1775 James Parkinson - British physician and palaeontologist who discovered Parkinson's disease in 1817. He was also the first to realise that a perforated appendix could cause death
1857 John Davidson - Scottish poet and playwright (The North Wall, Scaramouch in Naxos, Self's the Man, The Knight of the Maypole, Mammon and his Message)
1906 Dale Messick - Cartoonist (Brenda Starr)
1907 Paul Douglas - Actor (The Mating Game, Panic in the Streets, Executive Suite, This Could be the Night, The Gamma People)
1917 Danny Gallivan – Hockey broadcaster for the Montreal Canadiens. Gallivan called 1900 matches in a 32 year career, including 16 Stanley Cup victories for the Montreal Canadiens
1921 Dorothy Shay - Entertainer known as the Park Avenue Hillbilly, singer (Feudin' and Fightin') and actress (Comin' Round the Mountain)
1930 Ronald Fraser - Scottish character actor (The Blackheath Poisonings, Scandal, The Trail of the Pink Panther, Paper Tiger)
1932 Joel Grey - Actor, singer and dancer (Cabaret, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Buffalo Bill & the Indians, Kafka) He is the father of actress Jennifer Grey
1939 Louise Lasser - Actress (Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, Rude Awakening, The Night We Never Met, Slither)
1947 Meshach Taylor – Actor (Designing Women, Dave’s World, Mannequin, Buffalo Bill, Criminal Minds)
1947 Peter Riegert - Actor (Crossing Delancy, Traffic, Barbarians at the Gate, The Mask, Animal House, Damages, The Sopranos)
1973 Jennifer Esposito – Actress (Blue Bloods, Spin City, Summer of Sam, Judging Amy, Samantha Who?)
1974 Tricia Helfer – Canadian actress (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice, Dark Blue, Walk All Over Me)
1984 Kelli Garner – Actress (Man of the House, Pan Am, My Generation, Red Velvet, Dreamland, London, The Aviator)
Died this Day
1514 Donato Bramante - Italian architect who died while still working on the rebuilding of St. Peter's in Rome
1839 John Galt - Canada Company head, and the founder of Guelph, Ontario. He died at Greenock, Scotland
1890 John Merrick - He was afflicted by a disfiguring disease that caused him to be known as the Elephant Man. He died in London
1906 James Anthony Baily - US circus owner. He was the other half of Barnum and Bailey
1970 John O'Hara - US author (Butterfield 8, Pal Joey, Ten North Frederick)
1990 Harold Ballard, age 86 - Canadian entrepreneur, he was the president of Maple Leaf Gardens and its team, the Toronto Maple Leafs
2001 Sir Harry Secombe, age 79 – Welsh-born comedian and actor (The Harry Secombe Show, The Last Goon Show, Highway) He was a member of the Goons, who appeared in the popular BBC radio programme of the 1950s, The Goon Show
On this Day
1689 William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain by the Bishop of London. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to officiate
1713 The Treaty of Utrecht was signed, ending the War of Spanish Succession. As well, under the treaty, France recognised British title to the Hudson Bay and ceded Gibralter, Acadia and Newfoundland to Britain
1785 John Johnson helped draw up a petition for the United Empire Loyalists, asking for a separate province, with freehold land tenure and British Common Law. It was the origin of Upper Canada and the Province of Ontario
1803 French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand made a surprise offer to sell all of Louisiana Territory to the US. Three years earlier, Talleyrand had convinced Napoleon that he could create a new French Empire in North America. Napoleon secretly signed a treaty with Spain that officially gave France full control of the Louisiana Territory, and then began to prepare France's army to occupy New Orleans and bolster French dominion. President Thomas Jefferson had wanted the US to expand westward beyond the Mississippi, but the young US republic was in no position militarily to challenge France for the territory. Jefferson hoped that his minister in France, Robert Livingston, might be able to negotiate an agreement whereby Napoleon would give the US control of New Orleans, the gateway to the Mississippi River. Livingston's initial attempts at reaching a diplomatic agreement failed. Early in 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to assist Livingston, and by that time Napoleon's situation in Europe had changed for the worse. War between France and Great Britain was imminent and Napoleon could no longer spare the military resources needed to secure control of Louisiana Territory. Fearing that the powerful British navy could take the territory by force, Napoleon decided to sell Louisiana to the US, rather than have it fall into the hands of his enemy. After months of having fruitlessly negotiated over the fate of New Orleans, Livingston again met with Talleyrand, and was surprised by Talleyrand’s offer to sell not just New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana Territory. At the end of April, the US emissaries signed a treaty with France for a purchase of the vast territory
1814 Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of France and was banished to the Island of Elba
1870 While visiting Marathon, Greece, Lord Muncaster of Britain was kidnapped by brigands, almost resulting in war. The pirates, led by Takos Arvanitakis, were experienced in kidnapping and had used it as a lucrative source of income for many years. However, their capture of Lord Muncaster and a group of English tourists proved to be more difficult to pull off than they anticipated. Arvanitakis and his gang demanded £50,000 for the release of the captives. King George of Greece refused their ransom demands, offering instead to exchange himself for the hostages in an attempt to appease England. However, before any further negotiations could take place, a confrontation between the brigands and Greek troops resulted in the death of just about everyone involved, including Muncaster. Arvanitakis was one of the few who managed to escape the battle with his life. The incident caused England to threaten war, but Russia interjected by siding with Greece. The crisis was averted after Greece conducted a major crackdown on the bandits. Although few of the people they arrested had actually played any role in the kidnapping, it eased the international tensions and greatly reduced the number of subsequent kidnappings in the country. Arvanitakis was shot and killed two years later
1888 Henry Ford married Clara Bryant Ford in Greenfield, Michigan, on her twenty-second birthday. Clara described her intended to her parents as "quiet, pleasant, keen-minded, and sensible"
1902 Fred Gaisburg of the Gramophone Company made the first recording of Caruso, who received the unheard of advance of £100. Caruso eventually made over £1 million from his recordings, the first artist to ever achieve this
1915 The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin's third film and first comic masterpiece, was released. Chaplin had first created the appealing Little Tramp character the previous year in Kid Auto Races at Venice. In The Tramp, he refined the character and added his signature waddle. The endearing figure, with his bowler hat, baggy suit, and expression of hapless innocence, came to be Chaplin's trademark
1921 Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax
1929 Popeye made his first appearance as a supporting character in a cartoon strip in Hearst's New York newspapers
1935 Severe dust storms hit Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, destroying crops and making many homeless. Tornadoes followed, killing 26 people and injuring 150 in Mississippi
1940 Women were allowed into the Quebec legislative assembly chamber for the first time. They were there to hear Premier Godbout's speech asking for the vote for Quebec women
1945 Allied troops liberated Buchenwald concentration camp, 125 miles southwest of Berlin. An estimated 40-thousand Hungarian Jews were slaughtered there
1951 President Harry S. Truman removed General Douglas MacArthur from his post as commander of UN forces in Korea, and ordered the general home. The dismissal followed MacArthur's public disclosure of Truman's refusal to allow him to bomb Chinese bases in Manchuria. However, MacArthur was given a hero's welcome upon returning to the US
1951 British police recovered the Stone of Scone, which had been stolen from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950. The 485-pound stone had been part of the coronation ceremonies for British monarchs since it was brought to London in 1296. It was stolen by students to direct attention to their cause of establishing an autonomous parliament in Scotland, and who wanted it returned to Scotland - which eventually happened in 1996
1957 Singapore was granted self-government by Britain
1970 Apollo 13 blasted off on the third manned mission to the Moon. An explosion crippled the spacecraft, forcing it to return to Earth four days later with astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. Two days after lift-off, disaster struck two hundred thousand miles from earth when liquid oxygen tank No. 2 exploded, disabling the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water. A moment later Swigert reported to mission control: "Houston, we've had a problem," and minutes later the lunar landing was aborted. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilising the spacecraft and its oxygen supply, and providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. On April 17, with the world anxiously watching, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean
1991 The Persian Gulf War formally ended as United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, calling for an official cease-fire in Iraq, was declared in effect by the Security Council
1994 The 41st and final episode of Granada Television's Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett aired on ITV in Britain. The episode was “The Cardboard Box”
13
Responses