130px|Harold Pinter in 2005
Harold Pinter (1930–2008) was a Nobel Prize-winning English
playwright and screenwriter, with a career that spanned more than 50
years. His plays include The Birthday Party, The Homecoming and
Betrayal, and his screenplays include The Servant, The French
Lieutenant's Woman and Sleuth. Pinter appeared as an actor in
productions of his own work on radio and film. He also undertook roles
in works by other writers. He directed nearly 50 productions for stage,
theatre and screen. He was born and raised in Hackney, east London,
trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of
Speech and Drama, and worked in repertory theatre before achieving
success as a writer. In his later years, he was known for his political
activism and his opposition to the war in Afghanistan and the invasion
of Iraq. Pinter's last stage performance was as Krapp in Beckett's play
Krapp's Last Tape, for the Royal Court Theatre, in 2006. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Pinter>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1294:
Boniface VIII began his papacy, replacing St. Celestine V, who had
declared it was permissible for a Pope to resign, and then promptly did
so.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Boniface_VIII>
1777:
An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas
Island , the largest coral atoll in the world.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiritimati>
1826:
More than one third of the cadets enrolled in the United States
Military Academy in West Point, New York, rioted over the smuggling of
whiskey to make eggnog for a Christmas Day party.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggnog_Riot>
1955:
The NORAD Tracks Santa program began when children began calling the
Continental Air Defense Command Center to inquire about Santa Claus'
whereabouts due to a misprinted phone number.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa>
1974:
Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than
70 percent of the city.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Tracy>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
dovecote (n):
1. A small house or box, raised to a considerable height above the
ground, and having compartments, in which domestic pigeons breed; a
dove house.
2. In medieval Europe, a round or square structure of stone or wood,
free-standing or built into a tower, in which pigeons were kept
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dovecote>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Calm soul of all things! make it mine
To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar.
--Matthew Arnold
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold>