1733 Joseph Priestley - British chemist and Unitarian minister who discovered oxygen in 1774. His support for the French Revolution led to his house and chapel being sacked by a mob. He emigrated to the US in 1794
1798 Abigail Powers - US First Lady who was the wife of the 13th President, Millard Fillmore. She instituted the White House library
1860 Percival Lowell - US astronomer who established the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He also predicted the discovery of Pluto, which was discovered by US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, at the observatory that bears Lowell's name
1898 Henry Hathaway - US film director (The House on 92nd Street, True Grit, The Sons of Katie Elder, North to Alaska, Go West Young Man) He started out directing low budget westerns
1910 Sammy Kaye - Bandleader (Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye: Too Young, "A" You're Adorable, Harbour Lights)
1914 W.O. (William Ormonde) Mitchell - Canadian author (Jake and the Kid, Who has Seen the Wind, The Kite, The Vanishing Point, How I Spent My Summer Holidays, Daisy Creek)
1914 Bobby Haggart - Musician and bass player with the groups Bob Cats, Peanuts Hucko's Pied Piper Quintet, and the Lawson-Haggart Jazz Band
1916 Ina Ray Hutton - Tap dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies, pianist, bandleader, singer (Every Man a King) and actress (Big Broadcast of '36, Ever Since Venus, The Ina Ray Hutton Show, Ina Ray Hutton and Her Orchestra)
1926 Roy Haynes - Modern jazz drummer and bandleader with the Hip Ensemble
1929 Peter Breck - Actor (The Big Valley, Benji, Highway 61, Shock Corridor) He was in the Perry Mason episodes The Case of the Gambling Lady, The Case of the Antic Angel and The Case of the Bluffing Blast
1930 Liz Anderson - Country singer and songwriter (Pick of the Week, The Fugitive, Ride Ride Ride) She is the mother of Lynn Anderson
1932 Jan Howard - Country singer (The One You Slip Around With, Evil on Your Mind, My Son)
1939 Neil Sedaka - Songwriter, singer (Oh! Carol, The Diary, Calendar Girl, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Bad Blood, Laughter in The Rain)
1935 Leslie Parrish - Actress (The Manchurian Candidate, Sex and the Single Girl, The Invisible Strangler, Li'l Abner)
1941 Charo (Maria Martinez) – Spanish-born Flamenco guitarist and actress (Chico and the Man, Airport '79, Moon Over Parador, Tiger by the Tail)
1949 Donald York - Singer with the group Sha Na Na
1950 William H. Macy - Actor (Fargo, Pleasantville, Air Force One, Wag the Dog, ER, Magnolia, Shameless, Seabiscuit)
1950 Ed Marinaro - Actor (Hill Street Blues, Sisters, Dancing with Danger) He also played football with the Minnesota Vikings
1953 Deborah Raffin - Actress (Foul Play, Noble House, Death Wish 3)
1955 Glenne Headly – Stage and screen actress (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dick Tracy, Eleni, Paperhouse, Lonesome Dove, Mr. Holland's Opus, Monk, ER)
1956 Dana Delany - Actress (Moon Over Parador, China Beach, Fly Away Home, Body of Proof, Desperate Housewives)
1960 Adam Clayton - Musician with the group U2 (Sunday Bloody Sunday, With You Or Without You, I Will Follow)
1971 Annabeth Gish – Actress (The X-Files, A Death in the Family, Double Jeopardy, Nixon, Scarlett, Wyatt Earp, Mystic Pizza) She is no relation to Lillian and Dorothy Gish.
Died this Day
1619 Richard Burbage - British actor who built the Globe Theatre. His partners included William Shakespeare
1881 Alexander II, age 62 – Russian emperor who emancipated the serfs in 1861. He died from wounds received when a Revolutionary terrorist threw a bomb at his carriage
1901 Benjamin Harrison - The 23rd president of the United States. He died in Indianapolis. He was the only president to succeed and be succeeded by the same man, Grover Cleveland
1906 Susan B. Anthony - US suffragist, died in Rochester, NY
1938 Clarence S. Darrow - Famed US attorney, died in Chicago
1943 Stephen Vincent Benet - US poet (John Brown's Body)
1947 Angela Brazil - British writer of English school girl stories (The Fortunes of Philippa, The School on the Loch, A Terrible Tomboy)
1964 Kitty Genovese, age 28 - She was murdered in Queens, New York as dozens of neighbours witnessed the stabbing, which lasted nearly half an hour, but did not want to "get involved." March 13th is the annual Good Samaritan Involvement Day in Genovese's memory
On this Day
1639 Cambridge College was renamed Harvard in honour of clergyman John Harvard
1677 Massachusetts gained title to the territory of Maine for $6,000
1781 German-born astronomer Sir William Hershel discovered Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest planet by diameter. Herschel's discovery of a new planet was the first to be made in modern times, and was also the first to be made by use of a telescope, which allowed Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet, not as a star as previous astronomers had believed it to be. Herschel named it the Georgian Planet, in honour of King George III of England. However, German astronomer Johann Bode later proposed the name Uranus in order to conform with the classical mythology-derived names of other known planets. Uranus was the ancient Greek deity of the Heavens. The planet Uranus is a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn, and is made up of hydrogen, helium, and methane. Uranus orbits the sun once every eighty-four earth-years and is the only planet to spin perpendicular to its solar orbital plane
1809 Poet George Gordon took his seat in the British House of Lords as Lord Byron
1836 Less than a week after the disastrous defeat of Texas rebels at the Alamo, the newly commissioned Texan General Sam Houston began a series of strategic retreats to buy time to train his ill-prepared army. Houston's decision to retreat won him little but scorn from the Texas rebels. His troops and officers were eager to engage the Mexicans, and they chafed at Houston's insistence on learning proper field manoeuvres. Houston wisely continued to organise, train, and equip his troops so they would be prepared to meet Santa Ana's army the next month at the battle of San Jacinto.
1852 The New York Lantern weekly newspaper published the first Uncle Sam cartoon, the work of Frank Henry Bellew
1859 John Brown brought the first black slaves to Canada from the US via the Underground Railway. He was later made famous in a song, John Brown's Body, about a raid he made on Harper's Ferry, Virginia
1884 Standard Time was adopted throughout the US. It was invented by Canadian engineer Sir Sandford Fleming
1887 Chester Greenwood patented the earmuff in the US
1891 Henrik Ibsen's play, Ghosts, opened in London
1894 In England, J.L. Johnstone invented the horse racing starting gate
1894 A Paris night-club, the Divan Fayonau Music Hall, presented the first professional striptease. The act showed a woman stripping to go to bed
1916 Manitoba became the first Canadian province to vote for prohibition
1925 The Tennessee legislature made it unlawful to teach the science of evolution
1928 Flooding from a dam near Los Angeles drowned 450 people and caused extensive damage
1928 Eileen Vollock of Hamilton, Ontario became the first Canadian woman to get her pilot's licence
1947 The Lerner and Loewe musical, Brigadoon, opened on Broadway
1961 Pablo Picasso, then 79, married his 37 year old model, Jacqueline Rocque, in Nice, France
1969 The Apollo 9 astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module
1972 Clifford Irving admitted to a New York court that he had fabricated Howard Hughes' autobiography after receiving a $750,000 advance from his publishers. He had hoped the reclusive millionaire would not venture into the public limelight to denounce him
1974 The Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris was opened
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