Category: On This Day

Historical Events

1959 – 20th Venice Film Festival: “The Great War” directed by Mario Monicelli and “General della Rovere” directed by Roberto Rossellini jointly awarded Golden Lion
1975 – Communists take over Laos
1975 – Classical Way wins Championship Cup at Roosevelt Raceway
1977 – Marxist philosopher Rudolf Bahro imprisoned in German DR
1979 – Iranian army opens offensive against Kurds
1985 – West German top counter espionage Hans Tiedge moves to German DR

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Famous Birthdays

1884 – Ogden L. Mills, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1927-1932), born in Newport, Rhode Island (d. 1937)
1943 – Bobby Diamond, American actor (Duncan Gillis-Dobie Gillis), born in Los Angeles, California
1954 – Charles Busch, American actor, screenwriter, playwright and drag queen (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife), in Hartsdale, New York
1973 – Malaika Arora Khan, Indian actress and model, born in Thane, India
1979 – Edgar Sosa, Mexican boxer, born in Mexico City, Mexico
1986 – Brett Morris, Australian rugby league player for St. George Illawarra Dragons, born in Kiama, Australia

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Famous Deaths

1106 – Magnus, Duke of Saxony
1519 – Philibert Berthelier, Swiss patriot
1723 – Increase Mather, New England Puritan minister, dies at 84
1903 – Paul Gabriël, Dutch water colors painter and etcher, dies at 75
1961 – Beals Wright, American tennis player (US Nat C’ship 1905; doubles 1904-06), dies at 81
1965 – John Bata, Czech shoe manufacturer, dies at 67

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Historical Events

1951 – Harlem Globetrotters play in Olympic Stadium, Berlin before 75,052
1953 – Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi returns to Tehran
1954 – WPTV TV channel 5 in Palm Beach, FL (NBC) begins broadcasting
1978 – Sandinistas occupy National Palace in Managua, Nicaragua
2010 – The Tradition Senior Men’s Golf, Crosswater Club: Fred Funk wins last of 3 Champions Tour majors by 1 stroke from Michael Allen and Taiwan’s Lu Chien-soon
2019 – Russia launches Fedor, the first life-sized robot, into space to the International Space Station on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

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Famous Birthdays

1854 – Milan I, King of Serbia, born in Mărășești, Romania (d. 1901)
1920 – Pierre A. Lauffer, Antillian poet (Patria), born in Curacao, Venezuela (d. 1981)
1929 – Harry McPherson, presidential counsel (Lyndon Johnson) and lobbyist, born in Tyler, Texas (d. 2012)
1956 – Peter Taylor, Australian cricketer (Australian off-spinner 1987-92), born in North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
1958 – Stevie Ray [Lane Huffman], American professional wrestler, born in Houston, Texas
1974 – Stefano Verderi, Italian guitarist (Le Vibrazioni), born in Milan, Italy

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Famous Deaths

1367 – Egidius AC Albornor, Spanish archbishop of Toledo, dies at about 57
1850 – Nikolaus Lenau, Hungarian-German poet (Faust, Die Albigenser), dies at 48
1944 – Raymond Aimos, actor (Golem, Mayerling, La Bandera), dies at 55
1967 – Gregory Goodwin Pincus, American endocrinologist (b. 1903)
1989 – Johannes “Jan” Teulings, Dutch actor (Lentelied, The Three Wishes), dies of natural causes at 84
2004 – Konstantin Aseev, Russian chess player (b. 1960)

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Historical Events

1863 – Raid at Lawrence KS by William Quantrill
1926 – -22] Uprising against Greek president and dictator Pangalos
1944 – Raid on Jewish children’s house in Secrétan/St-Mandé
1948 – Cleveland Indians 47-inning scoreless streak is broken as future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon yields a home run to Aaron Robinson in a 3-2 loss to Chicago WS
1995 – Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 crashes near Carrollton, Georgia, killing 9 crew and passengers
2012 – 20 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo die from the Ebola virus

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Famous Birthdays

1813 – Jean Stas, Belgian chemist, born in Leuven, Belgium (d. 1891)
1891 – Emiliano Mercado del Toro, World’s oldest living man 2004-2007, born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico (d. 2007)
1925 – Judy Grable [Nellya Baughman], American professional wrestler, born in Bremerton, Washington (d. 2008)
1961 – Lance Earl Deal, American hammer thrower (Olympic silver 1996), born in Riverton, Wyoming
1962 – Jeff Stryker, American adult film actor, born in Carmi, Illinois
1976 – Jeff Cunningham, Jamaican American soccer player, born in Montego Bay, Jamaica

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Famous Deaths

1949 – Gerhard von Keussler, German composer, dies at 75
1988 – Ray Eames, American designer and filmmaker, dies at 75
1995 – Len Martin, sports broadcaster, dies at 76
1995 – Anatole Fistoulari, Ukrainian conductor, dies at 88
1997 – Yuri Nikulin, Russian clown and actor (b. 1921)
2003 – Wesley Willis, American musician (b. 1963)

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Historical Events

1641 – England and Scotland sign Treaty of Pacification
1905 – Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen forms the first chapter of T’ung Meng Hui, a union of all secret societies determined to bringing down the Manchus (Qing dynasty)
1914 – German General von Bulow executes 211 Belgians
1951 – 12th Venice Film Festival: “Rashomon” directed by Akira Kurosawa wins the Golden Lion
1975 – Il-62 crashes south of Damascus, Syria, killing 126
1980 – NY Yankee Bob Watson hits Seattle Kingdome speaker, 2nd straight day

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Famous Birthdays

1632 – Louis Bourdaloue, French Jesuit preacher, born in Bourges, France (d. 1704)
1710 – Thomas Simpson, English mathematician (rule of Simpson), born in Sutton Cheney, Leicestershire (d. 1761)
1922 – Tetsuzo Akutsu, Japanese surgeon who built the first artificial heart, born in Japan (d. 2007)
1955 – Rob Wiedijk, Dutch rock vocalist (Bob Color)
1962 – Dong-Wook Song, South Korean tennis player, born in Seoul, South Korea
1968 – Klas Ingesson, Swedish footballer and manager, born in Ödeshög, Sweden (d. 2014)

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Famous Deaths

1572 – Miguel López de Legazpi, Spanish conquistador (b. 1502)
1643 – Anne Hutchinson, English Puritan preacher, killed in Native American uprising (b. 1591)
1804 – Charles Floyd, only fatality of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
1971 – Rashid Minhas, Pakistani Air Force pilot (b. 1951)
1986 – Walter Brooke, actor (DA Scanlon-Green Hornet), dies at 71
2016 – Irving Fields [Yitzhak Schwartz], American lounge pianist and composer (Ilona Massey Show; Bagels and Bongos), dies at 101

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Historical Events

1504 – Battle of Knockdoe in Galway Ireland.
1911 – NY Giant Christy Mathewson loses after beating Reds 22 straight times
1969 – Chicago Cub Ken Holtzman no-hits Atlanta Braves, 3-0
1979 – “My Sharonna” by the Knack hits #1 (stays for 42 days)
2010 – Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, with the last of the United States brigade combat teams crossing the border to Kuwait
2016 – A 6-way tie for first place in the final of the equestrian individual jumping competition at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; Nick Skelton of Great Britain wins gold medal jump-off

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Famous Birthdays

1893 – Olga Baclanova, Russian actress (Freaks, Docks of NY), born in Moscow, Russia (d. 1974)
1918 – Shankar Dayal Sharma, Indian politician, ninth President of India (1992-97), born in Bhopal, British India (d. 1999)
1942 – Fred Thompson, US senator (R-Tenn)/actor (In the Line of Fire), born in Sheffield, Alabama (d. 2015)
1965 – Maria de Medeiros, Portuguese actress and director
1980 – Jun Jin, Korean rapper (Shinhwa), born in Seoul, South Korea
1983 – Tammin Sursok, Australian actress and singer, born in Johannesburg, South Africa

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Famous Deaths

1765 – Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, Swedish Chemist who discovered nickel and tungsten, dies at 42
1872 – Eugene-Prosper Prevost, French composer, dies at 63
1909 – Rembt THPLA of Boneval Faure, lawyer/1st-Member of parliament, dies
1944 – Gunther von Kluge, German field marshal, commits suicide, dies at 62
1968 – George Gamow, Ukrainian-born physicist (b. 1904)
2001 – Betty Everett, American singer and pianist (b. 1939)

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Historical Events

1737 – First public admittance to the Salon de Paris art exhibition at the Louvre in Paris
1958 – Verne Gagne beats Edouard Carpentier in Omaha, to become NWA champ
1983 – USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
2008 – Belarus weightlifter Andrei Aramnau breaks 3 world records, for the snatch, clean and jerk, and total, on the way to winning the men’s 105kg gold medal at the Beijing Olympics
2013 – Solheim Cup Women’s Golf, Colorado GC: Europe retain Cup for the first time in record winning margin 18-12; Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall becomes first player to win 5 matches in a single competition
2017 – Civilian researchers led by Paul Allen re-discover the USS Indianapolis 18,000 feet below the Pacific surface, 72 years after it was sunk by Japanese torpedoes

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Famous Birthdays

1685 – Brook Taylor, English mathematician, discoverer of Taylor’s Theorem, born in Edmonton, Middlesex, England (d. 1731)
1964 – Edith Frost, American singer and songwriter, born in San Antonio, Texas
1964 – Kenny Walker, American basketball player, born in Roberta, Georgia
1971 – Kevin Bouie, American football running back (Philadelphia Eagles, Ariz Cardinals), born in Pahokee, Florida
1974 – Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Guyanese cricketer (WI left-handed batsman 1994-), born in Unity Village, Guyana
1994 – Jessie Flower [Michaela Murphy], American actress (Avatar: The Last Airbender), born in Southern Indiana

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Famous Deaths

1227 – Genghis Khan [Temüjin Borjigin], Mongolian warlord who founded the Mongol Empire, dies at around 65
1858 – William Austin Burt, American scientist, surveyor and inventor who patented America’s first typographer (typewriter) and the equatorial sextant, dies at 66
1942 – Erwin Schulhoff, Czech-Russian composer and pianist (Ogelala), dies of tuberculosis at 48 in a German concentration camp in Wülzburg, Bavaria
1980 – Norman Cazden, composer, dies at 65
2003 – Tony Jackson, English bass player (The Searchers), dies at 63
2010 – Hal Connolly, American Athlete and hammer thrower (b.1931)

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Historical Events

1905 – Dutch government of Theo de Meester begins
1943 – 498 British bombers attack Peenemunde (development base for the V weapons)
1959 – 7.1 quake strikes Yellowstone National Park
1972 – Phillies Steve Carlton wins his 15th straight game
1977 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
2016 – American sweep in 100m women’s hurdles at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics with Brianna Rollins taking gold ahead of Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin; 1st time US has swept medals in an Olympic women’s track and field event

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Famous Birthdays

1911 – Jan Lode Cantens, Flemish dramatist (God’s Murderer)
1923 – Anton Kersjes, violinist/conductor (Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra)
1924 – Laurence Richard Deniz, jazz guitarist
1933 – Mark Dinning, American singer (d. 1986)
1967 – Nelson Emerson, Hamilton, NHL right wing (Hartford Whalers)
1972 – Ernie Conwell, tight end (St Louis Rams)

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Famous Deaths

1914 – James Grierson, British general
1977 – Petros John Petridis, Greek composer (Isotope Suite), dies at 86
1982 – Barney Phillips [Bernard Philip Ofner], American actor (Dragnet, Felony Squad), dies from cancer at 68
1993 – Feng Kang, Chinese mathematician (b. 1920)
1995 – Ted Whitten, Australian rules footballer, dies at 62
2004 – Gérard Souzay, French baritone, dies at 85

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Historical Events

1863 – Chickamauga campaign of the US Civil War begins in Georgia
1880 – The French state commissions sculptor Auguste Rodin for a large sculpted doorway ‘The Gates of Hell’ for the proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs
1936 – XI Summer Olympic Games close in Berlin
1987 – Astrological Harmonic Convergence-Dawn of New Age
1990 – China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
2004 – Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe wins the men’s 200m freestyle in Olympic record 1:44.71, giving him the 200/400m freestyle double at the Athens Olympics

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Famous Birthdays

1925 – Willie Jones, American baseball third baseman (MLB All Star 1950, 51; Philadelphia Phillies), born in Dillon, South Carolina (d. 1983)
1932 – Jon Lindbergh, 2nd son of aviator Charles Lindbergh
1946 – Massoud Barzani, Iraqi Kurdish politician
1947 – Carol Moseley-Braun, (Sen-D Illinois)
1953 – Catlin O’Heaney, American actress (Snow White-Charmings), born in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
1967 – Bret Barberie, infielder (Chicago Cubs), born in Long Beach, California

