Born in 1942 – John Cale, Welsh singer-songwriter and musician.

“I’ve no business being rock ‘n’ roll. I’ve said it over and over again that I’m a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock ‘n’ roll.”

Born in 1963 – Terry Porter, American basketball player and coach.

Born in 1869 – Louis Raemaekers, Dutch painter and editorial cartoonist for the Amsterdam newspaper De Telegraaf during World War I. 

Raemaekers was noted for his anti-German stance.

Born in 1942 – Peter Greenaway, Welsh filmmaker.

Above: Still image from Greenaway’s 2007 film, Nightwatching.

Born in 1780 – Edward Hicks, American minister and painter.

Above: Hicks’ painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1833.

Born in 1923 – Shūsaku Endō, Japanese novelist.

“Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.”

-Fr. Rodrigues in Endō‘s 1966 novel, Silence.

Born in 1874 – Robert Frost, American poet.

“I believe in teaching, but I don’t believe in going to school.”

Born in 1925 – Flannery O’Connor, American writer.

“For me it is the virgin birth, the incarnation, the resurrection which are the true laws of the flesh and the physical. Death, decay, destruction are the suspension of these laws. I am always astonished at the emphasis the Church puts on the body. It is not the soul she says that will rise but the body, glorified.”

Born in 1886 – Edward Weston, American photographer.

Above: Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (1930)

Born in 1910 – Akira Kurosawa, Japanese filmmaker.

“To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.”

Above: Machiko Kyô in Kurosawa’s 1950 film, Rashomon.