1716 Thomas Gray – British poet (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Agrippina, Progress of Poesy, The Fatal Sisters)
1791 Charles Babbage – British inventor and mathematician who proposed the idea of a mechanical calculator in 1812. By 1823, Parliament had granted Babbage funding to build his machine, the Difference Engine, which is considered to be the first computer. Babbage's protege, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, helped devise a method to program the machine using punched cards. Babbage devoted the next ten years of his life to building the Difference Engine, spending £17,000 pounds of government funding. Unfortunately, Babbage ran out of funds to build the machine and was forced to abandon the project in 1848. In 1854, a Swedish engineer finally succeeded in constructing a Difference Engine based on Babbage's theories. The machine was largely forgotten until Babbage's drawings were rediscovered in 1937
1891 Henry Miller – Author (Tropic of Cancer, The Colossus of Maroussi, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare)
1893 Mao Tse-Tung - Communist-revolutionist and founding father of the People's Republic of China
1903 Elisha Cook Jr – Actor (The Maltese Falcon, Magnum PI, Tin Pan Alley, The Big Sleep, Shane) He played Reelin’ Pete in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Reckless Rock Hound He also played Professor Isaacson in the Batman episodes Ice Spy and The Duo Defy
1914 Richard Widmark - Actor (Judgement at Nuremberg, Murder on the Orient Express, How the West was Won, The Alamo, Against All Odds, True Colors, Madigan)
1921 Steve Allen - TV host (The Tonight Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Benny Goodman Story), comedian, author (Murder on the Atlantic, The Bug and the Slug In the Rug, Murder in Manhattan) musician and composer (The Magic Fountain) He was married to Jayne Meadows. He played Allan Stevens in the Batman episode The Bat’s Kow Tow
1927 Alan King - Comedian, TV panellist, Las Vegas performer (Hollywood Squares, The Anderson Tapes, Author! Author!, Casino)
1937 Ronnie Prophet – Canadian country singer (San Diego, Sanctuary, Phantom of the Opry)
1944 Jane Lapotaire – British actress (Marie Curie, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Lady Jane)
Died this Day
1890 Heinrich Schliemann – German archaeologist who discovered Troy
1957 Charles Pathé – French film pioneer
1972 Harry S. Truman, age 88 - The 33rd president of the US. He died in Kansas City, Missouri
1974 Jack Benny, age 80 – US comedian whose persona was the stingy, violin-playing, perennial-39-year-old of radio, television and vaudeville. Despite the skinflint image he cultivated on the air, Benny was known for his generosity and modesty in real life. At the time of his death, he had been married to his wife, Sadye Marks, for 44 years
2000 Jason Robards Jr, age 78 – Actor (A Boy and His Dog, Philadelphia, All the President's Men, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Murders in the Rue Morgue)
2006 Gerald R. Ford, age 93 – The 38th president of the United States. He died in Rancho Mirage, California
On this Day
1610 Countess Elizabeth Bathory's torturous escapades were exposed when Count Gyorgy Thurzo made an investigative visit to Csejthe Castle in Hungary on orders from King Matthias and he discovered Bathory directing a torture session of young girls. Bathory was already infamous in the area for her torture and murder of servants and peasants, but her title and high-ranking relatives had, until this point, made her untouchable. Her bloodthirsty activities have led many to cite her as one of the first vampires in history. She was born in Transylvania in 1560 to a distinguished family that included kings, cardinals, knights, and judges. Though she counted many luminaries among her relatives, her family tree also featured some seriously disturbed kin from whom she learned sadomasochism. At the age of 15, Bathory was married to Count Nadasdy, and the couple settled into Csejthe Castle. To please his wife, her husband reportedly built a torture chamber to her specifications. Bathory's torture included jamming pins and needles under the fingernails of her servant girls, and tying them down, smearing them with honey, and leaving them to be attacked by ants. Although the count participated in his wife's cruelties, he may have also restrained her impulses, for when he died in 1600, she became much worse. Bathory began abducting peasant girls to torture and kill, and bathed in their blood in the belief that it would keep her looking young and healthy. Bathory's crimes were ignored until 1610, when she had begun to find victims among the daughters of local nobles. In January 1611, Bathory and her cohorts were put on trial for 80 counts of murder, and only Bathory escaped execution. Instead, she was confined to a room of the castle that only had slits for air and food where she survived for three years
1717 The first of the traditional English pantomimes, Harlequin Executed, was presented by John Rich at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in London. Boxing Day is the traditional starting day for the pantomimes, or pantos
1791 British Prime Minister William Pitt passed the Constitutional Act, dividing Quebec along the Ottawa River, into Upper and Lower Canada, each with a Lieutenant-Governor and a Legislature. Lower Canada retained French civil law, and Upper Canada adopted British law. The Canada Act gave the colonies their first powers to pass duties for revenue, a form of responsible government, but the governors and council retained the right to control revenue from the sale of Crown Lands
1865 James H. Nason of Franklin, Massachusetts, received a patent for a coffee percolator
1852 The New Brunswick-built ship, the Marco Polo, arrived in Liverpool, England, back from Melbourne, Australia. The trip, which usually took 240 days, was completed in just 140 days, and the Marco Polo was declared the fastest ship in the world. In 1883 it was wrecked when grounded in a gale off Cavendish, PEI
1878 John Wanamaker installed electric lights in his department store in Philadelphia. Although light bulbs had not yet been invented, electric light could be generated through arc lamps, which presented a fire hazard due to their high intensity. Although scientists had been working for years on developing a safe, mild, electric light, it wasn't until 1879 that Thomas Edison invented his version of the incandescent light bulb
1906 The world’s first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was screened in Melbourne. The film was made in Australia
1908 “Galveston Jack” Johnson became the first African-American to win the world heavyweight title when he knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 14th round in a championship bout near Sydney, Australia. Johnson held the heavyweight title until 1915, and is still remembered as the greatest defensive boxer in heavyweight history. He was born in Galveston, Texas, in 1878, dropped out of school after fifth grade and worked the docks of Galveston before taking up professional boxing. He proved himself a powerful fighter, but the rarity of champion white boxers agreeing to meet black challengers limited his opportunities and purses. In 1903, Johnson won the "Coloured Heavyweight Championship of the World", but it was not until 1908 that he had a shot at the more prestigious white heavyweight title, when Burns agreed to meet him. The boxers met at Rushcutter's Bay on the outskirts of Sydney on Boxing Day, 1908
1917 During World War I, the US government took over operation of the nation's railroads
1941 Winston Churchill became the first British prime minister to address a joint meeting of the US Congress. The address came less than three weeks after the US entrance into World War II. Churchill, a gifted orator, urged Congress to back President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal that the US become the "great arsenal of democracy" and warned that the Axis powers would "stop at nothing" in pursuit of their war aims
1933 Edwin Armstrong, an electrical engineer at Columbia University, patented frequency modulation (FM) radio. FM signals were superior to AM (amplitude modulation) signals because they were static-free. Armstrong had already patented other important radio inventions, including the feedback receiver
1933 The Nissan Motor Company was organised in Tokyo under the name Dat Jidosha Seizo Co, and began manufacturing cars and trucks under the name Datsun
1966 The first day of the first Kwanzaa was celebrated in Los Angeles under the direction of Maulana Karenga, the chair of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. The seven-day holiday, which has strong African roots, was designed by Dr. Karenga as a nonreligious celebration of African American family, community, and culture. Karenga combined aspects of several different harvest celebrations, such as those of the Ashanti and those of the Zulu, to form the basis of Kwanzaa. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means "first fruits" in Swahili. Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but celebrations often include songs, dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry readings, and a large traditional meal. On each of the seven nights, the family gathers and a child lights one of the candles on the kinara, or candleholder, then one of the seven principles is discussed. The principles, called the Nguzo Saba, are values of African culture that contribute to building and reinforcing community among African Americans. These values include unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, economic co-operation, purpose, creativity, and faith
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