Born This Day

1882 Geoffrey De Havilland – British manufacturer and aircraft designer
1900 Charles Vidor - Hungarian-born motion-picture director (A Song to Remember, Gilda, Rhapsody, The Swan, A Farewell to Arms, Song Without End)
1916 Elizabeth Hardwick – US author (The Ghostly Lover, The Simple Truth, Sight-Readings) She was born in Lexington, Kentucky
1916 Keenan Wynn - Actor (Dr. Strangelove, Nashville, Finian's Rainbow, Kiss Me Kate, A Time to Love and a Time to Die, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Absent-Minded Professor, Annie Get Your Gun, Royal Wedding, The Great Race, Dallas, The Shaggy D.A., Snowball Express, Herbie Rides Again, Son of Flubber, Smith!, Call to Glory, The Goonies) He was the son of actor, Ed Wynn
1922 Norman Lear - Producer (All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Sanford & Son, Powers that Be, The Nancy Walker Show, The Jeffersons, Fernwood 2-Night)
1929 Jack Higgins – British author (The Eagle Has Landed, Thunder Point, On Dangerous Ground, A Prayer for the Dying, Eye of the Storm)
1931 Jerry Van Dyke - Actor (Coach, My Mother the Car, The Judy Garland Show, The Headmaster, Accidental Family, McLintock!) He is the brother of Dick Van Dyke. He played James Douglas in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Woeful Widower
1933 Nick Reynolds - Folk singer with The Kingston Trio (Tom Dooley, M.T.A., Tijuana Jail, A Worried Man, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Greenback Dollar, Reverend Mr. Black)
1937 Don Galloway - Actor (Ironside, Two Moon Junction, Demon Rage, Snowblind, Tom Dick and Mary, Arrest and Trial, The Big Chill) He played General Hobart in the Perry Mason TV movie The Case of the Avenging Ace
1944 Bobbie Gentry - Singer (Ode to Billy Joe, All I Have to Do is Dream, I'll Never Fall in Love Again)
1948 Peggy Fleming - Olympic Hall of Famer and gold medallist figure skater (Ice Follies, Holiday on Ice, ABC sports commentator)
1948 Betty Thomas - Director (Doctor Dolittle, The Late Shift, The Brady Bunch Movie) and actress (Hill Street Blues, Troop Beverly Hills, When Your Lover Leaves, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
1949 Maureen McGovern - Singer (Different Worlds, The Morning After)
1949 Maury Chaykin – Canadian-born actor (Nero Wolf, My Cousin Vinnie, Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Emily of New Moon, Mouse Hunt, Dances With Wolves, Riel) He died on his 61st birthday in 2010
1952 Roxanne Hart – Actress (Highlander, Chicago Hope, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Verdict)
1968 Julian McMahon – Australian actor (Nip/Tuck, Profiler, Charmed, Fantastic Four, Home and Away)
1968 Cliff Curtis – New Zealand actor (Missing, The Last Airbender, Trauma, Crossing Over, Live Free or Die Hard, Training Day, Whale Rider, Collateral Damage, Three Kings, Virus, The Piano)
1970 Nikolaj Coster-Waldau – Danish actor (Game of Thrones, New Amsterdam, At World’s End, Blackhawk Down, Headhunters, Blackthorn)
1976 Seamus Dever – Actor (Castle, Ready or Not, Hollywoodland, She’s No Angel)
1977 Jonathan Rhys Meyers – Irish actor (The Tudors, Vanity Fair, Mission: Impossible III, Elvis, Gormenghast, Bend it Like Beckham, Albert Nobbs)


Died this Day

1844 John Dalton – British chemist and physicist who developed the atomic theory of matter
1980 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, age 60 - The former shah of Iran, died of cancer while in exile in Egypt
1984 James Mason, age 75 - British actor (A Star is Born, Georgy Girl, The Verdict, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Boys from Brazil, Charade, The Desert Fox, Island in the Sun, Jesus of Nazareth, North by Northwest, The Last of Sheila) He qualified as an architect before turning to acting. He also played Dr. John H. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes movie, Murder by Decree
2003 Bob Hope, age 100 – 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, A Masterpiece of Murder) 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. He was married to his wife, Dolores, for 69 years at the time of his death


On this Day

1586 Returning from Virginia, Sir Walter Raleigh became the first person to take tobacco to England
1606 The first permanent French colony in Canada was established at Port Royal, Nova Scotia
1694 The Bank of England received a royal charter as a commercial institution
1794 Maximilien Robespierre, the architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. As the leading member of the Committee of Public Safety from 1793, Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the Revolution. The day after his arrest, Robespierre and 21 of his followers were guillotined before a cheering mob in the Place de la Révolution in Paris
1904 Dr. Herbert Hills of Flint, Michigan, purchased the first Buick automobile ever to be sold. Founder David Buick initially made his mark as an inventor and mechanic in the plumbing industry, but had sold out of his business in order to pursue building motor cars
1921 At the University of Toronto, Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin for the first time. They believed the hormone could prevent diabetes. Within a year, the first human sufferers of diabetes were receiving insulin treatments, and countless lives were saved from what was previously regarded as a fatal disease. Diabetes had been recognised as a distinct medical condition for more than 3,000 years, but its exact cause was a mystery until the 20th century. By the early 1920s, many researchers strongly suspected that diabetes was caused by a malfunction in the digestive system related to the pancreas gland, a small organ that sits on top of the liver. At that time, the only way to treat the fatal disease was through a diet low in carbohydrates and sugar and high in fat and protein. Instead of dying shortly after diagnosis, this diet allowed diabetics to live - for about a year. A breakthrough came at the University of Toronto in the summer of 1921, when Banting and Best successfully isolated insulin from canine test subjects, produced diabetic symptoms in the animals, and then began a program of insulin injections that returned the dogs to normalcy. On November 14, the discovery was announced to the world
1923 John Herbert Dillinger joined the US Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana. Dillinger didn't last in the Navy very long. Within months he had gone AWOL several times, the last time being in December 1923. Making his way back to Indiana, he was arrested for armed robbery the following summer. Dillinger pled guilty, thinking that he would receive a light sentence, but instead got 10 to 20 years. His first words to the warden at the prison were, "I won't cause you any trouble except to escape." A man of his word, Dillinger had attempted to escape three times by the end of the year
1940 Bugs Bunny made his official debut as Warner Brothers released the animated short, A Wild Hare. The wisecracking rabbit had evolved through several earlier short films. As in many future instalments of Bugs Bunny cartoons, A Wild Hare featured Bugs as the would-be dinner for frustrated hunter Elmer Fudd. Cartoon animation first appeared in 1908 in France, followed quickly by US cartoons. In 1909, a newspaper cartoon artist named Winsor McCary created Gertie the Dinosaur, the first animated character to appear regularly on the screen. In 1918, McCary produced The Sinking of the Lusitania, the first feature-length cartoon. A variety of recurring cartoons developed by the late teens and early '20s, and these characters became more popular after the development of sound pictures in the late 1920s. Walt Disney introduced the Silly Symphonies cartoons and created Mickey Mouse and his gang. By the mid-1930s, Disney was making feature-length musical cartoons like Sleeping Beauty. Under the direction of animation director Tex Avery, Warner Bros. developed its own set of cartoon stars, including Bugs, Elmer, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and many others. Bugs was animated by Chuck Jones, and his famous accent came from legendary voice man Mel Blanc. Blanc started with Warner Bros. in 1937, creating the voices for Bugs, Road Runner, Sylvester, and Tweety Bird, among other characters
1943 Joseph Stalin, premier and dictator of the Soviet Union, issued Order No. 227, the no-cowards order. It came to be known as the "Not one step backward" order, in light of German advances into Russian territory. The order declared, "Panic makers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot. Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters! Commanders…who abandon a position without an order from higher headquarters are traitors to the Fatherland"
1949 The de Havilland Comet, the world’s first jet airliner, made its maiden flight
1953 The Korean War armistice was signed at Panmunjom, ending three years of fighting
1995 The Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC, by President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam
1996 In Atlanta, Georgia, the XXVI Summer Olympiad was disrupted by the explosion of a nail-laden pipe bomb in Centennial Olympic Park. The bombing, which occurred during a free concert, killed a mother who had brought her daughter to hear the rock music and injured more than 100 others, including a Turkish cameraman who suffered a fatal heart attack after the blast. Police were warned of the bombing in advance, but the bomb exploded before the anonymous caller said it would, leading authorities to suspect that the law enforcement officers who descended on the park were indirectly targeted. Within a few days, Richard Jewell, a security guard at the concert, was charged with the crime. However, evidence against him was dubious at best, and in October he was fully cleared of all responsibility in the bombing. Several similar bombings occurred over the next two years, enabling police to identify another suspect, Eric Rudolph, who was eventually sentenced to four life terms in prison