1430 Margaret of Anjou - French queen consort of England's King Henry VI
1860 Horatio William Bottomley - British journalist, financier, and former Member of Parliament, who founded the journal, John Bull. He wanted a life of luxury, but his grandiose business schemes kept leading to bankruptcy. When found guilty of fraud for a third time, he was sentenced to seven years in jail. He had gone through millions of pounds by the time he died in poverty in 1933
1902 Philip Ober – Actor (North by Northwest, From Here to Eternity, Come Back Little Sheba, Tammy and the Bachelor, Elmer Gantry) He appeared in several Perry Mason episodes
1904 Joan Crawford - Actress (Mildred Pierce, A Woman's Face, Night Gallery, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Above Suspicion, Grand Hotel)
1910 Akira Kurosawa - Japanese film director (Rashomon, Ran, Rhapsody in August, The Idiot, The Bad Sleep Well) His movie, The Seven Samurai, inspired the Hollywood film, The Magnificent Seven
1912 Wernher Von Braun - German rocket engineer who developed the WWII German V-1 and V-2 rockets. Soon after the end of WWII, he became a US citizen and was the head of the US Army missile team and a technological leader of the US space program for NASA
1917 Johnny Guarnieri - Pianist who played with Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw
1922 Marty Allen - Comedian and actor (Murder Can Hurt You, Steve Martin: Comedy Is Not Pretty)
1925 Monique Van Vooren - Actress (Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, Ash Wednesday, Sugar Cookies) She played Miss Clean in the Batman episode Penguin’s Clean Sweep
1929 Sir Roger Bannister - British track star who was the first to run the 4-minute mile on May 6, 1954. He went on to become a neurologist, and a Master of Pembroke College, Oxford
1934 Mark Rydell - Director (On Golden Pond, Intersection, Cinderella Liberty)
1937 Tony Burton – Actor (The Shining, Rocky movies, The Enid Blyton Adventure Series: The Island of Adventure, Hook, Frank’s Place)
1947 Barbara Rhoades – Actress (The Shakiest Gun in the West, Up the Sandbox, Harry and Tonto, The Goodbye Girl, The Chiorboys, Soap)
1949 Ric Ocasek - Rock musician-producer with the Cars (You Might Think, Just What I Needed, My Best Friend's Girl, Good Times Roll, Drive)
1953 Chaka Khan - Singer (Tell Me Something Good, You Got the Love, I Feel for You)
1957 Amanda Plummer - Actress (The Fisher King, Joe Versus the Volcano, The World According to Garp, Pulp Fiction, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, Agnes of God) She is the daughter of Christopher Plummer and Tammy Grimes
1959 Catherine Keener – Actress (Capote, Being John Malkovich, The 40 Year Old Virgin, 8MM, Ohara)
1965 Richard Grieco – Actor (Booker, 21 Jump Street)
1978 Nicholle Tom – Actress (The Book of Ruth, The Nanny, Beethoven) She is the twin sister of David Tom
1978 David Tom – Actor (Pleasantville, Walking Thunder, The Young and the Restless) He is the twin brother of Nicholle Tom
1978 Anastasia Griffith – French-born British actress (Shadow of the Sword, Once Upon a Time, Damages, Trauma, Royal Pains, Alfie) She is the sister of actor Jamie Bamber
Died this Day
1877 Bishop John D. Lee - Executed by firing squad in Utah for his part in the massacre of settlers at Mountain Meadows, by members of the Mormon Church in September 1857
1964 Peter Lorre, age 59 - Hungarian born US actor (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Arsenic and Old Lace, Around the World in 80 Days, The Raven, Muscle Beach Party, Tales of Terror, The Man Who Knew Too Much, M, and the Mr. Moto series of movies)
1969 Arthur Lismer, age 84 - Canadian artist who was a member of a small, but influential art community in Canada which was known as the Group of Seven
1983 Barney Clark - The first recipient of a permanent artificial heart. He died at the University of Utah Medical Centre after 112 days with the device
On this Day
752AD Pope Stephen the Second was elected to succeed Pope Zacharias. However, Stephen died only two days later
1670 François Dollier de Casson claimed Lake Erie and its territory for France
1743 George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Messiah, had its London premiere
1752 Canada's first regular newspaper, The Halifax Gazette, was published. The venture was launched by John Bushell, a colleague of Bartholomew Green Junior, who established the first printing office in Halifax but died before he could produce a newspaper. The Gazette lasted until 1766, when it was suspended for criticising Britain's Stamp Act. It was replaced by the Nova Scotia Gazette
1775 Patrick Henry made his famous call for independence from Britain, telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
