1542 Mary Queen of Scots – Daughter of James V, the dying King of Scotland. She was born in Linlithgow Palace in Scotland, and was the only surviving child of her father, ascending to the Scottish throne when the king died just six days after her birth. Mary's French-born mother, Mary of Guise, sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559. He died the following year, and Mary returned to Scotland to assume her designated role as that country's monarch. Mary's great-uncle was Henry VIII, the Tudor King of England, and in 1565 she married her English cousin Lord Darnley, another Tudor, which reinforced her claim to the English throne. This greatly angered the current English monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1567, Darnley was mysteriously killed in an explosion at Kirk o' Field, and Mary's lover, James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility, and Mary was forced to abdicate in favour of her son by Darnley, James. Mary was imprisoned on the tiny island of Loch Leven. In 1568, she escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated by her Scottish foes and fled to England. Queen Elizabeth I initially welcomed Mary but was soon forced to put her cousin under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow her. In 1586, a major Catholic plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. In February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, he became James I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland
1765 Eli Whitney – Inventor of the cotton gin, which separated seeds from cotton fibre and totally revolutionised the cotton growing business. He also devised a uniform method of musket manufacturing which lead to the beginning of mass production
1894 James Thurber – US humourist, writer and cartoonist (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Last Flower, Is Sex Necessary?, Let Your Mind Alone!, My Life and Hard Times, The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze) His writing consisted largely of funny essays and short stories, accompanied by his own humorous drawings. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Thurber lost an eye when was about 7, in an accident while playing with his brothers. His disability made him shy and awkward, and he was something of a misfit until he discovered a love for writing while at Ohio State University. He encrypted and decoded messages for the Army from 1918 to 1920 in Paris, and later worked there as a freelance writer. He married Althea Adams in 1922, and in 1926, the couple moved to New York, where he became associated with a new magazine, The New Yorker. They divorced in 1935, and Thurber married Helen Wismer. In 1950, Thurber received his first honorary doctorate, a Doctor of Letters Degree from Kenyon College in Ohio. Honorary doctorates were also bestowed upon him from William's College in Massachusetts, Yale University, and posthumously from his alma mater, The Ohio State University. In England, Thurber became the first American since Mark Twain to be called "to the table" at Punch. He was also the first native of Columbus, Ohio to be featured on a US Postal Service Commemorative stamp
1911 Lee J. Cobb - Actor (On the Waterfront, Twelve Angry Men, Death of a Salesman, Exodus, The Virginian, The Exorcist, Mackenna's Gold, In Like Flint, The Virginian)
1916 Richard Fleischer – US film director (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dr. Dolittle, Soylent Green) His father, Dave, was the cartoonist who created Betty Boop
1925 Sammy Davis Jr. - Entertainer, singer (The Candy Man, What Kind of Fool Am I) and actor (Sweet Charity, Salt and Pepper ,Tap, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Ocean’s Eleven) He was a member of Hollywood’s famed Rat Pack. He appeared in an uncredit cameo in the Batman episode The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes
1930 Maximilian Schell - Actor (Judgment at Nuremberg, The Odessa File, Heidi)
1933 Flip Wilson - Comedian (The Flip Wilson Show) His persona Geraldine popularised the phrase "The Devil Made Me Do It!"
