70 BC Virgil - Roman poet (The Aeneid)
1608 Evangelista Torricelli Italian mathematician who devised the barometer in 1643
1701 Mother Marie Marguerite d'Youville - Founder of the Grey Nuns, she was born Marie-Marguerite Dufrost de La Jemmerais at Varennes, Quebec. She was declared venerable in 1890 and in 1959 she became the first Canadian-born person to be beatified. She was canonised as a saint in 1990
1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Influential German philosopher and author (Thus Spake Zarathustra)
1881 Sir Pelham Greville (P.G.) Wodehouse British novelist (Performing Flea, Over Seventy, Wooster and Jeeves stories) In 1940, Wodehouse was living in France when the Germans invaded, and was captured, spending most of the war imprisoned in Berlin. In 1941, he made five radio broadcasts to the US, comically describing his dilemma as a prisoner. Because he used enemy radio equipment for his broadcasts, Wodehouse was unwelcome in Britain after the war, and moved to the US, where he worked on plays and musicals with various musicians including Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin
1900 Mervyn LeRoy - Director (Gypsy, Mister Roberts, The Bad Seed, The FBI Story, Madame Curie, Quo Vadis, Three on a Match)
1908 John Kenneth Galbraith Canadian-born economist, US diplomat and author (The Great Crash, The Affluent Society, Ambassador's Journal, The Age of Uncertainty) He was educated at the Ontario Agricultural College, University of California, and Cambridge University
1920 Mario Puzo US novelist (The Godfather, The Fortunate Pilgrim, The Sicilian, Omerta) and screen playwright (The Godfather series, Earthquake, Superman: The Movie, The Cotton Club)
1924 Mark Lenard Actor (Here Come the Brides, Hang 'Em High, The Greatest Story Ever Told) He played Spocks Vulcan father on Star Trek. He has also portrayed a Klingon and a Romulan
1937 Linda Lavin - US stage and screen actress (Broadway Bound, Alice, Barney Miller, Room for Two)
1937 Barry McGuire Singer and songwriter with The New Christy Minstrels (Green, Green) and solo (Eve of Destruction)
1938 Marv Johnson - Singer (You Got What it Takes, Come to Me, I Miss You Baby)
1942 Penny Marshall Actress (Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple) and director (Big, A League of Their Own, Awakenings, Jumpin' Jack Flash) She is the sister of Garry Marshall
1946 Victor Banerjee Calcutta-born actor (A Passage to India, Bitter Moon)
1946 Richard Carpenter - Musician, composer and singer with the Carpenters (Close to You, We've Only Just Begun, Yesterday Once More)
1953 Larry Miller Comedian & actor (The Brotherhood of Poland New Hampshire, The Nutty Professor, Radioland Murders, Corrina Corrina, Pretty Woman)
1954 Jere Burns Actor (Dear John, Justified, My Giant, Something So Right, Bob) He played Cliff Bartell in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Defiant Daughter
1955 Tanya Roberts Actress (That '70s Show, A View to a Kill, Sheena, Charlie's Angels)
1959 Sarah Ferguson The Duchess of York (Fergie), and former wife of Prince Andrew
1969 Vanessa Marcil Actress (Las Vegas, Storm Watch, Beverly Hills 90210, The Rock, General Hospital)
Died this Day
1730 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac French soldier, founder of Detroit, and later Governor of Louisiana
1917 Magaretha Geertruida Zelle (Mata Hari), age 41 The archetype of the seductive female spy, she was executed by a French firing squad at the Vincennes barracks outside of Paris, for spying on Germany's behalf. She first came to Paris in 1905 and found fame as a performer of exotic Indian-inspired dances. She soon began touring all over Europe, telling the story of how she was born in a sacred Indian temple and taught ancient Indian dances by a priestess who gave her the name Mata Hari, meaning "eye of the dawn." In reality, Mata Hari was born in a small town in northern Holland. Regardless of her authenticity, she packed dance halls from Russia to America, largely because of her willingness to dance almost entirely naked in public. She was also a famous courtesan, and with the outbreak of World War I her catalogue of lovers began to include high-ranking French officers. In February 1917, French authorities arrested her for espionage, and in July she was found guilty and sentenced to death. Evidence against Mata Hari remains inconclusive, and her only crimes may have been an elaborate stage fallacy and a weakness for men in uniform
1945 Pierre Laval - The puppet prime minister of Nazi-occupied Vichy France, was executed by a firing squad for treason against France. Laval, originally a deputy and senator of pacifist tendencies, shifted to the right in the 1930s while serving as the French premier and minister of foreign affairs. A staunch anti-Communist, Laval sought to align France with Fascist Italy. Hostile to the declaration of war against Germany in 1939, Laval encouraged the antiwar faction in the French government, and with the German invasion in 1940 used his political influence to force an armistice with Germany. Laval encouraged the new Vichy government to be in full collaboration with the Nazi programs of oppression and genocide, and by 1942, he had won the trust of Nazi leader Adolph Hitler. After the Allied liberation of France, Laval was forced to flee to German protection to the east. With the defeat of Germany in May of 1945, he escaped to Spain, but was expelled and went into hiding in Austria, where he finally surrendered to US authorities on July 31. Extradited to France, Laval was convicted of treason by the High Court of Justice in a sensational trial. Condemned to death, he attempted suicide by poison, but was nursed back to health in time for his execution
1964 Cole Porter, age 71 Composer & lyricist of Broadway shows (Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate, Can Can, Silk Stockings) and songs (Night and Day, Don't Fence Me In, What is This Thing Called Love, I Get a Kick Out of You, Begin the Beguine, I Love Paris)
On this Day
1581 The first major ballet was staged at the request of Catherine de Medici in the palace at Paris. Le Ballet Comique de la Reine was five hours of spectacle, choreographed by Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx
1666 The first waistcoat (vest) was worn by King Charles II, according to diarist Samuel Pepys
1815 Napoleon Bonaparte began his exile on the island of St. Helena, four months after suffering a final defeat against an allied force under the Duke of Wellington. He would spend the rest of his life on the remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s, and by 1807, he controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast. However, beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, culminating in total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815, and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against an allied force under Wellington. Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa, where he would die six years later
1851 The Great Exhibition closed at Hyde Park, but its unique Crystal Palace was re-erected in south London
1860 Eleven-year-old Grace Bedell wrote a letter to presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he could improve his appearance by growing a beard
1864 Onward Christian Soldiers was published for the first time, by The Church Times. It was written for a childrens festival, with music by Arthur Sullivan and words by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould
1878 The Edison Electric Light Company, the first electric company, was incorporated
1883 By a narrow decision, the US Supreme Court struck down a significant part of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which forbade racial discrimination and segregation in public places. The Court held that only state-imposed discrimination is unlawful, not discrimination by individuals or corporations. It would be decades before the high court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public educational facilities was unconstitutional. Ten years after that, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally barred racial discrimination in all types of public accommodations, from schools to restaurants to passenger train cars
1918 The leading film studios announced they would stop releasing films temporarily because of the influenza epidemic. Many theatres had been closed by cities throughout the country to prevent the spread of the deadly virus
1924 Anna Pavlova, the most celebrated dancer of her time, left her home in London for a final world tour. Pavlova was the prima ballerina of the Imperial Russian Ballet before she joined Diaghilev's Parisian company in 1909. Several years later, she formed her own company. Pavlova's most famous performance was in The Dying Swan, first performed in 1905
1928 The Graf Zeppelin reached Lakehurst, New Jersey on its first transatlantic voyage
1939 New York Municipal Airport, later renamed La Guardia Airport, was dedicated
1950 The first radio paging service started. Subscribers were provided with a six-ounce pocket radio receiver. The first radio page was sent to a doctor on a golf course twenty-five miles outside of New York City
1954 William Goldings Lord of the Flies was published in Britain
1954 Hurricane Hazel roared into eastern Canada. The hurricane did its worst in Ontario during its two-day rampage. Hazel had been blowing itself out south of the border when a cold front from the north reactivated it over Lake Ontario, producing the heaviest rains in southern Ontario's history. In Etobicoke, 17 homes were swept into the Humber River, and 36 were killed when debris blocked a bridge and more homes were washed away. In all, the storm did $25 million damage, and killed a total of 83 people
1967 The Queen Mary ended a career as a transatlantic liner and became a floating hotel and museum at Long Beach, California
1993 Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end apartheid
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