1792 Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in G Major, also known as the Surprise Symphony, was performed publicly for the first time, in London
1806 Explorers Lewis and Clark began their journey back east, after spending a wet and tedious winter near the Pacific Coast at Fort Clatsop. The Corps of Discovery arrived at the Pacific the previous November, having made a difficult crossing over the rugged Rocky Mountains. Their winter stay on the south side of the Columbia River, dubbed Fort Clatsop in honour of the local Indians, had been plagued by, among other things, rainy weather and a scarcity of fresh meat. Captains Lewis and Clark prepared for the final stage of their journey in the days before their departure. Recognising the possibility that some disaster might still prevent them from making it back east, Lewis prudently left a list of the names of all the expedition's men with Chief Coboway of the Clatsops. Lewis asked the chief to give the list to the crew of the next trading vessel that arrived so the world would learn that the expedition did reach the Pacific. The previous few days had been stormy, but on March 22nd, the rain began to ease. The captains agreed to depart the next day, and they made a parting gift of Fort Clatsop and its furniture to Chief Coboway. At 1 p.m. on the 23rd, the Corps of Discovery set off up the Columbia River in canoes. After nearly a year in the wilderness, their sizeable cache of supplies had been severely depleted. They set off on their return trip with only canisters of gunpowder, some tools, a small cache of dried fish and roots, and their rifles. Ahead loomed the high, rugged slopes of the Rocky Mountains that had proved so difficult to cross in the other direction the previous year. This time, however, Lewis and Clark had the advantage of knowing the route they would take. Still, they knew the passage would be difficult, and they were anxious to find the Nez Perce Indians, whose help they would need to cross the mountains. The months to come would witness some of the most dangerous moments of the journey, including Lewis' violent confrontation with Blackfeet Indians near the Marias River of Montana in July. Nonetheless, seven months later to the day, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the docks of St. Louis, where their long journey had begun nearly two and a half years before
1848 The first official party of settlers landed in New Zealand, at Dunedin
1861 Britain's first tram cars began operating from Bayswater. The cars were designed by Mr. George Francis Train, from New York
1903 The Wright brothers applied for a patent on their airplane
1909 Wilhelm and Karl Maybach formed Luftfahrzeug-Motoren GmbH in Bissingen, Germany, to produce engines for the Zeppelin airships. The Maybach Motoren-Werke, a subsidiary of the aviation company, would later produce the luxurious Maybach automobile. Wilhelm Maybach designed the internal expanding brake, or drum brake, in 1901. The internal brake operated by pressing shoes against the interior of the wheel or drive shaft. Maybach's design remained the model for most braking systems until the disc brake emerged as a common alternative in the 1970s
1919 Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy
1923 The song, Yes We Have No Bananas, was published, with words and music by Frank Silver and Irving Conn
1923 Foster Hewitt announced his first hockey game, over the Toronto Star's radio station CFCA. He was known as the Voice of Hockey, and was the originator of the phrase “He shoots, he scores!”
1949 Royal Assent was given to the North America Bill, passed by the British parliament for the union of Canada and Newfoundland
1956 Pakistan became a republic within the British Commonwealth
1962 The world's first nuclear merchant vessel, the Savannah, was launched at Camden, NJ
1965 The first US two-man space flight began as Gemini Three, nicknamed the Molly Brown blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom and John Young aboard
1973 The 20-thousand-ton freighter, Anita, disappeared without a trace in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle
1973 US immigration officials ruled that John Lennon was an "overstay" in the country and he was judged deportable. Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, replied by asking for permanent residency
1990 Former Exxon Valdez Captain Joseph Hazelwood was sentenced by a judge in Anchorage, Alaska, to help clean up Prince William Sound and pay $50,000 in restitution for his role in the 1989 oil spill. The sentencing took place one day before the first anniversary of the spill
1994 Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's National Hockey League career record with his 802nd goal
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