1655 Bartolomeo Cristofori - Italian harpsichord maker who made the first pianoforte, and is credited with the invention of the piano
1796 Horace Mann - US educator and philanthropist who was known as the Father of Public Education in the US. He was the founder of Westfield, MA State College and the editor of the Common School Journal
1806 Sir William Cooke - British inventor who helped develop electric telegraphy
1825 Thomas Henry Huxley - British naturalist and author (Man's Place in Nature) He championed Darwin's new theory of evolution, and coined the word 'agnostic' in his works on scientific humanism. His grandson was Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World
1852 Alice Liddell – British girl who was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, written in 1865
1874 Frank Conrad - US electrical engineer whose innovations led to the establishment of the first commercial radio station
1890 Franklin Carmichael – Canadian artist who, in 1919, was a founding member of the influential Canadian art group, the Group of Seven
1909 Howard DaSilva - Actor (The Lost Weekend, The Great Gatsby, Mommie Dearest, Abe Lincoln in Illinois)
1923 Eric Sykes - British actor and comedian (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Others, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Splitting Heirs, Gormenghast, Poirot: Hallowe’en Party, Son of Rambow) He also played Horace Harker in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Six Napoleons
1927 Terry Scott - British comedian (Terry and June, The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery, Bless This House) He also appeared in numerous "Carry on…" movies
1928 Maynard Ferguson – Canadian bandleader and musician on the trumpet, trombone, and other horns (Gonna fly Now, Conquistador, New Vintage, Carnival, Hollywood, High Voltage) He played with such greats as Tommy Dorsey and Stan Kenton before starting his own band in 1956
1929 Audrey Hepburn - Belgian-born motion-picture and stage actress (Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, Robin and Marian) She was in both My Fair Lady, and War and Peace, with Jeremy Brett
1939 Paul Gleason – Actor (Trading Places, Die Hard, Van Wilder, One West Waikiki, Miami Blues, Johnny Be Good, The Breakfast Club, Arthur)
1940 Robin Cook – Author (Coma, Acceptable Risk, Outbreak, Mortal Fear, Harmful Intent, Sphinx)
1942 Nickolas Ashford - Songwriter with the duo Ashford & Simpson ( I'm Every Woman, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing, You're All I Need to Get By, Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand)
1954 Pia Zadora – Actress (Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Hairspray, The Lonely Lady) and singer (Rock It Out, The Clapping Song, When the Rain Begins to Fall)
1955 Danny Brubeck - Drummer (Two Generations of Brubeck, In Your Own Sweet Way, The Duke) He is jazz great Dave Brubeck's son
1959 Randy Travis - Country singer (For Ever and Ever Amen, I Won't Need You Anymore, Too Gone Too Long, It's Just A Matter of Time)
1961 Mary Beth McDonough – Actress (The Waltons, One of Those Nights, Waiting to Act, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Lake Effects)
1967 Ana Gasteyer – Actress (Suburgatory, Saturday Night Live, Mean Girls, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, What Women Want, Fully Loaded)
1970 Will Arnett – Canadian actor (Arrested Development, The Millers, Blades of Glory, Up All Night, When in Rome, The Brothers Solomon, Runaway Vacation)
1977 Emily Perkins – Canadian actress (Juno, Hiccups, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Ginger Snaps, It)
Died this Day
1891 Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty - This is the day that the two went over the Reichenbach Falls, thus beginning Sherlock Holmes' Great Hiatus. When the story of The Final Problem was published in 1894, telling the public of Holmes' supposed death, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle received scores of angry letters, and men wore black armbands in the streets of London to depict their mourning. Happily, Holmes was brought back in The Adventure of the Empty House
1969 Sir Osbert Sitwell - British poet and author (Left Hand Right Hand, The Scarlet Tree, Tales My Father Taught Me) He is the brother of authors Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell
1975 Moe Howard, age 77 - One of the Three Stooges (Three Hams on Rye, The Tooth Will Out, Oils Well That Ends Well) The brother of fellow Stooges Shemp and Curly, Howard played the Stooges' caustic ringleader. The Stooges appeared in 190 short subjects and more than 20 feature-length films
1984 Diana Dors, age 52 - British actress (There's a Girl in My Soup, Yield to the Night, Deep End, Theatre of Blood)
1989 Christine/George Jorgensen, age 62 - Former male US Army private who shocked the world in 1952 by having the first sex change operation
On this Day
1626 Dutch colonist Peter Minuit arrived on the wooded island of Manhattan in present-day New York. He had been hired by the Dutch West India Company to oversee its trading and colonising activities in the Hudson River region
1783 The first United Empire Loyalists settled in the Maritimes, in Nova Scotia
1776 Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted
1804 Napoleon became Emperor of France
1839 The Cunard Shipping Line was founded by Sir Samuel Cunard
1863 The Maori uprising against the British began in New Zealand
1886 Chinchester Bell, cousin of Alexander Graham Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter patented the first practical phonograph. The machine, called the graphophone, was designed for "recording and reproducing speech and other sounds." Thomas Alva Edison had patented an earlier design of the phonograph in 1878
1886 Chicago's Haymarket Square Riot took place at a labour demonstration for an eight-hour workday. A bomb was thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up the labour rally, fatally injuring eight policemen and wounding more than 60 others. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more. The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers, was organised in protest of the killing of a striker by the Chicago police the day before
1894 Bird Day was first observed at the initiative of Charles Almanzo Babcock, superintendent of schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania. By 1910, Bird Day was widely celebrated, often in conjunction with Arbor Day
1896 The first edition of the half-penny Daily Mail was published
1910 The Canadian Parliament passed a bill creating the Royal Canadian Navy, which would go on to serve in both world wars. Despite opposition from officers, many of whom resigned, the Navy was integrated into the Canadian Armed Forces in 1968 along with the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Today the naval service is based in Halifax under the control of Maritime Command, one of five distinct commands comprising the Forces
1927 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that gives out the Oscars, was founded
1932 Mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta
1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval clash fought entirely with carrier aircraft, began during World War II
1946 A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended after five people were killed
1961 The first wave of Freedom Riders left Washington, DC, for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on buses and in bus terminals
1970 In Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fired their weapons at a group of antiwar demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralysing another. Two days earlier, the National Guard troops were called to Kent to suppress students rioting in protest of the Vietnam War and the US invasion of Cambodia. The next day, scattered protests were dispersed by tear gas, and on the 4th, classes resumed at Kent State University. By noon that day, despite a ban on rallies, some 2,000 people had assembled on the campus. National Guard troops arrived and ordered the crowd to disperse, fired tear gas, and advanced against the students with bayonets fixed on their rifles. Some of the protesters, refusing to yield, responded by throwing rocks and verbally taunting the troops. Minutes later, without firing a warning shot, the Guardsmen discharged more than 60 rounds toward a group of demonstrators in a nearby parking lot, killing four and wounding nine. The closest casualty was 20 yards away, and the farthest was almost 250 yards away. After a period of disbelief, shock, and attempts at first aid, angry students gathered on a nearby slope and were again ordered to move by the Guardsmen. Faculty members were able to convince the group to disperse, and further bloodshed was prevented. In 1974, at the end of a criminal investigation into the Kent State incident, a federal court dropped all charges levied against eight Ohio National Guardsmen for their role in the students' deaths
1971 Tragedy struck the village of St-Jean-Vianney, Québec, when heavy rains caused a sinkhole 1800 ft wide and 92 ft deep to appear in a residential area. Within minutes, the mudslide killed 33 people and swallowed up 35 homes, a bus and several cars
1976 Australia announced that Waltzing Matilda would serve as its national anthem at the Montréal Summer Olympics. It was replaced by the new national anthem, Australia Fair, in 1986
1988 Pepsi-Cola said it had become the first advertiser to buy commercial time on Soviet television. It purchased five minutes on a five-part program
1992 Residents of the Northwest Territories voted narrowly in favour of a move that would re-draw the map of Canada. They endorsed partitioning the territories into two sections by the turn of the century. Canada's third territory, to be called Nunavut, was to be part of a massive land-claims settlement with Inuit in the eastern Arctic. The deal would give the Inuit title to an area more than five times the size of Alberta
2012 The last Canadian penny was produced. It was minted at the Royal Canadian Mint’s Winnipeg location. The penny will gradually be phased out, but will remain legal tender as long as people use them
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