On this day in 1759, Baroque composer George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel died at his home in Brook Street, London, at age 74. Born on 5 March in Halle-upon-Saale, Duchy of Magdeburg (then part of Brandenburg-Prussia). He spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle-upon-Saale and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712. He became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. As Alexander’s Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742) he never composed an Italian opera again. His funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
Born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, in my opinion, Handel is one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. His works, Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks remain steadfastly popular. One of his four coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest(1727), composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign’s anointing. Another of his English oratorios, Solomon (1748), has also remained popular, with the Sinfonia that opens act 3 (known more commonly as “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”) featuring at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Handel composed more than forty operas in over thirty years, and since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and historically informed musical performance, interest in Handel’s operas has grown.
Handel never married, and kept his personal life private.
Monument to George Frederic Handel in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. His grave is below.
The Final Footprint
The last performance he attended was of Messiah. Handel was entombed in Westminster Abbey. More than three thousand mourners attended his funeral, which was given full state honours.
His initial will bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his niece Johanna, however four codicils distributed much of his estate to other relations, servants, friends and charities. Other notable Final Footprints at Westminster include; Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Charles II, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Edward III, Edward VI, Edward The Confessor, Elizabeth I, George II, Stephen Hawking, Henry III, Henry V, Henry VII, James I (James VI of Scotland), Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary I, Mary II, Mary Queen of Scots, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Laurence Olivier, Henry Purcell, Thomas Shadwell, Edmund Spenser, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, and William III.
#RIP #OTD in 1925 American expatriate artist, considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation”, John Singer Sargent died at his Chelsea home of heart disease, aged 69. Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey, England
On this day in 1986, existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, social theorist and author, Simone de Beauvoir died of pneumonia in Paris at the age of 78. Born Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir on 9 January 1908 in Paris. Perhaps best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins (1954), and for her treatise The Second Sex (1949). Also noted for her lifelong polyamorous relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. Scholarly discussions have analyzed the influences of Beauvoir and Sartre on one another. She is seen as having influenced Sartre’s masterpiece, Being and Nothingness. Yet she wrote much on philosophy that is independent of Sartrean existentialism.
The Final Footprint – Beauvoir is interred with Sartre in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. In 2006, the city of Paris commissioned architect Dietmar Feichtinger to design a footbridge solely for pedestrians and cyclists across the Seine River. The bridge was named the Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir in her honor. It leads to the new Bibliothèque nationale de France. Other notable Final Footprints at Montparnasse include; Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Emmanuel Chabrier, Henri Fantin-Latour, César Franck, Guy de Maupassant, Adah Isaac Menken, Man Ray, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Seberg, and Susan Sontag.
#RIP #OTD in 1995 singer (“A Little Bitty Tear”, “A Holly Jolly Christmas”) musician, actor (The Big Country, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), author, Burl Ives died from oral cancer at his home in Anacortes, Washington, aged 85. Mound Cemetery, Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois
On this day in 2015, R&B, soul and gospel singer Percy Sledge died of liver cancer at his home in Baton Rouge, at the age of 73. Born Percy Tyrone Sledge on November 25, 1941 in Leighton, Alabama. Perhaps best known for the song “When a Man Loves a Woman”, a No. 1 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B singles charts in 1966. It was awarded a million-selling, Gold-certified disc from the RIAA.
Having previously worked as a hospital orderly in the early 1960s, Sledge achieved his strongest success in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a series of emotional soul songs. In later years, Sledge received the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s Career Achievement Award. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.
Sledge married twice and was survived by his second wife, Rosa Sledge, whom he married in 1980.
The Final Footprint
Baton Rouge’s Heavenly Gates Cemetery.
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On this day in 1993, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and historian, “The Dean of Western Writers”, Wallace Stegner died in Santa Fe, New Mexico as the result of a car accident at the age of 84. Born Wallace Earle Stegner on 18 February 1909 in Lake Mills, Iowa. He and grew up in Great Falls, Montana; Salt Lake City, Utah; and the village of Eastend, Saskatchewan. Stegner won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for Angle of Repose, and the U.S. National Book Award in 1977 for The Spectator Bird. He taught at the University of Wisconsin and Harvard University. Eventually he settled at Stanford University, where he founded the creative writing program. His students included Wendell Berry, Sandra Day O’Connor, Thomas McGuane, Ken Kesey, and Larry McMurtry. Stegner married once; Mary Stuart Page (1934 – 1993 his death).
On this day in 2006 novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist Muriel Spark died in Florence, Tuscany, Italy at the age of 88. Born Muriel Sarah Spark on 1 February 1918 in Edinburgh. In 2008, The Times named Spark as No. 8 in its list of “the 50 greatest British writers since 1945”. Perhaps best know for her novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961). 
