1652 Thomas Otway - British dramatist and poet (Don Carlos, The Orphan, Venice Preserved)
1831 Georg Cantor - Russian born German mathematician who formulated the theory of infinity
1831 George Pullman - US industrialist and inventor of the railroad sleeping car known as the Pullman Car, which was produced by his Pullman Palace Car Company
1847 Alexander Graham Bell - Scottish born speech therapist, audiologist, teacher of the deaf and inventor. Bell is considered one of the most important inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1870, he left Scotland and settled in Brantford, Ontario, where he worked as a speech therapist. He invented the telephone from 1874-76, patented it and promoted its commercial development in the US. He founded Bell Telephone Company and was immediately bombarded by patent suits. Litigation against Bell persisted through the life of his patents, but ultimately his claims were upheld. Bell died in Nova Scotia in 1922
1890 Norman Bethune - Canadian doctor who served during several wars, and was the first Westerner recognised as a hero by China. He went to China in 1938 to help fight the Japanese invasion and devised a mobile medical unit that could be carried on two mules. He, himself died of blood poisoning in 1939 due to the lack of penicillin
1904 Mayo Methot - Actress (Goodbye Love, Marked Woman)
1911 Jean Harlow - Actress (Platinum Blonde, Red Dust, Bombshell, Dinner at Eight, China Seas, Libelled Lady)
1920 James Doohan - Canadian WW II military pilot and actor (Star Trek, The Bold and the Beautiful, Homeboys In Outer Space) Doohan landed with Royal Canadian Army troops on the D-Day invasion of France on the beach at Normandy, and was wounded in the leg and hand. He lost the middle finger of his right hand to the German fire
1923 Doc Watson - Bluegrass singer-musician (Riding the Midnight Train, On Praying Ground, Elementary Doctor Watson, Two Days in November, Pickin' The Blues)
1924 John Woodnutt – British actor (Malice Aforethought, After the War, The Importance of Being Earnest) He played Mr Merryweather in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Red-Headed League He also played Dr Clare in The Sweeney episode Stay Lucky, Eh?
1926 James Merrill - Pulitzer Prize-winning US poet (Broken Home, First Poems, Nights and Days, Divine Comedies) His father was financier Charles Merrill, who founded the brokerage firm Merrill-Lynch
1934 Gia Scala – British-born actress (Don't Go Near the Water, Tunnel of Love, The Guns of Navarone, Ride a Crooked Trail)
1942 Mike Pender - Vocalist and bass guitarist with The Searchers (Sweets for My Sweet, Needles and Pins, Don't Throw Your Love Away, Love Potion No. 9)
1947 Jennifer Warnes – Singer (The Time of My Life, Up Where We Belong)
1958 Miranda Richardson - British actress (Fatherland, The Crying Game, Empire of the Sun, Dance with a Stranger, Blackadder II, The Scold's Bridle, Sleepy Hollow, The Hours, The Young Victoria)
1970 Julie Bowen – Actress (Modern Family, Boston Legal, Lost, Ed, Happy Gilmore, An American Werewolf in Paris)
1974 David Faustino – Actor (Married With Children, The Hustle, In the Custody of Strangers)
1982 Mercedes Masöhn – Swedish-born actress (The Finder, All Signs of Death, Quarantine 2: Terminal, Three Veils, The Rookie)
Died this Day
1703 Robert Hooke - British physicist who, amongst his many scientific contributions, invented the spirit level
1959 Lou Costello - US comedian who partnered with Bud Abbott. They started out as vaudeville performers and were first heard on the radio in February 1938 on The Kate Smith Hour. He died three days before his 53rd birthday
1962 Cairine Wilson, age 77 - Canada's first woman senator and Canada's first woman delegate to the United Nations
1987 Danny Kaye, age 74 - Actor, singer, dancer, comedian and broadcaster (Up In Arms, Hans Christian Anderson, White Christmas, The Danny Kaye Show, The Court Jester)
2002 Harlan Howard, age 74 – Country songwriter (I Fall to Pieces, Busted, I've Got a Tiger by the Tail, The Key's in the Mailbox, Heartaches by the Number, Pick Me Up on Your Way Down)
On this Day
1655 A Montréal physician offered the first medical insurance
1791 Congress established the US Mint, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1841 Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, began a trip around the world that would take 20 months. A fur-trader and not a farmer, Simpson once told a Commons committee that the soil in Western Canada was useless for farming
1843 After lobbying the US Congress for six years, Samuel Morse finally won financial support to test the "practicability of establishing a system of electromagnetic telegraphs by the United States." Congress granted him $30,000 to build an experimental telegraph line between Washington, DC, and Baltimore. The line became operational the following year, on May 24th, when he sent the historic message, "What hath God wrought?"
