December 18 Dateline

Birthdays

1707 - Charles Wesley, Co-founder of Methodist Movement, poet and famous for writing hundreds of loved hymns.(C. Wesley Movie, uploaded by Gayle Lawson. Accessed December 18, 2017. The Life & Hymns of C. Wesley, uploaded by Grace Church. Accessed December 18, 2018.)

1856 - Sir Joseph John Thomson, English physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, and the first subatomic particle. He also pioneered mass spectrometry and discovered the existence of isotopes of elements. He wins the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1906.

1879 - Paul Klee, Swiss-born painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented with and eventually deeply explored color theory, writing about it extensively; his lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory (Schriften zur Form und Gestaltungslehre), published in English as the Paul Klee Notebooks, are held to be as important for modern art as Leonardo da Vinci's A Treatise on Painting for the Renaissance. He and his colleague, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, both taught at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture. Klee's works reflect his dry humor and his sometimes childlike perspective, his personal moods and beliefs, and his musicality. (Paul Klee: A collection of 277 works (HD). Uploaded by LearnFromMasters. Accessed December 18, 2019.)

1908 -  Dame Celia Johnson, DBE, English actress, whose career included stage, television and film. Best known for her roles in the films In Which We Serve (1942), This Happy Breed (1944), Brief Encounter (1945) and The Captain's Paradise (1953). For Brief Encounter, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. A six-time BAFTA Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).

1913 - Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm), German politician and statesman, former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1969 to 1974. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 for his efforts to strengthen cooperation in western Europe through the EEC and to achieve reconciliation between West Germany and the countries of Eastern Europe. He was the first Social Democrat chancellor since 1930.

1915 - Betty Grable (born Elizabeth Ruth Grable), American actress, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films grossed more than $100 million, for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reigned in the Quigley Poll's Top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day and Barbra Streisand). The U.S. Treasury Department in 1946 and 1947 listed her as the highest-salaried American woman; she earned more than $3 million during her career.

1946 - Steven Spielberg, American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of he "New Hollywood era" and also viewed as one of the most popular and influential directors and producers in movie history. Spielberg is one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studio. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, a Cecil B. DeMille Award, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

1950 - Gillian May Armstrong, Australian film and documentary director, who specializes in period drama. Her films often feature female perspectives and protagonists.

1963 - Brad Pitt (born William Bradley Pitt), American actor and film producer. He has received multiple awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award for his acting, in addition to another Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award as producer under his production company, Plan B Entertainment. His first leading roles came with the drama films A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall, and the horror film Interview with the Vampire. He gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven (1995) and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys, the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination.

1978 - Katie Holmes (born Katherine Noelle Holmes), American actress, producer, and director. She first achieved fame as Joey Potter on the television series Dawson's Creek, then Subsequent film roles followed. In 2008, she made her Broadway theatre debut in a production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. In 2011, she played Jacqueline Kennedy in the TV miniseries The Kennedys, a role she reprised in The Kennedys: After Camelot in 2017. She made her directorial debut with the 2016 film All We Had, in which she also starred.

1980 - Christina Maria Aguilera, American Pop singer, songwriter, actress, and TV personality. Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, one Latin Grammy Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Aguilera ranked at number 58 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008, and was included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013. She is considered one of the world's best-selling music artists.

Lefties:
Actress Betty Grable
Painter Paul Klee
Actor Brad Pitt 

 

More birthdays and historical events, December 18 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

 
1880 - Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien" premieres in Moscow.  

1892 - Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is first staged, in St. Petersburg. 

Here's  a performance from the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, December 2012
Valery Gergiev - conductor, Vasily Vainonen - choreography, Benjamin Tyrrell - stage and costumes.

WATCH on YouTube. This video is blocked from display on other websites. Accessed December 18, 2016.

1916 - The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends with close to half a million French and German troops killed and a similar number wounded.

1938 - Otto Hahn, a German chemist, and his team bombard uranium with neutrons, resulting in nuclear fission. The first person to split the atom, Hahn is not able to accept his Nobel prize in person, due to his imprisonment by the Allies, who incorrectly fear his involvement in a German atomic bomb project.

1959 - Birgit Nilsson stars in Tristan und Isolde in her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York City.

1994 - Christopher Skase, Australian fugitive, is a free man after a Spanish appeal court overturns an earlier extradition order on medical grounds. In 1991, he had fled to Majorca after the collapse of his business empire in Australia.



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 Dcember 18, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.