Births which occurred on
a November 01:
1993 The New European Union
The Maastricht Treaty comes into
effect, formally establishing the European Union. The treaty
was drafted in 1991 by delegates from the European Community
meeting at Maastricht in the Netherlands, and signed in 1992.
The agreement called for greater economic integration, common
foreign and security policies, and cooperation between police
and other authorities on crime, terrorism, and immigration issues.
The treaty also laid the groundwork for the establishment of
a single European currency — the "Euro." By 1993, twelve nations
had ratified the Maastricht Treaty on European Union: Great
Britain, France, Germany, the Irish Republic, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Greece, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
After suffering through centuries of bloody conflict, the nations
of Western Europe were finally united in the spirit of economic
cooperation. |
1985 Q-Link begins
Q-Link, a proprietary online
service for users of Commodore's Amiga computers, starts. A
newly-formed company called Quantum Computer Services, run by
twenty-six-year-old Steve Case, created the service. Q-Link
offered news, soap opera updates, games, and chat for $9.95
per month. Quantum later created an online system for Apple,
called Applelink. When Apple abandoned the system in October
1989, Quantum decided to run the system itself under the name
America Online. |
1983 PC Jr introduced by IBM. The long-awaited home computer,
the PC Jr., starts at $669. The PC Jr., with its "chiclet"
keyboard and limited capabilities, was doomed to a short life: the company
discontinued the model in March 1985.
1952
First nuclear fusion explosion
As part of the Operation Ivy
nuclear program, the United States successfully detonates "Mike,"
the world's first nuclear fusion explosive device, on the Elugelab
Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall
Islands. The 10.4-megaton device is the first thermonuclear
device built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation
implosion. In early 1950, in response to the explosion of the
first Soviet atomic bomb, US president Harry S. Truman publicly
announced the US intention to build a “hydrogen” bomb.
The hydrogen bomb, also called a "superbomb," was a type of
nuclear weapon theorized by scientists Edward Teller and Stanslaw
Ulam that would have far greater explosive potential than the
US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The incredible
explosive force of Mike is apparent from the sheer magnitude
of its mushroom cloud — within ninety seconds the mushroom cloud
climbed to 17'000 m and entered the stratosphere. One minute
later it reached 33'000 m, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling
of 37'000 m. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched
100 km across, with the base of the head joining the stem at
14'000 m.
— How
nuclear bombs work (ordinary hydrogen is not involved in
a nuclear fusion bomb. It contains lithium deuteride, which
under the heat generated by a preliminary nuclear fission explosion,
releases the hydrogen isotope deuterium which becomes helium,
losing a little mass and releasing a lot of energy). |
1950 Munificentissimus
Deus encyclical is issued by Pope Pius XII. It teaches infallibly
the dogma of the Assumption: at the end of her earthly life, Jesus' mother
was taken, body and soul, into heaven to be united with the risen Christ,
a belief proposed by Gregory of Tours 1400 years earlier and celebrated
on the feast
day of the Assumption even before that.
1942 Larry Flynt, smut magazine publisher (Hustler)
1939 First jet plane, Heinkel HE-178, demonstrated to German
Air Ministry .
1933 Ramón Tamames, economista y político
español.
1930 A.R. Gurney, American playwright (Love Letters, The Dining
Room).
1927 Ford Model A production
begins
For the first time since the
Model T was introduced in 1908, the Ford Motor Company began
production on a significantly redesigned automobile on this
day — the Model A. The hugely successful Model T revolutionized
the automobile industry, and over fifteen million copies of
the "Thin Lizzy" were sold in its nineteen years of production.
By 1927, the popularity of the outdated Model T was rapidly
waning. Improved, but basically unchanged for its two-decade
reign, it was losing ground to the more stylish and powerful
motor cars offered by Ford's competitors. In May of 1927, Ford
plants across the country closed, and the company began an intensive
development of the more refined and modern Model A. The vastly
improved Model A had elegant Lincoln-like styling on a smaller
scale, and used a capable 200.5 cubic-inch four-cylinder engine
that produced forty horsepower. With prices starting at $460,
nearly five million Model As, in several body styles and a variety
of colors, rolled onto to America's highways before production
ended in early 1932. |
|
1925 Elmore Leonard, in New
Orleans, novelist.
His father worked for General
Motors, and the family moved frequently during Leonard's
childhood, finally settling in Detroit. During World War
II, Leonard served in the US Naval Reserve, then graduated
from the University of Detroit with a degree in English in
1950. He decided to write either westerns or detective novels,
whichever would generate the most income. After he sold a
western for $1000, he quickly churned out eight more. One
of his books, Hombre (1961), was voted one of the
best 25 westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America.
It was made into a film in 1967.
Leonard married and had five
children. To support the family, he worked as a copywriter
at an advertising agency full time and on his novels every
morning between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Westerns peaked in popularity
in the late 1960s, so he turned to detective fiction. His
first mystery, The Big Bounce (1969), was rejected
by 84 publishers before it was published as an original paperback.
Meanwhile, Leonard began writing educational films for Encyclopedia
Britannica. In the 1980s and 90s, the quality of his writing
and originality of his plots finally began to gain serious
recognition among critics, who had previously dismissed his
work as typical western or mystery-suspense fare. By 1983,
he had written 23 novels, including Fifty-Two Pickup
(1974), Swag (1976), and Stick (1983), which
became a bestseller. His 1992 novel, Rum Punch, was
made into the movie Jackie Brown, directed by Quentin Tarantino.
His 1990 novel, Get Shorty, was made into a movie
starring John Travolta in 1995. In 2000, Leonard lives in
Detroit.
Some of his other titles are:
The Switch, The Hunted, The Bounty Hunters, Forty Lashes
Less One, Gunsights, Pagan Babies, Swag, Mr. Majestyk, Touch
, Labrava, City Primeval : High Noon in Detroit, Split Images
: A Novel, The Hard Way, Killshot, Bandits, Be Cool, Cuba
Libre, Valdez in Coming, Escape from Five Shadows, Last Stand
at Saber River, the Law at Randado, The Tonto Woman and Other
Western Stories, Maximum Bob, Riding the Rap, Pronto, Out
of Sight, Cat Chaser. [at
Amazon]
|
1924 Suleiman Demirel, político turco
1913 Mostowski,
mathematician.
1911 Henri Troyat, à Moscou, romancier et académicien français.
1902 Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian lyric poet, dramatist, novelist (The
Defeat). When Germany occupied Norway early in WWII, Grieg escaped to the
UK with the Norwegian government-in-exile. His war poems and radio talks
became the leading voice of free Norway. He died on 02 December 1943 while
in an Allied plane shot down during a raid over Berlin.
1897 The
Library of Congress building, the first one, opens its doors
to the public.
1896 Edmund Blunden English poet/critic (Undertones of War)
1892 Alexander Alekhine Russia, world chess champion (1927-46)
1889 Hannah Hoch, German artist who died in 1978. — LINKS
1887 Laurence Stephen Lowry, British artist who died in 1976.
— LINKS
1886 Hermann Broch Austria, novelist (Sleepwalkers, Bewitchment)
1885 Anton
Flettner, German inventor who died on 29 December 1961. He invented
the
rotor ship (propelled by revolving cylinders mounted vertically on the
deck, the
Baden-Baden arrived in New York on 09 May 1926), of a marine
rudder, of a trim-tab control for aircraft. — Jacques Cousteau and
his colleagues designed a ship propulsion system to save fuel and cut pollution,
based on the rotor ship idea, which they called “turbosail” which
they used on the
Alcyone, launched in 1985.
1882 Lorenzo Viani, Italian artist who died in 1936.— Lorenzo
Viani, pintor italiano. — MÁS SOBRE
VIANI EN ART “4” NOVEMBER
1880 Sholem Asch, Polish-born American novelist and playwright (The
Nazarene, The Mother, Three Cities)
1880 Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and geophysicist, who died
in November 1930 during his fourth expedition to Greenland (to study polar
air circulation). He published the first complete continental drift hypothesis
in Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (1915).
1880 Grantland Rice, sportswriter/poet
1878 Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Argentina, jurist. He would receive
the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize for his promotion of peace as Argentina's
Secretary of State, President of the Society of Nations, and Mediator
in a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia. —
MORE
1871 Stephen Crane
US, novelist / poet. best known for
The Red Badge of Courage (1896), a Civil War novel
told from the soldier's point of view.
Crane, the youngest of 14 children,
was born in 1871 and grew up in New York and New Jersey. He
became a journalist in New York, working short stints for various
newspapers and living in near poverty. Immersed in the hand-to-mouth
life of poor New York, Crane closely observed the characters
around him, and in 1893, at age 23, he self-published
Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, about a poor girl's
decline into prostitution and suicide. The book was a critical
success but failed to sell well. He turned his attention to
more popular topics and began writing The Red Badge of Courage.
After the book's success, the
same newspaper syndicate dispatched Crane to write about the
West and Mexico, and in 1897 Crane headed to Cuba to cover the
insurrection against Spain. On the way there, he met his future
lifelong companion, Cora Howard Taylor, the proprietress of
a rundown hotel where he was staying. Crane later covered the
war between Greece and Turkey, and settled in England, where
he befriended Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Henry James.
CRANE ONLINE: |
|
Active Service
Wounds in the Rain
The Blue Hotel
|
Maggie, a Girl of the Streets
The Monster, and Other Stories
The Red Badge of Courage
|
War is Kind, and Other Lines
The Black Riders, and Other Lines
Whilomville Stories
|
1870 Christopher John Brennan, poet. BRENNAN ONLINE: The
Burden of Tyre: Fifteen Poems, A
Chant of Doom and Other Verses, Poems
(1913)
1853 José Santos Zelaya (L), ruler of Nicaragua (1893-1910)
1853 Maurice Leloir, French artist who died on 07 October 1940.
1844 Olga Wisinger-Florian, Austrian artist who died on 7 February
1926.
1827 Manuel María de los Santos Acosta Castillo,
médico y político liberal colombiano.
1815 Crawford Williamson Long surgeon/pioneer (use of ether)
1798 Benjamin Lee Guinness, Irish brewer.
1782 Viscount Goderich (Tory), British PM (1827-28)
1781 Joseph Karl Stieler, German artist who died on 09 April 1858.
1776 San Juan Capistrano Mission, founded by Spanish Franciscan
missionaries in California.
1762 Spencer Perceval (Tory), British PM (1809-12)l, the only
British prime minister to be assassinated.
1738 Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier, French artist who
died on 07 May 1826.
1636 Nicolas Boileau, poète et historien, auteur de L'Art
poétique, aussi de Satires
du sieur D***, Satires
du sieur D***
1611 The Tempest, romantic comedy by Shakespeare, is first
presented at Whitehall Palace in London
1609 Matthew Hale, author of A
Discourse Touching Provision for the Poor, The
History of the Common Law of England
1607 Georg Philipp Harsdorfer Nurenberg Germany, poet (Poetischer
Trichter)
1604 Othello, tragedy by Shakespeare, is first presented
at Whitehall Palace in London
1535 Giambattista
della Porta, mathematician.
1920 Ambrose
Rogers, mathematician.
1530 Etienne de la Boétie, à Sarlat, humaniste et ami de Montaigne
("parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi").
1512 The
Sixtine Chapel ceiling fresco by Michelangelo,
a masterpiece covering 540 square meters, is exhibited for the
first time. Michelangelo had painted the
ceiling from 1508 to 1512. It had been commissioned in 1508
by Pope Julius II to depict the whole story of the Bible.
Michelangelo Buonarroti was born
on March 6, 1475. He died on February 18, 1564. Michelangelo
painted on the west wall of the Sistine Chapel from 1534 to
1541 the Last
Judgment scene. Other parts of the Sistine chapel were painted
by other artists. — MORE
AT ART “4” NOVEMBER —
|
1500 Benvenuto Cellini,
in Florence, sculptor, goldsmith, and writer who died on 13
February 1571 — Florentine sculptor and engraver, who became one of the foremost
goldsmiths of the Italian Renaissance, executing exquisitely
crafted coins, jewelry, vases, and ornaments. Born in Florence,
Cellini was apprenticed to a goldsmith at the age of 15. When
he was 16, his fiery temper and continual dueling and brawling
caused him to be exiled to Siena. Later, in Rome, he was Michelangelo's
pupil for a short while. Among Cellini's most famous patrons
were Pope Clement VII, Pope Paul III, Francis I of France, and
the Florentine noble Cosimo
I de' Medici. Francis I invited him to Paris in 1540, where
he modeled the bronze reliefs of the Nymph
of Fontainebleau. He also executed an elaborate gold
saltcellar for Francis (1543). Compelled to leave in 1545
because of his quarrels with the king's mistress and his eccentricities,
Cellini returned to Florence. There, under the patronage of
Cosimo de' Medici, he executed many fine works in metal, among
them a bronze
portrait bust of Cosimo and the colossal bronze statue
Perseus
and Medusa (1554). He died in Florence. Cellini is also
noted for his autobiography, written between 1558 and 1562.
An embellished account of Cellini's escapades, adventures, and
intrigues, this text provides a valuable portrait of daily,
political, social, and ecclesiastical life in the 16th century.
— Nato a Firenze, Benvenuto Cellini iniziò l'usuale apprendistato
presso diversi maestri orafi quando aveva appena tredici anni,
rivelando da subito originalità, inventiva ed una personalità
particolarmente rissosa. Furono proprio le intemperanze del
suo carattere che nel 1516 lo portarono al confino di sei mesi
a Siena e nel 1523, sempre a causa di una rissa, al definitivo
(e forzato) abbandono di Firenze per Roma. A Roma riuscì a frequentare
le botteghe dei più noti maestri orafi della città e, una volta
in proprio, ad accattivarsi le simpatie di papa Clemente VII,
per il quale portò a termine numerosi lavori. Nel 1527, l'anno
del sacco di Roma, si vantò di aver preso parte in maniera attiva
alla difesa della città riuscendo ad uccidere il conestabile
Carlo di Borbone e a ferire il principe d'Orange con un solo
colpo di archibugio. Ma il favore di cui godeva, specialmente
presso la corte papale, s'indebolì sotto i colpi del suo mai
sopito carattere iroso e dell'ascesa al trono pontificio di
Paolo III il quale, in seguito alle calunnie degli avversari
del Cellini ed all'accusa di essere l'autore di due omicidi
che pendeva sul suo capo, nel 1538 lo fece arrestare e rinchiudere
a Castel Sant'Angelo. Riuscito avventurosamente ad evadere,
venne ripreso nel 1539 e liberato definitivamente l'anno dopo
per intercessione di Ippolito II d'Este. Il Cellini decise così
di stabilirsi in Francia, presso la corte di Francesco I, per
il quale portò a termine diverse opere, tra le quali molte furono
di scultura. Nel 1545 fu di nuovo a Firenze, dove il duca Cosimo
I de' Medici lo incaricò di scolpire il Perseo, completato
nel 1549. Anche nella sua città natale, però, il Cellini continuò
ad essere perseguitato dalle malelingue e, non ulteriormente
accettato alla corte del duca, si ritrovò a vivere in miseria
gli ultimi suoi anni, durante i quali scrisse i Trattati
della oreficeria e della scultura (1565-'67) e dettò la
Vita (1558-'66), nella quale descriveva, in modo per
la verità non totalmente aderente ai fatti ma conforme a molte
altri scritti biografici dell'epoca, gli avvenimenti della sua
esistenza fino al 1562.
Pubblicata per la prima volta
a Napoli da Antonio Cocchi nel 1728, l’autobiografia di Benvenuto
Cellini o Vita di Benvenuto di Maestro Giovanni Cellini fiorentino,
scritta, per lui medesimo, in Firenze fu redatta inizialmente
dallo stesso Cellini in un periodo di forzata inattività dovuta
al poco favore di cui godeva presso il suo ultimo committente,
il duca Cosimo dé Medici, ed in seguito venne dettata dall’autore
ad un figlio tredicenne di Michele di Goro. La Vita, divisa
in 2 libri rispettivamente di 128 e 113 brevi capitoli (il primo
libro giunge fino al 1539, il secondo va dal 1540 al 1562),
è tutt’altro che un’obiettiva autobiografia: al contrario, in
essa il Cellini volle soprattutto celebrare quell’esaltazione
dell’individuo e delle sue virtù che fu tipica della società
rinascimentale e della maggior parte della letteratura biografica
dell’epoca.
— Il fut le plus grand orfèvre de la Renaisance. Il raconte
sa vie dans ses passionnantes Mémoires. Ce contemporain
de Léonard de Vinci et de Michel-Ange fut aussi un très grand
sculpteur.
— . CELLINI ONLINE: Vita
(zipped) — (English translation): Autobiography
of Benvenuto Cellini
— ART
LINKS |
|
On
a November 01: 
1918
The Hapsburg monarchy's Austria-Hungary empire is dissolved. Vienna becomes
the capital of Austria and Budapest the capital of Hungary. 
