Born this Day

1443 Margaret Beaufort - English mother of King Henry VII, she founded St. John's & Christ's Colleges
1819 Walt Whitman - US poet (The Leaves of Grass, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, O Captain! My Captain!) He was born in West Hill, Long Island, and raised in Brooklyn. He left school at the age of 14 to become a journeyman printer and later worked as a teacher, journalist, editor, and carpenter to support his writing. Whitman sometimes took long ferry and coach rides as an excuse to talk with people, and was also fond of long walks and cultural events in Manhattan. In 1862, Whitman's brother was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Whitman went to care for him. He spent the rest of the war comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. After the war, Whitman worked for several government departments
1841 William Rockefeller - US industrialist and financier who helped to establish Standard Oil with his brother
1847 William James Pirrie, Lord Pirrie of Belfast – Quebec-born Irish shipbuilder who built the Titanic
1894 Fred Allen - Comedian and radio star (Allen's Alley, The Fred Allen Show, The Linit Bath Club Revue, What’s My Line?)
1898 Dr. Norman Vincent Peale - Clergyman who had a radio ministry and syndicated newspaper column. He was also an author (The Power of Positive Thinking)
1908 Don Ameche - Actor (Cocoon, Trading Places, Corinna Corinna, Down Argentine Way, Harry and the Hendersons, Oscar)
1922 Denholm Elliott - British character actor of stage, screen and television (A Room with a View, The Bourne Identity, The Boys from Brazil, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Voyage of the Damned, Trading Places, King Rat, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, A Bridge Too Far, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rising Damp, The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It) He also appeared in two productions of The Hound of the Baskervilles, playing Stapleton in 1978, and Dr. Mortimer in 1983
1923 Prince Rainer III – He was the Head of State of Monaco who married US film star, Grace Kelly
1930 Clint Eastwood - US actor and director (The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Dirty Harry, Play Misty for Me, Rawhide, Paint Your Wagon, Kelly's Heros, High Plains Drifter, Firefox, Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, Space Cowboys)
1934 Jim Hutton – Actor (Ellery Queen, Where the Boys Are, Bachelor in Paradise, The Green Berets, Hell Fighters, Major Dundee) He was the father of actor Timothy Hutton
1938 Peter Yarrow - Folk singer with the group Peter, Paul and Mary (Leaving on a Jet Plane, Puff the Magic Dragon, If I Had a Hammer)
1938 Johnny Paycheck - Country singer (Take This Job and Shove It, Don't Take Her She's All I Got, Motel Time Again, Jukebox Charlie)
1943 Sharon Gless - Actress (Burn Notice, Cagney & Lacey, Switch, The Star Chamber, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, Queer as Folk, The State Within)
1943 Joe Namath - Pro Football Hall of Famer known as Broadway Joe, who played quarterback for the New York Jets
1948 John Bonham – British drummer with Led Zeppelin (Whole Lotta Love, Ramble On, Immigrant Song)
1948 Lynda Bellingham – Canadian-born British actress (At Home with the Braithwaites, My Uncle Silas, Faith in the Future, Second Thoughts, All Creatures Great and Small, The Bill) She played Janice Wyatt in the movie Sweeney! She also played Nancy King in The Sweeney episode Trojan Bus
1949 Tom Berenger - Actor (If Tomorrow Comes, Platoon, Sliver, The Big Chill, Eddie and the Cruisers, Gettysburg, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Hatfields & McCoys, XIII: The Series, Inception, October Road, Born on the Fourth of July)
1950 Gregory Harrison - Actor (Trapper John MD, Family Man, Falcon Crest)
1957 Kyle Secor - Actor (Homicide: Life on the Street, Party of Five, Sleeping With the Enemy, City of Angels, Women’s Murder Club, Hidden Palms, Commander in Chief)
1960 Chris Elliott – Actor (Groundhog Day, Eagleheart, Cursed, Scary Movie 2, There’s Something About Mary, Saturday Night Live, Cabin Boy, Get a Life, The Abyss, Late Night With David Letterman)
1961 Lea Thompson - Actress (Caroline in the City, Back to the Future movies, SpaceCamp, Howard the Duck, Switched at Birth, J. Edgar, Thin Ice)
1963 Hugh Dillon – Canadian actor (Flashpoint, Durham County, The Trailer Park Boys: The Movie)
1965 Brooke Shields - Actress and child model (The Blue Lagoon, Pretty Baby, Brenda Starr, Suddenly Susan, Lipstick Jungle) She was also an Ivory Snow baby
1972 Archie Panjabi – British actress (The Good Wife, Bend it Like Beckham, The Constant Gardener, Grease Monkeys, The Fall, Postman Pat, Canterbury Tales, Blindspot, Departure)
1976 Colin Farrell – Irish actor (Alexander, Minority Report, Ballykissangel, American Outlaws, Phone Booth, Fright Night, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus)
1977 Eric Christian Olsen – Actor (NCIS: Los Angeles, Hero Factory, The Back-Up Plan, The Thing, Tru Calling, Not Another Teen Movie)


