1587: Mary, Queen of Scots gets her head cut off on suspicion of being involved in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. See, what happened was that Mary was the Catholic queen of Scotland and she was married to a useless idiot. He died under mysterious circumstances (he was strangled in the garden) and Mary didn't seem to mind too much. She then married (or perhaps was forced to marry) another useless idiot and was subsequently overthrown. She fled to what she felt was safety, England. Problem was that England was a very Protestant country and Elizabeth was concerned that, if she aided Mary, she would be allowing the Catholic menace in her own backyard. So, Liz treats Mary like a pariah and has her penned up in a variety of dank castles. After seventeen years of this, Liz's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham (played by Geoffry Rush) cooked up a scheme to entrap Mary into a charge of treason. While Liz dithered about what to do, Walsingham basically says, "Well, you didn't say not to have her head cut off," and gets her head cut off. This makes Liz look like the regicide, not Mary and makes Mary into a martyr, not only for Scotland, but for Catholics everywhere.1622: King James I disbands Parliament. I forget why, but I'm sure he had a reason. He's Mary's kid. As Liz died without issue, he was next in line. Except that, after Mary got her head got off, he was forced to renounce her and was raised as a Protestant, so England stayed Protestant for the moment. If you want to give yourself a splitting headache, try to come up with a timeline of when England was Protestant or Catholic and why.
1692: The Salem Witch Trials get kicked off when a doctor in Salem Village suggest that two girls may be suffering from bewitchments.1693: The College of William and Mary is founded in Williamsburg, VA on a grant from King William III and Queen Mary II. William III (aka William of Orange) is the guy who got invited to come run England during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He's also who Orange County, Vermont is named after.
1820: William Tecumseh Sherman is born.
1828: Jules Verne is born.1865: Delaware votes to reject the 13th Amendment and to continue the practice of slavery. The amendment isn't ratified until February 12, 1901.
1904: The Russo-Japanese War kicks off with a surprise attack by the Japanese at Port Arthur, China. It worked out so well for them that the Japanese started to think that a surprise attack on a rival's navy was the best way to kick off a war.
1910: The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.
1915: DW Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles. It's got a bunch of "Wasn't the Klan awesome?" and "Don't black men lust after white women?" kind of crapola in it.
1921: Lana Turner is born. She was known as the original Sweater Girl, because she looked so damned awesome in a tight sweater. Sadly, I could not find a single picture of her in a sweater, so this will have to do, boys.
1922: Audrey Meadows is born. She played the wife on The Honeymooners.1925: Jack Lemmon is born.
1924: The first use of the gas chamber in capital punishment in Nevada.
1931: James Dean is born.
1932: John Williams is born. He did the soundtrack for Gidget Goes to Rome and MST3K episode 307: Daddy-O.. I guess he did some science fiction movies later in his career or something.
1933: Jack Larson is born. He played Jimmy Olsen in the Adventures of Superman TV show.
1941: Nick Nolte is born. He's married to Catherine Zeta Jones, damn him. No, wait she's married to Michael Douglas. Same thing as far as I'm concerned and I don't really need much of an excuse to post picture of Catherine Zeta Jones.
1943: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends after the Japanese evacuate.1944: Roger Lloyd Pack is born. He played John Lumic, the misguided scientist to unleashes the Cybermen on an unsuspecting world in the Doctor Who episode Rise of the Cyberman and The Age of Steel.
1953: Mary Steenburgen is born. She was in the H.G. Wells/Jack the Ripper time travel adventure Time After Time. She was also in Elf.1956: Connie Mack dies.
1961: Vince Neil, of Motley Crue, is born. Sorry, I can't honor the umlaut with this keyboard, so I can't spell "Motley Crue" correctly.
1961: Bruce Timm is born. He, along with writer Paul Dini are the geniuses who gave us the modern age DC Animated Universe: Batman: TAS, Superman, TAS, and the various incarnations of the Justice League.
1968: Gary Coleman is born. He was one of the people who caused child labor laws in Hollywood to be reformed after he was colossally ripped off by his parents.1974: Seth Green is born. He played Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies who exhorts his father to "just get a gun and shoot him!"
Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up
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