In 1812, during a time when Great Britain was at war with Revolutionary France domestic crime took the front seat. For the only time in British history, a prime minister – Spencer Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons. It was a homegrown assassin – a disgruntled businessman John Bellingham, but I’m sure it shocked the nation.
The next year 1913 way around the world three Australians found a way across the Blue Mountains to open up the rest of the continent to settlement. In the US 4,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers went on a wildcat (non-leadership approved) strikc, which in 1894 did not work or diminish the power of the railroad business. But later strikes would be more effective and perhaps they got some inspiration from this large turnout.
In 1998 India conducted three underground atomic tests, which activity has thankfully ceased in the civilized world. And in 1997 Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer, had its first victory over a human competition – grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
The German physicist, physiologist, and anthropologist Friedrich Blumenbach was born in 1752. He was the main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative scientific disciplines. This date was also the birthday of Charles W Fairbanks (1852) American journalist and US VP under Teddy Roosevelt; Belarussian-American pianist and composer Irving Berlin (1888); American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894); and Spanish impressionist painter Salvador Dali (1904).
We lost two musicians on this date: singer-songwriter and guitarist Lester Flatt (1979) and Jamaican reggae artist Bob Marley (1981). We also said goodbye to Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould (1985), notorious British double agent Kim Philby(1988), and the lovely Peggy Lipton (2019) the rose between two thorns on the Mod Squad.
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