Born this Day

1767 George Prevost – US born British soldier and statesman. He was appointed the Governor in Chief of Upper and Lower Canada. His conciliatory approach toward the French-Canadians helped maintain their loyalty during the War of 1812
1795 Johns Hopkins - US merchant who endowed the Johns Hopkins University and hospital
1871 Reginald Aldworth Daly – Canadian geologist who developed the theory of magmatic stoping to explain many igneous rock formations. As molten magma rises through the Earth's crust, it can shatter, but does not melt, the surrounding rocks, and being denser than the magma, the rocks sink, giving the magma room to rise
1906 Bruce Bennett - Actor (Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dark Passage, Angels in the Outfield)
1930 Lorraine Hansberry - Playwright (A Raisin in the Sun, To be Young Gifted and Black)
1931 Stephen Young- Actor (Judd for the Defence, Patton, Scorned, Who's Harry Crumb?, Deadline)
1931 Trevor Peacock – British actor (The Vicar of Dibley, Family Business, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Way We Live Now, Lorna Doone) He wrote the Herman’s Hermit song Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter
1934 James Lehrer - Journalist (The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour)
1935 David Hartman - TV host (Good Morning America) and actor (Hello Dolly, Lucas Tanner, The Bold Ones)
1939 James Fox - British actor (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, A Passage to India, The Russia House, Patriot Games, The Remains of the Day) He is the brother of actor Edward Fox
1939 Nancy Kwan - Actress (The World of Suzie Wong, Flower Drum Song, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story)
1939 Francis Scobee - Commander of the ill-fated space shuttle, Challenger
1941 Nora Ephron - Author (Heartburn, Sleepless in Seattle)
1944 Peter Mayhew – British actor who plays Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies
1945 Peter Townshend - British musician with The Who (My Generation, I Can See for Miles, Magic Bus, Won't Get Fooled Again, Tommy, Who Are You)
1946 Paul Moriarty – British actor (EastEnders, Pride and Prejudice, The Gentle Touch) He played Barry Tyson in The Sweeney episode Stay Lucky, Eh?
1946 André the Giant – French wrestler and actor (The Princess Bride, Conan the Destroyer, The Six Million Dollar Man: The Secret of Bigfoot)
1947 David Helfgott - Australian concert pianist whose life was the subject of the movie, Shine
1948 Grace Jones - Singer (Slave to the Rhythm) and actress (A View to a Kill, Conan the Destroyer, Deadly Vengeance)
1949 Dusty Hill - Rock musician with ZZ Top (Legs, Sharp Dressed Man, Gimme All Your Lovin')
1956 Steve Ford - Actor (When Harry Met Sally, Body Count, The Young and the Restless) He is the son of former US President Gerald R. and Betty Ford
1967 Geraldine Somerville – Irish actress (Harry Potter movies, Gosford Park, Cracker, Aristocrats)


Died this Day

1536 Anne Boleyn - Second wife of King Henry VIII. She was beheaded after being convicted on charges of adultery. Henry had married Anne three years before, after a controversial divorce from his first wife. The divorce led to his excommunication from the Catholic church. Anne did not produce the male heir Henry wanted, but she did give birth to Elizabeth, the future queen. Anne's death allowed him to marry Jane Seymor the following day
1795 James Boswell, age 54 - Scottish diarist and biographer of English lexicographer and celebrated conversationalist Samuel Johnson. Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in A Scandal in Bohemia, "I am lost without my Boswell"
1864 Nathaniel Hawthorne, age 59 - US novelist and short-story writer (The House of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, Mosses From an Old Manse, The Blithedale Romance, The Snow Image and Other Tales, Tanglewood Tales, The Marble Fann)
1898 William Ewart Gladstone, age 88 - British statesman who was Prime Minister on four occasions
1935 T.E. (Thomas Edward) Lawrence, age 47 - Legendary British war hero, author (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, an English translation of Homer's Odyssey, The Mint) and archaeological scholar known as Lawrence of Arabia. He died in England from injuries sustained in a motorcycle crash six days earlier. In 1911, he joined an archaeological expedition along the Euphrates River, spending his free time exploring the area and learning Arabic. The maps he and his associates made had immediate strategic value upon the outbreak of war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire in October 1914. Lawrence enlisted in the war and was first assigned to Cairo as an intelligence officer, and then was sent to join the Arabian army as a liaison officer. His exploits made him a legendary figure in his own lifetime. In 1922 he gave up higher-paying appointments to enlist in the Royal Air Force under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. Found out by the press, he was discharged, but in 1923 he managed to enlist as a private in the Royal Tanks Corps under another assumed name, T.E. Shaw, a reference to his friend, Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. In 1925, Lawrence rejoined the RAF and two years later legally changed his last name to Shaw. In February 1935, he was discharged from the RAF and returned to his simple cottage at Clouds Hill, Dorset. On May 13, he was critically injured while driving his motorcycle through the Dorset countryside. He had swerved to avoid a boy on a bicycle. When he died at the hospital of his former RAF camp, all of Britain mourned his passing
1971 Ogden Nash, age 68 - US humorist, author and poet (Cricket of Cavador, The Bad Parents' Garden of Verse, A Penny Saved is Impossible)
1988 Charles Butler - Voice actor who was the voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and many other cartoon characters
1994 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, age 64 - Former US First Lady, died of cancer at her New York home


