April 10

It’s Golfer’s Day and National Siblings Day

ON THIS DAY…
1606 The Charter of the Virginia Company of London was established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America
1633 Bananas appeared on sale in Britain for the first time, exhibited in the shop window of Thomas Johnson of Snow Hill, London
1710 The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain
1790 The first US patent statute was signed into law by President Washington
1845 Gingham manufacturing machinery was patented by inventor Erastus B. Bigelow
1849 Walter Hunt patented the safety pin
1866 The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was incorporated
1872 Nebraskans planted more than a million trees in celebration of the first Arbor Day
1912 The RMS Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England for her first and only voyage
1916 The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) held its first championship tournament
1925 Scribners publishes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
1930 The first synthetic rubber was produced
1932 Paul von Hindenburg was elected president of Germany with 19 million votes; Adolf Hitler came in second with 13 million votes
1933 The Civilian Conservation Corps is created as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal program
1945 US medical staff at an Oak Ridge, TN hospital inject a patient with plutonium, beginning a top-secret government program to investigate the effects of radioactive materials on humans
1957 Ricky Nelson sang for first time on TV’s The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; he performed the song “I’m Walking”
1970 Paul McCartney announces to the press that he’s quit The Beatles
1971 Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall were wed; they would divorce in 1979
1972 The US and the Soviet Union joined some 70 nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare
1981 Excalibur and The Howling are released and Star Wars is re-released to US theaters
1987 Ken Russell’s Gothic starring Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands opens in the US
1992 Newsies, a Disney musical starring Christian Bale, opens in the US
1995 The world’s first national DNA database began operations in the UK
2001 The Netherlands legalized mercy killings and assisted suicide for patients with unbearable, terminal illness

BORN:
1755 Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann, physician who pioneered in homeopathic medicine
1794 Matthew Perry, Commodore of the US Navy who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854
1827 Lew Wallace, Governor of the New Mexico Territory and author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
1829 William Booth, Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General
1847 Joseph Pulitzer, US newspaper owner who instituted the Pulitzer Prize
1868 George Arliss, Academy Award-winning actor (Disraeli, The Green Goddess, Doctor Syn)
1915 Harry Morgan, Emmy Award-winning actor (M*A*S*H, The Ox-Bow Incident, Dragnet, High Noon)
1921 Chuck Connors, actor (Old Yeller, The Rifleman, Branded, Soylent Green, Roots)
1929 Max Von Sydow, actor (The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Exorcist, Flash Gordon, Never Say Never Again, Dune)
1930 Dinah Drake Lance (aka the Golden Age Black Canary)
1932 Omar Sharif, actor (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Hidalgo, The 13th Warrior)
1936 John Madden, National Football League player, a former head coach with the Oakland Raiders with whom he won Super Bowl XI, a football video game magnate and is considered one of the top broadcast analysts for NFL games
1938 Don Meredith, football quarterback in the NFL who played for the Dallas Cowboys, a former football commentator, and entertainer
1951 Steven Seagal, actor/writer/director/producer/songwriter/musican/martial artist (Above the Law, Marked for Death, Under Siege)
1954 Peter MacNicol, Emmy Award-winning actor (Ally McBeal, Numb3rs, 24, Chicago Hope, Bean, Ghostbusters II, Dragonslayer)
1957 John M. Ford, science fiction and fantasy writer, game designer, and poet (Web of Angels, Star Trek: How Much for Just the Planet?, The Princes of the Air)
1959 Brian Setzer, Grammy Award-winning musician & songwriter (The Stray Cats, The Brian Setzer Orchestra)
1968 Orlando Jones, actor (MAD TV, Office Space, Evolution, Runaway Jury)
1988 Haley Joel Osment, actor (The Sixth Sense, Forrest Gump, Pay It Forward, A.I. Artificial Intelligence)

DIED:
1919 Emiliano Zapata, peasant revolutionary and leader of guerrilla strikes on haciendas and sugar refineries, is ambushed and assassinated by Mexican troops at 29
1931 Khalil Gibran, artist, writer and poet (The Prophet); he’s the third best-selling poet in history after William Shakespeare and Lao Tse, dies of cirrhosis of the liver and tuberculosis at 48
1954 Auguste Lumière, film pioneer, dies at 91
1962 Stuart Sutcliffe, artist and the original bassist of The Beatles, dies of a brain hemorrhage at 21
1962 Michael Curtiz, Academy Award-winning director (Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Angels with Dirty Faces, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood), dies at 75
1965 Linda Darnell, actress (The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, My Darling Clementine), dies in a house fire at 41
1966 Evelyn Waugh, novelist (Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust), dies at 62
1975 Marjorie Main, actress (Ma and Pa Kettle series, Dead End, The Long, Long Trailer, Meet Me in St. Louis), dies at 85
1991 Natalie Schafer, actress (Gilligan’s Island, Anastasia, The Snake Pit), dies at 90
1992 Sam Kinison, stand-up comedian and actor who was famous for his extremely vitriolic humor and dark, sombre outfits, is killed in a car crash at 38
2000 Larry Linville, actor (M*A*S*H, Mannix, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Dynamite), dies at 60
2000 Peter Jones, actor (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Rag Trade, Carry On England, School for Scoundrels, Charley Moon), dies at 79