Author: gil7

Historical Events

1804 – Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested, and exiled to the United States
1903 – President Theodore Roosevelt signs bill into law establishing US Department of Commerce and Labor
1973 – Muhammad Ali beats British heavyweight boxing champion Joe Bugner by unanimous points decision in 12 rounds at Las Vegas Convention Centre
1989 – World’s 1st satellite Skyphone opens
1991 – NL Cy Young winner Doug Drabek wins record $3 mil salary arbitration
1993 – 35th Daytona 500: Dale Jarrett, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, wins from Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine

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Famous Birthdays

1515 – Frederick III, the Pious, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, born in Simmern, Germany (d. 1576)
1941 – Paul Tsongas, American politician (Sen-D-Mass), born in Lowell, Massachusetts (d. 1997)
1945 – Vic Briggs, British guitarist (The Animals, 1966-68), and producer; later known as Antion Vikram Singh, he created Sikhi devotional and Hawaiian music, born in Twickenham, England (d. 2021)
1972 – Drew Bledsoe, American football quarterback (4 × Pro Bowl; NFL passing yards leader 1994 NE Patriots), born in Ellensburg, Washington
1978 – Dean Gaffney, British actor, born in Hammersmith, London
1994 – Paul Butcher, American actor, born in Los Angeles, California

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Famous Deaths

1929 – Tom Burke, American athlete (Olympic gold 100m, 400m 1896), dies at 53
1990 – Graeme Hole, Australian cricket batsman (18 Tests, 6 x 50; NSW CA), dies from cancer at 59
1996 – Lady Caroline Blackwood, British journalist and writer (The Last of the Duchess), dies at 64
1996 – Eva Hart, British Titanic passenger, one of last living survivors, dies at 91
2014 – Ferry Hoogendijk, Dutch politician and editor-in-chief of “Elsevier”, dies at 80
2021 – Ion Mihai Pacepa, Romanian three-star general in the Securitate, who defected to the US, dies of Covid-19 at 92

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Historical Events

1238 – Mongolian forces led by General Batu capture and burn the important Russian city of Vladimir, after an eight-day siege
1839 – Henry Clay declares in Senate “I had rather be right than president”
1907 – The Mud March, first large procession organized by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS)
1950 – United States formally recognizes the State of Vietnam as the legitimate government of Vietnam, with Bảo Đại as leader
2006 – Uma Thurman is named a knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France for outstanding achievement in the field of art and literature
2023 – LeBron James scores 38 points to become NBA’s all-time leading scorer as the Lakers go down 133-130 to Oklahoma City Thunder in Los Angeles; surpasses Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 38,387 career points

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Famous Birthdays

1707 – Carl August Thielo, Danish composer, opera director, and court organist, born in Høsterkøb, Denmark (d. 1763)
1812 – Charles Dickens, English writer (“Oliver Twist”; “A Tale of Two Cities”; “A Christmas Carol”), born in Portsmouth, Hampshire (d. 1870)
1920 – Oscar Brand, Canadian-born American folk vocalist (Draw Me A Laugh), born in Winnipeg, Manitoba (d. 2016)
1924 – Johnny Jordaan [Johannes van Musscher], Dutch pop and levenslied singer, born in Amsterdam, Netherlands (d. 1989)
1953 – Bruce Gaitsch, American session guitarist, songwriter, and record producer (Chicago; Richard Marx; Peter Cetera; Madonna), born in Chicago, Illinois
1983 – Christian Klien, Austrian racing driver

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Famous Deaths

1839 – Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799)
1933 – Albert Apponyi, Hungarian politician (Minister of Religion and Education of Hungary), dies at 86
1938 – Harvey Firestone, American manufacturer and founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, dies at 69
1960 – Igor Kurchatov, Soviet-Russian nuclear physicist who directed the Soviet atomic bomb project, dies of a cardiac embolism at 57 likely caused by radiation poisoning during the catastrophe at Chelyabinsk-40
1991 – Dick Winslow, American actor (Tom Sawyer, Mutiny on the Bounty), dies at 75
2020 – Li Wenliang, Chinese doctor who tried to raise the alarm over COVID-19, dies of COVID-19 in Wuhan at 34

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Historical Events

1922 – Cardinal Achille Ratti elected Pope Pius XI
1973 – Bernice Fekete skips her curling rink to 2nd straight 8-ender, Edmonton, Alberta
1979 – Pakistan Supreme Court affirms the Lahore High Court’s death sentence against former Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
1988 – USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
2018 – UN calls for ceasefire in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta area by Syrian government troops after 40 people reportedly killed
2018 – Maldives President Abdulla Yameen declares state of emergency ordering arrest of two judges

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Famous Birthdays

1897 – Louis Buchalter, Jewish-American mobster (Murder, Inc.), born in New York City (d. 1944)
1911 – Ronald Reagan, 40th US President (Republican: 1981-89) and actor (Bedtime for Bonzo), born in Tampico, Illinois (d. 2004)
1933 – Walter Fauntroy, American pastor and politician (Rep-D-DC, 1971-91), born in Washington, D.C.
1942 – John London, American songwriter and bassist (Michael Nesmith band), born in Brazos County, Texas
1963 – Mike Hough, Canadian NHL left wing (Florida Panthers), born in Montreal, Quebec
1976 – Tanja Frieden, Swiss snowboarder, born in Bern, Switzerland

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Famous Deaths

1859 – Johannes Josephus Viotta, Dutch composer, dies at 45
1958 – Billy Whelan, Irish soccer forward (4 caps, Republic of Ireland; Manchester United 79 games), dies Munich air disaster at 22
1979 – Arthur van Schendel, Dutch art historian, and museum director (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1959-75), dies at 68
1990 – Jane Novak, American silent screen actress (Ghost Town), dies of stroke at 94
1995 – Art Taylor, American jazz drummer (Bud Powell, Red Garland, John Coltrane, Donald Byrd), bandleader (Taylor’s Wailers), and writer (Notes and Tones), dies at 65
2008 – Dieter Noll, German writer (Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt), dies at 80

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Historical Events

702 – Military triumph of Wak Jalam Chan (Lady Six Sky), female ruler of the Maya city of Sa’aal (Naranjo) as depicted on Stela 24 Naranjo
1371 – King Robert II of Scotland (1371-90) is crowned, becoming the first monarch of the House of Stewart
1895 – National Association of Manufacturers organized in Cincinnati
1995 – Palestinian bomb attack in Beit Lid Israel, 21-22 killed
2017 – Jared Kushner is sworn in as Senior Advisor to US President, Donald Trump
2018 – Netflix becomes the largest digital media and entertainment company in the world worth $100 billion

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Famous Birthdays

1893 – Conrad Veidt, German actor (Casablanca, Cabinet of Dr Calgary), born in Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany (d. 1943)
1906 – Willa Brown, American air pioneer (NAAA) and civil rights activist (1st African American woman to hold a pilot’s license), born in Glasgow, Kentucky (d. 1992)
1938 – Corra Dirksen, South African rugby union winger (10 caps; Northern Transvaal), born in Vereeniging, South Africa (d. 2020)
1949 – Mike Caldwell, American baseball player
1968 – Heath [Hiroshi Morie], Japanese rock bassist, singer and songwriter (X Japan), born in Amagasaki, Hyogo, Japan (d. 2023)
1969 – Olivia d’Abo, English-American actress (Wonder Years, Single Guy), born in London, England

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Famous Deaths

1552 – Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, English Lord Protector (1547-49) beheaded for treason at 51 or 52
1599 – Cristofano Malvezzi, Italian composer, dies at 51
1982 – Eduardo Frei Montalva, president of Chile (1964-70), dies at 71
1984 – Mikiel Gonzi, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Malta (1944-76), dies at 98
2021 – Luton Shelton, Jamaican soccer striker (75 caps; Vålerenga, Karabükspor, Sheffield United), dies from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at 35
2023 – Nikos Xanthopoulos, Greek actor, dies at 88

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Historical Events

1945 – The Manhattan Project’s G-5 Group, headed by Physicist’s Donald Kerst and Seth Neddermeyer, take their first betatron pictures of a nuclear implosion at the Los Alamos Laboratory
1951 – “Cloud of Death” rolls down Mount Lamington, New Guinea kills 3-5,000
1962 – 50th Australian Championships Men’s Tennis: Rod Laver takes the 1st leg of his 1st Grand Slam; beats fellow Queenslander Roy Emerson 8-6, 0-6, 6-4, 6-4
1962 – Derveni Papyrus rediscovered – Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript from c. 340 B.C., commentary on a Orphic poem, found in a tomb in Derveni, Northern Greece
1988 – 19-year-old Indian cricket leg-spinner Narenda Hirwani records best bowling figures on debut in Test history; captures 16-136 in 255 run 4th Test win v West Indies in Madras; Hirwani takes 8 wickets in each innings
2007 – Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former Iraqi intelligence chief and half-brother of Saddam Hussein, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, are executed by hanging in Iraq.

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Famous Birthdays

1891 – Ray Chapman, American baseball player (Cleveland Indians) and only MLB player to die from an injury received during a MLB game, born in Beaver Dam, Kentucky (d. 1920)
1911 – Cy Feuer, Broadway producer (Feuer and Martin-Chorus Line), born in New York City (d. 2006)
1930 – Michel Chapuis, French classical organist and pedagogue, born in Dole, France (d. 2017)
1961 – Yves P. Pelletier, Canadian comedian and film director, born in Laval, Canada
1971 – LeShon Johnson, American football running back (Arizona Cardinals), born in Haskell, Oklahoma
1979 – Martin Petrov, Bulgarian soccer winger (90 caps; Servette, VfL Wolfsburg, Atlético Madrid, Manchester City, Bolton Wanderers), born in Vratsa, Bulgaria

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Famous Deaths

1597 – Juan de Herrera, Spanish Renaissance architect and mathematician (El Escorial, Vallododid Cathedral), dies (b. c. 1530)
1781 – Marianne Victoria of Borbón, queen regent of Portugal (b. 1718)
1896 – Matthew B Brady, US photographer (Civil War), dies at about 72
1970 – Vytautas Bacevičius [Bacewicz], Lithuanian avant garde composer (Della Guerra Symphony), dies at 64
1973 – Coleman Francis, American film director (b. 1919)
2008 – Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, English Game Designer (Zombies Ate My Neighbors), dies of cancer (b. 1964)

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