Born this Day

1762 George IV – King of England, and the eldest son of King George III. George IV was described as “being too fond of women and wine”, and therefore did little to enhance the crown. He secretly married Maria Fitzherbert, a Roman Catholic, in 1785, but the marriage was invalid, and he was forced into a loveless marriage ten years later with his cousin Caroline of Brunswick, in order to persuade Parliament to pay off his debts. He caused a huge scandal when he instigated divorce proceedings against Caroline
1774 Robert Southey – British Poet Laureate who was one of the leaders of the Romantic Movement (Inchcape Rock, The Holly Tree, Roderick the Last of the Goths) He began writing at the Westminster School in London, where he was expelled for writing an essay, published in the school magazine, condemning excessive corporal punishment. He managed to make it to Oxford in 1792, where he wrote poetry and hatched a plan with his friend Samuel Coleridge to start a utopian society in America. Their plans called for married couples to establish the society, and to this end, Southey married Edith Fricker and convinced Coleridge to marry Fricker's sister Sarah. However, Southey left Oxford without taking a degree and abandoned the utopian plan, moving instead to Portugal. He later returned to England where he wrote biographies, translations, and articles to support his family, writing verse as time permitted. Financially strapped, Southey struggled until 1813, when the support of Sir Walter Scott won him the appointment of poet laureate, which brought him a regular income. Southey was very popular during his time, both for his poetry and for his excellent biographies (Life of Nelson, Life of Wesley) Southey remained poet laureate until his death in 1843. William Wordsworth succeeded him
1849 Abbott Thayer – Artist who created the camouflage pattern for the military
1859 Katherine Lee Bates – US author and educator who wrote America the Beautiful
1881 Cecil B. DeMille - Movie producer and director (The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show on Earth, North West Mounted Police, Samson and Delilah)
1911 Jane Wyatt - Actress (Father Knows Best, Gentleman's Agreement, Lost Horizon, St Elsewhere, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
1917 Marjorie Reynolds – Actress (The Life of Riley, The Time of Their Lives, Doomed to Die, Holiday Inn, Gone with the Wind)
1925 Norris and Ross McWhirter – British twins who founded the Guinness Book of Records
1926 John Derek - Actor (All the King's Men, Prince of Players, Ambush at Tomahawk Gap, Exodus)
1927 Porter Wagoner - Singer (Satisfied Mind, Sorrow on the Rocks, Big Wind, Cold Hard Facts of Life, Misery Loves Company, The Carroll County Accident, Daddy Was An Old-Time Preacher Man, Please Don't Stop Loving Me) and songwriter (Tore Down, I Haven't Learned a Thing, Ole Slew Foot)
1929 Buck Owens - Singer (I've Got a Tiger by the Tail, Act Naturally, Waiting in Your Welfare Line, Made in Japan), songwriter (Crying Time) and TV host (Hee Haw, Buck Owen's Ranch House)
1931 William Goldman - Screen writer (Marathon Man, The Princess Bride, All the President's Men, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Chaplin)
1939 George Hamilton - Actor (Love at First Bite, Act One, The Survivors, Zorro the Gay Blade, Where the Boys Are, Evel Kneivel, The Dead Don't Die, Doc Hollywood)
1949 Mark Knopfler - Guitarist, singer and songwriter with Dire Straits (Sultans of Swing, Brothers in Arms, Money for Nothing, Walk of Life)
1954 Ray Abruzzo – Actor (The Practice, The Sopranos, Night Court, Dynasty)
1956 Bruce Greenwood – Canadian actor (St. Elsewhere, Knots Landing, Passenger 57, Double Jeopardy, The Magnificent Ambersons, I Robot, Being Julia, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Star Trek, The Resident, American Crime Story, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Mad Men, The River) He played Stewart Horton in the Perry Mason TV movie The Case of the All-Star Assassin
1965 Kathrine Narducci – Actress (The Sopranos, Two Family House, A Bronx Tale)
1975 Casey Affleck – Actor (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone, Ocean’s Eleven, Good Will Hunting) His brother is Ben Affleck
1980 Maggie Lawson – Actress (Psych, Pleasantville, Cleaner, Model Behavior)


