Born this Day

1656 Edmond Halley – British astronomer and mathematician. He was the first to predict the orbit of the great comet of 1682, which bears his name. He also produced the first meteorological chart ever published
1802 Sir Benjamin Hall – Britain’s Commissioner of Works at the time of Big Ben’s installation in the tower at the Houses of Parliament. He lent his name to the clock’s 13 ton bell
1847 Bram Stoker – Irish author (Dracula, The Judge’s House, Jewel of the Seven Stars, The Mystery of the Sea) Stoker was born in Dublin and bedridden for his first seven years of life, however, he later distinguished himself as an athlete at the University of Dublin. He was also a partner in running London’s Lyceum Theatre, which is mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes story The Sign of the Four
1866 Herbert Austin – British engineer and founder of the Austin Motor Company. He first went to Australia and managed several engineering works there, before returning to England and producing his first car in 1895
1884 Hermann Rorschach – Swiss psychiatrist who developed the inkblot test
1900 Margaret Mitchell – US author of the Pulitzer Prize winning classic Gone with the Wind. It took her ten years to write, and was her only book
1914 Norman Lloyd - Actor (St. Elsewhere, Journey of Honour, Saboteur, Dead Poets Society)
1916 June Havoc – Actress known as Baby June (Brewster's Millions, Gentlemen's Agreement, Sing Your Worries Away, Willy) She was born at Vancouver, BC, and was the younger sister of Gypsy Rose Lee. Their ambitious mother made sure that Baby June was a vaudeville star before the age of five
1920 Esther Rolle – Actress (Good Times, Maude, Driving Miss Daisy, Summer of My German Soldier, Scarlett, A Raisin in the Sun, The Mighty Quinn)
1921 Gene Saks - Actor (A Fine Romance, Prisoner of Second Avenue) and director (Barefoot in the Park, Mame, The Odd Couple, Cactus Flower)
1922 Professor Christiaan Barnard – South African heart transplant pioneer
1924 Joe Flynn – Actor (The Tim Conway Show, McHale's Navy, The Joey Bishop Show, The George Gobel Show, The Barefoot Executive, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes)
1927 Patti Page – US singer (Tennessee Waltz, Doggie in the Window, Old Cape Cod, I Went to Your Wedding, Allegheny Moon)
1931 Darla Hood – Child actress (The Little Rascals, The Bohemian Girl, Our Gang Follies of 1936)
1931 Morley Safer – Canadian-born US journalist (60 Minutes)
1949 Bonnie Raitt – Singer (Runaway, The Boy Can't Help It, Something to Talk About, Sweet Forgiveness) and actress (Urban Cowboy) She is the daughter of actor, John Raitt
1950 Mary Hart - TV host (Entertainment Tonight)
1952 Alfre Woodard – Actress (St. Elsewhere, Cross Creek, Miss Firecracker, Star Trek: First Contact, Scrooged, Bopha)
1954 Ricki Lee Jones – Singer/songwriter (Chuck E.'s in Love, On Saturday Afternoons in 1963)
1967 Courtney Thorne-Smith - Actress (According to Jim, Ally McBeal, Melrose Place, Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
1968 Parker Posey – Actress (You’ve Got Mail, Boston Legal, Blade: Trinity, Josie and the Pussycats, Coneheads)
1972 Gretchen Mol – Actress (Boardwalk Emipire, Donnie Brasco, 3:10 to Yuma, Rounders, The Magnificent Ambersons)
1975 Tara Reid – Actress (The Big Lebowski, American Pie, Van Wilder, Scrubs, Josie and the Pussycats, Cruel Intentions)


Died this Day

1308 Duns Scotus - Medieval scholar whose given name led to the introduction of the word "dunce"
1674 John Milton – British poet (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes) He died from gout, a month before his 66th birthday
1887 John Henry "Doc" Holliday, age 36 – Gunslinger, gambler, and occasional dentist. Doc Holliday earned his bad reputation well before that famous shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Born in Georgia, Holliday was raised in the tradition of the southern gentleman, and earned his nickname when he graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872. However, shortly after embarking on a respectable career as a dentist in Atlanta, he developed a bad cough, which doctors diagnosed as tuberculosis. They advised him to move to a more arid climate, so Holliday moved his practice to Dallas, Texas. By all accounts, Holliday was a competent dentist with a successful practice, but he also earned a reputation as a skilled poker and faro player. In 1875, Dallas police arrested Holliday for participating in a shootout, and the once upstanding doctor began drifting between the booming Wild West towns of Denver, Cheyenne, Deadwood, and Dodge City, making his living at card tables and aggravating his tuberculosis with heavy drinking and late nights. Holliday was famously friendly with Wyatt Earp, and stood by him during the 1881 shootout at the OK Corral and the bloody feud that followed. In 1882, Holliday fled Arizona and returned to the life of a western drifter, gambler, and gunslinger. By 1887, his hard living had caught up to him, and that May he sought treatment for his tuberculosis at a sanatorium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, but his tuberculosis was too far advanced for the sulphur vapours to do any good. Holliday was bedridden for the last 57 days of his life. He had always thought that he would die with his boots on, and on the last day of his life, he woke, drank a glass of whiskey, and looked at his bare feet saying, “This is funny.” Then he died. His body was laid to rest in Linwood Cemetery
1978 Norman Rockwell, age 84 - US artist who was widely known for his realistic, homespun cover art for The Saturday Evening Post
1990 Anya Seton, age 84 – Author (Devil Water, Foxfire, Dragonwyck, Avalon, The Mistletoe and the Sword) She was the daughter of Ernest Thompson Seton, English-born naturalist and pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America


On this Day

1519 The Spanish explorer Cortez reached what is now Mexico City
1623 Shakespeare's collected works were published
1793 After more than two centuries as a royal palace, the Louvre was opened as a public museum in Paris by the French revolutionary government. The Louvre palace was begun by King Francis I in 1546 on the site of a 12th-century fortress built by King Philip II. Francis was a great art collector, and the Louvre was to serve as his royal residence. Almost every subsequent French monarch extended the Louvre and its grounds, and the 17th century saw a great expansion in the crown's art holdings. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, many in France began calling for the public display of the royal collections, but it was not until the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 that real progress was made in establishing a permanent museum. The collection at the Louvre grew rapidly, and the French army seized art and archaeological items from territory and nations conquered in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Much of this plundered art was returned after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, but the Louvre's current Egyptian antiquities collections and other departments owe much to Napoleon's conquests
1805 The Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, reached the Pacific Ocean. Originally departing in May, 1804, the Corps of Discovery featured twenty-eight men and one woman, a Native American named Sacajawea. It was the first official exploration of unknown spaces undertaken by the US government. The expedition travelled up the Missouri River in six canoes and two longboats, and wintered in Dakota before crossing into Montana where they first saw the Rocky Mountains. On the other side of the Continental Divide, they were met by Sacajawea's tribe, the Shoshone Indians, who sold them horses for their journey down through the Bitterroot Mountains. After passing through the dangerous rapids of the Clearwater and Snake rivers in canoes, the explorers reached the calm of the Columbia River, which led them to the sea. After pausing there for winter, the explorers began their long journey back to St. Louis. In September 1806, after two-and-a-half years, the expedition returned to the city, bringing back a wealth of information about the largely unexplored region, as well as valuable US claims to Oregon Territory. Future president Theodore Roosevelt later wrote that the Lewis and Clark Expedition "opened the door into the heart of the Far West"
1861 Captain Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto stopped the British mail steamer, Trent, in the Bahamas Channel, removing two Confederate diplomats en route to Europe, James M. Mason, a former senator from Virginia and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and John Slidell, a former Louisiana senator. Wilkes also seized the vessel as a prize of war. This was the beginning of the Trent Crisis, as England demanded the release of the ship and passengers, threatening war, and causing British North America to prepare for conflict. Britain had declared neutrality in May 1861 and recognised the Northern and Southern states as formal belligerents in the US Civil War. This opened British ports to both Confederate and Northern shipping, and let British munitions and supplies be transported by Union or Rebel vessels to North American ports. Lord John Russell wrote to Viscount Palmerston, the British Prime Minister, that “We may now expect 40 or 50,000” Federal troops to invade Canada. There were only 4,300 British regulars in Canada, with 2,100 of those stationed in Nova Scotia. Eighteen British transport ships loaded with men, arms and supplies were ordered to Canada. As well, sixteen batteries of Royal Artillery were earmarked for British North America, with four companies of Royal Engineers and 11 battalions of infantry, totalling over 11,000 men. The War Office promised 100,000 rifles for the defence of Canada, but only 50,000 were sent, with 2 1/4 million rounds of ammunition. US President Abraham Lincoln ordered the release of Mason and Slidell on Christmas Day, declaring “One war at a time”
1887 The gramophone was patented by Thomas Edison
1889 Montana became the 41st state of the Union
1895 Wilhelm Konrad Rontgen discovered X-rays during an experiment at the University of Wurzburg with the flow of electricity through a partially evacuated glass tube
1920 Rupert Bear made his first appearance in the Daily Express
1923 The first Welsh language broadcast was made from 5WA, Cardiff
1956 On this day, the Ford Motor Company decided on the name "Edsel" for a new model in development for the 1958 market year. The name would be a tribute to Edsel Bryant Ford, who served as company president from 1919 until his death in 1943, and who was also the oldest son of founder Henry Ford. With its horse collar grill in the front and its regressed side-panels in the rear, the Edsel looked like nothing else on the road. It was a high-tech car, featuring state-of-the-art innovations such as push-button automatic transmission. Buyer appeal was low, and after two years, the Edsel was abandoned, and its name would forever be synonymous with business failure