On This Day

[Raistlin]

Events

1900 Professor Max Planck of Berlin University revealed his revolutionary Quantum Theory.

1911 A Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole 35 days ahead of Captain Scott.

1918 For the first time in Britain women (over 30) voted in a General Election.

1959 Archbishop Makarios was elected Cyprus' first president.

1962 US Mariner II sent the first close-up pictures of the planet Venus back to Earth.

1981 Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights, occupied in 1967.

1990 After 30 years in exile, ANC president Oliver Tambo returned to South Africa.

1995 The peace plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina was formally signed at the Elysée Palace, Paris, creating two entities within Bosnia: a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic.

Births

1503 Nostradamus, French physician and astrologer

1546 Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer and mathematician

1866 Roger Fry, English painter and critic

1895 George VI, King of Great Britain

1935 Lee Remick, US actress

1946 Stan Smith, US tennis player

Deaths

1799 George Washington, 1st US president

1861 Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria

1947 Stanley Baldwin, British politician

1959 Stanley Spencer, English painter

1989 Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and human-rights campaigner

1993 Myrna Loy, US film actress

[Raistlin]

Events

1654 A meteorological office established in Tuscany began recording daily temperature readings.

1791 The Bill of Rights' ten amendments became part of the US Constitution.

1916 In World War I, the first Battle of Verdun ended; over 700,000 German and Allied soldiers died in the action.

1939 Nylon was first produced commercially in Delaware, USA.

1961 Nazi official Adolph Eichmann was found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people and sentenced to death, after a trial in Jerusalem.

1982 Gibraltar's frontier with Spain was opened to pedestrian use after 13 years.

1992 Bettino Craxi, the leader of Italy's Socialist Party, was informed that he was under investigation in a burgeoning corruption scandal that had racked the northern city of Milan.

1993 The prime ministers of Britain and the Republic of Ireland (John Major and Albert Reynolds) made the 'Downing Street Declaration', stating the basis for trying to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.

1993 117 nations agreed on a revised General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva, Switzerland.

1996 The Boeing and McDonnell Douglas aircraft manufacturers announced that they would merge, creating the world's largest aerospace company.

Births

AD 37 Nero, Roman emperor

1734 George Romney, English painter

1832 Gustave Eiffel, French engineer

1892 John Paul Getty, US oil billionaire

1936 Edna O'Brien, Irish novelist

1942 Dave Clark, English pop drummer

Deaths

1675 Jan Vermeer, Dutch painter

1683 Izaak Walton, English author of The Compleat Angler

1890 Sitting Bull, chief of the Sioux Indians

1943 Fats Waller, US jazz pianist

1962 Charles Laughton, English actor

1966 Walt Disney, US filmmaker and animator

[Raistlin]

Births

1485 King Henry VIII of England

1775 Jane Austen, English novelist

1882 jack Hobbs, English cricketer

1889 Noël Coward, English dramatist, actor and composer

1901 Margaret Mead, US anthropologist

1938 Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress

Deaths

1859 Wilhelm Grimm, German philologist and folklorist

1921 Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer

1944 Glenn Miller, US trombonist and bandleader

1965 William Somerset Maugham, British novelist

1993 Kakuei Tanaka, Japanese politician

1993 Charles Moore, US architect

Events

1653 Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England.

1773 The Boston Tea Party, a protest against British taxation, took place off Griffin's Wharf in Boston harbour.

1809 Napoleon divorced his wife Josephine, because she had not produced children.

1838 The Zulu chief Dingaan was defeated by a small force of Boers at Blood River celebrated in South Africa as 'Dingaan's Day'.

1850 The first immigrant ship, the Charlotte Jane, arrived at Lyttleton, New Zealand.

1944 The Battle of the Bulge, in the Ardennes, began with a strong counter-attack by the Germans under General von Rundstedt.

1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest, was elected president in Haiti's first democratic elections.

1991 The UN General Assembly voted to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.

1995 Many US government functions were again closed as a temporary finance provision expires and the budget dispute between President Clinton and Republicans in Congress continued.

1996 Britain's agriculture minister announced the slaughter of an additional 100,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting BSE in an effort to persuade the EU to lift its ban on British.

