1599 Sir Anthony Van Dyke - Flemish artist who became the court portrait painter in England
1814 Thomas Crawford - US sculptor of Freedom, the figure on top of the Capitol dome
1868 Robert Millikan - US Nobel Prize-winning physicist who discovered cosmic rays in 1925
1887 Chico Marx - Comedian (Animal Crackers, A Day at the Races, Duck Soup) He was the Marx Brother who wore the hat
1908 Louis L'Amour - US author born in Jamestown, ND. (The Lonesome Gods, Jubal Sackett, Hondo, Lonigan, The Sackett Companion) An indifferent student, L'Amour dropped out of high school at age 15. Over the next two decades, he travelled around the world working in an amazing variety of jobs. At various times, he tried his hand at being a cowboy, seaman, longshoreman, prize-fighter, miner, and fruit picker. During World War II, L'Amour served time in Europe as an officer in the tanks corps. After returning from the war, L'Amour began writing short stories and novels. His spare, flinty style caught the eyes of several editors, and L'Amour began to make a living as a writer. His big break came when a novel he wrote at the age of 46 became the basis for the popular John Wayne movie Hondo. Although L'Amour had not set out to become a writer of Westerns, he turned out novel after novel about plain-speaking, straight-shooting heroes of the old West. L'Amour produced convincing and moving historical novels that spanned centuries and celebrated the strength and spirit of the US West. He wrote with a meticulous attention to details and historical accuracy. He checked what food people ate in a given time and place, he memorised architectural details and often took camping trips to familiarise himself with the landscapes he was writing about. His use of extensive historical research to ensure authenticity meant that he avoided many of the simplistic clichés and racist stereotypes of earlier Westerns. Although he occasionally cast Indians as villains, he also offered sympathetic portraits that reflected an understanding and sympathy for different cultures and history. L'Amour considered himself a serious author and blamed the lack of critical respect on the fact that his books were Westerns. Still, having sold more than 225 million copies of his novels, L'Amour was one of the most popular and influential western authors of the 20th century. In recognition of his vivid depictions of the US's past, Congress awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal in 1983
1909 Gabrielle Roy - Canadian author, born in St. Boniface, Manitoba (The Tin Flute, The Old Man and the Child, Rue Deschambault) The youngest of 11 children, Roy was educated in St. Boniface and taught in country schools in Manitoba for several years. In 1939, she travelled to Europe to study drama in London and Paris, then married in 1947 and moved to Quebec City. She’s a three-time winner of the Governor General's award for fiction, and has a site in her honour at the National Library of Canada
1912 Karl Malden - Actor (Streets of San Francisco, Streetcar Named Desire, Patton, The Sting, Birdman of Alcatraz, On the Waterfront)
1920 Ross Martin - Actor (Wild Wild West, Dying Room Only, The Great Race)
1920 Werner Klemperer - German-born actor (Hogan's Heroes, Ship of Fools, Houseboat) The son of a renowned Jewish-German conductor, he and his father fled Germany after Hitler came to power in the 1930s. Klemperer served in the US Army during WWII. When approached to act in Hogan's Heroes, he made it clear to the producers that if Klink's schemes succeeded in any one episode, he would leave the series. He appeared in the Perry Mason episodes The Case of the Desperate Daughter, The Case of the Two-Faced Turn-About, and The Case of a Place Called Midnight He also appeared, uncredited, in the Batman episode It's How You Play the Game
1923 Marcel Marceau - French mime. He had the only speaking part in the Mel Brooks comedy, Silent Movie
1930 Stephen Sondheim - Composer (Send In The Clowns, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, scores for West Side Story, Reds, Gypsy, Dick Tracy)
1931 William Shatner - Canadian actor (Star Trek, Boston Legal, Rescue 911, TJ Hooker) He also played George Stapleton in the 1972 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
1935 M. Emmet Walsh - Actor (Harry and the Hendersons, The Milagro Beanfield War, Silkwood, Blade Runner)
1936 Roger Whittaker - Kenyan born singer and songwriter (Durham Town, New World in the Morning, The Last Farewell, The Charge of the Light Brigade)
1940 Dr. Haing S. Ngor – Cambodian-born physician and actor (The Killing Fields, The Dragon Gate, Vanishing Son, In Love and War)
1940 Dave Keon - Hockey Hall of Famer who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs
1943 George Benson - US singer (On Broadway, Give Me the Night, Turn Your Love Around, This Masquerade)
1944 Jeremy Clyde - Singer with the group Chad & Jeremy (Yesterday's Gone, A Summer Song, Willow Weep for Me, Before & After)
1948 Andrew Lloyd Webber - Composer (Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, Cats, Evita, Phantom of the Opera)
1956 Lena Olin - Swedish actress (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Havana, Romeo is Bleeding, Chocolat, Alias)
1959 Matthew Modine - Actor (Mrs. Soffel, Married to the Mob, Pacific Heights, Full Metal Jacket, What the Deaf Man Heard)
1963 Francesco Quinn – Italian-born U.S. actor (Platoon, Zen, 24, Cannes Man, The Old Man and the Sea, Stradivari, The Young and the Restless, Quo Vadis?, Rough Riders, Placebo Effect, Casablanca Express) He was the son of Anthony Quinn
1965 Steve Toussaint – British actor (Doctors, Broken News, My Dad’s the Priime Minister, Rosemary & Thyme: Sweet Angelica, The Knock, Judge Dredd) He played Steve Dixie in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Three Gables
1972 Elvis Stojko - Canadian figure staking champion who often uses his love of martial arts in his skating routines. . At the 1991 Worlds, he was the first person to land a quadruple jump combination in competition - a quadruple toe loop/double toe loop
1975 Anne Dudek – Actress (House, Covert Affairs, White Chicks, Mad Men, Big Love, The Book Group)
1976 Reese Witherspoon – Actress (Sweet Home Alabama, Legally Blonde, Vanity Fair, Pleasantville, Walk the Line)
2233 James Tiberius Kirk - Captain of the Starship Enterprise NCC1701. It was on the list, so I left it in, just for all you Trekkies/Trekkers out there!
