HOLIDAYS:
International Bard Song Day.
Belarus – An energy worker’s day.
SIGNS:
Anna Winter, Dark. The shortest day of the year. Pregnant women were forbidden to do any serious work during the day; they were supposed to fast.
BORN:
1639 Jean-Baptiste RACINE, French playwright. Born into the family of a tax official.
1858 Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michel Secondo Maria) PUCCINI, Italian composer. From the age of 10 he served as a church organist.
1891 Edward BERNEYS, nephew of Z. FREUD, who moved to the USA and created there the theory and practice of the science of social relations, i.e. what today we call PR (PR).
1937 Eduard Nikolaevich USPENSKY, Soviet children’s writer. He died in 2018. In recent years, it was reported that he did not come up with the image of Cheburashka himself, but copied it from MOMOTARO, a character from a Japanese propaganda cartoon during the Second World War. And the image of the old woman Shapoklyak was allegedly copied from a freelance KGB employee who arranged an incident for Uspensky in a bakery.
1962 Rife Nathaniel FINES, English-American actor. Born into a very rich family.
1972 Vanessa Chantal PARADI, French singer and actress. She was the wife of actor Johnny Depp, with whom he had two children: daughter Lily-Rose Melody and son John Christopher. Since 2018 – married to director Samuel BENCHETRIT.
1984 Mark Konstantinovich BOGATYREV, Russian actor (Maxim LAVROV in the TV series “Kitchen”). He was born seven months old and never saw his father, not even in a photo. According to Mark’s mother, his father was an Armenian soldier. Bogatyrev is married to actress Tatyana ARNTGOLTZ, they have a son, Danila, born in 2021.
1998 Kasper Ruud, Norwegian tennis player. He earned more than $16 million during his career.
EVENTS:
1790 Russian troops under the command of SUVOROV stormed the Turkish fortress of Izmail. At the same time, KUTUZOV especially distinguished himself.
1857 The first postage stamp of Russia was issued (in denomination of 10 kopecks, with a circulation of 3 million copies).
1882 EDISON’s assistant Edward JOHNSON came up with an electric Christmas tree garland, which he used to decorate the tree at home for Christmas. But, as before, the Christmas trees were then decorated with ordinary candles for a long time. The first advertisement for electric garlands was published in December 1901, and they became popular only in the 20s of the last century.
1895 German physicist Wilhelm RENTGEN made the first radiographs (of his wife’s hands).
1907 Anna PAVLOVA for the first time performed the dance of the dying swan to the music of SAINT-SAENS, created especially for her by choreographer M. FOKIN. The dance has become a symbol of Russian ballet.
1924 According to Mikhail BULGAKOV, Dr. BORMENTAL recorded the beginning of Professor PREOBRAZHENSKY’s experiment on the dog Sharik (“Heart of a Dog”).
1961 James DAVIS became the first US soldier to die in Vietnam.
1991 The last People’s Artists of the USSR, among others (in alphabetical order), were Alla PUGACHYOVA and Oleg YANKOVSKY.
2001 The world’s first cloned cat, named Copycat, appeared in the United States. True, it was shown to the public only in February of the following year.
