August 23 Dateline

 Birthdays

1754 - King Louis XVI of France, Louis XVI was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine. In 1765, upon the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, he became the new Dauphin.

1884 - Will Cuppy, American humourist, author of The Decline and Fall of Practically Everything and How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes.

1904 - William Primrose, Scottish violist and teacher, formed Primrose Quartet.

1905 - Constant Lambert, English composer, conductor, and author. His work as a composer included ballets, incidental music, and film scores. He wrote his first orchestral works at the age of 13, and at 20 received a commission to write a ballet for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Romeo and Juliet). Lambert's best-known composition is The Rio Grande (1927) for piano and alto soloists, chorus, and orchestra of brass, strings and percussion. It achieved success, and Lambert made two recordings of the piece as conductor (1930 and 1949). Lambert: The Rio Grande. (Uploaded by Xi Chen. Xi Chen, Piano; Rebecca Galick, Alto: Eastman Rochester Chorus, Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, William Weinert, Conductor. Accessed August 23, 2016.) He also wrote Lambert's Horoscope. This ballet takes for its theme a man who has the sun in Leo and the moon in Gemini, and a woman who also has the moon in Gemini but whose sun is in Virgo. The ballet, some say, was written for the young ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn, (Fonteyn later became widely considered to be the greatest female ballet dancer of all time). It had its first performance by the Vic-Wells Ballet at Sadler's Wells Theatre on 27 January 1938, starring Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes, and it made stars of both principal dancers. At that time Constant Lambert was conducting an affair with the young Margot Fonteyn, but they later separated, never to wed. The ballet has been described as a symbolic representation of their affair together.)

1912 - Gene Kelly, Academy multi-awarded American dancer, actor, film director, producer, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likable characters that he played on screen, in particular, musical films. Best known for his performances in An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh - for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor—and Singin' in the Rain. Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements, the same year An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982) and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

1934 - Barbara Eden (born Barbara Jean Morehead), American actress in film, stage and television, and Singer, best known for her starring role of "Jeannie" in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.

Leftie:
King Louis XVI of France

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 23 August - On This Day.

 

 Historical Events

1939 - The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact, is signed.        

1942 - The Battle of Stalingrad begins during World War II.

August 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1771 - Henry Maudslay, British inventor for industrial machinery of the first bench micrometer capable of measuring one ten-thousandth of an inch and also developed the precision screw-cutting lathe.

1827 - Josef Strauss, Austrian waltz composer, and brother of Johann Strauss, Jr. and Eduard Strauss. Strauss had talents as an artist, painter, poet, dramatist, singer, composer and inventor. His father wanted him to choose a career in the Austrian Habsburg military. He studied music with Franz Dolleschal and learned to play the violin with Franz Anton Ries. He trained as an engineer, and worked for the city of Vienna as an engineer and designer. He designed a horse-drawn revolving brush street-sweeping vehicle and published two textbooks on mathematical subjects. (Walzer "Herbstrosen", Op 232, by von Josef Strauss ("Autumn Roses", Waltz by Josef Strauss. Wiener Kammerorchester, Paul Angerer. Uploaded by Rumundjin. Accessed August 22, 2015.)

1862 - Claude Debussy, French composer, considered or sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899) and Images (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a reaction against Wagner and the German musical tradition. Regarding the classical symphony as obsolete, he sought an alternative in his "symphonic sketches", La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include two books of Préludes and two of Études. Debussy wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. He was greatly influenced by the Symbolist poetic movement of the later 19th century.

1893 - Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild), American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York, known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary works and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Following the breakup of the circle, Parker traveled to Hollywood to pursue screenwriting. Her successes there, including two Academy Award nominations, were curtailed when her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist. Both her literary output and reputation for sharp wit have endured. Some of her works have been set to music.

1928 - Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer, known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, for introducing controlled chance (aleatory techniques or aleatoric musical techniques) into serial composition, and for musical spatialization.

1934 - Herbert Norman Schwarzkopt, Jr., United States Army General. While serving as the commander of United States Central Command, he led all coalition forces in the Gulf War. A hard-driving military commander with a strong temper, Schwarzkopf was considered an exceptional leader by many biographers and was noted for his abilities as a military diplomat and in dealing with the press.

1964 - Mats Wilander (born Mats Arne Olof Wilander), Swedish former world No. 1 Tennis Player. From 1982 to 1988, he won seven Grand Slam singles titles (three at the French Open, three at the Australian Open, and one at the US Open), and one Grand Slam men's doubles title (at Wimbledon). His breakthrough came suddenly and unexpectedly (even in Sweden) when he won the 1982 French Open. This occurred, more or less, simultaneously with countryman Björn Borg's decision to quit tennis.

Leftie:
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 22 August - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1741 - George F. Handel begins work on his oratorio Messiah, and completes it three weeks later.

1770 - Captain James Cook lands in Botany Bay, Australia.