Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1908

Year 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events[link]

January[link]

January 24: Boy Scout movement.

• January 12 – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
• January 13 – A fire at the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. kills 170.
• January 24 – Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement.

February[link]

• February 1 – King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.
• February 12 – The first around-the-world car race, the 1908 New York to Paris Race, begins.
• February 18 – Japanese immigration to the U.S.A. is forbidden.

March[link]

• March 4 – The Collinwood School Fire, near Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., kills 174.
• March 9 – A team from Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition becomes the first to reach the crater of Mount Erebus in Antarctica.
• March 21 – French aviator Léon Delagrange pilots the first passenger flight with Henri Farman inside.^[1]
• March 27 – The first overseas Scout Troop is formed in Gibraltar.

April[link]

• April 20 – Sunshine train disaster: Two trains collide in Melbourne, Australia, killing 44 people and injuring more than 400.^[2]
• April 21 – Frederick Cook claims to have reached the North Pole on this date.
• April 27 – The 1908 Summer Olympics begin in London.

May[link]

• May 26 – At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil discovery in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

June[link]

Evidence of the Tunguska event (June 30). Photo taken 19 years later.

• June 30 – The Tunguska event, also known as the Russian explosion, occurs near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire.

July[link]

• July 3 – Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire: Major Ahmed Niyazi, with 200 followers (Ottoman troops and civilians), begins an open revolution by defecting from the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia, decamping into the hill country.
• July 6 – Robert Peary sets sail for the North Pole.
• July 11–July 12 – The steamship Amalthea, housing 80 British strikebreakers while in Malmö harbour, Sweden, is bombed by Anton Nilson; 1 is killed, 20 injured.
• July 23 – Young Turk Revolution: The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) issues a formal ultimatum to Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution of 1876, within the Ottoman Empire. It is restored the following day.
• July 24 – Dorando Pietri wins the Olympic marathon in London in one of the most dramatic arrivals of the Olympic history, only to be disqualified soon afterwards.

August[link]

• August 8 – Wilbur Wright flies in France for the first time demonstrating true controlled powered flight.
• August 17 – Emile Cohl makes the first fully animated film, Fantasmagorie.
• August 24 – After an intense power struggle, Sultan Abd al-Aziz IV of Morocco is deposed, and is succeeded by his brother Abd al-Hafiz.

September[link]

• September 17 – At Ft. Myer, Virginia, U.S.A. Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. The pilot, Orville Wright, is severely injured in the crash but recovers.
• September 27 – Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.

October[link]

• October 5 – Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire; Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar.
• October 6 – The Bosnian Crisis begins after the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.

November[link]

• November 6 – Western bandits Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are supposedly killed in Bolivia, after being surrounded by a large group of soldiers. There are many rumors to the contrary however, and their grave sites are unmarked.
• November 15 – King Leopold II of Belgium formally relinquishes his personal control of Congo (known as Congo Free State) over to Belgium (becoming Belgian Congo).

December[link]

• December 2 – Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at age 2.
• December 16 – Construction begins on the RMS Olympic at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast.
• December 28 – An earthquake and tsunami destroys Messina, Sicily and Calabria, killing over 70,000 people.

Date unknown[link]

• Due to the evidence collected by Roger Casement, Léopold II of Belgium is forced to make reforms in the Congo, his personal colony.
• Penny post established between the United Kingdom and United States.^[3]
• The Children's Encyclopedia is first published.
• Henri Matisse opens his own art academy in France.
• A 40,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton is found at Le Moustier in southwest France.

Births[link]

January–February[link]

• January 8 – William Hartnell, British actor (died 1975)
• January 9 – Simone de Beauvoir, French feminist writer (died 1986)
• January 12 – Jean Delannoy, French film director (died 2008)
• January 14 – Russ Columbo, Italian-American singer, bandleader, and composer (died 1934)
• January 15 – Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist (died 2003)
• January 22 – Lev Davidovich Landau, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1968)
• January 26
  • Stéphane Grappelli, French jazz violinist and composer (died 1997)
  • Rupprecht Geiger, German painter (died 2009)
• February 1 – George Pal, Hungarian-born animator (died 1980)
• February 6 – Michael Maltese, American screenwriter (died 1981)
• February 11 – Vivian Ernest Fuchs, English geologist and explorer (died 1999)
• February 12 – Jean Effel, French painter and journalist (died 1982)
• February 17 – Bo Yibo, Chinese politician (died 2007)
• February 22
  • John Mills, English actor (died 2005)
  • Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuelan president (died 1981)
• February 23 – William McMahon, Prime Minister of Australia (died 1988)
• February 26
  • Tex Avery, American cartoonist (died 1980)
  • Jean-Pierre Wimille, French race car driver (died 1949)
• February 29
  • Balthus, French painter (died 2001)
  • Dee Brown, American writer and historian (died 2002)

March–April[link]

• March 2 – Walter Bruch, German engineer (died 1990)
• March 5 – Rex Harrison, English actor (died 1990)
• March 7 – Anna Magnani, Italian actress (died 1973)
• March 14 – Ed Heinemann, American aircraft designer (d. 1991)
• March 17 – Brigitte Helm, German actress (died 1996)
• March 19 – George Rodger, British photojournalist (died 1995)
• March 20
  • Michael Redgrave, English actor (died 1985)
  • Frank Stanton, American businessman (died 2006)
• March 22 – Louis L'Amour, American author (died 1988)
• March 25
  • Helmut Käutner, German actor and director (died 1980)
  • David Lean, English film director (died 1991)
• March 29 – Arthur O'Connell, American actor (died 1981)
• April 1 – Abraham Maslow, American psychologist (died 1970)
• April 2 – Buddy Ebsen, American actor and dancer (died 2003)
• April 5
  • Bette Davis, American actress (died 1989)
  • Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (died 1989)
• April 7 – Percy Faith, Canadian-born composer, musician (died 1976)
• April 8 – Tito Guízar, Mexican singer and film actor (died 1999)
• April 20 – Lionel Hampton, African-American musician and bandleader (died 2002)
• April 24– Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor and medallic artist (died 1963)
• April 25 – Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (died 1965)
• April 28 – Oskar Schindler, Austro-Hungarian (Sudeten German) industrialist (died 1974)
• April 29 – Jack Williamson, American science fiction author (died 2006)
• April 30
  • Eve Arden, American actress (died 1990)
  • Bjarni Benediktsson, Icelandic prime minister (died 1970)

May–June[link]

• May 1 – Krystyna Skarbek, Polish-born heroine of World War II (died 1952)
• May 5 – Kurt Böhme, German bass (died 1989)
• May 7 – Max Grundig, German inventor and industrialist (died 1989)
• May 8 – Cristian Vasile, Romanian singer (died 1974)
• May 19 – Percy Williams, Canadian athlete (died 1982)
• May 20 – James Stewart, American actor (died 1997)
• May 23
  • Max Abramovitz, American architect (died 2004)
  • John Bardeen, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1991)
  • Hélène Boucher, French aviatrix (died 1934)
• May 25 – Theodore Roethke, American poet (died 1963)
• May 26 – Nguyen Ngoc Tho, First prime minister of South Vietnam
• May 28 – Ian Fleming, English writer (died 1964)
• May 30
  • Hannes Alfvén, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1995)
  • Mel Blanc, American voice actor (died 1989)
• May 31 – Don Ameche, American actor (died 1993)
• June 11 – Francisco Marto, Portuguese, beatified (died 1919)
• June 12 – Marina Semyonova, Russian ballerina (died 2010)
• June 21 – Yoon Bong-Gil, Korean resister against the Japanese occupation of Korea (died 1932)
• June 24
  • Alfons Rebane, Estonian military commander (died 1976)
  • Hugo Distler, German composer (died 1942)
• June 26 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile (died 1973)
• June 27 – Bill Kennedy, American actor (died 1997)
• June 29 – Leroy Anderson, American composer (died 1975)
• June 30 – Winston Graham, English writer (died 2003)

July–August[link]

• July 12 – Milton Berle, American comedian (died 2002)
• July 23 – Karl Swenson, American actor (died 1978)
• August 4 – Kurt Eichhorn, German conductor (died 1994)
• August 5 – Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia (died 1967)
• August 9 – A. I. Bezzerides, American screenwriter (died 2007)
• August 10 – Rica Erickson, Australian naturalist and botanical artist (died 2009)
• August 21
  • M. M. Kaye, British writer (died 2004)
  • Tom Tully, American actor (died 1982)
• August 22 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer (died 2004)
• August 27
  • Donald Bradman, Australian cricketer (died 2001)
  • Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States (died 1973)
• August 28 – Robert Merle, French writer (died 2004)
• August 30
  • Leonor Fini, Argentine artist (died 1996)
  • Fred MacMurray, American actor (died 1991)
• August 31 – William Saroyan, American writer (died 1981)

September–October[link]

• September 2 – Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, Russian astronomer/astrophysicist (died 1983)
• September 3 – Lev Semenovich Pontryagin, Russian mathematician (died 1988)
• September 4 – Richard Wright, African-American author (died 1960)
• September 6
  • Josué de Castro, Brazilian activist against hunger (died 1973)
  • Louis Essen, English physicist (died 1997)
• September 7 – Michael E. DeBakey, American surgeon and medical researcher (died 2008)
• September 10 – Raymond Scott, American composer, bandleader, electronic music pioneer (died 1994)
• September 13 – Mae Questel, American actress (died 1998)
• September 15 – Miško Kranjec, Slovenian writer (died 1983)
• September 18 – Viktor Hambardzumyan, Soviet Armenian scientist (died 1996)
• September 19 – Paul Bénichou, French intellectual (died 2001)
• September 21 – Charles Upham, New Zealand soldier (died 1994)
• September 25 – Eugen Suchoň, Slovak composer (died 1993)
• September 29 – Eddie Tolan, American athlete (died 1967)
• September 30 – David Oistrakh, Ukrainian-born violinist (died 1974)
• October 1 – Umar Dimayev, Chechen folk singer (died 1972)
• October 6 – Carole Lombard, American actress (died 1942)
• October 15 – John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian economist (died 2006)
• October 16 – Enver Hoxha, Albanian dictator (died 1985)
• October 17 – Kenji Miyamoto, Japanese politician (died 2007)
• October 19 – Geirr Tveitt, Norwegian composer (died 1981)
• October 21 – Jorge Oteiza, Spanish painter (died 2003)
• October 23
  • Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, Chechen historian (died 1997)
  • Ilya Frank, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1990)
• October 25
  • Tauno Palo, Finnish actor (died 1982)
  • Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer (died 2004)
• October 28 – Arturo Frondizi, President of Argentina (died 1995)

November–December[link]

• November 3 – Giovanni Leone, former Prime Minister of Italy (died 2001)
• November 4 – Józef Rotblat, Polish physicist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (died 2005)
• November 12 – Harry Blackmun, American judge (died 1999)
• November 16 – Sœur Emmanuelle, French nun (died 2008)
• November 18 – Imogene Coca, American actress (died 2001)
• November 20 – Alistair Cooke, English-born American journalist (died 2004)
• November 28 – Claude Lévi-Strauss, Belgian-born French anthropologist (died 2009)
• December 4 – Alfred Hershey, American bacteriologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1997)
• December 6 – Pierre Graber, Swiss Federal Councilor (died 2003)
• December 10 – Olivier Messiaen, French composer (died 1992)
• December 11
  • Elliott Carter, American composer
  • Manoel de Oliveira, Portuguese film director
  • Alfred Proksch, Austrian Olympic athlete (died 2011)
• December 17 – Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1980)
• December 22
  • Kočo Racin, Macedonian poet and revolutionary (died 1943)
  • Giovanni Luigi Bonelli, Italian comic book author and writer (died 2001)
• December 31 – Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Nazi-hunter (died 2005)

