October 20 Dateline

Birthdays

1632 - Sir Christopher Wren, British architect. As well as London's famous St. Paul's Cathedral, C Wren designed the Monument to the Great Fire of 1666, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the Library at Trinity college, Cambridge, and more than 50 other churches and secular buildings. He is buried under the words: "Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice" - translated in English to mean "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you."

1854 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet, influential on modern literature and arts which prefigured surrealism. During his late adolescence and early adulthood he produced the bulk of his literary output, then completely stopped writing literature at the age of 20, after assembling his last major work, Illuminations. Rimbaud was known to have been a libertine and a restless soul, having engaged in a hectic, at-times-violent romantic relationship with fellow poet Paul Verlaine, which lasted nearly two years. After his retirement, he traveled extensively as a merchant and explorer, until his death from cancer just after his thirty-seventh birthday. As a poet, Rimbaud is known for his contributions to symbolism and, among other works, for A Season in Hell, a precursor to modernist literature.

1859 - John Dewey, American philosopher and educational theorist, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. He considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt. Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology.

1874 - Charles Edward Ives, American modernist composer, noted for experimental techniques, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early life. Later in life, the quality of his music was publicly recognized, and he came to be regarded as an "American original". He was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music, with musical techniques including polytonality, polyrhythm, tone clusters, aleatory elements, and quarter tones. His experimentation foreshadowed many musical innovations that were later more widely adopted during the 20th century, hence, he is often regarded as the 20th century leading American composer of art music. Sources of Ives' tonal imagery included hymn tunes and traditional songs. He also incorporated melodies of the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster. (The Best of Charles Ives. YouTube, uploaded by ClassicalMusic11. Accessed October 20, 2018.)

1931 - Lauris Margaret Elms, AM OBE, Australian retired contralto, renowned for her roles in opera and lieder and as a recording artist. She toured Israel in 1958 for the 10th anniversary of the State of Israel, appearing with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in nine performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Rafael Kubelík. In 1958 she married Graeme de Graaff, and they have one daughter, the clarinetist Deborah de Graaff. In 2001 she published her autobiography "The Singing Elms: the autobiography of Lauris Elms". Lauris Elm debuted at Covent Garden, in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera (1957) and became principal resident artist there. She appeared with leading Australian companies and is renowned for portrayal of Azucena in Verdi's Il Trovatore. She toured Australia with Joan Sutherland (1965) and appeared at the opening of Sydney Opera House (1973). She made many acclaimed recordings and frequent radio broadcasts and gave regular lieder recitals with pianist Geoffrey Parsons. (The Glory of the Human Voice The Contralto Lauris Elms Great Australian Contralto. YouTube, uploaded by Virtutis Studio Productions; Lauris Elms - "Softly Awakes My Heart" Samson and Delilah (Saint-Saëns ) 1961, uploaded by Brian Castles-Onion;   Lauris Elms sings Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix: Samson et Dalila, Op. 47, R. 288. Accessed October 20, 2020.)

 
Lefties:
None known 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 20 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

 

This day 20 October 1973.  Australia's iconic landmark, the Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, is formally opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.  The opening was celebrated with fireworks and a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

 

The Sydney Opera House, click the link to join the celebration!

1714 - George I is crowned in Westminster Abbey - the first of the Hanoverian kings.

1827 - The Battle of Navarino ends the Greek Liberation War, marking the beginning of Modern Greece.

October 19 Dateline

Birthdays

1916 - Jean Dausset (Jean-Baptiste-Gabriel-Joachim Dausset), French immunologist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980 along with Baruj Benacerraf and George Davis Snell for their discovery and characterisation of the genes making the major histocompatibility complex. Using the money from his Nobel Prize and a grant from the French Television, Dausset founded the Human Polymorphism Study Center (CEPH) in 1984, which was later renamed the Foundation Jean Dausset-CEPH in his honour. He married Rose Mayoral in 1963, with whom he had two children, Henri and Irène. 

 

 1931 - John Le Carre (David John Moore Cornwell), better known by his pen name John le Carré, British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author. His books include The Looking Glass War, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, The Little Drummer Girl, The Night Manager, The Tailor of Panama, The Constant Gardener, A Most Wanted Man and Our Kind of Traitor,  all of which have been adapted for film or television. 

 
1932 - Robert Reed (born John Robert Rietz Jr.), American actor. He played Kenneth Preston on the legal drama The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 alongside E. G. Marshall, and is best known for his role as the father Mike Brady, opposite Florence Henderson's role as Carol Brady, on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, which aired from 1969 to 1974. He later reprised his role of Mike Brady on several of the reunion programs. In 1976, he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his guest-starring role in a two-part episode of Medical Center and for his work on the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. The following year, Reed earned a third Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries Roots.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 19 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1781 - The American Revolutionary War ends as Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.

1845 - Richard Wagner's opera Tannhauser is first performed, in Dresden.

October 18 Dateline

Birthdays

1697 - Canaletto (born Giovanni Antonio Canal), Italian painter of city views or vedute, of Venice, Rome, and London. He also painted imaginary views (referred to as capricci), although the demarcation in his works between the real and the imaginary is never quite clearcut. He was further an important printmaker using the etching technique. In the period from 1746 to 1756 he worked in England where he painted many views of London and other sites including Warwick Castle and Alnwick Castle. He was highly successful in England, thanks to the British merchant and connoisseur Joseph "Consul" Smith, whose large collection of Canaletto's works was sold to King George III in 1762. 

1706 - Baldassare Galuppi, Italian/Venetian opera composer, harpsichordist, and teacher. He belonged to a generation of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and C. P. E. Bach, whose works are emblematic of the prevailing galant music that developed in Europe throughout the 18th century. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base remained Venice, where he held a succession of leading appointments. Galuppi's name persists in the English poet Robert Browning's 1855 poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's", Poetry Foundation. (Here's a heartwarming Galuppi sonata, Sonata No. 5 in C, beautifully performed by Vadim Chaimovich. Accessed October 18, 2020)

1859 - Henri-Louis Bergson, French philosopher influential in the tradition of continental philosophy, especially during the first half of the 20th century until the Second World War. Bergson is known for his arguments that processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.  He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented". In 1930 France awarded him its highest honour, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.

