Born this Day

1751 James Madison - The 4th US President. He was born in Port Conway, Virginia
1774 Matthew Flinders - British explorer who circumnavigated Australia. The Flinders River in Queensland, and the Flinders Range in South Australia, are named after him
1787 Georg Simon Ohm - German physicist who researched electricity and gave his name to the measurement of resistance, the ohm
1897 Conrad Nagel - Actor (The Mysterious Lady, The Kiss, The Divorcee)
1906 Henny Youngman – Comedian who was known as the King of the One Liners (National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, History of the World: Part I, Silent Movie, Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, Goodfellas) He was born in Whitechapel, London, England
1916 Mercedes McCambridge – Actress (All the King's Men, Who is the Black Dahlia?, Cimarron, Johnny Guitar, Giant) She appeared in many radio shows (I Love a Mystery, Murder at Midnight, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, The Guiding Light, Mercury Theatre)
1920 Leo McKern - Australian born British actor (Rumpole of the Bailey, Help!, Candleshoe, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Reilly Ace of Spies, Ladyhawke, Murder with Mirrors) He also played Moriarty in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
1926 Jerry Lewis - US comedian and actor (The Nutty Professor, Cinderfella, The Jerry Lewis Show, The King of Comedy) He is honoured in France with "Le Roi du Crazy" Day (The King of Crazy) For years, he had a successful partnership with Dean Martin. He appeared in the Batman episode The Bookworm Turns
1927 Dick Beals - Actor who was best known as the voice of Speedy Alka Seltzer. He was born in Detroit, Michigan
1932 Betty Johnson - Singer (I Dreamed, Little White Lies, The Little Blue Man, Dream)
1942 Jerry Jeff Walker - Country singer, guitarist (Good Loving Grace, My Old Man, Hill Country Rain, Charlie Dunn)
1949 Erik Estrada - Actor (C.H.I.P.S., Twisted Justice, Night of the Wilding, Caged Fury, The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission)
1949 Victor Garber - Canadian actor (Alias, Legally Blonde, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, Annie, Titanic, Republic of Doyle, You Again, Eli Stone, Milk, Tuck Everlasting, A Colder Kind of Death, The Wandering Soul Murders, The First Wives Club)
1950 Kate Nelligan - Canadian actress (Eye of the Needle, Eleni, The Prince of Tides, Wolf, US Marshals, The Cider House Rules, Bethune)
1953 Isabelle Huppert – French actress (Madame Bovary, I Heart Huckabees, The Bedroom Window, Heaven's Gate)
1954 Jimmy Nail – British actor (Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The 10th Kingdom, Evita, Crocodile Shoes, Spender)
1954 Nancy Wilson - Rock singer-musician, who with her sister Ann, formed the group Heart (Crazy on You, Magic Man, Barracuda)
1959 Gary Basaraba – Canadian actor (Boomtown, Brooklyn South, Afterburn, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Last Temptation of Christ, Mixed Blessings, Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise, In the Line of Duty: Manhunt in the Dakotas)
1971 Alan Tudyk – Actor (Firefly, Serenity, Suburgatory, Dollhouse, A Knight’s Tale, 3:10 to Yuma, I Robot, Patch Adams, Resident Alien)
1973 Tim Kang – Actor (The Mentalist, Rambo, Third Watch, The Forgotten, Magnum P.I.)


