Born this Day

1726 John Howard – British prison reformer who was shocked at the conditions in Bedford jail, which he inspected as high sheriff. Not only were conditions unsanitary, but prisoners fees were paid to jailers instead of salaries. He persuaded Parliament to end many of the abuses
1814 Ernst Curtius - German archaeologist who directed the excavation of Olympia
1850 A.G. Spalding – US baseball player and sporting-goods manufacturer
1917 Cleveland Amory - US critic, historian and journalist (The Cat and the Curmudgeon, The Cat Who Came for Christmas, TV Guide columnist)
1918 Allen Drury – Author (Advise and Consent) He passed away on his 80th birthday, in 1998
1928 Horace Silver - Jazz musician
1937 Derek Fowlds – British actor (Heartbeat, Yes Minister, Affairs of the Heart) He played Kurt Friedman aka Michael Robson in the Inspector Morse episode The Settling of the Sun
1940 Jimmy Clanton – Singer and songwriter (Just A Dream, Venus in Blue Jeans, Another Sleepless Night)
1948 Christa McAuliffe – Teacher who was picked to be the first civilian in space. She was aboard the Challenger space shuttle when it made its tragic flight in 1986
1951 Mark Harmon - Actor (NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Chicago Hope, Wyatt Earp, Till There Was You, Reasonable Doubts, Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, St. Elsewhere, Centennial, Flamingo Road, Sam, 240-Robert)
1955 Linda Purl - Actress (The Adventures of Nelly Bly, Happy Days, Matlock, Mighty Joe Young)
1964 Keanu Reeves – Beirut-born Canadian–raised actor (Chain Reaction, A Walk in the Clouds, Johnny Mnemonic, Speed, Little Buddha, Bram Stoker's Dracula, My Own Private Idaho, Parenthood, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Dangerous Liaisons, River's Edge, Youngblood, Brotherhood of Justice, Babes in Toyland, Act of Vengeance, Dream to Believe, The Matrix, John Wick)
1966 Selma Hayak – Mexican actress (Frida, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Ugly Betty, Wild Wild West)
1968 Cynthia Watros – Actress (Lost, Titus, The Drew Carey Show, General Hospital)


Died this Day

1792 André Grasset - Canadian Priest. He was sent to the in guillotine Paris, France during the Reign of Terror for refusing to agree to a Church reorganisation planned by leaders of the French Revolution
1834 Thomas Telford – Scottish engineer who built canals and bridges. He is buried at Westminster Abbey
1934 Russ Colombo, age 26 - Singer, who at one time rivalled Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee in popularity. He was killed in a freak accident when a friend struck a match on the barrel of an antique French pistol. The flame somehow set off a long-forgotten charge still in the gun, and the bullet ricocheted off a table and struck Columbo in the forehead, killing him almost instantly
1937 Baron Pierre de Coubertin – founder of the modern Olympics
1973 J.R.R. (John Ronald Rueul) Tolkien, age 81 – South African born British author (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit)
1979 Felix Aylmer, age 90 – British stage and screen actor (Ivanhoe, Saint Joan, Anastasia, Separate Tables, The Mummy, Exodus, Victoria Regina, Masquerade)


On this Day

31BC At the naval Battle of Actium, off the western coast of Greece, Roman leader Octavian won a decisive victory against the forces of Roman Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Before their forces suffered final defeat, Antony and Cleopatra broke though the enemy lines and fled to Egypt, where they would commit suicide the following year
1651 Martin Boutet was named the first town crier of Québec City
1666 In the early morning hours, the Great Fire of London broke out in the house of King Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. It soon spread to Thames Street, where warehouses filled with combustibles and a strong easterly wind transformed the blaze into an inferno. London of 1666 was a city of medieval houses made mostly of oak timber. Some of the poorer houses had walls covered with tar, which kept out the rain but made the structures more vulnerable to fire. Streets were narrow, houses were crowded together, and the firefighting methods of the day consisted of neighbourhood bucket brigades armed with pails of water and primitive hand pumps. Citizens were instructed to check their homes for possible dangers, but there were many instances of carelessness. So it was on the evening of September 1st, when Thomas Farrinor, the King's baker, failed to properly extinguish his oven. He went to bed, and sometime around midnight sparks from the smouldering embers ignited firewood lying beside the oven. Before long, his house was in flames. Farrinor managed to escape with his family and a servant out an upstairs window, but a bakery assistant died in the flames. Sparks from Farrinor's bakery leapt across the street and set fire to straw and fodder in the stables of the Star Inn. From the Inn, the fire spread to Thames Street, where riverfront warehouses were packed full with flammable materials such as tallow for candles, lamp oil, spirits, and coal. These stores lit aflame or exploded, transforming the fire into an uncontrollable blaze. Bucket-bearing locals abandoned their futile efforts at firefighting and rushed home to evacuate their families and save their valuables. It had been a hot, dry summer, and a strong wind further encouraged the flames. People fled into the Thames River dragging their possessions, and the homeless took refuge in the hills on the outskirts of London. Light from the Great Fire could be seen 30 miles away. On September 5, the fire slackened, and on September 6 it was brought under control. London’s Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth, was partly to blame for the expanse of the fire. He did not have the nerve to pull down houses in the fire’s path, to create a fire-break, because he was worried that the city would be responsible for the cost of rebuilding. Instead, word had to be sent to the King, who ordered streets in the fire’s path to be blown up to act as fire-breaks, and personally supervised the work. When the Great Fire finally was extinguished on September 6, more than four-fifths of London was destroyed, 373 acres within the City itself, and 63 acres outside the wall. Miraculously, only 16 people were known to have died. The Great Fire of London engulfed 13,000 houses, nearly 90 churches, and scores of public buildings. The old St. Paul's Cathedral was destroyed, as were many other historic landmarks. An estimated 100,000 people were left homeless. Within days, King Charles II set about rebuilding his capital. The great architect Sir Christopher Wren designed a new St. Paul's Cathedral with dozens of smaller new churches ranged around it like satellites. To prevent future fires, most new houses were built of brick or stone and separated by thicker walls. Wooden door and window frames were required to be set back at least four inches, and wooden eaves and cornices were prohibited, as was oversailing, where upper floors jutted outward over a street. Narrow alleyways were forbidden and streets were made wider. Permanent fire departments, however, did not become a fixture in London until well into the 18th century. In the 1670s, a memorial column commemorating the Great Fire of London was erected near the source of the calamity. Known as the Memorial, it was probably designed by the architect Robert Hooke, though some sources credit Christopher Wren. The column stands 202 feet above the pavement and features sculpture and engravings that tell the story of the conflagration. Even though an official inquiry into the Great Fire concluded that "the hand of God, a great wind, and a very dry season" caused it, an inscription on the Memorial, which was removed in 1830, blamed the disaster on the "treachery and malice of the Popish faction." In 1986, London's bakers finally apologised to the lord mayor for setting fire to the city. Members of the Worshipful Company of Bakers gathered on Pudding Lane and unveiled a plaque acknowledging that one of their own, Thomas Farrinor, was guilty of causing the Great Fire of 1666
1713 France took possession of Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton island
1789 The US Treasury Department was established
1837 Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of his magnetic telegraph
1858 The song, The Yellow Rose of Texas, by the anonymous J.K., was copyrighted in New York
1864 Union General William T. Sherman's forces occupied Atlanta during the Civil War
1901 Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair
1904 One of the most remarkable feats of seamanship ended when Captain John Claus Voss of Victoria, BC arrived in England in a Nootkan Indian dugout canoe. Voss took three years, three months and 12 days to cover 40,000 miles, almost circling the globe, solely under sail. The canoe, Tilicum, is on exhibit in the BC capital of Victoria
1906 Roald Amundsen completed his sailing round Canada’s Northwest Passage
1918 In Belgium, Bellenden Seymour Hutcheson performed the actions that would win him the Victoria Cross. Hutcheson, a US doctor in Canada’s 75th Battalion, later known as the Toronto Scots, remained on the battlefield until every wounded man had been attended to, with utter disregard for his own personal safety. He tended the wounded under terrific machine-gun, rifle, and shell fire, in full view of the enemy
1945 Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies, bringing an end to World War II. The surrender was accepted by General MacArthur
1945 Hours after Japan's surrender in World War II, Vietnamese communist Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam from France. The proclamation paraphrased the US Declaration of Independence in declaring, "All men are born equal: the Creator has given us inviolable rights, life, liberty, and happiness!" and was cheered by an enormous crowd gathered in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square
1958 China's first television station went on the air
1992 The US and Russia formally ended decades of competition in space by agreeing to a joint venture to build a space station