1483 Raphael - Italian painter and architect of the Italian High Renaissance
1671 Jean-Baptiste Rousseau - French dramatist and poet
1758 Maximilien François Marie Isidore Robespierre - French revolutionary who became the virtual ruler of France until his enemies finally succeeded in having him guillotined
1773 James Mill - Scottish philosopher, historian and economist
1823 Joseph Medill - Canadian-born US editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune
1860 René Lalique - French jeweller. He was an important figure in the Art Nouveau movement, and the maker of Lalique crystal
1870 Clarence E. McClung - US zoologist who made important discoveries in the field of genetics
1890 Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker - Dutch airman and pioneer aircraft manufacturer
1892 Donald Douglas - US aircraft designer who founded the Douglas Aircraft Company
1892 Lowell Thomas - Reporter and radio newscaster. He is said to be the first to broadcast from a ship, an airplane, a submarine and a coal mine ("So long until tomorrow")
1927 Gerry Mulligan - Jazz musician, composer (Disc Jockey Jump, Boplicity, Venus de Milo, Godchild)
1928 James Watson - US born scientist, who with British scientist Francis Crick, built the first model DNA molecule and made discoveries concerning genetic coding. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Crick
1929 Joi Lansing - Actress (Easter Parade, Singin' in the Rain, The Merry Widow, Big Foot)
1929 André Previn - German born US pianist, composer of film scores (Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce, My Fair Lady) He was a conductor with the Pittsburgh Symphony, London & LA Philharmonic Orchestras
1933 Barry Levinson - Director (Rain Man, Good Morning Viet Nam, The Natural, Toys, Diner, Bugsy) He also directed the movie Young Sherlock Holmes
1937 Merle Haggard - Country musician, songwriter (Okie from Muskogee, If We Make It Through December, Hungry Eyes, Workin' Man Blues, Mama Tried) He died in 2016 on his 79th birthday
1937 Billy Dee Williams - Actor (Brian's Song, Lady Sings the Blues, Batman, The Empire Strikes Back, Alien Intruder, Mahogany, Diary of a Single Mom)
1938 Roy Thinnes - Actor (From Here to Eternity, The Invaders, Outer Limits, The Hindenburg, Code Name: Diamond Head, Broken English, A Beautiful Mind, Falcon Crest, Airport 1975)
1938 Paul Daniels - British magician, entertainer and game show host
1947 John Ratzenberger - Actor (Cheers, The Empire Strikes Back, Timestalkers, Camp Cucamonga: How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Dancing With the Stars)
1952 Marilu Henner - Actress (Taxi, Evening Shade)
1955 Michael Rooker – Actor (Slither, Freeway Killer, The Bone Collector, Renegade Force, Mallrats, Tombstone, Cliffhanger, JFK, Days of Thunder)
1955 Cathy Jones – Canadian comedienne and actress (This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Codco, Happyland, Secret Nation)
1967 Jonathan Firth – British actor (Victoria & Albert, An Ideal Husband, The Magical Land of the Leprechauns, Poirot: Hickory Dickory Dock, Middlemarch, Covington Cross, Far From the Madding Crowd, Wuthering Heights) He is the brother of actor Colin Firth. He portrayed Peter Thornton in the Inspector Morse episode Absolute Conviction
