RENÉ DESCARTES, FOUNDER OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY

Today, The Grandma continues relaxing at home. She has decided to read a little about one of the best philosophers of our history, the French René Descartes, well-known by his Discourse, who was born on a day like today in 1596.

René Descartes (31 March 1596-11 February 1650) was a French-born philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who spent a large portion of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving in the Dutch States Army of Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and the Stadtholder of the United Provinces.

One of the most notable intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age, Descartes is also widely regarded as one of the founders of modern philosophy.

Many elements of Descartes's philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the schools on two major points: first, he rejected the splitting of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejected any appeal to final ends, divine or natural, in explaining natural phenomena.

In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of God's act of creation. Refusing to accept the authority of previous philosophers, Descartes frequently set his views apart from the philosophers who preceded him.

In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, an early modern treatise on emotions, Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic as if no one had written on these matters before. His best known philosophical statement is cogito, ergo sum found in Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy (1644).

More information: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Descartes has often been called the father of modern philosophy, and is largely seen as responsible for the increased attention given to epistemology in the 17th century. He laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Spinoza and Leibniz, and was later opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. 

In the 17th-century Dutch Republic, the rise of early modern rationalism  -as a highly systematic school of philosophy in its own right for the first time in history- exerted an immense and profound influence on modern Western thought in general, with the birth of two influential rationalistic philosophical systems of Descartes, who spent most of his adult life and wrote all his major work in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and Spinoza -namely Cartesianism and Spinozism.

It was the 17th-century arch-rationalists like Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz who have given the Age of Reason its name and place in history. Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes were all well-versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well.

Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments.

Descartes's influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry -used in the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution.

More information: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

René Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine, Province of Touraine (now Descartes, Indre-et-Loire), France, on 31 March 1596.

By 1649, Descartes had become one of Europe's most famous philosophers and scientists.

That year, Queen Christina of Sweden invited him to her court to organize a new scientific academy and tutor her in his ideas about love. She was interested in and stimulated Descartes to publish the Passions of the Soul, a work based on his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth. Descartes accepted, and moved to Sweden in the middle of winter.

Descartes arranged to give lessons to Queen Christina after her birthday, three times a week at 5 am, in her cold and draughty castle. It soon became clear they did not like each other; she did not care for his mechanical philosophy, nor did he share her interest in Ancient Greek. By 15 January 1650, Descartes had seen Christina only four or five times. On 1 February, he contracted pneumonia and died on 11 February.

Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences.

In his Discourse on the Method, he attempts to arrive at a fundamental set of principles that one can know as true without any doubt. To achieve this, he employs a method called hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt, also sometimes referred to as methodological scepticism: he rejects any ideas that can be doubted and then re-establishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge.

Descartes built his ideas from scratch. He relates this to architecture: the topsoil is taken away to create a new building or structure. Descartes calls his doubt the soil and new knowledge the buildings.

More information: Spark Notes

If you would be a real seeker after truth,
it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt,
as far as possible, all things.

René Descartes

ERIC PATRICK CLAPTON, THE UNFORGETTABLE GUITARIST

Today, The Grandma is still relaxing at home. The weather is warm, but she is too tired to go out, and she has preferred to listening to music. She has chosen Eric Clapton, the English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time, who was born on a day like today in 1945.

Eric Patrick Clapton (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter.

He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream.

Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time.

Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players in 2009.

After playing in a number of different local bands, Clapton joined the Yardbirds in 1963, replacing founding guitarist Top Topham. Dissatisfied with the change of the Yardbirds sound from blues rock to a more radio-friendly pop rock sound, Clapton left in 1965 to play with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with whom he played on one album.

After leaving Mayall in 1966, he formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and arty, blues-based psychedelic pop. After Cream broke up in November 1968, he formed blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech, recording one album and performing on one tour before they broke up, leading Clapton to embark on a solo career in 1970.

More information: Eric Clapton Official Website

Alongside his solo career, he also performed with Delaney & Bonnie and Derek and the Dominos, with whom he recorded Layla, one of his signature songs. He continued to record a number of successful solo albums and songs over the next several decades, including a 1974 cover of Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff, which helped reggae reach a mass market, the country-infused Slowhand album (1977) and the pop rock of 1986's August.

Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song Tears in Heaven, which appeared on his Unplugged album, and in 1996 he had another top-40 hit with the R&B crossover Change The World, and in 1998 released the Grammy award-winning My Father's Eyes.

Since 1999, he has recorded a number of traditional blues and blues rock albums and hosted the periodic Crossroads Guitar Festival. His most recent studio album is 2018',s Happy Xmas.

Clapton has received 18 Grammy Awards as well as the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

In 2004, he was awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music. He has received four Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In his solo career, Clapton has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time.

In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.

More information: Twitter-Eric Clapton

Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec.

In 1961, after leaving Hollyfield School in Surbiton, Clapton studied at the Kingston College of Art but was dismissed at the end of the academic year because his focus remained on music rather than art.

In October 1963, Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band, and stayed with them until March 1965. Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King, and B.B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene.

Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in July 1966, replaced by Peter Green, and was invited by drummer Ginger Baker to play in his newly formed band Cream, one of the earliest supergroups, with Jack Bruce on bass.

Clapton's next group, Blind Faith, formed in 1969, was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic, and Ric Grech of Family, and yielded one LP and one arena-circuit tour.

With the intention of counteracting the star cult faction that had begun to form around him, Clapton assembled a new band composed of Delaney and Bonnie's former rhythm section, Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist and vocalist, Carl Radle as the bassist, and drummer Jim Gordon, with Clapton playing guitar.

The band was originally called Eric Clapton and Friends. The eventual name was a fluke that occurred when the band's provisional name of Del and the Dynamos was misread as Derek and the Dominos.

Clapton's career successes in the 1970s were in stark contrast with the struggles he coped with in his personal life, which was troubled by romantic longings and drug and alcohol addiction.

Clapton continued to release albums and toured regularly.

Clapton cites Muddy Waters, Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Hubert Sumlin as guitar playing influences.

Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time.

Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and Cream. He ranked second in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.

More information: Instagram-Eric Clapton

The blues are what I've turned to,
what has given me inspiration and relief
in all the trials of my life.

Eric Clapton

EVÁNGELOS ODYSSÉAS PAPATHANASSÍOU AKA VANGELIS

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to listening to some music, and she has chosen Vangelis, the Greek musician and composer well-known by his work in original soundtracks, who was born on a day like today in 1943.

Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου (29 March 1943), known professionally as Vangelis, is a Greek musician and composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and orchestral music.

He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score to Chariots of Fire (1981), as well as for composing scores to the films Blade Runner (1982), Missing (1982), Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), and Alexander (2004), and for the use of his music in the 1980 PBS documentary Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.

Vangelis began his career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite's Child, with the latter's album 666 going on to be recognized as a progressive-psychedelic rock classic.

Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed scores for several animal documentaries, including L'Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream.

In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo went on to release several albums together as Jon & Vangelis.

In 1980, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack's single, the film's Titles theme, also reached the top of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart and was used as the background music at the London 2012 Olympics winners' medal presentation ceremonies.

Having had a career in music spanning over 50 years and having composed and performed more than 50 albums, Vangelis is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music.

More information: Elsew

Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou was born on 29 March 1943 in Agria, a coastal town in Magnesia, Thessaly, Greece, and raised in Athens. His father Odysseus worked in property and was an amateur sprinter; his son described him as a great lover of music. At six his parents enrolled him for music lessons, but Vangelis later said that his attempts to study failed as he preferred to develop technique on his own. He considers himself fortunate not to attend music school as it impedes creativity, and learned to play from memory.

Vangelis found traditional Greek music as particularly important in his childhood, but at twelve developed an interest in jazz and rock. At fifteen, he started to form school bands, not to cover other musicians but to have fun.

Vangelis acquired his first Hammond organ at eighteen. In 1963, Vangelis and three school friends started a five-piece rock band The Forminx playing cover songs and original material largely written by Vangelis with English lyrics by radio DJ and record producer Nico Mastorakis. After nine singles and one Christmas EP, which found success across Europe, the group disbanded in 1966.

From 1970 to 1974, Vangelis took part in various solo projects in film, television, and theatre.

In 1980, Vangelis agreed to record the score for Chariots of Fire (1981); he accepted because I liked the people I was working with. It was a very humble, low-budget film. The choice of music was unorthodox as most period films featured orchestral scores, whereas Vangelis' music was modern and synthesiser-oriented. It gained mainstream commercial success which increased Vangelis' profile as a result. The opening instrumental title piece, Titles, later named Chariots of Fire-Titles, was released as a single which reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week after a five-month climb. The soundtrack album was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for four weeks and sold one million copies in the US.

In March 1982, Vangelis won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score, but refused to attend the awards' ceremony partly due to his fear of flying.

In 1981, Vangelis collaborated with director Ridley Scott to score his science fiction film, Blade Runner (1982). Critics have written that in capturing the isolation and melancholy of Harrison Ford's character, Rick Deckard, the Vangelis score is as much a part of the dystopian environment as the decaying buildings and ever-present rain.

For the 12 November 2014 landing of the Philae lander on Comet 67P, part of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, Vangelis composed three short pieces titled Arrival, Rosetta's Waltz, and Philae's Journey. The pieces were released online as videos accompanied by images and animations from the Rosetta mission.

More information: Louder Sound

Music dominates the universe.
It is the prime force.
It has given shape to space.

Vangelis

JEAN PARISOT DE VALETTE FOUNDS 'VALETTA' IN MALTA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about one of her favourite places, Malta. She loves this republic, its three islands, its language, its history and culture and its people. Malta is a place with an incredible history and its capital, Valetta, has this name thanks to Jean Parisot de la Valette, a French nobleman,  Knight Hospitaller and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta. On a day like today in 1566, the foundation stone of Valletta was laid by Jean Parisot de Valette, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

Fra' Jean Parisot de la Valette (4 February 1495-21 August 1568) was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568.

As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.

The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by Grandmaster La Valette in 1566. He did not live to see Valletta completed, as he died in 1568 and was succeeded by Grandmaster Pierre de Monte.

He was born into the noble La Valette family in Quercy, South-western France, which had been an important family in France for many generations, various members having participated in the Crusades. Jean Parisot's grandfather, Bernard de La Valette, was a Knight and King's Orderly, and his father Guillot was a Chevalier de France. Jean Parisot was a distant cousin, through their mutual ancestor Almaric, Seigneur de Parisot of Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, first Duke of Épernon.

Although his birth year is usually given as 1494, both chroniclers of the Great Siege of Malta, Francisco Balbi di Correggio and Hipolito Sans, say he was 67 at the time, thereby implying that he was born in 1498. In his history of the Order of St. John, the 18th-century historian Abbe Vertot, whose history is largely based on -but often contradictd - the earlier one of Giacomo Bosio, indicates that La Valette was indeed the same age as both Suleiman I and Kızılahmedli Mustafa Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman land forces, which would mean that he was actually 70 years old at the time of the siege.

More information: Order of Malta

La Valette joined the Order when he was 20 years old in around 1514, and he never returned to France or his family estates from that day on. Jean de La Valette was present during the Great Siege of Rhodes in 1522, and accompanied Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, after the Order's expulsion from Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

After the loss of Rhodes, the Order was granted the Maltese Islands and Tripoli by Emperor Charles V. In 1538 he was imprisoned in the Gozo prison for four months after attacking a man.

In 1541 La Valette was involved in a naval battle against Abd-ur-Rahman Kust Aly, in which he was wounded and his galley, the San Giovanni, was captured. La Valette was taken as a galley slave for a year by Barbary pirates under the command of Turgut Reis but was later freed during an exchange of prisoners. In 1546 La Valette became Governor of Tripoli, where he tried to restore order within the vulnerable city.

In 1554, he was elected Captain General of the Order's galleys. This was a great honour to the Langue of Provence, as throughout most of the Order's history, the position of Grand Admiral was usually held by a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Langue. In that capacity, he won a name that stood conspicuous in that age of great sea captains, and was held in the same regard as the Chevalier Mathurin Romegas -one of the greatest Christian maritime commanders of the age. In fact both sides had extremely talented sailors.

If La Valette, Romegas and Juan de Austria could be considered the best commanders that the Christian forces could bring to the sea, the forces of Islam were able to call on the equally outstanding maritime and leadership skills of admirals such as Barbarossa and Dragut. La Valette was described by Abbe de Branthome as being a very handsome man, speaking several languages fluently including Italian, Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Turkish.

In 1557, upon the death of Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, the Knights, mindful of the attack that was sure to come, elected La Valette to be Grand Master.

In 1560, he formed an alliance with the Habsburg Empire to reconquer Tripoli, but the expedition resulted in a Christian defeat at the Battle of Djerba. Despite this the Order's galleys were able to rescue several other Christian vessels, and later on in his reign, La Valette greatly strengthened the Order's navy.

More information: Visit Malta

He organized the defence of Malta, fought during the siege, and successfully repulsed the Turks at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. During the siege the vastly outnumbered Christians held out for over 3 months against an Ottoman force containing no less than 30,000 soldiers, including the Janissaries, as well as the Sultan's fleet of some 193 ships. The battle saw the fall of Fort St. Elmo after about a month of fierce fighting, but the Order managed to hold out in Birgu and Senglea until a relief force arrived. Ottoman specialist engineers had originally assessed the fortification of Saint Elmo, from local informants and conducting reconnoitring missions, saying it would fall in three days.

Knight Commander Le Sande, who had sailed from Sicily with reinforcements, ordered a general charge from the Maltese hills toward the end of the siege. They attacked the Ottoman forces until the Ottoman forces retreated to the sea, and at that point the sea had completely changed colour to red, from the sheer volume of blood lost. It was at that point the Ottoman forces boarded their ships, directed their course back to Constantinople. Whilst shaping course back to Constantinople they momentarily contemplated counterattacking. However, they had lost too many men, supplies, and the morale at that point to launch any substantial counterattack.

As a result of the Order's victory La Valette gained much prestige in Europe, but he declined the offer of a cardinal's hat in order to maintain independence from the papacy. This has been attributed to his sense of modesty and his humility as a warrior monk.

After the great siege, he commissioned the construction of the new city of Valletta in 1566, laying the first stone with his own hands. This took place on the slopes of Mount Sciberras, where the flower of the Turkish army had died whilst trying to storm Fort Saint Elmo, which the Turks thought would fall within three or four days, but which, due to the bravery of the defenders, held out for 30 days.

The city named after its founder -Humilissima Civitas Vallettae- became known as the most aristocratic and exclusive fortress in Europe -a city most often referred to as Superbissima- the Most Proud.

Valletta remains the Maltese capital to this day.

La Valette suffered a stroke while praying in a chapel and died soon after on 21 August 1568, exactly eleven years after he became Grandmaster.

La Valette never saw the completed city of Valletta. His tomb, in the form of a sarcophagus, can be found in the Crypt of the Conventual Church of the Order, now St. John's Co-Cathedral, situated within the walls of Valletta.

More information: Nobility

Malta of gold, Malta of silver, Malta of precious metal,
We shall never take you.
No, not even if you were as soft as a gourd,
Not even if you were only protected by an onion skin!

SARAH LOIS VAUGHAN, 'THE DIVINE ONE' OF JAZZ MUSIC

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to listen to some music, and she has chosen Sarah Vaughan, the American jazz singer well-known as The Divine One, who was born on a day like today in 1924.

Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924-April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed Sassy and The Divine One, she won four Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century.

Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury Jake Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services.

She developed an early love for popular music on records and the radio. In the 1930s, she frequently saw local and touring bands at the Montgomery Street Skating Rink. By her mid-teens, she began venturing illegally into Newark's nightclubs and performing as a pianist and singer at the Piccadilly Club and the Newark Airport.

Vaughan attended East Side High School, then transferred to Newark Arts High School, which opened in 1931. As her nocturnal adventures as a performer overwhelmed her academic pursuits, she dropped out of high school during her junior year to concentrate on music.

More information: NYLON

Vaughan was frequently accompanied by a friend, Doris Robinson, on her trips into New York City. In the fall of 1942, by which time she was 18 years old, Vaughan suggested that Robinson enter the Apollo Theater Amateur Night contest. Vaughan played piano accompaniment for Robinson, who won second prize. Vaughan later decided to go back and compete as a singer herself. She sang Body and Soul, and won -although the date of this victorious performance is uncertain. The prize, as Vaughan recalled to Marian McPartland, was $10 and the promise of a week's engagement at the Apollo. On November 20, 1942, she returned to the Apollo to open for Ella Fitzgerald.

