Born this Day

1832 Nikolaus August Otto – German inventor of the four-stroke internal combustion engine in 1876, which was highly successful. More than 30,000 were sold, but his patent was revoked in 1886, when an earlier patent by French engineer Alphonse Beau de Rochas came to light
1844 Carl Hagenbeck – German animal dealer and trainer, who demonstrated that it was possible to control wild animals by kindness, not fear, and that they had surprising intelligence. He also created an open air zoo near Hamburg, which was the prototype for the safari parks of the future
1895 Hattie McDaniel - Actress (Gone with the Wind, Judge Priest, The Little Colonel, Showboat, Saratoga, Since You Went Away) She was the first African-American to win an Oscar
1904 Frederick Loewe – German born US composer (Gigi, My Fair Lady, Brigadoon, Camelot, Paint Your Wagon) He worked with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner
1908 Robert Cummings - Actor (Twelve Angry Men, Love That Bob, The Bob Cummings Show, My Hero, Dial M for Murder, The Carpetbaggers, King’s Row, Saboteur) He was also in My Living Doll! with Julie Newmar
1910 Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett) - Blues singer (How Many More Years, Smoke Stack Lightning, Evil)
1911 Sir Terence Rattigan – British playwright (The VIPs, The Winslow Boy, The Day Will Dawn, French Without Tears, Separate Tables)
1915 Saul Bellow – Canadian born US author (The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet, Dangling Man, The Victim, Henderson the Rain King, Humboldt's Gift, The Bellarosa Connection)
1918 Barry Morse – British actor (The Fugitive, A Tale of Two Cities, Asylum, Glory! Glory!, Master of the Game, Space: 1999, Riel, The Shape of Things To Come, The Martian Chronicles, TekWar) He played Morstan in a 1987 production of The Return of Sherlock Holmes
1921 Prince Philip (Mountbatten) - Duke of Edinburgh. He was married to Queen Elizabeth II
1922 Judy Garland - Singer (Over the Rainbow, The Trolley Song, You Made Me Love You, The Man that Got Away) and actress (The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star is Born, Easter Parade, The Harvey Girls, Judgement at Nuremberg) She was the mother of Liza Minnelli and Lorna & Joey Luft
1923 Robert Maxwell - Czechoslovak-born British publisher and chairman of the Mirror Group
1926 Lionel Jeffries – British actor (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Who Slew Aunty Roo?, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Colditz Story, Doctor at Large, Camelot) He played Charles Radford in the Inspector Morse episode The Sins of the Fathers
1926 June Haver - Actress (I’ll Get By, The Dolly Sisters, Look for the Silver Lining, Love Nest)
1937 Luciana Paluzzi – Italian actress (Three Coins in the Fountain, Return to Peyton Place, The Klansmen, Thunderball, One-Eyed Soldiers)
1941 Jürgen Prochnow – German actor (The English Patient, Das Boot, The Keep, Dune, Beverly Hills Cop II)
1941 Shirley Owens Alston - Singer with The Shirelles (Will You Love Me Tomorrow, Soldier Boy, Tonight's the Night, Dedicated to the One I Love, Baby It's You, Foolish Little Girl)
1949 Kevin Corcoran - Actor (A Tiger Walks, Johnny Shiloh, Old Yeller, Savage Sam, The Shaggy Dog)
1955 Andrew Stevens - Actor (Code Red, Dallas, Emerald Point NAS, Illicit Dreams, Scorned, The Terror Within, The Rebel) He is the son of actress, Stella Stevens
1962 Gina Gershon – Actress (Rescue Me, Face/Off, Ugly Betty, Out of Season, Snoops, The Insider, Red Heat)
1963 Jeanne Tripplehorn – Actress (Mickey Blue Eyes, Big Love, Sliding Doors, Waterworld, The Firm, Basic Instinct, Winged Creatures)
1964 Ben Daniels – British actor (Law & Order: UK, The Passion, Marple: 4.50 from Paddington, Cutting It)
1964 Kate Flannery – Actress (The Office, Spyder Games, Carolina, , Can’t Stop Dancing)
1965 Elizabeth Hurley – British model and actress (Passenger 57, Sharpe’s Enemy, Austin Powers, Gossip Girl, Serving Sara) She appeared in the movie Mad Dogs and Englishmen with Jeremy Brett She was also in the Inspector Morse episode Last Seen Wearing
1966 Doug McKeon - Actor (On Golden Pond, Turnaround, Breaking Home Ties, Mischief, Desperate Lives, Night Crossing) He is the brother of actress, Nancy McKeon
1978 Shane West – Actor (ER, Once and Again, Nikita, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, A Walk to Remember, Liberty Heights)
1985 Susannah Fielding – British actress (Wallander: Firewall, Pete Versus Life, First Night, She Stoops to Conquer)


