06 September 2018
Interesting tidbits:
1492 – Christopher Columbus sailed from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic for the first time.
1522 – The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.
1803 – British scientist John Dalton began using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements. Dalton was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness (sometimes referred to as Daltonism, in his honour).
1861 – American Civil War: Forces under Union General Ulysses S. Grant bloodlessly capture Paducah, Kentucky, giving the Union control of the Tennessee River‘s mouth.
1870 – Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming became the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
1901 – Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot and fatally wounded US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1962 – Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovered the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the 2nd century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.
Today's birthday crew:
1766 – John Dalton, English chemist and physicist. (See above.)
1857 – Zelia Nuttall, American archeologist and anthropologist who specialised in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican manuscripts and the pre-Aztec culture in Mexico. She traced the Mixtec codex now called the Codex Zouche-Nuttall and wrote the introduction to its first facsimile publication (Peabody Museum, Harvard, 1902). She first came into prominence on the publication of her work on the "Terra Cotta Heads of Teotihuacan" in the American Journal of Archaeology (1886). The following year she became an honorary special assistant of the Peabody Museum, and in 1908 was named honorary professor of the National Museum of Mexico.
1869 – Felix Salten, Austrian author whose most famous work is Bambi, a Life in the Woods (1923).
1879 – Max Schreck, German actor most often remembered today for his lead role as Count Orlok in the film Nosferatu (1922).
1921 – Norman Joseph Woodland, American inventor, co-created the bar code.
1937 – Sergio Aragonés, Spanish illustrator, cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer. Among his peers and fans, Aragonés is widely regarded as "the world's fastest cartoonist."
1942 – Carol Wayne, American actress (The Mantinee Lady).
1945 – Go Nagai, Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica.
1953 – Anne Lockhart, American actress best known for her role as Lieutenant Sheba in the original Battlestar Galactica series.
1954 – Carly Fiorina, American businesswoman and politician.
1958 – Jeff Foxworthy, American comedian, actor, and author.
1972 – China Miéville, English fantasy fiction author, comic writer and academic. He is fond of describing his fiction as "weird fiction" (after early twentieth century pulp and horror writers such as H. P. Lovecraft), and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird.
Happy birthday guys!
