1633 James II – King of Great Britain and Ireland, and the second son of Charles I. His pro-Catholic stand led to his overthrow by William of Orange
1644 William Penn – Founder of the Quaker Colony in the US. Pennsylvania was named in his honour
1857 Elwood Haynes – US automotive pioneer who, in 1894 completed construction on one of the US's earliest automobiles, a one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle. On Independence Day of that year, he drove it through the streets of Kokomo, Indiana, on its trial run. Today, this automobile is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution as the oldest US automobile in existence. He also made improvements to the new science of automobile manufacturing, including a successful carburetor, the first use of aluminum in automobile engines, and the first muffler
1882 Eamon de Valera - Irish Prime Minister and President. He was born in New York and sent to Ireland for his schooling.
1890 Dwight D. Eisenhower – 34th US President and Five-star US Army General who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II. He was born in Denison, Texas
1894 e e cummings – US poet, playwright and painter, whose experimental style included odd punctuation and no capital letters (The Enormous Room, ViVa, No Thanks, 1/20, i, six nonlectures, Tulips and Chimneys)
1893 Lillian Gish – Actress (Birth of a Nation, Sweet Liberty, A Wedding, Arsenic and Old Lace) She was the sister of Dorothy Gish
1908 Allan Jones - Singer (The Donkey Serenade) and actor (Showboat, Rose Marie, Firefly, One Night in the Tropics, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races) He was the father of singer Jack Jones
1927 Sir Roger Moore – British actor (A View to a Kill, For Your Eyes Only, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, The Saint, Ivanhoe, The Persuaders, The Alaskans) He also played Sherlock Holmes in the 1976 movie Sherlock Holmes in New York
1928 Robert Webber - Actor (Private Benjamin, 10, Revenge of the Pink Panther, The Sandpiper, Twelve Angry Men, Moonlighting)
1938 Melba Montgomery - Singer (No Charge, Angel of the Morning, Hall of Shame, The Greatest Ones of All)
1939 Ralph Lauren – Fashion and home products designer
1940 Christopher Timothy – British actor (All Creatures Great and Small, Alfred the Great, Eskimo Nell)
1940 Cliff Richard – Indian-born British pop singer (Devil Woman, Dreaming, High Class Baby, Livin' Doll, Travelin' Light, Please Don't Tease, The Next Time, Bachelor Boy, Summer Holiday, The Minute You're Gone, Congratulations) and actor (The Young Ones, Summer Holiday, Wonderful Life)
1946 Justin Hayward – British musician with The Moody Blues (Go Now!, Nights In White Satin, Tuesday Afternoon, Question, Your Wildest Dreams)
1952 Harry Anderson – Actor and magician (Night Court, Dave's World, It)
1953 Greg Evigan - Actor (B.J. and the Bear, Masquerade, My Two Dads, Tek War, Deepstar Six, Big Sound)
1974 Natalie Maines - Country singer with the Dixie Chicks (Goodbye Earl, Ready to Run, Wide Open Spaces)
Died this Day
1066 King Harold II – The last Anglo-Saxon King of England, he died at the Battle of Hastings. Two weeks earlier, William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded England claiming his right to the English throne. In 1051, William is believed to have visited England and met with his cousin Edward the Confessor, the childless English king. According to Norman historians, Edward promised to make William his heir. On his deathbed, however, Edward granted the kingdom to Harold Godwine, head of the leading noble family in England and more powerful than the king himself. In January 1066, King Edward died, and Harold Godwine was proclaimed King Harold II. William immediately disputed his claim. At the end of that September, William landed in England at Pevensey, on Britain's southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry. Seizing Pevensey, he then marched to Hastings, where he paused to organise his forces. On October 13th, Harold arrived near Hastings with his army, and the next day William led his forces out to give battle. William’s Norman forces won the Battle of Hastings, fought on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, England. Harold's forces were destroyed and at the end of the bloody, all-day battle, King Harold was killed, shot through the eye with an arrow. After his victory at the Battle of Hastings, William marched on London and received the city's submission. On Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned the first Norman king of England, in Westminster Abbey, and the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history came to an end. French became the language of the king's court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue to give birth to modern English, changing the language and culture forever
