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Year 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events [link]

Below, events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.

January [link]

• January 1 – The University of Oregon defeats The University of Pennsylvania 14–0 in college football's 3rd Annual Rose Bowl.
• January 2 – The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank.
• January 11 – German saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland, NJ (now Lyndhurst, NJ), one of the events leading to U.S. involvement in WWI.
• January 19 – Silvertown explosion: A blast at a munitions factory in London kills 73 and injures over 400. The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage.
• January 22 – WWI: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Germany.
• January 25
  • The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million.
  • An anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco attracts huge crowds to public meetings. At one meeting attended by 7,000 people, 20,000 are kept out for lack of room. In a conference with Rev. Paul Smith, an outspoken foe of prostitution, 300 prostitutes make a plea for toleration, explaining they had been forced into the practice by poverty. When Smith asks if they will take other work at $8 to $10 a week, the ladies laugh derisively, which loses them public sympathy. The police close about 200 houses of prostitution shortly thereafter.
• January 26 – The sea defences at the English village of Hallsands are breached, leading to all but one of the houses becoming uninhabitable.
• January 28 – The United States ends its search for Pancho Villa.
• January 30 – Pershing's troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States. They reach Columbus, New Mexico February 5.
• January 31 – WWI: Germany announces its U-boats will engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.

February [link]

• February 3 – WWI: The United States severs diplomatic relations with Germany.
• February 5 – The new constitution of Mexico is adopted.
• February 13 – Mata Hari is arrested for spying.
• February 23 – The first International Women's Day is observed in Russia.
• February 24 – WWI: United States ambassador to the United Kingdom, Walter H. Page, is shown the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offers to give the American Southwest back to Mexico if Mexico declares war on the United States.
• February 26 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records their first commercial record, with the tunes "Livery Stable Blues" and "Dixie Jazz Band One Step".

President Woodrow Wilson of the United States announces to Congress the breaking of diplomatic relations with Germany

March [link]

• March 1
  • The U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.
  • Japanese city of Omuta, Fukuoka is founded by Hiroushi Miruku
• March 2 – The enactment of the Jones Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
• March 4
  • U.S. President Woodrow Wilson begins his second term.
  • Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.
• March 8
  • (N.S.) (February 23, O.S.) – The Russian February Revolution begins with the overthrow of the Tsar.
  • Women calling for bread in Petrograd start riots, which spontaneously spread throughout the city.
  • The United States Senate adopts the cloture rule in order to limit filibusters.
• March 10 – The Province of Batangas is formally founded as one of the Philippines' first encomiendas.
• March 11 – Mexican Revolution: Venustiano Carranza is elected president of Mexico; the United States gives de jure recognition of his government.
• March 12 – The Duma declares a provisional government.
• March 15 (N.S.) (March 2, O.S.) – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicates his throne for his son.
• March 17 (N.S.) (March 4, O.S.) – Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia refuses the throne, and power passes to the newly formed Provisional Government under Prince Georgy Lvov.
• March 25 – The Georgian Orthodox Church restores the autocephaly abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811.
• March 26 – WWI: First Battle of Gaza: British cavalry troops retreat after 17,000 Turks block their advance.
• March 30 – The independence of Poland is recognized^{[citation needed]}.
• March 31 – The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies, which become the US Virgin Islands, after paying $25 million to Denmark.

April [link]

• April 2 – WWI: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson asks the U.S. Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.
• April 6 – WWI: The United States declares war on Germany.
• April 9–April 12 – WWI: Canadian troops win the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
• April 10 – An ammunition factory explosion in Chester, Pennsylvania kills 133.
• April 11 – WWI: Brazil severs diplomatic relations with Germany.
• April 16
  • Vladimir Lenin arrives in Petrograd.
  • WWI: The Nivelle Offensive commences.
• April 19 – WWI: The Second Battle of Gaza, a fiasco for the British, causes the dismissal of the commander of the Eastern Expeditionary Force, General Archibald Murray.

May [link]

• May 9 – WWI: The Nivelle Offensive is abandoned.
• May 13
  • Three peasant children claim to see the Virgin Mary above a Holm Oak tree in Cova da Iria near Fátima, Portugal.
  • The nuncio Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, is consecrated Archbishop by Pope Benedict XV^[1]
• May 18 – WWI: The Selective Service Act passes the U.S. Congress, giving the President the power of conscription.
• May 21 – Over 300 acres (73 blocks) are destroyed in the Great Atlanta fire of 1917.
• May 22 – Commissioned Officer Corps of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
• May 23 – A month of civil violence in Milan, Italy ends after the Italian army forcefully takes over the city from anarchists and anti-war revolutionaries. Fifty people are killed and 800 people are arrested.^[2]
• May 26 – A tornado strikes Mattoon, Illinois, causing devastation and killing 101 people.
• May 27 – WWI: Over 30,000 French troops refuse to go to the trenches in Missy-aux-Bois.

June [link]

• June 1 – A French infantry regiment seizes Missy-aux-Bois and declares an anti-war military government. Other French army troops soon apprehend them.
• June 4 – The very first Pulitzer Prizes are awarded: Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe Elliott, and Florence Hall receive the first Pulitzer for a biography (for Julia Ward Howe). Jean Jules Jusserand receives the first Pulitzer for history for his work With Americans of Past and Present Days. Herbert Bayard Swope receives the first Pulitzer for journalism for his work for the New York World.
• June 5 – WWI: Conscription begins in the United States.
• June 8 – A fire at the Speculator and Granite Mountain ore mine outside Butte, Montana kills at least 168 workers.
• June 13 – WWI: The first major German bombing raid on London leaves 162 dead and 432 injured.
• June 14 – The 2 millionth Ford Model T rolls off the line.
• June 15 – The United States enacts the Espionage Act.

July [link]

• July – Panama Canal Department.
• July 1
  • A labor dispute ignites a race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, which leaves 250 dead.
  • Russian General Brusilov begins a major offensive in Galicia, initially advancing towards Lemberg.
• July 6
  • WWI: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence capture Aqaba from the Turks.
  • WWI: A conscription crisis in Canada leads to passage of the Military Service Act.
• July 12 – The Phelps Dodge Corporation deports over 1,000 suspected IWW members from Bisbee, Arizona.
• July 16–July 17 – Russian troops mutiny, abandon the Austrian front, and retreat to the Ukraine; hundreds are shot by their commanding officers during the retreat.
• July 16–July 18 – Serious clashes in St. Petersburg in July Days; Lenin escapes to Finland; Trotsky is arrested.
• July 17 – King George V of the United Kingdom issues a proclamation, stating that thenceforth the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor, vice the Germanic bloodline of House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which is an offshoot of the historic (800+ years) House of Wettin.
• July 20
  • The Parliament of Finland, dominated by Social Democrats, passes the "Power Law", declaring itself holder of the former Tsar's sovereignty in the Grand Principality of Finland. The Russian Provisional Government does not recognize the law, as it would alter the relationship between Finland and Russia into a real union, with Russia solely responsible for the defence and foreign relations of Finland with no more say in the country's internal affairs.
  • The Corfu Declaration, which enabled the establishment of the post-war Kingdom of Yugoslavia, is signed by the Yugoslav Committee and the Kingdom of Serbia.
  • (July 7, O.S.) – Alexander Kerensky becomes premier of the Russian Provisional Government, replacing Prince Georgy Lvov.
• July 20–July 28 – WWI: Austrian and German forces repulse the Russian advance into Galicia.
• July 25 – Sir William Thomas White introduces the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).
• July 28 – The Silent Protest is organized by the NAACP in New York to protest the East St. Louis Riot of July 2, as well as lynchings in Texas and Tennessee.
• July 30 – The Parliament of Finland is dissolved by the Russian Provisional Government. New elections are held in the autumn, resulting in a bourgeois majority.
• July 31 – WWI: The Battle of Passchendaele: Allied offensive operations commence in Flanders.

August [link]

• August – The Green Corn Rebellion, an uprising by several hundred farmers against the WWI draft, takes place in central Oklahoma.
• August 2 – Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning lands his aircraft on the ship HMS Furious in Scapa Flow, Orkney. He is killed 5 days later during another landing on the ship.
• August 3 – The New York Guard is founded.
• August 10 – A general strike begins in Spain; it is smashed after 3 days with 70 left dead, hundreds of wounded and 2,000 arrests.
• August 17 – One of English literature's important meetings takes place when Wilfred Owen introduces himself to Siegfried Sassoon at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh.
• August 18 – The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 in Greece destroys 32% of the city, leaving 70,000 individuals homeless.
• August 29 – WWI: The Military Service Act is passed in the Canadian House of Commons, giving the Government of Canada the right to conscript men into the army.

September[link]

• September 14 – Russia is declared a republic by the Provisional Government.

October [link]

• October 12 – WWI: The biggest loss of life in a single day for New Zealand. Over 800 men and 45 officers were killed at the First Battle of Passchendaele, roughly 1 in 1000 of the nation's population at the time.
• October 15 – WWI: At Vincennes outside of Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for Germany.
• October 19 – Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
• October 25 (O.S.) – (traditional beginning date of the Bolshevik Revolution).
• October 26 – WWI: Brazil declares war against the Central Powers.

November [link]

• November 2 – Zionism: The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" with the clear understanding "that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities".
• November 6
  • WWI: Battle of Passchendaele: After 3 months of fierce fighting, Canadian forces take Passchendaele in Belgium.
  • Militants from Trotsky's committee join with trusty Bolshevik soldiers to seize government buildings and pounce on members of the provisional government.
• November 7
  • (N.S.) (October 25 O.S.) – October Revolution: The workers of Petrograd in Russia, led by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, attack and successfully destroy the Kerensky Provisional Government which results in Russia officially becoming communist.
  • Iran (which provided weapons for Russia) refuses to support the Allied Forces after the October Revolution.
  • WWI – Third Battle of Gaza: United Kingdom forces capture Gaza from the Ottoman Empire.
• November 15
  • In the United States, a "Night of Terror" results in the injury of several influential suffragettes.
  • The Parliament of Finland again declares itself holder of sovereignty, effectively dissolving the 108-year-old union with Russia.
• November 16
  • British troops occupy Tel Aviv and Jaffa in Palestine.
  • Georges Clemenceau becomes prime minister of France.
• November 17 – The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals is founded in the United Kingdom.
• November 20
  • WWI – Battle of Cambrai: British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are soon beaten back.
  • The Ukraine is declared a republic.
• November 22 – In Montreal, Canada, the National Hockey Association breaks up.
• November 23 – The Bolsheviks release the full text of the previously secret Sykes-Picot Agreement in Izvestia and Pravda; it is subsequently printed in the Manchester Guardian on November 26.
• November 24 – In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 9 members of the Milwaukee Police Department are killed by a bomb, the most fatal single event in U.S. police history until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
• November 25 – WWI:German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania.
• November 26 – The National Hockey League is formed as a replacement for the recently disbanded National Hockey Association.
• November 28 – The Bolsheviks offer peace terms to the Germans.
• November 29 – Don Cossacks declare the Don Republic, which lasts two weeks.

December [link]

• December 3 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic (the bridge partially collapsed on August 29, 1907 and September 11, 1916).
• December 6
  • Finland officially declares independence from Russia.
  • Halifax Explosion: Two freighters collide in Halifax Harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia and cause a huge explosion that kills at least 1,963 people, injures 9,000 and destroys part of the city (until the Trinity nuclear test, the biggest manmade explosion in recorded history).
• December 11 – British troops take Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Jerusalem.
• December 25 – Why Marry?, the first dramatic play to win a Pulitzer Prize, opens at the Astor Theatre in New York City.
• December 26 – United States president Woodrow Wilson uses the Federal Possession and Control Act to place most U.S. railroads under the United States Railroad Administration, hoping to more efficiently transport troops and materials for the war effort.

Date unknown [link]

• The Lions Clubs International is formed.
• J.R.R. Tolkien begins writing the original Book of Lost Tales (the first version of The Silmarillion); thus Middle-earth is first written about in this year.
• Female suffrage is enacted in the Netherlands.
• The True Jesus Church is established in Beijing.
• The first of the Cottingley Fairies photos are taken.
• A cholera outbreak kills several German prisoners-of-war being held at Shankend in Scotland.

Births [link]

January–February [link]

• January 2 – Vera Zorina, German dancer and actress (d. 2003)
• January 3 – Roger W. Straus, Jr., American publisher (d. 2004)
• January 4 – Jesse White, American actor (d. 1997)
• January 5
  • Adolfo Consolini, Italian discus thrower (d. 1969)
  • Francis L. Kellogg, U.S. diplomat and prominent socialite (d. 2006)
  • Lucienne Day, textile designer (d. 2010)
  • Jane Wyman, American actress, philanthropist, and first wife of Ronald Reagan (Falcon Crest) (d. 2007)
• January 6 – Koo Chen-fu, Nationalist Chinese negotiator (d. 2005)
• January 10 – Jerry Wexler, American record producer (d. 2008)
• January 12
  • Jimmy Skinner, Detroit Red Wings head coach (d. 2007)
  • Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, transcendental meditation guru, most notably to The Beatles (d. 2008)
• January 16 – Carl Karcher, American founder of the Carl's Jr. hamburger chain (d. 2008)
• January 17 – M. G. Ramachandran, Tamil Nadu chief minister and actor. (d. 1987)
• January 19
  • John Raitt, American actor and singer (d. 2005)
  • Graham Higman, British mathematician (d. 2008)
• January 24 – Ernest Borgnine, American actor
• January 25 – Ilya Prigogine, Russian-born physicist and chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 2003)
• January 26 – William Verity Jr., American politician (d. 2007)
• February 1 – Squadron Leader James "Ginger" Lacey, the top scoring RAF fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain (d. 1989)
• February 2 – Đỗ Mười, Vietnamese leader
• February 4
  • Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan (d. 1980)
  • Abdur Rahman Badawi, Egyptian existentialist philosopher (d. 2002)
• February 5 – Isuzu Yamada, Japanese actress
• February 6 – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hungarian-born actress
• February 11
  • Sidney Sheldon, American author (d. 2007)
  • T. Nagi Reddy, Indian revolutionary (d. 1976)
• February 12 – Dom DiMaggio, American baseball player (d. 2009)
• February 14 – Herbert A. Hauptman, American mathematician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 2011)
• February 17 – Joseph Conombo, Prime Minister of Upper Volta (d. 2008)
• February 18 – Tuulikki Pietilä, Finnish artist (d. 2009)
• February 19 – Carson McCullers, American author (d. 1967)
• February 20 – Juan Vicente Torrealba, Venezuelan harpist and composer
• February 25
  • Anthony Burgess, English author (d. 1993)
  • Brenda Joyce, American actress (d. 2009)
• February 27 – John Connally, Governor of Texas (d. 1993)
• February 28
  • Fidel Sánchez Hernández, President of El Salvador (d. 2003)
  • Ernesto Alonso, Mexican actor, director, cinematographer, and producer (d. 2007)

March–April [link]

• March 1 – Robert Lowell, American poet (d. 1977)
• March 2
  • Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor, bandleader, and musician (d. 1986)
  • Laurie Baker, English architect (d. 2007)
• March 3 – Sameera Moussa, Egyptian nuclear scientist (d. 1952)
• March 4 – Clyde McCullough, American baseball catcher (d. 1982)
• March 5 – Raymond P. Shafer, Governor of Pennsylvania (d. 2006)
• March 12 – Googie Withers, British actress (d. 2011)
• March 14 – John McCallum, Australian actor (d. 2010)
• March 16 – Samael Aun Weor, Columbian writer (d. 1977)
• March 19 – Dinu Lipatti, Romanian pianist (d. 1950)
• March 20 – Vera Lynn, English actress and singer
• March 21 – Yigael Yadin, Israeli archeologist, politician, and Military Chief of Staff (d. 1984)
• March 24
  • John Kendrew, British molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (d. 1997)
  • Constantine Andreou, Brazilian-Greek artist (d. 2007)
• March 26 – Rufus Thomas, American singer (d. 2001)
• March 27 – Cyrus Vance, American politician (d. 2002)
• March 29 – Man o' War, champion thoroughbred racehorse (d. 1947)
• April 1 – Sydney Newman, Canadian-born television producer (d. 1997)
• April 2 – Dabbs Greer, American actor (d. 2007)
• April 5 – Robert Bloch, American writer (d. 1994)
• April 7 – R.G. Armstrong, American actor
• April 10 – Robert B. Woodward, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
• April 13 – Robert O. Anderson, American businessman, founder of Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. (d. 2007)
• April 14 – Marvin Miller, American baseball executive
• April 17 – Bill Clements, Governor of Texas (d. 2011)
• April 22 – Yvette Chauviré, French ballerina
• April 25 – Ella Fitzgerald, American jazz singer (d. 1996)
• April 26
  • Virgil Trucks, American baseball player
  • I. M. Pei, Chinese-born architect
• April 28 – Robert O. Cornthwaite, American actor (d. 2006)
• April 29 – Celeste Holm, American actress
• April 30 – Bea Wain, American singer

May–June [link]

• May 1
  • Fyodor Khitruk, Russian animator
  • Danielle Darrieux, French singer and actress
  • John Beradino, American baseball player and actor (General Hospital) (d. 1996)
• May 3 – Kiro Gligorov, President of the Republic of Macedonia (d. 2012)
• May 8 – John Anderson, Jr., American politician
• May 12 – Frank Clair, Canadian football coach (d. 2005)
  • R.Paolo Trujillo, Philosopher of the New World
• May 14 – Lou Harrison, American composer (d. 2003)
• May 16 – George Gaynes, Finnish-born actor
• May 20 – Bergur Sigurbjörnsson, Icelandic politician (d. 2005)
• May 21 – Raymond Burr, Canadian actor (Perry Mason) (d. 1993)
• May 22 – Georg Tintner, Austrian conductor (d. 1999)
• May 25 – Theodore Hesburgh, American priest and educator
• May 28
  • Papa John Creech, African-American fiddler (d. 1994)
  • Marshall Reed, American film and television actor (d. 1980)
• May 29 – John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (d. 1963)
• June 1 – William S. Knowles, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• June 2 – Casey Adams, American actor (d. 2000)
• June 6 – Kirk Kerkorian, Armenian-American businessman; billionaire
• June 7
  • Gwendolyn Brooks, African American writer (d. 2000)
  • Dean Martin, American actor and singer (d. 1995)
• June 10
  • Eric Hobsbawm, British historian
  • Ruari McLean, British typographer (d. 2006)
  • Al Schwimmer, American-Israeli businessman (d. 2011)
• June 14 – Lise Nørgaard, Danish journalist and writer
• June 15
  • John Bennett Fenn, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
  • Lash La Rue, American cowboy actor (d. 1996)
• June 16
  • Irving Penn, American photographer (d. 2009)
  • Katharine Graham, American publisher (d. 2001)
  • Ben Bubar, American presidential candidate. (d. 1995)
  • Atle Selberg, Norwegian mathematician (d. 2007)
• June 18
  • Ross Elliott, American actor (d. 1999)
  • Erik Ortvad, Danish artist (d. 2008)
• June 19 – Robert Karnes, American actor (d. 1979)
• June 30 – Lena Horne, American singer and actress (d. 2010)

July–August [link]

• July 1 – Humphry Osmond, British psychiatrist (d. 2004)
• July 4 – Manolete, Spanish bullfighter (d. 1947)
• July 7
  • Fidel Sánchez Hernández, President of El Salvador (d. 2003)
  • Larry O'Brien, American politician and former NBA commissioner (d. 1990)
• July 9 – Frank Wayne, American television game show producer (d. 1988)
• July 10
  • Don Herbert, American television personality (Mr. Wizard) (d. 2007)
  • Reg Smythe, British cartoonist (d. 1998)
• July 16 – William Woodson, American voice actor
• July 17
  • Phyllis Diller, American comedian
  • Kenan Evren, former President of Turkey
• July 18 – Henri Salvador, French singer (d. 2008)
• July 19 – William Scranton, American politician
• July 22 – Adam Malik, 3rd Vice President of Indonesia (d. 1984)
• July 30 – Minoru Chiaki, Japanese actor (d. 1999)
• August 11 – Dik Browne, American cartoonist (Hagar the Horrible) (d. 1989)
• August 14 – Marty Glickman, American sports announcer (d. 2001)
• August 15
  • Jack Lynch, Prime Minister of Ireland (d. 1999)
  • Oscar Romero, El Salvador Roman Catholic Archbishop (d. 1980)
• August 17 – Zvi Keren, American-born Israeli pianist, musicologist and composer (d. 2008)
• August 18 – Caspar Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2006)
• August 22 – John Lee Hooker, African-American musician (d. 2001)
• August 25
  • Mel Ferrer, Cuban-American actor, film director and film producer (d. 2008)
  • Lisbeth Movin, Danish actress (d. 2011)
• August 28 – Jack Kirby, American comic book artist (d. 1994)
• August 29 – Isabel Sanford, African-American actress (The Jeffersons) (d. 2004)
• August 30 – Denis Healey, British author and politician

