January 26 Dateline

Birthdays

1880 - General Douglas MacArthur, American five-star General and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign, which made him and his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army. On 11 March 1942, during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur, his family members and staff left the Philippine island of Corregidor which were surrounded by the Japanese. They traveled in PT boats through stormy seas patrolled by Japanese warships and reached Mindanao. From there, MacArthur and his party flew to Australia in a pair of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses, ultimately arriving in Melbourne by train on 21 March. In Australia, he made his famous speech in which he declared, "I came through and I shall return".

1905 - Baroness Maria Augusta von Trapp (née Kutschera), DHS (Order of the Holy Sepulchre), stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family Singers. She wrote The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the Broadway musical The Sound of Music (1959) and its 1965 film version.

1925 - Paul Leonard Newman, American actor, film director and producer, race car driver, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. His major film roles include The Hustler, Hud, Harper, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and leading roles in The Sting, Slap Shot, The Verdict. A ten-time Oscar nominee, Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money. He also received the Academy Honorary Award, and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

1945 - Jacqueline du Pré, OBE (born Jacqueline Mary du Pré), English cellist, considered one of the greatest cellists in 20th-century. At a young age, she achieved enduring mainstream popularity unusual for a classical performer. Her career was cut short by multiple sclerosis, which forced her to stop performing at the age of 28. She battled the illness for a further 14 years until her death at the age of 42.  (Jacques Offenbach's "Jacqueline's Tears" performed by cellist Werner Thomas (with the Münchener Kammer-Orchestra) who dedicated this beautiful music to Jacqueline Du Pré. YouTube, uploaded by cmlavita. Accessed January 26, 2018. Elgar - Cello Concerto, Delius - Cello Concerto (recording of the Century: Jacqueline Du Pré. Youtube, uploaded by Classical Music//Reference Recording. Accessed January 26, 2023.) 

1955 - Björn Johan Andrésen, Swedish actor and musician, best known for playing the fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the 1912 Thomas Mann novella Death in Venice.  Video: (Death in Venice / Muerte en Venecia. Uploaded by Morrissot. Accessed January 26, 2018.) Theme music is Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony 5. Björn Andrésen brought Tadzio to life in this film. He had only appeared in one film, En Kärlekshistoria (1970) at the time he was cast in Death in Venice, which gained him international recognition. While the film was not a box office success, Andrésen was noted for his performance as Tadzio, the beautiful young Polish boy with whom the film's older protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) falls in love. Film historian Lawrence J. Quirk commented in his study The Great Romantic Films (1974) that some shots of Andrésen "could be extracted from the frame and hung on the walls of the Louvre or the Vatican". 

1958 - Ellen Lee DeGeneres, American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. She starred in the sitcom Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and has hosted her syndicated TV talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003. She has hosted the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and the Primetime Emmys. She has authored four books and started her own record company, Eleveneleven, as well as a production company, A Very Good Production. She launched a lifestyle brand, ED Ellen DeGeneres, which comprises a collection of apparel, accessories, home, baby, and pet items. She has won 30 Emmys, 20 People's Choice Awards (more than any other person), and other awards for her work and charitable efforts, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Golden Globes Carol Burnett Lifetime Achievement Award.

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays and historical events, January 26 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1340 - English monarch King Edward III is proclaimed king of France.

1788 - British Captain Arthur Philip begins the first convict colony in Australia, having set sail from Portsmouth. He lands at Sydney Cove on this Day. The cove and the settlement was named Sydney after the British Home Secretary Lord Sydney.  This is now celebrated as Australia Day. 

January 26 celebrated by Australians as Australia Day. 

 

1790 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Cosi fan tutti is first performed at Vienna's Burgtheater, a day before his birthday, with the composer himself conducting. The first instrumental rehearsal was held in January 21, five days earlier, in Vienna. Invited were Joseph Haydn and Michael von Puchberg.

1841 -  Hong Kong is ceded to Britain by China. It remains a British possession until 1 July 1997, the official closing date of the British Empire.

1905 - The world's largest diamond, the 3,106-carat Cullinan, is found in South Africa.  

1911 - Glenn H. Curtiss flies the first successful seaplane.

1911 - Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier opens in Dresden's Konigliche Opernhaus.

1922 - Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 3 "Pastoral," is first performed by the Royal Philharmonic Society, with Sir Adrian Boult conducting.  

1926 - Television is first demonstrated in London by John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor. He does it in his attic to around fifty colleagues and scientists. He later achieves the first transatlantic transmission, the first live transmission, in 1931, and the first demonstration of colour television.  

   
2005 - Dr. Condoleezza Rice is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of State, becoming the first African American woman to hold the post.



Video Credit:

Mozart Overture of Cosi fan tutte - Sinfonia Rotterdam.  YouTube, uploaded by SinfoniaRotterdam.  Accessed January 26, 2017.

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