Born this Day

1767 Andrew Jackson - The 7th US President, known as "Old Hickory", was born in the Garden of the Waxhaws, South Carolina. The son of Irish immigrants, Jackson spent much of his early life in the frontier regions of South Carolina and Tennessee. His father died from injuries sustained while lifting a heavy log, and his mother was left with few resources to support the family. Jackson received only a minimal formal education, but he learned a great deal about the practical realities of frontier life by mixing with the rowdy frontiersmen around him. As a young man, Jackson settled in the still relatively untamed Tennessee area, where he worked as a self-taught lawyer. After playing an important role in winning statehood for Tennessee, Jackson became the state's first federal congressman. He achieved national recognition during the War of 1812 for his victories over both Indian and British warriors, paving the way for his election to the presidency in 1828. Jackson was a sharp break from the presidents who preceded him, all of whom had been well-educated men born to privilege. As such, he was embraced by the people as a representation of the egalitarian spirit of the frontier, and Jackson played to these sentiments. Although he was not a frontiersman in same sense as trailblazers and explorers like Daniel Boone or John Sevier, Jackson was a man who had risen from backwoods poverty to become a successful lawyer, farmer, officer, and politician. More than any other president, Jackson was associated with westward expansion. A notorious Indian fighter as a young man, Jackson believed that Indians were obstacles to US progress. Once elected president, Jackson supported and vigorously executed the goals of the Removal Act of 1830, which cleared Indians from large areas of the frontier and opened the land to Anglo settlement. Jackson's election to the presidency also signalled a sharp shift in the US's view of frontier inhabitants. Previously seen as slovenly, lazy, and ill-educated troublemakers who interfered with elite plans for an orderly settlement of the West, frontiersmen started to be regarded as the archetypal American hero. During Jackson's presidency, the country embraced a powerful new unifying myth that the nation's frontier experience would foster democracy, equality, and strength. Throughout his life, and even well after his death in 1845, Jackson symbolised and embodied this new fascination with the transformative power of the western frontier
1857 Christian Michelsen - Norwegian Prime Minister who separated Norway from Sweden in 1905
1873 Lee Shubert - Producer who has theatres in NY and LA named after him
1907 Jimmy McPartland - Jazz trumpeter who played for the Wolverines and the Embassy Four. He also acted in The Magic Horn and played at the Newport Jazz Festival with his wife, Marian
1913 MacDonald Carey - Actor (The Days of our Lives, Comanche Territory, The Rebels, Who is the Black Dahlia?, Access Code)
1916 Harry James - Trumpeter, bandleader (Sweet Georgia Brown, Chiribiribin, And The Angels Sing, Two O'clock Jump, You Made Me Love You, Music Makers, Strictly Instrumental, I'll Get By)
1927 Carl Smith - Country singer (Let's Live a Little, Loose Talk, Trademark, Satisfaction Guaranteed) and actor (The Badge of Marshall Brennan, Buffalo Guns) He is a member of the Grand Ole Opry
1932 Alan Bean - US astronaut
1935 Judd Hirsch – Actor (Taxi, Ordinary People, The Good-bye People, Running on Empty, Independence Day, Numb3rs, A Beautiful Mind, The Fabelmans, The Goldbergs)
1941 Mike Love - Singer and songwriter with The Beach Boys (I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, California Girls, Surfin' USA, Little Deuce Coupe, Surfer Girl, Be True to Your School)
1943 David Cronenberg - Canadian film director (They Came From Within, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, The Fly, M. Butterfly, Scanners, The Dead Zone)
1944 Sly Stone - Musician and singer with Sly & The Family Stone (Dance to the Music, Everyday People, Hot Fun in the Summertime, Thank You, Family Affair)
1946 Lynda La Plante – British TV writer and producer (Trial & Retribution, Widows, Framed, Killer Net, She's Out, Prime Suspect) She also acted under the name Lynda Marchal and played Eve Fisher in The Sweeney episode Victims
1957 Joaquim de Almeida – Portugese actor (A Clear and Present Danger, Kingpin, Behind Enemy Lines, Dead Man's Walk, Desperado, Fast Five, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, The Celestine Prophecy, 24)
1969 Kim Raver – Actress (Grey’s Anatomy, 24, Lipstick Jungle, Night at the Museum, Third Watch)
1975 Eva Longoria – Actress (Desperate Housewives, Carlita's Secret, The Young and the Restless, Over Her Dead Body, The Sentinal)


