Born this Day

1630 Charles II - King of England, who restored the monarchy to England after Oliver Cromwell had imposed years of military rule
1736 Patrick Henry - US orator and patriot of the American Revolution
1781 Dr. John Walker - British chemist and inventor of the friction match, which he sold at his shop in Stockton-on-Tees Company in Durham, England
1826 Ebenezer Butterick - US manufacturer who developed the use of paper patterns for sewing clothing
1874 Gilbert Keith (G.K.) Chesterton - British critic, poet, essayist and author (The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare, English Men of Letters, The Wild Knight and Other Poems, The Napoleon of Notting Hill) He also created the Father Brown crime-fiction series (The Innocence of Father Brown, The Wisdom of Father Brown, The Secret of Father Brown)
1894 Beatrice Lillie, Lady Peel - Canadian born British comedienne and stage and screen actress (On Approval, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Around the World in Eighty Days)
1903 Bob Hope - British-born US entertainer (The Big Broadcast of 1938, numerous "Road" movies with Bing Crosby, The Lemon-Drop Kid, Boy did I Get A Wrong Number, Eight on the Lam, I'll Take Sweden, The Muppet Movie) His theme song was Thanks for the Memories. He had numerous TV specials, and has entertained troops overseas in every war from WWII to the Gulf War
1905 Sebastian Shaw – British actor (Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi, The Spy in Black, It Happened Here, High Season, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Flying Squad)
1906 Terence Hanbury (T.H.) White - Indian-born British author and poet (The Sword in the Stone, England Have My Bones, The Witch in the Wood, The Candle in the Wind, The Once and Future King)
1914 Stacy Keach, Sr - Actor (The Parallax View, Get Smart, The Heist, Armed and Dangerous, Pretty Woman) He’s the father of actors Stacy Jr, and James Keach. He was in the Perry Mason episodes The Case of the Cheating Chancellor and The Case of the Frightened Fisherman
1917 John Fitzgerald Kennedy - The 35th US President, born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic ever elected to that office
1921 Clifton James – Actor (Cool Hand Luke, Live and Let Die, The Man With the Golden Gun, Sunshine State, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Dallas, Eight Men Out, Lewis & Clark, Silver Streak, The Iceman Cometh
1944 Helmut Berger - Austrian actor (The Damned, Dorian Gray, The Godfather III, Dynasty, Iron Cross)
1945 Gary Brooker - Singer with the group Procol Harum (Whiter Shade of Pale, Conquistador)
1947 Anthony Geary - Actor (General Hospital, High Desert Kill, UHF)
1948 Nick Mancuso – Italian-born Canadian actor (Ticket to Heaven, Under Siege, Stingray, Call of the Wild, Revelation, Tribulation, A Young Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, The Legend of Walks Far Woman)
1953 Danny Elfman - Singer with the group Oingo Boingo and composer of soundtracks (Batman movies, Beetlejuice, The Simpsons, Edward Scissorhands, Men in Black, Desperate Housewives, Corpse Bride, Sledge Hammer!)
1957 Ted Levine – Actor (Monk, The Silence of the Lambs, Shutter Island, American Gangster, Wild Wild West, Hell on Wheels)
1958 Wayne Duvall – Actor (O Brother Where Art Thou, The District, Duplicity, Leatherheads, Pride and Glory, The Fan, Apollo 13)
1958 Annette Bening - Actress (American Beauty, Valmont, The Grifters, Postcards From the Edge, Bugsy, Regarding Henry, The American President, Mars Attacks!, The Great Outdoors, Being Julia, Running With Scissors, Open Range, Mrs. Harris) She is married to Warren Beatty
1959 Rupert Everett - British actor (My Best Friend's Wedding, The Madness of King George, Shakespeare in Love, An Ideal Husband, Inspector Gadget, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Next Best Thing, St. Trinian’s, Stardust, To Kill a King) He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
1959 Adrian Paul - British actor (The Highlander, War of the Worlds, The Colbys, Cold Fusion, Nine Miles Down, The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake, Tracker)
1963 Lisa Whelchel - Actress (The Facts of Life, Twirl, The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch) and author (The Facts of Life and Other Lessons My Father Taught Me, Taking Care of the Me in Mommy, Creative Correction, Friendship for Grown-Ups)
1965 Matthew Porretta – Actor (Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Beverly Hills 90210, Dream Warrior, Dracula: Dead and Loving It)


Died this Day

1829 Sir Humphrey Davy - British chemist who discovered the anaesthetic properties of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas. He also invented the miners' safety lamp
1911 Sir W.S. Gilbert, age 74 - British librettist and playwright. He drowned in his own lake, while swimming with two young ladies, one of whom got into difficulties. Gilbert went to the rescue, but suddenly sank, dying of a heart attack
1951 Fanny Brice, age 59 - US comedienne and entertainer (Ziegfeld Follies, Baby Snooks, Everybody Sing, Be Yourself)
1979 Mary Pickford, age 86 - Canadian born silent film actress who was known as America's Sweetheart (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Coquette, Stella Maris, The Taming of the Shrew, Pollyanna, A Poor Little Rich Girl) She was the wife of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. In 1919 she created United Artists along with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith


On this Day

1453 The Turks captured Constantinople, bringing the Eastern Roman Empire to an end. Some historians consider this date the end of the Middle Ages
1660 On his 30th birthday, Charles II entered London to be restored as the King of England, four days after landing in England at Dover
1765 In Virginia's House of Burgesses, the eloquent patriot Patrick Henry, denounced the proposed Stamp Act before saying, "If this be treason, make the most of it!" It was his 29th birthday
1790 Rhode Island became the 13th state of the union, after narrowly voting to ratify the US Constitution. In 1786, when defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce, a call was issued to all of the states to send representatives to Philadelphia to draft a new constitution. Rhode Island, which under the Articles of Confederation had refused to provide the central US government with financial support, declined to attend the Constitutional Convention. In 1790, the federal government responded to Rhode Island's resistance by threatening to sever commercial relations with the independence-minded state. Only then did the Rhode Island legislature vote to ratify the Constitution, but only by two votes
1815 The British government opened Canadian commerce to US citizens after the War of 1812 ended
1848 Wisconsin became the 30th State of the Union, following approval of statehood by the territory's citizens. In 1836, after several decades of governance as part of other territories, Wisconsin was made a separate entity, with Madison, located midway between Milwaukee and the western centres of population, to be established as the territorial capital. By 1840, population in Wisconsin had risen above 130,000, but the people voted against statehood four times, fearing the higher taxes that would come with a stronger central government. Finally, in 1848, Wisconsin citizens, envious of the prosperity that federal programs brought to neighbouring Midwestern states, voted to approve statehood
1884 The first steam cable tramway began operating in London's Highgate
1900 The escalator was registered by the Otis Elevator Company
1913 Stravinsky's ballet, Rite of Spring, was first performed in Paris. It was danced by Nijinsky. Its sensuality and the disturbing music, caused the audience to riot
1914 In one of the worst ship disasters in history, the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Ireland, carrying 1,477 passengers and crew, collided with the Norwegian freighter Storstad in the gulf of Canada's St. Lawrence River. A heavy fog blanketed the St. Lawrence as the Empress set out from Quebec Harbour on its transatlantic journey to Liverpool, England. Although the Empress and the Storstad spotted each other several minutes before the collision, the sudden fog, altered courses and confused signals brought them into their fateful embrace. At 1:55 a.m., the ships collided, and the Storstad penetrated fifteen feet into the Empress of Ireland's starboard side. Three minutes later water reached the dynamos, dousing power and light. The Empress sank 11 minutes after that, when the Storstad backed out of the hole in her hull. It only took a total of fourteen minutes, for the Empress to go down, drowning 1,012 of its passengers and crew. The tragedy came two years after the Titantic sunk, galvanising public demands for maritime safety standards. With structural precautions superior to those on the Titanic, crews trained extensively in emergency procedures, and more than enough lifejackets and lifeboats, the Empress was designed for optimum safety. Only seven lifeboats escaped the rapidly sinking vessel. However, thanks to the efforts of the crew of the Storstad, scores of people were pulled out of the dangerously icy waters. One-million dollars in silver bars were later recovered by divers
1942 Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded Irving Berlin's White Christmas in Los Angeles for Decca Records. It was his biggest selling single with more than 25-million copies sold
1953 Mount Everest, the tallest in the world, was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit of the Himalayan mountain, at 11:30 a.m. The mountain, which stands at over 29,000 feet above sea level, is named after Sir George Everest, an early nineteenth-century British Surveyor-General of India and the Himalayas. Hillary was a 34-year-old New Zealand beekeeper and mountaineer, and Norgay, a 42-year-old veteran of more assaults on Mount Everest than any other man to that date. With 362 porters, twenty Sherpa guides and 10,000 pounds of baggage, the expedition left the Nepalese base of Katmandu on March 10th. The climbers carried three flags, the Union Jack, the United Nations flag and the Nepalese flag, to plant on the summit. News of the success was rushed by runner from the expedition's base camp to the radio post at Namche Bazar, and then sent by coded message to London, where Queen Elizabeth II learned of the achievement on June 1, the eve of her coronation. The next day, the news broke around the world
1970 The Hudson's Bay Company moved its head office from London, England to Winnipeg, Manitoba
1982 Pope John Paul II became the first Pope in 450 years to step on to British soil, and the first to pray side by side with the Archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Cathedral
1985 One-legged runner Steve Fonyo, 19, completed a cross-Canada marathon started 14 months earlier in Newfoundland, by dipping his artificial left leg into the Pacific at Mile Zero of the Trans-Canada Highway. His Journey for Lives run was inspired by Terry Fox, and raised almost $9 million in donations for cancer research