Date unknown[link]

• Aden Abdullah Osman Daar, Somali politician (died 2007)

Deaths[link]

January–June[link]

• January 9 – Wilhelm Busch, German painter and poet (born 1832)
• January 17 – Ferdinand IV, Grand Duke of Tuscany (born 1835)
• January 25 – Ouida, English writer (born 1839)
• February 1
  • King Carlos I of Portugal (born 1863)
  • Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal (born 1887)
• April 22 – Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1836)
• April 26 – Karl Möbius, German ecologist (born 1825)
• May 24 – Old Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (born 1821)
• May 26 – Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam (born 1835)
• June 2 – Redvers Buller, British general and Victoria Cross recipient (b. 1839)
• June 14 – Frederick Stanley, Governor-General of Canada and founder of the Stanley Cup (born 1841)
• June 21 – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (born 1844)
• June 24 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (born 1837)

July–December[link]

• July 3 – Joel Chandler Harris, American author (Br'er Rabbit) (b. 1848)
• July 5 – Jonas Lie, Norwegian author (b. 1833)
• July 6 – Felipe Calderón y Roca, Filipino politician (b. 1868)
• July 20 – Demetrius Vikelas, Greek International Olympic Committee president (b. 1835)
• July 22 – William Randal Cremer, English politician and pacifist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1828)
• August 4 – Radoje Domanović, Serbian writer (b. 1873)
• August 25 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
• August 26 – Tony Pastor, American theater impressario (b. 1837)
• September 17 – Thomas Selfridge, United States Army officer and first person killed in an airplane crash (b. 1882)
• September 20 – Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist and composer (b. 1844)
• September 29 – Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian author (b. 1839)
• November 3 – Harro Magnussen, German sculptor (b. 1861)
• November 4
  • Richard Gerstl, Austrian artist (b. 1883)
  • Tomás Estrada Palma, first President of Cuba (b. 1832)
• November 7 – Butch Cassidy, American outlaw (b. 1866)
• November 14 – The Guangxu Emperor of China (b. 1871)
• November 15 – Empress Dowager Cixi, ruler of China (b. 1835)
• November 17 – Lydia Thompson, English dancer and actress (b. 1838)
• November 22 – Claude-Paul Taffanel French flautist and composer (b. 1844)
• December 13 – Augustus Le Plongeon, American archaeologist (b. 1825)

Date unknown[link]

• Qasim Amin, Egyptian writer (b. 1863)

Nobel Prizes[link]

• Physics – Gabriel Lippmann
• Chemistry – Ernest Rutherford
• Medicine – Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, Paul Ehrlich
• Literature – Rudolf Christoph Eucken
• Peace – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer

References[link]

Alexander Borodin
Aleksandr Borodin
Born	12 November 1833 Saint Petersburg
Died	27 February 1887 (age 53) Saint Petersburg
Nationality	Russian
Fields	Composer and chemist
Doctoral advisor	Nikolay Zinin

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin^[1] (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887)^[2] was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five (or "The Mighty Handful"), who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music.^[3][4][5] He is best known for his symphonies, his two string quartets, and his opera Prince Igor. Music from Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet.

Life and profession[link]

Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a Georgian noble, Luka Gedevanishvili (Georgian: ლუკა სიმონის ძე გედევანიშვილი) and a 24-year-old Russian woman, Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonova (Евдокия Константиновна Антонова). The nobleman had him registered as the son of one of his serfs, Porfiry Borodin.^[6] As a boy he received a good education, including piano lessons.^[7] He entered the Medico–Surgical Academy in 1850, which was later home to Ivan Pavlov, and pursued a career in chemistry. On graduation he spent a year as surgeon in a military hospital, followed by three years of advanced scientific study in western Europe.

In 1862 Borodin became a professor of chemistry at the Academy of Medicine, and eventually was able to establish medical courses for women (1872). He spent the remainder of his life lecturing and overseeing the education of others.

