1823 Friedrich von Esmarch - German surgeon who is best known for his contributions to military surgery, including his introduction of the use of the first-aid bandage on the battlefield
1854 Jenny, Lady Randolph Churchill US born mother of Winston Churchill
1898 Dame Gracie Fields British comedienne, singer (Walter Walter, I Took My Harp to A Party, The Biggest Aspidistra in the World, Sally, Now is the Hour)
1901 Chic Young Cartoonist (Blondie) He introduced the Dagwood Sandwich to the world
1904 George Balanchine Russian born choreographer (Firebird, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker) He founded the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet
1911 Gypsy Rose Lee - Dancer, strip-tease artist and actress (You Can't Have Everything, The Trouble with Angels) She was the subject of the Broadway show & film Gypsy and the sister of actress June Havoc
1913 Richard M. Nixon The 37th President of the US, born in Yorba Linda, California
1915 Fernando Lamas Argentinean actor (The Merry Widow, The Lost World, The Cheap Detective) He was the father of Lorenzo Lamas
1920 Clive Dunn - British actor (Dad's Army, My Old Man, The Magic Christian)
1925 Lee Van Cleef Actor (The Good the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Gunfight at the OK Corral) He played Edward Doyle in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Golden Oranges
1935 Bob Denver Actor (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Gilligan's Island)
1941 Joan Baez Singer, political activist (The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, We Shall Overcome)
1941 Susannah York - British actress (Tom Jones, The Killing of Sister George, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Superman, A Man for All Seasons, The Fall of the House of Usher, Devices and Desires)
1944 Jimmy Page Rock musician with Led Zeppelin (Stairway to Heaven, Whole Lotta Love, The Immigrant Song)
1948 Bill Cowsills Singer, musician with the group Cowsills (The Rain the Park and the Other Things, Hair, Indian Lake)
1951 Crystal Gayle Singer (Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue, Half the Way) She is Loretta Lynn's sister
1955 J.K. Simmons actor (Oz, Law & Order, Spider-Man, The Mexican, The Cider House Rules, The Ref)
1956 Imelda Staunton British actress (Cranford, Big and Small, Little Britain, Nanny McPhee, Sense & Sensibility, David Copperfield, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Deadly Advice, Up the Garden Path)
1965 Rhoda Griffis Actress (The Blind Side, Drop Dead Diva, Runaway Jury, Road Trip, Year One, We Are Marshall)
1965 Joely Richardson British actress (The Patriot, Nip/Tuck, The Patriot, King Ralph, Lady Chatterley) She is the daughter of Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave, the sister of Natasha Richardson, and the cousin of Jemma Redgrave. She played Joanna Farley in the Poirot episode, The Dream
1982 Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (Kate Middleton) Wife of Prince William, who is heir to the sixteen Commonwealth thrones, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Died this Day
1848 Caroline Lucretia Herschel British astronomer who discovered nine comets. She worked as an assistant to her brother, William Herschel
1949 Tom Longboat, age 61 Native Canadian marathon runner, died on the Ohsweken Reserve near Brantford, Ontario. He won the 1907 Boston Marathon and went on to a successful professional running career. Longboat was wounded in action while serving with Canadian forces in the First World War
1995 Peter Cook, age 57 British actor (The Princess Bride, Goodbye Again, The Secret Policemans Ball, Yellowbeard, Whoops Apocalypse) He was also a writer and entertainer who was one of the original Beyond the Fringe team that revolutionised British comedy. He portrayed Greenhough in the Sherlock Holmes parody, Without a Clue and he also played Sherlock Holmes in a comedy version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
On this Day
1768 Englishman Philip Astley staged the first modern circus, performing elaborate feats on the backs of horses racing around a ring. Trick riders, acrobats, clowns, trained animals, and other familiar components of the circus have existed throughout recorded history, but it was not until the late 18th century that the modern spectacle of the circus was born in London. Astley, a former cavalry sergeant major, found that if he galloped in a tight circle, centrifugal force allowed him to perform seemingly impossible feats on a horse's back. He drew up a ring and invited the public to see him wave his sword in the air while he rode with one foot on the saddle and one on the horse's head. Astley's trick riding received such a favourable response that he soon hired other equestrians, a clown, and musicians and in 1770 built a roof over his ring and called the structure Astley's Amphitheatre. In 1772, Astley went to Versailles to perform his "daring feats of horsemanship" before King Louis XV, and he found France ripe for a permanent show of its own, which he founded in 1782. Also in 1782, a competitor in London set up shop just down the road from Astley's Amphitheatre, calling his show the Royal Circus, after the Roman name for the circular theatres where chariot races were held. In the 19th century, the term "circus" was adopted as a generic name for this new form of entertainment. Astley, who lived till 1814, eventually established 18 other circuses in cities across Europe. In 1792, English equestrian John Bill Ricketts opened the first US circus, in Philadelphia. Smaller travelling circuses arose in Europe in the early 19th century, visiting towns and cities that lacked elaborate permanent shows. Larger travelling tent shows evolved in the 1820s. In 1859, the Cirque Napoleon in Paris offered the first flying trapeze act, which remains a popular component of the modern circus. In 1871, William Cameron Coup and showman P.T. Barnum opened an enormous circus in Brooklyn that they dubbed "The Greatest Show on Earth." Ten years later, Barnum went into business with James Anthony Bailey. Their Barnum and Bailey circuses were so large they required simultaneous performances in three rings. In 1884, the five Ringling brothers staged their first circus, and they soon were buying out other circus companies, including Barnum and Bailey, which they purchased in 1907
1799 The British government introduced the world's first successful income tax scheme at 2 shillings in the pound. They were forced to take this measure because of the Napoleonic Wars
1805 The Lower Canada Parliament began a session that dealt with prohibiting Sunday shopping and assessing a tax to pay for jails
1806 Lord Horatio Nelson was buried at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, England. The British naval hero is credited with saving Britain from an invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte. In October 1805, the Royal Navy under British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the coast of Spain, and Napoleon was forced to abandon his invasion plans for England. However, at the height of the engagement, Nelson received a mortal wound while pacing the quarterdeck of the HMS Victory, and he died hours later. His body was brought back to England where it was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. A column was later erected to his memory nearby in the newly named Trafalgar Square
1811 The first women's golf tournament took place in Scotland between locals in the fishing town of Musselburgh
1816 The safety lamp invented by Britain's Sir Humphrey Davey was first used in coal mines
1861 Mississippi seceded from the Union
1863 The dome of the Church of La Madonna Del Sasso in Switzerland crashed through the roof, killing 53 praying women
1889 The Niagara Suspension Bridge collapsed during a storm
1894 New England Telephone and Telegraph put the first battery-operated telephone switchboard into operation
1899 Manitoba reached a record low of minus 52.8 Celsius (minus 63 Fahrenheit) at Norway House
1902 New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public
1929 Alexander Fleming used a penicillin broth to successfully treat his assistant Stuart Craddick's infection at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington
1956 The first Dear Abby column appeared
1958 The Toyota and Datsun (later Nissan) brand names made their first appearances in the US at the Imported Motor Car Show in Los Angeles, California. Previously, these automakers had sold in the US only under US brand names, as part of joint ventures with Ford and GM
1972 Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, speaking by telephone from the Bahamas to reporters in Hollywood, said a purported biography of him by Clifford Irving was a fake
1972 In Hong Kong harbour, a fire broke out aboard the ocean liner, RMS Queen Elizabeth, and by the next morning the famous vessel lay in a wreck on the bottom of the harbour. The Queen Elizabeth, boasting a 200,000-horsepower engine and an elegant art deco style, made its public debut in 1946, leaving Southampton, England, on its first luxurious run across the Atlantic. However, before her days as a lavish passenger liner, the Queen Elizabeth steamed across the ocean as a troop ship during World War II. During the late 1930s, workers at a Scottish construction site began building a sea vessel for the Cunard Line ocean liner company that would be larger and more luxurious than anything the world had ever seen. However, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 prevented the completion of the Queen Elizabeth's finer points. The vessel was hastily made seaworthy for wartime service and was used as a transport vessel for the Allies, carrying massive amounts of supplies and several hundred thousand troops around the world until the war's end. After her retirement from the Cunard Line in 1968, the Queen Elizabeth was auctioned off to the highest bidder, eventually being purchased in 1970 by C.W. Tung, a Taiwanese shipping tycoon. Tung renamed the vessel Seawise University and began work on converting the ship into a learning centre that would tour the world. However, as the mobile university neared completion, a fire destroyed the pride of the Cunard Line
1982 Three moderate earthquakes measuring 5.5 to 4.9 on the Richter scale shook New Brunswick. There were no serious damage or injuries. The last similar quake was in 1855
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