1581 James Ussher - Anglo-Irish prelate who calculated the age of the Earth from the Bible
1642 Sir Isaac Newton - British mathematician, astronomer and physicist who discovered the law of gravity. He hypothesised that a cannonball shot at high velocity would eventually orbit the Earth
1746 Benjamin Rush - US physician, political leader, and signer of the Declaration of Independence
1785 Jakob Grimm - German librarian and amasser of folktales with his younger brother Wilhelm Karl (Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin) As young men, the two brothers assisted some friends with research for an important collection of folk lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers' work, suggested they publish some of the oral folktales they'd collected. The collection appeared as Children's and Household Tales, later known as Grimm's Fairy Tales, in several volumes between 1812 and 1822. The brothers developed the tales by listening to storytellers and attempting to reproduce their words and techniques as faithfully as possible. Their methods helped establish the scientific approach to the documentation of folklore, and their collection became a world-wide classic. Jacob continued researching stories and language, and published an influential book of German grammar. He also did important work in language study and developed a principle, called Grimm's Law, regarding the relation of languages to each other. In 1829, the brothers became librarians and professors at the University of Gottingen, and Jacob published another important work, German Mythologies, exploring the beliefs of pre-Christian Germans. In 1840, King Frederick William IV of Prussia invited the brothers to Berlin, where they became members of the Royal Academy of Science
1797 Wilhelm Beer - German astronomer who made the first map of the moon
1809 Louis Braille - French educator and inventor of a reading system that could be felt and interpreted by the blind. However, it was not widely recognised until after his death
1813 Sir Isaac Pitman - British educator and inventor of a standardised form of shorthand writing
1905 Sterling Holloway - Actor (The Life of Riley, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) and voice actor (Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book) He had an uncredited role as Colonel Terry in the 1966 movie, Batman
1914 Jane Wyman - Actress (Johnny Belinda, Falcon Crest) She was the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan
1920 Rosalie Crutchley – British actress (Little Dorrit, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage, Smiley's People, Elizabeth R, The Haunting, A Tale of Two Cities) She played Mrs Lexington in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Norwood Builder
1927 Barbara Rush – Actress (Flamingo Road, The Seekers, Peyton Place, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Magnificent Obsession) She played Nora Clavicle in the Batman episode Nora Clavicle and Her Ladies' Crime Club
1927 Betty Kennedy - Canadian broadcaster (Front Page Challenge)
1930 Iain Cuthbertson – British actor (The Railway Children, Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, Seaforth, Super Gran, Danger UXB, Sutherland’s Law) He played Desmond McNutt in the Inspector Morse episode Masonic Mysteries
1930 Sorrell Booke – Actor (The Dukes of Hazzard, Fail-Safe, Soap, Rich Man, Poor Man: Book II, The Iceman Cometh)
1935 Floyd Patterson - US heavyweight boxing champion and the youngest world title holder
1937 Dyan Cannon - Actress (Heaven Can Wait, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Ally McBeal, The Last of Sheila, Deathtrap) She played Josie Joplin in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Jealous Joker
1957 Julian Sands - British actor (Leaving Las Vegas, Arachnophobia, A Room With A View, The Killing Fields)
1963 Dave Foley - Canadian actor (The Kids in the Hall, News Radio)
1965 Julia Ormond – British actress (Sabrina, Legends of the Fall, Young Catherine)
1974 Flora Montgomery – British actress (Poirot: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The Murdoch Mysteries, Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairy Tale, Metropolis, Heat of the Sun)
Died this Day
1821 Elizabeth Ann Seton - She was the first native-born US saint. She died in
Emmitsburg, Maryland
1908 Ned Hanlan, age 53 - Canadian rowing champion. Hanlan was Ontario's best sculler by 1873 and four years later, he won the Dominion championship. The next year, he won the US title, and he held the World title for five years until defeated in 1884. Hanlan was Canada's first world sports champion. He is memorialised by Hanlan's Point on the Toronto Islands
1960 Albert Camus, age 46 - Algerian born French author (Caligula, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, L'Etranger) and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in an automobile accident in France
1965 T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot, age 76 - US-born British poet (The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, McAvity the Mystery Cat) He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a well-established family. His grandfather had founded Washington University in St. Louis, his father was a businessman, and his mother was involved in local charities. Eliot took an undergraduate degree at Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne, returned to Harvard to study Sanskrit, and then studied at Oxford. After meeting poet and lifelong friend Ezra Pound, Eliot moved permanently to England. Eliot began working at Lloyd's Bank in 1917, writing reviews and essays on the side. He founded a critical quarterly, Criterion, and quietly developed a new brand of poetry. His long, fragmented images and use of blank verse influenced nearly all future poets. While Eliot is best known for revolutionising modern poetry, his literary criticism and plays were also successful. Eliot lectured in the US frequently in the 1930s and '40s, a time when his own worldview was undergoing rapid change as he converted to Christianity. He died in London
1967 Donald Campbell – British auto and boat racer. He died while travelling at a speed of more than 300 mph as he was attempting to break the water speed record on Lake Conistion in Cumbria. His boat, Bluebird K7, flipped and appeared to disintegrate. In 2001, a diving team from Northumberland finally retrieved what was left of Bluebird, and later the remains of Donald Campbell so he could be given a proper burial. He was buried in St. Andrew’s Church, Coniston, Cumbria, 12th September 2001
1986 Christopher Isherwood, age 81 - British author (Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Prater Violet, The Condor and the Cows, Exhumations) His novel, Goodbye to Berlin, was adapted as the musical Cabaret
On this Day
1493 Columbus sailed for Spain from the New World
1835 The first chess column appeared in a newspaper, Bell's Life, in London
1885 Dr. William W. Grant of Davenport, Iowa, performed what is believed to have been the first appendectomy. The patient was a 22-year-old farm girl, Mary Gartside
1896 Utah was admitted to the Union as the 45th state, six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah. In 1823, Vermont-born Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni visited him and told him about an ancient Hebrew text that had lost been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native-American historian in the fourth century, related the story of Jewish peoples who had lived in North America in ancient times. Over the next six years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830, The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Fayette, New York. The religion rapidly gained converts and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. However, the sect was also heavily criticised for its unorthodox practices and in June 1844, Smith and his brother were murdered in a jail cell by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois. Two years later, Smith's successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, along the western wagon trails in search of religious and political freedom. In July 1847, the 148 initial Mormon pioneers reached Utah's Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Upon viewing the valley, Young declared: "This is the place," and the pioneers began preparations for the tens of thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore named Young the first governor of the territory of Utah, and the territory enjoyed relative autonomy for several years. Relations became strained, however, when reports reached Washington that Mormon leaders were disregarding federal law and had publicly sanctioned the practice of polygamy. In 1857, President James Buchanan removed Young, a polygamist with over 20 wives, from his position as governor, and sent US army troops to Utah to establish federal authority. Tensions between the territory of Utah and the federal government continued until Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Mormon Church, issued his Manifesto in 1890, renouncing the traditional practice of polygamy, and reducing the domination of the church over Utah communities. Six years later, the territory of Utah was granted statehood
1936 Billboard magazine published the first pop music chart based on national sales
1961 The world's longest labour strike ended after 33 years. It concerned employment of barbers' apprentices in Copenhagen
1964 Pope Paul VI began a visit to the Holy Land. At the same time, he became the first pontiff to travel by airplane
1966 Following a kidney ailment, 17-year-old June Clark of Miami began a sneezing attack that lasted 155 days. Electric treatment finally stopped the sneezing
1971 Ottawa withdrew troops from Montréal and other areas of Québec in the wake of the October Crisis that started the previous autumn when the Front de Liberation du Québec (FLQ), a militant separatist group who employed terrorist tactics, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Richard Cross and Québec labour minister Pierre Laporte. In exchange for the lives of the men, the FLQ demanded the release of two dozen FLQ members convicted of various charges, including kidnappings, bombings, and arms theft. When the Canadian government refused their demands, Laporte was found strangled to death, eight days after he was abducted. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau responded by banning the FLQ, suspending civil liberties in Québec, invoking the War Measures Act, and sending thousands of troops into the province. In a series of police raids, over 500 Québec separatists were taken into custody and held without charges. The apartment building holding Cross and his kidnappers was discovered in late November. After a tense stand-off, the kidnappers agreed to release Cross in return for safe passage to Cuba for themselves and their families. Cross was freed after the group arrived in Cuba. Laporte's kidnappers were later arrested and convicted of kidnapping and murder
1975 A US Antarctic research aircraft found ice three miles thick near Wilkes Land. It is believed the thickest ice discovered on Earth
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