Category: Today’s Birthday

Zappa was a prolific and highly distinctive guitarist, composer, and songwriter. His career spanned more than 30 years and encompassed a variety of genres, including rock, jazz, and classical. He released the groundbreaking double album Freak Out! with the Mothers of Invention in 1966. With its raw sound, sophisticated arrangements, and lyrics praising nonconformity, the album immediately established Zappa as a radical new voice in rock music. What unusual names did he give his children? Discuss

In 1900, Firestone formed a company to manufacture and sell rubber tires for horse-drawn vehicles, but within four years, his business had shifted to making tires for the burgeoning auto market. Sales to Ford Motor Company helped put Firestone Tire & Rubber Company at the top of the US tire industry. In 1924, Firestone established his own rubber plantations in Liberia, effectively defeating the British rubber cartel. What was “The Millionaires Club,” and who besides Firestone was a member? Discuss

Encouraged by her father, a circus acrobat, Édith Giovanna Gassion began singing in the streets of Paris at age 15. She was eventually discovered by a cabaret owner who gave her her first nightclub job, taught her the basics of stage presence, and suggested she change her name to Piaf, Parisian slang for “sparrow.” As her popularity grew, she began performing in clubs across Europe and the Americas and appeared in several films. How did she allegedly aid French prisoners of war during WWII? Discuss

For 40 years, Moses—”master builder” of mid-20th-century New York—held a series of municipal positions that allowed him to radically change the city and its environs by creating a system of parkways, bridges, tunnels, and housing projects. Arguably the most powerful person in state government from the 1930s to the 1950s, he is credited with building 416 miles of parkway, 13 major bridges, and 658 playgrounds and setting aside over 2 million acres of parkland. Why was his approach controversial? Discuss

Whittier was an American Quaker poet and reformer. He had little formal education but was an avid reader, and he published his first volume of poems in 1831. He declared himself an abolitionist in 1833 and worked to promote the cause as a politician, poet, and editor of antislavery periodicals. After slavery was abolished in the US, he turned his focus to writing poems that vividly portray rural New England life. Which of his poems was mistakenly attributed to Ethan Allen for nearly sixty years? Discuss

Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter and art theorist, was one of the 20th century’s most important artists, credited with painting the first abstract works in the history of modern art. He was a founder of the German expressionist group The Blue Rider, and he wrote Concerning the Spiritual in Art to champion ideas about color and nonrepresentational painting that he had developed after coming in contact with Neo-Impressionism and Fauvism. At what age did Kandinsky enroll in art school? Discuss

Eiffel was a French engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower as the entrance arch for the for the 1889 Paris Exhibition. Though it was supposed to be dismantled after the fair, the tower became a landmark and is today the world’s most visited paid monument. Prior to this massive undertaking, Eiffel established his reputation by constructing a series of ambitious railway bridges, including the span across the Douro at Oporto, Portugal. In 1881, he designed the internal framework for what structure? Discuss

Kidnapped by his uncle when he was a toddler and raised to be a scholar, Brahe went on to become the most prominent astronomer of the late 16th century. After inheriting his father’s and uncle’s estates, he built a small observatory and, in 1572, discovered and studied a supernova. Funded by Denmark’s King Frederick II, he built a larger observatory and accurately charted the positions of some 777 fixed stars. His observations provided the basis for the laws of planetary motion derived by whom? Discuss

After appearing in television variety shows during the 1950s, Van Dyke made his Broadway debut and earned his first Tony Award starring in Bye, Bye Birdie. He won several Emmy Awards for the successful television comedy series The Dick Van Dyke Show and also danced and sang in the films Mary Poppins and Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang. Van Dyke appeared infrequently during the 80s but made a career comeback with what dramatic TV series that co-starred his son? Discuss

Flaubert was a French writer considered one of the supreme masters of the realistic novel. At 22, he abandoned law studies to pursue a career as an author. In 1856, after five years of work, he published his masterpiece, Madame Bovary, about the frustrations and love affairs of a romantic young woman married to a dull provincial doctor. A sharply realistic portrayal of bourgeois boredom and adultery, the novel led to his prosecution on moral grounds. What was the verdict? Discuss