Category: Today’s Birthday

Goldman was an American anarchist. She became active in the movement after 1889, and her speeches began to attract attention throughout the US. In 1893, she was imprisoned for inciting a riot. She was also imprisoned in 1916 for publicly advocating birth control and again in 1917 for obstructing the draft. She was deported to Russia in 1919 but left in 1921 because of her disagreement with the Bolshevik government. She was permitted to reenter the US for a lecture tour in 1934 on what condition? Discuss

Szabo was a British secret agent during WWII. After her husband died in the war, Szabo, who was fluent in French, offered her services to the British Special Operations Executive. After intensive training, she parachuted into German-occupied France to reorganize a French resistance network. On her second mission, she was captured by the Nazis. She endured interrogation and torture before being transferred to a concentration camp, where she was later executed. How old was Szabo when she died? Discuss

Lumet was an American film and television director with over 50 films to his name, three of which received Academy Award nominations for Best Director. He began acting as a child, appearing in Yiddish productions and on Broadway. After serving in WWII, he began directing plays and teaching acting. He directed more than 200 television dramas before making his debut as a movie director in 1957 with the acclaimed Twelve Angry Men. For what did Lumet receive an Academy Award in 2005? Discuss

Weber was a German physiologist who is known for his work on touch and for the formulation of Weber’s law—which states that the increase in stimulus necessary to produce an increase in sensation is not fixed but depends on the strength of the preceding stimulus. Weber’s law led to the discipline of psychophysics and serves as the basis of the scales used to measure the loudness of sounds. He is considered a founder of experimental psychology and is also known for what discoveries in anatomy? Discuss

Born into a vaudeville family, Fosse began dancing professionally at age 13. He won his first Tony Award for choreographing the Broadway musical The Pajama Game in 1954 and went on to win six more Tonys for his choreography, which was known for its sensuality, precision, and jazz sensibility. His later hit shows included Damn Yankees and Sweet Charity—both starring his wife, Gwen Verdon. Fosse was the first person to win what three awards in the same year? Discuss

Morphy was an American chess player widely considered to have been the world’s greatest. He earned a law degree at 18 but was ineligible to practice until 21, so he turned to chess to pass the time. He won the American championship and then beat the European masters, making a name for himself as the unofficial world chess champion. After failing to set up a law practice, he went into seclusion and retired from competitive play. How many opponents could he play simultaneously while blindfolded? Discuss

Hirschfeld was an American graphic artist and caricaturist who was famous for his witty, perceptive, and joyful caricatures of theater celebrities and other public personalities. After becoming a theater correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, he worked for The New York Times, where many of his caricatures appeared. Hirschfeld also wrote and illustrated several books. Beginning in 1945, Hirschfeld concealed what in almost every drawing that he made? Discuss

After working as a book reviewer, press agent, and play reader, Hellman began writing plays in the 1930s. Her first major success, The Children’s Hour, concerned two schoolteachers falsely accused of lesbianism. She examined family infighting in her hit The Little Foxes and political injustice in Watch on the Rhine. All were made into successful films. Hellman was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952. What happened when she refused to testify? Discuss

Pascal was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. A child prodigy, he earned the envy of René Descartes with an essay he wrote on conic sections when he was still a teen. Credited with founding the modern theory of probability and advancing differential calculus, he also made important contributions to physics, notably in the study of atmospheric pressure. Why did he later abandon his scientific work to focus on theology and philosophy? Discuss

Mallory was an English mountain climber who participated in the Everest expeditions of 1921, 1922, and 1924. The 1924 expedition culminated in a bold and possibly successful drive toward the summit by Mallory and Andrew Irvine, from which they did not return. Mallory’s body was discovered on Everest in 1999. His achievements and the mystery surrounding his final effort have made him a mountaineering legend. What “three most famous words in mountaineering” are attributed to Mallory? Discuss