Born this Day

1775 Eugène François Vidocq – French petty thief who eventually organised the Birgade de Sûreté, the world’s first detective force. Accused of masterminding a theft, he was dismissed and started the world’s first private detective agency. Among his friends was Alexandre Dumas
1783 Simón Bolivar - South American liberator, born in Caracas, Venezuela. He gained independence for six republics, first playing a major role in Venezuela’s independence from Spain. Bolivia is named after him
1802 Alexandre Dumas, Sr – French playwright and novelist (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers)
1853 William Gillette – US playwright and actor of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the first to portray Sherlock Holmes. His stage career lasted from 1899 to 1932. He was also in the 1916 film Sherlock Holmes
1897 Amelia Earhart - Aviator who was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, and the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California
1899 Chief Dan George (Teswahno) – Canadian actor (Cariboo Country, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Centennial, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Harry and Tonto, The Beachcombers, Little Big Man, Smith!) He was Chief of the Squamish Band in Burrard Inlet BC in the 1950s & 60s
1908 Cootie Williams – Musician and trumpeter with Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and his own band, Cootie Williams Sextet and Orchestra (Echoes of Harlem, Concerto for Cootie, Tess' Torch Song, Cherry Red Blues)
1910 Vera Salaff – Artist and textile designer whose signature scarves and linens bore her name “Vera”
1914 Frank Silvera - Actor (Valdez is Coming, Toys in the Attic, The High Chaparral)
1915 Bob Eberly - Singer (The Breeze and I, Besame Mucho) He sang with Kitty Kallen, the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, and on TV's Top Tunes
1916 John D. MacDonald – US mystery and science fiction writer (Deep Blue Goodbye, The Lonely Silver Rain, One Fearful Yellow Eye, Scarlet Ruse)
1936 Ruth Buzzi – Comedienne and actress (Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, The Entertainers, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, That Girl, Finders Keepers, Freaky Friday)
1937 John Aniston – Actor (Days of Our Lives, Search for Tomorrow) He is the father of Jennifer Aniston
1940 Dan Hedaya - Actor (Cheers, The Tortellis, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, The Addams Family, Maverick, The First Wives Club, The Book of Daniel, Mulholland Dr., Shaft, The Hurricane, Alien: Resurrection, Nixon)
1941 Barbara Jean Love - Singer with the group Friends of Distinction (Grazing in the Grass, Going in Circles)
1942 Chris Sarandon - Actor (The Princess Bride, Child's Play, Deadly Temptress, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Guiding Light, The Osterman Weekend)
1947 Robert Hays - Actor (Airplane!, Take This Job & Shove It, Starman, FM)
1949 Michael Richards – Actor (Seinfeld, Coneheads, UHF, Problem Child, Whoops Apocalypse)
1951 Lynda Carter - Actress (Wonder Woman, Partners in Crime, Hawkeye)
1958 Joe McGann – British actor (Night & Day, Madame Bovary, The Upper Hand) He is the brother of Paul, Stephen and Mark McGann
1969 Jennifer Lopez - Actress-singer (Shall We Dance?, Monster-in-Law, Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner, Anaconda, Selena, In Living Color)
1968 Kristin Chenoweth – Actress (Pushing Daisies, Legally Mad, You Again, The West Wing)
1975 Eric Szmanda – Actor (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dodge's City, The Net)
1979 Rose Byrne – Australian actress (Damages, X-Men: First Class, Bridesmaids, Insidious, Marie Antoinette, Troy, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones)
1981 Summer Glau – Actress (Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, The Cape, The 4400, The Unit, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
1982 Elisabeth Moss – Actress (Mad Men, Girl Interrupted, The West Wing, Picket Fences, Top of the Lake, The Handmaid’s Tale)
1982 Anna Paquin – Canadian-born actress (True Blood, The Piano, Jane Eyre, Amistad, X-Men, Finding Forrester)
1987 Mara Wilson - Actress (Mrs. Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street, Matilda)
1990 Daveigh Chase – Actress (Big Love, Oliver Beene, The Ring, Donnie Darko)


Died this Day

1862 Martin Van Buren, age 79 - The eighth president of the US, died in Kinderhook, NY
1883 Captain Matthew Webb, age 35 – British merchant navy captain and swimmer who was the first to swim the English Channel. He drowned trying to swim the rapids above Niagara Falls. Following his successful crossing of the English Channel, he was hailed as a national hero, and toured the country, lecturing and swimming. But within a few years, interest in Webb began to wane. Hearing of the exploits of Émile Blondin, the French daredevil who crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope, Webb came up with a new plan to restore his fame and fortune. He would travel to the Falls and swim a particularly treacherous stretch of the Niagara River that was feared for its lethal rapids and whirlpool. Locals advised Webb that his plan was suicide, noting that 80 people had died in the rapids in recent memory. Webb ignored them and was rowed out into the river clad in the same red swimming suit he wore when he swam the Channel. He dove into the water as thousands of spectators cheered from the shore. At first he was swimming powerfully, but then the river narrowed, and he was gripped by the rapids. Three times he was pulled under, coming up hundreds of feet from where he was seen last. He was no longer in control and was pulled downstream at a furious pace. As he came upon the whirlpool, he threw up his right arm and then went under one last time. Five days later, his gashed, bruised, and bloated body was found by a fisherman downstream. It had been held by the whirlpool for sometime before being expelled. The body had a huge head wound, exposing the skull, but an autopsy concluded that Webb probably was crushed by the force of the whirlpool and suffered the gash later. He was given a pauper's burial in the Oakwood cemetery at the edge of the Falls, in a small plot known as "The Strangers' Rest"
1974 Sir James Chadwick, age 82 – British physicist and Nobel Prize winner who discovered the neutron
1980 Peter Sellers, age 54 – British actor (Pink Panther movies, The Mouse that Roared, Dr. Strangelove, What’s New Pussycat, The Party, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu) He died of a heart attack, in London


On this Day

1534 Jacques Cartier, on his first voyage to North America, erected a cross at the rocky Penouille Point on the Gaspé coast, claiming the land for France. The 30-foot high cross, bore the fleur-de-lys and the motto 'Vive le Roy de France' (Long live the King of France)
1567 During her imprisonment at Lochleven Castle in Scotland, Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, later crowned King James VI of Scotland
1701 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, an administrator in French North America, founded a fur trading post he named Fort-Pontchartain du Détroit, which later became the city of Detroit
1797 English naval hero Lord Nelson lost his right arm during an unsuccessful attack on Santa Cruz in the Canary Islands
1824 The first public opinion poll was conducted in Wilmington, Delaware on voting intentions in the forthcoming US Presidential election. It was published in the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian, showing Andrew Jackson ahead of John Quincy Adams
1847 After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young led 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah's Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Seeking religious and political freedom, the Mormons began planning their great migration from the east after the murder of Joseph Smith, the Christian sect's founder and first leader, in 1844. Two years later, Smith's successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo along the western wagon trails in search of a sanctuary in "a place on this earth that nobody else wants." The expedition, more than 10,000 pioneers strong, set up camp in present-day western Iowa while Young led a vanguard company across the Rocky Mountains to investigate Utah's Great Salt Lake Valley, an arid and isolated spot devoid of human presence. On July 22, 1847, most of the party reached the Great Salt Lake, but Young, delayed by illness, did not arrive until July 24. Upon viewing the land, he immediately confirmed the valley to be the new homeland of the Latter-day Saints. Within days, Young and his companions began building the future Salt Lake City at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. The early Mormon settlers were featured in the Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet
1866 Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War
1901 William Sydney Porter, otherwise known as the author O. Henry, was released from prison, after serving three years in jail for embezzlement from a bank in Austin, Texas. To escape imprisonment, he had fled the authorities and hidden in Honduras, but returned when his wife, still in the US, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He went to jail and began writing stories to support his young daughter while he was in prison. After his release, Porter moved to New York and embarked on his writing career. In 1904, his first story collection, Cabbages and Kings, was published. His second, The Four Million, contained one of his most beloved stories, The Gift of the Magi. Despite the enormous popularity of the nearly 300 stories he published, he led a difficult life, struggling with financial problems and alcoholism until his death in 1910
1923 The Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the boundaries of modern Turkey, was concluded in Switzerland
1929 President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy
1938 Bandleader Artie Shaw first recorded the "Begin the Beguine" in New York. The record rocketed Shaw to international fame
1967 French President Charles De Gaulle delivered his "Vive Québec Libre" speech, urging Québec separatism, from the balcony of Montréal’s City Hall. His speech touched off a diplomatic row, and two days later he cancelled his official visit to Ottawa and returned to France
1969 At 12:51 p.m. EDT, Apollo 11, the US spacecraft that had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely returned to Earth. The US effort to send astronauts to the moon had its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." Eight years later, on July 16, 1969, the world watched as Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Centre with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. After travelling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day the lunar module Eagle, manned by astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where the third astronaut, Collins, remained. The Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, the craft touched down on the south-western edge of the Sea of Tranquillity, and Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon, later joined by Aldrin. At 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, and ended by safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean