History
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Compay Segundo *XI 18 1907 — The Life You Give / La Vida Que Das
The Aristipposian Poet celebrates the life and music of Compay Segundo November 18 at 3 pm EST on Clubhouse Lea la biografía en Castellano al fondo Compay Segundo was born Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles on November 18, 1907, in Siboney, Cuba. He was a reputed Trova guitarist, singer, and composer of Cuba. Compay Segundo…
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Auguste Rodin *XI 12 1840 — The Life You Give
Auguste Rodin, born November 12, 1840, in Paris, France, is the sculptor of sumptuous bronze and marble figures, considered by some critics to be the greatest portraitist in the history of sculpture. His The Gates of Hell, commissioned in 1880 for the future Museum of the Decorative Arts in Paris, remained unfinished at his death…
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Mahatma Gandhi *X 2 1869 The Life You Give
Mahatma Gandhi, born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, is the Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer who became the leader of the nationalist movement against the British rule of India. As such, he came to be considered the father of his country. Gandhi is internationally esteemed for his doctrine of…
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Miguel de Cervantes *IX 29 1547 — The Life You Give
Miguel de Cervantes, born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, September 29?, 1547, in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, is the novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and the most important and celebrated figure in Spanish literature. His novel Don Quixote has been translated, in full or in part, into more than 60…
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Arnold Schönberg *IX 13 1874 — The Life You Give
Arnold Schoenberg, born Arnold Franz Walter Schönberg, September 13, 1874 in Vienna, Austria, is the composer who created new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row. He was also one of the most-influential teachers of the 20th century; among his most-significant pupils were Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Schoenberg’s father,…
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe *VIII 28 1749 / The Life You Give
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, is the poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic, and amateur artist, considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era. Goethe is the only German literary figure whose range and international standing equal those of Germany’s supreme philosophers (who…
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Lucille Ball *VIII 6 1911 / The Life You Give
Lucille Ball, born August 6, 1911, in Jamestown, New York, is the radio and motion-picture actress and longtime comedy star of American television, best remembered for her classic television comedy series “I Love Lucy”.Ball determined at an early age to become an actress and left high school at age 15 to enroll in a drama…
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Dance, Dance, Dance
From pre-historic to primitive, to modern, to contemporary, and back to povera, with elegance, seduction, tribalism, or spiritualism, dance seems to be a global, perhaps universal phenomenon serving as celebration of joy or pain, to free or incarcerate body or soul. During my continuing search for causes for celebration, I came across this obscure moment…
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On 12 June 1964, eight defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment — one of them being Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela, at the Rivonia Trial I am the First Accused. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted prisoner serving five years for leaving the country without a permit and for inciting people to…
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The Life You Give: Anne Frank *VI 12 1929
Anne Frank, born Annelies Marie Frank, June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, February/March 1945, is the girl whose diary of her family’s two years in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands became a classic of war literature. Early in the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, Anne’s father, Otto Frank (1889–1980), a…
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The Life You Give: Carl Linnaeus *V 23 1707
Carolus Linnaeus, born on May 23, 1707, in Råshult, Småland, Sweden, is the naturalist and explorer who was the first to frame principles for defining natural genera and species of organisms and to create a uniform system for naming them (binomial nomenclature). Linnaeus was the son of a curate and grew up in Småland, a…
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“Tristan und Isolde”
“I fear the opera will be banned – unless the whole thing is parodied in a bad performance – only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad, – I cannot imagine it otherwise.”– Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck
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The Life You Give: Bartolomeo Cristofori *V 4 1655
Bartolomeo Cristofori, born Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, May 4, 1655, in Padua, Republic of Venice, Italy, is the harpsichord maker generally credited with the invention of the piano, called in his time gravicembalo col piano e forte, or “harpsichord that plays soft and loud.” The name refers to the piano’s ability to change loudness according…
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Maya Angelou *IV 4 1928 / The Life You Give
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson, on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A., is the poet, memoirist, and actress whose several volumes of autobiography explore the themes of economic, racial, and sexual oppression. Although born in St. Louis, Angelou spent much of her childhood in the care of her paternal grandmother in rural…
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