Born this Day

1755 Mrs Sarah Siddons – British actress. She was the daughter of a travelling theatre family, and by 1782 was considered the leading actress on the British stage, performing at Drury Lane and Covent Garden
1801 David G. Farragut - Civil War Union Navy Admiral, who said "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead"
1805 Robert Fitzroy – British naval officer who commanded the HMS Beagle, the ship that took Charles Darwin on his five-year voyage to the southern hemisphere
1810 Phineus Taylor Barnum - US showman, born in Bethel, Connecticut. He founded Barnum & Bailey's Circus when he was in his 60’s
1853 Cecil John Rhodes – British colonist and financier, noted for his commercial exploitation of southern Africa, where he gained control of the world’s major diamond and gold mines. His expansion north lead to the formation of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which was named after him. He left 10-million dollars in his will to provide scholarships for North Americans at Oxford University (Rhodes scholars)
1904 Milburn Stone - Actor (Gunsmoke, Arrowhead, The Sun Shines Bright, Atomic City, Branded, Heading for Heaven)
1928 Warren Oates - Actor (Dillinger, Wild Bunch, In the Heat of the Night, Stripes, The Blue and the Gray, Prime Time, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Rawhide)
1928 Katherine Helmond - Actress (Soap, The House of Blue Leaves, Who's the Boss, Brazil, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman)
1936 Shirley Knight - Actress (Desperate Housewives, Dark at the Top of the Stairs, The Group, 21 Hours at Munich, Sweet Bird of Youth, Color of Night, As Good As It Gets)
1944 Robbie Robertson – Canadian composer and musician with the group The Band (Up on Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Shape I'm In, River Hymn, Life is a Carnival) and solo (Showdown at Big Sky, Somewhere Down the Crazy River)
1950 Huey Lewis – Singer with the group Huey Lewis and the News (The Power of Love, Stuck with You, Trouble in Paradise)
1952 Charles Ventre - Country musician (River Road)
1960 Pruitt Taylor Vince – Actor (The Mentalist, Deadwood, Murder One, Nurse Betty, Natural Born Killers, JFK, Nobody’s Fool, Mississippi Burning, Wild at Heart)
1963 Edie Falco – Actress (The Sopranos, Nurse Jackie, Random Hearts, Oz, Cop Land, Bullets Over Broadway)
1966 Kathryn Erbe – Actress (Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Runaway, Oz, What About Bob?)
1968 Michael Stuhlbarg – Actor (Boardwalk Empire, Body of Lies, Hugo, Men in Black 3)
1980 Eva Green – French actress (Casino Royale, Camelot, Dark Shadows, The Golden Compass, Kingdom of Heaven)
1985 François Arnaud – Canadian actor (The Borgias, Heat Wave, The Double Life of Eleanor Kendall, Blindspot)


Died this Day

1826 Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles – British East Indian administrator who was the founder of Singapore in 1819
1930 George Stathakis – Daredevil who died when he plummeted over Niagara Falls in a barrel. His turtle survived
1974 Georgette Heyer – British historical and detective novelist (Penhallow)