He began taking lessons in composition from Mily Balakirev in 1862. He married Ekaterina Protopopova, a pianist, in 1863.^[8] Music remained a secondary vocation for Borodin outside of his main career as a chemist and physician. He suffered poor health, having overcome cholera and several minor heart attacks. He died suddenly during a ball at the Academy, and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in Saint Petersburg.

Career as a chemist[link]

In his profession Borodin gained great respect, being particularly noted for his work on aldehydes.^[9] Between 1859 and 1862 Borodin held a postdoctorate in Heidelberg. He worked in the laboratory of Emil Erlenmeyer working on benzene derivatives. He also spent time in Pisa, working on organic halogens. One experiment published in 1862 described the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride.^[10] A related reaction known to the West as the Hunsdiecker reaction published in 1939 by the Hunsdieckers was promoted by the Soviet Union as the Borodin reaction. In 1862 he returned to the Medico–Surgical Academy, where he worked on self-condensation of small aldehydes. He published papers in 1864 and 1869, and in this field he found himself competing with August Kekulé.

Borodin is co-credited with the discovery of the Aldol reaction, with Charles-Adolphe Wurtz. In 1872 he announced to the Russian Chemical Society the discovery of a new by-product in aldehyde reactions with alcohol-like properties, and he noted similarities with compounds already discussed in publications by Wurtz from the same year.

He published his last full article in 1875 on reactions of amides and his last publication concerned a method for the identification of urea in animal urine.

His son-in-law and successor was fellow chemist A. P. Dianin.

Musical avocation[link]

Opera and orchestral works[link]

Borodin met Mily Balakirev in 1862. While under Balakirev's tutelage in composition he began his Symphony No. 1 in E flat major; it was first performed in 1869, with Balakirev conducting. In that same year Borodin started on his Symphony No. 2 in B minor, which was not particularly successful at its premiere in 1877 under Eduard Nápravník, but with some minor re-orchestration received a successful performance in 1879 by the Free Music School under Rimsky-Korsakov's direction. In 1880 he composed the popular symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia. Two years later he began composing a third symphony, but left it unfinished at his death; two movements of it were later completed and orchestrated by Glazunov.

In 1868 Borodin became distracted from initial work on the second symphony by preoccupation with the opera Prince Igor, which is seen by some to be his most significant work and one of the most important historical Russian operas. It contains the Polovtsian Dances, often performed as a stand-alone concert work forming what is probably Borodin's best known composition. Borodin left the opera (and a few other works) incomplete at his death. Prince Igor was completed posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. It is set in the 12th century, when the barbarous Polovtsians invaded southern Russia. The story tells of the capture of Prince Igor and son Vladimir of Russia by Polovtsian leader Khan Konchak, who entertains his prisoners lavishly and calls on his slaves to perform the famous Polovtsian dances, which provide a thrilling climax to the second act.

Chamber music[link]

No other member of the Balakirev circle identified himself so openly with absolute music as did Borodin in his two string quartets. Himself a cellist, he was an enthusiastic chamber music player, an interest that deepened during his chemical studies in Heidelberg between 1859 and 1861. This early period yielded, among other chamber works, a string sextet and a piano quintet. In thematic structure and instrumental texture he based his pieces on those of Felix Mendelssohn.^[11]

In 1875 Borodin started his First String Quartet, much to the displeasure of Mussorgsky and Vladimir Stasov. That Borodin did so in the company of The Five, who were hostile to chamber music, speaks to his independence. From the First Quartet on, he displayed mastery in the form. His Second Quartet, in which his strong lyricism is represented in the popular "Nocturne", followed in 1881. The First Quartet is richer in changes of mood. The Second Quartet has a more uniform atmosphere and expression.^[11]

Musical legacy[link]

The bust of Borodin at his tomb in Tikhvin Cemetery. (The visible musical notation on the tile monument in the background shows themes from (1) "Gliding Dance of the Maidens" from Polovtsian Dances; (2) "Song of the Dark Forest"; and (3) the "Scherzo" theme from Symphony No. 3.)

Borodin's fame outside the Russian Empire was made possible during his lifetime by Franz Liszt, who arranged a performance of the Symphony No. 1 in Germany in 1880, and by the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau in Belgium and France. His music is noted for its strong lyricism and rich harmonies. Along with some influences from Western composers, as a member of The Five his music exudes also an undeniably Russian flavor. His passionate music and unusual harmonies proved to have a lasting influence on the younger French composers Debussy and Ravel (in homage, the latter composed in 1913 a piano piece entitled "À la manière de Borodine").

The evocative characteristics of Borodin's music made possible the adaptation of his compositions in the 1953 musical Kismet, by Robert Wright and George Forrest, perhaps most notably in the song, "Stranger in Paradise". In 1954, Borodin was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for this show.

Borodin's music is full of romantic charm and enticing melody, and much of it also rings with the pageantry and landscape of old Russia; of onion-domed churches, richly decorated icons, and the vastness of the land. (Betty Fry)

Subsequent references[link]

• The Borodin Quartet was named in his honour.
• The chemist Alexander Shulgin uses the name "Alexander Borodin" as a fictional persona in the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL.
• In his book Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974) Charles Bukowski wrote a poem about the life of Borodin entitled "the life of borodin".

References[link]

External links[link]

• Free scores by Alexander Borodin in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Famous "In the Steppes of Central Asia", Alexander Borodin in Film "Moscow clad in snow", 00:07:22, 1908 on YouTube
• List of compositions (German)
• Free scores by Borodin at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Alexander Borodin in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Borodin's tomb

Further reading[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alexander Borodin

• Maes, Francis, tr. Pomerans, Arnold J. and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
• George Sarton (1939). "Borodin (1833–87)". Osiris 7: 224–260. DOI:10.1086/368505. JSTOR 301543. 
• A. J. B. Hutchings (1936). "A Study of Borodin: I. The Man". The Musical Times 77 (1124): 881–883. DOI:10.2307/920565. JSTOR 920565. 
• George B. Kauffman, Kathryn Bumpass (1988). "An Apparent Conflict between Art and Science: The Case of Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin (1833–1887)". Leonardo 21 (4): 429–436. DOI:10.2307/1578707. JSTOR 1578707. 
• J. Podlech (2010). ""Try and Fall Sick …"—The Composer, Chemist, and Surgeon Aleksandr Borodin". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 49 (37): 6490–95. DOI:10.1002/anie.201002023. PMID 20715236. 

Raul Solnado

Raul Solnado, GCIH (19 October 1929, Lisbon - 8 August 2009) was a popular Portuguese actor and comedian. He was born in Lisbon's Madragoa neighborhood, and first appeared on stage there. In his long career, he developed many comic pieces that have become classics.

His humour was, at the time (especially considering Portugal was still under the dictatorial Salazar regime), both unexpected and fresh. It included a lot of nonsense, and stories making fun of daily life.

He often played an ingenuous poor man, whose life was neither good or bad. He portrayed characters with conviction and humor. His best material included pieces written by him, such as "Ida ao médico" ("At the doctor"), and others based on Spanish comedian Miguel Gila’s material: (“A guerra de 1908” / “The war of 1908” and “História da minha vida” / “The story of my life”).

Example[link]

As a first-time patient in hospital, addressing to a nurse (from “At the doctor”):

“...all I want you to do for me is get me a nice private room.” Well, there she went on her way to speak to the owner of the hospital, and they were terribly nice. They got me a huge private room, lots of space, very nice...and just to keep me company, they put eighty-five other patients in the room!

Solnado hosted Portugal's first talk show, in 1969, alongside Carlos Cruz and Fialho Gouveia. The show, called Zip Zip is still considered a landmark in the history of Portuguese television.

He died in 8 August 2009 of heart disease.

External links[link]

• Raul Solnado at the Internet Movie Database

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This Portuguese television-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e