This Day…

1892 – Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden‘s father and stepmother are murdered with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts; Borden is later arrested, tried and acquitted.

On August 1, 1911 the first rodeo was held at the race track grounds, however it was advertised as a Wild West Show. Since it ran for a whole week, “Red” Cornett called it “Big Week” and Frank Griffen wanted to call it “The California Rodeo.”

1863 – Indian Wars: Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.

1858 – First use of fingerprints as a means of identification is made by Sir William James Herschel of the Indian Civil Service.

1946 – At Club 500 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team.

1934 – Outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, “Public Enemy No. 1” John Dillinger is mortally wounded by FBI agents.

1817 – The English novelist Jane Austen, who wrote such classics as Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), died in Winchester, Hampshire, at age 41.

July 12, 1916 — Many called her Lady Death. To Adolf Hitler‘s men, she was “the Russian bitch from hell.” Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who was born on this day, is the most successful female sniper in history, having killed 309 German soldiers during the Second World War.

1900 – Charlotte Cooper beats Hélène Prévost to become the 1st female Olympic tennis champion and the 1st individual female Olympic champion in any sport.

1942 – British born actor “His Girl Friday” Cary Grant (38) weds American heiress and socialite Barbara Hutton (29).