Born this Day

1620 Jean Piccard – French astronomer who was the first to compute the size of the earth. His data was used by Newton to verify his theory of gravitation
1816 Paul Julius von Reuter – German born founder of the British news agency bearing his name. He formed the company in his native Germany to transmit commercial information by telegraph. In 1851 he made London the headquarters of Reuters and began including general news items
1899 Hart Crane - Poet (The Bridge, The White Buildings) He was born in Garrettsville, Ohio
1899 Ernest Hemingway – US novelist and short story writer (The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls)
1911 Marshall McLuhan – Canadian communications theorist, educator and author (The Mechanical Bride, The Gutenberg Galaxy, War and Peace in the Global Village, Understanding Media) He was educated at the University of Manitoba and Cambridge University, and coined the phrase "The medium is the message," describing TV. He also appeared as himself in the Woody Allen movie, Annie Hall
1920 Isaac Stern - Concert violin impresario who appeared on the soundtrack for Fiddler on the Roof
1922 Kay Starr - Singer (Rock and Roll Waltz, My Heart Reminds Me, Wheel of Fortune, Side By Side)
1922 Mollie Sugden – British actress (Are You Being Served?, Oliver's Travels, Grace & Favour, Cluedo, My Husband and I, The Liver Birds, Coronation Street)
1924 Don Knotts - Comedian and actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Matlock, Three's Company, The Don Knotts Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Pleasantville)
1926 Paul Burke - Actor (Anatomy of Terror, Valley of the Dolls, Francis in the Navy, Twelve O'Clock High, Noah's Ark, Naked City, Hot Shots, Dynasty)
1926 Norman Jewison – Canadian director (Moonstruck, Agnes of God, And Justice for All, Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof, Rollerball, The Cincinnati Kid, In the Heat of the Night, The Russians Are Coming)
1943 Edward Herrmann - Actor (Gilmore Girls, Big Business, Beacon Hill, Reds, The Paper Chase, Mrs. Soffel, The Great Gatsby, Eleanor & Franklin, The Lost Boys, Oz, The Aviator, Nixon)
1948 Garry Trudeau – Cartoonist (Doonesbury) He is married to Jane Pauley
1948 Cat Stevens - Singer (Wild World, Moon Shadow, Peace Train, Oh Very Young)
1948 Art Hindle – Canadian actor (Paradise Falls, Dallas, Berrengers, Face-Off, E.N.G., Tom Stone, North of Sixty, The Arrow)
1951 Robin Williams – Comedian and actor (Mork and Mindy, Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, Dead Poet's Society, Popeye, The Fisher King, Hook, Comic Relief, Cadillac Man, The Birdcage)
1957 Jon Lovitz – Comedian and actor (Saturday Night Live, A League of Their Own, City Slickers: The Legend of Curly's Gold, Casino Jack, Big, Three Amigos)
1964 Ross Kemp – British actor (EastEnders, A Line in the Sand, The Crooked Man, Emmerdale Farm, Ultimate Force, Spartacus)
1976 Jaime Murray – British actress (Gotham, Once Upon a Time, Defiance, Hu$tle, Dexter, Warehouse 13, Valentine, Poirot: The Mystery of the Blue Train, Ringer)
1978 Josh Hartnett – Actor (Lucky Number Slevin, Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor, The Black Dahlia, Hollywood Homocide, The Faculty)
1980 Sprague Grayden – Actress (Jericho, 24, Sons of Anarchy, Over There, Six Feet Under, Joan of Arcadia, John Doe)
1985 Vanessa Lengies – Canadian actress (Glee, Hawthorne, Monarch Cove, Extreme Movie, The Perfect Man, American Dreams, Are You Afraid of the Dark?)
1986 Diana Guerrero – Actress (Doom Patrol, Jane the Virgin, Orange is the New Black, Superior Donuts)
1989 Jamie Waylett – British actor (Harry Potter movies)

Died this Day

1796 Robert Burns, age 37 - Scottish national poet (Auld Lang Syne, Tam O’Shanter, Captain Matthew Henderson, Afton Water, Scots Wha Hae, Highland Mary) Many of his poems are also song lyrics
1967 Basil Rathbone, age 74 – South African-born British actor (The Mark of Zorro, Captain Blood, The Last Hurrah, The Hound of the Baskervilles, House of Fear, David Copperfield, Last Days of Pompeii, Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes, A Christmas Carol, The Comedy of Terrors) He died in New York, of a heart attack. He is famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, and is often described as the archetypal Holmes


On this Day

1831 Belgium became independent as Leopold I was proclaimed King of the Belgians
1836 Riding on wooden tracks near Montréal, Canada's first passenger train travelled just over 15 miles running from La Prairie opposite Montréal to St-Jean on the Richelieu. Governor Archibald Acheson, Lord Gosford, rode with 300 other guests, on the Champlain & St. Lawrence line, pulled by the locomotive Dorchester
1861 The first Battle of Bull Run was fought at Manassas, Virginia, resulting in a Confederate victory. A large Union force under General Irvin McDowell was routed by a Confederate army under General Pierre G.T. Beauregard. That morning, hundreds of civilians - men, women, and children, turned out to watch the first major land battle of the Civil War from the sidelines. The fighting commenced with three Union divisions crossing the Bull Run stream, and the Confederate flank was driven back to Henry House Hill. However, at this strategic location, Beauregard had fashioned a strong defensive line anchored by a brigade of Virginia infantry under General Thomas J. Jackson. Firing from a concealed slope, Jackson's men repulsed a series of Federal charges, winning Jackson his famous nickname "Stonewall." Meanwhile, Confederate cavalry under Jeb Stuart captured the Union artillery, and Beauregard ordered a counterattack on the exposed Union right flank. The rebels came charging down the hill, yelling furiously, and McDowell's line was broken, forcing his troops in a hasty retreat across Bull Run. Union forces endured a loss of 3,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in action while the Confederates suffered 2,000 casualties. The scale of this bloodshed horrified not only the frightened spectators at Bull Run but also the US government in Washington, which was faced with an uncertain military strategy in quelling the Southern insurrection
1865 In what may be the first true western showdown, Wild Bill Hickok shot Dave Tutt dead in the market square of Springfield, Missouri. In reality, the classic western showdown, also called a walkdown, happened only rarely in the US West. Rather than the popular conception of shooters coolly confronting each other on a dusty street in a deadly game of quick draw, most men began shooting at each other in drunken brawls or spontaneous arguments. Ambushes and cowardly attacks were far more common than noble showdowns. Nonetheless, southern emigrants brought to the West a crude form of the "code duello," a highly formalised means of solving disputes between gentlemen with swords or guns that had its origins in European chivalry. By the second half of the 19th century, few in the US still fought duels to solve their problems. Yet, the concept of the duel surely influenced the informal western code of what constituted a legitimate, and legal, gun battle. Above all, the western code required that a man resort to his six-gun only in defence of his honour or life, and only if his opponent was also armed. Likewise, a western jury was unlikely to convict a man in a shooting provided witnesses testified that his opponent had been the aggressor. The best-known example of a true western duel occurred on this day in 1865. Wild Bill Hickok, a skilled gunman with a formidable reputation, was eking out a living as a professional gambler in Springfield. He quarrelled with Dave Tutt, a former Union soldier, but it is unclear what caused the dispute. Whatever the cause, rather than fight it out immediately, as typically occurred, the two men agreed to a duel the following day. The showdown took place at 6:00 the next evening. A crowd of onlookers watched as Hickok and Tutt confronted each other from opposite sides of the town square. When Tutt was about 75 yards away, Hickok shouted, "Don't come any closer, Dave." Tutt nervously drew his revolver and fired a shot that went wild. Hickok, by contrast, remained cool. He steadied his own revolver in his left hand and shot Tutt dead with a bullet through the chest. Having adhered to the code of the West, Hickok was acquitted of manslaughter charges. Eleven years later, however, Hickok died in a fashion far more typical of the violence of the day: a young gunslinger shot him in the back of the head while he played cards. The cards he held are still known as a “Dead Man’s Hand”. Of the five cards he held, four were the black aces and black eights. The fifth card is unknown
1873 Jesse James and his gang robbed a train for the first time, getting three-thousand dollars off the Rock Island Express in Ohio
1896 The first public showing of films in Canada took place in Ottawa
1925 The famous Monkey Trial ended in Dayton, Tennessee, as John T. Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. He had been defended by famed lawyer Clarence Darrow. The conviction was later overturned
1928 Four surveyors discovered the bodies of English trapper Jack Hornby, his young cousin Edgar Christian, and their friend Adlard in a cabin on the Thelon River in Canada’s North West Territories. Inside the stove was Christian's diary detailing how they slowly starved to death over the winter and spring. Hornby died April 16, after weeks of suffering, Adlard died May 4, and Christian continued his diary until his final entry June 1, noting he was too weak to walk and could not fetch wood for the stove. He then crawled into his bunk and died
1955 The last episode of the popular radio programme, The Roy Rogers Show, aired. The show had been one of radio's most popular programmes since its debut in 1944
1969 Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin ''Buzz'' Aldrin blasted off from the moon aboard the lunar module
1980 Selective Service registration, or the draft, was reinstated under President Jimmy Carter
1997 The USS Constitution, nicknamed Old Ironsides, which defended the US during the War of 1812, set sail under its own power for first time in 116 years, leaving its temporary anchorage at Marblehead, Massachusetts for a one-hour voyage marking its 200th anniversary. The actual anniversary was the following October