1797 Franz Shubert - Austrian composer who wrote his first symphony at age 16. His famous Unfinished Symphony was actually written six years before his death
1872 Zane (Pearl) Grey - US dentist and Western writer (Riders of the Purple Sage, The Spirit of the Border, The Last of the Plainsmen) He was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the son of a successful dentist. He enjoyed a happy and solid upper-middle-class childhood, marred only by occasional fistfights with boys who teased him about his unusual first name, Pearl, which he later replaced with his mother's maiden name, Zane
1881 Irving Langmuir - US chemist and physicist who developed an inert gas to displace the vacuum in electric lamps, giving them much longer life
1892 Eddie Cantor - Actor and singer (Whoopee!, Kid Millions, Ali Baba goes to Town, Thank Your Lucky Stars, If You Knew Susie) He acted and sang in vaudeville, radio and on screen
1902 Tallulah Bankhead - Actress (Stage Door Canteen, Die! Die! My Darling!) The flamboyant actress was the daughter of a former Speaker of the US House of Representatives
1914 Jersey Joe Walcott - International Boxing Hall of Famer and World Welterweight Champion (1901-1906)
1915 Garry Moore - Variety entertainer (The Garry Moore Show, I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth)
1921 John Agar - Actor (The Sands of Iwo Jima, Tarantula, The Brain From Planet Arous) He was Shirley Temple’s first husband. He played Kenneth Baxter in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Caretaker's Cat.
1921 Carol Channing - US stage and screen actress (Hello, Dolly!, Thoroughly Modern Millie)
1921 Mario Lanza – Singer and actor (Arrivederci Roma, Serenade, The Great Caruso, The Toast of New Orleans, That Midnight Kiss)
1923 Norman Mailer - Author (The Armies of the Night, Miami and the Siege of Chicago, The Executioner's Song, The Naked and the Dead, An American Dream)
1929 Jean Simmons - British actress (The Big Country, Elmer Gantry, The Robe, Spartacus, Great Expectations, The Thorn Birds, North and South, Miss Marple's They Do it With Mirrors) She played Laura Kilgallen in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Lost Love
1934 James Franciscus - Actor (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Good Guys Wear Black)
1937 Suzanne Pleshette - Actress (The Bob Newhart Show, Oh God Book 2, The Birds, If It's Tuesday This Must be Belgium) She was married to Tom Poston
1940 Stuart Margolin - Actor, director (Kelly's Heroes, The Rockford Files, Beggars and Choosers, Death Wish, Tom Stone)
1941 Jessica Walter - Actress (Play Misty For Me, Aaron's Way, Jenny's Song)
1944 Connie Booth – British actress (Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python’s and Now for Something Completely Different, The Buccaneers, Monty Python’s Flying Circus)
1947 Glynn Turman – Actor (Gremlins, Super 8, House of Lies, Men of Honor, The Wire, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Different World, Centennial, Peyton Place)
1947 Jonathan Banks – Actor (Wiseguy, Day Break, Breaking Bad, Beverly Hills Cop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Airplane!, Better Call Saul)
1951 Harry Wayne Casey (KC) - Singer-musician with KC and the Sunshine Band (Get Down Tonight, That's the Way-Uh Huh-I Like It, Shake Your Booty)
1959 Anthony LaPaglia - Australian born actor (Without a Trace, Murder One, The Client, Lansky)
1959 Kelly Lynch - Actress (Road House, Curly Sue, Charlie's Angels)
1970 Minnie Driver - British actress (The Politician's Wife, Goldeneye, Goodwill Hunting, An Ideal Husband)
1973 Portia de Rossi – Australian actress (Ally McBeal, Scandal, Arrested Development, Scream 2)
Died this Day
1606 Guy Fawkes - A chief conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parliament building. After a brief trial, Fawkes was sentenced for treason, along with the other surviving chief conspirators, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in London. The gruesome public executions began in London on January 30th, and the next day Fawkes was called to meet his fate. However, while climbing to the hanging platform, Fawkes jumped from the ladder and broke his neck, dying instantly. In remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes Day is celebrated across Great Britain every year on the fifth of November
1907 Timothy Eaton - Founder of the T. Eaton Company of Canada. He died in Toronto. He revolutionised Canadian retail by introducing cash sales and fixed prices for goods, replacing the old credit, bargain and barter method. His motto was "Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded"
1933 John Galsworthy, age 65 - British author and playwright (The Forsyte Saga, Strife, The Silver Box, The Skin Game)
1945 Eddie Slovik - US Army private, executed by a US firing squad in France. He became the only US soldier since the US Civil War to be shot for desertion
