1367 King Richard II of England - Son of Edward the Black Prince. He was born in Bordeaux
1412 Joan of Arc - French heroine who was known as the Maid of Orleans and who liberated the city of Orleans from the English. She believed she had a divine mission to expel the British from France. It ended with her capture by the Burgundians, who sold her to the British. She was eventually burned at the stake as a witch, but later became a Roman Catholic saint
1655 Jakob Bernoulli - Swiss mathematician
1745 Jacques Etienne Montgolfier - French balloonist and paper manufacturer, who with his brother Joseph, made the first successful flight in a hot-air balloon
1798 Jedediah Strong Smith - US trapper-explorer, born in Bainbridge, New York. He explored a large area of the Far West and learned from friendly Crow Indians of an easy pass through the Rocky Mountains. In the 1820s, Smith and his men followed the route outlined by the Crow and discovered that they could cross the Rockies almost effortlessly. Later named the South Pass, Smith's new route was a high plain that gradually rose like a shallow ramp to provide an easy crossing of the Continental Divide. Smith's discovery of South Pass was actually a "rediscovery," since employees of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company crossed the pass in 1812 when returning to St. Louis from the Pacific. The Astorian discovery, though, remained unknown, so Smith is credited for alerting the nation to the existence of this easy route across the Rockies. Smith's rediscovery of South Pass was monumentally important. Not only did his fellow fur trappers prefer South Pass to the far more difficult and dangerous Missouri River route blazed by Lewis and Clark in 1804, but the South Pass became a popular route for early 19th century settlers bound for Oregon and California. Ideally suited for heavy wagon traffic, South Pass greatly facilitated mass emigration to the Far West. As well as blazing the South Pass route, Smith also explored the Great Salt Lake, the Colorado Plateau, and led the first expedition to cross the Southwest to California
1822 Heinrich Schliemann - German archaeologist who discovered and excavated the legendary cities of Troy and Mycenae
1854 Sherlock Holmes - This is the recognised date of his birth among Sherlockians
1878 Carl Sandburg - US author and poet (Abraham Lincoln, Chicago, Grass, The People, Yes)
1880 Tom Mix - US actor in silent movies beginning 1909. He was Hollywood's biggest 1920s cowboy star, and had the Tom Mix radio series
1913 Loretta Young - Actress (The Farmer's Daughter, The Loretta Young Show, A Night to Remember, Shanghai)
1914 Danny Thomas - Actor and philanthropist (Make Room for Daddy, The Jazz Singer, One Big Family) He founded the St. Jude's Children's Research Centre in Memphis, Tennessee, and was the father of actress Marlo Thomas
1924 Earl Scruggs - Musician and banjo player with the groups Bluegrass Boys, Foggy Mountain Boys (Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Ballad of Jed Clampett) Hes a member of the Grand Ole Opry
1930 Vic Tayback - Actor (Alice, The Cheap Detective, The Choirboys, The Shaggy D.A., The Gambler, Bullitt, The Jesse Owens Story, Griff, Papillon)
1931 Capucine French actress (The Pink Panther, What's New Pussycat, Walk on the Wild Side, North to Alaska, The Lion, The 7th Dawn)
1934 Sylvia Syms British actress (At Home with the Braithwaites, What a Girl Wants, The Jury, Peak Practice, Shining Through, Shirley Valentine, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced, Nancy Astor, The World of Suzie Wong)
1944 Bonnie Franklin - Actress (One Day at a Time, The Kettles in the Ozarks, A Guide for the Married Woman)
1955 Rowan Atkinson - British comedian and stage and screen actor (Mr. Bean, Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Secret Policeman's Ball, Bernard and the Genie, The Thin Blue Line)
1978 Tara Spencer-Nairn Canadian actress (Corner Gas, The Listener, New Waterford Girl, Moville Mysteries)
1989 Max Pirkis British actor (Rome, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World)
Died this Day
1852 Louis Braille - French inventor of a reading system for the blind, he died two days after his 43rd birthday
1918 George Cantor - German mathematician who worked on the theory of infinity
1919 Teddy Roosevelt, age 60 - The 26th President of the US. He died at Sagamore Hill, his estate overlooking New York's Long Island Sound. A dynamic and energetic politician, Theodore Roosevelt was credited with creating the modern presidency. In 1898, as assistant secretary to the US Navy, Roosevelt vehemently advocated war with Spain. When the Spanish-American War began, he formed the "Rough Riders," a volunteer cavalry that became famous for its contribution to the US victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba. The publicity-minded Roosevelt rode his military fame to the New York governor's seat in 1898 and to the vice presidency in 1900. In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt became president. He was elected to a second term in 1904. He insisted on a strong navy, encouraged the independence of Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal, promoted the regulation of trusts and monopolies, and set aside land for the US's first national parks and monuments. In 1906, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. In the last few years of his life, Roosevelt became a vocal advocate of the US entrance into World War I and sought, unsuccessfully, to win a commission to lead a US Army division in Europe
1993 Dizzy Gillespie, age 75 - Jazz trumpeter. He died in Englewood, NJ
1993 Rudolph Nureyev, age 54 - Celebrated Russian ballet dancer who had electrified audiences for three decades after defecting from the Soviet Union
On this Day
1066 Harold Godwineson, head of the most powerful noble family in England, was crowned England's King Harold II, following the death of Edward the Confessor. He was the last Anglo-Saxon king of England. On his deathbed, Edward supposedly designated Harold the royal heir, but this claim was disputed by William, duke of Normandy and cousin of the late king. In addition, King Harald III Hardraade of Norway had designs on England, as did Tostig, brother of Harold. Later that year, in October, Harold was shot through the eye with an arrow and killed in the Battle of Hastings, where his forces were defeated by William the Conqueror. In late December of the same year, William the Conqueror was crowned the first Norman King of England, and the English language and culture were changed forever
1540 England's King Henry VIII married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves
1759 George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married
1786 The first sitting of the New Brunswick legislature took place in Saint John
1838 Samuel Morse demonstrated his telegraph system for the first time at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. Morse, a portrait artist and art teacher at New York University, also had a keen interest in electricity. Returning from an art study trip to Europe, Morse overheard a conversation that inspired him to create an electric telegraph. He spent several years developing his prototype. Morse tried to persuade Congress to back a national telegraph line, but he had a long battle ahead of him: Congress did not grant him financial support until 1844 for the construction of the nation's first telegraph line, from Baltimore to Washington
1912 New Mexico became the 47th state of the Union
1918 During the First World War, while diving to escape German fighters, Canadian Captain J. Hedley was sucked from his seat and out of his plane. When the plane levelled out, the aviator was sitting safely near the tail. The slipstream had pulled him back onto the plane
1928 The River Thames flooded, causing four people to drown. It filled the moat of the Tower of London, and the basement of the Tate Gallery, where many paintings were severely damaged
1936 Barbara Hanley became Canada's first woman mayor when she was elected in the Northern Ontario town of Webbwood
1942 The Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper arrived in New York after making the first round-the-world trip by a commercial airplane
1994 Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan was hit on the leg after she finished practice in Detroit for the US figure skating championships. A rival, Tonya Harding, gained infamy for her part in the attack, which also involved Harding's ex-husband
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