Friday

Apr. 25, 1997

A Description of the Spring

by Sir Henry Wotton

FRIDAY 4/25

Today's Reading:"A Description of Spring" by Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639).

Today is National Arbor Day, the last Friday in April, emphasizing the importance of trees to our way of life. The holiday is observed by about half of the states in this country.

It was on this day in 1953 that the concept of DNA was introduced to the world, when British molecular biologist Francis Crick and American biologist James Watson published an article in NATURE magazine, describing the "double helix."

Puccini's opera TURANDOT premiered on this day in 1926 at La Scala in Milan, with Arturo Toscanini conducting.

It's the birthday of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia, 1917, and raised in a New York orphanage for blacks. She made her first big hit in 1938 with the song "A Tisket, A Tasket." She died in 1996 from diabetes, which had also taken her eyesight and both legs.

It's the birthday of novelist Ross Lockridge Jr. (RAINTREE COUNTY), born in Bloomington, Indiana, 1914.

Broadcaster Edward R. Murrow was born on this day on a farm outside Greensboro, North Carolina, 1908. He became known for his radio coverage of the London bombings during World War II.

It's the birthday of children's author Maud Hart Lovelace, whose BETSY-TACY books chronicled everyday life in turn-of-the-century Mankato, Minnesota, where she was born in 1892.

Poet and novelist Walter de la Mare, best known for his novel MEMOIR OF A MIDGET (1921) and the anthology COME HITHER (1923), was born on this day in Charlton, Kent, England, 1873.

It's the birthday of children's writer Howard R. Garis, the creator of the Uncle Wiggily stories, born in Binghamton, New York, 1873.

It's the anniversary of the publication of Daniel Defoe's novel ROBINSON CRUSOE in London, 1719.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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