1720 Bonnie Prince Charlie – Also known as The Young Pretender, born in Rome. He landed in Scotland in 1745 with his followers, capturing Edinburgh and setting up court at the Palace of Holyrood. His decision to march on London brought him head on with the British Army and defeat at Culloden in 1746
1869 Henri Matisse – French painter whose work influenced many 20th century artists
1878 Elizabeth Arden – Canadian-born beautician and cosmetics manufacturer. After training as a nurse, she went to New York in 1907 and opened the Elizabeth Arden beauty salon on Fifth Avenue in 1910
1905 Jule Styne – British born US composer who gave up his career as a concert pianist to write musicals (Gypsy, Funny Girl)
1908 Jonah Jones – Musician and trumpet player, singer. He played with Cab Calloway and threw the spitball that got Dizzy Gillespie fired from the band
1920 Rex Allen – Entertainer, rodeo star, singer and songwriter who published over 300 songs. He was known as The Arizona Cowboy
1928 Ross Barbour – Singer with the group The Four Freshmen (It's a Blue World, Charmaine, Love is Just Around the Corner)
1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins – Welsh actor (The Lion in Winter, A Bridge Too Far, Silence of the Lambs, The Bunker, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Remains of the Day, Elephant Man, The Bounty, Nixon)
1940 Tim Considine – Actor (My Three Sons, The Daring Dobermans, The Shaggy Dog, Spin and Marty)
1941 Sarah Miles - Actress (Ryan's Daughter, Dynasty, Queenie, The Big Sleep, Lady Caroline Lamb)
1942 Andy Summers - Rock musician with the group The Police (Message in a Bottle, Roxanne)
1943 John Denver – Singer/songwriter (Take Me Home Country Roads, Sunshine on my Shoulders, Annie's Song, Rocky Mountain High, Fly Away, Calypso, Thank God I'm a Country Boy)
1943 Ben Kingsley – British actor (Gandhi, Schindler's List, Sneakers, Joseph, Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Bugsy, Coronation Street) He played Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes spoof, Without a Clue
1947 Burton Cummings – Canadian rock musician and pianist with the Winnipeg group The Guess Who (No Time, American Woman, These Eyes, Laughing, Bus Rider, Share the Land) and solo (Stand Tall, You Saved My Soul)
1947 Tim Matheson - Actor (Wolf Lake, National Lampoon's Animal House, Yours Mine and Ours, Magnum Force, Fletch, The Virginian)
1948 Donna Summer - US singer (Last Dance, Hot Stuff, He's a Rebel, Forgive Me, Love to Love You Baby, I Feel Love, Bad Girls, She Works Hard for the Money, On the Radio)
1951 Barbara Carrera – Actress (Never Say Never Again, Lakota Moon, Dallas, Masada, Centennial)
1952 George Thorogood – Rock musician with George Thorogood and the Destroyers (Bad to the Bone, One Bourbon One Scotch & One Beer)
1953 James Remar – Actor (Dexter, Sex and the City, What Lies Beneath, The Christmas Hope, Pineapple Express, North Shore, Blade: Trinity, The Cotton Club)
1958 Bebe Neuwirth – Actress (Cheers, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Dash and Lilly, Jumanji, Bugsy , Madame Secretary)
1959 Val Kilmer – Actor (Thunderheart, Tombstone, Top Secret, Top Gun, The Saint) He also played Batman
1969 Lance Reddick – Actor (Fringe, Lost, The Wire, The Siege, Oz, Great Expectations, John Wick)
Died this Day
1775 Richard Montgomery – US Brigadier-General who led his outnumbered colonial forces in an ill-fated assault against Québec City. Montgomery had fewer than one thousand men for the attack, which he launched during a blizzard. He was killed early in the battle and the operation quickly collapsed
1980 Marshall McLuhan, age 69 - Canadian writer and communications philosopher, who said about TV, “The medium is the message”
1985 Rick Nelson, age 45 – US actor (The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Rio Bravo, The Wackiest Ship in the Army) and singer (I’m Walkin’, Travelin’ Man, Hello Mary Lou, Teenage Idol, Garden Party) He was killed along with his fiancée and five members of The Stone Canyon Band, when fire broke out in a malfunctioning gas heater aboard a DC-3 that crashed in a field near DeKalb, Texas. The plane was taking the group to a New Year's Eve performance in Dallas
1997 Michael Kennedy, age 39 - Son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado
On this Day
1600 The East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I. She granted the formal charter to the London merchants trading to the East Indies, hoping to break the Dutch monopoly of the spice trade in what is now Indonesia. In the first few decades of its existence, Britain's East India Company made far less progress in the East Indies than it did in India itself, where it acquired unequalled trade privileges from India's Mogul emperors. By the 1630s, the company abandoned its East Indies operations almost entirely, and concentrated on its lucrative trade of Indian textiles and Chinese tea. In the early 18th century, the company increasingly became an agent of British imperialism as it intervened more and more in Indian and Chinese political affairs. The company had its own military, which defeated the rival French East India Company in 1752 and the Dutch in 1759. In 1773, the British government passed the Regulating Act to reign in the company. The company's possessions in India were subsequently managed by a British governor general, and it gradually lost political and economic autonomy. The parliamentary acts of 1813 ended the East India Company's trade monopoly, and in 1834 it was transformed into a managing agency for the British government of India. In 1857, a revolt by Indian soldiers in the Bengal army of the company developed into a widespread uprising against British rule in India. After the so-called Indian Mutiny was crushed in 1858, the British government assumed direct control over India, and in 1873 the East India Company was dissolved
1638 A lunar eclipse in Huron country in Ontario panicked natives, who placed the blame on the Jesuits
1646 The first play was performed at Quebec City, Quebec. It was Le Cid, by Corneille
1687 The first Huguenots set sail from France for the Cape of Good Hope, where they would escape religious persecution and create the South African wine industry with the vines they took with them on the voyage
1695 The Window Tax was imposed in Britain. This resulted in many windows being bricked up, the evidence of which can still be seen today
1775 During the American Revolution, Patriot forces under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery were defeated by the British defenders of the city of Quebec in Canada. Early in December, Arnold and Montgomery met on the outskirts of Quebec and demanded the surrender of the city. Governor Sir Guy Carleton rejected their demand, and a week later, the Patriots commenced a bombardment of Quebec, and were met by a counterbattery by the British defenders that disabled several of the Patriots' guns. At 4 am on the 31st, the Patriot forces advanced on the city under the cover of a blizzard. The British defenders were ready, and when Montgomery's forces came within 50 yards of the fortified city they opened fire with a barrage of artillery and musket fire. Montgomery was killed in the first assault, and his men were forced into retreat. Arnold's division suffered a similar fate during their attack of the northern wall of the city, as a two-gun battery opened fire on them as they advanced, killing many and wounding Benedict Arnold in the leg. Patriot Daniel Morgan assumed command and made progress against the defenders, but halted at the second wall of fortifications to wait for reinforcements. By the time the rest of Arnold's army finally arrived, the British had reorganised and the attack was called off. Of the 900 Patriots who participated in the siege, 60 were killed and wounded and more than 400 were captured. The remaining Patriot forces then retreated from the invasion of Canada. As they crossed the St. Lawrence River to safety, Benedict Arnold remained in Canadian territory until the last of his soldiers had escaped. With the pursuing British forces almost in firing range, Arnold checked one last time to make sure all his men had escaped. He then shot his horse and fled down the St. Lawrence in a canoe. Less than five years later, Benedict Arnold, as commander of West Point, famously became a traitor when he agreed to surrender the important Hudson River fort to the British for a bribe of £20,000. The plot was uncovered after British spy John André was captured with incriminating papers, forcing Arnold to flee to British protection and join in their fight against the country that he once so valiantly served
1857 Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada, but the official announcement did not come until January 27th. One critic of the choice described Ottawa as a "sub-Arctic lumber village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit"
1860 Canada's first railway tunnel was opened in Brockville, Ontario
1862 President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union
1879 Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light by lighting up a street in Menlo Park, New Jersey. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company ran special trains to Menlo Park on the day of the demonstration in response to public enthusiasm over the event. Although the first incandescent lamp had been produced 40 years earlier, no inventor had been able to come up with a practical design until Edison embraced the challenge in the late 1870s. After countless tests, he developed a high-resistance carbon-thread filament that burned steadily for hours and an electric generator sophisticated enough to power a large lighting system
1897 Brooklyn, NY spent its last day as a separate entity before becoming part of New York City
1899 Eva Mudge Nelson became the first woman in the US to drive an automobile. During a race in New York City her "locomobile" skidded on snow and knocked down five spectators
1909 The Manhattan Bridge, a graceful 1,470-foot span across the East River, opened to traffic. It was the fourth bridge between Manhattan and the boroughs across the river
1911 Marie Curie received her second Nobel Prize, this one in Chemistry for her isolation of the element of metallic radium and other earlier discoveries in the field of chemistry. She was the first person to be awarded a second Nobel Prize, eight years after she became the first woman ever to be honoured with a Nobel Prize
1923 Big Ben's chimes were first broadcast over the radio in London
1929 In New York City, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played Auld Lang Syne to usher in the New Year for the very first time, in their first annual New Year's Eve Party at the Hotel Roosevelt Grill. The show, first broadcast over the CBS radio network, was the longest running annual special program in radio history
1938 In Indianapolis, Dr. R.N. Harper’s “Drunkometer” was officially used to breathalyse drivers by the Indianapolis Police Department
1946 President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II
1960 The farthing ceased to be legal tender at midnight in Britain
1974 Private US citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years
1975 NBC displayed its famous peacock logo for the last time. A stylised version was introduced years later
1995 The comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" was published for the last time. Bill Watterson had decided earlier in the year to end the comic strip about the adventures of six-year-old Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes.
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