The March King

6 November marks the birthday of John Phillips Sousa in 1854. Sousa would gain world-wide acclaim for his mastery of march composition. Sousa’s father was of Portuguese and Spanish descent and his mother of Hessian …

100 years of Injustice

This week in November marks 100 years since the execution of labor organizer, Joe Hill in 1915. Convicted of an unsolved murder, for which it has been widely acknowledged he was framed, he was executed …

Musical Son of Germany

4 November marks the death of composer Felix Mendelssohn in 1847. A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family. Like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart before him, Mendelssohn was …

A Good Listener

31 October marks the anniversary of the death in 2008, of Studs Terkel, American author, broadcaster and historian. Born in New York City, Terkel’s family arrived in Chicago when he was 8 years old. Terkel would …

Correspondents with a Cause

22 October marks the birthday of John Reed, an American journalist best known for his chronicle of the Russian Revolution, ’10 Days that Shook the World’. A native of Portland, Oregon, Reed would graduate from …

100 Years of Genius

It was on 10 October, 1985, that Orson Welles died. Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1915. He attended Madison Public Schools for a time and lived at the Baskerville on S. Hamilton St. …

A Voice that Soared

12 October marks the birthday of Luciano Pavarotti, one of the best known tenors in the modern era. Born in Italy in 1935, Pavarotti’s father was a baker and his mother worked in a cigar …