Robert Young(actor, television’s iconic dad of Father Knows Best)–
Jerry Goldsmith(composer who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from Star Trek and Planet of the Apes to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Dr. Kildare)–
Tony Bennett(singer)–
Born
George Frederick Dick(American pathologist)–
Hart Crane(poet)–
Ernest Hemingway(author)–
Isaac Stern(violinist)–
Don Knotts(actor)–
Robin Williams(actor)–
Brandi Chastain(soccer player)–
Josh Hartnett(actor)–
David Carr(football player)–
Events
Battle of Falkirk: England’s Edward Longshank defeated William Wallace’s Scottish rebels –
Canada’s first public railway (Champlain and St. Lawrence) opened –
The first major military engagement in the Civil War took place at Bull Run Creek, Virginia –
Jesse James held up the Rock Island Express and escaped with $3,000. It was his first train robbery –
John T. Scopes found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100 –
The world’s first nuclear-powered merchant vessel, the Savannah, launched –
Captain Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury 4 capsule Liberty Bell 7, became the second American to go into space (sub-orbital flight) –
In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushed a worker against a safety bar in the first known robot-related death in the U.S. –
Discovery of the subatomic particle tau-neutrino announced –
Weather
The worst flooding in 20 years hit Mercer County, New Jersey, in 1975, when six inches of rain fell in ten hours. Railway service between New York City and Washington, D.C., was cut off for two days, and about 1,000 people were left homeless from the floods. –
World-record cold temperature, -128.6 degrees F, recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica (a new world record of -136 degrees F was set in 2010) –
Macon, Georgia, had its 10th day above 100 degrees F –
Columbia, South Carolina, had its 15th day above 100 degrees F –
301-foot-tall, 103-year-old Kinzua Viaduct (steel railroad bridge), McKean Co., Pennsylvania, destroyed by F1 tornado. When the structure was built in 1882, it was the highest railroad bridge in the world. It spanned 2,053 feet and weighed 3,105,000 pounds. –