During her week of performances at the Apollo, Vaughan was introduced to bandleader and pianist Earl Hines, although the details of that introduction are disputed. Billy Eckstine, Hines' singer at the time, has been credited by Vaughan and others with hearing her at the Apollo and recommending her to Hines. Hines claimed later to have discovered her himself and offered her a job on the spot. After a brief try-out at the Apollo, Hines replaced his female singer with Vaughan on April 4, 1943.

Vaughan began her solo career in 1945 by freelancing on 52nd Street in New York City at the Three Deuces, the Famous Door, the Downbeat, and the Onyx Club. She spent time at Braddock Grill next to the Apollo Theater in Harlem. On May 11, 1945, she recorded Lover Man for Guild with a quintet featuring Gillespie and Parker with Al Haig on piano, Curly Russell on double bass, and Sid Catlett on drums. Later that month, she went into the studio with a slightly different and larger Gillespie/Parker aggregation and recorded three more sides.

In 1989, Vaughan's health began to decline, although she rarely revealed any hints of this in her performances. She cancelled a series of engagements in Europe in 1989, citing the need to seek treatment for arthritis of the hand, although she was able to complete a series of performances in Japan. During a run at New York's Blue Note Jazz Club in 1989, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and was too ill to finish the last day of what would turn out to be her final series of public performances.

Vaughan returned to her home in California to begin chemotherapy and spent her final months alternating stays in the hospital and at home. She grew weary of the struggle and demanded to be taken home, where at the age of 66 she died on the evening of April 3, 1990, while watching Laker Girls, a television film featuring her daughter.

Her funeral was held at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. Following the ceremony, a horse-drawn carriage transported her body to Glendale Cemetery, Bloomfield.

More information: Past Daily

When I sing,
trouble can sit right on my shoulder
and I don't even notice.

Sarah Vaughan

MERCOSUR, THE SOUTH AMERICAN COMMON MARKET

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Mercosur the South American trade bloc established in Asunción on a day like today in 1991.

Mercosur (in Spanish), Mercosul (in Portuguese), or Ñemby Ñemuha (in Guarani), officially Southern Common Market, is a South American trade bloc established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991 and Protocol of Ouro Preto in 1994. Its full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela is a full member but has been suspended since 1 December 2016. Associate countries are Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname.

The name Mercosur is a Spanish acronym of Mercado Común del Sur (Portuguese Mercosul, acronym of Mercado Comum do Sul) which both mean Common Market of the South.

Mercosur's origins are linked to the discussions for the constitution of a regional economic market for Latin America, which go back to the treaty that established the Latin American Free Trade Association in 1960, which was succeeded by the Latin American Integration Association in the 1980s.

At the time, Argentina and Brazil made progress in the matter, signing the Iguaçu Declaration (1985), which established a bilateral commission, which was followed by a series of trade agreements the following year. The Integration, Cooperation and Development Treaty, signed between both countries in 1988, set the goal of establishing a common market, to which other Latin American countries could join.

Paraguay and Uruguay joined the process and the four countries became signatories to the Treaty of Asunción (1991), which established the Southern Common Market, a trade alliance aimed at boosting the regional economy, moving goods, people among themselves, workforce and capital. Initially a free trade zone was established, in which the signatory countries would not tax or restrict each other's imports.

More information: MERCOSUR

As of January 1, 1995, this area became a customs union, in which all signatories could charge the same quotas on imports from other countries, a common external tariff. The following year, Bolivia and Chile acquired membership status. Other Latin American nations have expressed interest in joining the group.

Mercosur's purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency. Since its foundation, Mercosur's functions have been updated and amended many times; it currently confines itself to a customs union, in which there is free intra-zone trade and a common trade policy between member countries.

In 2019, the Mercosur had generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around 4.6 trillion US dollars, placing the bloc as the 5th economy of the world. The bloc places high on the Human Development Index. It has signed free trade agreements with Israel, Egypt, Japan and the European Union, among others.

For five centuries South America has been the scene of some of the most violent battles in the Americas. Since the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese to the continent, the La Plata Basin has been the scene of Luso-Spanish disputes over territory, the territory that today is Uruguay, was once Spanish, then Portuguese, again Spanish and Brazilian. However, at the same time, in this region there are fundamental chapters of the political and economic emancipation of future Mercosur members.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain organized the commercial system of its colonies around the fleets and galleons scheme, authorizing only certain ports the right to send or receive goods originating from these colonies. For cities like Buenos Aires, founded in 1580, this system threatened the region's economic development. To face this economic confinement, the population of Buenos Aires saw the only possible way out: the commercial exchange, albeit illegally, with Brazil. This was the beginning of a relationship destined to grow.

In the 19th century, the process of political emancipation in South America accentuated the contrasts between the countries of the region. During this period, important chapters in the history of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay occurred.

More information: The Wall Street Journal

It is enough to mention the Cisplatine War, the independence of the Republic of Uruguay, the Uruguayan Great War, the Ragamuffin War, the dispute between unitaries and federalists in Argentina and the Paraguayan War: alliances, interventions and conflicts that forged the historical context of formation of the La Plata nation-states.

In 1941, in the middle of the Second World War, Brazil and Argentina for the first time tried to create a Customs Union between their economies. However, this did not happen due to the countries' diplomatic differences in relation to Axis policies, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the end of the war, the need for interaction between nations became imminent and, consequently, economic blocs formed. In Latin America, however, there was no union that obtained satisfactory results.

Mercosur was finally established in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, based on the Buenos Aires Act, the Treaty of Asunción defined rules and conditions for the creation of a free trade zone among its four signatories.

The Treaty of Asunción was a treaty between the countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay signed on March 26, 1991. The objective of the treaty, signed in Asunción, was to establish a common market among the participating countries, popularly called Mercosur (Southern Common Market).

Later, the Treaty of Ouro Preto was signed to supplement the first treaty, establishing that the Treaty of Asunción was to be a legally and internationally recognized organization.

The treaty defined a program of gradual elimination of import/export fees that would reach a free commerce zone by the end of 1994. Even though the dates of the program were not followed and the free zone was not yet reached, the treaty established the basis for the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur).

More information: Connect Americas

I have suggested that Brazilian enterprises
invest in Uruguay and Paraguay.
These are small economies,
so some things can be produced in these countries
that will give them greater and more equitable
involvement in the Mercosur game.

Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva

REGINALD KENNETH DWIGHT AKA ELTON HERCULES JOHN

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has decided to listen to some music, and she has chosen Elton John, the English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer who was born on a day like today in 1947.

Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer.

Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including seven number ones in the UK and nine in the US, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US.

His tribute single Candle in the Wind 1997, rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also produced records and occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford F.C. from 1976 to 1987 and from 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary life president of the club.

Raised in the Pinner area of Greater London, John learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology, an R&B band with whom he played until 1967. He met his long-time musical partner Taupin in 1967, after they both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years, they wrote songs for artists including Lulu, and John worked as a session musician for artists including the Hollies and the Scaffold.

In 1969, John's debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970, his first hit single, Your Song, from his second album, Elton John, became his first top ten in both the UK and the US. His most commercially successful period, 1970-1976, included Honky Château (1972), Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) and his first Greatest Hits compilation -the latter two listed among the best-selling albums worldwide. John has also had success in musical films and theatre, composing for The Lion King and its stage adaptation, Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical.

More information: Elton John

John has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards; including for Outstanding Contribution to Music; two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 49th on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era.

In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists, and third overall, behind the Beatles and Madonna. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to music and charitable services in 1998.

John has been involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and a year later he began hosting his annual Academy Awards Party, which has since become one of the biggest high-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over £300 million.

John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.

John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005; they married after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014. In 2018, John embarked on a three-year farewell tour.

More information: Twitter-Elton John

Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947 in Pinner, Middlesex, the eldest child of Stanley Dwight and only child of Sheila Eileen, and was raised in a council house in Pinner by his maternal grandparents. His parents married in 1945, when the family moved to a nearby semi-detached house. He was educated at Pinner Wood Junior School, Reddiford School and Pinner County Grammar School, until he was 17, when he left just prior to his A-Level examinations to pursue a career in music.

At age 15, with his mother's and stepfather's help, John was hired as a pianist at a nearby pub, the Northwood Hills Hotel, playing Thursday to Sunday nights. Known simply as Reggie, he played a range of popular standards, including songs by Jim Reeves and Ray Charles, as well as his own songs. A stint with a short-lived group called the Corvettes rounded out his time. Although normal-sighted as a teenager, John began wearing horn-rimmed glasses to imitate Buddy Holly.

In 1962, John and some friends formed a band called Bluesology. By day, he ran errands for a music publishing company; he divided his nights between solo gigs at a London hotel bar and working with Bluesology. By the mid-1960s, Bluesology was backing touring American soul and R&B musicians like the Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles.

In 1966, the band became Long John Baldry's supporting band and played 16 times at the Marquee Club.

In 1967, John answered an advertisement in the British magazine New Musical Express, placed by Ray Williams, then the A&R manager for Liberty Records. At their first meeting, Williams gave John an unopened envelope of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad. John wrote music for the lyrics and then sent it to Taupin, beginning a partnership that still continues. When the two first met in 1967, they recorded the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song, Scarecrow.

Six months later, John began going by the name Elton John in homage to two members of Bluesology: saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry. He legally changed his name to Elton Hercules John on 7 January 1972.

More information: Instagram-Elton John

Music has healing power.
It has the ability to take people
out of themselves for a few hours.

Elton John

EXXON VALDEZ, THE ECOLOGICAL DISASTER OF ALASKA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about one of the latest and greatest disasters of the last century, the Exxon Valdez, the oil tanker that ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil, impacting miles of Alaska’s coastline and killing millions of animals, on a day like today in 1989.

Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean, was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska.

On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been 40,900 to 120,000 m3.

The tanker was 301 meters long, 51 meters wide, and 26 meters deep, with a deadweight of 214,861 long tons and a full-load displacement of 240,291 long tons. The ship was able to transport up to 235,000 m³ at a sustained speed of 30 km/h. Her hull design was of the single-hull type, constructed by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego, California. She was a relatively new tanker at the time of the spill, having been delivered to Exxon on December 16, 1986.

More information: National Ocean Service

At the time of the spill, Exxon Valdez was employed to transport crude oil from the Alyeska consortium's pipeline terminal in Valdez, Alaska, to the lower 48 states of the United States. At the time it ran aground, the vessel was carrying about 201,000 m³ of oil. After the spill, the vessel was towed to San Diego, arriving on June 10, 1989, and repairs were started on June 30, 1989. Approximately 1,600 tons of steel were removed and replaced that July, totaling US$30 million of repairs to the tanker. Its single-hull design remained unaltered.

The Exxon Valdez spill occurred under President George H. W. Bush, whose EPA Administrator William K. Reilly played a significant role in mobilizing presidential support for action to contain and clean up the spill.

Litigation was filed on behalf of 38,000 litigants. In 1994, a jury awarded plaintiffs US$287 million in compensatory damages and US$5 billion in punitive damages. Exxon appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court reduced the punitive damages to US$2.5 billion. Exxon then appealed the punitive damages to the Supreme Court which capped the damages to US$507.5 million in June 2008. On August 27, 2008, Exxon Mobil agreed to pay 75% of the US$507.5 million damages ruling to settle the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska.

In June 2009, a federal ruling ordered Exxon to pay an additional US$480 million in interest on their delayed punitive damage awards.

After repairs, Exxon Valdez was renamed Exxon Mediterranean, then SeaRiver Mediterranean in the early 1990s, when Exxon transferred its shipping business to a new subsidiary company, River Maritime Inc. The name was later shortened to S/R Mediterranean, then to simply Mediterranean in 2005. Although Exxon tried briefly to return the ship to its North American fleet, it was prohibited by law from returning to Prince William Sound. It then served in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In 2002, the ship was again removed from service.

More information: Marine Insight

In 2005, it began operating under the Marshall Islands flag of convenience. Since then, European Union regulations have also prevented vessels with single-hull designs such as the Valdez from entering European ports.

In early 2008, SeaRiver Maritime, an ExxonMobil subsidiary, sold Mediterranean to the Hong Kong-based shipping company, Hong Kong Bloom Shipping Ltd., which renamed the ship, once again, to Dong Fang Ocean, under Panama registry. In 2008, she was refitted and converted from an oil tanker to an ore carrier. Hong Kong Bloom Shipping, is a subsidiary of Chinese Government owned company China Ocean Shipping (Group) Corporation (COSCO).

On November 29, 2010, Dong Fang Ocean collided in the South China Sea with the Malta-flagged cargo ship, Aali. Both vessels were severely damaged in the incident, and Aali was towed to Weihai and Dong Fang Ocean was towed to Longyan Port in Shandong.

In March 2012, Dong Fang Ocean was purchased by Global Marketing Systems, Inc. for scrap at an estimated US$16 million and sailed under her own power to a ship breaker in Singapore. She changed hands again among scrap merchants, a common occurrence, and was eventually routed to Alang, India, under the ownership of Priya Blue Industries and at some point renamed Oriental Nicety.

Before being beached, some tried to halt the action, arguing that the vessel was in breach of the Basel Convention.

On 30 July 2012, the Supreme Court of India granted permission for the owners of Oriental Nicety to beach her at Gujarat coast to be dismantled. She was then beached at Alang on 2 August 2012.

More information: DW

I went down on the beach and looked around,
and the mussels had all died.
I’d touch them, and they’d fall off the rocks.

Elenore McMullen

MARGARET URSULA JONES, EXCAVATIONS AT MUCKING

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of Joseph de Ca'th Lon, one of her closest friends. Joseph loves Archaeology, and they have been talking about Margaret Ursula Jones, the English archaeologist who died on a day like today in 2001.

Margaret Ursula Jones (16 May 1916-23 March 2001) was an English archaeologist, best known for directing major excavations at Mucking, Essex.

Born in Birkenhead, Jones first became involved in archaeology while studying at the University of Liverpool. After graduating she worked as a wartime postal censor and freelance photojournalist, whilst continuing to volunteer on archaeological excavations around Britain.

In 1956, Jones began working for the Ministry of Works as a freelance archaeologist in the burgeoning field of rescue archaeology. She worked at a number of sites, but is best known for her excavations at Mucking, a major Anglo-Saxon settlement and associated cemetery, with finds ranging from the Stone Age to the Medieval period.

The Mucking excavation, which Jones directed from 1965 to 1978, became Britain's largest ever archaeological excavation.

It produced an unprecedented volume of material, although some academic archaeologists have criticized the fact that the results did not appear in print until decades after the excavation had ended. Jones' work at Mucking, as well as her role in founding the campaign group Rescue, was influential in the establishment of modern commercial archaeology in Britain.

More information: Current Archaeology

Margaret Ursula Owen was born on 16 May 1916 to middle class parents in Birkenhead. She attended Calder High School for Girls in Liverpool before going on to read Geography at the University of Liverpool.

At Liverpool, Jones was taught by archaeologist W. J. Varley and volunteered on his excavations of hill forts in Cheshire in the late 1930s. On these excavations she met Tom Jones, another of Varley's assistant excavators, whom she married in June 1940.

Jones worked as a postal censor during the Second World War. Afterwards, she and her husband moved to Hereford and made a living as freelance photojournalists; Margaret wrote articles to accompany photographs taken by Tom.

While working as photojournalists, the Joneses continued to volunteer on archaeological excavations around Britain, and in 1956 Margaret began working as a freelance archaeologist for the Ministry of Works. At the time the Ministry was responsible for the upkeep of Ancient Monuments and, by extension, the large volume of rescue archaeology required to document archaeological sites before they were destroyed by the postwar construction boom. A small workforce of itinerant archaeologists were employed to excavate these sites in advance of development.

Between 1956 and 1965, Margaret Jones directed a number of such excavations in Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire including Old Sleaford.

In 1965, the Ministry of Works asked Jones to conduct an excavation at Linford, a gravel pit near the village of Mucking on the Thames Estuary. The site had been discovered in aerial photographs taken by Kenneth St Joseph and confirmed in a small field walking survey by the Thurrock Local History Society. These initial investigations resulted in the site being designated a Scheduled Monument under the Ancient Monuments Act 1931 and, since it was threatened by gravel extraction, prompted the Ministry to commission an exploratory excavation.

Jones quickly concluded that the crop marks at Mucking represented an extensive site with Iron Age, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and early Medieval remains. On that basis, the Ministry extended her contract and initiated a full excavation of the site.

