Top 10 Birthdays

Honorable Mention: June 16, 1644: Henrietta Anne Stuart. A daughter of King Charles I of England and his French wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, she and her mother had to flee England after its Civil War led to the execution of her father in 1649. Her mother's cousin, King Louis XIV, protected them, and married Henrietta off to his brother, Philippe I, Duke of  Orléans, Anjou, Valois and Chartres. (He was 20, she was 16, so it wasn't that bad, especially by the standards of the time.) Following the death of Oliver Cromwell, her brother was restored to the throne as King Charles II in 1660. And with England at war with the Netherlands, she did something few before her considered possible: She negotiated a treaty between historic enemies England and France, the Secret Treaty of Dover in 1670. Within days of the Treaty, she died, believing she had been poisoned. However, earlier illnesses suggest that she had an ulcer, and it finally ruptured, killing her shortly after her 26th birth...

Dishonorable Mention: June 11, 1888: Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He and Nicola Sacco were almost certainly innocent of the murder that got them executed in 1927. But they were still terrorists. Dishonorable Mention: June 11, 1943: Henry Hill. The real guy behind the story of Goodfellas, he had no one to blame for what happened to him but himself. In the end, he chose not to "live the rest of his life like a schnook," and broke his witness-protection agreement, and went back to prison. Dishonorable Mention: June 11, 1960: Mehmet Oz. The heart surgeon left credibility to push pseudoscience, and he is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, a Trump ally. 10. June 11, 1572: Ben Jonson. The author of Every Man In His Humour was regarded as the 2nd-greatest writer in the English language during the time of William Shakespeare. 9. June 11, 1880: Jeannette Rankin. The Republican from Montana served 2 terms in the U.S. Congress: 1917-18 and 1941-42. She was a suf...