1919 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau), PC CC CH QC FRSC  or by the initials PET, Canadian politician, the 15th prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, between 1968 and 1984, with a brief period as Leader of the Opposition, from 1979 to 1980. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third longest-serving Prime Minister, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald.

1927 - George C. Scott, American actor, director, and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayals of the prosecutor Claude Dancer in Anatomy of a Murder, General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and Ebenezer Scrooge in Clive Donner's film A Christmas Carol. He was the first actor to refuse the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Patton in 1970), having warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences months in advance that he would do so on philosophical grounds if he won. Scott believed that every dramatic performance was unique and could not be compared to others.

1948 - Ntozake Shange (born Paulette Linda Williams), American playwright and poet, As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power. She is best known for her Obie Award-winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. She also penned novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, Liliane, and Betsey Brown, about an African-American girl runaway from home. Among Shange's honors and awards were fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund, and a Pushcart Prize. In April 2016, Barnard College announced it had acquired Shange's archive.

 
1956 - Martina Navratilova, Czechoslovak-born American former professional tennis player and coach. In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1975 through 2005 and she is considered one of the best female tennis players of all time.

 
1960 - Jean-Claude Van Damme (born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg), Belgian actor and retired martial artist best known for his martial arts action films. His most popular projects include Bloodsport, Cyborg, Kickboxer, Lionheart, Death Warrant, Double Impact, Universal Soldier, Nowhere to Run, Hard Target, Timecop, Street Fighter, Sudden Death, The Quest, Maximum Risk, JCVD), Jean-Claude van Johnson (2016–2017 series), and The Bouncer.

1961 - Wynton Learson Marsalis, American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won at least nine Grammy Awards, and his Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is the only musician to win a Grammy Award in jazz and classical during the same year. (Wynton Marsalis Tribute to Louis Armstrong. YouTube, getgs. Accessed October 18, 2020. The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra ft. Wynton Marsalis (Live) | JAZZ NIGHT IN AMERICA. YouTube, uploaded by Jazz Night in America. Accessed October 18, 2022.)

Leftie:
Tennis champion player Martina Navratilova

 

 

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

Historical Events

1851 - Herman Melville's Moby Dick, one of the greatest literary works in English language, is published by Richard Bentley of London.

1860 - British troops destroy the Emperor's Summer Palace in Peking (Beijing), China.

October 17 Dateline

Birthdays

1912 - Pope John Paul 1 (born Albino Luciani), Italian former head of the Catholic Church of the Vatican City from 26 August 1978 to his death 33 days later. He was the first pope to have been born in the 20th century. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent year of three popes and the first to occur since 1605. John Paul I remains the most recent Italian-born pope, the last in a succession of such popes that started with Clement VII in 1523. He was declared a servant of God by his successor, John Paul II, on 23 November 2003, the first step on the road to sainthood. Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue on 8 November 2017 and named him as venerable. In Italy, he is remembered with the appellatives of "Il Papa del Sorriso" (The Smiling Pope) and "Il Sorriso di Dio" (The smile of God). Time magazine and other publications referred to him as "The September Pope".

1915 - Arthur Asher Miller, American playwright, essayist, and a controversial figure in the twentieth-century American theater whose most popular plays include: All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge. He also wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits. (Celebrating Arthur Miller at 100. Uploaded by WestportPlayhouse. Accessed October 17, 2016. Arthur Miller Interview on The Death of a Salesman. Uploaded by Manufacturing Intellect. Accessed October 17, 2017.)  

1918 - Rita Hayworth (Margarita Carmen Hayworth (née Cansino), American actress and dancer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years. The press coined the term "The Love Goddess" to describe Hayworth after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s. She's best known for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role. She is also known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings, The Lady from Shanghai, Pal Joey, and Separate Tables. She starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl, with Gene Kelly. She is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars.

 
1920 - Edward Montgomery Clift, American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, The New York Times said he was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men". He is best known for his roles in Howard Hawks' Red River, William Wyler's The Heiress, George Stevens' A Place in the Sun, Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess, Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity, Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions, Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg, and John Huston's The Misfits. Along with Marlon Brando and James Dean, Clift was one of the original method actors in Hollywood. He executed a rare move by not signing a contract after arriving in Hollywood, only doing so after his first two films were a success. This was described as "a power differential that would go on to structure the star-studio relationship for the next 40 years".

Leftie:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 17 - On This Day

Historical Events

1604 - German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovers the last supernova in the Milky Way in the constellation Ophiuchuc and calls it Kepler's Star.

1761 - Christoph W. Gluck's ballet Don Juan opens successfully in Vienna.

October 16 Dateline

Birthdays

1758 - Noah Webster, Jr., American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English-language spelling reformer, prolific writer. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education." His "Blue-backed Speller" books taught five generations of American children how to spell and read.

1821 - Albert Franz Doppler, Polish composer and flautist. He was a flute virtuoso best known for his flute music. He also wrote one German and several Hungarian operas for Budapest, all produced with great success. His ballet music was popular during his lifetime.

1854 - Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. A celebrated poet and playwright, he was best known for his wit. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was written in a form of a fable and tells a much darker story. (Oscar Wilde Biography: His "Wild" Life. YouTube, uploaded by Biographics. Accessed October 16, 2018. Here's his "The Happy Prince" from wilde-online.info.)

1925 - Dame Angela (Brigid) Lansbury DBE, British-American-Irish actress in theatre, television and film, Famous for Murder, She Wrote, as Jessica Fletcher, and as Mame in the original 1966 Broadway musical Mame. Her career has spanned eight decades. She received an Honorary Oscar and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and has won five Tony Awards, six Golden Globes, and an Olivier Award. She was nominated for numerous other awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress on three occasions, and various Primetime Emmy Awards on eighteen occasions, and a Grammy Award. In 2014, Lansbury was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. (The Legendary Dame Angela Lansbury Talks about her Career. Uploaded by picturefan2009.  Mame - Angela Lansbury - If He Walked into my Life (Very rare rehearsal take, recorded during the first rehearsal for the musical "Mame." Uploaded by orvgg.  Accessed October 16, 2019.)  