September–October [link]

• September 6 – Philipp von Boeselager, German Wehrmacht officer, failed assassin of Adolf Hitler (d. 2008)
• September 7
  • John Cornforth, Australian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
  • Leonard Cheshire, British war hero (d. 1992)
  • Tetsuo Hamuro, Japanese swimmer (d. 2005)
• September 10 – Miguel Serrano, Chilean diplomat, explorer, and journalist (d. 2009)
• September 11
  • Donald Blakeslee, American aviator (d. 2008)
  • Herbert Lom, Czech-born British actor
  • Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines (d. 1989)
  • Jessica Mitford, Anglo-American writer (d. 1996)
  • Daniel Wildenstein, French art dealer and racehorse owner (d. 2001)
• September 13 – Robert Ward, American composer (d. 1994)
• September 15 – Shanul Haq Haqqee, Pakistani poet, author, lexicographer (d. 2005)
• September 20 – Red Auerbach, American basketball coach and official (d. 2006)
• September 25 – Johnny Sain, American baseball player (d. 2006)
• September 27 – Louis Auchincloss, American novelist (d. 2010)
• September 30 – Park Chung-hee, former president of South Korea, (d. 1979)
• October 2 – Christian de Duve, English-born biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• October 7 – June Allyson, American actress (d. 2006)
• October 8
  • Danny Murtaugh, baseball player and manager (d. 1976)
  • Rodney Robert Porter, English biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1985)
• October 10 – Thelonious Monk, American jazz pianist (d. 1982)
• October 11 – J. Edward McKinley, American actor (d. 2004)
• October 13 – George Virl Osmond, Osmond family patriarch (d. 2007)
• October 15
  • Jan Miner, American actress (d. 2004)
  • Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., American historian and political commentator (d. 2007)
• October 17 – Martin Donnelly, New Zealand cricketer (d. 1999)
• October 19 – Walter Munk, Austrian-born American oceanographer
• October 21 – Dizzy Gillespie, African-American musician (d. 1993)
• October 22 – Joan Fontaine, British-born actress
• October 30 – Maurice Trintignant, French race car driver (d. 2005)

November–December [link]

• November 6 – Harlan Warde, American actor (d. 1980)
• November 11 – Madeleine Damerment, French WWII heroine (d. 1944)
• November 12 – Jo Stafford, American traditional pop singer (d. 2008)
• November 18 – Pedro Infante, Mexican actor and singer (d. 1957)
• November 19 – Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India (d. 1984)
• November 20 – Robert Byrd, U.S. senator from West Virginia and President pro tempore of the United States Senate (d. 2010)
• November 22 – Andrew Huxley, English scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• November 24 – Shabtai Rosenne, British-born Israeli diplomat and jurist (d. 2010)
• December 4 – Movita Castaneda, American actress
• December 5 – Wenche Foss, Norwegian actress (d. 2011)
• December 6
  • Kamal Jumblatt, leader of the Lebanese Druze (d. 1977)
  • Irv Robbins, Canadian-American entrepreneur (d. 2008)
• December 9 – James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
• December 10 – Sultan Yahya Petra, King of Malaysia (d. 1979)
• December 16 – Arthur C. Clarke, British/Sri Lankan science-fiction author (2001: A Space Odyssey) (d. 2008)
• December 20 – David Bohm, American-born physicist, philosopher, and neuropsychologist (d. 1992)
• December 21 – Heinrich Böll, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1985)
• December 22 – Gene Rayburn, American television personality (Match Game) (d. 1999)
• December 27 – Onni Palaste, Finnish writer (d. 2009)
• December 28 – Ellis Clarke, President of Trinidad and Tobago (d. 2010)
• December 29 – Ramanand Sagar, Indian film director (d. 2005)
• December 30 – Seymour Melman, American industrial engineer (d. 2004)

Date unknown[link]

• Huang Yao, Chinese artist (d. 1987)

Deaths [link]

January–June [link]

• January 2 – Edward Burnett Tylor, English anthropologist (b. 1832)
• January 4 – Frederick Selous, British explorer (b. 1851)
• January 10 – William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, American frontiersman (b. 1846)
• January 16 – George Dewey, U.S. admiral (b. 1837)
• February 5 – Jaber II Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait (b. 1860)
• February 10 – John William Waterhouse, Italian-born artist (b. 1849)
• February 21 – Fred Mace, American actor (b. 1878)
• March 5 – Manuel de Arriaga, first president of Portugal (b. 1840)
• March 8 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German inventor (b. 1838)
• March 17 – Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (b. 1838)
• March 31 – Emil Adolf von Behring, German winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
• April 8 – Richard Olney, American politician (b. 1835)
• April 13 – Diamond Jim Brady, American businessman (b. 1856)
• April 14 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish creator of Esperanto (b. 1859)
• April 15 – János Murkovics, Slovene teacher and writer in Hungary (b. 1839)
• April 17 – Scott Joplin, African-American musician and composer (b. 1867–1868)
• May 7 – Albert Ball, British World War I fighter ace, Victoria Cross recipient (b. 1896)
• May 17 – Charles Anthoni Johnson Brooke, ruler of Sarawak (b. 1829)
• May 20 – Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (b. 1850)
• May 24 – Les Darcy, Australian boxer (b. 1895)
• May 25
  • Maksim Bahdanovič, Belarusian poet (b. 1891)
  • René Dorme, French World War I fighter ace (b. 1894)
• May 29 – Kate Harrington, American teacher, writer, and poet (b. 1831)
• June 5 – Karl Emil Schäfer, German World War I fighter ace (b. 1891)
• June 18 – Titu Maiorescu, Romanian Prime Minister (b. 1840)
• June 26 – John Dunville, British Army officer (b. 1896)
• June 27 – Karl Allmenröder, German World War I fighter ace (b. 1896)
• June 30 – Antonio de La Gandara, French painter (b. 1861)

July–December [link]

• July 2 – Herbert Beerbohm Tree, British actor (b. 1852)
• July 8 – Tom Thomson, Canadian painter (b. 1877)
• July 12 – Donald Cunnell, British World War I fighter ace (b. 1893)
• July 16 – Philipp Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (b. 1847)
• July 27 – Emil Kocher, Swiss medical researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1841)
• July 28 – Stephen Luce, American admiral (b. 1827)
• July 31
  • Francis Ledwidge, Irish poet (b. 1887)
  • Hedd Wyn, Welsh poet (killed in action) (b. 1887)
• August 3 – Stephane Javelle, French astronomer (b. 1864)
• August 7 – Edwin Harris Dunning, British aviator (b. 1892)
• August 13 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1860)
• August 20 – Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1835)
• August 30 – Alan Leo, British astrologer (b. 1860)
• September 9 – Madge Syers, British figure skater (b. 1881)
• September 11 – Georges Guynemer, French World War I fighter ace (b. 1894)
• September 15 – Kurt Wolff, German World War I fighter ace (b. 1895)
• September 23 – Werner Voss, German World War I fighter ace (b. 1897)
• September 27 – Edgar Degas, French painter (b. 1834)
• September 30 – Patricio Montojo y Pasarón, Spanish admiral (b. 1839)
• October 13 – Florence La Badie, Canadian actress (b. 1888)
• October 15 – Mata Hari, Dutch dancer and spy (executed) (b. 1876)
• October 17 – Bobby Atherton, Welsh footballer (b. 1876)
• October 23 – Eugène Grasset, Swiss artist (b. 1845)
• October 27 – Arthur Rhys-Davids, British World War I fighter ace (b. 1897)
• October 28 – Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (b. 1831)
• October 30 or 31 – Heinrich Gontermann, German World War I fighter ace (b. 1896)
• November 8 – Colin Blythe, English cricketer (b. 1879)
• November 11 – Queen Liliuokalani of Hawai'i (b. 1838)
• November 15 – Émile Durkheim, French sociologist (b. 1858)
• November 17
  • Neil James Archibald Primrose, MP (killed in action) (b. 1882)
  • Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (b. 1840)
• December 8 – Mendele Moykher Sforim, Russian Yiddish and Hebrew writer (b. 1836)
• December 10 – Mackenzie Bowell, Prime Minister of Canada (b. 1823)
• December 12 – Andrew Taylor Still, American father of osteopathy (b. 1828)
• December 19 – Richard Maybery, British World War I fighter ace (b. 1895)
• December 20 – Eric Campbell, Scottish actor (b. 1879)
• December 22 – Frances Xavier Cabrini, First American canonized as a saint (b. 1850)
• December 28 – Alfred Edwin McKay, Canadian World War I fighter ace (b. 1892)

Nobel Prizes [link]

• Physics – Charles Glover Barkla
• Chemistry – not awarded
• Medicine – not awarded
• Literature – Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
• Peace – International Committee of the Red Cross

References [link]

• American Year Book: 1917 (1918), large compendium of facts about the U.S. online complete edition
• 1917 Coin Pictures

Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris at the Greenbelt Harvest Picnic, 2011
Background information
Born	(1947-04-02) April 2, 1947 (age 65) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Genres	Folk, country rock, country, bluegrass, rock, pop, alt-country
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Voice, guitar
Years active	1970–present
Labels	Jubilee, Reprise, Warner Bros., Elektra, Asylum, Rhino, Nonesuch
Associated acts	Ryan Adams The Band Bright Eyes James Burton Beth Neilsen Chapman Earl Thomas Conley Elvis Costello Rodney Crowell Iris Dement John Denver Dixie Chicks Bob Dylan Steve Earle Vern Gosdin Patty Griffin Arlo Guthrie Mark Knopfler Albert Lee Little Feat Dave Matthews Kate and Anna McGarrigle Willie Nelson Juice Newton Roy Orbison Gram Parsons Dolly Parton John Prine Linda Ronstadt Ricky Skaggs Bruce Springsteen Don Williams Lucinda Williams Neil Young Warren Zevon
Website	www.emmylouharris.com

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released many chart-topping albums and singles over the course of her career, and has won 12 Grammys and numerous other awards.

In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including Gram Parsons, The Band, Linda Ronstadt, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Emmylou Harris is the daughter of a career military family, her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer and her mother, Eugenia was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.^[1]

With Gram Parsons[link]

Harris soon returned to performing as part of a trio with Gerry Mule and Tom Guidera. One night in 1971, members of the country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers happened to be in the audience. Former Byrds member Chris Hillman, who had taken over the band after the departure of its founder Gram Parsons, was so impressed by Harris that he briefly considered asking her to join the band. Instead, Hillman ended up recommending her to Parsons, who was looking for a female vocalist to work with on his first solo album, GP. Harris toured as a member of Parsons' band, The Fallen Angels, in 1973, and the couple shone during vocal harmonies and duets. Harris was quite pleased, and invested a lot emotionally in their relationship. Later that year, Parsons and Harris worked on a studio album, Grievous Angel. Parsons died in his motel room near what is now Joshua Tree National Park on September 19, 1973, from an accidental overdose of drugs and alcohol. Parsons's Grievous Angel was released posthumously in 1974, and three more tracks from his last sessions with Harris were included on another posthumous Parsons album, Sleepless Nights, in 1976. There was one more album of recorded material from that period of time that was packaged with the name, Live 1973, but was not released until 1982.

The working relationship between Harris and Parsons is of great importance in country and country-rock music history. Parsons offered Harris a study in true country music, introducing her to artists like The Louvin Brothers, and provided her with a musical identity; Harris's harmony and duet vocals, on the other hand, were lauded by those who heard them, and helped inspire Parsons' performances. His death left her devastated at an emotional and musical crossroads. She eventually carried on with her own version of Parsons' musical vision, and was instrumental in bringing attention to his achievements. Harris's earliest signature song, and arguably her most personal one, "Boulder to Birmingham", written shortly after Gram's death, showed the depth of her shock and pain at losing Parsons. It was, according to her best friend Linda Ronstadt, the beginning of a "lifetime effort to process what had happened", and was just the first of many songs written and/or performed by Harris about her life with (and without) Parsons.

I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham

I would hold my life in his saving grace.

I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham

If I thought I could see, I could see your face.

  —"Boulder to Birmingham"

  lyrics by Emmylou Harris

The Hot Band[link]

Hot Band member James Burton

Warner Brothers A&R representative Mary Martin introduced Harris to Canadian producer Brian Ahern, who produced her major label debut album, Pieces of the Sky, released in 1975 on Reprise Records. The album was surprisingly eclectic, especially by Nashville standards, including cover versions of The Beatles' "For No One", Merle Haggard's "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down" and The Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love". It also featured "Bluebird Wine", a composition by young Texas songwriter Rodney Crowell, who was the first in a long line of songwriters whose talents Harris has championed. The record was one of the most expensive country records produced at the time, featuring the talents of James Burton, Glen Hardin, Ron Tutt, Ray Pohlman, and Bill Payne, as well as two tracks ("Before Believing" and "Queen of the Silver Dollar") that were cut with the Angel Band. Two singles were released: "Too Far Gone", which initially charted at #73 (a 1979 reissue hit #13), and Harris's first big hit, "If I Could Only Win Your Love", a duet with Herb Pedersen (later a founding member of The Desert Rose Band), which peaked at #4.

Executives of Warner Bros. Records (Reprise Records's parent company) told Harris they would agree to record her if she would "get a hot band". Harris did so, enlisting guitarist James Burton and pianist Glen Hardin, both of whom had played with Elvis Presley as well as Parsons. Burton was a renowned guitarist, starting in Ricky Nelson's band in the 1950s, and Hardin had been a member of The Crickets. Other Hot Band members were drummer John Ware, pedal steel guitarist Hank DeVito, and bassist Emory Gordy, Jr., with whom Harris had worked while performing with Parsons. Singer-songwriter Crowell was enlisted as a rhythm guitarist and duet partner.^[2] Harris's first tour schedule originally dovetailed around Presley's, owing to Burton and Hardin's continuing commitments to Presley's band. The Hot Band lived up to its name, with most of the members moving on with fresh talent replacing them as they continued on to solo careers of their own.

Elite Hotel, released in December 1975, established that the buzz created by Pieces of the Sky was well-founded. Unusual for country albums at the time, which largely revolved around a hit single, Harris's albums borrowed their approach from the album-oriented rock market. In terms of quality and artistic merit, tracks like "Sin City", "Wheels", and "Till I Gain Control Again", which weren't singles, easily stood against tracks like "Together Again", "Sweet Dreams", and "One of These Days", which were. While Elite Hotel was a #1 country album, the album did sufficiently well as a crossover success with the rock audience. Harris appealed to those who normally disapproved of the country market's pull toward crossover pop singles ("Together Again" and "Sweet Dreams" both topped the country charts). Elite Hotel won a Grammy in 1976 for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female.

Harris' reputation for guest work continued. Aside from contributing to albums by Linda Ronstadt, Guy Clark and Neil Young, Harris was tapped by Bob Dylan to perform on his Desire album, but entirely uncredited. Harris also filmed one of the studio sequences, owing to her touring schedule, in The Band's The Last Waltz, singing "Evangeline".

Burton left the Hot Band in 1976, choosing to remain with Elvis Presley's band, and was replaced by English guitarist Albert Lee. Harris's commercial apex was Luxury Liner, released in 1977, which remains one of her definitive records. On Luxury Liner, Harris's mix of songs from Chuck Berry ("(You Never Can Tell) C'est La Vie"), Gram Parsons (the title track and "She"), The Carter Family ("Hello Stranger") and Kitty Wells ("Making Believe") illustrate a continuity and artistic merit to country music often overlooked at the time. Despite Top Ten singles with "C'est La Vie" and "Making Believe", the album's best known track is the first recorded cover of Townes Van Zandt's classic "Pancho & Lefty", which would be a #1 hit for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard in 1983. At the end of 1977, Crowell left the Hot Band to pursue a solo career; his replacement was bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and singer Ricky Skaggs.

Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town signaled a slight change of direction from Harris's previous three albums. Rather than mixing classic and contemporary, the album is made up largely of recently written songs, though from a wide variety of writers. "Two More Bottles of Wine", written by Delbert McClinton, became Harris's third #1 single, "To Daddy", written by Dolly Parton, went to #3, and a third single, "Easy From Now On", went Top Twenty. The album included two songs apiece from Crowell ("I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight") and songwriter Jesse Winchester ("Defying Gravity" and "My Songbird"), and Utah Phillips' "Green Rolling Hills".

The Roots Records[link]

In 1977 (January), Harris married Brian Ahern.^[3] Their (Harris' second) daughter, Meghann, was born in 1979. During this time, Harris cut three studio albums that reflected a shift toward traditional country (the industry, on the other hand, was about to embrace Urban Cowboy). The first key to the change in direction was her Grammy Award-winning 1979 album Blue Kentucky Girl. Apart from a cover of The Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me", the album was largely made up of classic-styled country material in the vein of Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells. One of her best-loved albums, the record includes songs ranging from The Louvin Brothers' "Everytime You Leave" to Willie Nelson's "Sister's Coming Home" to Gram Parson's signature "Hickory Wind". Wesley Rose took special interest in Harris' recording of "Beneath Still Waters", which became a #1 smash.

A Christmas album, Light of the Stable, was released in 1979; its title track featured backing vocals by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young, all three of whom Harris had been working with sporadically since the mid-1970s, and would continue to collaborate with through the 2000s. (Harris, Parton and Ronstadt began working on a planned trio album during this time, though it would remain unfinished for nearly a decade; a few of the tracks recorded for the project surfaced on the women's respective solo albums in the interim.) The album is largely acoustic, featuring readings of traditional fare such as "Silent Night", "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "The First Noel".

In the 1980s, Harris pursued country music's history even further with the bluegrass-oriented recording of Roses in the Snow, featuring Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Albert Lee, Emory Gordy Jr. and Jerry Douglas. Harris's versions of the traditional "Wayfaring Stranger" and Paul Simon's "The Boxer" were strong singles.

In 1980, Harris recorded "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" with Roy Orbison. The duet was a Top 10 hit on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts. They would win the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. She would also be featured on Paul Kennerley's concept album The Legend of Jesse James, which also featured Levon Helm of The Band and Johnny Cash.

Pop-chart success, songwriting[link]

In 1981, Harris reached the Top 40 on the Billboard pop chart with a cover of "Mister Sandman"—again Top 10 Country as well as Adult Contemporary—from her Evangeline album. (The album version of the song was a track from the ill-fated Trio sessions with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, but neither Parton's nor Ronstadt's record companies would allow their artists' vocals to be used on the single, so Harris re-recorded the song, singing all three parts.)

Harris moved to Nashville in 1982. White Shoes in 1983 included an eclectic pairing of the rockish reading of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with a remake of the Donna Summer hit "On the Radio", as well as tracks from a diverse group of songwriters such as Hot Band member Crowell, Sandy Denny and T-Bone Burnett and was her last album produced by Brian Ahern until All I Intended to Be in 2008.

Harris's major-label releases thus far had included few self-penned songs, but in 1985 her songwriting skills were much in evidence with the release of a concept album The Ballad of Sally Rose, for which she co-wrote all of the songs. The album was semi-autobiographical in theme, based loosely on her relationship with Parsons. Harris described it as a "country opera", and a "huge commercial disaster".^[4] Her co-writer and producer on the album was English songwriter and musician Paul Kennerley, writer of the hit singles "Born to Run" (on Harris's 1981 Cimarron album) and "In My Dreams" (on White Shoes). Kennerley also produced her next album, Thirteen. They were married in 1985 and divorced in 1993.

