September 23 Dateline

Birthdays

63 B.C.E. - Augustus Caesar, Roman Emperor also known as Octavian, he was the first Roman emperor, reigning from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. His status as the founder of the Roman Principate (the first phase of the Roman Empire) has consolidated a legacy as one of the most effective leaders in human history. His reign initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries, despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

1920 - Mickey Rooney, (born Ninnian Joseph Yule Jr.), American actor, vaudevillian, comedian, producer and radio personality. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the silent-film era. He was the top box-office attraction from 1939 to 1941, and one of the best-paid actors of that era. Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized mainstream America's self-image.

 
1930 - Ray Charles Robinson, American singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer. Charles was blinded during childhood due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic. Charles' 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. His 1962 album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music became his first album to top the Billboard 200.

 
1938 - Romy Schneider (born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach),  German-French film and voice actress. She started her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957, she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy, and later reprised the role in a more mature version in Visconti's Ludwig. The trilogy was also made into a film "Forever My Love" with Romy Schneider and Karlheinz Böhm. Schneider moved to France, where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. (Sissi - Forever my Love (English version, part 1, part 2. YouTube, uploaded by LuckyStarAt. Accessed September 23, 2018.) 

 
1943 - Julio Iglesias (born Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva), Spanish singer, songwriter and former professional footballer. Iglesias is recognized as the most commercially successful continental European singer in the world and one of the top record sellers in music history, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide in 14 languages. It is estimated that during his career he has performed in more than 5000 concerts, for over 60 million people in five continents. In April 2013, Iglesias was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Latin Composers.

 
1959 - Jason Alexander, (born Jay Scott Greenspan), American actor, comedian, singer, and director. Alexander is best known for his role as George Costanza in the television series Seinfeld, for which he was nominated for seven consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. On stage, he appeared in several Broadway musicals, including Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989, for which he won the Tony Award as Best Leading Actor in a Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. He appeared in the Los Angeles production of The Producers. He was the artistic director of "Reprise! Broadway's Best in Los Angeles", where he has directed several musicals.

 

 1961 - William Cameron "Willie" McCool, Cmdr, USN, American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, Aeronautical Engineer, and NASA Astronaut, the pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-107. He and the rest of the crew of STS-107 were killed when Columbia disintegrated during re-entry into the atmosphere. He was the youngest male member of the crew.  McCool was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

 
Leftie:
Actor Jason Alexander 

 

More birthdays and historical events, September 23 - On This Day

Historical Events

1846 - Neptune, thee 8th planet from the sun, is discovered by Urbain Le Verrier, a French astronomer, and John Couch Adams, a British astronomer. It is named after the Roman god of the sea because of its blue methane clouds.

1848 - John Curtis in Maine, U.S., invents the chewing gum. In his home, he boils the resin obtained from spruce trees on a stove, then pours it in a tub of ice water and strains it. He sells it as sticks wrapped in tissue paper.

September 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1694 - Lord Chesterfield (Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield), English statesman and man of letters, mainly remembered for his letters to his natural son Philip.

1791 - Michael Faraday, English scientist (master of chemistry and physics), regarded the "Father of Electricity", he contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis ~ known for: Faraday's law of induction, electrochemistry, Faraday effect, Faraday cage, Faraday constant, Faraday's laws of electrolysis, Faraday paradox, Faraday rotator, Faraday-efficiency effect, Faraday wave, Faraday wheel, Faraday lines of force. 

 

1880 - Dame Christabel Pankhurst, DBE (Christabel Harriette Pankhurst), British suffragette, a co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914 she supported the war against Germany. After the war she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.

1895 - Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund), Austro-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor. He was a five-time Academy Award nominee, with one win. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theater. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros. studio, and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted. He made 22 films and won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1936 film The Story of Louis Pasteur. He also starred in numerous Broadway plays and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the 1955 production of Inherit the Wind. (As a lover of Chopin's piano music, I'll remember Paul Muni best as Prof. Joseph Elsner in 'A Song to Remember' from a 1945 American biographical film which tells a fictionalised life story of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. /Tel)
 

1931 - Fay Weldon,  CBE, FRSL (born Franklin Birkinshaw), English author, essayist and playwright. Weldon's most celebrated work is her 1983 novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which she wrote at the age of 52. Her novel The Hearts and Lives of Men was written and published in serial form, appearing in the British magazine Woman between 1 February and 15 November 1986. Weldon serves together with Daniel Pipes as the most notable foreign members of the board of the Danish Press Freedom Society

1945 - Pete Atkin, British singer-songwriter and radio producer notable for his 1970s musical collaborations with Clive James and for producing the BBC Radio 4 series This Sceptred Isle. Atkin's musical settings drew most of their inspiration from Tin Pan Alley, although in the "Carnations on the Roof" he set a sombre description of a working class life to themes characteristic of Tamla Motown. Often Atkin turned James' intentions upside down, as with "The Last Hill That Shows You All The Valley", which James wrote as a dirge but which Atkin set to a thumping, angry rock beat. The combination worked as James' mournful cataloguing of man's inhumanity to man became a cry of protest.(The Colours of the Night: Pete Atkin and Clive James. September 22, 2018.)

1958 - Andrea Bocelli, OMRI OMDSM, Italian opera singer, songwriter, tenor and record producer.  He was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma at 5 months old, and became completely blind at age 12. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the preliminary round of the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Miserere", with the highest marks ever recorded in the newcomers section.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, September 22 - On This Day

Historical Events

1869 - Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold is first produced, in Munich, with Franz Wuellner conducting.

1980 - Iraq invades Iran, bombing several air and military supply bases, and war breaks out between the neighbouring countries. The fighting ends only when the UN organizes a ceasefire in august 1988.