Author: gil7

Historical Events

1493 – Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I becomes Archduke of Austria on the death of his father and co-ruler Frederick III
1912 – Percy Grainger’s orchestral piece “Shepherd’s Hey” premieres
1981 – Two US Navy F-14 jet fighters shoot down two Soviet-built Libyan SU-22s
1987 – Hungerford Massacre, England: Michael Ryan kills 16 people with an assault rifle and then commits suicide
1993 – Dow Jones Industrial Average hits record high of 3612.13

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Famous Birthdays

1899 – Charlie Hall, English comedic actor (Tit for Tat, A Chump at Oxford), born in Birmingham, England (d. 1959)
1902 – Ogden Nash, American humorous poet (I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Masquerade Party), born in Rye, New York (d. 1971)
1971 – Mary Joe Fernández, American tennis player, broadcaster (Olympic gold 1992, 96), born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
1971 – João Pinto, Portuguese football player, born in Porto, Portugal
1987 – Patrick Chung, Jamaican-American NFL player (New England Patriots), born in Kingston, Jamaica

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Famous Deaths

1601 – Michael the Brave, Prince of Wallachia and Moldovia (Romanian national hero), assassinated at 42 or 43
1856 – Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, French chemist, dies at 39
1892 – František Zdeněk Skuherský, Czech composer, dies at 62
1957 – David Bomberg, English painter, dies at 66
2023 – Gloria Coates, American post-minimalist composer (“Music on Open Strings”), dies of pancreatic cancer at 89

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Historical Events

1418 – Competition is announced to design the dome of Florence Cathedral, with main competitors Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi (supported by Cosimo de’ Medici)
1858 – Netherlands and Japan sign a trade agreement
1965 – Orioles’ Brooks Robinson hits into his third career triple play, tying George Sisler, Deacon McGuire, and Joe Start
1989 – ArenaBowl III takes place at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit: Detroit Drive defeats Pittsburgh Gladiators 39-26, with George LaFrance as MVP
2019 – 1.7 million people participate in a peaceful pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong, representing a quarter of the population

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Famous Birthdays

1657 – Ferdinando Galli Bibiena, Italian architect and designer, born in Bologna, Italy (d. 1743)
1954 – Umberto Guidoni, Italian astrophysicist and writer (STS 75), born in Rome, Italy
1964 – Andi Deris, German heavy metal vocalist (Helloween, 1994-present), born in Karlsruhe, West Germany
1966 – Kang Soo-yeon, South Korean actress (The Surrogate Woman, Come Come Come Upward), born in Seoul, South Korea (d. 2022)
1981 – Jon Schneck, American rock guitarist (Relient K, 2005-present), born in Eustis, Florida

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Famous Deaths

440 – Sixtus III, Italian Pope (432-40), dies
1652 – Benjamin G Cuyp, historical painter, dies at about 40
1942 – Erwin Schulhoff, Czech-Russian composer and pianist (Ogelala), dies of tuberculosis at 48 in a German concentration camp in Wülzburg, Bavaria
1981 – Anita Loos, American screenwriter, novelist (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and playwright, dies at 88
2006 – Fernand Gignac, Canadian singer and actor (b. 1934)

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Historical Events

1870 – First ascent of Mount Rainier, Washington, by Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump
1945 – Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declare Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies) independent from the Netherlands
1977 – USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1988 – First case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in NYC (9-year-old Bronx boy)
1991 – Royals’ Warren Cromartie’s first major league home run since 1983

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Famous Birthdays

1863 – Gene Stratton-Porter, American author “A Girl of the Limberlost,” and naturalist, born in Lagro, Indiana (d. 1924)
1890 – Stefan Bastyr, Polish pioneering aviator, first flight in independent Poland, born in Ulanów, Poland (d. 1920)
1942 – Tommy West [Picardo], American record producer (Jim Croce; Anne Murray), and singer-songwriter, born in Jersey City, New Jersey (d. 2021)
1953 – Robert Thirsk, Canadian astronaut (STS 78), born in New Westminster, British Columbia
1970 – Øyvind Leonhardsen, Norwegian footballer, born in Kristiansund, Norway

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Famous Deaths

1916 – Umberto Boccioni, Italian painter and sculptor (Unique Forms of Continuity in Space), dies in a military training mishap at 33
1955 – Fernand Léger, French painter, sculptor and filmmaker, dies at 74
1969 – Philip Blaiberg, South African dentist, third person to receive an artificial heart, dies after 19 days at 59
1987 – Charles Drummond de Andrade, Brazilian poet (Claro Enigma), dies at 84
2021 – Sheila Bromberg, British orchestral and session harpist (The Beatles – “She’s Leaving Home”; Heatwave -“Boogie Nights”), dies at 92

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Historical Events

1691 – Yorktown, Virginia founded
1959 – LPGA Western Open Women’s Golf, Rainier GandCC: Betsy Rawls wins her second WO by 6 strokes over JoAnne Gunderson and Patty Berg
1969 – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young perform their first public show at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago with singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell as their opening act
1990 – South African President F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela hold emergency talks in Pretoria about increasing violence in Soweto
2021 – First official water shortage declared at Lake Mead, a major reservoir on the Colorado River supplying 40 million people, with cuts mandated mainly for Arizona

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Famous Birthdays

1916 – Iggy Katona, American race car driver, born in Toledo, Ohio (d. 2003)
1945 – Suzanne Farrell, American ballerina (Don Quioxote), born in Cincinnati, Ohio
1952 – Reginald Veljohnson, actor (Carl Winslow-Family Matters, Die Hard), born in New York City
1962 – Steve Carell, American actor and comedian (The Office), born in Concord, Massachusetts
1978 – Eddie Gill, American basketball player, born in Aurora, Colorado

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Famous Deaths

1945 – Takijiro Ohnishi, led Japanese kamikaze pilots (harakiri), dies
1993 – Irene Sharaff, US costume designer (Cleopatra, Can-can), dies at 83
1996 – Robert Lynn, Scottish anarchist, dies at 72
2006 – Jon Nödtveidt, Swedish musician (Dissection), dies at 31
2021 – Sean Lock, British comedian (British Comedy Award, 2000), and television personality, dies of cancer at 58

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