Died this Day

1676 King Philip – Chief of the Wampanoag Indians. He was assassinated by a Native American in the service of the English, effectively ending “King Philip’s War” in colonial New England. In the early 1670s, 50 years of peace between the Plymouth colony and the local Wampanoag Indians began to deteriorate when the rapidly expanding settlements forced land sales on the tribe. Reacting to increasing Native American hostility, the English met with King Philip and demanded that his forces surrender their arms. The Wampanoag did so, but in 1675 a Christian Native American who had been acting as an informer to the English was murdered, and three Wampanoag were tried and executed for the crime. King Philip responded by ordering a raid on the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts. His warriors massacred the English colonists there, and the attack set off a series of Wampanoag raids in which several settlements were destroyed and scores of colonists massacred. The colonists retaliated by destroying a number of Indian villages. The destruction of a Narragansett village by the English brought the Narragansett into the conflict on the side of King Philip, and within a few months several other tribes and all the New England colonies were involved. In early 1676, the Narragansett were defeated and their chief killed, while the Wampanoag and their other allies were gradually subdued. King Philip's wife and son were captured, and his secret headquarters in Mount Hope, Rhode Island, were discovered. On August 12th, King Philip was assassinated at Mount Hope by a Native American in the service of the English. King Philip’s body was drawn and quartered by the English, and his head was publicly displayed on a stake in Plymouth. King Philip's War, which was extremely costly to the colonists of southern New England, ended the Native American presence in the region and inaugurated a period of unimpeded colonial expansion
1827 William Blake – British poet (The Songs of Innocence and of Experience, My Silks and Fine Array, The Ghost of Abel) He was also a noted painter
1848 George Stephenson, age 67 – British engineer who built the steam locomotive, Rocket, the first locomotive on the Liverpool-Manchester railway
1944 Joseph P. Kennedy Jr - Eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England during World War II
1964 Ian Fleming, age 56 – British author (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, James Bond books) He became the first graduate of the Special 25 training school for spies in Port Hope, Ontario. During the Second World War he worked in naval intelligence, and was a journalist for Reuters and the London Times, stationed in Moscow for both. All thirteen of his Bond books were filmed. He died of a heart attack, in England
1982 Henry Fonda, age 77 – Actor (Mr. Roberts, On Golden Pond, War and Peace, Jezebel, The Grapes of Wrath, Yours Mine and Ours, Fail Safe, Battle of the Bulge, Midway) He was the father of Peter and Jane, and the grandfather of Bridget Fonda. He died in Los Angeles of cardio-respiratory arrest


On this Day

1842 An Imperial Statute created the Amalgamated Assembly of Newfoundland
1851 Isaac Singer was granted a patent on his sewing machine
1867 President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton
1883 The quagga died in Amsterdam Zoo. It was the last of this zebra-like animal in the world
1887 Thomas Alva Edison made the first sound recording when he recited Mary Had a Little Lamb, which was recorded onto a foil-wrapped cylinder on the Edisonphone
1892 Toronto’s first electric streetcars began operation. They were converted from horse-drawn vehicles to the new Toronto Railway Company cars on the Church route
1898 Hawaii was formally annexed to the US, but did not become a state until 1959
1898 The peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War was signed
1901 Charles A. Yont and W.B. Felker completed the first automobile trip to the 14,110 foot summit of Pikes Peak, Colorado, driving an 1899 locomobile steamer
1908 Henry Ford’s first Model T, affectionately known as the Tin Lizzy, rolled off the assembly line in Detroit, Michigan. The Model T revolutionised the automotive industry by providing an affordable, reliable car for the average person. Prior to the invention of the Model T, most automobiles were viewed as playthings of the rich. Ford was able to keep the price down by retaining control of all raw materials, as well as his use of new mass production methods. When it was first introduced, the Tin Lizzy cost only $850 and seated two people
1960 Echo I, the first experimental communications satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The satellite, a Mylar balloon coated with a thin layer of aluminium, successfully reflected radio signals from Goldstone, California, to the Bell Telephone Laboratory in Holmdel, New Jersey
1966 John Lennon apologised at a news conference in Chicago for his remark that “the Beatles are more popular than Jesus”
1972 The last US combat ground troops left Vietnam
1977 The first space ship designed to be reused, space shuttle Enterprise, passed its first solo flight test by taking off atop a Boeing 747, separating and then touching down in California's Mojave Desert
1994 The baseball season ground to halt after players went on strike to fight owners' demands for a salary cap. The rest of the season was cancelled September 14th. At 74 and 40, the Montréal Expos had the best record in the majors. The World Series was cancelled. The only other time the Fall Classic was scrapped was in 1904
1998 Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to Holocaust survivors to settle claims for their assets