The Merely Mentioneds: M


M


Wangari Maathai: the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize of any sort; in her case for her environmental work in her native Kenya, in 2004 [Africa]

 

George Macaulay: husband of Catharine and parent of Catharine Sophia on July 23

 

Seán MacDermott in English, Seán Mac Diarmada in Éirish (born January 27 1883; executed May 12 1916): one of the five who led the Easter Uprising and formed the first provisional government [Éireland]

 

Alister Gladstone MacDonald: architecting the original Toynbee Hall on June 5; his dad also gets a mention on that date [illustrious illustrators]

 

Samora Machel: first head of state when Mozambique gained independence from Portugal on June 25 1975 [Africa]

 

William Lyon Mackenzie (born March 12 1795; died August 28 1861): started a rebellion in Canada on Dec 5 – bio here

 

Eóin MacNeill (born May 15 1867; died October 15 1945): leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Bráithreachas Phoblacht na hÉireann) on April 24 and the Éireland page

 

Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron: dreaming of Charlemagne on Dec 25

 

William Hall Macy Jr: made up to be made-up on June 24

 

James Madison (born March 16 1751; died June 28 1836): sent the flag of truce that prepared the way for the Star-Spangled Banner on March 3

 

Hubert Maga: the first head of state when Benin became independent from France on August 1 1960 [Africa]

 

Louis Le Maire: composing for kiddies on March 15 [musical maestros]

 

Nachem Malech (Norman Kingsley) Mailer (born January 31 1923; died November 10 2007): at war with Susan Sontag on March 15; an “old pile of bones” according to Tom Wolfe on July 11 [among the Pseudonyms as well as the serious scribes]

 

Sir John Maltravers, with his fellow-sadist Sir Thomas Gurney, carried out the brutal murder of Edward II at Berkeley Castle on Sept 21

 

Savva Ivanovich Mamontov (born October 3 1841; died April 6 1918): buying the Abramtsevo Colony on June 2; - Abramtsevo website here; Mamontov here; the Private Opera here [musical maestros]

 

James Richard Marie Mancham: first head of state when Seychelles gained independence from Britain on June 25 1976 [Africa]

 

Mani (born April 14 216; died on a date unknown in probably 274): the founder of Manichaeism, a version of dualism that isn't Zoroastrianism, though he developed it in the same part of the world; a full essay in "TheBibleNet" here; explored by Pierre Bayle on Nov 18 [reverend writers]

 

Bradley (not yet renamed Chelsea) Manning: the precise opposite of treason on Jan 3; mentioned on Feb 22 [responses to bullying]

 

Abdallah Mapanda: the leader of the Maji-Maji Uprising in German East Africa (Tanganyika), captured by German forces in 1907 [Africa; responses to bullying]

 

Milton Margai: the first head of state when Sierra Leone gained independence from Britain on April 27 1961 [Africa]

 

Luis Muñoz Marin: entertained by Pablo Casals on Nov 13

 

David Newton Marinelli: translating Ripellino on March 11

 

David Peretzovich Markish, son of Peretz Davidovich Markish, born December 7 1895, murdered on Stalin’s orders on Aug 12 1952. David was one of the Otkazniks (Refuseniks), and can be found in my novel “Going To The Wall”; merely mentioned on Aug 12; both father and son can be found among the serious scribes

 

Andrew William Stevenson Marr: commenting on the BBC’s Orwell statue on June 25 [historians]

 

George Catlett Marshall: planning the future of Europe on June 5

 

Sarah Catherine Martin: and her sister Judith Anne, daughters of Sir Henry Martin, naval commissioner at Portsmouth and Comptroller of the Navy, hubbarding the bastard on March 15

 

Harriet Martineau (born June 12 1802; died June 27 1876): with Anna Brownell Jameson on May 17, and yet another of the sources for Jane Austen's pen-name, she published works on economics, sociology, and women's rights, sometimes as "Discipulus", sometimes as "A Lady" [serious scribes]


