1810 Frédéric Chopin - Polish composer and pianist (Concert in F Minor)
1837 William Dean Howells - Author (Life of Lincoln, A Modern Instance, The Rise of Silas Lapham) He also was the editor of the Atlantic Monthly and a columnist for Harper's Monthly
1880 Lytton Strachey - British biographer (Eminent Victorians, Books and Characters, Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History) He has been credited with originating the art of the modern biography
1904 Glenn Miller - US trombonist, composer and bandleader (Moonlight Serenade, In the Mood, Little Brown Jug, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, String of Pearls, Tuxedo Junction, Perfidia) He led the WWII US Army Air Force Band
1910 David Niven - British actor (The Pink Panther, Separate Tables, Moon is Blue, Paper Tiger, The Guns of Navarone, Around the World in 80 Days, Casino Royale, Murder by Death, Death on the Nile, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, David Niven’s World)
1917 Robert Lowell - US poet (Lord Weary's Castle, The Dolphin, Near the Ocean, For the Union Dead)
1919 Lawrence Ferlinghetti - US beat poet (Coney Island of the Mind, The Secret Meaning of Things, Landscapes of Living and Dying)
1922 William Maxwell Gaines - US publisher of Mad magazine
1926 Robert Clary - French born actor (Hogan's Heroes, The Hindenburg, Thief of Damascus)
1927 Harry Belafonte - Singer (The Banana Boat Song, Jamaica Farewell, Mary's Boy Child) and actor (Island in the Sun, Carmen Jones, Buck and the Preacher) He is the father of actress Shari Belafonte
1935 Robert Conrad - Actor (The Wild Wild West, High Mountain Rangers, Crossfire, Lady in Red, Samurai Cowboy, Centennial, Black Sheep Squadron)
1944 Roger Daltry - Singer with The Who (Pinball Wizard, Won't Get Fooled Again, Tommy)
1945 Dirk Benedict - Actor (Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team, Scruples)
1947 Alan Thicke – Canadian actor (Growing Pains, Hope & Gloria, The Trial of Red Riding Hood, The Alan Thicke Show, The Canadian Conspiracy)
1954 Ron Howard - Actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, American Graffiti, Grand Theft Auto) and director (Cocoon, Backdraft, Splash, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind)
1954 Catherine Bach - Actress (The Dukes of Hazzard, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Nicole, African Skies, The Young and the Restless)
1956 Tim Daly - Actor (Wings, Madam Secretary, Year of the Comet, Queen, Diner) He is the brother of actress Tyne Daly, and son of James Daly
1967 George Eads – Actor (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Evel Knievel, Grapevine, Monte Walsh, Savannah)
Died this Day
1912 George Grossmith - British comedian, singer and author (The Diary of a Nobody, Reminiscences of a Clown, Piano and I)
1984 Jackie Coogan, age 69 - US actor (Peck's Bad Boy, The Kid, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Buster Keaton Story, The Addams Family) He was a frequent guest on the early Perry Mason series, appearing in four episodes He also appeared in the movie, Sherlock Holmes in New York
1988 Joe Besser - US actor who was best known for his role of Curly in the Three Stooges films
1991 Edwin H. Land, age 81 - US inventor of polarising filters and Polaroid instant photography, died in Cambridge, Massachusetts
On this Day
1BC The revised Julian calendar started in the Roman Empire
1498 Vasco da Gama landed at what is now Mozambique, enroute to India
1632 Samuel de Champlain was appointed the first Governor of the royal colony of New France
1642 York, Maine was incorporated, the first US settlement to do so
1692 Examinations were scheduled for Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Their arrest warrants had been issued the previous day, February 29th, marking the beginning of the Salem witch trials. Tituba was a servant of Reverend Samuel Parris, Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her, and Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The examinations were originally scheduled for Ingersoll’s Tavern, but when hundreds showed up, they were moved to the meeting house
1780 Pennsylvania became the first US state to abolish slavery
1781 The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation
1790 Congress authorised the first US census
1803 Ohio became the 17th state of the Union
1810 Sweden became the first country to appoint an ombudsman, Lars August Mannerheim
1845 President Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas
1847 Michigan became the first English-speaking jurisdiction to abolish the death penalty, except in cases of treason against the state
1864 Rebecca Lee became the first black woman to receive a US medical degree. She received it from the New England Female Medical College in Boston
1867 Nebraska became the 37th state of the Union
1872 President Grant signed a bill creating the US's first national park at Yellowstone. Native Americans had lived and hunted in the region that would become Yellowstone for hundreds of years before the first Anglo explorers arrived. Abundant game and mountain streams teaming with fish attracted the Indians to the region, though the awe-inspiring geysers, canyons, and gurgling mud pots also fascinated them. Famous mountain man John Colter was the first Anglo to travel through the area. After journeying with Lewis and Clark to the Pacific, Colter joined a party of fur trappers to explore the wilderness. In 1807, he explored part of the Yellowstone plateau and returned with fantastic stories of steaming geysers and bubbling cauldrons. Some doubters accused the mountain man of telling tall tales and jokingly dubbed the area "Colter's Hell." Before the Civil War, only a handful of trappers and hunters ventured into the area, and it remained largely a mystery. In 1869, the Folsom-Cook expedition made the first formal exploration, followed a year later by a much more thorough reconnaissance by the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition. The key to Yellowstone's future as a national park, though, was the 1871 exploration under the direction of the government geologist Ferdinand Hayden. Hayden brought along William Jackson, a pioneering photographer, and Thomas Moran, a brilliant landscape artist, to make a visual record of the expedition. Their images provided the first visual proof of Yellowstone's wonders and caught the attention of the US Congress. Early in 1872, Congress moved to set aside 1,221,773 acres of public land straddling the future states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho as a national park. The Yellowstone Act of 1872 designated the region as a public "pleasuring-ground," which would be preserved "from injury or spoilation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within." For a nation bent on settling and exploiting the West, the creation of Yellowstone was surprising. Many congressmen gave it their support simply because they believed the rugged and isolated region was of little economic value. Yet the Yellowstone Act of 1872 set a precedent and popularised the idea of preserving sections of the public domain for use as public parks, and Congress went on to designate dozens of other national parks
1873 In the US, E. Remington and Sons started manufacturing the world's first practical typewriter
1878 G. & G. Flewwelling leased New Brunswick's first telephones
1888 The Canadian Post Office started the first parcel post service between Canada and the US
1910 A snow slide buried three passenger trains at Steven's Pass in Washington state's Cascade Range, killing 118
1912 In St. Louis, Missouri, Captain Albert Berry of the Jefferson Barracks made world's first parachute jump from a moving airplane, from an altitude of 1,500 feet at 50 mph
1913 The US Federal Income Tax came into operation under the 16th Amendment. It had been ratified the previous month
1927 In London England, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided in favour of Newfoundland's claim on the Labrador boundary. The boundary was a long-standing dispute between Newfoundland and Quebec. Newfoundland's claims to Labrador had been recognised since the Treaty of Paris in 1763. However, an ambiguous definition of the boundary between Quebec and Labrador caused recurring problems. Newfoundland offered to sell Labrador to Quebec in 1923 for $30 million, but Quebec rejected the offer
1932 Twenty-month-old Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnapped from the nursery of his home in Hopewell, New Jersey. He was the son of Charles A. Lindbergh, the famous US aviator who made the first solo, non-stop transatlantic flight in 1927. The baby was found dead nearly six weeks later
1941 The first US commercial FM radio station received its license and went on the air. Station W47NV in Nashville, Tennessee, began operations and aired a commercial for Nashville's Standard Candy Company
1943 At Dawson Creek, BC, work began on the Alaska Highway, which was to supply the North West in case of Japanese invasion
1949 Joe Louis, the US world heavyweight boxing champion, who was known as the "Brown Bomber", retired at age 35, after a record 25 successful defences of his title
1954 The US conducted a successful hydrogen bomb test on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
1961 US President Kennedy established the Peace Corps of Young Americans to work overseas as part of the US aid to developing nations
1968 June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash were married
1981 Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands began a hunger strike at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. He died 65 days later
1990 Daily rum tots for sailors aboard Royal New Zealand Navy ships was stopped. It was the last navy in the world to scrap rum rations
44
Responses