Born this Day

1491 Henry VIII – King of England. He was married six times, beheaded two wives, broke away from the Catholic Church to form the Church of England, executed Catholics who failed to recognise his church and Protestants who complained he should execute more Catholics, and still managed to remain a popular king
1577 Peter Paul Rubens - Flemish Baroque painter
1712 Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Swiss-born French philosopher, writer and political theorist. His concept of the ‘noble savage’ and his Social Contract, written in 1762, influenced the leaders of the French Revolution
1857 Emerson Hough – US author (The Story of the Cowboy, The Story of the Outlaw, The Covered Wagon)
1902 Richard Rodgers – US composer and lyricist (It Might as Well be Spring, The Sound of Music, Love Me Tonight, My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, State Fair, The King and I, You'll Never Walk Alone, Carousel, Getting to Know You, Some Enchanted Evening) He collaborated with Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, and later, Stephen Sondheim
1902 John Dillinger – US gangster who was known as “Public Enemy No. 1”. In a bank-robbing career that lasted just over a year, Dillinger and his associates robbed 11 banks for more than $300,000 and killed ten law officers
1909 Eric Ambler - Author (The Dark Frontier, Journey into Fear)
1914 Lester Flatt - Country music entertainer and guitarist with the group Flatt and Scruggs (Foggy Mountain Breakdown, The Ballad of Jed Clampett, Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms, Old Salty Dog Blues)
1925 George Morgan - Singer (Candy Kisses, Rainbow in My Heart, Room Full of Roses, Crybaby Heart, I'm In Love Again)
1926 Mel Brooks - Director, actor (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, The Producers, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights) and comedy writer (Your Show of Shows, Get Smart) He was married to Anne Bancroft for 41 years at the time of her death
1932 Pat Morita - Actor (Happy Days, Karate Kid, Babes in Toyland, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, Mulan, Spy Hard)
1935 John Inman – British actor (Are You Being Served?, Grace & Favour, The Mumbo Jumbo, Odd Man Out) He was the cousin of actress Josephine Tewson
1946 Bruce Davison – Actor (X-Men, Kingdom Hospital, The Crucible, Six Degrees of Separation, Willard, Close to Home)
1946 Gilda Radner – Comedienne and actress (Saturday Night Live, Haunted Honeymoon, Movers and Shakers, The Woman in Red, Hanky Panky, First Family, The Rutles) She was born in Detroit, Michigan, and was married to Gene Wilder
1948 Kathy Bates - Actress (Misery, Fried Green Tomatoes, Home of Our Own, Prelude to a Kiss, About Schmidt, Harry’s Law, The Blind Side, Midnight in Paris, Six Feet Under, Around the World in Eighty Days, Matlock)
1954 Alice Krige – South African born actress (Chariots of Fire, Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story, Sharpe’s Honour, Page Eight, Spooks/MI-5, Persuasion, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Deadwood, The Death and Life of Nancy Eaton) She played the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Voyager
1966 John Cusack - Actor (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Con Air, Grosse Point Blank, The Player, True Colors, Sixteen Candles, The Journey of Natty Gann, Stand By Me, Fat Man and Little Boy, Bullets Over Broadway, The Grifters) He is the brother of Joan, Ann, Susie and Bill Cusack
1966 Mary Stuart Masterson - Actress (Radioland Murders, Funny about Love, Fried Green Tomatoes, Waterfront, Benny & Joon, The Stepford Wives)
1967 Gil Bellows – Canadian actor (Ally McBeal, The Shawshank Redemption, The Agency, A Bear Named Winnie, FlashForward, Passchendaele, Terminal City)
1968 Adam Woodyatt – British actor (EastEnders, The Baker Street Boys, The Witches and the Grinnygog)
1969 Danielle Brisebois - Actress (All in the Family, Knots Landing, Annie, Mom, The Wolfman and Me)
1979 Felicia Day – Actress (Red: Werewolf Hunter, Eureka, The Guild, The Legend of Neil, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)


