1701 Anders Celsius – Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician who, in 1742, devised the Celsius, or Centigrade, thermometer scale. Celsius was born in Uppsala, where he built Sweden's first observatory in 1741. Celsius and his assistant also discovered that aurora borealis influence compass needles
1843 Cornelius Vanderbilt – US entrepreneur who started the Staten Island Ferry
1911 David Merrick - Broadway producer (Hello Dolly!, Beckett)
1917 Buffalo Bob Smith - TV host (Howdy Doody Time)
1925 Ernie Wise – British comedian who was half of the popular comedy duo, Morecambe and Wise, which is practically a British institution. Their TV shows attracted vast audiences and numerous guest stars
1938 Rodney Bewes – British actor (The Likely Lads, Albert!, Billy Liar)
1940 Bruce Lee – Martial arts master and actor (The Green Hornet, Marlowe, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury) He was born Lee Yuen Kam, in San Francisco, and spent much of his childhood in Hong Kong, before graduating from the University of Washington. Lee also played Kato in the Batman episodes The Spell of Tut, A Piece of the Action, and Batman’s Satisfaction
1940 John Alderton – British actor (Upstairs Downstairs, Forever Green, Please Sir, Zardoz) He is married to actress Pauline Collins
1941 Eddie Rabbitt – Singer (I Love a Rainy Night, Someone Could Lose a Heart Tonight) and songwriter (Kentucky Rain)
1942 Jimi Hendrix – US guitar legend and singer (Purple Haze, Foxy Lady, All Along the Watchtower, The Wind Cries Mary)
1955 Bill Nye – Mechanical engineer & TV host (Bill Nye the Science Guy, The Eyes of Nye)
1957 Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg – Daughter of US President John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy
1962 Samantha Bond – British actress (Downton Abbey, Home Fires, Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, GoldenEye, Emma, The Bookfair Murders, Rumpole of the Bailey, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced) She played Helen Marriat in the Inspector Morse episode Dead on Time
1964 Robin Givens - Actress (Head of the Class, A Rage in Harlem, The Women of Brewster Place)
1971 Kirk Acevedo – Actor (Fringe, Oz, The Thin Red Line, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Band of Brothers)
Died this Day
1811 Andrew Meikle – Scottish millwright and inventor. In 1786 he invented the drum threshing machine. His father, James Meikle had produced a winnowing machine around 1720. Andrew inherited his father's mill, and in 1750 he invented the fantail which allowed windmills to turn into the wind automatically. He also invented a machine for dressing grain and the spring sail to quickly furl the sails of a windmill to avoid storm damage
1852 Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace – Mathematician and daughter of the poet Lord Byron. She aided Charles Babbage, who developed one of the first mechanical computers. She died two weeks before her 37th birthday
1885 Wandering Spirit – Cree Indian who was hanged outside Fort Battleford, Saskatchewan for murders which took place at Frog Lake the previous April. It was the last public execution in Canada. In his final statement, Wandering Spirit blamed the Canadian Pacific Railway as the main cause of his peoples' sufferings because the railway brought many settlers to the region
1895 Alexandre Dumas, age 71 – French playwright and author (La Dame aux Camélias) He was the son of Alexandre Dumas, Sr
1953 Eugene O’Neill, age 65 – US playwright (The Iceman Cometh, Beyond the Horizon, The Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Desire Under the Elms, Mourning Becomes Electra, A Moon for the Misbegotten) O'Neill began writing plays in his 20s, while recovering from tuberculosis at a Connecticut sanatorium. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and died in Boston
1975 Ross McWhirter, age 50 – Founder of the Guinness Book of Records, along with his twin brother Norris. He was shot on his doorstep by an Irish gunman
On this Day
1779 During the American Revolution, the Pennsylvania state government converted the College of Philadelphia, which it considered a Royalist institution, into the University of the State of Pennsylvania, thus creating both the US’s first state school and it’s first official university. Located in west Philadelphia, the College of Pennsylvania was first founded as a charity school for Philadelphia children in 1740. In 1749, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the school be expanded into the "Publick Academy of Philadelphia," an institution of higher education that would educate Philadelphians in both the liberal arts and practical skills necessary to make a living. In September of 1777, the British captured Philadelphia and occupied the city for nine months, making a number of changes to the College of Philadelphia which were reversed with the formal establishment of the University of the State of Pennsylvania. In 1791, the school became a privately endowed institution and took the name of the University of Pennsylvania
