Born this Day

1803 Joseph Aloysius Hansom – British architect. In 1834 he invented the Patent Safety Cab, a 2-wheeled, horse-driven cab with the driver seated above and behind the passengers, known as the Hansom Cab. Where would Sherlock and Dr. Watson be without them?
1854 Charles Post – Entrepreneur and founder of Post cereals
1875 H.B. (Henry Byron) Warner – British actor (Bulldog Drummond series, It's a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Ten Commandments)
1886 Vincent Starrett – Canadian-born journalist and mystery author (The Chicago Daily News, Born in a Bookshop, 221B, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Adventure of the Unique Hamlet) He was a noted Sherlockian and an early member of the Baker Street Irregulars
1894 John Knight - Publisher (Knight-Ridder newspaper empire)
1911 Mahalia Jackson – US gospel singer (God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares, Move On Up a Little Higher, The Lord's Prayer, Silent Night)
1913 Charlie Barnet – Bandleader and saxophonist (Cherokee, We're All Burnt Up, Where Was I?, Pompton Turnpike, I Hear a Rhapsody, Skyliner)
1914 Jackie Coogan – Actor (The Kid, Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, College Swing, Outlaw Women, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Escape Artist, The Addams Family, McKeever & The Colonel) He was the cause of the Coogan Act, requiring parent's of child actors to put their earnings in trust
1930 John Arden – British playwright (Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, The Workhouse Donkey)
1942 Bob Hoskins – British actor (The Lost World, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Hook, Brazil, The Cotton Club, Pennies From Heaven, Nixon)
1944 Michael Piano – Singer with The Sandpipers (Guantanamera, Come Saturday Morning)
1946 Keith Hopwood - Musician with Herman's Hermits (Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter, I'm Henry the Eighth I Am)
1946 Pat Sajak - TV host (Wheel of Fortune)
1947 Jaclyn Smith - Actress (Charlie's Angels, The Bourne Identity, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Florence Nightingale)
1954 Lauren Tewes - Actress (The Love Boat, The China Lake Murders)
1961 Dylan McDermott – Actor (The Practice, In the Line of Fire, Dark Blue, Wonderland, Three to Tango, Steel Magnolias, Twister)
1962 Cary Elwes – British actor (The Princess Bride, Lady Jane, Glory, Days of Thunder, Hot Shots!, Dracula, Robin Hood: Men in Tights)
1965 Kelly Rowan – Canadian actress (The O.C., Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years, Three to Tango, Eight Days to Live)
1966 Steve Valentine – British actor (Crossing Jordan, Return to the Secret Garden, Nikki, Mars Attacks!)
1967 Keith Urban – New Zealand-born country singer (But for the Grace of God, Your Everything, Somebody Like You, Who Wouldn't Wanna Be Me, You'll Think of Me, Days Go By) He is married to actress Nicole Kidman


Died this Day

1756 Roland-Michel Barrin, Marquis de La Galissonière – Lieutenant General of the French naval forces and Commandant General of New France. He advocated a line of garrisoned forts down the Ohio Valley to hold the back English colonies along the coast. He died at Montereau, France
1972 Igor Sikorsky, age 83 – Russian-born US helicopter pioneer who developed the first successful helicopter in 1938
1985 Jacinthe Fyfe, age 25 – Canadian policewoman, shot to death by robbers at Montreal, Quebec. She was the first female police officer killed on duty in Canada


On this Day

1774 The Continental Congress wrote an open letter to the inhabitants of Canada and Nova Scotia, inviting them to join the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution
1813 At the Battle of Châteauguay in Quebec, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles-Michel d'Irumberry de Salaberry led 1,600 French Canadian Voltigeurs, or light militia, and turned back General Wade Hampton and 3,000 US troops after four hours of fighting at a ford over the Châteauguay River, southwest of Montreal. De Salaberry had 300 front line militia blow hunting horns in the woods, making the US soldiers think they were facing a much larger force
1825 The New York State Barge Canal, now known as the Erie Canal opened, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City. New York legislators became interested in the possibility of building a canal across New York in the first decade of the 19th century. Shipping goods west from Albany was a costly and tedious affair, as there was no railroad yet, and to cover the distance from Buffalo to New York City by stagecoach took two weeks. Governor Clinton enthusiastically took up the proposal to build a canal from Buffalo, on the eastern point of Lake Erie, to Albany, on the upper Hudson, passing through the gap in the mountains in the Mohawk Valley region. By 1817, he had convinced the legislature to authorise the expenditure of $7 million for the construction of a canal that he proposed would be 363 miles long, 40 feet wide, and four feet deep. Work began on "Clinton's Ditch" in August 1823. Teams of oxen ploughed the ground, but for the most part the work was done by Irish diggers who had to rely on primitive tools. They were paid $10 a month, and barrels of whisky were placed along the canal route as encouragement. West of Troy, 83 canal locks were built to accommodate the 500-foot rise in elevation. After more than two years of digging, the 425-mile Erie Canal was opened by Governor Clinton. As Clinton left Buffalo in the Seneca Chief, an ingenious method of communication was used to inform New York City of the historic occasion. Cannons were arranged along the length of the canal and the river, each within hearing distance of the next cannon. As the governor began his trip, the first cannon was fired, signalling the next to fire. Within 81 minutes, the word was relayed to New York – at that time, it was the fastest communication the world had ever known. After arriving in New York on September 4th, Clinton ceremoniously emptied a barrel of Lake Erie water in the Atlantic Ocean, consummating the "Marriage of the Waters" of the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. The effect of the canal was immediate and dramatic. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fee in less than half the previous time. Barge loads of farm produce and raw materials travelled east as manufactured goods and supplies flowed west. In nine years, tolls had paid back the cost of construction. Later enlarged and deepened, the canal survived competition from the railroads in the latter part of the 19th century. Today, the Erie Canal is used mostly by pleasure boaters, but it is still capable of accommodating heavy barges
1850 Sir Robert McClure completed crossing of the Northwest Passage aboard the HMS Investigator. He took a route either through the Prince of Wales Strait or around Baks Island. The expedition returned by ship in 1854 after having travelled on foot over the ice to Beechey Island
1881 A vacant lot near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, was the scene of one of the most notorious gunfights in the history of the Old West. Tombstone was a rough mining town that had sprung up out of the Arizona desert in 1877, after a prospector discovered silver in the wilds of Arizona's Goose Flats. In the Old West, mining prosperity walked hand-in-hand with drunkenness, gambling, and gang rivalry - and Tombstone was no exception. By 1881, a dangerous rivalry had developed between two groups: the Earp brothers, featuring US deputy marshal Virgil Earp and his two hot-headed brothers, Wyatt and Morgan, and the Clanton-McLaury gang, a group of rustlers and horse thieves. After Wyatt's horse was stolen, and the Earps began associating with John "Doc" Holliday, a drunken dentist and feared gunman who verbally abused the Clanton-McLaury gang and cheated two Clanton boys at cards, the tension came to a head. On the afternoon of October 26, Ike and Billy Clanton, Billy Clairborne, and Tom and Frank McLaury gathered on the corner of Fremont Street up the block from the OK Corral. All of the gang except Ike and Frank were clearly armed, ignoring the city ordinance banning firearms within city limits. Virgil Earp, watching from down the street, deputised his two brothers and Doc Holliday, and together they marched up the street to confront their rivals. After Virgil demanded that they give up their guns, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton reached for their pistols, and Wyatt opened fire at Frank, whom he regarded as a deadly shot. A split-second later Billy started firing at Wyatt, and a moment after that, everyone was shooting. When the smoke cleared less than a minute later, Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton were dead, Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday were injured - shot in the calf, shoulder, and thigh respectively - and Wyatt Earp was untouched. Ike Clanton, who turned and ran to the OK Corral when the shooting commenced, was also unscathed. The Earps and Holliday were called to court, but they were protected by their deputy status and the shooting was deemed justified
1887 At Regina, Peter Lamont opened Saskatchewan's first telephone exchange in a bookstore
1905 Sweden and Norway ended their union and Oscar II, the Norwegian king, abdicated
1912 The Woolwich Tunnel under the Thames was opened
1944 After four days of furious fighting, the World War II Battle of Leyte Gulf, one of the largest air-naval battles in history, ended with a decisive US victory over the Japanese. With the US liberation of the Philippines underway, the desperate Japanese command decided to risk their combined naval fleet to repulse the US fleet. When the enemy fleets collided on October 23rd, hundreds of warships and thousands of aircraft battled for control of the Gulf of Leyte in three simultaneous battles. On October 26th, what remained of the devastated Japanese fleet retreated, leaving the Allies in control of the Pacific Ocean
1955 The Village Voice underground newspaper was first published. Norman Mailer was one of its backers
1965 The Beatles received their MBEs at Buckingham Palace
1975 A Chorus Line premièred on Broadway
1977 The experimental space shuttle Enterprise glided to a bumpy but successful landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California