1744 Abigail Smith Adams - First Lady and wife of the 2nd US President, John Adams
1836 Thomas Aldrich – US poet and author (The Bells, The Story of a Bad Boy, The Stillwater Tragedy)
1885 George Smith Patton – US general who led the first US troops to fight in North Africa in WWII. In 1944 he headed the Third Army which swept across France
1889 Clifton Webb - Actor (Laura, Razor's Edge, Titanic, Three Coins in the Fountain, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College, Cheaper By the Dozen)
1899 Pat O'Brien - Actor (Knute Rockne All American, Ragtime, Some like It Hot, Fighting Father Dunne)
1909 Robert Ryan - Actor (Bad Day at Black Rock, Battle of the Bulge, The Dirty Dozen, Flying Leathernecks, The Longest Day)
1918 Stubby Kaye – Actor (Cat Ballou, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? , Guys and Dolls, Li'l Abner, My Sister Eileen)
1922 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – Author (Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions)
1925 June Whitfield – British comedy actress (Absolutely Fabulous, Bless This House, Terry and June, Cluedo, Carry On Columbus, Jude, All Rise for Julian Clary, Happy Ever After)
1925 Jonathan Winters – Comedian & actor (Davis Rules, The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters, Hee Haw, The Jonathan Winters Show, Mork & Mindy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World)
1929 LaVern Baker - Singer (Tweedle-Dee, I Cried a Tear, Jim Dandy)
1960 Stanley Tucci – Actor (The Devil Wears Prada, Lucky Number Slevin, The Terminal, Julie & Julia, Shall We Dance, Murder One)
1962 Demi Moore – Actress (Indecent Proposal, Ghost, A Few Good Men, St. Elmo's Fire, We’re No Angels, The Butcher’s Wife)
1964 Calista Flockhart – Actress (Ally McBeal, The Birdcage, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Guiding Light)
1972 Adam Beach – Canadian actor (A Thief of Time, Coyote Waits, Skinwalkers, Wind Talkers, Cowboys and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, The Rez, North of 60, Squanto: A Warrior's Tale)
1974 Leonardo DiCaprio - Actor (Inception, Shutter Island, The Departed, Gangs of New York, Titanic, The Quick and the Dead, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Critters 3, Parenthood, Growing Pains)
Died this Day
1831 Nat Turner – Southern slave and minister. He was executed in Jerusalem, Virginia, for leading a bloody slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner, a slave and educated minister, believed that he was chosen by God to lead his people out of slavery. In the aftermath of the rebellion, scores of slaves were lynched, though many of them had not participated in the bloody revolt. Turner's rebellion was the largest slave revolt in US history and led to a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of slaves
1855 Soren Kierkegaard – Danish religious philosopher
1880 Ned Kelly, age 25 – Australian bank robber whose daring raids with his gang made him a legend. He was hanged in Old Melbourne Gaol
1945 Jerome Kern, aged 60 – US composer and creator of stage musicals (Show Boat, Ol' Man River, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, The Last Time I Saw Paris, The Way You Look Tonight)
On this Day
1620 Two days after sighting land, the Mayflower came to anchor in what is today Provincetown Harbour in the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts. The same day, the Mayflower Compact was drafted and signed by the ship’s forty-one male passengers, commonly known as the pilgrims. The majority of the signatories were Puritan Separatists, who travelled to North America to escape the jurisdiction of the Church of England, which they believed violated the biblical precepts for true Christians. However, other pilgrims aboard were loyal to England's church, but came to the New World for its economic opportunities. The Mayflower Compact was signed in the name of God, the Christian faith, England, and King James I, who had granted the pilgrims an implicit assent to practice their religion in New England. The text of the Compact called for the establishment of a "civil Body Politick" to enact "just and equal laws" for the governance of the first English colony in New England. In later years, the Mayflower Compact was hailed as the origin of all the democratic institutions that evolved in the US, although the agreement was not a revolutionary departure from English precedent. Nevertheless, the Compact established the first basis for written laws in New England, and during the next month the pilgrims established a permanent settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts
1813 During the War of 1812, British Colonel Joseph Morrison and Royal Navy Captain William Mulcaster defeated a US invasion force of over 7,000 led by General James Wilkinson at the Battle of Crysler's Farm. Wilkinson's flotilla left Sackett's Harbour in late October and landed on the Canadian side of the Long Sault rapids. With only 800 British regulars of the 49th and 89th Regiments, plus some Canadian militia and Indians, Morrison moved to attack 1,800 US troops of the 25th Infantry Regiment under Brown at Crysler's Farm, west of Cornwall, Ontario. At the same time, Captain William Mulcaster's gunboats fired shrapnel and grapeshot on General John Park Boyd's flotilla of 4,000 US troops trying to descend the rapids toward Montreal, which helped Morrison land his troops at Crysler's Farm. In the first skirmish, the US took 400 casualties to the British 200. Wilkinson could have pressed on against Morrison, but when he received a message that General Wade Hampton and his army of 4,200 were defeated at Châteauguay the previous week, he called off the invasion, as Hampton was supposed to meet him downstream for the attack on Montreal. Hampton later resigned when Wilkinson blamed him for the failure of the campaign. Wilkinson was then relieved of his command
1889 Washington became the 42nd state of the Union
1918 At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month of 1918, the Great War, also known as World War I, ended. French Field Marshal Foch and the members of the German Armistice Commission had signed the formal surrender at 5 am in Marshal Foch's railway car in the Forest of Compiègne, to take effect at 11 am. The four-year war's tolls were nine million soldiers dead, twenty-one million wounded, and seven million taken prisoner or missing in action. In addition, some six million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure. In Germany, by the time the armistice was signed, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family had already fled. The Great War was known as the "war to end all wars" because of the great slaughter and destruction it caused. Unfortunately, the peace treaty that officially ended the conflict, the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, forced punitive terms on Germany that destabilised Europe and laid the groundwork for World War II
1920 The Cenotaph was unveiled in Whitehall, London, and the body of the Unknown British Soldier was interred in Westminster Abbey. This ceremony was recorded using a microphone, the first electrical recording made
1920 The Body of the Unknown Soldier was buried under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
1921 President Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery
1921 The British Legion held their first Poppy Day
1933 A powerful wind striped the topsoil from desiccated farmlands in South Dakota, in one of a series of disastrous windstorms that year. The drought-ridden land of the Plains became known as the Dust Bowl. The land was useless to farmers, and only exacerbated the economic problems of the Great Depression. Within two days, dust from the South Dakota storm had reached all the way to Albany, New York. Dust storms plagued the West throughout the 1930s and eventually the devastated area covered nearly 100 million acres. Rising like ominous black clouds on the horizon, the dust storms destroyed crops, choked livestock to death, and damaged human health. During 1938, the worst year of the dust storms, it is estimated that 850 million tons of topsoil disappeared with the winds. The size and scope of the problem have led some historians to call the Dust Bowl the worst environmental disaster in US history. The cause of the Dust Bowl is still unclear. Widespread drought, which killed crops and turned the topsoil into a light powder, was undoubtedly a factor. However, some have argued that the farmers played their part by replacing native grasses with wheat and less hardy crops. Whatever the causes, the Roosevelt administration responded to the Dust Bowl with a billion-dollar program to aid and educate farmers in soil conservation techniques that have become standard practice. After the rains returned in 1941, the region bloomed once again. Severe droughts have occurred since, but none have been as devastating as the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s
1940 Willys launched the Jeep, called so from the initials “GP” for general purpose car
1942 During the Second World War, the Germans completed their occupation of France
1952 The first video recorder was demonstrated at Bing Crosby Enterprises in Beverley Hills, California by inventors John Mullin and Wayne Johnson
1965 Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, unilaterally declared its independence from Britain
1966 Gemini 12 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida with astronauts James A. Lovell Jr and Edwin E. Aldrin on board. It circled the Earth 59 times before returning
1972 The US Army turned over its base at Long Bihn to the South Vietnamese army, symbolising the end of direct US military involvement in the Vietnam War
1982 The US space shuttle Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre, on its first commercial flight. It was carrying Canada's Anik C communications satellite into orbit
1992 The Church of England voted to allow women to be ordained as priests. Women were already allowed to become priests in 11 branches of the Anglican church, including Canada and the US
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