Author: gil7

Historical Events

1547 – Great fire in Moscow, a third of the largely wooden city destroyed and 2-3,000 killed
1788 – US Constitution comes into effect when New Hampshire is the 9th state to ratify it
1948 – Lord Mountbatten resigns as Governor General of India (formerly the last Viceroy)
2000 – US Senator Daniel K. Inouye and 19 other Japanese-American WWII veterans of the 442nd Regiment belatedly awarded the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton
2001 – Mexican artist Frida Kahlo becomes the first Hispanic woman honored on a US postage stamp

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Famous Birthdays

1823 – Jean Chacornac, French astronomer, born in Lyon, France (d. 1873)
1880 – Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp, British civil servant, industrialist, economist, statistician and banker, born in Hampstead, London (d. 1941)
1916 – Joe Bamford, British manufacturer and multi-millionaire, born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England (d. 2001)
1947 – Lex van Delden, Dutch actor (Soldier of Orange), born in Amsterdam (d. 2010)
1995 – Andrew Dismukes, American comedian, actor, and writer (Saturday Night Live, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy), born in Houston, Texas

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Famous Deaths

1631 – John Smith, English explorer (Chesapeake Bay, New England) and leader of the Virginia Colony (Jamestown), dies at 51
1865 – Frances Adeline Seward, American First Lady of New York (1839-42) and wife of US Secretary of State William H. Seward, dies of a heart attack at 59
1964 – Andrew Goodman, US civil rights activist, murdered at 20
1995 – Laurence McKinley Gould, American Geologist and Polar Explorer who was chief scientist and second-in-command on the first expedition to the interior of Antarctica in 1929, dies at 98
2023 – Ronnie Nolan, Irish soccer wing-half (33 caps League of Ireland XI, 10 Republic of Ireland; Shamrock Rovers 297 games), dies at 89

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Historical Events

1632 – Britain grants Lord Baltimore rights to Chesapeake Bay area
1895 – First woman to earn a PhD in Physics from an American university, Caroline Willard Baldwin (25), receives her degree from Cornell University
1943 – Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded in Chicago
1968 – Austin Currie, then Nationalist Member of Parliament (MP) at Stormont, and other Irish civil rights activists, protest discrimination in the allocation of housing by ‘squatting’ (illegally occupying) in a house in Caledon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
2012 – A Syrian fighter pilot lands in Jordan and defects from the Syrian uprising

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Famous Birthdays

1756 – Joseph Martin Kraus, German-Swedish composer, known as “the Swedish Mozart”, conductor, and pedagogue, born in Miltenberg am Main, Electorate of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire (d. 1792)
1868 – Helen Miller Shepard, American philanthropist who established Hall of Fame, born in Manhattan, New York (d. 1938)
1894 – George Delacorte, American philanthropist and publisher (Dell Books), born in New York City (d. 1991)
1894 – Lloyd Hall, African-American chemist and pioneer in food chemistry (science of food preservation), born in Elgin, Illinois (d. 1971)
1947 – Candace “Candy” Clark, American actress (Man Who Fell to Earth, Q, American Graffiti), born in Norman, Oklahoma

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Famous Deaths

1846 – Pieter Adams, architect of Rotterdam, dies at about 67
1958 – Kurt Alder, German chemist (Nobel 1950), dies at 55
1960 – Mahlon Hamilton, American actor (Peg O’My Heart, High School Girl), dies at 80 (b. 1880)
2016 – James Victor, Dominican-American actor (Boulevard Night, Streets of LA), dies at 76
2021 – Luis del Sol, Spanish soccer midfielder (16 caps; Betis, Real Madrid, Juventus, Roma) and manager (Betis), dies at 86

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Historical Events

1868 – Major General E. R. S. Canby removes mayor of Columbia, South Carolina
1914 – British Open Men’s Golf, Prestwick GC: Harry Vardon of Jersey wins a record 6th Open Championship, 3 strokes ahead of defending champion J.H. Taylor
1976 – US Viking 1 goes into Martian orbit after 10-month flight from Earth
1977 – Pope Paul VI makes 19th-cen bishop John Neumann 1st US male saint
2017 – Record 65.6 million people displaced around the world in 2016 reported by UN refugee agency

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Famous Birthdays

1919 – Pauline Kael, American film critic (NY Times, For Keeps), born in Petaluma, California (d. 2001)
1925 – Alfred Nzo, South African General Secretary of the ANC (1969-91), born in Benoni, Transvaal, South Africa (d. 2000)
1964 – Bill Barretta, American puppeteer, producer, writer, and actor (Sesame Street; Pepe the King Prawn, The Swedish Chef, and Rowlf the Dog in “The Muppet Show”), born in Yardley, Pennsylvania
1967 – Bjørn Dæhlie, Norwegian cross-country skier and 8x Olympic gold medalist, born in Elverum, Norway
1978 – Garfield, American fictional cat created by Jim Davis (Garfield comic strip), born in Mamma Leoni’s Italian Restaurant

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Famous Deaths

1650 – Matthäus Merian, Swiss engraver (b. 1593)
1820 – Joseph Banks, British botanist and naturalist who accompanied James Cook on board the Endeavour, dies at 77
1984 – Lee Krasner [Lena Krassner], American abstract expressionist painter, dies at 75
1994 – Jocelyn Hambro, British financier (Hambros Bank), dies at 75
1996 – Vivian Ellis, English composer, dies at 91

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Historical Events

1960 – San Francisco Giants hire Tom Sheehan to replace Bill Rigney; baseball’s oldest debuting manager (66) goes 46-50-2 for remainder of season
1963 – 3,000 blacks boycott Boston public school to protest de facto segregation
2006 – US Open Men’s Golf, Winged Foot GC: Geoff Ogilvy of Australia makes clutch pars on the final 2 holes to win by 1, as runners-up Jim Furyk, Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson all fail to par the 72nd hole
2014 – King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates the Spanish throne to make way for his son Felipe VI
2019 – England cricket captain Eoin Morgan smashes a ODI world record 17 sixes against Afghanistan in his side’s 150-run World Cup victory at Old Trafford; Morgan, 148 from 71 balls

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Famous Birthdays

1919 – Ted Leadbitter, British politician (Labour), born in Easington, England (d. 1996)
1929 – James Bishop, English editor (deputy editor of The Times), born in London, England (d. 2017)
1946 – Russell Ash, British author (‘the human Google’), born in Surrey, England
1947 – Bernard Giraudeau, French actor (L’Annee des Meduses), screenwriter, and director, born in La Rochelle, France (d. 2010)
1971 – Nigel Owens, Welsh rugby union referee (record holder for most Test matches refereed 100), born in Mynyddcerrig, Wales

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Famous Deaths

1580 – Juliana van Stolberg, German countess, mother of William of Orange and Jan Nassau, dies at 74
1911 – Franjo Ksaver Kuhač, Croatian composer who collected and published 1,600 folk songs, dies at 76
1959 – Ethel Barrymore [Blythe], American classic film and stage actress (Constant Wife, Corn is Green), dies at 79
1961 – Eddie Gaedel, American baseball pinch-hitter (shortest player in MLB history 3′ 7″; St. Louis Browns), dies after mugging at 36
1981 – Richard Goolden, British actor (Two Days to Live, School for Husbands), dies at 86

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