Who was born on this date?

1558 - French forces captured Calais from England.

1610 - Galileo discovered the 4 major moons of Jupiter -- Io, Europa, Gannymede and Callisto.

1782 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The Bank of North America, the first commercial bank in the United States opened.

1785 - Jean-Pierre Blanchard, the French aeronaut/balloonist, made the first successful air-crossing of the English Channel, departing from the English coast to land in France. Blanchard and American passenger, Dr. John Jeffries, had to remove all their clothing when the wind died and the balloon’s airbag too rapidly cooled over the sea.

1789 - The first national presidental election in the United States was held.

1887 - In April 1884, Thomas Stevens started what would be the first completed worldwide bicycle trip. Stevens and his bike traveled 13,500 miles, to arrive back in San Francisco, California nearly three years later.

1894 - W.K. Dickson was given a patent for motion picture film. The 2 second demonstration was a 47-frame film showing a man sneezing.

1895 - Korea proclaimed its independence from China.

1896 - Fannie Farmer's first cookbook was published. She would become known as ‘the mother of level measurement’. Her book became a best seller.

1904 - “CQD”, was established as the distress signal, but didn’t last long. Two years later, the more quickly sent by wireless radio, “SOS”, took over.

1911 - Mary Pickford, "America's Sweetheart", married her first husband, Owen Moore. She divorced him 9 years later, and 26 days after the divorce was granted, married Douglas Fairbanks.

1924 - George Gershwin completed the score for his classic Rhapsody in Blue. He was only 26 years old.

1926 - George Burns and Gracie Allen were married by a Justice of the Peace in Cleveland, Ohio. They had been a comedy team for 4 years prior to getting married, and worked successfully for decades together in radio, film, and television until Allen's fatal heart attack in 1964.

1927 - The first day of transatlantic telephone service which began between New York and London - 31 calls were made.

1929 - In newspapers around the United States, "Buck Rogers 2429 A.D." debuted. The comic strip was later renamed "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century".

1929 - "Tarzan," one of the first adventure comic strips, appeared.

1940 - "Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch" debuted on CBS radio, where the ‘singing cowboy’ would remain for the next 16 years.

1941 - On the NBC Blue radio network, the first episode of"The Squeaky Door" aired. While few may remember the program by this, its original title, many would recognize it as "Inner Sanctum".

1941 - On Bluebird Records, Lena Horne recorded "Good-for-Nothin’-Joe" with Charlie Barnet and his orchestra.

1949 - In Los Angeles, the University of Southern California announced the first photograph of genes would there be presented.

1950 - In Nashville, Tennesse, Ernest Tubb made his first appearance at "The Grand Ole Opry". Ernest also did a daily 15-minute radio program that was very popular in West Texas. In fact, the show was so popular, Tubb bought the radio station that aired the program for years, KGKL in San Angelo, Texas.

1954 - The Duoscopic television receiver debuted, it allowed the viewer to watch two different shows at the same time. It was a very early, very primitive, picture-in-picture, split-screen, tested in New York City and Chicago, Illinois. DuMont Laboratories, owner of the DuMont Television Network produced the set.

1955 - Marian Anderson became the first black singer at the Metropolitan Opera, when she appeared as Ulrica in Verdi’s "The Masked Ball".

1958 - The Gibson Guitar Company patented the Flying V guitar, favorite instrument of many rock musicians.

1964 - Britain introduced internal self-government in the Bahamas.

1968 - Postage rates in the United States went up by a penny; making the cost to send an ounce of mail six cents.

1975 - OPEC agreed to raise the price of crude oil by 10 per cent.

1979 - Vietnamese forces, aided by Cambodian insurgents, captured Phnom Penh after a two-week invasion and overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot.

1982 - The Islanders' Bryan Trottier had his 10th career hat trick.

1985 - Dayton, Ohio’s Phil Donahue broadcast the first of his talkfests from New York City. In 1967, Phil began his MultiMedia Productions show.

1985 - Yul Brynner came back to Broadway when "The King and I" returned. The musical gave Yul his start 33 years earlier. To that date, Brynner appeared in 4,434 shows, never missing a single performance.

1987 - In the United States, government sources said the combined local, state, and national debt had increased to $10,047 per person; the Federal debt, alone, amounted to $7,650 per person.

1997 - A federal judge threw out a $600,000 judgment against Elizabeth Taylor in a contract dispute with actress Cicely Tyson. Tyson claimed she was improperly fired from a 1983 production of The Corn is Green by a company affiliated with Taylor, but United States District Judge John Martin ruled Taylor was not personally liable.