1804 Jim Bridger - US trader and mountain man, born in Richmond, Virginia. The son of a surveyor and an innkeeper, Bridger moved with his family to St. Louis in 1818. There, Bridger apprenticed to a blacksmith, learned to handle boats, and became a good shot and skilled woodsman. When the Ashley-Henry fur trading company advertised for "enterprising young men" to travel the Missouri River to trade with the Indians, Bridger was among the first to respond, and he was hired in 1822. Though he lacked much formal education, Bridger demonstrated a brilliant ability for finding his way and surviving in the wilderness. As part of the Ashley-Henry team, he helped construct the first fur trading post on the Yellowstone River. At the age of 21, Bridger became the first Anglo definitely known to have seen the Great Salt Lake, though he mistakenly thought it was the Pacific Ocean at the time. He was adept at learning Indian dialects and culture, and he had a tremendous memory for geographical detail. For several years he worked as an independent trapper, and in 1830 joined with three partners to gain control of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Bridger never really enjoyed the life of the businessman, though, and he sold out in 1834. That same year, he married Cora, the daughter of a Flathead Indian chief, and she accompanied him on his fur trapping expeditions. By 1840, Bridger had grown tired of the nomadic trapper life, and was convinced that the emigrant traffic through the West had become heavy enough to support a trading post. He founded Fort Bridger along the Green River section of the Oregon Trail, in present-day southern Wyoming. Fort Bridger quickly became a regular stopping place for overland emigrants, and Bridger happily settled down with Cora, with whom he had three children. Bridger's idyllic life did not last, though. Cora died, Indians killed one of his daughters, and a second wife died in childbirth. Bridger retreated to the mountains to trap and hunt after each of these tragedies, often living for a time with Indians. In 1850, he married the daughter of a Shoshoni chief, and thereafter he and his bride, Mary, divided their time between summers at Fort Bridger and winters with the Shoshoni. In 1853, Mormons, resenting the competition from Bridger's fort, tried to arrest him as an outlaw. He escaped into the mountains with Mary and his children, but a band of Mormons burnt and gutted the fort, destroying all his supplies. Concerned for his family's safety, Bridger bought a farm near Westport, Missouri, where he left Mary and the children during all of his subsequent western journeys. He sold Fort Bridger in 1858, and spent the next decade working as a guide and an army scout in the early Indian wars. By 1868, Bridger's eyesight was failing, and he increasingly suffered from rheumatism. He retired to his Westport farm, where he cared for his apple trees until he died in 1881
1834 Gottlieb Daimler - German engineer who improved the internal combustion engine and founded the Daimler Automobile Company
1846 Kate Greenaway - British artist, book illustrator and children's author (Under the Window, A: Apple Pie, Mother Goose or the Old Nursery Rhymes)
1894 Paul Eliot Green - Novelist and playwright (In Abraham's Bosom, The Lost Colony, The Lone Star, The Common Glory, The House of Connelly, Hymn to the Rising Sun)
1919 Nat "King" Cole - Jazz pianist, bandleader with the King Cole Trio, songwriter, actor (St. Louis Blues) and singer (Mona Lisa, Too Young, Unforgettable, Pretend, Ballerina, Ramblin’ Rose, Straighten Up and Fly Right) He was the father of Natalie Cole
1930 Paul Horn - Composer, jazz musician (Green Jelly Beans, Dancing Children, Inside)
1932 Dick Curless - Country singer (A Tombstone Every Mile, Six Times a Day, All of Me Belongs to You, Big Wheel Cannonball, Loser's Cocktail)
1938 Rudolf Nureyev - Russian ballet dancer who defected to the US in 1961. He danced with Dame Margot Fonteyn and the Martha Graham Dance Company. Also, he was the artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet
1944 John Sebastian - Musician and songwriter with the Lovin' Spoonful (Do You Believe In Magic, Summer In The City, Daydream, You Didn't Have to be So Nice, Nashville Cats) He also had a solo career and sang the title song for the TV show, Welcome Back Kotter
1949 Patrick Duffy - Actor (Dallas, Man from Atlantis, Step by Step, Texas)
1951 Kurt Russell - Actor (The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Overboard, Big Trouble in Little China, Executive Decision, Backdraft, Breakdown)
1954 Lesley-Anne Down - British actress (The Great Train Robbery, Upstairs Downstairs, Dallas, North and South, The Pink Panther Strikes Again) She played Caroline in The Sweeney episode, Chalk and Cheese
1955 Gary Sinise - Actor (The Green Mile, Ransom, Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Of Mice and Men, CSI: NY)
