29 December, 2022

Eric Dowling

Eric Perry Dowling was a British Royal Air Force navigator who participated in the Second World War breakout known as "The Great Escape".

Dowling was born on the 22 July 1915 in Glastonbury, Somerset. Before the Second World War he worked for his father, a miller and cattle food Manufacturer.

250 prisoners of war, in all, had been set to attempt an escape via three tunnels ("Tom", "Dick" and "Harry"). One tunnel was uncovered by guards. Another was used to store the earth excavated from Harry. The remaining tunnel, whose entrance was concealed beneath a stove in one of the huts, was too short to allow the airmen to emerge in the nearby woodland, and the men made a dash for cover over open ground.

76 men managed this undetected, but the next man was spotted and the escape curtailed. All but two of the escapees were recaptured. 50 officers among them were executed on Hitler's orders. Dowling, who personally knew some of those officers, was reportedly less than impressed with the Hollywood film version of the events.

While imprisoned he became fluent in five languages. He achieved the rank of squadron leader. He later worked in Norway as an air crash investigator for the RAF, where he met the woman who would become his wife, Agnes Marie.

Dowling married Agnes Marie in January 1946 in Norway after a six week courtship. They had a son and a daughter. After leaving the RAF, Dowling worked for British Aerospace at Filton, Bristol.

Dowling died on the 21 July 2008 at Stoke Bishop.

28 December, 2022

Irv Docktor

Irving Seidmon Docktor was an American artist and educator best known for his work as a book and magazine illustrator in the 1950s and 1960s. An early work on the history of paperbacks identified Docktor and Edward Gorey as executing some of the most interesting and appealing cover designs in the field.

Irving Seidmon Docktor was born on July 10, 1918 and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, and won a scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) and the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. A weight lifter in his youth, Docktor performed in walk-on roles with Mary Binney Montgomery's ballet troupe while he was in college as a supernumerary actor, a job he obtained one day while sketching the dancers during their rehearsal. When Docktor noticed the male lead had trouble lifting his partner, he stepped in and was offered a position on the spot.

After graduating from art school, Docktor entered the army and was trained in photography. During World War II, he served as an aerial photographer in a map-making unit in the Technical Intelligence Team based in Australia and the Philippines. The sketches he made during this period served as visual referents for some of his later work.

During this period, Docktor also pursued a separate career as a fine artist. A mural commission in 1960 led him to relocate temporarily from Fort Lee, New Jersey, to New York City, and eventually to shift his emphasis from commercial illustration. By the late 1960s he had refocused on fine art, exhibiting paintings in numerous galleries and art shows in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. In additions to landscapes and nudes, Docktor also returned repeatedly to a sequence of paintings he called the "Heritage series," featuring juxtaposed figures and faces from village life in the old world. “With technical perfection, the mystic characteristics and pathos give his art an exquisite, aesthetic quality,” remarked one reviewer in 1963.

Docktor taught part-time at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts. At age 60, he began teaching full-time at the High School of Art and Design in New York City, his first full-time job, which he held for 15 years.

Docktor married Mildred Sylvia Himmelstein.

In 1957, Docktor lived in a home overlooking the Hudson River. After receiving a commission in 1960 to do murals in New York City, he spent most of his time there. In 1975, they moved back to Fort Lee, New Jersey. They frequently went to museums, the theatre, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theatre, and the New York City Ballet. During performances, Docktor sketched what he was seeing in his copy of Playbill.

Docktor died February 14, 2008.

27 December, 2022

Joseph O. Baylen

Joseph O. Baylen was a professor and an expert on Victorian and Edwardian Britain and Anglo-Russian relations, Baylen was the author of over 130 articles, chapters, and monographs. A favorite subject was British journalist and reformer W.T. Stead; he wrote 22 scholarly articles on Stead alone. Never a narrow specialist, however, Baylen’s publications included topics in Russian, American, French, and Latin American history.

Baylen was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 12, 1920, he earned a BA degree from Northern Illinois University in 1941.  He then entered the US Army just prior to Pearl Harbor and served on active duty in the cavalry, medical administration, intelligence, and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) until he left active duty as a Captain in 1946.  He married Army Nurse Corp Second Lieutenant Louise Pharr of Atlanta, GA in 1943. 

After the War, he returned to graduate school and received an MA in history at Emory University (1947) and a PhD in history from the University of New Mexico (1949).  Between 1949 and 1982, when he retired as Regents Professor of history at Georgia State University, Professor Baylen taught at Highlands University in New Mexico, Delta State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Mississippi, and Georgia State.  He chaired the departments of history at Delta State, Mississippi, and Georgia State.  During his academic career, Professor Baylen received frequent honors and recognition and was regarded as an international expert on Victorian and Edwardian Britain.  He was awarded two Fulbright-Hays Lectureships; one to University College of Wales (1961-1962) and another to the University of York (1972-1973).  In 1958, he received the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for research in Anglo-Soviet relations (1958-1959).  He was a research fellow at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies in 1966-1967 where he worked with the renowned historian and diplomat, George Kennan.  In 1972, Baylen was elected to the Executive Council of the American Historical Association.  During his career, he published more than 130 articles, monographs, and chapters in scholarly publications and was co-editor of the Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals, 3 volumes.  

Baylen died June 18, 2009 in Eastbourne. England.

Josep Carner

Josep Carner i Puigoriol was a Spanish poet, journalist, playwright and translator. 

He was also known as the Prince of Catalan Poets. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.

Carner was born on February 9, 1884 in Barcelona, In 1897, Carner entered the University of Barcelona, where he studied law and philosophy, and developed an interest in Catalan nationalism. He likewise worked on a number of literary journals, including Montserrat and L'Atlàntida, among others. Carner went on to direct Catalunya2 (from 1903 to 1905), Empori (from 1907 to 1908) and Catalunya (from 1913 to 1914). In 1911, he became a member of the Philological Section of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (the "Institute of Catalan Studies," akin to a "Royal Academy" for the Catalan language). There he collaborated with another well-known Catalan linguist, Pompeu Fabra, in standardizing and enriching Catalan.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he joined La Veu de Catalunya (The Voice of Catalonia), where he wrote until 1928. In 1915 he married a Chilean, Carmen de Ossa, who died in Lebanon in 1935. They had two children together, Anna Maria and Josep.

Carner was quite innovative in his use of language, in both poetry and prose. He created a new style of political journalism. Along with Prat de la Riba, then president of the Commonwealth of Catalonia, he fought for the professionalization of the Catalan literature, which he considered to be in an "adolescent" stage. After Prat de la Riba's death in 1920, Carner took the civil service examination for the Consular Corps. In March 1921, he began a diplomatic career, and left Catalonia to go to Genoa. Carner settled there with his family as Vice-Consul of Spain. Thereafter he held positions in Genoa, San José, Le Havre, Hendaye, Beirut, Brussels and Paris. During the Spanish Civil War, Carner was one of the few diplomats who remained loyal to the Republic and, therefore, could never return to Spain.

He married a Belgian teacher and literary critic Émilie Noulet; together they set out for a new life in Mexico. Carner lived there from 1939 to 1945, teaching at the Colegio de México. He later moved to Belgium. He died on June 4, 1970 in Brussels. 

William Campbell James Meredith

William Campbell James Meredith, often referred to as W. C. J. Meredith, was a Canadian lawyer, the author of three legal books, and Dean of the McGill University Faculty of Law (1950–1960). In 1951, he was noted for the prescient hiring of John Cobb Cooper to head up the new department he created, McGill's Institute of Air Space Law.

Meredith was born on February 6, 1904, in Montreal, Quebec, the only son of Frederick Edmund Meredith and Anne Madeleine VanKoughnet. The jurist William Collis Meredith was his grandfather. He was educated in England at Summer Fields School; Wellington College, Berkshire; and, Trinity College, Cambridge. He also studied for a year at the University of Grenoble in France. Considered an expert in litigation, he became a senior partner in his father's law firm and was made a King's Counsel in 1942. He was selected by the government to be the special federal prosecutor at the trial of Fred Rose. He was governor of Selwyn House School and Bishop's University. In 1950, John Wilson McConnell, Governor of McGill University, persuaded him to take up the position of Dean at Law at McGill. He held this position until his death.

In 1935, he married Marie-Berthe-Louise-Francoise, daughter of Louis de Lotbiniere-Harwood. They were the parents of one son, but divorced 14 November 1949. Privately, he was an amateur radio enthusiast who enjoyed tennis and skiing and had in his early years been a member of the Montreal Hunt. He died in 1960 in Montreal, and is buried at Mount Royal Cemetery. The Meredith Memorial Lectures at McGill University are named in his memory.


Keri Hulme

 



Keri Ann Ruhi Hulme was a New Zealand novelist, poet and short-story writer. She also wrote under the pen name Kai Tainui. Her novel The Bone People won the Booker Prize in 1985; she was the first New Zealander to win the award, and also the first writer to win the prize for their debut novel. Hulme's writing explores themes of isolation, postcolonial and multicultural identity, and Maori, Celtic, and Norse mythology.

Hulme was born on March 9, 1947 in Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand. The daughter of John William Hulme, a carpenter, and Mary Ann Miller, a credit manager, she was the eldest of six children. Her father was a first-generation New Zealander whose parents were from Lancashire, England, and her mother came from Oamaru, of Orkney Scots and Māori descent (Kāi Tahu and Kāti Māmoe). "Our family comes from diverse people: Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe (South Island Māori iwi); Orkney islanders; Lancashire folk; Faroese and/or Norwegian migrants," Hulme stated.

Hulme grew up in Christchurch at 160 Leaver Terrace, New Brighton, where she attended North New Brighton Primary School and Aranui High School. She described herself as a "very definite and determined child who inherently hate[d] assumed authority". In 1958, when she was 11, her father died. Hulme remembered herself as being interested in writing from a young age. She rewrote Enid Blyton stories the way she thought they should have been written, wrote poetry from the age of 12, and composed short stories; her mother organised the side front porch into a study for her after her father's death. Some of her poems and short stories were published in Aranui High School's magazine. The family spent their holidays with her mother's family at Moeraki, on the Otago East Coast, and Hulme identified Moeraki as her turangawaewae-ngakau, "the standing-place of my heart".

After high school, Hulme worked as a tobacco picker in Motueka. She began studying for an honours law degree at the University of Canterbury in 1967, but left after four terms—feeling "estranged/out-of-place"—and returned to tobacco picking, although she continued to write.

By 1972, Hulme had accumulated a large quantity of notes and drawings and decided to begin writing full-time, but, despite financial support from her family, she returned to work nine months later. She worked in a range of jobs, including in retail, as a fish-and-chips cook, a winder at a woollen mill, and as a mail deliverer in Greymouth, on the West Coast of the South Island. She was also a pharmacist's assistant at Grey Hospital, a proofreader and journalist at the Grey Evening Star, and an assistant television director on the shows Country Calendar, Dig This and Play School. She continued writing, and had her work published in journals and magazines; some appeared under the pseudonym Kai Tainui.
Hulme received Literary Fund grants in 1973, 1977, and 1979, and in 1979 she was a guest at the East-West Center in Hawaii as a visiting poet. Hulme held the 1977 Robert Burns Fellowship and became writer-in-residence at the University of Otago in 1978. During this time, she continued working on her novel, the bone people.

Hulme submitted the manuscript for the bone people to several publishers over a period of 12 years, until it was accepted for publication by the Spiral Collective, a feminist literary and arts collective in New Zealand. The book was published in February 1984 and won the 1984 New Zealand Book Award for Fiction and the Booker Prize in 1985. Hulme was the first New Zealander to win the Booker Prize and also the first writer to win the prize for their debut novel. The ceremony was broadcast on Channel 4 and as Hulme was unable to attend she asked three women from Spiral – Irihapeti Ramsden, Marian Evans and Miriama Evans – to accept the award on her behalf. Ramsden and Miriama Evans walked up to the podium wearing Maori korowai, arm in arm with Marian Evans in a tuxedo, and chanted a Maori karanga as they went.

In 1985, Hulme was writer-in-residence at the University of Canterbury and in 1990 she was awarded the 1990 Scholarship in Letters from the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council Literature Committee for two years. Also in 1990, she was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. In 1996 she became the patron of New Zealand Republic. Hulme also served on the Literary Fund Advisory Committee (1985–1989) and New Zealand's Indecent Publications Tribunal (1985–1990).

Around 1986 Hulme began working on a second novel, BAIT, about fishing and death. She also worked on a third novel, On the Shadow Side; these two works were referred to by Hulme as "twinned novels".

Common themes in Hulme's writing are identity and isolation. Inspiration for her characters and stories also often came to her in dreams; she first dreamt of a mute, long-haired boy when she was 18, and wrote a short story about him called Simon Peter’s Shell. The boy continued to appear in her dreams and eventually became the main character of the bone people.

In 1973, Hulme won a land ballot and became the owner of a plot in the remote coastal settlement of Ōkārito in south Westland, on the South Island of New Zealand. She built an octagonal house on the land and spent most of her adult life (almost 40 years) there. She vocally opposed plans to develop the settlement with additional housing or tourist facilities and believed it deserved special government protection. In late 2011, Hulme announced that she was leaving the area as local body rates (property taxes) meant she could no longer afford to live there. She identified as atheist, aromantic, and asexual.

Hulme's given name was recorded at birth as Kerry, although her family used the name Keri; she officially changed her name to Keri in 2001.

She died from dementia at a care home in Waimate on December 27, 2021, at the age of 74.

John H. Humphrey

John Herbert Humphrey was a British bacteriologist and immunologist.

He was born on December 16, 1915 and was educated at Winchester School, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated from University College Hospital medical school in 1940.

He was a houseman at the Hammersmith Hospital, and was the Jenner research student at the Lister Institute from 1941 to 1942. He was assistant pathologist at the Central Middlesex Hospital from 1943 to 1946, then joined the external staff of the Medical Research Council as a bacteriologist at University College Hospital in 1946. Humphrey joined the staff of the National Institute for Medical Research in 1949, working in the Division of Biological Standards. 

With James Lightbown he established international standards for antibiotics and enzymes, and later developed a long-standing association with the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standards. In November 1956 Humphrey founded the British Society for Immunology alongside Robin Coombs, Bob White, and Avrion Mitchison. He was president of the International Union of Immunological Societies. In 1957 he became head of the Institute's new Division of Immunology. From 1961 to 1976 Humphrey was Deputy Director of NIMR, and became acting director in 1969. In 1975, Humphrey left NIMR to be Professor of Immunology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith. He retired in 1981.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1963. He delivered the 1981 Croonian Lecture to the Royal College of Physicians on The Value of Immunological Concepts in Medicine.

Humphrey died on December 25, 1987.

Lammot du Pont II

Lammot du Pont II was an American businessman who was the head of the du Pont family's E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company for 22 years.

Lammot was born on October 12, 1880, in Wilmington, Delaware. He was the ninth, and youngest boy, of eleven children born to chemist Lammot du Pont (1831–1884), and his wife, Mary (née Belin) du Pont (1839–1913). Among his siblings were brothers Pierre S. du Pont and Irénée du Pont, who were both involved in the Du Pont Company. His father died during a nitroglycerin explosion in 1884.

His maternal grandparents were Henry Hedrick Belin and Isabella (née d'Andelot) Belin and his paternal grandparents were Alfred Victor DuPont and Margaretta Elizabeth (née Lammot) DuPont. His was also a great-grandson of the French-born Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.

On March 15, 1926, Lammot du Pont was elected President of E.I. du Pont de Nemours Co., succeeding elder brother Irénée du Pont, who was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Lammot served as president until May 20, 1940, when he was succeeded by Walter S. Carpenter Jr. At the same time, Lammot replaced another brother, Pierre S. du Pont, as chairman of the board.

Du Pont died on July 24, 1952, in New London, Connecticut of heart disease at age 71.

Sir Julian Huxley


Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. He was secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1935–1942), the first Director of UNESCO, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, the president of the British Eugenics Society (1959-1962), and the first President of the British Humanist Association.

Huxley was well known for his presentation of science in books and articles, and on radio and television. He directed an Oscar-winning wildlife film. He was awarded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science in 1953, the Darwin Medal of the Royal Society in 1956, and the Darwin–Wallace Medal of the Linnaean Society in 1958. He was also knighted in that same year, 1958, a hundred years after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace announced the theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1959 he received a Special Award from the Lasker Foundation in the category Planned Parenthood – World Population.

Henry Røsoch

Henry Røsoch was a Norwegian journalist and author .

Røsoch was born on November 30, 1894 and studied architecture at NTH in Trondheim , where he was one of the founders of the student newspaper Under Dusken . He then became a journalist in Adresseavisen , Nationen and Nidaros , before being employed in Aftenposten in 1930 . In 1930, he was also a radio journalist for a few months in the newly opened Trøndelag broadcaster. 

Røsoch wrote several books with historical subjects, such as Trondheim's history (1939). After his death, a book about old Christiania was also published , På vandring i Christiania (1953), which was completed by Arno Berg.

He was married to the actress Erna Nicolaysen from Bergen (1891–1971).

He died on September 17, 1950.

26 December, 2022

Henri Deterding

Henri Wilhelm August Deterding was one of the first executives of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and was its general manager for 36 years, from 1900 to 1936, and was also chairman of the combined Royal Dutch/Shell oil company. 

He succeeded the founder of Royal Dutch, Jean Baptiste August Kessler, when he died, and made Royal Dutch Shell a competitor to John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil and one of the world's largest petroleum companies.

In 1920, Deterding was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to Anglo-Dutch relations and for his work in supplying the Allies with petroleum during the First World War. Deterding was a bitter enemy of the Soviet Union and helped thousands of White Russian exiles.

Born in Amsterdam in 1866, the fourth child in a family of five, Deterding was the son of Philip Jacob Deterding, a merchant navy master mariner, and Catherina Adolphina Geertruida (née Kayser). Philip Deterding died in 1870, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. However, Henri was educated up to the age of sixteen at the Higher Citizens' School in Amsterdam.

After leaving school, Deterding took a clerical position in the Twentsche Bank, where he developed a remarkable aptitude for handling figures. To avoid the slow promotion of a banking career, he entered an examination for positions in the Netherlands Trading Society of the Dutch East Indies, gained first place, and was appointed to the company's Eastern staff. After some years with the firm, he began to work in the oil industry, which was then in its infancy.

In May 1896, at the age of thirty, Deterding took a job with the Royal Dutch Oil Company, working with the managing director, J. B. A. Kessler. At the time, Royal Dutch was not a major company, still struggling to make good, and Deterding was instrumental in piloting it through many difficulties. Kessler died in March, 1900, leaving instructions, put in writing shortly before his death, that he wished Deterding to take over from him as general manager.

Soon gaining the nickname of "the Napoleon of Oil", Deterding was responsible for developing the tanker fleet that enabled Royal Dutch to compete with the Shell company of Marcus Samuel. He led Royal Dutch to several major mergers and acquisitions, including the merger with Samuel's "Shell" Transport and Trading Company in 1907 and the purchase of Azerbaijan oil fields from the Rothschild family in 1911. In the last years of his life, Deterding was controversial when he became an admirer of the German Nazi Party. In 1936, he discussed with them the sale of a year's oil reserves on credit; the next year, he was forced to resign from the position of general manager, but remained a member of the company's board.

In 1894, Deterding married firstly Catharina Neubronner, a Dutch woman, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. In 1924 he married secondly Lydia Pavlovna Koudoyaroff (1904–1980), a daughter of the White Russian General Paul Koudoyaroff, who had been the mistress of his rival Calouste Gulbenkian, and they had two daughters, including the socialite Olga Deterding. After that marriage ended in divorce, at the age of seventy Deterding married, lastly, to Charlotte Mina Knack, a German who had been a secretary in the company and from a prestigious coffee trading family from Hamburg. They had two children together, Louisa and Henriette. Henriette married renowned pianist and industrialist Kurt Leimer. During his second marriage, his English country house was Buckhurst Park, Winkfield, Berkshire, where Mrs Deterding continued to live with her two daughters after the divorce.

The British newspaper the Daily Mail mistakenly published Deterding's obituary on 27 June 1924, and the news was copied by The New York Times under the heading "Henry Deterding dies at film show; Director General of the Royal Dutch Company Succumbs Suddenly in The Hague". However, on that day the Dutch envoy in London, René de Marees van Swinderen, said in a letter to the Dutch foreign minister, Herman Adriaan van Karnebeek:

"P.S. I could not resist sending also herewith the obituary in the Daily Mail dedicated to Deterding, who happily is very much alive."

Deterding was a steadfast enemy of the Soviet Union, caused largely by the nationalization of his properties in Azerbaijan. He was accused of conspiring against Soviet oil interests and even of printing counterfeit Soviet money. He became a target for Soviet press attacks and, particularly, of propaganda poems by the leading Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

In 1936, Deterding bought the manor of Dobbin, near Krakow am See, in Mecklenburg, Germany, and moved there neighboring then-director of Deutsche Bank, Emil Georg von Strauss with whom he was friends. He also had a property in Suvretta, St. Moritz, Switzerland, and was there when he died on 4 February 1939.

René-Louis Lafforgue

René-Louis Lafforgue was a French songwriter and singer of Spanish origin and libertarian inspiration.  He was also an actor in cinema, theater and television .

René-Louis Lafforgue was born on March 13, 1928 into a family of libertarian activists from the Spanish Basque Country. He suffered the war in Spain , then exile in France, where his parents took refuge in Cachan . He took part in the Resistance with his brother Sylvain, who died there.

After having practiced several trades (apprentice butcher, carpenter, machinist), he became an actor, then a singer-songwriter. After the first parts of the shows of Georges Brassens , he moved to the Olympia .

In 1948 , Charles Dullin hired him as an actor. In 1949 , he toured Europe with the mime Marcel Marceau .

He interprets the play Drame à Toulon - Henri Martin by Claude Martin and Henri Delmas which recounts the life and trial of Henri Martin , a sailor opposed to the war in Indochina and sentenced to five years' imprisonment for participation in a "demoralization enterprise of the army and the nation. Charles Denner, Paul Préboist, José Valverde and Antoine Vitez are some of the actors in troupe. Representations are prohibited by several prefects and mayors. But the censorship is often thwarted and the play is played more than three hundred times.

In 1955 , he won the Grand Prix de la Chanson française de Deauville (André Claveau category), which marked the beginning of his notoriety.

René-Louis Lafforgue is the author of the songs Julie la Rousse (1956) and Le Poseur de rails (1957). He won the Record Prize in 1959

In 1962 , he created the cabaret L'École buissonnière at No. 10  rue de l'Arbalète in Paris , where Guy Bedos, Paul Préboist, Pierre Louki, Boby Lapointe, Maurice Fanon, Christine Sèvres, Léo Campion and even Beatrice Arnac. The cabaret was then a meeting place for libertarians and pacifists for whom it hosted many parties. After his death, the cabaret was run by his wife, Claudie. He was also the founder of Éditions du Tournesol.

René-Louis Lafforgue was killed in a car on national road 118, between Albi and Castres, on June 3, 1967  while traveling for the filming of a soap opera, L'Éventail de Sevilla . He rests in Cachan cemetery.

Anders Lange

Anders Sigurd Lange was a Norwegian political organiser, speaker and editor who led his eponymously named political party Anders Lange's Party into parliament in 1973.

Anders Sigurd Lange was born on September 5, 1904 in Nordstrand, Aker (now a part of Oslo) to doctor Alf Lange (1869–1929) and Anna Elisabeth Svensson (1873–1955). He had two older siblings, Alexander and Karen. Although he was born in Aker, the family moved to Foss in Bjelland when he was only six weeks old, owing to his father being appointed district physician for a region consisting of Bjelland, Grindheim and Åseral. The Lange family was originally from Holstein and Denmark, and included several prominent public officials, priests, doctors and businessmen. Lange lived in Foss for his first seven years. Lange's parents were divorced in 1911, and Anna Elisabeth moved to Bergen with her three children. They lived in humble conditions in a guest house in Fjøsanger for the first two to three years. The family thereafter moved to Kristiania (now named Oslo), settling in Skillebekk.

Lange started his secondary education at Vestheim School in 1921, but failed to graduate examen artium. He subsequently moved to Kristiansand in 1923, and finished his education at Kristiansand Cathedral School in 1924. He was not interested in politics in his youth, spending his free time in outdoor recreation and sports. In Kristiania (Oslo), Lange had played football and ice hockey for the club Mercantile SFK, and he continued to play football for FK Donn in Kristiansand. He broke his nose several times during play, giving him his characteristic crooked nose. Lange held his first public speech (albeit a short one), the Kristiansand russ speech, on 17 May 1924 in honour of Henrik Wergeland. He thereafter served in the Royal Guards for his conscription service.

During his time in the military, Lange became interested in forestry after reading the 1923 book Skogen og folket by Christian Gierløff. He graduated as a forestry technician at the Oddernes forestry school in 1926. He had part of his practice in Andebu, and after graduating he continued working there for a local farmer. A cousin of his father later tipped him that he could get work at a forestry school in Argentina, and Lange set out for the country in 1927. He went to port in Buenos Aires, got in connection with Kristiansand-based Norwegians, and travelled north to Tartagal near the border to Paraguay. He became engaged with the Saco company, and headed a work team of 15 men. Lange had also brought with him football equipment to the country, and he became known by the locals as "Don André". Lange lived in Argentina from November 1927 to June 1929, when he went home with his father's casket, his father having died of a heart attack when visiting Lange at his office in Argentina.

Educated as a forestry technician, Lange got involved in politics following his stay in Argentina in the late 1920s. He joined the right-wing Fatherland League organisation upon his return to Norway in 1929, and he became a popular speaker at public rallies. His provocative style however often led to controversies. Although his agitation was chiefly directed against the political left, he also rejected the efforts of the far-right. He left the organisation in 1938 to join Landsforeningen Norges Sjøforsvar, where he agitated for strengthening the Norwegian armed forces and warned against the future world war. He was initially blocked from entering the organised Norwegian resistance during the Second World War, but nonetheless did work to assist resistance members, and he was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned twice.

After the war, Lange initially focused on his work as a kennel-owner, as well as to write and publish his own dog-owner's paper. Although he had pledged to not enter politics again, he became increasingly politically active. He started touring the country to speak at his public rallies, and the paper he published became increasingly political. He was a charismatic right-wing public speaker who first and foremost objected to high taxes, state-regulations and public bureaucracy. He gained a considerable following among youth in the 1960s, and their activities included to counter-demonstrate against left-wing demonstrations. Increasingly called upon by his supporters to establish a new political party, it was not until 1973 that he finally agreed to do so. The new party, named Anders Lange's Party (ALP) was founded by popular acclamation during a public meeting at Saga kino. He successfully entered the Norwegian Parliament after the election later the same year, but his new-found political career came to an abrupt end when he died the following year. Lange's political party was reformed and renamed to the Progress Party after his death.

Lange died on October 18, 1974.

Władysław Szpilman

Władysław Szpilman was a Polish pianist and classical composer of Jewish descent. 

Szpilman is widely known as the central figure in the 2002 Roman Polanski film The Pianist, which was based on Szpilman's autobiographical account of how he survived the German occupation of Warsaw and the Holocaust.

Szpilman studied piano at music academies in Berlin and Warsaw. He became a popular performer on Polish radio and in concert. Confined within the Warsaw ghetto after the German invasion of Poland, Szpilman spent two years in hiding. Towards the end of his concealment, he was helped by Wilm Hosenfeld, a German officer who detested Nazi policies. After World War II, Szpilman resumed his career on Polish radio. Szpilman was also a prolific composer; his output included hundreds of songs and many orchestral pieces.

Väinö Tanner

Väinö Alfred Tanner was a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party of Finland, and a pioneer and leader of the cooperative movement in Finland. He was Prime Minister of Finland in 1926–1927.

Tanner was born on March 12, 1881 in Helsinki as the son of a railway brakesman of modest means. After matriculating in 1900, he studied at the business college Suomen Liikemiesten Kauppaopisto (one of two predecessors of the present-day Business College Helsinki). He also studied law, graduating as a jurist in 1911.

Tanner started work as a trainee at the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine (GEG) in Hamburg, Germany, while still a student, and in 1903, after returning to Finland, became manager of Turun Vähäväkisten Osuusliike, then the largest cooperative retail society in Finland. He was later appointed to the supervisory board of the Helsinki-based cooperative Elanto in 1907, and also became chairman of Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta (SOK) in 1909 and CEO of Elanto in 1915. He also served as president of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) from 1927 until 1945.

He did not participate in the Finnish Civil War, maintaining a neutral attitude. When the war ended he became Finland's leading Social Democratic Party (SDP) politician, and a strong proponent of the parliamentary system. His main achievement was the rehabilitation of the SDP after the Civil War. Väinö Tanner served as Prime Minister (1926–1927), Minister of Finance (1937–1939), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1939–1940), and after the Winter War Minister of Trade and Industry (1941–1942) and Minister of Finance (1942–1944).

Väinö Tanner's legacy is in his directing the Finnish working class from their extremist ideology towards pragmatic progress through the democratic process. Under his leadership the Social Democrats were trusted to form a minority government already less than 10 years after the bloody civil war. Tanner's minority socialist government passed a series of important social reforms during its time in office, which included a liberal amnesty law, reduced duties on imported foods, and pension and health insurance laws.

During President Relander's brief illness Tanner, who held the post of prime minister, was even the acting president and Commander-In-Chief. In this role he even received the parade of the White guards on the 10th anniversary of the White victory. This was perceived as a remarkable development at the time. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Social Democrats formed several coalition governments with the Agrarian party. In the Winter War Väinö Tanner was the foreign minister. Väinö Tanner's leadership was very important in forming the grounds and creating the Spirit of the Winter War which united the nation.

After the end of the Continuation War, Tanner was tried for responsibility for the war in February 1946, and sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

After the Continuation War, and while still in prison, Tanner became the virtual leader of a faction of the SDP which had strong support from the USA. This faction eventually came out on top after a great deal of internal party strife lasting for much of the 1940s. Tanner criticised Finland's post-war doctrine known as Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine, in which Finnish foreign affairs were kept strictly neutral and friendly with the USSR. Tanner managed to return to the Finnish parliament as a representative in the 1951 parliamentary elections. The acting foreign minister at the time, Åke Gartz insisted that the head of the Finnish Social Democratic Party Emil Skog should try to keep Tanner away from the party. Tanner would go on to win the 1957 SDP chairman election. Tanner won the race by 1 vote. 

Tanner died on April 19, 1966.

Isaak Kikoin

Isaak Konstantinovich (Kushelevich) Kikoin, D.N., was a Soviet physicist of Lithuanian origin and an author of physics textbooks in Russian language who played an important role in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

Kikoin was born on March 28, 1908 in the town of Novye Zhagory (now Žagarė in Lithuania), Russian Empire. Kikoin was a Lithuanian Jew (orthodoxy) whose patronymic was also written as Kushelevich (Кушелевич; "son of Kushel"); and his parents were school teachers. During the World War I, his family was relocated from Latvia to Russia where he entered in gymnazium in Pskov, and upon graduation, he went to study physics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1925.

In 1930-31, he earned his specialist degree in physics and successfully defended his thesis on Photomagnetism for his Doktor Nauk in 1936. He taught physics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, and his early work investigated the electrical conductivity and magnetic attractions in metals until 1938. From 1938 till 1944, he taught physics at the Ural Polytechnic Institute and found a landmine project with the Red Army that would demagnetize, and detonate the German army's tanks. It was Kurchatov who brought Kikoin in Soviet program of nuclear weapons and assigned him the Uranium enrichment project at this Laboratory No. 2 using the gaseous diffusion method took place under Kikoin while Lev Artsimovich worked on electromagnetic isotope separation. During the Russian Alsos, he went to Germany to locate German knowledge that would proved useful in Soviet programs.

He remained associate with Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Stalin Prize a total of four times (1942, 1949, 1951, 1953), the Lenin Prize in 1959, and the USSR State Prize in 1967 and 1980. Kikoin was named a Hero of Socialist Labour (1951); he also won the Kurchatov Medal (1971). Kikoin was with Igor Kurchatov as one of the founders of the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute, which developed the first Soviet nuclear reactor in 1946. This was the lead-in to the Soviet atomic bomb project with the first atomic bomb test taking place in 1949.

In 1970, Kikoin (jointly with Andrey Kolmogorov) started issuing Kvant magazine, a popular science magazine in physics and mathematics for school students and teachers. He authored texts on molecular physics in 1978, and it was has been translated in Persian language.

Kikoin died on December 28, 1984.

Archibald Reiss

Rodolphe Archibald Reiss was a German–Swiss criminology-pioneer, forensic scientist, professor and writer.

The Reiss family was in agriculture and winemaking. Archibald was born on July 8, 1875 the eighth of ten children, son of Ferdinand Reiss, landowner and Pauline Sabine Anna Gabriele Seutter von Loetzen. After finishing high school in Germany, he went to Switzerland for his studies. He had received a Ph.D. in chemistry at the age of 22 and was an expert in photography and forensic science. In 1906 he was appointed a professor of forensic science at the University of Lausanne. In 1909, he was the founder of the first academic forensic science programme and of the "Institut de police scientifique" (Institute of forensic science) at the University of Lausanne. He published two major books on forensic science "Photographie judiciaire" (Forensic photography), Mendel, Paris, in 1903 and the first part of his major contribution "Manuel de police scientifique. I Vols et homicides" (Handbook of forensic science I: Thefts and homicides), Payot, Lausanne and Acan, Paris, in 1911. The Institute he created celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009 and has grown to become a major school, "Ecole des sciences criminelles", that includes forensic science, criminology and criminal law within the Faculty of Law and Criminal Justice of the University of Lausanne.

With the advent of World War I, Reiss was commissioned by the Serbian government to investigate atrocities committed by the invading Central Powers against Serbs. Dr. Reiss would end up extensively documenting his findings in two reports. The first, "Report upon the atrocities committed by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the first invasion of Serbia" was completed in 1915 and published in 1916, focusing on the crimes committed by the Austro-Hungarians against the Serbs during their invasion and occupation of Serbia in the first few months of World War I in 1914. The second Reiss report focused on the second round of the invasion and occupation of Serbia and crimes committed against the Serbs which began in 1915, this time by the combined forces of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Germany, but in Bulgaria the results of Rice's investigations are rejected on the arguments that he did not take any photographs of victims of "Bulgarian atrocities", while making them for the Austro-Hungarian and German ones - moreover that he was one of the pioneers of forensic photography and the fact that he fought in the ranks of the Serbian army during the war compromised his impartiality as an expert. This second report, "Infringement of the Rules and Laws of War committed by the Austro-Bulgaro-Germans: Letters of a Criminologist on the Serbian Macedonian Front", was published in 1919.

When Serbia was overrun in 1915 he joined the Serbian Army in its retreat across Albania to return with the victorious Serbian Army when it liberated Belgrade in the final days of the war. He was known as a great friend of Serbia and the Serbian people and after the war decided to stay and live in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Upon the invitation of the Serbian Government, he carried out an inquiry on Hungarian, German and Bulgarian atrocities in Serbia during World War I and published the reports in European papers. He was part of the Serbian Government's envoy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. He found propaganda postcards of the Austrian-Hungarian Army showing atrocities against Serbian people.

After the war, Reiss helped establish the first police academy in Serbia and teach forensic sciences. He was one of the founders of the Red Cross of Serbia. He became an honorary citizen of Krupanj in 1926.

Reiss died on August 7, 1929. 

Christen Daae Magelssen

Christen Daae Magelssen was a Norwegian sculptor .

Magelssen was born on May 6, 1841 the son of parish priest in Åfjord, Hans Gynter Magelssen (d. 1886) and Drude Cathrine Haar Daae (1815–88), a sister of Ludvig Kristensen Daa . As a young man, he was first a sailor, before he started making figureheads in an English workshop. When he returned to Norway he decided to become a sculptor, and in 1866 went to Copenhagen with a state scholarship. He was taught by the Danish sculptor Herman Wilhelm Bissen for three years. In this period, he produced his first major work, "Sailor, who sweaters his Fatherland's Coast".

In the following years, Magelssen lived in Kristiania , before he went to Rome in 1871 . He lived in Rome for ten years, initially with a state grant, and became acquainted with other Norwegians who were in Italy at the same time: Ole Bull , Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson , Jonas Lie and Henrik Ibsen . During the Rome period, he made, among other things, the colossal statue "Meleager", which was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878 . In the 1880s he returned to Norway, and lived first in Bergen , then in Kristiania.

He was married to the Italian printer's daughter Adele Elvira Salandri (b. 1857).

Magelssen died on March 20, 1940. 

23 December, 2022

Rajan Bala

Rajan Bala, full name Natarajan Balasubramaniam, was a noted Indian columnist on cricket.

Best known as someone who toured with every Indian cricket team from 1968 to 2003, Rajan Bala was technically accomplished in cricket techniques even though he was a journalist. In 1997 Sachin Tendulkar, who was having some problems with his technique, approached him for advice.

Rajan was not afraid to back a player who he felt had potential. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he decided to trust his heart and involve himself in cricket. Rajan earned the respect of many all-time great cricketers including Tiger Pataudi. He also wrote many books on cricket, including biographies of Tendulkar and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar.

Rajan died in Bangalore on 9 October 2009 due to kidney failure. His last book, a memoir titled Days Well Spent, was released a month later. He was 63 years old, and was survived by his wife and two sons

Peter Baxter

Peter Baxter is a former producer for BBC radio, best known as the producer of the programme of live cricket commentary, Test Match Special.

Baxter joined the BBC in September 1965 after a spell in British Forces Broadcasting. He first worked on Test Match Special in 1966 and produced the programme from 1973–2007.

He co-ordinated the BBC's cricket coverage from every one of the Test-playing nations, and was also frequently part of the commentary team himself. Baxter commentated on the end of the 1992 World Cup Final between England and Pakistan in Melbourne. In 2001 he was locked out of the ground by the groundsman at Galle, in Sri Lanka; he and BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew eventually watched the action from a nearby fort.[citation needed] Baxter retired on 19 June 2007—with his last TMS production going off the air at 18:30. He was succeeded by Adam Mountford, the former cricket producer of BBC Radio Five Live.

In tandem with his work on cricket he was also the rugby union producer for eight years and the University Boat Race producer throughout the 1980s. He is a Fellow of The Radio Academy and president of the Bedfordshire Cricket Board and Metro Blind Sports. In December 2009 Baxter started a regular podcast on the cricket website thecricketer.com. He has edited several books with the Test Match Special team and on his own account, 'World Cup - Cricket's Clash of the Titans', 'The Best Views From the Boundary', the autobiographical 'Inside the Box' and 'Can Anyone Hear Me?' on experiences with Test Match Special on tour.

Abe Levitow

Abraham Levitow was an American animator who worked at Warner Bros. Cartoons, UPA and MGM Animation/Visual Arts. He is best known for his work under Chuck Jones' direction.

Levitow was born on July 2, 1922 in Los Angeles, California to William Levitow and Sarah Schlafmitz. He began working as an in-betweener and assistant animator at Warner Bros. Cartoons in 1940 at the age of 17. Levitow briefly left Warner Brothers when he was drafted during World War II working on training films, in which during that time he met Stan Lee and became close friends with him. Levitow returned to the studio, working as an assistant animator for Ken Harris under the Chuck Jones unit, and he was later promoted to animator in 1950 and would receive his first animations credit in 1953 for the cartoon Wild Over You. He worked steadily for Jones over the remainder of the 1950s, and directed several cartoons for release in 1959, including the Pepé Le Pew cartoon "Really Scent". While working under Jones, he made characters' joints more angular than most other animators. Those characters with fur (Wile E. Coyote, for example) looked especially shaggy in Levitow's scenes.

Levitow joined UPA in 1958 to work on the Mr. Magoo feature 1001 Arabian Nights, staying behind even after the studio was sold to Henry G. Saperstein. In 1962, he directed the first feature-length animated television special, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. 1962 also saw the release of his theatrical feature Gay Purr-ee, with the voices of Robert Goulet, Judy Garland, and others. By 1962, he was working with Jones at MGM as an animator and a director in the Tom and Jerry series. He co-directed the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth with Chuck Jones at MGM. In addition, he worked with UPA on more Mr. Magoo cartoons, including The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, and also collaborated with Chuck again on the program Curiosity Shop through Format Films. He animated on the Chuck Jones-produced A Christmas Carol, directed by Richard Williams at Williams' London studio in 1971.

In 1972, he and producer Dave Hanson founded Levitow/Hanson Films. The studio produced several animated pieces for Sesame Street, the most notable being Willie Wimple. His last completed project was B.C.: The First Thanksgiving, which aired in November of 1973.

At the time of his death on May 8, 1975, Levitow was in line to direct the animated feature film Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure.

Josef Lada

Josef Lada was a Czech painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known as the illustrator of Jaroslav Hašek's World War I novel The Good Soldier Švejk, having won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1963.

Lada was born on December 17, 1887 in the small village of Hrusice in a cobbler's family, he went to Prague at the age of 14 to become an apprentice binder. Entirely self-taught, he created his own style as a caricaturist for newspapers, and later as an illustrator. He produced landscapes, created frescoes and designed costumes for plays and films. Over the years he created a series of paintings and drawings depicting traditional Czech occupations, and wrote and illustrated the adventures of Mikeš, a little black cat who could talk.

Lada produced nearly 600 cartoons of the Švejk characters, depicting Austria-Hungary officers and civil servants as incompetent, abusive and often drunk. All subsequent editions of Švejk used Lada's illustrations, except for the 2008/2009 Czech edition illustrated by Petr Urban.

Lada died on December 14, 1957.

Karl Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg

Karl Theodor Maria Georg Achaz Eberhardt Josef Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg was a German politician of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU). He was parliamentary secretary of state in the Chancellor's Office in the government of Kurt Georg Kiesinger from 1967 until 1969, as well as the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag. 

Guttenberg served as an officer during World War II, but was punished for anti-Nazi statements and became, through his uncle Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, a member of the anti-Nazi resistance in the German army. While his uncle was imprisoned after the 20 July plot and executed shortly before the war's end, Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg was taken prisoner of war by the British, and soon after started to work for British propaganda, including the Soldatensender Calais.

Guttenberg owned large estates in Franconia, several hotels as well as the winery Weingut Reichsrat von Buhl in the Palatinate. Himself a member of the House of Guttenberg, he married Rosa Sophie Prinzessin von Arenberg, of the House of Arenberg, in 1943. Their son Enoch zu Guttenberg became a conductor as well as inherited Weingut Reichsrat von Buhl. His grandson is the politician and former federal government minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

He became a member of the CSU in 1946, and was a member of the Bundestag from 1957 to 1972, where he represented Kulmbach. In the Bundestag, he was a noted public speaker and was for several years the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU group. Guttenberg was a fierce critic of the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt. After Brandt's government had recognized the existence of "a second German state" (the German Democratic Republic), he called it a "dark hour". While most of the CDU/CSU group abstained during the vote on the Basic Treaty, 1972, Guttenberg voted against.

A Roman Catholic, Guttenberg became a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in 1957. He received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972.

He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1972, aged 51.

Philip Rosenthal

Philip Rosenthal was a German industrialist, socialite and Social Democratic Party politician. In 1950, Rosenthal regained control of the family's company Rosenthal AG after the fall of Nazi Germany. In 1968, Rosenthal was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit and in 1981, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. From 1970 to 1971, he served as Germany's Parliamentary Secretary of State under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. 

Rosenthal was born on October 23, 1916, in Berlin, Germany, he was the only son of porcelain manufacturer Philipp Rosenthal from his second marriage to Maria Rosenthal. He attended the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz and the Wittelsbacher-Gymnasium in Munich. With the rise of Nazism, and because of his Jewish origin, he and his family had to emigrate to England in 1934. He then worked in the Foreign Office's propaganda department, among others, with the Soldatensender Calais.

In 1947, at the request of the family, he went to Selb for the Wiedergutmachung restitution claims. In 1950, Philip Rosenthal joined the paternal porcelain company, Rosenthal AG, and became head of the design department in 1952. From 1958 to 1970 and 1972 to 1981 he was chairman of the board. During this time, the company had more than 10,000 employees. From 1981 to 1989, he served as chairman of the supervisory board. As one of the first German entrepreneurs, he introduced a participation system for employees in 1963, "say and have" by means of co-determination and asset formation in productive capital. In 1968, Rosenthal made headlines when he passed his private share of company ownership in a testamentary way to a foundation for the training of workers to executive staff.

In addition, Philip Rosenthal was president of the German Design Council (1977-1986), chairman of the Bauhaus Archives in Berlin and chairman of the Association of the Ceramic Industry. His central concern as a person and entrepreneur was the "designed environment" with original art and contemporary design to enhance the quality of life of the individual. In collaboration with outstanding artists and designers from around the world, Philip Rosenthal succeeded in the late 1950s and 1960s to make the Rosenthal studio line a recognized model for modern design. From the porcelain factory of his father became a company for contemporary table and living culture. In 1988, Philip Rosenthal was appointed professor of design at the Bremen University of the Arts.

One of his guiding principles was: "Whoever thinks too late of the costs ruins his company. Whoever thinks too early of the cost kills creativity."

In 1969, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and was elected to the Bundestag in the same year and in 1972 as a direct candidate in the Goslar - Wolfenbüttel electoral district, then to the Bavarian national list of his party. In September 1970, the entrepreneur became Parliamentary Secretary of State under the Ministry of Economic Affairs under Karl Schiller. However, he withdrew from the office in November 1971 due to differences with the latter about the pace of implementation of the employee participation in productive capacity In 1980, he was a member of the SPD Group.

Striving for social justice in the interaction between companies and employees was a dominant theme in his life.

Rosenthal was known as Germany's Emperor of China. A People profile on Rosenthal referred to the tycoons' company stating the "Rosenthal trademark is to china and glassware what Mercedes-Benz is to cars". He was notorious for his eccentric personality and lifestyle. Married four times, Rosenthal had numerous extramarital affairs that were regularly published in German tabloids.

Along with his family he lived primarily in the 18th-century Erkersreuth Castle near his celebrated ceramics factories in the West German town of Selb. Although he spent much of his life traveling with his five children and wife in a Volkswagen Bus with a red rowing scull on the roof. He designed and lead his family on segmented circle tour of Europe over the course of 20 years; starting a new segment of their hike or row at exactly the point where they last left off. His bedroom at the castle consisted of a mattress set on sand-colored carpeting, with tentlike drapes covering the walls and ceiling. He smoked cigars and used his home tanning bed frequently. His longest marriage was to Lavinia Day, twenty years his junior. Day is closely related to playwright, Clarence Day, and publisher Benjamin Day. The couple had four children, Shealagh, Philip Jr, Toby, and Julie. Philip Jr. briefly worked as Rosenthal's CEO and now runs Könitz Porzellan and Waechtersbach ceramics. His eldest daughter Shealagh Alison Macleod De Bourges Day Rosenthal, an artist and art dealer, is married to writer, Doron Weber.

Rosenthal died September 27, 2001, in Selb, Germany and is interred in a Rosenthal porcelain vase in Erkersreuth Castle's garden.

Egon Bahr

Egon Karl-Heinz Bahr was a German SPD politician.

The former journalist was the creator of the Ostpolitik promoted by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, for whom he served as Secretary of State in the German Chancellery from 1969 until 1972. Between 1972 and 1990 he was an MP in the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany and from 1972 until 1976 was also a Minister of the Federal Government.

Bahr was a key figure in multiple negotiation sessions between not only East and West Germany, but also West Germany and the Soviet Union. In addition to his instrumental role in Ostpolitik, Bahr was also an influential voice in negotiating the Treaty of Moscow, the Treaty of Warsaw, the Transit Treaty of 1971, and the Basic Treaty of 1972.

Bahr was born on March 18, 1922 in Treffurt, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, the son of Hedwig and Karl Bahr, a high school teacher. After completing his secondary education in 1940, Bahr continued his education as an industrial specialist at the Rheinmetall-Borsig armament corporation in Berlin. During World War II, Bahr served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht from 1942 until 1944, ultimately in the capacity of “Fahnenjunker” (cadet) in the Luftkriegsschule VI in Kitzingen. He was, however, demoted after being accused of being non-Aryan (on account of his Jewish grandmother) and, thus, having “sneaked into the Wehrmacht.” Thereafter, he received a posting as an armaments worker at Rheinmetall-Borsig.

After the war, Bahr worked as a journalist at the Berliner Zeitung, one of West Berlin’s prominent daily newspapers. He later worked at two other West Berliner periodicals, the Allgemeine Zeitung (West Berlin) and Der Tagesspiegel (West Berlin). From 1950 to 1960, he served as chief commentator of the Bonn bureau of RIAS, (“ Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor”, or “Broadcasting in the American Sector”). In 1959, he received his posting as press attaché to the West German Embassy in Ghana. From 1984 to 1994, Bahr served as the Director of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, from which he received an honorary professorship in 1984. Bahr was married and had three children. 

On August 19, 2015 Bahr died at the age of 93.

Heereman von Zuydtwyck

Constantin Heereman von Zuydtwyck was a German farmer and politician.

He was born on December 17, 1931 and went to school at Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn. Heereman von Zuydtwyck was a member of Christian Democratic Union of Germany. From 1967 to 1979 Heereman von Zuydtwyck was president of Deutscher Bauernverband. From 1995 to 2003 he was president of Deutscher Jagdverband. From 1983 to 1990 Heereman von Zuydtwyck was member of German Bundestag. He was from 1974 to 1998 president of Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank. He married Margarethe Freiin von Wrede-Melschede (1931–2007) in 1956. He had four daughters and a son Philipp Freiherr Heereman von Zuydtwyck.

He died on July 26, 2017.

Raymond Moley

Raymond Charles Moley was an American political economist.

Moley was born September 27, 1886 to Felix James and Agnes Fairchild Moley, he was educated at Baldwin-Wallace College and Oberlin College and received his PhD from Columbia University in 1918. He taught in several schools in Ohio until 1914. In 1916 he was appointed instructor and assistant professor of politics at Western Reserve University and from 1919 was director of the Cleveland Foundation. In 1918–19 he was also director of Americanization work under the Ohio State Council of Defense. He joined the Barnard College faculty in 1923, then became a professor of law at Columbia University from 1928–1954, where he was a specialist on the criminal justice system.

Moley supported then-New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, and it was Moley who recruited fellow Columbia professors to form the original "Brain Trust" to advise Roosevelt during his presidential campaign of 1932. Despite ridicule from editorial and political cartoonists, the "Brain Trust" went to Washington and became powerful figures in Roosevelt's New Deal, with Moley writing important speeches for the president. For example, he wrote the majority of Roosevelt's first inaugural address, although he is not credited with penning the famous line, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was responsible for FDR's use of the term "the Forgotten Man" in earlier speeches. He claimed credit for inventing the term "New Deal," though its precise provenance remains open to debate. Moley also wrote various pamphlets and articles on the teaching of government. Praising the new president's first moves in March 1933, he concluded that capitalism "was saved in eight days."

In mid-1933 Moley began his break with Roosevelt, and although he continued to write speeches for the president until 1936, he became increasingly critical of his policies, eventually becoming a conservative Republican. He wrote a column for Newsweek magazine from 1937 to 1968, and became an early contributor to the free market publication The Freeman, and, later, the nation's leading conservative periodical, National Review. In these roles, he became one of the best known critics of the New Deal and liberalism in general. Moley's After Seven Years (New York: 1939) was one of the first in-depth attacks on the New Deal. However he was also a trenchant critic of fascism, as his participation in a March 1934 mock-trial event in New York City condemning Nazi Germany, titled “The Case of Civilization Against Hitler,” indicates. It was attended by 20,000 New Yorkers and featured Mayor La Guardia, Rabbi Wise, Governor Alfred E. Smith. 

Moley was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Richard Nixon on April 22, 1970.

Moley died on February 18, 1975.

Douglas Jardine

Douglas Robert Jardine was an English cricketer who played 22 Test matches for England, captaining the side in 15 of those matches between 1931 and 1934. A right-handed batsman, he is best known for captaining the English team during the 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia. During that series, England employed "Bodyline" tactics against the Australian batsmen, headed by Donald Bradman, wherein bowlers pitched the ball short on the line of leg stump to rise towards the bodies of the batsmen in a manner that most contemporary players and critics viewed as intimidatory and physically dangerous. As captain, Jardine was the person responsible for the implementation of Bodyline.

A controversial figure among cricketers, partially for what was perceived by some to be an arrogant and patrician manner, he was well known for his dislike of Australian players and crowds, and thus was unpopular in Australia, especially so after the Bodyline tour. However, many who played under his leadership regarded him as an excellent and dedicated captain. He was also famous in cricket circles for wearing a multi-coloured Harlequin cap.

Douglas Jardine was born on 23 October 1900 in Bombay, British India, to Scottish parents, Malcolm Jardine—a former first-class cricketer who became a barrister—and Alison Moir. At the age of nine, he was sent to St Andrews in Scotland to stay with his mother's sister. He attended Horris Hill School, near Newbury, Berkshire, from May 1910. There, Jardine was moderately successful academically, and from 1912, he played cricket for the school first eleven, enjoying success as a bowler and as a batsman. He led the team in his final year, and the team were unbeaten under his captaincy. As a schoolboy, Jardine was influenced by the writing of former England captain C. B. Fry on batting technique, which contradicted the advice of his coach at Horris Hill. The coach disapproved of Jardine's batting methods, but Jardine did not back down and quoted a book by Fry to support his viewpoint.

In 1914, Jardine entered Winchester College. At the time, life for pupils at Winchester was arduous and austere; discipline was harsh. Sport and exercise were vital parts of the school day. In Jardine's time, preparing the pupils for war was also important. According to Jardine's biographer, Christopher Douglas, the pupils were "taught to be honest, practical, impervious to physical pain, uncomplaining and civilised." All pupils were required to be academically competent and as such Jardine was able to get along satisfactorily without exhibiting academic brilliance; successful sportsmen, on the other hand, were revered. Jardine enjoyed a slightly better position than some pupils, already possessing a reputation as a very fine cricketer and excelling at other sports; he represented the school at football as a goalkeeper and rackets, and played Winchester College football. But it was at cricket that he particularly excelled. He was in the first eleven for three years from 1917 and received coaching from Harry Altham, Rockley Wilson and Schofield Haigh, the latter two of whom were distinguished cricketers. In 1919, his final year, Jardine came top of the school batting averages with 997 runs at an average of 66.46. He also became captain despite some doubts within the school about his ability to unify the team. Under Jardine, Winchester won their annual match against Eton College in 1919, a fixture in which Eton had usually held the upper hand. Jardine's batting (35 and 89 in the match) and captaincy were key factors in his side's first victory over Eton for 12 years. Years later, after his retirement from cricket, he named his 89 in that match as his personal favourite innings. Jardine went on to score 135 not out against Harrow School.

Jardine's achievements in the season were widely reported in the local and national press. He played two representative matches, for the best schoolboy cricketers, at Lord's Cricket Ground, scored 44, 91, 57 and 55 and won favourable reviews in the press. Wisden, in 1928, described Jardine at this time as being obviously of a much higher standard than his contemporaries, particularly in defence and on side batting. However, he was criticised for being occasionally too cautious and not using all the batting strokes of which he was capable—his good batting technique gave the impression that he could easily score more quickly if he so desired.

After establishing an early reputation as a prolific schoolboy batsman, Jardine played cricket for Winchester College, attended the University of Oxford, playing for its cricket team, and then played for Surrey County Cricket Club as an amateur. He developed a stubborn, defensive method of batting which was considered unusual for an amateur at the time, and he received occasional criticism for negative batting. Nonetheless, Jardine was selected in Test matches for the first time in 1928, and went on to play with some success in the Test series in Australia in 1928–29. Following this tour, his business commitments prevented him from playing as much cricket. However, in 1931, he was asked to captain England in a Test against New Zealand. Although there were some initial misgivings about his captaincy, Jardine led England in the next three cricket seasons and on two overseas tours, one of which was the Australian tour of 1932–33. Of his 15 Tests as captain, he won nine, drew five and lost only one. He retired from all first-class cricket in 1934 following a tour to India.

Although Jardine was a qualified solicitor he did not work much in law, choosing instead to devote most of his working life to banking and, later on, journalism. He joined the Territorial Army in the Second World War and spent most of it posted in India. After the war, he worked as company secretary at a paper manufacturer and also returned to journalism. 

While on a business trip in 1957, he became ill with what proved to be lung cancer and died, aged 57, on June 18, 1958.

Wilfred Rhodes

Wilfred Rhodes was an English professional cricketer who played 58 Test matches for England between 1899 and 1930. In Tests, Rhodes took 127 wickets and scored 2,325 runs, becoming the first Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches. He holds the world records both for the most appearances made in first-class cricket (1,110 matches), and for the most wickets taken (4,204). He completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in an English cricket season a record 16 times. Rhodes played for Yorkshire and England into his fifties, and in his final Test in 1930 was, at 52 years and 165 days, the oldest player who has appeared in a Test match.

Rhodes was born in the village of Kirkheaton, just outside Huddersfield, on October 29,1877. His family moved to a farm two miles away while he was very young. He went to school in nearby Hopton, and later to Spring Grove School in Huddersfield. His father, Alfred Rhodes, was captain of the Kirkheaton cricket team's Second XI and encouraged his son to play cricket, buying him equipment and having a pitch laid near their home for Wilfred to practice. By the time Rhodes left school, aged 16, he had joined Kirkheaton Cricket Club and started to take cricket seriously: he watched Yorkshire when they played close to his home and began to consider a career as a professional cricketer. Around 1893 he took a job working on the railway in the local town of Mirfield. By now playing regularly for Kirkheaton Second XI, Rhodes's keenness to reach one game on time led him to ring the off-duty bell before the end of the shift and as a result he lost his job. Subsequently, he worked on a local farm, which allowed him more time for cricket. By 1895 he achieved a place in the Kirkheaton first team, and was recommended to Gala Cricket Club, of Galashiels, Scotland, as a professional.

Beginning his career for Yorkshire in 1898 as a slow left arm bowler who was a useful batsman, Rhodes quickly established a reputation as one of the best slow bowlers in the world. However, by the First World War he had developed his batting skills to the extent that he was regarded as one of the leading batsmen in England and had established an effective opening partnership with Jack Hobbs. The improvement in Rhodes's batting was accompanied by a temporary decline in his bowling performances, but the loss of key Yorkshire bowlers after the war led to Rhodes resuming his role as a front-line bowler. He played throughout the 1920s as an all-rounder before retiring after the 1930 cricket season. His first appearance for England was in 1899 and he played regularly in Tests until 1921. Recalled to the team in the final Ashes Test of 1926 aged 48, Rhodes played a significant part in winning the match for England who thus regained the Ashes for the first time since 1912. He ended his Test career in the West Indies in April 1930.

As a bowler, Rhodes was noted for his great accuracy, variations in flight and, in his early days, sharp spin. Throughout his career he was particularly effective on wet, rain affected pitches where he could bowl sides out for very low scores. His batting was regarded as solid and dependable but unspectacular, and critics accused him of excessive caution at times. However, they considered him to be an astute cricket thinker. Following his retirement from playing cricket, he coached at Harrow School but was not a great success. His eyesight began to fail from around 1939 to the point where he was completely blind by 1952. He was given honorary membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1949 and remained a respected figure within the game until his death on July 8, 1973.


John Bauer

John Albert Bauer was a Swedish painter and illustrator. He is best known for his illustrations of early editions of Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls), an anthology of Swedish folklore and fairy tales.

Bauer was born on June 4, 1882 and raised in Jönköping. At 16 he moved to Stockholm to study at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. While there he received his first commissions to illustrate stories in books and magazines, and met the artist Ester Ellqvist, whom he married in 1906. He traveled throughout Lappland, Germany and Italy early in his career, and these cultures deeply informed his work. He painted and illustrated in a romantic nationalistic style, in part influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Sami cultures. Most of his works are watercolors or prints in monochrome or muted colours; he also produced oil paintings and frescos. His illustrations and paintings broadened the understanding and appreciation of Swedish folklore, fairy tales and landscape.

When Bauer was 36 on November 20, 1918, he drowned, together with Ester and their son Bengt, in a shipwreck on Lake Vättern in southern Sweden.

Friedrich Nowottny

Friedrich Nowottny is a German television journalist.

Nowottny worked as director of German broadcaster WDR. He lives in Swisttal-Buschhoven near Bonn.