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.