1956 - Marin Alsop,  American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2020.  (Trailblazing conductor Marin Alsop's message on breaking the glass ceiling. Youtube, uploaded by ABC News.  Oct 16, 2022.  Dvorák: Symphony No. 9, Peabody Symphony Orchestra (PSO), Marin Alsop. Youtube, uploaded by Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University. Accessed October 16, 2022) 

 

1958 - Tim Francis Robbins, Academy Award winning American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, and musician. He is notable for his portrayal of Andy Dufresne in the film The Shawshank Redemption. His other roles include starring as Nuke LaLoosh in Bull Durham, Jacob Singer in Jacob's Ladder, Griffin Mill in The Player, Dave Boyle in Mystic River, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Harlan Ogilvy in War of the Worlds. He also directed the films Bob Roberts and Dead Man Walking. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for Dead Man Walking. For TV, he played Secretary of State Walter Larson in the HBO comedy The Brink, and in Here and Now portrayed Greg Boatwright. 

1962 - Dmitri Aleksandrovich Hvorostovsky, Russian operatic baritone. He came to international prominence in 1989 when he won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, beating local favourite Bryn Terfel in the final round. His performance included Handel's "Ombra mai fu" and "Per me giunto...O Carlo ascolta" from Verdi's Don Carlos. In later years his repertoire almost entirely consisted of Verdi operas. He won First Prizes at both the Glinka Vocal Competition in 1987 and the Toulouse Singing Competition in 1988. His highest awards in Russia include the Glinka State Prize in 1991 and the People's Artist of Russia honorary title in 1995.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 16 - On This Day

 

Quote: "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that's all." - Oscar Wilde


Featuring: (Albert) Franz Doppler, Composer & Flautist

Franz Doppler (16 October 1821 - 27 July 1883), was born in Poland in Lemberg (Austrian Empire), now Lviv, Ukraine. He was a flute virtuoso, a composer best known for his flute music, and a brilliant orchestrator. He also wrote one German and Hungarian operas for Budapest, with great success. His ballet music was popular during his lifetime.  Doppler composed chiefly for the flute, as well as opera, composing many pieces including concertos, flute duets, played by himself and his brother Karl. His work contains aspects of Russian and Hungarian music. His operas included Judith (his only German opera), and a Russian work entitled Benyovsky. He wrote seven operas and fifteen ballets in total.

Historical Events

1791 - Wolfgang A Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major,  K.622, is first  performed in Prague (citation needed, refer resource Wiki from the 'clarinet concerto' link.)

1793 - Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI of France, is executed by guillotine, without proof of her crimes.

1847 - Charlotte Brontë publishes her famous classic novel Jane Eyre.

October 15 Dateline

Birthdays

70 B.C.E. -  Virgil or Vergil, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, are sometimes attributed to him. Virgil is traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome since the time of its composition. Modeled after Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus were to found the city of Rome. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory. (Virgil's Rome - The Historical Context of the Aeneid. uploaded by Eric Luttrell. Accessed October 15, 2018.)

1775 - Bernhard Henrik Crusell, Swedish-Finnish composer, clarinetist and translator considered as the the most significant and internationally best-known Finnish-born classical composer and indeed, — the outstanding Finnish composer before Sibelius.

1844 - Friedrich (Wilhelm) Nietzsche, German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. His work has exerted an enormous and  profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history - writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, consciousness, and the meaning of existence. (Friedrch Nietzsche's Life and Philosophy. Uploaded by Wes Cecil. Accessed October 15, 2019.)  

1880 - Marie Stopes (Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes), British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification, and was the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. With her second husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe, Stopes founded the first birth control clinic in Britain. She edited the newsletter Birth Control News, which gave explicit practical advice. Her sex manual Married Love brought the subject of birth control into wide public discourse. 

 
1920 - Mario Gianluigi Puzo, American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.

1924 - Lee Iacocca, (Lido Anthony Iacocca), American automobile executive best known for Ford Mustang and Pinto cars, while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and for reviving the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s. He was president and CEO of Chrysler until his retirement at the end of 1992. He was one of the few executives to preside over the operations of two of the Big Three automakers. Iacocca authored or co-authored several books, including Iacocca: An Autobiography (with William Novak), and Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Portfolio Magazine named Iacocca the 18th-greatest American CEO of all time. 

1940 - Peter Charles Doherty, AC FRS FMedSci, Australian immunologist, veterinary surgeon and researcher in the field of medicine. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1995, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Rolf M. Zinkernagel in 1996 and was named Australian of the Year in 1997, and named a Companion of the Order of Australia for his work with Zinkernagel. He is also a National Trust Australian Living Treasure. In 2009's Q150 celebrations, Doherty's immune system research was one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as an iconic "innovation and invention".

2005 - Prince Christian of Denmark, Count of Monpezat (Christian Valdemar Henri John), Danish Royal, the eldest child of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary. A grandson of Queen Margrethe II, he is second in the line of succession to the Danish throne, after his father.

Leftie:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 15 - On This Day

Historical Events

1815 - Napoleon I of France begins his exile on St. Helena on the Atlantic Ocean.

1878 - The U.S. Edison Electric Company and American Electric and Illumination in Canada begin operation.

October 14 Dateline

Birthdays:

1633 - James II and VII, King of England and Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685 until he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland. His reign is remembered mainly for struggles over religious tolerance. It also involved the principles of absolutism and divine right of kings, and his deposition ended a century of political and civil strife by confirming the primacy of Parliament over the Crown.

1644 - William Penn, London-born American writer, founder of Pennsylvania, son of the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. He was an early member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the English North American colony the Province of Pennsylvania. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans. Under his direction, the city of Philadelphia was planned and developed. The streets are named with numbers and tree names. He chose to use the names of trees for the cross streets because Pennsylvania means "Penn's Woods".

1890 - Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, 34th U.S. President from 1953 to 1961, American army general and statesman. During World War II, he was a five-star general in the United States Army and served as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. (Dwight D. Eisenhower Biography: Military General & U.S. President. Uploaded by WatchMojo.com. Accessed October 14, 2013. Ike '52: The Best known Candidate of All  by Feather S. Foster. Presidential History Blog. Accessed 19 Sept 2020.)

1898 - Maurice Louis Eugène Martenot, French cellist, inventor, and a radio telegrapher during the first World War. He is best known for his invention of the ondes Martenot. He unveiled a microtonal model in 1938. He was responsible for teaching the first generation of ondes Martenot performers, including Karel Goeyvaerts, Jeanne Loriod, Georges Savaria, Gilles Tremblay, and his sister Ginette Martenot. Martenot himself performed as an 'ondist' with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1930. The 1937 World's Fair in Paris awarded him "Le Grand Prix de l'Exposition Mondiale". He taught lessons at the Paris Conservatoire during the 1940s.

1927 - Roger Moore, KBE, English actor, famous in the roles of British secret agent James Bond 007, The Saint, and Lord Sinclair in The Persuaders! He played James Bond in seven feature films from 1973 to 1985, beginning with Live and Let Die. His most notable television role was playing the main character, Simon Templar, in the British television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969. He also had roles in some American television shows and films in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including replacing James Garner and portraying Beau Maverick in the Maverick series in 1960 to 61. Moore starred with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders television series in 1971 to 1972, and had roles in several theatrical films in the 1970s and 1980s. Sir Roger Moore was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to charity. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television and film. In 2008, the French government appointed him a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. (Refer below for his documentary video.)

1939 - Ralph Lauren, honorary KBE (né Lifshitz), American fashion designer, philanthropist, and businessman, best known for the Ralph Lauren Corporation, a global multibillion-dollar enterprise. He has become known for his collection of rare automobiles, some of which have been displayed in museum exhibits. Lauren stepped down as CEO of the company in September 2015 but remains executive chairman and chief creative officer. As of 2019, Forbes estimates his wealth at $6.3 billion, which makes Ralph Lauren the 102nd richest person in America.

 
1940 - Sir Cliff Richard OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb), British singer, musician, performer, actor and philanthropist. Richard has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has total sales of over 21 million singles in the United Kingdom and is the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Over a career spanning 60 years, Richard has amassed several gold and platinum discs and awards, including two Ivor Novello Awards and three Brit Awards. (Cliff Richard - Blue Moon (Cliff!, 23 Feb. 1961). YouTube, accessed June 9, 2022).

 

Leftie:
None known.

Death:
1990 - Leonard Bernstein, Composer

More birthdays and historical events, October 14 - On This Day

 

 

 

In Memoriam:  
Sir Roger Moore (14 Oct 1927 - 23 May 2017) :

Sir Roger George Moore, KBE, was an English actor. He is best known for having played secret agent James Bond in seven feature films from 1973 to 1985. He also played Simon Templar in the television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969 and Lord Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders! with Tony Curtis from 1971 to 1972. He took over the role of Bond from Sean Connery in 1972, and made his first appearance as 007 in Live and Let Die (1973). The longest serving Bond, he went on to portray the spy in six more films until his retirement from the role in 1985. He was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for "services to charity". In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and 2008, the French government appointed him a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Historical Events

1066 - Duke William of Normandy defeats Harold II of England in the Battle of Hastings and becomes William the Conqueror.

1926 - The first Winnie-the-Pooh book by A.A. Milne is published, becoming one of the most successful children's books of all-time. It was inspired by his son Christopher Robin's love for a bear in the London Zoo called Winnipeg.

October 13 Dateline

Birthdays

1909 - Art Tatum Jr, American jazz pianist, widely regarded as one of the greatest in his field. His playing encompassed the styles of earlier musicians, while adding harmonic and rhythmic imagination and complexity. Acclaimed for his virtuoso technique, Tatum extended the vocabulary and boundaries of jazz piano, and established new ground in jazz through innovative use of reharmonization, voicing, and bitonality.

 
1921 - Yves Montand (Ivo Livi), Italian-French actor and singer. He went on to international recognition numerous films. His recognizably crooner songs, especially those about Paris, became instant classics. Montand acted in a number of American motion pictures as well as on Broadway. He was nominated for a César Award for "Best Actor" in 1980 for I comme Icare and again in 1984 for Garçon! In 1986, after his international box-office draw power had fallen off considerably, the 65-year-old Montand gave one of his most memorable performances, as the scheming uncle in the two-part film Jean de Florette, co-starring Gérard Depardieu, and Manon des Sources, co-starring Emmanuelle Béart.

1925 - Baroness Margaret Thatcher, (Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher), LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts), Former Prime Minister of U.K. was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold that office. A Soviet journalist dubbed her "The Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies known as Thatcherism. She studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist, before becoming a barrister. (Biography of the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, Uploaded by WatchMojo.com. Accessed October 13, 2012, Maggie's Magic Moments: Margaret Thatcher Highlights. Uploaded by The Daily Beast. Accessed October 13, 2014.) 

1934 - Nana Mouskouri, Greek singer. During the span of her music career she has released over 200 albums and singles in at least twelve different languages. (I'd like to share the English version of "Le Trois Cloches" ("The Three Bells") that French chanteuse Edith Piaf popularised. Uploaded by yrrah0015. Accessed OCtober 13, 2014.)

1939 - Arleen Auger, Soprano coloratura, known for interpretation of works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Monteverdi, Gluck  (Mozart's lieder)

1941 - Paul Simon - American singer, songwriter, famous for his musical partnership with Art Garfunkel formed in 1964. He's wrote nearly all of the duo's songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: "The Sound of Silence," "Mrs. Robinson," and "Bridge over Toubled Water."

1959 - Olive Marie Osmond, American singer, actress, author, philanthropist, Talk Show Host. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist. Her best known song is a remake of the country pop ballad "Paper Roses". From 1976 to 1979, she and her singer brother Donny Osmond hosted the television variety show Donny & Marie.

1969 - Nancy Ann Kerrigan, American former figure skater and actress. She won bronze medals at the 1991 World Championships and the 1992 Winter Olympics, silver medals at the 1992 World Championships and the 1994 Winter Olympics, and she was the 1993 US National Figure Skating Champion. Kerrigan was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2004. In January 1994, an assailant used a police baton to strike Kerrigan on her landing knee; the attacker was hired by the ex-husband of her rival Tonya Harding. The attack injured Kerrigan, but she quickly recovered. Harding and Kerrigan both participated in the 1994 Winter Olympics, but after the Games, Harding was permanently banned from competitive figure skating. At the Olympics, Kerrigan won the silver medal in a controversial showdown with gold medal winner Oksana Baiul. She started touring and performed with several ice skating troupes that included Champions on Ice and Broadway on Ice. 

 
1982 - Ian James Thorpe, AM, nickname "Thorpey, "Thorpedo", Australian retired swimmer who specialised in freestyle, but also competed in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian.

Lefties:
Singer and Songwriter Paul Simon

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 13 - On This Day

Historical Events

1775 - The Continental Navy is officially established in Philadelphia. It would later become the U.S. Navy.

