Wednesday
May 19, 1999
Love and Sleep
Poem: "Love and Sleep," by Charles Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909).
It's the birthday in Brooklyn, 1941, of New York Times writer JANE BRODY, whose column "Personal Health" has appeared in the paper since 1976.
It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter NORAH EPHRON, born in New York City, 1941, who wrote the scripts for the movies You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, and When Harry Met Sally.
It's the birthday in Wichita, Kansas, 1934, of journalist JIM LEHRER, host of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS.
It's the birthday in Chicago, 1930, of playwright LORRAINE HANSBERRY, best known for Raisin in the Sun (1959), the play about a working-class black family in Chicago.
It's the birthday in Omaha, Nebraska, 1925, of the activist Malcolm Little, better known as MALCOLM X, who said, "If you're born in America with a black skin, you're born in prison." He converted to the Black Muslim faith and changed his last name to "X," a custom in the Nation of Islam for those who reject the names white slaveholders gave their families. He was killed in 1965 in a Harlem ballroom by three Black Muslims.
DAME NELLIE MELBA, the Australian soprano, was born this day near Melbourne, 1859 originally named Helen Porter Mitchell, but she took the name of Melba as a contraction of her hometown.
It's the birthday in rural Maryland, 1795, of JOHNS HOPKINS, founder of several Baltimore institutions including the free city hospital, a public park, and the university and hospital that bear his name.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®