1829 William Hamilton Merritt opened the final section of the original Welland Canal from Port Dalhousie to Port Robinson, Ontario. Before it was opened, all freight moving between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was transported overland. The canal was deepened in 1841 and later enlarged. It was replaced by the new Welland Canal, with a depth of nine metres, in 1932
1839 The American Statistical Association was founded in Boston
1868 Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an early morning attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle. He had not bothered to identify the village nor do any reconnaissance prior to the massacre. Convicted of desertion and mistreatment of soldiers earlier that year in a military court, the government had suspended Custer from rank and command for one year. Ten months into his punishment, in September 1868, General Philip Sheridan reinstated Custer to lead a campaign against Cheyenne Indians who had been making raids in Kansas and Oklahoma that summer. Sheridan was frustrated by the inability of his other officers to find and engage the enemy, and despite his poor record and unpopularity with the men of the 7th Cavalry, Custer was a good fighter. Sheridan determined that a campaign in winter might prove more effective, since the Indians could be caught off guard while in their permanent camps. On November 26, Custer located a large village of Cheyenne encamped near the Washita River, just outside of present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Custer did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne was in the village, or to make even a cursory reconnaissance of the situation. Had he done so, Custer would have discovered that they were peaceful people and the village was on reservation soil, where the commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. There was even a white flag flying from one of the main dwellings, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict. Having surrounded the village the night before, at dawn Custer called for the regimental band to play "Garry Owen," which signalled for four columns of soldiers to charge into the sleeping village. Outnumbered and caught unaware, scores of Cheyenne were killed in the first 15 minutes of the attack, though a small number of the warriors managed to escape to the trees and return fire. Within a few hours, the village was destroyed and the soldiers had killed 103 Cheyenne, including the peaceful Black Kettle and many women and children. Hailed as the first substantial US victory in the Indian wars, the Battle of the Washita helped to restore Custer's reputation and succeeded in persuading many Cheyenne to move to the reservation. However, Custer's habit of boldly charging Indian encampments of unknown strength would eventually lead him to his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
1898 An East Coast gale sunk the SS Portland, off the coast of Nova Scotia, drowning 91. Four-hundred other Maritimers were killed by the same storm
1901 The Army War College was established in Washington, DC
1910 New York's Pennsylvania Station opened. It was the world’s largest railway station of its day
1914 The first two trained policewomen to be granted official status in Britain reported for duty at Grantham. They were Miss Mary Allen and Miss E.F. Harburn
1924 Macy’s department store in New York held its first Thanksgiving Day parade down a two-mile stretch of Broadway from Central Park West to Herald Square. The event was created to boost holiday sales and to bring customers to Macy's new flagship store at Herald Square. With an audience of over a quarter of a million people, the parade was a great success, and subsequently declared an annual event. In 1927, a new Macy's tradition began with the introduction of large balloons in the shape of animal or cartoon characters. Felix the Cat was Macy's first parade balloon. Since 1950, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been nationally televised, and millions tune in every year
1937 Japan took over Chinese postal and communications facilities in the city of Shanghai
1942 During World War II, the French Navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Nazis
1944 Almost 4,000 tons of high explosives went off in a cavern beneath Staffordshire, England killing 68 people and wiping out an entire farm. The explosion was heard over 100 miles away in London, and was recorded as an earthquake in Geneva
1957 The Chirping Crickets, the only Buddy Holly album to be issued during his lifetime, was released. The LP contained such Holly standards as That'll Be the Day, Not Fade Away, Maybe Baby and Oh Boy
1961 In Detroit, Michigan, Gordie Howe became the first hockey pro to play in 1,000 NHL games
1968 Highway driving music went gold when Steppenwolf's eponymous first album, featuring the rock and roll driving hit, Born to Be Wild, was certified gold with sales in excess of 500,000 copies
1970 Pope Paul VII was wounded in the chest during a visit to the Philippines by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest
1973 The Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as Vice-President, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned
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