Born this Day

1709 Jacques de Vaucanson - French inventor of automata, or robot devices, which had later significance for modern industry. From 1737-38, he produced a transverse flute player, a pipe and tabor player, and a mechanical duck, which was especially noteworthy, not only imitating the motions of a live duck, but also the motions of drinking, eating, and "digesting." He made improvements in the mechanisation of silk weaving, and invented many machine tools of permanent importance
1786 Wilhelm Karl Grimm - German collector and author of fairytales with his brother Jakob (Grimm's Fairy Tales: Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow-White, The Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb…) As young men, the two brothers assisted friends in compiling an important collection of folk lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers' work, suggested they publish some of the oral folktales they'd collected. The brothers developed the tales by listening to storytellers and attempting to reproduce their words and techniques as faithfully as possible. Their methods helped establish the scientific approach to the documentation of folklore
1836 Winslow Homer - Artist (On A Lee Shore, Mending the Nets, Eating Watermelon, Inside the Bar, The Maine Coast)
1840 John Philip Holland - Irish inventor who is known as the "father of the modern submarine." He designed and built the first underwater vessel accepted by the US Navy. In 1873, he emigrated to the US where, with financial support from the Irish Fenian Society (who hoped to use submarines against England), he built the Fenian Ram, a small sub that proved a limited success in a test run. In 1895, his J.P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company received a contract from the US Navy to build a submarine, and in 1898 a successful Holland, the first truly practical submarine, was launched. The US government ordered six more, and similar orders came from England, Japan, and Russia
1885 Chester Nimitz - US Navy Admiral and Commander of the Pacific fleet in WWII
1890 Marjorie Main - Actress (The Egg and I, The Harvey Girls, Friendly Persuasion) She was the "Ma" of Ma and Pa Kettle fame
1914 Zachary Scott - Actor (The Mask of Dimitrios, Mildred Pierce, The Southerner, Appointment in Honduras, Flamingo Road, The Young One)
1921 Abe Vigoda - Actor (Barney Miller, The Godfather, Joe and the Volcano, Fist of Honour)
1922 Steven Hill - Actor (Law and Order, Yentl, The Firm, Brighton Beach Memoirs)
1929 Richard B. Shull - Actor (Splash, Trapped in Paradise, Holmes and Yo Yo, Lou Grant)
1931 Dominic Chianese – Actor (The Sopranos, Dog Day Afternoon, All the President’s Men, The Godfather: Part II, Boardwalk Empire, Damages, …And Justice for All)
1932 John Vernon - Canadian actor (The Outlaw Josey Wales, National Lampoon's Animal House, Hostage for a Day, Dirty Harry, Hunter)
1938 James Farentino - Actor (Dynasty, Ensign Pulver, The Final Countdown, Cool Million)
1945 Barry Bostwick - Actor (Spin City, War and Remembrance, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Spy Hard, Lexx: The Dark Zone)
1947 Edward James Olmos - Actor (Miami Vice, Stand and Deliver, Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica)
1948 Dennis Waterman - British actor (Minder, Just William, Cold Justice, Circle of Deceit, New Tricks) He was in The Sweeney with John Thaw
1951 Helen Shaver - Canadian actress (Who Has Seen the Wind, Bethune, Born to be Wild, Desert Hearts, The Colour of Money, Starship Invasions) and director (Joan of Arcadia, Judging Amy, Beggars and Choosers)
1955 Steven Jobs - Co-founder of Apple Computers
1966 Billy Zane – Actor (Titanic, Back to the Future, Dead Calm, The Phantom, Tombstone, The Case of the Hillside Stranglers)
1966 Ben Miller – British actor (Johnny English, Primeval, The Armstrong and Miller Show, Razzle Dazzle, Marple: The Body in the Library)
1972 Manon Rhéaume - Canadian hockey goaltender who was the first female NHL player (Tampa Bay Lightning)


Died this Day

1810 Henry Cavendish, age 78 - British physicist and chemist who discovered hydrogen and other gases. He also established that water was a compound, and determined the density of the earth. The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, England, was named after him
1815 Robert Fulton, age 49 - US engineer and submarine designer. He built the first commercially viable steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807. Fulton also designed a system of inland waterways, and a submarine, the Nautilus, in 1801
1825 Thomas Bowdler, age 70 - British expurgator of all the "naughty bits" in Shakespeare. His name gave the English language the word "bowdlerised"
1875 Marc Séguin, the Elder, age 88 - French engineer and inventor of the wire-cable suspension bridge and the tubular steam-engine boiler. Séguin, a nephew of Joseph Montgolfier, the pioneer balloonist, developed an early interest in machinery. By 1822, he was studying the strength of wire cables. With his brother Camille he studied the principles of the suspension bridge, at that time built with chain cables. In 1824, they built a bridge suspended from cables of parallel wire strands over the Rhône River at Tournon, the first such bridge which was then copied around the world. Séguin also improved locomotive efficiency with his invention of the multiple fire-tube boiler, in place of the water-tube boiler used by the earlier steam engines. The brothers collaborated in the construction of the first French railroad from 1824 to 1833
1986 Tommy Douglas, age 81 - Scottish-born Baptist minister and Canadian politician who was the former premier of Saskatchewan. Douglas will be remembered as the father of Canadian Medicare. He was also the grandfather of actor Kiefer Sutherland
1990 Malcolm Forbes, age 70 - US tycoon and magazine publisher (Forbes Magazine) He died in Far Hills, NJ
1990 Johnnie Ray, age 63 - Singer (Cry, Please, Mr. Sun, The Little White Cloud That Cried, Walkin' My Baby Back Home, Just Walking in the Rain)
2006 Don Knotts, age 81 – Comedian and actor (The Andy Griffith Show, Matlock, Three's Company, The Don Knotts Show, The Steve Allen Show, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Shakiest Gun in the West, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Pleasantville)


On this Day

1446 The earliest known lottery was drawn in Bruges, Belgium
1582 Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull outlining his calendar reforms. The Gregorian Calendar replaced the Julian Calendar, and is still in general use today. It took Britain almost 200 years to follow suit, in 1754
1662 Bishop Laval of New France said people selling liquor to natives would be excommunicated from the Church
1803 The US Supreme Court ruled itself the final interpreter of constitutional issues
1821 Mexico declared its independence from Spain
1836 Texan Colonel William Travis sent a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message with the famous last words, "Victory or Death"
1836 Samuel Colt received a patent for a firearm that would become a central symbol of the US West: the Colt revolver. The pistol, featuring a revolving cylinder that held six bullets, was invented by Colt several years before while on the SS Carlo. Colt subsequently set up the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in New Jersey to manufacture his new invention. The first Colt revolvers produced by the factory were .24-caliber models. The company nearly failed in its first decade, but was revived by an order from the government in 1847 for one hundred revolvers to use in the Mexican-American War. The revolver was the first firearm that could be used effectively by a man on horseback. Colt set up a new factory in Connecticut and made a fortune after the war as ranchers, outlaws, prospectors, and lawmen stormed into the newly acquired Western territories with their six-shooters blazing
1839 William Smith Otis, a civil engineer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was issued a US patent for the steam shovel for excavating and removing earth from railroads or canals. The patent drawing showed the crane mounted on a carriage or railroad car. A load of earth could be taken up by the scraper, raised by the crane and turned to be dumped, such as in railcars, and released. The patent described how a steam engine of a kind already in ordinary use, was installed with a power control mechanism for the crane, and a system of pulleys to move its arms and bucket. It was first used on the Western Railroad in Massachusetts
1857 The US Government ordered its first perforated postage stamps
1863 Arizona, formerly part of the Territory of New Mexico, was organised as a separate territory. The US acquired the region under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the 1853 Gadsden Purchase. Arizona became the 48th state in 1912
1868 The US House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate
1887 The first two cities to be linked by telephone were Brussels and Paris
1887 Vancouver, British Columbia, lost its city charter after failing to control rioting against Chinese immigrants
1903 The US signed an agreement acquiring a naval station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba
1925 In Washington, DC, Canada and the US signed a boundary treaty creating the International Lake of the Woods Control Board
1938 DuPont began commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles. This famous new material had been discovered in 1935, and was wildly popular for women's stockings. However, at the time, the inventor did not see the further applications of his discovery
1949 A two-stage rocket was launched from the White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico. It was the first to reach outer space
1956 Queen Elizabeth authorised the Coats-of-Arms of the Yukon and North West Territories
1976 The Canadian Federal Government introduced its "peace and security" legislation. The main features were the abolition of hanging, increased minimum sentences for murder, stricter gun control and wider wire-tapping power for police
1981 Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer