Born this Day

1686 Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit – German physicist and instrument maker who developed the alcohol and mercury thermometers. He also devised the measure of temperature known as the Fahrenheit Temperature Scale, and fixed the freezing point at 32 degrees
1816 Emanuel Leutze - German-born US painter of historic events (Washington Crossing the Delaware, Washington Rallying the Troops at Monmouth, Columbus Before the Queen)
1819 Victoria - Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and Empress of India. She would reign over the British Empire longer than any monarch in English history, for 64 years, from 1837 to her death in 1901. She married Prince Albert in 1840 and had four sons and five daughters. After Albert's death in 1861, she went to into virtual retirement for years, before returning to public life in the 1890s. On this same day in 1902, Victoria Day was first observed in Canada, 16 months after Victoria's death. The holiday was observed on her birthday until 1952, when it was changed to the first Monday preceding May 25th
1914 Lilli Palmer - Actress (Chamber of Horrors, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Boys from Brazil)
1930 Robert Bateman – Canadian artist known for his realistic wildlife paintings
1931 Michael Lonsdale – French actor (Moonraker, Ronin, Munich, The Name of the Rose, Don Juan, Smiley’s People, Chariots of Fire, The Day of the Jackal)
1938 Tommy Chong - Canadian comedian who was half of the comedy team Cheech and Chong
1941 Bob Dylan - US singer and songwriter (Blowin' in the Wind, A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall, All Along the Watchtower, Maggie's Farm, Slow Train Coming, Saved, Gotta Serve Somebody)
1943 Gary Burghoff - Actor (M*A*S*H, Daniel’s Lot, Behind the Waterfall)
1944 Patti LaBelle – Singer (Lady Marmelade, Ready for a Miracle, Turn it Out, New Attitude)
1945 Priscilla Beaulieu Presley - Actress (Dallas, The Naked Gun) She was married to Elvis Presley, and is the mother of Lisa Marie Presley
1948 James Cosmo – Scottish actor (Braveheart, Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Troy, The Four Feathers, Ivanhoe, Emma, Trainspotting, Highlander) He played Det. Sgt. Davy Freeth in The Sweeney episode Hard Men
1949 Jim Broadbent – British actor (Vanity Fair, Gangs of New York, Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Bridget Jones's Diary, Topsy-Turvy, Little Voice, Widows' Peak, The Crying Game, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, Time Bandits, The Iron Lady, The Young Victoria, Hot Fuzz) He played Charlie Bennett in the Inspector Morse episode Absolute Conviction
1953 Nell Campbell – Australian actress (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Killing Fields, Litzomania, Great Expectations)
1953 Alfred Molina - British actor (Murder on the Orient Express, Maverick, Chocolat, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ladyhawke, Enchanted April, Roger & Val Have Just Got In, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Da Vinci Code)
1955 Roseanne Cash - Singer (Seven Year Ache, Never Be You, Second to No One) Her father was Johnny Cash
1960 Kristin Scott Thomas - British actress (The English Patient, Framed, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Body and Soul, Mission: Impossible, The Horse Whisperer, The Other Boleyn Girl, Gosford Park)
1965 John C. Reilly – Actor (Step Brothers, The Aviator, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, A Prairie Home Companion, The Hours, Chicago, The Gangs of New York, The Perfect Storm, Dolores Claiborne, The River Wild, Hoffa)
1967 Eric Close – Actor (Without a Trace, The Sky Is Falling, Now and Again, Dark Skies, Chaos, Taken)
1975 Will Sasso – Canadian actor (Less Than Perfect, $#*! My Dad Says, MADtv, Robson Arms, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Sliders, Happy Gilmore, Neon Rider, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage)


Died this Day

1543 Nicholas Copernicus, age 70 - Polish astronomer, died in Poland. He is the father of modern astronomy, and the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Prior to the publication of his Copernican theory, astronomers argued that Earth lay at the centre of the universe. In addition to correctly postulating the order of the known planets, including Earth, from the sun, and estimating their orbital periods relatively accurately, Copernicus argued that Earth turned daily on its axis and that gradual shifts of this axis accounted for the changing seasons. He died the year his major work was published, saving him from the outrage of some religious leaders who later condemned his heliocentric view of the universe as heresy. By the late 18th century, the Copernican view of the solar system was almost universally accepted
1974 Duke Ellington - US jazz pianist, composer and bandleader (It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing, Take the A Train) He died less than a month after his 75th birthday
2003 Rachel Kempson, Lady Redgrave - British stage and screen actress (Jane Eyre, The Jewel in the Crown, Out of Africa) She was the wife of Sir Michael, and mother of Vanessa, Lynn and Corin Redgrave. She died four days before her 91st birthday


