Birthdays
1729 - Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolutionary War against Britain. Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including circumnavigation of the globe in a scientific expedition in 1763, the first recorded settlement on the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas, and voyages into the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea and the Bougainvillea flower were named after him.
1833 - Alexander Borodin, Russian composer and industrial/medical chemist and professor of chemistry in St. Petersburg. He was member of the Russian group of composers called "Mighty Five." Since his science career took most of his time, Dr. Borodin took awhile to complete each musical work. His Russian contemporaries Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov regarded him as a gifted amateur, and were not averse to rewriting his music and touching up the orchestration. In fact, Glazunov was responsible for the Overture to Borodin's unfinished opera Prince Igor. In fact, it's only in the two string quartets and some piano music that we hear 100% Borodin-creation. In the popular song "And This is My Beloved", from the 1953 musical Kismet, the melody was based on the beautiful, heartwarming music composed by Borodin, String Quartet in D. (Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic: Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia. Recorded live on December 8, 1969 at Philharmonic Hall, New York City. Accessed November 12, 2018.)
1840 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface in clay. Many of his most notable sculptures were criticized during his lifetime. They clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style.
1915 - Roland Gérard Barthes, French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes's ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of many schools of theory, including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology, and post-structuralism. He was particularly known for developing and extending the field of semiotics through the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Collège de France.
1917 - Jo Elizabeth Stafford, American traditional pop music singer and occasional actress, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart and the first by a female artist to do so. She is also famous for her rendition of "No other love" from Chopin's Etude No. 3 in E. (No Other Love - Jo Stafford. YouTube, uploaded by vulcanswork. Accessed November 12, 2020.)
1966 - Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese politician, physician, and political philosopher, who served as the provisional first president of the Republic of China and the first leader of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China). He is referred as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China for his instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the Xinhai Revolution. Sun is unique among 20th-century Chinese leaders for being widely revered in both mainland China and Taiwan. Sun is considered to be one of the greatest leaders of modern China, but his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile. His chief legacy is his political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: Mínzú (nationalism: independence from foreign domination), Mínquán ("rights of the people": sometimes translated as "democracy"), and Mínshēng (people's livelihood: sometimes translated as "socialism" or "welfare").
1929 - Grace Kelly (born Grace Patricia Kelly), American film actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early- to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. She is listed 13th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classical Hollywood Cinema. In October 1953, she gained stardom from her performance in director John Ford's African-filmed adventure-romance Mogambo, which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 1954, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the drama The Country Girl with Bing Crosby. Other noteworthy films in which she starred include the western High Noon; the romance-comedy musical High Society, with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra; and three Alfred Hitchcock suspense thrillers in rapid succession: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief. Kelly retired from acting at the age of 26 to marry Rainier, and began her duties as Princess of Monaco.
1939 - Lucia Popp, Slovak Operatic soprano, a popular interpreter of Mozart music, in particular, "Der Holle Rache" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Here: Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, Act 2 Scene 8: No. 14, Arie, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (Königin) by Lucia Popp, with Philharmonia Orchestra/Otto Klemperer, 1969. Lucia Popp sings Mozart's aria "Ruhe Sanft, Mein Holdes Leben" from opera Zaide, Act 1. Istvan Kertesz/conductor Vienna Haydn Orchestra. Uploaded by Anes1001. Accessed November 12, 2019.)
1945 - Neil Percival Young, OC OM, Canadian-born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. After embarking on a music career in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, then joined Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others.
1961 - Nadia Elena Comăneci, Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. Comăneci is the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games, and then, at the same Games, she received six more perfect 10s en route to winning three gold medals.
1970 - Tonya Harding (Tonya Maxene Price, née Harding), Former American figure skater, retired boxer, and reality TV personality. After climbing the ranks in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships between 1986 and 1989, Harding won the 1989 Skate America competition. She had been the 1991 and 1994 U.S. champion. She earned distinction as being the first American woman to successfully land a triple Axel in competition, and the second woman to do so in history (behind Midori Ito). Harding is a two-time Olympian and a two-time Skate America Champion. In January 1994, she became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack on her fellow U.S. skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. Harding accepted a plea bargain in which she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution. As a result, the U.S. Figure Skating Association banned her for life on June 30, 1994. In 2014, two television documentaries were produced about Harding's life and skating career (Nancy & Tonya and The Price of Gold), – inspiring Steven Rogers to write the 2017 film I, Tonya.
Lefties:
None known
In memory of Alexander Borodin, below, I'm sharing one of his famous works, String Quartet No. 2 in D, in particular, the 3rd movement, Notturno: Andante, with the song "And This is My Beloved" adapted in the movie Kismet. The Second String Quartet (1881) has been recorded many times by famous
ensembles including the Emerson and Takács Quartets. It became popular when themes from it were used in the Broadway musical Kismet (for the songs "This is my Beloved" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads") - although it is decades since songs with a distinctive melody made any headway with the public.
1927 - Joseph Stalin becomes ruler of the U.S.S.R. after Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.
1944 - Tirpits, the super-battleship of Germany, was sank by Lancaster bombers. After ten failed attacks by the UK's Royal Armed Force, the Germans regarded it unsinkable.
1970 - A cyclone strikes East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. It is considered the worst disaster of the 20th century in terms of loss of human life.
1990 - Emperor Akihito, who became emperor on the death of his father on January 7, 1987, is formally enthroned, becoming the 125th Emperor of Japan.
Video Credit:
Borodin Quartet No.2 in D major for Strings, 3rd Movement: Notturno: Andante. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Accessed November 12, 2016.
Resources:
Historical Events
1927 - Joseph Stalin becomes ruler of the U.S.S.R. after Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.
1944 - Tirpits, the super-battleship of Germany, was sank by Lancaster bombers. After ten failed attacks by the UK's Royal Armed Force, the Germans regarded it unsinkable.
1970 - A cyclone strikes East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. It is considered the worst disaster of the 20th century in terms of loss of human life.
1990 - Emperor Akihito, who became emperor on the death of his father on January 7, 1987, is formally enthroned, becoming the 125th Emperor of Japan.
Video Credit:
Borodin Quartet No.2 in D major for Strings, 3rd Movement: Notturno: Andante. Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Accessed November 12, 2016.
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 November 12, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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