August 26 Dateline

Birthdays

1898 - Peggy Guggenheim (born Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim), American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R., Art Collector.

1914 - Julio Cortazar (born Julio Florencio Cortázar), Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist. One of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced a generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in America and Europe. He is considered one of the most innovative and original authors of his time, a master of history, poetic prose and short story in general and a creator of important novels that inaugurated a new way of making literature in the Hispanic world by breaking the classical moulds through narratives that escaped temporal linearity. The content of his work travels on the border between the real and the fantastic, and is often placed within the genres of magical realism and surrealism.

1918 - Katherine Johnson,  American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. manned spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist". Johnson's work included calculating trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths for Project Mercury spaceflights, including those for astronauts Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and John Glenn, the first American in orbit, and rendezvous paths for the Apollo Lunar Module and command module on flights to the Moon. Her calculations were also essential to the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, and she worked on plans for a mission to Mars. In 2015, then President Barack Obama awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. (What Matters - Katherine Johnson: NASA Pioneer and "Computer". Uploaded by WHRO Public Media. Accessed August 26, 2013.)

1980 - Macauley Culkin (Macaulay Carson Culkin), American actor, musician, and web host. He is known for playing Kevin McCallister in the Christmas films Home Alone, which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Leftie:
Art collector Peggy Guggenheim

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, August 26 - On This Day

Historical Events

1346 - The Battle of Crecy takes place. It is one of the most important battles of the Hundred Years' War. Twelve thousand men under Edward III and his son (the Black Prince), take on the French. The English longbow triumphs.

1498 - Pope Alexander VI commissions Michelangelo, aged 23, to carve the Pieta for St. Peter's Basilica, Rome.

1846 - Felix Mendelssohn's famous oratorio Elijah is first performed, in Birmingham, England.

1883 - Mount Krakatoa in Java erupts. (other sources say it's the 27th August, the following day.) Some historical Most of Krakatoa Island is destroyed, with the eruption generating the loudest noise reported in history. A resulting tsunami kills many thousands on Sumatra and Java. The resulting ash cloud is so vast that it drifts around the earth, and for five days after, the atmospheric shock waves are felt as they reverberate.

1920 - In the U.S., women are given the right to vote, thanks to the U.S. Constitution 19th Amendment. Arguably, the two people most committed to the struggle for women's rights were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who were said to have devoted 50 years of their lives to the cause. 

1994 - Doctors implant the world's first battery-operated heart into a man in Britain, aged 62. 



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 August 26, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.