1167 King John – Youngest son of England’s King Henry II. He was forced by the barons to sign the Magna Carta. When he tried to revoke his authorisation of it, civil war broke out
1491 Ignatius Loyola – Spanish soldier who became a religious convert and formed the Jesuits
1809 Kit Carson – US frontiersman, fur trapper, guide, US Indian agent, brevet Union general, and national folk hero who played an important part in the westward expansion of the US. Carson City, Nevada is named after him, and he was the subject of adventure novels
1818 James Prescott Joule – British physicist, whose research into various forms of energy led to the basic laws of the conservation of energy. Work he did with Lord Kelvin, on the effects of gas as a coolant, led to the development of the modern refrigeration industry
1822 Matthew Arnold – British poet (The Gypsy Scholar, Dover Beach)
1886 Michael Curtiz – Hungarian born US director (Casablanca, White Christmas)
1893 Harry Warren – Composer (Lullaby of Broadway, You'll Never Know, On the Atcheson Topeka and Santa Fe, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, That's Amore)
1900 Joey Smallwood – Newfoundland premier who led the province into Confederation with Canada in 1949.
1905 Howard Hughes – US pilot, industrialist (Hughes Aircraft, the Spruce Goose) and Hollywood producer (The Front Page, Hell’s Angels, Scarface, The Outlaw) He became an eccentric recluse, living by all accounts, a bizarre lifestyle
1914 Ralph Marterie – Bandleader and musician known as the Caruso of the trumpet (Pretend, Caravan, Skokiaan)
1922 Ava Gardner – Actress (The Barefoot Contessa, Earthquake, The Cassandra Crossing, The Long Hot Summer, The Night of the Iguana) At various times she was married to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra
1927 Mary Higgins Clark – Mystery author (All Through the Night, Silent Night, The Plot Thickens)
1931 Jill Bennett – Malaysia born British actress (For Your Eyes Only, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Sheltering Sky, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Haunting of Julia, Lady Jane)
1945 Steve Smith – Canadian actor (The Red Green Show, Duct Tape Forever, Me and Max)
1964 Mark Valley – Actor (Boston Legal, Keen Eddie, The Siege, Days of Our Lives, Fringe, Human Target)
1966 Diedrich Bader – Actor (The Drew Carey Show, Outsourced, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Napoleon Dynamite)
1971 Ricky Martin – Singer (Livin’ La Vida Loca, Maria, Shake Your Bon Bon, The Cup of Life)
1972 Matt Passmore – Australian actor (The Glades, McLeod’s Daughter, Last Man Standing)
Died this Day
1524 Vasco da Gama - Portuguese navigator who had discovered a sea route around Africa to India. He died in Cochin, India
1863 William Makepeace Thackeray, age 52 – Calcutta-born British author (Vanity Fair, The History of Pendennis, Barry Lyndon, The Book of Snobs, The Newcomes)
On this Day
1582 The London Bridge Waterworks, London, began piping water to private houses
1584 Basque whaler Joanes de Echaniz dictated his last will and testament at Carol's Cove, near Red Bay, Labrador. It is believed to be the oldest surviving will in Canadian history
1781 Friedrich, Baron von Riedesel erected Canada's first Christmas tree for the garrison in Fort Sorel, Quebec
1801 Steam first propelled a carriage as Richard Trevithick drove a three-wheeled steam-powered vehicle up a hill in Camborne, Cornwall, England, carrying seven passengers. It was the first time the inventor had driven his steam-wagon, one of the first automobiles in history. Trevithick had invented a high-pressure steam engine which was lighter and more powerful than the low-pressure engine invented by James Watt. He adapted his improved engine to hoist loads in mines, drive locomotives and ships, and run rolling mills. Trevithick is sometimes called the "Father of the Steam Locomotive"
1814 The Treaty of Ghent was signed ending the War of 1812 between British North America and the US. The Treaty of Peace and Amity Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America was signed by British and US representatives at Ghent, Belgium. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada. In June 1812, the US declared war against Great Britain in reaction to three issues: the British economic blockade of France, the induction of thousands of neutral US seamen into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress, made up mostly of western and southern congressmen, had been advocating the declaration of war for several years. These "War Hawks," as they were known, hoped that war with Britain, which was preoccupied with its struggle against Napoleonic France, would result in US territorial gains in Canada and British-protected Florida. In the months following the US declaration of war, US forces launched a three-point invasion of Canada, all of which were repulsed. At sea, however, the US was more successful, and the USS Constitution and other frigates won a series of victories over British warships. In 1813, US forces won several key victories in the Great Lakes region, but Britain regained control of the sea and blockaded the eastern seaboard. In 1814, with the downfall of Napoleon, the British were able to allocate more military resources to the North American war, and Washington, DC, fell to the British in August. In Washington, British troops burned the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in retaliation for the earlier burning of government buildings in Canada by US soldiers. The British soon retreated, however, and Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbour withstood a massive British bombardment and inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the lyrics to the "Star-Spangled Banner." News of the treaty took almost two months to cross the Atlantic, and British forces were not informed of the end of hostilities in time to end their drive against the mouth of the Mississippi River. In January 1815, a large British army attacked New Orleans and was decimated by an inferior US force under General Andrew Jackson in the most spectacular US victory of the war. The US public heard of the Battle of New Orleans and the Treaty of Ghent at approximately the same time, fostering a greater sentiment of self-confidence and shared identity throughout the young republic
1818 The hymn, Silent Night (Heilige Nacht) was performed for the first time at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Bavaria
1851 A devastating fire at the Library of Congress in Washington DC, destroyed about two-thirds of its 55,000 volumes, including most of Thomas Jefferson's personal library, which had been sold to the institution in 1815. The Library of Congress was established in 1800 when President John Adams approved legislation that appropriated $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress." The first books, ordered from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the US Capitol, the library's first home. The first library catalogue, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington and burned the Capitol, including the 3,000-volume Library of Congress. Former president Thomas Jefferson, who advocated the expansion of the library during his two terms in office, responded to the loss by selling his personal library, the largest and finest in the country, to Congress to "recommence" the library. The purchase of Jefferson's 6,487 volumes was approved in the next year, and a professional librarian, George Watterston, was hired to replace the House clerks in the administration of the library. After this second major fire in 1851, Congress responded quickly and generously, and within a few years a majority of the lost books were replaced. Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as nearly 95 million maps, manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints and drawings, and other special collections
1871 Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida had its world premiere in Cairo to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal
1879 The temperature in Winnipeg, Manitoba, dropped to a record minus-47.8C … that’s -54F
1893 Henry Ford completed his first successful gasoline engine. He and his wife tested the engine in their kitchen on Christmas Eve. Ford's first automobile took its inaugural drive on June 4, 1896
1903 England issued its first automobile license plate, number A1. The plate was issued to Earl Russell, the brother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell
1906 The first radio broadcast of speech and music was demonstrated by Canadian physicist Reginald Fessenden who directed this broadcast for reception by ships at sea. He broadcast a poetry reading, a violin solo and a speech. He asked listeners to contact him and let him know how clearly they received his signal, which was broadcast from his station near Boston using a 429 foot high antenna and an alternator driven by a steam engine. Prior to this date Fessenden’s experiments had allowed him to transmit voice over short distances
1914 A German plane dropped a single bomb on Dover, England, the first bomb ever to be dropped on British soil. It landed on a rectory garden lawn and blew out the house windows
1920 Tenor Enrico Caruso gave his final performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, singing in Jacques Halevy's La Juive
1942 At Peenemunde, the Germans launched the world’s first surface-to-surface guided missile, the V1
1968 The Apollo 8 astronauts, orbiting the Moon, read passages from the Old Testament Book of Genesis as part of a Christmas Eve television broadcast to Earth
1973 In a secret ceremony, Sheila Hancock and John Thaw were wed
1979 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan as the Kabul government fell
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