Died this Day

1190 Frederick I (Barbarossa) – Holy Roman Emperor. He met with a sudden death while crossing the River Saleph in Asia Minor, as he led the Third Crusade to free Jerusalem from Saladin
1692 Bridget Bishop – The first colonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, hanged after being found guilty of the practice of witchcraft, in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Trouble in the small Puritan community began in February that year, when 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece, respectively, of the Reverend Samuel Parris, began experiencing fits and other mysterious maladies. A doctor concluded that the children were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, and the young girls corroborated the doctor's diagnosis. Under compulsion from the doctor and their parents, the girls named those allegedly responsible for their suffering. On March 1st, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, became the first Salem residents to be charged with the capital crime of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba confessed to the crime and aided the authorities in identifying more witches. With encouragement from adults in the community, the girls, who were soon joined by other "afflicted" Salem residents, accused a widening circle of local residents of witchcraft, mostly middle-aged women but also several men and even one four-year-old child. During the next few months, the afflicted area residents incriminated more than 150 women and men from Salem Village and the surrounding areas of the dark practices. In June 1692, the special Court of Oyer and Terminer convened in Salem to judge the accused. The first to be tried was Bridget Bishop of Salem, who was accused of witchcraft by more individuals than any other defendant. Bishop, known around town for her dubious moral character, frequented taverns, dressed flamboyantly (by Puritan standards), and was married three times. She professed her innocence but was found guilty and executed by hanging. Thirteen more women and five men from all stations of life followed her to the gallows, and one man, Giles Corey, was executed by crushing for refusing to plead. Most of those tried were condemned on the basis of the witnesses' behavior during the actual proceedings, characterized by fits and hallucinations that were argued to have been caused by the defendants on trial. In October 1692, Governor William Phipps of Massachusetts ordered the Court of Oyer and Terminer dissolved and replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which forbade the type of sensational testimony allowed in the earlier trials. Executions ceased, and the Superior Court eventually released all those awaiting trial and pardoned those sentenced to death. The Salem witch trials, which resulted in the executions of 19 innocent women and men, had effectively ended
1727 George I – King of England, in Osnabrück on his way to Hanover, which he much preferred to London
1836 André Ampère, age 61 – French physicist who experimented with magnets, and after whom the electrical unit amp is named
1937 Sir Robert Borden – The 8th Prime Minister of Canada. He died 3 weeks before his 83rd birthday
1967 Spencer Tracy, age 67 – US actor (Captains Courageous, Boys Town, Adam's Rib, Desk Set, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner)
1976 Adolph Zukor - Movie mogul and founder of the Famous Players Film Company. He was a successful Chicago furrier when he entered the entertainment business in the early 1900s, by financing penny arcades. In 1905, he partnered with Marcus Loew, and the two developed the Loew's cinema chain. In 1912, Zukor distributed the European film Queen Elizabeth in the US and invested his proceeds into his own production company, Famous Players Film Company. He merged the company with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1915, and the new company eventually evolved into Paramount
1988 Louis L'Amour, age 80 – US author born in Jamestown, ND. (The Lonesome Gods, Jubal Sackett, Hondo, Lonigan, The Sackett Companion) He wrote with a meticulous attention to details and historical accuracy, using extensive historical research to ensure authenticity. In recognition of his vivid depictions of the US's past, Congress awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal in 1983
2004 Ray Charles, age 73 – Singer known as 'The Genius' (Georgia on My Mind, Let the Good Times Roll, Hit the Road Jack, I Can't Stop Loving You, Busted, Crying Time, Living for the City, What'd I Say, One Mint Julep, Take These Chains from My Heart, You Don't Know Me) and actor (The Blues Brothers, Ballad in Blue, Limit Up)


On this Day

1527 Royal Navy Captain John Rut, sent by King Henry VIII, sailed from Gravesend, England on the Mary Guildford and the Samson. They were on an expedition to find a passage to Asia. The Samson was lost at sea on the voyage
1650 The Jesuits closed their last mission in Huronia, now Midland, Ontario, which had been established in 1623. They returned to Québec carrying the bleached bones of two martyrs, Fathers Jean de Brebeuf and Jerome Lalament, who had been tortured and killed by the Iroquois. The Hurons also fled to Quebec, and settled at Lorette
1791 The Constitutional Act was passed by British Parliament, providing for the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, each with a separate government
1793 The first public zoo, the Jardin des Plantes, opened in Paris
1801 The North African state of Tripoli declared war on the US in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean
1829 The first Oxford and Cambridge boat race took place from Hambledon Lock to Henley Bridge, a distance of 2-1/4 miles. It was won by Oxford
1865 The first performance of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde took place in Munich. Bet Morse would have loved that!
1881 Count Leo Tolstoy set off on a pilgrimage to a monastery disguised as a peasant. He had already written his two greatest masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The Russian nobleman was engaged in a spiritual struggle and felt torn between his responsibility as a wealthy landlord to improve the lot of the people, and his desire to give up his property and wander the land as an ascetic
1884 Louis Riel left a teaching post in Montana to return to Canada to lead what would become the Northwest Rebellion
1909 The first SOS signal was sent out by the Cunard liner SS Slavonia, when she was wrecked off the Azores. The signals were picked up by vessels close by who took part in the rescue operation
1925 The United Church of Canada held its inaugural service in Toronto. The church was formed by the merger of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches
1935 Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by William Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, two recovering alcoholics, one a New York broker and the other an Ohio physician. AA is a 12-step rehabilitation program that helps people cope with alcoholism
1940 Italy declared war on France and Britain, and Canada declared war on Italy
1943 Lazlo Biró, a Hungarian hypnotist, sculptor and journalist, patented his ballpoint pen, which he first devised in 1938. The first pens went on sale in 1946, manufactured by a British company. Many British TV shows refer to a ballpoint pen as a “Biro”
1946 Italy replaced its abolished monarchy with a republic
1947 President Harry S. Truman began a two-day visit to Ottawa. He was the first US president to pay a state visit to Canada
1965 A BEA de Havilland jet airliner from Paris made the first automatic landing, relying entirely on instruments, at London’s Heathrow Airport
1966 The movie, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, received the Production Code Seal of Approval. It was the first film containing four-letter words to be approved
1971 Canada and the US agreed in principle on a joint attack on pollution in the Great Lakes. And Ottawa established the Department of the Environment
1992 Canada won a contentious boundary dispute with France over waters off southern Newfoundland. The International Court of Arbitration confined French territory to a 24-nautical-mile patch of ocean around the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. France was also given a narrow, 200-mile-long corridor stretching south. The ruling gave France only about 18 per cent of what it was seeking