November 16 Dateline

Birthdays

42 B.C.E. - Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Second Roman emperor, reigning from AD 14 to 37. He succeeded his stepfather, Augustus. He was one of the greatest Roman generals, but also remembered as a reclusive ruler. Pliny the Elder called him "the gloomiest of men". During his reign, Jews became more prominent in Rome, and Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus began proselytizing Roman citizens, increasing long-simmering resentments. In 26 AD he removed himself from Rome and left administration in the hands of his unscrupulous Praetorian prefects Sejanus and Naevius Sutorius Macro. His grand-nephew and adopted grandson, Caligula, succeeded him.

1836 - Kalākaua (David Laʻamea Kamananakapu Mahinulani Naloiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua), called The Merrie Monarch, was the last king and penultimate monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, reigning from February 12, 1874, until his death. Succeeding Lunalilo, he was elected to the vacant throne of Hawaiʻi against Queen Emma. Kalākaua had a convivial personality and enjoyed entertaining guests with his singing and ukulele playing. At his coronation and his birthday jubilee, the hula that had been banned from public in the kingdom became a celebration of Hawaiian culture.

1873 - William Christopher Handy, American composer and musician, who referred to himself as the Father of the Blues. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of many musicians who played the distinctively American blues music, he did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity. He used elements of folk music in his compositions.

1895 - Paul Hindemith, German composer, conductor and lecturer at Harvard University,  A prolific composer, in the 1920s, he became a major advocate of the Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) style of music. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923), Der Schwanendreher for viola and orchestra (1935), and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith's most popular work, both on record and in the concert hall, is likely the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber, written in 1943. (Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. SWR Symphonieorchester. Liederhalle Stuttgart, Oktober 2016. Uploaded by SWR Classic. Accessed November 16, 2019.)

1907 - Oliver Burgess Meredith, American actor, director, producer, and writer. He has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "one of the most accomplished actors of the century". A lifetime member of the Actors Studio by invitation, he won several Emmys, was the first male actor to win the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, and was nominated for two Academy Awards. He established himself as a leading man in Hollywood with critically acclaimed performances as George Milton in Of Mice and Men, Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and the narrator of A Walk in the Sun.

 
1930 - Chinua Achebe (born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe), Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart, considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature. A titled Igbo chief himself, Achebe focuses his novels on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of Western and traditional African values during and after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also published a large number of short stories, children's books, and essay collections.

1946 - Edward Higginbottom, DPhil (Oxon), BMus (Cantab), FRCO, British music scholar, organist, choirmaster and conductor. Most of his career has been as organist at New College Oxford, where he led their choir for more than 35 years and produced a large number of choral recordings. An early episode of ITV’s Inspector Morse featured a character based on Edward Higginbottom (although the suspect’s obsession with Spangles and Trebor Mints was not based on real life).(Allegri Miserere Mei. Director: Edward Higginbottom. Choir: New College Choir, Oxford. Provided by Warner Classics Int'l. Accessed June 4, 2020.)

Lefties:
None known

 

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

 

Suggested Listening: 

Paul Hindemith's 'Mathis der Maler Symphony' -  Conducted and composed by Paul Hindemith. Berlin Philharmonic, 1955
Part 1/4
Part 2/4
Part 3/4
Part 4/4

Historical Events

1539 - Francisco Pizarro and his men defeat the Inca army at Cajamarca and capture the Inca Emperor Atahualpa, who is strangled in August the following year.

1848 - Frederic Chopin, already ill, volunteers to play in London at a Polish benefit ball, his last public appearance.

Below, listen and enjoy as pianist Arthur Rubinstein interpret Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major, a popular romantic nocturne, popularised "To Love Again."(Sung by Vic Damone, uploaded by nancyfloressantos. Accessed November 16, 2018.)

 

 

November 15 Dateline

Birthdays

1511 - Johannes Secundus (also Janus Secundus), Dutch New Latin poet. In 1533 he went to join his other brother Grudius at the Spanish court of Charles V. There he spent two years as secretary to the Archbishop of Toledo. He returned to Mechlin because of illness. Secundus was a prolific writer, producing several books of elegies on his lovers Julia and Neaera, epigrams, odes, verse epistles and epithalamia, as well as some prose writings (epistles and itineraria). His most famous work was the Liber Basiorum (Book of Kisses, first complete edition 1541), a short collection consisting of 19 poems, in which the poet explores the theme of the kiss in relation to his Spanish lover, Neaera. The 'Basia' are really extended imitations of Catullus (in particular poems 5 and 7) and some poems from the Anthologia Graeca.

 
1738 - Sir Frederick William Herschel, German-born British astronomer, composer and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel. Herschel followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, before migrating to Great Britain at the age of 19. He constructed his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent 9 years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars. Hepublished catalogues of nebulae in 1802 (2,500 objects) and in 1820 (5,000 objects). The resolving power of the Herschel telescopes revealed that many objects called nebulae in the Messier catalogue were actually clusters of stars. Herschel pioneered the use of astronomical spectrophotometry. He also discovered infrared radiation. Other work included an improved determination of the rotation period of Mars, the discovery that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally, the discovery of Titania and Oberon (moons of Uranus) and Enceladus and Mimas (moons of Saturn). Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1816. He was the first President of the Royal Astronomical Society. His work was continued by his only son, John Herschel.

 
1887 - Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. She has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism". Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, requested her to move to New York which she did 1918. They developed a professional and a personal relationship that led to their marriage in 1924. O'Keeffe created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the Red Canna paintings, that many found to represent female genitalia, although O'Keeffe consistently denied that intention. The imputation of the depiction of women's sexuality was also fueled by explicit and sensuous photographs that Stieglitz had taken and exhibited of O'Keeffe. In later years, O'Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls. 

1905 - Annunzio Paolo Mantovani, known mononymously as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian Conductor, Composer of light music and light orchestra-styled Entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before the Beatles...the first act to sell over one million stereo albums and six albums simultaneously in the US Top 30 in 1959". (Mantovani & his Orchestra. Very Best of Mantovani Album Pre-Listen (Official). Uploaded by ToCo Int'l Official Channel. Accessed November 15, 2018.)

1914 - Jorge Bolet, Cuban-American virtuoso pianist and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal, the latter an outstanding pupil of Franz Liszt. Bolet provided the piano soundtrack for the 1960 biopic, Song Without End, which starred Dirk Bogarde as the legendary 19th-century piano virtuoso, Franz Liszt. (The film won the Academy Award for Best Music score.)  In 1974 he came to national prominence, with a stupendous recital in Carnegie Hall. Bolet was Professor of Music (piano) at Indiana University. In 1977 he became Head of Piano at the Curtis Institute, succeeding Rudolf Serkin, but he resigned to concentrate on his performing career. The Decca/London record company put him under contract in 1978, giving the 64-year-old Bolet his first systematic exposure internationally. 

