1779 John Galt – Scottish author (The Ayrshire Legatees, Lawrie Todd) He acted as the agent for the claimants of Upper Canada for losses incurred during the War of 1812. He was also the founder of the Canada Company and the town of Guelph, Ontario
1797 Abraham Gesner – Canadian medical doctor, geologist and inventor. He developed a process for extracting an oil from asphalt and refining it into a new type of illuminating oil which would replace the more expensive whale oil. He called his new product Kerosene, after the Greek ‘Keros’, meaning wax, and ‘elaion’, meaning oil. In 1854 he applied for a US patent for Kerosene, and helped build a refinery in New York that was producing 5,000 gallons a day by 1859
1837 Henry Martyn Robert - US Army General and author of Robert's Rules of Order, which is the standard for parliamentary procedure
1859 Jerome K. Jerome - British novelist and playwright (Three Men in a Boat, On Stage and Off, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow)
1885 Hedda Hopper - Celebrity columnist, show biz gossip, radio commentator (The Hedda Hopper Show) and actress (Tarzan's Revenge, Maid's Night Out, Breakfast in Hollywood, Dracula's Daughter) She worked as a chorus girl on Broadway and a silent-film actress before beginning writing a newspaper column for the Los Angeles Times in 1938. A year later, she spun the column off into a 15-minute radio program, kicking off a decades-long rivalry with established Hollywood gossip Louella Parsons, whose radio show had been around since 1931. Hopper's show became a hit, running until 1950. Her caustic remarks and loyal following made Hopper one of Hollywood's most feared and respected public figures. She was the mother of actor William Hopper, of Perry Mason fame
1892 Manfred Richthofen – World War I German flying ace known as the Red Baron. He was a former German cavalry officer who later joined the German Air Force and became the commander of 11th Chasing Squadron nick-named Richthofen's Flying Circus
1895 Lorenz Hart - Composer and lyricist who was half of the team of Rodgers & Hart (With a Song in My Heart, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, The Lady is a Tramp, Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine)
1902 Brian Aherne - Actor (A Night to Remember, Titanic, The Waltz King, The Best of Everything)
1903 Bing Crosby – Crooner-style singer (White Christmas, Swinging on a Star, Pennies from Heaven) and actor (Going My Way, Holiday Inn, Road to Morocco…, Robin and the Seven Hoods)
1903 Benjamin Spock - US paediatrician and author (The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care)
1907 Pinky Lee – Burlesque dancer, entertainer (The Pinky Lee Show)
1924 Theodore Bikel - Austrian born actor (The African Queen, The Pride and the Passion, The Defiant Ones, My Fair Lady, The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming)
1925 John Neville - British-born Canadian actor (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Escape from the Newsroom, Trudeau, The X Files, Road to Avonlea, Emily of New Moon, The Fifth Element, Dangerous Minds, Riel) He played Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Terror
1925 Roscoe Lee Browne - Actor (Jumpin' Jack Flash, Logan's Run, Twilight's Last Gleaming, Soap, The Mambo Kings)
1935 Lance LeGault – Actor (Stripes, Coma, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The A-Team, Iron Eagle)
1936 Engelbert Humperdinck – Indian-born singer (After The Lovin', Release Me, The Last Waltz, Les Bicyclettes de Belsize) He was born Arnold George Dorsey, and first began his singing career under the name Gerry Dorsey
1937 Lorenzo Music - Comedy writer and voice actor (Garfield, Rhoda, Tale Spin)
1940 Jo Ann Pflug – Actress (The Fall Guy, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, M*A*S*H, Fantastic 4)
1945 Bianca Jagger - Human rights activist, and former wife of Mick Jagger
1946 David Suchet – British actor (The Way We Live Now, Victoria & Albert, Wing Commander, Seesaw, A Perfect Murder, Sunday, Executive Decision, Harry and the Hendersons, The Missionary, The Little Drummer Girl, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Reilly: The Ace of Spies, A Bear Named Winnie, Great Expectations, Going Postal, The Bank Job) He is, to many, the definitive Hercule Poirot He also portrayed Inspector Japp in the Hercule Poirot mystery, Thirteen at Dinner
1946 Leslie Gore - Singer (It's My Party, Judy's Turn To Cry, Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows) and actress (Girls On The Beach, Ski Party, The T.A.M.I. Show) She played Catwoman’s sidekick Pussycat on the Batman TV show
1948 Larry Gatlin - Country singer (Broken Lady, Houston I'm Comin' to See You, All The Gold In California)
1950 Lou Gramm - Rock singer with the group Foreigner (Cold as Ice, Hot Blooded, Dirty White Boy, Urgent)
1952 Christine Baranski - Actress (The Good Wife, Cybill, Addams Family Values, The Ref, The Birdcage, Mamma Mia!, Bonneville, Welcome to Mooseport, Chicago, Bowfinger, The Good Fight, The Gilded Age, The Big Bang Theory)
1972 Dwayne Johnson – Actor (The Scorpion King, Fast Five, The Other Guys, Tooth Fairy, The Mummy Returns) He wrestled under the name “The Rock”
1975 David Beckham – British footballer (Manchester United, Real Madrid)
1980 Ellie Kemper – Actress (The Office, Bridesmaids, Get Him to the Greek, Somewhere, 21 Jump Street, Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt)
Died this Day
1519 Leonardo da Vinci - Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, scientist and inventor, died at Cloux, France a week after his 67th birthday
1857 Louis Charles Alfred de Musset, age 47 - French playwright, died of a heart attack brought on by his lifestyle and an extraordinarily passionate affair with the novelist, Amadine Aurore Lucie Dudevant, who wrote under the pen name of George Sand
