TODAY
EVENTS: In 1875 Britain’s first roller rink, the Belgravia Roller Skating Rink, opened in London; in 1894 death duties were introduced in Britain; in 1939 Albert Einstein urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to start an atomic project; in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait.
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BIRTHS: Elisha Gray, US inventor who would have been known as the inventor of the telephone were it not for Bell’s earlier filing, by a matter of hours, of his patent, born in Barnesville, Ohio, 1835 Francis Marion Crawford, novelist, born in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, 1854; Sir Arthur Bliss, Master of the Queen’s Musick 1953-75, born in London, 1891.
DEATHS: Thomas Gainsborough, painter, died in London, 1788; Jacques Montgolfier, pioneer of ballooning, died in Annonay, France, 1799; “Wild Bill” Hickok, US marshal, murdered in Deadwood, Dakota, 1876; Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, died in Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia, 1922; Louis Blériot, pilot who was the first person to fly the Channel (1909), died in Paris, 1936.
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TOMORROW
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EVENTS: In 216BC the Roman Army was routed by the Carthaginians under Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae; in 1610 Captain Henry Hudson, seeking a new passage to the Pacific, discovered the bay that bears his name; in 1778 La Scala opera house in Milan opened; in 1858 the English explorer John Speke discovered Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile; in 1904 British troops entered Lhasa, Tibet, as the Dalai Lama took flight; in 1914 Germany declared war on France; in 1926 the first traffic lights in Britain were installed at Piccadilly Circus; in 1936 the American athlete Jesse Owens won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics; in 1956 the name of Bedloe’s Island, the site of the Statue of Liberty, was changed to Liberty Island; in 1958 the US atomic submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to reach the North Pole under the ice; in 1963 the Beatles performed at the Cavern Club, Liverpool, for the last time.
BIRTHS: Elisha Otis, pioneer of the safety lift, born in Halifax, Vermont, 1811; Sir Joseph Paxton, gardener and designer of the Crystal Palace, born in Milton Bryant, Bedfordshire, 1801; Haakon VII, King of Norway 1905-57, born in Charlottenlund, 1872; Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Primate of Poland 1949-81, born in Zuzela, near Warsaw, 1901.
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DEATHS: King James II of Scotland, reigned 1437-60, killed at Roxburgh Castle, 1460; Grinling Gibbons, wood carver, died in London, 1721; Sir Roger Casement, Irish nationalist, executed for high treason, London, 1916; Joseph Conrad, novelist, died in Canterbury, 1924; Albert Frederick Pollard, historian, died in Milford-on-Sea, 1948; Colette, writer who was the first woman to head the Goncourt Academy and the second to become a grand officer of the French Legion of Honour, died in Paris, 1954; Archbishop Makarios III, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus and President of the Republic of Cyprus, died in Nicosia, 1977.