Born this Day

1801 William Henry Seward - US politician and Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869. He negotiated the US's purchase of Alaska from Russia. Critics called it "Seward's Folly", and claimed he was "wasting money on a lot of ice"
1804 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody - US educator who opened the first kindergarten in the US
1831 David Edward Hughes - British born US inventor of the telegraph typewriter (teleprinter) in 1855, and the microphone in 1878. His vast fortune was left to London hospitals when he died
1832 Philip Armour - US entrepreneur who headed the Armour meatpacking enterprises
1905 Henry Fonda - Actor (On Golden Pond, The Grapes of Wrath, Advice and Consent, Mister Roberts, Fail-Safe, The Battle of the Bulge, Yours Mine and Ours, Midway, Young Mr. Lincoln) He is the father of Jane & Peter Fonda, and the grandfather of Bridget Fonda
1912 Studs Terkel - Writer (Hard Times, Working, The Good War)
1913 Woody Herman - US jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and bandleader (Woodchopper's Ball, The Sheikh of Araby, Chloe, Caldonia)
1919 Liberace (Wladsiu Valentino Liberace) - Concert pianist, showman and Las Vegas entertainer known for his flamboyant style and costumes
1921 Harry Carey Jr – Actor (Tombstone, Back to the Future Part III, Princess Daisy, Black Beauty, Nickelodeon, Mister Roberts, The Adventures of Spin and Marty, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Rio Grande) He’s the son of Harry Carey. He played Frank Deane in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Roving River
1937 Yvonne Craig - Actress, dancer (Digging Up Business, It Happened at the World's Fair, The Young Land, In Like Flint, Mars Needs Women) She played Patricia Faxon in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Lazy Lover , and she was Batgirl to Adam West's Batman!
1944 Danny Trejo – Actor (Con Air, Grindhouse, Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sons of Anarchy, Dark Games, House of the Rising Sun, Necessary Evil, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids, Reindeer Games, Desperado)
1947 Bill Smitrovich – Actor (A Nero Wolfe Mystery, The Practice, Air Force One, Independence Day, Life Goes On, Crime Story, Band of the Hand, The Event, Iron Man)
1953 Pierce Brosnan - Irish actor (James Bond series of movies, Remington Steele, Noble House, The Lawnmower Man, Mars Attacks, The Thomas Crown Affair, Grey Owl, The Tailor of Panama, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Heist, Detonator, The Fourth Protocol, Don't Talk to Strangers, Bag of Bones, Mamma Mia!)
1955 Debra Winger - Actress (Terms of Endearment, An Officer and a Gentleman, Wonderwoman, Urban Cowboy, In Treatment, Shadowlands, Black Widow)
1955 Olga Korbut – Russian Olympic gymnast
1959 Mare Winningham - Actress (The Thorn Birds, Amber Waves, St. Elmo's Fire, Turner & Hooch, Wyatt Earp, The Brotherhood of Poland New Hampshire, Torchwood: Miracle Day
1961 Kevin McDonald – Canadian comedian and actor (The Kids in the Hall, Brain Candy, Boy Meets Girl, Galaxy Quest)
1973 Tori Spelling – Actress (Beverly Hills 90210, Troop Beverly Hills) She is the daughter of producer Aaron Spelling
1965 Vincent Regan – British actor (Clash of the Titans, Scott & Bailey, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengance, The Holding, Mistresses, Marple: At Bertram’s Hotel, Lewis: Expiation, 300, Unleashed, Troy, Black Knight, Joan of Arc, Invasion Earth)
1966 Janet Jackson – Singer (When I Think of You, Doesn't Really Matter, Again)
1966 Scott Reeves – Actor (When the Cradle Falls, The Young and the Restless, I Know My First Name Is Steven) and singer in the country music duo Blue Country (Good Little Girls)
1967 Brían F. O’Byrne – Irish actor (Million Dollar Baby, FlashForward, Prime Suspect US version, The International, Brotherhood, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, No Reservations, The New World, Aquarius)
1969 Yannick Bisson – Canadian actor (Murdock Mysteries, Toby McTeague, High Tide, Nothing Too Good for a Cowbooy, The Pretender 2001, The Day Reagan Was Shot, Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye, Roxy Hunter Mysteries, Casino Jack)
1969 Tracey Gold – Actress (Growing Pains, Roots, She’s No Angel, Captive Hearts, Solar Flare, Final Approach)
1969 David Boreanaz – Actor (Bones, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Valentine, Mr. Fix It, Seal Team)
1977 Lynn Collins – Actress (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Lake House, True Blood, Haunted, The Merchant of Venice, The Number 23)
1977 Melanie Lynskey – New Zealand actress (Two and a Half Men, Heavenly Creatures, Up in the Air, Comanche Moon, Flags of Our Fathers, Sweet Home Alabama, Coyote Ugly, Ever After: A Cinderella Story)
1981 Joseph Morgan – Welsh actor (The Vampire Diaries, The Grind, Doc Martin, Immortals, Casualty, Mansfield Park, Alexander, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Angels Crest, Mr. Lonely)


