July 6
It’s National Fried Chicken Day
ON THIS DAY…
1189 Richard the Lionheart is crowned King of England
1415 Religious reformer Jan Hus is burned at the stake as a heretic by the Catholic Church
1483 Richard III is crowned king of England
1699 Pirate captain William Kidd is arrested in Boston; sent to trial in England, he is convicted and hanged two years later
1777 At the Battle of Ticonderoga, bombardment by British artillery under General John Burgoyne forces American retreat from Fort Ticonderoga, NY
1785 The dollar is unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States
1854 The Republican Party is founded as an antislavery party by former members of the Whig, Democratic, Free Soil, and Know Nothing parties
1858 A shoemaker named Lyman Blake patented the first shoe-sole machine in Abington, MA
1885 Louis Pasteur uses his newly developed vaccine against rabies to save the life of a young boy, Joseph Meister, who was bitten by a rabid dog
1886 Horlick’s of Wisconsin offered the first malted milk to the public
1905 John Walker’s fingerprints were the first ones to be exchanged by police officials in Europe and America; law enforcement units in London and St. Louis, MO completed the exchange
1908 Robert Peary sets sail for the Arctic on the expedition on which he later reaches the North Pole
1917 Arab forces rebelling against the Ottoman Empire capture the port of Al ‘Aqabah with the help of British adventurer T. E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia
1919 The British dirigible R-34 lands in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic by an airship
1920 A radio compass was used for first time for aircraft navigation
1933 The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game is played in Chicago’s Comiskey Park. The American League defeats the National League, 4 to 2
1939 The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed
1942 Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the “Secret Annexe” above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse
1947 Allen Funt’s “Candid Microphone” debuted on ABC radio
1957 John Lennon and Paul McCartney of The Beatles meet for the first time
1957 Tennis player Althea Gibson becomes the first African American to win the Wimbledon championship; she wins the US Open later that year and repeats the performance in 1958
1957 Chuck Jones’ classic Bugs Bunny cartoon, “What’s Opera, Doc?” opened in US movie theaters
1964 A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles’ first full-length movie, premiered in London
1966 Malawi becomes a republic
1974 The radio program “A Prairie Home Companion” makes its first live broadcast
2004The New York Post erroneously reports that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has selected Dick Gephardt as his running mate
BORN:
1747 John Paul Jones, America’s first well-known naval hero in the American Revolutionary War
1748 George Claghorn, American revolutionary soldier and ship-builder whose most notable vessel was the USS Constitution, one of several 44-gun frigates authorized by Congress in 1794 to protect commerce at sea
1796 Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs; he was also King of Poland until his deposition in 1831
1907 Frida Kahlo, painter, who has achieved great international popularity
1913 J. Carson Mark, scientist who, as head of the theoretical division at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, was instrumental in the development of the hydrogen bomb
1918 Sebastian Cabot, actor (Johnny Tremain, Kismet, Family Affair, The Time Machine, Disney’s The Jungle Book)
1922 William Schallert, character actor and voice artist (The Adventures of Jim Bowie, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Patty Duke Show, In the Heat of the Night, Hour of the Gun, The Nancy Drew Mysteries)
1927 Janet Leigh, actress (Scaramouche, Houdini, Prince Valiant, Pete Kelly’s Blues, Touch of Evil, Psycho, Bye Bye Birdie, The Manchurian Candidate, Night of the Lepus)
1927 Pat Paulsen, comedian, presidential candidate (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Harper Valley P.T.A.)
1936 Dave Allen (David Tynan O’Mahoney), Irish comedian whose act was typified by a very relaxed, intimate style he would sit on a chair, smoking and holding a glass of whiskey
1937 Ned Beatty, actor (Deliverance, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, All the President’s Men, Superman, 1941, Homicide: Life on the Street)
1946 George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States (2001-2009), 46th Governor of Texas (1995-2000)
1946 Sylvester Stallone, actor, writer, producer, director (Rocky, Rambo, Oscar, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Judge Dredd, Death Race 2000)
1946 Fred Dryer, pro football player and actor (Hunter, Cannonball Run II, The Star Maker)
1946 Burt Ward, actor best remembered as Robin on the TV series Batman
1950 John Byrne, author and artist of comic books whose best-known work has been on Marvel Comics X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics Superman franchise
1951 Geoffrey Rush, Academy Award-winning actor (Shine, Pirates of the Caribbean, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Quills, Shakespeare in Love, Mystery Men)
1951 Rick Sternbach, illustrator who is best known for his space illustrations and his work on the Star Trek television series; won an Emmy Award for his work on Cosmos for “Outstanding Individual Achievement – Creative Technical Crafts”
1954 Allyce Beasley, actress (Moonlighting, Darkwing Duck, Stuart Little, Recess, Legally Blonde)
DIED:
1189 Henry II of England, ruled as King of England (11541189), Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France; he was the first of the House of Plantagenet to rule England, dies at 56
1536 Sir Thomas More, author of Utopia and one time Lord Chancellor of England, is executed for treason by King Henry VIII after refusing to agree to Henry’s decision to separate the English church from the Roman Catholic church at 57
1762 Tsar Peter III of Russia, he was supposedly assassinated at age 34 as a result of a conspiracy led by his wife, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II
1915 Lawrence Hargrave, aeronautical pioneer best known for his invention of the box kite, dies at 65
1932 Kenneth Grahame, writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows, one of the classics of children’s literature, dies at 73
1962 William Faulkner, author who is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, and was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel”two Pulitzer Prizes for what are considered as his “minor” novels: A Fable and The Reivers, dies at 64
1971 Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, jazz trumpeter and distinctive gravelly voiced singer, dies at 69
1973 Joe E. Brown, comedic actor (The Tenderfoot, Son of a Sailor, Some Like It Hot, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World), dies at 80
1979 Malcolm Hulke, writer (Doctor Who, The Avengers, The Protectors, Danger Man), dies at 55
1998 Roy Rogers (Leonard Franklin Slye), singer and cowboy actor who, for many, was the embodiment of the all-American hero, dies at 86
2002 John Frankenheimer, 4-time Emmy Award-winning director (Against the Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville, George Wallace, Seconds, Seven Days in May, The Manchurian Candidate, Birdman of Alcatraz), dies at 72
2003 Buddy Ebsen, actor (Captain January, Davy Crockett, The Beverly Hillbillies, Barnaby Jones), dies at 95