Born this Day

1887 George Abbott - Director (Damn Yankees, The Panama Game, Too Many Girls)
1900 Lord Louis Mountbatten – First Earl Mountbatten of Burma, British statesman, naval leader and last viceroy of India during the transfer of power from Britain to India. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, and second cousin to King George VI. He entered the Royal Navy at age 13, and attained the rank of captain in 1932. When the Second World War broke out, he was given the command of the destroyer Kelly, which was attacked by 24 German bombers off the coast of Crete and sunk in 1941. Mountbatten swam to shore and took control of the rescue effort. An able commander and a courageous soldier, Mountbatten was given command of Combined Operations, then that of Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia. His cousin, the king, would have to fend off accusations of nepotism in granting such appointments, despite Mountbatten's achievements. Mountbatten led the capture of Burma from Japanese control and later accepted the surrender of Japanese land forces in September 1945
1903 George Orwell – Bengal-born British author (Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, Road to Wigan Pier) George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair. The son of a British civil servant, Orwell attended school in London and won a scholarship to the elite prep school Eton, where most students came from wealthy upper-class backgrounds, unlike Orwell. Rather than going to college like most of his classmates, Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police and went to work in Burma in 1922. He then moved to Paris, where he chose to immerse himself in the experiences of the urban poor, and worked menial jobs. Later, he spent time in England as a tramp, and also documented the life of the unemployed in northern England. He went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War to fight with the Republicans, but later fled as communism gained an upper hand in the struggle on the left
1906 Roger Livesey - Welsh stage and screen actor (Of Human Bondage, The Entertainer, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death)
1915 Peter Lind Hayes - Actor (The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Zis Boom Bah!, Peter Loves Mary)
1924 Sidney Lumet – Director (The Verdict, Deathtrap, Prince of the City, The Wiz, Equus, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Murder on the Orient Express, Serpico, Fail-Safe)
1925 June Lockhart - Actress (Lassie, Lost in Space, Petticoat Junction, The Yearling, Meet Me in St. Louis) She is the mother of Anne Lockhart
1928 Moray Watson – British actor (Rumpole of the Bailey, The Darling Buds of May, Miss Marple: The Body in the Library, Quiller) He played Sir Henry Dorrister in the Kavanagh QC episode Previous Convictions
1935 Eddie Floyd – Singer with the group the Falcons (You're So Fine) and solo (Bring It on Home to Me, Knock on Wood)
1940 Mary Beth Peil – Actress (The Good Wife, Flags of Our Fathers, Mirrors, Dawson’s Creek, The Reagans)
1941 Roy Marsden – British actor (The Sandbaggers, Devices & Desires, Original Sin, A Mind to Murder, King Solomon’s Mines) He portayed John St. Claire Stockton in the Sherlock Holmes episode The Last Vampyre
1945 Carly Simon - Singer (Anticipation, You're So Vain, Mockingbird, Nobody Does It Better, Let the River Run)
1946 Ian McDonald - Musician with the group Foreigner (Feels like the First Time, Cold as Ice, Long Long Way from Home, Double Vision, Hot Blooded, Blue Morning Blue Day)
1947 Jimmy Walker - Actor, comedian (Good Times, BAD Cats, Airplane!)
1949 Kene Holliday – Actor (Matlock, Carter Country, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Josephine Baker Story) He played Joe Dillon in the Perry Mason TV movie The Case of the Silenced Singer
1956 Chloe Webb – Actress (Sid and Nancy, Twins, Shameless, Practical Magic, China Beach, The Newton Boys)
1961 Ricky Gervais – British comedian/actor (Extras, The Office, Night at the Museum)
1963 Yann Martel – Spanish-born Canadian author (Life of Pi, The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, Self)
1964 Erica Gimpel – Actress (Profiler, Fame, Machete Joe, Veronica Mars, ER, North and South)
1970 Lucy Benjamin – British actress (EastEnders, Jupiter Moon, Press Gang)
1975 Linda Cardellini – Actress (ER, The Goode Family, Comanche Moon, Brokeback Mountain, Legally Blonde, Freaks and Geeks)
1979 Busy Philipps – Actress (Cougartown, White Chicks, He’s Just Not That Into You, ER, Dawson’s Creek, Freaks & Geeks, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Girls5eva, Maid of Honor)


Died this Day

1625 Nicolas Viel – Quebec missionary who was murdered by the Iroquois while paddling in a canoe. He was the first priest reported to be killed by Indians
1976 Johnny Mercer – US lyricist, composer and singer (Moon River, Jeepers Creepers, Autumn Leaves, Hooray for Hollywood)
1982 Igor Gouzenko – Russian cipher clerk who defected in 1945, while working in the USSR Embassy in Ottawa. He revealed details of a Soviet espionage ring, and lived rest of his life under protective cover in Canada
1988 Mildred Gillars, age 87 - US-born Nazi propagandist, known during World War II as "Axis Sally" for her broadcasts. She died in Columbus, Ohio. She had served 12 years in prison for treason
1997 Jacques-Yves Cousteau - French oceanographer, commander of the Calypso, and producer of popular and educational films (The Living Sea, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau) He died of a heart attack in Paris, two weeks after his 87th birthday


On this Day

1630 The table fork was introduced to North America
1788 Virginia became the 10th state of the Union
1857 French poet, Charles Baudelaire, published his book of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil), leading to his conviction on charges of blasphemy and obscenity. The poems used lyrical poetic style to describe sometimes revolting subjects. Baudelaire, as well as the publisher and printer, were found guilty of obscenity and fined. The book went out of print, and it was only after Baudelaire's death that he was recognised as one of France’s greatest poets. Baudelaire developed a strong taste for the macabre and discovered Edgar Allan Poe in 1852. His translations helped popularise Poe in France at a time when the writer was not widely read even in his own country
1858 British Columbia’s first newspaper, the Victoria Gazette & Anglo-American, was published
1867 Barbed wire was patented by Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio
1868 Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union
1876 Determined to resist the efforts of the US Army to force them onto reservations, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, wiped out Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and much of his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana. Custer's command came upon the main camp of Sitting Bull, and at once attacked it, charging the thickest part of it with five companies. Major Marcus Reno, with seven companies attacked on the other side. The soldiers were beaten back, and a wholesale slaughter ensued. Custer, his brother, his nephew, and his brother-in-law were killed, and not one of his detachment escaped. At the time, the opinion of experienced Army officers in Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia, including Generals Sherman and Sheridan, was that Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number, as the village numbered 1,800 lodges, and Sitting Bull's force was estimated at 4,000 strong. On the morning of the battle, Custer's scouts told him that a gigantic Indian village lay nearby in the valley of the Little Big Horn River, but Custer dismissed the scouts' claim that the village was extraordinarily large as an exaggeration. His main fear was that the Indians would scatter before he could attack. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was the Indians' greatest victory and the army's worst defeat in the long and bloody Plains Indian War. The Indians were not allowed to revel in the victory for long, however, as the government became more determined to destroy or tame the hostile Indians. The army redoubled its efforts and drove home the war with a vengeful fury. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations and both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had been killed by their enemies
1898 A Salvation Army group reached the Klondike, arriving in Dawson City, Yukon after a 550 mile trek over the Chilkoot Pass from Skagway, Alaska. They organised a mission for the Klondike gold miners, providing food, shelter, and medical services until 1912
1903 Marie Curie presented her thesis at the University of Paris announcing the discovery of radium
1910 The US Congress attempted to enforce national morality, as it passed the Mann Act, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act. The law actually had little to do with slavery, it was aimed at stopping the supposed problem of innocent girls being lured into prostitution. The outrage over "white slavery" began with a commission appointed in 1907 to investigate the problem of immigrant prostitutes. Allegedly, women were drugged, held hostage and brought to the US for the purpose of being forced into sexual slavery. This practice was deemed to be corrupting the nation and bringing about its moral degradation. The law made it illegal to "transport any woman or girl" across state lines "for any immoral purpose." This last clause may not have seemed important to the drafters who believed that they were striking at prostitution. However, "for any immoral purpose" began to take on a much greater meaning. In 1917, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of two California men, Drew Caminetti and Maury Diggs, who had gone on a romantic weekend getaway with their girlfriends to Reno, Nevada. Following this decision, the Mann Act was used in all types of cases. One man was charged with violating the Mann Act for bringing a woman from one state to another in order to work as a chorus girl in a theatre, and wives began using the Mann Act against girls who ran off with their husbands. The most famous prosecutions under the law were those of Charlie Chaplin in 1944 and Chuck Berry in 1962, who took unmarried women across state lines for "immoral purposes." Chaplin was acquitted but left the country under FBI director J. Edgar Hoover's threats. Berry was convicted and spent two years at the prime of his musical career in jail. After Berry's conviction, the Mann Act was enforced only sparingly and was finally removed from the books in 1986
1951 The first commercial colour telecast took place as CBS transmitted a one-hour special from New York to four other cities
1957 A plaque dedicated to Sherlock Holmes was installed near the Reichenbach Falls in Meiringen, Switzerland. A profile of Holmes on the plaque is surrounded by text reading: "Across this dreadful cauldron occurred the culminating event in the career of Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective, when on May 4, 1891 he vanquished Prof. Moriarty, The Napoleon of Crime. Erected by The Norwegian Explorers of Minnesota and The Sherlock Holmes Society of London"
1962 The Supreme Court ruled that the use of an unofficial, nondenominational prayer in New York public schools was unconstitutional
1963 The US, Britain and the Soviet Union initiated a nuclear test-ban treaty
1981 The US Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional
1993 In Ottawa, Kim Campbell was sworn in as Canada's 19th prime minister, becoming the first woman to hold the country's highest office