1956 A.A. Milne, age 74 - British author, playwright and poet who wrote the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. He was born in London, the youngest of three sons. His parents were both schoolteachers, and his father was headmaster at a school where H.G. Wells taught. His family claimed Milne taught himself to read at age two. He began writing humorous pieces as a schoolboy and continued at Cambridge, where he edited the undergraduate paper. In 1903, he left Cambridge and went to London to write. Although he was broke by the end of his first year, he persevered and supported himself until 1906 with his writing. That year, he joined the magazine Punch as an editor and wrote humorous verse and essays for the magazine for eight years. In 1913, he married Daphne and two years later went to France to serve in World War I. In 1920, the couple's only son, Christopher Robin, was born. In 1925, the family bought Cotchford Farm in Sussex, where a nearby forest inspired the 100-Acre Wood where Winnie-the-Pooh's adventures would be set
1974 Samuel Goldwyn, age 91 - Polish born US film producer and movie pioneer who was the "G" in MGM
On this Day
1747 The first VD clinic opened at London Lock Hospital
1839 The Durham Report was published in London. Written by Governor-General Lord Durham, it was a response to the 1837 rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, recommending uniting both Canadas under a responsible government, and making English the only official language
1848 Major John C. Frémont, who was popularly admired for his mapmaking expeditions to the West, was court-martialled on grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders. General Stephen Kearny brought charges against Frémont when a dispute arose over who held governing authority in California - a region that had been recently ceded to the US by Mexico in accordance with the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty. In recognition of his role in the occupation of California, Commodore Robert F. Stockton had appointed Frémont military governor of California in 1847. Meanwhile, federal authorities sent General Kearny to California to establish a government. Tension developed between Kearny and Stockton, with Frémont siding with Stockton. In August 1847, Kearny ordered Frémont arrested and charged with insubordination. Frémont was found guilty by a court martial and subjected to penalties, including removal from the army. Although this decision was reversed by President James K. Polk, Frémont chose to resign his commission. In spite of this episode, Frémont retained his popularity and esteem with the US public. He and his wife Jesse Benton Frémont, daughter of Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, remained in California at their Mariposa County estate, and during the gold rush, Frémont became a multimillionaire. He was elected as one of California's first senators in 1850. In 1855, the Frémonts settled in New York, where Frémont had established a reputation as an out-spoken abolitionist. In June, 1856, the Republican Party nominated Frémont as their first presidential candidate, and he campaigned as the "Pathfinder" who would lead the country out of the shame of slavery. Although Frémont lost to Democrat James Buchanan, he continued his efforts on behalf of emancipation. When the Civil War broke out, he was again commissioned as Major-General of the Union Army, stationed in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1864, he was again considered for the Republican presidential nomination, but declined as he had decided that his bid for the office would cause division within the party. He retired from public life and returned to the West. From 1878 to 1883, Frémont held public office again as appointed governor of the territory of Arizona
1865 General Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief of the Confederate armies
1880 The "Atlanta," with 290 people aboard, vanished after leaving a Bermuda port
1912 The world's first full daily comic page appeared in the New York Evening Journal
1928 3M began marketing their clear Scotch tape
1950 US President Harry Truman announced he had ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb
1955 RCA demonstrated the first musical synthesiser
1957 Canada's Parliament issued a proclamation to fix permanently the second Monday in October as "a day of general Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed"
1958 James Gladstone, an Alberta Blood Indian, became Canada's first native senator
1958 The US launched Explorer 1, the country's first satellite. Satellite communication would prove instrumental to the growth of communications
1971 Apollo 14 piloted by astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell, and Stuart A. Roosa, was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a manned mission to the moon. On February 5, after suffering some initial problems in docking the lunar and command modules, Shepard and Mitchell descended to the lunar surface on the third US moon landing. Upon stepping out of the lunar module, Shepard, who in 1961, aboard Freedom 7, was the first American in space, became the fifth astronaut to walk on the moon. Shepard and Mitchell remained on the lunar surface for nearly 34 hours, conducting simple scientific experiments, such as hitting golf balls into space with Shepard's golf club, and collecting 96 pounds of lunar samples. On February 9, Apollo 14 safely returned to Earth
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