December 4, 2015

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Marina Kosan!

270 years ago
1745

War
Charles Edward Stuart's army reached Derby, its furthest point during the Second Jacobite Rising.

220 years ago
1795

Born on this date
Thomas Carlyle. U.K. writer and mathematician. Mr. Carlyle, a native of Scotland, was a historian who espoused the "great man" theory of history in books such as his three-volume The French Revolution: A History (1837); On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841); and the 6-volume History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great (1858-1865). He was known in mathematics for the Carlyle circle, a certain circle in a coordinate plane associated with a quadratic equation. Mr. Carlyle died on February 5, 1881 at the age of 85.

170 years ago
1845

Died on this date
Gregor MacGregor, 58. U.K. military officer and con man. General MacGregor, a native of Scotland, served with the British Army (1803-1810); Portuguese Army (1809-1810); Venezuelan Army (1812, 1816-1817, 1839-1845); and New Granadian Army (1813-1815, 1818-1819), fighting for Venezuela and New Granada against Spanish forces. He created a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas" after capturing Amelia Island in 1817, while two operations in New Granada in 1819 ended in disaster. Gen. MacGregor returned to Britain in 1821, claiming to be the "Cazique of Poyais," a colony of British settlers along the Mosquito Coast in Central America. He duped numerous investors and 250 settlers, most of whom died of illness before or shortly after arriving at the non-existent colony. Gen. MacGregor fled to France, was acquitted of fraud in 1826, and returned to England, but was unsuccessful in similar cons in the late 1820s. He returned to Venezuela in 1838, and died there, 20 days before his 59th birthday.

150 years ago
1865

Born on this date
Edith Cavell. U.K. nurse. Miss Cavell worked in Belgium, which fell under German military occupation in November 1914. She treated both Allied and German soldiers, but sheltered British and French soldiers and helped them to escape to neutral Netherlands. Miss Cavell was executed at the age of 49 on October 12, 1915 by a German firing squad for "treason," two months after her arrest. Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park in Alberta is one of many memorials dedicated to her.

140 years ago
1875

Crime
William Marcy "Boss" Tweed of New York's Tammany Hall escaped from Ludlow Street jail and went into hiding, eventually fleeing the country.

100 years ago
1915

Born on this date
Eddie Heywood. U.S. musician. Mr. Heywood was a jazz pianist who was popular in the 1940s and '50s, leading his own band and performing with other artists. He played the piano solo on the version of Canadian Sunset by Hugo Winterhalter and his Orchestra that reached #2 on the Billboard singles chart in 1956, while, under his own name, reaching #11 with his version of Soft Summer Breeze. Mr. Heywood died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease on January 3, 1989 at the age of 73.

Americana
The Panama–Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) which had opened on Febraury 20, 1915 in what is now the Marina District in San Francisco, closed. The exposition's ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake.

80 years ago
1935

Died on this date
Charles Richet, 85. French physiologist. Dr. Richet was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "[for] his work on anaphylaxis." He was also known for his interest in spiritualism.

75 years ago
1940

War
The Greek government claimed that the Italian stronghold of Premedi had been captured, and that Italian troops were retreating from Porto Edda to Khimara, and from Argyrokastron to Tepelini and Klisura in Albania. Indochinese reports said that 20 native policemen had been killed in a new native uprising in western Cochin China during a lull in fighting on the French Indochina-Thailand border.

Politics and government
The Chilean Chamber of Deputies approved and sent to the Senate a bill outlawing Communism.

Defense
The Panama Canal administration opened bids in Washington for the excavation of the third set of locks designed to strengthen the canal against attack.

Oil
The Romanian government seized all pipelines and accessories belonging to oil companies, including U.S. concerns, and announced that it would pay for the property with 3% bonds maturing in 25 years.

Economics and finance
U.S. administrator of export control Russell Maxwell announced that 41 additional types of machine tools would be put under the export licensing control system as of December 10, 1940 because of the "increased pace of the national defense program."

Scandal
11 U.S. corporations, including DuPont and Allied Chemical, were revealed to have been indicted on September 1, 1939 by a federal grand jury in New York on a charge of conspiring to control the supply and prices of nitrate products in violation of antitrust laws.

Education
A New York State joint legislative committee investigating subversive activities in public schools authorized contempt charges against 25 teachers--18 from Brooklyn College--for refusal to testify.

Medicine
Germany announced plans for construction in Marburg of the world's largest research institute on biological immunity.

70 years ago
1945

Died on this date
Thomas Hunt Morgan, 79. U.S. geneticist and biologist. Dr. Morgan was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity."

Richárd Weisz, 66. Hungarian wrestler and weightlifter. Mr. Weisz won numerous national championships in wrestling an weightlifting in the 1900s, and won the gold medal in the 93+-kilogram wrestling competition at the 1908 Olympic Games in London.

War
U.S. Marines in China shelled a village near Anshan after villagers refused to surrender two Chinese gunmen who had killed a Marine and wounded another. Sir Hartley Shawcross, chief U.K. prosecutor at the trial of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, opened the British case against the Nazis, charging the defendants with planning and waging wars of aggression. At the hearings of the United States Senate committee on the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the November 26, 1941 message from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Philippine High Commissioner Francis Sayre was introduced; the message warned of war, and indicated possible Japanese movement into Southeast Asia.

Diplomacy
The United States Senate voted 65-7 to approve U.S. participation in the United Nations.

Politics and government
The Austrian Political Council elected Leopold Figl, whose Catholic People's Party had won the November 25 election, as Chancellor to succeed Karl Renner.

The British government of Prime Miniser Clement Attlee announced its decision to send an all-party parliamentary group to discuss with Indian leaders an offer of dominion status.

Society
The Berlin city government banned several books and works of specific authors as Nazi propaganda; the U.S. military government protested that the list was incomplete.

Defense
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing a postwar Navy of 666,000; Navy Secretary James Forrestal announced a naval reorganization stressing aviation.

Protest
Anti-Communist rioters in Istanbul wrecked two newspaper plants and two book stores.

Aviation
A Trans World Airlines Lockheed Constellation set a commercial aviation record of 12 hours 57 minutes on its first flight from Washington to Paris.

Communications
Eight countries at the radio-cable conference in Hamilton, Bermuda signed an executive pact cutting international communications rates.

Religion
Friends of the World Council of Churches received a gift of $1 million from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to help finance "religious reconstruction" in Europe.

Labour
Congress of Industrial Organizations President Philip Murray charged that U.S. President Harry Truman had "appeased" industry, and opposed his fact-finding proposal because it aimed at weakening unions and curtailing the right to strike.

60 years ago
1955

On television tonight
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, on CBS
Tonight's episode: The Case of Mr. Pelham, starring Tom Ewell and Raymond Bailey

This episode was directed by Mr. Hitchcock.

At the movies
Shack Out on 101, starring Terry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Keenan Wynn, and Lee Marvin, opened in theatres.

50 years ago
1965

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): The Carnival is Over--The Seekers

#1 single in France: Même Si Tu Revenais--Claude François (3rd week at #1)

#1 single in Italy (FIMI): La festa--Adriano Celentano

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht--Drafi Deutscher

#1 single in the Netherlands (De Nederlandse Top 40): Yesterday--The Beatles (4th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): The Carnival is Over--The Seekers

#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)--The Byrds

U.S.A. Top 10 (Cash Box)
1 Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)--The Byrds
2 Let's Hang On--The 4 Seasons
3 I Hear a Symphony--The Supremes
4 1-2-3--Len Barry
5 Taste of Honey--Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
6 Rescue Me--Fontella Bass
7 I Got You (I Feel Good)--James Brown and the Famous Flames
8 Over and Over--The Dave Clark Five
9 Get Off My Cloud--The Rolling Stones
10 I Can Never Go Home Anymore--Shangri-Las

Singles entering the chart were She's Just My Style by Gary Lewis and the Playboys (#73); Thunderball by Tom Jones (#76); I've Got to Be Somebody by Billy Joe Royal (#77); A Sweet Woman Like You by Joe Tex (#79); No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In) by the T-Bones (#82); Don't Look Back by the Temptations (#84); Five O'Clock World by the Vogues (#87); Everybody do the Sloopy by Johnny Thunder (#88); Michael by the C.O.D.'s (#91); For You by the Spellbinders (#92); Goodbye Babe by the Castaways (#94); Do I Make Myself Clear by Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto (#98); It's Good News Week by Hedgehoppers Anonymous (#99); If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody by Maxine Brown (#100); and What's Come Over this World? by Billy Carr (also #100). No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In) was from a television commercial for Alka-Seltzer.

U.S.A. Top Ten (Sound Format)
1 Let's Hang On--The 4 Seasons (2nd week at #1)
2 Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)--The Byrds
3 1-2-3--Len Barry
4 You've Got to Hide Your Love Away--The Silkie
5 Over and Over--The Dave Clark Five
6 Taste of Honey--Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
7 England Swings--Roger Miller
8 May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose--"Little" Jimmy Dickens
9 I Will--Dean Martin
10 Rescue Me--Fontella Bass

Singles entering the chart included Run, Baby Run (Back Into My Arms) by the Newbeats (#18); Hang On Sloopy by the Ramsey Lewis Trio (#20); One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart) by Barry Young (#21); and I Got You (I Feel Good) by James Brown and the Famous Flames (#22).

Space
Gemini VII, with the crew of Frank Borman (Command Pilot) and Jim Lovell (Pilot), launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida to begin a two-week Earth-orbiting mission.

Disasters
Eastern Air Lines Flight 853 (N6218C), a Lockheed Super Constellation en route from Boston Logan International Airport to Newark International Airport, collided in mid-air with Trans World Airlines Flight 42 (N748TW), a Boeing 707-131B en route from San Francisco International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport, over Carmel, New York, resulting in four fatalities, including Captain Charles White, the pilot of the Super Constellation.

40 years ago
1975

Died on this date
Hannah Arendt, 69. German-born U.S. political theorist. Miss Arendt, a Jewess, fled Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933 and lived in several other European countries before going to the United States in 1941 and eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. Her books included The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951); The Human Condition (1958); and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963).

Diplomacy
Suriname joined the United Nations, nine days after receiving her independence from the Netherlands.

30 years ago
1985

At the movies
Young Sherlock Holmes, directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox, opened in theatres.

25 years ago
1990

Died on this date
Edward Binns, 74. U.S. actor. Mr. Binns had a distinguished career as a character actor in movies and television programs. His movies included 12 Angry Men (1957); Fail-Safe (1964); and Patton (1970).

World events
Idris Deby, who had entered the Chadian capital of Ndjamena two days earlier--the day after President Hissene Habre had fled into exile in Cameroon--proclaimed himself the new President of Chad.

20 years ago
1995

Hit parade
#1 single in Spain (PROMUSICAE): Nirvana--Viva

#1 single in Norway (VG-lista): Gangsta's Paradise--Coolio featuring L.V. (8th week at #1)

#1 single in Germany (Media Control): Gangsta's Paradise--Coolio featuring L.V. (6th week at #1)

Canada's Top 10 (RPM)
1 Hand in My Pocket--Alanis Morissette
2 Name--Goo Goo Dolls
3 Runaway--Janet Jackson
4 Until I Hear it from You--Gin Blossoms
5 Fantasy--Mariah Carey
6 Back for Good--Take That
7 I Wish You Well--Tom Cochrane
8 Do You Sleep?--Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories
9 Your Little Secret--Melissa Etheridge
10 Blessed--Elton John

Singles entering the chart were One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men (#89); I'll Be There in a Minute by Lawrence Gowan (#90); Lie to Me by Bon Jovi (#91); Believe in You by Jude Cole (#94); Wildest Dreams by Tom Cochrane (#95); Circus by Lenny Kravitz (#96); Paranoia by Barstool Prophets (#98); and Fall by Wild Strawberries (#99).

Died on this date
Robert Parrish, 79. U.S. film director and editor. Mr. Parrish and Francis Lyon shared the Academy Award for editing for Body and Soul (1947). Mr. Parrish directed such movies as The Mob (1951) and The Purple Plain (1954), and co-directed Casino Royale (1967).

Gwen Harwood, 75. Australian poetess and playwright. Mrs. Harwood wrote 386 poems and 13 librettos from the late 1950s through the late '80s, receiving numerous Australian awards. Her poems contained recurring themes of the stifled role of young mothers, and often included biblical references and religious allusions.

War
The first North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission.

Environment
25 countries, including Canada, signed a United Nations treaty on straddling and migratory fish stocks, intended to ease tensions over high seas fishing. Japan and key European Union countries didn't sign the treaty.

10 years ago
2005

Protest
Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong demonstrated for democracy, and called on the government to allow universal and equal suffrage.