[Raistlin]

Births

1749 Domenico Cimarosa, Italian composer

1778 Humphry Davy, English chemist and inventor

1874 William Lyon MacKenzie King, Canadian statesman

1903 Erskine Caldwell, US novelist

1936 Tommy Steele, British singer and actor

1938 Peter Snell, New Zealand athlete

Deaths

1830 Simón Bolívar, South American revolutionary leader

1897 Alphonse Daudet, French novelist

1917 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first English woman physician

1967 Harold Holt, Australian politician

1988 Sy Oliver, US composer

Events

1843 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens was published.

1892 Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker was first performed, in St Petersburg by the Russian Imperial Ballet.

1903 Orville Wright made the first successful controlled flight in a powered aircraft, at Kill Devil Hill, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA.

1939 The German battleship Graf Spee was scuttled by British warships off Montvideo, Uruguay, after the Battle of the River Plate.

1973 Thirty-one people were killed at Rome airport after Arab guerillas hijacked a German airliner.

1978 OPEC decided to raise oil prices by 14.5% by the end of 1979.

1986 At Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, Davina Thompson became the world's first recipient of a heart, lungs, and liver transplant.

1992 Israel deported over 400 Palestinians to Lebanese territory in an unprecedented mass expulsion of suspected militants.

1996 Kofi Annan of Ghana was elected the seventh secretary general of the UN.

1996 The Red Cross pulled all but a handful of its western staff out of Chechnya after masked gunmen shot dead six foreign aid workers.

1996 The Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, was besieged by Marxist Tupac Amaru guerrillas, taking around 500 diplomats, politicians and business leaders hostage.

[Raistlin]

Events

1865 The USA officially abolished slavery with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

1903 The Panama Canal Zone was acquired 'in perpetuity' by the USA, for an annual rent.

1912 The immigration of illiterate persons to the USA was prohibited by Congress.

1912 The discovery of the Piltdown Man in East Sussex was announced; it was proved to be a hoax in 1953.

1969 The death penalty for murder was abolished in Britain.

1970 Divorce became legal in Italy.

1973 The IRA launched its Christmas bombing campaign in London.

1979 The sound barrier was broken on land for the first time by Stanley Barrett, driving at 739.6 mph, in California.

1996 Despite a UN truce, factional fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, broke out in which at least 300 fighters and civilians were killed.

Births

1779 Joseph Grimaldi, English clown

1879 Paul Klee, Swiss painter

1913 Willy Brandt, German statesman

1916 Betty Grable, US film actress

1943 Keith Richards, British guitarist

1947 Steven Spielberg, US film director

Deaths

1737 Antonio Stradivari, Italian violinmaker

1919 John Alcock, English aviator

1957 Dorothy L Sayers, English author

1971 Bobby Jones, US golfer

1980 Ben Travers, British dramatist

1990 Paul Tortelier, French cellist

1993 Sam Wanamaker, US actor and director

[Raistlin]

Events

1154 Henry II became King of England.

1562 The Battle of Dreux was fought between the Huguenots and the Catholics, beginning the French Wars of Religion.

1842 Hawaii's independence was recognized by the USA.

1955 'Blue Suede Shoes' was recorded by Carl Perkins in Memphis, Tennessee.

1957 An air service between London and Moscow was inaugurated.

1965 Charles de Gaulle defeated François Mitterrand in the second round of presidential elections.

1978 Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Lok Sabha for contempt and imprisoned.

1984 Britain and China signed an agreement in Beijing, in which Britain agreed to transfer full sovereignty of Hong Kong to China in 1997.

