106BC Pompey the Great – Roman statesman and general of the Roman Republic
1547 Miguel de Cervantes – Spanish playwright and novelist (Don Quixote, La Galatea) He led an adventurous life and achieved much popular success. Little is know about his childhood, except that he was a favourite student of Madrid humanist Juan Lopez, and that his father was an apothecary. While living in Rome, he enlisted in the Spanish fleet to fight against the Turks. At the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he took three bullets and suffered permanent damage to his left hand. Later, he was stationed at Palermo and Naples. On the way home to Madrid in 1575, he and his brother Roderigo were captured by Barbary pirates and held captive in Algiers. Cervantes was ransomed after five years of captivity and returned to Madrid, where he began writing. He married a woman 18 years younger than he was and had an illegitimate daughter, whom he raised in his household. He worked as a tax collector and as a requisitioner of supplies for the navy, but was jailed for irregularities in his accounting. Some historians believe he formulated the idea for Don Quixote while in jail. In 1604, he received the license to publish Don Quixote, which was a huge success and brought Cervantes literary respect and position. He wrote dramas and short stories until a phoney sequel, penned by another writer, prompted him to write Don Quixote, Part II in 1615
1725 Robert Clive, Baron Clive of Plassey – British general and statesman who founded the British empire in India. He defeated the Indian forces at Bengal and became its administrator
1758 Lord Horatio Nelson - Britain's most celebrated naval hero, born in Burnham Thorpe, England. The son of the village rector, he entered the British navy as a midshipman at the age of 12, travelled the world's oceans, and at age 20 was made a captain. In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, he won a series of crucial victories and saved England from possible invasion by France. He became a national hero in the 1790’s, through services against France and Spain with the Mediterranean fleet. While ashore on Corsica assisting in the siege of Calvi, he lost the sight in his right eye after being injured by debris from a French shot. Four years later he acted boldly and without orders and single-handedly took on an entire squadron of Spanish ships that were about to surprise a British fleet off Portugal's Cape St. Vincent. For his heroic contribution to British victory at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, Nelson was knighted and made a rear admiral. Later that year, he led the unsuccessful British assault on Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands and was shot in the right arm, forcing its amputation. In April 1801, Nelson engaged Danish naval forces at the Battle of Copenhagen. Ordered to withdraw by his superior officer during the fiercely contested battle, Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said, "I really do not see the signal." An hour later, victory was his, and he was made an admiral and viscount. In October, 1805, he met the French at the Battle of Trafalgar, but lost his own life, about 30 minutes before his forces defeated the French. His victory at the Battle of Trafalgar ensured that Napoleon would never invade Britain
1899 Sir Billy Butlin – British holiday camp pioneer
1901 Enrico Fermi - Italian-born physicist and Nobel Prize winner who helped develop the US's first atomic weapons
1904 Greer Garson – British actress (Mrs. Miniver, Sunrise at Campobello, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Goodbye Mr. Chips, The Singing Nun)
1907 Gene Autry – Actor who was in over 100 westerns (In Old Santa Fe, South of the Border), and who was known as the Singing Cowboy (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine, The Death of Mother Jones, You are My Sunshine, Mexicali Rose, Back in the Saddle Again) He also owned the California Angels and Golden West Broadcasting. He is the only person to have 5 Hollywood Walk of Fame stars: film, radio, TV, stage and records
1912 Michelangelo Antonioni - Director (Zabriskie Point, The Red Desert, The Passenger, Love in the City)
1913 Stanley Kramer - Director (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Inherit the Wind, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Judgement at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools, On the Beach)
1913 Trevor Howard – British actor (Superman: The Movie, Gandhi, Mutiny on the Bounty, Ryan's Daughter, The Count of Monte Cristo, Sons and Lovers, Brief Encounter, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Father Goose, Battle of Britain, 11 Harrowhouse, Shaka Zulu)
1924 Steve Forrest - Actor (The Longest Day, S.W.A.T., North Dallas Forty, The Deerslayer, Dallas, Amazon Women on the Moon) He is the brother of actor Dana Andrews
1930 Colin Dexter – British author and creator of the much loved Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse and his loyal sergeant, Robbie Lewis
1930 Endeavour Morse – British Chief Inspector who was (like his creator), born in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Morse’s father was a taxi-driver with an insatiable interest in Captain Cook and his mother a Quaker – a combination responsible for Morse's uncommon first name (Thanks to Jay's Morse Trivia pages for this one!)
1931 Anita Ekberg – Swedish actress (La Dolce Vita, War and Peace, The Alphabet Murders, If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium)
1935 Jerry Lee Lewis - Singer (Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On, Great Balls of Fire, Breathless) He is the cousin of singer, Mickey Gilley and evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart
1939 Larry Linville - Actor (M*A*S*H, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Grandpa Goes to Washington)
1942 Ian McShane – British actor (Lovejoy, Deadwood, Pillars of the Earth, Kings, Battle of Britain, War and Remembrance, Dick Francis, Dallas, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Roots, The Last of Sheila, Sexy Beast) He was in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Desperate Deception
1942 Madeline Kahn – Stage and screen actress (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, What’s Up Doc?, Paper Moon, High Anxiety, The Cheap Detective, Nixon) She played Jenny Hill in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother
1943 Lech Walesa - Nobel Peace prize-winner in 1983 and the founder of Polish solidarity
1946 Patricia Hodge – British actress (Rumpole of the Bailey, The Elephant Man, Edward & Mrs Simpson, The Cloning of Joanna May, The Moonstone) She played Lady Hanbury in the Inspector Morse episode Ghost in the Machine She also played Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Second Stain
1948 Bryant Gumbel – TV anchor (Today, The Early Show, Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, Dateline NBC, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel)
1948 Mark Farner – Guitarist and singer with Grand Funk Railroad (We're an American Band, Walk Like a Man)
1966 Jill Whelan - Actress (The Love Boat, Airplane!)
1980 Zachary Levi – Actor (Chuck, Tangled, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Less Than Perfect, Heros Reborn, Shazam!, Thor: The Dark World, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alias Grace, Telenovela)
Died this Day
1902 Émile Zola – French novelist (The Dreyfus Affair: J’Accuse & Other Writings, Truth, The Attack on the Mill & Other Stories) He was accidentally gassed by charcoal fumes
1913 Rudolf Diesel, age 55 – German engineer and inventor of the diesel engine. He was also a linguist, a social theorist, and a connoisseur of the arts. But it was his diesel engine that changed the world, proving more efficient than steam and used on everything from locomotives to boats, eventually revolutionising the automobile. He died while crossing the English Channel on a cruiser, after jumping overboard
1967 Carson McCullers, age 50 – US author (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, The Mortgaged Heart)
1978 Pope John Paul I - He was found dead in his Vatican apartment just over a month after becoming head of the Roman Catholic Church
1988 Charles Addams, age 76 – US cartoonist (The Addams Family)
On this Day
1498 Jean Cabot received a reward of £200 from Britain’s King Henry VII for his discoveries in North America
1665 Germain Morin was ordained the first Canadian-born Catholic priest
1829 London's Metropolitan Police officially began its duties. It was formed under the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, which had been introduced by Sir Robert Peel. Until then, law enforcement had been lacking in organisation. The officers were originally nick-named “Peelers”, and later “Bobbies”, in honour of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the force
1885 The first electric street trams in Britain ran in Blackpool
1902 Impresario David Belasco opened his first Broadway theatre
1916 John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire during the share boom in the US
1918 Allied forces scored a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line during World War I. The Hindenburg Line, established in 1917, was the last and strongest of the German army's defence, consisting of three well-defended trench systems
1930 Filming began on the classic horror film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi
1930 George Bernard Shaw turned down a peerage in Britain
1950 US Bell tested the first automatic telephone answering machine
1954 New York Giants centerfielder Willie Mays made a spectacular running catch with his back to home plate on a 450-foot blast by Cleveland Indians batter Vic Wertz in the opening game of the World Series. It is considered by many to be the greatest catch ever made
1957 The New York Giants played their last game at the Polo Grounds, losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-1. The Giants moved to San Francisco for the next season
1988 The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking the US's return to manned space flight following the Challenger disaster
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