Newsgroups: bit.listserv.c18-l
Date:         Sat, 26 Dec 1992 23:24:40 -0500
From:         BCJ@PSUVM.BITNET
Subject:      C18-L'S Kalendar, December 28-January 3 (Reasons to celebrate)

*********************************************************************
*                                                                   *
*             THE KALENDAR - REASONS TO CELEBRATE                   *
*                                                                   *
*             Compiled for C18-L by Kevin Berland                   *
*                       BCJ@PSUVM.BITNET                            *
*                       BCJ@psuvm.psu.edu                           *
*********************************************************************
                            DECEMBER 28

     BIRTHDAYS:  Abbe Antoine Furetiere, French poet, compiler of the
Dictionnaire Universel (1619-88);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Thomas Henderson, Scottish
astronomer (1798-1844);  Alexander Keith Johnstone, Scottish
geographer (1804);  Carl Remigius Fresenius, German analytical
chemist (1818-97);  Thomas Woodrow Wilson, US political scientist,
educator, 28th president, 1919 Nobel Peace Prize (1856-1924);  Moshe
Jacob Alter, aka Morris Rosenfeld, Yiddish poet (1862-1923);  Sir
Arthur Stanley Eddington, English scientist (1882-1944);  Roger
Huntington Sessions, US composer & teacher (1896);  John von
Neumann, Hungarian-born US mathematician, game theorist (1903-57);
Earl "Fatha" Hines, African-American jazz pianistm composer (1905-83);
Lew Ayres, US actor (1908);  Sam Levenson, US comedian (1911-80);
Ellis E.I. Clarke, Trinidadian statesman, president (1917);  Hildegarde
Neff, German actress (1925);  Milton Obote, Ugandan statesman,
president (1925);  Maggie Smith, English actress (1934);  King Birendra
Bir Bikram Shah Dev of Nepal (1945);

     DEATHS:  Queen Mary of Orange and England (1694);  Pierre Bayle
(1706);  Joseph Piton de Tournefort (1708);  Dr. John Campbell (1775);
John Logan (1788);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

     MISCELLANEA:  Today is Nepal's National Day (celebrating King
Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev's birthday);  it's the Feast of the Holy
Innocents, or Childermas.  On this day in 1972 the comet Kohoutek
came as close to the sun as it was going to...

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                             DECEMBER 29

     BIRTHDAYS:  Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Madame de Pompadour,
mistress of Louis XV (1721-64);  Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist, in
1823 inventor of process bonding rubber to cloth for raincoats, still
called "Macintoshes" (1766-1843);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Sir Archibald Alison, English
historian (1792);  Ferdinand Petrovich, Baron von Wrangel, Russian
polar explorer, Governor-General of Russian America (1796-1870);
Charles Goodyear, US inventor of rubber vulcanization process which
made rubbermakers rich but he died broke (1800-60);  Andrew
Johnson, US tailor, politician, 17th president (1808-75);  William Ewart
Gladstone, English statesman, PM (1809-98);  Carl Ludwig, German
physiologist (1816-95);  John James Ingalls, US farmer, lawyer,
politician (1833-1900);  Venustiano Carranza, Mexican revolutionary,
president (1859-1920);  Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist, conductor (1876-
1973);  Robert C. Weaver, US economist, 1st black cabinet member,
professor of urban affairs (1907);  Robert Ruark, US novelist (1915-65);
Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez, Costa Rican statesman, president (1925);
John Voight, US actor (1938);  Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, president of
Republic of Maldives (1939);

   DEATHS:  Sebastian Castalio (1563);  Viscount William Stafford (1680);
Dr. William Sydenham (1689);  Brook Taylor (1731);  Joseph Saurin
(1737);  Jacques Louis David (1825);  Rev. Thomas R. Malthus (1834);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1778, British forces under General
Clinton defeat American army at Savannah, Georgia;

     MISCELLANEA:  Today is a Civic Holiday in Costa Rica; it's also the
feast of St. Thomas a Becket, patron of the blind, eunuchs, secular
clergy, and sinners.  On this day in 1890, in an attempt to "control"
Lakota religious rites, US army forces massacred native Americans at
Wounded Knee.

