1769 DeWitt Clinton - Governor of New York who presided over the construction of the Erie Canal
1793 Samuel Houston - The first President of the independent Republic of Texas, born in Rockbridge County, Virginia. When Houston was 14, his father died and his mother moved her nine children to the frontier village of Maryville, Tennessee. After working for a time in the Maryville general store, Houston joined the army at the age of 20, where he attracted the admiring attention of his commanding general, Andrew Jackson, and established a distinguished record in the War of 1812. In 1818, intrigued by politics, Houston decided to abandon the military for the law. He completed an 18-month law course in six months. By the following year, he had become a district attorney in Nashville, where he would make important political connections. Five years later, he ran for Congress and won. The people of Tennessee re-elected him for a second term and twice made him their governor. Houston's personal life suffered as his political fortunes soared, and in 1829, his wife abandoned him. Despondent, he resigned the governorship and went to live with Cherokee Indians in Arkansas, serving for several years as their spokesman in Washington. Houston's interest in the fate of the Arkansas Cherokee led him to make several trips to the neighbouring Mexican State of Texas. He became intrigued by the growing Texan movement for political independence from Mexico and decided to make Texas his new home. In 1836 (on his 43rd birthday), he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. His fellow rebels chose him as commander-in-chief of the revolutionary Texas army. Houston led the Texan army to a spectacular victory over superior Mexican forces at San Jacinto in April 1836, and easily won election later that year as the first president of the Republic of Texas. He immediately let it be known that Texas would like to become part of the US. However, US fears of war with Mexico and questions over the extension of slavery into the new territory interfered with annexation for a decade. Finally, the aggressively expansionist President James Polk pushed Congress to grant statehood to Texas in 1846. Again a US citizen, Houston served for 14 years as a senator, where he argued eloquently for Native American rights. The divisive issue of slavery finally derailed Houston's political career. His antislavery beliefs were out of step with the dominant southern ideology of Texas, and he staunchly resisted those who argued for southern secession from the Union during the 1850s. Nonetheless, his enduring popularity won him the governorship in 1859. When Texas voted to break from the Union in 1861, Houston refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy. The Texas legislature voted to remove Houston from office and replaced him with a pro-Confederacy governor. Disillusioned, Houston retired to his farm near Huntsville, where he died two years later
1824 Bedrich Smetana - Bohemian composer (The Bartered Bride, Die Moldau)
1904 Theodor Seuss Geisel - German born Pulitzer Prize-winning author who is better known as Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, Horton Hears a Who…)
1917 Desi Arnaz - Bandleader, singer, actor (I Love Lucy) He was married to Lucille Ball
1919 Jennifer Jones - Actress (The Song of Bernadette, A Farewell to Arms, Carrie, Love is a Many Splendored Thing)
1931 Mikhail Gorbachev - Soviet leader who was the author of perestroika
1931 Tom Wolfe - US journalist and author (The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, Ambush at Fort Bragg)
1935 Al Waxman - Canadian actor (Cagney & Lacey, King of Kensington, Atlantic City, Mob Story)
1941 Jon Finch - British actor (Death on the Nile, Peter and Paul, The Martian Chronicles) He played Count Sylvius in the Sherlock Holmes episode, The Mazarin Stone
1942 John Irving - US author (Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, Setting Free the Bears, The Hotel New Hampshire, A Prayer for Owen Meaney)
1944 Lou Reed - Singer, songwriter, and guitarist with the group Velvet Underground, who also had a solo career (Walk on the Wild Side, Charley's Girl, I Love You Suzanne)
1945 Gordon Thompson – Canadian actor (Dynasty, Sunset Beach, Leopard in the Snow, The Littlest Hobo, Little Miss Sunshine)
1949 Eddie Money - Musician, singer, guitarist (Take Me Home Tonight, Two Tickets to Paradise, Maybe I'm a Fool)
1949 Gates McFadden – Actress (Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Hunt for Red October, The Muppets Take Manhattan) She was a "Muppeteer" for Jim Henson and choreographed the ballroom scene in the Jim Henson film Labyrinth
1950 Karen Carpenter - Singer who, with her brother, formed the group The Carpenters (Close to You, We've Only Just Begun, Top of the World, Please Mr. Postman)
1952 Laraine Newman - Comedienne, actress (Saturday Night Live, Invaders from Mars, Coneheads, The Flintstones)
1952 John Altman - British actor (EastEnders, Blackhearts In Battersea, The Famous Five, Cold Lazarus)
1955 Jay Osmond - Singer with his family group The Osmonds (Hold Her Tight, One Bad Apple)
1956 John Cowsill - Singer with his family group The Cowsills (Hair, Indian Lake)
1962 Jon Bon Jovi - Singer, musician, songwriter (You Give Love a Bad Name, Living on a Prayer, Wanted Dead or Alive)
1968 Daniel Craig – British actor (Munich, Archangel, Road to Perdition, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Elizabeth, The Ice House, Our Friends in the North, Sharpe's Eagle, Casino Royale)
Died this Day
1791 John Wesley - Founder of English Methodism
1835 Francis II - The last Holy Roman Emperor
1930 D.H. Lawrence, age 44 - British novelist (Women in Love, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Sons and Lovers, The White Peacock) He was born to a poor coal-mining family in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, where his mother struggled to teach her children refinement and a love of education. She depended heavily on Lawrence for emotional support and nurturing. He won a scholarship to Nottingham High School, worked as a clerk, and attended University College in Nottingham, where he earned a teaching certificate. His first novel was published in 1911. The following year, Lawrence fell in love with Frieda Weekly, the German wife of a fellow teacher. The pair fled to Germany and wed after Frieda divorced her husband. The couple returned to England, and after World War I, Lawrence travelled to Italy, Australia, and Mexico. He died of tuberculosis in France
1939 Howard Carter - British Egyptologist who, with Lord Carnarvon, was responsible for the discovery of the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen near Luxor, Egypt in 1922
1945 Emily Carr, age 73 - Canadian painter and writer (Klee Wyck, The Book of Small, The House of All Sorts) She grafted her own postimpressionist style onto native culture and coastal landscapes
1987 Randolph Scott, age 84 – Actor (Last of the Mohicans, The Nevadan, Ride the High Country, To the Shores of Tripoli, Man in the Saddle, Go West Young Man, Bombardier, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm)
1999 Dusty Springfield, age 59 - British singer (I Only Want To Be With You, Wishin' and Hopin', Son of a Preacher Man) She died at her home west of London
On this Day
1717 The first ballet was performed in England. The Loves of Mars and Venus was staged at Drury Lane
1729 France's King Louis XV authorised a new issue of playing card money in New France. There was not enough printed bills or coinage to pay the troops in the New World, so the Governor at Quebec was allowed to sign playing cards as currency
1831 The Upper Canada Assembly passed an act legalising marriages by Methodist ministers
1836 Texas adopted its Declaration of Independence at Washington on the Brazos
1877 The City of Belleville, Ontario was incorporated
1882 At Windsor, England, Roderick Maclean made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria. He was later declared insane
1899 President McKinley signed a measure creating the rank of Admiral of the Navy for Admiral George Dewey
1899 Congress established Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state
1917 The Jones Act granted US citizenship to residents of the new Puerto Rico territory
1917 Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated, and a provisional government under Georgy Lvov took over
1923 In New York City Henry Luce and Briton Hadden published the first issue of their weekly periodical, Time. The magazine had 32 pages and featured a charcoal sketch of Congressman Joseph Gurney Cannon on the cover
1923 Canada signed the Halibut Treaty with the US to preserve North Pacific fish stocks. It was Canada's first independent international treaty that didn't require a British signature
1925 In the US, the first nation-wide highway numbering system was instituted by the joint board of state and federal highway officials appointed by the secretary of agriculture. In order to minimise confusion caused by the array of multiform state-appointed highway signs, the board created the shield-shaped highway number markers. Later, interstate highway numbering would be improved by coloured signs and the odd-even demarcation that distinguishes between north-south and east-west travel respectively
1933 The motion picture, King Kong, starring Fay Wray, had its world premiere in New York
1939 Roman Catholic Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope. He took the name Pius XII
1949 The Connecticut Light and Power Company installed the first automatic streetlight system in New Milford, Connecticut. Each streetlight contained an electronic device that contained a photoelectric cell capable of measuring outside light, enabling the streetlights to turn themselves on at dark. By November of 1949, seven miles of New Milford's roads were automatically lit at dusk by a total of 190 photoelectric streetlights
1949 The first round the world, non-stop flight was completed by Captain James Gallagher and his thirteen man US Air Force crew. The flight took 94 hours, during which the aircraft, Lucky Lady II, was refuelled four times in flight by tanker planes
1958 Sir Vivian Fuchs, British explorer and scientist, completed the first crossing of Antarctica by land. The journey took 99 days using Sno-cat caterpillar tractors and dog sleds
25
Responses