September 24 Dateline

Birthdays

1717 - Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors.

1724 - Sir Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer and the founder of the Guinness brewery business. He was also an entrepreneur and philanthropist. At 27, Guinness's godfather Arthur Price, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed him £100 in his will. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery at Leixlip, just 17 km from Dublin. In 1759, Guinness went to the city and set up his own business. He took a 9,000-year lease on the 4-acre (16,000 m²) brewery at St. James's Gate from the descendants of Sir Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45. 

1899 - Sir William "Bill" Dobell, OBE, Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour.

1914 - Sir Andrzej Panufnik, Polish-English composer and conductor. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II. After his increasing frustration with the extra-musical demands made on him by the country's regime, he defected to the United Kingdom in 1954, and took up British citizenship. In 1957, he became chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a post he relinquished after two years to devote all his time to composition.(A. Panufnik - Old Polish Suite, uploaded by Ivancho Rz. Accessed September 24, 2018.)

1945 - John Milford Rutter CBE, English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Rutter founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers, which he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), under his own label Collegium Records. He collaborated with Sir David Willcocks on five volumes of the extraordinarily successful Carols for Choirs anthology series. He was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity. My favourite quote from John Rutter: "Choral Music is not one of life's frills. It's something that goes to the very heart of our humanity, our sense of community and our souls.You express, when you sing, your soul in song. And when you get together with a group of other singers, it becomes more than the sum of the parts." (For the Beauty of the Earth - John Rutter, The Cambridge Singers, City of London Sinfonia. Accessed September 24, 2019.)

 

1949 - Pedro Almodóvar Caballero, Spanish filmmaker, director, screenwriter, producer, and former actor. His films are marked by his employment of certain actors and creative personnel, complex narratives, melodrama, pop culture, popular songs, irreverent humour, strong colours, and glossy décor. Desire, passion, family, and identity are among Almodóvar's most prevalent themes. He achieved international recognition for his black comedy-drama film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and went on to more success with the dark romantic comedy film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, the melodrama High Heels and the romantic drama thriller Live Flesh. Multi-awarded, Almodóvar and his films have gained worldwide interest and developed a cult following. He is one of the most internationally successful Spanish filmmakers.

1966 - Michael J. Varhola, American author, publisher, and lecturer. He has written numerous books, games, and articles, and founded game development company and manufacturer Skirmisher Publishing LLC. He also served as the assistant editor of The Hilltop Reporter, a weekly newspaper located in Texas Hill Country. In 2003, he changed his middle name from James to Odysseus, but did not start using it publicly until 2011.

Lefties:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, September 24 - On This Day

Historical Events

1948 - The Honda Motor Company is founded in Tokyo, Japan.

1975 - Dougal Haston and Doug Scott climb to the top of Mt. Everest, the first Britons to do so.

1976 - Patty Hearst, Publishing heiress, who was kidnapped and brainwashed by the Symbionese Liberation Army, is sentenced to 7 years for her part in a bank robbery. 

1996 - The U.S. and other nuclear powers sign a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons, including underground blasts.




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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