Today in history—April 19
1713: Emperor Charles VI, in violation of the Salic law, issues a “Pragmatic Sanction” that settles the throne on his daughter, Maria Theresa, a move that will trigger one of the fiercest will contests in history, the War of the Austrian Succession.
1721: Two future signers of the Declaration of Independence, both lawyers and state judges, are born on the same day: Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Thomas McKean of Delaware.
1770: Captain James Cook first spots a really, really big island that the Dutch have already named New Holland. He determines that it is uninhabited and claims the eastern two-thirds for Britain. He’s wrong about the inhabitants. Later, the place will come to be known as Terra Australis, and later, Australia.
1855: Work is completed on the 1.6 mile-long “Soo Canal” at St. Mary’s Rapids (Sault Ste. Marie), allowing ships to pass from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and tying all the Great Lakes into a single transportation network. Its locks remain the most heavily traveled in the world.
1881: Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, who led the Tory battle against laissez-faire capitalism and repeal of the Corn Laws, dies at his home in Mayfair, London.
1903: Future Prohibition agent and Diebold Corp. chairman Elliot Ness is born to a family of Norwegian bakers in Chicago.
1914: The “Father of Pragmatism,” Charles Sanders Peirce (rhymes with “nurse”) dies of cancer at Milford, Pennsylvania. Bertrand Russell called him “certainly the greatest American thinker ever,” but it is not clear if this was intended as a compliment.
1933: President Roosevelt announces that the United States will go off the gold standard.
1938: The National Broadcasting Co. begins regular television broadcasting in the United States.
1973: Hans Kelsen (Vienna Law 1906), one of the great legal positivists of all time and inventor of the Grundnorm, dies at Berkeley, California.
1985: Tennis player Maria Yuryevna Sharapova is born at Nyagan, Siberia. She will arrive in the U.S. at age 7 with her father and $700, but two years later will have endorsement contracts with Prince racquets, Oakley sunglasses, and Nike apparel.