*************************************************************************
                            DECEMBER 30

     BIRTHDAYS:  Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England (1642);
John Philips, English poet, author of "The Splendid Shilling" (1676);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Charles Albert Coffin, US
manufacturer (1844-1926);  John Peter Altgeld, US politician, governor
of Illinois (1847-1902);  John Milne, English geologist, developer of 1st
reliable seismograph (1850-1913);  Asa Griggs Candler, US
businessman, in 1873 founder of Coca-Cola (1851-1929);  Rudyard
Kipling, Indian-born British poet, novelist, 1907 Nobel Laureate (1865-
36);  John Simon Guggenheim, US industrialist, philanthropist, founder
of eponymous Foundation (1867-1941);  Stephen Butler Leacock,
Canadian humourist ("Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from
the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode off in all directions"),
political scientist (1869-1944);  Alfred Emmanuel Smith, US politician,
governor of New York (1873-1944);  Hedeki Eiki Tojo, Japanese
general, PM (1884-1948);  Sir Carol Reed, English film director (1906-
76);  Elias McDaniel, better known as Bo Diddley, African-American
rock musician, guitarist, songwriter (1928);  Albert-Bemard Omar
Bongo, Gabonese statesman, president (1935);

     DEATHS:  Roger Ascham (1568);  Johann Baptist van Helmont (1644);
Jacques Saurin (1730);  James Francis Edward Stuart, the "Old
Pretender" (1765);  Paul Whitehead (1774);  Olaus Tychsen (1815);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

     MISCELLANEA:  Today in the Anniversary of the Democratic
Republic of Madagascar; the Philippines celebrate Rizal Day.  On this
day in 1916 Rasputin was assassinated in and around the town house of
Prince Felix Yussopov in St. Petersburg.

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                            DECEMBER 31

     BIRTHDAYS:  Andreas Vesalius, Flemish physiologist & anatomist
(1514-64);  Hermann Boerhaave, Dutch physician, philosopher, medical
author, father of systematic physiology (1668-1738);  Peter Bochler,
Prussian Moravian theologian, led emigration of Georgian Moravians
to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1712-75);  Charles Edward Stuart, the
"Young Pretender" (1721);  Charles, 1st Marquis Cornwallis, English
general during American Revolution, afterwards Governor-General of
India, 1786 & 1806, and Viceroy of Ireland 1798-1801 (1738-1805);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Dr. Johann Gaspar
Spurzheim, German-English phrenologist (1776);  Jose Maria Heredia,
Cuban-born French poet (1803-39);  George Gordon Meade, US
general (1815-72);  Ismail Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt (1830-95);  Henri-
Emile Benoit Matisse, French painter, Fauve (1869-1954);  George
Catlett Marshall, US general, diplomat, 1953 Nobel Peace Prize (1880-
1959);  Stanley Forman Reed, US jurist (1884-1980);  Appolonia
Chalupek, better known as Pola Negri, Polish-born US actress & arch-
vamp (1894);  Jule Styne, US composer & songwriter (1905);  Felious
Gordon, aka Odetta, African-American folk singer )1930);  Anthony
Hopkins, Welsh actor (1927);  Diane Simone Michelle von Furstenburg,
Belgian-born US fashion designer (1946);

     DEATHS:  Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1679);  Robert Boyle (1691);
John Flamsteed (1719);  Jean-Francois Marmontel (1799);  William
Gifford (1826);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1600, the East India Company (of
London) was chartered.

     MISCELLANEA:  It's New Year's Eve!  Celebrate, but be careful,
okay?  Today Benin observes Feed Yourself Day;  in Japan it's
Omisoka (Grand Last Day);  Scotland celebrates Hogmanay.  On this
day in 1908, Sergei Prokovief made his 1st professional concert
appearance at the age of 17 in St. Petersburg.

*************************************************************************
                         JANUARY 1:

    BIRTHDAYS: Lorenzo de Medici, Florentine statesman, merchant, prince,
patron of the arts (1449-92);  Huldrych Zwingli, Swiss protestant reformer
(1484-
1531);  Bartolome Esteban Murillo, Spanish baroque painter (1618-82);  Joseph
Dupleix, Governor General of French India (1697-1763);  Soame Jenyns,
English philosopher, divine (1704); Baron Franz von Trenck (1710);  Paul
Revere, colonial US silversmith & legendary patriotic horseman (1735-1818);
"Mad" Anthony Wayne, American Revolutionary general (1745-96);  Maria
Edgeworth, English poet, novelist, essayist, educator, woman of letters (1767);
G.A. Burger, German poet (1748);  Elizabeth "Betsy" Ross, colonial US patriot &
legendary flag-maker (1752-1836);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Sandor Petofi or Petrovics, Hungarian
poet & revolutionary, the national poet of Hungary (1823-49);  Ludovic Halevy,
Turkish-born French playwright, who theorized that the Sumerians never
existed & that their writings were secret writings of the Babylonian priesthood
(1834-1908);  Sir James Frazer, Scottish anthropologist & classicist, author of
The
Golden Bough (1854-1941);  Michael Owens, US inventor of automatic bottling
machine (1859-1923);   Pierre Coubertin, French sportsman, in 1894 reviver of
the Olympic games (1863-1937);  Alfred Stieglitz, US photographer (1864-1946);
Edward Morgan "E.M." Forster, English novelist, author of Howard's End, Room
With a View, Passage to India -- who, as a small child, reputedly said: "I would
rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave"
(1879-1970);  William Fox, US film executive (1879-1952);  Ernest Jones, English
Freudian psychoanalyst, translator, & biographer (1879-1958);  Manuel Roxas y
Acuna, Philippine statesman & 1st president (1892-1948);  Martin Niemoller,
German priest, theologian, antifascist, president of the World Council of
Churches (1892-1984);  J. Edgar Hoover, US government official, director of
F.B.I., paranoid (1895-1972);  Red Allen, US jazz trumpet player (1895);  Jank
Greenberg, US baseball player (1911-56);  Harold "Kim" Philby, English spy,
defector (1912);  Eliot Janeway, US economist (1913);  J.D. Salinger,  US
novelist
and recluse: "I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting
to
make me happy" (1919);  Goafar Mohammed Nimieri, Sudanese statesman,
president, PM (1930);

     DEATHS:  William Wycherly (1716);  C.A. Helvetius (1772);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1519, on his 35th birthday, Zwingli was
ordained at Zurich;  in 1531 Portuguese explorers "discovered" Rio de Janeiro
(the River of January) in Brazil;  in 1547 Michelangelo was appointed chief
architect of St. Peter's by Pope Paul II;  in 1596 the 1st Dutch colonists
landed on
Sumatra, Indonesia;  in 1651, Charles II was crowned King of Scotland at Scone -
- the last coronation there;  in 1660 General Monk set out from Coldstream (on
the Tweed) to London, helping to effect the Restoration;  in 1660 Samuel Pepys
recorded his 1st diary entry : "This morning (we lying lately in the garret) I
rose,
put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other clothes but
them";  in 1801 Sardinian astronomer M. Piozzi discovered Ceres & a whole
bunch of other planetoids;  in 1801, the Legislative Union of Great Britain with
Ireland under the name of the United Kingdom became effective;  in 1804, Haiti
declared its independence from France;

     MISCELLANEA:  Today is NEW YEAR'S DAY (everywhere that uses the
Gregorian Calendar);  today Cuba celebrates Liberation Day, or Anniversary of
the Triumph of the Revolution (commemorating the overthrow of the Batista
regime in 1959);  it's Independence Day in Haiti (commemorating the declaration
of Independence by Jean Jacques Dessalines in 1804), also called Heroes Day,
Ancestors Day, or the Day of the Glorification of the Heroes of Independence;
in the Democratic Republic of Somalia, it's a Bank Holiday;  in Sudan  it's
Independence Day (1956); Taiwan celebrates the Founding of the Republic of
China (1949);  on this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation outlawed
slavery in the US; in 1909, Marcel Proust, dipping a rusk of toast in his tea,
experienced a rush of memories of childhood, eventually culminating in the
episode of the madeleines & the structure (if that is the right word for it) of
Remembrance of Things Past;  in 1930, the Indian National Congress voted for
complete independence from England;; in 1968, C. Day Lewis was named Poet
Laureat of England;

*************************************************************************
                         JANUARY 2:

   BIRTHDAYS:  Nathaniel Bacon, North American colonial leader (1647-76);
John Manners, Marquis of Granby, English general (1721-70);  James Wolfe,
English general, the "dauntless hero" of "what went down on the Plains of
Abraham," to quote 2 very different songs (1727-59); Ferdinand IV, King of
Naples, aka Ferdinand III King of Sicily, & Ferdinand I King of the two Sicilies
(1751-1825);  Philip Morin Freneau, US poet, journalist (1752-1832);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Justin Winsor, US historian, librarian
(1831-97);  Martha Carey Thomas, US suffragist, educator, 1st president of Bryn
Mawr College (1857-1935);  G. Gilbert Murray, English classicist, translator,
guiding force in formation of League of Nations (1866-1957);  Ernst Barlach,
German sculptor (1870);  Robert Nathan, US poet and novelist (1894);  Count
Folke Bernadotte, Swedish statesman (1895-1948);  Charles Howard, US painter
(1899);  Isaac Asimov, Russian-born US science fiction author, popular writer,
biochemist, &c. (1920-90);  Renata Tebaldi, Italian operatic lyric soprano
(1922);

     DEATHS:  Publius Ovidius Naso (18);  Titus Livius (18);  Alexander, Earl of
Rosslyn (1805);

     ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1492 the Moors surrendered Granada to
Spain;  in 1536, John Leyden, the Anabaptist "Prophet," was executed;  in 1688
London's Gazette announced English Queen Mary's pregnancy & proclaimed a
form of prayer appointed by several bishops praising God for fresh hope of
royal issue;  in 1735 Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot was published;  in 1756, the
residents of Tuam, Ireland, at 4 in the afternoon were dazzled by a brilliant
light,
brighter than usual daylight, in the form of "a sun of streamers" rippling in
the
sky, fading until its disapperance to the north was attended by a shock (see
Gents 26.39);  in 1788 Georgia ratified the US constitution;  in 1799,
Napoleon's
army marched into Syria.

    MISCELLANEA:  Today is a Public Holiday in Botswana; Haiti celebrates
Ancestry Day;  St. Lucia takes a Public Holiday today;  in Switzerland it's
Berchtoldstag (Berchold's Day), honouring the founder of Berne.  It's the Feast
of Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzen, Macarius of Alexandria (patron of
pastry cooks & confectioners), and Munchin (patron of Limerick).  in 1926, the
Royal Academy of Italy was created; in 1959 Fidel Castro's rebellion removed
Fulgencio Batista as dictator of Cuba;

*************************************************************************
                            JANUARY 3:

     BIRTHDAYS:  Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman orator, letter-writer, philosopher
"What an ugly beast is the ape; and how like us" (106 BCE);  Le Valentin, French
painter (1591);  Pietro Domenico Buonaventura Metastasio, Italian poet,
playwright (1698-1782);

     LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Lucretia Coffin Mott, US Quaker
abolitionist, feminist (1793-1880);  Douglas William Jerrold, English
playwright,
humourist, contributor to Punch and founder of Jerrold's Magazine --  who once
said, "If I were a grave-digger or even a hangman, there are some people I
could work for with a great deal of enjoyment" (1803);  Larkin Goldsmith Mead,
US sculptor (1835-1910);  Joseph Damien de Veuster, Belgian priest, the Father
Damien of the Molokai leper colony (1840-89);  Wilhelm Pieck, (East) German
leader (1876-1960);  August Macke, German painter (1887);  J.R.R. Tolkien,
English medievalist and author of the Hobbit and Lord of The Rings (1892-1973);
Tubal Claude Ryan, US aircraft-maker, builder of Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis
(1898-82);  Ngo Dinh Diem, Viet Namese statesman, president (1901-63);  Victor
Borge, Danish-born US pianist, comedian: "I only know two pieces: one is Clair
de Lune and the other isn't" (1909); Jack Levine, US painter (1915);

 DEATHS:  Jeremiah Horrox (1641);  George Monk, Duke of Albemaele (1670);
Josiah Wedgwood (1795);

    ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: in 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated by
pope Leo X;  in 1661, female actors appeared on the English stage for the first
time;  in 1779 Washington's Continental Army defeated the British under
Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton;

     MISCELLANEA:  Today is Genshi-Sai (First Beginning) in Japan;  Upper Volta
celebrates Revolution Day.  It's the Feast of St. Genevieve, patron of Parism
actors, lawyers, and secretaries.  On this day in 1882, Oscar Wilde arrived in
New York, was asked by customs officials if he had anything to declare, and
answered, "Nothing but my genius"; Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband
premiered at London's Haymarket Theatre;  in 1921, the 1st parliament in India
met.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU