1829 Chester A. Arthur – 21st US President, born in Fairfield, Vermont
1902 Ray A. Kroc – US entrepreneur and founder of McDonald’s fast food empire
1919 Donald Pleasance – British actor (You Only Live Twice, Fantastic Voyage, Tale of Two Cities, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Better Late Than Never, The Great Escape, Halloween)
1922 Bil Keane – US cartoonist (Family Circus)
1923 Glynis Johns – British stage and screen actress (Mary Poppins, The Ref, A Little Night Music, The Sundowners, Coming of Age, Miranda) She’s the daughter of Welsh actor Mervyn Johns
1925 Gail Davis - Actress (On Top of Old Smoky, Blue Canadian Rockies, Cow Town, Winning of the West)
1933 Diane Cilento - Actress (Winner Takes All, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Tom Jones, Negatives, Hombre, The Naked Edge)
1938 Johnny Duncan - Singer (She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime, Slow Dancing, He's Out of My Life, Hello Mexico And Adios Baby to You) He sang many songs with Janie Fricke (It Couldn't Have Been Any Better, Thinkin' of a Rendezvous, Stranger, Come a Little Bit Closer)
1941 Stephanie Cole – British actress (Doc Martin, Waiting for God, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Keeping Mum, Tenko)
1943 Steve Miller - Singer-musician with The Steve Miller Band (The Joker, Rock'n Me, Fly Like an Eagle, Jet Airliner, Abracadabra, Take the Money and Run)
1950 Jeff Conaway – Actor (Taxi, The Patriot, Sunset Strip, A Time to Die, The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission, Grease, Pete's Dragon, Babylon 5)
1951 Karen Allen – Actress (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Backfire, National Lampoon's Animal House, Starman)
1954 Bob Geldof – Irish musician with the Boomtown Rats (Looking After No. 1, She's So Modern, Rat Trap, I Don't Like Mondays, This is the World Calling, Love like a Rocket) He organised the fund-raising group Band Aid
1957 Bernie Mac – Actor (Ocean’s Eleven, The Bernie Mac Show, Head of State, Moesha, Guess Who, Transformers)
1960 Daniel Baldwin – Actor (Homicide: Life on the Street, Vampires, Mulholland Falls, Ned Blessing: The True Story of My Life) He is the brother of William, Stephen and Alec Baldwin
1975 Kate Winslet - British Actress (Titanic, Heavenly Creatures, Sense and Sensibility, Jude, Get Back, Finding Neverland)
Died this Day
1813 Tecumseh - Shawnee chief who was killed in the Battle of the Thames, during the War of 1812 when US General William Henry Harrison defeated the outnumbered British and Indian forces near Moraviantown, Ontario. Tecumseh was the leader of the Indian forces, and had organised the intertribal resistance to the encroachment of white settlers on Indian lands. He was born in an Indian village in present-day Ohio and early on witnessed the devastation wrought on tribal lands by white settlers. He fought against US forces in the American Revolution and later raided white settlements, often in conjunction with other tribes. He became a great orator and a leader of intertribal councils. He travelled widely, attempting to organise a united Indian front against the US. When the War of 1812 erupted, he joined the British, and with a large Indian force he marched on US-held Fort Detroit with British General Isaac Brock. In August 1812, the fort surrendered without a fight when it saw the British and Indian show of force. Tecumseh then travelled south to rally other tribes to his cause and in 1813 joined British General Henry Procter in his invasion of Ohio. The British-Indian force besieged Fort Meigs, and Tecumseh intercepted and destroyed a Kentucky brigade sent to relieve the fort. After the US victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813, Procter and Tecumseh were forced to retreat to Canada. Pursued by a US force led by the future president William Harrison, the British-Indian force was defeated at the Battle of the Thames River
1880 Jacques Offenbach – German-born French composer (The Tales of Hoffman)
On this Day
1786 Prince William became the first member of the Royal Family to visit Halifax, Nova Scotia. The 21 year old was known as Coconut Head to his fellow Navy officers, and had a reputation for “wenching”
1793 Captain Vancouver arrived at Nootka Sound, British Columbia
1795 The Hudson Bay Company started building a fur trading post on a sheltered curve of the North Saskatchewan River, near the present day Alberta Legislature in Edmonton
1877 Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians surrendered to US General Nelson A. Miles in the Bear Paw mountains of Montana, declaring, "Hear me, my chiefs: My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Earlier in the year, the US government broke a land treaty with the Nez Percé, forcing the group out of their homeland in Wallowa Valley in the Northwest for relocation in Idaho. In the midst of their journey, Chief Joseph learned that three young Nez Percé warriors, enraged at the loss of their homeland, had massacred a band of white settlers. Fearing retaliation by the US Army, the chief began one of the great retreats in US military history. For more than three months, Chief Joseph led almost 300 Nez Percé Indians toward the Canadian border, covering a distance of more than 1,000 miles as the Nez Percé outmanoeuvred and battled more than 2,000 pursuing US soldiers. During the long retreat, he treated prisoners humanely and won the admiration of whites by purchasing supplies along the way rather than stealing them. Finally, only 40 miles short of his Canadian goal, Chief Joseph was cornered by the US Army, and his people were forcibly relocated to a barren reservation in Indian Territory
