1831 Mary Mapes Dodge - US children's author (Irvington Stories, Hans Brinker - The Silver Skates) At the age of 20, she married a lawyer named William Dodge, and the couple had two sons. Widowed at 27, Dodge began writing children's stories to support herself. In 1873, Dodge was hired to edit a new children's magazine called St. Nicholas, for which she set high literary standards. The magazine's high quality attracted such contemporary writers as Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Rudyard Kipling
1880 Douglas MacArthur - US Army General, who was quoted saying, "I shall return" and "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away"
1905 Maria von Trapp – Austrian singer whose life inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music
1912 Cora Baird - Puppeteer with husband Bill Baird (The Baird Marionettes)
1913 Jimmy Van Heusen - US songwriter (Swinging on a Star, All the Way, Call Me Irresponsible) He wrote many hits for Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby
1913 William Prince - Actor (Destination Tokyo, The Taking of Beverly Hills, The Portrait, Objective Burma!, Spies Like Us)
1915 William Hopper - Actor (Rebel Without a Cause, Sitting Bull, The First Texan, The Deadly Mantis) He was the son of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and he portrayed Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV series
1920 Derek Bond - Scottish actor (Nicholas Nickleby, Svengali, The Hand, When Eight Bells Toll, Callan)
1922 Page Cavanaugh - Pianist with the Page Cavanaugh Trio (That's How Much I Love You)
1925 Paul Newman - Actor, race car driver, salad dressing and spaghetti sauce maker (The Hustler, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Color of Money, Cool Hand Luke, Hud, The Sting) He was married to actress Joanne Woodward
1928 Roger Vadim - French film director (And God Created Woman)
1931 Mary Murphy - Actress (Carrie, Houdini, 40 Pounds of Trouble)
1932 Claude Gray - Country singer known as The Tall Texan (I'll Just Have Another Cup of Coffee, My Ears Should Burn)
1941 Scott Glenn - Actor (Apocalypse Now, The Right Stuff, Silverado, The Hunt for Red October, The Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft)
1949 David Strathairn - Actor (The River Wild, L.A. Confidential, Dolores Claiborne, Matewan, Silkwood, Good Night and Good Luck)
1955 Eddie Van Halen - Rock musician with Van Halen (Jump, Panama, Finish What You Started)
1958 Anita Baker – Singer (You’re My Everything, Giving You the Best That I Got, Just Because, Fairy Tales, When You Love Someone, Sweet Love)
1958 Ellen DeGeneres – Comedian, actress, TV host (The Ellen Show, Finding Nemo, Edtv, Ellen, Coneheads, Laurie Hill)
1961 Wayne Gretzky - Hockey player known as "The Great One" who played primarily with the Edmonton Oilers and the LA Kings
Died this Day
1823 Edward Jenner - British physician who introduced vaccines
1885 General Charles George Gordon, age 51 - British soldier and Governor of the Sudan who defended a besieged Khartoum. He died two days before his 52nd birthday, from a spear wound inflicted by a Muslim soldier as the city fell to the Mahdi
1891 Nikolaus August Otto - German inventor of the first four-stroke internal combustion engine
1973 Edward G. Robinson, age 79 - Bucharest born US actor (Little Caesar, Key Largo, Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street) He made his name playing gangster roles in Hollywood
1993 Jeanne Sauvé, age 70 - Former Governor-General of Canada and Speaker of the House of Commons. She was the first woman to hold those posts
On this Day
1500 Spanish explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World, discovered the mouth of the Amazon River in South America. Pinzón's journey produced the first recorded account of a European explorer sighting the Brazilian coast, although whether or not Brazil was previously known to Portuguese navigators is still in dispute
1776 Congress ratified the appointment of Eustache Chartier de Lothbinière, a Canadian priest, as the first chaplain of the US Army
1784 In a letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the eagle as the symbol of America. He wanted the turkey
1788 The first European settlers in Australia, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney
1802 Napoleon was made President of the Italian Republic
1802 Congress passed an act calling for a library to be established within the US Capitol
1837 Michigan became the 26th state of the Union. Over 200 years earlier, when French explorer Étienne Brulé visited the region in 1622, some twelve to fifteen thousand Native Americans lived there. Sault Sainte Marie, the state's oldest town, was founded in 1668 at a site where French missionaries had held services for 2,000 Ojibwa in 1641. The Ojibwa, along with the Ottawa, helped the French establish a thriving fur trade in the Great Lakes region. Great Britain acquired control of present-day Michigan in 1763 and administered it as a part of Canada until 1783, when it was ceded to the US under the provisions of the Treaty of Paris. Part of the Northwest Territory from 1787 to 1803, Michigan became a separate territory in 1805. Originally settled by French Catholics, Michigan maintained its strong Catholic identity in the early 19th century, attracting a large number of Catholic immigrants. Dioceses were established at Detroit, Marquette, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Saginaw, Gaylord, and Kalamazoo. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 prepared the way for a great influx of settlers between 1830 and 1850. Michigan made a significant contribution to the Union in the Civil War. Some 90,000 Michigan soldiers fought for the Union, and 14,000 gave their lives. Mining, lumbering, and agriculture dominated the Michigan economy in the 19th century, but after 1910, the automobile industry emerged as Michigan's predominant source of income. Manufacturing jobs attracted new immigrants, many of whom left homes in the rural South and migrated to Michigan's urban areas
1838 Tennessee passed the first prohibition law in the history of the US, making it a misdemeanour to sell alcoholic beverages in taverns and stores. The bill stated that all persons convicted of retailing "spirituous liquors" would be fined at the "discretion of the court" and that the fines would be used in support of public schools
1841 Britain formally occupied Hong Kong, which the Chinese had ceded to the British just days earlier
1861 Louisiana seceded from the Union
1875 The first battery-powered dentist drill was patented by George F. Green of Kalamazoo, Michigan. A truly electrical drill would not be developed until 1908
1905 The world's largest uncut diamond was found in Transvaal, South Africa. The 3,106 carat Cullinan diamond weighed 680 grams (24 ounces) and was cut by Joseph Asscher, of Amsterdam, who examined the enormous diamond for over six months before determining how to divide it into manageable pieces. On the first day of the division process, Asscher, fearful of how his heart might react to a blunder, had a doctor stand by as he hit the first critical blow. After nearly shattering the diamond on his initial attempt, Asscher managed to satisfactorily divide it with his second blow, and promptly fainted. The Cullinan was later cut into 106 polished diamonds, valued at tens of millions of dollars. The largest of the cut stones is the "Star of Africa," which at 530.2 carats is the largest cut fine quality colourless diamond in the world. The gem was presented to Britain's King Edward VII by the government of the Transvaal. Pear-shaped, with seventy-four facets, the Star of Africa now resides in the Tower of London among the other Crown Jewels, mounted in the Sovereign's Royal Sceptre
1920 The Lincoln Motor Car Company was founded and was acquired by the Ford Motor Company just two years later. Under Ford's protective wing, the Lincoln brand name flourished
1924 The Canadian Red Ensign was given official recognition. It remained Canada's official flag until the Maple Leaf was adopted in 1964
1926 John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrated a pictorial-transmission machine he called a "televisor." Baird's invention used mechanical rotating disks that divided the image into horizontal lines. Later this was done electronically with a cathode ray tube. The principle behind transmitting images through electric currents had actually existed since 1875. In the late 1920s, Baird's early British broadcasts reached in average of only one hundred television sets. In 1928, Baird made the first overseas broadcast from London to New York and in the same year demonstrated the first colour television
1939 Principal photography began on David O. Selznick's Gone With The Wind
1965 Hindi became the official language of India
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