1607 Saint Isaac Jogues - Jesuit missionary, born at Orléans, France. He was was martyred in his efforts to bring Christianity to the Hurons and Iroquois
1738 Ethan Allen - Revolutionary War hero and leader of The Green Mountain Boys
1839 Eight chests of Indian tea were auctioned in Britain for the first time. Previously, tea had only been available from China. Prices fell and tea became so affordable that it became the national drink
1843 Franklin James - Outlaw and older brother of Jesse, born in Clay County, Missouri. The two Missouri brothers drifted into a life of crime after serving in Confederate guerrilla forces during the Civil War. They began robbing banks in 1866, and their bold and impudent style won them a good measure of popular admiration. In an era of lingering sectional hatred and increasing public dislike for large corporate railroads and banks, some began to see the James brothers as heroes, modern-day Robin Hoods, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Newspapers, eager to increase their readership, contributed to this mythic view of the brothers. In reality, the James brothers were brutal criminals who willingly killed innocent victims in their pursuit of money, but misguided public sympathy for the men was so great that the Missouri state legislature at one point nearly approved a measure granting amnesty to the entire James gang. After the brothers murdered two innocent men during an 1881 train robbery, though, the state of Missouri reversed its opinion of them and offered a reward of $5,000 each for the capture of Jesse and Frank. Shot down for reward money in 1882 by one of his own gang members, Jesse achieved a false but enduring reputation as a martyr in the cause of the common people against powerful interests. Had Frank suffered the same fate, no doubt he too would have achieved martyrdom and been the subject of popular songs like the Ballad of Jesse James. However, Frank wisely preferred long life to martyrdom, and he turned himself in a few months after his brother was murdered. Prosecutors were unable to convince juries that Frank was a criminal, and he was declared a free man after avoiding conviction at three separate trials in Missouri and Alabama. Frank, entering middle age and having grown weary of the criminal life, lived an honest and peaceful existence, for the next 30 years. He worked as a race starter at county fairs, a theatre doorman, and a star attraction in travelling theatre companies. In 1903, he joined forces with his old criminal partner Cole Younger to form the James-Younger Wild West Show. Frank retired to his family's old farm in Missouri, where he died at the age of 72 in 1915
1904 Ray Bolger - Dancer, actor (The Wizard of Oz, Look for the Silver Lining, Where's Raymond?, Babes in Toyland, The Partridge Family)
1908 Paul Henreid - Viennese actor (Now Voyager, Casablanca, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Of Human Bondage)
1925 Max Roach - Jazz drummer, composer (Freedom Now Suite) He also taught at the Lennox, MA School of Jazz and at Yale, and was Professor of Music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
1927 Johnnie Ray - Singer (Cry, Please, Mr. Sun, The Little White Cloud That Cried)
1927 Gisele MacKenzie - Canadian singer, actress (Your Hit Parade, Hard to Get, The Oval Portrait)
1933 Anton Rodgers – British actor (Noah's Ark, May to December, Fresh Fields, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Day of the Jackal)
1936 "Rompin'" Ronnie Hawkins - Rockabilly and rock musician (Mary Lou, Forty Days, Who Do You Love, Down in the Alley) He assembled The Band, who at one time worked back-up for Bob Dylan
1938 Frank Mahovlich - Hockey player with The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montréal Canadiens. He was appointed to the Canadian Senate
1939 Sal Mineo - Actor (Start Movin', Lasting Love, The Gene Krupa Story, Rebel Without a Cause, Exodus, Giant, Escape from the Planet of the Apes)
1943 Jim Croce - Singer, songwriter (Time in a Bottle, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, I've Got a Name)
1944 Frank Sinatra Jr. - Singer (It's All Right) He’s the son of Frank Sinatra
1945 Rod Stewart - London born singer (Maggie May, Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?, Sailing, Passion)
1948 William Sanderson – Actor (Newhart, Deadwood, Blade Runner, The Client, Lonesome Dove, Coal Miner's Daughter)
1949 George Foreman - Boxer, who was the oldest heavyweight champion at age 45, in 1994
1953 Pat Benatar - Singer (Crimes of Passion, Fire and Ice, Hit Me with Your Best Shot)
1953 Bobby Rahal - Auto racer and winner of the Indianapolis 500 in 1986
1958 Caroline Langrishe – British actress (Lovejoy, Egypt, Judge John Deed, Chancer, Pulaski, Casualty)
Died this Day
1645 William Laud - Archbishop of Canterbury. He was beheaded on Tower Hill for treason. He introduced press censorship, persecuted Puritans, provoked the Civil War with Scotland by trying to impose the Prayer Book, and seemed to have alienated just about every group in English society