1792 - The cornerstone of the White House in Washington D.C. is laid. The building was known as the U.S. Executive Mansion until 1818.

October 12 Dateline

Birthdays

1725 - Etienne Louis Geoffroy, French entomologist and pharmacist. He followed the binomial nomenclature of Carl von Linné and devoted himself mainly to beetles. He was the author of Histoire abrégée des Insectes qui se trouvent aux environs de Paris. Paris : Durand Vol. 1 8 + 523 pp. 10 pls (1762) and co-author with Antoine François of Entomologia Parisiensis, sive, Catalogus insectorum quae in agro Parisiensi reperiuntur ... (1785).

1872 - Ralph Vaughan Williams, English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

1935 - Luciano Pavarotti, Italian operatic tenor who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings gaining worldwide fame for the quality of his tone, and eventually established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th century, achieving the honorific title "king of the high C's". From the beginning of his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy to his final performance of "Nessun dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Pavarotti was at his best in bel canto operas, pre-Aida Verdi roles, and Puccini's famous works. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others. (Pavarotti sings Nessun Dorma and Torna a Surriento. YouTube, uploaded by dreamer100pre. Accessed October 12, 2015.)

1968 - Hugh Jackman, Australian actor, singer, and producer. He is best known for playing Wolverine in the X-Men film series from 2000 to 2017, a role for which he holds the Guinness World Record for "longest career as a live-action Marvel superhero". Jackman is also recognised for his lead roles in romantic comedy, action and drama films. Versatile and multi-talented, Hugh Jackman has also played the roles for period romance Australia (2008), the film version of Les Misérables (2012), the thriller Prisoners (2013), and the musical The Greatest Showman (2017), for which he received a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album. For playing Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

Leftie:
Actor and Film Producer Hugh Jackman

 

Death:

Singer & Songwriter John Denver (October 12, 1997). In remembrance: John Denver / Live at The Apollo Theatre, 26 October 1982. Uploaded by M masassa. Accessed Oct 12, 2018. 

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 12 - On This Day

Historical Events

1910 - Ralph Vaughan Williams's A Sea Symphony, for soprano, baritone, chorus, and orchestra (after American poet Walt Whitman's poem of the same name), is first performed at the Leeds Festival in England.

1931 - Johnny Weismuller, Olympic swimmer, is offered the role of Tarzan by MGM after being spotted at a hotel swimming pool. He makes Tarzan movies throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

October 11 Dateline

Birthdays

1815 - Prince Pierre-Napoléon Bonaparte, French nobleman, revolutionary and politician, the son of Lucien Bonaparte and his second wife Alexandrine de Bleschamp. He was a nephew of Napoleon I of France.

1884 - Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Former U.S. First Lady, American political figure, Diplomat and Activist. Then President Harry Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States.  She was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. Her husband, FDR (the 32nd President), was her distant cousin. (Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Speech. Uploaded by PublicResourceOrg.  Eleanor Roosevelt - Her Star Shines. Uploaded by FDRLibrary. Both accessed October 11, 2011.) Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees. Following her husband's death in 1945, she remained active in politics for the remaining 17 years of her life.

1884 - Friedrich Bergius, German chemist and inventor, Nobel Laureate, known for the Bergius process for producing synthetic fuel from coal, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in recognition of contributions to the invention and development of chemical high-pressure methods.

1885 - Francois Charles Mauriac, French author, poet, playwright, critic and journalist. He was a member of the Académie française (from 1933), and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1952. He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1958.

1966 - Luke Perry (born Coy Luther Perry III), American actor. He became a teen idol for playing Dylan McKay on the TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 from 1990 to 1995, and again from 1998 to 2000. He also starred as Fred Andrews on the CW series Riverdale . He had guest roles on notable shows which are Criminal Minds, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Simpsons, and Will & Grace, and also starred in several films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 8 Seconds, The Fifth Element, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his final feature performance.

1974 - Rachel Barton Pine (born Rachel Elizabeth Barton), American violinist. She debuted with the Chicago Symphony at age 10, and was the first American and youngest ever gold medal winner of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. Pine tours worldwide as a soloist with prestigious orchestras, has an active recording career, and runs The Rachel Barton Pine Foundation since 2001 which provides services and funding to promote classical music education and performances. (Rachel Barton Pine plays Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs with the Highland Park Strings at Ravinia. Accessed October 11, 2015. Rachel Barton Pine On Mozart, with Sir Neville Mariner, St Martin in the Fields. Accessed October 11, 2018.)

Leftie:
Actor Luke Perry

 

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

 

Historical Events

1727 - One of George Frideric Handel's best-known works, Zadok the Priest: The Coronation Anthem (HWV 258), alongside other three coronation anthems: The King Shall Rejoice, My Heart is Inditing, and Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened, premiered on October 11, 1727, when King George II was crowned in London's Westminster Abbey. Zadok the Priest has been sung prior to the anointing of the sovereign at the coronation of every British monarch since its composition and has become recognised as a British patriotic anthem.

1811 - The first steam-powered ferry begins service between New York and Hoboken, New Jersey

1830 - Frederic Chopin is soloist in his Piano Concerto No. 1, in a Warsaw theatre, Poland.

October 10 Dateline

Birthdays

1731 - Henry Cavendish, FRS, English scientist, philosopher, and an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. Amongst other discoveries, he is noted for his discovery of chemical element hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air". Using his exacting experimental skills, Cavendish was the first to distinguish this inflammable air from ordinary air and to investigate its specific properties. He presented a paper detailing his findings in 1766. He is also known for the Cavendish Experiment, the first experiment to measure the force of gravity between masses in the laboratory and the first to yield accurate values for the gravitational constant (G). (The Cavendish Experiment, uploaded by Sixty Symbols. Accessed October 10, 2013.)

1895 - Lin Yutang, Hokkien Chinese writer, scholar, translator, linguist, philosopher and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation. His compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West. ("Human Life as a Poem" - Souvenirs From Dreamland Ep2 ~Lin Yutang. Uploaded by souvenirs of dreamland. Accessed October 10, 2012.)  "Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials." ~ Lin Yutang

1813 - Giuseppe Verdi, (Oct 9 or 10?), Italian opera composer. He came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The famous chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, however, he did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements and as he became professionally successful was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Verdi Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). His operas remain extremely popular, especially Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata.(Verdi:Aida - triumphal march "Gloria all´Egitto". Czech Philharmony choir Brno choirmaster - Petr Fiala Czech Radio symphony orchestra cond. Vladimir Valek. Uploaded by AchillesValda. Accessed October 10, 2011.)

1930 - Harold Pinter, British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party, The Homecoming, and Betrayal, each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant, The Go-Between, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Trial, and Sleuth. He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. Despite being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in December 2001, Pinter continued to act on stage and screen, last performing the title role of Samuel Beckett's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape, for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre, in October 2006.

1971 - Evgeny Kissin, Russian concert pianist. He has been a British citizen since 2002 and an Israeli citizen since 2013. He first came to international fame as a child prodigy. He first came to international fame as a child prodigy. He has a wide repertoire and is especially known for his interpretations of the works of the Romantic era, particularly those of Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Ludwig van Beethoven. He is commonly viewed as a great successor of the Russian piano school because of the depth, lyricism and poetic quality of his interpretations.

Leftie:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 10 - On This Day

 

Featured Video Watch:  Verdi Requiem. 

Proms 2016 - Verdi - Requiem [Marin Alsop, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment]. YouTube, uploaded by hollowchatter. Accessed October 10, 2020. 

Historical Events

1919- Richard Strauss's opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, is first performed, at the Vienna State Opera.

1931 - Sir William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast, is first performed, at the Leeds Festival, England. 

October 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1201 - Robert de Sorbon,  French theologian, the Chaplain of Louis IX of France, and founder of the Sorbonne college in Paris. He was noted for his piety and attracted the patronage of the Comte d'Artois and King Louis IX of France, later known as Saint Louis. Sorbon established the Maison de Sorbonne, a college in Paris originally intended to teach theology to twenty poor students. Sponsored by King Louis and received the endorsement of Pope Alexander IV in 1259, it grew into a major centre of learning and became the core of what would become the University of Paris. Sorbon served as chancellor of the university, taught and preached there from 1258 until his death. The library at the University of Reims, which opened in 2006, is named after him.

1832 - Elizabeth Akers Allen (pen name, Florence Percy), American poet and journalist, popular with "Rock Me to Sleep" especially during the U.S. Civil War. Many of them were first published in the Portland Transcript. She came to Portland, Maine in 1855, and a volume of her fugitive poems appeared in that city just before her marriage to Paul Akers, the sculptor, whom she accompanied to Italy, and buried there. For several years, she was on the editorial staff of the Portland Advertiser. She wrote for most of the leading magazines, and several editions of her collected poems were published. 

  

1835 - Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Second Piano Concerto (1868), the First Cello Concerto (1872), Danse macabre (1874), the opera Samson and Delilah (1877), the Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and The Carnival of the Animals (1886). Great Composers: Camille Saint-Saëns. YouTube, uploaded by Thomas Little. Accessed October 9, 2018.

1852 - Hermann Emil Louis Fischer FRS FRSE FCS, German organic chemist and 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fischer projection, a symbolic way of drawing asymmetric carbon atoms. He also hypothesized lock and key mechanism of enzyme action.

1940 - John Lennon, MBE (born John Winston Lennon), English musician, singer, songwriter, Beatles Band/Group and peace activist who gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued as a solo artist and as a collaborator of Ono's music. (John Lennon - Imagine. Uploaded by EMI Records Italy. Accessed October 9, 2014.)

1966 - David William Donald Cameron, Former U.K. Prime Minister. British Conservative Party Politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016 and leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016.

Leftie:
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 9 - On This Day

Historical Events

1776 - Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asis, which becomes the U.S. City of San Francisco.

1891 - Antonin Dvorak conducts his Requiem Mass at Birmingham, England. 

October 8 Dateline

Birthdays

1585 - Heinrich Schütz, German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach. (Listen to Schütz's sublime, beautiful music, "Schwanengesang" ("Swan Song"), with Paul Hillier conducting The Tapiola Chamber Choir. YouTube, uploaded by baroque6hiro. Accessed October 8, 2018).    

1895 - Juan Domingo Peron, Argentinian president, an Argentine army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labor and Vice President, he was elected President of Argentina three times, serving from June 1946 to September 1955, when he was overthrown in a coup d'état, and then from October 1973 until his death in July 1974. Peronism is a political phenomenon that draws support from both the political left and political right. Peronism is not considered a traditional ideology, but a political movement, because of the wide variety of people who call themselves Peronists. 

1930 - Toru Takemitsu, Japanese composer (Toru Takemitsu: From me flows what you call time. Uploaded by Silicua hibrido. Accessed October 8, 2017.)

1939 - Paul Hogan, AM, Australian actor, comedian, writer and television presenter. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance as outback adventurer Michael "Crocodile" Dundee in Crocodile Dundee, the first in the Crocodile Dundee film series. He married American actress Linda Kozlowski, after meeting her on the set of Crocodile Dundee.

1941 - Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. ((né Burns), American civil rights activist, baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. Senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He is the founder of the organizations that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH. 

 

 1943 - Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase, American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He became a key cast member in the first season of Saturday Night Live, where his recurring Weekend Update segment became a staple of the show. As both a performer and writer, he earned three Primetime Emmy Awards out of five nominations. Chase had his first leading film role in the comedy Foul Play, earning two Golden Globe Award nominations. He is also known for his portrayals of Clark W. Griswold in five National Lampoon's Vacation films and Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher in Fletch and its sequel Fletch Lives. Other prominent film titles followed. He hosted the Academy Awards twice, and briefly, had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. 

 

 1956 - Stephanie Zimbalist, American actress in film, television and theater,  best known for her role as Laura Holt in the NBC detective series Remington Steele. Zimbalist took roles in plays concerning 19th century artists including Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Van Gogh. She attended the Juilliard School before commencing her acting career. Her paternal grandfather, Efrem Zimbalist, was a world-famous concert violinist, music teacher at the Curtis Institute, and a composer. Her paternal grandmother, Alma Gluck, was a leading soprano of her day. Zimbalist's aunt, Marcia Davenport, was a prominent author, music journalist and historian. In 2009 she portrayed actress Katharine Hepburn in Tea at Five. Zimbalist has also released audiobooks, including The Girls, which won a Listen-Up award. She appeared in the 2006 documentary Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars, and also played Christa McAuliffe in the play Defying Gravity, written by Jane Anderson.

1970 - Matt Paige Damon, American actor, producer, and screenwriter. Ranked among Forbes' most bankable stars, the films in which he has appeared have collectively earned over $3.12 billion at the North American box office, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He came to prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting, which won them the Academy and Golden Globe awards for Best Screenplay and earned Damon a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Damon has also performed voice-over work in both animated and documentary films, and has established two production companies with Affleck. He has been actively involved in charitable work with organizations.

Leftie:
Actress Stephanie Zimbalist

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 8 - On This Day
 

 

 

Featuring the music of Toru Takemitsu:

From me flows what you call time. Uploaded by Silicua hibrido. Accessed October 8, 2017.

Historical Events

1871 - The Great Chicago Fire starts, killing 300 people and leaving 100,000 homeless.

1908 -  The book The Wind in the Willows, written by Kenneth Grahame, is published. It becomes a classic, introducing the world to Rat, Mole and the wonderful Mr. Toad. 

October 7 Dateline

Birthdays

1746 - William Billings, American composer, regarded as the first American choral composer, and leading member of the First New England School. Billings' music can be forceful and stirring, as in his patriotic song "Chester"; ecstatic, as in his hymn "Africa"; or elaborate and celebratory, as in his "Easter Anthem" and "Rose of Sharon". He also wrote several Christmas carols, including "Judea" in 1778 and "Shiloh" in 1781.
 

1849 - James Whitcomb Riley, American writer, poet, best-selling author. In his lifetime, known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry. His poems tend to be humorous or sentimental. Of the approximately 1,000 poems Riley wrote, the majority are in dialect. His famous works include "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". Riley's chief legacy was his influence in fostering the creation of a Midwestern cultural identity and his contributions to the Golden Age of Indiana Literature.

1885 - Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist, made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. He developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that the electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level (or orbit) to another. Although the Bohr model has been supplanted by other models, its underlying principles remain valid. He conceived the principle of complementarity: that items could be separately analysed in terms of contradictory properties, like behaving as a wave or a stream of particles. The notion of complementarity dominated Bohr's thinking in both science and philosophy.

1917 - June Allyson (born Eleanor Geisman), American actress (stage, film, and television) dancer, and singer. She began her career as a dancer in short films and on Broadway. She signed with MGM and rose to fame in Two Girls and a Sailor. Her "girl next door" image was solidified when she was paired with actor Van Johnson in six films. In 1951, she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss. She also hosted and starred in her own anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, which aired on CBS. In the 1970s, she returned to the stage starring in Forty Carats and No, No, Nanette. In 1982, Allyson released her autobiography June Allyson by June Allyson. She later established the June Allyson Foundation for Public Awareness and Medical Research and worked to raise money for research for urological and gynecological diseases affecting senior citizens.

1931 - Desmond Mpilo Tutu, OMSG CH GCStJ, South African Anglican cleric and theologian known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was the Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology.

1935 - Thomas Michael Keneally, Australian Author, a prolific novelist, playwright, and essayist. He is best known for his non-fiction novel Schindler's Ark, the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, which won the Booker Prize in 1982. The book was later made into a film titled Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg, earning the director his first Best Director Oscar. Keneally's meeting with Pfefferberg and their research tours are detailed in Searching for Schindler: A Memoir. Some of the Pfefferberg documents that inspired Keneally are now housed in the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney. In 1996 the State Library purchased this material from a private collector.

1939 - Clive James, AO CBE FRSL (born Vivian Leopold James), Australian author, critic, essayist, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist. He lived and worked in the UK from 1961 until his death. James began his career specialising in literary criticism before becoming television critic for The Observer, where he made his name for his wry, deadpan humour. He also earned an independent reputation as a poet and satirist. He achieved success in the UK first as a writer for television, and eventually as the lead in his own programmes. James published several books of poetry, he also collaborated on six albums with singer-songwriter Pete Atkin. James' lyrics were far from mainstream popular music, being frequently dense with poetic references. For instance, they might describe the life of a machine tool shop supervisor, as in "Carnations on the Roof". In contrast, the song "My Egoist", is translated almost entirely from a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire. Other references include Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies and William Shakespeare's sonnets.(Everything I do is writing: Clive James. ABC. Accessed  October 17, 2017.)

1943 - Oliver Laurence North, American colonel and author, political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and (retired) United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he was a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. It involved the illegal sale of weapons to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to encourage the release of American hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, sales which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment. He was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before Congress about the scheme. North was initially convicted on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated and reversed and all charges against him dismissed in 1991.

1952 - Vladimir Putin, President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 2000 until 2008. He was also the Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. In between his presidential terms, he was also the Prime Minister of Russia under president Dmitry Medvedev.

1955 - Yo-Yo Ma, Chinese-American cellist. Born in Paris, he spent his schooling years in New York City and was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University, and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. (Enjoy Yo-Yo Ma's performance of the entire Six Unaccompanied Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on the 5th of September, 2015. He played for nearly three hours. A truly remarkable performance.  Amazing!)

1959 - Simon Phillip Cowell, English principal, founder and chief executive of the British entertainment company Syco. Businessman, A&R executive, talent manager, television producer, record executive, and entrepreneur. Cowell has judged on the British television talent competition series Pop Idol, The X Factor UK and Britain's Got Talent, and the American television talent competition series American Idol, The X Factor US, and America's Got Talent.

Lefties:
Actress June Allyson
Colonel Oliver North

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 7 - On This Day

Historical Events

1571 - The Battle of Lepanto is fought. It is a victory against the Moslem Ottoman Empire fleet by Don John of Austria, leading a fleet of Papal forces. It is the last major battle to involve galleys, a form of sea warfare going back for many thousands of years.  

1769 - Captain James Cook discover and maps New Zealand.

October 6 Dateline

Birthdays

1820 - Jenny Lind, (born Johanna Maria Lind), Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of the United States beginning in 1850.) She became famous after her performance in Der Freischütz in Sweden in 1838. Within a few years, she had suffered vocal damage, but the singing teacher Manuel García saved her voice. She was in great demand in opera roles throughout Sweden and northern Europe during the 1840s, and was closely associated with Felix Mendelssohn. After two acclaimed seasons in London, she announced her retirement from opera at the age of 29.

1846 - George Westinghouse, Jr., American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of 19. Westinghouse saw the potential of using alternating current for electric power distribution in the early 1880s, putting his business in direct competition with Thomas Edison, who marketed direct current for electric power distribution. In 1911 Westinghouse received the American Institute of Electrical Engineers's (AIEE) Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system."

1887 - Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, and he designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America.

1908 - Carole Lombard, American actress, (born Jane Alice Peters), noted for her roles in screwball comedies. She was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her 23rd on its list of the greatest female stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema. After a successful appearance in The Arizona Kid, she was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures. Paramount began casting her as a leading lady, mainly in drama films. Her profile increased when she married William Powell, but the couple divorced amicably after two years. A turning point in Lombard's career came when she starred in Howard Hawks's pioneering screwball comedy Twentieth Century. She continued to appear in films forming a popular partnership with Fred MacMurray. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in My Man Godfrey. Lombard married "The King of Hollywood", Clark Gable, and the super couple gained much attention from the media.

1931 - Riccardo Giacconi, Italian-American Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. He was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. Giacconi was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002 "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources". The other shares of the Prize in that year were awarded to Masatoshi Koshiba and Raymond Davis, Jr. for neutrino astronomy. Giacconi held the positions of professor of physics and astronomy (1982–1997) and research professor (from 1998 to his death in 2018) at Johns Hopkins University, and was a university professor. During the 2000s he was principal investigator for the major Chandra Deep Field-South project with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

1942 - Britt Ekland, Swedish actress and singer. She appeared in numerous films in her heyday, including roles in William Friedkin's The Night They Raided Minsky's, and the British crime film Get Carter, which established her as a movie sex symbol. She also starred in the British cult horror film The Wicker Man and appeared as a Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun. Her high-profile social life and her 1964 marriage to actor Peter Sellers attracted considerable press attention, leading to her being one of the most photographed celebrities in the world during the 1970s.

Lefties:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 6 - On This Day

Historical Events

1600 - Jacopo Peri's opera Euridice, written for the wedding of Maria de Medici and Henry IV of France, is performed in Florence, Italy. Her uncle, Duke of Tuscany, is proxy for Henry, who was not allowed to leave his country.

1769 - Captain James Cook discovers New Zealand, amazing the Maoris with this claim. Decades of fighting follow as they argue about it.

October 5 Dateline

Birthdays

1829 - Chester A. Arthur, American attorney and politician who served as the 21st president of the United States, from 1881 to 1885. Previously the 20th vice president, he succeeded to the presidency upon the death of President James A. Garfield in September 1881, two months after Garfield was shot by an assassin.

1902 - Larry Fine (born Louis Feinberg), American actor, comedian, violinist, and boxer, best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges.

1902 - Ray Albert Kroc, American businessman, fast food entrepreneur, pioneer of MacDonald's chain of food. He joined the California company McDonald's in 1954, after the McDonald brothers had franchised six locations out from their original 1940 operation in San Bernardino. This set the stage for national expansion with the help of Kroc, eventually leading to a global franchise, making it the most successful fast food corporation in the world. Kroc was included in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, and amassed a multi-million dollar fortune during his lifetime. He owned the San Diego Padres baseball team from 1974 until his death in 1984.

1919 - Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE, English actor. He played supporting and character roles including RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape (1963), the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967), SEN 5241 in THX 1138, and the deranged Clarence "Doc" Tydon in Wake in Fright (1971). Pleasence gained widespread recognition for his role as psychiatrist Dr Samuel Loomis in Halloween and four of its sequels, a role for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor. He collaborated with Halloween director, John Carpenter, twice more, as the President of the United States in Escape from New York, and as the Priest in Prince of Darkness.

1933 - Diane Cilento, Australian actress and producer, Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Molly Seagrim in Tom Jones. Her other films include: The Admirable Crichton, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and Hombre. Cilento studied at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her stage debut in 1953. She earned a Tony Award nomination (1956) on Broadway as Helen of Troy in Jean Giraudoux’s Tiger at the Gates. Cilento achieved minor celebrity status in the 1960s when her second husband, actor Sean Connery, starred in a series of James Bond movies. She later married (1985) playwright Anthony Shaffer, whom she met while filming The Wicker Man, for which he wrote the screenplay. The pair settled in Queensland, where she founded and ran the open-air Karnak Theatre. She also wrote two novels and an autobiography, My Nine Lives (2006). Cilento was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in 2001.

 

1951 - Bob Geldof, KBE (Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof), Irish singer-songwriter, author, political activist, and occasional actor. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s. The band had UK number one hits with his compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time, and starred in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall as "Pink". He is widely recognised for his activism, especially anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa.

1967 - Guy Edward Pearce, British-Australian actor, musician, singer and songwriter. He starred in the role of Mike Young in the Australian television series Neighbours and for appearing in films such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, L.A. Confidential, Ravenous, Memento, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Time Machine, The Road, The King's Speech, 33 Postcards, Prometheus, and Iron Man 3. He has won a Primetime Emmy Award and received nominations for Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and AACTA Awards. Since 2012, he has played the title role in the TV adaptations of the Jack Irish stories by Australian crime writer Peter Temple.

1975 - Kate Elizabeth Winslet, English actress. She is known for her work in period dramas, and often portrays angst-ridden women. Winslet is the recipient of various accolades, including three British Academy Film Awards, and is among the few performers to have won Academy, Emmy, and Grammy Awards. She made her film debut playing a teenage murderess in Heavenly Creatures, and received her first BAFTA Award for playing Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility. Global stardom followed soon after with her leading role in the epic romance Titanic (1997). It was the highest-grossing film of all time to that point. For her narration of a short story in the audiobook Listen to the Storyteller (1999), Winslet won a Grammy Award. A co-founder of the charity Golden Hat Foundation, which aims to create autism awareness, she has written a book on the topic, The Golden Hat: Talking Back to Autism (2010). Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009, and in 2012, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Lefties:
Comedian and Actor Larry Fine
Musician and Political Activist Bob Geldof

 

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 5 - On This Day

Historical Events

1936 - The first installment of The Harvest Gypsies, a series of articles by John Steinbeck (famous for The Grapes of Wrath) about the migrant workers pouring into California - where armed guards often try to keep them out - is published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

1905 - Wilbur Wright sets a world record in Flyer III with 39 minutes in the air for a flight of 24 1/2 miles (39 km.)