People I share my birthday with
1707 – Charles Wesley, English Methodist hymnist (d. 1788)
1778 – Joseph Grimaldi, English clown (d. 1837)
1863 – Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914)
1878 – Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union (d. 1953)
1916 – Betty Grable, American actress (d. 1973)
1946 – Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist (d. 1977)
1954 – Ray Liotta, American actor
1963 – Brad Pitt, American actor
1964 – Robson Green, English actor and singer
1969 – Justin Edinburgh, English footballer
1978 – Katie Holmes, American actress
1979 – Mamady Sidibe, Malian footballer
1980 – Christina Aguilera, American singer
People who passed on today
1737 – Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker (b. 1644)
1787 – Francis William Drake, British Admiral and territorial governor (b. 1724)
1971 – Bobby Jones, American golfer (b. 1902)
1993 – Sam Wanamaker, American actor (b. 1919)
2000 – Kirsty MacColl, English singer and songwriter (b. 1959)
2011 – Václav Havel, playwright, philosopher and dissident, last president of Czechoslovakia, and the first president of the Czech Republic (b. 1936)
Notable events
1777 – The United States celebrates its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.
1898 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first officially recognized land speed record of 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h) in a Jeantaud electric car.
1912 – The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, is announced by Charles Dawson.
1966 – Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
1969 – Capital punishment in the United Kingdom: Home Secretary James Callaghan’s motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years.
Er… hello? 