1845 Florida became the 27th state of the Union
1847 The US Post Office Department was authorised to issue the first US postage stamps
1849 Congress created the Minnesota Territory
1849 The Home Department, forerunner of the Interior Department, was established
1849 US Congress passed the Gold Coinage Act, allowing gold coins to be minted. It also authorised the $20 Double Eagle gold coin
1863 The National Academy of Sciences was approved by President Abraham Lincoln. The society's mission was to "investigate, examine, experiment and report on any subject of science," with experiments and reports paid for by government appropriations
1871 The Canadian House of Commons approved British Columbia's terms to join Canada
1873 The US Congress enacted the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail. The legislation also rendered it unlawful to send anything "designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion." The law was named after Anthony Comstock, a salesman from Connecticut, who found allies for his campaign at the New York YMCA. He devoted his entire life to fighting that which he perceived as vice, particularly obscenity and gambling. The Comstock Law prompted many states to add laws of their own: Ohio passed a law that made it unlawful to distribute publications that focused on "criminal news or police reports, accounts or stories of deeds of lust, immorality, or crime." Oregon had a similar law but restricted it to preventing minors from accessing these materials
1875 In Montréal, Quebec the first recorded hockey game using roughly modern rules was played
1875 The Georges Bizet opera, Carmen, premiered in Paris at the Opéra Comique. It was not a hit - Bizet was booed from the theatre
1879 Congress established the United States Geological Survey, an organisation that played a pivotal role in the exploration and development of the West. Although the rough geographical outlines of much of the US West were known by 1879, the government still had astonishingly little detailed knowledge of the land, and Congress decided to transform the earlier system of sporadic federal geological explorations into a permanent government agency
1879 In Washington DC, Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood became the first female lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Court
1879 The US Congress established the civil service system to limit patronage excesses
1885 The US Post Office began offering special delivery for first-class mail
1887 Anne Mansfield Sullivan arrived at the Alabama home of Captain and Mrs. Arthur H. Keller to become the teacher of Helen, their blind and deaf 6-year-old daughter
1895 Munich bicyclists had to pass a test and display licence plates
1915 The US Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was the forerunner of NASA
1919 The first international airmail was delivered in a flight from Vancouver, BC to Seattle, Washington
1929 The first radio broadcast from the US Senate Chamber was made during the inauguration ceremonies of Herbert Hoover. Speakers included retiring Vice President Charles Dawes and incoming Vice President Charles Curtis
1931 The Star-Spangled Banner officially became the national anthem of the US. Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner in 1814, after observing that Fort McHenry's flag had survived an 1,800-bomb assault during the War of 1812. Key's words were later set to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven, a popular British drinking song. Throughout the nineteenth century, the song was regarded as the national anthem by most branches of the US armed forces and other groups, but it was not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it was formally designated as such. In 1931, Congress passed an act confirming Wilson's presidential order, and President Hoover signed it into law
1965 The film adaptation of the popular Broadway hit, The Sound of Music, opened in New York City. The story of the von Trapp family starred Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews
1966 John Lennon was quoted in the London Evening Standard as saying the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus Christ," touching off an international protest
1969 Apollo 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a mission to test the lunar module
1978 The remains of comedian Charles Chaplin were stolen from his grave in Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, by extortionists. The body was recovered near Lake Geneva 11 weeks later
1994 A Boston grand jury indicted former NHL players' union head and hockey power broker Alan Eagleson on 32 counts of embezzlement, fraud and racketeering. The former Toronto hockey lawyer refused to go to the US to face the charges
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