There was a trio of British events that happened on this date in history. In 1486 Henry Tudor-Henry VII- married Elizabeth of York, uniting the House of Lancaster with the House of York, and ending the War of the Roses. In 1778 Captain James Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands and renamed them the “Sandwich Islands” (who knows why). He later was killed there, ending his explorations, in February of 1779. And in 1788 the first English convicts were landed in Australia beginning the infamous penal colony of Botany Bay.

In 1896 an X-ray-generating machine was displayed for the first time. And in 1911 the first aircraft – Eugene B Ely – landed on a ship – the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. Though military doctrine did not at first embrace the use of aircraft – especially after a prominent military officer – Colonel Billy Mitchell – was court-martialed in 1925 for vociferously advocating its use. He would later be vindicated in WWII.

And in 1943 the ultimately unsuccessful uprising in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw began.

Into the world on this date came a number of actors and writers – Kevin Costner, who took us to the Field of Dreams (1955), Oliver Hardy (1892) half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team, Danny Kaye (1911), and Cary Grant (1904)- born Archibald Alexander Leach.

There were a number of literary and eloquent speakers born: Montesquieu (1689) French philosopher; Peter Mark Roget (1779)-lexicographer and author of Roget’s Thesaurus; Daniel Webster( 1789) American orator and 14th US Secretary of State; A.A.Milne (1882) English author -who brought us Winnie the Pooh (and Tigger too).

Two political figures left the world stage on this date; John Tyler(1862) 10th US President and the first VP to ascend to the Presidency upon the death of a President (William Henry Harrison); and Sargent Shriver(2011) a fierce advocate for the establishment of the Peace Corps and its first director.