July 14
It’s Nursing Assistants Day and Pop Goes the Weasel Day and Flag Day
ON THIS DAY…
1381 The Peasants Revolt, led by Wat Tyler, climaxed when rebels marched on London and they plundered, burned and captured the Tower of London and killed the Archbishop of Canterbury; the revolt was in response to a statute intended to hold down wages during a labor shortage
1648 Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft in the first such execution for the Massachusetts colony
1775 The Continental Army was founded by the Continental Congress for purposes of common defense; this event is considered to be the birth of the United States Army
1777 The Continental Congress votes to adopt a flag with 13 stars and 13 stripes as the national emblem of the new United States of America
1789 HMAV Bounty mutiny survivors including Captain William Bligh and 18 others reach Timor after a nearly 4,000 mile journey in an open boat
1789 Whisky distilled from maize is first produced by American clergyman the Rev Elijah Craig; it is named Bourbon because Rev Craig lived in Bourbon County, KY
1822 Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled “Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables”
1834 The first US patent for a practical underwater diving suit was issued to Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, ME; calling it a “Diving Armor,” he designed an airtight leather outfit with a brass helmet connected via a rubber hose to an air bellows pump on a boat
1834 The first US invention of sandpaper was covered by four patents issued to Isaac Fisher, Jr., of Springfield, VT; these patents were titled “Coating Paper”
1846 In the Bear Flag Revolt during the Mexican War, American settlers capture Sonoma from Mexican forces and declare an independent Republic of California; Mexico cedes the territory to the United States in 1848
1856 The first US federal entomologist was commissioned; Townend Glover was selected as the “expert for collecting statistics and other information on seeds, fruits and insects of the United States”
1872 Trade unions are legalized in Canada
1881 A patent was issued for his invention of a piano player to John McTammany, Jr., of Cambridge, MA
1884 New York was the first state in the US to enact legislation requiring the burying of utility wires
1900 The Reichstag approves a second law that allows the expansion of the German navy
1900 Hawaii becomes a United States territory
1905 Sailors start a mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin, denouncing the crimes of autocracy, demanding liberty and an end to war
1907 Norway adopts female suffrage
1923 President Warren G. Harding became the first US president to use radio when he dedicated the Francis Scott Key memorial in Baltimore, MD
1932 Thomas Alva Edison was issued his next to last patent, for a method of “Production of Molded Articles”
1938 Chlorophyll was patented as a “therapeutic agent for the use in the treatment of infection” of the blood stream, infected parts, and for open cuts and wounds; the patent was issued to Dr. Benjamin Gruskin of Philadelphia, PA who assigned it to the Lakeland Foundation of Chicago, IL
1940 After sweeping through Belgium and the Netherlands to the north, the German army captures Paris, leading to the surrender of France three days later
1940 A group of 728 Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp
1941 Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians began
1942 Walt Disney’s Bambi opened in US movie theaters
1942 Anne Frank begins to keep a diary
1943 Helicopter buses were proposed by Greyhound for large-scale public travel in an application filed with the Civil Aeronautics Board
1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets, starring Alec Guinness in eight different roles, opens in US movie theaters
1951 UNIVAC, the first commercial, general-use computer, designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, is demonstrated by the Remington Rand company
1952 The keel was laid for the first American atomic submarine Nautilus in a ceremony attended by President Harry S. Trumann
1953 Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis
1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words “under God” to the United States’ Pledge of Allegiance
1958 The Disneyland attraction Alice in Wonderland debuts in Fantasyland
1959 At Disneyland, the Matterhorn Mountain with its Matterhorn Bobsleds, the first roller coaster to use cylindrical rails and urethane wheels, opens
1962 Anna Slesersby becomes the first victim of Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler
1963 Betty White and Allen Ludden are married
1965 The Beatles album “Beatles VI” is released in the US
1966 The Vatican announces the abolition of the index librorum prohibitum (index of prohibited books), which was originally instituted in 1557
1967 The People’s Republic of China tests its first hydrogen bomb
1971 In London, the first Hard Rock Cafe opened
1972 The insecticide DDT was banned from use in the US after December 31, 1972, by executive order of the Environmental Protection Agency
1976 The Gong Show premiered on NBC-TV
1982 Argentine forces surrendered to British troops on the Falkland Islands
1989 Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested in Beverly Hills for slapping a motorcycle policeman
1997 Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor are married
2000 Tokyo Disneyland welcomes its 250 millionth visitor
2002 The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon opens in US movie theaters
BORN:
1811 Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain, making the political issues of the 1850s regarding slavery tangible to millions, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North
1820 John Bartlett, writer and publisher whose best known work, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations has been continually revised and reissued for a century after his death
1864 Alois Alzheimer, psychiatrist, who recognized the disease named after him
1868 Karl Landsteiner, immunologist and pathologist, who received the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the major blood groups and development of the ABO system of blood typing that much reduced risk and made blood transfusion a routine medical practice
1895 Cliff Edwards (“Ukelele Ike”), actor, singer, best remembered for giving voice to Jiminy Cricket
1904 Margaret Bourke-White, photographer and photojournalist who was the first female war correspondent and the first woman to be allowed to work in combat zones during World War II and one of the first photographers to enter and document the death camps; her photographs of the construction of the Fort Peck Dam were featured in Life’s first issue including the cover
1909 Burl Ives, singer, songwriter, author, and Academy Award-winning actor (The Big Country, Alias Smith and Jones, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
1912 E. Cuyler Hammond, scientist who was the first to link smoking with lung cancer
1919 Dorothy McGuire, actress (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Three Coins in the Fountain, Old Yeller, Swiss Family Robinson)
1931 Marla Gibbs, actress (The Hughleys, 101 Dalmatians: The Series, The Jeffersons, Arthur Hailey’s the Moneychangers)
1931 Kenneth Cope, actor, writer (Brookside, Truckers, Doctor Who, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), X: The Unknown)
1933 Jerzy Kosinski, novelist, best known for his novels The Painted Bird and Being There
1946 Donald Trump, business magnate, television and radio personality, and author
1949 Harry Turtledove, historian and novelist who has written historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction works; he is probably the best-known and most popular author of the genre of alternate history
1957 Jay Roach, producer, director (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Mystery, Alaska, Meet the Parents)
1958 Eric Heiden, long track speed skater who won all the men’s speed skating races, and thus an unprecedented five gold medals, and set 4 Olympic records and 1 world record at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games
1961 Boy George, singer-songwriter and club DJ (Culture Club)
DIED:
1801 Benedict Arnold, originally fought for American independence from the British Empire as a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War until he obtained command of the American fort at West Point, New York and, switching sides, plotted unsuccessfully to surrender it to the British, dies at 60
1875 Heinrich Louis d’ Arrest, astronomer who, while a student at the Berlin Observatory, hastened the discovery of Neptune by suggesting comparison of the sky, in the region indicated by Urbain Le Verrier’s calculations, with a recently prepared star chart; the planet was found the same night, dies at 52
1936 G. K. Chesterton, writer of the early 20th century whose prolific and diverse output included journalism, philosophy, poetry, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction; dies at 62
1946 John Logie Baird, engineer and television pioneer, the first man to televise outline pictures of objects (1924) followed the next year by recognizable human faces, dies at 57
1986 Alan Jay Lerner, 3-time Academy Award-winning songwriter and composer (Gigi, An American in Paris, Royal Wedding, The Little Prince, My Fair Lady), dies at 67
1986 Marlin Perkins, zoologist and long-time host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, dies at 81
1991 Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Academy Award-winning actress (A Passage to India, The Jewel in the Crown, Edward & Mrs. Simpson, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The 39 Steps), dies at 83
1994 Henry Mancini, 4-time Academy Award-winning songwriter and composer (Victor Victoria, “Days of Wine and Roses”, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, “Moon River”), dies at 70
1995 Roger Zelazny, writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels who won the Nebula award three times and the Hugo award six times, dies at 58
1997 Richard Jaeckel, tough-guy character actor (Spenser: For Hire, Starman, Salvage 1, Centennial, The Drowning Pool, Chisum), dies at 70