Birthdays
1404 - Leon Battista Alberti, Italian Renaissance Humanist painter, poet, architect, cryptographer and philosopher. He epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although often characterized as an architect, Alberti was also an artist and a mathematician of many sorts and made great advances to this field during the 15th century. His two most important buildings are the churches of S. Sebastiano (1460) and S. Andrea, both in Mantua.
1894 - Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky), American comedian & entertainer, who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to a highly popular comedic career in radio, TV and film. He was known for his comic timing and ability to cause laughter with a pregnant pause or a single expression, his signature exasperated "Well!". His radio and TV programs were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny often portrayed his character as a miser who played his violin badly, and ridiculously claimed to be 39 years of age, regardless of his actual age.
1934 - Florence Henderson, American actress and singer, best remembered for her starring role as Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974. She also appeared in film, as well as on stage, and hosted several long-running cooking and variety shows over the years. She appeared as a guest on many scripted and unscripted (talk and reality show) television programs and as a panelist on numerous game shows. She was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2010.
1944 - Carl Bernstein, American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. Bernstein's focus is on the theme of the use and abuse of power. He has also done reporting for television and opinion commentary. He is the author or co-author of bestselling books: All the President's Men, The Final Days, and The Secret Man, with Bob Woodward; His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time, with Marco Politi; Loyalties; and A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is also a regular political commentator on CNN.
1959 - Renée Lynn Fleming, American operatic lyric soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, and film. She has performed operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. Her signature roles include Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, Massenet's Manon, the title role in Massenet's Thaïs, Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, among others. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 17 Grammy Awards and has won four times. Fleming has received international recognition including the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. (Renée Fleming sings Mozart's "L'amerò, sarò costante"; Il re pastore (The Shepherd King). YouTube, uploaded by liederoperagreats. Accessed February 14, 2018.)
Lefties:
None known
None known
Feature:
Introduction from Bellini's opera La Straniera (The Foreign Woman or The Stranger Woman.) It is in two acts with libretto by Felice Romani, based on the novel L'étrangère by Charles-Victor Prévot, the opera was composed by Bellini in 1828 and the premiere was this day, 14 February, 1829, at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. La Straniera Synopsis: Opera-Arias/Bellini/La Straniera.
Historical Events
270 or 271 AD - Famously known as Valentine's Day. Valentine is beheaded this day, so the story goes... evolving from "Lupercalia," a racy festival in the Roman calendar. St Valentine was a priest who married Christian couples, therefore disobeying the Roman emperor, who had forbidden soldiers to marry.
1779 - Navigator and explorer Captain James Cook is killed by the Hawaiian islanders, natives of the Sandwich Islands. Originally, he and his crew were welcomed as "gods", until one of them died, giving the game away. The natives took a dark view of the "deception." one of the men who collects Captain Cook's dismembered body parts is William Bligh, most famous for the later mutiny on the Bounty. (Bligh is appointed master of the Resolution, then setting out on Cook's third voyage on 17th March 1776.