1862 Samuel Colt - US gunsmith
1917 Colonel William Cody, age 70 - US plainsman, scout and showman known as Buffalo Bill
1951 Sinclair Lewis - US author (Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry) He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature
1961 Dashiel Hammett - US author (The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, The Adventures of Sam Spade, The Dain Curse) He was a former detective with the Pinkerton Agency in San Francisco. His realistic writing style was later called "hard-boiled", and his work influenced a generation of crime writers
1988 August T. Baden - US drugstore owner who gave the world cinnamon flavoured Baden's Hot Toothpicks
On this Day
1776 Revolutionary Thomas Paine published his influential pamphlet, Common Sense, setting forth the arguments for US independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. Paine was born in England in 1737 and worked as a corsetmaker in his teens. He also worked as a sailor and schoolteacher before becoming a prominent pamphleteer. In 1774, Paine arrived in Philadelphia and came to support US independence. His 47-page pamphlet sold some 500,000 copies and had a powerful influence on popular opinion. Paine served in the US Army and worked for the Committee of Foreign Affairs before returning to Europe in 1787. Back in England, he continued writing pamphlets in support of revolution. He released The Rights of Man, supporting the French revolution in 1791-2, in answer to Edmund Burke's famous Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790. His sentiments were highly unpopular with the British government, so he fled to France but was later arrested for his political opinions. He returned to the US in 1802 and died in New York in 1809
1799 Canadians in Lower Canada celebrated their first Thanksgiving
1815 Britain prohibited US citizens from settling in Canada
1839 Indian tea was auctioned for the first time in Britain. Until this time, only expensive China tea was available. Tea prices were to fall, making it an affordable drink for the nation
1840 The penny post system began in Britain and 112,000 letters were posted the first day. To coincide with this event, Sir Isaac Pittman started the first correspondence course for his shorthand system
1861 Florida seceded from the Union
1863 London's Underground, the world's first underground passenger railway, was opened to the public by Prime Minister Gladstone. The first route of the Metropolitan Railway ran from Paddington to Farringdon Street, stopping at seven stations
1870 John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil
1888 Frenchman Louis Aime Augustine le Prince was granted a US patent for the first single-lens film camera. The true father of cinematography, he settled in Leeds, Yorkshire, and disappeared while on a rail trip between Dijon and Paris. Both equipment and inventor were never seen again. When le Prince's son tried to prove his father was the originator of the motion picture, he was found dead in a wood in Long Island, NY
1901 A gusher at Beaumont, Texas started the great Texas oil boom. A 100-foot drilling derrick named Spindletop produced a roaring gusher of black crude oil. The oil strike took place at 10:30 AM, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet around in sticky oil
1918 The US House of Representatives voted in favour of female suffrage. The vote would go to married women over thirty
1920 The Treaty of Versailles, ending the First World War, took effect. The Treaty also established the League of Nations, set up to preserve the peace. Canada and the other Dominions of the British Commonwealth could now speak for themselves on international affairs. Individual Dominion membership was opposed by the US, which felt the effect would be to give Britain several votes instead of one. The League was replaced by the United Nations after the Second World War
1935 The King and Queen of Hollywood, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, were divorced
1946 The first General Assembly of the United Nations was held in London
1946 The first man-made contact with the Moon was made as radar signals were bounced off the lunar surface. Lieutenant John H. De Witt supervised an experiment conducted by the Army Signal Corps from the Evans Signal Laboratories in Belmar, New Jersey. The engineers sent a radar signal to the moon and received an echo back less than three seconds later. The ability to broadcast and receive signals from space predicated satellite communication
1947 The musical fantasy Finian's Rainbow, with music by Burton Lane and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, opened on Broadway
1949 RCA started selling 7-1/2 inch microgroove records in the US, which played at 45 RPM
1984 The US and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations for the first time in more than a century
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