1989 US troops invaded Panama to overthrow the regime of General Noriega.

1991 Bob Hawke was deposed as Australia's prime minister by his parliamentary colleagues and replaced by Paul Keating.

Births

1790 William Edward Parry, English Arctic explorer

1852 Albert Abraham Michelson, US physicist

1902 Ralph Richardson, English actor

1906 Leonid Brezhnev, Soviet leader

1910 Jean Genet, French dramatist and essayist

1915 Edith Piaf, French singer

Deaths

1741 Vitus Bering, Danish navigator

1848 Emily Brontë, English novelist

1851 Joseph Turner, English painter

1953 Robert Andrews Millikan, US physicist

1980 Alexei Nikolaievich Kosygin, Soviet politician

1989 Stella Gibbons, English author

[Raistlin]

Births

1894 Robert Menzies, Australian politician

1923 James Leasor, English author

1926 Geoffrey Howe, British politician

1946 Uri Geller, Israeli psychic/illusionist

1952 Jenny Agutter, English actress

1958 Billy Bragg, English rock singer

Deaths

1937 Erich Ludendorff, German general

1954 James Hilton, English novelist

1968 John Steinbeck, US novelist

1982 Artur Rubinstein, US pianist

1983 Bill Brandt, British photographer

1994 Dean Rusk, US Democrat politician

Events

1860 South Carolina seceded from the American Union, and joined the Confederacy.

1915 The ANZACS, Australian and New Zealand forces with British troops were evacuated from Gallipoli, after their expedition against the Turks went seriously wrong.

1933 Flying Down to Rio, the first film to feature Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, was first shown in New York.

1957 Elvis Presley, at the height of his stardom, received his draft papers.

1973 The Spanish premier Carrero Blanco was assassinated in Madrid.

1989 General Noriega, Panama's former dictator, was overthrown by a US invasion force invited by the new civilian government.

1990 Soviet Foregn Minister Shevardnadze resigned, complaining of conservative attacks on his policies.

1991 Ante Markovic resigned as federal Prime Minister of Yugoslavia.

1996 Doctors reported that a Cypriot woman who had taken fertility drugs was carrying about 11 embryos.

[Raistlin]

Events

1192 King Richard I was captured by Duke Leopold of Austria on his return from the Crusade.

1620 The Pilgrim Fathers, aboard the Mayflower, landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.

1879 Ibsen's A Doll's House was first performed in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a revised happy ending.

1925 Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin was first shown in Moscow.

1937 Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was shown in Los Angeles, the first full-length animated talking picture.

1958 General Charles de Gaulle became president of France.

1988 A Pan Am jet blew up in mid-flight and crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers aboard and 11 people on the ground; the terrorist bomb had been concealed within a radio.

1990 In a German television interview, Saddam Hussein declared that he would not withdraw from Kuwait by the UN deadline.

Births

1804 Benjamin Disraeli, British politician

1879 Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader

1917 Heinrich Böll, German author

1937 Jane Fonda, US film actress

1940 Frank Zappa, US rock singer and composer

1954 Chris Evert, US tennis player

Deaths

1375 Giovanni Boccaccio, Italian author

1824 James Parkinson, British neurologist

1940 F Scott Fitzgerald, US novelist

1945 George Patton, US military leader

1963 jack Hobbs, English cricketer

1993 Alexander Mackendrick, US-born Scottish film director

[Raistlin]

Births

1768 John Crome, English painter

1839 John Nevil Maskelyne, English stage magician

1858 Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer

1907 Peggy Ashcroft, English actress

1949 Maurice and Robin Gibb, Australian pop musicians

Deaths

1880 George Eliot, English novelist

1943 Beatrix Potter, English author and artist

1944 Harry Langdon, US silent-film comedian

1965 Richard Dimbleby, British broadcaster

1989 Samuel Beckett, Irish author and dramatist

Events

1715 James Stuart, the 'Old Pretender', landed at Petershead after his exile in France.

1894 Alfred Dreyfus, the French officer who was falsely convicted for selling military secrets, was sent to Devil's Island.

1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen made the first X-ray, of his wife's hand.

1961 James Davis became the first US soldier to die in Vietnam, while US involvement was still limited to the provision of military advisers.

1989 Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausçescu was overthrown in a bloody revolutionary coup.

1991 Eleven of the 12 Soviet republics (excluding Georgia) agreed, in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, on the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States.

1994 Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned following accusations of corruption.

1996 The local school board in Oakland, California, became the first to recognise 'black English', or 'Ebonics', as a distinct language.

1996 A car bomb exploded in Belfast, injuring a known IRA supporter. Police suspected that Protestant loyalists were responsible for the attack.

[Raistlin]

Births

1732 Richard Arkwright, English inventor

1777 Alexander I, tsar of Russia

1812 Samuel Smiles, Scottish author

1888 J Arthur Rank, British film magnate

1909 Maurice Denham, English actor

1918 Helmut Schmidt, German statesman

Deaths

1631 Michael Drayton, English poet

1834 Thomas Robert Malthus, English economist

1872 George Catlin, US painter and explorer

1944 Charles Dana Gibson, US artist and illustrator

1987 Henry Cotton, British golfer

1991 Ernst Krenek, US composer

Events

1834 English architect Joseph Hansom patented his 'safety cab', better known as the Hansom cab.

1888 Following a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh cut off part of his own earlobe.

1922 The British Broadcasting Corporation began daily news broadcasts.

1948 General Tojo and six other Japanese military leaders were executed, having been found guilty of crimes against humanity.

1953 Soviet secret police chief Lavrenti Beria and six of his associates were shot for treason following a secret trial.

1965 A 70-mph speed limit was introduced in Britain.

1986 Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager made the first non-stop flight around the world without refuelling, piloting the US plane Voyager.

1990 Elections in Yugoslavia ended, leaving four of its six republics with non-Communist governments.

1995 Bodies of 16 members of the Solar Temple religious sect were found in a clearing near Grenoble, France; 14 were probably shot by two who then committed suicide.

1996 Russian President Yeltsin returned to work in the Kremlin, seven weeks after his heart by-pass operation.

[Raistlin]

Births

1167 John, King of England

1491 Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish founder of the Jesuits

1822 Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic

1905 Howard Hughes, US tycoon

1922 Ava Gardner, US film actress

1932 Colin Cowdrey, English cricketer

Deaths

1524 Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer and navigator

1863 W M Thackeray, English novelist

1924 Leon Bakst, Russian painter and stage designer

1935 Alban Berg, Austrian composer

1961 Frank Richards, English writer

1980 Karl Doenitz, German naval commander

1994 John Osborne, English dramatist

Events

1515 Thomas Wolsey was appointed Lord Chancellor of England.

1814 The War of 1812 between the USA and Britain was brought to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

1828 William Burke who, with his partner William Hare, dug up the dead and murdered to sell the corpses for dissection, went on trial in Edinburgh.

1871 Verdi's Aida was first performed in Cairo, Egypt.

1914 In World War I, the first air raid on Britain was made when a German airplane dropped a bomb on the grounds of a rectory in Dover.

1951 Libya achieved independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, under King Idris.

1965 A meteorite landed on Leicestershire; it weighed about 100lbs.

1979 Afghanistan was invaded by Soviet troops as the Kabul government fell.

[Raistlin]

Births

1642 Isaac Newton, English scientist

1883 Maurice Utrillo, French painter

1899 Humphrey Bogart, US film actor

1918 Anwar Sadat, Egyptian statesman

1949 Sissy Spacek, US film actress

1954 Annie Lennox, British pop singer

Deaths

1938 Karel Capek, Czech dramatist

1946 W C Fields, US actor and screenwriter

1977 Charlie Chaplin, English actor and director

1983 Joan Miró, Spanish artist

1989 Nicolae Ceausçescu, Romanian politician, executed

Events

800 Charlemagne was crowned first Holy Roman Emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III.

1066 William the Conqueror was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey.

1914 During World War I, British and German troops observed an unofficial truce, even playing football together on the Western Front's 'no man's land'.

1926 Hirohito succeeded his father Yoshihito as emperor of Japan.

1941 Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese.

1972 The Nicaraguan capital Managua was devastated by an earthquake which killed over 10,000 people.

1979 The USSR invaded Afghanistan in a bid to halt civil war and protect USSR interests.

1989 Dissident playwright Vaclav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia.

1991 Unable to maintain control over a disintegrating Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as president.

[Raistlin]

Births

1716 Thomas Gray, English poet

1792 Charles Babbage, English mathematician

1891 Henry Miller, US novelist

1893 Mao Zedong, Chinese Communist leader

1914 Richard Widmark, US film actor

1944 Jane Lapotaire, English actress

Deaths

1797 John Wilkes, British politician and journalist

1890 Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist

1957 Charles Pathé, French film pioneer

1972 Harry S Truman, 33rd US president

1974 jack Benny, US comedian

Events

1620 The Pilgrim Fathers landed at New Plymouth, Massachusetts, to found Plymouth Colony, with John Carver as Governor.

1898 Marie and Pierre Curie discovered radium.

1908 Texan boxer 'Galveston Jack' Johnson knocked out Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, to become the first black boxer to win the world heavyweight title.

1943 The German battlecruiser Scharnhorst was sunk in the North Sea, during the Battle of North Cape.

1956 Fidel Castro attempted a secret landing in Cuba to overthrow the Batista regime; all but 11 of his supporters were killed.

1959 The first charity walk took place, along Icknield Way, in aid of the World Refugee Fund.

1991 The Soviet Union's parliament formally voted the country out of existence.

[Raistlin]

Births

1571 Johannes Kepler, German astronomer

1773 George Cayley, British aviation pioneer

1822 Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist

1878 Sydney Greenstreet, English film actor

1901 Marlene Dietrich, German singer and actress

1948 Gerard Depardieu, French film actor

Deaths

1834 Charles Lamb, English essayist and critic

1950 Max Beckmann, German painter

1972 Lester Pearson, Canadian statesman

1978 Houari Boumédienne, Algerian politician

1981 Hoagy Carmichael, US composer, singer, and pianist

1992 Hervé Guibert, French novelist and photographer

Events

1703 The Methuen Treaty was signed between Portugal and England, giving preference to the import of Portuguese wines into England.

1831 Charles Darwin set sail in the Beagle on his voyage of scientific discovery.

1904 James Barrie's play Peter Pan premiered in London.

1927 Defeated in his struggle for power against Stalin, Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

1965 The BP oil rig Sea Gem capsized in the North Sea, with the loss of 13 lives.

1978 With the adoption of a new constitution, Spain became a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship.

1996 Muslim fundamentalist Taliban forces retook the strategic air base of Bagram, solidifying their buffer zone around Kabul, the Afghanistan capital.

[bothwell_buyer]

Mummy was born.

[Raistlin]

Births

1856 Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president

1882 Arthur Stanley Eddington, English astronomer

1905 Earl Hines, US jazz pianist

1908 Lew Ayres, US film actor

1934 Maggie Smith, English actress

1956 Nigel Kennedy, English violinist

Deaths

1694 Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland

1734 Rob Roy, Scottish clan chief

1923 Gustave Eiffel, French engineer

1937 Maurice Ravel, French composer

1971 Max Steiner, US film music composer

1984 Sam Peckinpah, US film director

1993 William Shirer, US journalist, author, and historian

Events

1065 Westminster Abbey was consecrated under Edward the Confessor.

1836 Mexico's independence was recognized by Spain.

1879 In Dundee, Scotland the central portion of the Tay Bridge collapsed as a train was passing over it, killing 75 people.

1908 An earthquake killed over 75,000 at Messina in Sicily.

1926 The highest recorded cricket innings score of 1,107 runs was hit by Victoria, against New South Wales, in Melbourne.

1937 The Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland when a new constitution established the country as a sovereign state.

1950 The Peak District became Britain's first designated National Park.

1989 Alexander Dubcek, who had been expelled from the Communist Party in 1970, was elected speaker of the Czech parliament.

1995 Pressure from German prosecutors investigating pornography forced CompuServe to set a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups on the Internet for its 4 million customers.

[Raistlin]

Births

1856 Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president

1882 Arthur Stanley Eddington, English astronomer

1905 Earl Hines, US jazz pianist

1908 Lew Ayres, US film actor

1934 Maggie Smith, English actress

1956 Nigel Kennedy, English violinist

Deaths

1694 Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland

1734 Rob Roy, Scottish clan chief

1923 Gustave Eiffel, French engineer

1937 Maurice Ravel, French composer

1971 Max Steiner, US film music composer

1984 Sam Peckinpah, US film director

1993 William Shirer, US journalist, author, and historian

Events

1065 Westminster Abbey was consecrated under Edward the Confessor.

1836 Mexico's independence was recognized by Spain.

1879 In Dundee, Scotland the central portion of the Tay Bridge collapsed as a train was passing over it, killing 75 people.

1908 An earthquake killed over 75,000 at Messina in Sicily.

1926 The highest recorded cricket innings score of 1,107 runs was hit by Victoria, against New South Wales, in Melbourne.

1937 The Irish Free State became the Republic of Ireland when a new constitution established the country as a sovereign state.

1950 The Peak District became Britain's first designated National Park.

1989 Alexander Dubcek, who had been expelled from the Communist Party in 1970, was elected speaker of the Czech parliament.

1995 Pressure from German prosecutors investigating pornography forced CompuServe to set a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups on the Internet for its 4 million customers.

[Raistlin]

Births

1853 André Messager, French composer

1865 Rudyard Kipling, English author and poet

1906 Carol Reed, English film director

1928 Bo Diddley, US rhythm and blues singer

1959 Tracey Ullman, English comedienne

1961 Ben Johnson, Canadian athlete

Deaths

1691 Robert Boyle, Irish physicist and chemist

1894 Amelia Bloomer, US social reformer

1916 Grigoriy Efimovich Rasputin, Siberian mystic

1968 Trygve Lie, Norwegian politician and diplomat

1979 Richard Rodgers, US composer

Events

1460 At the Battle of Wakefield, in England's Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was defeated and killed by the Lancastrians.

1879 Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance was first performed, at Paignton, Devon, England.

1880 The Transvaal was declared a republic by Paul Kruger, who became its first president.

1887 A petition to Queen Victoria with over one million names of women appealing for public houses to be closed on Sundays was handed to the home secretary.

1919 Lincoln's Inn, in London, admitted the first female bar student.

1922 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.

1947 King Michael of Romania abdicated in favour of a Communist Republic.

1988 Colonel Oliver North subpoenaed President Reagan and Vice President Bush to testify at the Irangate hearings.

1996 A passenger train was bombed by Bodo separatists in India's eastern state of Assam, killing at least 26 people and seriously injuring dozens.

1996 Some 250,000 striking workers shut down vital services across Israel in protests against budget cuts proposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

[Raistlin]

Births

1720 Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender to the British throne

1869 Henri Matisse, French painter

1880 George Marshall, US general

1937 Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor

1943 Ben Kingsley, British actor

1948 Donna Summer, US singer

Deaths

1719 John Flamsteed, first Astronomer Royal

1877 Gustave Courbet, French painter

1936 Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish writer

1948 Malcolm Campbell, British racing driver

1951 Maxim Litvinov, Soviet leader

1985 Rick Nelson, US rock and country singer

Events

1687 The first Huguenots set sail from France for the Cape of Good Hope, where they would later create the South African wine industry with the vines they took with them on the voyage.

1695 The window tax was imposed in Britain, which resulted in many being bricked up.

1711 The Duke of Marlborough was dismissed as commander-in-chief.

1857 Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of the Dominion of Canada.

1891 New York's new Immigration Depot was opened at Ellis Island, to provide improved facilities for the massive numbers of arrivals.

1923 In London the chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC.

1960 The farthing coin, which had been in use in Great Britain since the 13th century, ceased to be legal tender.

1979 At year end oil prices were 88% higher than at the start of 1979.

1990 Titleholder Gary Kasparov of the USSR won the world chess championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.

[Raistlin]

Births

1605 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1784 Leigh Hunt, English poet and essayist

1859 Alfred Dreyfus, French army officer

1862 Auguste Marie Lumière, French photographic pioneer

1931 John Le Carré, English novelist

1944 Peter Tosh, Jamaican reggae musician

Not to mention the birth of Raistlin :D

Deaths

1216 King John of England

1682 Thomas Browne, English author and physician

1745 Jonathan Swift, Irish author

1897 George Pullman, US engineer and sleeping-car manufacturer

1937 Ernest Rutherford, New Zealand physicist

1987 Jacqueline du Pré, British cellist

Events

1610 Samuel Pepys begins his diary in London.

1781 General Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, marking the end of the American War of Independence.

1813 Napoleon at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig.

1860 The first company to manufacture internal combustion engines was formed in Florence, Italy.

1864 American Civil War, General Sheridan was victorious over the Confederates at the Battle of Cedar Creek.

1872 The Holtermann nugget was mined at Hill End, New South Wales in SE Australia; weighing 630lbs, it was the largest gold-bearing nugget ever found.

1935 The League of Nations imposed sanctions on Italy, following her invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1987 Wall Street was struck by 'Black Monday', during which millions were wiped out on stock markets around the world.

1989 After serving 14 years in prison for the IRA Guildford and Woolwich bombings in England, the 'Guildford Four' had their convictions quashed.

[Raistlin]

Events

1492 Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrendered to the Spaniards.

1635 Cardinal Richelieu established the Académie Française.

1839 French photographer Louis Daguerre took the first photograph of the Moon.

1943 In the USSR, the German withdrawal from Caucasus began.

1946 King Zog of Albania, who had been residing in England since 1939, was deposed.

1955 President José Remon of Panama is assassinated while at the races.

1959 The Russian uncrewed spacecraft Luna I, the first rocket to pass near the Moon, was launched.

1965 Indonesia withdrew from the United Nations (the first member to do so); on the 8th, there were more Indonesian landings in Malaya.

1971 A barrier collapsed at the Ibrox Park football stadium in Glasgow, crushing 66 fans to death.

1979 The trial of Sid Vicious, the Sex Pistols' singer accused of murdering his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, began in New York.

1992 Price controls were lifted in Russia, Ukraine, and many other CIS republics.

1996 Sweeping reforms to the Royal Ulster Constabulary were announced following a wave of IRA murders.

Births

1727 James Wolfe, British general

1866 George Murray, English classical scholar

1905 Michael Tippett, English composer

1920 Isaac Asimov, US biochemist and science-fiction writer

1936 Roger Miller, US singer and composer

1938 David Bailey, English photographer

Deaths

AD 17 Ovid, Roman poet

1861 Frederick William IV of Prussia

1892 George Airy, English Astronomer Royal

1950 Emil Janning, US film actor

1974 Tex Ritter, US stage and screen singing cowboy

1983 Dick Emery, English comedian

1995 Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalian soldier and president

[Raistlin]

Events

1521 Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.

1777 The Battle of Princeton took place in the War of Independence, in which George Washington defeated the British forces, led by Cornwallis.

1815 By secret treaty, Austria, Britain, and France formed a defensive alliance against Prusso-Russian plans to solve the Saxon and Polish problems.

1868 The Shogunate was abolished in Japan and Meiji dynasty was restored.

1924 English explorer Howard Carter discovered the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt.

1925 In Italy, Mussolini announced that he would take dictatorial powers.

1945 US forces complete the capture of Mindoros in the Philippines.

1959 Alaska became the 49th state of the United States.

1962 Pope John XXIII excommunicated Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro.

1988 Margaret Thatcher became the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th century.

1991 The British government announced that seven Iraqi diplomats, another embassy staff member and 67 other Iraqis were being expelled from Britain.

1993 US President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Moscow.

1995 WHO reported that the cumulative total of officially reported cases of AIDS had risen to 1,025,073 in 192 countries as at the end of 1994.

1997 A Rwandan court sentenced two Hutu men to death for their involvement in the massacres of half a million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the country's 1994 civil war.

Births

106 BC Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator and statesman

1883 Clement Attlee, British statesman

1892 J R R Tolkien, English writer

1907 Ray Milland, US film actor

1909 Victor Borge, Danish musician and comedian

1942 John Thaw, British actor

Deaths

1795 Josiah Wedgwood, English potter

1875 Pierre Larousse, French editor and encyclopedist

1923 Jaroslav Hasek, Czech novelist

1979 Conrad Hilton, US hotel magnate

1980 Joy Adamson, British naturalist and author

[Raistlin]

Events

1797 Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Austrians under Joseph Alvintzi at Rivoli.

1884 The socialist Fabian Society was founded in London.

1885 The first successful surgical removal of an appendix was performed, in Iowa, USA.

1936 The first pop-music chart was compiled, based on record sales published in New York in Billboard.

1944 The attack on Monte Cassino was launched by the British Fifth Army in Italy.

1965 In his State of the Union address, US president Johnson proclaimed the building of the 'Great Society'.

1972 Rose Heilbron became the first woman judge in Britain at the Old Bailey, London.

1981 The Broadway show Frankenstein lost an estimated $2 million, when it opened and closed on the same night.

1991 The UN Security Council voted unanimously to condemn Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories.

1997 The Greek Cypriot government signed an agreement to buy S-300 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, threatening the delicate balance of military power in and around Cyprus.

Births

1809 Louis Braille, French deviser of an alphabet for the blind

1878 Augustus John, Welsh painter

1890 Daily Graphic, first fully-illustrated English newspaper.

1896 Utah becomes a US state.

1935 Floyd Patterson, US boxer

1937 Grace Bumbry, US opera singer

1939 Dyan Cannon, US actress

1943 John McLaughlin, British blues and jazz guitarist

Deaths

1958 Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer

1960 Albert Camus, French novelist and dramatist

1965 T S Eliot, US poet and critic

1985 Brian Gwynne Horrocks, British general

1986 Christopher Isherwood, English novelist and dramatist

[Raistlin]

Events

1477 Charles the Bold, King of France, was killed at the Battle of Nancy.

1896 German physicist Röntgen gave the first demonstration of X-rays.

1919 In Germany, formation of German Workers' Party (later National Socialist German Workers' Party) was formed in Munich; Adolf Hitler attended for first time (12 Sept).

1938 Billie Holiday recorded 'When You're Smiling (the Whole World Smiles with You)' in New York.

1964 The London Underground's first automatic ticket barrier was installed, at Stamford Brook.

1964 On his tour of the Holy Land, Pope Paul VI met Patriarch Athenagoras I, the first meeting between the heads of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches in over 500 years.

1976 French premier Giscard d'Estaing promulgated a law making French the only language permitted in advertising in France.

1997 The Russian troop withdrawal from the separatist republic of Chechnya was completed. The complete withdrawal of interior ministry troops had been ordered by President Yeltsin.

Births

1876 Konrad Adenauer, German statesman

1902 Stella Gibbons, English poet and novelist

1905 King Camp Gillette, American political theorist and inventor of the safety razor

1931 Alfred Brendel, Austrian concert pianist

1931 Robert Duvall, US film actor

1938 Juan Carlos, King of Spain

1946 Diane Keaton, US film actress

Deaths

1066 Edward the Confessor, King of England

1589 Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France

1858 Count Radetzky, Austrian soldier

1922 Henry Shackleton, Irish Antarctic explorer

1933 Calvin Coolidge, 30th US president

1941 Amy Johnson, English aviator

[Raistlin]

Births

1367 King Richard II of England

1412 St Joan of Arc, French martyr

1833 Gustave Doré, French artist and illustrator

1878 Carl Sandburg, US poet

1913 Loretta Young, US film actress

1957 Rowan Atkinson, English actor and comedian

1959 Kapil Dev, Indian cricketer

Deaths

1840 Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist

1884 Gregor Mendel, Austrian monk and biologist

1919 Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president

1981 Archibald Joseph Cronin, Scottish novelist

1993 Rudolf Nureyev, Russian dancer

1993 Dizzy Gillespie, US jazz trumpeter

1994 Tip O'Neill, US Democratic Party politician

1995 Joe Slovo, South African lawyer and politician

Events

871 England's King Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown.

1205 Philip of Swabia was crowned as King of the Romans (-1208).

1453 Frederick III erected Austria into an Archduchy.

1540 King Henry VIII of England was married to Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife.

1720 The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble published its findings.

1838 The first public demonstration of the electric telegraph was given by its inventor, Samuel Morse.

1912 In USA, New Mexico was admitted to the union as the 47th state.

1928 The River Thames flooded, drowning four people, and severely damaging paintings stored in the Tate Gallery's basement.

1945 The Battle of the Bulge, or Ardennes offensive, ended, with 130,000 German and 77,000 Allied casualties.

1967 US and South Vietnamese forces launched a major offensive in Mekong Delta.

1988 La Coupole, the Parisian brasserie made famous by generations of notable artists and writers who frequented it, was sold for £6 million to be converted into an office block.

1996 Three winners shared the record National Lottery jackpot of £42 million.