Today in History, 2/12

1554: One year after sitting on the throne of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is beheaded for treason. That's the trouble with seizing power - if it doesn't take you get your head cut off.
1689: Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II during the Glorious Revolution constitutes an abdication. He is the last Roman Catholic British monarch.
1771: Gustav III becomes King of Sweden after his father Adolf Frederick eats himself to death.
1789: Ethan Allen dies.
1809: Charles Darwin is born.
1809: Abe Lincoln is born.
1893: General Omar Bradley is born.1879: At Madison Square Garden, the first artificial ice rink opens.
1892: Abraham Lincoln's birthday is declared a national holiday in the US.
1903: Joseph F. Biroc is born. He was the cinematographer on what seems like a laundry list of my favorite movies: It's a Wonderful Life, Blazing Saddles and Airplane! to name three. He also did the MST3K episodes, Kitten With a Whip, The Amazing Colossal Man and SST: Death Flight.

1909: The NAACP is founded.
1914: In Washington, DC, the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is laid.1915: Lorne Greene is born. He was the patriarch of the Ponderosa and captain of the Battlestar Galactica.1919: Forrest Tucker is born. He played Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke on F-Troop. He was also in the MST3K episode The Crawling Eye.
1923: Franco Zeffirelli is born. He did that version of Romeo and Juliet that we all loved so much in high school.
1924: Calvin Coolidge becomes the first US president to deliver a speech on the radio.
1926: Joe Garagiola is born. He was Charlie Brown's favorite baseball player.1936: Joe Don Baker is born. He was in the MST3K episodes Mitchell and Final Justice. The mocking he received at the hands of Joel & The Bots on Mitchel caused him to threaten physical violence to the crew.
1938: Judy Blume is born.
1940: Richard Lynch is born. He was in the MST3K episode Werewolf.
1945: Maud Adams is born. She was a Bond girl in Octopussy and James Caan's arm candy in Rollerball.1950: The Greatest Actor in the History of the World, Michael Ironside is born. He's played a bad guy in just about every movie worth watching: the evil Scanner in Scanners, the genocidally inclined guerrilla in V, the big whatever in Spacehunter, Adventures in the Forbidden Zone and Lt. Rasczak in Starship Troopers. Plus, he provided the voice of Darkseid in the Superman and JLA cartoons. Here's his pivotal scene from Scanners. Its NSFM (Not Safe For Mom).

1951: Stephen Parent is born. He was one of the people murdered by the Manson Family on August 9th, 1969 and he was just a case of bad timing - he had stopped by to try and sell the caretaker a radio.
1952: Michael McDonald is born. He is best known for having screwed up The Doobie Brothers.
1953: Simon MacCorkindale is born. He played Phillip FitzRoyce in Jaws 3-D.
1953: Nabil Shaban is born. He played the squidgy alien weapons merchant Sil in the Doctor Who episode Vengeance on Varos. 1955: Arsenio Hall is born.
1968: Christopher McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp) is born. He met a sorry end in the wilds of Alaska.
1973: Ohio becomes the first US state to post distance in the metric system.
1973: Kath Soucie is born. She provided the voice of Cubert Farnsworth on Futurama.
1980: Christina Ricci is born. 'Nuff said.1985: Nicholas Colasanto dies. He played Coach on Cheers.

2000: Tom Landry dies.2000: Charles Schulz dies.