aide on a psychiatric ward of a Veteran’s Hospital. This experience came in useful when he was writing his first novel
1947 Jeff MacNelly - Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist (Shoe)
1948 John Ritter - Actor (8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Three's Company, Evil Roy Slade, Hooperman, Stay Tuned) He was the son of singing-cowboy legend Tex Ritter
1949 Cassandra Peterson - TV horror film hostess known as Elvira and actress (Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Echo Park, Uncensored, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Balboa, Working Girls)
1956 Rita Rudner - Comedian
1965 Kyle Chandler – Actor (Friday Night Lights, King Kong, Early Edition, What About Joan, Mullholand Falls, Homefront, Tour of Duty)
Died this Day
1701 James II – King of England
1908 Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge – He became the first person to die in an airplane accident. He was on a test flight to assess the value of Orville Wright’s airplane for military purposes, when a propeller of the plane broke on a bracing wire, and the airplane crashed
1985 Laura Ashley – Welsh designer and fabric retailer
1996 Spiro T. Agnew, age 77 - Former US Vice President, died in Berlin, Maryland
1997 Red (Richard) Skelton, age 84 - US actor (Lady Be Good, Panama Hattie, Ship Ahoy, The Fuller Brush Man, A Southern Yankee, The Clown, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines) and comedian (The Red Skelton Show) He died of pneumonia, in Rancho Mirage, California
On this Day
1787 The Constitution of the United States of America was signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Supporters of the document waged a hard-won battle to win ratification by the necessary nine out of 13 US states. The Articles of Confederation, ratified several months before the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provided for a loose confederation of US states, which were sovereign in most of their affairs. On paper, Congress - the central authority, had the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war, and regulate currency, but in practice these powers were sharply limited because Congress was given no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. By 1786, it was apparent that the Union would soon break up if the Articles of Confederation were not amended or replaced. Five states met in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the issue, and all the states were invited to send delegates to a new constitutional convention to be held in Philadelphia. In May 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president. During an intensive debate, the delegates devised a federal organisation characterised by an intricate system of checks and balances. The convention was divided over the issue of state representation in Congress, as more-populated states sought proportional representation, and smaller states wanted equal representation. The problem was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states in the upper house (Senate). On September 17th, the Constitution was signed. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. Beginning on December 7, five states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut) ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. In June 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the US Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July. On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the US Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the US government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States
1792 Governor John Graves Simcoe convened the first meeting of the legislature of Upper Canada at Newark on the Niagara Frontier
1862 Union forces hurled back a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. During the battle, 23,100 were killed, wounded or captured, making it the bloodiest day in United States military history
1868 The town of Barkerville, British Columbia burned to the ground after a miner tried to kiss a dance hall girl. In their struggle, they dislodged a stovepipe and set the canvas ceiling of the saloon on fire. Residents were forced to take refuge from the heat and the sparks in Williams Creek. Although the gold mining town was rebuilt, it eventually became a ghost town
1884 Judge Allen disposed of the 13 criminal cases on his Oakland, California, docket in only six minutes. Although he apparently set a new record for speed, defendants in Oakland's criminal court did not stand much of a chance of gaining an acquittal. In a 40-year period at the turn of the century, only 1 defendant in 100 was acquitted
1941 In Ottawa, the Canadian Government declared that strikes would be illegal for the remainder of World War II
1949 An early morning fire consumed the Canada Steamship Lines cruise liner SS Noronic moored at its dock in Toronto Harbour, killing 130 of 522 passengers. Most of the deceased were American tourists. The Canada Steamship Lines vessel, built at Port Arthur in 1913, was the largest Canadian and most luxurious passenger steamer ever placed in service on the Great Lakes.
1976 NASA publicly unveiled its first space shuttle, the Enterprise, during a ceremony in Palmdale, California. Development of the aircraft-like spacecraft cost almost $10 billion and took nearly a decade
1978 At the White House in Washington, DC, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The accords were negotiated during 12 days of intensive talks at President Jimmy Carter's Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. The final peace agreement, the first between Israel and one of its Arab neighbours, was signed in March 1979. Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts
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