December 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1608 - John Milton, English poet, writer, and historian. He served as a civil servant for England's Commonwealth under its Council of State and later under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.Writing in English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica (1644), written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship, is among history's most influential and impassioned defences of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. His desire for freedom extended into his style: he introduced new words (coined from Latin) to the English language, and was the first modern writer to employ non-rhymed verse outside of the theatre or translations. (J. Milton Biography, uploaded by Ryan Shimoga. Accessed December 9, 2018.)

1906 - Grace Murray Hopper (Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (née Murray), American mathematician,  computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first linkers. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Hopper was named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities across the world. A college at Yale University was renamed in her honor. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Technology. On November 22, 2016, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

1909 - Douglas Fairbanks Jr. KBE, DSC (Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr.) American actor, film producer, and a decorated Naval officer of World War II. He is best known for starring in such films as The Prisoner of Zenda, Gunga Din and The Corsican Brothers. He was the son of actor Douglas Fairbanks and was once married to Joan Crawford. Fairbanks has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for motion pictures at 6318 Hollywood Boulevard, one for television at 6665 Hollywood Boulevard and one for radio at 6710 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1969 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Best Dressed List. The moving image collection of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is held at the Academy Film Archive and includes over 90 reels of home movies.

1915 - Elizabeth Schwarzkopf DBE (Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf), DBE, German-born Austro-British soprano. She was among the foremost singers of lieder, and was renowned for her performances of Viennese operetta, as well as the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss. After retiring from the stage, she was a voice teacher internationally. She is considered one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century. (Schwarzkopf sings "Willow Song" and "Ave Maria" (from Verdi's Otello - here)

1916 - Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch, American actor, producer, director, philanthropist and author. He made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers with Barbara Stanwyck. He appeared in more than 90 films. Douglas was known for his explosive acting style, which he displayed as a criminal defense attorney in Town Without Pity. He received three Academy Award nominations, an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As an author, he wrote ten novels and memoirs. He is No. 17 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male screen legends of classic Hollywood cinema, the highest-ranked living person on the list until his death. After barely surviving a helicopter crash in 1991 and then suffering a stroke in 1996, he focused on renewing his spiritual and religious life. He lived with his second wife (of 65 years), Anne Buydens, a producer, until his death on February 5, 2020, at age 103. A centenarian, he was one of the last surviving stars of the film industry's Golden Age. (Depression Scene from "Lust for Life" - Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh and James Donald as Theo, Vincent's brother, 1956. Uploaded by AnaMariaRadu. Accessed December 9, 2019. Kirk Douglas Movies. Accessed February 5, 2020.)

1934 - Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA, multi-awarded English actress. (popularly known as Judi Dench. She reflects on her film career and love of Scotland. Uploaded by STV News. Accessed December 9, 2013 - here.) Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. She then performed in Shakespeare's plays. Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew rave reviews for her leading role in the musical Cabaret in 1968. Dench established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. She received critical acclaim for her work on television during this period, in the series A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By, in both of which she held starring roles. Her film appearances included supporting roles in major films, such as A Room with a View, before she rose to international fame as M in Golden Eye, a role she continued to play in James Bond films until Spectre. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, and her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mrs Brown, Chocolat, Iris, Mrs Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, and Philomena. Alongside her many other accolades for her acting in theatre, film, and television,  her other competitive awards include six British Academy Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards, seven Olivier Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award. She has also received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2001, and the Special Olivier Award in 2004. In June 2011, she received a fellowship from the British Film Institute (BFI). Dame Judi Dench is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

1957 - Donny Osmond (born Donald Clark Osmond), American singer, dancer, actor, television Host and former Teen Idol. Osmond first gained fame performing with four of his elder brothers as the Osmonds, earning several top ten hits and gold albums. He further gained fame due to the success of the variety series Donny & Marie. The Donny & Marie duo also released a series of top ten hits and gold albums and hosted a syndicated and Daytime Emmy Award-nominated talk show. Most recently, Donny & Marie headlined an 11-year Las Vegas residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas (2008–2019). Osmond also successfully competed on two reality TV shows, winning season 9 of Dancing with the Stars and being named runner-up for season 1of The Masked Singer.

 

1967 - Joshua David Bell, American violinist and conductor. He plays the Gibson Stradivarius. Bell has received awards and accolades since. The most famous incident on Joshua Bell is an experiment initiated by The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten, by which Bell donned a baseball cap and played as an incognito busker at the Metro subway station L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. on January 12, 2007. The experiment was videotaped on hidden camera; of the 1,097 people who passed by, seven stopped to listen to him, and one recognized him. For his nearly 45-minute performance, Bell collected $32.17 from 27 passersby (excluding $20 from the one who recognized him). Three days earlier, he earned a lot more playing the same repertoire at a concert. Weingarten won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his article on the experiment. 

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, December 9 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1758 - Navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders and naval surgeon George Bass confirm that a channel exists between Australia's mainland and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

1868 - William Gladstone becomes Britain's Prime Minister, an office he held four times before his retirement in 1892, aged 85.

1900 - Claude Debussy's Nuages and Fetes (two of the three Nocturnes) are first performed in Paris with Camille Chevillard conducting.  (Listen to the video - here, with Cleveland Orchestra, Ashkenazy conducting)

1905 - Richard Strauss's opera Salome (after Oscar Wilde's play) is produced by the Royal Opera in Dresden at the Königliches Opernhaus, in its first performance, and within two years, it had been given in 50 other opera houses.  

2002 - United Airlines, America's second-largest air carrier, files for "Chapter 11 bankruptcy" after losing $4 billion over the previous two years.

Featured Birthday Celebrant:

Grace Murray Hopper: American mathematician and computer scientist

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), was born on December 9, 1906, in New York City. She was an American computer scientist and U.S. Naval Officer. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 1934 and taught at Vassar College until she enlisted in WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) in 1944. This branch of the Navy assigned her to work on programming an early version of the electronic computer called the Mark I.

Hopper retained her naval reserve status after the war ended, while she taught at Harvard's applied physics computation laboratory. A pioneer in computer programming and one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I, the navy recalled her in 1966 to develop the concept of programming that led to the Common Busines Oriented Language (COBOL).

She was known to her colleagues as simply "Amazing Grace," a fitting tribute to her accomplishments. Hopper was appointed rear admiral in 1983. Among her other recognitions, in 1991, she received the U.S. Medal of Technology.


Image Credit:

Grace M. Hopper. en.wikipedia.org / public domain.

Resources:

 
1. Asiado, Tel. The World's Movers and Shapers. New Hampshire: Ore Mountain Publishing House (2005)

2. Britannica. www.britannica.com
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 19th Ed. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011
4. Dateline. Sydney: Millennium House, (2006)
5. Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org



(c) June 2007. Updated December 9, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.