From: BCJ@PSUVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.c18-l
Subject: C18-L's KALENDAR: January 4-10 (Reasons to Celebrate!)
Date: 3 Jan 93 20:12:04 GMT
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU

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*                                                                   *
*             THE KALENDAR - REASONS TO CELEBRATE                   *
*                                                                   *
*             Compiled for C18-L by Kevin Berland                   *
*                       BCJ@PSUVM.BITNET                            *
*                       BCJ@psuvm.psu.edu                           *
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                            JANUARY 4:

   BIRTHDAYS:  James Ussher, Irish divine, Archbishop of Armagh & Prelate
of Ireland, scholar, biblical chronologist who dated creation at 4004 BCE
(1581);  Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist, astronomer, mathematician,
alchemist, philosopher biblical chronologist (1643-1727);  Giovanni Pergolesi,
Italian comic opera composer (1710-36);  Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm, German
philologist, folklorist, scholar, fairy-tale collector (1765-1863);  Francois
Rude,
French sculptor (1784);

    LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Louis Braille, French musician,
teacher, and inventor of the eponymous system for the blind (1809-52);  Sir
Isaac Pitman, English printer, publisher, inventor of shorthand (1813-97);
Thornton Burgess, US writer of children's books featuring talking animals
(1874-1965);  Edwin Emil Witte, US economist (1887-1960);  Marsden Hartley,
US painter (1887); A.E. Coppard, English poet, short-story writer (1878);
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, German sculptor (1881);  Leroy Randle Grumman, US
airplane maker (1895-1982);  Everett McKinley Dirksen, US politician, Senator
(1896-1969);  Sterling Holloway, US actor, Disney cartoon voice (1905-92);
Floyd Patterson, US boxer (1935);

   DEATHS:  Marechal Duc de Luxembourg (1695);  Charlotte Lennox (1804);

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1641-2, King Charles I attempted to have 5
members of parliament (Hampden, Pym, Hollis, Haselrig, & Strode)
imprisoned, with no success;  in 1717, England, France, and the Netherlands
signed the Triple Alliance;  in 1762, England declared war on France &
Naples, the beginning of the Seven Years' War;  in 1805 Spain joined
Napoleon against the English & their allies in the War of the 3rd Coalition;

   MISCELLANEA:  Today is Independence Day in Burma; Zaire today
commemorates the Martyrs of the Independence.  Today is the Feast of St.
Pharaildis (Verylde), invoked by mothers concerned for the health of their
children.

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                            JANUARY 5:

  BIRTHDAYS:  Shah Jahan, 5th Moghul Emperor of Hindustan, builder of the
Taj Mahal (1592-1666);  Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Spanish statesman,
jurist, and writer (1744-1811);  Dr. Benjamin Rush, US physician, educator, &
reformer, US Treasurer, founder of 1st free dispensary in US (1745-1813);
Zebulon Montgomery Pike, US general & explorer, after whom the Peak was
named, killed while attacking Toronto (1779-1813);  Stephen Decatur, US
naval commander (1779-1820);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Thomas Pringle, Scottish poet,
traveller, founder of Blackwood's Magazine (1789-1834);  Rudolph Christoph
Eucken, German philosopher, 1908 Nobel Laureate (1846-1926);  King G.
Gillette, US inventor of the safety razor (1855-1932);  Konrad Adenauer,
German statesman (1876-1967);  Herbert Bayard Swope, US journalist, US
journalist (1882-1958);  Bernard Leach, the great English potter (1887);  Yves
Tanguy, French surrealist painter (1900); Nicolas de Stael, French painter
(1914);  Friederich Durrenmatt, Swiss novelist & dramatist [The Visit] (1921);
le
Grand Duc  Jean de Luxembourg (1921);  William Dewitt "W.D." Snodgrass
,US poet (1926);  Wa;ter Frederick Mondale, US politician, VP (1928);   Alvin
Ailey, US dancer & choreographer (1931);  Juan Carlos I de Borbon y
Borbon, King of Spain (1938);

   DEATHS:  Catherine de Medici, Queen of France (1589);  Elizabeth of Russia
(1762);  James Merrick (1769);  James Howie (1793);  Isaac Reed (1803)

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1757, Robert Francis Damiens, allegedly a
madman, attempted to assassinate King Louis XV;  in 1762, Elizabeth of Russia
died, and was succeeded by Peter III;  in 1782 the poet William Cowper wrote
of Dryden in a letter: "Never, I believe, were such talents and such drudgery
united!"; in 1821 Lord Byron told his diary that Sir Walter Scott is a
"wonderful
man! I long to get drunk with him!";  in 1825, Alexandre Dumas (pere) fought
his first duel at 23, but failed to live  up to his romantic vision -- his pants
fell
down (1825);

