Birthdays
1693 - John Harrison, (3 April [O.S. 24 March]), English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. His solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. The problem he solved was considered so important following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 that the British Parliament offered financial rewards of up to £20,000 (equivalent to £3.17 million in 2020) under the 1714 Longitude Act. Toward the end of his life, he received recognition and a reward from Parliament. Harrison came 39th in the BBC's 2002 public poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
1808 - Maria Felicia Malibran, nee Garcia, Spanish opera singer, who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death, Sept 1836, Manchester, UK, at the age of 28. She was the sister of Pauline Viardot, a leading 19th century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue, and composer. She lived with composer Charles Auguste de Bériot and had a child (Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, a piano professor). They were married in 1836 when Malibran obtained an annulment of her previous marriage.
1874 - Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss), Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry 'Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it.
1930 - Steve McQueen (born Stephen Terrence McQueen), American actor. McQueen was nicknamed "The King of Cool", and his antihero persona developed at the height of the counterculture of the 1960s made him a top box-office draw during the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles. His other popular films include The Cincinnati Kid, Love With the Proper Stranger, The Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, The Getaway, and Papillon, as well as the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and The Towering Inferno. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in films again for four years. McQueen was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command large salaries.
1936 - David Takayoshi Suzuki CC OBC FRSC, Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. He earned a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago, and was a professor in the genetics department at the University of British Columbia. Suzuki has been known for his television and radio series, documentaries and books about nature and the environment. He is also best known as host and narrator of the popular and long-running CBC Television science program The Nature of Things, seen worldwide. A longtime activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that does sustain us".
1951 - Tommy Hilfiger (Thomas Jacob Hilfiger), American fashion designer and founder of Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. After by co-founding a chain of jeans/fashion stores called People's Place in upstate New York in the 1970s, he began designing preppy clothing for his own eponymous menswear line. The company later expanded into women's clothing and various luxury items such as perfumes. Hilfiger's collections are often influenced by the fashion of music subcultures and marketed in connection with the music industry. In 2006, Hilfiger sold his company for $1.6 billion to Apax Partners, who next sold it to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3 billion. He remains the company's principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the entire creative process. In 2012, Hilfiger was awarded the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Lefties:
Actor Steve McQueen
Fashion entrepreneur Tommy Hilfiger
Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 with L. Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic
1603 - On the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, King James VI of Scotland succeeds to the English throne, uniting the two countries, and becoming James I. QEI dies after a reign of 44 years, ending the Elizabethan age that saw the Spanish Armada smashed in 1588, prominence of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake prominent, and a huge period of expansion in English power at sea and on land.
1882 - Dr. Robert Koch announces in Berlin that he has isolated the bacterium responsible fffor tuberculosis. He receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.
Historical Events
1603 - On the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, King James VI of Scotland succeeds to the English throne, uniting the two countries, and becoming James I. QEI dies after a reign of 44 years, ending the Elizabethan age that saw the Spanish Armada smashed in 1588, prominence of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake prominent, and a huge period of expansion in English power at sea and on land.
1882 - Dr. Robert Koch announces in Berlin that he has isolated the bacterium responsible fffor tuberculosis. He receives the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.