On December 28, 1997, Corneliu Baba, one of Romania's greatest painters, died. Also on December 28, in 1612, Galileo Galilei observed the planet Neptune.
Corneliu Baba/PHOTO: Archive
1612: Neptune is first observed by Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played an important role in the Scientific Revolution. Among his achievements are the improvement of telescopes and the astronomical observations thus made.
Galileo Galilei/PHOTO: Wikipedia
Galileo Galilei's drawings prove that he was the first to observe the planet Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613. But each time, Galileo mistook the planet for a fixed star, appearing very close to Jupiter (in conjunction) in the starry sky; reason why the discovery is not attributed to him.
Only in 234 years, this planet will be considered a new planet of the solar system.
Photo of Planet Neptune/PHOTO: NASA
1840: Ioan Kalinderu, confidant of King Carol I, was born
Born on December 28, 1840, in Bucharest, Ioan Lazăr Kalinderu was a Romanian jurist, forester and publicist, close to King Carol I, administrator of the crown domains for 30 years and president of the Romanian Academy between 1904 and 1907.
Ioan Kalinderu/PHOTO: Wikipedia
Educated in France, he came from an influential family and was a National Liberal Party sympathizer.
Although he was an expert in Roman Law, his legal contributions are considered minor, and his competence was questioned in the Strousberg Affair. As an adviser to the king, he participated in political negotiations and was considered for the position of prime minister.
As administrator of the crown domains, he promoted the modernization of the countryside through model farms, literacy, the arts and entrepreneurship, seeing them as an alternative to agrarian reform and the defense of property after the 1907 uprising.
He supported mountaineering and modern forestry, established the Bușteni resort and an art museum. A picturesque figure with eccentric habits, he became the subject of caricatures and literature of the time, and his promise to donate his fortune to the public generated a posthumous scandal.
Kalinderu died on December 11, 1913, in Bucharest.
1954: American actor Denzel Washington was born
Born on December 28, 1954, in Mount Vernon, New York, USA, Denzel Washington is an African-American actor, director and film producer, winner of two Oscars.
Denzel Washington/PHOTO: Shutterstock
After graduating high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University, pursuing a career in journalism. However, he discovered his passion for acting by participating in student theater productions and, after graduation, moved to San Francisco, where he enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater (ACT), writes IMDb.
He left ACT after a year to look for work as an actor. His first paying role was in a summer theater production in St. Mary's City, Maryland, the track “Wings of the Morning“, about the founding of the colony of Maryland. He played a real historical figure, Mathias Da Sousa, although much of the dialogue was made up.
He began his career in film and television after debuting in the film “Carbon Copy” (1981) and the role of Dr. Philip Chandler in the series “St. Elsewhere” (1982–1988). He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1989 for “Glory” and received critical acclaim for his portrayals of real-life figures such as Steve Biko (“Cry Freedom”), “Malcolm X” (Malcolm X), Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (The Hurricane) and Frank Lucas (American Gangster).
In 2002 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Training Day. Denzel Washington lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Pauletta, and their four children.
1969: Linus Torvalds, the Finnish computer scientist who created Linux, is born
Linus Benedict Torvalds was born on December 28, 1969, in Helsinki, Finland. He is a software engineer, creator of the Linux operating system kernel and coordinator of its development project.
Linus Torvalds/PHOTO: Wikipedia
His first name was inspired by the American scientist Linus Pauling. His maternal grandfather, Professor Leo Toerngvist, gave him his first computer and encouraged him to program.
At the age of 12, Linus was already creating games, and later studied computer science at the University of Helsinki, where he obtained a master's degree in 1996 with the thesis “Linux: a portable operating system”.
Linux is a family of Unix-like operating systems that use the Linux kernel (kernel) and can be installed on a wide range of devices, from phones and tablets to personal computers and supercomputers.
It is mostly used on servers, but in recent years it has also gained popularity on desktops thanks to distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora or openSUSE and smartphones running Linux.
1997: The Romanian painter Corneliu Baba died
Corneliu Baba was born in Craiova, on November 18, 1906, being the third son of Gheorghe Baba, a church painter, and Matilda, née Ciortus, both parents refugees from Banat, a province under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at that time.
Nicolae Baba debuted at the Bucharest Art Fair with the painting “The chess player”, but he was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Galata prison in Iași and later moved from Iași to Bucharest.
“The chess player”/PHOTO: Collection corneliu-baba.org
Although he had conflicts with the communist authorities, Baba established himself as an illustrator and painter. In the 1940s-1950s, he temporarily switched to socialist realism, but concentrated on rediscovering the life of the Romanian peasant, creating paintings such as “The Return from the Dig” (1943), “Tărani” (1953) and “Rest in the Field” (1954).
He participated in international exhibitions in Russia, Warsaw, Venice, Moscow, Leningrad and Prague, and made illustrations for the novel Mitrea Cocor by Mihail Sadoveanu.
In 1958, he was appointed a professor at the Nicolae Grigorescu Institute of Fine Arts and received the title of Master Emeritus of Arts. In the 1960s-1970s, he exhibited all over the world, receiving titles and awards, including People's Artist, Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy and Red Star (1971).
In 1988 he was seriously injured in the workshop, and the last few years were less productive, but his work remained of a high caliber.
Before his death, on December 28, 1997, he published his memoirs Notes of an Eastern European artist and posthumously received the excellence award of the Romanian Cultural Foundation.
2015: Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister dies
Lemmy Kilmister was born on December 24, 1945, in Staffordshire, UK. He was the founder, lead singer, bassist and main songwriter of the rock band Motörhead, being its only permanent member, and was a member of Hawkwind from 1971 to 1975.
Lemmy Kilmister/PHOTO: Wikipedia
He was noted for his unique posture when singing and for his bass playing style, using a Rickenbacker to create a “distorted rhythmic hum”.
He was influenced by rock and roll and the early Beatles, playing in several bands in the 1960s such as Rockin' Vickers.
Motorhead also performed in Bucharest, in 2012, during the OST Fest.
Lemmy continued to record and tour with Motörhead until his death on December 28, 2015, in Los Angeles, where he had lived since 1990.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer two days before he died. In addition to music, he had small roles and cameos in films and television, and was known for his hard lifestyle, including heavy smoking and daily consumption of alcohol and amphetamines.
