Those born on this date are under the sign of Leo. They include French novelist Alexandre Dumas the Younger, author of "Camille," in 1824; British aircraft pioneer Geoffrey de Havilland in 1882; baseball Hall of Fame member Leo Durocher in 1905; actor Keenan Wynn in 1916; bluegrass star Henry D. "Homer" Haynes, of the Homer and Jethro musical duo, in 1920; television producer Norman Lear in 1922 (age 92); film critic Vincent Canby in 1924; actors Jerry Van Dyke in 1931 (age 83) and Don Galloway in 1937; singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry in 1944 (age 70); figure skater Peggy Fleming and actor/director Betty Thomas, both in 1948 (age 66); singer Maureen McGovern in 1949 (age 65); and actors Maya Rudolph in 1972 (age 42) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in 1977 (age 37).
On this date in history:
In 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, architect of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, was overthrown and arrested by the National Convention. (Robespierre who encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the revolution, was himself guillotined the following day.)
In 1909, Orville Wright set a record by staying aloft in a plane for 1 hour, 12 minutes, 40 seconds.
In 1921, at the University of Toronto, Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin -- a hormone they believed could prevent diabetes -- for the first time.
In 1953, a truce officially ended the Korean War, which had begun June 25, 1950.
In 1980, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, deposed shah of Iran, died in an Egyptian military hospital of cancer at age 60.
In 1986, Greg LeMond, 25, of Sacramento, became the first American to win cycling's most famous contest, the Tour de France.
In 1989, a Korean Air DC-10 crashed in heavy fog while attempting to land at Tripoli airport in Libya, killing 82 people, four of them on the ground.
In 1996, a bomb exploded at Olympic Park in Atlanta during the Summer Games, killing a woman and injuring more than 100 other people.
In 2002, nine coal miners were trapped 240 feet underground in southwestern Pennsylvania when a wall collapsed, inundating them with water. (A three-day rescue operation saved them all.)
In 2003, legendary comic Bob Hope died of pneumonia at his home in Toluca Lake, Calif. He was 100 years old.
In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service released a list of 3,700 post offices it may close while revamping the way it does business.
In 2012, the Summer Olympics opened in London, with 10,820 athletes representing 204 countries.
In 2013, a 42-year-old gunman killed six people at an apartment complex in Hialeah, Fla., before a police SWAT team killed him.
A thought for the day: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." -- Martin Luther King jr.
