1284 King Edward II - He was the first heir-apparent to the British throne to bear the title of the Prince of Wales
1599 Oliver Cromwell - British soldier and statesman who led the rebellion against King Charles I. Cromwell was victorious, and had the King beheaded. He abolished the monarchy and established a republic, declaring himself the Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653 to his death in 1658, when his son took over
1873 Howard Garis - US creator of the Uncle Wiggily series of children's stories
1874 Guglielmo Marconi - Italian physicist and pioneer in wireless telegraphy who played a major role in the development of early radio. He made important discoveries about short-wave radio that formed the basis for modern long-distance radio, and in 1909, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics
1908 Edward R. Murrow - Influential US radio and television broadcaster during the industry's early years (Person to Person, CBS Reports, Years of Crisis, See it Now) He was the former head of the US Information Agency
1917 Ella Fitzgerald – Jazz singer known as The First Lady of Song (Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home, Mack the Knife, A-Tisket A-Tasket)
1923 Albert King - Blues singer, guitarist (Don't Throw Your Love on Me So Strong, Think Twice before You Speak, Born under a Bad Sign, Cold Feet)
1927 Frances Hyland – Canadian actress (Road to Avonlea, The Lotus Eaters, The Changeling)
1930 Paul Mazursky - Director (Harry and Tonto, An Unmarried Woman, Scenes from a Mall, The Pickle, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Tempest)
1932 Gator Jackson - Composer, tenor sax player (Chuck's Chuckles, Dance of the Lady Bug, Later Gator) He invented the 'gator horn'
1932 Meadowlark (George) Lemon - Basketball player with the Harlem Globetrotters, and actor (Harlem Globe Trotters, Hello Larry, Imps*, Crash Island, Modern Romance, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh)
1940 Al Pacino - Actor (Scent of a Woman, Scarface, Serpico, The Godfather, Dick Tracy, Ocean’s Thirteen, Angels in America, Donnie Brascoe, Heat, Glengarry Glen Ross, Frankie & Johnny, …And Justice for All, Dog Day Afternoon)
1945 Bjorn Ulvaeus – Swedish singer with ABBA (Fernando, Dancing Queen, Take a Chance on Me, Waterloo, Knowing Me Knowing You)
1946 Talia Shire - Actress (Godfathers 1,2 & 3, Rockys 1 to 5, For Richer For Poorer, A Century of Women, Blood Vows)
1964 Hank Azaria – Actor (The Birdcage, The Simpsons, Tuesdays with Morrie, Grosse Pointe Blank, Mad About You, Heat)
1969 Gina Torres – Actor (Firefly, Serenity, Suits, Standoff, I Think I Love My Wife, 24, Hair Show, The Matrix Reloaded)
1969 Renée Zellweger - Actress (Bridget Jones's Diary, Me Myself & Irene, Nurse Betty, One True Thing, Jerry Maguire, Chicago, Cinderella Man, Cold Mountain)
Died this Day
1744 Anders Celcius - Swedish astronomer who devised the centigrade thermometer
1792 Nicolas Jacques Pelletier - French highwayman who became the first person under French law to be executed by guillotine. He was put to death for armed robbery and assault in Place de Greve. A beheading device had been in use since the middle ages, but Dr. Guillotine much improved it, debuting his new model on this day. The newspapers reported that the guillotine was not an immediate sensation. The crowds seemed to miss the gallows at first. But it quickly caught on with the public and many thought it brought dignity back to the executioner
1878 Anna Sewell - British author (Black Beauty) She was an invalid for most of her life, and died less than a month after her 58th birthday
1995 Ginger Rogers, age 83 – Actress (Kitty Foyle, Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Top Hat, Swing Time, Shall We Dance?)
On this Day
1719 The first volume of Daniel Defoe's The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was published in London. It was a huge hit, especially with the lower and middle classes. The book, about a shipwrecked sailor who spent 28 years on a deserted island, was based on the experiences of shipwreck victims and of Alexander Sleeker, a Scottish sailor who spent five years on a small island off the coast of South America in the early 1700s
1848 The first Royal Yacht, Victoria and Albert, was launched at Pembroke Docks, after suffering serious damage when first floated
1859 Construction of the Suez Canal began in Egypt as the ground was broken for the artificial waterway intended to stretch 101 miles across the Isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas. French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps, who organised the colossal undertaking, delivered the pickaxe blow that inaugurated construction. The canal ran from Port Said in the north to Suez in the south. Artificial canals have been built in the Suez region, which connects the continents of Asia and Africa, since ancient times. Under the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, a channel connected the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea, and a canal reached northward from Lake Timsah as far as the Nile River. These canals fell into disrepair or were intentionally destroyed for military reasons. As early as the 15th century, Europeans speculated about building a canal across the Suez, which would allow traders to sail from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, rather than having to sail the great distance around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. The first serious survey of the isthmus occurred during the French occupation of Egypt at the end of the 18th century, and General Napoleon Bonaparte personally inspected the remains of an ancient canal. France made further studies for a canal, and in 1854 de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work. At first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced labourers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labour disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869, four years behind schedule. When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. Consequently, fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Major improvements began in 1876, however, and the canal soon grew into the one of the world's most heavily travelled shipping lanes
1898 War was formally declared between Spain and the United States, following the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbour in February of that year, and the US Naval Court of Inquiry's implication of Spain. The pro-war feeling in the US reached new heights, and the US public finally got what it had demanded for months: war. The war with Spain continued into the summer of 1898, and on August 12, Spain and the US signed a peace protocol which officially ended the war. Ironically, a uninformed Commodore Dewey and General Wesley Merritt attacked the Spanish in Manila, the Philippines, on August 13, 1898, forcing a Spanish surrender after the peace protocol had been already signed. In December that year, the Treaty of Paris was signed by representatives of Spain and the US, officially ending the Spanish-American war, virtually dissolving the once-proud Spanish Empire, and granting the US its first overseas empire. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded to the US, and Cuba became a US protectorate. Hawaii, an independent republic run by US expatriates since 1894, was also formally annexed during the Spanish-American War
1915 During World War I, Australian and New Zealand soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war. That February, the British had decided to mount a naval expedition to bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula on the western shore of the Dardanelles, but bad weather had caused delays and the attack was abandoned after three battleships had been sunk and three others damaged. By the time reinforcement troops began to land on the 25th of April, the Turks had had ample time to prepare adequate fortifications and the defending armies were now six times larger than when the campaign began. Against determined opposition, Australian and New Zealand troops won a bridgehead at “Anzac Cove” on the Aegean side of the peninsula. Anzac Day has been held on this date from 1916 to commemorate the event
1940 Women in Quebec were granted the right to vote
1950 British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Prince Edward Island signed an agreement with Ottawa to build the Trans-Canada Highway
1959 The St. Lawrence Seaway opened for traffic as the first ship entered the locks south of Montreal. To commemorate the event, Canada and the US both issued a similar stamp. Some of the Canadian issue got inverted, resulting in a collector's dream
1960 The USS Triton, a nuclear-powered submarine, completed the first global circumnavigation by a submerged submarine, having travelled 41,500 miles in eighty-four days. The Triton, commanded by Captain Edward L. Beach and featuring a crew of 13 officers and 135 men, departed New London, Connecticut, on February 16, 1960. The submarine stretched 447 feet and weighed 7,750 tons when submerged. The hull of the submarine was submerged during the entire trip, although the upper mast broached the surface twice for defence reasons. From 1957 to 1958, another US submarine had circumnavigated the earth's oceans, but the vessel was forced to surface numerous times for refuelling
1982 Britain recaptured the Falkland Islands from Argentina
1983 The Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto's orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way
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