1969 Ari Meyers – Actress (Kate & Allie, Stanley, How to Make an American Quilt, Author! Author!)
1969 Paul Rudd – Actor (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You Man, Night at the Museum, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Friends, The Cider House Rules, Sister, Clueless)
1972 Jason Hervey – Actor (The Wonder Years, Back to the Future, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, The Monster Squad)
1975 Zach Braff – Actor (Scrubs, Fast Track, The Last Kiss, Garden State, Manhattan Murder Mystery)
1982 Bret Harrison – Actor (Breaking In, V, Reaper, Grounded for Life, Orange County)
Died this Day
1199 Richard I, age 41 - Coeur de Lion (The Lionheart), King of England, killed in battle while besieging the castle of Chaluz during the Crusades
1971 Igor Stravinsky - Russian-born composer, died in New York City
1986 Lieutenant Commander Bill Boaks - British eccentric who stood for Parliament 30 times, loosing his deposit each time. His one-man Public Safety Democratic Monarchist Resident Party had the slogan, "Vote for Bill Boaks, the sailor with the navy-blue eyes"
1992 Isaac Asimov, age 72 - Russian born biochemist and science-fiction author (I Robot, The Naked Sun, The End of Eternity, The Caves of Steel) His novels and stories envisioned many aspects of modern technology. He was also a Sherlockian and a member of the Baker Street Irregulars
1998 Tammy Wynette, age 55 - Country singer (D-I-V-O-R-C-E, Stand By Your Man) She died at her Nashville, Tennessee home
2005 Prince Rainer III, age 81 – He was the Head of State of Monaco who married US film star, Grace Kelly
On this Day
1580 An earthquake damaged many of London's churches, including St. Paul's, the Norman building that replaced the original Saxon St. Paul's
1609 Henry Hudson sailed his ship, the Half Moon, up the Hudson River to the site of what is Albany, New York. He was searching for the North West Passage on behalf of the Dutch East India Company
1652 Cape Colony, now South Africa, was established by Dutch settlers under Jan van Riebeck
1748 The ruins at Pompeii, Italy were discovered
1830 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, aka the Mormons, was organised by Joseph Smith in Fayette, NY
1851 Ottawa took over control of the Canadian postal system from the British government
1853 Portland, Oregon was incorporated as a city
1862 The Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee
1886 Vancouver, British Columbia was incorporated as a city
1896 The first modern Olympic Games formally opened in Athens, Greece
1909 US explorer Robert Peary, his aide Mathew Henson and four Inuit reached what they determined to be the North Pole. Decades after Peary's death, however, navigational errors in his travel log surfaced, placing the expedition in all probability a few miles short of its goal. Peary, a US Navy civil engineer, made his first trip to the interior of Greenland in 1886. In 1891, Henson, a young African-American sailor, joined him on his second arctic expedition. Their team made an extended dogsled journey to the northeast of Greenland and explored what became known as Peary Land. In 1893, the explorers began working toward the North Pole, and in 1906, during their second attempt, they nearly reached latitude 88 degrees north, which was only 150 miles from their objective. In 1908, the pair travelled to Ellesmere Island by ship and in 1909 raced across hundreds of miles of ice to reach what they calculated as latitude 90 degrees north on April 6th. Although their achievement was widely acclaimed, Dr. Frederick A. Cook challenged their distinction of being the first to reach the North Pole. A former associate of Peary, Cook claimed he had already reached the pole by dogsled the previous year. A major controversy followed, and in 1911 the US Congress formally recognised Peary's claim. In recent years, further studies of the conflicting claims suggest that neither expedition reached the exact North Pole, but that Peary and Henson came far closer, falling perhaps 30 miles short
1917 The US Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany, formally entering the US into World War I. When WW I erupted in August 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality, a position that the vast majority of Americans favoured. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the US and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Several US ships travelling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private US vessel. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologised and called the attack an unfortunate mistake. May 1915, the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the US demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. With these attacks, public opinion in the US began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the US broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. In late March 1917, Germany sunk four more US merchant ships, and on April 2nd President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. Four days later, his request was granted. On June 26th, the first 14,000 US infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. When the war ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million US soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives
1930 Hostess Twinkies were invented by bakery executive James Dewar as an inexpensive snack during the Depression
1931 The radio show Little Orphan Annie debuted. The show, based on the comic strip by Harold Gray, was the first late-afternoon radio serial for children. The show quickly drew a huge following of devoted young fans and paved the way for many future children's serials. The show ran until 1942
1934 The Ford Motor Company announced white sidewall tires as an option on its new vehicles at a cost of $11.25 per set. Whitewalls soon became associated with style and money. By the 1950s, whitewalls were standard on many cars, and their popularity continued well into the 1960s. Car companies offered different width white bands in a race to make their whitewalls whiter
1938 While working at the Dupont research laboratory in New Jersey, Dr Roy J Plunkett discovered Teflon, which was first marketed in 1945
1985 Artificial-heart patient William Schroeder moved into an apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, near the hospital where his surgery had taken place. He became the first person with a man-made heart to be discharged from a hospital
1987 US President Ronald Reagan addressed the Canadian Parliament in the House of Commons. Reagan said he and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had agreed to consider a bilateral accord on acid rain
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