August 10 Dateline

Birthdays

1865 - Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He served as director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory (then the Leningrad Conservatory), following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued heading the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. Glazunov successfully reconciled nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Russian music. While he was the direct successor to Balakirev's nationalism, he tended more towards Borodin's epic grandeur while absorbing a number of other influences. These included Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestral virtuosity, Tchaikovsky's lyricism and Taneyev's contrapuntal skill.

1874 - Herbert C. Hoover, 31st U.S. President. He was an engineer, businessman, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. Before serving as president, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the 3rd U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

1889 - Charles Brace Darrow, American inventor, best known for his modification of the design of the Monopoly board game, which was based on Lizzie Magie's original invention The Landlord's Game. He became the first millionaire game designer in history, and although Magie patented her invention she received only $500.

1893 - Douglas Stuart  Moore, American composer, educator, and author. He wrote music for the theater, film, ballet and orchestra, but his greatest fame is associated with his operas The Devil and Daniel Webster and The Ballad of Baby Doe. Moore also composed several popular songs whilst at Yale together with poet and Hotchkiss School mate Archibald MacLeish and later in collaboration with John Jacob Niles. He wrote the Yale fight song Goodnight, Harvard, later published under the collective title "Songs my Mother never taught Me".

1909 - Brian Easdale, English composer of operatic, orchestral, choral and film music. His opera works include the operas Rapunzel, The Corn King, and The Sleeping Children. His orchestral works include Five pieces for orchestra, Six Poems, and Tone Poem. For choir, Easdale wrote the Missa Coventrensis. Easdale also composed sseveral film and theatre music. His film scores included several for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, including Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, The Small Back Room, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Battle of the River Plate, Miracle in Soho, The Queen's Guards and Powell's Peeping Tom. He was the first British composer to win an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, for his music for The Red Shoes.

1959 - Rosanna Lisa Arquette, American actress, film director, and film Producer. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film The Executioner's Song, and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the film Desperately Seeking Susan. Her other film roles include After Hours, The Big Blue, Pulp Fiction, and Crash. She also directed the documentary Searching for Debra Winger, and starred in the ABC sitcom What About Brian?

Leftie:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 10 August - On This Day.

Featuring:

 

Alexander Glazunov's The Seasons, Op. 67, performed by Minnesota Orchestra, with Edo de Waart, conducting.  This music is used for an allegorical ballet in one act, four scenes, by the choreographer Marius Petipa. The work was composed in 1899, and was first performed by the Imperial Ballet in 1900 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Historical Events

1519 - Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese explorer, leaves Seville, Spain, on his way to becoming the first person to circumnavigate the globe.

1675 - Charles II lays the foundation stone for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, London. Later, it becomes the zero point for longitude, beginning the world's 24 noon time zones. 

1792 - King Louis XVI of France and his family are suspected of treason, and taken into custody during what's now known as the French Revolution.

1912 - Virginia Stephens marries publisher, journalist and former diplomat Leonard Woolf, famously known as Virginia Woolf, English writer, one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century.

1990 - The Magellan spacecraft reaches planet Venus.

1995 - Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols are indicted on 11 charges for the Oklahoma bombing.

2005 - South Korean gaming addict Lee Seung-Seop dies from exhaustion after playing a computer game on the internet for 50 straight hours non-stop. The 28-year-old apparently had not eaten or slept during his marathon session



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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