January 18 Dateline

Birthdays

1835 - Cesar Cui, Russian composer and music critic, member member of the Belyayev circle and "The Five", a group of composers combined by the idea of creating a specifically Russian type of music. He was an officer of the Imperial Russian Army who rose to the rank of Engineer-General (equivalent to full General), taught fortifications in Russian military academies, and wrote a number of monographs on the subject. List of Cui's compositions - here.  (Cesar Cui's Sonata for Violin and Piano, uploaded by frankvojta. Accessed January 18, 2020.) 

1841 - Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier, French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, Chabrier left a corpus of operas (including L'étoile), songs, and piano music. He was regarded by many later composers as an important innovator and a catalyst who paved the way for French modernism. He was admired by, and influenced composers as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Satie, Stravinsky, and the group of composers Les six. Chabrier steered a middle course, sometimes incorporating Wagnerian traits into his music and at other times avoiding them. Among his closest friends was the painter Édouard Manet. Chabrier collected Impressionist paintings long before they became fashionable. 

 

1882 - A. A. Milne, (Alan Alexander Milne), British author, was best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. Milne served in both World Wars, joining the British Army in World War I, and as a captain of the British Home Guard in World War II. He was the father of bookseller Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based. (A.A. Milne. Uploaded by Autopedia. Accessed January 18, 2016. The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh: The Story Behind the Masterpiece. Uploaded by Sean Dudley. Accessed January 18, 2019.)

1884 - Arthur Michell Ransome CBE, English author and journalist. He is best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The books remain popular and Swallows and Amazons is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake. He also wrote about the literary life of London, and about Russia before, during, and after the revolutions of 1917.

1904 - Cary Grant (Archibald Alec Leach),  English-American actor, known as one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men. He was known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. Grant developed a close working relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock, who cast him in four films: Suspicion opposite Joan Fontaine, Notorious opposite Ingrid Bergman, To Catch a Thief with Grace Kelly, and North by Northwest opposite Eva Marie Saint. One most enduringly loved films is An Affair to Remember in which he and Deborah Kerr made screen magic, a soft tear-jerker combining humour and sentimentality. He retired from film acting in 1966 and pursued numerous business interests and sitting on the board of MGM. He was presented with an Honorary Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards in 1970, and he was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1981.  In 1999, the American Film Institute named him the second greatest male star of Golden Age Hollywood cinema trailing only Humphrey Bogart. (Cary Grant: A Gentlemen's Gentleman. Uploaded by The Orchard on Demand. Accessed January 18, 2019.)

1955 - Kevin Michael Costner, American actor, film director and producer. He has received two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He rose to prominence with his portrayal of Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. This was followed by a successful period in his career with starring roles in No Way Out, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, for which he won two Academy Awards, JFK, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Bodyguard, and A Perfect World. On television, Costner portrayed Devil Anse Hatfield in the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (2012), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Since 2018, he has starred as John Dutton on the drama series Yellowstone.

Leftie:
Actor Cary Grant

More birthdays and historical events, January 18 - On This Day

Featuring:
Emmanuel Chabrier's  España Rhapsody For Orchestra. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday, 19th July 2002 (Youtube, uploaded by glagolitic. Accessed January 18, 2018.) 

 

Historical Events

1788 - The first 736 convicts transported from England to Australia land in Botany Bay, creating the first Australian penal colony.

1879 - The first printing of the Boys' Own Paper goes on sale. 

1908 - Frederick Delius's Brigg -- English Rhapsody is performed in Liverpool.

1943 - The first uprising of Jews against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto takes place in Poland.

1944 - The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City for the first time hosts a jazz concert. The performers are Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Roy Eldridge, and Jack Teagarden.  

1977 - Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious "legionnaire's disease." 

1997 - Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes the first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided.




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 January 18, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.