Born this Day

1533 Elizabeth I - Queen of England from 1558 to 1603, was born in Greenwich. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth encouraged voyages of discovery, such as Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world, and Sir Walter Raleigh’s expeditions to the North American coast. The long reign of Elizabeth, who became known as the "Virgin Queen" for her reluctance to endanger her authority through marriage, also coincided with the flowering of the English Renaissance, associated with such renowned authors as William Shakespeare. By her death, England had become a major world power in every respect, and Queen Elizabeth I passed into history as one of England’s greatest monarchs
1677 Stephen Hales – British botanist and inventor who was the first to measure blood pressure. He invented a ventilator to bring fresh air into prisons and ships
1814 William Butterfield – British Gothic Revival architect who built Keble College and Balliol College Chapel in Oxford, and All Saints Margaret Street Church in London
1860 Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) – US folk artist (The Old Oaken Bucket, Christmas at Home, The Quilting Bee) She first painted at age 78, which gave rise to her nickname, Grandma Moses
1887 Dame Edith Sitwell – British poet and author (The English Eccentricities, Façade)
1909 Elia Kazan – Turkish-born US director (Gentleman's Agreement, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, A Streetcar Named Desire, Splendour in the Grass, Viva Zapata!, Pinky, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Death of a Salesman)
1912 David Packard – US engineer and a cofounder of Hewlett-Packard Co.
1913 Sir Anthony Quayle – British stage and screen actor and director (Anne of a Thousand Days, The Guns of Navarone, The Eagle Has Landed, Lawrence of Arabia, QB VII, The Tamarind Seed) He played Dr. Murray in the 1965 Sherlock Holmes movie, A Study in Terror He also played Sir Charles Warren in the 1979 Sherlock Holmes movie, Murder by Decree
1921 Arthur Ferrante – Pianist with the duo Ferrante and Teicher (Exodus, Tonight, Theme from The Apartment, Midnight Cowboy)
1923 Peter Lawford – British actor (Rosebud, Ocean's 11, Mrs. Miniver, The Longest Day, Exodus, The Oscar, Harlow) He was a member of the Rat Pack, and had been married to Patricia Kennedy, sister of JFK. He also played a Young Sailor at the Bar in an uncredited role in the 1943 movie Sherlock Holmes Faces Death
1929 Sonny Rollins – US saxophonist and composer (Don’t Stop the Carnival)
1936 Buddy Holly – Rock’n’Roll pioneer with his group The Crickets (That'll Be the Day, Peggy Sue, Oh Boy!, Maybe Baby, Early in the Morning) Holly popularised the standard rock band format of two guitars, a bass, and drums
1949 Gloria Gaynor - Singer (I Will Survive, Never Can Say Goodbye)
1951 Chrissie Hynde – Guitarist, singer, and songwriter with The Pretenders (Kid, Brass in Pocket, Precious, Private Life, Lovers of Today, 2000 Miles, Back on the Chain Gang)
1951 Julie Kavner - Actress (Rhoda, The Simpson's, The Tracy Ullman Show, This is My Life, Radio Days, I'll Do Anything, Hannah and Her Sisters)
1952 Susan Blakely - Actress (Towering Inferno, The Concorde: Airport '79, The Lords of Flatbush, Rich Man Poor Man)
1954 Corbin Bernsen – Actor (L.A. Law, Major League, Radioland Murders, Savage Land, Tales from the Hood, The Dentist, Spacejacked, Major League: Back to the Minors, Time Shifters, The Resident, Psych, General Hospital, The Cape) His mother was the actress Jeanne Cooper
1954 Michael Emerson – Actor (Lost, Person of Interest, The Legend of Zorro, Saw, The Practice, The Unfaithful)
1969 Diane Farr – Actress (Numb3rs, Rescue Me, Like Family, The Job, Roswell)


Died this Day

1548 Catherine Parr – Henry VIII’s sixth wife. She died in childbirth on the same day that her step-daughter Elizabeth celebrated her 15th birthday
1978 Keith Moon – British rock drummer and singer with The Who (Substitute, I'm a Boy, Happy Jack, Pinball Wizard, See Me Feel Me) He died in his London flat from a drug overdose, two weeks after his 31st birthday
1981 Christy Brown – Irish novelist (Down All Our Days, My Left Foot) He wrote with the toes of one foot, as cerebral palsy from birth left him severely challenged. He refused to allow his condition to dampen his creative urge
2002 Michael Elphick – British actor (Boon, EastEnders, David Copperfield, Three Up Two Down, The Krays, Little Dorrit, Withnail and I, Pull the Other One, Gorky Park, Smiley's People, Privates on Parade, The Elephant Man) He died 2 weeks before his 56th birthday. He played Jimmy Fleet in The Sweeney episode, One Of Your Own


On this Day

1572 In Canada's earliest recorded business transaction, an anonymous Basque fisherman bought four scallops at Chateau Bay, Labrador
1763 King George III issued a proclamation urging subjects to settle in Canada
1776 The first use of a submarine in warfare occurred during the Revolutionary War, when the US submersible craft, Turtle, attempted to attach a time bomb to the hull of British Admiral Richard Howe's flagship Eagle, in New York Harbour. Submarines were first built by Dutch inventor Cornelius van Drebel in the early 17th century, but it was 150 years later before they were first used in naval combat. David Bushnell, a US inventor, began building underwater mines while a student at Yale University. Deciding that a submarine would be the best means of delivering his mines in warfare, he built an eight-foot-long wooden submersible that was christened the Turtle for its shape. Large enough to accommodate one operator, the submarine was entirely hand-powered. Lead ballast kept the craft balanced. Donated to the Patriot cause after the outbreak of war with Britain in 1775, Ezra Lee piloted the craft unnoticed out to the 64-gun HMS Eagle in New York Harbour. As Lee worked to anchor a time bomb to the hull, he could see British seamen on the deck above, but they failed to notice the strange craft below the surface. Lee had almost secured the bomb when his boring tools failed to penetrate a layer of iron sheathing. He retreated, and the bomb exploded nearby, causing no harm to either the Eagle or the Turtle. During the next week, the Turtle made several more attempts to sink British ships on the Hudson River, but each time it failed, owing to the operator's lack of skill. Only Bushnell was capable of executing the submarine's complicated functions, but because of his physical frailty he was unable to pilot the Turtle in any of its combat missions. During the Battle of Fort Lee, the Turtle was lost when the US sloop transporting it was sunk by the British. Despite the failures of the Turtle, General George Washington gave Bushnell a commission as an army engineer, and the drifting mines he constructed destroyed the British frigate Cereberus and wreaked havoc against other British ships. After the war, he became commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers stationed at West Point
1816 The Frontenac, the first Canadian steamship on the Great Lakes, was launched at Bath, west of Kingston, Ontario
1822 Brazil declared its independence from Portugal
1838 On a wild and stormy night on the cruel sea, the small steamship SS Forfarshire struck rocks near the Longstone Lighthouse on Farne Islands off the Northumberland coast. Grace Darling, rowed a mile in a small boat to rescue four men and a woman, and became a British heroine and a legend. Grace Darling's fame is due to one act of courage when with her father, lighthouse keeper William Darling, she rescued the survivors of the shipwrecked Forfarshire. The Darlings lived at the Longstone lighthouse on Brownsman Island in the Farne Islands. After difficulties with its engine boilers the Forfarshire, with about 60 people on board, struck the rocks of a neighbouring island on a stormy night. Nine of the crew and one passenger escaped on the only lifeboat on board but many of the passengers, who had been in their cabins below deck, were drowned. As the morning dawned 9 remaining survivors, comprising 5 crew and 4 passengers, were seen clinging to the rocks. Grace and her father rowed to their rescue and then looked after them in the lighthouse for 3 days. To her distress, she became a great Victorian celebrity with countless books, magazine articles, poems and paintings being created in her honour. She died of consumption at the age of 26 and is buried at Bamburgh church. A monument in the churchyard was designed to be seen by any passing ship. A memorial in St Cuthbert's chapel on the Farne Islands includes the inscription: “Pious and pure, modest and yet so brave, though young so wise, though meek so resolute”
1860 The maple leaf was used as an official emblem by Canada for the first time, during a visit by Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. The maple leaf had been used as an emblem by Montréal's St-Jean Baptiste Society for decades, because Quebec farmers knew that the best soil was found where the maple tree grows
1892 James (Gentleman Jim) Corbett beat John L. Sullivan in 21 rounds at New Orleans to become the first world heavyweight champion under the Queensberry Rules, which included the introduction of thick, padded gloves, and three minute rounds
1921 Margaret Gorham became the first US beauty contest winner
1927 US television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, age 21, succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using a device called an image dissector
1940 What came to be called simply “The Blitz” began when London suffered the first concentrated night air raid of German planes during the Second World War. Three-hundred German bombers raided London, in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. In the first three nights, 1,000 people were killed and 3,500 seriously injured. This bombing "blitzkrieg," or lightning war, would continue until May 1941. British intelligence had had an inkling of the coming bombardment. Evidence of the large-scale movement of German barges in the Channel and the interrogation of German spies had led them to the correct conclusion, but unfortunately it was just as the London docks were suffering the onslaught of Day One of the Blitz. By the end of the day, German planes had dropped 337 tons of bombs on London. Even though civilian populations were not the primary target that day, the poorest of London slum areas, the East End, felt the fallout literally, from direct hits of errant bombs as well as the fires that broke out and spread throughout the vicinity. A little past 8 p.m., British military units were alerted with the code name "Cromwell," meaning the German invasion had begun. A state of emergency broke out in England and even home defence units were put to the ready. One of Hitler's key strategic blunders of the war was to consistently underestimate the will and courage of the British people. They would not run or be cowed into submission. They would fight
1963 The NFL Hall of Fame was dedicated in Canton, Ohio
1986 Bishop Desmond Tutu became the Archbishop of Cape Town, two years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent opposition to apartheid in South Africa. As archbishop, he was the first black to head South Africa's Anglican church