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!

June 17 Dateline

Birthdays

1703 - John Wesley, English cleric, theologian and evangelist, founder of Methodism. He was leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day. He is the older brother of Charles Wesley, also English leader of the Methodist movement, but most widely known for writing about 6,500 hymns. 

1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer, best known for his Ave Maria, based on a work by J.S. Bach, as well as his opera Faust. Another opera by Gounod still performed is Roméo et Juliette. Gounod's father was a painter, and his mother was a capable pianist who gave Gounod his early training in music. (Cellist Yo-Yo Ma & Pianist Kathryn Stott - Gounod's Ave Maria. Accessed June 17, 2017.  Tenor Luciano Pavarotti - Gounod's Ave Maria. Uploaded by Rodrigo Primeiro. Accessed June 17, 2018.)  

1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor, who is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Serge Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The Rite of Spring transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure, and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design.(Sir Simon Rattle conducts The Rite of Spring with the London Symphony Orchestra, uploaded by LSO, recorded live at the Barbican Centre on Sunday 24 September 2017. Accessed June 17, 2019.) 

1898 - M.C. Escher, (born Maurits Cornelis Escher), Dutch graphic artist, who made mathematically-inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for long somewhat neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition of his work was held. (M.C. Escher Official Website)

1914 - John (Richard) Hersey, American writer and journalist, Pulitzer Prize-Winner, considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to non-fiction reportage.

1943 - Barry Manilow (born Barry Alan Pincus), American singer-songwriter, arranger, musician, producer and actor with a career that has spanned more than 50 years. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "I Write the Songs", "Can't Smile Without You" and "Copacabana (At the Copa)". (Barry Manilow - Mandy (from Live on Broadway). YouTube, Uploaded by TopPop. Could It Be Magic. Uploaded by Steve Mtloff.  Accessed June 17, 2020.)

1980 - Venus Williams (born Venus Ebony Starr Williams), American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1, Along with younger sister Serena Williams, Venus is credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour. Ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association on three occasions for a total of 11 weeks, she first reached the No. 1 ranking on February 25, 2002, the first African American woman to do so in the Open Era, and the second all time since Althea Gibson.
  

Leftie:
Artist M.C. Escher

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 17 June - On This Day.  

 

Historical Events

1923 - Enrico Ferrari wins his first race at Circuito del Savio in Ravenna, Italy.He meets Countess Paolina Baracca after the race who suggests he adopt her late son's emblem of the prancing horse.

1950 - Surgeon Richard Lawler performs the first kidney transplant operation at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago. Ruth Tucker, the recipient, lives for five years.