June 19 Dateline

Birthdays

1566 - James VI of Scotland, child of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley. With Queen Elizabeth I dying childless, he becomes king of both Great Britain and Ireland.

1623 - Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, scientist, mathematician, inventor, writer and catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method. His notable ideas: Pascal's Wager and Pascal's Triangle, and the book Pensées, a collection of fragments on theology and philosophy. His religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work, representing his defense of the Christian religion.  (Philosophy - Blaise Pascal. Uploaded by The Social Life. Accessed June 19, 2018.)
 
1717 - Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, Czech composer and violist (Jan Václav Antonín Stamic (later in life, in Mannheim, Germanized as Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz). His two surviving sons, Carl and Anton Stamitz, both important composers of the Mannheim school of symphonists, of which their father is considered the founding father. The Mannheim school is considered to have a profound influence in Mozart's instrumental style. Johann Stamitz music is stylistically transitional between the Baroque and Classical periods. (Johann Stamitz' Three Mannheim Symphonies (complete), conducted by Taras Demchyshyn, performed by the New Dutch Academy Chamber Orchestra, with Simon Murphy, Director. Accessed June 19, 2023.)

1945 - Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese (now Myanmar) human rights activist, politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Prize laureate. She is the leader of the National League for Democracy and the first and incumbent State Counsellor, a position akin to a prime minister. She played a vital role in the state's transition from military junta to partial democracy.

1947 - (Ahmed) Salman Rushdie FRSL, British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two separate occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.

1954 - (Mary) Kathleen Turner, American film & stage actress, and director. Known for her distinctive gritty voice, she won two Golden Globe Awards and nominated for an Academy Award. Turner has also worked in the theatre, and nominated for the Tony Award twice for her Broadway roles as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Turner taught acting classes at New York University.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 19 June - On This Day.   

 

Historical Events

1215 - The Magna Carta is sealed by King John, though reluctantly. It limits the absolute power of the king and gives more power to his barons. Clause 39 has a wider application than anticipated and becomes a fundamental precept of British law. It states: "No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or banished or in any way molested, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land."

1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded after accusations of adultery, which were almost certainly false. Shortly thereafter, Henry marries Jane Seymour.

1899 - Sir Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations premieres in London with Hans Richter conducting. Here's another performance of Enigma Variations  "Nimrod" conducted by Leonard Bernstein, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (!982).

June 18 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1757 - Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, Austro-French composer, music publisher and piano manufacturer. Trained in music while still a very young child, he was sent in 1772 to Eisenstadt to become a pupil and lodger of Joseph Haydn. He later claimed a close, warm relationship had existed between them, and there is evidence of Haydn's esteem for his student’s compositional talents in the overture (or at least the first two movements) of Haydn's puppet opera Das abgebrannte Haus, generally accepted as being Pleyel’s work.(Pleyel's Symphony in C major, Op.66 (1803). Performed by the London Mozart Players, with Matthias Bambert, conductor. Updated by KuhlauDelfing2. Accessed June 18, 2015. Suggested reading: Pleyel symphonies, a  review from Gramophone.)

1845 - Alphonse Laveran (born Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran), French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis. 1907 Nobel Laureate in Medicine.

1903 - Jeanette Anna MacDonald, American actress and singer, best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow and One Hour With You) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour with You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to film-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers.(Jeanettte MacDonald sings "The Holy City", the song was used in the film San Francisco also starring Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable.

1932 - Dudley Herschbach, American chemist, 1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes." Herschbach and Lee specifically worked with molecular beams, performing crossed molecular beam experiments that enabled a detailed molecular-level understanding of many elementary reaction processes. Herschbach is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

1942 - Sir (James) Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter of the successful pop group, The Beatles, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. He gained worldwide fame as the bass guitarist and singer for the rock band the Beatles, widely considered the most popular and influential group in the history of popular music. (One all-time favourite from Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band, "When I'm Sixty Four". Provided by Universal Music Group. Accessed June 18, 2019. Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs. CQ. Accessed June 18, 2019.)  

1952 - Carol Kane (born Carolyn Laurie Kane), American actress and comedian. She became known in the films Hester Street, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, Annie Hall, and The Princess Bride. She appeared on the TV series Taxi, as Simka Gravas, winning two Emmy Awards for her work. She the character of Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked, both in regional productions and on Broadway. From 2015 to 2020, she was a cast member on the Netflix original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, in which she played Lillian Kaushtupper.

1961 - Alison Moyet (born Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet), English singer, songwriter and performer noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice. Started as half of the duo Yazoo (or Yaz), but has since worked as a solo artist. Her worldwide album sales have reached a certified 23 million, with over 2 million singles sold. All nine of her studio albums and three compilation albums have charted in the Top 30 UK Album Chart, with two of them reaching number one. She has achieved nine Top 30 singles and five Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart. (Alison Moyet - All Cried Out. Accessed June 18, 2019.)  

1966 - Kurt Browning, CM, Canadian figure skater, choreographer and commentator. He is the first skater to land a ratified quadruple jump in competition. He is a four-time World Champion and Canadian national champion. 

Leftie:
Songwriter/Singer Paul McCartney

More birthdays and historical events today, 18 June - On This Day.   

 

 

To celebrate Sir Paul McCartney's birthday, here's one favourite song "Yesterday" by their famous English rock band, the Beatles. The song is written by him (credited to Lenon-McCartney), first released on the album Help! in the UK, in August 1965. (Accessed June 18, 2016)

Historical Events

1429 - Joan of Arc, French religious military leader, leads troops to a victory of the English at the Battle of Patay, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1791 - Wolfgang A. Mozart composes the Motet  Ave verum corpus in D for choir, orchestra and organ, K.618. Performed by the King's College Choir, London. 

 
1812 - The U.S. declares war against Great Britain, invading the British North American Territories. The war of 1812 ended in a stalemate, but led to the formation of Canada as a nation.

1821 - Carl Maria von Weber conducts the first performance of his opera Der Freischütz, Op. 77, J. 277  (Der Freischuetz), at the new Berlin Opera Theatre. (Anyone interested, I featured the Overture of Der Freischütz  in  'November 18 Dateline', the composer's birthday anniversary - here - performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, conducted by an admired Australian conductor Simone Young. No bells & whistles, but simply heartwarming, lovely performance of a favourite C.M. von Weber's work!