Nothingandall nomeado «Blog do Ano»

Nothingandall foi nomeado na selecção de O MELHOR, O MAIS E O MENOS DE 2007 do blog Fundamentalidades como o Blog do Ano.

Esta nomeação que se associa à recente eleição do Nothingandall como sexto blog generalista na eleição MBP 07, à frente de tantos «trutas» e de conceituados blogueiros nacionais, deixa-me bastante lisonjeado e, sem falsas humildades, orgulhoso. Mais do que tudo é um estímulo para prosseguir em 2008.

Depois de tantas canseiras, algumas perturbações e ... desilusões, este último dia do ano de 2007 parece encher-se de esperança.

Reitero a todos os meus visitantes, os votos de um Feliz Ano de 2008, com saúde, paz e que ... «a esperança seja a última coisa a morrer».

Read More...

2008 - A New Year comes and ...

for everybody specially for who more deserves

Read More...

On this day in History - Dec. 31

• 0192 - Lucius Aurelius Commodus dies murdered (b. 0161). Roman Emperor.
• 0335 - Pope Silvester I, o 33rd pope.
• 0406 - Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gallia.
• 0535 - Byzantine General Belisarius completes the conquest of Sicily, defeating the Ostrogothic garrison of Syracuse, and ending his consulship for the year.
• 1164 - Margrave Ottokar III of Styria dies (b. 1124).
• 1194 - Leopold V of Austria dies killed at a tournament in Graz.
• 1229 - James I of Aragon the Conqueror enters Medina Mayurqa (nowadays Palma de Mallorca, Spain) thus consuming the Christian conquest of the island of Mallorca.
• 1297 - Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford dies (b. 1249). English soldier.
• 1302 - Frederick III, Duke of Lorraine dies (b. 1238).
• 1378 - Pope Callixtus III was born (d. 1458).
• 1384 - John Wycliffe dies. English philosopher, theologian and religious reformator.
• 1424 - Thomas Beaufort, 1st Duke of Exeter dies. English military leader
• 1460 - Edmund, Earl of Rutland dies executed (b. 1443). Brother of Kings Edward IV of England and Richard III of England
• 1460 - Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury dies (b. 1400). English politician.
• 1491 - Jacques Cartier was born. French explorer.
• 1492 - Jews are expelled from Sicily.
• 1510 - Bianca Maria Sforza dies (b. 1472). Wife of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
• 1514 - Andreas Vesalius was born (d. 1564). Flemish anatomist who, as a university teacher insisted on conducting detailed dissections on human cadavers personally ( "De humani corporis fabrica") .
• 1535 - William Skeffington dies (b. 1465). Lord Deputy of Ireland.
• 1553 - Pedro de Valdivia funda en Chile los fuertes de Arauco, Puren, Tucapel y la ciudad de Los Confines o Angol.
• 1568 - Shimazu Tadayoshi dies (b. 1493). Japanese daimyo.
• 1572 - Emperor Go-Yozei of Japan was born (d. 1617) .
• 1575 - Pierino Belli dies (b. 1502). Italian soldier and jurist.
• 1583 - Thomas Erastus dies (b. 1524). Swiss theologian.
• 1588 - Fray Luis de Granad dies in Lisbon. Spanish ascetic writer.
• 1599 - British East India Company is chartered.
• 1600 - British East India Company is chartered.
• 1610 - Ludolph van Ceulen dies (b. 1540). German mathematician.
• 1650 - Dorgon dies (b. 1612). Chinese emperor.
• 1660 - James II of England became Duke of Normandy by King Louis XIV.
• 1668 - Herman Boerhaave was born (d. 1738). Dutch humanist and physician.
• 1673 - Oliver St John dies. English statesman and judge.
• 1679 - Giovanni Alfonso Borelli dies (b. 1608). Italian physiologist who was the first to explain muscular movement and other body functions according to the laws of statics and dynamics. ["De motu animalium (Rome, 1680)].
• 1687 - The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope.
• 1691 - Dudley North dies (b. 1641). English economist.
• 1695 - A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
• 1719 - John Flamsteed dies (b. 1646). English astronomer who established the Greenwich Observatory, as one of a group of scientists who convinced King Charles II to build a national observatory.
• 1720 - Charles Edward Stuart was born (d. 1788). Pretender to the British throne.
• 1738 - Charles Cornwallis was born (d. 1805). 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British general.
• 1741 - Isabella Maria of Parma was born (d. 1763). Empress of Germany.
• 1742 - Karl III Philip, Elector Palatine dies (b. 1661)
• 1744 - James Bradley announced the discovery of Earth's motion of nutation, or wobbling.
• 1753 - Alexandre de Gusmão dies in Lisbon (b. in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil in 1695). Diplomat and politician.
• 1763 - Pierre-Charles Villeneuve was born (d. 1806). French admiral.
• 1769 - Silvestre Pinheiro Ferreira was born (d. 1846). Portuguese philosopher.
• 1775 - American Revolutionary War: British forces repulse an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at the Battle of Quebec.
• 1784 - Para reforzar la lucha contra los piratas, Carlos III establece la pena de galeras en España.
• 1799 - Jean-François Marmontel dies (b. 1723). French historian and writer.
• 1805 - Marie de Flavigny best known for Daniel Stern was born. French writer.
• 1815 - George G. Meade was born (d. 1872). American Civil War general.
• 1816 - Sir William Withey Gull was born (d. 1890); A leading English physician of his time, lecturer and physician at Guy's Hospital, London, and an outstanding clinical teacher.
• 1830 - José Elias Garcia was born (d. 1891). Portuguese politician. President of the Municipal Chamber of Lisbon.
• 1830 - Isma'il Pasha was born (d. 1895). Governor of Egypt.
• 1831 - Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.
• 1838 - D. Luís I was born in Lisbon (d. 19 Oct 1889). King of Portugal
• 1846 - Portugal: Os miguelistas são completamente derrotados em Braga, tendo o seu comandante, Macdonell sido preso e morto em 30 de Janeiro de 1847 (O liberalismo em Portugal).
• 1857 - Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, Ontario, as the capital of Canada.
• 1860 - Joseph S. Cullinan was born. American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco
• 1860 - Manuel Lopes Rodrigues was born (d. 1917). Brazilian painter.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union (thus dividing Virginia in two); meanwhile, the Battle of Stones River is fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
• 1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River is fought near Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
• 1864 - Robert Grant Aitken was born (d.1951). American astronomer who specialized in the study of double stars, of which he discovered more than 3,000.
• 1868 - É ocupada Assunção, a capital do Paraguai, por uma coluna brasileira sob o comando do Coronel Hermes Ernesto da Fonseca.
• 1869 - Henri Matisse was born (d. 1954). French painter and graphic artist. Along with Picasso, Matisse is considered one of the two foremost artists of the modern period. His contribution to 20th-century art is inestimable.
• 1872 - Aleksis Kivi dies (b. 1834). Finnish author
• 1877 - Lawrence Beesley was born (d. 1967). English journalist and author.
• 1877 - Gustave Courbet dies (b. 1819). French painter.
• 1878 - Elizabeth Arden was born in Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada (d. 1966). Beautician, business executive.
• 1878 - Horacio Silvestre Quiroga was born in Salto. Uruguayan writer
• 1879 - Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of an electric incandescent lamp.
• 1880 - George C. Marshall was born (d. 1959) General and cabinet member, recipient of Nobel Prize in Peace 1953 for the Marshall Plan.
• 1880 - Fred Beebe was born (d. 1957). American baseball player.
• 1881 - Max Pechstein was born (d. 1955). Painter and graphic artist .
• 1882 - Martin O'Meara was born (d. 1935). Australian soldier.
• 1884 - Bobby Byrne was born (d. 1964). American baseball player.
• 1885 - Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein was born (d. 1970).
• 1888 - Samson Raphael Hirsch dies (b. 1808). German rabbi.
• 1889 - Ion Creangă dies. Romanian writer.
• 1890 - Francisca Carrasco Jiménez (Pancha) dies (b. 1816). "Defensora de lasLibertades Patrias" de Costa Rica.
• 1891 - A new immigration depot is opened on Ellis Island, New York.
• 1894 - Pola Negri was born (d. 1987). Polish actress.
• 1894 - Thomas Joannes Stieltjes dies (b. 1856). Dutch mathematician.
• 1898 - Sir John Eric Sidney Thompson was born (d. 1975). He was a leading English ethnographer of the Mayan people.
• 1899 - Silvestre Revueltas was born (d. 1940). Mexican composer.
• 1902 - Lionel Daunais was born (d. 1982). Quebec singer and composer.
• 1902 - Candido López dies in Baradero, Buenos Aires. Argentine painter.
• 1903 - Nathan Milstein was born (d. 1992). Ukrainian violinist.
• 1904 - The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square, in New York, New York.
• 1905 - Alexander Popov dies (b. 1859). Russian physicist and electrical engineer acclaimed in Russia as the inventor of radio.
• 1905 - Jule Styne was born (d. 1994). English-born composer.
• 1905 - Waldemar Seyssel was born in Jaguariaiva, Paraná (d. 23 May 2005). Brazilian comedian and actor.
• 1908 - Simon Wiesenthal was born. Concentration camp survivor, activist
• 1909 - Manhattan Bridge Opens
• 1909 - Jonah Jones was born (d. 2000). American jazz trumpeter.
• 1910 - Carl Dudley was born (d. 1973). American film director.
• 1910 - John Moisant dies (b. 1868). American aviator.
• 1910 - Arch Hoxsey dies (b. 1884). American aviator.
• 1911 - Marie Curie receives her 2nd Nobel Prize .
• 1913 - Seth Carlo Chandler dies (b. 1846). American astronomer best known for his discovery (1884-85) of the Chandler Wobble, a complex movement in the Earth's axis of rotation (now refered to as polar motion) that causes latitude to vary with a period of 14 months.
• 1916 - The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the USA at the time, burns to the ground.
• 1917 - António José Saraiva was born (d. 17 Mar 1993). Portuguese essayst and Professor
• 1919 - Tommy Byrne was born. American baseball player.
• 1920 - Rex Allen was born (d. 1999). American actor and singer.
• 1921 - Boies Penrose dies (b. 1860). American Senator from Pennsylvania.
• 1923 - The Sahara is traversed by an automobile for the first time.
• 1923 - The chimes of Big Ben are broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC.
• 1923 - Se inauguran los servicios aéreos entre Buenos Aires y Montevideo.
• 1924 - Inicio de la Corrida de San Silvestre, celebrada anualmente Sao Paulo, Brasil.
• 1924 - Taylor Mead was born. American actor.
• 1926 - Tom Marvolo Riddle was born. English wizard.
• 1928 - Siné was born. French cartoonist
• 1929 - Jeremy Bernstein was born; American physicist, educator, and writer widely known for the clarity of his writing for the lay reader on the major issues of modern physics.
• 1929 - Guy Lombardo plays Auld Lang Syne for the first time .
• 1930 - Odetta was born. American singer
• 1931 - Bob Shaw was born (d. 1996). Irish writer.
• 1933 - Edward Bunker was born (d. 2005). American author, screenwriter and actor.
• 1934 - Akram Awan was born. Islamic scholar
• 1934 - Cornelia Maria Clapp dies [b. 1849]; American zoologist and educator whose influence as a teacher was great and enduring in a period when the world of science was just opening to women.
• 1935 - Monopoly was patented, game assigned to Parker Brothers, Inc., by Charles Darrow of Pennsylvania.
• 1935 - Manuel Portela Valladares preside un nuevo Gobierno en España.
• 1936 - Miguel de Unamuno dies (b. 1864). Spanish writer and philosopher.
• 1937 - Avram Hershko was born. Israeli biologist, Nobel laureate.
• 1937 - Anthony Hopkins was born. Welsh actor.
• 1938 - The first breath test for drivers, "drunkometer," was introduced in Indianapolis.
• 1938 - Rosalind Cash was born (d. 1995). American actress.
• 1940 - Mani Neumeier was born. German musician (Guru Guru).
• 1940 - Arsène d'Arsonval dies (b. 1851). French physician and physicist who was a pioneer in therapeutic use of electricity, heat, and light.
• 1941 - Alex Ferguson was born. Football (soccer) player and well known manager (Manchester United).
• 1941 - Sarah Miles was born. English actress.
• 1942 - Andy Summers was born. British musician (The Police)
• 1943 - John Denver was born (d. 1997). Country/pop musician.
• 1943 - Ben Kingsley was born in Scarborough England; actor (Gandhi, Betrayal, Maurice...).
• 1943 - Pete Quaife was born. English bass guitarist (The Kinks)
• 1944 - World War II: Hungary declares war on Germany .
• 1944 - Taylor Hackford was born. American film producer and director
• 1945 - Diane von Fürstenberg was born. Belgian-born fashion designer
• 1945 - Connie Willis was born. American writer
• 1946 - President Harry Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
• 1946 - Pius Ncube was born. Zimbabwean human rights advocate.
• 1947 - Rita Lee was born in São Paulo. Brazilian singer and composer.
• 1947 - Burton Cummings was born. Canadian musician (The Guess Who)
• 1947 - Tim Matheson was born. American actor.
• 1948 - Donna Summer was born in Boston. American singer.
• 1948 - René Robert was born. National Hockey League player
• 1948 - Malcolm Campbell dies (b. 1885). English race car driver.
• 1949 - 18 countries recognize Republic Indonesia.
• 1949 - Ellen Datlow was born. American editor.
• 1949 - Susan Shwartz was born. American writer.
• 1951 - George Thorogood was born. American musician.
• 1951 - Tom Hamilton was born. American musician (Aerosmith)
• 1952 - Vaughan Frederick Randal Jones was born; New Zealand mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 for his study of functional analysis and knot theory.
• 1953 - James Remar was born. American actor
• 1953 - Jane Badler was born. American actress
• 1953 - Albert Plesman dies (b. 1889). Dutch aviation pioneer.
• 1954 - Alex Salmond was born. Scottish Politician
• 1955 - General Motors becomes the first American corporation to make over USD $1 billion in a year.
• 1955 - Dawood Ibrahim was born. Indian terrorist.
• 1956 - On December, 31st. in Romania was launched the first TV program.
• 1956 - Steve Rude was born. American comics artist.
• 1956 - Francisco José Tenreiro dies (b. 1921). Poet and government official, São Tomé & Príncipe
• 1958 - Ernesto "Che" Guevara encabeza la ocupación de Santa Clara. Horas más tarde Fulgencio Batista huye de Cuba.
• 1958 - Bebe Neuwirth was born. American actress.
• 1959 - Phill Kline was born. American politician
• 1959 - Paul Westerberg was born. American musician (The Replacements)
• 1959 - Val Kilmer was born. American actor ( The Saint, Top Gun, The Doors) .
• 1960 - The farthing coin, used in Britain since the 13th century, ceases to be legal tender.
• 1960 - John Allen Muhammad was born. American serial killer.
• 1960 - Steve Bruce was born. English football player & manager.
• 1961 - The Marshall Plan expired after distributing more than $12 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe .
• 1961 - Nina Li Chi was born. Chinese actress.
• 1961 - Rick Aguilera was born. Baseball player.
• 1962 - Heather McCartney was born. British activist.
• 1962 - Pedro Cardoso was born. Brazilian actor.
• 1963 - The Central African Federation officially collapses and splits into Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
• 1963 - Scott Ian was born. American musician (Anthrax)
• 1963 - Konishiki was born. American sumo wrestler.
• 1964 - Michael McDonald was born. American actor-comedian
• 1964 - Lowri Turner was born. British TV presenter
• 1964 - Allen D'Nulderf was born. American stuntman
• 1964 - Ólafur Thors dies (b. 1892). Prime Minister of Iceland
• 1964 - Bobby Byrne dies (b. 1884). Baseball player.
• 1965 - Fernanda Porto was born. Brazilian singer.
• 1965 - Nicholas Sparks was born. American writer.
• 1965 - Gong Li was born. Chinese actress.
• 1966 - Lisa Joyner was born. American entertainment reporter.
• 1968 - Marien Ngouabi assumed the presidency of the Republic of the Congo.
• 1968 - Gerry Dee was born. Canadian comedian and actor
• 1969 - George Lewis dies (b. 1900). American jazz musician.
• 1970 - Carlos Morales Quintana was born. Husband of Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark
• 1970 - Bryon Russell was born. American basketball player.
• 1971 - US President Richard Nixon signs the National Air Quality Control Act, which calls for a 90% reduction in automobile emissions by 1975. The act also tightened air-pollution controls and fines in other industries.
• 1971 - Brent Barry was born. American basketball player.
• 1971 - Esteban Loaiza was born. Mexican Major League Baseball player
• 1971 - Pete Duel dies (b. 1940). American actor.
• 1971 - Marin Sais dies (b. 1890). American actress.
• 1971 - Vikram Sarabhai dies (b. 1919). Indian physicist.
• 1972 - Joe McIntyre was born. American singer and songwriter (New Kids on the Block)
• 1972 - Roberto Clemente dies (b. 1934). Baseball player. From Puerto Rico Roberto Clement was elected to the Hall of Fame posthumously in 1973, being the first Hispanic American to be selected.
• 1973 - Shandon Anderson was born. American basketball player.
• 1973 - Malcolm Middleton was born. Scottish musician (Arab Strap).
• 1974 - Ryan Sakoda was born. Japanese American professional wrestler.
• 1974 - Tony Kanaan was born. Brazilian racing driver.
• 1975 - Pela primeira vez em 51 anos, a corrida de São Silvestre, maratona internacional realizada todos os anos em São Paulo, aceitou a participação de mulheres.
• 1975 - Toni Kuivasto was born. Finnish footballer.
• 1976 - Vanessa Kerry was born. Daughter of American Senator John Kerry
• 1977 - Wardy Alfaro was born. Costa Rican football player
• 1977 - Donald Trump Jr. was born. Son of entrepreneur Donald Trump
• 1977 - Sabah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah dies (b. 1924). Ruler of Kuwait.
• 1978 - Papoose was born. African-American rapper.
• 1978 - United States ends official relations with Nationalist China.
• 1978 - En Colombia el Movimiento 19 de Abril sustrae más de cinco mil armas de una guarnición militar conocida como Cantón Norte.
• 1979 - La Reina Isabel II de Inglaterra nombra caballero de la Orden del Imperio Británico al director de cine Alfred Hitchcock.
• 1979 - Bob Bryar was born. American drummer (My Chemical Romance, Gerardolopoly)
• 1979 - Elaine Cassidy was born. Irish actress.
• 1980 - Léopold Sédar Senghor resigns after 20 years as Senegalese president .
• 1980 - Richie McCaw was born.New Zealand rugby player
• 1980 - Bob Bryar was born. American drummer (My Chemical Romance)
• 1980 - Matt Cross was born. American professional wrestler
• 1980 - Marshall McLuhan dies (b. 1911). Canadian writer.
• 1980 - Raoul Walsh dies (b. 1887). American film director.
• 1981 - Coup d'état in Ghana removes President Hilla Limann's PNP government and replaces it with the Provisional National Defence Council led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings.
• 1981 - Jason Campbell was born. American football player
• 1981 - Matthew Pavlich was born. Australian football player
• 1982 - Craig Gordon was born. Scottish footballer
• 1982 - Luke Schenscher was born. Australian basketball player
• 1982 - Julio DePaula was born. Dominican baseball player in the United States
• 1982 - Kurt Otto Friedrichs dies [ b. 1901] German mathematician.His main work was on partial differential equations in mathematical physics.
• 1983 - The last day that the AT&T Bell System exists before being broken up by the United States Government.
• 1983 - Nigeria's National Assembly dissolves after military coup .
• 1984 - Luciano Jaramillo Trujillo dies. Colombian painter.
• 1985 - Rick Nelson dies (b. 1940). American singer.
• 1985 - João de Araújo Correia dies (b. 1 Jan 1899). Portuguese writer [Contos Bárbaros (1939), Montes Pintados, Contos Durienses, Folhas de Xisto ]
• 1986 - A fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, kills 97 and injures 140.
• 1986 - Lloyd Haynes dies (b. 1934). American actor.
• 1987 - Robert Mugabe sworn in as Zimbabwe's president.
• 1987 - Javaris Crittenton was born. American basketball player
• 1987 - Émilie Le Pennec was born. French gymnast.
• 1988 - No Rio de Janeiro o Bateau Mouche IV afunda na Baía de Guanabara matando 55 pessoas.
• 1988 - Mario Lemieux became the first player in National Hockey League history to score one each of the five types of goals in a single game: an even-strength goal, a power-play goal, a short-handed goal, a penalty shot and an empty-net goal.
• 1988 - Yara Amaral dies (b. 16 Sep 1939). Brazilian actress.
• 1990 - Russian Garry Kasparov holds his title by winning the World Chess Championship match against his countryman Anatoly Karpov.
• 1990 - Vasili Lazarev dies (b. 1928). Soviet cosmonaut.
• 1990 - George Allen dies. American football coach.
• 1991 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is officially dissolved.
• 1991 - The civil war in El Salvador ends.
• 1992 - In the last of the great ITV franchise renewals, Thames Television, Television South West and Television South cease broadcasting, replaced by Carlton Television, Westcountry Television and Meridian Television respectively.
• 1993 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia dies (b. 1939). Scientist and writer, first President of the Republic of Georgia.
• 1993 - the last research samples of the smallpox virus (variola) were scheduled to be destroyed. Smallpox was the world's most dreaded plagues until 1977, when it was declared eradicated. However, some scientists who wanted to continue research on the virus stopped the destruction plan. The remaining frozen samples are in Moscow.
• 1993 - Brandon Teena dies murdered (b. 1972). Transsexual.
• 1993 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia dies (b. 1929). First President of Georgia, scientist and writer.
• 1994 - This date is skipped altogether in Kiribati as the Phoenix Islands and Line Islands change time zones from UTC-11 to UTC+13 and UTC-10 to UTC+14, respectively.
• 1994 - Woody Strode dies (b. 1914). American actor and decathlete.
• 1995 - The last strip of the popular comic Calvin and Hobbes is published.
• 1995 - Renuncia del primer ministro italiano Lamberto Dini.
• 1995 - O presidente da Argélia Liamine Zeroual indica Ahmed Ouyahia como seu novo primeiro-ministro.
• 1997 - Quaker Oats settles a lawsuit involving the immoral use of child subjects in radioactivity experiments circa 1945-56.
• 1997 - Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.
• 1997 - Microsoft buys Hotmail E-mail service.
• 1997 - Floyd Cramer dies (b. 1933). American musician.
• 1997 - Billie Dove dies (b. 1903). American actress.
• 1997 - Michael Kennedy dies (b. 1958). American politician.
• 1998 - Exchange rates between the euro and legacy currencies in the Eurozone become fixed.
• 1999 - Boris Yeltsin resigns as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.
• 1999 - Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, leave the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.
• 1999 - The United States Government handed Panama Canal control over to Panama as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties
• 1999 - Sarah Knauss dies at the age of 119 years - at death, the world's oldest person alive.
• 1999 - Elliot Richardson dies (b. 1920). American politician.
• 2000 - Alan Cranston dies (b. 1914). American politician.
• 2000 - José Greco dies (b. 1918). Italian-born American flamenco dancer and choreographer.
• 2000 - Kenneth L. Pike dies (b. 1912). He was a U.S. linguist and anthropologist known for his studies of the aboriginal languages of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Guinea, Java, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, Nepal, and the Philippines.
• 2000 - Bill Clinton suscribe el tratado para crear el Tribunal Penal Internacional (TPI) con capacidad para investigar y juzgar a individuos acusados de haber cometido graves delitos contra el Derecho Internacional Comunitario. Su sucesor en la presidencia de los EE.UU., George W. Bush, retirará la participación de los EE.UU. en el tribunal.
• 2000 - Manuel de Rivacoba y Rivacoba dies. Spanish penalist and politician.
• 2001 - Eileen Heckart dies (b. 1919). American actress.
• 2002 - Kevin MacMichael dies (b. 1951). American guitarist (Cutting Crew)
• 2003 - Arthur R. von Hippel dies (b. 1898). German-born American physicist and professor at MIT
• 2004 - The official opening of Taipei 101, the current tallest skyscraper in the world, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 feet).
• 2004 - Gerard Debreu dies (b. 1921). French-born economist, Nobel Prize laureate.
• 2005 - AT&T and SBC Communications merge, SBC name is dropped. A new AT&T is formed.
• 2005 - The Greek BBC radio service ends.
• 2005 - Lisbon-Dakar all terrain veihucules rallye starts from Lisbon, Portugal.
• 2005 - Enrico di Giuseppe dies (b. 1932). American tenor.
• 2005 - Phillip Whitehead dies (b. 1937). British politician.
• 2006 - The United Kingdom pays final installment of Second World War debt to the United States.
• 2006 - First day of Eid-ul-Adha, the Islamic "Festival of Sacrifice."
• 2006 - George Sisler, Jr. dies (b. 1917). American baseball executive.
• New Year's Eve on the Gregorian Calendar.
• Last Day of the Year Celebration, special non-working holiday in the Philippines.
• Hogmanay in Scotland.

Read More...

The 10 Best movies of 2007

The American Film Institute unveiled on December 16th the 10 Most Outstanding Motion Pictures and TV programs of the year.

The jury for the movies was composed by the following notables: Sydney Pollack (director, producer, actor), Fred Pierson (writer, artistic director), Leonard Maltin (Entertainment Tonight) and Lawerance Kasdan (writer, director, producer).

And the movies chosen were:

Before the devil knows you're dead - Sydney Lumet
The diving bell and the butterfly - Julian Schnabel
Into the wild - Sean Penn
Juno - Jason Reitman
Knocked Up - Judd Apatow
Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy
No Country for Old men - Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Ratatouille - Brad Bird
The Savages - Tamara Jenkins
There will be blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

See here the AFI News Release (pdf file)

Read More...

The 10 best books of 2007

photo: books from here

The New York Times has chosen The 10 best books of 2007. And they are:

Fiction

MAN GONE DOWN By Michael Thomas. Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14. This first novel explores the fragmented personal histories behind four desperate days in a black writer’s life.

OUT STEALING HORSES By Per Petterson. Translated by Anne Born. Graywolf Press, $22. In this short yet spacious Norwegian novel, an Oslo professional hopes to cure his loneliness with a plunge into solitude.

THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27. A craftily autobiographical novel about a band of literary guerrillas.

THEN WE CAME TO THE END By Joshua Ferris. Little, Brown & Company, $23.99. Layoff notices fly in Ferris’s acidly funny first novel, set in a white-collar office in the wake of the dot-com debacle.

TREE OF SMOKE By Denis Johnson. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27. The author of “Jesus’ Son” offers a soulful novel about the travails of a large cast of characters during the Vietnam War.

Nonfiction

IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY: Inside Iraq's Green Zone.By Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Alfred A. Knopf, $25.95; Vintage, paper, $14.95. The author, a Washington Post journalist, catalogs the arrogance and ineptitude that marked America’s governance of Iraq.

LITTLE HEATHENS: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression. By Mildred Armstrong Kalish. Bantam Books, $22. Kalish’s soaring love for her childhood memories saturates this memoir, which coaxes the reader into joy, wonder and even envy.

THE NINE: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. By Jeffrey Toobin. Doubleday, $27.95. An erudite outsider’s account of the cloistered court’s inner workings.

THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH: A Woman in World History. By Linda Colley. Pantheon Books, $27.50. Colley tracks the “compulsively itinerant” Marsh across the 18th century and several continents.

THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the Twentieth Century. By Alex Ross. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30. In his own feat of orchestration, The New Yorker’s music critic presents a history of the last century as refracted through its classical music.

Read More...

O Poeta - Rainer Maria Rilke

Na passagem do aniversário da morte do poeta:

Já te despedes de mim, Hora.
Teu golpe de asa é o meu açoite.
Só: da boca o que faço agora?
Que faço do dia, da noite?

Sem paz, sem amor, sem teto,
caminho pela vida afora.
Tudo aquilo em que ponho afeto
fica mais rico e me devora.

Tradução de Augusto de Campos

(in English)

The Poet

O hour of my muse: why do you leave me,
Wounding me by the wingbeats of your flight?
Alone: what shall I use my mouth to utter?

How shall I pass my days? And how my nights?

I have no one to love. I have no home.
There is no center to sustain my life.
All things to which I give myself grow rich
and leave me spent, impoverished, alone.

Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming


Rainer Maria Rilke (n. em Praga 1875; m. em Valmont, Suiça a 29 Dez. 1926)

Read More...

The 20 Best movies of all time

Aqui vai uma actualização da iniciativa lançada aqui no Nothingandall sobre a escolha pela blogosfera dos 20 melhores filmes de todos os tempos.

O pontapé de partida foi em 26 de Janeiro de 2006 e acolhido até agora, sequencialmente pelos blogueiros que a seguir indico, com a expressão dos meus agradecimentos:

1. Os 20 melhores filmes de todos os tempos por "Nothingandall"
2. Actualização da lista por "Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar"
3. Actualização da lista por "Clave de Lua II"
4. Actualização da lista por "Terras de Azurara"
5. Actualização da lista por "Sulista"
6. Actualização da lista por “O-Observatório”
7. Actualização da lista pelo "Terreiro"
8. Actualização da lista por "Domusophia"
9. Actualização da lista pelo "Abrunhosa do Mato"

Neste ponto a iniciativa teve uma interrupção demorada. A lista foi passada à Blueshell mas não teve continuidade. Procurando retomar a ideia foi reenviada ao Camané4ever e assim prosseguiu:

10. Actualização da lista pelo "Camané4ever"
11. Actualização da lista pelo "Miminhos a Toda a Hora"
12. Actualização da lista por "A Minha Matilde"
13. Actualização da lista por "Kalinka"
14. Actualização da lista por "Cinema Paraíso"
15. Actualização da lista por "É do nosso mar"

O desafio foi lançado ao blog Poemas do Migas, mas emperrou. A minha amiga Elisabete do Encanto deu continuidade à iniciativa e assim:

16. Lista actualizada pelo Encanto
17. Lista actualizada pela Arte Sétima. E assim está, porque inexplicavelmente um blog sobre cinema «Paixões e Desejos» não correspondeu ao convite, apesar da insistencia (esquecimento?).
Neste momento a lista dos 20 Melhores filmes está assim composta:

Vertigo (Um Corpo que Cai) - Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
La Dolce Vitta (A Doce Vida) - Frederico Fellini, 1966
O Encouraçado Potekim - Sergei Eisenstein, 1925
Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
Citizen Kane - Orson Welles, 1941
East of Eden (A leste do paraíso) - Elia Kazan, 1955
La Vita è Bella - Life is beautiful - Roberto Benigni, 1977
Modern Times - Charles Chaplin, 1936
The Name of the Rose - Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986
O Pianista - Roman Polanski, 2002
The Bridge on The River Kway - David Lean, 1957
The Deer Hunter (O Caçador) - Michael Cimino, 1978
The Schindler’s List (A Lista de Schindler) - Steven Spielberg, 1993
Unforgiven (Imperdoável) - Clint Eastwood, 1972
The Godfather Trilogy - Francis Ford Coppola (1972, 1974, 1990)
Amadeus - Milos Forman, 1984
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Voando sobre um ninho de cucos) – Milos Forman 1975
Casablanca - Michael Curtiz, 1942
Ben-Hur – William Wyler, 1959
Persona – Ingmar Bergman, 1966

Lanço o convite (e desafio) ao http://marinheiroaguadoce.blogspot.com/ para prosseguir a listagem.

Read More...

Como quisesse livre ser - Olavo Bilac

Flying bird (from here)

Como quisesse livre ser, deixando
As paragens natais, espaço em fora,
A ave, ao bafejo tépido da aurora,
Abriu as asas e partiu cantando.

Estranhos climas, longes céus, cortando
Nuvens e nuvens, percorreu: e, agora
Que morre o sol, suspende o vôo, e chora,
E chora, a vida antiga recordando ...

E logo, o olhar volvendo compungido
Atrás, volta saudosa do carinho,
Do calor da primeira habitação...

Assim por largo tempo andei perdido:
— Ali! que alegria ver de novo o ninho,
Ver-te, e beijar-te a pequenina mão!

Olavo Braz Martins dos Guimarães Bilac (n. no Rio de Janeiro em 16 Dez 1865; m. 28 Dez 1918)

Ler do mesmo autor, neste blog:
Nel Mezzo del Camin
Por tanto tempo
Via Láctea
Delírio
Um beijo
Ao coração que sofre

Read More...

Dec. 28 Happy Birthday : Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace

Read More...

On this day in History - Dec. 28

• 0300 - Theonas dies. Patriarch of Alexandria
• 0418 - St. Boniface I becomes Pope.
• 1065 - Westminster Abbey consecrated.
• 1164 - Emperor Rokujo of Japan was born (d. 1176)
• 1308 - The reign of Emperor Hanazono, emperor of Japan, begins.
• 1367 - Ashikaga Yoshiakira dies (b. 1330). Japanese shogun.
• 1446 - Antipope Clement VIII dies.
• 1484 - Joachim Vadianus [von Watt] was born. Swiss physician/mayor of Sankt Gallen.
• 1503 - Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici dies (b. 1471). Ruler of Florence.
• 1522 - Margaret of Austria was born (d. 1583). Regent of the Netherlands.
• 1558 - Hermann Finck dies (b. 1527). German composer.
• 1612 - Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic at that time. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.
• 1619 - Antoine Furetière was born (d. 1688). French writer.
• 1622 - Francis de Sales dies (b. 1567). French bishop of Geneva, writer and saint.
• 1635 - Princess Elizabeth of England was born (d. 1650).
• 1655 - Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis was born (d. 1698). First Lord of the British Admiralty
• 1663 - Francesco Maria Grimaldi dies (b. 1618). Italian mathematician and physicist .
• 1665 - George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland was born (d. 1716). English general.
• 1671 - Johann Friedrich Gronovius dies (b. 1611). German classical scholar.
• 1694 - Queen Mary II of England died of smallpox in London at age 32, after five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.
• 1703 - Mustafa II dies (b. 1664). Ottoman Sultan
• 1706 - Pierre Bayle dies (b. 1647). French philosopher.
• 1708 - Joseph Pitton de Tournefort dies (b. 1656). French botanist.
• 1715 - William Carstares dies (b. 1649). Scottish minister.
• 1734 - Rob Roy dies (b. 1671). Outlaw known as the Scottish Robin Hood.
• 1736 - Antonio Caldara dies (b. 1670). Italian composer.
• 1763 - John Molson was born (d. 1836). English-born Canadian brewer (Molson Brewery).
• 1775 - João Domingos Bomtempo was born (d. 1842). Portuguese oboist
• 1777 - Alexander I - Russia was born. Czar de Russia.
• 1778 - Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki was born (d. 1846). Polish politician.
• 1795 - Eugenio Espejo dies (b. 1747). Ecuadorian scientist.
• 1798 -Thomas Henderson was born (died 23-Nov-1844). Scottish astronomer who, as royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope (1831-33), was the first to measure the parallax of a star (Alpha Centauri).
• 1813 - Irineu_Evangelista_de_Souza was born in Arroio Grande, Jaguarão (RS) (d. 21 Oct 1889). Brazilian industrialist and politician.
• 1814 - Sir John Bennet Lawes was born (d. 31-Aug-1900), (1st Baronet) English agronomist who founded the artificial fertilizer industry and Rothamsted Experimental Station, the oldest agricultural research station in the world.
• 1828 - 6.8 earthquake strikes Echigo Japan, 30,000 killed
• 1829 - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck dies (b. 1744). French scientist.
• 1832 - In Missouri, St. Louis Academy (founded in 1818) was chartered as St. Louis University. It was the first Catholic university established in the U.S. west of the Allegheny Mountains.
• 1832 - John C. Calhoun became the first vice president in U.S. history to resign from office.
• 1835 - Osceola led his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the U.S. Army.
• 1836 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.
• 1836 - South Australia and Adelaide are founded.
• 1842 - Calixa Lavallée was born (d. 1891). French Canadian composer (O Canada).
• 1846 - Iowa became the 29th state in the United States.
• 1847 - Samuel A. Ward was born. American music publisher. Ward composed the tune MATERNA, to which we sing today the patriotic hymn, "America, The Beautiful."
• 1852 - Leonardo Torres Quevedo was born at Santa Cruz de Iruña, Santander. Spanish scientist and inventor.
• 1853 - Inglês de Sousa was born in Óbidos, Pará (d. 6 Sep. 1918). Brazilian politician and writer.
• 1855 - Juan Zorrilla de San Martin was born. Uruguay's diplomat/poet (Tabar)
• 1856 - Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia. 28th President of the United States (d. 1924); He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
• 1859 - Thomas Macaulay dies (b. 1800). British poet, historian, and politician.
• 1861 - Se funda la ciudad de Mulchen en Chile.
• 1861 - Autoproclamación como Rey de la Araucania de Orélie-Antoine.
• 1862 - Joaquim Casimiro Júnior dies (b. 30 May 1808). Portuguese composer.
• 1866 - Szymon Askenazy was born (d. 1935). Polish historian, diplomat and politician.
• 1867 - United States claims Midway Island, first territory annexed outside Continental limits.
• 1869 - William F. Semple patented chewing gum. See The History of Chewing Gum and Bubble Gum (in About).
• 1872 - James Van Ness dies (b. 1808). Mayor of San Francisco (1855-1856).
• 1877 - Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov dies (b. 1821). Russian poet.
• 1878 - Jose Bernardo Alcedo dies (b. 1788) . Peruvian composer.
• 1878 - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Quod apostolici muneris (socialism).
• 1879 - The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.
• 1879 - Billy Mitchell was born (d. 1936). American military aviation pioneer.
• 1882 - Sir Arthur Eddington was born (d. 1944). English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician who did his greatest work in astrophysics, investigating the motion, ternal structure, and evolution of stars.
• 1882 - William P.S. Earle was born (d. 30 Nov. 1972). American film director.
• 1884 - Castorina Lobo de São Thiago was born in Tubarão (d. in Blumenau on 24 Aug. 1974). Brazilian poet.
• 1888 - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau was born ( †11 Mar 1931). German fillm producer. After graduating in dramatic arts, he founded the Murnau-Veidt Filmgesellschaft and shot his first film, "Der Knabe in Blau" (“The Blue Boy”). In 1922 he produced "Nosferatu", a film that became one of the most important silent film works.
• 1889 - Tereza Cristina dies in Porto, Portugal. Brazilian Emperess
• 1892 - Alfred Irving Hallowell was born; a U.S. cultural anthropologist known for his work on the North American Indians.
• 1894 - Alfred Sherwood Romer, was born (died 5 Nov 1973). U.S. paleontologist widely known for his concepts of evolutionary history of vertebrate animals.
• 1895 - The Lumiere Brothers gave the first commercial movie show at the Grand Cafe in Paris.
• 1897 - The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.
• 1898 - Carl-Gustaf Rossby was born (d. 1957). Swedish meteorologist.
• 1898 - Shigematsu Sakaibara was born (d. 1947). Japanese admiral.
• 1899 - Eugeniusz Bodo was born (d. 1943). Polish actor.
• 1900 - Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto dies (b. 1846). Portuguese explorer.
• 1902 - The first indoor professional American football game is played in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
• 1902 - Mortimer J. Adler was born (d. 2001). American philosopher and author (Encyclopedia Brittanica) .
• 1902 - Shen Congwen was born (d. 1988). Chinese writer.
• 1903 - John von Neumann was born (d. 1957). Hungarian-born mathematician (Bocher Award 1938).
• 1903 - Earl "Fatha" Hines was born (d. 1983). American musician.
• 1903 - French Congo is split into Ubangi-Shari, Chad, Gabon, and Middle Congo.
• 1905 - Cliff Arquette was born (d. 1974). American actor and comedian.
• 1906 - Ecuador adopts its constitution.
• 1908 - Elvira Vargas Rivera was born (d. 1967). Mexican journalist.
• 1908 - Lew Ayres was born (d. 1996). American actor.
• 1908 - An earthquake rocks Messina, Sicily killing over 75,000.
• 1910 - Billy Williams was born (d. 1972). American singer.
• 1912 - The first municipally owned streetcars take to the streets in San Francisco.
• 1913 - Lou Jacobi was born. Canadian actor
• 1915 - Pops Staples was born (d. 2000). American musician (The Staple Singers)
• 1916 - Eduard Strauss dies (b. 1835). Austrian composer.
• 1917 - the New York Evening Mail published a facetious — as well as fictitious — essay by H.L. Mencken on the history of bathtubs in America.
• 1917 - Alfred Edwin McKay dies (b. 1892). Canadian World War One flying ace.
• 1918 - Olavo Bilac dies (b. 1865). Brazilian poet.
• 1919 - Johannes Rydberg dies (b. 1854). Swedish physicist.
• 1922 - Stan Lee was born. American comic book writer.
• 1922 - Mariana Rey Monteiro was born. Portuguese actress.
• 1924 - Milton Obote was born (d. 2005). President of Uganda.
• 1924 - Léon Bakst dies (b. 1866). Russian artist.
• 1925 - Hildegard Knef was born (d. 2002). German actress, singer and writer.
• 1927 - Ernesto de la Cárcova dies in Buenos Aires (b. 3 Mar 1866). Argentine painter "Sin pan y sin trabajo" (1894).
• 1928 - Moe Koffman was born (d. 2001). Canadian jazz musician.
• 1929 - Terry Sawchuk was born (d. 1970). Canadian hockey player.
• 1929 - Brian Redhead was born (d. 1994). English journalist and broadcaster.
• 1931 - Guy Debord was born (d. 1994). Member of the Lettrist International, Socialisme ou Barbarie and a founder and chief essayist of the Situationist International.
• 1932 - Dhirubhai Ambani was born (d. 2002). Indian businessman.
• 1932 - Manuel Puig was born (d. 1990). Argentine writer (Blood of Requited Love).
• 1932 - Roy Hattersley was born. British politician.
• 1932 - Dorsey Burnette was born (d. 1979). American singer.
• 1932 - Harry Howell was born. Canadian hockey player.
• 1932 - Jack Blackham dies (b. 1854). Australian cricketer.
• 1933 - Nichelle Nichols was born. American actress and singer.
• 1934 - Dame Maggie Smith was born. British actress.
• 1934 - Maggie Smith was born. English actress (Death on Nile, Clash of Titans)
• 1934 - Yujiro Ishihara was born (d. 1987). Japanese actor.
• 1934 - Pablo Gargallo dies. Spanish sculptor known for his figures sculpted from iron and other metals.
• 1935 - Pravda publishes a letter by Pavel Postyshev, who revives New Year tree tradition in the Soviet Union.
• 1935 - Fernando Lopes was born at Maçãs de D. Maria, Alvaiazere. Portuguese film director (Belarmino - 1964, O Encoberto - 1975, Crónica dos Bons Malandros -1984, Matar Saudades -1988, O Delfim - 2002... )
• 1936 - Jacques Mesrine was born (d. 1979). French criminal.
• 1936 - Abílio Diniz was born. Brazilian entrepreneur
• 1937 - A primeira Constituição da República da Irlanda é estabelecida. Na época, o primeiro-ministro era Eamon de Valera, fundador do Exército Republicano Irlandês (IRA).
• 1937 - Ratan Tata was born. Indian industrialist.
• 1937 - Pinto da Costa was born. President of FC Porto
• 1937 - Maurice Ravel dies in Paris (b. 1875). Swiss/French composer (Bolero).
• 1938 - Charles Neville was born. American musician (Neville Brothers)
• 1938 - Florence Lawrence dies (b. 1886). American actress.
• 1939 - First flight of the Consolidated XB-24 "Liberator" bomber prototype.
• 1939 - Philip Anschutz was born. American businessman.
• 1940 - Don Francisco was born. Chilean television host.
• 1941 - Starts the Operation Anthropoid (the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague).
• 1943 - Richard Whiteley was born (d. 2005). British television presenter.
• 1943 - David Peterson was born. Canadian politician, Premier of Ontario
• 1943 - Steve Evans dies (b. 1885). American baseball player.
• 1944 - Johnny Isakson was born. American politician.
• 1944 - Kary Mullis was born. American chemist, cowinner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1993) for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
• 1945 - The U. S. Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
• 1945 - Theodore Dreiser dies (b. 1871). American author.
• 1946 - Edgar Winter was born. American musician.
• 1946 - Neusita Luz de Azevedo Churkin was born in Governador Celso Ramos, Santa Catarina. Brazilian poet.
• 1946 - Pierre Falardeau was born. Quebec film director
• 1947 - Aurelio Rodríguez was born (d. 2000). Mexican baseball player.
• 1947 - Wynonie Harris records "Good Rockin' Tonight".
• 1947 - Victor Emmanuel III, king of Italy (1900-46) and Ethiopia, dies at 78 /Victor Manuel III, último rei de Itália, morreu em Alexandria, Egipto, no exílio. Rei desde 1900, devido ao assassinato do seu pai, nomeou Mussolini primeiro ministro, não tendo sido capaz de impedir os fascistas de tomar o poder. Tinha abdicado em 1946.
• 1948 - The DC-3 airliner NC16002 disappears 50 miles south of Miami, Florida.
• 1948 - Egyptian premier, Mahmoud Fatimy, is assassinated by a member of Al Ikhwan al Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood).
• 1949 - Jack Lovelock dies (b. 1910). New Zealand athlete.
• 1950 - The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.
• 1950 - Alex Chilton was born. American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer (Box Tops)
• 1950 - Øivind Blunck was born. Norwegian comedian and actor.
• 1951 - José Pedro Gomes was born in Lisbon. Portuguese actor and author.
• 1951 - Ian Buruma was born. Anglo-Dutch scholar and writer on Japan and the Far East.
• 1952 - Arun Jaitley was born. Indian politician.
• 1952 - Fletcher Henderson dies (b. 1897). American musician.
• 1953 - Richard Clayderman was born. French pianist.
• 1954 - Denzel Washington was born. American actor (Dr Chandler-St Elsewhere).
• 1956 - Nigel Kennedy was born. English violinist.
• 1957 - Robert Wagner /Natalie Wood wedding.
• 1957 - Anne Sargeant was born. Australian netballer
• 1958 - Patrice Emery Lumumba, head of the Congolese National Movement, declares that "independence is a right, not a privilege."
• 1959 - Mexico: Se promulga la Ley de Seguridad Social que consagra catorce prestaciones y por la que la Dirección de Pensiones Civiles se transformará en Instituto de Seguridad Social de los Trabajadores al Servicio del Estado (ISSSTE), que entrará en vigor el 1º de enero del próximo año.
• 1959 - Jazz pianist Bill Evans records the album Portrait in Jazz with his newly formed Bill Evans Trio.
• 1959 - Ana Torroja was born. Spanish singer (Mecano).
• 1959 - Phil Abrams was born. American actor.
• 1960 - Raymond Bourque was born. Canadian hockey player.
• 1962 - Rachel Z was born. American jazz pianist.
• 1962 - Michel Petrucciani was born (d. 1999). French jazz pianist.
• 1962 - Melissa R. Kelly was born. Former Maryland politician
• 1962 - Kathleen Clifford dies (b. 1887). American actress.
• 1963 - Paul Hindemith dies (b. 1895). German composer.
• 1966 - Giulia Gam was born. Italo-Brazilian actress.
• 1967 - Chris Ware was born. American cartoonist.
• 1967 - Katharine McCormick dies (b. 1875). American women's rights activist.
• 1968 - Israeli commando troops destroy 13 civilian aircraft at Beirut International Airport.
• 1968 - "Beatles - The White Album" goes #1 and stays #1 for 9 weeks.
• 1968 - 57th Davis Cup: USA beats Australia in Adelaide (4-1)
• 1968 - Leonardo Vieira was born in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian actor.
• 1969 - Linus Torvalds was born. Finnish computer programmer
• 1970 - Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) adopts constitution.
• 1970 - Francesca Le was born. American porn star
• 1970 - Muere en Buenos Aires Elena Sansisena de Elizalde, fundadora de la Asociación Amigos del Arte. Organizó las polémicas muestras de los pintores Emilio Pettoruti y Juan Del Prete y publicó valiosas ediciones de arte, como el "Martín Fierro", ilustrado por Adolfo Belloc. Nació en Buenos Aires en 1882.
• 1971 - Frank Sepe was born. American bodybuilder and model.
• 1971 - Benny Agbayani was born. American baseball player
• 1971 - Burt Gillett dies (b. 15 Oct. 1891). American film director.
• 1971 - Max Steiner dies (b. 1888). Austrian-born American film music composer.
• 1972 - Patrick Rafter was born. Australian tennis player
• 1972 - Adam Viniteri was born. American football player
• 1973 - The Endangered Species Act is passed in the United States.
• 1973 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Nobel awarded) published "Gulag Archipelag", an expose of the Soviet prison system.
• 1973 - Herborg Kråkevik was born. Norwegian singer and actress
• 1973 - Seth Meyers was born. American actor
• 1974 - Senegalese marxist group Reenu-Rew founds the political movement And-Jëf at a clandestine congress.
• 1974 - Jason Ridge was born. American porn actor
• 1975 - B. J. Ryan was born. American baseball player
• 1976 - Katharine Byron dies (b. 1903). U.S. Congresswoman.
• 1976 - Freddie King dies (b. 1934). American blues guitarist and singer.
• 1977 - Shane Elford was born. Australian sportsman.
• 1978 - Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace was born in London. English model and TV celebrity (3rd. place in Big Brother 7).
• 1978 - John Legend was born. American singer, songwriter, and pianist
• 1978 - Brigitte Kobel was born. Actress.
• 1979 - James Blake was born. American tennis player.
• 1979 - Bill Hall was born. American baseball player
• 1980 - Lomana LuaLua was born. Congo footballer
• 1980 - Vanessa Ferlito was born. American actress
• 1981 - The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.
• 1981 - The HBO pay cable television service expanded its schedule offering to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 1981 - Pat Sajak starts hosting the daytime version of Wheel of Fortune.
• 1981 - Mika Väyrynen was born. Finnish footballer
• 1981 - Sienna Miller was born. English actress.
• 1981 - Saurabh Aggarwal was born. Indian engineer, poet and writer.
• 1981 - Allan Dwan dies (b. 1885). Canadian-born film director.
• 1982 - Nevell Johnson Jr., a black man, was mortally wounded by a police officer in a Miami video arcade, setting off three days of race-related disturbances that left another man dead.
• 1982 - Cedric Benson was born. American football player.
• 1982 - Kevin Pereira was born. American television host.
• 1982 - Quinton Porter was born. American football player.
• 1982 - Wanessa Camargo was born. Brazilian singer.
• 1983 - Mike He was born. Taiwanese actor.
• 1983 - Dennis Wilson dies (b. 1944). Musician ("The Beach Boys").
• 1983 - William Demarest dies (b. 1892). American actor.
• 1983 - Jimmy Demaret dies (b. 1910). American golfer.
• 1984 - The Edge of Night, a long running daytime American soap opera ends after a 28 year run and 7420 episodes.
• 1984 - Leroy Lita was born. English footballer.
• 1984 - Alex Lloyd was born. British racing driver.
• 1984 - Daniel Ávila was born. Brazilian actor.
• 1984 - Sam Peckinpah dies (b. 1925). American film director.
• 1985 - Júlia Pinheiro / Rui Pêgo wedding
• 1986 - Tom Huddlestone was born. English football player.
• 1986 - Andrei Tarkovsky dies (b. 1932). Russian film director.
• 1987 - Thomas Dekker was born. American actor
• 1989 - O Brasil quebra o recorde negativo de inflação na sua história, chegando a 1.764,86% ao ano.
• 1989 - Alexander Dubcek elected parliament chairman of Czechoslovakia
• 1989 - A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 13 people.
• 1989 - Mackenzie Rosman was born. American actress.
• 1989 - Hermann Oberth dies (b. 1894). German physicist.
• 1991 - Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.
• 1991 - Ted Turner is named Time Magazine Man of Year.
• 1991 - Ninibeth Beatriz Leal Jiminez, 20, of Venezuela, crowned 41st Miss World
• 1991 - Cassandra Harris dies (b. 1952). Australian actress.
• 1992 - NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana played in his final game as a San Francisco 49er in a victory over the Detroit Lions.
• 1992 - O parlamento iugoslavo vota a remoção do primeiro-ministro Milan Panic.
• 1992 - Daniella Perez dies murdered (b. 11 Aug 1970). Brazilian actress.
• 1992 - Otto Lara Resende dies (b. 1922). Brazilian journalist and writer.
• 1992 - Sal Maglie dies (b. 1917). Baseball player.
• 1993 - Banesto, bajo la dirección de Mario Conde, es intervenido por el Banco de España.
• 1994 - CIA Director R. James Woolsey resigned, ending a tenure that was shadowed by the Aldrich Ames spy scandal.
• 1994 - Jean-Louis Lévesque dies (b. 1911). French Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• 1995 - CompuServe sets a precedent by blocking access to sex-oriented newsgroups after being pressured by German prosecutors.
• 1997 - WCW Championship: "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan loses his championship belt to Sting, at StarrCade
• 1997 - O governo de Hong Kong mata e incinera 1,3 milhão de galinhas na tentativa de eliminar o vírus da gripe, que havia matado quatro pessoas e causado temor de uma epidemia.
• 1998 - Claudia Benton of West University Place, Texas is murdered in her home by Angel Maturino Resendiz. This is Angel's third victim in his third incident.
• 1998 - Claudia Benton dies (b. 1959). Peruvian child psychologist.
• 1999 - Saparmurat Niyazov was proclaimed President for Life in Turkmenistan.
• 1999 - Clayton Moore dies (b. 1914). American actor.
• 2000 - Adrian Năstase became the Prime Minister of Romania.
• 2000 - U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.
• 2001 - In Argentina thousands of people flooded banks as the government eased a 5-day bank holiday. Demonstrations ensued and riot police used rubber bullets and tear gas to quell violence at the Government House known as Casa Rosada.
• 2001 - Pakistan arrested some 50 leading members of 2 Islamic militant groups: Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mahammed.
• 2001 - Japan’s Nikkei closed at its lowest year-end mark since 1983: 10,542.
• 2001 - Samuel A. Goldblith dies (b . 1919). American food scientist.
• 2001 - William X. Kienzle dies (b. 1928). American novelist.
• 2003 - Libya for the first time allowed U.N. nuclear officials to inspect four sites related to its nuclear weapons program.
• 2003 - Benjamin Hacker dies (b. 1935). U.S. admiral
• 2003 - Dinsdale Landen dies (b. 1932). British actor.
• 2004 - Jerry Orbach dies (b. 1935). American actor.
• 2004 - Susan Sontag dies (b. 1933). American writer and activist.
• 2005 - A U.S. immigration judge orders John Demjanjuk deported to the Ukraine for crimes against humanity committed during World War II.
• 2006 - Jamal Karimi-Rad dies (b. 1956). Iranian Minister of Justice.
• Calendar of Saints - Feast of the Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas, commemorating the Massacre of the Innocents on order of king Herod the Great. In Spain and Latin American countries the festival is celebrated in a manner similar to April Fool's Day.
• Proclamation Day in South Australia
• Abel is commemorated on this day in the Coptic Church

Read More...