Tag: On This Day
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Lions, and Tigers, and Pie
View of Hyde Park Corner Turnpike, Westminster, London, 1792. Civil engineer John Metcalf, also known as Blind Jack, was born on August 15, 1717. Blind from the age of six, he has a surprising legacy in pioneering modern road construction, along with John MacAdam and Thomas Telford.
Also born on August 15th:
Napoléon Bonaparte, 1769
Writer Sir Walter Scott , 1771.
Writer and abolitionist Eliza Lee Cabot, 13th child of Samuel and Sarah, 1785.
Founder of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, 1856.
“The Frog asks to be allowed to enter the Castle”, illustration for The Frog Prince, Walter Krane, 1874Artist Walter Crane,1845. He is remembered especially for his illustrations in children’s literature, and in popularizing the Arts and Crafts movement.
Magical writer and poet Edith Nesbit, 1858.
Composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor, 1875.
Baseball player and controversial manager and owner of the Chicago White Sox, Charles Comiskey, 1859.
Actresses Ethel Barrymore, 1879 and Estelle Brody, 1900
Expressionist painter Jack Tworkov, 1900
Chef, author, and teacher Julia Child, 1912
Graphic designer Paul Rand, 1914
Artist Leonard Baskin, 1922
On August 15th:
Aug. 15, 1939: Munchkins join the “Wizard of Oz” festivities at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. (Gordon Wallace / Los Angeles Times) The Panama Canal opened in1914.
The Wizard of Oz premiered in Los Angeles in 1939.
Woodstock opened in 1969.
According to the Calendar of Weird Holidays, August 15th is National Leathercraft Day, Lemon Meringue Pie Day, and National Relaxation Day. The Old Farmers Almanac says August 15th is a good day to plant aboveground crops, breed animals, slaughter livestock, brew beer or cider, and begin a diet to gain weight, so go get on that pie I guess?
Tonight’s moon is the first quarter moon and in the astrological sign Scorpio. The Sun is all by itself in Leo.
What all of this means for the rest of your weekend:
I don’t know. Today I learned that a large part of the modern road system over which we transverse was conceived and executed by a blind man, so I have some thinking to do.
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You Have No Power Here
Now begone, before someone drops a house on you too.
16th-century portrait of Elizabeth Bathory Hungarian aristocrat and serial killer Elizabeth Báthory was born on August 7, 1560.
Alan Leo, considered by many to be the father of modern astrology, was born on August 7, 1860.
Mata Hari by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, 1906 Dutch dancer and German spy Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, better known by her stage name Mata Hari, was born on August 7, 1876.
Billie Burke as Glinda in The Wizard of Oz Wrapping up August 7th, actress Billie Burke was born in 1884. These days she is probably best remembered for playing Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. I was just reading about this particular character, realizing as many have that she was kind of the villain. So for today, you can lay down your head for much-needed weekend rest, and ponder who might be the true miscreants in your life, and what they might be getting away with while the run-of-the-mill misanthropes throw temper tantrums in the front of the room.
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Amalia Mendoza
Nicknamed La Tariácuri, Mexican singer Amalia Mendoza was born on July 23, 1923.
Puñalada Trapera (Stabbed in the Back) sung by Amalia Mendoza 
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Pee Wee Reese
Major League Baseball shortstop for the Brooklyn and LA Dodgers, Harold Peter Henry “Pee Wee” Reese was born July 23, 1918 in Ekron, Kentucky.
Pee Wee Reese displayed in a trading card manufactured by the Bowman Gum Company, 1954. -
Anna Jagellonica
Anna Jagellonica, Queen of Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary and Archduchess of Austria as the wife of King Ferdinand I (later Holy Roman Emperor) was born on July 23, 1503.
Hans Maler – Queen Anne of Hungary and Bohemia -
Maria Spelterini
Stereoscopic image of Maria Spelterini Crossing Niagara Falls, 1876. Photographed by George Curtis. Science Source / New York Public Library Italian tightrope walker Maria Spelterini became the first and only woman to cross the Niagara gorge on a tightrope. Her first crossing was on July 8, 1876 as part of a U.S. Centennial celebration, and crossed again on July 12th, 19th, and 22nd, backwards with a paper bag over her head and wearing peach baskets on her feet, blindfolded, and with her ankles and wrists manacled respectively.
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William Archibald Spooner
William Archibald Spooner as caricatured by Spy (Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, April 1898 English Professor William Archibald Spooner was born on July 22, 1844. He is most remembered for mixing up words with often comedic results. His signature turns of phrase are known as spoonerisms.
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Mary Magdalene
July 22nd is the Christian feast day of Mary Magdalene.
Magdalene with the Smoking Flame (c. 1640) by Georges de La Tour -
Marie-Madeleine d’Aubray
French aristocrat Marie-Madeleine d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, born July 22, 1630. In 1676, she was tried, convicted, and executed for murdering her father and brothers to inherit their estate. François-Adrien Boieldieu wrote a popular opera based on her life called La marquise de Brinvilliers.
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An Artic Icarus
Surely one of the most beautiful photographs ever: S. A. Andrée and Knut Frænkel with the crashed balloon, photographed by the third expedition member, Nils Strindberg, 1897, recovered in 1930. In an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole by hydrogen balloon, engineer and aeronaut Salmon August Andrée, accompanied by engineer Knut Frænkel, and photographer Nils Strindberg took off from Spitsbergen, Norway on July 11, 1897. They flew for 65 hours, but a series of unfortunate events including flying directionless into heavy storms, they crash-landed onto pack ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.
The Eagle sailing north, photographed from Danes Island They had flown about 495 km, and spent the next three months attempting to head back over frozen terrain, eventually landing on the deserted Arctic island of Kvitøya sometime in October. The three of them died there and their whereabouts were a mystery until 1930 when their bodies (and Strindberg’s photo plates) were found by chance. It is said that Andree ignored many potential flaws in his plan, including that the balloon had come from Paris directly after being made, had never been tested, and was showing serious signs of leaking. He also ignored concerns that his devised method of steering the balloon with a series of weighted ropes might not be as effective as he claimed (which turned out to be true).
Two Horse, One Horse, No Horse
The Lumière brothers demonstrated their invention of the cinématographe, the all-in-one camera, developer, and projector on July 11, 1895.
Their first film is 46 seconds and is called Sortie de l’Usine Lumière de Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory in Lyon).
This video shows all three versions, released about a year apart, in 1895, 1896, and 1897 respectively. Each version is often referred to by the number of horses seen in the shot. Magician Harry Kellar was born July 11, 1849. Apparently, he was known as the “Dean of Magic,” and specialized in illusions that involved the use of apparatuses. Also, he talked Harry Houdini out of attempting to catch a bullet. He wrote in a letter: “Don’t try the damn bullet catching trick, no matter how sure you may feel of its success. There is always the biggest kind of risk that some dog will ‘job’ you.” Also if you click on that link, there is a picture of the two of them that makes Kellar look an awful lot like Houdini’s ventriloquist dummy.
Night Scene, Paris 1913. Boris Grigoriev Illustrator H.M. Brock was born July 11, 1875; followed by astronomer and author of Astronomy for Young Folks Isabel Martin Lewis in 1881; Russian painter Boris Grigoriev, in 1886; and writer E.B. White, in 1899. I trust you own The Elements of Style, yes?
Writer Alexander Afanasyev was born July 11, 1826. He published eight volumes of Russian fairytales and folktales.
Chester Gilette murdered Grace Brown on July 11, 1906, inspiring Theodore Dreiser‘s An American Tragedy. Also on July 11; Big Ben rang for the first time in 1859, and Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804. Remember back before there was a musical, and we all knew about those two was from the milk commercial?
Affirmation for your morning: It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.
Hair of the dog that bit you: sheepdog
Number of horses in the shot: 1
For today: horse betting?
a slightly different version of this was first published July 12, 2018 at www.theanatomyofmelancholy.com