1936 David Carradine - Actor (Kung Fu, North and South, Bound for Glory, Kill Bill) He is the son of John Carradine and brother of Keith Carradine
1937 James MacArthur - Actor (Hawaii Five-O, Hang ‘em High, Battle of the Bulge) He’s the son of Helen Hayes
1939 James Galway – Northern Irish flutist
1942 Bobby Elliott – Singer with the group The Hollies (Bus Stop, Carrie-Anne, On a Carousel)
1943 Jim Morrison – Singer with the group The Doors (Light My Fire, Love Her Madly, Riders on the Storm)
1946 John Rubinstein - Actor (Crazy Like a Fox, The Boys From Brazil, Another Stakeout, Family) He is the son of piano virtuoso Artur Rubinstein. He was in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Lethal Lifestyle
1947 Gregg Allman - Musician with the group the Allman Brothers (Ramblin' Man)
1953 Kim Basinger - Actress (Hard Country, Blind Date, The Natural, LA Confidential, Batman)
1959 Marty Raybon – Country singer (Shenandoah)
1964 Teri Hatcher – Actress (Desperate Housewives, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Soapdish, Tango & Cash)
1976 Dominic Monaghan – German-born British actor (Lost, The Lord of the Rings, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper) He played Etienne Pierre Rollinger in Monsignor Renard, which starred John Thaw
1978 Ian Somerhalder – Actor (Lost, Recess, Fearless, Life as a House, Young Americans)
Died this Day
1649 Noel Chabanal - Jesuit missionary who was murdered on the way to Ile Saint-Joseph by renegade Huron Indian Louis Honarreennha. Honarreennha hated the black robes, as the missionarys were called. Chabanal was one of the North American Jesuit martyrs canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1930
1859 Thomas de Quincey, age 74 – British author (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, The Revolt of the Tartars) He lived to a ripe old age, despite having taken opium since he was nineteen years old, originally to relieve the pain of facial neuralgia
1864 George Boole – Self-taught mathematician, who at sixteen, began teaching to support his family. In his free time, he studied mathematics extensively. His work in the symbolic representation of logic proved critical to the developments of digital computer circuits, computer programming, telephone switching, and other modern technologies. Despite his lack of formal education, Boole was appointed professor of mathematics at Queen's College in County Cork, Ireland
1978 Golda Meir, age 80 - Prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She died in Jerusalem
1980 John Lennon, age 40 – Legendary Beatle, shot while leaving his apartment building in New York City. His assailant, Mark Chapman, was convicted and sent to jail. Bereaved fans kept a vigil in front of the entrance to his home for an entire week
1982 Marty Robbins, age 57 – Country Music Hall of Famer (El Paso, My Woman My Woman My Wife, A White Sport Coat, Don't Worry, Devil Woman) and actor (Road to Nashville, Ballad of a Gunfighter, Hell on Wheels, The Drifter) He was the last Grand Ole Opry singer to perform in the Ryman Auditorium, and the first to perform in the new Opryland. He died in Nashville, Tennessee of lung and kidney failure
On this Day
1776 George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania
1837 William Lyon Mackenzie, chief organiser of the rebellion in Upper Canada, fled after the Lieutenant-governor and the militia had defeated his rebel band at Montgomery's Tavern, in what is now Toronto's north end
1841 Prince Albert Edward, later King Edward VII, became the Prince of Wales
1849 A patent for the safety pin was granted to Walter Hunt
1852 Laval University was opened in Québec
1854 Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception
1863 President Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South
1863 The world’s first heavyweight boxing championship took place at Woodhurst, England between Britain’s Tom King and the US’s John C. Heenan. King became the first world champion
1879 In Kamloops, British Columbia, the McLean Gang went on a rampage. They killed John Ussher, a Kamloops policeman arresting them for horse theft, and James Kelly, a sheep herder. The gang was later trapped in a cabin near Douglas Lake. Allan, Charlie and Archie McLean, along with Alex Hare, were brought to trial and executed in a group hanging in January, 1881
1915 Canadian army surgeon John McCrae had his poem, In Flanders Field, published for the first time, in Punch magazine
1917 The first relief train reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, from New England. It brought doctors, nurses, and supplies to treat survivors of the Halifax explosion, which had happened two days earlier
1925 Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was published
1929 The first ship-to-shore mobile telephone commercial service was launched. The president of AT&T in New York City called the SS Leviathan at sea. Later that day, an advertising executive called a passenger aboard the ship, in the first-ever private ship-to-shore call. Calls cost between $7 and $11 per minute
1963 Frank Sinatra Junior was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe, Nevada
1974 The Greeks voted to abolish the monarchy
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