Died this Day

1703 Charles Perrault - French fairy-tale author who created the Mother Goose character (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, Puss ‘n’ Boots, Bluebeard)
1957 Eliot Ness, age 54 - US government agent who headed the Untouchables in Chicago and was involved in the arrest of Al Capone
1984 Irwin Shaw - US author (The Young Lions, Rich Man Poor Man, Then There Were Three, In the French Style)
1990 Jim Henson, age 53 – US puppeteer and creator of the Muppets (The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan) He died from pneumonia, less than 24 hours after being rushed to the hospital with a bacterial infection
1990 Sammy Davis Junior, age 64 - Entertainer, singer (The Candy Man, What Kind of Fool Am I) and actor (Sweet Charity, Salt and Pepper ,Tap, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Ocean’s Eleven) He died of throat cancer. He appeared in an uncredited cameo in the Batman episode The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes
2011 Edward Hardwicke – British actor (Poirot: The Hollow, Love Actually, Colditz, Elizabeth, The Scarlet Letter, Shadowlands) His father was Sir Cedric Hardwicke. He appeared with John Thaw in The Sweeney episode Hearts and Minds. He also played Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the movie, Photographing Fairies. And of course, he gave one of the best portrayals of Dr. John H. Watson


On this Day

1619 Jens Eriksen Munk set sail from Denmark to find the North West Passage through North America. He was commissioned by the King of Denmark. Munk made the first European discovery of the Missinipi or Churchill River, a gateway into northern Manitoba
1717 French author Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was imprisoned in the Bastille. The outspoken writer infuriated the government with his epic poem, La Henriade and its satirical attack on politics and religion. He spent nearly a year in the Bastille. However, Voltaire's time in prison failed to dry up his satirical pen, and in 1726, he was forced to flee to England. He returned to France several years later
1763 Dr. Johnson, and his biographer James Boswell met for the first time, at Tom Davie's bookshop in London's Russell Street
1770 Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15, at Versailles, France. Louis, the French dauphin, married Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, to strengthen France's alliance with its longtime enemy, Austria. Four years later, with the death of King Louis XV, Louis and Marie were crowned king and queen of France. From the start, Louis was unsuited to deal with the severe financial problems that he had inherited, and his queen soon fell under criticism for her extravagance, her devotion to the interests of Austria, and her opposition to reform. Marie exerted a growing influence over her husband, and under their reign the monarchy became dangerously alienated from the French people. In a legendary episode, Marie allegedly responded to the news that the impoverished French peasantry had no food to eat by declaring "Let them eat cake." At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Marie and Louis resisted advice to reform the monarchy in order to save it, and by 1791 opposition to the royal pair had become so fierce that the two were forced to flee. During their attempted escape to Austria, Marie and Louis were apprehended at Varennes, France, and carried back to Paris where they were imprisoned. The French National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy in 1792, and in January of 1793, Louis was convicted for conspiracy with foreign powers and executed. In October of the same year, Marie, also convicted of treason, followed her husband to the guillotine
1855 The Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the US took effect. Under the treaty, US fishermen were allowed to fish within the three-mile limit, land anywhere to cure their fish, and have free navigation in the St. Lawrence River. In return, the US agreed to admit a wide range of Canadian products duty free
1866 The US Congress authorised the minting of the nickel
1871 British Columbia was authorised to become Canada's sixth province
