1788 Augustin Jean Fresnel - French physicist who made contributions in the study of polarised light and lenses
1832 William Grace - Irish-born US shipowner and the founder of W.R. Grace & Company
1838 John Wilkes Booth - US actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln
1850 Sir Thomas Lipton - Scottish-born British merchant who built the Lipton tea empire. He started out as an errand boy, but rose to be a multi-millionaire grocer by the time he was 30, with such innovative ideas as putting tea in tea bags
1894 Dimitri Tiomkin - Russian-born US composer of film scores & TV themes (Rawhide, Dial 'M' for Murder, Friendly Persuasion, High Noon, It's a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Guns of Navarone, Gunslinger, The Sundowners, The Alamo, Giant, Lost Horizon)
1898 Ariel Durant - Russian-born US writer who co-wrote "The Story of Civilisation"
1899 Fred Astaire - US dancer and actor (Funny Face, Silk Stockings, Finian's Rainbow, Daddy Long Legs, Easter Parade, Let's Dance, That's Entertainment, The Towering Inferno, It Takes a Thief) He began his career on the vaudeville stage
1902 David O. Selznick - Producer (Gone With the Wind, King Kong, The Prisoner of Zenda, Rebecca, A Farewell to Arms) He was responsible for bringing Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood
1909 Mother Maybelle Carter - Singer with The Carter Family (Keep on the Sunny Side, Foggy Mountain Top) In 1927, Maybelle, Sara, and A.P. Carter, along with Jimmie Rodgers, went into a small studio in Bristol, Tennessee to cut audition records. Those recordings became known as the Bristol Sessions, and are widely regarded as the official beginning of country music in the US
1914 Charles McGraw - Actor (A Boy and His Dog, Cimarron, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, The Defiant Ones, Spartacus)
1917 Margo O'Donnell - Actress (Viva Zapata!, Lost Horizon, I'll Cry Tomorrow)
1922 Nancy Walker - Actress (McMillan and Wife, Murder by Death, Broadway Rhythm, Forty Carats)
1941 Taurean Blacque – Actor (Hill Street Blues, Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story, Generations)
1946 Maureen Lipman - British actress (Educating Rita, Smiley's People, The Wildcats of St. Trinians) She played Mrs. Smedley in The Sweeney episode, Selected Target
1946 Donovan (Leitch) - Scottish singer, guitarist and songwriter (Mellow Yellow, Sunshine Superman, Atlantis)
1960 Bono (Paul Hewson) – Irish singer with the group U2 (Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride: In the Name of Love, With You or Without You)
1960 Victoria Rowell – Actress (Diagnosis Murder, Feast of All Saints, Eve's Bayou, Barb Wire, Dumb & Dumber, The Young and the Restless)
1966 Polly Walker – British actress (Patriot Games, Rome, Caprica, Cane, The Mayor of Casterbrige, Emma, Lorna Doone, Poirot: Peril at End House, Marple: At Bertram’s Hotel, Clash of the Titans, Prisoner’s Wives)
1968 Erik Palladino - Actor (ER, Love and Marriage, Road Kill, Make It or Break It)
1970 Dallas Roberts – Actor (Rubicon, The Good Wife, 3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, The Grey, The Factory)
1985 Odette Annable – Actress (Cloverfield, House, You Again, October Road, South Beach)
Died this Day
1566 Leonard Fuchs, age 65 – German physician and botanist after whom fuchsias are named
1774 Louis XV - King of France, died of smallpox, and was succeeded by Louis XVI
1798 George Vancouver, age 40 - British navigator, explorer and surveyor who sailed with Captain Cook on his second and third voyages. He carried out surveys of Australia, New Zealand, and the West Coast of North America, including Vancouver Island, which is named after him
1818 Paul Revere, age 83 - US silversmith and patriot, died in Boston. He became a hero by riding from Charlestown to Lexington, Massachusetts, warning colonists that the British were coming
1863 Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, age 41 - Confederate General who was one of the Civil War's most famous military officers. He died from his wounds after being shot in error by his own troops returning from a reconnaissance trip
1904 Sir Henry Morton Stanley, age 63 – Welsh-born British journalist and explorer who went in search of, and found, Dr. David Livingstone
1920 John Wesley Hyatt, age 82 - US inventor who discovered a process for making celluloid while trying to find a substitute for ivory billiard balls
1977 Joan Crawford, age 69 - US actress (Mildred Pierce, Possessed, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, A Woman's Face, Grand Hotel)
On this Day
1534 Jacques Cartier arrived at Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland on his first voyage to Canada, just 20 days after embarking on his journey
1749 The tenth and final volume of Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones was published. The novel, serialised in 10 small volumes, boasted a vast cast of characters chasing each other across England and provided a sweeping comic portrait of 18th century England
1775 Ethan Allen captured the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga, NY, with the help of his Green Mountain boys and Benedict Arnold
1844 The capital of Canada was moved from Kingston to Montréal, where it remained for five years
1857 The Sepoy Rebellion broke out in Meerat, triggering the Indian Mutiny against British rule. It was against this back drop that part of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Crooked Man, took place
1865 Jefferson Davis, President of the fallen Confederate government, was captured by Union forces, along with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia. General Robert E. Lee had previously informed President Davis that he could no longer protect Richmond and advised the Confederate government to evacuate its capital. Davis and his cabinet fled deep into the South upon Lee's surrender, which effectively ended the Civil War. Davis was devastated by the fall of the Confederacy. Refusing to admit defeat, he hoped to flee to a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and was weighing the merits of forming a government in exile when he was arrested by a detachment of the 4th Michigan Cavalry. A certain amount of controversy surrounds his capture, as Davis was wearing his wife's black shawl when the Union troops cornered him. The Northern press ridiculed him as a coward, alleging that he had disguised himself as a woman in an ill-fated attempt to escape. However, Davis, and especially his wife, Varina, maintained that he was ill and that Varina had lent him her shawl to keep his health up during their difficult journey
1869 At Promontory, Utah, California Governor Leland Stanford pounded in a ceremonial golden spike that completed the nation's first transcontinental railway. After failing to hit the spike on his first attempt, Stanford raised the heavy sledgehammer again and struck a solid square blow. For the first time in US history, railways linked together east and west, the realisation of a dream that began two decades earlier. Although travellers would have to take a roundabout journey to cross the country on this railroad system, no longer would western-bound travellers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train. The California-based Central Pacific began laying tracks eastward from Sacramento, while the eastern-based Union Pacific began in Omaha and built west. When the two lines connected, it was the beginning of a dramatic transformation of the West. A 3,000-mile journey that had previously taken months to complete could now take only days by rail
1908 The first Mother's Day observance took place during church services in Grafton, West Virginia, and Philadelphia. They were initiated by Miss Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia, as part of her women's suffrage and temperance movement
1920 It was announced that Ottawa's own minister, not the British ambassador, would represent Canada at Washington
1922 Dr. Ivy Williams became the first woman to be called to the English Bar
1924 J. Edgar Hoover was promoted to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Hoover, who had been the acting director for several months, remained in power for 48 years
1933 The Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany
1940 Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, was called to replace Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister following the latter's resignation after losing a Confidence Vote in the House of Commons. Chamberlain had shown himself to be ill-equipped for the daunting task of saving Europe from Nazi conquest during WWII, after British forces failed to prevent the German occupation of Norway in April 1940. Churchill, who was known for his military leadership ability, was appointed British prime minister in his place. He formed an all-party coalition and quickly won the popular support of Britons. On May 13, in his first speech before the House of Commons, Prime Minister Churchill declared that "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears," and offered an outline of his bold plans for British resistance. In the first year of his administration, Churchill promised his country and the world that the British people would "never surrender," and they never did
1941 The worst of the London Blitz occurred when 550 German bombers dropped 100,000 incendiaries on the city. Ironically, it occurred on the 26th anniversary of the night that German zeppelins had first bombed London in 1915 during The Great War
1954 Bill Haley and the Comets song, Rock Around the Clock, was first released
1968 Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris
1973 In Kenora, Ontario, an unidentified bandit exploded in a cloud of flesh, metal and money during a bank hold-up. At 4:10 p.m. a police bullet struck the dynamite-strapped man in the chest, causing him to clamp down on a trigger clenched between his teeth that was attached to six sticks of dynamite. The explosion scattered the $100,000 he was carrying from the bank and rocked the downtown area, injuring 11 people and shattering store windows all along the street
1994 Former President George H.W. Bush's office released his letter of resignation from the National Rifle Association in which Bush expressed outrage over its reference to federal agents as "jackbooted government thugs"
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