1957 Joseph R. McCarthy - Controversial Republican senator from Wisconsin, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland
1960 Caryl Chessman - Convicted sex offender, executed at San Quentin Prison in California
1972 J. Edgar Hoover, age 77 - Director of the FBI for 48 years, died in Washington
1999 Oliver Reed, age 61 – British actor (The Prince and the Pauper, Women in Love, Oliver!, Tommy, The Trap)
On this Day
1497 Italian-born John Cabot set sail from Bristol, England to follow Columbus' route to what he thought was Asia. The expedition reached land June 24th, likely at Cape Breton, and sailed along the south coast of Newfoundland. Cabot made a second voyage the following year, exploring from Greenland to the Delaware River
1611 The Authorised or King James Version of the Bible was published
1670 The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated as King Charles II of England granted a Royal charter to his cousin Price Rupert and a group of investors, including two French explorers and traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers. The charter gave the company the exclusive monopoly of commerce in lands flowing into Hudson Bay, and charged them to find a route to the South Seas. Radisson and Groseilliers, who proposed the fur-trading company to the group, opened the lucrative North American fur trade to London merchants, having had mounted a successful season of trade a year earlier. The company was officially called “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay.” The charter conferred on them not only a trading monopoly but also effective control over the vast region surrounding North America's Hudson Bay. Although contested by other English traders and the French in the region, the Company was highly successful in exploiting what would become eastern Canada. During the 18th century, the company gained an advantage over the French in the area but was also strongly criticised in Britain for its repeated failures to find a north-west passage out of Hudson Bay. After France's loss of Canada at the end of the French and Indian Wars, new competition developed with the establishment of the North West Company by Montréal merchants and Scottish traders. As both companies attempted to dominate fur potentials in central and western Canada, violence sometimes erupted, and in 1821 the two companies were amalgamated under the name of the Hudson's Bay Company. The united company ruled a vast territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and under the governorship of Sir George Simpson from 1821 to 1856, reached the peak of its fortunes. After Canada was granted dominion status in 1867, the company lost its monopoly on the fur trade, but it had diversified its business ventures and remained Canada's largest corporation through the 1920s. The Hudson's Bay Company still operates department stores in Canada today
1885 Good Housekeeping magazine was first published
1926 The first drawing to be faxed successfully across the Atlantic Ocean was transmitted. The fax, a sketch of Ambassador Alanson Bigelow Houghton by Augustus John, was sent from London to The New York Times offices in New York. The transmission took about an hour
1932 Jack Benny's first radio show made its debut on the NBC network
1933 The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting was reported in the Inverness Courier. The newspaper related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface." The story of the "monster", a moniker chosen by the Courier editor, became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a £20,000 reward for capture of the beast. Loch Ness, located in the Scottish Highlands, has the largest volume of fresh water in Great Britain, reaching a depth of nearly 800 feet, with a length of about 23 miles. Accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland's Loch Ness date back 1,500 years. Scholars of the Loch Ness Monster find a dozen references to "Nessie" in Scottish history, beginning around 500 AD, when local Picts carved a strange aquatic creature into standing stones near Loch Ness. The earliest written reference to a monster in Loch Ness is a 7th-century biography of Saint Columba, the Irish missionary who introduced Christianity to Scotland. In 565, according to the biographer, Columba was on his way to visit the king of the northern Picts near Inverness when he stopped at Loch Ness to confront a beast that had been killing people in the lake. Seeing a large beast about to attack another man, Columba intervened, invoking the name of God and commanding the creature to "go back with all speed." The monster retreated and never killed another man
1936 Peter and the Wolf, a symphonic tale for children by Sergei Prokofiev, had its world premiere in Moscow
1964 Northern Dancer became the first Canadian horse to win the Kentucky Derby
1965 The first satellite television programme, Out of this World, linked nine countries and over 300 million viewers. The Early Bird satellite was used to transmit television pictures across the Atlantic
1974 Former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals, effectively preventing him from practising law anywhere in the US
1986 Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially opened Expo '86. The Vancouver exposition ran until October 13th
1992 African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and South African president F.W. de Klerk began three days of historic talks. A joint declaration committed the two adversaries to ending the country's political conflict
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