Died this Day
1772 John Canton - British physicist who made the first artificial magnets
1820 Stephen Decatur - US naval hero who was killed in a duel with Commodore James Barron near Washington, DC
1832 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, age 82 – German author (Faust) He was the founder of modern German literature and leader of the Romantic Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) movement
1896 Thomas Hughes - British reformer and author (Tom Brown's School Days)
1921 Edward William Hornung, age 54 – British author who created Raffles, the gentleman thief (The Amateur Cracksman, The Black Mask, A Thief in the Night, Mr. Justice Raffles) His wife was the sister of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1958 Michael Todd, age 48 - US stage and film producer (Oklahoma, Around the World in 80 Days) He was the third husband of Elizabeth Taylor. Todd was flying to accept the Showman of the Year honour from the National Association of Theatre Owners when his plane, the Lucky Liz, went down in New Mexico
1978 Karl Wallenda, age 73 - Patriarch of The Flying Wallendas high-wire act. He died in San Juan, Puerto Rico when he fell over 130 feet during a performance while attempting to walk a cable strung between two hotels
1984 Jane Gray - Canada's first woman broadcaster. She began her career in 1924 at CJGC (now CFPL) in London, Ontario, hosting what is believed to be Canada's first advice show
On this Day
1638 Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony
1766 Joseph Priestly invented seltzer when he dissolved carbon dioxide in water
1774 Tommy Thumb's Song Book was published by Mrs. Mary Cooper. It was a collection of English nursery rhymes, which included Baa Baa Black Sheep
1818 Easter Sunday fell on this date, the earliest date it can occur. It will not fall on March 22nd again until 2285
1882 US Congress outlawed polygamy
1885 Troops were mobilised all over Canada because of the Northwest Rebellion
1894 Hockey's first Stanley Cup championship game was played. The home team Montréal Amateur Athletic Association defeated the Ottawa Capitals, 3-1, in front of a crowd of 5,000. It was the biggest crowd, up to that time, ever to witness a sporting event in Canada. Earlier, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston, former Governor General, had purchased the silver bowl in London for $48.67 to donate to the Canadian amateur champions. He said his sons had enjoyed playing hockey on the rink at Rideau Hall. Today, the Stanley Cup is the oldest professional sports competition in North America
1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière showed their first movie to an invited audience in Paris. This is generally regarded as the first-ever public display of a movie projected onto a screen. The film showed workers leaving the Lumière factory in Lyons at the start of their lunch hour
1903 Due to a drought, the US side of Niagara Falls ran short of water
1904 The first colour picture appeared in a newspaper, the Illustrated Daily Mirror, in the US
1907 The first cabs with taxi meters began operating in London
1929 A US Coast Guard vessel sank the Canadian rum-runner, I'm Alone, in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. One crewman on the ship died. The Canadian schooner was carrying 2,800 cases of liquor. Prohibition was in force in the US at the time. However, the manufacture of liquor was legal in Canada and Ottawa took the position that it could not forbid its export. The sunken ship had been based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Her captain, John Thomas Randell, and her crew, were taken to New Orleans as prisoners for violating prohibition laws
1933 During Prohibition, President Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine and beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal
1941 The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state went into operation
1966 The president of General Motors apologised to a US Senate committee for hiring private detectives to investigate the private life of consumer advocate Ralph Nader
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