Fourteenth of April

Yesterday was the anniversary of the day I was born and my friend Ashe sent me a list of some April 14 happenings which I reproduce at bottom. As he does every day, Bent Sørensen gave his own visual and auditory wrap up of the date's milestones. You can find it at: Ordinary Finds, April 14, 2010. This painting comes from his compilation. It's Victor Borisov-Musatov's "Portrait of Nadezhda Stanyukovich."

{Portrait of Nadezhda Stanyukovich - 1903 - Oil on canvas, hung in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; my source: wikipedia which got it from Olga's Gallery}

Bent also notes these men and women who share my birthdate:

• Chicago style jazz tenor man Gene Ammons, called The Boss - April 14, 1925 - 1974
• Great English Shakespearean actor, John Gielgud - April 14, 1904 - 2000
• British actress Julie Christie (b. April 14, 1941)
• Coal Miner's Daughter, Loretta Lynn, country singer (b. April 14, 1935)
• German-American painter and printmaker, Emil Ganso, painter (April 14, 1895 - 1941)
• Belgian painter, James Ensor (April 13, 1860 – 1949)

Today my friend Kate provided a link to an article in the Guardian announcing availability of the The Illustrated London News on the web (albeit by subscription, not for free). The Guardian reporter says: "All 160 years of the pioneering Illustrated London News, from its launch in 1842 to its last abortive relaunch in 2003, have been digitised by Gale for students, historians and researchers – including all the colour, and the special issues." The article offers this teaser ILN photo, which I might have included in what has turned out to be one of the most popular web posts on this blog (the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime).



Soon after seeing Kate's reference to the digitizing of the Illustrated London News I saw this blog post and thought it might be a belated April Fool: How Tweet It Is!: Library Acquires Entire Twitter Archive. But not so, the Library of Congress will indeed archive Twitter. As it happens, the announcement of this intention comes alongside an announcement that Google will make the entire Twitter archive searchable (Twitter's own archive, not the future LC one). See Epicenter Mind Our Tech Business Library of Congress Archives Twitter History, While Google Searches It (on Wired) and Library of Congress Will Save Tweets on NYT.

Here's the list I got from Ashe with her smiley at end. It's not intended to be comprehensive, rather a smattering showing variety.

1989 - 1,100,000,000th Chinese born
1983 - President Reagan signs $165 billion Social Security rescue
1981 - 1st Space Shuttle-Columbia 1-returns to Earth
1980 - 52nd Academy Awards - "Kramer vs Kramer," Dustin Hoffman & Sally Field win
1977 - Supreme Court says people may refuse to display state motto on license
1971 - Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies," premieres in New York City
1969 - 1st major league baseball game outside U.S. played (Montreal Canada)
1963 - George Harrison is impressed by unsigned group "Rolling Stones"
1961 - U.S. element 103 (Lawrencium) discovered
1956 - Ampex Corp demonstrates 1st commercial videotape recorder
1939 - John Steinbeck novel "The Grapes of Wrath" published
1910 - President Taft begins tradition of throwing out ball on opening day
1894 - 1st public showing of Edison's kinetoscope (moving pictures)
1860 - 1st Pony Express rider arrives in San Francisco from St. Joseph, Missouri
1859 - Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" published
1853 - Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape
1841 - Edgar Allen Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," published
193 - Lucius Septimus Severus crowned emperor of Rome

:)