William Walton (1902–1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade – An Entertainment, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast and his First Symphony. Born in Lancashire, the son of a musician, Walton was a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford. On leaving the university, he was taken up by the literary Sitwell siblings, who provided him with a home and a cultural education. His earliest work of note was a collaboration with Edith Sitwell, Façade, which at first brought him notoriety as a modernist, but later became a popular ballet score. Other early works that made his name were a Viola Concerto and Belshazzar's Feast. By middle age, he had ceased to be regarded as a modernist, and some of his compositions of the 1950s were criticised as old-fashioned. In his last years, his works came back into critical fashion; his later compositions, dismissed by critics at the time of their premieres, were revalued and regarded alongside his earlier works. (more...)

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1461:

Yorkist troops defeated Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, England, the largest battle in the Wars of the Roses up until that time with approximately 20,000 casualties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Towton

1807:

German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta

1911:

The M1911 single-action, semi-automatic pistol developed by American firearms designer John Browning became the standard-issue side arm in the United States Army. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1911_pistol

1941:

Second World War: British Royal Navy and Australian Navy ships intercepted and sank or severely damaged the ships of the Italian Regia Marina near Crete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan

1999:

The strongest earthquake to hit the foothills of the Himalayas in more than ninety years killed 103 people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Chamoli_earthquake

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otorhinolaryngology (n): (medicine) The study of diseases of the ear, nose and throat http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otorhinolaryngology

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I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me. --R. S. Thomas http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._S._Thomas