1503 Nostradamus French astrologer and physician
1546 Tycho Brahe Danish astronomer and mathematician who, with Kepler, proved that the planets orbit the sun in ellipses
1895 King George VI The second son of King George V and Queen Mary, and father of Queen Elizabeth II. He succeeded the throne when his brother, Edward VIII abdicated
1896 James Doolittle - US Army Air Force Lieutenant General who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for leading the first US aerial raid against Japan in WWII
1908 Morey Amsterdam Comedian and actor (The Dick Van Dyke Show, Beach Party, Murder Inc., Mixed Nuts, Hollywood Suite)
1911 Spike Jones Musician, drummer and band leader of City Slickers (Cocktails for Two)
1917 Dan Daily - Singer, dancer and actor (When My Baby Smiles at Me, State Fair, There's No Business Like Show Business)
1919 Michael Bilton British actor (To the Manor Born, Are You Being Served? Again!, Waiting for God, Brideshead Revisited, Pennies from Heaven) He played Stephens in the Sherlock Holmes episode Shoscombe Old Place
1920 Clark Terry US trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Quincy Jones
1922 Don Hewitt News producer (60 Minutes)
1932 Charlie Rich US country singer known as The Silver Fox (Behind Closed Doors, Lonely Weekends, The Most Beautiful Girl)
1935 Lee Remick Actress (The Long Hot Summer, Anatomy of a Murder, The Days of Wine and Roses, Jennie)
1938 Janette Scott British actress (The Day of the Triffids) She is the daughter of actress Thora Hird
1946 Patty Duke - Actress (The Miracle Worker, Captains and the Kings, The Patty Duke Show)
1946 Joyce Vincent Wilson Singer with the group Tony Orlando and Dawn (Candida, Knock Three Times, Tie A Yellow Ribbon, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose)
1949 Dee Wallace Stone Actress (ET The Extraterrestial, Cujo)
1969 Natascha McElhone British actress (Solaris, The Other Boleyn Girl, Loves Labours Lost, Ronin, The Trueman Show, Mrs. Dalloway, The Devils Own, Cold Lazarus, Karaoke)
1971 Tia Texada Actress (Third Watch, Phone Booth, Glitter, Nurse Betty, Spartan)
Died this Day
1542 James V, age 30 - King of Scotland. He was the father of Mary Queen of Scots, and died just six days after her birth. He also inherited the throne as an infant
1799 George Washington, age 67 - The first President of the US, at his Mount Vernon, Virginia home. He was born in 1732 to a farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His first direct military experience came as a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia colonial militia in 1754, when he led a small expedition against the French in the Ohio River valley on behalf of the governor of Virginia. Two years later, he took command of the defences of the western Virginian frontier during the French and Indian War. After the war's fighting moved elsewhere, he resigned from his military post, returned to a planter's life, and took a seat in Virginia's House of Burgesses. During the next two decades, Washington openly opposed the escalating British taxation and repression of the colonies. After the American Revolution erupted in 1775, Washington was nominated to be commander in chief of the newly established Continental Army, winning the War of Independence. After the war, the victorious general retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, but in 1787 he heeded his nation's call and returned to politics to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The drafters created the office of president with him in mind, and in February 1789 Washington was unanimously elected the first president of the United States. In 1797, he finally began a long-awaited retirement at his estate in Virginia, which would last only two years. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous eulogy for the father of the United States: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen"
1861 Prince Albert, age 42 - Husband of Queen Victoria, in London of typhoid fever
1964 William Bendix, age 58 Actor (Babe Ruth Story, Blackbeard the Pirate, The Detective Story, The Life of Riley)
1989 Andrei D. Sakharov, age 68 Soviet scientist, human rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate, in Moscow
1993 Myrna Loy, age 88 - Actress (Thin Man movies, Airport 1975, Topaz, Midnight Lace, The Best Years of Our Lives)
On this Day
1819 Alabama became the 22nd state of the Union
1836 London's first railway began operation
1841 Samuel Cunard was awarded an 8 year contract to operate a fast stage coach service in Nova Scotia between Halifax and Pictou through Truro, with an annual subsidy of £1550. The contract required each trip to be completed within 17 hours, one way, with four horses per coach. The line was to connect at Pictou with the steam packet boats running between Pictou and Quebec, and at Halifax with boats running to England. It was to be a link in the British Admiralty's new London-Quebec Royal Mail service
1900 The Quantum Theory of modern physics was born as German physicist Max Planck published his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a "blackbody" substance. Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter. According to theories of classical physics, energy is solely a continuous wave-like phenomenon, independent of the characteristics of physical matter. The new theory holds that radiant energy is made up of particle-like components, known as quantum. Planck's quantum theory helps to resolve previously unexplainable natural phenomenon. Today, the combination of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relatively is the basis of modern physics
1901 Yoho National Park, in British Columbia, was opened with land that had been set aside in 1885
1902 Work was begun laying the first transpacific telegraph. The cable connected San Francisco and Honolulu with some 2,620 miles of telegraph wire. The cable was laid out by a ship, which left San Francisco on December 14 and reached Honolulu on January 1, 1903. The first message was sent on January 3, and the telegraph opened for public use two days later
1909 The famous brick surface of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (The Brickyard) was finished on this day. The Speedway had its Grand Opening three days later, when the brickwork was ceremoniously completed by Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana, who cemented the last "golden" brick
1911 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole, beating a British expedition led by Robert F. Scott, who arrived at the pole 35 days behind them. Amundsen had already gained recognition five years earlier when he became the first to navigate the Northwest passage. Amundsen sailed for Antarctica in June 1910, where Scott was also headed with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In early 1911, Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica's Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. In October, both explorers set off, with Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. On December 14th, Amundsen's expedition won the race to the Pole and returned safely to base camp in late January. After his historic Antarctic journey, Amundsen established a successful shipping business. He later made attempts to become the first explorer to fly over the North Pole. In 1925, in an airplane, he flew within 150 miles of the goal. In 1926, he passed over the North Pole in a dirigible just three days after US explorer Richard E. Byrd had apparently done so in an aircraft. In 1996, a diary that Byrd had kept on the flight was found that seemed to suggest that the he had turned back 150 miles short of his goal because of an oil leak, making Amundsen's dirigible expedition the first flight over the North Pole. In 1928, Amundsen lost his life while trying to rescue a fellow explorer whose dirigible had crashed at sea near Spitsbergen, Norway
1916 Denmark voted by a plebiscite to sell its Caribbean possessions to the US for 25-million dollars
1918 The first woman elected to British Parliament was Constance, the Countess Markievicz, who won for Sinn Fein, contesting a Dublin seat. She was unable to take her seat as she was in Holloway Prison, London. That is why Lady Astor was officially recognised as the first woman member of Parliament, when she took her seat in 1919
1934 Women in Turkey were given the right to vote
1947 The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR, was founded at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was the first formal organisation for stock-car racing, a sport said to have begun with souped-up bootlegger hot-rods during Prohibition. Starting in 1953, the major auto makers invested heavily in racing teams, producing faster cars than ever before: good results on the stock-car circuit were believed to mean better sales on the showroom floor. In 1957, however, rising costs and tightened NASCAR rules forced the factories out of the sport, and the modern era of the NASCAR superspeedway began
1962 The first data were transmitted from Venus by the US space probe Mariner 2. The spacecraft came within 22,000 miles of Venus and measured the temperature and other characteristics of the planet, and then radioed the data back to Earth.
1973 John Paul Getty II, teenage grandson of the oil tycoon, was set free by his Italian kidnappers after part of his ear had been cut off and sent by post, together with a ransom note demanding US$750,000 which was finally paid by his grandfather
1985 Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe as she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
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