1544 Francis II - King of France. He was the son of Catherine de Medici and the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots
1736 James Watt - Scottish instrument maker and inventor whose steam engine contributed substantially to the Industrial Revolution. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1785. The watt, a unit of power, was named after him
1798 Auguste Comte - French philosopher and social reformer who founded modern sociology
1807 Robert E. Lee - Commander-in-chief of the Confederate armies, born in Stratford, Virginia. He surrendered to the North's General Ulysses S. Grant
1809 Edgar Allan Poe - US poet, literary critic, editor, journalist, and author (The Raven, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, Tamerlane) Poe was born in Boston, the son of two actors. Orphaned at age two, Poe grew up in the Richmond, Virginia home of a childless couple, merchant John Allan and his wife Frances. His foster parents treated him with affection and provided him with an excellent education at schools in England and in Virginia. Allan recognised Poe's intellectual promise and enrolled him in the University of Virginia in 1826. Before the year was out, Poe had accumulated a debt of $2,000, maintaining the lifestyle of a Virginia gentleman of substance, and had exhausted the patience of his foster father. Allan paid Poe's charges to Charlottesville merchants, but refused to pay his gambling debts, regarded at that time by young gentlemen as "debts of honour." Allan removed his foster son from the university, and required him to work in his business office to repay the debts. Indignant at these perceived humiliations, the 18-year-old Poe fled north to Boston, where he enlisted in the army under an assumed name. At the time of the death of Poe's foster mother, Poe's regimental commanding officer was able to bring about a reconciliation between Poe and John Allan. Allan resumed his financial support of Poe and assisted him in financing his entrance into the US Military Academy. Within the year, Poe's academic career and his relations with Allan again ran aground. Poe drank to excess and ran up debts at West Point. When Allan caught Poe lying to him, he severed relations, this time permanently. Poe took up residence in Philadelphia with his grandmother Poe, his Aunt Maria Clemm, and her children, supporting himself by odd jobs. During the 1830's his writing began to attract notice, and in 1836 he moved back to Richmond. Shortly thereafter, he married his 13-year-old cousin Virginia Clemm. From 1838 until 1844, Poe lived with his wife and mother-in-law in Philadelphia. During these productive years, he published incisive literary criticism and some of his finest fiction. Simultaneous with his development of gothic themes of terror, Poe experimented with the pleasure of logical analysis, which flowered in the creation of a new type of literature. Poe called the new genre the "tale of ratiocination." The first story of this type, Murders in the Rue Morgue, featured an apparently inexplicable crime and a step-by-step analysis by the rational Frenchman Dupin, as narrated by his admiring and baffled sidekick. From this formula arose the widely popular genre of the mystery novel and detective story. In the spring of 1846, Poe and his ailing wife moved to a cottage in Fordham, New York, where Virginia died the following January. During the next two years, Poe drank heavily, and made himself ill. Increasingly incapacitated, Poe experienced bouts of delusion and paranoia. He died in 1849, in Baltimore. His work, often portraying motiveless crimes and intolerable guilt that induces growing mania in his characters, was a significant influence on such European writers as Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Poe is credited with writing the first true detective story, and is the undisputed master of the macabre
1813 Sir Henry Bessemer - British metallurgist and engineer who developed the first process for manufacturing steel inexpensively, using the blast furnace method he invented in 1856, which led to the development of the Bessemer converter
1837 William Keen - The first US brain surgeon
1839 Paul Cezanne - French Post-Impressionist painter
1908 Ish Kabibble - Comic singer (Three Little Fishies) He sang and played trumpet with Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge
1913 Rudolph Wanderone Jr - Legendary pool shark who was better known as Minnesota Fats. His life was portrayed in the movie The Hustler
1921 Patricia Highsmith - US born mystery novelist (The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murders) Her first book, Strangers on a Train, was rejected by six publishers before appearing in print in 1950. The next year, Alfred Hitchcock directed a film version of the book
1922 Guy Madison - Actor (Zorro, Drums in the Deep South, Special Forces, Hell Commandos, Till the End of Time)
1923 Jean Stapleton - Actress (All in the Family, Bells are Ringing, Cinderella, Damn Yankees, Klute, You’ve Got Mail)
1924 Nicholas Colasanto - US actor (Cheers, Toma, Raging Bull) He also directed numerous episodes of TV series (Bonanza, Hawaii Five-O, Alias Smith & Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, Starsky & Hutch)
1925 Nina Bawden - British author (Carrie's War, Afternoon of a Good Woman, The Birds in the Trees)
1926 Fritz Weaver - Actor (Holocaust, Marathon Man, Black Sunday)
1931 Tippi Hedren - Actress (The Birds, The Harrad Experiment, Pacific Heights) She is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith
1931 Robert MacNeil - Canadian born former PBS news anchor (The MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour)
1932 Richard Lester - US born British film director (A Hard Day's Night, Help!, The Three Musketeers, Juggernaut, Robin and Marian)
1934 Lloyd Robertson - Canadian news anchor (CTV News)
1939 Phil Everly - Singer who, with his brother Don, comprised The Everly Brothers (Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, All I Have to Do is Dream, Cathy's Clown)
1942 Michael Crawford - Actor-singer (Phantom of the Opera, Barnum, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, Hello Dolly!)
