May 13 Dateline

Birthdays

1842 - Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, MVO, English composer of comic operas, famous for operettas written in collaboration with librettist William Gilbert. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral works, ten choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord." Sullivan composed a one-act comic opera, Cox and Box. His first opera with W. S. Gilbert was Thespis. Four years later, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte engaged Gilbert and Sullivan to create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury. Its box-office success led to a series of twelve full-length comic operas by the collaborators. After the extraordinary success of H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, Carte used his profits from the partnership to build the Savoy Theatre in 1881, and their joint works became known as the Savoy operas. Among the best known of the later operas are The Mikado and The Gondoliers. Sullivan's most popular choral work is The Golden Legend.

1907 - Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, DBE, English author and playwright. Her parents were the actor/manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and stage actress Muriel Beaumont, and her grandfather was the cartoonist and writer George du Maurier. Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal.  (Daphne de Maurier, revisited. Uploaded by Nicholas Hoare Books. Accessed May 13, 2019.)  Her bestselling works have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, Hungry Hills and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight".  Du Maurier spent much of her life in Cornwall, where most of her works are set. As her fame increased, she became more reclusive.

1937 -  Trinidad "Trini" López III, American singer, guitarist, and actor. His first album included a version of "If I Had a Hammer", which earned a Golden Disc for him. His other hits included "Lemon Tree", "I'm Comin' Home, Cindy" and "Sally Was a Good Old Girl". He designed two guitars for the Gibson Guitar Corporation, which are now collectors’ items. According to his management, Lopez died from COVID-19 complications at the age of 83. (Trini Lopez - The Latin Album. Besame Mucho / Cuando Calienta El Sol / Quizas, Quizas, Quizas / Sin Ti. YouTube, uploaded by thisboy 91554. Accessed August 11, 2020.)

1944 - Armistead Maupin (born Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr.), American writer who wrote Tales of the City, a series of novels set in San Francisco. They have been translated into ten languages and there are more than six million copies in print. Several of the books have been adapted and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. His other works include:  Maybe the Moon, The Night Listener (both novel and film).

Leftie:
Author Armistead Maupin

 

More birthdays and historical events today, May 13 - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1568 - Mary, Queen of Scots, is defeated by the English at the Battle of Langside.

1833 - Felix Mendelssohn conducts the first performance of his Symphony No. 4, "Italian,"  in London.  

1940 - Newly elected British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, states, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." It was on this day that he met his cabinet for the first time since becoming Britain's Prime Minister three days earlier. He repeated the same phrase later in the day when he asked the House of Commons for a vote of confidence in his leadership. As early as 1933 Churchill had warned of the danger that Hitler's fascist dictatorship in Germany represented to the civilized world. Despite disturbing trends, Churchill was ridiculed by by his own party's members, who labeled him a warmonger. By the mid-1940, Hitler was at the height of his power controlling much of Europe and North Africa. Churchill understood the danger the Nazis posed to Britain and the world. He employed such powerful rhetoric to convince the Cabinet and the British people to fight.

1965 - The U.S.S.R.-launched The Luna 5 spacecraft with the purpose of exploring the possibility of landing safely on the Moon, malfunctions and crashes on the lunar surface.
1981 - Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish Moslem assailant Mehmet Ali Agca (Agcar). The shooter is pardoned by Italy in 2000, and returned to Turkey to serve another ten-year sentence for killing a liberal Newspaper editor in 1979.

1991 - South African black activist Winnie Mandela is convicted of abducting four young black activists. One of them, James Seipei (alias Stompie Moeketsi), is found stabbed to death later. 1999 - Russia's lower parliament begins debate on Yeltsin's impeachment, in response to President Boris Yeltsin's dismissal of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.



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 Timestables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org


 

(c) June 2007.  Updated May 13, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.