Born this Day

10BC Claudius I - Roman emperor from AD41 to AD54. He invaded Britain in AD43 and made it a province
1744 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck - French biologist and zoologist who created the terms vertebrate and invertebrate
1770 William Clark – US explorer and partner of Meriwether Lewis
1779 Francis Scott Key – US attorney and poet who wrote the words to the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner
1815 Richard Henry Dana – US lawyer and author (Two Years Before the Mast, The Seaman’s Friend, To Cuba and Back)
1819 Herman Melville - US novelist, short story writer and poet (Moby Dick, White-Jacket, Pierre, The Piazza Tales, Omoo, Mardi, Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno, Billy Budd)
1839 Jules Leotard - French acrobat who devised the Flying Trapeze and the costume that bears his name, which was adopted by trapezists. His debut at the Cirque d’Ete in Paris, 1859, without a safety net caused a sensation
1843 Robert Todd Lincoln – The son of US President Abraham Lincoln. He was rescued from a train accident by Edwin Booth, the brother of man who assassinated his father
1874 Charles Spaulding – US entrepreneur and business leader who built the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company into one of the US’s largest black-owned businesses by the time of his death, when it was worth about $40 million. He died in 1952, on his 78th birthday
1916 Anne Hébert – Canadian novelist and poet (Kamouraska, Héloise, In the Shadow of the Wind)
1912 Henry Jones – Actor (Phyllis, The Bad Seed, Deathtrap, Vertigo, Arachnophobia, Falcon Crest, Nine to Five, Mrs. Colombo, Channing, 3:10 to Yuma)
1922 Arthur Hill – Canadian actor (Owen Marshall: Counsellor at Law, Harper, The Andromeda Strain, Futureworld, Glitter, A Bridge Too Far) He played Thomas Shea in the Perry Mason TV movie The Case of the Notorious Nun
1930 Lionel Bart – British composer and lyricist (Oliver!, Fings Ain’t Wot They Us’d T’be)
1930 Geoffrey Holder - Actor (Live and Let Die, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sex-But were Afraid to Ask, Doctor Dolittle, Annie)
1931 Tom Wilson - Cartoonist (Ziggy)
1933 Dom Deluise – Comedian and actor (The Dean Martin Show, Cannonball Run, Blazing Saddles, Silent Movie, The Cheap Detective, Evil Roy Slade) He also played Eduardo Gambetti in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother
1939 Terry Kiser – Actor (Weekend at Bernie’s, Into the Sun, Rachel Rachel, Captains and the Kings)
1942 Jerry Garcia - Guitarist, banjo player and lyricist with The Grateful Dead (Dark Star, Truckin', Alabama Getaway, Uncle John's Band, Touch of Grey)
1942 Giancarlo Giannini - Actor (A Walk in the Clouds, Once Upon a Crime, Goodnight Michael Angelo, Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale, Hannibal)
1946 David Calder – British actor (Bramwell, Sleepers, Widows, Lewis: The Indelible Stain, Marple: The Blue Geranium, Her Royal Affair, The World is Not Enough, The Dick Francis Thriller: The Racing Game)
1947 Rick Coonce - Singer and drummer with the group The Grassroots (Let's Live for Today, Midnight Confessions)
1956 Lewis Smith – Actor (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Wyatt Earp, Karen’s Song, Diary of a Hitman, North and South)
1958 Adrian Dunbar – Irish actor (Ashes to Ashes, Line of Duty, Richard III, Widows’ Peak, The Crying Game, Hear My Song) He played John Marriat in the Inspector Morse episode Dead on Time
1962 Jesse Borrego – Actor (Fame, Con Air, 24, Dexter, Blood in Blood Out)
1963 John Carroll Lynch – Actor (The Drew Carey Show, Body of Proof, Shutter Island, Gran Torino, Zodiac, Close to Home, Carnivàle, Volcano, Fargo)
1973 Kris Holden-Ried – Canadian actor (Lost Girl, Deadliest Sea, Underworld: Awakening, M.V.P., The Tudors, Degrassi: The Next Generation, K-19: The Widowmaker, Young Ivanhoe)
1973 Tempestt Bledsoe - Actress (The Cosby Show, Monsters, The Replacements)
1979 Jason Momoa – Actor (Stargate: Atlantis, Game of Thrones, Conan the Barbarian, Baywatch, North Shore, Johnson Family Vacation , Aquaman)
1979 Honeysuckle Weeks – Welsh actress (Foyle’s War, Lorna Doone, My Brother Tom, The Wild House, The Wicker Tree, Poirot: Cards on the Table)


Died this Day

1137 Louis VI – King of France, who did much to consolidate the role of the monarch
1714 Queen Anne, age 49 – The last Stuart sovereign, who reigned as Queen of England from 1702 until her death as a result of chronic ill health. George Louis, Elector of Hanover, was named King George I of Great Britain upon her death
1834 Robert Morrison – The first British missionary to China, who translated the Bible into Chinese


On this Day

1498 Two days before the 6th anniversary of his first voyage, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus set foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century. It was his third voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, but on his previous journeys, he had landed on islands, not a mainland continent. Thinking it an island, he christened it Isla Santa and claimed it for Spain. He explored the Orinoco River of South America and, given its scope, soon realised he had stumbled upon another continent. Columbus, a deeply religious man, decided after careful thought that Venezuela was the outer regions of the Garden of Eden
1639 Marie de l'Incarnation Guyart arrived in Québec to found a convent and hospital of Ursuline nuns in the Lower Town of Québec. It was the first hospital in North America north of Mexico
1740 Rule Britannia was sung for the first time, in Thomas Arne’s masque, Alfred
1774 British scientist Sir Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air. He called it “a new species of air”
1778 The first savings bank opened, in Hamburg
1790 The first US census was completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people
1831 The New London Bridge was opened by King William IV and Queen Adelaide. Old London Bridge was built in 1209
1834 Slavery was abolished in all British possessions, 41 years after it was outlawed in Canada, and 30 years before it was abolished in the US. The Slavery Abolition Act came into effect almost a year after it was passed by the British Parliament at the end of August 1833. The Act stipulated that all slaves in the British colonies were to become emancipated, and slavery was to be abolished throughout the British possessions abroad. An estimated 770,280 slaves became free
1859 Gounod’s “Ave Maria” was published
1873 The Clay Street Hill Railroad, San Francisco’s cable car system, began running
1876 Colorado became the 38th state of the Union
1882 The thirteen months between August 1, 1882 and September 1, 1883 were declared International Polar Year. Twelve countries comprising the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, UK, Canada and the US, agreed to establish and operate 14 stations surrounding the North Pole. In addition to strictly meteorological measurements, observations were made in connection with geomagnetism, auroral phenomena, ocean currents and tides, structure and motion of ice and atmospheric electricity
1885 A six-man jury in Regina, Saskatchewan, found Métis leader Louis Riel guilty of treason and sentenced him to death. The defence’s plea of insanity was not believed by the Anglo-Saxon, Protestant jury
1903 The first cross-country auto trip in the US, from New York City to San Francisco, was completed. The trail was blazed by a Packard, which finished in a mere fifty-two days
1914 Germany and Russia declared war against each other, and the first German army units crossed into Luxembourg in preparation for the German invasion of France. A few days earlier, Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. During the next three days, Russia, France, Belgium, and Great Britain all lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the German army invaded Belgium. The Great War that ensued was one of unprecedented destruction and loss of life, resulting in the deaths of some 20 million soldiers and civilians
1928 Morris Motors launched the Morris Minor
1932 The first Mars Bar, made in Slough, Berkshire, went on sale
1933 Bell Telephone of Canada's first unattended dial exchange was placed in service at Oka, Québec
1939 Glen Miller and his band recorded In The Mood, which became his theme tune
1942 The Canadian Finance Minister declared that the 5¢ coin would be changed from nickel to a copper-zinc alloy called Tombac, in order to preserve nickel supplies for wartime steel making. The coin would now be 12-sided to help distinguish it from 1¢ and 25¢ coins
1944 An uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation, a revolt that lasted two months before collapsing
1946 President Truman signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships named for Senator J. William Fulbright
1950 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took over the Newfoundland Rangers and the policing of Newfoundland and Labrador
1953 The movie Shane, considered by many critics to be the greatest western movie, was released by Paramount Pictures
1957 The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD)
1966 A sniper atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas gunned down people on campus, killing 14 and wounding 31. The shooter, Charles Whitman, who had a stockpile of guns and ammunition with him on the observatory platform, was killed by police. Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, began to suffer serious mental problems after his mother left his father in February 1966. That March, he told a psychiatrist that he was having uncontrollable fits of anger, and purportedly even told the doctor that he was thinking about going up to the tower with a rifle and shooting people. The doctor didn't follow up on this red flag. On July 31st, Whitman wrote a note about his violent impulses, saying, "After my death, I wish an autopsy on me be performed to see if there's any mental disorder." The note then described his hatred for his family and his intent to kill them. That night, Whitman killed his wife and his mother. The following morning, Whitman headed for the tower with several pistols and a rifle after stopping off at a gun store to buy boxes of ammunition and a carbine. Packing food and other supplies, he proceeded to the observation platform, killing the receptionist and two tourists before unpacking his rifle and telescope and hunting the people below. An expert marksman, Whitman was able to hit people as far away as 500 yards. For 90 minutes, he continued firing while officers searched for a chance to get a shot at him. Whitman was eventually shot to death after courageous Austin police officers charged up the stairs of the tower to subdue the attacker. The University of Texas tower remained closed for over 30 years before reopening in 1999