19 August 2018 Interesting tidbits:

19 August 2018

Interesting tidbits:

1612 – The "Samlesbury witches", three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, were put on trial, accused of practicing witchcraft. The number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. However, all three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted. The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the chief prosecution witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was exposed by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest".

1692 – In Salem, Massachusetts, five people, one woman and four men, including a clergyman, were executed after being convicted of witchcraft. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions between February 1692 and May 1693. The episode has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolationism, religious extremism, false accusations and lapses in due process.

There were further witch trials after these two events, but they were fewer, less driven by fear, and and more likely to result in an acquittal.

1812 – War of 1812: American frigate USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada earning the nickname “Old Ironsides”.

1839 – The French government announced that Louis Daguerre's photographic process was a gift "free to the world".

1895 – American Frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, was killed by an off-duty policeman, John Selman, in the Acme Saloon, in El Paso, Texas.

1909 – First automobile race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway tooks place.

1960 – Sputnik program: Korabl-Sputnik 2 – the Soviet Union launched the satellite with the dogs Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants.

1989 – Raid on offshore pirate station, Radio Caroline in the North Sea by British and Dutch governments.

Today's birthday crew:

1646 – John Flamsteed, English astronomer.

1871 – Orville Wright, American aviation pioneer and co-inventor of airplane controls.

1906 – Philo Farnsworth, American inventor, television pioneer, invented the Fusor. Although he made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television, he is perhaps best known for inventing the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the "image dissector", the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system, and for being the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public.

1921 – Gene Roddenberry, American screenwriter and producer. Seriously, if I have to explain who he is, I'm posting this in the wrong place.

1930 - David G. Compton, British science fiction author.

1938 – Diana Muldaur, American actress known for her role as Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

1952 – Jonathan Frakes, American actor, author, and director. Frakes is best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in Star Trek: TNG and subsequent films.

1980 – David Reddish, American novelist and screenwriter best known for writing the 2012 novel Sex, Drugs & Superheroes, the first mainstream novel about the geek subculture and the San Diego Comic-Con.

Happy birthday guys!