 

1931 - John Grinham Kerr, American actor and attorney. He began his professional career on Broadway, earning critical acclaim for his performances in Mary Coyle Chase's Bernardine and Robert Anderson's Tea and Sympathy. He reprised his role in the film version of Tea and Sympathy, which won him a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and portrayed Joseph Cable in the Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical South Pacific. He subsequently appeared in number of television series, including a starring role on the primetime soap opera Peyton Place. In the 1970s, he moved away from acting to become a lawyer, making a few small cameos in Canadian-produced films like The Silent Partner and The Amateur. He operated a legal practice in Beverly Hills until 2000, when he retired from the profession. (John Kerr sings "You've Got to be Carefully Taught" - South Pacific (1958), YouTube, Rodgers & Hammerstein. Accessed November 15, 2019.)

 
1932 - Petula Clark, CBE (born Sally Olwen Clark), British singer, actress and composer whose career spans eight decades. Clark's professional career began as an entertainer during World War II on BBC Radio. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French and English. During the 1960s, she became known globally for her popular upbeat hits, including "Downtown", "I Know a Place", "My Love", "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Colour My World", "This Is My Song," "Kiss Me Goodbye," and "Don't Sleep in the Subway", and she was dubbed "the First Lady of the British Invasion". She has sold more than 68 million records. 

1932 - J.G. Ballard, English novelist, short-story writer, satirist, and essayist who first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for his post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World. He produced a variety of experimental short stories (or "condensed novels"), such as those collected in the controversial The Atrocity Exhibition. While much of Ballard's fiction would prove thematically and stylistically provocative, he became best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun, a semi-autobiographical account of a young British boy's experiences in Shanghai during Japanese occupation. The story was adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg. In the following decades until his death, Ballard's work shifted toward the form of the traditional crime novel. The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's fiction gave rise to the adjective "Ballardian".

 

1942 - Daniel Barenboim, KBE, citizen of Argentina, Israel, Palestine, and Spain, pianist and conductor. As general music director of the Berlin State Opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. His awards and prizes include seven Grammy awards, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, France's Légion d'honneur both as a Commander and Grand Officier, and the German Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband. Barenboim is a polyglot, fluent in Spanish, Hebrew, English, French, Italian, and German.

Lefties:

None known

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

Historical Events

1684 - King Louis XIV of France opens the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors) in the Palace of Versailles. In this room the German empire was proclaimed on January 18, 1871, and the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.

1832 - Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op.107, "Reformation," is first performed in Berlin.

 

 

November 14 Dateline

Birthdays

1650 - William of Orange, King of England, (born Nov 14 [N.S.] and Nov 4, [O.S.]William III, William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik), sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s and King of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1689 until his death. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Ireland and Scotland. His victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is commemorated by unionists by displaying orange colours in his honour. William's reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him and his wife to take power. Popular histories usually refer to his joint reign with his wife, Queen Mary II, as that of William and Mary.

1719 - Johann Georg Leopold Mozart, German composer, conductor, violinist, music teacher and father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart, nicknamed "Nannerl". Leopold Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.

1778 - Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Austrian virtuoso pianist and composer, whose music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. (J. N. Hummel: Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra - Mathis Kaspar Stier, Bassoon. Final of Prague Spring Competition 2014 Komorní filharmonií Pardubice, Marko Ivanovič - Director. Accessed November 14, 2015.)

1797 - Charles Lyell, Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, FRS, Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining Earth's history. He is best known for his book Principles of Geology which presented the idea that Earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, at similar intensities. The combination of evidence and eloquence in Principles convinced a wide range of readers of the significance of "deep time" for understanding the Earth and environment. Lyell's scientific contributions included a pioneering explanation of climate change, in which shifting boundaries between oceans and continents could be used to explain long-term variations in temperature and rainfall. He also gave influential explanations of earthquakes and developed the theory of gradual "backed up-building" of volcanoes.

1805 - Fanny [Cäcilie] Mendelssohn Bartholdy (after marriage, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel), German composer and pianist, sister of Felix Mendelssohn. She composed over 460 pieces of music. Her compositions include a piano trio and several books of solo piano pieces and songs. A number of her songs were originally published under her brother, Felix Mendelssohn's, name in his opus 8 and 9 collections. Her piano works are often in the manner of songs, and many carry the name Lieder für das Pianoforte (Songs for the piano, a parallel to Felix's Songs without Words).  In Hamburg, the Fanny & Felix Mendelssohn Museum is dedicated to the lives, her work and her brother Felix Mendelssohn. (Pianist Heather Schmidt interpreting Fanny's Notturno in G minor. Accessed November 14, 2018. Fanny Mendelssohn's Piano Sonata in C minor. uploaded by Classical Music11. Accessed November 14, 2019.)

1840 - Claude Monet, French Painter, founder of French Impressionist Painting.  He is considered the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris. Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works.   (650+ Greatest Monet Paintings (HD 1080p) Claude Monet Impressionist Silent Slideshow & Screensaver. Uploaded by Soothing SCenery: Instant Decor! Accessed November 14, 2019.)

1889 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian independence activist and, subsequently, the first Prime Minister of India. He was a central figure in Indian politics both before and after independence. He emerged as an eminent leader of the Indian independence movement, serving India as Prime Minister from its establishment in 1947 as an independent nation, until his death in 1964. He was also known as 'Pandit Nehru' due to his roots with the Kashmiri Pandit community, while Indian children knew him better as 'Chacha Nehru' (Hindi: Uncle Nehru).

1891 - Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE MC FRS FRSC, Canadian medical scientist, physician, painter and Nobel Laureate noted as the first person who used insulin on humans. In 1923 Banting and John James Rickard Macleod received the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He shared the honours and award money with his colleague, Dr. Charles Best. As of November 2018, Banting, who received the Nobel Prize at age 32, remains the youngest Nobel laureate in the area of Physiology/Medicine. In 1923 the government of Canada granted Banting lifetime annuity to continue his work. In 1934 he was knighted by King George V.

1900 - Aaron Copland, American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. His works include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man and Third Symphony. He also produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores. (A Copland and Ballet Suite Appalachian Spring) 

1907 - Astrid Lingren, Swedish witer of fiction and screenplays. She is best known for children's book series, featuring Pippi Longstocking, Emil i Lönneberga, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, and the Six Bullerby Children (Children of Noisy Village in the US), and for the children's fantasy novels Mio, My Son, Ronia the Robber's Daughter, and The Brothers Lionheart. In January 2017, she was calculated to be the world's 18th most translated author, and the fourth most translated children's writer after Enid Blyton, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.  In 1994, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her unique authorship dedicated to the rights of children and respect for their individuality."

1921 - Brian Keith, American film, television and stage actor. He gained recognition for his movies such as the Disney family film The Parent Trap, the comedy The Russians Are Coming, and the adventure saga The Wind and the Lion, in which he portrayed President Theodore Roosevelt. On television two of his best-known roles were those of bachelor-uncle-turned-reluctant-parent Bill Davis in the 1960s sitcom Family Affair, and a tough retired judge in the 1980s lighthearted crime drama Hardcastle and McCormick. He starred in The Brian Keith Show, which aired on NBC, where he portrayed a pediatrician who operated a free clinic on Oahu, and in the CBS comedy series Heartland.

1948 - King Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George), King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and, at age 73, became the oldest person to accede to the British throne following the death of his mother, Elizabeth II, on 8 September 2022. Prince Charles' coronation as King Charles III took place at Westminster Abbey, 6th May 2023. Charles founded The Prince's Trust in 1976, sponsors The Prince's Charities, and is a patron, president and a member of over 400 other charities and organisations. As an environmentalist, he raises awareness of organic farming and climate change which has earned him awards and recognition from environmental groups. He supports alternative medicine, including homeopathy, and his views on the role of architecture in society and the conservation of historic buildings have received considerable attention from British architects and design critics. (Coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Inspired Pen Web.)

 

1954 -  Condoleezza "Condi" Rice, American diplomat, political scientist, civil servant, author, and professor who served as the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, and as the 20th U.S. National Security Advisor. Dr. Rice was the first female African-American Secretary of State and the first woman to serve as National Security Advisor. She later pursued an academic fellowship at Stanford University. She chaired the Millennium Challenge Corporation's board of directors. In March 2009, Dr. Rice returned to Stanford University as a political science professor and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. The following year, she became a faculty member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy. She is director of the Hoover Institution from September 1, 2020. Dr. Rice has received several honorary degrees from various American universities. She is also a talented classical pianist, with knowledge of Russian, French, German and Spanish. (The Sec of State, the Instructor, and the Piano. YouTube, uploaded by Hoover Institution. Condoleezza Rice playing the piano for Queen Elizabeth II. Uploaded by iconic. Accessed Nov 15, 2015.)   

Lefties:
Prince Charles of Wales
Actor Brian Keith

 

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

 

Historical Events

1666 - English diarist Samuel Pepys writes about the first successful blood transfusion - between two dogs conducted at a meeting of the Royal Society. The dog that received the blood survived, the donor didn't. 

1914 - The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire recently allied with Germany, declares jihad (holy war) on Britain, Russia, and France and enters World War I.

November 13 Dateline

Birthdays

1312 - Edward III, King of England. Son to Edward II and grandson to Edward I.He becomes to be one of the most successful kings in English history. He was there for the start of the Hundred Years' War and won the naval battle of Sluys and the famous Crecy in 1346. He becomes King of France in 1340. His successors keep Calais until it was lost by Mary I's Spanish husband in 1558.

1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist and travel writer, most noted for Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses. He spent several years in search of a location suited to his health, before finally settling in Samoa, where he died.  A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. He is ranked as the 26th most translated author in the world.(Wiki, accessed Nov. 13, 2019.) 

 
1921 - Joonas Kokkonen, Finnish composer, He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera The Last Temptations has received over 500 performances worldwide, and is considered by many to be Finland's most distinguished national opera. Kokkonen wrote the music that made him internationally famous: the last two symphonies, the ...durch einen Spiegel for twelve solo strings, the Requiem, and the opera The Last Temptations (1975) (Viimeiset kiusaukset), based on the life and death of the Finnish Revivalist preacher Paavo Ruotsalainen. The opera is punctuated with chorales which refer back to Johann Sebastian Bach, and which are also reminiscent of the African-American spirituals used for a similar purpose in Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time. Joonas Kokkonen - Symphony No. 4 [edit] (Vinyl, 1980). YouTube, uploaded by Pericolosospore Jerzy. Accessed November 13, 2020.)

1922 - Oskar Werner (born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer), Austrian stage and cinema actor whose prominent roles include two 1965 films, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Ship of Fools. Other notable films include Decision Before Dawn, Jules and Jim, Fahrenheit 451, The Shoes of the Fisherman and Voyage of the Damned. Werner accepted both stage and film roles throughout his career. In 1955, he played the role of Mozart in the Austrian drama film Mozart (with alternative title The Life and Loves of Mozart), directed by Karl Hartl. It was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. The plot explores the mental state of Mozart during production of his final opera The Magic Flute. Werner's portrayal of Mozart was unusual for the time in playing him as a cheerful and easygoing young man, reflecting the postwar optimism of the newly restored Austrian Republic. His awards include a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and had been nominated several times for the Golden Globe, the Academy Award as well as the BAFTA Award.

 
1938 - Jean Seberg, American actress who lived half her life in France. Her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless immortalized her as an icon of French New Wave cinema. She appeared in 34 films in Hollywood and in Europe, including Saint Joan, Bonjour Tristesse, Lilith, The Mouse That Roared, Moment to Moment, A Fine Madness, Paint Your Wagon, Airport, Macho Callahan, and Gang War in Naples.(1981 Special Report: "Jean Seberg". Uploaded by Hezakya News & Films. Accessed November 13, 2019.)

1955 - Whoopi Goldberg (born Caryn Elaine Johnson), American actress, comedian, author, and TV personality. She is one among entertainers to have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award.  Her breakthrough came in 1985 for her role as Celie, in a period drama film The Color Purple, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Ghost, making her the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting, and a second Golden Globe, her first for Best Supporting Actress. In 1992, she starred in the comedy Sister Act, earning a third Golden Globe nomination, her first for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She reprised the role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, making her the highest-paid actress at the time. A theatre performer and producer, Goldberg has performed in Broadway productions, earning her a Grammy Award. She has won a Tony Award as a producer of the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. In television, Goldberg is known for her role as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation and for co-hosting and moderating the talk show The View since 2007, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award.

 

Lefties:

 
Edward III, King of England
Comedienne and Actress Whoopi Goldberg
Actress Jean Seberg 

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

 

Historical Events

1907 - Paul Cornu, French inventor and cyclist, is the first person to "fly" a helicopter when he lifts off the ground for 20 seconds in a prototype model he built himself.

1915 - Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazilian composer, presents a concert of his compositions for the first time, in Rio de Janeiro.  His works are mainly Neo-Baroque in Brazilian style with Russian and French influences. Haunting melody displayed in his Choros (serenades) and his famous series of nine Bachianas Brasileiras.

Here's Bachianas Brasileiras 4.

November 12 Dateline

Birthdays

1729 - Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, French admiral and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolutionary War against Britain. Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including circumnavigation of the globe in a scientific expedition in 1763, the first recorded settlement on the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas, and voyages into the Pacific Ocean. Bougainville Island of Papua New Guinea and the Bougainvillea flower were named after him.

1833 - Alexander Borodin, Russian composer and industrial/medical chemist and professor of chemistry in St. Petersburg. He was member of the Russian group of composers called "Mighty Five." Since his science career took most of his time, Dr. Borodin took awhile to complete each musical work. His Russian contemporaries Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov regarded him as a gifted amateur, and were not averse to rewriting his music and touching up the orchestration. In fact, Glazunov was responsible for the Overture to Borodin's unfinished opera Prince Igor. In fact, it's only in the two string quartets and some piano music that we hear 100% Borodin-creation. In the popular song "And This is My Beloved", from the 1953 musical Kismet, the melody was based on the beautiful, heartwarming music composed by Borodin, String Quartet in D. (Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic:  Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia. Recorded live on December 8, 1969 at Philharmonic Hall, New York City. Accessed November 12, 2018.)

1840 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition, although he was never accepted into Paris's foremost school of art. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, deeply pocketed surface in clay. Many of his most notable sculptures were criticized during his lifetime. They clashed with predominant figurative sculpture traditions, in which works were decorative, formulaic, or highly thematic. Rodin's most original work departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, modeled the human body with realism, and celebrated individual character and physicality. Rodin was sensitive to the controversy surrounding his work, but refused to change his style.

 
1915 - Roland Gérard Barthes, French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes's ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of many schools of theory, including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology, and post-structuralism. He was particularly known for developing and extending the field of semiotics through the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Collège de France. 

 

1917 - Jo Elizabeth Stafford, American traditional pop music singer and occasional actress, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart and the first by a female artist to do so. She is also famous for her rendition of "No other love" from Chopin's Etude No. 3 in E. (No Other Love - Jo Stafford. YouTube, uploaded by vulcanswork. Accessed November 12, 2020.)    

1966 - Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese politician, physician, and political philosopher, who served as the provisional first president of the Republic of China and the first leader of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China). He is referred as the "Father of the Nation" in the Republic of China for his instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty during the Xinhai Revolution. Sun is unique among 20th-century Chinese leaders for being widely revered in both mainland China and Taiwan.  Sun is considered to be one of the greatest leaders of modern China, but his political life was one of constant struggle and frequent exile. His chief legacy is his political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: Mínzú (nationalism: independence from foreign domination), Mínquán ("rights of the people": sometimes translated as "democracy"), and Mínshēng  (people's livelihood: sometimes translated as "socialism" or "welfare").

1929 - Grace Kelly (born Grace Patricia Kelly), American film actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early- to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. She is listed 13th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classical Hollywood Cinema. In October 1953, she gained stardom from her performance in director John Ford's African-filmed adventure-romance Mogambo, which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. In 1954, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the drama The Country Girl  with Bing Crosby. Other noteworthy films in which she starred include the western High Noon; the romance-comedy musical High Society, with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra; and three Alfred Hitchcock suspense thrillers in rapid succession: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch a Thief.  Kelly retired from acting at the age of 26 to marry Rainier, and began her duties as Princess of Monaco.

1939 - Lucia Popp, Slovak Operatic soprano, a popular interpreter of Mozart music, in particular,  "Der Holle Rache" from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). Here: Die Zauberflöte, K. 620, Act 2 Scene 8: No. 14, Arie, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (Königin) by Lucia Popp, with Philharmonia Orchestra/Otto Klemperer, 1969.  Lucia Popp sings Mozart's aria "Ruhe Sanft, Mein Holdes Leben" from opera Zaide, Act 1. Istvan Kertesz/conductor Vienna Haydn Orchestra. Uploaded by Anes1001. Accessed November 12, 2019.)

1945 - Neil Percival Young, OC OM, Canadian-born singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. After embarking on a music career in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, then joined Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others.

1961 - Nadia Elena Comăneci, Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. Comăneci is the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games, and then, at the same Games, she received six more perfect 10s en route to winning three gold medals.

1970 - Tonya Harding (Tonya Maxene Price, née Harding), Former American figure skater, retired boxer, and reality TV personality. After climbing the ranks in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships between 1986 and 1989, Harding won the 1989 Skate America competition. She had been the 1991 and 1994 U.S. champion. She earned distinction as being the first American woman to successfully land a triple Axel in competition, and the second woman to do so in history (behind Midori Ito). Harding is a two-time Olympian and a two-time Skate America Champion. In January 1994, she became embroiled in controversy when her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, orchestrated an attack on her fellow U.S. skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. Harding accepted a plea bargain in which she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution. As a result, the U.S. Figure Skating Association banned her for life on June 30, 1994. In 2014, two television documentaries were produced about Harding's life and skating career (Nancy & Tonya and The Price of Gold), – inspiring Steven Rogers to write the 2017 film I, Tonya.

Lefties:
None known

 

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

 

In memory of Alexander Borodin, below, I'm sharing one of his famous works, String Quartet No. 2 in D, in particular, the 3rd movement, Notturno: Andante, with the song "And This is My Beloved" adapted in the movie Kismet. The Second String Quartet (1881) has been recorded many times by famous ensembles including the Emerson and Takács Quartets. It became popular when themes from it were used in the Broadway musical Kismet (for the songs "This is my Beloved" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads") - although it is decades since songs with a distinctive melody made any headway with the public. 

Historical Events

1927 - Joseph Stalin becomes ruler of the U.S.S.R. after Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.

1944 - Tirpits, the super-battleship of Germany, was sank by Lancaster bombers. After ten failed attacks by the UK's Royal Armed Force, the Germans regarded it unsinkable. 

November 11 Dateline

Birthdays

1821 - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, (sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky), was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His body of work consists of 11 novels, three novellas, 17 short stories, and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature. His 1864 novella Notes from Underground is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature.(Literature - Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Uploaded by The School of Life. Accessed November 11, 2017.)

1869 - Victor Emmanuel III, Italy's last monarch. He also held the thrones of Ethiopia and Albania as Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–1941) and King of the Albanians (1939–1943). During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of Italian Fascism and its regime. He abdicated his throne in 1946 in favour of his son Umberto II, hoping to strengthen support for the Monarchy against an ultimately successful referendum to abolish it. He then went into exile to Alexandria, Egypt, where he died and was buried the following year in Saint Catherines's Cathedral of Alexandria. In 2017 his remains were returned to rest in Italy. Victor Emmanuel was also called by some Italians Sciaboletta ("little saber"), due to his height of 1.53 m (5 ft 0 in), and il Re soldato (the Soldier King), for having led his country during both world wars.

1885 - George Smith Patton, Jr., American general, World War II. Gen. Patton led U.S. troops into the Mediterranean theater with an invasion of Casablanca during Operation Torch in 1942, and soon established himself as an effective commander by rapidly rehabilitating the demoralized U.S. II Corps. He commanded the U.S. Seventh Army during the Allied invasion of Sicily, where he was the first Allied commander to reach Messina.  During the Allied occupation of Germany, Patton was named military governor of Bavaria, but was relieved for making aggressive statements towards the Soviet Union. He commanded the United States Fifteenth Army for slightly more than two months. Severely injured in an auto accident, he died in Germany twelve days later, on December 21, 1945.His hard-driving personality and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his controversial public statements. His emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action nonetheless proved effective, and he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. An award-winning biographical film released in 1970, Patton, helped solidify his image as an American folk hero.

1922 - Kurt Vonnegut Jr., American science-writer. Vonnegut published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of nonfiction, with further collections being published after his death. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, bestselling novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952. Later in his career, Vonnegut published several autobiographical essays and short-story collections, including Fates Worse Than Death (1991), and A Man Without a Country (2005). After his death, he was hailed as a black-humor commentator on the society in which he lived and as one of the most important contemporary writers.

1962 - Demi Gene Moore (née Guynes), American actress and film producer. She gained recognition as a member of the Brat Pack with roles in Blame It on Rio, St. Elmo's Fire, and About Last Night.... Her starring role in Ghost, the highest-grossing film of that year, earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She had further box-office success in the early 1990s, with the films A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal, and Disclosure. In 1996, Moore became the highest-paid actress in film history when she received an unprecedented $12.5 million to star in the critically-reviled Striptease. Her next major role, G.I. Jane, was followed by a lengthy hiatus and significant downturn in Moore's career. Intermittently, she has held leading roles in the independent films Passion of Mind, Flawless and Blind. In 2019, Moore released a memoir titled Inside Out, which became a New York Times Best Seller. Moore has been married three times, to the musician Freddy Moore and the actors Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher. She has three children with Willis. 

1962 - James Lloyd Morrison, AM, Australian jazz musician. Although his main instrument is trumpet, he has also performed on trombone, tuba, euphonium, flugelhorn, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, guitar, and piano. He is a composer, writing jazz charts for ensembles. He composed and performed the opening fanfare at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.  In 2009, he joined Steve Pizzati and Warren Brown as a presenter on Top Gear Australia. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 Morrison and a cappella group, The Idea of North, won Best Jazz Album, for their collaboration on Feels Like Spring. In 2012 Morrison was appointed as Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival for the 2013 and 2015 festivals. He was inducted into the Graeme Bell Hall of Fame 2013 at the Australian Jazz Bell Awards.  In July 2013 he conducted the World's Largest Orchestra in Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium, consisting of 7,224 musicians. In March 2015 Morrison opened the James Morrison Academy of Music in Mount Gambier, South Australia – a tertiary level school offering a degree in jazz performance.

1974 - Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio, American actor, producer and environmentalist. He achieved international stardom in the epic romance Titanic, which became the highest-grossing film to that point. He starred in two successful features in 2002: the biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can and the historical drama Gangs of New York, which marked his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes in The Aviator and continued to receive acclaim for his other performances. In the 2010s, he starred in films, all of which were critical and commercial successes. His accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe Award for The Revenant as well as two other Golden Globes for The Aviator and The Wolf of Wall Street. DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions that has produced some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg, and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. He supports charitable causes and has produced several documentaries on the environment. In 2005, he was named the commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.

Lefties:
1962 - Demi Moore, Actress
1885 - George S. Patton, Jr., General

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

Celebrating Remembrance Day (informally known as Poppy Day) observed on 11 November to recall the end of hostilities of WWI, in 1918.  It is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth of Nations member states since the end of the First World War to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. Following a tradition inaugurated by King George V in 1919, the day is also marked by war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth countries. Hostilities formally ended "at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month," in accordance with the armistice signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning. ("At the 11th hour" refers to the passing of the 11th hour, or 11:00 am.) The First World War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919. (Source: en.wikipedia.org)

Historical Events

1906 - Dame Ethel Smyth's opera The Wreckers is first produced in a German version in Leipzig and titled Strandrecht.

A video of  The Wreckers Overture (Youtube, uploaded by BARSymphony. Accessed November 11, 2017.  Dawn Harms, Music Director and Conductor, Bay Area Rainbow Symphony performance at SF Conservatory of Music June 14, 2014.


 

1918 - Armistice Day. Germany signs a treaty with the Allies in a railway carriage outside Compiegne in France, bringing World War I to a close on the Western Front. Hostilities officially cease at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Also, on the closest Sunday, silence is held and members of the government and opposition lay wreaths at the cenopath in London in memory of the British who died during the war.  Since that day, a 2-minute silence is held at 11 AM on the 11th day of the 11th month.

November 10 Dateline

Birthdays

1483 - Martin Luther, German founder of Protestant Reformation, Catholic church reformer (Luther and the Protestant Reformation, YouTube, uploaded by CrashCourse. Accessed November 10, 2015), hymn writer, and considered the "Father of Hymn-Singing" as important part of Protestant worship.  Felix Mendelssohn and J.S. Bach wrote music reflecting the  significance of music in the Reformation. Bach wrote Cantata No. 80, Ein' feste Burg, for the bicentennial of the Lutheran Church. Mendelssohn composed The Reformation Symphony intended to celebrate the 1830 Augsburg Confession, and The Lobgesang, or "Song of Praise" (Symphony No. 2), that marked the 400th anniversary in 1840 of Gutenberg's printing invention, which greatly helped the Reformation possible. (Hymn history of "A Mighty Fortress is our God", with text and music by Martin Luther. YouTube, uploaded by David Duerr. Accessed Noveember 10, 2018. Felix Mendelssohn honoured Martin Luther with his magnificent Symphony No. 5 in D Major, Op. 107, "Reformation": IV. Choral: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. Performed by Ireland National Symphony Orchestra, Reinhard Seifried, conducting.) YouTube, uploaded by Classical Gold Music. Accessed November 10, 2021.)     

1668 - Francois Couperin, French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. He was known as Couperin le Grand ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family. He acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer Corelli and introduced Corelli's trio sonata form to France. Couperin's most famous book, L'art de toucher le clavecin ("The Art of Harpsichord Playing"), contains suggestions for fingerings, touch, ornamentation and other features of keyboard technique. He influenced later future prominent composers: Couperin's four volumes of harpsichord music, published in Paris in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730, contain over 230 individual pieces, and he also published a book of Concerts Royaux which can be played as solo harpsichord pieces or as small chamber works. The four collections for harpsichord alone are grouped into ordres, a synonym of suites, containing traditional dances as well as pieces with descriptive titles. These volumes were admired by JS Bach, who exchanged letters with Couperin, and later by Brahms, Richard Strauss, and by Ravel, the latter of whom memorialized the composer in Le Tombeau de Couperin (Couperin's Memorial).   Many of Couperin's keyboard pieces have evocative, picturesque titles (such as "The little windmills" and "The mysterious barricades") and express a mood through key choices and adventurous harmonies.  

 

1697 - William Hogarth, FRSA, English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects". He is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian". Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving, his works are mostly satirical caricatures, sometimes bawdily sexual, mostly of realistic portraiture. They became popular and mass-produced via prints in his lifetime, and he was the most significant English artist of his generation. Charles Lamb deemed Hogarth's images to be books, filled with "the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at; his pictures we read."

1759 - (Johann Christoph) Friedrich von Schiller, German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision. Famous composers set their music from Schiller's poems: Beethoven's setting of "An die Freude" (Ode to Joy) in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, Johannes Brahms' choral setting of "Nänie" and "Des Mädchens Klage" by Franz Schubert, who set 44 of Schiller's poems as Lieder, mostly for voice and piano, also including "Die Bürgschaft". Giuseppe Verdi admired Schiller greatly and adapted several of his stage plays for his operas: I masnadieri is based on The Robbers; Giovanna d'Arco on The Maid of Orleans; Luisa Miller on Intrigue and Love; La forza del destino is based partly on Wallenstein; and Don Carlos on the play of the same title. Donizetti's Maria Stuarda is based on Mary Stuart, and Rossini's Guillaume Tell is an adaptation of William Tell. Tchaikovsky's 1881 opera The Maid of Orleans is partly based on Schiller's work. The 20th-century composer Giselher Klebe adapted The Robbers for his first opera of the same name, which premiered in 1957.

1893 - John Phillips Marquand, American writer, Pulitzer Prize winner (The Late George Apley and the Mr. Moto detective stories). Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.

1925 - Richard Burton, CBE, Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and giving a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan. Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but never won an Oscar. He was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards for Best Actor. In the mid-1960s, Burton ascended into the ranks of the top box office stars. By the late 1960s, Burton was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. He remained closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor.

1928 - Ennio Morricone, OMRI, Knight Grand Cross. Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpet player, who writes music in a wide range of styles. Morricone composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is considered one of the most influential soundtracks in history and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. His filmography includes over 70 award-winning films, all Sergio Leone's films since A Fistful of Dollars, all Giuseppe Tornatore's films since Cinema Paradiso, The Battle of Algiers, Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy, 1900, Exorcist II, Days of Heaven, several major films in French cinema, as well as The Thing, Once Upon A Time In America, The Mission, The Untouchables, Mission to Mars, Bugsy, Disclosure, In the Line of Fire, Bulworth, Ripley's Game and The Hateful Eight. (Ennio Morricone - Cinema Paradiso (The Original Soundtrack)(Official Audio), YouTube, accessed Nov. 10, 2018.) Ennio Morricone - Concerto Arena di Verona - 28 Settembre 2002. YouTube, uploaded by Paolo Gavi. Accessed November 10, 2022.

1944 - Sir Tim Rice, English lyricist, author and multi-awarded lyricist: Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Emmy Award, Tony Award, and Grammy Award. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber; Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson of ABBA, and for his work with Alan Menken. He also worked with famous musicians like Elton John and Ennio Morricone. 

1949 - Ann Reinking, American dancer, actress, choreographer and singer. She worked in musical theater, starring in Broadway productions such as Coco, Over Here!, Goodtime Charley, Chicago, Dancin' and Sweet Charity. Reinking won the Tony Award for Best Choreography for her work in the 1996 revival of Chicago, which she choreographed while reprising the role of Roxie Hart. For the 2000 West End production of Fosse, she won the Olivier Award for Best Theatre Choreographer. She also appeared in the films All That Jazz, Annie, and Micki & Maude.

 

Leftie:
None known

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

 

Featured Hymn:

Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."  YouTube, uploaded by Christian Praise and Worship. Accessed November 10, 2017.

Historical Events

1775 - The Continental Marines, later renamed the U.S. Marine Corps, is founded early in the War of American Independence to serve with the new Continental Navy.

1862 - Verdi's opera La forza del destino, opens in St Petersburg. This work was commissioned by the Russian Imperial Opera. Below is  Verdi's Overture of  La forza del destino, performed by Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia - Lorin Maazel, director. Palacio de la Ópera de A Coruña, May 17, 2012. Mozart Festival.

November 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1841 - Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria and her consort Albert, King of the UK of Great Britain and Ireland and the first Emperor of India, whose reign is later known as the Edwardian Period, 1901 to 1910. He was Prince of Wales and heir apparent to the British throne for almost 60 years. During the long reign of his mother, he was largely excluded from political power, but came to personify the fashionable, leisured elite. He travelled throughout Britain performing ceremonial public duties, and represented Britain on visits abroad. His tours of North America in 1860 and the Indian subcontinent in 1875 were popular successes, but despite public approval, his reputation as a playboy prince soured his relationship with his mother. As king, Edward played a role in the modernisation of the British Home Fleet and the reorganisation of the British Army after the Second Boer War. He re-instituted traditional ceremonies as public displays and broadened the range of people with whom royalty socialised. He fostered good relations between Britain and other European countries, especially France, popularly calling him "Peacemaker", but his relationship with his nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II, was poor. The Edwardian era, which covered Edward's reign and was named after him, coincided with the start of a new century and heralded significant changes in technology and society, including steam turbine propulsion and the rise of socialism.

1914 - Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), Austrian-American actress, inventor, and film Producer. Aside from being a film actress, she co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum. In 1937, she fled from her wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer husband, secretly moving to Paris and then to London. There she met Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood and promoted as "the world's most beautiful woman". She became a star with her performance in Algiers, her first film made in the United States. She starred opposite famous actors like  Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart. Dismayed by being typecast, Lamarr co-founded a new production studio and starred in its films. Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal . in 1960, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Lamarr shared her concept for using “frequency hopping” with the U.S. Navy and co-developed a patent with Antheil in 1941. Today, her innovation helped make possible a wide range of wireless communications technologies, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. (The brilliant mind of Hollywood legend actress Hedy Lamarr. Uploaded by PBS NewsHour. Accessed November 9, 2020.)

1928 - Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey), American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Her poetry details her long battle with depression, suicidal tendencies, and intimate details from her private life, including relationships with her husband and children.

1929 - Imre Kertesz, Hungarian author and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". He was the first Hungarian to win the Nobel in Literature. His works deal with themes of The Holocaust (he was a survivor of a German concentration camp), dictatorship and personal freedom.

1934 - Carl Sagan, American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, best known for his work as a science popularizer, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space: the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. (Wiki) 

 
1982 - Jana Pittman, Australian athlete who specialises in the 400 metres run and 400 metre hurdles events. She is a two-time world champion in the 400m hurdles, from 2003 and 2007. Pittman is one of only nine athletes to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. She also competed in the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, making her the first Australian female athlete to compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympic games.

1984 - Delta Lea Goodrem, Australian singer, songwriter, and actress. She signed to Sony Music at the age of 15. Her debut album, Innocent Eyes, topped the ARIA Albums Chart for 29 consecutive weeks. It is one of the highest-selling Australian albums of all time, with over four million copies sold. Goodrem has several number-one singles and 17 top-ten hits on the ARIA Singles Chart. She has sold over eight million albums globally and overall has won three World Music Awards, 9 ARIA Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and several other awards.

Leftie:
None known

 

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

 

Historical Events

1799 - Just returned from Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte takes over France in a coup. He is declared First Consul on November 11 and holds absolute power until his abdication in 1814.

1825 - Thomas Drummond, after watching a demonstration of light created by burning lime, sets up a limelight in front of a reflector in which the light can be seen 66 miles (106 kms) away.  He performed this on a hill near Belfast, Ireland. As a result, limelights come to be used in lighthouses and theatres.  

November 8 Dateline

Birthdays

1656 - Edmond Halley, English astronomer. He went on to study the solar system and correctly predict the existence of the comet, named after him. His prediction was not proven until 1758 after his death, when "Halley's Comet" returned.

1883 - Sir Arnold Bax, English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral music. In addition to a series of symphonic poems he wrote seven symphonies and was for a time widely regarded as the leading British symphonist.(Bax's November Woods, a symphonic tone-poem for large orchestra YouTube, uploaded by gioiellidellamusica. Accessed November 8, 2018. "Tintagel", by Arnold Bax (1883-1953). YouTube, uploaded by Scot Peacock. Accessed November 8, 2019.)

1900 - Margaret Mitchell, American writer and journalist, famous for her book Gone with the Wind, a Civil War-era novel  that becomes a movie blockbuster. For this famous novel, for which she won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. In recent years long after her death, a collection of Mitchell's girlhood writings and a novella she wrote as a teenager, titled Lost Laysen, have been published. A collection of newspaper articles written by Mitchell for The Atlanta Journal was also republished in book form. (Brief history: Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind. YouTube, accessed November 8, 2018.)

1922 - Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant on 3 December 1967 and the first one in which the patient regained consciousness. On 3 December 1967, Barnard transplanted the heart of accident-victim Denise Darvall into the chest of 54-year-old Louis Washkansky, with Washkansky regaining full consciousness and being able to easily talk with his wife, before dying 18 days later of pneumonia. The anti-rejection drugs that suppressed his immune system were a major contributing factor. Dr. Barnard had told Mr. and Mrs. Washkansky that the operation had an 80% chance of success, a claim which has been criticised as misleading. Barnard's second transplant patient Philip Blaiberg, whose operation was performed at the beginning of 1968, lived for a year and a half and was able to go home from the hospital. (Dr. Chris Barnard - Biography. Uploaded by HealthShare SA. Accessed November 8, 2015.)

1954 - Kazuo Ishiguro OBE FRSA FRSL, Japanese-born British novelist, screenwriter, musician, and short-story writer. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and praised contemporary fiction authors writing in English, having been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. Author of novels including A Pale View of the Hills, The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, he was praised by the Swedish Academy for his novels. In its citation, the Swedish Academy described Ishiguro as a writer "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world". 

1954 - Rickie Lee Jones, American vocalist, musician, songwriter, producer, actress and narrator. She has recorded in various musical styles including R&B, rock, blues, pop, soul, and jazz. Jones is a two-time Grammy Award winner. She was listed at number 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999. Her album Pirates was number 49 on NPR's list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women.

Leftie:
None known

 

 

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

Historical Events

1519 - Hernando Cortes, Spanish conquistador, enters Tenochtitlan, Aztec. Soon afterwards Aztec King Montezuma II is taken and Montezuma is taken prisoner and Cortes controls the Aztec empire.

1889 - Richard Strauss's tone poem Don Juan is first performed in Weimar. (Listening Pleasure: Don Juan performed by Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Dudamel. Accessed Nov 8, 2018.)

November 7 Dateline

Birthdays

1867 - Marie Curie, (Marie Skłodowska Curie), Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, is the only woman to win the Nobel prize twice, and is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields. She was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

1879 - Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and Soviet politician whose particular strain of Marxist thought is known as Trotskyism. Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party a few weeks before the October Revolution and became one of the leaders of the party. Trotsky became more prominent as the leader of the Red Army in the post of Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Trotsky was a vital leading figure in the Red victory in the Russian Civil War. He was one of the seven members of the first Politburo. Trotsky was openly critical of Stalinism. 

1905 - William Alwyn CBE, (born William Alwyn Smith), English conductor, virtuoso flautist, music teacher, and composer, including film scores.  He was a distinguished polyglot, poet, and artist, as well as musician.^[5] He helped found the Composers' Guild of Great Britain (now merged into the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), and was its chairman in 1949, 1950 and 1954. He was sometime Director of the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society, a Vice-President of the Society for the Promotion of New Music (S.P.N.M.) and Director of the Performing Right Society. He was one of the panel engaged by the BBC to read new scores to help assess whether the works should be performed and broadcast. He was appointed a CBE in 1978. His compositional output was varied, including five symphonies, four operas, several concertos, film scores and string quartets. 

1913 - Albert Camus, Algerian-born French writer, journalist, and philosopher. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel. His citizenship was French. He joined the French Resistance where he served as editor-in-chief at Combat, an outlawed newspaper. After the war, he was a celebrity figure and gave many lectures around the world. Camus was politically active; he was part of the Left that opposed the Soviet Union because of its totalitarianism. Camus leaned towards anarcho-syndicalism. He was part of many organisations seeking European integration. Philosophically, Camus's views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He is considered to be an existentialist, though he firmly rejected the term.

 

1918 - Billy Graham, (William Franklin Graham Jr.),  American evangelist, a prominent evangelical Christian figure, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally. One of his biographers has placed him "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century.  As a preacher, he held large indoor and outdoor rallies with sermons that were broadcast on radio and television; some were still being re-broadcast into the 21st century. In his six decades on television, Graham hosted annual "Crusades", evangelistic campaigns that ran from 1947 until his retirement in 2005. He also hosted the radio show Hour of Decision.  Graham was a spiritual adviser to U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman (33rd) to Barack Obama (44th). He was particularly close to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson (one of Graham's closest friends), and Richard Nixon. Graham was on Gallup's list of most admired men and women a record 61 times. (Billy Graham's Last Message to America and the world ... uploaded by Len Hummel. Accessed November 7, 2016.)

1926 - Dame Joan Sutherland, Australian Coloratura Soprano, wife of Conductor Richard Bonynge. She was noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. Dame Joan possessed a voice combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, "supremely" pinpoint staccatos, a trill and a tremendous upper register. She was the first Australian to win a Grammy Award, for Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist (with or without orchestra) in 1962.

1943 - Joni Mitchell, Singer and Songwriter (Famous for the pop song, "Both Sides Now." YouTube, uploaded by Newport Folk Festival, accessed Nov 7, 2025. If you think you really know "life" and "love" at all, think again. But then I do agree with Leonard Bernstein's Candide: "Life is neither good nor bad, they're woven fine.")

1962 - Phyllis Nagy, American Theatre and Film Director, Screenwriter and Playwright. In 2006, Nagy was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for writing and directing Mrs. Harris (2005), her screen debut. In 2016, Nagy received an Academy Award nomination, among numerous other accolades, for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2015 film Carol.

1969 -  Hélène Grimaud, French Classical Pianist and Founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. (H. Grimaud performing Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, with NHSO conducted by David Zinman. Accessed Nov. 21, 2018.)

Lefties:
Marie Curie
Billy Graham

 

 

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

 

In remembrance of Dame Joan Sutherland, her performance of "Sempre libera" from Verdi's opera La Traviata. Magnificent!

 

 

November 6 Dateline

Birthdays

1661 - Charles II, King of Spain, also known as El Hechizado or the Bewitched, was the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire. He is best remembered for his alleged physical disabilities, and the war that followed his death. Charles suffered ill-health throughout his life; from the moment he became king at the age of four, the succession was a prominent consideration in European politics. Despite two marriages, he remained childless. When he died in 1700, his heir was 16-year-old Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV and his first wife, Charles's elder half-sister, Maria Theresa. The succession of Charles was less important than the division of his territories, and the failure to resolve that question led to war in 1701.

1814 - Adolph Sax, Belgian inventor and musician who created the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the flute and clarinet.

1854 - John Philip Sousa, American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to distinguish him from his British counterpart Kenneth J. Alford.  Among his best-known marches are "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (National March of the United States of America), "Semper Fidelis" (official march of the United States Marine Corps), "The Liberty Bell", "The Thunderer", and "The Washington Post".

1860 - Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish composer, pianist, and former Prime Minister, a spokesman for polish independence. He was a favorite of concert audiences around the world and his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media. Paderewski played an important role in meeting with President Woodrow Wilson and obtaining the explicit inclusion of independent Poland as point 13 in Wilson's peace terms in 1918, called the Fourteen Points. He was the Prime Minister of Poland and also Poland's foreign minister in 1919, and represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He served 10 months as prime minister, and soon thereafter left Poland, never to return. (Paderewski plays his Minuet in G, Op 14, No. 1. Recorded 1937. Uploaded by Bechmesser2. Accessed November 6, 2019.) 

1883 - Hubert Charles Bath, English film composer, music director, and conductor. His credits include the music to the Oscar-winning documentary Wings Over Everest (1934), as well as to the films Tudor Rose (1936), A Yank at Oxford (1938), and Love Story (1944). Cornish Rhapsody, the theme music featured in the film Love Story is often played as a companion piece to the more famous Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Love Story stars Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Grainger, with Lockwood playing as concert pianist, and in the film her composition of the Rhapsody reflects her love both for Grainger and the Cornish landscape that provides much of the setting for the film. (Cornish Rhapsody - Hubert Bath). YouTube, uploaded by Montezuma48. Accessed Nov 6, 2012)
 

1892 - Harold Ross, American journalist, founder of New Yorker (1925)

1901 - Juanita Hall,  American musical theatre and film actress, remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary - a role that gave her the Tony Award - and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang. (Link from the film South Pacific with Juanita Hall's exquisite voice from the original Broadway cast recording, synched to the film. The clip also includes a deleted scene, apparently due to its gay overtones that time - Here. YouTube, uploaded by Lost Vocals. Accessed August 16, 2018.)

1916 - Ray Conniff, American bandleader and arranger, leader of popular vocal groups, best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the1960s. (Feeling nostalgic about the good old days? Here: some of his greatest hits, YouTube, uploaded by Natural Relax. Accessed Nov 6, 2025.)

1946 - Sally Field, American actress and director.  She is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and she has been nominated for a Tony Award and two BAFTA Awards. Field began her professional career on television, starring in the short-lived comedies Gidget, The Flying Nun, and The Girl with Something Extra. In 1976, she garnered critical acclaim for her performance in the miniseries Sybil, for which she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. More successful movies and television roles followed.  As a director, Field is known for the television film The Christmas Tree, an episode of the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and the feature film Beautiful. In 2014, she was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2019 received the Kennedy Center Honors.

1955 - Maria Owings Shriver, American journalist and writer, former First Lady of California, and the founder of the nonprofit organization The Women's Alzheimer's Movement. She was married to former Governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she filed for divorce in 2011. Shriver has received a Peabody Award and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience". She is a member of the Kennedy family; her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was a sister of John F. Robert and Ted Kennedy. 

Lefties:
None known

 

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

 

Featured Music:

 
Ignacy Paderewski's exciting Polish Fantasy (Fantazja polska) in G minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 19, 1st Movement. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic European Art Centre. Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołowski, conductor. Kevin Kenner, piano. The Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra.