Born this Day

1740 Comte Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (Marquis de Sade) - French nobleman and writer (Justine) who was imprisoned for his perversions
1840 Thomas Hardy – British novelist and poet (Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure)
1857 Sir Edward Elgar – British composer (Enigma, Pomp and Circumstance)
1904 Johnny Weissmuller – Romanian born US Olympic gold medal swimmer and actor famous for his numerous portrayals of Tarzan and Jungle Jim
1917 Max Showalter - Actor (Racing with the Moon, Sixteen Candles)
1927 Carl Butler - Country entertainer, songwriter (Don't Let Me Cross Over, I Never Got Over You, Loving Arms, Just Thought I'd Let You Know)
1932 Sammy Turner - Singer (Lavender-Blue, Always)
1935 Carol Shields – Author (The Stone Diaries, Small Ceremonies, Swann, The Republic of Love, Larry’s Party)
1936 Sally Kellerman - Actress (M*A*S*H, Boris and Natasha, Back to School, The Boston Strangler, Brewster McCloud)
1941 Stacy Keach - Actor (Mike Hammer, Conduct Unbecoming, Sunset Grill, Texas, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Road Games, The Long Riders, Brewster McCloud, Titus) He is the son of Stacy Keach Sr, and the brother of James Keach
1941 Charlie Watts - Drummer with the Rolling Stones (Satisfaction, Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar)
1943 Charles Haid - Actor (Hill Street Blues, Delvecchio, Altered States, The Fire Next Time, Children in the Crossfire)
1944 Marvin Hamlisch - Pianist, composer (The Sting, The Way We Were, A Chorus Line)
1948 Jerry Mathers - Actor (Leave It to Beaver, The Trouble with Harry, Back to the Beach)
1950 Joanna Gleason – Canadian-born actress (Heartburn, Hannah and Her Sisters, Hello Larry, Crimes and Misdemeanours, Love and War, Oh Baby, Bette, The Wedding Planner) She is the daughter of Winnipeg-born Monty Hall
1954 Dennis Haysbert – Actor (24, The Unit, Empire, Random Hearts, Waiting to Exhale, Heat, Return to Lonesome Dove, Queen, Navy Seals)
1955 Dana Carvey – Actor/comedian (Saturday Night Live, Wayne’s World, Blue Thunder, This is Spinal Tap)
1960 Pip Torrens – British actor (Bodyguards, Pride & Prejudice, The Iron Lady, Dorian Gray, Miss Austen Regrets, Poirot: The Mystery of the Spanish Chest, Broken News, Marple: 4.50 from Paddington, To Play the King, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Little Dorrit, The Lenny Henry Show) He played Miles Petersham in the Kavanagh QC episode Nothing But the Truth
1961 Liam Cunningham – Irish actor (Game of Thrones, Outcasts, Clash of the Titans, Centurion, Northanger Abbey, Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness, Roughnecks, A Little Princess)
1972 Wentworth Miller – British-born U.S. actor (Prison Break, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Underworld, The Human Stain)
1972 Wayne Brady – Actor (The Wayne Brady Show, Geppetto, On Promised Land, Whose Line Is It Anyway?)
1977 Zachary Quinto – Actor (Heroes, Star Trek, 24, So Notorious, American Horror Story, Margin Call)
1978 Justin Long – Actor (Galaxy Quest, Ed, New Girl, The Conspirator, Live Free or Die Hard, Herbie Fully Loaded)
1978 Nikki Cox – Actress (Las Vegas, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, The Glimmer Man, General Hospital, The Ryan White Story)
1979 Morena Baccarin – Brazilian-born actress (Firefly, V, Heartland, Sands of Oblivion, Serenity, Homeland, Gotham)
1982 Jewel Staite – Canadian actress (DaVinci’s Inquest, Stargate: Atlantis, Firefly, Wonderfalls, Higher Ground, Serenity, Flash Forward, The L.A. Complex, Mothman, The Killing, Family Law)
1988 Awkwafina – Actress (Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, Quiz Lady, Jumanji: The Next Level, The Farewell)


Died this Day

1941 Lou Gehrig - Baseball's “Iron Horse”, died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which is now commonly called Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He died three weeks before his 38th birthday
1962 Victoria Sackville-West – British author and poet (All Passion Spent, Poems of West and East, Orchard and Vineyard, The Edwardians)
1983 Stan Rogers, age 33 - Canadian folk singer (Watching the Apples Grow, Dark Eyed Molly, Evangeline, Take It From Day to Day, Guysborough Train, Northwest Passage, Barrett's Privateers, Make and Break Harbour, The Mary Ellen Carter) He died on an Air Canada flight on its way from Texas that caught fire and made an emergency landing in Cincinnati. He was one of 23, out of the 46 passengers and crew, who would die of smoke and flames due to a fire caused by someone smoking in a washroom
1990 Rex Harrison, age 82 – British actor (Doctor Doolittle, Blithe Spirit, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Cleopatra, The Fifth Musketeer) He was in the movie, My Fair Lady, and the Broadway play Aren’t We All?, with Jeremy Brett


On this Day

1615 The first missionaries to come to Canada, the Récoletts, arrived in Quebec, from Rouen. They built Canada’s first monastery and chapel
1780 Lord George Gordon led the “No Popery”, or “Gordon Riots” in protest at the ending of penalties against Roman Catholics
1800 In Trinity, Newfoundland, John Clinch administered the first smallpox vaccination in North America
1835 P.T. Barnum's circus began its first tour of the US
1851 Maine became the first state to enact a law prohibiting alcohol
1865 In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the US Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signed the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith's surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in US history, at the total cost of 620,000 Union and Confederate dead
1886 President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room of the White House. Fewer than 40 people were present to witness the 49-year-old president exchange vows with Frances, who at 21 years of age became the youngest first lady in US history. Frances was the daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. After her father's death, Cleveland, a devoted family friend, administered her estate. When Frances entered Wells College, Cleveland, then the governor of New York, asked Mrs. Folsom's permission to correspond with the young lady. After his inauguration as president in 1885, Frances visited Cleveland at the executive mansion. Despite a 27-year difference in age, their affection turned to romance. Frances, who replaced Cleveland's sister Rose Elizabeth as official White House hostess, won immediate popularity for her good looks and unaffected charm. After the president's defeat in his 1888 reelection bid, the Clevelands lived in New York City, where their first child, Ruth, was born in 1891. In 1892, in an event unprecedented in US political history, the out-of-office Cleveland was again elected president. In 1893, the first family saw the birth of their second child, Esther, who was the first child of a president to be born in the White House. When Grover Cleveland left the presidency in 1897, his wife had become one of the most popular first ladies in history. In 1908, she was at his side when he died at their home in Princeton, New Jersey. Five years later, she married Thomas J. Preston Jr., a professor of archaeology at Princeton University
1896 Guglielmo Marconi received a patent for his wireless broadcasting system using electromagnetic waves
1897 Responding to rumours, Mark Twain, 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that “the report of my death was an exaggeration”
1924 With Congress' passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, the government of the US conferred citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country. Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native Americans of one-half or less Indian blood. In the Reconstruction period, progressive Republicans in Congress sought to accelerate the granting of citizenship to friendly tribes, though state support for these measures was often limited. In 1888, most Native American women married to US citizens were conferred with citizenship, and in 1919 Native American veterans of World War I were offered citizenship. In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act, an all-inclusive act, was passed by Congress. The privileges of citizenship, however, were largely governed by state law, and the right to vote was often denied to Native Americans in the early 20th century
1937 In London’s Regent’s Park, Robert and Edward Kennedy opened the Children’s Zoo, the first of its type in the world
1953 Queen Elizabeth II was formally crowned monarch of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. On February 6, 1952, her father, King George VI, died and Elizabeth was immediately proclaimed Britain's new monarch, but remained in seclusion for the first three months of her reign, as she was in mourning. During the remainder of 1952, she began to perform routine duties of the sovereign, and in June, 1953, her coronation was held at Westminster Abbey. The ceremony at London's Westminster Abbey was one of pomp and pageantry, and the characteristically poised Elizabeth delivered in a solemn and clear voice the coronation oath that bound her to the service of the people of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth. A thousand dignitaries and guests attended the coronation at Westminster, and hundreds of millions listened on radio and for the first time watched the proceedings on live television. After the ceremony, millions of rain-drenched spectators cheered the 27-year-old queen and her husband, the 30-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, as they passed along a five-mile procession route in a gilded horse-drawn carriage. In the procession, through the streets of London, Elizabeth and her husband were joined by representatives from the more than 40 member states of the Commonwealth, including heads of state, sultans, and prime ministers. British troops like the Yeomen of the Guard were joined by a great variety of Commonwealth troops, including police from the Solomon Islands, Malaysians in white uniforms and green sarongs, Pakistanis in puggaree head-dresses, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and New Zealanders and Australians in wide-brimmed hats. After the parade, Elizabeth stood with her family on the Buckingham Palace balcony and waved to the crowd as jet planes of the Royal Air Force flew across the Mall in tight formation
1962 Britain’s first legal casino opened at the Metropole, Brighton
1979 Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland. It was the first visit by a pope to a Communist country