July 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1869 - Booth Tarkington, American novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only three novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner and John Updike. (Booth Tarkington. Uploaded by Audiopedia. Accessed July 29, 2017.)

1887 - Sigmund Romberg (July 29, 1887 – November 9, 1951), was an Austro-Hungarian composer who spent most of his adult life in the United States. He is best known for his musicals and operettas, particularly The Student Prince (1924), The Desert Song (1926) and The New Moon (1928). Listen and enjoy Mario Lanza sing the famous 'Serenade' from "The Student Prince", lip-synched by Edmund Purdom.  YouTube, accessed July 29, 2018. Another popular song is 'Desert Song' from the 1953 film of the same name, starring Kathryn Grayson and Gordon MacRae. It was based on the 1926 play/book by Oscar Hammerstein II, etal... music composed by Romberg. 

1892 - William Horatio Powell, American actor. A major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the Thin Man series based on the Nick and Nora Charles characters created by Dashiell Hammett. Powell was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times: for The Thin Man, My Man Godfrey, and Life with Father.

1925 - Mikis Theodorakis, Greek songwriter, lyricist and composer, famous for film score Zorba the Greek. He scored for the films Zorba the Greek, Z, and Serpico. He composed the "Mauthausen Trilogy", also known as "The Ballad of Mauthausen", which has been described as the "most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust" and possibly his best work. In his time, he was viewed as Greece's best-known living composer. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. (Zorba the Greek - The Final Dance (Anthony Quinn.  YouTube, uploaded by Super Top Songs. Accessed July 29, 2026)

1935 - Peter Schreier, German tenor in opera, concert and lied, and a conductor. He was regarded as one of the leading lyric tenors of the 20th century. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1963, he appeared in Mozart roles such as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and in the title role of Pfitzner's Palestrina, among others. He appeared at the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, as one of few singers from the German Democratic Republic to perform internationally. He made recordings, especially of Bach's works; many lieder including the song cycles by Schubert and Schumann. Schreier received awards including the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and Léonie Sonning Music Prize. (Schubert Ständchen (Serenade) Peter Schreier. YouTube, uploaded by elegant 110, accessed July 29, 2020.)

1972 - Wil Wheaton (born Richard William Wheaton III), American actor, blogger and writer. He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me, Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers and Bennett Hoenicker in Flubber. Aside from appearing in other recurring roles, he appeared regularly as a fictionalized version of himself on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory and in the roles of Fawkes on The Guild, Colin Mason on Leverage and Dr. Isaac Parrish on Eureka. Wheaton was also the host and co-creator of the YouTube board game show TableTop.

Leftie:
Actor Wil Wheaton

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 29 July - On This Day.

Historical Events

1588 - Off the coast of France, the Battle of Gravelines begins. The Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England and restore Catholicism is defeated. Philip, the Spanish king, sent 130 ships to land in Portsmouth, but they are beaten by better seamanship and gunnery off the coast of Dorset and the Isle of Wight. By August 8, the swifter ships of the English navy, commanded by Sir Francis Drake and Lord Charles Howard, defeats the 130-ship Spanish Armada.

1907 - Robert Baden-Powell, veteran of the Boer War, takes a group of boys on a camp to England's Brownsea Island, and launches the Boy Scouts movement.

July 28 Dateline

Birthdays

1844 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet and Jesuit Priest, whose posthumous fame established him among the leading Victorian poets. His manipulation of prosody – particularly his concept of sprung rhythm and use of imagery – established him as an innovative writer of verse. His works for which he is known today were only published after his death. Much of his verses are about God's relationship to humanity. His ideas and style owed to earlier poets, including John Donne. He in turn influenced some prominent poets of the 20th-century, including T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden. (The Life and Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins- Mr. Steve Ayers, Authenticum Lecture Series. Uploaded by Authenticum Lectures. Accessed July 28, 2018.) 

1866 - Beatrix Potter, English Children's writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist, creator of Peter Rabbit. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Born into an upper-middle-class household, Potter was educated by governesses and grew up isolated from other children.The World of Beatrix Potter. Accessed July 28, 2019. Patricia Routledge On Beatrix Potter: "Who was the Real Beatrix Potter?". YouTube, uploaded by Timeline - World History Documentaries. Accessed July 28, 2021.)

1887 - Marcel Duchamp (born Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp), French-American painter, sculptor, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. He was careful about his use of the term Dada and was not directly associated with Dada groups. (Dadaism is art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century).

1922 - Jacques Piccard, Swiss oceanographer and engineer. An undersea explorer known for having developed underwater submarines for studying ocean currents. In the Challenger Deep, he and Lt. Don Walsh of the United States Navy were the first people to explore the deepest part of the world's ocean, and the deepest location on the surface of Earth's crust, the Mariana Trench, located in the western North Pacific Ocean.

1929 - Jacqueline Lee "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier), former First Lady of the United States as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. She was regarded as an international fashion icon. Her ensemble of a pink Chanel suit and matching pillbox hat that she wore in Dallas, Texas, when the president was assassinated on November 22, 1963, has become a symbol of her husband's death. Even after her death, she ranks as one of the most popular and recognizable First Ladies in American history, and in 1999, she was listed as one of Gallup's Most-Admired Men and Women of the 20th century.

1938 - Robert Hughes, AO (born Robert Studley Forrest Hughes), Australian-born art critic, writer, and producer of television documentaries, known for his contentious critiques of art and artists. Described in 1997 by Robert Boynton of The New York Times as "the most famous art critic in the world." Hughes earned recognition for his book and television series on modern art, The Shock of the New, and for his longstanding position as art critic with TIME magazine. He is also known for his best seller The Fatal Shore, a study of the British convict system in early Australian history.

1941 - Riccardo Muti, OMRI,  Italian conductor. He holds two music directorships, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. He has previously held posts at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and the Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Muti has been a prolific recording artist, and has received dozens of honours, titles, awards and prizes. He is especially associated with the music of Giuseppe Verdi. Today he is one of the most successful directors of the world. (Riccardo Muti Music).

Leftie:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 28 July - On This Day. 

Historical Events

1540 - Henry VIII, aged 44, marries 19-year-old Catherine Howard, wife number five.

1750 - Johann Sebastian Bach dies in Leipzig following a stroke; he was 65.

1850 - The Bach Gesellschaft  (Bach Society) is founded in Leipzig, marking the centenary of Bach's death. The society was for purpose of publishing the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach without editorial additions. The collected works are known as the "Bach-Gesellschaft-Ausgabe."