1824 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson - Confederate General who was one of the Civil War's most well known military officers. He acquired his nickname because of his stubbornness at the Battle of Bull Run when his troops resisted an attack by the northern forces
1829 Oscar II - King of Sweden and Norway. During his reign, the two countries were separated
1855 John Moses Browning - US gun designer known as the "father of modern firearms." Many of the guns manufactured by companies whose names evoke the history of the US Old West - Winchester, Colt, Remington, and Savage - were actually based on John Browning's designs. Browning was 24 years old when he received his first patent, for a rifle that Winchester manufactured as its Single Shot Model 1885. Winchester asked Browning if he could design a lever-action-repeating shotgun. Browning could and did, but his efforts convinced him that a pump-action mechanism would work better, and he patented his first pump model shotgun in 1888. Lever and pump actions allowed the operator to fire a round, operate the lever or pump to quickly eject the spent shell, insert a new cartridge, and then fire again in seconds. By the late 1880s, Browning had perfected the manual-repeating weapon, but to make guns that fired any faster, he would somehow have to eliminate the need for slow human beings to actually work the mechanisms. Browning noticed that reeds between a man firing and his target were violently blown aside by gases escaping from the gun muzzle. He decided to try using the force of that escaping gas to automatically work the repeating mechanism, and began experimenting with his idea in 1889. Three years later, he received a patent for the first crude fully automatic weapon that captured the gases at the muzzle and used them to power a mechanism that automatically reloaded the next bullet. Browning refined his automatic weapon design, and when US soldiers went to Europe during WWI, many of them carried Browning Automatic Rifles, as well as Browning's machine guns. His career spanned more than five decades, and since his death in 1926, there have been no further fundamental changes in the modern firearm industry
1875 Arthur Wontner – British actor (Genevieve, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Terror, Thunder in the City, Bonnie Prince Charlie) He starred as Sherlock Holmes in numerous movies in the 1930s (Silver Blaze, The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four, Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Rembrandt, The Sleeping Cardinal)
1905 Christian Dior - French fashion designer and creator of the ''New Look'' in 1947
1922 Paul Scofield - British actor (A Man for All Seasons, Scorpio, Anna Karenina, King Lear, Henry V, Hamlet)
1924 Telly Savalas - Actor (Kojak, The Dirty Dozen, Birdman of Alcatraz, Battle of the Bulge, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Kelly's Heroes)
1924 Benny Hill - British comedian and actor (The Benny Hill Show, The Italian Job, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines)
1926 Steve Reeves - Actor (Hercules, Hercules Unchained, Goliath and the Barbarians, The Last Days of Pompeii) He was a former Mr. Universe
1934 Audrey Dalton - Actress (Casanova's Big Night, The Prodigal, Titanic)
1935 Ann Wedgeworth – Actress (Three’s Company, Evening Shade, Harlan & Merleen, Steel Magnolias, Filthy Rich)
1939 Wolfman Jack – Rock-and-roll disc jockey and actor (Mortuary Academy, In the Midnight Hour, Deadman's Curve, The Wolfman Jack Show, American Graffiti) He was born Robert Weston Smith in Brooklyn, NY
1941 Placido Domingo - Spanish born Mexican opera tenor
1941 Richie Havens - Singer (Here Comes the Sun)
1942 Edwin Starr - Singer/songwriter (War, Agent Double-O Soul, Stop Her On Sight SOS, Contact, H.A.P.P.Y. Radio)
1942 Mac Davis - Singer (Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me, It's Hard To Be Humble, I Believe in Music, Stop and Smell the Roses) and actor (North Dallas Forty, It's Cheaper to Keep Her)
1945 Martin Shaw – British actor (The Murder Room, Death In Holy Orders, Judge John Deed, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Rhodes, The Professionals, Doctor in the House, Coronation Street) He played Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1983 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
1947 Jill Eikenberry - Actress (L.A. Law, Arthur, The Manhattan Project)
1950 Billy Ocean - Singer (Caribbean Queen, Love Really Hurts Without You, There'll Be Sad Songs)
1956 Robby Benson - Actor (Ode to Billy Joe, National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, The Chosen)
1956 Geena Davis - Actress (Thelma and Louise, The Accidental Tourist, Fletch, The Fly, Tootsie, Buffalo Bill, Earth Girls Are Easy, Beetlejuice, The Long Kiss Goodnight)
1968 Charlotte Ross – Actress (NYPD Blue, Jake in Progress, Beggars and Choosers, A Will of Their Own, The Five Mrs. Buchanans, Days of Our Lives)
1970 Ken Leung – Actor (Lost, Rush Hour, Red Dragon, Saw, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Spy Game)
Died this Day
1793 King Louis XVI - French monarch condemned for treason during the French Revolution. He was executed on the guillotine one day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention. He and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were arrested in August 1792 and imprisoned. In September the monarchy was abolished, and in January, Louis was convicted and condemned to death by a narrow majority. The next autumn, Marie Antoinette was convicted of treason by a tribunal, and executed
1891 Calixa Lavallée, age 48 - Canadian composer, died in Boston. He was a concert pianist from Verchères, Quebec, and is considered one of Canada's musical pioneers. Lavallée composed O Canada, the Canadian national anthem. The song was commissioned to celebrate the visit to Quebec by Governor General Lord Lorne and his wife Princess Louise, who was Queen Victoria's daughter
1901 Elisha Gray - US inventor and manufacturer of telegraph equipment in the late 1800s. He disputed Alexander Graham Bell's patent to the telephone but lost the long legal battle before the US Supreme Court. Gray, who held over sixty patents, started a company that became Western Electric Company. Ironically, the Bell Telephone Company purchased Western Electric in 1881
1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, age 54 - Russian revolutionary leader, died of a stroke. After a brief period of collective leadership, control of the Soviet government passed to Joseph Stalin
1950 George Orwell, age 46 - British author and essayist (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, The Road to Wigan Pier, Down and Out in Paris, Burmese Days) Orwell was born Eric Blair in India. The son of a British civil servant, he attended school in London and won a scholarship to the elite prep school Eton, where most students came from wealthy upper-class backgrounds, unlike Orwell. Rather than going to college like most of his classmates, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and went to work in Burma in 1922. During his five years there, he developed a severe sense of class guilt. In 1927, while on holiday in England, he chose not to return to Burma. Orwell went to Paris, where he immersed himself in the experiences of the urban poor, working menial jobs. He later spent time in England as a tramp. Orwell became increasingly left wing in his views, although he never committed himself to any specific political party. He went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight with the Republicans, but later fled as communism gained an upper hand in the struggle on the left. Orwell died in London, of a lung haemorrhage as a result of tuberculosis
1959 Cecil B. DeMille, age 77 - US film director, producer and screenwriter (The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show on Earth, Samson and Delilah)
1998 Jack Lord - Actor (Hawaii Five-O, Dr. No, Stoney Burke, God's Little Acre) He died in Honolulu, of congestive heart failure, a month after his 77th birthday
On this Day
1846 The first edition of the Daily News, edited by Charles Dickens, was published
1900 Canadian troops sailed to the Boer War, which was between British colonists and farmers of Dutch descent. It was the first time Canada fought for the Empire
1907 Taxi cabs were officially recognised by Britain
1908 New York City's Board of Aldermen enacted an ordinance making smoking in public by women punishable by a fine of up to 25-dollars. Mayor George McClellan vetoed the measure two weeks later
1911 The first Monte Carlo Rally began. The winner, a week later, was Henri Rougler
1915 The first Kiwanis Club was founded, in Detroit
1942 Count Basie and His Orchestra recorded One O'Clock Jump in New York City for Okeh Records
1948 Québec adopted its official flag
1954 The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Connecticut
1976 The supersonic Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France
1977 US President Jimmy Carter declared a full pardon for all Vietnam war draft evaders except those who deserted from the military or used violence
1980 For the first time, photographers were allowed to take pictures in the Canadian House of Commons
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