1959 Errol Flynn, age 50 – Tasmanian born actor (Captain Blood, In the Wake of the Bounty, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Too Much Too Soon, They Died With Their Boots On, The Sea Hawk) The athletic, swashbuckling actor was turned down for military service because he had a heart defect, recurring malaria, and a mild form of tuberculosis. His heavy drinking, womanising and increasing debts drove him out of Hollywood, and his career ended prematurely
1977 Bing Crosby, age 73 – Crooner-style singer (White Christmas, Swinging on a Star, Brother Can You Spare a Dime?, Pennies from Heaven) and actor (Going My Way, Holiday Inn, Road to Morocco, Road to Bali…, Robin and the Seven Hoods, Stagecoach) He died on a golf course outside Madrid, Spain
1990 Leonard Bernstein, age 72 - Composer-conductor with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (West Side Story, On the Town, My Sister Eileen, On the Waterfront, Jeremiah, The Age of Anxiety, Kaddish, Chichester Psalms, Mass, Songfest)
1997 Harold Robbins, age 81 - US Novelist (The Carpetbaggers, The Piranhas, Stiletto, The Dream Merchants, The Betsy)
On this Day
1822 French author Victor Hugo married Adele Foucher, his childhood sweetheart. The pair would have numerous children, and the marriage would survive notorious infidelities on both sides. The marriage got off to an ominous start, however, when Hugo's brother suffered a nervous breakdown at the wedding breakfast
1830 Belgium was proclaimed an independent kingdom
1878 The first football match played under floodlights took place at Bramhall Lane, Sheffield, England. The field was lit by four Siemens’ arc lamps
1884 George Eastman patented photographic film
1912 President Teddy Roosevelt was shot at in an assassination attempt before a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, was shot at close range by saloonkeeper and anarchist William Schrank while greeting the public in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel. He had stalked Roosevelt for thousands of miles before getting a clear shot at him in Milwaukee. Schrank's .32 calibre bullet, aimed directly at Roosevelt's heart, failed to mortally wound the former president because its force was slowed by a glasses case and a bundle of papers in the breast pocket of Roosevelt's heavy coat - the manuscript containing Roosevelt's evening speech. Schrank, who was immediately detained, admitted to the crime and reportedly offered as his motive that "any man looking for a third term ought to be shot." Roosevelt, who suffered only a flesh wound from the attack, went on to deliver his scheduled speech with the bullet still in his body. After a few words, the former Rough Rider pulled the torn and blood-stained manuscript from his breast pocket and declared: "You see, it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." He spoke for nearly an hour before collapsing, and was rushed to the hospital where the bullet was removed. Despite his vigorous campaign, Roosevelt, who already served as president of the US from 1901 to 1909, was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson in November. Schrank was deemed insane and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution, and died shortly after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to a third term
1930 Ethel Merman made her Broadway debut, in Gershwin’s Girl Crazy
1942 During World War II, a German U-boat torpedoed the Newfoundland Railway Fleet steamship Caribou in the Cabot Strait on the North Sydney to Port-au-Basques route, at a cost of 137 lives. In spite of this the Battle of St. Lawrence was rapidly ending after taking 700 lives and 23 ships
1947 Chuck Yeagar, who was a US combat fighter during World War II, became the first man to break the sound barrier. He was flying the Bell X-1 rocket plane over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The plane, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis, was designed with thin, unswept wings, a new type of rocket engine and streamlined fuselage modelled after a .50-caliber bullet to reduce turbulence. Because of the secrecy of the project, Yeager's achievement was not announced until June 1948
1957 Queen Elizabeth II opened the first session of Canada’s 23rd Parliament. It was the first time Parliament was opened by a reigning monarch
1960 Presidential candidate J.F. Kennedy first suggested the idea of a Peace Corps at the University of Michigan
1964 US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
1968 The first live telecast from a manned US spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7. Astronauts Walter Marty Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele, and Ronnie Cunningham gave a tour of the inside of the Apollo 7 spacecraft and showed views through the windows
1969 The British ten shilling note was replaced with the seven-sided 50p coin
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