January 11 Dateline

Birthdays

1842 - William James, American philosopher and psychologist, leader of philosophical movement of pragmatism and psychological movement of functionalism, older brother of writer Henry James and diarist Alice James. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James was a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential U.S. philosophers, and has been labelled the "Father of American psychology." (William James and the Sick Soul, uploaded by Academy of Ideas. Accessed January 11, 2019.)

1856 - Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer and teacher, best known for his lyrical work for piano, Frühlingsrauschen (Rustle of Spring, 1896). He was often compared to Edvard Grieg and regarded as his successor. (Christian Sinding - Symphony No. 3 in F-major, Op.121 (1919), uploaded by KuhlauDilfeng2. Accessed January 11, 2019.)

1872 - George Washington Pierce, American physicist, inventor and pioneer of radio telephony. He was a professor of physics at Harvard University and inventor in the development of electronic telecommunications. He distinguished himself in school at Taylor and in the University of Texas before beginning his enduring relationship with Harvard in 1898. He wrote three innovative texts, many learned papers, and was assigned 53 patents. The most notable is the single-stage crystal oscillator circuit, which became the touchstone of the electronics communication art.

1895 - Laurens Hammond, American engineer and founder of the electronic keyboard instrument company that bears his name. His inventions include, most famously, the Hammond organ, the Hammond clock, and the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachord. During his life he held 110 patents. He was married to Roxana Scoville, and had one daughter. In 2017 the Laurens Hammond Museum was founded in Kielce, Poland.

1930 - Rod Taylor (born Rodney Sturt Taylor), Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including The Time Machine, The Birds, Sunday in New York, 36 Hours, The Glass Bottom Boat, Hotel , The Hell with Heroes, and Zabriskie Point. Taylor appeared in the CBS drama series Falcon Crest as Frank Agretti, playing opposite Jane Wyman. He appeared in several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger. In 1993, he hosted the documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back. Taylor returned to Australia several times over the years to make films, playing a 1920s traveling showman in The Picture Show Man  and a paid killer in On the Run. In 2007, he appeared in the horror telemovie Kaw, which revisits the idea of marauding birds turning on their human tormentors. In this film, however, the cause of the disturbance was discovered by Taylor who plays the town doctor. In 2017, a documentary on Taylor's life, "Pulling No Punches", was released and entered into the Beverly Hills Film Festival.

 

1931 - Mary Rodgers, American composer, author, and screenwriter, most famous for her novel Freaky Friday, which served as the basis of a 1976 film starring Jodie Foster, for which she wrote the screenplay, as well as three other versions. Her best-known musicals were Once Upon a Mattress and The Mad Show, and she contributed songs to Marlo Thomas' successful children's album Free to Be... You and Me. She began writing music at the age of 16. One of her recordings, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves 40, which was released in 1957, featured performances by Bing Crosby of songs Mary Rodgers wrote with lyricist Sammy Cahn. She also composed music for television, including the jingle for the Prince Spaghetti commercial. She's daughter of the famous musicals composer Richard Rodgers.

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, January 11 - On This Day

Historical Events

1904 - Mozart's The Magic Flute  (German: Die Zauberflöte) is first performed at Metropolitan Opera, New York. 

1908 - A prominent young lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma, meaning "great soul"), is hailed in Johannesburg, South Africa, for refusing to register as an Asian. 

1922 - Frederick Banting and Charles Best first use insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient.

1928 - The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, best known for Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Return of the Native, among many other works,  dies. His family disagree over what to do with his body. Eventually, his heart is removed and buried all on its own in Stinsford in Dorset. The rest is cremated and the ashes taken to Poets' corner in Westminster Abbey.  

1935 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.

1974 - The Rosenkowitz sextuplets (3 boys and 3 girls), are born in Cape town, south Africa, and become the first known set of sextuplets to survive their infancy. 

1992 - Paul Simon is the first major recording artist to tour South Africa after the end of the apartheid era's cultural boycott.



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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