L
Louise Labé: poetical ropemaking on the Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness"
John Lackland: died Oct 19
Claire-Rose Lacombe (Red Rose): Républicaine Révolutionnaire on Aug 10, and listed on the Napoleonic Era page of “Woman-Blindness”
Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck: born Aug 1
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine: born Oct 21
Charles Lamb: born Feb 10
(mentioned on April 27); sister Mary Lamb is on Dec 3
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: born Dec 23
Friedrich Christian Anton (“Fritz”)
Lang:
born Dec 5
Kathryn Dawn (k.d) Lang: born Nov 2
Nancy Witcher Langhorne (Lady Astor): died May 2; won a
by-election on Nov 28; No 4 St James' Square on Dec 4
Philip Arthur Larkin: born August 9
Pierre Athanase Larousse: born Oct 23
William Lassell: discovered two moons of Ouranos on Oct 24. Listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier: came out of the test tube on Aug 26
David Herbert (D.H) Lawrence: Frieda
Emma Johanna Maria Von Richtofen’s account of his death is on March
2; Katherine Mansfield
on Jan 9; “Art for my sake” on Feb 28; “John Thomas and Lady Jane” on March 15; “Pansies”
on June 19; “Plumed
Serpent” on June 30; essay on Galsworthy
on Aug 14; born Sept 11; Crowed and Naipauled
on Aug 17; born Sept 10; “The Rainbow” banned on Nov 13; dead-heated with Mary Ann Evans on Nov 22
Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia): died
May 19; filmed on June 24; an unlikely route to Aqaba on July 6; born Aug 15
Emma Lazarus: born July 22
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey: born Aug 7; his wife, Mary Douglas Nicol, can be found on the same
date
Edward Lear: born May 12
Timothy Francis Leary: born Oct 22
Louise-Renée Leduc, known as Reine Audu: storming Versailles on Oct 5, and on the Napoleonic Era page of "Woman-Blindness"
Nelle Harper Lee: born April 28 (mention of Truman Capote whose Sept 30 page likewise
mentions her); withdrawn on Dec 6
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger: born Feb 4
Thomas Andrew (Tom) Lehrer: born April 9
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz: born July 1
John Winston Lennon: born Oct 9; but can you really imagine him
like this on Nov 9?
Juan Ponce de León: “discovered” Florida on April 2
Nicole-Reine Étable de la Brière, but remembered by her married name - her husband was the royal clockmaker Jean-André Lepaute: predicting the solar eclipse on April 1; and Halley's Comet, and more, on the Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness"; geting somewhat eclipsed herself by being just one on a much longer list, on April 6
Doris May Lessing: born Oct 22
Carlo Levi: stopped
forever in Eboli on Jan 4
Primo Michele Levi: quoted on Jan 11; could take no more on June 3; provided
witness testimony on Aug 3 and Dec 28
John Lewis of Richmond: Beat the Bounders as well as the Bounds on May
16
Harry Sinclair Lewis: seeking God on Jan 1
Willard Frank Libby: emerged from the elements on Dec 17; reduced
to carbon on Sept 8
Roy Fox Lichtenstein: born Oct 27
Abraham Lincoln: advised by Frederick Douglass on Feb 9; see
March 15 for an eye-witness account of his death, though the death itself can
be found on April 14; turned into a military brigade on July 22, and into a
county on Nov 23; issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept 22 (see also Dec
17), and the Gettysburg Address on Nov 19; mentioned on Feb 14
Charles Augustus Lindbergh: born Feb 4
Lorenzo Lippi: born May 5, on
which day you will also find Fra
Lippo Lippi
Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippman: gave Daguerre
colour on Aug 16
Ferenc (Franz) Liszt: central to the life and work of Erno Dohnányi on July 27; born Oct 22
Malcolm Little (Malcolm X, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz): born on May 19; destroyed
by J. Edgar Hoover on Aug 17; suspended by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad
on Dec 4
Ivo Livi (Yves Montand): born Oct 13
David Livingstone: mentioned meeting Stanley on Sept 29 and Nov 10
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa: at loggerheads with Gabo on March 15; quoted on Sept 1
John Locke: “the father of liberalism”, born Aug 29, mentioned Jan
18
Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell: born Aug 31
Alan Lomax: born Jan
15; mentioned on March 15
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Howe Tavern, as it should be called, not The
Wayside Inn, on March 15; Paul Revere on April 18
Roderigo Lopes: The man himself
can be found hanging from his gallows, despite the queen’s insistence that he
was her most loyal and beloved servant, with proof of it on her ring-finger,
on March 15, as Kit Marlowe’s “Lopus the Jew”; with Vesalius on June 1; on June
29 in friendships with Shakespeare and Ben Jonson; and much more on that
Shakespeare relationship on Sept 2
Antoinette de Louppes, his cousin, and the
mother of Shakespeare’s beloved Michel de
Montaigne, gets a mention on Feb 28
I have a product placement deal with my
publisher The Argaman Press, so you can expect to find my book “The Plausible
Tragedie of Roderigo Lopes” at any available opportunity, all of them of course
entirely legitimate and valid. March 11 (John
Dee, who ran the international intelligence network for which both
Roderigo and his brother Luis were operatives); July 19 (Lady Jane Grey, whose brother-in-law the Earl
of Leicester hired Lopes as his house physician); July 24 (William Gilbert is
quoted in the novel in relation to science and medicine); Sept 30 (Oliver
Cromwell, who brought the Jews back to England officially, even though scores
of them were already there, and hugely significant to the Tudors); Oct 29 (Walter Raleigh, like Roderigo, one of the many
victims of the vile Earl of Essex).
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús
García Lorca: born June 5
Amy Lawrence Lowell: born Feb 9
Robert Traill Spence Lowell: draft-dodging on Oct 13; tutoring Anne Sexton on Nov 9; sharing a slot at
McLean’s with her and Sylvia Plath on
Nov 17; mentioned on Feb 9; mentioned ironically on Dec 6
Clarence Malcolm Boden Lowry: born July 28; mentioned on Sept 17
and Dec 13
Andrea d'Agnolo di Francesco di Luca (known as “del Sarto”, or “tailor’s son”): born July 14; mentioned on June 24
Ned Ludd: on strike on Dec 20; mentioned on May 16
Giovanni Battista Lulli (Jean Baptiste
Lully): born Nov 28
Sidney Arthur Lumet: born June 25
Isaac ben
Solomon Ashkenazi (Isaac Luria, ha-Ari): died Aug 5
Martin Luther: nailed his 95 Theses on Oct 31; excommunicated
for them on Jan 3; mentioned on Jan 1, May 4 and Dec 16
M
Yo-Yo Ma (or really, in Chinese, the other way around, Ma Yo-Yo): born Oct 7
Goldie Mabovitch (Goldie Myerson, Golda
Meir):
born May 3; Yom Kippur war on Nov 3
Thomas Babington Macaulay: born Oct 25
Mac Bethad mac Findláech (Macbeth): Aug 15; mentioned
on June 24
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli: born May 3; interesting
mention on Aug 26
Carlos Fuentes Macías: born Nov 11
James Louis Macie (that’s James Smithson of the
Smithsonian Institute; or probably Jacques-Louis
Macie on his French
birth certificate): the Institute established on Aug 10; mentioned on Feb 9 and
March 3; why he changed his name here
Charles Rennie Mackintosh: put on his raincoat on June 17
Rowland Hussey Macy: finally worked out how to run a business on
Dec 23
Mechthild of Magdeburg: discovered the flowing light of the godhead without needing to become a nun on Jan 26
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey):
born Sept 29
Claudio Magris: sailing the Danube on April 10
Gustav Mahler: his Jewishness on
Feb 3; with Alban Berg on Feb 9, Bruckner
on Feb 11, Spinoza on Feb 21,
Schoenberg on Feb 24, Nielsen on June
9; principal conductor on July 7 (his birthday); played too fast by Bernstein on Aug 25; mentioned on April 1
Mahpiua-Luta (Red Cloud) chief of the Oglala Sioux: with Sitting Bull on July 20; banned at Wounded
Knee on Dec 6; died Dec 10
Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides, the Rambam): influenced Spinoza on Feb 21; born March 30;, in
Jerusalem on Oct 12 and Nov 14; referenced on Oct 10
Lij Tafari Makonnen (Ras and Haile Selassie
are his titles: “prince” and “meaning of the
Trinity”):
born July 23; deposed Sept 12; (assassinated
Aug 27, but this isn’t on the blog)
Cywka Małchin (Peter Zvi Malkin): kidnapped Ricardo
Klement on May 11
Louis Marie Malle: born Oct 30
Georges André Malraux: born Nov 3
Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli: born Oct 15
Anna Maria (“Marie”) (Princesse de Colonna) Mancini can be found, sobbing her way out of Louis XIV's palace, on June 22; but reunited with her sister Hortense (Duchesse de Mazarin) Mancini in Rome on March 9, and making memoirable voyages across Europe together, on the Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness"
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (Prisoner 46664): left Robben island
on Feb 11 (see also Oct 10); “Invictus” on June 24; arrested on Aug 4; role-modelling on
June 16, June 28 and Aug 23
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam: banished on Jan 8; saved by Pasternak on Feb 10
(see also Oct 23); read by Yevtushenko on July 18; shared a lover with Modigliani
on July 12; gets a mention on August 12, but not on August 20
Édouard Manet: born Jan 23; yet one more for Durand-Ruel on Feb 5
Alberto Manguel: a tale of Cervantes
on June 27
Paul Thomas Mann: born June 6
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe: born Nov 4
Abraham Mapu: born Jan 11
Italo Marchiony: first ate ice cream on Dec 15
Gugliemo Giovanni Maria Marconi: on air as of July
13
Robert Nesta (Bob) Marley: born April 6, died May 11
Christopher (“Kit”) Marlowe: translated Ovid
on Jan 8; why is he here and not on the GER page, vile anti-Semite that he was?
for which see March 15; stabbed to death on May 30; was he a spy or an informer
on Nov 5; mentioned Jan 5 and Sept 23
Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil or Virgil): his “Georgics”
translated by Voß on Feb 8; Feb 28
debates his spelling; born Oct 15; mentioned on March 30
Gabriel José de la Concordia Garcia Marquez (“Gabo”): at loggerheads with Maria Vargas Llosa on March 15
Wynton Learson Marsalis: born Oct 18
Julius Henry (“Groucho”) Marx: born Oct 2
Karl Heinrich Marx: Feb 26; his Jewishness mentioned
on Feb 3 and July 5;
Marx and Engels appear together on April 5 and Nov
6; born on May 5; Marxism on June 28 and Aug 20; the goal of Marxism on Dec 20
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse: that Cubist dinner party on Aug 19
and Dec 12; born Dec 31
Matityahu Bar Galil (Matthew the Apostle): Not his correct
name, but probably as near as we are likely to get, if he even existed: his
name-day is on Sept 21
Amonute Matoaka (“Pocahontas” means “playful”): married on April 5
William Somerset Maugham: born Jan 25; taken swiftly to Margate on Dec 29
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant: born Aug 5
François Charles Mauriac: born Oct 10
Daphne Du Maurier: born May 13
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky: born on July 19,
mentioned on July 18
Yacov Moshe Maza (Jackie Mason ): born June 9
Dr Donald McCarthy Jr: led the team of astronomers that found
Arthur Dent hitch-hiking in star system 42 on Dec 10 (listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1)
Rosa Louise McCauley (Parks): born on Feb 4, but she stays seated on
Dec 1, and her story plays a prominent role on Feb 6; role-modelling on
May 16 (John Lewis), June 7 (Gandhi), July 12 and Aug 23
Donald (Don) McLean: played
Black Jack on March 15; born Oct 2; the pie was baked on Dec 16
Herbert Marshall McLuhan: born July 21
Margaret Mead: born Dec 16
Fernäo de Megalhäes (in Portuguese),
Fernando de Magallanes (in Spanish),
Ferdinand Magellan (in English): dead before it happened on Sept 8; gets
the credit anyway on Sept 20; still entitled to it on Nov 28
Zubin Mehta: born April 29
Melesigenes of Smyrna (Hómēros in Greek, Homer in English): why the name on Feb 8; fully clothed on March
13; major part on June 11 and Aug 15; mentions on April 9, June 16, June 24 and
Nov 3
Herman Melvill (the “e” was added by his father when he was
about 19): born Aug 1; published Nov 14; sources of “Moby-Dick” and “Billy Budd”
on Nov 20; banned Dec 6; referenced on Oct 26 and Nov 22
Moses ben Menachem (Moses Mendelssohn): died
on Jan 4
Henry Louis Mencken: born Sept 12; quoted on Sept 13
Gregor Johann Mendel: born July 22
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev: born Feb 7
Josephine Esther Mentzer (Estée
Lauder): born July 1
Yehudi Menuhin: born April 22
Prosper Mérimée: July 1 with George
Sand; born Sept 28
Hildegard Merxheim-Nahet (Hildegard von Bingen): reduced to
sainthood on May 10; her abbey rededicated Sept 17
Friedrich (Franz) Anton Mesmer: born May 23
John Stuart Mill: born May 20
Alton Glenn Miller: went awol on Dec 15
Arthur Asher Miller: the source of "The Crucible" on Feb 29 and
July 19; born Oct 17; mentioned on July 18 and Sept 23; alluded to on Jan 1
Henry Valentine Miller: born Dec 26
Robert Andrews Millikan: gave a name to Cosmic Rays on Nov 11 (listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1); but
see Victor Hess, who got the Nobel for discovering them
John Milton: born Dec 9
Charlie (Charles) Mingus: great photo with Joni
Mitchell on Jan 5; born
on April 22; made Hejira on Sept 24
August Ferdinand Möbius: died Sept 26; born Nov 17; turned into
cartoons on Sept 26
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani: born July 12
Oscar-Claude Monet: born Nov 14; discovered by Durand-Ruel on Feb 5; mentioned on Oct 6
Thelonious Sphere Monk: born Oct 10
Henry Monmouth: success at Agincourt on Oct 25 (see the English list)
Harriet Monroe: born Dec 23
James Monroe: proclaimed his doctrine on Dec 2
John Montagu: gets
sandwiched in between Nov 2 and Nov 4; but also confused with Hawaii on Jan 18
François de Montcorbier, or sometimes François
des Loges (François Villon only
in his poetry): my stolen version of his tale on Jan 5
Georgette de Montenay: illustrating Christian emblems on the Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness"
Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori: born Aug 31
Montezuma (which
probably should be Motecuhzoma II Xocoyotzin): killed on June 30
David Schultz (Davey) Moore: “Cock Robin” on Feb 6; born March 26;
allegorised on March 15
George Edward (G.E; he hated both names and never used them) Moore (Bill to his wife): born Nov 4
Henry Spencer Moore: at the AGO on Feb 28; born July 30
Camille de Morel, writing poetry in Latin on the Ancien Régime page of "Woman-Blindness"
James Humphrey (Jan when she transgendered)
Morris: born Oct 2
William Morris: born March
23
James Douglas (Jim) Morrison: died on July 3. Not to be confused with George Ivan (Van)
Morrison, who can be found on Aug 31
Thomas More: imprisoned on April 17; beheaded on July 6; mentioned on Jan 3 and May 4
Norma Jean Mortenson/Baker/Miller (Marilyn Monroe): found dead on Aug 5; photographed on Dec 6
Anna Mary Robertson Moses ("Grandma" Moses): died Dec 13
Phoebe Ann Moses (Annie Oakley): shot down by
disease on Nov 2
Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Mountbatten: killed by the IRA on Aug 27
Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam: still magnificent
on April 24
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (Amadeus is a Latin translation of Theophilus
and was simply Mozart amusing himself): his "Adagio" performed by Gideon
Klein on April 1; his G major piano concerto, K453, played by Ernő Dohnányi on July 27; died in poverty on Dec
5; mentioned on March 19, April 16. His sister Nannerl
can be given birthday presents on July 30
Sayyid ʿAlí Muḥammad Shírází (The Báb):
announced himself on May 23
Kamau wa Muiga (Mzee Jomo Kenyatta): President of
independent Kenya on June 1 (Independence on Dec 12); with George Padmore on June 28; “Mzee” is apparently a Swahili term of respect and
affection meaning "the old man" and it is now applied by most of his
admirers (click here for example)
Edvard Munch: born Dec 12
Hector Hugh Munro (Saki): born Dec 18
Jean Iris Murdoch: born July 15
Egbert (Ed) Roscoe Murrow: born on April 25
Robert Mathias Edler von Musil: born Nov 6
Alfred
Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay: died May 2; played
love-poems with George Sand on July 1;
born Dec 11
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky: arrogantly scored the “pictures at
an exhibition” by Viktor Alexandrovitch Hartmann
on June 2
Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa: formed Zimbabwe’s first government on June
1
N
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov: poshlost on March 4; born April 22; with Roman Polański and Lolita on August 18
Vidiadhar Surajprasad (V.S) Naipaul: born Aug 17
James Naismith: born Nov 6
Edson Arantes de Nascimento
(Pele): born Oct 23
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid): banned on Jan 8
Thomas Nast: born
Sept 27
Marguerite de Navarre: born April 11
Beatrijs of Nazareth: amongst the Beguines on Jan 26
Indira Priyadarshini Nehru
(Indira Gandhi): became PM on Jan 18; assassinated on October
31; also mentioned on Feb 29 and Dec 27
Jawaharlal Nehru: born Nov 14
Horatio Nelson: born Sept 29; run over in Trafalgar Square on Oct
21; and again on March 31; but still enstatued there on Feb 3; mentioned on Feb
3 and Aug 10
Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu: speaking to Congress on March 3; the
Entebbe raid is on July 3
Madeleine Neveu: co-hosting a salon and co-writing poetry with her daughter Catherine Fradonnet, in the Ancien Régime section of "Woman-Blindness"
Isaac Newton: “Principia Mathematica” quoted on May 11, published on July
6, but you will need to verify both those dates for yourself; born Dec 25
Zhong Ni (that was his birthname, but he
was given the title Kong Fūzi - 孔夫子, "Master Kong" - which is alternately phoneticised as Kon Fu Se, and then Latinised as Confucius): either Aug 27 or Sept 28 for his birthdate; mentioned
on Jan 3, and a constant throughout the China page
Carl August Nielsen: born June
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce: Tenzinged Daguerre on Jan 2
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: “Human, All Too Human” on Jan 11; the "Ubermensch"
on Feb 21; Nihilism on May 11; Shaw’s
“Man and Superman” on May 30; confirmed dead by representatives of God on Aug 25; Menckened on Sept 13; cartooned on Sept 29; born Oct 15; Wagnered on Oct 27; mentioned on Feb 22, Oct 10 and Nov 30
Ghiyāth
al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (Omar Khayyam): the al-Jalali calendar completed on March 6; referenced
on April 23
Florence Nightingale: born
May 12
Alfred Bernhard Nobel: born Oct 21
Namgyal
Wangdi (Sherpa Tenzing Norkay): first to the summit of Everest on May 29; but the idea of “Tenzings” can be found on July 24: I have created a special list for him,
which you can find among the "Themes" on the home-page
Jessye Mae Norman: born Sept 15
Guillaume de Normandie: the “Great Survey” that would become the
Domesday Book started on April 29; invaded Aengland on Sept 28; Battle of
Hastings on Oct 14; crowned on Dec 25; mentioned on June 15; listed on Dec 1. Not to be confused with William I of Scotland, who can be
found on March 15
Michel de Nostre-Dam (Nostradamus): Napolloron on
Feb 3; died July 2
Grigory Yefimovich Novykh
(“Rasputin”, his nickname, means
“debauched one”, though see also Haile Selassie, above, because that first syllable takes on a whole new meaning when placed against the second syllable, here): finally succumbed
on Dec 29
Mírzá Husayn 'Alí (Bahá'u'lláh): died May 29
Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse (George
Padmore): born June 28;
mentioned on August 17
O
Lawrence Edward Grace ("Titus") Oates : went outside on March 17; with Shackleton on Jan 5, and part of the Scott expedition on Jan 15, though he
isn’t actually mentioned on that latter. He is, however, mentioned on Dec 14 (the Amundsen expedition that he wasn't on)
Barack Hussein Obama: Had no idea Israeli PM Netanyahu was speaking to Congress
on March 3; should have given back his Peace Prize on June 29 (and see Nov 10
as well); announced plans to introduce a "Dream Act" on Oct 3 (my tribute-song "yes we can, but no we won't" can be found at my Songs&Poems blog: click here);
elected President on Nov 4
Josephine Edna O'Brien: born Dec 15
Clifford Odets: born July
18; mentioned on Jan 1
Francis Russell (Frank) O'Hara: mentioned on Jan 31; born on March
27
John Henry O’Hara: born Jan 31
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe: born Nov 15
Michael Gordon (Mike) Oldfield: born May 15; mentioned on June 20
Laurence Kerr Olivier: born May 22; mentioned on Aug 8
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill: born Oct 16; mentioned on Jan 1 and July
18
Julius Robert Oppenheimer: born April 22, but see Jan
27
John Kingsley (Joe) Orton: born Jan 1
John James Osborne: born Dec 12
Ephraim Oshry: “The Annihilation
of Lithuanian Jewry” on Oct 28
Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna
von Österreich-Lothringen (if you’re German or
Austrian); Marie-Antoinette-Josèphe-Jeanne
d’Autriche-Lorraine (if you’re French); Marie
Antoinette (if you’re anybody else): painted on April 16; mentioned
on Sept 2; guillotined on Oct 16
Lee Harvey Oswald: born Oct 18; shot by Jack Ruby on Nov 24
Francis DeSales Ouimet: born May 7; Eddie Lowery “Tenzinged” on July 24
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen: joined the doomed of all ages on Nov
4; mentioned on Aug 3 and Sept 8; quoted on Dec 1
James Cleveland ("Jesse")
Owens: born Sept 12
Isaak Yudovick Ozimov (Isaac Asimov): born
Jan 2
P
Ignacy Jan Paderewski: born Nov 6
Niccolò Paganini: born Oct 27
Thomas Paine: born Jan 29; another of James Johnson's circle of
radical thinkers on April 27; slightly satirised on May 9
Simón José Antonio de la
Santísima Trinidad de Bolívar y Palacios:
”El Libertador” in London on June 24; full story on July 5; compared with El Cid on July 10; negatively role-modelling
on July 23; named president of Peru on Sept 10; has a country named
for him on Nov 3
Benjamin Morgan Palmer: with his artificial leg on Nov 4
Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi (Anthony
Panizzi): born on Sept 16
Héloïse du Paraclet: abbess of Argenteuil and lover of Peter Abelard, died on May 15
Charles (Charlie) Christopher (“Bird” or sometimes “Ladybird”) Parker: born Aug 29
Charles Stewart Parnell: founder of the Irish Parliamentary Party on
April 24; married Katharine O'Shea on June 25
Blaise Pascal: born June 19
Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa (on his birth certificate; he acquired different
titles as he progressed from Field Marshall to President, becoming Mustafa Kemal Pasha, then Ghazi Mustafa Kemal, and finally Kemal Mustafa Atatürk, the latter meaning “father
of Turks”, and given him by the Parliament in 1934), founder of the Turkish
Republic, died on Nov 10
John Roderigo Dos Passos: died on Jan 14; he also gets passing mentions on Jan 1
and June 22
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak: born Feb 10, but
his story is told on Oct 23 (and he gets mentions on July 18, Aug 12 and Aug
20)
Louis Jean Pasteur: milked by Nathan
Straus on June 12; born Dec 27
Walter Horatio Pater: born Aug 4
Alan Stewart Paton: died April 12
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov: barking up the right tree on Sept 13; born
Sept 14; merely woofing on March 30, June 25 and Nov 14
Timothy Nigel (Tim) Peake: doing the London Marathon, on a treadmill,
in zero gravity, on June 18
Charles Willson Peale: his mastodon can be found on Dec 24
John George Pearson: his biography of 007 can be found, missing
its most important detail (which I have provided), on Nov 11
Robert Edwin Peary: reached the North Pole on April 6; beaten
there by Freddie Cook on April 21
Knud Pedersen (Knut Hamsun): born Aug 4
Nicholas Peiresc: discovered the Orion Nebula on Nov 25. Listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1
Pelagius: the
greatest (but virtually unkown) philosopher Britain has yet produced: Jan 11
William Penn: born Oct 14; the state named after him is on March 1
Samuel Pepys: started his first diary on Jan 1; witnessed the Great
Fire on Sept 2; attended shul on Sept 30; wrote scathingly about George Downing
on Dec 4
Eliezer Perelman (Eliezer Ben Yehuda): revived Hebrew on Jan 7; mentioned on Jan 11
José Julián Martí Pérez: born Jan 28; killed
May 19
Itzhak Perlman: born Aug 31
Jean
François de Galaup (La Pérouse): travelled to Alaska on Aug 23
Szymon Perski (Shimon Peres): born Aug 16
Matthew Calbraith Perry: ruined the life of Madame Butterfly on July 8
Truman Streckfus Persons (Truman
Capote): born Sept 30; mentioned on April 28
Michael
Igor Peschkowsky (Mike Nichols): born
Nov 8
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa: all of his
heteronyms on Feb 8; mentioned on Feb 28 and July 3; but an entire page
dedicated to him on his deathdate, November 30; quoted on Dec 1; and an obscure
insinuation on Sept 30
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch): "discovered" the Cicero letters on Jan 3; first saw Laura de
Neves on
April 6; sadly for him she got
married to Hugo de Sade on Jan 16
Pheidippides, or possibly Philippides: won the first marathon on Sept 2;
the battle itself is on Sept 28
Harold
Adrian Russell (“Kim”) Philby: “defected” on Jan
23
Calvin Phillips: may have shrunk on Jan
14
Jean William Fritz Piaget: born on Aug 9; referenced on Feb 5 and June 24;
but should also be read alongside Isaac Luria
on Aug 5 and Bloom’s Taxonomy on Sept
13
Gioacchino Giuseppe Maria Ubaldo Nicolò Piazzi, remembered as Giuseppe Piazzi, observed the dwarf planet Ceres orbiting between Mars and
Jupiter on Jan 1
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan
Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y
Picasso (honestly!): "Guernica" on April 26, Georges Braque on May 13; Max Jacob on Aug 19; provides an illustration
in both senses on Sept 13 and 17; mentioned somewhat obscurely on Oct 8; his
earliest known painting on Oct 22; born Oct 25; dinner with Matisse on Dec 12
Pietro Pierleone (the Jewish Pope, Analectus II): Feb 14
Harold Pinter: born Oct 10; mentioned on Sept 23 and Dec 3
Luigi Pirandello:
born June 28
William Pitt “the elder”, and William Pitt
“the younger”: Dec 4
Christine de Pizan: Virginia Woolf, but 600 years ahead of her, on Jan 13
Sylvia Plath: discovered that the gas-jet was also poetry on Feb 11; Aug
17; peeled onions on Sept 20; born Oct 27; with Anne
Sexton and Robert Lowell
on Nov 9 and 17
Gary Jim Player: born
Nov 1
Charles Plumier: what
else could he be but a botanist on Oct 26
Edgar Poe (“Allan ” was added when he was adopted): born Jan 19; “The Raven” on April 18; first marriage
on May 16; mentioned in Baltimore on Sept 12; found dead in a gutter en route
to his second wedding on Oct 7
Joel Robert Poinsett: the “ia” added on Oct 26
Sidney Poitier: playing Vergil
on Feb 28; Oscared on April 13
Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański: born
Aug 18
John William Polidori
1795-1821 - wrote the first vampire novel on
Feb 1 and March 11
Paul Jackson
Pollock: born Jan 28; mentioned on Oct 21
Marco Polo: died Jan
8, but more about him on Jan 9; enabled to return to Venice by Arghūn Khan on March
5; celebrating Kublai Khan’s
anniversary on Sept 28; the incident on the bridge named after him that started
the war between Japan and China can be found on July 22 and the China page
Lester William Polsfuss (Les
Paul): born on June 9
Alexander Pope: mentioned re Richard Savage on Jan 16; born
May 21; died May 30; translated Homer’s
“Iliad” on Bloomsday (June 16); letter from Jonathan
Swift on Nov 30
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Molière): born
Jan 15;; mentioned on Jan 8 and 18; also Sept 23
Marguerite Porete: Holding up the Mirror of Simple Souls on Jan 26; burnt at the stake for refusing to cease doing so on June 1
Luigi da Porto: turned “Mariotto
and Ganozza” into “Giulietta e Romeo” on Jan 30
Cole Albert Porter: born June 9
William Sydney Porter (O. Henry): born Sept 11
Wiley Hardeman Post: flew
around the world on July 1
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc: born on Jan 7
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound: Bollingen Prize on Feb 19; indicted July 26
Anthony Dymoke Powell: born Dec 21
Francis Gary Powers: shot down on May 1
Boruch Praszkier: collaborating
in his own victimhood on Feb 6; the family story as told by Mayer Hersh on Feb 12; by my father on Sept 23
Jacub Praszkier: leading the resistance on Feb 6 and April
19
Jacqueline Mary du Pré: mentioned alongside Itzhak
Perlman on Aug 31, Daniel Barenboim
on Nov 15; died Oct 19
Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett ("Ma"
Rainey”): died Dec 22
Sally Jane Priesand: ordained on June 3
John Boynton (J.B) Priestley: born Sept 13
Gavrilo Princip: caused the First World War single-handed on
June 28
Victor Sawdon Pritchett: born Dec 16
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev: born April 23
John Dennis (“Jack”) Profumo:
resigned on June 5
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust:
entered lost time on July 10; mentioned on July 1, July 3, July 12, July 14,
Aug 14, Aug 17, Oct 28; Mme
Verdurin holds a salon on Feb 5, and is alluded to on Oct 2
Giacomo Antonio Domenioco Michele Secondo Maria
Puccini: born July 30
József (Joseph) Pulitzer: born
April 10; first prize on June 4; “Gone With The Wind” on Dec 6. Eugene O'Neill, who won it four times, is on
May 6. Sinclair Lewis awarded the prize but turned it down on Jan 1.
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin: born May 26; mentioned on March 4; admired by Yevtushenko on July 18
Pyrrhо̄n ho Ēleios (Pyrrho of Elis): fathered skepticism on May 11
Q
Thomas Penson (de) Quincey (yep, like Balzac and Foe
and Arc, the “de” got added as a
pretension later, in this case by his mum): born Aug
15
R
Solomon
Naumovich Rabinovitz (Sholem Aleichem):
born Feb 18; mentioned
on Nov 1
Marie
de Rabutin-Chantal (Marquise de Sévigné): born Feb 5
Jean-Baptiste Racine: born
on Dec 22; mentioned on Sept 23
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff: born April 1
Walter Raleigh: shipping potatoes on July 28; executed Oct
29; mentioned on May 28
Jean Phillippe Rameau: born Sept 25
Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal: born Jan 7
Simon Denis Rattle: born
Jan 19
Ronald Wilson Reagan: figure it out for yourself on Jan 14;
mentioned on Oct 25
Milton (Robert was his brush-name) Rauschenberg: born Oct 22
Vanessa Redgrave: born to play Isidora Duncan on Jan 30 (see also May 27); Julia
to Jane Fonda’s Lillian Hellman on June
20; actors hall of fame on August 8 and Oct 22
Paul Revere (originally Rivoire but his dad changed it): riding on April 18; mentioned
on April 21
Joshua Reynolds: painted
Kitty Fisher on March 15; teacher of Thomas Stewart on May 16; born July 16; at
Elizabeth Montagu’s salon on Oct 2
Mordechai Richler: born Jan 27
Charles Francis Richter: reached point zero on Sept 30
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn: born July 15; and he provides an
illustration on Jan 4. I have no idea if he is a descendant, but Michel van Rijn can be found on Oct 17
Bridget Louise Riley: born April 24
René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef
Maria Rilke (“Rainer”
was Lou Andreas-Salomé’s suggestion): born Dec 4; mentioned on July 3
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud: born Oct 20; physically attacked on July 10; verbally
attacked on Oct 8
James & John Ritty: patented their cash register on Nov 4
Paul Leroy Robeson: born April 9
Elizabeth Robinson (Montagu): born
Oct 2
Luther (Bill )
"Bojangles" Robinson, born May 25
François de la Rochefoucauld: born Sept 15
François-Auguste-René Rodin: born Nov 12
Diego
María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos
Acosta y Rodríguez (Diego Rivera): born Dec 8 ; Sept 17 for Frida Kahlo
Theodore Huebner Roethke: born May 25
Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal: born on Jan 7
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (Roentgen): discovered x-rays
on Nov 8; also mentioned on March 1 and listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1
Peter Mark Roget: September 12 (click here to describe what happened that day; there
are apparently 106 options, though this seems to me a remarkable
understatement, litotes, act of restraint...)
Peter Romanov of Muscovy (Peter the Great): learned to build ships in Deptford
on June 9; imposed a tax on beards on Aug 21; trashed Says Court on Oct 31
Romulus (with or without Remus):
the Lupercal she-wolf who suckled him on Feb 14; the eclipse that coincided on April
6; founded Rome on April 21; among the twins on May 15
Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt: mis-Invictused on June 24; Oscar
Straus as his Secretary of Commerce and Labour on Dec 23
Julius LaRosa: failed to take Manhattan on Oct 19
Julius and Ethel (Greenglass) Rosenberg: sentenced to death
on April 5
Susan Rosenblatt (Sontag): born Jan 28; mentioned re Germaine
Greer on Jan 29; at odds with Norman Mailer on March 15
Frederik Rosenkrantz (and Knud
Gyldenstierne): from Shaskespeare to Stoppard
on Sept 2
Christina
Georgina Rossetti: born Dec 5; her brother Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti
can be
found birthdaying on May 12
Gioachino Antonio Rossini: born Feb 29; mentioned on April 1
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus: born Oct 27; died July 12; mentioned
May 4
Dorothy Rothschild (Parker): what better birthday present? - on Aug 22; can a Jewish
girl even be a wasp, however sharp her sting? I think I need to rewrite that - on Oct 26
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (“Le Douanier”), born May 21;
mentioned on April 15
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: born June 28; mentioned on Jan 18, April 15
and Nov 18
Étienne Pierre Théodore
Rousseau:
born April 15; mentioned on Feb 5
Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier: made the first
manned balloon flight, in partnership with François
Laurent le Vieux, the Marquis
d'Arlandes, on Nov 21. Listed among the scientific achievements on Jan 1
Peter Paul Rubens: cover-versioned on April 16; born June 28;
died May 30
Ernő Rubik: born (and wilfully cubed into a lego-land mis-spelling) on July 13; mentioned on July 12
Artur Rubinsetein: born Jan 28
Alfred Damon Runyon: born Oct 4
Ahmad
Salman Rushdie: born on June 19;
fatwahed on Feb 14; quoted on April 23
Bertrand Arthur William Russell: born May 18
Henry Kenneth Alfred (Ken)
Russell: born July 3
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz: overthrow of Batista on Jan 1; José Martí on Jan 28; sworn in on Feb 16; the "26th
of July Movement" on July 26; born Aug 13; mistaken for Hemingway on July 2; Casals and the Bay
of Pigs on Nov 13; satirised on Dec 1
You can find David Prashker at:
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