17/01/10

Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote was first published in 1605.  Modoc warriors defeated the US Army in the First Battle of the Stronghold in 1873.  Raoul Wallenberg disappeared in Budapest while in Soviet custody in 1945.  The Great Hanshin Earthquake, measuring 7.3 on the Moment Scale, shook Kobe, Japan, in 1995, leaving more than 6,400 people dead.

Born today:  Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Anne Brontë (1820-1849), David Lloyd George (1863-1945), Nevil Shute (1899-1960), Eartha Kitt (1927-2008), James Earl Jones (1931), Kip Keino (1940), Muhammad Ali (1942), Steve Earle (1955), Paul Young (1956), Keith Chegwin (1957), Andy Rourke (1964), Michelle Obama (1964), Naveen Andrews (1969), Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo (1973)*, Zooey Deschanel (1980)**, Alvaro Arbeloa (1983).

It is the feast day of St. Mildgytha in the Roman Catholic Church.

*Yeah, I never heard of him, either.  But isn't it a great name?  (Mexican footballer)
**You've probably never heard of her, but she was in a movie called 500 Days of Summer, for which my cousin did the Art Direction.  Gives me an excuse to tell you that.