Born this Day

1729 Henry William Stiegel - German-born US ironmaster and glassmaker
1792 Pius IX - Italian pope from 1846 to 1878
1828 Josephine Butler - British social reformer who campaigned for women's rights in the 1860s and 1870s, promoting The Married Women's Property Act, and education for women
1842 Sir Arthur Sullivan - British composer who collaborated with librettist Sir William Gilbert in writing 16 operettas (HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, The Gondoliers) He also composed the hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers
1907 Dame Daphne du Maurier - British author (Rebecca, The Loving Spirit, The Birds) She was born in London and educated in Paris. Her father, a well-known actor and theatre manager, introduced her to the artistic life. When she was twenty, she visited the coast of Cornwall, which would later become her home and the setting for much of her work. Her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published in 1931. Rebecca, the story of a young wife of a man whose first wife mysteriously died, was set at the fictional mansion of Manderley, which was modelled after her own 70-room home, Menabilly. The book was made into an Academy Award-winning picture in 1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock also directed the movie version of her short story The Birds
1911 Robert Middleton - Actor (The Harrad Experiment, The Law and Jake Wade, Court Jester, Desperate Hours, Career)
1911 Maxine Sullivan - Singer (Loch Lomand, Cockles and Mussels, If I Had a Ribbon Bow, St. Louis Blues, Swingin' the Dream)
1914 Joe Louis - US boxer known as The Brown Bomber. He was the world heavyweight champion for a record-setting 12 years, from 1937 to 1949. Detroit's Joe Louis Arena is named after him. He was born in Lafayette, Alabama
1914 Johnny Wright - Country singer with the duo Johnnie and Jack (Poison Love, Crying Heart Blues)
1923 Red Garland - Jazz musician on the reeds and piano (Alone with the Blues, Red Alone)
1923 Beatrice Arthur - Actress (The Golden Girls, Maude, Mame, Dave’s World)
1931 Jim Jones - US cult leader responsible for the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana in November of 1978
1937 Zohra Lampert - Actress (Stanley and Iris, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Alan & Naomi, Splendor in the Grass)
1938 Buck Taylor – Actor (Gunsmoke, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, The Cherokee Trail, The Wendell Baker Story, The Mist, Cowboys & Aliens) He’s the son of actor Dub Taylor
1939 Harvey Keitel – Actor (The Piano, Pulp Fiction, Point of No Return, Reservoir Dogs, Sister Act, Thelma & Louise, The Two Jakes, Taxi Driver, From Dusk Till Dawn, Little Fockers, National Treasure, Red Dragon, Copland)
1941 Ritchie Valens - Singer (Donna, La Bamba) He was the subject of the film biography La Bamba, and died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson
1943 Mary Wells - Singer (My Guy, Two Lovers, You Beat Me to the Punch, The One Who Really Loves You)
1946 Tim Pigott-Smith - British actor (The Remains of the Day, Bloody Sunday, The Jewel in the Crown, Johnny English, Gangs of New York, The Four Feathers, Alice in Wonderland, Poirot: Taken at the Flood, V for Vendetta, The Vice) He also portrayed Mark Yelland in the Kavanagh QC episode The End of Law
1949 Zoë Wanamaker – Actress (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, My Family, The Old Curiosity Shop, Gormenghast, Love Hurts, Poirot, Marple: A Murder is Announced, Mr. Selfridge) She also portrayed Emma Pickford in the Inspector Morse episode Fat Chance
1950 Stevie Wonder - Singer (I Just Called To Say I Love You, Uptight, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Superstition, Higher Ground, Part Time Lover)
1952 Mary Walsh – Canadian comedienne and actress (This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Codco, Hatching Matching & Dispatching, Mambo Italiano, New Waterford Girl)
1958 Frances Barber – British actress (Love in a Cold Climate, Marple: A Murder Is Announced, The Gentleman Thief, Rhodes, Photographing Fairies, The Ice House, Rules of Engagement, Reilly: The Ace of Spies, Doctor Who) She was in Plastic Man with John Thaw . She also played Nicole Burgess in the Inspector Morse episode, The Death of the Self
1961 Siobhan Fallon – Actress (Men in Black, The Bounty Hunter, Daddy Day Care, The Negotiator, Krippendorf’s Tribe, Saturday Night Live)
1964 Stephen Colbert – Comedian (The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, The Dana Carvey Show)
1974 Brian Geraghty – Actor (The Hurt Locker, Jarhead, Bobby, When a Stranger Calls, Big Sky, Chicago P.D., Boardwalk Empire)
1986 Robert Pattinson – British actor (Twilight, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Haunted Airman, Little Ashes, New Moon, Remember Me)
1985 Iwan Rheon – Welsh actor (Misfits, Resistance, Wild Bill, Vicious)
1987 Candice Accola – Actress (The Vampire Diaries, Juno, Love Hurts, Dead Girl)


Died this Day

1835 John Nash - British architect and town planner. Among his achievements are London's Regent's Park, and Regent Street
1883 James Young - Scottish industrial chemist who was the first to produce paraffin oil and solid paraffin on a commercial scale
1884 Cyrus Hall McCormick - US inventor of the mechanical harvester, which did the job of reaping farmer's grain
1961 Gary Cooper - US film actor (High Noon, Friendly Persuasion, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Pride Of The Yankees, Sergeant York, Beau Geste, Meet John Doe, The Westerner, The Hanging Tree, A Farewell to Arms, Fountainhead)
1972 Virginia O'Hanlan - In 1897, at the age of eight, she wrote to the New York Sun, asking if there was a Santa Claus. It prompted the editorial reply that began, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."
1972 Dan Blocker, age 43 – Actor (Bonanza, Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County, Cimarron City, Outer Space Jitters)
1985 Selma Diamond, age 64 – Canadian-born comedienne and actress (Night Court, Too Close For Comfort, All of Me, Twilight Zone: The Movie)


On this Day

1568 Mary, Queen of Scots’ forces were defeated at the Battle of Langside, by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, the regent of her son, King James VI of Scotland. During the battle, which was fought out in the southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge routed Mary's 6,000 Catholic troops, and they fled the field. Three days later, Mary escaped to Cumberland, England, where she sought protection from Queen Elizabeth I, who initially welcomed Mary, but was soon forced to put her friend under house arrest after Mary became the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow Elizabeth. Years later, in 1586, a major plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, he became James I, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland
1607 Jamestown was founded as more than one hundred English colonists settled along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found what proved to be the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Sarah Constant, Goodspeed, and Discovery. Upon landing at Jamestown, the first colonial council was held by seven settlers whose names had been chosen and placed in a sealed box by King James I. The council, which included Captain John Smith, an English adventurer, chose Edward Wingfield as its first president
1846 The US Congress declared war against Mexico four days after word reached Washington that a US patrol had been ambushed by Mexican forces north of the Rio Grande. The day before, unbeknownst to Washington, US General Zachary Taylor had led US troops to victory against a larger Mexican force at the Battle of Palo Alto, the first major engagement of the Mexican-American War. The Mexican-American War began with a dispute over the US government's 1845 annexation of Texas, which had won independence from Mexico in 1836. In January of 1846, President James K. Polk, a strong advocate of westward expansion, ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. Mexican troops attacked Taylor's forces, and on this day in 1846, Congress approved a declaration of war, appropriating ten million dollars for the war effort and authorising the president to call for 50,000 volunteers
1873 At Westville, Nova Scotia sixty men died in the Westville coal mine. It was Canada's first major mine disaster
1881 The revised New Testament went on sale. Before day's end, 800-thousand copies had been sold
1898 Canada’s Yukon Territory was organised, with Dawson City chosen as the capital
1918 The first US airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced. On some of the stamps, the airplane was printed upside-down, making them collector's items
1940 Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and her daughter Juliana fled the Nazis from the Hague to London during the Second World War. Princess Juliana brought her children to Canada for safety. Every spring, Ottawa receives a gift of 15,000 tulips from the Netherlands as a thank you
1943 The World War II battle for North Africa ended when the last of some 250,000 Axis troops surrendered in Tunisia to Allied forces, bringing a close to the three-year Battle for North Africa
1954 President Eisenhower signed a bill approving the St. Lawrence Seaway agreement with Canada
1977 The Roman Catholic Church approved a decree which allowed it to recognise marriages of men who have undergone vasectomies
1981 Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca, in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. The Pope recovered from serious abdominal wounds and resumed his duties. Agca, an escaped convict, was sentenced to life in prison
1992 Three astronauts from the space shuttle Endeavour captured a wayward satellite during the first-ever three-person spacewalk