Lowell Mason: made Mary’s Lamb singable on March 15 [musical maestros]


Thomas Mason (I.X. Peck in his humuorous columns): the very first human voice recorded on a machine of any kind, ever, on my page for Nov 20 because I couldn’t find the actual date; but now click here [pseudonyms]

 

Rosa Mastbaum: died with her husband Jacub Praszkier when their hq in the Warsaw Ghetto was bombed on April 19 [responses to bullying]

 

Philippe Mathé-Curtz, but known by his latinised name as Philippe Curtius: anatomy in wax on March 30

 

Eilud Mathu: the first black member of the legislative council of Kenya, in 1944 [Africa]

 

Yosef ben Matityahu when he born in Yerushalayim 37CE; Titus Flavius Josephus when he died, circa 100CE, in Rome: recording history as propaganda on March 10 -  he led the Jewish Zealots as a resistance army against the Romans, then showed the Romans the back way into Yodfat (Jotapata), and was rewarded by being appointed Titus’ personal interpreter, which gave him a rather unique perspective on the destruction of the Temple in 70CE [historians]

 

Savaric de Mauléon (born 1181; died July 29 1233): one of the Troubadours who came under the matronage of Maria de Ventadorn on Jan 13 [Trobairitz and The Poets]

 

Moreau de Maupertuis: tutoring Émilie du Châtelet on June 12; his teacher Johann Bernoulli is also mentioned, as is the fact that Bernoulli also taught Leonhard Euler; and for algebra Alexis Clairaut 

 

Lucien Maxwell (and his son Pete) provided a death-bed for Billy the Kid on Nov 23

 

Ralph May (Ralph McTell): doing the revised version on Oct 3 - the original “Streets” were in Paris, as you can [Mc]tell by the man with his war ribbons and the baglady: not London images at all in that epoch, but totemically Parisian: click here [musical maestros]

 

Theresa Mary May: holding her nose on March 6

 

Leon M'ba: the first head of state when Gabon gained independence from France on August 17 1960 [Africa]

 

Hattie McDaniel (born June 10 1893 in Wichita; died October 26 1952): arrived with the wind on Feb 29 [the world as stage]

 

Joseph Allen (Country Joe) McDonald: summing up Richard Nixon on Aug 8

 

James Martin Pacelli McGuinness, or Séamus Máirtín Pacelli Mag Aonghusa in Éirish: secret meeting with Willie Whitelaw on Sept 29


Festus Claudius (“Claude”) McKay (born September 15 1890; died May 22 1948: in the Kremlin with George Padmore on June 28; poems and bio here [The Poets]

 

Thomas Francis Meagher, pronounced "Mahr" (born August 3 1823; died July 1 1867): leading the “Young Irelanders” on April 24 and the Éireland page

 

Alessandro de' Medici (born July 22 1510; died January 6 1537): makes three interesting appearances on the Africa page, but first see my paragraph on Pope Clement VII on the non-British Purple Cloaks page; or simply take a look at his portrait here; and learn about his name on the Pseudonyms page

 

Catherine de Medici (born April 13 1519; died January 5 1589): among the Supra Idesses on April 17

 

Ferdinand II de' Medici, Duke of Tuscany (born July 14 1610; died May 23 1670): surely he could and should have done much more for his teacher on Jan 8; click here for what he did do

 

Rabbi Meir “Ba’al Chanes” - “the miracle worker” (2nd century CE), husband of Beruriah: his bio here and here; but note from my text on Jan 12 that he went to earn his nickname because she sent him [mediaeval page of Woman-Blindness]

 

Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg (born circa 1220; died as a hostage in the prison at Ensisheim in 1293): known as “the Maharam”: listed among the ga’onim on Feb 19; teaching Mordechai ben Hillel ha-Kohen on March 30 [reverend writers]

 

Mordechaj (Markus) ben Samuel Meisl; Miška Marek Majzel in Czech (born on an unknown day in 1528; died March 13 1601): building most of the major buildings in Old Prague on March 11. Worth looking at “By Night Under the Stone Bridge” by Leo Perutz (here); otherwise just go here:

 

Luigi Federico Menabrea (born September 4 1809: died May 24 1896): taking detailed notes at a Babbage seminar on June 5; bio here [E,M&C2]

 

Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires in 1536 [pre-Columban Americas]

 

Menelaus (mythological characters don’t have birth and death dates): getting Helen back on June 11 [poetikos]

 

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519-1574): founded St Augustine in Florida on Sept 8 [pre-Columban Americas]

 

Albert Laurence di Meola: jamming with Chick and Paco on June 12; and then, if I could find a way to add Charlie, what a wonderful quartet that would make: Mingus and di Meola, Corea and Di Lucia: piano, bass and two guitars: blues meets jazz in partnership with Jazz Fusion. Awesome! [musical maestros]

 

David Mercer (born June 27 1928; died August 8 1980): the golden age of TV playwrights on Dec 3; bio here [the world as stage]

 

Angela Dorothea Merkel: dreaming of a United States of Europe on Dec 25, and please can someone tell me how this fantasy-vision-dream is any different from the one that Hitler and Napoleon were driven by [political ideologues]

 

Enrique Haroldo Gorriarán Merlo (born October 18 1941; died September 22 2006): I have him down as a GER on Sept 17, but is that US propaganda or was he genuinely? Surely getting rid of the Somoza dynasty once and for all was a good thing to have done (unless you are building the US empire and want vassal states whose governments are under your control), and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the one he killed, is definitely on that GER list: try here

 

George (1803-1880) and Charles (1806-1887) Merriam: turning Webster’s Dictionary into their own on April 21 [librarians of Babel]

 

Joseph Carey Merrick (born August 5 1862; died April 11 1890): known as the “Elephant Man”; played by John Hurt on Jan 22; his full story (CAVEAT: THE SITE INCLUDES PICTURES) here

 

Hugh de Merville: one of the four riders of the apocalypse on Dec 29

 

Addisu Messele: the first person of African ancestry to be elected to the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament [Africa page]

Gautier de Metz, or probably Gossuin de Metz: his "The Mirrour of the World" (completed January 1245), quite possibly the world’s oldest encyclopedia, albeit written in rhymed octosyllables, can be found, translated and published by William Caxton, on March 8; background here, Project Gutenberg text here; as much as is known about him here [E,M&C2]

 

Jackie Metzger: translating Hélène Berr on April 10, but interesting in his own write as a member of the education team at Yad Vashem, and the translator of much poetry from the epoch of the Holocaust; click here for his translation of Paul Celan, about whom I have an essay in Private Collection

 

Anne Michaels: even more "Fugitive Pieces” in the film than in the novel, on June 24 [serious scribes]

 

James Albert Michener (born February 3 1907; died October 17 1997): tracking down the source on Aug 3 [historians]

 

Irwin Stanley Michnick, or Mitch Leigh on his scores: aiming for the inaccessible star with Joe Darion on Nov 22; Darion wrote the lyrics, Leigh set them to music: click hereJacques Brel’s take on the story, “L'Homme de La Mancha”, premièred in Brussels in October 1968 – click here [the world as stage]

 

Conyers Middleton (born December 27 1683; died July 28 1750): the step-grandfather without whom Elizabeth Montagu might never have become the salonneuse spectaculaire of Georgian England: Oct 2; his bio here, his library here [the historians]

 

Leonard L Milberg: collecting Carvajal on Dec 8; (this link is also on the blog-page; this one is not, but it makes clear that wife Ellen may have been just as significant to the collecting as husband Lenny) [historians]

 

David Miller: burned his draft-card on Oct 15

 

Tanya Stabler Miller: beginning the Beguines on Feb 24; and in conversation about the book here [beguines]

 

William Miller: authoring Wee Willie Winkie on March 15 [lighter writers]

 

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875): one of the Barbizon artists on Feb 5; try here, and here [illustrious illustrators]

 

William Chadbourne "Chad" Mitchell: My John Birch question on May 19 needs a follow-up, because I have now found the Trio singing Dylan’s “Blowin In The Wind” on the Ed Sullivan show (click here), exactly where he sang his paranoid version of “John Birch”. So clearly there is more than just coincidence going on here.  And then there is the information that “In 1965, [John] Denver joined The Chad Mitchell Trio, replacing founder Chad Mitchell. After more personnel changes, the trio later became known as "Denver, Boise, and Johnson" (John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson).” More on Mitchell here;  (I'm afraid I haven't bothered to list John Denver) [musical maestros]

 

Benjamin MiTudelo, which should have its Mi separate from its Tudelo, but this is how he tends to get written in the Jewish annals. Benjamin of Tudela in the English ones. Bin Yamin ben Yonah ha-Tudelati in the Hebrew. The Jewish ibn-Battuta rather more than the Jewish Marco Polo on March 5, and now the subject of a book in my own write, in partnership with both of those just-nameds. Bio here in the meanwhile. [serious scribes]

 

Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov (born March 9 1890; died November 8 1986): creating the Russo-Germanic martini on Aug 23

 

Sir John Monash (born June 27 1865; died October 8 1931): not exactly clear how he got to be related to my late wife on May 7

 

Admiral General George Monck of England (1608-1670) versus Admiral Michiel de Ruyter of Holland (1607-1676), the original battle of Dunkirk (Dunkerque) on June 4; apparently the former was “the chief architect of the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660”; more on that here; a rather ominous-looking Ruyter here

 

Alexander Monro: his "Treatise on Osteology" translated into French by Geneviève d'Arconville on Dec 23

 

Edward Montagu, grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich and husband of salonista extraordinaire Elizabeth Montagu on Oct 2

 

Mary Wortley Montagu: one of the Mary Astell circle on Nov 12, and from the dates as well as the intellectual persona and the salon regularity, I am assuming she was a relative of Edward and Elizabeth. Her grand-daughter Lady Louisa Stuart is also quoted

 

Marquise de Montespan: the king's mistress who introduced him to her replacement, on Nov 27

 

Simon de Montfort (born circa 1208; died August 4 1265): set up the first English Parliament on June 23; start here but there is also this [Aenglisch page]

 

Jean de Montreuil: typical male chauvinistic pig on Jan 13

 

Michael Francis Moore: the heir of the protest singers on Oct 3;  his website here [the world as stage]

 

Sauveur Morand, surgeon: providing dead bodies for Marie-Marguerite Biheron on April 28

 

Jean Morawiecki: fiancé of Hélène Berr on April 10; also mentioned on the page are Hélène's father Raymond, her mother, but unnamed, her brother Jacques, and niece Mariette Job; plus the Berr family chef Andrée Bardiau, without whose safekeeping the journals would never have survived

 

Jean de Morel (Morella I. Morelli Ebredunaei): honoured in a poem by his daughter on Sept 18

 

Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern: singing from the gallows on April 1

 

Charles Morice: writing about Verlaine under the pseudonym Karl Mohr on Feb 8 [The Poets]

 

Stanley Morison: creating The typeface known as Times Roman on Jan 1, though apparently Victor Lardent was just as key

 

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841-1895): signed up by Durand-Ruel on Feb 5; she is also in "Woman-Blindness" with her sister Edma Pontillon (1839-1921) - try here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Nicolás Maduro Moros: accused of tyranny on July 5

 

Lord Nuffield (1877-1963), the other William Morris (the designer is on the Index: William Richard Morris), who gave even more of his wealth to worthy causes than Thomas Guy; look here to discover he was Morris Oxford cars, and the reason for Cowley (though he did use Fordian production lines, so a pulchrasaurus, just like Guy): Feb 23

 

Chloe Anthony Wofford (“Tony” Morrison) (born February 18 1931; died August 5 2019): amongst the banned books on Dec 6 [serious scribes]

 

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (born April 27 1791; died April 2 1872): in code on Jan 4; also mentioned on June 23 [librarians of Babel]

 

Edgardo Mortara: his tale is told on July 14

 

Moses, who should be listed as Moshe ben Amram (though “Moses, son of a great people” is a most unlikely name!), and that Hebrew patronym should be enough to alert us to his true identity; as an Egyptian, Mousa [adopted?] [grand?]son of ibn Ra-Mousaor in English Rameses!: all this, and he gets no more than a passing mention on Jan 3. However, there are also April 1st 1375 BCE, the date on which he left Egypt for Mount Sinai, though this is on the June 22 page and even more questionable than his Hebrew name; he can also be found conducting a census on April 29, and crossing the Nefud desert on Aug 15; compared to the Buddha on May 29 [reverend writers]

 

Moshoeshoe: established the Kingdom of Sotho in Southern Africa in 1824 [under 1868 on the Africa page]

 

Jacques de la Mothe captained the ship that took the Jews of Recife to New Amsterdam on Feb 1: very little data about him on the Internet, but start here

 

Jordan Lawrence Mott: his New York ironworks provided Marcel Duchamp with a convenient urinal on April 11; click here for some rather more arty items [illustrious illustrators]

 

Archbishops Moussaron of Albi and Saliège of Toulouse, alongside Bishops Théas of Montauban, Delay of Marseilles,  and Vanstenbergher of Bayonne, as well as Cardinal Gerlier of Lyon, had messages read out in their churches, in August and September 1942, protesting the deportation of Jews from France: see July 14. I have placed this here, partly because Archbishop comes first in the hierarchy, and Jean-Joseph-Aimé Moussaron then comes first in the alphabet, but mostly because he is Albi, the home of the Albigensian Crusade, of those purists the Cathars, and what a shame there wasn’t a bishop or an archbishop let alone a Cardinal to defend them when they were treated by the church rather like Jews under the Nazis (see Oct 13 for more on this) [responses to bullying]

 

Edouard Moyse (born November 27 1827; died June 1 1908): providing the Illustration on Feb 3; more detail here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Charles Alfred Mozley: (born May 29 1914; died January 11 1991): designing Penguin book-covers on May 16 - his website here [illustrious illustrators]

 

Ezekiel (Es'kia) Mphahlele: South African author of "Down Second Avenue" [Africa and serious scribes]

 

Msiri: a Nyamwezi ivory and slave trader who established a permanent interior state, called Nyamwezi, in 1855, with its capital at Bunyeka - but see Tippu Tip, below [Africa]

Abu al-Wafa' al-Mubashshir ibn Fatik (1019-1097; but this should come with Arabic dates not these: 410-489AH): composed the "Mukhtār al-hikam wa-mahāsin al-kalim” on Nov 18

 

Dr Thomas Muffet: had his tuffet squashed by his step-daughter Patience on March 15 [E,M&C2]

 

Denis Brownell Murphy: parenting Anna Jameson (with wife Johanna, or "Minnie", obviously) and contributing his own works to Éirish art on May 17

 

William Murray, Lord Mansfield of Kenwood, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench: his ruling in the James Somerset case (click here), on June 22 1772, that an enslaved person brought to England becomes free and cannot be returned to slavery, laid the legal basis for the freeing of England's 15,000 slaves [Africa and responses to bullying]; mind you, he was also the judge in Rex v Gray in 1757, for which see May 16

 

Thea Musgrave (which I assume was short for Dorothea, but none of the sources, online or off, have anything on this): amongst Nadia Boulanger’s distinguished list of students on Aug 21; (alive and well at 96 at the time of my writing this); her website here [musical maestros]

 

Kara Mustafa Pasha (the last means "Grand Vizier"), though some annals record him as Merzifonlu Kara etc, Merzifon being where he was born in 1634 (he died on December 25 1683); Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, he was the man who led the fight against Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I that ended in failure to conquer Europe at the Battle of Vienna on September 12 1683 (the victory belonged to Jan Sobieski); under a green light on May 21; bio here

 


 

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