April 14 Dateline

Birthdays

1578 - King Phillip III of Spain (Spanish: Felipe), (Spanish: Felipe), also as Philip II, King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621. A member of the House of Habsburg, Philip III was born in Madrid to King Philip II of Spain and his fourth wife and niece Anna, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain. Philip III later married his cousin Margaret of Austria, sister of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. As the ruler of the Spanish Empire at its height and as the king who achieved a temporary peace with the Dutch (1609–1621) and brought Spain into the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) through an (initially) extremely successful campaign, Philip's reign remains a critical period in Spanish history.

1904 - Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH, English actor and theatre director. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.

1925 - Rod Steiger (born Rodney Stephen Steiger), American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Cited as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars," he is associated with the art of method acting, embodying the characters he played. He starred as Marlon Brando's mobster brother Charley in On the Waterfront, the title character Sol Nazerman in The Pawnbroker, and as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the film In the Heat of the Night, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.(scene from In the Heat of the Night. Uploaded by Eugenio de Olivares. Accessed April 15, 2019.)

1933 -  Shani Wallis, English-born American actress and singer of theatre, television and film, in both her native United Kingdom and in the United States. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the West End, and especially for the wonderful and moving role of Nancy in the 1968 Oscar-winning film musical Oliver!. (Oliver! Shani Wallis Interview - Nancy. www.dailymotion.com. Accessed February 6, 2020. Shani Wallis acted and sang this song beautifully - "As long as he needs me" from the 1968 Oscar-winning film Oliver!. Uploaded Jesse Braganza. Accessed April 14, 2016.)

1940 - Loretta Lynn ( (née Webb), American country music singer-songwriter. Lynn has released multiple gold albums. She is famous for hits such as "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)", "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "One's on the Way", "Fist City" and "Coal Miner's Daughter" along with the 1980 biographical film of the same name. Lynn has received numerous awards for her groundbreaking role in country music. She has been nominated 18 times for a Grammy Award, and has won 3 times. Lynn is the most awarded female country recording artist and the only female ACM Artist of the Decade (1970s). Lynn has scored 24 No. 1 hit singles and 11 number one albums.

1942 - Valentin Vitalyevich Lebedev, Soviet cosmonaut who made two flights into space. His stay aboard the Space Station Salyut 7 with Anatoly Berezovoy in 1982, which lasted 211 days, was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records. Since 1989 Lebedev has dedicated himself to scientific work. In 1991 he started the Scientific Geoinformation Center of the Russian Academy of Science. He continues as that Center's Director through the present day. Lebedev is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, and Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation.

1944 - Takako Nishizaki, BBS, Japanese violinist. She was the first student to complete the Suzuki Method course, at age nine. She went to the U.S. in 1962, where she first studied at Yale University, and later at Juilliard. In 1964, she was a runner-up in the Leventritt Competition, in which Itzhak Perlman won first prize. In 1966, she was awarded Juilliard's Fritz Kreisler Scholarship. In 1969, she won first prize in the Juilliard Concerto Competition performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. Her recordings by Naxos Records of famous violin concertos are highly ranked by The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music. She has performed and recorded with prominent pianists, and has performed in a number of chamber music ensembles. She was awarded the Bronze Bauhinia Star in 2003 for her work in classical music and charity. (T. Nishizaki - Butterfly Lovers, accompanied by Shanghai Conservatory Symphony Orchestra. Uploaded by coold4pc. Accessed April 14, 2010.)

Leftie:

Actor Rod Steiger 

Death:

Composer George F. Handel, February 14, 1759.  

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 14 April - On This Day.
 

 

Below is a video of the celebration concert on the occasion of Handel's 250th death anniversary, dedicated to the work of one of this greatest Baroque composers most famous for Messiah and Zadok the Priest. The concert took place in 2009 at the Marktkirche in Halle/Germany.  YouTube, uploaded by DW Classical Music. Accessed April 14, 2023.

 

 

Historical Events

1759 - G. F. Handel dies in London, aged 74. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. 

1828 - The first edition of Noah Webster's Dictionary of the English Language is copyrighted.

1865 - Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth, and dies in hospital the next day.

1883 - Leo Delibes opera Lakme is first staged in Paris at the Opera-Comique. (Refer to February 21 Dateline, Delibes birthday, where I featured his famous "Duo des fleurs (Flower Duet) from Lakme.)

1895 - Thomas Alva Edison's kinetoscope is launched in a New York arcade. It's a precursor to motion pictures.

1912 - Just before midnight, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.

1965 - Richard Hickock and Perry Smith are executed by hanging for the 1959 murders of the Clutter family in Kansas. The crime was the subject for Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. 

1988 - The Soviet Union agrees to withdraw from Afghanistan after a decade of fighting Muslim guerillas for occupation.

2003 - The Human Genome Project is completed. Scientists finish identifying all the genes that make up human DNA. On this day, this project came to an end after 13 years of research conducted by geneticists from around the world. The objective was to identify all the genes that make up human DNA - approximately 30,000 in all - and map the sequences of the three billion chemical base pairs. As everyone has a different genetic sequence, data were gleaned from the amalgamation of genes, from cell samples given by anonymous donors of both sexes.     

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 Timestables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org

(c) June 2007. Updated April 14, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.