Born this Day

1330 Edward, The Black Prince – Eldest son of King Edward III. He got his popular title because he wore black armour in battle
1789 Josiah Henson – US slave, born in Charles County, Maryland. In 1830, Henson escaped to Canada where he founded a settlement at Dawn, Ontario. He also founded a labourer's school, the British American Institute, for fugitive American slaves. Henson was the model for the leading character in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin
1815 Hablot Knight Browne – British illustrator who depicted Dickens' characters
1843 Edvard Grieg - Norwegian composer (Peer Gynt Suite)
1880 Nagano Osami - Japanese admiral who planned the Pearl Harbour attack
1910 David Rose - Composer of scores (Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol)
1917 Lash LaRue - Actor (Pair of Aces, Thundering Trail, Wyatt Earp, Lash of the West)
1917 Leon Payne - Country artist, songwriter (I Love You Because, Lost Highway, They'll Never Take Her Love, I Heard My Heart Break Last Night, The Blue Side of Lonesome)
1923 Erroll Garner - Jazz pianist (Misty, Dreamy, That's My Kick, Moment's Delight, Solitaire)
1937 Waylon Jennings - Country singer (My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Good Hearted Woman, Luckenbach Texas, Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard) and actor (Nashville Rebel, Stagecoach, Urban Cowboy) He also played bass with Buddy Holly and The Crickets. He was supposed to have been on the plane with Buddy Holly that crashed, but instead, gave his seat to J.P. Richardson, The Big Bopper
1941 Harry Nilsson - Singer (Everybody's Talkin, Without You, Me and My Arrow, Coconut)
1945 Nicola Pagett – Egyptian-born British actress (Upstairs Downstairs, Anne of a Thousand Days, There’s a Girl in My Soup, Oliver’s Story, Privates on Parade) She played Sara Prince in The Sweeney episode Stoppo Driver
1946 Janet Lennon – Singer with the Lennon Sisters, who often appeared on the Lawrence Welk Show
1949 Jim Varney - Actor (The Beverly Hillbillies Movie, Fernwood 2Nite, Operation Petticoat, Toy Story, Ernest Goes to Camp)
1954 Jim Belushi - Actor (Saturday Night Live, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Red Heat, The Principal, Canadian Bacon, Men at Work, Wild Palms, Trading Places, Beggars & Choosers, According to Jim) John Belushi was his brother
1955 Julie Hagerty - Actress (Airplane!, What About Bob?, Princesses)
1963 Helen Hunt - Actress (Mad About You, Twister, Kiss of Death, My Life and Times, As Good As It Gets)
1964 Courtney Cox - Actress (Cougartown, Friends, Misfits of Science, Scream, Dirt)
1970 Leah Remini – Actress (The King of Queens, Follow Your Heart, Saved by the Bell)
1973 Neil Patrick Harris - Actor (How I Met Your Mother, Doogie Howser MD, My Antonia, Snowbound, Starship Troopers, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)
1975 Elizabeth Reaser – Actress (Twilight, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, New Moon, Eclipse)
1978 Anna Torv – Australian actress (Fringe, McLeod’s Daughters, The Secret Life of Us, Young Lions)


Died this Day

1381 Wat Tyler – Leader of the Peasant's Revolt, which had started two days earlier. King Richard II met Tyler at Smithfield, and during the meeting, the mayor of London lunged at the rebel leader with a sword, fatally wounding him. His body was beheaded, and his head displayed on a pole in a London field for several weeks
1849 James Polk - The 11th President of the US. He died in Nashville, Tennessee
1993 John Connally, age 76 - Former Texas Governor who was wounded in the gunfire that killed President Kennedy
1996 Ella Fitzgerald, age 78 – Jazz singer known as The First Lady of Song (Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home, Mack the Knife, A-Tisket A-Tasket) One of the most influential singers of the big band swing era, Fitzgerald enjoyed five decades of popularity and continued performing until her death. She died in Beverly Hills, California
2003 Hume Cronyn – Canadian-born actor (Sunrise at Campobello, The Seventh Cross, Cocoon, The Four Poster, Fox Fire, The Parallax View, The Gin Game, *batteries not included, A Doll's House, The Postman Always Rings Twice) He died a month before his 92nd birthday


On this Day

1215 King John put his royal seal on the Magna Carta at Runnymede, near Windsor. The document, essentially a peace treaty between John and his barons, guaranteed that the king would respect feudal rights and privileges, uphold the freedom of the church, and maintain the nation's laws. John became King of England following the death of his brother, King Richard the Lion-Hearted, in 1199. King John's reign was characterised by failure, resulting in heavy taxation of the English nobility to pay for his misadventures. He quarrelled with the Pope, and sold church offices to build up the depleted royal coffers. The Archbishop of Canterbury called on the disgruntled barons to demand a charter of liberties from the king. In 1215, the barons rose up in rebellion against the king's abuse of feudal law and custom, and John, faced with a superior force, had no choice but to give in to their demands. The document, drawn up for John in June 1215, forced the king to make specific guarantees of the rights and privileges of his barons and the freedom of the church. John met the barons at Runnymede on the Thames and set his seal to the Articles of the Barons, which was formally issued as the Magna Carta. The document was remarkable in that it implied there were laws the king was bound to observe, thus precluding any future claim to absolutism by the English monarch. In immediate terms, the Magna Carta was a failure: civil war broke out the same year, and John ignored his obligations under the charter. After John’s death in 1216, his son, King Henry III, instigated numerous reissues before it formally entered English statute law in 1225. Although more a reactionary than a progressive document in its day, the Magna Carta was seen as a cornerstone in the development of democratic England by later generations. It has been subject to a great deal of historical exaggeration, as it did not establish Parliament, as some have claimed, nor did it more than vaguely allude to the liberal democratic ideals of later centuries. However, as a symbol of the sovereignty of the rule of law, it was of fundamental importance to the constitutional development of England. Four original copies of the Magna Carta of 1215 exist today: one in Lincoln Cathedral, one in Salisbury Cathedral, and two in the British Museum
1300 Italian poet, Dante Alighieri (The Divine Comedy) became one of six priors of Florence, active in governing the city
1775 The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army
1811 On Vancouver Island, John Jacob Astor's ship, the Tonquin, was attacked by local Nootka Indians who killed the sailors and destroyed the ship the next day. It was the end of the New York fur trader's hopes for north-west coast trade in competition with Britain’s North West Company
1825 The foundation stone of the New London Bridge was laid by the Duke of York. The bridge now spans Lake Havasu in Arizona
1836 Arkansas became the 25th state of the Union
1844 Charles Goodyear patented his vulcanised rubber process in the US. His process strengthened rubber, making it commercially viable
1846 The US-Canadian border was established as representatives of Great Britain and the US signed a treaty, which settled a long-standing dispute with Britain over who controlled the Oregon territory. The treaty established the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia as the boundary between the US and British Canada. The US gained formal control over the future states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and the British retained Vancouver Island and navigation rights to part of the Columbia River. The treaty was a compromise, as the British claimed Oregon and the US claimed all of the west coast up to the southern limit of the Russian territory of Alaska, or 54/40 North Latitude. The slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight” was a Democratic Party slogan in the 1844 election. In 1818, a US-British agreement had established the border along the 49th parallel from Lake of the Woods in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west
1873 At Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, renegade US whiskey and fur traders massacred Assiniboine Indians in their camp. This action would help lead to the formation of the North-West Mounted Police, now the RCMP
1860 Florence Nightingale started her School for Nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital, London
1864 Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial ground, which became Arlington National Cemetery
1883 Germany’s prince and chancellor, Bismarck, instituted the first Health Insurance Act
1902 Canada’s Maritime Provinces switched from Eastern time to the one hour earlier Atlantic time
1904 More than 1,000 people died when fire erupted aboard the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River
1905 Newfoundland banned the sale of bait and forbade the granting of licenses to Canadian and other foreign fishing fleets
1956 John Lennon met Paul McCartney for the first time, at a church bazaar
1977 Spain held its first democratic elections in more than 40 years
1978 King Hussein of Jordan married 26-year-old American Lisa Halaby, who became Queen Noor
1994 Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations
1995 Richard Weber of Chelsea, Québec and Russian Mikhail Mlakhov made history reaching Ward Hunt Island, Canada's northernmost point of land. They became the first to ski to the North Pole and back without the aid of support teams or outside help. Their 900 mile-plus trek began February 13th