1417 Saint Nicholas of Flue - Swiss hermit and folk hero
1685 Johann Sebastian Bach - Composer and organist, born in Eisenach, Germany to a family which had produced 53 organists, cantors and town musicians over 300 years. Despite his vast output, less than a dozen of his hundreds of compositions were published during his lifetime. His genius was not recognised until half a century after his death. (Gottes Zeit, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Little Organ Book, Mass in B Minor, Magnificat)
1862 Albert Chevalier - British composer and singer of Cockney songs (My Old Dutch, Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road)
1869 Florenz Ziegfeld - US impresario and producer of the Ziegfeld Follies, which were annual variety shows famous for the Ziegfeld Girls from 1907 to the 1930s
1905 Phyllis McGinley - Poet (Times Three: Selected Verses from Three Decades, The Horse Who Lived Upstairs, Sugar and Spice, Saint-Watching, Sixpence in her Shoe)
1925 Sir Peter Brook - British director (Lord of the Flies, King Lear, The Mahabharata)
1930 James Coco - Actor (The Chair, Ensign Pulver, Man of La Mancha, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Murder by Death, The Cheap Detective)
1945 Rosie Stone - Pianist with her family's group Sly & the Family Stone (Everyday People, Dance to the Music)
1946 Ray Dorset – Singer with the group Mungo Jerry (In the Summertime, Baby Jump, Maggie, Johnny B Badde)
1946 Timothy Dalton - Welsh-born actor (Centennial, The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill, The Lion in Winter, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Flash Gordon, Framed, Agatha, Florence Nightingale, Chuck, Hot Fuzz, Marple: The Sittaford Mystery) He made his name on the classical stage before turning to screen roles
1950 Roger Hodgson - British rock musician with the group Supertramp (Dreamer, The Logical Song, Take the Long Way Home, It's Raining Again)
1951 Conrad Lozano - Rock musician with Los Lobos (Anselma, Come On Let's Go)
1958 Gary Oldman - British actor (Hannibal, Lost in Space, Air Force One, The Fifth Element, The Scarlet Letter, Romeo is Bleeding, Dracula, JFK, The Firm, The Book of Eli, Batman Begins, Harry Potter movies)
1962 Matthew Broderick - Actor (War Games, The Freshman, Family Business, Ladyhawke, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Glory, Inspector Gadget, Biloxi Blues, Tower Heist) He is the son of actor James Broderick, and he is married to actress Sarah Jessica Parker
1962 Rosie O'Donnell - Comedian, actress (Harriet the Spy, The Flintstones, Another Stakeout, A League of Their Own)
Died this Day
1156 Thomas Cranmer - First Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. Condemned for treason, he recanted all forced confessions before being burned at the stake as a heretic
1915 Frederick W. Taylor - US inventor and efficiency expert, he died one day after his 59th birthday, of pneumonia
1985 Sir Michael Redgrave - British actor, he died one day after his 77th birthday
1988 Dr. Patrick Steptoe - Physician who developed the technique of in-vitro fertilisation and delivered the world's first test-tube baby
1992 John Ireland, age 78 - Canadian-born actor (All the King's Men, Rawhide, Spartacus) He played Walter in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Lady in the Lake
On this Day
1621 English settlers signed their first treaty with Indians at Plymouth, Massachusetts
1666 Jean Talon, Canada's first official statistician, started the census of New France. Talon arrived in North America in 1665 on a mission from King Louis XIV, who wanted to measure the progress made in his colony. As Intendant of Justice, Police, and Finance, Talon's tasks were to stimulate the economic expansion of New France, increase the colony's self-sufficiency and bring order to its financial administration. On his arrival in the colony, Talon faced challenges. Scurvy, smallpox, and other diseases were killing many European settlers. Confrontations were common between European settlers and Aboriginal Peoples, some of whom saw the newcomers as intruders. And the harsh climate could make even basic survival a struggle. Talon began his administrative appointment by taking stock of the colony. He conducted his census on the "de jure principale" - that is, counting people where they normally reside. And he did much of the enumeration himself, going door-to-door, often under harsh conditions. Talon's census recorded everyone in the colony by name and included age, occupation, marital status, and relationship to the head of the family in which they lived. The census also measured the wealth of industry and agriculture, the value of local lumber and mineral resources, and the number of domestic animals, seigneuries, government buildings, and churches. The census enumerated 3,215 inhabitants of European descent: 2,034 men and 1,181 women. Among these were 3 notaries, 3 schoolmasters, 3 locksmiths, 4 bailiffs, 5 surgeons, 5 bakers, 8 barrel makers, 9 millers, 18 merchants, 27 joiners, and 36 carpenters. The colony consisted of 3 major settlements, inhabited by 528 families. Quebec had a population of more than 2,100 people, Montreal had 635, and Trois-Rivieres had 455. After collecting his statistics, Talon put them to work. He was responsible for everything from taxes to health, from bridge building to chimney sweeping, and his influence touched every facet of government, and of the day-to-day lives of colonists. He used knowledge gained from the census to develop the colony in many directions. Talon's figures showed that men outnumbered women nearly two to one in the male-dominated fur-trading and missionary outpost, so he consequently arranged for young single women to come from France, imposed penalties on bachelors and rewarded early marriage and large families
1678 The London Gazette offered a reward to anyone revealing the author of a pamphlet called "An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government in England". The pamphlet, it was later revealed, had been published anonymously by Andrew Marvell in 1677. Marvell is remembered as a poet, but during his own time he was known as a political figure and pamphleteer. Educated at Cambridge, he supported himself as a tutor both abroad and at home in England for many years. After tutoring the ward of Sir Oliver Cromwell, head of the English government after the overthrow and execution of King Charles I, Marvell went to work as assistant to John Milton, a secretary to the government. While Marvell had been skeptical of Cromwell, his admiration for the man grew until Cromwell's death in 1659. After his death, however, Marvell became a supporter of the Restoration movement that brought Charles II to the throne
1804 The French civil code, the "Code Napoleon," was adopted
1821 A medical school was incorporated at Montréal. It later became part of McGill University
1865 Prince Edward Island voted against confederation
1871 Journalist Henry Morton Stanley began his legendary expedition to Africa to locate the missing Scottish missionary David Livingstone. He found him that November, at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa
1891 An inter-family marriage ended the famous US feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. The wedding came after 150 family members had been killed
1916 The German army started its offensive on the Somme during the First World War. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended in November, one million soldiers were dead or wounded
1960 Police fired on a group of peaceful demonstrators in Sharpeville, South Africa, killing sixty-nine people and wounding nearly two hundred in a hail of sub-machine gunfire. The demonstrators were protesting against the South African white minority government's restriction of non-white travel and requirement that all non-whites carry special identification passes
1961 The Beatles first appeared at Liverpool's Cavern Club
1963 The US prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, was emptied of its last prisoners, and closed. Over the years it had housed Al Capone, and the Birdman of Alcatraz, among others. At its peak period of use during the 1950s, over 200 inmates were housed at the maximum-security facility, also known as "The Rock" and "America's Devil Island." Alcatraz remains notorious for its harsh conditions and record for being inescapable. The 12-acre rocky island, one and a half miles from San Francisco, California, featured the most advanced security of the time. Some of the first metal detectors were used at Alcatraz. Strict rules were enforced against the inmates serving time there and nearly complete silence was mandated at all times. Juan Manuel de Ayala first explored Alcatraz in 1775, calling it Isla de los Alcatraces (Pelican Island) because of all the birds that lived there. It was taken over in 1849 by the US government. The first lighthouse in California was located on Alcatraz. It became a Civil War fort and then a military prison in 1907. In 1972 Alcatraz was added to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is now open for tourism
1965 Martin Luther King Junior and more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators began their civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama
1973 Frank Mahovlich of the Montreal Canadiens became the fifth NHLer to score 500 goals. Years later he was appointed to the Canadian Senate
1975 The ruling military advisory council abolished Ethiopia's three-thousand-year-old monarchy
1979 Egypt's government unanimously approved a peace treaty with Israel
1985 Canadian wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen of Vancouver, BC, started his Man in Motion world tour to raise funds for spinal cord research
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