In 1987, nearly a full decade after they'd first attempted to do so, Harris teamed up with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for their long-promised and much-anticipated Trio disc. The album was the biggest commercial success of Harris's career, spending five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart (also quickly reaching the Top 10 on the Pop Albums chart), sold several million copies and produced four Top 10 Country hits, including "To Know Him Is To Love Him", which hit #1. The disc was nominated for the coveted Album Of The Year Grammy award (given to U2 that year for The Joshua Tree) and the three women won the statuette for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal; the album's Linda Thompson-penned track "Telling Me Lies" reached #3 Country, #25 Adult Contemporary, and was also nominated for a Grammy as 1987's Best Country Song.

Harris also found time in 1987 to release a solo album, Angel Band, featuring traditional gospel songs, on which she worked with, among others, rising country star Vince Gill.

In 1989, she recorded two songs with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume II. In a snippet of studio chatter included on one of the tracks, she talked during the recording session about her beginnings and how music had changed:

Years ago I had the experience of sitting around in a living room with a bunch of people and singing and playing, and it was like a spiritual experience, it was wonderful. And I decided then that was what I was going to do with my life was play music, do music. In the making of records, I think over the years we've all gotten a little too technical, a little too hung up on getting things perfect. We've lost the living room. The living room has gone out of the music, but today I feel like we got it back.

Around 1991, she dissolved The Hot Band and formed a new band of acoustic musicians—Sam Bush on fiddle, mandolin and vocals, Roy Huskey, Jr. on bass and vocals, Larry Atamanuik on drums, Al Perkins on banjo, guitar, Dobro guitar and vocals, and Jon Randall on guitar, mandolin and vocals—which she named The Nash Ramblers. They recorded a Grammy Award-winning live album in 1992 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, which led to the $8 million restoration of the facility into a premium concert and event venue. It was her last album with Reprise Records.

New directions[link]

By the 1990s, Harris started receiving less airplay as mainstream country stations began shifting their focus to the youth-oriented "new country" format. Harris's albums Bluebird and Brand New Dance (1989 and 1990, respectively) received ample critical acclaim and sold reasonably well, yet her chart success was on the wane. 1993's Cowgirl's Prayer—the first album since her switch to Elektra Records—was critically praised but received very little airplay,^[5] and its lead single, "High Powered Love" charted very low, peaking at #63, prompting her to shift her career in a new direction.

In 1995, Harris released one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade, Wrecking Ball, produced by Daniel Lanois, best known for his work with U2, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan. An experimental album for Harris, the record included Harris's rendition of the Neil Young-penned title track (Young himself provided guest vocals on two of the album's songs), Steve Earle's "Goodbye", Julie Miller's "All My Tears", Jimi Hendrix's "May This Be Love", Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "Goin' Back to Harlan" and Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl". U2's Larry Mullen, Jr. showed up to play drums for the project. The album received virtually no country airplay whatsoever, but did bring Harris to the attention of alternative rock listeners, many of whom had never listened to her music before.

Harris then took her Wrecking Ball material on the road, releasing the live Spyboy in 1998, backed with a power trio comprising Nashville producer, songwriter and guitarist Buddy Miller and New Orleans musicians, drummer Brady Blade and bassist-vocalist-percussionist Daryl Johnson. In addition to performing songs from Wrecking Ball, the album updated many of Harris's career hits, including "Boulder to Birmingham".

Also in 1998, she appeared prominently on Willie Nelson's moody, instrumentally sparse Teatro album, produced by Wrecking Ball producer Lanois.^[6]

During the summer of 1997 and 1998, Harris joined Sarah McLachlan's all-woman musical touring festival, the Lilith Fair, where new artists like Patty Griffin could share new experiences and ideas with seasoned musicians like Harris and Bonnie Raitt.

In January 1999, Harris released Trio 2 with Parton and Ronstadt. Much of the album had actually been recorded in 1994, but remained unreleased for nearly five years because of record label and personnel disputes, conflicting schedules, and career priorities of the three artists. Trio 2 was much more contemporary-sounding than its predecessor and was certified Gold. It included their version of Neil Young's classic "After The Gold Rush", which became a popular music video and won another Grammy—this one for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Harris and Ronstadt then released a duet album, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, later the same year. The two superstars toured together during the fall months in support of the disc. Both albums made the Top 10 of Billboard's Country Albums chart and did well on the pop side as well.

Also in 1999, Harris paid tribute to her former singing partner Gram Parsons by co-executive producing Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, an album that gathered together more than a dozen artists. Harris performed duets with Beck, Sheryl Crow and The Pretenders on this album's tracks.

In 2000, Harris released her solo follow-up to Wrecking Ball, Red Dirt Girl, produced by Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn. For the first time since The Ballad of Sally Rose, the album contained a number of Harris's own compositions. Like Wrecking Ball, the album's sound leaned more toward alternative rock than country. Nevertheless it reached #5 on Billboard's Country Albums chart as well as a healthy #54 on the pop side. It also won Harris another of her 12 Grammy awards, in the category of Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Harris also accompanied on alternative country singer Ryan Adams' solo debut Heartbreaker and on Tracy Chapman's fifth album Telling Stories.

Also in 2000, Harris joined an all-star group of traditional country, folk and blues artists for the T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? The soundtrack won multiple CMA, ACM and Grammy awards. A documentary/concert film, Down from the Mountain, featured the artists performing music from the film and other songs at the Ryman Auditorium. Harris and many of the same artists took their show on the road for the Down from the Mountain Tour in 2002. In 2003, Harris supplied the finishing touches in harmonizing with the Dixie Chicks on a song they were recording in the studio, "Godspeed".

Recent work[link]

Harris released Stumble into Grace, her follow-up to Red Dirt Girl, in 2003. Like its predecessor, it contained mostly self-penned material. In 2004, Harris led the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue tour with Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. They performed singly and together and swapped instruments.

On September 9, 2005, Harris participated in "Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast", a series of concerts simulcast by most American television stations to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. She performed with Beth Neilsen Chapman and the Dixie Chicks, harmonizing on Patty Griffin's song, "Mary".

Harris playing in Rotterdam, Netherlands (2006)

In 2005, Harris worked with Conor Oberst on Bright Eyes' release, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, performing backup vocals on three tracks. In July, she joined Elvis Costello on several dates of his US tour, performing alongside Costello and his band on several numbers each night. Harris and Costello recorded a version of Costello's song, "The Scarlet Tide", from the soundtrack of the movie Cold Mountain. July also saw the release of The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches & Highways, a single-disc retrospective of Harris's career, on the Rhino Entertainment label. This same year, Harris appeared as a guest vocalist on Neil Young's widely acclaimed Prairie Wind. She also appeared in the Jonathan Demme documentary-concert film Neil Young: Heart of Gold, released in 2006.

Harris performing in the Netherlands with Mark Knopfler

All the Roadrunning, an album of collaborations with former Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, was released in April 2006 and supported by a tour of Europe and the US. The album was a commercial success, reaching #8 in the UK and #17 in the US. Selections recorded during the All the Roadrunning tour performance at the Gibson Amphitheatre were released as a CD/DVD package titled Real Live Roadrunning in November 2006. In addition to several of the compositions that Harris and Knopfler recorded together in the studio, Real Live Roadrunning features solo hits from both members of the duo, as well as a few classic tracks from Knopfler's days with Dire Straits.

Harris is featured on A Tribute To Joni Mitchell, released on April 24, 2007. Harris covered the song "The Magdalene Laundries" (originally on Mitchell's 1994 album, Turbulent Indigo). She sang "Another Pot O' Tea" with Anne Murray on Murray's album Anne Murray Duets: Friends and Legends, released November 13, 2007, in Canada and January 15, 2008, in the U.S.

Harris wrote a song called "In Rodanthe" for the 2008 film Nights In Rodanthe.

A solo album, All I Intended to Be, was released on June 10, 2008, to critical acclaim. Contributors include Buddy Miller, the McGarrigle sisters, Vince Gill, Phil Madeira, and Dolly Parton. She toured with an ensemble she dubbed the Red Dirt Boys, featuring Phil Madeira on accordion, guitar, and keyboards, Colin Linden on guitar and banjo, Rickie Simpkins on mandolin and fiddle, Chris Donohue on bass, and Bryan Owings on drums.^[7] It did not include Miller, who was touring with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett at the time. In 2009, Harris toured with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Miller as "Three Girls and Their Buddy". Madeira, Simpkins, and Donohue performed with her in late 2008, and in 2009, appearing on "A Prairie Home Companion" and at MerleFest and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. In September 2009, Owings rejoined the Red Dirt Boys with Miller for the remainder of 2009.

In April 2009 Harris became a grandmother. Her daughter gave birth to a daughter, Prudence.^[8]

In 2010, Harris regrouped with the latest version of the Red Dirt Boys—Madeira, Owings, Donohue, and Simpkins—for Lilith Fair summer dates and a scheduled US autumn tour.

According to an interview with Bonnie Tyler by Digital Spy, Emmylou Harris will be teaming up with her on Tyler's upcoming album. Harris will do backing vocals on a song, written and produced by Wayne Warner. A new solo album, Hard Bargain, was released on the Nonesuch label on April 26, 2011.

PBS host Tavis Smiley interviewed Harris in a program that aired on April 20, 2011. In the interview Harris spoke of being a straight-A student in high school, which led her to being selected as valedictorian, and recounted learning to play guitar by memorizing three chords on a Taylor 310CE.^{[citation needed]}

The 2012 single "Emmylou" by Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit on their album The Lion's Roar is, in part, a tribute to Harris, with its lyrics referring to her relationship to Gram Parsons.

Activism[link]

In 1997 and 1998, Harris performed in Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair, promoting feminism in music. Since 1999, Harris has been organizing an annual benefit tour called Concerts for a Landmine Free World. All proceeds from the tours support the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's (VVAF) efforts to assist innocent victims of conflicts around the world. The tour also benefits the VVAF's work to raise America's awareness of the global landmine problem. Artists that have joined Harris on the road for these dates include Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Cockburn, Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Joan Baez, Patty Griffin, Nanci Griffith, Willie Nelson, and Lucinda Williams. Harris is a supporter of animal rights and an active member of PETA.^[9] She founded, and in her spare time assists at, an animal shelter in Nashville.^[10]

She became a member of the newly formed Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.^[11][12]

Awards and other honors[link]

Grammy Awards[link]

2005 Best Female Country Vocal Performance ("The Connection")

2001 Album of the Year (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)

2000 Best Contemporary Folk Album (Red Dirt Girl)

1999 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals ("After The Gold Rush", with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)

1998 Best Country Collaboration with Vocals ("Same Old Train", with Alison Krauss, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Earl Scruggs, Joe Diffie, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, Pam Tillis, Patty Loveless, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs & Travis Tritt)

1995 Best Contemporary Folk Album (Wrecking Ball)

1992 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (Emmylou Harris & The Nash Ramblers At the Ryman, as Emmylou Harris & The Nash Ramblers)

1987 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (Trio, with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)

1984 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female ("In My Dreams")

1980 Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group ("That Lovin' You Feelin' Again", with Roy Orbison)

1979 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female (Blue Kentucky Girl)

1976 Best Country Vocal Performance, Female (Elite Hotel)^[13]

Country Music Association Awards[link]

2001 Album of the Year (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)

1980 Female Vocalist Of The Year

1988 Vocal Event of the Year (Trio, with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt)^[14]

Other honors[link]

• VH1's 100 Most Influential Women in Rock and Roll (1998) - Number 22 out of 100
• Billboard's Century Award recipient (1999)^[15] - inducted by Sarah McLachlan
• CMT's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music - #5 ranking (2002)
• Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on February 12, 2008^[16]
• Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.
• Awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music in 2009.^[17]

Discography[link]

Collaborations and other appearances[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

• In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music, Nicholas Dawidoff, Vintage Books, 1998. ISBN 0-679-41567-X
• Emmylou Harris: Angel in Disguise, Jim Brown, Fox Music Books, 2004. ISBN 1-894997-03-4
• Fong-Torres, Ben. (1998). "Emmylou Harris". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 230.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Emmylou Harris

• Official Site (requires Flash player)
• Emmylou Harris Comprehensive former official site
• Emmylou Harris at Allmusic
• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
• Emmylou Harris Questionnaire (June 2008)
• Pitchfork article
• Gibson interview
• Interview
• Emmylou Harris on Charlie Rose
• Emmylou Harris at the Internet Movie Database

Germans
Deutsche

Martin Luther • Otto von Bismarck • Ludwig von Beethoven • Immanuel Kant • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Johann Gutenberg • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Johann Sebastian Bach • Richard Wagner • Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel • Albrecht Dürer • Karl Marx • Max Weber • Konrad Adenauer • Friedrich Schiller • Karl Benz • Konrad Zuse • Marlene Dietrich • Helmut Kohl • Carl von Clausewitz • Max Planck • Angela Merkel • David Hilbert • Johannes Kepler • Friedrich Nietzsche • Rudolf Diesel
Total population
German Diaspora ca. 150 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Germany        75 million[2][3][4]
see below; see also Ethnic Germans.
Languages
German: High German (Upper German, Central German), Low German (see German dialects)
Religion
Roman Catholic, Protestant (chiefly Lutheran)
Related ethnic groups
Austrians, Swedes,[5] Norwegians,[5] Danes, Dutch, Icelanders, Swiss Germans, and other Germanic peoples

The Germans (Deutsche) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages.^[6] Legally, Germans are citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, about 66–75 million consider themselves Germans. There are an additional 80 million people of German ancestry mainly in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Argentina, France, Russia, Chile, Poland, Australia and Romania who most likely are not native speakers of German.^[7] Thus, the total number of Germans worldwide lies between 66 and 160 million, depending on the criteria applied (native speakers, single-ancestry ethnic Germans, partial German ancestry, etc.).

Today, peoples from countries with a German-speaking majority or significant German-speaking population groups other than Germany, such as Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxembourg, have developed their own national identity and usually do not refer to themselves as "Germans" in a modern context.