October 31 Dateline

 

Birthdays

1760 - Katsushika Hokusai, Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. Born in Edo, Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series 'Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji' which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. (Katsushika Hokusai: A Collection of 1145 Works (HD). Uploaded by LearnFromMasters. Accessed October 31, 2018.)

1795 - John Keats, English Romantic poet, one of the great English poets of the Romantic movement in poetry.  He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25. He is famous for Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Nightingale, To Autumn, and the first line of a love Sonnet, "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art." A brief documentary of Keat's life & legacy - here, and 10 Greatest Poems by John Keats. Classical Poets Org. Accessed October 31, 2018. 

1852 - Mary Eleanor Wilkins, American writer, a prominent novelist and short-story writer. The one-act opera The Village Singer by Stephen Paulus was adapted from a Freeman short story; it was commissioned by Opera Theater of Saint Louis, and was premiered in 1979. She produced a dozen volumes of short stories and as many novels, but she is mainly remembered for the first two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories and A New England Nun and Other Stories, and the novel Pembroke. (Britannica Encyclopedia).

 
1922 - Barbara Bel Geddes, American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series Dallas. Bel Geddes also starred as Maggie in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. Her notable films included I Remember Mama (1948) and Vertigo (1958). Throughout her career, she was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations. One of her early movie roles was that of Amy Lufton in the 1948 movie, Blood on the Moon, with Robert Mitchum.

1930 - Michael Collins, American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, made the first crewed landing on the surface. He was a test pilot and major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

1936 - Michael Landon, (born Eugene Maurice Orowitz), American actor, writer, director, singer and producer. He is known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza,  Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven. Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide 22 times, second only to Lucille Ball.

 
1957 - Brian Stokes Mitchell, American actor and singer. A powerful baritone, he has been one of the central leading men of the Broadway theatre since the 1990s. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2000 for his performance in Kiss Me, Kate. Aside from stage and recordings, television and film credits, Mitchell is the Chairman of the Board of the Actors Fund of America, having been elected in 2004. He received the 2016 Tony Award Isabelle Stevenson Award "for his commitment to supporting members of the entertainment community in crisis or transition through his work with The Actors Fund". (Brian Mitchell. "This Nearly was Mine", Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'South Pacific'. Uploaded by brianstokesdotcom. Accessed October 31, 2012.  Brian Stokes Mitchell: "4 Amazing Broadway Songs" (B S M PICTURES). YouTube, uploaded by jeffrey a. Accessed October 31, 2022.)  

Lefties:
None known

 

Death:

2020 - Sir Thomas Sean Connery, Scottish actor and producer.

More birthdays and historical events, October 31 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1517 - Martin Luther, the great German Catholic reformist for Protestantism, posted his famous 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. (Martin Luther, the Reformation and the nation | DW Documentary), YouTube, uploaded by DW Documentary. Accessed October 31, 2018.) 

1887 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio espagnol" is first preformed by the Russian Symphonic Society in St. Petersburg.
Below,  Rimsky Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Op 34.  Berliner Phil Directed by Zubin Mehta . YouTube, uploaded by Joao Viriato. Accessed  October 31, 2018.

October 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1683 - King George II of England, born to his parents George I and Sophia. Like his father, he is born in Hanover, remaining more German than English throughout his reign. His heir, Frederick, dies when he is hit in the eye by a tennis ball. George III, Frederick's son is born in England, but manages to lose the American colonies.

1735 - John Adams, American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and founding father who served as the second president of the United States, from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and he served as the first vice president of the United States. Adams was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with many important figures in early American history, including his wife and adviser Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson. During his term, he became the first president to reside in the executive mansion now known as the White House. He and his wife generated a family of politicians, diplomats, and historians now referred to as the Adams political family, which includes their son John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States.

1857 - Gertrude Atherton (Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton), American novelist, biographer and historian. Many of her novels are set in her home state of California. Her bestseller Black Oxen (1923) was made into a silent movie of the same name. She wrote short stories, essays, and articles for magazines and newspapers on such issues as feminism, politics, and war. She was strong-willed, independent-minded, and sometimes controversial, especially for her anti-communism and her white supremacist views.

 

1885 - Ezra Pound, an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a fascist sympathizer. His contribution to poetry began with his development of Imagism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision, concision, and economy of language. His works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920) and the unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos (1917–1969).  Ezra Pound. Uploaded by Steve Ward. Accessed October 30, 2018. (9. Ezra Pound. Uploaded by YaleCourses. Accessed October 30, 2013. Read the description from the Youtube's description. This video introduces the poetry of E. Pound. Ezra Pound. Cantos - Cantos I. Uploaded by MusicBox. Accessed October 30, 2019. Essentially, Cantos consists of three parts: first, those living in hell and content with it; the second, those who experience a metamorphosis and see that things could be better; and the third, those who leading man to a better life.)  

1945 - Henry Franklin Winkler OBE, American actor, comedian, director, producer, and author. He rose to fame for his role as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, a greaser who became the breakout character of the sitcom Happy Days (1974–1984), for which he won two Golden Globe Awards and earned three Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. He later played Barry Zuckerkorn on the comedy series Arrested Development, Sy Mittleman on the dark comedy series Childrens Hospital, Dr. Saperstein on the comedy series Parks and Recreation, and Eddie R. Lawson on the comedy-drama series Royal Pains. He plays Gene Cousineau on the dark comedy series Barry, for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 30 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1973 - Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn publishes in Paris The Gulag Archipelago, considered his powerful literary account of the Soviet Union's prison camp system.

1938 - Orson Welles recites H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds on radio, causing a nationwide panic as people mistake the fiction for a news report.

1944 - Aaron Copland's ballet "Appalachian Spring" is first staged by the Martha Graham Ballet, in Washington.