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April 6 Dateline

Birthdays


1660 - Johann Kuhnau, German polymath, composer, organist and theorist, who preceded JS Bach as cantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. He was also active as a novelist, translator, lawyer, and music theorist, and was able to combine these activities with his duties in his official post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, which he occupied for 21 years. Much of his music, including operas, masses, and other large-scale vocal works, is lost. His reputation today rests on his Biblical Sonatas, a set of programmatic keyboard sonatas published in 1700, in which each sonata depicted in detail a particular story from the Bible. 

1890 - Anthony Fokker (Anton Herman Gerard Fokker), Dutch aviation pioneer, aviation entrepreneur, aircraft designer, and aircraft manufacturer. He is most famous for the fighter aircraft he produced in Germany during the First World War such as the Eindecker monoplanes, the Dr.1 triplane and the D.VII biplane. After the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to produce aircraft, Fokker moved his business to the Netherlands. There, his company was responsible for a variety of successful aircraft including the Fokker F.VII/3m trimotor, a successful passenger aircraft of the inter-war years. 
 
1892 - Lowell Jackson Thomas, American writer, actor, broadcaster, and traveler, whose lectures and articles help create the legend of "Lawrence of Arabia" and best remembered for publicising T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). He was also involved in promoting the Cinerama widescreen system. In 1954, he led a group of New York City-based investors to buy majority control of Hudson Valley Broadcasting, which, in 1957, became Capital Cities Television Corporation.

1928 - James Dewey Watson KBE, American molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist. He co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". In subsequent years, it has been recognized that Watson and his colleagues did not properly attribute colleague Rosalind Franklin for her contributions to the discovery of the double helix structure.

1929 - Andre Previn, German-born and American conductor, pianist and composer of film-scores. Below is a video profiling Andre Previn. Uploaded by wpsu, accessed April 6, 2017. This profile was completed while he was the conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.  He was honored at the 2005 Grammy awards.



Lefties:
None known
 
More birthdays and historical events today, 6 April - On This Day.

 

Historical Events


648 B.C.E.  - First solar eclipse recorded by the ancient Greeks.

1895 - Oscar Wilde is arrested for the crime of homosexuality after losing a libel case to the Marquess of Queensbury. He is sentenced to two years and hard labour.

1896 - The first modern Olympic Games is opened in Athens, after a 1,500 year ban. A Greek, Spyridon Louis, wins the marathon. An Irishman, John Boland, is on holiday in Greece and enters the men's tennis competition. He wins the gold medal.

1906 - The first animated cartoon is copyrighted.

1917 - The U.S. enters World War I by declaring war on Germany.

1967 - Miklos Rozsa's Piano Concerto is first performed, by Leonard Pennario, soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  (Below, is Miklos Rozsa's Piano Concerto, with pianist Leonard Pennario, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Schermerhorn.YouTube, uploaded by Doug Raynes. Accessed April 6, 2018.)



1994 - The Presidents of two African states, Rwanda and Barundi, are killed when Tutsi extremists shoot down the plane they are traveling in.





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 and Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org



© June 2007. Updated April 6, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

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