1881 US outlaw Dick Fellows, an inept horseman but persistent outlaw, became a free man after spending five years in the San Quentin prison. Like many western bandits, Fellows drifted into a life of crime when his efforts to make an honest living failed. Born George Lyttle in Kentucky in 1846, he came from an upstanding family and planned to become a lawyer. The outbreak of the Civil War put his ambitions on hold, and after the war he turned to drink. He travelled to California in 1867, but failed to prosper there. Low on funds, he began robbing stagecoaches near Los Angeles and adopted the alias Dick Fellows. Fellows found that robbing stages provided a reasonably good income, but he fled when lawmen began to close in on him. In an effort to go straight, he and a partner bought 600 hogs, but a fire burned the operation to the ground. Fellows again turned to robbing stages, concocting a plan to hold up a coach carrying Wells Fargo's chief detective, James B. Hume. A man of such importance, Fellows reasoned, must be escorting a major shipment of gold or money. In fact, Fellows was right, as the coach was carrying $240,000. However, he missed his chance to rob the stage when the horse he had stolen threw him, knocking him cold for several hours. Refusing to walk away with nothing, Fellows stole a second horse and held up a different stage. He succeeded in taking the heavy treasure box, but only then realised he had forgotten to bring the tools he needed to break it open. When he tried to lift the box up on his horse's saddle, he startled his mount and it, too, raced off, leaving him alone in the wilds with night falling. Fellows had little choice but to lug the heavy box by hand. In the darkness, he fell over a high bluff, knocking himself unconscious for the second time that day. When he came to, he discovered that his left leg was broken and the treasure box had crushed his left foot. He managed to limp to a nearby construction camp, where he fashioned a crude pair of crutches and used a stolen axe to break open the box. The $1800 he found inside was trivial compared to the $240,000 he had missed, but it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, the luckless Fellows never had a chance to spend his ill-gotten gains. The Wells Fargo detectives soon tracked him down, and he was sentenced to eight years in the San Quentin prison, but was pardoned and released after five years.
1920 Joan of Arc was canonised in Rome
1925 The first ground-to-air phone call took place as Arthur Atwater Kent, aboard the dirigible The Los Angeles called his wife, Mabel Lucas Kent, who was in a car in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1929 The first Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The movie, Wings, produced by Howard Hughes, won best picture. Emil Jannings was named best actor and Janet Gaynor best actress
1930 Uranium was discovered in a mine in Ontario. The mine was to produce the fuel for the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War
1943 Operation Chastise was carried out by 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, lead by Wing Commander Guy Gibson. The operation, also known as Dam Busters, breached dams in the Ruhr Valley, which was the industrial heartland of Germany. As a result many factories were flooded and roads, rail bridges and power stations were damaged or destroyed. They used a specially designed drum-shaped bomb, developed by Barnes Wallis, which bounced over the water to its target. The bouncing bombs were dropped from Avro Lancaster Bombers at the incredibly low height of 60 feet, travellling at a ground speed of 232 mph. The squadron was made up of aircrew from Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the US
1946 The musical Annie Get Your Gun, featuring songs by Irving Berlin and starring Ethel Merman, opened on Broadway
1952 The British Parliament voted in favour of equal pay for women
1975 Japan's Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest
1977 Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling atop the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying
1980 Dr. George Nickopoulos was indicted on 14 counts of overprescribing drugs to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and others
1988 US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine
1991 Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the US Congress