Died this Day

44 BC Caius Julius Caesar - Roman dictator who was assassinated by his own senators at a meeting near Pompeii's Theatre. The conspiracy against Caesar encompassed as many as 60 noblemen, including Marcus Junius Brutus and Caius Cassius Longinus. Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome to fight in a war three days later, and had appointed loyal members of his army to rule the Empire in his absence. The Republican senators, already chafing at having to abide by Caesar's decrees, were particularly angry about the prospect of taking orders from Caesar's underlings. Longinus began plotting against the dictator, quickly recruiting his brother-in-law Brutus to join. Caesar should have been well aware that many of the senators hated him, but he dismissed his security force not long before his assassination. Reportedly, Caesar was handed a warning note as he entered the senate meeting that day, but did not read it. (Beware the Ides of March!) After entering the hall with Mark Antony, Caesar was surrounded by senators holding daggers. Casca struck the first blow, hitting Caesar in the neck and drawing blood. The other senators all joined in, stabbing him repeatedly about the head. After being wounded in the groin by Brutus, Caesar was said to have remarked, in Greek, "You, too, my child." In the aftermath of the assassination, Antony attempted to carry out Caesar's legacy. However, Caesar's will left his grandnephew Octavius in charge. Cassius and Brutus tried to rally a Republican army and Brutus even issued coins celebrating the assassination. Octavius, vowing revenge against the assassins, defeated and killed both Cassius and Brutus two years later. Antony took his armies east, where he hooked up with Caesar's old paramour, Cleopatra. Octavius and Antony fought for many years before Octavius finally prevailed. In 30 BC, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide together. Octavius, later known as Augustus, ruled the Roman Empire until 14 AD
AD 459 Attila the Hun – King of the Hun empire. He died from a severe nosebleed on his wedding night
1898 Sir Henry Bessemer, age 85 - British metallurgist and pioneer of mass produced, low priced steel, using the blast furnace method he invented in 1856
1937 H.P. Lovecraft, age 46 – US author (At the Mountains of Madness) He was a master of the macabre story and short novel. Most of his work appeared in the magazine, Weird Tales
1975 Aristotle Onassis, age 69 - Greek shipping magnate and husband of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, died near Paris
1983 Dame Rebecca West, age 90 - British author (The Return of the Soldier, The Fountain Overflows, Harriet Hume, The Meaning of Treason) She had a son by H.G. Wells, with whom she had a ten year relationship
1998 Dr. Benjamin Spock, age 94 - Child care guidance guru, whose advice spanned a half-century
2000 Durward Kirby, age 88 - TV announcer and performer (The Garry Moore Show, Candid Camera, The Perry Como Show)
2001 Ann Sothern, age 92 – Actress (Private Secretary, Lady Be Good, Panama Hattie, The Whales of August, The Ann Sothern Show, Masie) She was also the voice of the 1928 Porter in My Mother the Car
2003 Thora Hird, age 91 – British actress (A Taste of Honey, In Loving Memory, Hallelujah!, Last of the Summer Wine) Her daughter, Janette Scott, had been married to Mel Tormé, making her, at one time, Mel Tormé's mother-in-law


On this Day

1493 Christopher Columbus returned to Spain, concluding his first voyage to the Western Hemisphere
1603 French explorer Samuel de Champlain set out on his first voyage to what is now Canadian territory. Champlain established friendly relations with the Indians and explored the St. Lawrence River to the rapids above Montréal. He made several return trips and was appointed French Canada's first governor
1521 Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines, where he was killed by natives the following month
1820 Maine became the 23rd state of the Union. It was originally a province of Massachusetts
1869 The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first all-pro baseball team
1906 The Alberta legislature opened its first session, at the Thistle skating rink
1909 US entrepreneur G.S. Selfridge opened the store that bears his name, in London. It was Britain's first US-style department store, and is now a huge chain
1913 President Wilson held the first open presidential White House news conference
1916 The search for Pancho Villa began six days after the Mexican revolutionary killed seventeen Americans during a raid into US territory. President Woodrow Wilson sent 6,600 US troops over the border to capture Villa dead or alive. They were led by US Brigadier General John J. Pershing, but he failed to capture the elusive revolutionary. Villa was assassinated at Parral in 1923
1919 The American Legion was founded, in Paris
1937 The US's first central blood bank was set up by Bernard Faustus, who coined the term "blood bank"
1945 Billboard magazine's first album chart put The King Cole Trio at the top of the list
1956 The Lerner and Loewe musical, My Fair Lady, opened on Broadway starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. It ran for more than six years
1964 Actress Elizabeth Taylor married actor Richard Burton in Montréal. It was her fifth marriage, his second, and their first of two together
1977 The US House of Representatives began a 90-day test to determine the feasibility of showing its sessions on television
1988 A man with a gun tried to rob a bank in Montpellier, France, the home of nougat candy. The would-be robber lost his nerve at the crucial moment, and ate his gun. It was made of nougat
1990 The Vatican and the Soviet Union established official ties for the first time since the 1917 Russian Revolution