BORN TODAY: in Warsaw – then in the Russian Empire, occupied by Germany from 1915 to 1918, successfully defended against Bolshevik aggression in 1920, invaded again by Germany in 1939, site of an unsuccessful uprising against the Germans in 1944, who then razed the city to the ground before Stalin’s Red Army “liberated” it in January 1945 – Samuel Eilenberg, emigre from Warsaw University (PhD in 1936) to Princeton and later Michigan, Indiana and Columbia: “one of the 20th century’s most renowned experts on algebraic topology (the use of algebraic techniques to study shape), and [he] developed a new field of mathematics called homological algebra. With Norman E. Steenrod he explained the Eilenberg-Steenrod axioms for a generalized homology theory, and with Saunders Mac Lane he explained their theory of transformations between mathematical categories.” (!)
Monthly Archives: September 2013
29th September 1913 (Monday)
BORN TODAY: in Cliftonville in Kent, England – Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith, english actor who had a Brief and very British Encounter with Celia Johnson in 1945.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Howard#cite_note-2
~ in Brooklyn, New York – Stanley Earl Kramer, who made us Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967.
http://www.nndb.com/people/120/000056949/
World Affairs: in Mexico, eight thousand soldiers from the Anishinabe Confederation attack the city of Torreon, in the Mexican State of Coahuila.
http://www.anishinabe-history.com/history/battle-of-torreon.shtml
Mysteries: On the Steam Ship “Dresden”, sailing from Antwerp in Belgium to Harwich in England, Rudolf Diesel, the german inventor of the eponymous engine, disappears. His body is found at sea two weeks later.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/inventor-rudolf-diesel-vanishes
Society and culture: At Kimberley in the Cape, at the tenth annual conference of the African Political Organization (APO), its president, Dr. A Abdurahman, makes an impassioned plea to “the Europeans” to …
“Show the Coloured people that the Government is for the good of all, not for the privileged class. Prove that the first aim is not to keep us as hewers of wood and drawers of water to men who have the power. Engage the Coloured races by their affection. Grant them equal opportunities. If you do so, then the happy harmonisation of the whole community will be achieved, and you may be sure of receiving the grateful return of the affection and respect of the Coloured races.”
http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/1913-presidential-address-kimberley-cape-11th-october-1913
28th September 1913 (Sunday)
BORN TODAY
~ in Beckwourth, California – Alice Marble, winner of 18 grand slam tennis tournaments between 1936 and 1940.
http://www.nndb.com/people/620/000179083/
~ In Chicago, Illinois – Vivian Fine, composer.
http://www.nndb.com/people/195/000179655/
~ In Shropshire, England – Edith Pargeter OBE BEM, novelist, historian and translator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Pargeter
~ In Winterthur, Switzerland – Warja Honegger-Lavater, Swiss artist and illustrator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warja_Honegger-Lavater
27th September 1913 (Saturday)
BORN TODAY: in Pittsburgh PA – Albert Ellis, menswear, gift and novelty salesman turned psychologist. PhD in clinical psychology from Columbia in 1947. Famous quotes included: “neurosis is just a high-class word for whining” and “Freud was full of horseshit”.
http://www.nndb.com/people/447/000159967/
World Affairs: at the Balmoral show-ground in the north of Ireland, Sir Edward Carson reviews a massive parade of the “Ulster Volunteers” (estimated at 12,000 men). Also today, a provisional loyalist government is proclaimed for the counties of Ulster.
http://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/articles/provisional-government-for-ulster-formed-in-belfast
Meanwhile, further south, in Dublin, the SS Hare arrives from Salford with its famous cargo of foodstuffs for the City’s strikers, a gift from the British Trades Union Congress.
Society and Culture: The SS MInnehaha of the Atlantic Transport Line sails from Liverpool bound for New York. Captain “Congenial” Claret is supported by Chief Engineer “Blonde”, Chief Steward “Old” and Surgeon “Noisy”. The first class passenger list includes such notables as “The Holy Terror” “The Frog” “The Early Victorian” “the Beauty” “The Angel” “Very Stout” and Mr John G Rollins, a “weapons exporter based in London”.
You couldn’t make it up… or could you?
Sport: At Manchester United’s “Old Trafford” football (soccer) ground in Britain, the visitors Oldham Athletic play in front of their largest crowd for a league fixture – 55,000 spectators. The record will not be broken until 1975 when the “Latics” are once again visiting the Old Trafford ground.
http://www.oocities.org/colosseum/midfield/3860/facts.html
Medicine: The “Lancet” medical journal publishes an article from the recent joint session of the sections of Dermatology and Syphilography and of Forensic Medicine at the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine, London – “Syphilis: Its dangers to the community, and the question of state control”.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)77219-4/fulltext
26th September 1913 (Friday)
BORN TODAY: in Zemmin, Western Pomerania – Berthold Beitz, German industrialist who saved 250 Jewish workers by falsely describing them as essential workers at an oil facility in Poland in the 1940s; head of the Krupp steel conglomerate in the 1950s; and awarded the title “Righteous Among Nations” by the Israeli Holocaust Society in 1973.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Beitz
Society and culture: in Britain the periodical “Building News” publishes illustrations of the radical new concrete terraces (a small artificial “mountain range”) for the better enjoyment of bears, goats and deer at the Regents Park Zoological Gardens in London. One hundred years later the Mappin Terraces at London Zoo are used to display wallabies and emus.
25th September 1913 (Thursday)
BORN TODAY: somewhere in Australia – Kenneth Ivo Brownley Langwell Mackenzie, pen name Kenneth Seaforth Mackenzie, Australian poet and novelist. Drowned while swimming in January 1955.
http://www.nndb.com/people/610/000116262/
DIED TODAY: in Thomasville, Georgia – Seaborn Anderson Roddenbery, Democratic Congressman.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000370
World Affairs: In Mexico, soldiers from the Anishinabe Confederation attack and capture the city of Aviles. More than half of the American and Mexican soldiers fighting in the battle are killed or wounded.
http://www.anishinabe-history.com/history/battle-of-aviles.shtml
Music and entertainment:
~ British stage actor Charles Spencer (“Charlie”) Chaplin, originally from London, (later “Sir” , but right now a 24 year old hopeful) signs a one year contract with the Keystone film company, on a salary of $150 a week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin
~ In Perry Barr, Birmingham, England – the Birchfield Picturedrome opens, with seating for an audience of 930.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/36943
Society and culture: The City of Baltimore becomes the first US city to mandate separate blocks (street zones) for white and coloured people.
Shipwrecks: The British cargo ship “Therapia”, carrying pit props from from Finland to Cardiff, runs aground and is wrecked in the Gulf of Bothnia.
24th September 1913 (Wednesday)
BORN TODAY: – In Britain, the “National Union of Employers”, with the stated aims to “protect employers against aggressive tactics on the part of trade unions, and to maintain their rights to make and carry out agreements individually with free workers or collectively with a union, and to conduct their business free from outside interference between themselves and their employees”. [The Spectator, 27th September 1913].
