June 25 Dateline

Birthdays

1860 - Gustave Charpentier, French opera composer, best known for his opera Louise.  (Renee Fleming sings Charpentier'sLouise, "Depuis le jour". Uploaded by Thewisemonkey9. Accessed Jun 25, 2014.)

1900 - Louis Mountbatten, Viceroy of India, Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was a British Royal Navy officer and statesman, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II.

1903 - George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), English author, creator of 1984 and Animal Farm. He is  novelist and essayist, journalist and critic, whose work is characterised by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.  (Literature - George Orwell. Uploaded by The School of Life. Accessed June 25, 2018.

1945 - Carly Simon, American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She first rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records; her 13 Top 40 U.S. hits include "Anticipation" (No. 13), "You Belong To Me" (No. 6), "Coming Around Again" (No. 18), and her four Gold certified singles "Jesse" (No. 11), "Mockingbird" (No. 5, a duet with James Taylor), "You're So Vain" (No. 1), and "Nobody Does It Better" (No. 2) from the 1977 James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me. (Carly Simon - Anticipation. Accessed June 25, 2011)

1963 - George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou), English singer, songwriter, record producer, and philanthropist. Michael sold over 80 million records worldwide making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He achieved seven number one songs on the UK Singles Chart and eight number one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. He was widely known for his success in the 1980s and 1990s, including Wham! singles such as "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Last Christmas" and solo singles such as "Careless Whisper" and "Faith".

1963 - Yann Martel, Spanish-born French Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the bestseller lists of the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other best-selling lists. It was adapted for a film, garnering four Oscars including Best Director and winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Martel is also author of other bestselling novels, stories (The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios), and a collection of letters to Canada's Prime Minister 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. He has won a number of literary prizes. 

Lefties:
George Michael, Singer
Carly Simon, Singer

More birthdays and historical events today, 25 June - On This Day.

Historical Events

1840 - Felix Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52, "Lobgesang" (or Hymn of Praise), a symphony-cantata, is first performed, in St. Thomas Church, Leipzig.  (Note: "Lobgesang" or "Hymn of Praise" was  composed by Felix Mendelssohn, written in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing, along with the less-known Festgesang "Gutenberg Cantata". The composer's description of the work was 'A Symphony-Cantata on Words of the Holy Bible, for Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra'. Structurally, it consists of three purely orchestral movements followed by 11 movements for chorus and/or soloists and orchestra, and lasts approximately 65--70 minutes. Resource: Wikipedia.org.)  

1857 - Gustave Flaubert goes on trial for public immorality. His tragic novel, Madame Bovary, is described as obscene at the time, depicting a woman who embarks on a series of affairs in a search for meaning.

June 24 Dateline

Birthdays

1842 - Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, American short-story writer, journalist and poet. His book The Devil's Dictionary was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. His story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature". Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States, and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction.

1901 - Harry Partch, American composer and music theorist. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century composers in the West to work systematically with microtonal scales. He built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions, and described his theory and practice in his book Genesis of a Music.

1915 - Sir Fred Hoyle, FRS, English mathematician and astronomer, who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio, and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He wrote science fiction novels, short stories and radio plays, and co-authored twelve books with his son, Geoffrey Hoyle.

1930 - Claude Henri Jean Chabrol, French film director and a member of the French New Wave (nouvelle vague) group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, Chabrol was a critic for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma before becoming a film maker.

1952 -  Dave Willetts, English singer and actor known for his lead roles in West End musicals. (Dave Willetts - Music of the Night, from 'The Phantom Of The Opera', uploaded by davewillettsofficial. Accessed June 24, 2015. Dave Willetts - Make Them Hear You, from "Ragtime", uploaded by davewillettsofficial. Accessed June 24, 2016.)

Lefties:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 24 June - On This Day. 

Historical Events

1314 - The Bannockburn Day, where the battle in 1314 ends. Robert I of Scotland known as Robert the Bruce, defeats the English forces under Edward II.    

1340 - The Battle of Sluys, with thee fleet personally led by Edward III, takes place at sea, the first battle of the Hundred Years' War against the French. He also goes on to win the Battle of Crecy six years later, supporting his claim to France and establishing sovereignty over the English channel. 

June 23 Dateline

Birthdays

1763 - Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais (born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie), the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the first Empress of the French after he proclaimed himself Emperor. Her first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she was imprisoned in the Carmes Prison until five days after his execution. Her two children by Beauharnais became significant to royal lineage. Through her daughter, Hortense, she was the maternal grandmother of Napoleon III. Through her son, Eugène, she was the great-grandmother of later Swedish and Danish kings and queens. The reigning houses of Belgium, Norway and Luxembourg also descend from her. She did not bear Napoleon any children and as a result, he divorced her in 1810 to marry Marie Louise of Austria. Joséphine was the recipient of numerous love letters written by Napoleon, many of which still exist. Her Château de Malmaison was noted for its magnificent rose garden, which she supervised closely, owing to her passionate interest in roses, collected from all over the world.(Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais. Updated by KaiserineFrederick. Accessed June 23, 2019.)

1889 - Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, Leading Russian poet of 20th Century, better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova. She was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965 and received second-most nominations for the award the following year. Quoted from Anna Akhmatova: "Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free."  (Requiem by Anna Akhmatova. Uploaded by A Poetry Channel. Accessed June 23, 2016.)

1894 - Edward VIII, later Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David), King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December of that year. When it became apparent he could not marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson and remain on the throne, he abdicated. He was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI, father of then Princess Elizabeth. With a reign of 326 days, Edward is the shortest-reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. After his abdication, Edward was created Duke of Windsor. He married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. 

 
1894 - Alfred Charles Kinsey, American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist. In 1947 he founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, previously known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.

1910 - Jean Anouilh, French dramatist. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's Vichy government. It is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name by Sophocles. In English, it is often distinguished from its antecedent through its pronunciation (French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃tiɡɔn], approximately an-tee-gon). One of France's most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining ntegrity in a world of moral compromise.

1912 - Alan Mathison Turing, OBE FRS, English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, considered a model of a general-purpose computer. He is considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime, due to his homosexuality, which was then a crime in the UK.  During the Second World War, Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, therefore, helped win the war.  (Alan Turing - Celebrating the Life of a Genius. Uploaded by Cambridge University. Accessed June 23, 2013.)

1927 - Robert "Bob" Louis Fosse, American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Sweet Charity, Pippin, and Chicago. His films include Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz, and Star 80.  Fosse's distinctive style of choreography included turned-in knees and "jazz hands". He is the only person ever to have won Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year. He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Best Director for Cabaret, and won the Palme D'Or in 1980 for All That Jazz. He won a record eight Tonys for his choreography, as well as one for direction for Pippin. (All That Jazz (Bob Fosse Tribute - w/ scenes from Chicago, Cabaret and Sweet Charity. YouTube, uploaded by Eduardo Barauna. Accessed June 23, 2018. Movie stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago), Liza Minnelli (Cabaret), and Sweet Charity (Shirley Maclaine). 

 

1929 - Henri Pousseur, Belgian composer, teacher and music theorist. He is considered one of the experimenters of the new music techniques during his time. (Henri Pousseur, Rhymes for Different Sound Sources, 1958. (French title: "Rimes pour differentes sources sonores"), performed in 1967 by The Rome Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bruno Maderna. Updated by Michael Berridge. Accessed June 23, 2015.) 

1943 - James Lawrence Levine, American pianist and conductor, primarily known for his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a position he held for 40 years.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 23 June - On This Day.

Historical Events

1757 - The Battle of Plassey takes place, part of the Seven Years' War. Robert Clive (known as "Clive of India") and his force is many times outnumbered, fighting the Nawab of Bengal and French artillerymen. Despite odds, Clive pulls off an amazing victory that helps to secure the British in India denying the French their claim.

1934 - Modern forensics is born. William Bayly is convicted of murder in New Zealand, based on traces of bone and ash. It is the first murder to be proved by modern forensics.

June 22 Dateline

Birthdays

1898 - Erich Maria Remarque, German novelist, best known for his landmark anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front, about the German military experience of World War I, was an international best-seller which created a new literary genre, and was subsequently made into the film of the same name.

1906 - Billy Wilder, Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and artist, regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmaker of the Golden Age cinema of Hollywood.  Famous for The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, and Stalag 17. (Stalag 17 Full Movie. Uploaded by Afeem Charas. Accessed June 22, 2015. Sunset Boulevard Explained: The Hollywood Nightmare. Uploaded by The Take. Accessed June 22, 2019).

1910 - Sir Peter Pears, English tenor and co-founder with Benjamin Britten, of the Aldeburgh Festival. Listen to Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten discuss Schubert's great cycle "Die Winterreise," D.911 (1968), including "Frühlingstraum", "Im Dorfe", and "Der Leiermann". Indeed, this admirable brilliant couple brought much understanding to everything they approached.

1949 - Meryl Streep (born Mary Louise Streep), American actress. Often described as the "best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accents. Nominated for a record 21 Academy Awards, she has won three.

1953 - Cyndi Lauper (born Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper), American singer, songwriter, actress and activist. Her album She's So Unusual was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on the Billboard Hot 100—and earned Lauper the Best New Artist award at the 27th Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the soundtrack for the motion picture The Goonies and her second record True Colors.

1964 - Dan Gerhard Brown, American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno and Origin. His novels feature recurring themes of cryptography, art, and conspiracy theories. Someof them have been adapted into films. The Robert Langdon novels are deeply engaged with Christian themes and historical fact, generating controversy as a result. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian, though he is on a "constant spiritual journey" himself. He claims that his book The Da Vinci Code is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that it may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith."

1973 - Carson Jones Daly, American television and radio personality.  He has been involved at NBC, such as becoming host for its reality music competition The Voice in 2011, and joining NBC's morning show Today, with his role increasing in subsequent years becoming a co-host. Daly has served as a radio DJ. He also hosts a weekly top 30 countdown show The Daly Download with Carson Daly which is produced by Entercom (formerly CBS Radio and is the parent of KAMP-FM) and syndicated though Westwood One.

Lefties:
None known

More birthdays and historical events today, 22 June - On This Day.

Historical Events

1377 - Richard II becomes King of England on the death of Edward III. He is ten years old. He is formally crowned in Westminster Abbey on July 16, 1377.

1633 - Rome's Vatican Holy Office forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Earth rotates around the sun, on pain of torture.

June 21 Dateline

***Midsummer's Day***

The longest day of the year in Britain. In Australia, this is the shortest day of the year.  The solstice falls within one day either side of June 21,  therefore marking the longest or shortest day of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere this makes it the summer solstice, and in the Southern Hemisphere it is the winter solstice.

Birthdays

1732 - Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, German composer, 9th son of J.S. Bach (He should not be confused with other similarly named members of the Bach family. Listen to his Sonata in D major for piano & violoncello.)

1905 - Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, and biographer. He was a key figure in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre had an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir. Together, they challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyle and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, "bad faith") and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946). (Sartre in Ten Minutes. Uploaded by Eric Dodson. Accessed June 21, 2015. (PHILOSOPHY - Sartre. Uploaded by The School of Life. Accessed June 21, 2015.)

1921 - Jane Russell (born Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell), American film actress and one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. She moved from the Midwestern United States to California, where she had her first film role in Howard Hughes' The Outlaw. In 1947, Russell delved into music before returning to films.

1932 - Boris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin, Argentine-American composer, pianist, arranger and jazz-band leader. He is best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, including the "Theme from Mission: Impossible", Bullitt, and Enter the Dragon. (Mission: Impossible / Music From The Original Television Soundtrack / (DIGITAL AUDIO). Performed by Lalo Schifrin & the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. Uploaded El papa_upa!. Accessed June 21, 2019)

1948 - Ian McEwan, English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 19 in its list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". “When it's gone, you'll know what a gift love was. You'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.” - Ian McEwan, Enduring Love

1953 - Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani politician who served as Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority nation and the youngest elected leader in the Islamic world. She was the world's youngest Prime Minister, the youngest female Prime Minister ever elected. 

1982 - William, Prince of Wales, KG, KT, PC, ADC (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982) is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales. William was made Duke of Cambridge prior to his wedding to Catherine Middleton in April 2011. The couple have three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. He became Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay following his father's accession to the throne on 8 September 2022. The following day he was made Prince of Wales, the traditional title for the heir apparent to the British monarch.

 
Leftie:
 William, Prince of Wales

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 21 June - On This Day.    

Historical Events

1675 - Christopher Wren begins work on rebuilding London's St. Paul's Cathedral after it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

1813 - The Battle of Vitoria is fought in Spain between Wellington's forces and those of Marshal Jourdan and Napoleon's brother Joseph. It is a resounding victory for Wellington and effectively ends Napooleon Bonaparte's power in Spain.

June 20 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1819 - Jacques Offenbach, French-German composer of French light operas, famous for The Tales of Hoffmann. He's also cellist and impresario of the romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera "The Tales of Hoffmann". Offenbach was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory. Offenbach revered Mozart above all other composers. He had an ambition to present Mozart's neglected one-act comic opera Der Schauspieldirektor at the Bouffes-Parisiens, and he acquired the score from Vienna. With a text translated and adapted by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy, he presented it during the Mozart centenary celebrations in May 1856 as L'impresario.

1905 - Lillian Hellman, American playwright and screenwriter known for her success as a playwright on Broadway, as well as her political activism and left-wing sympathies, despite her denial she belonged to the Communist Party. As a playwright, she had successes on Broadway, including Watch on the Rhine, The Autumn Garden, Toys in the Attic, Another Part of the Forest, The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes. She adapted her semi-autobiographical play The Little Foxes into a screenplay.  Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett, author of the classic detective novels The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. The couple never married. Hellman was the first librettist of the operetta Candide (based on Voltaire's 1759 novella of the same name) with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, although since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler, faithful to Voltaire's novel, with other contributors to the text with Hellman. (Lillian Hellman - Rare 1973 TV Interview. Alan Eichler. Accessed June 20, 2019.)

1906 - Dame Catherine (Ann) Cookson, DBE, British author. Top 20 of most widely read British novelists with sales topping 100 million in her day, while retaining a relatively low profile in the world of celebrity writers.

1909 - Errol Flynn (born Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn), Australian-born American actor during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Considered the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, he achieved worldwide fame for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, as well as frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland.

1929 - Ingrid Haebler, Austrian pianist. She studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum, Vienna Music Academy, Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and privately in Paris with Marguerite Long. She toured worldwide. She is best known for a series of recordings from the 1950s to 1980s. Her complete set of Mozart's piano sonatas for the Denon label is still regarded as among the finest sets. Haebler also recorded all of Mozart's piano concertos (most of them twice), often with her own cadenzas, and all of Schubert's sonatas. She was one of several Austrian musicians to experiment early with period instruments, having recorded the music of Johann Christian Bach on a fortepiano. Her recordings of Mozart and Beethoven with the violinist Henryk Szeryng are particularly prized. (I. Haebler plays Mozart Sonata No.12 in F K 332. YouTube, uploaded by gullivior. Accessed June 20, 2021.)

1931 - Martin James Landau, American actor, acting coach, producer, and editorial cartoonist. His career began in the 1950s, with early film appearances including a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. He played regular roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999.

1949 - Lionel Richie (born Lionel Brockman Richie Jr.), American singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and actor. His recordings with the Commodores and in his solo career made him one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s. He's one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Can't Slow Down, and his other Grammy Awards include Producer of the Year (Non-Classical) and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Truly".  Richie has been nominated for two Golden Globe awards and won one. He won the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song for "Say You, Say Me". The song also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award.

1967 - Nicole Mary Kidman, AC, Australian-American actress, philanthropist and producer. Her awards include an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. She was listed among the highest-paid actresses in the world in 2006, 2018, and 2019. Time magazine twice named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, in 2004 and 2018. Kidman won the Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying the writer Virginia Woolf in the drama The Hours. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were as a courtesan in the musical Moulin Rouge! and emotionally troubled mothers in the dramas Rabbit Hole and Lion. Kidman has been a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF since 1994 and for UNIFEM since 2006. She was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in 2006.

Lefties:
Actress Nicole Kidman

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 20 June - On This Day.   

Historical Events

1214 - The University of Oxford, U.K. is granted its charter by papal legate Nicholas de Romanis.

1837 - Victoria becomes the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. William IV dies in the night. The Lord Chamberlain and the Archbishop of Canterbury rush through the gardens to knock on the door of Kensington Palace, where 18 year-old Victoria is sleeping. The Lord Chamberlain kneels, kisses her hand and utters the words: "Your Majesty." At that point she knew the throne is hers. She was crowned 8 days later, June 28. She held the title until her death at age 81 in 1902. She is UK's longest-reigning monarch until surpassed by her great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II on September 9 September 2015.

June 19 Dateline

Birthdays

1566 - James VI of Scotland, child of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley. With Queen Elizabeth I dying childless, he becomes king of both Great Britain and Ireland.

1623 - Blaise Pascal, French philosopher, scientist, mathematician, inventor, writer and catholic theologian. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. His earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defence of the scientific method. His notable ideas: Pascal's Wager and Pascal's Triangle, and the book Pensées, a collection of fragments on theology and philosophy. His religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pensées was in many ways his life's work, representing his defense of the Christian religion.  (Philosophy - Blaise Pascal. Uploaded by The Social Life. Accessed June 19, 2018.)
 
1717 - Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, Czech composer and violist (Jan Václav Antonín Stamic (later in life, in Mannheim, Germanized as Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz). His two surviving sons, Carl and Anton Stamitz, both important composers of the Mannheim school of symphonists, of which their father is considered the founding father. The Mannheim school is considered to have a profound influence in Mozart's instrumental style. Johann Stamitz music is stylistically transitional between the Baroque and Classical periods. (Johann Stamitz' Three Mannheim Symphonies (complete), conducted by Taras Demchyshyn, performed by the New Dutch Academy Chamber Orchestra, with Simon Murphy, Director. Accessed June 19, 2023.)

1945 - Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese (now Myanmar) human rights activist, politician, diplomat, author, and a 1991 Nobel Prize laureate. She is the leader of the National League for Democracy and the first and incumbent State Counsellor, a position akin to a prime minister. She played a vital role in the state's transition from military junta to partial democracy.

1947 - (Ahmed) Salman Rushdie FRSL, British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two separate occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.

1954 - (Mary) Kathleen Turner, American film & stage actress, and director. Known for her distinctive gritty voice, she won two Golden Globe Awards and nominated for an Academy Award. Turner has also worked in the theatre, and nominated for the Tony Award twice for her Broadway roles as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Turner taught acting classes at New York University.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 19 June - On This Day.   

 

Historical Events

1215 - The Magna Carta is sealed by King John, though reluctantly. It limits the absolute power of the king and gives more power to his barons. Clause 39 has a wider application than anticipated and becomes a fundamental precept of British law. It states: "No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or banished or in any way molested, nor will we go upon him, nor send upon him, except by lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land."

1536 - Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded after accusations of adultery, which were almost certainly false. Shortly thereafter, Henry marries Jane Seymour.

1899 - Sir Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations premieres in London with Hans Richter conducting. Here's another performance of Enigma Variations  "Nimrod" conducted by Leonard Bernstein, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (!982).

June 18 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1757 - Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, Austro-French composer, music publisher and piano manufacturer. Trained in music while still a very young child, he was sent in 1772 to Eisenstadt to become a pupil and lodger of Joseph Haydn. He later claimed a close, warm relationship had existed between them, and there is evidence of Haydn's esteem for his student’s compositional talents in the overture (or at least the first two movements) of Haydn's puppet opera Das abgebrannte Haus, generally accepted as being Pleyel’s work.(Pleyel's Symphony in C major, Op.66 (1803). Performed by the London Mozart Players, with Matthias Bambert, conductor. Updated by KuhlauDelfing2. Accessed June 18, 2015. Suggested reading: Pleyel symphonies, a  review from Gramophone.)

1845 - Alphonse Laveran (born Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran), French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of infectious diseases such as malaria and trypanosomiasis. 1907 Nobel Laureate in Medicine.

1903 - Jeanette Anna MacDonald, American actress and singer, best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow and One Hour With You) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour with You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to film-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers.(Jeanettte MacDonald sings "The Holy City", the song was used in the film San Francisco also starring Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable.

1932 - Dudley Herschbach, American chemist, 1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi "for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes." Herschbach and Lee specifically worked with molecular beams, performing crossed molecular beam experiments that enabled a detailed molecular-level understanding of many elementary reaction processes. Herschbach is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

1942 - Sir (James) Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter of the successful pop group, The Beatles, multi-instrumentalist, and composer. He gained worldwide fame as the bass guitarist and singer for the rock band the Beatles, widely considered the most popular and influential group in the history of popular music. (One all-time favourite from Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band, "When I'm Sixty Four". Provided by Universal Music Group. Accessed June 18, 2019. Paul McCartney Breaks Down Hi Most Iconic Songs. CQ. Accessed June 18, 2019.)  

1952 - Carol Kane (born Carolyn Laurie Kane), American actress and comedian. She became known in the films Hester Street, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, Annie Hall, and The Princess Bride. She appeared on the TV series Taxi, as Simka Gravas, winning two Emmy Awards for her work. She the character of Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked, both in regional productions and on Broadway. From 2015 to 2020, she was a cast member on the Netflix original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, in which she played Lillian Kaushtupper.

1961 - Alison Moyet (born Geneviève Alison Jane Moyet), English singer, songwriter and performer noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice. Started as half of the duo Yazoo (or Yaz), but has since worked as a solo artist. Her worldwide album sales have reached a certified 23 million, with over 2 million singles sold. All nine of her studio albums and three compilation albums have charted in the Top 30 UK Album Chart, with two of them reaching number one. She has achieved nine Top 30 singles and five Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart. (Alison Moyet - All Cried Out. Accessed June 18, 2019.)  

1966 - Kurt Browning, CM, Canadian figure skater, choreographer and commentator. He is the first skater to land a ratified quadruple jump in competition. He is a four-time World Champion and Canadian national champion. 

Leftie:
Songwriter/Singer Paul McCartney

More birthdays and historical events today, 18 June - On This Day.   

 

 

To celebrate Sir Paul McCartney's birthday, here's one favourite song "Yesterday" by their famous English rock band, the Beatles. The song is written by him (credited to Lenon-McCartney), first released on the album Help! in the UK, in August 1965. (Accessed June 18, 2016)

Historical Events

1429 - Joan of Arc, French religious military leader, leads troops to a victory of the English at the Battle of Patay, turning the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1791 - Wolfgang A. Mozart composes the Motet  Ave verum corpus in D for choir, orchestra and organ, K.618. Performed by the King's College Choir, London. 

 
1812 - The U.S. declares war against Great Britain, invading the British North American Territories. The war of 1812 ended in a stalemate, but led to the formation of Canada as a nation.

1821 - Carl Maria von Weber conducts the first performance of his opera Der Freischütz, Op. 77, J. 277  (Der Freischuetz), at the new Berlin Opera Theatre. (Anyone interested, I featured the Overture of Der Freischütz  in  'November 18 Dateline', the composer's birthday anniversary - here - performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, conducted by an admired Australian conductor Simone Young. No bells & whistles, but simply heartwarming, lovely performance of a favourite C.M. von Weber's work!

June 17 Dateline

Birthdays

1703 - John Wesley, English cleric, theologian and evangelist, founder of Methodism. He was leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day. He is the older brother of Charles Wesley, also English leader of the Methodist movement, but most widely known for writing about 6,500 hymns. 

1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer, best known for his Ave Maria, based on a work by J.S. Bach, as well as his opera Faust. Another opera by Gounod still performed is Roméo et Juliette. Gounod's father was a painter, and his mother was a capable pianist who gave Gounod his early training in music. (Cellist Yo-Yo Ma & Pianist Kathryn Stott - Gounod's Ave Maria. Accessed June 17, 2017.  Tenor Luciano Pavarotti - Gounod's Ave Maria. Uploaded by Rodrigo Primeiro. Accessed June 17, 2018.)  

1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian-born composer, pianist, and conductor, who is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Serge Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). The Rite of Spring transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure, and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a musical revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design.(Sir Simon Rattle conducts The Rite of Spring with the London Symphony Orchestra, uploaded by LSO, recorded live at the Barbican Centre on Sunday 24 September 2017. Accessed June 17, 2019.) 

1898 - M.C. Escher, (born Maurits Cornelis Escher), Dutch graphic artist, who made mathematically-inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for long somewhat neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition of his work was held. (M.C. Escher Official Website)

1914 - John (Richard) Hersey, American writer and journalist, Pulitzer Prize-Winner, considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to non-fiction reportage.

1943 - Barry Manilow (born Barry Alan Pincus), American singer-songwriter, arranger, musician, producer and actor with a career that has spanned more than 50 years. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "I Write the Songs", "Can't Smile Without You" and "Copacabana (At the Copa)". (Barry Manilow - Mandy (from Live on Broadway). YouTube, Uploaded by TopPop. Could It Be Magic. Uploaded by Steve Mtloff.  Accessed June 17, 2020.)

1980 - Venus Williams (born Venus Ebony Starr Williams), American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1, Along with younger sister Serena Williams, Venus is credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour. Ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association on three occasions for a total of 11 weeks, she first reached the No. 1 ranking on February 25, 2002, the first African American woman to do so in the Open Era, and the second all time since Althea Gibson.
  

Leftie:
Artist M.C. Escher

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 17 June - On This Day.  

 

Historical Events

1923 - Enrico Ferrari wins his first race at Circuito del Savio in Ravenna, Italy.He meets Countess Paolina Baracca after the race who suggests he adopt her late son's emblem of the prancing horse.

1950 - Surgeon Richard Lawler performs the first kidney transplant operation at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago. Ruth Tucker, the recipient, lives for five years. 

June 16 Dateline

 Birthdays

1313 - Giovanni Boccaccio,  Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio is best known for The Decameron. He wrote his literature mostly in the Italian vernacular, and other works in Latin. (Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and Bawdy Medieval Literature - Fabian Alfie. Uploaded by Humanities Seminars Program. Accessed June 16, 2018.)

1858 - John Peter Russell, Australian Impressionist painter (Of great interest is Russell's painting of his famous friend, Vincent van Gogh, credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). Although V. van Gogh had been painted by other fellow artists, including Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec, this one by Russell remains a personal favourite. A healthier looking Vincent, with eyes purposeful, intent.)

1890 - Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson), English actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles.

1917 - Katharine Graham, American publisher and the second female publisher of a major American newspaper, following Eliza Jane Nicholson's ownership of the New Orleans Daily Picayune.  She led her family's newspaper, The Washington Post, for more than two decades, overseeing its most famous period: the Watergate coverage that eventually led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon. Her memoir, Personal History, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998.

1934 - Dame Eileen (June) Atkins, CBE, DBE, English actress and occasional screenwriter. In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford. She is a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 (for Multiple roles) and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004). She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001.

1937 - Erich Segal, American author, screenwriter and educator. He was best known for writing the novel Love Story, a best-seller, and writing the motion picture of the same name, which was a major hit. (Scenes from the movie Love Story (1970), starring Ali Macgraw and Ryan O'Neal. Uploaded by Samuel. Accessed June 16, 2019. Famous quote from Love Story: "Love is never having to say you're sorry".) 

1938 - Joyce Carol Oates, American writer and University professor. Oates has published numerous novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of Love and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

Lefties:
None known

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 16 June - On This Day.  

Historical Events

1904 - Writer James Joyce meets Nora, his future wife. Leopold Bloom, his fictional character in Ulysses, spends this day wandering around Dublin.    

1956 - English poet Ted Hughes marries American poet Sylvia Plath.

June 15 Dateline

Birthdays

1330 - Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, known to history as the Black Prince, was the eldest son of King Edward III of England, and thus the heir to the English throne. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. 

 

1479 - Lisa del Giocondo (née Gherardini), Italian noblewoman and member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany. Her name was given to the Mona Lisa, her portrait commissioned by her husband and painted by Leonardo da Vinci during the Italian Renaissance. Little is known about Lisa's life. Born in Florence and married in her teens to a cloth and silk merchant who later became a local official, she was a mother to five children and led what is thought to have been a comfortable and ordinary life. Lisa outlived her husband, who was considerably her senior.  In the centuries after Lisa's death, the Mona Lisa became the world's most famous painting. In 2005, Lisa was definitively identified as the model for the Mona Lisa and about six million people view it at the Louvre every year. 

1749 - Georg Joseph Vogler, also known as Abbé Vogler, German composer, organist, teacher and theorist. Contemporary of Mozart. He established himself as a foremost experimenter in baroque and early classic music. His greatest successes came as performer and designer for the organ, as well as a teacher, attracting highly successful and devoted pupils such as Carl Maria von Weber. His career as a music theorist and composer however was mixed, with contemporaries such as Mozart believing Vogler to have been a charlatan. Despite his mixed reception in his own life, his highly original contributions in many areas of music (particularly musicology and organ theory) and influence on his pupils endured, combined with his eccentric and adventurous career.

1763 - Franz Danzi (born Franz Ignaz Danzi), German cellist, composer and conductor, the son of the Italian cellist Innocenz Danzi (1730–98), brother of the noted singer Franzeska Danzi, and sister of Francesca Lebrun. He is known for his woodwind quintets. At Schwetzingen, the city concert hall was renamed in his honor in 2005. (Soni Ventorum beautifully performs Danzi's, Quintet in Bb, Op. 56 No. 1.Uploaded by YouTube, clarisoon888. Accessed June 15, 2019.)

1843 - Edvard (Hagerup) Grieg, Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy. Grieg's development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought Norway's music to international consciousness, as well as helped develop its national identity. 