On this Day

1791 The first British ambassador to the US, George Hammond, was appointed
1811 Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain
1814 British and Canadian forces were defeated by invading US forces at Chippewa on the west bank of the Niagara River during the War of 1812
1817 The first gold coin sovereigns were issued in Britain
1830 The French occupied the North African city of Algiers
1841 Thomas Cook, who pioneered the travel business, organised the first publicly advertised railway excursion. It was to a temperance meeting
1865 A 2-mph speed limit was imposed in Britain under the Locomotives and Highways Act
1865 In the East End of London, England, revivalist preacher William Booth, with the assistance of his wife, Catherine, established the Christian Mission, later known as the Salvation Army. Determined to wage war against the twin evils of poverty and religious indifference with the efficiency of a military organisation, Booth modelled his Protestant sect after the British army, labelling uniformed ministers as "officers" and new members as "recruits." A Methodist minister, Booth preached the religious doctrines subscribed to by mainstream Protestant evangelical denominations at the time. However, the Christian Mission was unique in its commitment to establishing a presence in the most forsaken neighbourhoods and in its provision for the absolute equality of women within the sect. Soup kitchens were the first in a long line of a variety of projects designed to provide physical and spiritual assistance to the destitute. In 1878, the organisation was renamed the Salvation Army. During the Great Depression, the Salvation Army provided food and lodging for those in need, and during both World Wars distinguished itself by its work with the armed services. Today, the Salvation Army, still based in London, has branches in more than seventy-five countries. The Army operates hospitals, emergency and disaster services, alcoholic and drug rehabilitation programs, community centres, social work centres, second-hand stores, and recreation facilities. Voluntary contributions and profits from the sale of its publications fund the organisation
1880 George Bernard Shaw, then age 23, quit his job at the Edison Telephone Company in order to write. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, and left school at the age of 14 to work in a land agent's office. In 1876, he quit and moved to London, where he worked various jobs while trying to write plays
1885 Prince Edward Island founded its own telephone company
1888 Three match girls were sacked at the Bryant and May match factory in London, for giving Annie Besant information about working conditions. The other 672 women workers came out on strike, which became a landmark for women workers in Britain
1916 Children under the age of 16 were banned from New York City theatres due to an outbreak of polio. Some 200 theatres shut down throughout the summer. In 1919, a similar incident took place when the world-wide flu epidemic resulted in the closure of many theatres and the temporary halt of new film releases
1921 The trial of the major league baseball players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series began with jury selection after Judge Hugo Friend had denied a motion to quash the indictments. The Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the "Black Sox" after the scandal was revealed. The White Sox, who were heavily favoured at the start of the World Series, had been seriously underpaid and mistreated by owner Charles Comiskey. The conspiracy to fix the games was believed to be initiated by New York gambler Arnold Rothstein, who used this discontent to his advantage. Through intermediaries, he offered relatively small sums of money for the players to lose some of the games intentionally. The scandal came to light when the gamblers did not pay the players as promised, thinking that they had no recourse. But when the players openly complained, the story became public and authorities were forced to prosecute them. The jury acquitted all of the accused players and then celebrated with them at a nearby restaurant. The trial against the players had been just for show. Not so surprisingly, after a tacit agreement whereby the players assented not to denigrate major league baseball or Comiskey in return for an acquittal, the signed confessions from some of the players mysteriously disappeared from police custody. However, the hypocrisy surrounding the entire matter came to light when Shoeless Joe was forced to sue Comiskey for unpaid salary. During the civil trial, Comiskey's lawyers suddenly produced the confessions that had disappeared during the criminal trial, with no explanation as to how they had been obtained. Arnold Rothstein never faced trial, and Comiskey hoped to go back to business as usual. However, all did not end well for everyone. Other baseball owners, hoping to remove any hint that the games were illegitimate, hired Judge Kennisaw Mountain Landis to be the new commissioner of baseball. Landis was a hard-liner who then permanently barred the implicated players from baseball. Landis' decision has come under considerable criticism for its unfairness to a few of the players. Buck Weaver, by all accounts, had refused to take any money offered by the gamblers. He was purportedly banned from baseball for refusing to turn his team-mates in. And although Shoeless Joe Jackson probably accepted some money, his statistics show that he never truly participated in throwing the games, as he had the best batting average of either team in the series
1942 In Port Hope, Ontario, Ian Fleming became the first graduate of the Special 25 training school for spies. He was later a member of Britain’s secret service agency, MI5, and was the creator of the James Bond novels
1946 The first bikini bathing suit was unveiled in Paris, invented by Louis Reard, a former motor engineer. He named it after Bikini Atoll, where the first peacetime atomic bomb tests were being held, because he thought the two-piece bathing costume would be highly explosive
1948 Britain's National Health Service Act went into effect, providing government-financed medical and dental care
1950 The Canadian destroyers HMCS Cayuga, Athabasca and Sioux left Vancouver escorted by the cruiser Ontario, for Pearl Harbour, during the Korean conflict
1965 Maria Callas gave her last stage performance singing Tosca at Covent Garden. She was 41. I wonder if a young Morse attended?
1975 Arthur Ashe defeated Jimmy Connors to become the first black man to win the Wimbledon men's singles title
1979 The Isle of Man celebrated 1,000 years of its Tynewald, or Parliament
1983 Tenor Placido Domingo received a record 83 curtain calls for a performance of La Boheme in Vienna
1990 Vaclav Havel became Czechoslovakia's first freely-elected president in 55 years