August 26 Dateline

Birthdays

1898 - Peggy Guggenheim (born Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim), American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R., Art Collector.

1914 - Julio Cortazar (born Julio Florencio Cortázar), Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist. One of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced a generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe. He is considered one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history, poetic prose and short story in general and a creator of important novels that inaugurated a new way of making literature in the Hispanic world by breaking the classical moulds through narratives that escaped temporal linearity. The content of his work travels on the border between the real and the fantastic, and is often placed within the genres of magical realism and surrealism.

1918 - Katherine Johnson,  American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist". Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, then President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. (What Matters - Katherine Johnson: NASA Pioneer and "Computer". Uploaded by WHRO Public Media. Accessed August 26, 2013.)

1980 - Macauley Culkin (Macaulay Carson Culkin), American actor, musician, and web host. He is known for playing Kevin McCallister in the Christmas films Home Alone, which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Leftie:
Art collector Peggy Guggenheim

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, August 26 - On This Day

Historical Events

1346 - The Battle of Crecy takes place. It is one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War. Twelve thousand men under Edward III and his son (the Black Prince), take on the French. The English longbow triumphs.

1498 - Pope Alexander VI commissions Michelangelo, aged 23, to carve the Pieta for St. Peter's Basilica, Rome.

1846 - Felix Mendelssohn's famous oratorio Elijah is first performed, in Birmingham, England.

August 25 Dateline

Birthdays

1836 - Bret Harte (born Francis Brett Hart), American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. He wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to Eastern U.S. then to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his 'Gold Rush' tales have been the works most often reprinted, adapted, and admired.

1918 - Leonard Bernstein, American conductor, pianist, and composer. His works include symphonies, ballets, and scores for musicals Wonderful Town West Side Story, and the operetta Candide.) Bernstein's fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic. He wrote in varied styles encompassing symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music and pieces for the piano. Many of his works are regularly performed around the world, in particular, the most popular and successful West Side Story, Candide, and Wonderful Town. Bernstein was the first conductor to give a series of television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954 and continuing until his death in 1990.

1930 - Sir Sean Connery, Scottish actor and producer, who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. He was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again). In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His films also include Marnie, Murder on the Orient Express, The Man Who Would Be King, amongst many more. Sir Connery was voted by People magazine as both the “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1989 and the “Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999. He was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.  He has been polled in The Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". (Top Ten Sean Connery Performances. Uploaded by WatchMojo.com. Accessed August 25, 2015.)  

1938 - Frederick Forsyth, CBE,  English author, journalist, spy, and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger and The Cobra. His works frequently appear on best-sellers lists and more than a dozen of his titles have been adapted to film. (The Day of the Jackal (film). Sorry, the video is no longer available. Aug 25, 2026. SS Odessa Movie Highlight #18. Movie Highlights. Accessed August 25, 2015. 

 
1949 - Martin Amis, British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and has been listed for the Booker Prize twice (shortlisted in 1991 for Time's Arrow and longlisted in 2003 for Yellow Dog). In 2008, The Times named him one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.  Amis's work centres on the excesses of late-capitalist Western society, whose perceived absurdity he often satirises through grotesque caricature. 

 
1958 - Tim Burton, American filmmaker, artist, writer, and animator. He is known for his dark, gothic, and eccentric horror and fantasy films; also for blockbuster films, such as the superhero films Batman and its first sequel, Batman Returns, the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes, the musical adventure film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the fantasy film Alice in Wonderland, and the film adaptation of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. He wrote and illustrated the poetry book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, a compilation of his drawings, sketches and other artwork, and a follow-up, entitled The Napkin Art of Tim Burton: Things You Think About in a Bar, containing sketches made by him on napkins at bars and restaurants he occasionally visits. (Tim Burton: A Life in Pictures. Uploaded by BAFTA Guru. Accessed August 25, 2016.

1970 - Claudia Maria Schiffer,  German model, actress, and fashion designer, based in the UK. She rose to fame in the early 1990s as one of the world's most successful models, cementing her supermodel status. She has appeared on more than 1,000 magazine covers and holds the record for the model with the most magazine covers, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 2002, Forbes estimated her net worth to be around US$55 million.

Leftie:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, August 25 - On This Day

 

 

In Memoriam:  Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 - October 14, 1990), American Composer, Pianist, and Music Lecturer.  Below is a tribute to him, accessed August 25, 2017.  

Historical Events

1609 - Galileo Galilei presents his invention, the telescope, to the Venetian Senate.

1718 - French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier founds New Orleans, Louisiana.