Interesting tidbits:
1345 - Alexios Apokaukos, chief minister of the Byzantine Empire, is lynched by political prisoners. Trying to bolster his waning power, Apokaukos began a series of proscriptions in the capital, and even ordered a new prison constructed for political prisoners. On 11 June 1345, Apokaukos suddenly decided to inspect the new prison, without being escorted by his bodyguard. The prisoners immediately rose up and lynched him, and his head was severed and stuck on a pole.
1742 - Benjamin Franklin invents his Franklin stove.
1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia.
1788 – Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.
1793 - The first American stove patent is granted to Robert Haeterick.
1892 – The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
1895 - Charles E Duryea patents a gas-driven automobile.
1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.
1936 – The International Surrealist Exhibition opens in London, England.
1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.
2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress. In 1834 Meucci constructed a type of acoustic telephone to communicate between the stage and control room at the Teatro della Pergola. This telephone was constructed on the principles of pipe-telephones used on ships and still functions. Years later he also set up a form of voice communication link in his Staten Island, NY, home that connected its second floor bedroom to his laboratory. He submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his caveat. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current. Meucci's system worked well enough within a single building, but except under very specific circumstances would not work between buildings, nor would it necessarily work within the skyscrapers that were soon to be built.
2004 – Cassini-Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.
Today's birthday crew:
1776 – John Constable, English painter.
1864 – Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (Also Sprach Zarathustra).
1876 – Alfred L. Kroeber, American anthropologist. Although he is known primarily as a cultural anthropologist, he did significant work in archaeology and anthropological linguistics, and he contributed to anthropology by making connections between archaeology and culture. He conducted excavations in New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru. He is the father of the science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin.
1910 – Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung.
1945 – Adrienne Barbeau, American actress cast by her then-husband, director John Carpenter, in his 1980 horror film, The Fog, which was her first theatrical film appearance. The film was released on February 1, 1980, and was a theatrical success, grossing over $21 million in the United States alone, and establishing Barbeau as a genre film star. She subsequently appeared in a number of early-1980s horror and science fiction films, a number of which have now become cult film classics, including Escape from New York (also from Carpenter), Creepshow, and Swamp Thing. During the 1990s, she became known for providing the voice of Catwoman on Batman: The Animated Series and subsequent Batman cartoon series. Barbeau also starred along with talk show host Bill Maher and Shannon Tweed in Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989). In 1994, she appeared in the Babylon 5 episode "Spider in the Web" as Amanda Carter. In 1999, she guest starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" as Romulan Senator Kimara Cretak. She voiced the Greek goddess Hera in the video game God of War III released for the PlayStation 3 in March 2010.
1959 – Hugh Laurie, English actor and comedian (Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster, House).
1960 – Mehmet Oz, Turkish surgeon, author, and television host.
1968 – Alois, Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein.
1982 – Marco Arment, American web developer, co-created Tumblr.
1986 – Shia LaBeouf, American actor (Holes, Transformers, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull).
Happy birthday guys!