1608 John Milton - English poet (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes) He was born in London, in Bread Street, Cheapside, the indulged son of a prosperous London businessman. He took a bachelor's and a master's at Christ's College, Cambridge, which he completed in 1632. He then decided to continue his own education, spending six years reading every major work of literature in several languages. In 1642, he married 17-year-old Mary Powell, who left him just weeks later. Milton then wrote a series of pamphlets arguing for the institution of divorce based on incompatibility. The idea, however mild it seems today, was scandalous at the time, and Milton experienced a vehement backlash for his writing. Milton's wife returned to him in 1645, and the pair had three daughters. However, he continued espousing controversial views. He supported the execution of Charles I, he railed against the control of the church by bishops, and he upheld the institution of Cromwell's commonwealth, for which he became Secretary of Foreign Languages. In 1651, he lost his sight but fulfilled his government duties with the help of assistants. His wife died the following year, and he remarried in 1656, but his second wife died in childbirth. Four years later, the commonwealth was overturned, and Milton was thrown in jail, saved only by the intervention of friends, but losing his position and property. He married again in 1663. Blind, impoverished, and jobless, he began to dictate his poem Paradise Lost to his family. When the poem was ready for publication, he sold it for £10. Once printed, the poem was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of the English language
1886 Clarence Birdseye – US inventor of a process to deep-freeze food in small packages for retailing. He got the idea from his days as a fur trader in Alaska
1898 Emmett Kelly – Clown with the Ringling Brother’s Circus whose characters included the Hobo and Weary Willie
1902 Margaret Hamilton – Actress (The Wizard of Oz, The Night Strangler, Johnny Come Lately)
1906 Grace Hopper – US computer pioneer who invented the first program compiler, which translated programming code into machine language. Hopper's compiler paved the way for increasingly sophisticated computer languages. A mathematics professor, Hopper joined the Naval Reserves during World War II, where she was assigned to work on Mark I, the first large-scale automatic calculator. Later, she worked on UNIVAC, the world's first fully electronic commercial computer, and she also developed the Flow-Matic compiler. Although Hopper first retired in 1966, the Navy called her back almost immediately, and she finally retired at age seventy-nine, when she was the oldest officer on active US Naval duty. She died in 1992. Hopper's work won numerous honours, including the prestigious National Medal of Technology in 1991. She was the first woman to win the award
1906 Freddy Martin – Saxophonist known as Mr. Silvertone (I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts, April in Portugal)
1909 Douglas Fairbanks Jr - Actor (Catherine the Great, The Prisoner of Zenda, Sinbad the Sailor, The Sun Never Sets) He was the son of Douglas Fairbanks Sr
1911 Broderick Crawford – Actor (All the King’s Men, Highway Patrol, Born Yesterday, The Interns, King of Diamonds, Beau Geste)
1916 Kirk Douglas - Actor (Lust for Life, Spartacus, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Final Countdown, Young Man With A Horn, Oscar) He is the father of Michael Douglas
1922 Redd Foxx – Comedian, actor (Sanford & Son)
1925 Dina Merrill – Actress (Operation Petticoat, Butterfield 8, Mighty Joe Young) She is the daughter of the stockbroker E.F. Hutton. And…she played Calamity Jane in Batman
1928 Dick Van Patten - Actor (Eight is Enough, Spaceballs, Charly)
1929 John Cassavetes – Director (Shadows, Gloria, Opening Night) and actor (Two Minute Warning, The Dirty Dozen, Husbands)
1930 Buck Henry - Actor, comedian (Eating Raoul, Catch-22, The Graduate)
1934 Dame Judi Dench – British actress (The World is Not Enough, As Time Goes By, Mrs. Brown, A Room With A View, 84 Charing Cross Road, Belfast, Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Philomena, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Cranford, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Shipping News, A Fine Romance) She played Sally, in the Sherlock Holmes movie A Study in Terror
1941 Beau Bridges - Director, actor (P.T. Barnum, The Agency, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Norma Rae, Two Minute Warning) He is the son of Lloyd Bridges and brother of Jeff Bridges
1950 Joan Armatrading – West Indian born singer (Love and Affection, The Key, Square the Circle)
1952 Michael Dorn – Actor (Star Trek The Next Generation, The Jagged Edge)
1953 John Malkovich – Actor (Con Air, Of Mice and Men, Dangerous Liaisons, The Killing Fields)
1957 Donny Osmond – Singer and TV host (Go Away Little Girl, Puppy Love, Donny and Marie)
1962 Felicity Huffman – Actress (Desperate Housewives, Christmas with the Kranks, Reversible Errors, Stephen King's Golden Years)
1962 Richard Brooks – Actor (Law & Order, The Crow: City of Angels, The Hidden)
Died this Day
1814 Joseph Brahmah – British inventor of the beer pump, and a machine to print banknotes
1964 Dame Edith Sitwell, age 77 – British poet and author (The English Eccentricities, Façade, Troy Park, Gold Coast Customs)
1972 Louella Parsons, age 91 - Gossip columnist who competed in print and on radio with her nemesis, Hedda Hopper. In 1918, Parsons began writing a movie column that emphasised celebrity scuttlebutt for The New York Morning Post. Soon, Hearst began syndicating her gossip column nationally, and Parsons' power in Hollywood grew. She made various radio appearances in the early 1930s and began hosting Hollywood Hotel in 1934, using her considerable power to persuade stars to appear on her program for free
1979 Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, age 84 – US clergyman who preached on radio and TV for more than 30 years
1996 Mary Leakey, age 83 - Archaeologist and anthropologist. She died in Kenya
On this Day
1755 The first post office in Canada opened in Halifax, along with a subsidised direct mail communication with Great Britain by ship
1757 Famine in New France, due to a poor harvest, caused the inhabitants to butcher their horses
1783 London’s Newgate Prison held its first execution
1835 Inspired by the spirited leadership of Benjamin Rush Milam, the newly created Texan Army took possession of the city of San Antonio, an important victory for the Republic of Texas in its war for independence from Mexico. Milam was born in 1788 in Frankfort, Kentucky. He became a citizen and soldier of Mexico in 1824, when newly independent Mexico was still under a republican constitution. Like many from the US who immigrated to the Mexican state of Texas, Milam found that the government both welcomed and feared their growing numbers, treating them with uneven fairness. When Milam heard in 1835 that Santa Ana had overthrown the Mexican republic and established himself as dictator, Milam renounced his Mexican citizenship and joined the rag-tag army of the newly proclaimed independent Republic of Texas. After helping the Texas Army capture the city of Goliad, Milam went on a reconnaissance mission to the southwest but returned to join the army for its planned attack on San Antonio, only to learn that the generals were postponing the attack on San Antonio for the winter. Aware that Santa Ana's forces were racing toward Texas to suppress the rebellion, Milam worried that any hesitation would spell the end of the revolution. Milam made an impassioned call for volunteers, asking: "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" Inspired by Milam's bold challenge, three hundred men did volunteer, and the Texas Army began its attack on San Antonio at dawn, four days earlier, on December 5th. By the 9th, the defending forces of the Mexican army were badly beaten, and the commanding general surrendered the city. Milam, however, was not there to witness the results of his leadership, as he was killed instantly by a sniper bullet on December 7th
1851 George Williams opened a Young Men's Christian Association, or YMCA, branch in Montréal, Québec. It was the first in North America
1854 Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, was published in England. The Examiner printed the poem, which commemorates the courage of 600 British soldiers charging a heavily defended position during the Battle of Balaklava, in the Crimea, just six weeks earlier. Tennyson had been named poet laureate in 1850 by Queen Victoria
1862 The Numismatic Society of Montreal was founded. It was Canada's first coin club
1878 The first St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba railway train arrived at Winnipeg late in the evening after a 30 hour trip from St. Paul, Minnesota. It spelled the end of Kitson's Red River Transportation Company stern wheelers
1907 Christmas seals went on sale for the first time, at the Wilmington, Delaware post office. Proceeds went to fight tuberculosis
1941 The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) opened Camp X, the STS Special Training School 103, as a special school for spies and special operatives in Whitby, Ontario. The school trained mostly people from Canada and the US. The SOE also operated Hydra station, to handle top-secret British transatlantic radio intelligence. James Bond author Ian Fleming was among the graduates
1955 Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out Carl Olson to regain his middleweight boxing title
1957 Future Canadian Prime Minister, Lester B. Pearson, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, which was awarded for his work in setting up the UN peacekeeping force used in Suez
1960 The first episode of Coronation Street was screened on Britain’s ITV
1992 Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation after 11 years of marriage
1993 Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour completed repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope
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