1880 Alonzo T. Cross patented his new stylographic pen, the earliest “ball pen” which carried its own ink supply and had a retractable tip
1892 The Dalton Gang was nearly wiped out while trying to rob two banks simultaneously in their hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas. The Dalton Gang was a group of brothers and their associates who became infamous for a series of train robberies in Kansas and Indian Territory during the 1880s and 1890s. After a train robbery in Adair, Indian Territory, the Dalton boys returned home to Coffeyville, hoping to gather enough capital to flee the country and the pursuing authorities. Early in the morning, the gang separated into two groups and stormed the Condon National Bank and the First National Bank. However, they were recognised by citizens and the alarm was given. Townsmen armed themselves and a fierce gun battle ensued in which four citizens and four members of the Dalton Gang lost their lives. Emmett Dawson, the only survivor, was wounded and sentenced to life in prison. But the Coffeyville shootout only temporarily put an end to the Dalton Gang. A fourth Dalton boy, Bill Dalton, joined up with a group of his brothers' old partners, and together they terrorised the territories for years to come
1917 Sir Arthur Lee donated the estate Chequers to Britain as a country retreat for British prime ministers. The first to use it was Lloyd-George
1921 The World Series was broadcast for the first time on radio
1947 President Harry S. Truman held the first presidential address to be televised from the White House. In a telecast relayed to several cities along the East Coast, the president spoke on the current international food crisis, and urged Americans to practice conservation. In order to make food available for needy nations, Truman suggested that Americans abstain from meat on Tuesdays and from poultry and eggs on Sundays
1962 The first James Bond film, Dr. No had its premiere at the London Pavillion. It wouldn’t premiere in North America until the following year
1962 The Beatles' first hit, Love Me Do, was first released in the United Kingdom
1969 The first Monty Python’s Flying Circus aired on BBC
1970 British Trade Commissioner James R. Cross was kidnapped at gunpoint from his Westmount home at 8:45 am by masked Front de Libération du Québec terrorists. At 1:00 pm the FLQ delivered a communiqué to a site in Parc LaFontaine demanding a $500,000 ransom, and the release of 23 “political” prisoners. After a tense and sometimes violent autumn, Cross was eventually released unharmed in December
1982 Sony began marketing two-inch flat screen pocket TV sets
1984 Marc Garneau became the first Canadian to travel in space, as he travelled on board the Space Shuttle Challenger Flight STS-41G
1984 US aid of Contras was uncovered as soldiers from Nicaragua's Communist government shot down a US cargo plane found to be carrying military supplies to the Contras, who were waging a guerrilla war against the ruling Sandinista government. The sole survivor, American Eugene Hasenfus, was taken captive and later admitted that he was employed by the CIA. One month later, a Lebanese magazine reported that the US had been secretly selling arms to Iran in the hope of securing the release of US hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon. On November 25, US Attorney General Edwin Meese III announced that proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to support the anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua. The public revelations about the Iran-Contra connection caused outrage in Congress, who in 1983 had passed the Boland amendments prohibiting the Defence Department, the CIA, or any other government agency from providing military aid to the Contras for the period in question. In December, Lawrence E. Walsh was named as special prosecutor to investigate the matter, and thus began the Iran-Contra affair, in which thirteen top White House, State Department, and intelligence officials were found guilty of charges ranging from perjury to charges of conspiracy to defraud the US. Neither President Ronald Reagan nor Vice-President George Bush were directly indicted, and more serious Iran-Contra accusations, such as money laundering and drug trafficking by the CIA, were not pursued
1989 A jury in Charlotte, North Carolina, convicted former PTL evangelist Jim Bakker of using his television show to defraud followers
1999 Two packed commuter trains collided near London's Paddington Station, killing 31 people
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