David Prashker's Book Of Days: The Merely Mentioneds: H

Pavel Haas (born June 21 1899; died October 17 1944), and Leo Haas (born April 15 1901; died August 13 1983): fellow-prisoners at Terezin on April 1; Pavel the composer here and with the musical maestros; and the Quartet named in his honour here; Leo the illustrious artist here. And no, as far as I can discover, they were not related.

Alois Hába (born June 21 1893; died November 18 1973): creator of quarter-tone music and a massive influence on Erwin Schulhoff on April 1; bio here [musical maestros]

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Joseph Maria Habsburg-Lorraine: born December 18 1863; shot in Sarajevo on June 28 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, starting WW1; bio here

Gunther von Hagens: building worlds out of human bodies on April 28 (website here)

William Jefferson Hague: square-bracketed on March 26

Papal Chancellor Haimeric (full name and birth-death dates not known): "Haimeric is the most controversial of all of the Innocentians. As the dynamic leader of a faction determined to keep control of the papacy, he operated more as a prime minister than as a papal functionary. It was he, rather than the pope, who determined the outcome of the papal elections of 1124 and 1130" - is the text on this website; he lost though, in 1130; his choice, Cardinal Gregory Papareschi, getting the vote to become Pope Innocent II, only to be dis-elected when the rest of the Cardinals discovered what had been done behind their backs - the outcome of that little squabble can be found on Feb 14

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS"; brother of historical novelist Naomi Mitchison: merely mentioned on May 2, but interesting enough to pay a visit to his listing among the scientists: he wrote an article on abiogenesis in 1929, which introduced the "primordial soup theory" that would become the incipit for the concept of the chemical origin of life; click here and here. However, I should also point out that Haldane was probably wrong in his theory, and that Louis Pasteur “proved it” (click here, but also here) [E,M&C2]

Naomi Mary Margaret Haldane (born November 1 1897; died January 11 1999), though her books used her married name, Naomi - Baroness - Mitchison: demonstrating why she wasn’t a terribly good historical novelist on May 2. For her books, poetry and politics, click here [historians]

Hale-Bopp: providing an amazing sight on Sept 14, but totally eclipsed on April 6; This from the NASA website: “Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) was discovered on July 23, 1995, independently, by both Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. Hale-Bopp was discovered at the amazing distance of 7.15 AU. One AU is equal to about 150 million km (93 million miles).” Which is exactly the same distance as the sun from the Earth. Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp can be found on the E,M&C2 page

Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (born October 24 1788; died April 30 1879): brought a little lamb into the world on March 15; for the musical accompaniment see Lowell Mason; for the argument over authorship see John Roulstone. She is among the serious scribes because she edited a magazine; on this blog because she was the Mother of Thanksgiving plus plus plus

Diane Hall (Keaton): no relation to Buster on Oct 4, but she is on the Pseudonyms page with Woody Allen [the world as stage]

James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps: collecting nursery rhymes on March 15 [historians]

William Rowan Hamilton, the President of the Royal Irish Academy whose principal advisor was Maria Edgeworth (May 22)

Hamlet: much more interesting to tell the tale that Burglar Bill stole: it’s here - Sept 2 [the world as stage]

Dashiell Hammett: long-time lover of Lillian Hellman, but left in amber on June 20 - bio here; and as to the Maltese Falcon, this from the Malta piece in my soon-to-be-published collection of travel essays: “I had hoped to learn more about the Hospitaller Knights for the novel I was writing - Fra Angelus' father was one, and they will be rediscovering each other at Rhodes just as soon as I have a summer holiday to write it - but no one seems to know their own history. Only that the Hospitallers fled Rhodes in 1309, moving their headquarters to Malta, and that the first Grand Master at Melita was named Philippe Villiers de l'Isle Adam. And one absolutely fascinating piece of wikifact, which I have stored in my Trivial Pursuits database in case I am ever invited to perform on University Challenge. That the Maltese Falcon, nowhere to be seen on this island except heraldically, turns out not to be a bird at all, or only formally. It was the peppercorn rent paid by the Knights for the right to remain on the island: one falcon per annum. I wonder which of the two, the falcons or the knights, became extinct first.” [political ideologues]

Lionel Leo Hampton (born April 20 1908; died August 31 2002): played all sorts of percussion instruments, even the vibraphone, and eventually led his own band of minstrels after working with Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and Quincy Jones. Inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1992, awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996. Best known for “On The Sunny Side of the Street”, which you can hear here: banned from performing at Carnegie Hall on Jan 16 because of the colour of his skin [musical maestros]

John Hancock: leading the Sons of Liberty on April 18

William Handcock: divorced Elizabeth Vezey on July 23

Abram Petrovich Hannibal: a slave who became the godson of Peter the Great; appointed a general in the Russian Army in 1760 [Africa and the purple cloaks]

Edward Harley of Wimpole Hall, and his wife Margaret Cavendish Harley, and their son John Harley; all key to the making of the Montagu Circle on Oct 2. Harley and Wimpole as in “street”? So that’s why that area of London became the intellectual hub at that epoch! You can read its entire history, from the time of the ancient cavemen to the time of the contemporary ones, here [historians]

Robert Harris: completely wrong about appeasement on July 22

George Harold Harrison: mentioned for Bangladesh on May 22 and July 13, raising actual money for it on Aug 1 [musical maestros]

Elizabeth Hastings: one of the Mary Astell circle on Nov 12

Lord Hastings, Edward IV’s Lord Chamberlain, on March 8 - click here

Valentin Haüy (1745-1822): founded the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris on Jan 4

John Hawkins: (born 1532, died in Puerto Rico on November 12 1595): began trading slaves across the Atlantic in 1562, the first major example of English participation in the slave trade; defeated in a sea-battle by Luis de Carvajal on Dec 8 ; bio here - apparently he was a cousin of that other pirate Francis Drake; [Africa and pre-Columban Americas]

Julian Paul Hawkins (Assange was his step-father's name and he started his career under the pseudonym "Mendax"): being very annoying by doing what journalists are supposed to do, on Feb 22 and 23 as well as Aug 12; released from Northern Mariana for Canberra on June 27 2024 [responses to bullying]

Stephen William Hawking: speaking through a speech synthesiser on Jan 4 [E,M&C2]

Jabbir ibn Hayyan, known in the West as Abu Geber: founder of Moslem chemistry on Aug 26 (for the founding of Greek chemistry, somewhat earlier in human time, see Hippocrates of Cos, below, and on the same blog-page). Not to be confused with “al-Jabr”, usually pronounced in the West as “Algebra”, because that was the subject-matter of the book of that name, by the man who invented it, Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi [E,M&C2]

William Hazlitt (born April 10 1778; died September 18 1830): another of Joseph Johnson's circle of radical thinkers on April 27, though critical of Anna Jameson on May 17 [serious scribes]

Zheng He (1371-1433), Ming admiral who established "tributary relationships" with states in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean in 1405; he then became China's precursor of Christoforo Colombo, discovering the New World (Africa in his case), reaching Malindi on its east coast in 1431, and initiating a period of regular commerce between the Swahili city-states that is still very much in place today; bio here [China]

Bessie Amelia Emery Head ( born July 6 1937; died April 17 1986): telling tales of tenderness and power on Oct 22; bio here and here [serious scribes and Africa page]

Helen of Troy: or Sparta really: No family name (she was the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Leda, a mortal woman who was the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus, so she isn’t really a historical personage anyway, but mythological, like the Bible-characters and the Arthurian). Abducted on June 11 [on the page of The Poets]

Mary (née Welsh) Hemingway: dis-empressed on July 2 [serious scribes]

William Ernest Henley: Invicted on June 24: bio here. My note to myself says "link him to Terry Fox (June 28), Frida Kahlo (Sept 17), Helen Keller (also June 28) et al: Henley was a close friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who reportedly based his Long John Silver character in Treasure Island in part on Henley." Once you know his story, the poem "Invictus" takes on a whole new dimension of Zero Positivism, and the reason for my triple-link should become obvious [The Poets]

Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth: wife of the other Ben Nicholson on March 28

Ilse Herlinger, but remembered by her married-name as Ilse Weber (born January 11 1903; died you-know-where on October 6 1944): authoress/composer of books and songs for children, and a fellow-prisoner at Terezin on April 1; her bio here [lighter writers]

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Ἡρόδοτος): eclipsed on April 6 - bio here; and huge thanks to whoeever it was that told me that Herodotus, like Dorothy, is the female version of Theodor: "gift of the goddess" in their cases, "gift of the god" in Theo's; bio here [historians]

The Marquesses of Hertford: Seymours, as in Henry VIII’s wife Jane et al: housing the Wallace Collection on April 16 [illustrious illustrators and Aenglisch page]

Eduard Herzog: a childhood friend of Gideon Klein on April 1; various accounts worth reading, here, and here [musical maestros]

