Category: Today’s Birthday

One of the greatest composers of Western classical music, Beethoven was born to a musical family and was a precociously gifted pianist and violist. After nine years as a court musician, he moved to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn. There, he quickly won fame and renown as both a virtuoso and a composer. He went on to become the first major composer to be able to earn a living independently, without support from the church or court. Beethoven’s deafness resulted in what unique historical record? Discuss

The son of an oil millionaire, Getty was an American industrialist who increased his fortune and became the richest man in the world by acquiring oil companies and obtaining rights to a tract of land in Saudi Arabia that yielded great quantities of oil. Married and divorced five times, he was known for such bizarre behavior as installing a payphone in his mansion for guests to use and refusing to pay a ransom for his grandson even after being sent the boy’s ear. What happened to the grandson? Discuss

A newspaper editor, De Leon joined the Socialist Labor Party in the US in 1890 and soon became one of its leaders. He led a radical faction that seceded from the Knights of Labor in 1895 and formed the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (STLA). The STLA was later absorbed by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which he helped found in 1905. After being refused a seat at a 1908 IWW convention by extremists who favored violent tactics over political action, he founded what organization? Discuss

From 1927 until his retirement in 1974, Parsons, an American sociologist, trained three generations of students at Harvard University. He was known for his attempt to construct a single theoretical framework within which general and specific characteristics of societies could be systematically classified and was largely responsible for introducing the work of Émile Durkheim and Max Weber to American sociologists. Why was Parsons considered one of the most controversial sociologists in the world? Discuss

Best known as the painter of The Scream, Munch was a Norwegian artist and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His early life was marked by the deaths of his mother and favorite sister, and he said about his father: “From him I inherited the seeds of madness.” Aestheticizing his trauma, Munch visually explored primal themes like death, sex, and fear. Reaction to his stark and sometimes fearsome images caused his first major exhibition to be closed. How did he feel about this? Discuss

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