1752 Philip Freneau - US poet (The Indian Burying Ground, The American Village, The British Prison Ship)
1727 James Wolfe - The British general who captured Quebec, but died in the battle on the Plains of Abraham in 1759
1881 Frederick Horsman Varley - British-born Canadian painter. He was a founding member of the Group of Seven, an influential Canadian art group, and became an official World War I war artist, painting battlefields and cemeteries. During the late 1920s he painted landscapes, then expressionistic portraits
1904 Sally Rand - US fan dancer and actress (Bolero, Golf Widows, The Sunset Murder Case)
1920 Isaac Asimov - Russian born biochemist and sci-fi writer (I Robot, the Foundation trilogy, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun) His novels and stories envisioned many aspects of modern technology. In his work, he coined the terms "robot" and "robotics." He was also a Sherlockian and a member of the Baker Street Irregulars
1922 Jason Evers - Actor (The Brain That Wouldn't Die, The Guns of Will Sonnett, The Green Berets)
1930 Julius LaRosa - Singer (Anywhere I Wander, Eh Cumpari)
1936 Roger Miller - Songwriter (Invitation to the Blues, You Don't Want My Love, Big River) and singer (Dang Me, King of the Road, Chug-a-Lug)
1939 Jim Bakker - Former TV evangelist
1947 “Jungle Jack” Hanna – Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium who has appeared on numerous shows promoting wildlife (The Late Show With David Letterman, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures)
1967 Tia Carrere - Actress (True Lies, Wayne's World, Relic Hunter)
1968 Cuba Gooding Jr. - Actor (Jerry Maguire, A Few Good Men, As Good As It Gets, A Murder of Crows, Men of Honour)
1971 Taye Diggs – Actor (Chicago, Private Practice, Day Break, Kevin Hill, Equilibrium, Ally McBeal, House on Haunted Hill, How Stella Got Her Groove Back)
Died this Day
1974 Tex Ritter - US singing cowboy (High Noon, The Old Chisolm Trail, Blood on the Saddle) He was the father of actor John Ritter. He died ten days before his 69th birthday
1990 Alan Hale Jr., age 71 - Actor (Gilligan's Island, Casey Jones, Johnny Dangerously, Destry) He was in the Perry Mason episodes The Case of the Unwelcome Bride and The Case of the Bouncing Boomerang He also portrayed Gilligan in the Batman episode The Ogg and I
On this Day
1492 The reconquest of Spain took place, as the kingdom of Granada fell to the Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I, and the Moors lost their last foothold in Spain. Located at the confluence of the Darro and Genil rivers in southern Spain, the city of Granada was a Moorish fortress that rose to prominence during the reign of Sultan Almoravid in the 11th century. In 1238, the Christian Reconquest forced Spanish Muslims south, and the kingdom of Granada was established as the last refuge of the Moorish civilisation. Granada flourished culturally and economically for the next 200 years, but in the late 15th century internal feuds and a strengthened Spanish monarchy under Ferdinand and Isabella signalled the end of Moorish civilisation in Spain. King Boabdil surrendered Granada to the Spanish forces, and in 1502 the Spanish crown ordered all Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity. The next century saw a number of persecutions, and in 1609 the last Moors still adhering to Islam were expelled from Spain
1635 Cardinal Richelieu established the Académie Français to maintain the purity of the French language
1757 Clive of India captured Calcutta after it had been seized by the Nawab of Bengal. The Nawab had imprisoned 146 British prisoners in the "black hole". Only 23 survived
1788 Georgia voted to ratify the US Constitution, becoming the fourth state of the Union. Named after King George II, Georgia was first settled by Europeans in 1733, when a group of British debtors led by English philanthropist James E. Oglethorpe travelled up the Savannah River and established Georgia's first permanent settlement at the town of Savannah. In 1742, as part of a larger conflict between Spain and Great Britain, Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish on St. Simons Island in Georgia, effectively ending Spanish claims to the territory of Georgia. Georgia, rich in export potential, was one of the most prosperous British colonies in the New World and was thus slower than the other colonies to resent the oppressive acts of the Parliament and King George III. However, by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Georgian Patriots had organised, and delegates were sent to the Second Continental Congress. During the war, Georgia was heavily divided between Loyalists and Patriots, and the British soon held most of the state. Savannah served as a key British base for their southern war operations, and the grim four-year British occupation won many Georgians over to the Patriot cause. Georgia was the first southern state to ratify the US Constitution
1839 French photographic pioneer, Louis Daguerre, took the first photograph of the moon
1872 Canada and the US exchanged telegraphic weather reports for the first time
1897 US writer Stephen Crane survived the sinking of The Commodore off the coast of Florida. After The Commodore sank, Crane and four of his shipmates spent a day in a 10-foot lifeboat before they reached Daytona Beach. Crane published an account of his harrowing adventure in a New York newspaper five days later, which became his classic short story, The Open Boat. The 25-year-old writer had gained international fame with the publication of his novel, The Red Badge of Courage, the previous year
1900 The first electric omnibus ran in New York City
1908 The Royal Mint of Canada was founded at Ottawa, Ontario. It functioned as a branch of the British Royal Mint
1929 The United States and Canada reached an agreement on joint action to preserve Niagara Falls and limit the diversion of water for hydro generation
1929 Bush pilots Wop May and Vic Horner left Edmonton to fly diphtheria vaccines to Fort Vermilion, Alberta, over 300 miles to the north. It had taken a 12-day journey by dogsled to bring news of the emergency to the nearest telegraph. The flyers made the journey in an open aircraft in sub-zero Fahrenheit temperatures, with oil burners to keep the vaccine from freezing. They were met by ten thousand people when they returned to Edmonton. May was later awarded the McKee Trophy for service to Canadian aviation. Wop May's original notoriety was as the Red Baron's final target in WWI, when the Red Baron was shot down
1935 Bruno Hauptmann went on trial in Flemington, NJ on charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. He was found guilty the following month. After two stays of execution, he went to the electric chair in April, 1936
1942 The Navy Airship Patrol Group 1 and Air Ship Squadron 12 were established at Lakehurst, NJ. The US Navy was the only military service in the world to use airships, also known as blimps, during the war. The US Navy was actually behind the times in the use of blimps. It didn't get around to ordering its first until 1915, at which time the US Army was using them. By the close of World War I, the Navy had recognised their value and was using several blimps for patrolling coastlines for enemy submarines. They proved extremely effective, and no convoy supported by blimp surveillance ever lost a ship. Between the wars, it was agreed that the Army would use nonrigid airships to patrol the coasts of the US, while the Navy would use rigid airships for long-range scouting and fleet support. The rigid airships were aluminium-hulled and kept their shape whether or not they were filled with gas. The Navy ended its construction and employment of the rigid airships in the 1930s after two, the Akron and the Macon, crashed at sea. In 1937, the Army transferred all its remaining nonrigid blimps to the Navy. At the outbreak of World War II, the Navy had 10 blimps in service, and that number expanded to 167 by the end of the war. The only US blimp lost was the K-74, which, on July 18, 1943, spotted a German U-boat. The blimp opened fire on the submarine and damaged it, but only one of its two depth charges released. The submarine fired back and sent the blimp into the sea. The crew was rescued. The only German blimp involved in the war was a passenger craft, Graf Zeppelin, which was used for electronic surveillance just before the outbreak of the war. Meanwhile, in the civilian world, the Hindenburg, a commercial dirigible, burst into flames over Lakehurst in May, 1937. The tragedy effectively ended the use of airships for commercial travel, but they were still used to great advantage in the US military
1960 Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination
1965 The New York Jets signed University of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for a reported $400,000
1974 President Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph
1977 In Indianapolis, the Reverend Jacqueline Means celebrated her first communion as the first female priest of the Episcopal Church. She had been ordained the previous day
1984 The VHS format defeated the Beta format in the battle for videotape standards as the Zenith Radio Corporation announced it would stop selling Beta-format videocassette recorders and start selling VHS. Zenith was the first of many companies to switch from the Beta to the VHS format. The two standards had battled it out for more than six years. VHS won out largely because a larger number of video programs were produced in VHS rather than Beta. The standards war between Beta and VHS indicated that programming, software, or other content could dictate the outcome of hardware standards wars, a pattern that would be repeated in the coming battles to establish personal computing standards
1990 Panama's dictator, General Manuel Noriega, surrendered to US authorities after being promised that he would not face the death penalty. Following a lengthy trial, he was tried and convicted on drug charges
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