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Famous Deaths

1508 – Henry van Stolberg and Wernigerode, German viceroy of Friesland, dies at 41
1705 – Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician known for his contributions to calculus, dies at 50
1880 – Herschel Vespasian Johnson, American politician (41st Governor of Georgia), dies at 67
1994 – Frits de Knight, photographer, dies of AIDS at 40
1995 – Robert “Robby” Debarge, RandB Musician, dies at 36
2019 – Felice Gimondi, Italian road cyclist (Tour de France 1965; Giro d’Italia 1967, 69, 76; Vuelta a España 1968), dies of heart attack at 76

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Historical Events

1537 – Asunción, Paraguay, is founded.
1944 – US 12 Army corps enters Le Mans through Orleans
1950 – Rotterdam dock strike begins
1966 – Radio Free Asia (South Korea) begins radio transmission
1969 – Woodstock Music and Art Fair opens in New York State on Max Yasgur’s Dairy Farm
1990 – At least 150 people die in clashes between the African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party, South Africa

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Famous Birthdays

1875 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, African-British composer (Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast), born in London, England (d. 1912)
1890 – Elvin M. Jellinek, American Physiologist and pioneer in the study of alcoholism, born in NYC, New York
1900 – Estelle Brody, American actress (Safari, Kitty, Plaything), born in NYC, New York (d. 1995)
1914 – Peter Nicholson Gunn, Australian writer (The Churches of Rome), born in Sydney, Australia (d. 1995)
1926 – Lewis T Preston, American banker (President of the World Bank 1991-95), born in NYC, New York
1927 – Wesley Mouzon, American boxer / trainer (Roy Jones Jr), born in Kingstree, South Carolina (d. 2003)

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Famous Deaths

1728 – Marin Marais, French composer, dies at 72
1807 – Johann Nikolaus Tetens, German-Danish philosopher and mathematician, dies at 70
1991 – Marietta Tree, ambassador (UN Comm of Human Rights), dies at 74
1994 – Shepherd Mead, London England, dies of stroke at 80
2001 – Richard Chelimo, Kenyan athlete (b. 1972)
2003 – Gösta Sundqvist, Finnish songwriter and singer (heart attack) (b. 1957)

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Historical Events

1040 – King Duncan I of Scotland killed in battle against his first cousin and rival Macbeth (not murdered in his sleep as in Shakespeare’s play). The latter does succeed him as King.
1551 – Turkish fleet under Dragut occupies Tripoli
1917 – Leeuwen soccer team forms
1945 – Japanese government notifies the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration
1974 – Turkish army attacks Nicosia Cyprus
2019 – American rapper ASAP Rocky found guilty of assault in Stockholm and given a suspended sentence

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Famous Birthdays

1769 – Friedrich Dülon, German flautist and composer, born in Oranienburg (d. 1826)
1863 – Ernest Thayer, American poet who wrote the famous baseball poem “Casey”, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts (d. 1940)
1909 – Len Darling, Australian cricketer (South Australian and Test batsman of 30’s), born in South Yarra, Victoria, Australia (d. 1992)
1927 – Lord Whaddon, CEO (Daltrade and Skorimpex-Rind), born in Sale, Cheshire (d. 2005)
1962 – Mark Robert Isfeld, Canadian soldier and United Nations peacekeeper, born in Zweibrücken, Germany
1971 – Adam Timmerman, American NFL guard (Green Bay Packers-Super Bowl 31), born in Cherokee, Iowa

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Famous Deaths

1887 – Richard Jefferies, English naturalist and essayist, dies of tuberculosis at 38
1922 – Alfred CW Harmsworth, 1st viscount Northcliffe/newspaper magnate, dies
1958 – Big Bill Broonzy, American blues singer and guitarist (Blues by Broonzy), dies of cancer at 65
1963 – Clifford Odets, American playwright (1961 Award of Merit-Golden Boy), dies at 57
1982 – Thruston B. Morton, American republican politician (Sen-Ky, 1957-69), dies at 74
1984 – Bobo Jenkins [John Pickens Jenkins], American blues singer-songwriter (Democrat Blues), dies at 68

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