Birthdays
1894 - Walter Piston, American composer of classical music, music theorist, and Harvard University professor. He was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal for his outstanding contribution to the arts by the MacDowell Colony in 1974. Piston wrote four books on the technical aspects of music theory which are considered to be classics in their respective fields: Principles of Harmonic Analysis, Counterpoint, Orchestration, and Harmony. The last of these introduced for the first time in theoretical literature several important new concepts that Piston had developed in his approach to music theory, notably the concept of harmonic rhythm, and the secondary dominant.
1896 - George Burns, American comedian, actor, singer, and writer. He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television. His arched eyebrow and cigar-smoke punctuation became his familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century.
1906 - Aristotle Socrates Onassis, Greek industrialist and shipping magnate, commonly called Ari or Aristo Onassis. He amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest men. He was married to Athina Mary Livanos (daughter of shipping tycoon Stavros G. Livanos), had a long-standing affair with famous opera singer Maria Callas and was married to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of American President John F. Kennedy. In the mid-1950s, he sought to secure an oil shipping arrangement with Saudi Arabia and engaged in whaling expeditions. Onassis attempted to establish a large investment contract—Project Omega—with the Greek military junta, and he sold Olympic Airways, which he had founded in 1957. Onassis was greatly affected by the death of his 24-year-old son, Alexander, in a plane crash in 1973, and he died two years later.
1910 - Joy Adamson (born Friederike Victoria Adamson (née Gessner), born in Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. Born Free was printed in several languages, and made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.
1920 - Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI, Italian film director and screenwriter. Known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness, he is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Sight & Sound lists his 1963 film 8½ as the 10th-greatest film of all time. Spanning a career for almost fifty years, Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita, was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, the most for any director in the history of the Academy. At the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, he received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement. Besides La Dolce Vita and 8½, his other well-known films include La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, Amarcord and Fellini's Casanova.
1930 - Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.), American engineer and a former astronaut and fighter pilot. Aldrin made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and as the Apollo Lunar Module pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two humans to land on the Moon.
1965 - Sophie, The Countess of Wessex, GCVO DStJ CD (born Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones), member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She began working in public relations, representing firms across the UK, Switzerland, and Australia before opening her own agency in 1996. Sophie met Edward in 1987 while working for Capital Radio. They were married on 19 June 1999 at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The couple have two children: Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn. In 2002, Sophie closed her business interests and began full-time work as a member of the royal family. She is the patron of over 70 charities and organisations. She undertakes over 200 engagements each year, including visits to schools, universities, and military bases. Her charity primarily work revolves around people with disabilities, women's rights, avoidable blindness, and agriculture.
Lefties:
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin
Comedian and actor George Burns
Countess of Wessex Sophie Rhys-Jones
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin
Comedian and actor George Burns
Countess of Wessex Sophie Rhys-Jones
Featuring:
'La Dolce Vita,' one of the famous films Fellini directed and co-wrote.
La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life"), is a 1960 Italian drama film that follows Marcello Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. and the Oscar for Best Costumes. It remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. (Resource: Wiki) Below is the Trevi Fountain Scene of the film. (Youtube, uploaded by italfilmsubs. Accessed January 20, 2018.)
Link to La Dolce Vita's soundtrack: here. Composed by Nino Rota.
1885 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller-coaster.
1936 - Edward VIII, son to George V, ascends the throne, but abdicates before he is crowned, to marry Wallis Simpson. He dies without heirs and is buried in the same place as his great-grandmother, Victoria, at Frogmore in Windsor.
1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for an unprecedented fourth term as U.S. President and dies three months later.
1961 - Francis Poulenc's Gloria in G for soprano, chorus and orchestra, is first performed in Boston.
1969 - The first pulsar refer to as "pulsating star" is virtually or optically identified, in the Crab Nebula. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star that has a mechanism to beam light.
1981 - Iran releases 52 American hostages minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President.
Resources:
La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life"), is a 1960 Italian drama film that follows Marcello Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and nights on his journey through the "sweet life" of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. La Dolce Vita won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. and the Oscar for Best Costumes. It remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg. (Resource: Wiki) Below is the Trevi Fountain Scene of the film. (Youtube, uploaded by italfilmsubs. Accessed January 20, 2018.)
Link to La Dolce Vita's soundtrack: here. Composed by Nino Rota.
Historical Events
1885 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller-coaster.
1936 - Edward VIII, son to George V, ascends the throne, but abdicates before he is crowned, to marry Wallis Simpson. He dies without heirs and is buried in the same place as his great-grandmother, Victoria, at Frogmore in Windsor.
1945 - Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated for an unprecedented fourth term as U.S. President and dies three months later.
1961 - Francis Poulenc's Gloria in G for soprano, chorus and orchestra, is first performed in Boston.
1969 - The first pulsar refer to as "pulsating star" is virtually or optically identified, in the Crab Nebula. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star that has a mechanism to beam light.
1981 - Iran releases 52 American hostages minutes after Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as U.S. President.
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 20, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment