November 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1841 - Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria and her consort Albert, King of the UK of Great Britain and Ireland and the first Emperor of India, whose reign is later known as the Edwardian Period, 1901 to 1910. He was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political power, but came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties, and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother. As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War. He re-instituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially France, popularly calling him "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, was poor. The Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society, including steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism.

1914 - Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), Austrian-American actress, inventor, and film Producer. Aside from being a film actress, she co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum. In 1937, she fled from her wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer husband, secretly moving to Paris and then to London. There she met Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood and promoted as "the world's most beautiful woman". She became a star with her performance in Algiers, her first film made in the United States. She starred opposite famous actors like  Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart. Dismayed by being typecast, Lamarr co-founded a new production studio and starred in its films. Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal . in 1960, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Lamarr shared her concept for using “frequency hopping” with the U.S. Navy and co-developed a patent with Antheil in 1941. Today, her innovation helped make possible a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. (The brilliant mind of Hollywood legend actress Hedy Lamarr. Uploaded by PBS NewsHour. Accessed November 9, 2020.)

1928 - Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey), American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry details her long battle with depression, suicidal tendencies, and intimate details from her private life, including relationships with her husband and children.

1929 - Imre Kertesz, Hungarian author and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". He was the first Hungarian to win the Nobel in Literature. His works deal with themes of The Holocaust (he was a survivor of a German concentration camp), dictatorship and personal freedom.

1934 - Carl Sagan, American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, best known for his work as a science popularizer, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. (Wiki) (The Best Speech about Humanity by Carl Sagan. Uploaded by The Pander. Accessed November 9, 2016.)

1982 - Jana Pittman, Australian athlete who specialises in the 400 metres run and 400 metre hurdles events. She is a two-time world champion in the 400m hurdles, from 2003 and 2007. Pittman is one of only nine athletes to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. She also competed in the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, making her the first Australian female athlete to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic games.

1984 - Delta Lea Goodrem, Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. She signed to Sony Music at the age of 15. Her debut album, Innocent Eyes, topped the ARIA Albums Chart for 29 consecutive weeks. It is one of the highest-selling Australian albums of all time, with over four million copies sold. Goodrem has several number-one singles and 17 top-ten hits on the ARIA Singles Chart. She has sold over eight million albums globally and overall has won three World Music Awards, 9 ARIA Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and several other awards.

Leftie:
None known

 

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

 

Historical Events

1799 - Just returned from Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte takes over France in a coup. He is declared First Consul on November 11 and holds absolute power until his abdication in 1814.

1825 - Thomas Drummond, after watching a demonstration of light created by burning lime, sets up a limelight in front of a reflector in which the light can be seen 66 miles (106 kms) away.  He performed this on a hill near Belfast, Ireland. As a result, limelights come to be used in lighthouses and theatres.  

1921 - Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics "for his services to Theoretical Physics." His name is synonymous to the Theory of Relativity. This award confirmed his world recognition, eventually synonymous to genius.

1940 - Joaquin Rodrigo's famous Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra is first performed in Barcelona.

1967 - The Rolling Stone magazine's first issue goes on sale.

1967 - Toru Takemitsu's orchestral November Steps is first performed, in New York City. 

1985 - Russian Garry Kasparov becomes the youngest World Chess Champion at athe age of 22 when he defeats Anatoly Karpov, who had held the title for 10 years. 





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


 

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