  MISCELLANEA:  Tonight is traditionally celebrated in England as Twelfth
Night, the last night the Christmas season; or Wassail Eve, reflecting the
tradition of celebrating the good health of friends & neighbours by drinking a
spicy wine or ale from a loving cup; it is also the Eve of the Epiphany or Feast
of the Three Kings;  the US marks George Washington Carver Day today.
On this day in 1887 Columbia University opened its Library School; in 1895,
Henry James's play Guy Domville premiered at St. James' Theatre, London --
he arrived too late to judge aright how the audience likes the play, stepped
forward to cries of "Author! Author!" and was hissed and booed off the stage -
- out of revenge he wrote no more plays, turning to novels instead;  in 1902,
the 1st private performance of Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession (not
performed publically in the US until 1905, not performed in England until
1925!);  in 1905 the Audubon Society was founded; in 1906;  the 1st
performance of Shaw's The Millionairess, in German, at Vienna's Akademie
Theatre (Vienna, 1996) -- did you ever see the movie with  Peter Sellers
(doing his Indian doctor schtick) and we think it was Sophia Loren?)

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                            JANUARY 6:

   BIRTHDAYS:  Richard II, King of England (1367-1400);  Jeanne d'Arc,
French patriot, saint (1402);  David Dale, English philanthropist (1739);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Jedediah Strong Smith, US explorer,
1st to enter California from the east, &c. (1799-1831));  George Thomas Doo,
English engraver (1800);  Charles Sumner, US politician, abolitionist (1811-74);
Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist, discoverer of Troy (1822-90);
Gustave Dore, French printmaker (1832);  William (or Thomas) Sherlock Scott
Holmes, fictional English detective, born at Mycroft Farm, near the Sigerside,
North Riding of Yorkshire (1854);  Carl Sandburg, US poet, folksinger,
folkhistorian (1878-1967);  Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix, US cowboy movie actor
(1880-1940);  Sam Taliaferro Rayburn, US politician, Speaker of the House
(1882-1961);   Khalil Gibran, Syrian-born US poet (1883--1931);  Alan Watts,
English-born US writer, philosopher (1915-73);  Jean Ipousteguy, French
sculptor (1920);  Edgar Lawrence Doctorow, US novelist (1931);

  DEATHS:  Bishop Seth Ward (1694);  John Dennis (1734);  Frances "Fanny"
Burney, Mme. D'Arblay (1840);  James Smith (1840);

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1622 King James I of England sent Sir
Edward Coke to prison for advocating common law in face of royal
prerogative (part of the prehistory of modern democracy);  in 1738, the 1st
18th-century performance of Shakespeare's Richard II took place at Covent
Garden on that king's 371st birthday;  in 1797 Albany became the capital of
New York State;

   MISCELLANEA:  Today is Christmas in Ethiopa (Eastern Orthodox Church);
Iraq celebrates Army Day; iy is the feast of the Epiphany or Adoration of the
Magi, the 12th Day of Christmas.

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                            JANUARY 7:

   BIRTHDAYS:  Pope Gregory XII, pope 1572-85, inventor of the reformed,
Gregorian calendar (1502-85);  Israel Putnam, American revolutionary
general, legend (1718-90);  Jacques Etienne Montgolfier. French inventor &
balloonist, in 1783 developer of 1st practical hot-air ballon (1745-99); Joseph
Bonaparte, King of Naples 1806-08, King of Spain 1808-13, brother to
Napoleon (1768-1844);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Eilhardt Mitscherlisch, German
chemist (1794-1863);  Millard Fillmore, US politician, statesman, 13th president
(1800-74);  Robert Nicoll, poet (1814);  Albert Bierstadt, German-born US
painter of the Hudson River School (1830-1902) ; Marie Bernarde Soubiroux,
better known as Bernadette, French visionary nun of Lourdes (1844-79);
King Louis III, last King of Bavaria 1913-1918 (1845-1921);  P.A.J. Dagnan-
Bouveret, French painter (1852);  Konstantin Stanisalvski, Russian actor,
director, founder of the Moscow Arts Theatre, inventor of method acting
(1863-1938);  Charles Peguy, French poet & philosopher (1873-1914);  Adolph
Zukor, Hungarian-born US film tycoon (1873-1976);  Francois Poulenc,
French composer, (1899-1963);  Baron Alain de Rothschild, French banker,
Jewish leader (1910-92);  Charles Addams, US mordant New Yorker cartoonist
(1912); Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal, French virtuoso flautist (1922);  Gerald
Durrell, English zoologist, raconteur, survivor of a very odd, colourful
childhood with brother Lawrence & other animals (1925);

   DEATHS:  Fenelon de la Mothe (1715);  Allan Ramsay (1758);

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1450, the University of Glasgow was
founded;  in 1610, Galileo first saw the major satellites of Jupiter; in 1714,
the
1st typewriter patent was issued in England;  in 1761, the Moghul rule in India
ended;  in 1782, the Bank of North America opened in Philadelphia;  in 1785,
Francois Blanchard & John Jeffries made the 1st crossing of the English
channel from Dover to Calais by hot air balloon; in 1789 George Washington
was elected the 1st US president;  in 1807, the English navy blockaded the
French coast;

   MISCELLANEA:  Today is Pioneer's Day in Liberia; it is also the Feast of St.
Reinold, patron of stone masons.  As the day after 12th Day, the 7th used to be
celebrated as St. Distaff's Day, when spinning was to resume after the
Christmas Holiday.  On this day  in 1933 Louis Gruenberg's opera The
Emperor Jones, starring  Paul Robeson, premiered at New York's
Metropolitan Opera.

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                            JANUARY 8:

   BIRTHDAYS:  ; Elisabetta Sirani, Italian painter (1638);  Jonathan Belcher, U
merchant, colonial governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire & New
Jersey (1682-1756);  Jacques Francois Blondel, French architect (1705);  John
Carroll, 1st Roman Catholic bishop in US & founder of Georgetown
University (1735-1815);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Lowell Mason, US hymnist &
educator (1792-1872) ; Alfred Russel Wallace, English explorer & naturalist
(1823-1913);  Wilkie Collins, English novelist and inventor of detective fiction
(1824-89);  Henri Giffard, French aeronaut, inventor of the first skyworthy
steerable airship (1825-82);  Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, English painter
(1836);  Frank Nelson Doubleday, US editor & publisher (1862-1961);  Emily
Green Balch, US economist, social scientist, pacifist, 1946 Nobel Peace Prize
(1867-1961);  James Craig, Viscount Craigavon, Irish statesman, 1st PM of
Northern Ireland (1871-1940);  William Thomas Piper, US small-airplane
maker (1881-1970);  John Curtin, Australian editor, statesman, PM (1885-1945);;
Georgi Maximilianovich Malenkov, Russian leader, Premier of USSR (1902);
Curtis Arnoux Peters, better known as Peter Arno, US  (New Yorker)
cartoonist -- read Brendan Gill's account in Here at the New Yorker (1904-68);
Galina Sergeyevna Ulanova, Russian Soviet prima ballerina (1910); Jose
Vincente Ferrer y Centron, Puerto Rican actor (1912); Elvis Aron Presley, US
rock star, who once allegedly said in public, "I don't know anything about
music. In my line you don't have to" (1935-77);  Stephen Hawking, English
theoretical physicist, author, teacher (1942);

   DEATHS:  Galileo Galilei (1642);  John, Earl of Stair (1707);  Sir
Thomas Burnet (1753);  John Baskerville (1775);  Sir William Draper (1787);

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:   in 1756, the Haarlem Courant, one of the
earliest & longest-running newspapers, was 1st published;   in 1790, US
President George Washington delivered the 1st State of the Union Address
(1790);  in 1798 the 11th Amendment to the US Constitution (modifying
Supreme Court Powers) Was ratified;  in 1800, the 1st soup kitchens for the
relief of the poor were opened in London;  in 1812, Andrew Jackson's army
defeated the British forces at the Battle of New Orleans, an event later
memorialized by a fiddle tune called "The 8th of January," and still later by
Johnny Horton's hit ("Wal, they ran through the briers an they ran through
the brambles an they ran through the bushes where the rabbits would'n go,
they ran so fas that the houns could'n git them, down the Mississippi to the
Gulfa Mexico...");

   MISCELLANEA:  On this day in 1959 General Charles de Gaulle became
President of the 5th Republic of France.  Today is the Feast of St. Gudula,
patron of Brussels.

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                            JANUARY 9:

   BIRTHDAYS:  Pope Gregory XV, pope 1621-23 (1554-1623);  Simon Vouet,
French painter (1590);  Nicolas Coustou, French sculptor (1658); John Jervis,
Earl St. Vincent, English admiral, 1st Lord of the British Admiralty (1734);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  William Powell Frith, English painter
(1819);  John Knowles Paine, US composer, educator, professor of music at
Harvard (1839-1906);  Carrie Chapman Catt, US reformer, founder of the US
League of Women Voters (1859-1919);  Hayyim Bahman Bialik, Hebrew poet
(1873-1934);  John Broadus Watson, US behaviourist psychologist (1878-1958);
Humbert I, King of Italy 1844-1900 (1878-1900);  Richard Haliburton, US
explorer & author [Royal Road to Romance, &c.] who retraced the routes of
Hannibal, Alexander the Great, but was lost at sea trying to sail in a Chinese
junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco (1900-39);  Sir Rudolf Bing, Anglo-
Austrian impresario, manager of the Metropolitan Opera (1902);  Georgy
Melitonovich Balanchivadze, better known as George Balanchine, Russian-
born US  ballet impresario & choreographer (1904-83);  Simone de Beauvoir,
French feminist, novelist, existentialist, pal of Jean Paul Sartre, which
couldn't
have been easy since he was the man who said "Hell is other people" (1908);
Richard Milhous Nixon, US lawyer, 37th president, crook (1913);  Rose
Louise Hovick, better known as Gypsy Rose Lee, US burlesque dancer,
actress, author, choreographer (1914-70);  Joan Baez, Mexican-American
folksinger, pacifist, activist, author (1941);

   DEATHS:  Bernard de Fontenelle (1757);  Thomas Birch (1766);  Elizabeth O.
Benger (1822);  Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1848);

   ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  in 1493, King Vladislav II of Poland granted
Polish noblemen the Habeus Corpus Constitution of Cracow; in 1570, Ivan the
Terrible did terrible things in rebellious Novgorod;  in 1683, King Charles II
of England issued orders to regulate the practice of touching for the King's
Evil (scrofula), which would take place only during the winter months;  in 1723,
the 1st performance of Charles Forrest's Love in a Forest, a reworking of
Shakespeare's As You Like It, premiered at Drury Lane;  in 1793, 1st
successful balloon flight in N. America, by Francois Blanchard over
Philadelphia;  in 1809, the US issued the interestingly-named "Non-Intecourse
Act" against British commerce;  in 1816, Davy's safety lamp was 1st used in an
English mine;

   MISCELLANEA:  Today is National Mourning Day (Martyrs' Day) in
Panama.  It's the Feast of St. Julian, patron of hospitality and hoteliers.

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                            JANUARY 10:

   BIRTHDAYS:  Ethan Allen, US patriot, leader of the Green Mountain Boys
during the American Revolution, Vermont hero (1738-89);  Michel Ney,
French general, Napoleon's marshal (1769-1815);

   LATER BIRTHDAYS OF INTEREST:  Dr. George Birckbeck (1776);  John
Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, English historian, 1834);
John Wellborn Root, US architect, founder of the Chicago School [form
follows function] (1850-92);  Adrien Wettach, better known as Grock, Swiss
clown (1880-1959); Aleksei Nikolaivich Tolstoi, Russian author of short-stories
& novels (1882-1945);  Francis X. Bushman, US silent-screen actor, proto-
Tarzan & heart-throb (1883-1966);  Robertson Jeffers, US poet (1887-62);
John Held Jr., US illustrator, best know for his "flapper" cartoons (1889);
Vicente Huidobro, Chilean poet, novelist, critic (1893-1948);  Katherine Burr
Blodgett, US physicist, 1st woman research scientist at GE, inventor of non-
reflecting invisible glass (1898-1979);  Barbara Hepworth, English sculptor
(1903);  Gustav Husak, Czechoslovak leader, president (1913);  Mehmet
Shehu, Albanian statesman (1913-81);  Dean Dixon, US musician, 1st black &
youngest to conduct the New York Philharmonic (1915-76);  Sherrill Milnes,
US operatic baritone (1935);  Ronnie Hawkins, nearly famous Arkansas-born
Canadian rock musician, bandleader for the Band before Bob Dylan and
before their name (1935);  George Foreman, US boxer (1949);

   ON THIS DAY:  in 1645, England's Bishop Laud was executed;  in 1743,
English poet Richard Savage was arrested in Bristol for a coffee-house debt
of 8 pounds;  in 1757, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Poland, & Sweden
declared war on Prussia;  in 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense,
which sold more than half a million copies;

   MISCELLANEA:  On this day in 1920, the League of Nations was founded.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU