1720 Baron von Karl Freidrich Münchausen - German hunter and soldier who fought with the Russians against the Turks and returned to tell the most exaggerated tales, which eventually became The Adventures of Baron Münchausen
1811 Chang and Eng - The original Siamese Twins. They were born in Siam of Chinese parents, and joined from the breastbone to the navel. They settled in the US where they made a living being exhibited. They both married, and fathered several normal children
1854 Ottmar Mergenthaler - German born US inventor who patented the Linotype Machine in 1884
1888 Irving Berlin - Russian born US composer and lyricist (Easter Parade, God Bless America, Alexander's Ragtime Band, There's No Business Like Show Business, White Christmas, Puttin' on the Ritz, Top Hat, Cheek to Cheek) He was a self-taught musician
1892 Dame Margaret Rutherford - British stage and screen actress (Blithe Spirit, Arabella) In the later years of her career, she played Miss Marple in many stories based on Agatha Christie's famous sleuth
1894 Martha Graham - US dancer and choreographer (Appalachian Spring) She was a pioneer of modern dance and established her own dance company
1896 Mari Sandoz – US author (Old Jules, Crazy Horse, Cheyenne Autumn)
1904 Salvador Dali - Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker (Accommodations of Desire)
1911 Doodles Weaver - Actor (Road to Nashville, The Errand Boy, The Ladies' Man, Way He Was)
1911 Phil Silvers - Actor and comedian (The Phil Silvers Show/Sergeant Bilko, The Beverly Hillbillies, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Cheap Detective)
1912 Foster Brooks - Comedian, actor (The Villain, Cracking Up, Oddballs, The Dean Martin Show)
1920 Denver Pyle - Actor (The Dukes of Hazzard, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Life & Times of Grizzly Adams, Bonnie & Clyde, The Doris Day Show,The Andy Griffith Show, Tammy)
1927 Mort Sahl – Canadian-born comedian and actor (Don't Make Waves, Doctor You've Got to be Kidding)
1927 Bernard Fox – Welsh actor (Bewitched, The Mummy, Titanic, Munster Go Home, A Night to Remember) He played Peter Stange in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Laughing Lady He also played Dr. Watson in the 1972 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
1935 Doug McClure - Actor (The Gambler Returns, Omega Syndrome, The Virginian, Search, Roots, Out of this World, The Overland Trail, Checkmate, The Barbary Coast, The Land That Time Forgot)
1941 Eric Burdon - Singer with The Animals (When I was Young, Good Times, San Franciscan Nights, Sky Pilot, Ring of Fire, House of the Rising Sun) and also with Eric Burdon and WAR (Spill the Wine)
1948 Pam Ferris – German-born British actress (Rosemary & Thyme, Matilda, The Darling Buds of May, Where the Heart Is, Death to Smoochy, Paradise Heights, Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie, Marple: 450 from Paddington, Jane Eyre, Little Dorrit, Children of Men, Luther, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Call the Midwife)
1952 Frances Fisher - British born US actress (True Crime, L.A. Story, Unforgiven, Titanic, Striptease, Titus, Torchwood: Miracle Day)
1963 Natasha Richardson - British actress (Widow's Peak, Fat Man and Little Boy, The Handmaiden's Tale, Zelda, The Parent Trap) Her parents are Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave. She was the sister of Joely Richardson, and the cousin of Jemma Redgrave. Also, she played Violet Hunter in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Copper Beeches
1964 Tim Blake Nelson – Actor (O Brother Where Art Thou?, Chaos, The Incredible Hulk, Syriana, Meet the Fokers, Minority Report)
1968 Jeffrey Donovan – Actor (Burn Notice, Touching Evil US version, Another World, Hindsight, Crossing Jordan, Hitch)
1970 Nicky Katt – Actor (Boston Public, Secondhand Lions, The Brave One, Snow Angels, School of Rock, A Time to Kill, The ‘Burbs)
1977 Matt Newton – Actor (Ugly Betty, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Poster Boy, My Father’s Will)
1982 Cory Monteith – Canadian actor (Glee, Monte Carlo, Kaya, The Invisible, Bloody Mary)
1983 Holly Valance – Australian actress (Marple: The Pale Horse, Taken, Neighbours, Prison Break, DOA: Dead or Alive)
Died this Day
1812 Spencer Perceval - British prime minister, assassinated in London. He was shot to death by demented businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons. Bellingham, who was inflamed by his failure to obtain government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia, gave himself up immediately, and although deemed insane, was executed one week later
1979 Lester Flatt, age 64 - Country music entertainer and guitarist with the group Flatt and Scruggs (Foggy Mountain Breakdown, The Ballad of Jed Clampett, Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, Old Salty Dog Blues)
1981 Bob Marley, age 36 - Jamaican reggae artist (Stir It Up, I Shot the Sheriff) He died of cancer in a Miami hospital
1988 Kim Philby, age 76 - Englishman and spy, died in Moscow. Philby was a Soviet spy in Britain for 30 years before fleeing to the Soviet Union in 1963
2001 Douglas Adams, age 49 – British author (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe & Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, Mostly Harmless) He died in Santa Barbara, California
On this Day
AD 868 The first printed book, known as the Diamond Sutra, was published in China. It was found in 1900
1647 Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor
1676 Beggars were told that they needed permission from priests to beg in the streets of Montréal and Québec City
1833 Two-hundred and fifteen people died when the passenger ship, Lady of the Lake, sunk after striking an iceberg while travelling between Quebec and England
1839 The Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons was founded
1858 Minnesota, known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, became the 32nd state of the Union, eight years after becoming a US Territory. The Ojibwe and the Dakota were among the Native people who first made this land their home. European settlement of the area began in 1820 with the establishment of Fort Snelling, now Minnesota's Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The building of railroads and canals brought a land boom during the 1850s. Minnesota's population swelled from 6,000 in 1850 to more than 150,000 by 1857. Chiefly a land of small farmers, Minnesota supported the Union in the Civil War and supplied large quantities of wheat to the Northern armies. While the first European settlers were migrants of British, German, and Irish extraction, Minnesota saw a major influx of Scandinavian immigrants during the 19th century
1885 The Métis under Louis Riel were defeated by the militia at Batoche, Saskatchewan during the Second Northwest Rebellion. Riel later gave himself up and was charged with treason. He was executed at Regina later that year
1894 Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois went on strike. The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, subsequently began a boycott of Pullman that blocked freight traffic in and out of Chicago
1910 Glacier National Park in Montana was established
1920 Oxford University passed a statute granting degrees to women
1927 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was officially established at a dinner at Hollywood's Biltmore Hotel. Douglas Fairbanks served as the group's first president
1928 WGY in Schenedtady, New York began the first regular programming of television
1940 The first shore-to-ship telecast took place as Bermuda-bound passengers on the SS President Roosevelt watched the opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair on television
1942 The steamer Nicoya was sunk in the St. Lawrence River by a German U-Boat
1946 The first CARE package arrived in Europe, at Le Havre, France. The relief agency's name stood for Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe
1947 The B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire
1949 Israel was admitted to the United Nations as its 59th member
1949 Siam changed its name to Thailand
1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Cats, had its first performance, in London. It was based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum poems
1985 A flash fire swept through a jam-packed soccer stadium in Bradford, England. As millions of TV viewers watched in horror, 52 people were killed and many more injured
1997 IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue made chess history by defeating Gary Kasparov, the chess champion widely regarded as the greatest who has ever lived. The Russian master conceded defeat after 19 moves in the sixth game of the tournament, losing the match 2.5 to 3.5. It was the first defeat of a reigning world champion by a machine in tournament play. Big Blue, which can analyse 200 million chess moves a second, had met Kasparov once before, but the human had been able to hold his own against the computer. Before their second meeting, Kasparov had never lost a professional chess match
1998 A French mint produced the first coins of Europe's single currency, the Euro
14
Responses