Arthur Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English
composer best known for his operatic collaborations with the dramatist
W. S. Gilbert. Among his early works were a ballet, a symphony, a cello
concerto and a one-act comic opera, Cox and Box, which is still widely
performed. He wrote his first opera with Gilbert, Thespis, in 1871. In
1875 the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte engaged Gilbert and Sullivan to
create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury. Its box-office success led the
partners to collaborate on 12 full-length comic operas, including
H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Sullivan's
only grand opera, Ivanhoe, though initially successful in 1891, has
rarely been revived. His works include 24 operas, 11 major orchestral
works, 10 choral works and oratorios, 2 ballets, incidental music to
several plays, and numerous church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber
pieces. His hymns and songs include "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and
"The Lost Chord".
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Sullivan>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1909:
The ferry SS Penguin struck a rock in Wellington Harbour and
sank, killing 75 people in New Zealand's worst maritime disaster of the
20th century.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Penguin>
1946:
African-American U.S. Army veteran Isaac Woodard was severely
beaten by a South Carolina police officer, losing sight in both eyes, an
incident that galvanized the civil rights movement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard>
1968:
Vietnam War: Unarmed citizens in the villages of Phong Nhị
and Phong Nhất were massacred, allegedly by South Korean Marines.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_Nh%E1%BB%8B_and_Phong_Nh%E1%BA%A5t_massacre>
2016:
In the first meeting between the leaders of the Catholic Church
and the Russian Orthodox Church, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of
Moscow signed the Havana Declaration at José Martí International
Airport in Cuba.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Declaration_of_Pope_Francis_and_Patriarch_Kirill>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
living fossil:
1. (evolutionary theory) Any species discovered first as a fossil and
believed extinct, but which is later found living; an organism that has
remained unchanged over geological periods.
2. (evolutionary theory) Any living species which very closely resembles
fossil relatives in most anatomical details.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/living_fossil>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he
shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do
so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such
purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you
can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him
so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it
necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how
could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the
British invading us" but he will say to you, "Be silent; I see it, if
you don't." The provision of the Constitution giving the war making
power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following
reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people
in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the
people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most
oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the
Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this
oppression upon us.
--Abraham Lincoln
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln>