Category: Today’s Birthday

Berlioz was a French Romantic composer. He studied music in Paris against his parents’ wishes, and his first great score, Symphonie fantastique, became a landmark of the Romantic era. An impassioned and contentious critic, he was constantly at war with the musical establishment. Although he was the most compelling French musical figure of his time, his distinctive compositional style kept almost all his music out of the repertory until the mid-20th century. What are his most famous works? Discuss

Dickinson is widely considered one of the greatest American poets. After attending Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke Seminary, she returned to her family home and spent the rest of her life there, writing. By 1860, she was boldly experimenting with language. Few of her poems were published in her lifetime, but after her death, her cache of poems was discovered, and heavily edited collections were published starting in 1890. It was not until what year that an unaltered collection was published? Discuss

Whiston was an English clergyman and mathematician. He won favor through his New Theory of the Earth and in 1701 was made deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded as a professor of mathematics at Cambridge. Well known as a preacher, Whiston aroused opposition by proclaiming his opinions about early Christianity, and in 1710 he was dismissed from the university for heresy. In 1736, he caused widespread panic when he predicted that what would bring the world to its end within the year? Discuss

After working at various newspapers, Thurber served on the staff of The New Yorker from 1927 to 1933 and was later a principal contributor to the magazine, publishing drawings, stories, and anecdotes of his misadventures. He is especially known for his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” In 1940, his failing eyesight forced him to curtail his drawing, and by 1952 he had to give it up altogether as his blindness had become nearly total. What is said to be Thurber’s last drawing? Discuss

Bird was an American basketball player. After spending most of his collegiate career at Indiana State University, he was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1978 and became a perennial all-star. He led the Celtics to three championships and was named the league’s most valuable player as many times. He retired after winning gold with the 1992 US Olympic “Dream Team.” What future rival did Bird face in a college basketball championship game and then again in three professional championship series? Discuss

Widely considered the father of photojournalism, Eisenstaedt began creating photo essays in Berlin during the 1920s. He emigrated to the US in 1935 and joined the original photography staff at Life magazine. Soon Eisenstaedt came to epitomize the magazine’s style with his topically important and beautifully composed photographs and his candid portraits of the great and the anonymous. His most famous photograph is of the joyous Times Square kiss of a sailor and a nurse on what day? Discuss

A mathematical prodigy, Painlevé embarked on a career devoted to science, but he turned to politics after the Dreyfus Affair sparked his interest. In World War I, he held several French cabinet posts and was briefly premier in 1917. He was premier again in 1925 and was later minister of war and minister of aviation. In mathematics, Painlevé ranked among the best minds of his time, and he made important contributions in the field of differential equations. What are the Painlevé transcendents? Discuss

Butler was a British novelist and critic. Descended from clergymen, he grappled for years with Christianity and evolution in his writings, first embracing, then rejecting, Charles Darwin’s theories. He is best known for his autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. During his lifetime, his reputation rested on the utopian satire Erewhon (1872), which foreshadowed the end of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress. What prediction did Butler make about human evolution? Discuss

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, McClellan was placed in command of the Union forces in Ohio. Appointed general-in-chief of the army by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, he cautiously conducted the Peninsular Campaign but failed to take Richmond. At the Battle of Antietam, he failed to destroy Robert E. Lee’s army, and Lincoln removed him from command. In 1864, he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president against Lincoln. What did Lee once say about McClellan? Discuss

A German painter and printmaker, Dix fought in World War I and returned haunted by what he had witnessed. After experimenting with Impressionism and Dada, he arrived at Expressionism and began producing works depicting nightmarish scenes of the horrors of war and the depravities of a decadent society. His antimilitary works aroused the wrath of the Nazi regime and he was dismissed from his academic posts in 1933. On what charges was he arrested in 1939? Discuss