Claudio Monteverdi (15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an
Italian composer, string player and maestro di cappella. A composer of
both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of
opera, he is considered a transitional figure between the Renaissance
and the Baroque periods of music history. He was a court musician in
Mantua (c. 1590 – 1613), and then maestro di cappella at St Mark's
Basilica in the Republic of Venice. His surviving music includes nine
books of madrigals, in the tradition of earlier Renaissance
polyphony – but also experimenting with the basso continuo technique,
distinctive of the Baroque – as well as large-scale sacred works,
including the Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed
Virgin), and three complete operas. His music enjoyed a rediscovery from
the 1880s onwards, and he is now seen as a significant influence in
European musical history. Seven of his operas have been lost, but his
L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera that is still widely performed.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Monteverdi>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1836:
English astronomer Francis Baily observed Baily's beads
(example pictured), a phenomenon during a solar eclipse in which the
rugged topography of the lunar limb allows sunlight to shine through.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Baily>
1945:
The British Army directed fleeing Croatian soldiers to
surrender to the Yugoslav Partisans, beginning the Bleiburg
repatriations.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleiburg_repatriations>
1970:
Police opened fire during a confrontation with a group of
Jackson State College students, killing two students and injuring twelve
others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings>
2010:
Upon her return to Sydney three days before her 17th birthday,
Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail non-stop and
unassisted around the world.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Watson>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
primigravida:
(obstetrics, veterinary medicine) A woman or female animal who is
pregnant for the first time, or who has been pregnant once.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/primigravida>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although
he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. "For," they said,
"there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed
man." And, so far as they knew, they were quite right.
--L. Frank Baum
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/L._Frank_Baum>