1923 - Erroll Louis Garner, American Jazz pianist and composer, known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6363 Hollywood Blvd. His live album, Concert by the Sea, sold over a million copies by 1958. (Erroll Garner Plays "Misty". Youtube, Joris Holderbeke. Accessed June 15, 2020. Erroll Garner Greatest Hits. YouTube, Vintage Jukebox... Accessed June 15, 2020.) 

1949 - Simon Phillip Hugh Callow CBE, English actor, writer, theatre and opera director. Callow appeared as Verlaine in Total Eclipse, Lord Foppington in The Relapse, and the title role in Faust at the Lyric Hammersmith, where he also directed The Infernal Machine (with Maggie Smith). He played Mozart in the premiere of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus at the National Theatre, also appearing in the 1983 BBC original cast radio production. He wrote of having "discovered Mozart quite early: the operas, the symphonies, the concertos, the wind serenades were all very much part of my musical landscape when I was asked to play the part of the composer in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus; possibly this was one of the reasons I got the job." He appeared at the National Theatre as Orlando in As You Like It and Fulganzio in Galileo.

 
1954 - James Adam Belushi, American actor, comedian, singer and musician. He is best known for the role of Jim on the sitcom According to Jim. His other television roles include Saturday Night Live, Wild Palms, and Twin Peaks, among others. Belushi appeared in films such as Thief, Trading Places, About Last Night, Joe Somebody, Underdog, The Ghost Writer and Katie Says Goodbye. He is the younger brother of comic actor John Belushi and the father of actor Robert Belushi.
 

1963 - Helen Elizabeth Hunt, American actress and filmmaker. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award and four Emmy Awards. She rose to fame portraying Jamie Buchman in the sitcom Mad About You, for which she won three Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy and four Emmy Awards (Primetime) for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Hunt won the Academy Award for Best Actress for starring as Carol Connelly in the romantic comedy As Good as It Gets, while her portrayal of Cheryl Cohen-Greene in The Sessions, gained her an additional Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Hunt made her directorial film debut with Then She Found Me (2007).

1964 - Courteney Bass Cox, American actress, producer, and director. She gained worldwide recognition for her starring role as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends and as Gale Weathers in the horror film series Scream. She owns the production company Coquette Productions, which was created by Cox and her then-husband David Arquette.

Leftie:
Jazz Musician Erroll Garner

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 15 June - On This Day.  

Historical Events

1215 - The Magna Carta is sealed by King John of England. It guarantees that the will of the King can be bound by law.

1752 - Benjamin Franklin flies a kite with a key attached to it in a thunderswtorm to prove that lightning is electricity.

June 14 Dateline

Birthdays

1730 - Antonio Sacchini, Italian opera Composer (Enjoy this heartwarming work by Sacchini: "Te deum laudamus" performed by Singakademie Carinthia, with Michael Paumgarten, conducting.) 

1811 - Harriet Beecher Stowe, American abolitionist and author, famous for Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. She stirred up abolitonist sentiment in the decade before the Civil War. (Who is Harriet Beecher Stowe?  Uploaded by AmericanExperiencePBS. Accessed June 14, 2105.)  

1835 - Nicolas Rubinstein (born Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein), Russian pianist, conductor, and composer. He was the younger brother of Anton Rubinstein and a close friend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. (Nikolai Rubinstein - Mazurka. YouTube, uploaded by wwwkyrkancom. Accessed June 14, 2010.)

1909 - Burl Ives (born Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives), American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television. He is often remembered for his voice-over work as Sam the Snowman, narrator of the classic 1964 Christmas television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which continues to air annually around Christmas.

1961 - Boy George (born George Alan O'Dowd), English Singer, Songwriter, DJ and Fashion Designer. He is the lead singer of the pop band Culture Club. During the 1980s, they recorded global hit songs such as "Karma Chameleon", "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and "Time (Clock of the Heart)". George is known for his soulful voice and his androgynous appearance. He was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Boy George received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for Outstanding Services to British Music in 2015.

Lefties:
None known

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 14 June - On This Day.  

 

Historical Events

1777 - The Stars and Stripes is adopted as the flag of the United States of America.    

1789 - The 19 survivors of the HMAV Bounty mutiny, including Captain William Bligh, reach Timor after a nearly 4,000 mile (6,400 km) travel in an open boat. The remarkable seamanship of Capt. Bligh is given as the reason for their survival.

June 13 Dateline

Quote: "To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind." ~ Fanny Burney

Birthdays

1752 - Fanny Burney (born Frances Burney,) and later known as Madame d'Arblay, English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. Born in Lynn Regis, now King's Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to the musician Dr Charles Burney and his first wife, Esther Sleepe Burney, she was the third of her mother's six children. Of her four novels, the first, Evelina, was the most successful, and remains the most highly regarded. Most of her plays remained unperformed in her lifetime. She also wrote a memoir of her father and many letters and journals.

1865 - William Butler (WB) Yeats, Irish poet, Nobel Prize Laureate, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. (W.B. Yeats Reading His Own Verse. Uploaded by brychar66. Accessed June 13, 2009. (Note: Yeats made these recordings for the wireless in 1932, 1934 and the last on 28 October 1937 when he was 72. He died on January 28 1939. The photograph shows him sitting before the microphone in 1937.) William Butler Yeats Biography. Uploaded by Roberto Cano. Accessed June 13, 2017. Yeats: Ireland, and the Poetic Place. Considered his most popular poet. Uploaded by Her Aeolian Harp. Accessed June 13, 2013.)

1892 - Basil Rathbone, MC (born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone), English actor. He was a Shakespearean stage actor in UK, and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. His most famous role was that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included roles on Broadway, as well as self-ironic film and television work. He received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play. He was nominated for two Academy Awards and was honoured with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1893 - Dorothy L. Sayers,  English crime writer and poet. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, which remain popular to this day. However, Sayers herself considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. She is also known for her plays, literary criticism, and essays.

1953 - Tim Allen (born Timothy Alan Dick), American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Tim "The Toolman" Taylor on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement and Mike Baxter on the ABC/Fox sitcom Last Man Standing. Allen's other films include For Richer or Poorer, Jungle 2 Jungle, Galaxy Quest, Big Trouble, Christmas with the Kranks, The Shaggy Dog, Wild Hogs, Redbelt, and Crazy on the Outside.

1986 - Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, American actresses, also known as the Olsen twins as a duo, are American fashion designers and former child actresses. The twins made their acting debut as infants playing Michelle Tanner on the television series Full House. At the age of six, Mary-Kate and Ashley began starring together in TV, film, and video projects, which continued to their teenage years. Through their company Dualstar, the Olsens joined the ranks of the wealthiest women in the entertainment industry at a young age.

Lefties:
Actor Tim Allen
Actress Mary-Kate Olsen

 

 

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

Historical Events

1774 - Rhode Island, a U.S. state, bans the importation of slaves. It is the first British colony in North America to do so.

1852 - Robert Schumann's Manfred Overture is first performed in Weimar, Germany. (Schumann: Manfred-Ouvertüre ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Marek Janowski, conducting. Uploaded by hr-S Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra. Accessed June 13, 2018.)  

June 12 Dateline

Famous Birthdays

1519 - Cosimo I de Medici, the second Duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. A large bronze equestrian statue of Cosimo I by Giambologna, erected in 1598, still stands today in the Piazza della Signoria, the main square of Florence. Cosimo was also an enthusiast of alchemy, a passion he inherited from his grandmother Caterina Sforza.
 

1802 - Harriet Martineau, English social theorist and Whig writer often seen as the first female sociologist. She wrote many books and essays from a sociological, holistic, religious, domestic and feminine perspective, translated works by Auguste Comte. The young Princess Victoria enjoyed reading her and invited her to her coronation in 1838. Martineau believed thorough analysis was needed to understand women's status under men. 

 
1827 - Johanna Spyri, Swiss-born novelist, notably children's stories. She is best known for her famous classic book Heidi. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later used in her novels. (Johanna Sryri. Uploaded by Linda Harris. Accessed June 12, 2018. Heide, the 1937 film starring Shirley Temple as Heide, is based on Spyri's book of the same name. Uploaded by Free Mind. Accessed June 12, 2019.  Heide is a heart-warming story based on the real-life adventures of Heide Schwaller, 92, who grew up near Chur in the Swiss Alps. It's elegant yet down-to-earth. Schwaller recalled how she met Spyri when the writer spent summers near the village of Maienfeld in eastern Switzerland more than 80 years ago.)

1890 - Egon Schiele, Austrian painter and graphic artist, a protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many self-portraits the produced, including naked self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize his paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.

1924 - George H.W. Bush, American politician and businessman who served as the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, Bush also served in the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, as Director of Central Intelligence, and as the 43rd vice president. He's father of George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States.

1929 - Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank, German-Jewish diarist, famous for her diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, and one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In her diary she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. She died February 1945, in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Germany. (Here's "Anne Frank (The Whole Story)" film based on Melissa Muehler's biography of Anne Frank and original research and interviews by Kirk Ellis. YouTube, uploaded by Rajkamal. Accessed June 12, 2016.)

Leftie:
Former President George H.W. Bush 

More birthdays and historical events today, 12 June - On This Day.

 

Historical Events

1778 - Mozart's Symphony No. 31 "Paris Symphony"  premieres in a private performance in the home of Count Karl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen, the ambassador of the Electorate of the Palatinate.

1897 - The Swiss Officer's knife (or Army knife) is patented, becoming a staple of all camping trips and the like, though most people who use one have a story of the blade closing on their fingers.

June 11 Dateline

Birthdays

1572 - Ben Jonson, English playwright and poet, whose artistry exerted a lasting impact upon English poetry and stage comedy. ... "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." ("The Life and Trials of Ben Jonson", uploaded by Brian Telestai. Accessed June 11, 2016. Ben Jonson's Volpone (English). Uploaded by Vitya-mitra, for English Literature, 1590-1798. Accessed June 11, 2018.)

1776 - John Constable, English landscape painter in the naturalistic tradition, known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection.  (John Constable - 19th Century English Landscape Artist. Uploaded by maple1255. Accessed June 11, 2018. A Collection of 248 Paintings (HD). Uploaded by LearnFromMasters. Accessed June 11, 2019.)

1864 - Richard Strauss, leading German composer and conductor of the late Romantic and early modern eras. No relations with the Austrian Strauss family famous for waltzes. Strauss was a prominent conductor in Western Europe and the Americas, enjoying quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire. His operas include Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; his tone poems, including Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica, and An Alpine Symphony; and other instrumental works such as Metamorphosen and his Oboe Concerto. Along with Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner.

1910 - Jacques-Yves Cousteau, AC, French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. Cousteau described his underwater world research in a series of books, the most successful being his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure. He directed films, most notably the documentary adaptation of the book, The Silent World, which won a Palme d'or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He remained the only person to win a Palme d'Or for a documentary film, until Michael Moore won the award in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11.

1932 - Athol Fugard, FRSL OIS, South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director regarded as “South Africa’s greatest playwright.” He is best known for his political plays opposing the system of apartheid and for the 2005 Oscar-winning film of his novel Tsotsi. He was acclaimed as “the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world” by Time Magazine in 1985. Fugard was an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego. He is the recipient of many awards, honours, and honorary degrees. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was honoured in Cape Town with the opening of the Fugard Theatre in District Six in 2010, and received a Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2011.

1933 - Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silverman), American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, singer-songwriter and author. Wilder's first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1967 film The Producers for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks. Wilder is known for his iconic portrayal of Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and for his four films with Richard Pryor: Silver Streak, Stir Crazy, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Another You, as well as starring in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). Wilder directed and wrote several of his own films, including The Woman in Red. After his last acting performance in 2003, Wilder turned his attention to writing.

1959 - Hugh Laurie, CBE (born James Hugh Calum Laurie), English actor, director, singer, musician, comedian and author. Laurie is known for portraying the title character on the Fox medical drama series House, for which he received two Golden Globe Awards. He was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama, earning £250,000 ($409,000) per episode of House. His other television credits include arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper in the miniseries The Night Manager, for which he won his third Golden Globe Award, and Senator Tom James in the HBO sitcom Veep (2012–2019), for which he received his 10th Emmy Award nomination.

Leftie:
None known

More birthdays today, 11 June - On This Day.

Feature:
Richard Strauss's  Der Rosenkavalier Suite (Proms 2012).  Danielle Gatti conducting.  YouTube, uploaded by Mandetriens.  Accessed 11 June 2018. Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. Royal Albert Hall, 26 August 2012

Historical Events

1509 - King Henry VIII of England marries Katherine of Aragon, his first wife. She was a Spanish princess who had previously been married to Henry's older brother Arthur until his untimely death. Apparently, when no male heir is forthcoming, it's been deduced that the king's divorce from Katherine that leads to the Protestant Reformation in England and war between Catholics and Protestants for generations.

1901 - New Zealand annexes the Cook Islands, later returning them to self-government.

June 10 Dateline

Birthdays

1863 - Louis Marie-Anne Couperus, Dutch novelist and poet, considered to be one of the foremost figures in Dutch literature. His oeuvre contains a wide variety of genres: lyric poetry, psychological and historical novels, novellas, short stories, fairy tales, feuilletons and sketches. 

1901 - Frederick Loewe, originally German Friedrich (Fritz) Löwe, Austrian-American composer. He collaborated with lyricist Alan Jay Lerner on a series of Broadway musicals, including Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot, all of which were made into films, as well as the original film musical, Gigi (1958), which was first transferred to the stage in 1973. (My Fair Lady: Wouldn't it be loverly and Camelot)

1915 - Saul Bellow, Canadian-born American writer, Nobel Prize Laureate. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. Many of his stories are both sad and funny at the same time. Typical is his novel Humboldt's Gift, a comic book that won him Pulitzer Prize in 1976. (Saul Bellow Interview. Uploaded by Electric Cereal. Accessed June 10, 2017.)

1921 - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.  Born in Corfu, he later served in the Royal Navy as midshipman then lieutenant during WWII. In 1947, he married Princess Elizabeth, six years before her coronation as Queen of the British Empire. Prince Philip is the patron of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme, said to have around quarter of a million young people taking part at any time. Four areas of competition: Expedition, Skills, Physical Recreation and Service.

1922 - Judy Garland, American actress, singer and dancer. During a career that spanned 45 years, she attained international stardom as an actress in both musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist, and on the concert stage. Famous as Dorothy Gale in Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland singing the now immortal "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Uploaded by Movieclips. Accessed June 10, 2012. Judy Garland: The Greatest... By Michelle Bell. Accessed June 10, 2018. 

1926 - Lionel Charles Jeffries, English actor, screenwriter, and director. He appeared primarily in films and received a Golden Globe Award nomination during his acting career. His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like Two-Way Stretch, The Trials of Oscar Wilde, Murder Ahoy! (opposite Margaret Rutherford), First Men in the Moon and Camelot. Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films, including a well regarded version of The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr Blunden.

 

Leftie:
Actress Judy Garland

 

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 10 June - On This Day.  

 

Historical Events

1776 - The Continental Congress appoints a committee to write a Declaration of Indpendence for what will become the United States of America.

1865 - Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde is first performed in Munich under the direction of Hans von Bulow.

June 9 Dateline

Birthdays

1781 - George Stephenson, British civil engineer and mechanical engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. Self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praised his achievements.

1843 - Baroness Bertha von Suttner (born Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner), Austrian-Bohemian pacifist and novelist. She is credited in influencing Alfred Nobel for creating the Nobel Prize, herself a 1905 recipient, becoming the second female Nobel laureate (the first being Marie Curie for Nobel Prize in Physics), the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian laureate.

1865 - Carl August Nielsen, Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. (Nielsen: 6. Sinfonie (»Sinfonia semplice«) ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Paavo Järvi. Uploaded by Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Accessed June 9, 2019.)

1891 - Cole Albert Porter, American musical-comedy composer and lyricist/songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied his grandfather's wishes and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. (The Words and Music of Cole Porter - 1920s, 30s, 40s (Past Perfect) [Full Album]. YouTube, uploaded by Past Perfect Vintage Music. Accessed June 9, 2018.) 
 
1922 - George Axelrod, American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. He is best known for his playAmerican screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play, The Seven Year Itch, which was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe.

1956 - Patricia Cornwell, American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders in Richmond, Virginia, where most of the stories are set.

1961 - Michael J. Fox (born Michael Andrew Fox) OC, Canadian-American actor, comedian, author, film producer. He starred in the Back to the Future trilogy in which he portrayed Marty McFly. He rose to prominence for portraying Alex P. Keaton on the NBC sitcom Family Ties. Fox achieved further recognition as protagonist Marty McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990). The trilogy's critical and commercial success led to Fox headlining several films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He returned to television on the ABC sitcom Spin City, where he portrayed the lead role of Mike Flaherty from 1996 to 2000.

1961 - Aaron Benjamin Sorkin, American screenwriter, director, producer, and playwright. His works include the Broadway plays A Few Good Men, The Farnsworth Invention and To Kill a Mockingbird; the television series Sports Night, The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and The Newsroom; and the films A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs. For writing The Social Network, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, among other awards. He received two additional Oscar nominations for Moneyball and Molly's Game.

1963 - Johnny Depp, American actor, producer, and musician. He has been nominated for ten Golden Globe Awards, winning one for Best Actor for his performance of the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actor, among other accolades. He is regarded as one of the world's biggest film stars. He has been listed in the 2012 Guinness World Records as the world's highest-paid actor, with earnings of US$75 million. Depp has collaborated on eight films with director, producer, and friend Tim Burton. He was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2015. Depp has also worked as a musician..

Lefties:
Statesman Robert S. McNamara
Composer Cole Porter

 

More birthdays and historical events today, 9 June - On This Day. 

Historical Events

68 C.E. - Roman Emperor Nero, commits suicide before he can be executed by the Roman Senate.

1790 - Philadelphia Spelling Book by John Barry becomes the first book to be copyrighted in the U.S.