Died this Day

1836 James Madison - The 4th President of the United States, died in Montpelier, Virginia
1914 Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sofia - Heirs apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, were assassinated in Sarajevo by a Serb nationalist. The event is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Slav nationalism once and for all. However, as Russia supported Serbia, an Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was delayed until its leaders received assurances from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany would support their cause in the event of a Russian intervention. Exactly one month later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe's great powers collapsed. Within a week of the declaration, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun
1975 Rod Serling, age 50 – Scriptwriter (The Twilight Zone, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Planet of the Apes, Seven Days in May) He died after open-heart surgery
1981 Terry Fox– Canadian youth who had attempted to run across Canada to raise funds for cancer research. Fox had lost a leg to cancer before embarking on his "Marathon Of Hope" run across Canada. He started in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and made it almost halfway before cancer struck again, and he was forced to abandon his dream at Thunder Bay, Ontario. Fox raised nearly 25-million dollars to fight cancer and won the love and admiration of millions. Upon his death, flags across Canada were lowered to half-mast in his honour. Thousands of people take part in annual fund-raising runs across the country named after Fox. He died a month before his 23rd birthday
2001 Joan Sims, age 71 – British actress (As Time Goes By, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, The Canterville Ghost, My Good Friend, Cluedo, On the Up, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced, Worzel Gummidge, The Belles of St. Trinian's) She was known as the First Lady of Carry On for appearing in numerous Carry On… movies


On this Day

1519 Charles I of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor to succeed his late grandfather, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Charles, who was also the grandson of Ferdinand II and Isabella of Spain, had bribed the princes of Germany to vote for him, defeating such formidable candidates as King Henry VIII of England, King Francis I of France, and Frederick the Wise, the Duke of Saxony. Crowned as Emperor Charles V, the new Holy Roman emperor sought to unite the many kingdoms under his rule in the hope of creating a vast, universal empire. However, his hopes were thwarted by the Protestant Reformation in Germany, a lifelong dynastic struggle with King Francis, and the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. In 1558, after nearly four decades as Holy Roman emperor, Charles abdicated the throne in favour of his brother, Ferdinand. He had already granted much of the other European territory under his rule to his son Philip
1838 Nineteen-year-old Queen Victoria’s Coronation took place in Westminster Abbey, beginning a reign that would last into the next century
1841 The ballet, Gisele, opened in Paris
1886 The first through-train of the Canadian Pacific Railway left Montreal for the BC coast near Vancouver
1888 Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his family left San Francisco for their first visit to the South Seas. Stevenson, an adventurous traveller plagued by tuberculosis, was seeking a healthier climate. The family finally settled in Samoa, where Stevenson wrote several travel accounts of the family's explorations of the region. He died in Samoa in 1894
1894 In the US, Labour Day was established as a holiday for federal employees. It was to be held on the first Monday of September
1910 The first zeppelin, the Deutschland, crashed nine days after completion
1919 The Treaty of Versailles was signed, drawing up conditions of peace for the defeated powers, and thus ending World War I, exactly five years after the death of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which precipated the war. The English economist John Maynard Keynes, who had attended the peace conference but then left in protest of the treaty, was one of the most outspoken critics of the punitive agreement. He predicted that the stiff war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany by the treaty would lead to the financial collapse of the country, which in turn would have serious economic and political repercussions on Europe and the world. Germany soon fell hopelessly behind in its reparations payments, and in November 1923 the German economy collapsed. By the time the crash came a lifetime of savings could not buy a loaf of bread. That month, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler launched an abortive coup against Germany's government. The Nazis were crushed and Hitler was imprisoned, but many resentful Germans sympathised with the Nazis and their hatred of the Treaty of Versailles. A decade later, Hitler would exploit this continuing bitterness among Germans to seize control of the German state
1928 Louis Armstrong recorded West End Blues, one of the most famous recordings in early jazz. The song, showcasing Armstrong's trumpet improvisations, influenced many later jazz musicians, including clarinettist Artie Shaw
1930 Lightning set off dynamite and demolished the drill boat, John B. King, in the St. Lawrence River off Brockville, Ontario, killing 31 crewmembers
1935 President Roosevelt requested a building to hold all federal gold to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky
1968 The Husky Tower, in Calgary Alberta, was opened