1943 Janis Joplin - Singer (Piece of My Heart, How Hard It Is, Pearl, Me and Bobby McGee)
1944 Shelley Fabares - Actress (Coach, The Canterville Ghost, The Donna Reed Show, Annie Oakley, Annette, Brian's Song) and singer (Johnny Angel, Johnny Loves Me) She is actress Nanette Fabray's niece
1946 Dolly Parton - Singer/songwriter (Jolene, Coat of Many Colours, Here You Come Again, You're the Only One, Islands in the Stream, Joshua) and actress (9-to-5, Steel Magnolias, Rhinestone) She owns Dollywood amusement park in Tennessee
1947 Paula Deen – TV chef (Paula’s Home Cooking, Paula’s Party, Paula’s Best Dishes)
1949 Robert Palmer - Singer, guitarist (Sneakin' Sally through the Alley, Addicted to Love, Every Kinda People, It Could Happen To You)
1953 Desi Arnaz, Jr. - Entertainer, singer with the group Dino, Desi and Billy. His parents were Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnaz
1954 Katey Sagal – Actress (Sons of Anarchy, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Trail of Tears, Married with Children, Maid to Order, The Conners) and singer who has worked with Bette Midler, Gene Simmons, Olivia Newton-John and Jackson Browne
1972 Drea de Matteo – Actress (The Sopranos, Joey, Beacon Hill, Meet Prince Charming, Swordfish, Sons of Anarchy, Desperate Housewives)
1976 Marsha Thomason – British actress (Las Vegas, White Collar, Lost, The Haunted Mansion, Pie in the Sky, The 8:15 from Manchester, Prime Suspect 5, Brazen Hussies, Where the Heart Is, Long Time Dead, Burn It)
Died this Day
1881 Auguste Mariette - French archaeologist and Egyptologist who conducted major excavations throughout Egypt, revealing much about the earlier periods of Egyptian history. Sent by the Louvre in 1850 to purchase papyruses at Saqqara, he discovered the Serapeum. Its rockcut corridors and burial chambers were excavated for the Apis bulls which were sacred to god Ptah. This was the start of French archaeology in Egypt. He won renown too, for his battle against looting and the illicit export of antiquities. He died a month before his 60th birthday
1998 Carl Perkins, age 65 - Rockabilly pioneer (Blue Suede Shoes, Your True Love, Honey Don't, Pink Pedal Pushers, Shine Shine, Cotton Top, Restless) He died in Jackson, Tennessee
On this Day
1649 Canada's first execution took place in Quebec. The deed was performed on a 16-year-old girl accused of theft. Her executioner was a pardoned criminal
1806 Britain took possession of the Cape Colony in South Africa
1825 The first US patent for food storage in cans - to "preserve animal substances in tin" - was issued to Ezra Daggett and his nephew Thomas Kensett of New York City. They had been canning salmon, oysters and lobsters since introducing the method in 1819. Tin cans had been used by the military and explorers in Europe since 1813, but their development did not start until after the Civil War
1853 Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premiered in Rome
1861 Georgia seceded from the Union
1903 King Edward VII and President Theodore Roosevelt exchanged greetings in a coded radio exchange between Cape Cod and Cornwall, England
1903 It was announced in Paris that a new bicycle race would be held. It was to be called the Tour de France
1915 A US patent was issued to George Claude of Paris for a neon tube advertising sign
1915 Doublemint gum was trademark registered
1937 Billionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record when he flew from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds
1955 A presidential news conference was filmed for television for the first time, with permission from President Eisenhower
1979 Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell was released on parole after serving 19 months at a federal prison in Alabama for his involvement in the Watergate affair
1981 US President Jimmy Carter announced the signing of an agreement to free the 52 Americans who had been held hostage in Iran for more than 14 months
1987 Erik Nielsen, former Canadian deputy prime minister, resigned as an MP for the Yukon after almost 30 years in politics. Nielsen, brother of actor Leslie Nielsen, was known in Ottawa as "Velcro Lips" for his tendency to remain tight-lipped about issues
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