1807 Ezra Cornell - Founder of Cornell University in New York
1815 Sir John Alexander Macdonald - Canada's first Prime Minister. This is the day commonly cited to commemorate his birth. He was born in 1815 on January 10th, in Glasgow, Scotland but his birth was registered on the 11th. The leading figure in promoting Confederation, Macdonald was Prime Minister from 1867-1873 and from 1878-1891. He advocated reciprocal trade agreements with the US, worked for strong bonds with Britain and oversaw the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway
1857 Henry Gordon Selfridge - US founder of Britain's first large department store
1896 Sir William Stephenson - Canadian engineer who pioneered digital wireless photo transmission. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Stephenson worked for British intelligence during World War II under the code name Intrepid, and was the personal contact man between Britain's Prime Minister Churchill and US President Roosevelt
1908 Lionel Stander – Actor (Hart to Hart, The Cassandra Crossing, Treasure Island, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, A Star Is Born, Meet Nero Wolfe, The League of Frightened Men, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, New York New York)
1923 Carroll Shelby - Auto racer and designer (Cobra, Mustang) In 1967 he organised the first World's Championship Chilli Cookoff
1930 Rod Taylor - Australian born actor (The Birds, Masquerade, The Time Machine, Hotel, Outlaws)
1930 Jack Nimitz - Jazz 'reed' musician who toured with Supersax
1933 Goldie Hill - Country entertainer (I Let the Stars Get in My Eyes) She was married to country singer Carl Smith for 48 years
1934 Jean Chrétien - Canadian Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003
1942 Clarence Clemmons - Saxophonist with Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band (Born to Run, Rosalita, Hungry Heart, Thunder Road)
1946 Naomi Judd - Country Singer (Girl's Night Out, Turn it Loose, Change of Heart) She is the mother of Wynnona and Ashley Judd
1947 Anna Calder-Marshall - British actress (Zulu Dawn, King Lear, Anna Karenina) She played Jane Robson in the Inspector Morse episode, The Settling of the Sun She also played Lady Helena and Agnes Northcote in the Sherlock Holmes episode, The Eligible Bachelor Also, she is the wife of David Burke, who was the first Dr. Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes
1949 Dennis Greene - Singer with the group Sha-Na-Na
1953 John Sessions – British actor (Marple: The Moving Finger, The Merchant of Venice, Dalziel and Pascoe: Dialogues of the Dead, Gangs of New York, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: Well Schooled in Murder, Gormenghast, Faeries, Princess Caraboo, Henry V, Whoops Apocalypse, Stella Street)
1960 Stanley Tucci – Actor (Shall We Dance, The Terminal, Maid in Manhattan, Road to Perdition, Winchell, The Pelican Brief, Beethoven, Wiseguy)
1972 Amanda Peet – Actress (The Whole Nine Yards, Syriana, Something's Gotta Give, Changing Lanes)
Died this Day
1753 Sir Hans Sloane - British physician and naturalist whose collection of books formed the basis of the British Museum
1843 Francis Scott Key - US lawyer and poet who penned the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner
1928 Thomas Hardy, age 87 - British novelist and poet (Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure)
1988 Gregory H. (Pappy) Boyington, age 75 – US aviator and author (Baa Baa Black Sheep) He served as fighter pilot in the Unites States Marine Corps in World War II
2001 Michael Williams, age 65 - British actor (Love in a Cold Climate, My Son My Son, A Fine Romance, September Song, Elizabeth R) He had been married to Dame Judi Dench since 1971. He portrayed Dr Watson in the BBC Radio series of the Sherlock Holmes stories
On this Day
1569 England's first state lottery was held, to raise money for the construction of harbours. Prizes were £20,000 and £30,000. Critics claimed it encouraged crime
1770 The first shipment of rhubarb was sent to the United States from London. Benjamin Franklin sent a crate of rhubarb to his friend, John Bartram in Philadelphia
1775 Francis Salvador, the first Jew to be elected in the Americas, took his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress. In the next year, Salvador, a Patriot in the Revolutionary War, became known as the "Southern Paul Revere" when he warned Charleston, South Carolina, of the approach of the British naval fleet
1805 The Michigan Territory was created
1861 Alabama seceded from the Union
1864 London's Charing Cross Station was opened
1908 The Grand Canyon National Monument was designated by President Theodore Roosevelt, who declared that "The ages had been at work on it, and man can only mar it." Home to Native Americans for centuries, the first European to see the vast brightly coloured spectacle of the Grand Canyon was Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, who travelled through northern Arizona in 1540 with the Spanish explorer Coronado. As late as the 1860s, however, the Grand Canyon remained terra incognita to most non-natives. In 1869 the geologist John Wesley Powell made his first daring journey through the canyon via the Colorado River. Powell and nine men floated down Wyoming's Green River in small wooden boats to its confluence with the Colorado River and then into the "Great Unknown" of the Grand Canyon. Astonishingly, Powell and his men managed to guide their fragile wooden boats through a punishing series of rapids, whirlpools, and rocks. They emerged humbled but alive at the end of the canyon in late August. No one died on the river, though Indians killed three men who had abandoned the expedition and attempted to walk back to civilisation, convinced their chances were better in the desert than on the treacherous Colorado. By the late 19th century, the growing US fascination with nature and wilderness made the canyon an increasingly popular tourist destination. Entrepreneurs threw up several shoddily constructed hotels on the south rim in order to profit from the stunning view. The arrival of a spur line of the Santa Fe railroad in 1901 provided a far quicker and more comfortable means of reaching the canyon than the previous stagecoach route. By 1915, more than 100,000 visitors were arriving every year. Convinced it should be forever preserved for the benefit of the people, the conservation-minded President Theodore Roosevelt designated a large part of the canyon a national monument in 1908. Congress increased the protection of the canyon in 1932 by making it a national park, ensuring that private development would never despoil the Grand Canyon. Visitors today see a vista little changed from the one Lopez de Cardenas saw nearly 500 years ago
1909 Canada and the US formed an International Joint Commission, and signed a treaty to prevent pollution of the Great Lakes
1913 The first sedan-type automobile, a Hudson, went on display at a New York automobile show. Earlier automobiles had open cabs, or at most convertible roofs
1935 Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, California, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean
1942 Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies
1943 The US and Britain signed treaties relinquishing extraterritorial rights in China
1964 US Surgeon General Luther Terry issued the first government report saying smoking may be hazardous to one's health
30
Responses