09 July 2017

09 July 2017

Interesting tidbits:

1811 – The explorer David Thompson posts a sign at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers (in modern Washington state, US), claiming the land for the United Kingdom. Thompson was known to some native peoples as "Koo-Koo-Sint" or "the Stargazer". Over his career he mapped over 3.9 million square kilometers of North America and for this has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."

1896 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetallism at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

1900 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives Royal Assent to an Act creating Australia thus uniting separate colonies on the continent under one federal government.

1958 – Lituya Bay, Alaska, is hit by a megatsunami. The wave is recorded at 524 meters high, the largest in recorded history.

1962 – Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans exhibition opens at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.

1981 – Donkey Kong by Nintendo is released. The game marks the debut of Nintendo's future mascot, Mario.

Today's birthday crew:

1764 – Ann Radcliffe, English author and a pioneer of the Gothic novel. Her style is romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural. It was her technique of explained Gothicism, the final revelation of inexplicable phenomena, that helped the Gothic novel achieve respectability in the 1790s.

1775 – Matthew Lewis, English novelist and dramatist, often referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his classic Gothic novel, The Monk. As a writer, Lewis is typically classified as writing in the horror-gothic genre along with authors Charles Robert Maturin and Mary Shelley. Though he was most assuredly influenced by Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and William Godwin’s Caleb Williams, taking Radcliffe’s obsession with the supernatural and Godwin’s narrative drive and interest in crime and punishment, Lewis differed with his literary approach. Whereas Radcliffe would allude to the imagined horrors under the genre of terror-gothic, Lewis defined himself by disclosing the details of the gruesome scenes, earning him the title of horror-gothic novelist. By giving the reader actual details rather than the terrified feelings rampant in Radcliffe, Lewis provides a more novelistic experience.

1819 – Elias Howe, American inventor of the sewing machine. Contrary to popular belief, Howe was not the first to conceive of the idea of a sewing machine. Many other people had formulated the idea of such a machine before him, one as early as 1790, and some had even patented their designs and produced working machines. However, Howe originated significant refinements to the design concepts of his predecessors, and on September 10, 1846, he was awarded the first United States patent (U.S. Patent 4,750) for a sewing machine using a lockstitch design.

1858 – Franz Boas, German anthropologist.

1909 – Basil Wolverton, was an American cartoonist, illustrator, comic book writer-artist, and professed "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet" whose many publishers included Marvel Comics and Mad. He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1991.

1911 – Mervyn Peake, English writer and illustrator best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. The three works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death. His surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson.

1926 – Murphy Anderson, American comic book artist, known as one of the premier inkers of his era, who has worked for companies such as DC Comics for over fifty years, starting in the 1930s-40s Golden Age of Comic Books. He has worked on such characters as Hawkman, Batgirl, Zatanna and the Spectre, as well as on the Buck Rogers daily syndicated newspaper comic strip. As an inker, Anderson also co-created what many fans consider to be early defining images of the modern-day Flash, Adam Strange (whose costume he designed), Atom, Superman, and Batman.

1952 – John Tesh, American composer.

1953 – Thomas Ligotti, American horror author and reclusive literary cult figure. His writings, while unique in style, have been noted as major continuations of several literary genres – most prominently Lovecraftian horror – and have overall been described as works of "philosophical horror", often written as philosophical novels with a "darker" undertone which is similar to gothic fiction. The Washington Post called him "the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction".

1965 - David O'Hara Scottish actor who played Albert Runcorn and Harry Potter disguised as Runcorn in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

1970 – Masami Tsuda, Japanese Manga writer and illustrator.

1971 – Scott Grimes, American actor (Steve Smith).

1978 – Linda Park, South Korean-American actress best known for her portrayal of communications officer Hoshi Sato in Star Trek: Enterprise.

Happy birthday guys!