Died this Day

1648 Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant - Jesuit priests, tortured and killed by the Iroquois at what is now Midland, Ontario. The Iroquois destroyed all the villages and Jesuit missions in the area. Brebeuf wrote the Huron Carol, and he died 9 days before his 56th birthday. Although most Hurons were beginning to accept the Christian faith, their morale as a nation was suffering under the persistent Iroquois attacks. In 1649 the Iroquois redoubled their effort to exterminate the Hurons as well as the priests, or Black Robes. Brebeuf along with Lalemant is said to have endured one of the worst martyrdoms ever recorded in history, enduring for hours red-hot hatchets and scalding water
1881 Francisco "Chico" Forster, age 40 - Son of a wealthy Los Angeles land developer, he was shot to death in a downtown Los Angeles, California, street by his jilted lover, 18-year-old Lastania Abarta. Forster was considered one of the city's most eligible bachelors, despite his reputation as a womaniser who treated women poorly. Abarta sang and played the guitar in her parent's pool hall, where she met frequent customer Forster. Abarta ran off with Forster to the Moiso Mansion Hotel, and according to Abarta, Forster promised to marry her. But when he disappeared and didn't return with a ring or priest to perform the ceremony, she and her sister Hortensia started to comb the city in search of him. They finally found him gambling at a racetrack, and dragged him to their carriage for a trip to the church. Forster escaped from the carriage on the way, but the women followed closely behind until Abarta suddenly pulled out a gun and shot him through the eye. Outraged by his son's untimely death, Forster's father hired a special prosecutor to ensure that Abarta was properly punished. Abarta's lawyers tried a novel defence, playing into the obsession with "female hysteria" in the 1880s. Medical theories of the time held that women could be driven crazy because of their reproductive system. Defence lawyers trotted out no less than seven medical experts who expounded their hysteria theories. They testified that Abarta was clearly displaying classic "hysterical symptoms" due to the fact that "her brain was undoubtedly congested with blood" when she killed Forster. The most important testimony in the trial came from Dr. Joseph Kurtz, who received applause from the spectators in the courtroom when he stated that "Any virtuous woman, when deprived of her virtue, would go mad, undoubtedly." The jury, all men of course, took just 20 minutes to acquit Abarta, who left town and disappeared out of sight
1903 Judge Roy Bean - Saloonkeeper and adventurer. He died in Langtry, Texas, the town he founded and named in honour of the famous English actress, Lillie Langtry. His saloon, the Jersey Lilly, was also named for her. Bean had never met Langtry, but he had developed an abiding affection for the beautiful actress after seeing a drawing of her in an illustrated magazine. For the rest of his life, he avidly followed Langtry's career in theatre magazines. Before founding Langtry, Bean had also secured an appointment as a justice of the peace and notary public. He knew little about the law or proper court procedures, but residents appreciated and largely accepted his common sense verdicts in the sparsely populated country of West Texas. Bean was often deliberately humorous or bizarre in his rulings, once fining a dead man $40 for carrying a concealed weapon. He threatened one lawyer with hanging for using profane language when the hapless man referred to the "habeas corpus" of his client. By the 1890s, reports of Bean's curmudgeonly rulings had made him nationally famous. Travellers on the train passing through Langtry often made a point of stopping to visit the ramshackle saloon, where a sign proudly proclaimed Bean to be the "Law West of the Pecos." Bean fell ill during a visit to San Antonio. He returned to Langtry, where he died. Lillie Langtry, the object of Bean's devoted adoration, visited the village named in her honour only 10 months after Bean died
1983 Arthur Godfrey, age 79 – Ukulele playing, TV and radio entertainer (The Arthur Godfrey Show, Where Angels Go Trouble Follows, The Glass Bottom Boat, Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts) He piloted his own plane and was an early pioneer and promoter of civil aviation. Godfrey was certified to fly virtually every type of aircraft in existence during his lifetime: rotor, jet, multiple engine and helicopter – holding FAA type ratings from the DC-3 to the Constellation


On this Day

1802 Congress authorised the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point, NY
1830 The New York Stock Exchange had its slowest day when just 31 shares were traded
1836 The Republic of Texas approved a constitution
1850 The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel about adultery, revenge and redemption in Puritan Massachusetts, was first published
1855 At Kingston, Ontario, George-Etienne Cartier passed his Militia Act, constituting all males between the ages of 18 and 60 as military forces of Canada. Also, all men under 40 were to be mustered once a year, and the Governor-General was to be the Commander in Chief of the militia
1888 The first recorded sale of a manufactured motor car was to Emile Roger of Paris, who bought a petrol-driven car from Karl Benz's new factory
1909 The purchase of movie rights became standard industry practice following a US federal court's decision ruling in Harper and Bros. vs. Kalem Co. that the movie studio's 1907 production of Ben-Hur, filmed without the author's permission, was a copyright violation. Kalem paid the author's estate $25,000 in damages
1915 The US Federal Trade Commission was organised
1916 Canada signed the Migratory Bird Treaty with the US
1926 The first rocket fuelled by liquid oxygen and gasoline, was launched, in Massachusetts. It reached an altitude of 41 feet and travelled just over 15 yards
1955 Maurice 'Rocket' Richard of the Montreal Canadiens was suspended by National Hockey League President Clarence Campbell, triggering riots the next day in Montreal. At the Montreal Forum hockey fans disrupted a game and threw objects at Campbell. They later went outside the arena and smashed windows in stores in the downtown area. The 7 hour riot along Ste-Catherine St. resulted in 100 arrests. The game had to be called after one period and the Detroit Red Wings were awarded a 4-1 win. Richard had been suspended for the balance of the season because of a stick attack on a Boston player and an assault on a linesman
1968 The My Lai massacre took place in Vietnam. More than 300 civilians died
1973 The Queen opened the new London Bridge. The old one was sold to a US tycoon for £1 million, and rebuilt piece by piece in the US
1994 Figure skater Tonya Harding pleaded guilty in Portland, Oregon, to conspiracy to hinder prosecution for covering up the attack on rival Nancy Kerrigan, avoiding jail but drawing a $100,000 fine
1995 NASA astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to visit the Russian space station Mir