1788 Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, Baron Raglan – British field marshal who gave the orders to the Earl of Cardigan at the battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. His inexperience led to the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade
1802 Antoine-Jerome Balard - French chemist who discovered the element bromine
1813 Dr. John Rae – Scottish physician and explorer of the Canadian Arctic. Born on the Orkney Islands, he was a surgeon and expert outdoorsman, and worked for the Hudson's Bay Company from 1833 onward. He is best known for his ability to survive off the land and with the native Arctic people, and as the man who found the first remains of Sir John Franklin's disastrous expedition to find the North West Passage
1861 William Wrigley, Jr. - Chewing gum tycoon
1882 Hans Geiger - German physicist who introduced the Geiger Counter
1895 Lewis Milestone – Russian born US director (All Quiet on the Western Front, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Front Page, Of Mice and Men, Ocean’s Eleven)
1906 J.I.M. Stewart (Michael Innes) – Scottish author (Eight Modern Writers, Death at the President’s Lodging, Stop Press, The Secret Vanguard, From London Far, Appleby’s End, A Private View, Silence Observed) He wrote his detective fiction, featuring policeman Sir John Appleby, under his Innes pseudonym
1917 Buddy Rich – US jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a drummer with several major bands, including Harry James and Artie Shaw
1921 Deborah Kerr – Scottish born actress (The King and I, From Here to Eternity, A Woman of Substance, The Night of the Iguana, Quo Vadis, Tea and Sympathy, Separate Tables, The Sundowners, Prisoner of Zenda, An Affair to Remember, Casino Royale)
1922 Oscar Pettiford – Jazz musician on the bass and cello, who played with Charlie Barnet, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman and Stan Getz
1924 Truman Capote – Author (In Cold Blood, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany's)
1931 Angie Dickinson – Actress (Police Woman, Pearl, Wild Palms, Dressed to Kill, Rio Bravo, Ocean's Eleven, Sam Whiskey) She played Marian Fargo in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the One-Eyed Witness
1935 Johnny Mathis - Singer (Wonderful Wonderful, It's Not for Me to Say, Chances Are, Misty, The Twelfth of Never, A Certain Smile, Small World, Gina, What Will Mary Say, Too Much Too Little Too Late, Friends In Love, When Sunny Gets Blue, A Christmas Song)
1939 Len Cariou – Canadian stage and screen actor (A Little Night Music, Lady in White, Executive Decision, Applause, Murder She Wrote, Blue Bloods) He was born at Winnipeg, Manitoba and began his stage career there in 1959. In 1961 he joined the Stratford Festival, and has acted on Broadway since 1970. In 1979 he won the Tony Award as Best Actor for his work as the title character in Sweeney Todd
1942 Frankie Lymon - Singer (Why Do Fools Fall in Love?, Goody Goody)
1943 Marilyn McCoo – Singer with The Fifth Dimension (Up Up and Away, Aquarius) and solo (One Less Bell to Answer, You Don't Have to be a Star)
1947 Rula Lenska – British actress (Footballers Wive$, Cluedo, The Seven Dials Mystery, Private Schulz)
1948 Marc Bolan – British singer and founder of the group T. Rex (Bang a Gong)
1950 Victoria Tennant - Actress (Flowers in the Attic, LA Story, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance)
1953 Deborah Allen - Singer (Baby I Lied, Take Me in Your Arms and Hold Me)
1954 Barry Williams - Actor (The Brady Bunch)
1957 Fran Drescher - Actress (The Nanny, American Hot Wax, Saturday Night Fever, This Is Spinal Tap, Doctor Detroit, Ragtime, Cadillac Man, Princesses)
1961 Eric Stoltz - Actor (Mask, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Memphis Belle, Pulp Fiction, Rob Roy, Jerry Maguire, Chicago Hope)
1964 Crystal Bernard - Actress (Wings, It's a Living, Happy Days)
1970 Tony Hale – Actor (Arrested Development, Chuck, Stranger than Fiction)
1971 Jenna Elfman – Actress (Dharma & Greg, Krippendorf’s Tribe, Edtv)
Died this Day
1772 James Brindley – British engineer and canal builder
1888 Elizabeth Stride and Catherine (Kate) Eddowes – London prostitutes, both age 45, were murdered on the same night, at the hand of Jack the Ripper
1955 James Dean, age 24 - Actor (Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, East of Eden) He and his mechanic Rolf Wutherich were killed in a two-car collision near Cholame, California, when Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder crashed head-on into another car. They were on their way to a car race. Although Dean appeared in only three movies during his brief movie career, he made a deep impression on audiences with his portrayal of the angry, restless young man
1973 Peter Pitseolak – Canadian Inuit photographer, artist and writer who recorded Inuit legends and traditions, illustrating them with his own drawings. He acquired his first camera from an Oblate missionary, and documented the igloos and dog teams of the Inuit hunters as the old era ended. He died at Cape Dorset, North West Territories
1978 Edgar Bergen, age 75 - Ventriloquist of "Charlie MaCarthy" radio fame (The Edgar Bergen Show) He was the father of actress Candice Bergen
On this Day
1399 Henry Bolingbroke was proclaimed King Henry IV of England upon the abdication of King Richard II. Henry was the eldest surviving son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. While his father was away in Spain, Henry joined other lords in opposing King Richard II's rule. Richard later regained the upper hand and in 1398 banished Henry from the kingdom. When John of Gaunt died in February 1399, Richard seized the Lancastrian estates, thus depriving Henry of his inheritance. Claiming to be defending the rights of the nobility, Henry invaded England in July 1399. Richard surrendered to him without a fight in August – the first British monarch to abdicate the throne. Upon becoming King of England, Henry imprisoned Richard in Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, where the former king died of undetermined causes in February 1400. After a turbulent reign, Henry was succeeded by his son Henry V, the second of England's three Lancastrian kings
1791 Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, premiered in Vienna, Austria
1868 The first volume of Louisa May Alcott's book, Little Women, was published. The novel would become Alcott's first best-seller and a classic
1875 The first sittings of the Supreme Court of Canada, were held in Ottawa, Ontario
1889 The Wyoming state convention approved a constitution that included a provision granting women the right to vote. Formally admitted into the union the following year, Wyoming thus became the first state in the history of the US to grant its female citizens the vote. That the isolated western state of Wyoming should be the first to accept women's suffrage was a surprise. Leading suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were Easterners, and they assumed that their own more “progressive” home states would be among the first to respond to the campaign for women's suffrage. Yet, that was not the first time the people and politicians of the west proved far more supportive than those in the East towards granting women the vote. In 1848, the legislature in Washington Territory became the first to introduce a women's suffrage bill. Though the Washington bill was narrowly defeated, similar legislation succeeded elsewhere, and Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the right to vote in 1869, quickly followed by Utah Territory in 1870, and Washington Territory in 1883. As with Wyoming, when these territories became states they preserved women's suffrage. By 1914, the contrast between East and West had become striking. All of the states west of the Rockies had women's suffrage, while no state did east of the Rockies, except Kansas
1936 Pinewood Studios opened in Britain
1954 The USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine, was commissioned by the US Navy. The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of US Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the US atomic program in 1946. Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world's first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus' keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and in January 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955. Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots. In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and in August 1958 accomplished the first voyage under the geographic North Pole. After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world's first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut
1960 The first episode of The Flintsones aired
1960 Black Brant, the first all Canadian “sounding” rocket, was launched into space from Churchill, Manitoba
1966 Canadian-born Lord Thomson of Fleet purchased control of The Times of London
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