On this Day

1603 Samuel de Champlain anchored at the mouth of the Saguenay River. It was his first landing in Canada
1738 John Wesley first attended evensong at St Paul's Cathedral, London. He then went on to a meeting at Aldersgate where he experienced his conversion. This was the start of Wesley's Methodism, which gave rise to the Methodist Church
1779 Fur traders Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher, John Ross and Peter Pond joined with Montreal merchants Isaac Todd, James McGill, Simon McTavish, James McBeath and Lawrence Ermatinger to found the North West Company. The company was structured to let the partners spread their risk in order to do battle with the Hudson's Bay Company in the far west of Canada
1809 Dartmoor Prison opened to house French prisoners-of-war. The first convicts weren't imprisoned there until 1850
1830 The first passenger railroad in the US began service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills, Maryland
1833 W. Logie of Montreal became the first person to receive a medical degree in Canada, earning his degree from McGill University
1844 Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the message, ''What hath God wrought!'' from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened the US's first telegraph line in a demonstration witnessed by members of Congress. The message was taken from the Bible, Numbers 23:23. Morse, an accomplished painter, learned of a French inventor's idea of an electric telegraph in 1832, and then spent the next twelve years attempting to perfect a working telegraph instrument. During this period he also composed the Morse code, a set of signals that could represent language in telegraph messages, and convinced Congress to finance a Washington to Baltimore telegraph line. Just a decade after the first line opened, over twenty thousand miles of telegraph cable criss-crossed the US
1860 The Queen's Plate horse race was run for the first time in Ontario. It is the oldest continuously run stakes race in North America
1862 London's Westminster Bridge was opened
1875 The North West Mounted Police staged a snake-killing meet at the Swan River post in Saskatchewan. Over 1,100 serpents were killed
1881 The excursion steamboat Princess Victoria, a flat-bottomed stern-wheeler, sank on Canada's Thames River near Riverside Park in London, Ontario with the loss of 181 lives
1883 After fourteen years and twenty-seven deaths, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River was finally completed, connecting the cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. With schools and businesses closed in honour of the event, hundreds turned out to witness the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, Brooklyn Bridge, featuring two stately stone towers, was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date. Weeks after construction began in 1869, Roebling was killed while making observations to determine the exact location of the Brooklyn tower. He was the first of over two dozen people who would die trying to complete the bridge. His son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. The foundations of the bridge were built in timber caissons sunk to depths of forty-four feet on the Brooklyn piers and seventy-eight feet on the New York side. Compressed air pressurised the watertight caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions, and many workers suffered from serious cases of compression sickness. Several died, and Washington Roebling himself became bed-ridden from the bends in 1872. Nevertheless, he continued to direct construction operations from his home and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877, Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge. As the bridge entered its final stages, Roebling's health gradually improved, and he was able to attend its dedication. Soon after its opening, the Brooklyn Bridge, which stretched 1,595 feet across the East River, was dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World. The connection it provided between the massive population centres of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City
1899 The first public parking garage in the US was established in Boston, Massachusetts by W.T. McCullough as the Back Bay Cycle and Motor Company. McCullough advertised the garage's opening as a "stable for renting, sale, storage, and repair of motor vehicles"
1918 The Dominion Bureau of Statistics, now Statistics Canada, was established
1918 Parliament passed the Canada Elections Act, giving all Canadian women over 21, the right to vote in federal elections
1932 A bill was passed establishing a national broadcasting system for Canada which would be called The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or the CBC
1935 The first major league baseball game played at night took place in Cincinnati. The Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2 to 1
1941 During the Battle of the Denmark Strait, German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Iceland. The Bismarck was the most modern of Germany's battleships, a prize coveted by other nation's navies. The HMS Hood, originally launched in 1918, was Britain's largest battlecruiser, at 41,200 tons, but she was also capable of achieving the relatively fast speed of 31 knots. The two met in the North Atlantic, where two British cruisers had shadowed the Bismarck and her escort cruiser. Commanded by Admiral Gunther Lutjens, the Bismarck sunk the Hood, resulting in the death of 1,500 of its crew, leaving only three survivors. During the engagement, one of the Bismarck's fuel tanks was damaged by the battleship accompanying HMS Hood. Lutjens tried to make for the French coast, but was sighted again by the British only three days later. The Bismarck was then sunk off the coast of France
1959 The first home with a built-in nuclear bomb shelter was exhibited in Pennsylvania
1992 Al Unser Jr. became the first second-generation winner of the Indianapolis 500. His father, four-time winner Al Unser, finished third