1958 Christian Clemenson – Actor (Apollo 13, Boston Legal, CSI: Miami, The Big Lebowski, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., And the Band Played On, Black Widow)
1964 Rob Lowe - Actor (The West Wing, Wayne's World, St. Elmo's Fire, About Last Night, Parks and Recreation, Brothers & Sisters)
Died this Day
AD461 Saint Patrick - The patron saint of Ireland, who, according to tradition, died in Saul on this day. Saint Patrick was one of the most successful Christian missionaries in history. He was born in the fifth century, in Britain, to a Christian family of Roman citizenship. At the age of sixteen, he was taken prisoner by a group of Irish raiders who were attacking his family's estate. They transported him to Ireland where he spent six years in captivity, before escaping to Britain. Believing that he had been called by God to Christianise Ireland, he joined the Church and studied for fifteen years. Eventually consecrated as the second missionary to Ireland by the Roman Church, Saint Patrick began his mission to Ireland in 432, and by his death, the island was almost entirely Christian
1782 Daniel Bernoulli, age 82 - Swiss mathematician who studied the motion of liquids. While researching blood flow and pressure Daniel and his assistant came up with a new way to measure blood pressure by piercing an artery with a glass pipe. This method was used for almost 200 years after its discovery
1853 Christian Doppler - Austrian physicist who described the Doppler effect, the apparent change in the frequency of a wave
1993 Helen Hayes, age 92 - US actress known as The First Lady of American Theatre (The Glass Menagerie, Long Day's Journey into Night, Airport, The Sin of Madelon Claudet, Victoria Regina, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Snoop Sisters, Victory at Entebbe, Candleshoe) She was the mother of actor James MacArthur. In 1959, a Broadway theatre was named after Hayes. When it was torn down in 1982, there was such an outrage that another theatre was promptly named after her. Hayes won the Life Achievement Award from the Kennedy Centre and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1988 by President Reagan. She died in Nyack, NY, of heart failure
On this Day
1233 Millions of mice invaded the area of Freising, Germany, forcing whole towns to evacuate
1337 The Duchy of Cornwall was created when Edward the Black Prince was made the first Duke
1577 In London, Martin Frobisher received a commission from the Cathay Company to hunt for gold in the Arctic. He returned instead, with tons of worthless pyrites, which were dumped as street ballast in London, giving rise to the legend that the streets of London were paved with gold
1762 In New York City, the first parade honouring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army
1765 St. Patrick's Day was celebrated for the first time in Canada, at Quebec City, celebrated by Irish troops serving in the British Army at Quebec
1805 Napoleon created the Kingdom of Italy
1845 The Geological Survey of Canada was established
1845 Elastic bands were patented by Stephen Perry of a London rubber company
1865 John Wilkes Booth, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, John Surratt, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Lewis Paine, met in a Washington bar to plot the abduction of President Abraham Lincoln three days later. However, when the president changed his plans, the scheme was scuttled. A month later Lincoln would be assassinated by Booth
1870 The Massachusetts Legislature authorised the incorporation of Wellesley Female Seminary. It later became Wellesley College
1899 The classic Neapolitan song, O Sole Mio, was published
1906 US President Theodore Roosevelt coined the term "muckraker" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington, DC
1914 The Fifth Avenue Coach Company of New York introduced the first bus with cross-wise seats. Prior to this introduction, all buses had been equipped with longitudinal seating. Cross seats allowed passengers to face forward, affording them a less one-sided view of their world. The company's double-decker buses were capable of seating forty-four passengers
1941 The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, DC
1942 General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of the Allied forces in the south-west Pacific theatre during the Second World War
1944 The International Air Transport Authority was created to regulate air traffic among nations
1950 Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, which they named californium
1966 The Gemini Eight, with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott aboard, began to spin violently. It made an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean
1969 Golda Meir was sworn in as the premier of Israel, the first woman ever to hold the post
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