The Mucking excavation was to become the largest ever carried out in Britain. To keep ahead of its destruction by the gravel company that owned it, Jones, assisted by her husband Tom, directed work at the site continuously for 13 years. Unusually, they excavated all year round, living in a small caravan and employing a shifting workforce of freelance archaeologists and volunteers from around the world.

When it finally completed in 1978, the excavation covered 44 acres and had recorded 44,000 archaeological features, including Beaker burials; a Bronze Age Hillfort; an Iron Age settlement and cemetery; a Roman villa and cemetery; one of the most significant Anglo-Saxon settlements in Britain; two large Anglo-Saxon cemeteries; and a Medieval field system. It involved 5000 archaeologists and volunteers and recovered 1.7 million finds.

After completing the excavations at Mucking in 1978, the Joneses retired from field archaeology and returned to their cottage in Hereford.

Margaret became the patron of the Thurrock Local History Society, the source of many volunteers to the Mucking excavation, and sat on many other archaeology committees in Essex. In this role she regularly gave lectures, guided tours and talks to schoolchildren across the county.

Margaret Jones died on 23 March 2001. In her later years she had suffered from Parkinson's disease, and was predeceased by her husband Tom, who died following a stroke in 1993.

More information: The Guardian

Archaeology can be overlooked as a discipline,
I think, but it's incredibly important to have
this other way of approaching the past
-not just through historical documents,
but through actual physical remains-
objects, buildings and the layout of our towns.

 

Alice Roberts

1894, THE STANLEY CUP PLAYS ITS FIRST PLAYOFF GAME

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been reading about the StanleyCup, the championship trophy awarded annually to the NHL playoff winner whose first playoff game for the Stanley Cup started on a day like today in 1894.

The Stanley Cup is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff winner.

It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the IIHF considers it to be one of the most important championships available to the sport.

The trophy was commissioned in 1892 as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup and is named after Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada, who donated it as an award to Canada's top-ranking amateur ice hockey club. The entire Stanley family supported the sport, the sons and daughters all playing and promoting the game.

The first Cup was awarded in 1893 to Montreal Hockey Club, and winners from 1893 to 1914 were determined by challenge games and league play. Professional teams first became eligible to challenge for the Stanley Cup in 1906.

In 1915, the National Hockey Association (NHA) and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA), the two main professional ice hockey organizations, reached a gentlemen's agreement in which their respective champions would face each other annually for the Stanley Cup. It was established as the de facto championship trophy of the NHL in 1926 and then the de jure NHL championship prize in 1947.

There are actually three Stanley Cups: the original bowl of the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, the authenticated Presentation Cup, and the spelling-corrected Permanent Cup on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

While the NHL has maintained control over the trophy itself and its associated trademarks, the NHL does not actually own the trophy but uses it by agreement with the two Canadian trustees of the cup.

The NHL has registered trademarks associated with the name and likeness of the Stanley Cup, although there has been dispute whether the league has the right to own trademarks associated with a trophy that it does not own.

The original bowl was made of silver and is 18.5 centimetres high and 29 centimetres wide. The current Stanley Cup is topped with a copy of the original bowl, made of a silver and nickel alloy. It has a height of 89.54 centimetres and weighs 15.5 kilograms. A new Stanley Cup is not made each year, unlike the trophies awarded by the other major professional sports leagues of North America. The winners originally kept it until a new champion was crowned, but winning teams currently get the Stanley Cup during the summer and a limited number of days during the season.

More information: NHL

Every year since 1924, a select portion of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff names are engraved on its bands, which is unusual among trophies. However, there is not enough room to include all the players and non-players, so some names must be omitted. Between 1924 and 1940, a new band was added almost every year that the trophy was awarded, earning the nickname Stovepipe Cup due to the unnatural height of all the bands. In 1947, the cup size was reduced, but not all the large rings were the same size.

In 1958, the modern one-piece Cup was designed with a five-band barrel which could contain 13 winning teams per band. The oldest band is removed when the bottom band is full and preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame in order to prevent the Stanley Cup from growing, and a new blank band added to the bottom. The first winning team engraved on the newest band is thus, in theory, displayed on the trophy for the next 65 years. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug.

The Stanley Cup is surrounded by numerous legends and traditions, the oldest of which is the winning team drinking champagne from it.

Since the 1914–15 season, the Cup has been won a combined 103 times by 20 current NHL teams and 5 defunct teams. It was not awarded in 1919 because of the Spanish flu epidemic and in 2005 because of the 2004–05 NHL lockout. It was held by nine different teams between 1893 and 1914.

The Montreal Canadiens have won it a record 24 times and are the most recent Canadian-based team to win it, doing so in 1993; the Detroit Red Wings have won it 11 times, the most of any United States-based NHL team, most recently in 2008. More than three thousand different names, including the names of over thirteen hundred players, had been engraved on it by 2017.

More information: NHL

After the Lord Stanley of Preston was appointed by Queen Victoria as Governor General of Canada on June 11, 1888, he and his family became highly enthusiastic about ice hockey. Stanley was first exposed to the game at Montreal's 1889 Winter Carnival, where he saw the Montreal Victorias play the Montreal Hockey Club. The Montreal Gazette reported that he expressed his great delight with the game of hockey and the expertise of the players. During that time, organized ice hockey in Canada was still in its infancy and only Montreal and Ottawa had anything resembling leagues.

Soon afterwards, Stanley purchased what is frequently described as a decorative punch bowl, but which silver expert John Culme identified as a rose bowl, made in Sheffield, England, and sold by London silversmith G. R. Collis and Company, for ten guineas, equal to ten and a half pounds sterling, US$48.67, which is equal to $1,385 in 2019 dollars. He had the words Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup engraved on one side of the outside rim, and From Stanley of Preston on the other side. The name Stanley Cup was given to it as early as May 1, 1893, when an Ottawa Journal article used the name as a title.

The Cup trustees issued more specific rules on how the trophy should be defended and awarded:

-The Cup is automatically awarded to the team that wins the title of the previous Cup champion's league, without the need for any other special extra contest.

-Challengers for the Cup must be from senior hockey associations, and must have won their league championship. Challengers will be recognized in the order in which their request is received.

-The challenge games (where the Cup could change leagues) are to be decided either in a one-game affair, a two-game total goals' affair, or the best of three series, to the benefit of both teams involved. All matches are to take place on the home ice of the champions, although specific dates and times have to be approved by the trustees.

-Ticket receipts from the challenge games are to be split equally between both teams.

-If the two competing clubs cannot agree to a referee, the trustees will appoint one, and the two teams shall cover the expenses equally.

-A league could not challenge for the Cup twice in one season.

Stanley never saw a Stanley Cup championship game, nor did he ever present the Cup. Although his term as Governor General ended in September 1893, he was forced to return to England on July 15.

More information: Everything Hockey

Growing up in Canada,
most kids from Canada dream of playing in the NHL,
and they also hope one day to be on a Stanley Cup team.
That was a big goal.

Bobby Orr

SOLOMON BURKE, THE BRIDGE BETWEEN R&B AND SOUL

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. The weather is cold, and she decided to stay at home listening to some music. She has chosen Solomon Burke, the American preacher and singer, who was born on a day like today in 1936 or 1940, we are not very sure when.

Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke (born James Solomon McDonald, March 21, 1936 or 1940-October 10, 2010) was an American preacher and singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s.

He has been called a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul, and was known for his prodigious output.

He had a string of hits including Cry to Me, If You Need Me, Got to Get You Off My Mind, Down in the Valley, and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love.

Burke was referred to honorifically as King Solomon, the King of Rock 'n' Soul, Bishop of Soul, and the Muhammad Ali of soul.

Due to his minimal chart success in comparison to other soul music greats such as James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, Burke has been described as the genre's most unfairly overlooked singer of its golden age. Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler referred to Burke as the greatest male soul singer of all time.

Burke's most famous recordings, which spanned five years in the early 1960s, bridged the gap between mainstream R&B and grittier R&B.

Burke was a singer whose smooth, powerful articulation and mingling of sacred and profane themes helped define soul music in the early 1960s. He drew from his roots -gospel, jazz, country, and blues- as well as developing his own style at a time when R&B, and rock were both still in their infancy.

More information: NPR

Described as both Rabelaisian and also as a spiritual enigma, perhaps more than any other artist, the ample figure of Solomon Burke symbolized the ways that spirituality and commerce, ecstasy and entertainment, sex and salvation, individualism and brotherhood, could blend in the world of 1960s soul music.

During the 55 years that he performed professionally, Burke released 38 studio albums on at least 17 record labels and had 35 singles that charted in the US, including 26 singles that made the Billboard R&B charts.

In 2001, Burke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a performer. His album Don't Give Up on Me won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards in 2003.

By 2005 Burke was credited with selling 17 million albums. Rolling Stone ranked Burke as No. 89 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Burke was born James Solomon McDonald on March 21, 1940, in the upper floor of his grandmother Eleanor Moore's home, a row house in West Philadelphia.

Burke was the child of Josephine Moore and an absentee father. His mother Josephine was a nurse, schoolteacher, concert performer and pastor.

Burke was consecrated a bishop at birth by his grandmother in the Solomon's Temple, a congregation of the United House of Prayer for All People, which she founded at her home in Black Bottom, West Philadelphia.

Burke signed with Apollo Records in late 1955, following the departure of gospel singer and the label's primary star Mahalia Jackson to Columbia. After he signed with Apollo, the label's founder Bess Berman and its handlers were reportedly trying to make Burke the next Harry Belafonte.

Burke recorded nine singles for the label during his two-year tenure, releasing his first single, Christmas Presents, on Christmas Eve of 1955.

More information: Elsewhere

In November 1960, he signed with Atlantic Records. According to Burke, he signed with the label within ten minutes of entering Jerry Wexler's office, reportedly signing a handshake deal with Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun.

At the time of Burke's signing, two of Atlantic Records' major stars, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles, had left the label for better deals with Capitol and ABC respectively.

After a string of a dozen hit records, by November 1963 Burke had agreed to be crowned the King of Rock 'n' Soul in a ceremony at the Royal Theatre in Baltimore by local deejay Fred Robinson, known professionally as Rockin' Robin, who also gave him a cape and crown that he always wore on stage.

After leaving Atlantic, Burke signed with Bell Records where he released five singles in the next eighteen months.

In 1969, he had a small hit with his second release for Bell, a reworking of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary b/w What Am I Living For (Bell 783).

Through the efforts of his manager, Buddy Glee, by November 1970 Burke signed with Mike Curb's MGM label, and formed MBM Productions, his own production company.

Between 1979 and 1984, Burke recorded four gospel albums for Savoy Records, starting with the album, Lord I Need a Miracle Right Now.

In 2002, Burke signed with Fat Possum Records and released the album, Don't Give Up on Me.

Burke later signed with Shout! Factory to release the album Make Do With What You Got, which became another critically acclaimed success.

In 2006, Burke returned to his country roots with the album, Nashville.

On October 10, 2010, Burke died at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport while on a plane from Washington Dulles Airport that had just landed.

More information: Time

I didn't need to depend on the record company
to publish my records.

Solomon Burke