August 6

It’s Wiggle Your Toes Day

ON THIS DAY…
1181 A supernova was observed by Chinese astronomers in the constellation now known as Cassiopeia, and independently found one day later from Japan
1787 Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention
1806 The Holy Roman Empire comes to an end when Francis II formally resigns as Holy Roman Emperor and becomes Francis I, Emperor of Austria
1825 Bolivia gains independence from Spain
1890 The electric chair was used for the first time; William Kemmler was executed with 1,300 volts of alternating current in Auburn, NY for murdering a woman with an axe
1901 Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation
1914 Denis Patrick Dowd Jr. enlists in the French Foreign Legion, becoming the first American to fight in World War I
1919 Harry Butler made the first air flight over a major body of water in Australia; he was the first man to fly across the Gulf to Yorke Peninsula, covering the distance of 67 miles from Adelaide to his home town, Minlaton, in 27 minutes, reaching an altitude of 15,000 feet
1926 Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel; she completes the feat in 14 hours, 31 minutes, faster than anyone before
1926 Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping
1926 The Warner Brothers studio gives the first public exhibition of their Vitaphone system for showing talking motion pictures
1942 Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands is the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress
1945 The American bomber Enola Gay drops an atomic weapon on Hiroshima, Japan, destroying a majority of the city and killing 60,000 to 70,000 inhabitants, according to American estimates
1956 After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network has its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena
1962 The former British colony of Jamaica gains its independence
1970 “Hippies” and “Radical Yippies” try to take over Disneyland when 750 of them infiltrate the park, and take over the Wilderness Fort; they raise the Vietcong flag and pass reefers out to passersbys
1986 William J. Schroeder of Jasper, Ind., the world’s longest-surviving recipient of a permanent artificial heart, died at age 53 after living 620 days with the Jarvik-7 man-made pump
1996 NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin announced the discovery of evidence of a primitive life form on Mars; the evidence came from an alleged tiny fossil found on a meteorite in Antarctica believed to have come from Mars billions of years ago
1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky testifies for over six hours before a grand jury investigating her relationship with President Bill Clinton

BORN:
1809 Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom (1850-1892) and remains one of the most popular English poets; one of Tennyson’s most famous works is Idylls of the King (1885), a series of narrative poems based on King Arthur and the Arthurian tales, as thematically suggested by Sir Thomas Malory’s earlier tales on the legendary king
1881 Sir Alexander Fleming, bacteriologist who discovered penicillin
1911 Lucille Ball, 4-time Emmy Award-winning actress (I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Yours, Mine and Ours, Mame, Du Barry Was a Lady)
1917 Robert Mitchum, actor (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Story of G.I. Joe, The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (1962 & 1991), The Longest Day, El Dorado, Mr. North)
1926 Frank Finlay, CBE, actor (The Longest Day, Othello (1965), Inspector Clouseau, Cromwell, The Three Musketeers (1973), Murder by Decree, The Pianist)
1928 Andy Warhol, a central figure in the movement known as pop art
1934 Piers Anthony (Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob), best-selling science fiction and fantasy author
1937 Barbara Windsor, MBE, actress (EastEnders, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and oodles of Carry On films)
1951 Catherine Hicks, actress (7th Heaven, Child’s Play, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Peggy Sue Got Married, Ryan’s Hope)
1962 Michelle Yeoh, actress and martial artist (Tomorrow Never Dies, Supercop, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
1970 M. Night Shyamalan, actor, director, screenwriter, producer (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Stuart Little, Unbreakable)
1976 Soleil Moon Frye, actress (Punky Brewster, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, Mind Games, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, The Proud Family)

DIED:
1623 Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare whom very little is known about beyond a few references in legal documents, dies at 67
1637 Ben Jonson, English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor who was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems, dies at 65
1959 Preston Sturges, producer, director and Academy Award-winning screenwriter (The Great McGinty, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Sullivan’s Travels), dies at 60
1964 Sir Cedric Hardwicke, actor (Things to Come, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Rope, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949), The Ten Commandments), dies at 71
1966 Cordwainer Smith (Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger), science fiction author who was also a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare, dies at 53
2004 Rick James (James Ambrose Johnson, Jr), one of the most popular artists on the Motown label during the late 1970s and early 1980s, died from pulmonary failure and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, a pacemaker, and a heart attack being listed as contributing factors at 56
2005 Robin Cook, politician in the British Labour Party (not to be confused by the American novelist), dies of a heart attack while mountain climbing in Scotland at 59