1332: During The Wars of Scottish Independence Scots under Domhnall II, Earl of Mar are routed by Edward Balliol at the Battle of Dupplin Moor.
1480: At the Battle of Otranto, Ottoman troops behead 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.
1676: The Praying Indian John Alderman shoots and kills Metacomet the Wampanoag war chief, ending King Philip's War.
1833: Chicago is founded.
1851: Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
1856: Diamond Jim Brady, financier and philanthropist, is born. He was best known for his prodigious appetites. A typical Brady breakfast would be: eggs, pancakes, pork chops, cornbread, fried potatoes, hominy, muffins, and a beefsteak. For refreshment, a gallon of orange juice—or "golden nectar", as he called his favorite drink. Lunch might be two lobsters, deviled crabs, clams, oysters and beef, with a few pies for dessert. The usual evening meal began with an appetizer of two or three dozen oysters, six crabs, and a few servings of green turtle soup, followed by a main course of two whole ducks, six or seven lobsters, a sirloin steak, two servings of terrapin and a host of vegetables. For dessert, the gourmand enjoyed pastries and a two pound box of candy. At his autopsy it was discovered that he had a stomach eight times the normal size.
1877: Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, the second moon of Mars.
1833: The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
1881: Cecil B. DeMille is born.
1904: Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia is born. He was the only son of Tsar Nicholas II. He was a hemophilliac, a condition passed to him by his mother from his maternal grandmother, Queen Victoria of England. He wound up getting murdered at the age of 13, along with the rest of his family, by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution.
1908: The first Model T Ford built.1907: Joe Besser, second string Stooge, is born. On MST3K, Crow T. Robot looks to him as a mentor on affairs of the heart. (Tom Servo looks to Curley Joe DeRita)
1909: Richard L. Bare is born. He directed the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man" and virtually every episode of Green Acres, which makes him of my personal heroes. Happy 99th, Richard!1910: Jane Wyatt is born. She played Amanda Grayson, Spock's human mother on Star Trek.
1912: Samuel Fuller is born. He directed The Big Red One and the proto-exploitation film Shock Corridor.
1914: Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary, which pulls in the other countries of the Empire as well.
1925: Norris and Ross McWhiter, founders of the Guinness Book of Records are born.
1926: John Derek is born. He directed his wife Bo Derek in the bad movie trifecta of Tarzan, the Ape Man, Bolero and Ghosts Can't Do It.
1929: Buck Owens is born. He was the co-host of Hee-Haw.
1932: William Goldman is born. He is the screenwriter who did The Princess Bride, Marathon Man and All the President's Men. He also hated Fight Club, which makes him aces in my book.1939: George Hamilton is born.
1943: Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge. This is another big day for conspiracy loons, as they feel the US Navy used Nikolai Tesla's (nonexistent) Unified Field Theory to either render the Eldridge invisible or managed to teleport it to another location.
USS Eldridge1949: Mark Knopfler, guitarist for Dire Straits, is born.
1952: The Night of the Murdered Poets - Thirteen of the most prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow.
1954: Sam Jones is born. He was the star of the Dino de Laurentiis version of Flash Gordon.
1962: Miss Cleo, TV psychic is born.
1963: Sir Mix A Lot, rapper and bootie aficionado, is born.
1966: John Lennon apologizes at a news conference in Chicago for remarking that "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus."
1977: The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise takes place.
1981: The IBM Personal Computer is released.
1990: Sue, the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota.1992: Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
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.