Died this Day

1809 Franz Joseph Haydn – Austrian composer, died in Vienna
1983 Jack Dempsey - US boxer and former World Heavyweight Champion


On this Day

1578 Martin Frobisher left England on a voyage that led to the discovery of Hudson Strait. He sailed with a fleet of 15 ships to build a settlement at Frobisher Bay and mine the 'gold' ore found there a year earlier. The 2,000 tons of 'gold' ore he mined proved to be worthless pyrites, and were eventually used to pave the streets of London
1759 Lawmakers in Pennsylvania adopted a law forbidding the performance of plays. The law was adopted in response to pressure from religious groups, particularly Baptists, who found theatrical performances immoral. Anyone found guilty of putting on a play was fined £500
1793 An act making it possible for public servants to perform marriages was passed in Upper Canada
1794 Upper Canada passed the Alien Act, to guard against anti-British sentiment
1831 James Ross discovered Bellot Strait, in the North West Territories. It divides Somerset Island from the mainland of Boothia Peninsula, which is the northernmost point of the North American continent
1859 London's famous clock, commonly called Big Ben, began telling time from this day. The name Big Ben actually refers to the clock's 13 ton bell, and not the clock itself
1870 Professor Edward Joseph De Smedt of the American Asphalt Pavement Company, New York City, received two patents for his invention known as "French asphalt pavement." De Smedt had invented the first practical version of sheet asphalt
1877 Canadian medical degrees became acceptable to Britain
1889 The Johnstown Flood devastated a river valley on the Appalachian Plateau, as a neglected dam and a phenomenal storm led to a catastrophe in which over 2,200 people died, tens of thousands were left homeless, and a prospering city, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was nearly wiped off the face of the earth. Johnstown was located on the Conemaugh River at the mouth of Stony Creek, fourteen miles downstream from Lake Conemaugh, a recreational lake of the prestigious South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Lake Conemaugh was held back by the South Fork Dam, which was owned and maintained by the sporting club. By 1889, the dam was in need of repairs, and when particularly severe torrential rains struck the area in late May, the president of the club sent telegraphs to Johnstown and other nearby towns warning that the dam might soon break. Flooding was a familiar occurrence in the valley, and most Johnstown residents took no more precaution than usual, casually moving their belongings to the second story of their homes. On the 31st, engineers at the dam realised its collapse was imminent, and sent riders down the valley to evacuate area residents, but few heeded the warning. Just after three o'clock in the afternoon the South Fork Dam collapsed, and twenty million tons of water went roaring down the valley toward Johnstown. The flood swept through the communities of South Fork, Mineral Point, Woodvale, and East Conemaugh, accumulating debris, which included trees, houses, barns, animals, and people, both dead and alive. By the time it reached Johnstown, the flood appeared as a rolling hill of debris about thirty feet high and nearly half-a-mile wide. With one great swoop, over one thousand Johnstown buildings were demolished and sent tumbling down the roaring torrent. Over two thousand people were killed or drowned within minutes, and many bodies were washed several miles down the valley. Among the survivors of the calamity, there was scarcely an individual who had not lost a friend or relative in the Johnstown Flood. Despite the great scope of the tragedy, reconstruction of the devastated community began almost immediately, and the American Red Cross arrived to construct shelters for homeless residents while tons of relief supplies arrived from well-wishers around the country
1902 The Boer War officially ended, as representatives of Great Britain and the Boers states signed the Treaty of Vereeniging, in Pretoria. The Boers, also known as Afrikaners, were the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of southern Africa. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, Britain took possession of the Dutch Cape colony, sparking resistance from the independence-minded Boers, who resented the Anglicisation of South Africa and Britain's anti-slavery policies. In 1833, the Boers began an exodus into African tribal territory, where they founded the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The two new republics lived peaceably with their British neighbours until 1867, when the discovery of diamonds and gold in the region made conflict between the Boer states and Britain inevitable. Following declarations of independence from the Boer states during the 1880s, minor fighting with Britain ensued before the outbreak of full-scale war in 1899
1904 Byron J. Carter received a US patent for his "friction-drive" mechanism, which replaced the conventional transmission to provide more precise control of a car's speed. At the time of the device's release, a newspaper explained that the friction-drive mechanism "used friction discs, instead of gears, so arranged as to be instantly changed to any desired speed. The discs also change to forward or backward movement, and can be used as a brake to stop the machine by reversing the lever." Carter's friction drive never really caught on, however, the technology involved in the friction-drive is related to today's disc brakes
1910 Lord Baden-Powell's sister, Agnes, announced the formation of the Girl Guides
1913 The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of US senators, was declared in effect
1961 South Africa became a republic, independent of the Commonwealth
1967 Queen Elizabeth II gave twelve white swans to the City of Ottawa as her Confederation gift to celebrate Canada’s 100th birthday. The swans were flown from England to Canada
1970 An earthquake killed 70,000 people in Peru, in what experts called "the most destructive earthquake in the Western hemisphere"
1977 The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was completed after three years of work