June 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1685 - John Gay, English poet and playwright, member of the Scriblerus Club, an informal association of authors based in London, that came together in the early 18th century. The club members were prominent figures in the Augustan Age of English letters. The nucleus of the club included the satirists Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. John Gay is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera, a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. ("Over the Hills and Far Away" with Laurence Olivier as Captain Macheath and Dorothy Tutin in Peter Brook's 1953 version of John Gay's "Beggar's Opera". Uploaded by Allan Janus. Accessed June 30, 2010.)

1722 - Georg Anton Benda (Czech: Jiří Antonín Benda), Czech composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period. His most important contribution lies in the development of the German melodramas, a form of musical stage entertainment which influenced Mozart. Ariadne auf Naxos is generally considered his best work. At its debut in 1775, the opera received enthusiastic reviews in Germany and afterwards, in the whole of Europe, with music critics calling attention to its originality, sweetness, and ingenious execution. Benda also wrote instrumental pieces including sinfonias, keyboard sonatas & concertos, violin concertos and a smaller number of trio sonatas, violin and flute sonatas. (Benda : Sonatina in A minor for Piano. YouTube, uploaded by Sheetmusic2print. Accessed June 30, 2021.)
 

1917 - Lena Horne, American singer, dancer, actress. Her career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

1919 - Susan Hayward (born (born Edythe Marrenner), American actress and model. She was best known for her film portrayals of women that were based on true stories. After working as a fashion model, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937 to audition for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. She secured a film contract and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s, she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award for Best Actress nominations for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman. Her success continued through the 1950s as she received nominations for My Foolish Heart, With a Song in My Heart,  and I'll Cry Tomorrow, winning the award for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live!. For her performance in I'll Cry Tomorrow she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. (With a Song in my Heart (1952) Theatrical Trailer - Susan Hayward, Rory Calhoun, David Wayne. YouTube, uploaded by Biggest Trailer Database. Accessed June 30, 2019). The movie is a biographical film which tells the story of actress and singer Jane Froman.

 
1926 - Paul Berg, American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980, along with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger. The award recognized their contributions to basic research involving nucleic acids.

1942 - Robert Duane Ballard, American oceanographer, retired United States Navy Officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks.

Leftie:
Oceanographer Robert D. Ballard

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 30 June - On This Day.

Historical Events

1905 - Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". It is the first paper to mention special relativity, the theory that will change modern physics.

1934 - Adolf Hitler, German Fuehrer, orders the murder of hundreds of senior Nazis in the Night of the Long Knives.

1936 - The book Gone with the Wind by American author Margaret Mitchell is published by Macmillan. (Movie soundtrack suite - here) 

1948 - Inventors John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and Bell labs project manager, William Shockley, publicly demonstrate the transistor for the first time. They would share the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956.

1971 - Three cosmonauts on board the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft die when their ship develops a leak on re-entry and rapidly depressurizes. They had spent a record of 24 days in space.

1977 - Virginia Wade, Englishwoman tennis player, wins the Ladies singles title at Wimbledon in the centenary year of the Championships and Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee Year. Her Majesty is in attendance.

1980 - On this day, the silver sixpence ceases to be a legal tender of UK. 

1997 - Great Britain ends 156 years of sovereignty over the city-state of Hong Kong, handing this former colony back to China. It formally happened on the stroke of midnight.




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


(c) June 2007. Updated June 30, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web.  All rights reserved.