Christian Gottlob Heyne: fathering Therese Huber on June 14

Hippocrates of Cos (Ἱπποκράτης): the Greek founder of modern chemistry on Aug 26 (for the founder of Moslem chemistry see Jabbir Ibn Hayyan, above, and on the same blog-page) [E,M&C2]

John Cam Hobhouse, Baron Broughton: how come it was Ekenhead and not him who swam with Byron on May 3? bio here [on the page of The Poets]

Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (born June 9 1917; died October 1 2012): “collective bargaining by riot” on Dec 20; his website here [historians]

Adam Hochschild: forewording Victor Serge on Aug 20 [political ideologues]

Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannstahl (1874-1929): Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist; name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21; bio here [serious scribes]

Adolf Hoffmeister : wrote the libretto for Hans Krása’s “Brundibár” on April 1; how they did it here; his very interesting bio here [musical maestros]

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus): sitting on a tuffet on March 15 [E,M&C2]

Thomas Holcroft (born December 10 1745; died March 23 1809): yet another of Joseph Johnson's circle of radical thinkers on April 27 - bio here [the world as stage]

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin: set to music by Gideon Klein on April 1

Robin Hood: joining King Yedid-Yah (David for short), Herakles, Yesha-Yah ben Yoseph (that's Jesus in Hebrew), and Guy Faux as yet one more version of the ancient corn-god/earth-god, on Feb 22, Oct 28, Dec 20 and Dec 29

John Lee Hooker: A regular at The Cavern Club on Jan 16 [musical maestros]

Herbert Clark Hoover (born August 10 1874; died October 20 1964): formalised the Star-Spangled National Anthem on March 3 [musical maestros]

Philip Antony Hopkins: acting the role of Antony what’s-his-name on June 24 and Aug 8 [the world as stage]

"Little” Jack Horner: pulling out a plum on March 15 [Aenglisch page]

Craigie Horsfield: Among the Photographers on Feb 20; his page at the Tate here [illustrious illustrators]

Mieczyslaw Horszowski: (born June 23 1892; died May 22 1993): piano accompaniment for the 85-year-old Pablo Casals on Nov 13; bio here [musical maestros]

Edmund Josef von Horváth; Ödön von Horváth on the cover of his novel “Ein Kind unserer Zeit”, published in November 1938, shortly after his death at the age of just 36): gave Michael Tippett the title for an opera on March 19 – bio here [serious scribes]

Adam de Houghton (birthdate unknown; died February 13 1389): Lord Chancellor of England when the Pope sent his heresy charges against John Wycliffe on May 4 [reverend writers]

Felix Houphouet-Boigny: the first head of state when Cote d'Ivoire became independent from France in 1960 [Africa]

Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe: the man who finally turned Queen Meg’s nickname into a reality, by wielding it on June 15

William Dean Howells: applause for P.L. Dunbar on Feb 9 [serious scribes]

Fred Hoyle: a big bang’s worth of allusion on Aug 5: his website here [E,M&C2)

Tzu-Hsi, written by ordinary folk as Ci-Xi, by official archivists as “The Current Divine Mother Empress Dowager Ci-Xi Duan-You Kang-Yi Zhao-Yu Zhuang-Cheng Shou-Gong Qin-Xian Chong-Xi of the Great Qing Empire”: listed among the Supra Idesses on April 17 [China page]

Ludwig Ferdinand Huber: second husband of Therese Heyne on June 14

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes: unshocked by the new on Feb 5 [illustrious illustrators]

Thomas Hughes (born October 20 1822; died March 22 1896): his novel "Tom Brown's Schooldays” is on Dec 24; click here for the full text [serious scribes]

Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Prussian ambassador at the Court of Saint James on Sept 14; he also wrote an obit for Therese Huber on June 14

David Home, pronounced Hume and formally changed to that spelling in 1734 (born May 7 1711; died August 25 1776): listed with some of the key figures of the European Enlightenment on Jan 18 ; suffered from what his physician called "the disease of the learned” here [philosophers]

Edwin Hubble: not clear which is Sherpa Tenzing and which Edmund Hillary on Aug 18 (and E,M&C2)

John Hume (born January 18 1937; died August 3 2020): playing Edmund Hillary to Mo Mowlam’s Sherpa Tenzing on April 24 and the Éireland page

Tunney Morgan Hunsaker (1930-2005): beaten to pulp, and praising the man who did it, on Oct 29

Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert: “cold” and “austere” on Dec 3 [the world as stage]

Jan Hus: preaching Wycliffe on May 4; the Rector of Prague University, he was burned at the stake on the orders of the Council of Constance on July 6 1415... click here for more [reverend writers]