1648 Grinling Gibbons - British wood carver and decorator of St. Paul's Cathedral
1748 William White - US religious leader and the first presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church
1823 Sir William Siemens - German born British metallurgist and inventor. Inventions by his Siemens Brothers firm include a cable-laying steamship, water-meter and pyrometer
1843 William Jackson - US photographer whose powerful photographs of Yellowstone helped make it the first national park. As a young man, Jackson began experimenting with simple cameras, gradually mastering the skills needed to capture images on chemically prepared glass plates. While in his early 20s, Jackson joined a wagon train and travelled west to California. The awesome size and ruggedness of the western landscape sparked his imagination, and he began to focus his efforts on what would later be termed "nature photography." In 1871, Jackson's ability to produce excellent images while working in primitive wilderness conditions attracted the attention of the geologist Ferdinand Hayden, who was planning a government-sponsored expedition into the still relatively unknown wilds of the Yellowstone region in the northern Rocky Mountains. Hayden convinced Jackson to join the expedition and photograph Yellowstone’s towering geysers, vast canyons, and bubbling mud pots. Earlier explorers of the area had returned with tales of these natural wonders, but their stories and drawings failed to adequately convey the beauty of the area. Hayden hoped Jackson could capture the miracles of Yellowstone on his photographic plates, so millions could enjoy the wonders seen by only a few. During 1871 to 1872, Jackson produced hundreds of brilliant photographs of Yellowstone while travelling with the Hayden expedition. For the first time, the US public saw accurate images of the area rather than paintings or drawings. The photographs offered visual proof that Yellowstone really was home to many awesome natural wonders, which helped US congressmen decide the Yellowstone region should be preserved in its natural state as a national park. After his work at Yellowstone, Jackson became one of the pioneering photographers of the US West. The magazine Harper's Weekly commissioned him to make a popular series of photographic reports on many sections of the West. Though he was also a successful painter, his photographs were far more influential in establishing the visual understanding of the US West
1885 Arthur Murray - US ballroom-dancing instructor and entrepreneur who founded the Arthur Murray Dance Studios
1906 John Cameron Swayze - US newsman for NBC-TV, and the Timex spokesman
1906 Bea Benaderet – Actress (Petticoat Junction, Tender is the Night, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Plunderers of Painted Flats, Peter Loves Mary) She also had a career as a voice actress for cartoons, including the Flintstones (Betty Rubble) and numerous voices in Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (Granny, Gretel, Pretty Bunny, Witch Hazel…) She’s the mother of actor Jack Bannon
1914 Frances Langford - Actress (Yankee Doodle Dandy, Dixie Jamboree, Born to Dance, Girl Rush)
1915 Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) - Blues singer, and guitarist (I Can't Be Satisfied, Hoochie Coochie Man, Close to You, Baby Please Don't Go, She's Nineteen Years Old, Rollin' Stone, Honey Bee )
1922 Elmer Bernstein - Composer of film and TV scores (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Sudden Fear, The Man with the Golden Arm, Ten Commandments, Sweet Smell of Success, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Walk on the Wild Side, The Magnificent Seven, Gunsmoke, Hud, The Big Valley, Hawaii, Julia, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Airplane!, Stripes, Zulu Dawn)
1923 Peter Vaughan – British actor (Longitude, The Bofors Gun, Malice Aforethought, The Jury, Lorna Doone, The 10th Kingdom, An Ideal Husband, Our Mutual Friend, Oliver's Travels, The Remains of the Day, War and Remembrance, Game Set and Match, Brazil, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Time Bandits) He played John Turner in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Boscombe Valley Mystery He also played Tony Kirby in The Sweeney episode Stay Lucky, Eh
1928 Maya Angelou - US poet and author (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, Heart of a Woman, Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well) She was born in St. Louis, Missouri
1928 Estelle Harris - Actress (Seinfeld, Stand and Deliver, My Giant, The Addams Family Reunion)
1932 Anthony Perkins - US stage and film actor (Psycho, Catch-22, Murder on the Orient Express)
1935 Kenneth Mars – Actor (Young Frankenstein, The Producers, Malcolm in the Middle, Radio Days, Fernwood 2night, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
1940 Michael Parks - Actor (Kill Bill, Stranger by Night, ffolkes, Death Wish 5, Chase, Arizona Heat, The Return of Josey Wales) He played Cal Leonard in the Perry Mason episode The Case of Constant Doyle
1944 Craig T. Nelson - Actor (Coach, The Osterman Weekend, Silkwood, Call to Glory, The District, Action Jackson, Parenthood)
1945 Caroline McWilliams - Actress (Soap, Benson, Beverly Hills 90210)
1947 James Hazeldine – British actor (London's Burning, Young Gifted and Broke, Shipman, Emma, Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage) He played Digby Tuckerman in the Inspector Morse episode Greeks Bearing Gifts He also played Richard Brunton in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Musgrave Ritual
1950 Christine Lahti - Actress (Chicago Hope, Swing Shift, Crazy from the Heart, The Doctor, Hideaway, The Harvey Korman Show, Hawaii Five-0)
1951 Steve Gatlin - Country singer with The Gatlin Brothers (Broken Lady, All the Gold in California, Houston, Statues Without Hearts)
1952 Dave Hill - Guitarist with the group Slade (Run Runaway, My Oh My, Merry Xmas Everybody)
1952 Cherie Lunghi – British actress (Excalibur, Marple: A Murder Is Announced, David Copperfield, Hornblower: The Duchess and the Devil, The Canterville Ghost, The Buccaneers, Ransom, The Mission, Inspector Lewis: The Gift of Promise) She played Mary Morstan in the 1983 Sherlock Holmes movie The Sign of Four
1956 David E. Kelley - Writer-producer (Ally McBeal, The Practice, L.A. Law, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Boston Public) He is married to Michelle Pfeiffer
1960 Lorraine Toussaint - Actress (Dangerous Minds, Leaving L.A., Any Day Now, Point of No Return, Queen, Hudson Hawk, Saving Grace)
1960 Hugo Weaving – Nigerian-born British/Australian actor (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Matrix movies, Captain America: The First Avenger, V for Vendetta, The Tender Hook, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Bangkok Hilton)
1965 Robert Downey Jr. - Actor (Iron Man, Tropic Thunder, Weird Science, Less Than Zero, Air America, Soapdish, Natural Born Killers, Richard III, US Marshals, Ally McBeal) He portrays Sherlock Holmes in the new series of movies He also starred in Chaplin, with John Thaw
1966 Nancy McKeon - Actress (The Facts of Life, Poison Ivy, Firefighter, In My Sister’s Shadow, The Division, Category 6: The Day of Destruction)
1970 Barry Pepper – Canadian actor (The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, Enemy of the State, Madison, The Kennedys, Casino Jack, Flags of Our Fathers, The Snow Walker, We Were Soldiers, We All Fall Down)
1979 Heath Ledger – Australian actor (The Dark Knight, The Brothers Grimm, Casanova, Ned Kelly, Monster’s Ball, The Patriot, Blackrock, A Knight’s Tale, Brokeback Mountain)
1983 Amanda Righetti – Actress (The Mentalist, The O.C., Captain America: The First Avenger, North Shore, Pipeline, Friday the 13th)
Died this Day
1617 John Napier - Scottish inventor of logarithms
1841 William Henry Harrison, age 68 - 9th US President. He died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, becoming both the first president to die in office, and the president with the shortest term
1929 Karl Benz, age 84 - German automobile engineer
1941 Andre Michelin, age 88 - French tire manufacturer
1968 Martin Luther King Junior, age 39 - US civil rights leader, shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Following news of King's death, riots broke out in 26 US cities. King was an ordained Baptist minister, whose work for civil rights brought him the Nobel Peace prize in 1964
1983 Gloria Swanson - US actress (Sunset Boulevard, Airport '75, Sadie Thompson, Teddy at the Throttle) She died a week after her 86th birthday
On this Day
1581 Sir Frances Drake returned to England after circumnavigating the world in his ship, The Golden Hind. Queen Elizabeth I knighted him on board his ship
1818 Congress decided the US flag would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union
1850 The city of Los Angeles was incorporated
1887 Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of a US community, Argonia, Kansas
1893 Ontario's legislative building, Queen's Park, opened on the site of a lunatic asylum
1896 News of the Yukon's Klondike gold strike reached the outside world, and the Gold Rush began
1902 British financier Cecil Rhodes left the bulk of his fortune to provide scholarships for students to study at Oxford University. His Will provided for 57 new scholars each year, who would be chosen from countries in the Commonwealth, the US, and Germany
1915 Mobile telephone communication began as Bell system engineers successfully established a one-way mobile telephone link between Montauk Point, New York, and Wilmington, Delaware. Commercial mobile phone service was established in 1920, when a radio link connected Catalina Island, California, to telephone lines in Long Beach, California. After three years, the system was replaced by more secure cable lines. In 1946, Southwestern Bell Telephone in St. Louis began offering commercial mobile phone services for automobiles
1917 Women in British Columbia were given the right to vote
1918 The Canadian Cabinet passed a wartime order-in-council stipulating that every male between 16 and 60 be regularly employed
1947 The International Civil Aviation Organisation, with headquarters in Montréal, was established
1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was established by twelve Western democracies as a safeguard against the threat of Soviet aggression. The organisation comprised the US, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, and Canada
1969 NBC decided to cancel Star Trek
1981 Susan Brown became the first female to participate in the 152-year-old Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Her crew won the annual boat race by eight lengths
1983 The space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage
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