Born this Day

1777 John Ross – Scottish naval officer and explorer who located the north magnetic pole on his second Arctic expedition in search of the Northwest Passage
1813 Henry Ward Beecher – US Congregational minister and anti-slavery advocate. He was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, and was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe
1839 Gustavus Swift – US business leader who founded Swift & Company
1895 Jack Dempsey – US boxer born in Manassa, Colorado, and known as The Manassa Mauler. He was world heavyweight boxing champion from 1919 to 1926, and a NY restaurateur
1899 Chief Dan George (Teswahno) – Canadian actor (Cariboo Country, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, Centennial, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Harry and Tonto, The Beachcombers, Little Big Man, Smith!) He was Chief of the Squamish Band in Burrard Inlet BC in the 1950s & 60s
1919 Al Molinaro - Actor (Happy Days, Joanie Loves Chachi, The Odd Couple, The Family Man, Freaky Friday)
1923 Jack Carter – Comedian and host (The Jack Carter Show, Cavalcade of Stars)
1942 Mick Fleetwood – British drummer with the group Fleetwood Mac (Dreams, Don't Stop, Albatross)
1942 Michele Lee - Actress (Knots Landing, The Love Bug, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)
1943 Georg Stanford Brown – Cuban born US actor (The Rookies, Bullitt, Roots, Stir Crazy, North and South)
1944 Jeff Beck – Guitarist with The Yardbirds, The Jeff Beck Group and The Honeydrippers
1946 Lieutenant Colonel Ellison S. Onizuka – Astronaut and mission specialist aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger
1947 Peter Weller - Actor (RoboCop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Firstborn, Leviathan, Naked Lunch, Sunset Grill, 24, Dexter)
1949 John Illsley – British rock musician with Dire Straits (Sultans of Swing, Money for Nothing, Brothers in Arms)
1950 Nancy Allen - Actress (Carrie, Robocop, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, I Wanna Hold Your Hand)
1956 Joe Penny – British-born US actor (Jake and the Fatman, Riptide, Jane Doe: Vanishing Act, Cold Case, Gangster Wars) He played Robert McCay in the Perry Mason movie The Case of the Shooting Star
1958 Tommy (Tiny) Lister – Actor (The Fifth Element, Jackie Brown, Beverley Hills Cop II, The Dark Knight) He also worked as a pro wrestler
1961 Iain Glen – Scottish actor (Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, MI-5/Spooks, The Diary of Anne Frank, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, The Wyvern Mystery, Jack Taylor Mysteries)
1965 Richard Lumsden – British actor (Sense & Sensibility, Is it Legal?, First of the Summer Wine, Doctors, Life of Riley)
1967 Sherry Stringfield - Actress (NYPD Blue, ER, Autumn in New York)
1982 Lotte Verbeek – Dutch actress (The Borgias, Nothing Personal, Links, Outlander, Agent Carter, The Blacklist)


Died this Day

AD 79 Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus – Roman Emperor who stabilised the empire after the death of Nero
1519 Lucrezia Borgia, age 39 – Duchess of Ferrara, and member of the infamous family
1908 Grover Cleveland, age 71 - The 22nd and 24th President of the US, died in Princeton, NJ
1987 Jackie Gleason, age 71 - Comedian-actor (The Honeymooners, Smokey and the Bandit, The Life of Riley, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Sting II, The Toy, The Hustler)
1997 Brian Keith, age 75 – Actor (The Parent Trap, The Westerner, Those Calloways, Family Affair, With Six You Get Eggroll, Krakatoa East of Java, The Wind and the Lion, How the West Was Won, Hardcastle and McCormick, Young Guns, Rough Riders) He was in the Perry Mason TV movie, The Case of the Lethal Lesson


On this Day

AD 541 Attila the Hun laid siege to Orleans, France
1099 The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the parent body of St. John Ambulance, was founded. It is the oldest order of chivalry in the Commonwealth
1314 Scotland’s Robert the Bruce defeated the English troops under Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn
1509 At his coronation ceremony, Henry VIII was crowned king of England
1534 Jacques Cartier discovered Prince Edward Island, landing at St. Peter's Bay
1675 In colonial New England, King Philip's War began when a band of Wampanoag warriors raid the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists there. In the early 1670s, fifty years of peace between the Plymouth colony and the local Wampanoag Indians began to deteriorate when the rapidly expanding settlement forced land sales on the tribe. Reacting to increasing Native American hostility, the English met with King Philip, chief of the Wampanoag, and demanded that his forces surrender their arms. The Wampanoag did so, but in 1675 a Christian Native American who had been acting as an informer to the English was murdered, and three Wampanoag were tried and executed for the crime. King Philip responded by ordering the attack on the colony of Swansee, which set off a series of Wampanoag raids in which several settlements were destroyed and scores of colonists massacred. The colonists retaliated by destroying a number of Indian villages. The destruction of a Narragansett village by the English brought the Narragansett into the conflict on the side of King Philip, and within a few months several other tribes and all the New England colonies were involved. In early 1676, the Narragansett were defeated and their chief killed, while the Wampanoag and their other allies were gradually subdued. King Philip's War, which was extremely costly to the colonists of southern New England, ended the Native American presence in the region and inaugurated a period of unimpeded colonial expansion
1717 The Grand Lodge of English Freemasons was formed in London
1793 The first republican constitution in France was adopted
1812 Napoleon's army began its advance on Moscow, following the rejection of his Continental System by Czar Alexander I. The French Emperor’s Grande Armée was the largest European military force ever assembled to that date, featuring some 500,000 soldiers and staff. During the opening months of the invasion, Napoleon was forced to contend with a bitter Russian army in perpetual retreat. Refusing to engage Napoleon's superior army in a full-scale confrontation, the Russians burned everything behind them as they retreated deeper and deeper into Russia. That autumn, Napoleon arrived in Moscow intending to find supplies but instead found almost the entire population evacuated, the Russian army having retreated again. Early the next morning, fires broke across the city, set by Russian patriots, and the Grande Armée's winter quarters were destroyed. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving army out of Moscow. During the disastrous retreat, Napoleon's army, now low on supplies and hungry, suffered continual harassment from a suddenly aggressive and merciless Russian army. Napoleon’s decimated army reached the Berezina River late in November, but found their way blocked by the Russians. Napoleon forced a way across at Studenka, but when the bulk of his army passed the river two days later, he was forced to burn his makeshift bridges behind him, stranding some 10,000 stragglers on the other side. From there, the retreat became a rout, and on December 8 Napoleon left what remained of his army to return to Paris. Six days later, the Grande Armée finally escaped Russia, having suffered a loss of more than 400,000 men during the disastrous invasion
1813 British Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon and his British and Iroquois troops were able to fend off an attack by US forces under Colonel Charles Boerstler as they moved through wooded country to attack the British outpost at Beaver Dams in Upper Canada. Fitzgibbon had been warned of the pending attack by Laura Secord, who had overheard some US soldiers discussing the plan while dining at her house three days earlier. She walked almost 20 miles from Queenston to Beaver Dams to warn the British. Monuments to the War of 1812 heroine stand in the Ontario communities of Lundy's Lane, Niagara Falls and Queenston Heights
1864 Colorado Governor John Evans warned that all peaceful Indians in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that would lead to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre the following November. Evans' offer of sanctuary was at best half-hearted, as his primary goal in 1864 was to eliminate all Native American activity in eastern Colorado Territory, an accomplishment he hoped would increase his popularity and eventually win him a US Senate seat. Immediately after ordering the peaceful Indians to the reservation, Evans issued a second proclamation that invited white settlers to indiscriminately "kill and destroy all...hostile Indians." At the same time, Evans began creating a temporary 100-day militia force to wage war on the Indians, placing the new regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington, who also hoped to gain high political office by fighting Indians. When word of Governor Evans' offer of sanctuary reached the Indians, most remained distrustful and were unwilling to give up the fight. Only Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle and a few lesser chiefs took Evans up on his offer of amnesty. In truth, Evans and Chivington were reluctant to see hostilities further abate before they had won a glorious victory, but they grudgingly promised Black Kettle his people would be safe if they came to Fort Lyon in eastern Colorado. In November 1864, the Indians reported to the fort as requested, and were told to settle his about 40 miles away on Sand Creek, where they would be safe. However, Chivington was out of control, and having seen no action, seems to have become almost insane in his desire to kill Indians. "I long to be wading in gore!" he is said to have proclaimed at a dinner party. It was in this state, that he apparently concluded that it did not matter whether he killed peaceful or hostile Indians, and in his mind, Black Kettle's village on Sand Creek became a legitimate and easy target. At daybreak on November 29, 1864, Chivington led 700 men, many of them drunk, in a savage assault on Black Kettle's peaceful village. Most of the Cheyenne warriors were away hunting, and in the hours that followed, Chivington and his men brutally slaughtered 105 women and children and killed 28 men. The soldiers scalped and mutilated the corpses, carrying body parts back to display in Denver as trophies. Amazingly, Black Kettle and a number of other Cheyenne managed to escape. In the following months, the nation learned of Chivington's treachery at Sand Creek, reacting with horror and disgust. By then, Chivington and his soldiers had left the military and were beyond reach of a court-martial. Chivington's political ambitions were ruined, and he spent the rest of his life wandering the West. The scandal over Sand Creek also forced Evans to resign and dashed his hopes of holding political office. Evans did, however, go on to a successful and lucrative career building and operating Colorado railroads
1880 Canada’s national anthem, O Canada, was first performed, at a St-Jean Baptiste Day banquet in Québec City. The music was composed by Calixa Lavallée, a well-known composer, with French lyrics to accompany the music written by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The song gained steadily in popularity. Many English versions have appeared over the years. The version on which the official English lyrics are based was written in 1908 by Mr. Justice Robert Stanley Weir. It was proclaimed Canada’s national anthem 100 years later, on July 1st, 1980
1889 Butch Cassidy committed his first serious crime, robbing a bank in Telluride, Colorado, for more than $20,000
1900 Oliver Lippincott became the first motorist in Yosemite National Park when he drove there in his Locomobile steamer. Lippincott would start a trend with his visit, as motorists increasingly chose to drive to National Parks, avoiding the more time consuming train and coach rides
1901 The first major exhibition of Pablo Picasso's artwork opened at a gallery on Paris' rue Lafitte, a street known for its prestigious art galleries. The precocious 19-year-old Spaniard was at the time a relative unknown outside Barcelona, but he had already produced hundreds of paintings. The 75 works displayed at Picasso's first Paris exhibition offered moody, representational paintings by a young artist with obvious talent. Ambroise Vollard, a dealer who had sponsored Paul Cézanne, immediately agreed to a show at his gallery after seeing Picasso’s paintings. From street scenes to landscapes, prostitutes to society ladies, Picasso's subjects were diverse, and the young artist received a favourable review from the few Paris art critics who saw the show. He stayed in Paris for the rest of the year and later returned there to settle permanently
1904 King Edward VII conferred the right to use the prefix 'Royal' on the North-West Mounted Police, in recognition of 30 years of loyal service
1910 The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 required all US ships carrying more than fifty people to be equipped with radios. Radio distress signals had been used since 1903, and an international distress signal was established in 1904
1916 Canadian-born Mary Pickford became the first Hollywood star to produce her own movies. Adolph Zukor at Paramount Pictures signed her for $250,000 per film with a guaranteed minimum of $10,000 a week against half of the profits, including bonuses and the right of approval of all creative aspects of her films
1918 Canadian airmail service was inaugurated by Royal Air Force pilot Captain Brian Peck, during a biplane flight from Montréal to Toronto, which was loaded with mail sacks
1953 Jacqueline Bouvier announced her engagement to John F. Kennedy, US senator
1956 The comedy team of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin broke up
1957 The Canadian TV show, Front Page Challenge, made its debut. Intended as a 13-week summer replacement program, it became North America's longest-running game-interview television program of its kind, running for 38 years, from 1957 to 1995. In the show, noted Canadian journalists guessed the news story associated with the mystery guests. The hundreds of diverse mystery guests ranged from Pierre Trudeau, Martin Luther King Jr, Walter Cronkite, Eleanor Roosevelt and Malcolm X to Jayne Mansfield, Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Ed Sullivan, Frank Gorshin, Joan Fontaine, Errol Flynn and even Alex Trebek
1968 In Montréal, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was showered with rocks and bottles while on the reviewing stand during a St-Jean Baptiste Day parade. The riot, called Lundi de la Matraque - or Nightstick Monday - saw 290 arrested and 130 injured
1997 The US Air Force released a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies. Exactly fifty years earlier, in 1947, Kenneth Arnold reported the first sighting of "flying saucers," over Mount Ranier in the Rockies