The Merely Mentioneds: D


D


Aden Abdullah Osman Daar: the first head of state when British and Italian Somaliland united to form Somalia on July 1 1960 [Africa]


David Dacko: the first head of state when The Central African Republic gained independence from France on August 13 1960 [Africa]

 

Moktar Ould Daddah: the first head of state when Mauritania gained independence from France on November 28 1960 [Africa]

 

Giovanni Daelli: the Milanese publisher of the Italian translation of "Les Miserables” on Oct 18 [serious scribes]

 

Matthew Paige (Matt) Damon: winning the rugby world cup on June 24 [the world as stage]

 

William Dampier: (1651-1715): variously described as “pirate”, “buccaneer” and “hydrographer”, which makes him a classic exemplar of the Pulchrasaurus, he is mostly remembered as the first European to undertake a seriously scientific exploration of the coast of Australia; see Feb 1 [E,M&C2]

 

Arnautz Daniel: with the Trobairitz on Jan 13, as well as hymning Jehanne Darc on May 30; all the poems here; bio and maths here, recital here [The Poets]

 

Kamel Daoud: re-writing Albert Camus' "L’Etranger" for a post-Colonialist age, on Aug 20 [serious scribes] - try here

 

Kassa Haile Darge (Ras Kassa): unified the warring states of Ethiopia and crowned himself Emperor Tewodros II in 1855; his defeat by the British at the Battle of Aroge in 1868, and his subsequent suicide, are also on the Africa page

 

Joe Darion: tilting at windmills on Nov 22 - he wrote the lyrics, Mitch Leigh set them to music: click here; I wonder what Jacques Brel thought of it [the world as stage and musical maestros]

 

Jerry Darring: compiled the catalogue of Christian anti-Semitism on July 14

 

Sa’ad al-Da’ula al-Qawasi; Saʿd al-Dawla al-afī Ibn Hibbatallah in some records (born circa 1240): a Jewish Vizier (of anywhere at all is somewhat implausible - Biblical Joseph, for example, turns out not to have been Jewish at all, but a Hyksos conqueror - but this one was specifically the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo, where Jews were not counted among the favoured peoples; nonetheless it is historically verifiable; the full bio here; for his execution on March 5 1291, click here; he also makes a splendid pairing for that other verifiable implausibility, Pietro Pierleone, the Jewish Pope, who can be found among the purple cloaks

 

Jo(seph) Davidson (1883-1952): noted by Frieda on March 2 as being among the last friends to visit DHL before he died; you can see the bust, just, here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Humphry Davy: Dec 11 has “Anaesthesia first used in dentistry, by Horace Wells, today in 1844”, but my note on the Scientific Achievements list on Jan 1 insists that “actually the pioneering work on N2O (nitrous oxide or laughing gas) was done fifty years previously by Humphry Davy”, so this is on the Sherpa Tenzing list as well: start here or here [E,M&C2]

 

William Dawes Jr (born April 6 1745; died February 25 1799): not even mentioned by Longfellow in his poem, but had he got there first it would have been called “The Midnight Ride of William Dawes”, not that of Paul Revere - see April 18 for him and all the other minor figures involved in the tale: the Governor, General Thomas Gage, with Major John Pitcairn and Captain John Parker; also Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the leaders of the "Sons of Liberty", and Samuel Prescott. Click here for Dawes’ bio [on the page of The Poets]

 

Richard Dawkins: my cartoon provides the illustration on July 26, though I failed to include the suggestion that belief in the actual, physical existence of the psyche might be termed a “deitic delusion” [E,M&C2]


Charles-François Daubigny: another of the scarcely-remembereds of Durand-Ruel’s discoveries on Feb 5; try here and here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Honoré-Victorin Daumier: ibid Daubigny, above; try here - Feb 5 [illustrious illustrators]


Anan ben David: at war, if only intellectually, with Sa’adiah Ga’on, on May 16; for him, click here; for more about his Kara’ite movement, here [reverend writers]


Michael Davitt, in English; Mícheál Mac Dáibhéid in Éirish: established the “Éirish Land League” on April 24 and the Éireland page; his full biography here and here

 

Daniel Day-Lewis: has a mention in “A Journey in Time” because of his wife; methodical on this blog on Jan 17 and Nov 17 [the world as stage]

 

Dr. Michael E. DeBakey - the Sherpa Tenzing of the tale of the first artificial heart transplant on April 4, carried out by Denton Cooley in Houston, Texas, the recipient Haskell Karp; but see Christian Barnard on Dec 3 [scientific achievements and E,M&C2]

 

Achille-Claude Debussy (born August 22 1862; died March 25 1918): merely mentioned on Feb 9; influencing Lily Boulanger on Aug 21; and me, listening to his “La Mer” and Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, alternately, as a 17 year old; bio here [musical maestros]

 

Jean-Baptiste Defernex: sculpting a bust of Mme du Boccage on Oct 5

 

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix: discovered by père and mère Durand-Ruel, setting the tone for son Paul’s later career, on Feb 5; another of the Etretat crowd on Oct 6; try here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Hippolyte-Paul Delaroche: provides the illustration, twice, on July 19 [illustrious illustrators]

 

Mathieu Delarue: vainly pursuing freedom on Feb 21 [philosophers]

 

Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon: No one makes movies like the French, on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

 

Claude Étienne Edmond Marie Pierre Delvincourt (born January 12 1888; died April 5 1954): shared the Prix de Rome with Lily Boulanger on Aug 21; bio here [musical maestros]


Cecil Blount DeMille  (born August 12 1881; died January 21 1959): making Hollywood epics on July 10 [the world as stage]

 

Alfred Thompson (Lord Tom) Denning: the senior lawyer in the UK in the latter years of the 20th century, defending Magna Carta on June 15 [political ideologues]

 

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu co-starring with Delon and co on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

 

Jeanne-Françoise Deroin (born December 31 1805 in Paris; "emigrated" to England August 1852; died in England April 2 1894): with Eugénie Niboyet on March 19; mentions there also for Suzanne Voilquin, Desirée Gay, and Amélie Pray in the 1848 section, plus Colette Reynaud and Louise Bodin in 1917

 

Shri Moraji Desai (1896-1979): succeeded Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister on Feb 29; bio here

 

François-Hippolyte Desbuissons: painting Théroigne de Méricourt on May 15


Camille Desmoulins: husband of Anne-Lucile-Philippe Desmoulins on Aug 13

 

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the successor to Toussaint L'Ouverture, declares Saint Dominque independent and renames it Haiti on January 1 1804 [Africa and responses to bullying]

 

William C. DeVries: the first artificial heart on Dec 2 [but see my note to Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, above and on the E,M&C2 page)

 

Blaise Diagne (born in Senegal on October 13 1872; died May 11 1934): won a seat in the French National Assembly in Paris in 1914, representing Dakar, Senegal; the first person of full West African descent to be elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He remained a member until his death, recruited Senegalese troops for the French Army during World War I, and in 1934 became the the first African to hold a position in the French government, serving as Deputy Minister of the Colonies [Africa]

 

Abel Joseph (“Jack”) Diamond: simultaneously building Toronto’s Opera House and refurbishing my school on Feb 28; here and here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (born July 30 1898; died October 9 1944): one of the Bauhaus artistes who was imprisoned at Terezin on April 1 [illustrious illustrators]

 

Martin Franz Dibelius (born September 14 1883; died November 11 1947): revolutionising Bible text criticism on Oct 10; here for his bio [reverend writers]

 

Rabbi Max Dienemann: (born September 27 1875; died April 10 1939): his horrible bio here; here for his works. The key text from the first link reads: "Max Dienemann, prominent German Jewish rabbi who came here three weeks ago, died today from the after effects of maltreatment in Nazi concentration camps. He was 64 years old." Dec 27 [reverend writers]

 

Albert Hermann Dietrich (born August 28 1829; died November 20 1908): contributed to the FAE Sonata on Oct 27; the piece can be heard here [musical maestros]

 

Alioine Diop: established "Présence Africaine" in 1947, a journal devoted to African culture, based in Dakar, Senegal [Africa and serious scribes]

 

Hamani Diori: the first head of state when Niger became independent from France on August 3 1960 [Africa]

 

Phyllis Selina Dixey (1914-1964): produced the first dedicated strip show in London on March 13; try here, though this may be better [the world as stage]

 

Samuel Kanyon Doe (born May 6 1951; died September 9 1990): led the military coup in 1980 that ended one hundred and thirty-three years of political domination by the Americo-Liberian élite in Liberia [Africa]


Giovanni dei Dolci: building the Sistine Chapel on Nov 1; try here for him, though more and better here; here for it [illustrious illustrators]

 

Marco Antonio de Dominis: born in 1560, he published a scientific explanation of rainbows on March 29 – bio here, and note that he ended up declared a heretic, his corpse was burned, and such of his works as were findable, on 21 December 1624 [scientific achievements and E,M&C2]

 

Antoine Dominique Caliste Domino Jr, better known as “Fats” (born February 26 1928; died October 24 2017): rattling them keyboards on Jan 5 [musical maestros]

 

Valentin Doni: leading the National Radio Orchestra of Bucharest on June 2 [musical maestros]

 

John Donne (born circa 1571/2; died March 31 1631): Dean of the fleas at St Paul’s on July 3, and among the reverend writers on Nov 28

 

Ali Dorani (Eaten Fish): Iranian born but now living in exile in Australia. Why? Take a look at his cartooning on Sept 27 [illustrious illustrators]

 

James Francis (Jimmy) Dorsey: blowing his own clarinet and saxophone (I don’t think he ever did the trumpet) on Feb 29 [musical maestros]

 

Alfred Bruce Douglas: apparently “Bosie” was his mother’s nickname, west country pronunciation of “boysie”, for “little boy”, long before Oscar used it; “aiding and abetting a pederast” on April 5; lots of his own writings here [serious scribes]

 

George Downing (1625-July 22 1684): scathed by Pepys on Jan 1 and Dec 4

 

Peter Doyle: Walt Whitman’s "Bosie" on March 15; but also Abraham Lincoln’s unnamed witness on April 14 – click here for more on that

 

Judith Drake: one of the Mary Astell circle on Nov 12; the debate as to whether she or MA or both together wrote the essay "In Defence of the Female Sex" is not helped by Project Gutenberg (click here) giving Judith the name James by mistake; though also interesting to note that the authorship on the original is given as "By A Lady" - see Jane Austen to understand the significance of that

 

Nancy Drew makes a guest appearance with the Hardy Boys on Oct 4 [lighter writers]

 

Jean Dubernat: Jeanne Baret's second husband on Nov 15

 

Jacques Barbeu Dubourg, doctor: providing dead bodies for Marie-Marguerite Biheron on April 28

 

Isidore Lucien Ducasse - Comte de Lautréamont was his pseudonym (born April 4 1846 in Uruguay; died November 24 1870 in Paris): a mere passing mention on Jan 5 , but the hint at his works is what matters: “Les Chants de Maldoror” and “Poésies”, two of the most influential works of modern lit, and what might he have achieved had he lived beyond the age of twenty-four (why did he die so young? look at the date: Paris was under siege and living conditions were disgusting; but in his case there may have been police involvement: click here [The Poets]

 

Les Frères Duchamp: Jacques Villon (born July 31 1875; died June 9, 1963); and Raymond Duchamp-Villon (born November 15 1876; died October 9 1918): the third brother being Marcel Duchamp on April 11. Jacques focused on Cubism and Abstract, when not print-making; Raymond was a sculptor. Jacques on his birth-certificate was Gaston Duchamp, and mum’s maiden name was Nicolle (click here), so I wonder if they took Villon to identify with an earlier rebel! click here for Jacqueshere for Raymond) [illustrious illustrators]

 

Georges Dudach: married to Charlotte Delbo on Jan 26

 

Guildford Dudley, husband of Queen Jane (Lady Jane Grey-Dudley), with brother Robert Dudley (more famous as Queen Bess’ Earl of Leicester and mentioned on March 15 and Sept 2), and Sir John Dudley, her father-in-law, can all be found ruining her young life on July 19 [Aenglisch list]

 

Philip Dukes: playing the viola on April 1 [musical maestros]

 

Alexandre Dumas: in Tolstoy’s diary on Jan 21, though I’m not sure if this was père or fils; the Isaac Laquedem reference on March 12 is definitely père; a reference to his fictionalised version of the life of Marguerite de Valois can be found on May 14, and I must remember to add Sarah Bernhardt making her name in père's play "Kean" to her Oct 22 listing; he also gets a mention on Caroline Lamb's page, May 9] [lighter writers]

 

Ghislaine Dunant: intervewing Charlotte Delbo on Jan 26

 

Jules Louis Dupré (1811-1889): yet another of Durand-Ruel’s discoveries on Feb 5; try here: [and I must investigate if he was related to cellist Jacqueline?] [illustrious illustrators]


Jean Durand and Marie Ruel, wife Eva Lafon, all making up the family of Paul Durand-Ruel on Feb 5 [illustrious illustrators]

 

Reginald Kenneth Dwight (Elton John): played the Cavern Club on Jan 16; (Bernie Taupin, who wrote the only decent songs Elton  ever sang, gets a mention on June 20 (and definitely merits a listing of his own - start here) [musical maestros]



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