Born this Day

1566 James I – King of England and Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley. He was proclaimed King of Scotland in 1567 when his mother was forced to abdicate, and King of England in 1603 upon the death of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1604 he appointed a group of scholars to develop the King James, or Authorised, Version of the Bible
1623 Blaise Pascal - French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher. The son of a judge in the French tax court, the teenage Pascal invented a calculating device to help his father's tax computations. The counting device relied on a series of wheels divided into ten parts each, representing the integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted. His other research led to the invention of the syringe, the hydraulic press, and with it Pascal’s Law of Pressure
1841 George Arthur French – Irish born soldier who organised the North West Mounted Rifles, which later became the North West Mounted Police, and is now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
1896 Wallis Warfield – US divorcee who became the Duchess of Windsor when she married Edward, who abdicated the British throne to marry her
1897 Moe Howard – Actor (Dr. Death, Seeker of Souls, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) He was one of the original Three Stooges
1902 Guy Lombardo – Canadian bandleader (Auld Lang Syne, Humoresque, Easter Parade, the Third Man Theme) He and his band, The Royal Canadians were a New Year’s Eve staple for years
1903 Lou Gehrig – Baseball great known as the “Iron Horse”. He died of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which is now commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease
1905 Mildred Natwick - Actress (Dangerous Liaisons, Barefoot in the Park, The Snoop Sisters, Tammy and the Bachelor, If It’s Tuesday It Must Be Belgium, Daisy Miller)
1906 Earl Bascom - Rodeo showman and inventor of the first side-delivery rodeo chute, the first hornless bronco saddle, and the first one-handed bareback rigging
1915 Pat Buttram – Actor (Green Acres, The Gene Autry Show, Back to the Future III, Riders in the Sky)
1919 Pauline Kael - Movie Critic
1919 Louis Jordan – French actor (Gigi, Three Coins in the Fountain, The VIPs)
1928 Nancy Marchand - Actress (The Sopranos, Lou Grant, The Naked Gun, North and South Book 2, The Bostonians, Sabrina)
1930 Gena Rowlands - Actress (Peyton Place, A Woman under the Influence, Night on Earth, Two Minute Warning, Gloria, The Betty Ford Story, Hope Floats, The Notebook)
1932 Pier Angeli – Italian actress (Battle of the Bulge, One Step to Hell, The Silver Chalice, S.O.S. Pacific) She is the twin sister of Marisa Pavan
1932 Marisa Pavan - Actress (Diary of Anne Frank, The Rose Tattoo, What Price Glory?, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit) She is the twin sister of Pier Angeli
1936 Tommy DeVito – Singer with the group The Four Seasons (Sherry, Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like a Man, Rag Doll)
1937 Thelma Barlow – British actress (Coronation Street, David Copperfield)
1946 André the Giant – French wrestler and actor (The Princess Bride, Zorro) He was born André René Roussimoff
1947 Salman Rushdie - Author (The Jaguar Smile, Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses)
1948 Phylicia Rashad - Actress (The Cosby Show, Polly, David’s Mother, Free of Eden, Loving Jezebel) She is the sister of dancer Debbie Allen
1950 Ann Wilson - Rock singer with Heart (Barracuda, Crazy on You)
1954 Kathleen Turner - Actress (Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, Serial Mom, Naked in New York, Accidental Tourist, The War of the Roses, The Doctors, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) The child of a Foreign Service family, she lived in Canada, Cuba, Washington D.C., Venezuela, and England while growing up
1962 Paula Abdul – Choreographer, actress (Mr Rock 'n' Roll: The Alan Freed Story, The Waiting Game) and talent judge (American Idol)
1967 Eric Schweig – Canadian actor (Blackstone, Cashing In, The Missing, Cowboys and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, Dead Man's Walk, The Scarlet Letter, Squanto: A Warrior's Tale, The Last of the Mohicans, The Broken Chain) He is a master carver of Inuit masks and carvings
1967 Mia Sara – Actress (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Queenie, Timecop, Bullet to Beijing, The Maddening, The Witches of Oz)
1971 Alan Van Sprang – Canadian actor (King, Immortals, Cra$h & Burn, The Tudors, The Best Years, Paradise Falls, Earth: Final Conflict, Narc)
1972 Poppy Montgomery – Australian-born actress (Without a Trace, Raising Waylon, The Beat, Relativity, Unforgettable)
1972 Robin Tunney – Actress (The Mentalist, Prison Break, End of Days, The Craft)
1975 Hugy Dancy – British actor (The Big C, The Jane Austen Book Club, Ella Enchanted, Daniel Deronda, Black Hawk Down, Young Blades, King Arthur, Law & Order) He played the Michael Woodley in the Kavanagh QC episode The More Loving One
1978 Zoe Saldana – Actress (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Star Trek, The Terminal, Avatar)
1983 Aidan Turner – Irish actor (Being Human, The Clinic, Desperate Romantics, The Tudors, Hattie, Poldark)


Died this Day

1867 Ferdinand Maximilian - Austrian Archduke who was installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864. He was executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, the president of the Mexican Republic
1937 Sir James M. Barrie, age 77 - Scottish author, dramatist (Peter Pan, The Little Minister, The Admirable Crichton)
1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – They were executed at New York's Sing Sing prison after being convicted of conspiring to pass US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union
1993 Sir William Golding, age 81 - British Nobel Prize-winning author (Lord of the Flies, The Rites of Passage, The Paper Men)


On this Day

1644 At Quebec, Jesuit priest François-Joseph Bressani was tortured by Iroquois, then given to an old woman to care for, to replace a dead relative. Later that year, he was sold to the Dutch, who paid a ransom to free him and return him to France
1687 Jean Bochart de Champigny seized a group of Iroquois at Fort Frontenac, and sent them to France as galley slaves
1829 Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police by an Act of Parliament, passed this day. The police force were first nick-named “Peelers”, and later “Bobbies”, after his name
1846 The first official game of baseball was played at the Elysian Fields, Hoboken, New Jersey, by the New York Nine, and the Knickerbocker Club
1862 Slavery was outlawed in the US territories
1864 Off the coast of Cherbourg, France, the Confederate raider CSS Alabama lost a ship-to-ship duel with the Union vessel USS Kearsarge, and sunk to the floor of the Atlantic. In 1862, the CSS Alabama, a 1,000-ton screw-steam sloop of war, was built at Liverpool, England, for the Confederate Navy. By the time she had docked at Cherbourg for a badly needed overhaul earlier in June, 1864, the Alabama had inflicted immense damage on the seaborne trade of the US, destroying 60-odd US merchant ships in two years. The USS Kearsarge, a steam-sloop that had been pursuing the Alabama, learned of its presence at Cherbourg and promptly steamed to the French port. On June 14th, the Kearsarge arrived and took up a patrol just outside the harbour. After being fitted and stocked over five more days, the Alabama steamed out to meet its foe, while a French ironclad lurked nearby to ensure that the combat remained in international waters. After an initial exchange of gunfire, the battle quickly turned against the Alabama, whose shells failed to penetrate the Kearsarge's chain-cable armour. Within an hour, the Alabama, reduced to a sinking wreck, tried to retreat back to Cherbourg, but was blocked by the Kearsarge. The captain of the Alabama was forced to strike his colours, and the crew abandoned ship. The survivors were rescued by the Kearsarge and the British yacht Deerhound, which had been observing the battle
1885 The Statue of Liberty, a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, arrived in New York City's harbour. Originally known as "Liberty Enlightening the World," the statue was proposed by French historian Edouard Laboulaye to commemorate the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution. Designed by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the 151-foot statue was the form of a woman with an uplifted arm holding a torch. In February 1877, Congress approved the use of a site on New York’s Bedloe's Island, which was suggested by Bartholdi. In May 1884, the statue was completed in France, and three months later the Americans laid the cornerstone for its pedestal in New York. The dismantled Statue of Liberty arrived enclosed in more than 200 packing cases. Its copper sheets were reassembled, and the last rivet of the monument was fitted in October 1886, during a dedication presided over by US President Grover Cleveland. On the pedestal was inscribed "The New Colossus," a famous sonnet by US poet Emma Lazarus that welcomed immigrants to the US with the declaration, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me. / I lift my lamp beside the golden door." Six years later, Ellis Island, adjacent to Bedloe's Island, opened as the chief entry station for immigrants to the US, and for the next 32 years more than 12 million immigrants were welcomed into New York harbour by the sight of Lady Liberty. In 1924, the Statue of Liberty was made a national monument
1905 Pittsburgh showman Harry Davis opened the world's first nickelodeon, showing a silent film called The Great Train Robbery. The storefront theatre charged only 5¢ and boasted 96 seats. Nickelodeons soon spread across the country, typically featuring live vaudeville acts as well as short films
1910 Father's Day was instituted in the US by Mrs John Bruce, in Spokane, Washington
1911 Portugal abolished the monarchy
1914 One-hundred and eighty-eight people died in the Hillcrest mine disaster at Crows Nest Pass, Alberta
1917 During World War I, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with German titles and surnames. The family took the name Windsor
1934 The US Federal Communications Commission was created
1940 Britain organised to evacuate children to Canada during World War II
1940 Canada and Britain planned the steps to be taken if Britain’s Royal Navy should be forced to withdraw to Canada
1945 Abbott and Costello's classic comedy routine "Who's on First?" made its cinema debut, in The Naughty Nineties. The duo had already made the routine famous in live performances and on the radio
1961 The Supreme Court struck down a provision in Maryland's constitution requiring state officeholders to profess a belief in God
1977 Pope Paul VI proclaimed a 19th-century Philadelphia bishop, John Neumann, the first US male saint
1987 The Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creationism science as well
1992 Irish voters overwhelmingly approved the Maastricht Treaty on European union