On this day in 2009, sportscaster, Ford C. Frick Award-winning lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies, Harry Kalas, died from a heart attack in the press box at Nationals Park, several hours before the Washington Nationals’ home opener against the Phillies. Born Harry Norbert Kalas on 26 March 1936 in Naperville, Illinois. He graduated for the University of Iowa and served two years in the U. S. Army. Kalas made his major league debut with the Houston Astros in 1965 and was hired by the Phillies in 1971. He called the first game at The Astrodome, six no-hit games, six National League Championship Series, three World Series (1983, 1993, and 2008), the first game at Veterans Stadium (10 April 1971), the last game at Veterans Stadium (28 September 2003), and the first game at Citizens Bank Park (12 April 2004). Kalas worked in the booth alongside Richie Ashburn for 27 seasons. The two became best friends and beloved figures in Philadelphia. Kalas’ signature home run call was “Swing … and a long drive, this ball is … outta here!” He was known for his love of Frank Sinatra’s version of the song, “High Hopes” (written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn), a song he sang at numerous events, including the Phillies’ championship celebrations in his later years. On 29 October 2008, Kalas was finally able to call a Phillies’ championship-winning moment in the World Series when Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to win the 104th Fall Classic: “One strike away; nothing-and-two, the count to Hinske. Fans on their feet; rally towels are being waved. Brad Lidge stretches. The 0-2 pitch — swing and a miss, struck him out! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 World Champions of baseball! Brad Lidge does it again, and stays perfect for the 2008 season! 48-for-48 in save opportunities, and let the city celebrate! Don’t let the 48-hour wait diminish the euphoria of this moment, and the celebration. And it has been 28 years since the Phillies have enjoyed a World Championship; 25 years in this city that a team that has enjoyed a World Championship, and the fans are ready to celebrate. What a night!”
The Final Footprint – Kalas is interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. His grave is marked by an individual upright granite marker with a replica of a microphone on top. The terms of endearment; LOVING HUSBAND LOVING FATHER FRIEND TO ALL, are engraved on the monument. On either side of the monument are four seats from Veteran’s Stadium. Kalas became the fourth person to be given the honor of having their body lie in repose inside a major-league baseball stadium, after Babe Ruth, Jack Buck, and Miller Huggins, when his casket was displayed behind home plate and fans were encouraged to pay their respects at Citizens Bank Park. Friends, broadcast partners, and every player on the Phillies team roster, passed by his casket to pay respects before it was placed in a hearse which carried him out of Citizens Bank Park one final time. His grave was resurfaced with sod that originally came from Citizens Bank Park. On 17 April 2009, at the first home game after Kalas’ death, fans sang along with a video of Harry singing “High Hopes” during the seventh-inning stretch, instead of the traditional “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.
On this day in 2003, singer (“The Loco-Motion”) Little Eva died from 
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On this day in 1848, composer Gaetano Donizetti died in the house of a noble family, the Scotti, in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy at the age of 49. Born Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti in Bergamo’s Borgo Canale quarter located just outside the city walls on 29 November 1797. Altogether Donizetti wrote about 70 operas. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer’s ninth opera, led to his move to that city and the composition of 28 operas which were given their premieres at that house or in one of the city’s smaller houses including the Teatro Nuovo or the Teatro del Fondo. This continued until the production of Caterina Cornaro in January 1844. In all, Naples presented 51 of Donizetti’s operas. During this period, success came primarily with the comic operas, the serious ones failing to attract significant audiences. However, the situation changed with the appearance in 1830 of the serious opera, Anna Bolena which was the first to make a major impact on the Italian and international opera scene. After 1830, his best-known works included comedies such as L’elisir d’amore (1832) and Don Pasquale (1843) and historical dramas such as Lucia di Lammermoor (the first to be written by librettist Salvadore Cammarano) in 1835, as well as Roberto Devereux in 1837. Up to that point, all of his operas had been written to Italian librettos. After moving to Paris in 1838, Donizetti set his operas to French texts; these include La favorite and La fille du régiment and were first performed in that city from 1840 onward. It appears that much of the attraction of moving to Paris was not just for larger fees and prestige, but his chafing against the censorial limitations which existed in Italy, thus giving him a much greater freedom to choose subject matter. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of bel canto opera during the first fifty years of the Nineteenth Century. Donizetti married Virginia Vasselli.
On this day in 1973, painter, draughtsman, and sculptor, Pablo Picasso died at his home in Mougins, France at the age of 91. Born on 25 October 1881 in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain and baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. A prolific artist, he is perhaps best known as a pioneer, along with Georges Braque, of the avant-garde art movement Cubism which revolutionized European painting and sculpture. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
The Final Footprint – Picasso is interred at the Chateau of Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence, a property he had acquired in 1958 and occupied with Jacqueline. His grave is decorated with his own sculpture “Woman with the Vase” (1933), which was shown during the World exhibition of 1937 in Paris.
On this day in 1990, national poster child for HIV/AIDS Ryan White died at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, at the age of 18. Born Ryan Wayne White on December 6, 1971 in Kokomo, Indiana. As a hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated factor VIII blood treatment and, when diagnosed in December 1984, was given six months to live. Doctors said he posed no risk to other students, as AIDS is not an airborne disease and spreads solely through body fluids, but AIDS was poorly understood by the general public at the time. When White tried to return to school, many parents and teachers in Howard County rallied against his attendance due to concerns of the disease spreading through bodily fluid transfer. A lengthy administrative appeal process ensued, and news of the conflict turned Ryan into a popular celebrity and advocate for AIDS research and public education. Surprising his doctors, Ryan White lived five years longer than predicted. He died one month before his high school graduation.
The Final Footprint
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On this day in 1938, French painter and artists’ model, Suzanne Valadon died of a stroke at age 72 in Paris. Born Marie-Clémentine Valadon on 23 September 1865 at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. She was also the mother of painter Maurice Utrillo. The subjects of her drawings and paintings included mostly female nudes, female portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. She never attended the academy and was never confined within a tradition. Valadon debuted as a model in 1880 in Montmartre at age 15. She modeled for over 10 years for many different artists including the following: Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, Théophile Steinlen, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
On this day in 2014, United States Army veteran, actor, vaudevillian, comedian, producer and radio personality Mickey Rooney died in Los Angeles at the age of 93. Born Joseph Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in more than 300 films and was one of the last surviving stars of the silent film era.
