July 2 Dateline

Birthdays

1714 - Christoph Willibald Gluck, German opera composer and harpsichord & voice teacher of French queen Marie Antoinette. He gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna where he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed. Gluck introduced more drama by using simpler recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. (Iphigénie en Tauride. Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2015 (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5). Uploaded by Lukas Hemleb. Accessed March 24, 2020.)  

1877 - Hermann Hesse (born Hermann Karl Hesse), German-born poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1956 - Jerry Hall, American model and actress. Hall had been on 40 magazine covers including Italian Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Her long blonde hair and height of six feet quickly made her one of the most visible and photographed models of the day. In 2016, Hall won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fashion Group International Dallas. She was a muse for artists Francesco Clemente, Ed Ruscha and Lucian Freud. Hall modeled for Andy Warhol many times. Hall also appeared in movies and London West End stage.

1990 - Margot Elise Robbie, Australian actress and film producer. She has received nominations for two Academy Awards and five BAFTA Awards. Robbie gained critical praise and nominations for the BAFTA Award and Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying the disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in the biopic I, Tonya (2017). This acclaim continued for her roles as Queen Elizabeth I in the period drama Mary Queen of Scots, Sharon Tate in the comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and a fictional Fox News employee in the drama Bombshell. She received BAFTA Award nominations for all three and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the lattermost. In 2017, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2019, she was ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses.

Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical today, 2 July - On This Day.

 

 

Historical Events

1644 - The Battle of Marston Moor is fought. It is the first major batttle of the English Civil War between the King Charles I and forces of Parliament. The victory is for the Roundheads, the parliamentary forces under Cromwell.

1819 - In Great Britain, the Factory Act is passed, banning children under 9 years old from working in cotton mills, and limiting children between the ages of 9 and 16 to 12 hours work a day.

1881 - The 20th U.S. President James Garfield, is shot in the back while waiting for a train. He dies from the wounds on September 19. Charles Guiteau, his assassin, is hanged on June 30, 1882.

July 1 Dateline

Birthdays

1646 - Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz (sometimes spelled Leibnitz), German polymath, logicians, mathematician and natural philosopher of the Enlightenment. His most prominent accomplishment was conceiving the ideas of differential and integral calculus, independently of Isaac Newton's contemporaneous developments. Mathematical works have consistently favored Leibniz's notation as the conventional expression of calculus. It was only in the 20th century that Leibniz's law of continuity and transcendental law of homogeneity found mathematical implementation (by means of non-standard analysis). He became one of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. In philosophy, Leibniz is most noted for his optimism, i.e. his conclusion that our universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created, an idea that was often lampooned by others such as Voltaire. Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th-century advocates of rationalism.  He made major and significant contributions to science and technology especially in applied science, linguistics, and computer science. (Gottfried Biography. mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk. Accessed July 1, 2010.) 

1804 - George Sand (Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin), French novelist and memoirist, equally well-known for her romantic affairs with with artists, including the composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin and the writer Alfred de Musset.  (George Sand: Life and Works. Uploaded by Literature forever. Accessed July 1, 2017. The Novel & Idealism: George Sand's 'Francois le champi' - Professor Belinda Jack. Uploaded by Gresham College. Accessed July 1, 2019.)

1899 - Charles Laughton, English stage and film actor. He played a wide range of classical and modern parts, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic. His film career took him to Broadway and then Hollywood, but he also collaborated with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era, including The Private Life of Henry VIII, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character. Among Laughton's biggest film hits were The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Mutiny on the Bounty, Ruggles of Red Gap, Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Big Clock, and Witness for the Prosecution. In his later career, he took up stage directing.in which he also starred.

1916 - Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland, DBE, American-British-French actress whose film career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films, was one of the leading actors of her time, a movie star of the "Golden Age" of Classical Hollywood. (Olivia de Havilland - Documentary. Uploaded by WikiVidi Documentaries. Accessed July 1, 2018.)

1931 - Leslie Caron (born Leslie Claire Margaret Caron), French-American actress and dancer. Her autobiography, Thank Heaven, was published in 2010 in the UK and US, and in 2011 in a French version. Veteran documentarian Larry Weinstein's Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 28 June 2016. Caron is best known for the musical films An American in Paris her film debut, Lili, Daddy Long Legs, and Gigi, and for the nonmusical films Fanny, The L-Shaped Room, and Father Goose. She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. In 2006, her performance in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series.

1952 - Dan Edward Akroyd, Canadian actor, producer, comedian, musician, and filmmaker who was an original member of the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" on Saturday Night Live. A musical sketch he performed with John Belushi on SNL, the Blues Brothers, turned into an actual performing band and into the film The Blues Brothers. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film Driving Miss Daisy. He starred in his own sitcom, Soul Man.

1961 - Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, the heir apparent to the British throne, and the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an icon worldwide and earned her an enduring popularity as well as an unprecedented public scrutiny, exacerbated by her tumultuous private life.

Leftie:
Actor Dan Aykroyd

More birthdays and historical events today, 1 July - On This Day.

Historical Events

1796 - Edward Jenner inoculates 8-year-old James Phipps with smallpox. The boy had been previously vacinated with cowpox and so was immune to the deadly smallpox virus.

1801 - Ludwig van Beethoven writes his friend Carl Amenda: "... you should know that my most precious gift, my hearing, has much deteriorated ..." He passed away 26 years later,  in 1827, March 26.