June 1 Dateline

Birthdays

1804 - Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, Russian composer considered the "Father of Russian music", famous for his opera A Life for the Tsar. He was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, often regarded as the fountainhead of Russian classical music. (See Glinka's featured music below.)

1926 - Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson), American actress, model, and singer. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was emblematic of the era's changing attitudes towards sexuality. She was a top-billed actress for only a decade, but her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2019) by the time of her death in 1962. She continues to be a major popular culture icon.
   
1926 - Andy Samuel Griffith, American actor, comedian, television producer.He was also a Southern gospel singer and writer whose career spanned seven decades in music and television. Known for his southern drawl, his characters with a folksy-friendly personality, and his gruff but friendly voice, Griffith was a Tony Award nominee for two roles, and gained prominence in the starring role in the film A Face in the Crowd before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead roles of Andy Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show  and Ben Matlock in the legal drama Matlock.

1930 - Edward Woodward, OBE, English actor and singer. He began his career on stage after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic arts. Throughout his career, he appeared in productions in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. He came to wider attention from 1967 in the title role of the British television spy drama Callan, earning him the 1970 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

1937 - Colleen McCullough, AO (married name Robinson, previously Ion-Robinson), Australian novelist, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and The Ladies of Missalonghi, the latter of which was involved in a plagiarism controversy.

1941 - Edo de Waart, Dutch conductor. His recording catalog encompasses such labels as Philips and orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. In January 2001, he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal "for service to Australian society and the advancement of music" and in May 2005, he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia "for service to Australia, particularly as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra". He is a knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.

 
1972 -  Daniel Casey, English actor, best known for playing DS Gavin Troy, the original sidekick of DCI Tom Barnaby, for the first six seasons of the long-running television series Midsomer Murders.

1974 - Alanis Morisette, Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known for her emotive mezzo-soprano voice, she began her career in Canada in the early 1990s with two mildly successful dance-pop albums.

Lefties:
Actress Marilyn Monroe

 

 

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

 

Featured Music:

Mikhail Glinka's A Life for the Tsar (Finale), with Mikhailovsky Theatre orchestra and choir, March 6, 2013, State Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Historical Events

1831 - James Clark Ross discovers the position of the North magnetic Pole, on the Boothia Peninsula.

1943 - Actor Leslie Howard, actor of Gone with the Wind and Brief Encounter films, is killed when a civilian flight from Lisbon to London is shot down by the Germans during World War II.

May 31 Dateline

Birthdays

1656 - Marin Marais, French composer and viola da gambist. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for six months. (The Best of Marais. Youtube, uploaded by Classical Music Archive. Accessed May 31, 2026)

 

1804 - Louise Farrenc (née Jeanne-Louise Dumont), French composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher of the Romantic period. Her compositions include three symphonies, a few choral works, numerous chamber pieces and a wide variety of piano music. 

 
1819 - Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and Realism, both views he incorporated in his works.  Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman's own life came under scrutiny for his presumed homosexuality. Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C. and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. Two of his well known poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", were written on the death of Abraham Lincoln. When he died at age 72, his funeral was a public event. Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong.

1838 - Henry Sidgwick, English philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of moral philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philosophy for his utilitarian treatise "The Methods of Ethics".

1915 - Judith Arundell Wright, Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. She was a recipient of the Australian National Living Treasure Award in 1998.

1930 - Clint Eastwood, American actor, filmmaker, musician, and politician. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, he rose to international fame with his role as the 'Man with No Name' in Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films. He directed films, such as the mystery drama Mystic River and the war film Letters from Iwo Jima, for which he received Academy Award nominations. Eastwood was awarded two of France's highest civilian honors: in 1994, he became a recipient of the Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2007, was awarded the Legion of Honour medal. In 2000, Eastwood was awarded the Italian Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Since 1967, his Malpaso Productions has produced all but four of his American films. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, a non-partisan office.

1934 - Jim Hutton (born Dana James Hutton), American actor in film and television best remembered for his role as Ellery Queen in the 1970s TV series of the same name and his screen partnership with Paula Prentiss in four films, starting with Where the Boys Are. He is the father of actor Timothy Hutton.

Death:

1809 - Composer Joseph Haydn dies in Vienna, aged 77.  

 

Leftie:
Actor Jim Hutton

 

More birthdays and historical evens today, 31 May - On This Day.
 

 

In memory of Walt Whitman:  
I'm featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams' "A Sea Symphony" by which, having selected his main 'instrument' as the choir for this work, chose for his texts sections of the perfectly equated humanist poems by this great American poet and essayist, Walt Whitman.

Historical Events

1279 B.C. - Rameses II ascends the Egyptian throne and reigns as pharaoh for sixty-seven years.

1859 - The "Big Ben," the bell of the Great Clock at Westminster, rings for the first time across  London. The bell was cast in Whitechapel and transported to its new home by teams of horses.