Born this Day

1884 Robert Flaherty - US explorer and documentary filmmaker (Nanook of the North)
1893 Katherine Cornell - US stage actress who was called "the first lady of the American theatre" and a reigning Broadway star (The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Romeo and Juliet, Candida) She was born in Berlin, where her father was studying surgery. The precise date was a mystery. For years she said it was in 1898, but when she was in her 70's she offered the year as 1893, explaining, "When an actress is younger she likes to lower her age, but when she is older she likes to add to her years"
1901 Chester Morris - Actor (Five Came Back, Frankie and Johnny, Wagon's Westward, The Great White Hope) He also played Boston Blackie in numerous movies
1901 Wayne King - Saxophonist and bandleader who was known as The Waltz King (The Waltz You Saved for Me)
1903 Edgar Bergen - Ventriloquist of 'Charlie MaCarthy' radio fame (The Edgar Bergen Show) He was the father of actress Candice Bergen
1909 - Hugh Beaumont - Actor (To the Shores of Tripoli, The Human Duplicators, Leave It to Beaver)
1914 Jimmy Wakely - Country singer (Slippin' Around, Wedding Bells) and actor (Arrows in the Dust, The Rangers Ride, Song of the Sierras)
1920 Patti Andrews - Lead singer with The Andrews Sisters (Bei Mir Bist Du Schon, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Rum and Coca Cola, Beer Barrel Polka)
1926 John Schlesinger - British film director (Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Darling, Marathon Man, Pacific Heights)
1927 June Brown – British actress (EastEnders, Margery and Gladys, Gormenghast, Bean: The Movie) She also played Ann Chapman in the Sherlock Holmes movie Murder by Decree
1932 Gretchen Wyler - Actress (The Devil's Brigade, The Marrying Man)
1938 Barry Primus - Actor (Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Absence of Malice)
1935 Sonny (Salvatore) Bono - Singer with Sonny & Cher (I Got You Babe, Baby Don't Go, The Beat Goes On) He was a former mayor of Palm Springs, CA and US Congressman
1951 William Katt - Actor (The Greatest American Hero, Carrie, The Daughters of Joshua Cabe) He married his wife, Deborah Kahne on his 30th birthday in 1981. He portrayed Paul Drake Jr. in the Perry Mason episodes of the late 1980's. His mother, Barbara Hale played Della Street in the same series, and in the original Perry Mason episodes. His father was Bill Williams of the Kit Carson series.
1957 LeVar Burton - German born US actor (Alex Haley's Roots, Star Trek: Next Generation, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The Hunter, PBS's Reading Rainbow)
1958 Lisa Loring – Actress (The Addams Family, The Pruitts of Southampton, Annie Flynn, As the World Turns)
1958 Ice-T – Rapper and actor (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Gangland, Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Johnny Mnemonic, Tank Girl)
1959 John McEnroe - US Tennis champion who was known as a "bad boy" for his frequent outbursts on the tennis court
1963 Faran Tahir – Actor (Iron Man, Star Trek, Charlie Wilson’s War, Warehouse 13)
1964 Christopher Eccleston – British actor (Doctor Who, Heroes, The Others, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Elizabeth, Cracker, Our Friends in the North, Poirot: One Two Buckle My Shoe) He played Terrence Mitchell in the Inspector Morse episode Second Time Around
1972 Sarah Clarke – Actress (Twilight, 24, The Lather Effect, Trust Me, Men of a Certain Age, The Tomorrow People)


Died this Day

1754 Richard Mead - British physician to King George II. He promoted inoculations for smallpox
1834 Lionel Lukin - British inventor of the modern lifeboat
1982 Thelonious Monk, age 65 - Jazz pianist and composer (I Mean You, Mysterioso, Round Midnight)
1985 Marian Engel, age 51 - Canadian author (Bear, The Glassy Sea, The Tattooed Woman) She died of cancer in Toronto. She was the first Chairperson of the Writer's Union of Canada


On this Day

1659 The first British cheque was written by Nicholas Vanacker and is now in the archives of the National Westminster Bank
1804 During the First Barbary War, US Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a successful raid into Tripoli harbour to burn the US Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured by Tripolitan gunboats. The US feared that the well-constructed warship would be used not only as a formidable addition to the Tripolitan navy, but also as a model to build future Tripolitan frigates. After disguising himself and his men as Maltese sailors, Decatur's force of seventy-four men, which included nine US Marines, sailed into Tripoli harbour on a small two-mast ship. They approached the USS Philadelphia without drawing fire from the Tripoli shore guns, boarded the ship, and attacked its Tripolitan crew, capturing or killing all but two. After setting fire to the frigate, Decatur and his men escaped without the loss of a single man. The Philadelphia subsequently exploded when its gunpowder reserve was lit by the spreading fire. Famed British Admiral Horatio Nelson later called it the "most daring act of the age"
1838 An act of the British Parliament suspended the constitution in Lower Canada
1852 Brothers Henry and Clement Studebaker founded H & C Studebaker, a blacksmith and wagon building business, in South Bend, Indiana. The brothers made their fortune manufacturing during the Civil War, as The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company became the world's largest manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages. With the advent of the automobile, the company converted its business to car manufacturing, becoming one of the larger independent automobile manufacturers
1862 During the Civil War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tennessee. General Ulysses S. Grant's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant"
1868 The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was organised in New York City
1872 The first session of the British Columbia legislature opened
1878 Silver dollars were made legal in the US, in a move strongly supported by western mining interests and farmers. The Bland-Allison Act provided for a return to the minting of silver coins, and became the law of the land. The strife and controversy surrounding the coinage of silver is difficult for most to understand today, but in the late 19th century it was a topic of keen political and economic interest. Today, the value of US money is essentially secured by faith in the stability of the government, but during the 19th century, money was generally backed by actual deposits of silver and gold, the so-called "bimetallic standard." The US had minted both gold and silver coins. In 1873, Congress decided to follow the lead of many European nations and cease buying silver and minting silver coins, both because silver was relatively scarce, and to simplify the monetary system. Exacerbated by a variety of other factors, this led to a financial panic. When the government stopped buying silver, prices naturally dropped, and many owners of primarily western silver mines were hurt. Likewise, farmers and others who carried substantial debt loads attacked the so-called "Crime of '73." They believed, somewhat simplistically, that it caused a tighter supply of money, which in turn made it more difficult for them to pay off their debts. A nation-wide drive to return the US to the bimetallic standard gripped the country, and many came to place a near mystical faith in the ability of silver to solve their economic difficulties. The leader of the fight to reintroduce silver into currency was Missouri Congressman Richard Bland. Having worked in mining and having witnessed the struggles of small farmers, Bland became a fervent believer in the silver cause. With the backing of powerful western mining interests, Bland secured passage of the Bland-Allison Act. Although the act did not provide for a return to the old policy of unlimited silver coinage, it did require the US Treasury to resume purchasing silver and minting silver dollars as legal tender. This, in turn, helped some struggling western mining operations. However, the act had little economic impact, and it failed to satisfy the more radical desires and dreams of the silver backers. The battle over the use of silver and gold continued to occupy the US well into the 20th century
1880 Engineers from eight states founded the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
1887 To celebrate Queen Victoria's Jubilee for her fifty year reign, 25-thousand prisoners in India were set free
1918 Lithuania proclaimed its independence
1933 Ottawa refused to allow liquor to be exported to prohibition countries
1937 Wallace H. Carothers, a research chemist for Du Pont, who invented nylon, received a patent for the synthetic fibre
1949 The Canadian House of Commons passed the Newfoundland Union Act by a vote of 140-47. Newfoundland officially joined Canada on March 31st, 1949
1960 The first nuclear submarine to travel around the world under the sea, the US Triton, began its journey
1968 The US's first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated, in Haleyville, Alabama. The idea of being able to dial a single, or universal, number to report emergencies was first utilised in Great Britain, back in 1937. Citizens could dial 999 and reach a central operator who would in turn dispatch law enforcement, fire, or ambulance as needed. Canada followed in 1959, with the establishment of North America's first three-digit emergency telephone number in Winnipeg, Manitoba (originally 999, now 911)
1971 Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, under opposition attack in the House of Commons, uttered an apparently unparliamentary expression that he later described as "fuddle-duddle." Those present asserted that he most definitely did not say "fuddle-duddle"!
1972 Britain abolished the death penalty
1978 In Chicago, Illinois, Ward & Randy's CBBS became the world's first Computer Bulletin Board