On this Day

1588 The Spanish Armada set sail for England. The massive invasion fleet, known as the Invincible Armada, set sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish army to the British Isles from the Netherlands. Delayed by storms, the Armada did not reach the southern coast of England until late July. By that time the British were ready. The outnumbered English navy began bombarding the seven-mile-long line of Spanish ships from a safe distance, taking full advantage of their superior long-range guns. By the time the last of the surviving fleet reached Spain, half of the so-called Invincible Armada had been destroyed. Queen Elizabeth's decisive defeat of the Armada made England a world-class naval power, and introduced effective long-range weapons into naval warfare for the first time, providing an alternative to boarding and close-quarter fighting
1715 The colony of New York passed a law making it illegal to "gather, rake, take up, or bring to the market, any oysters whatsoever" between the months of May and September
1749 King George II of England granted the Ohio Company a charter of several hundred thousand acres of land around the forks of the Ohio River, formalising efforts by the colony of Virginia to expand its settlements westward. The royal chartering of the Ohio Company directly challenged the French claims and became a direct cause of the outbreak of the last and most important of the French and Indian Wars in 1754
1780 Complete darkness fell on eastern Canada and the New England states at 2 p.m. The exact cause of the "dark day" has never been found, although some have speculated that high-atmospheric smoke from distant fires was the cause
1781 In Michigan, the Chippewas ceded Michilimackinac Island to Britain for £5,000
1802 Napoleon instituted the Légion d'Honneur, to be awarded for civil and military distinction of the highest order. In the story, The Golden Pince-Nez, it was revealed that Sherlock Holmes was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French President for his tracking and arrest of Huret, the Boulevard assassin
1845 John Franklin and his expedition departed for the Arctic on the Royal Navy ships Erebus and Terror to find the Northwest Passage. His vessels were equipped with steam engines and ice-breaking bows, and carried enough food for three years. However, it wasn’t enough, as the entire expedition would be lost
1897 Oscar Wilde was released from prison after two years of hard labour. His experiences in prison were the basis for his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Following his release, Wilde fled to Paris, where he died of acute meningitis three years later
1906 The Federated Boys' Clubs, forerunner of the Boys' Clubs of America, were organised
1902 The most devastating mine disaster in Tennessee history happened at the Fraterville mine, near Coal Creek. One hundred and eighty four miners entered the mine that morning, and only minutes after work began, a methane gas and coal dust explosion erupted. Many miners were killed instantly. However, several victims were imprisoned within the shaft, unable to escape the toxic gas fumes and unbearable heat. In order to keep up rescue efforts, rescuers tried to vent the passages by constructing bratticing, a conduit made of cloth soaked with creosote to try to remove the poisonous air. Despite their best effort, few if any miners were recovered. The exact cause of the ordeal was never determined. The nearby town of Fraterville lost nearly every adult male. Only three remained in the community
1909 The Simplon Rail Tunnel between Switzerland and Italy was officially opened
1910 Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet
1939 King George VI addressed the Canadian Parliament. He was the first reigning monarch to do so
1943 In an address to the US Congress, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill pledged his country's full support in the war against Japan
1958 The US and Canada formally established the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) to co-ordinate continental defence
1974 The Philadelphia Flyers became the first NHL expansion team to win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Boston Bruins