By Lucy Santiago
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Barbara Joan “Barbra” Streisand (/ˈstraɪsænd/ STRY-sand; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, songwriter, film and television producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment and is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).
Streisand’s career began in the early 1960s when she started performing in nightclubs and Broadway theaters. Following guest appearances on various television shows, she signed to Columbia Records—insisting that she retain full artistic control and accepting lower pay in exchange, an arrangement that continued throughout her career—and released her debut, The Barbra Streisand Album (1963), which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Throughout her recording career, Streisand has topped the US Billboard 200 chart with 11 albums—a record for a woman until 2023—including People (1964), The Way We Were (1974), Guilty (1980), and The Broadway Album (1985). She also achieved five number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100—”The Way We Were“, “Evergreen“, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers“, “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)“, and “Woman in Love“.
Following her established recording success in the 1960s, Streisand ventured into film by the end of that decade. She starred in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl (1968), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Additional fame followed with films, including the extravagant musical Hello, Dolly! (1969), the screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? (1972), and the romantic drama The Way We Were (1973). Streisand won a second Academy Award for writing the love theme from A Star Is Born (1976), the first woman to be honored as a composer. With the release of Yentl (1983), Streisand became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical. Streisand also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, becoming the first (and for 37 years, the only) woman to win that award. Streisand later produced and directed The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).
With sales exceeding 150 million records worldwide, Streisand is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the second-highest certified female artist in the United States, with 68.5 million certified album units. Billboard ranked Streisand as the greatest solo artist on the Billboard 200 chart and the top Adult Contemporary female artist of all time. Her accolades include two Academy Awards; 10 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award; five Emmy Awards; four Peabody Awards; the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award and nine Golden Globes.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Founder of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Born in Grafton, Massachusetts, nine years before the start of the American Revolution, Thomas was brought up on a farm in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He was fascinated by science and at age 16 read Ferguson’s Astronomy, which he came across in his father’s library. He later wrote that “it was from the pleasing study of this work I first imbibed the idea of calculating an almanack.” With this dream in mind, he became a bookseller, taught school, built a store and bindery near the family farm, and studied astronomy in his spare time. In early 1792, he went to Boston to study mathematics under the tutelage of another almanac maker, Osgood Carlton, and that fall delivered the copy for the first edition of what he called The Farmer’s Almanac to printers Joseph Belknap and Thomas Hall. With its format and contents established, it was ready for the longest publishing tenure in American history. Although Thomas died more than 150 years ago and 12 Almanac editors have followed him, no other name but his has ever appeared on the cover of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Read more about the life and times of Robert B. Thomas.
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Robert B. Thomas (founder of The Old Farmer’s Almanac) –
- Robert Penn Warren (poet) –
- Shirley MacLaine (actress) –
- Jill Ireland (actress) –
- Barbra Streisand (singer & actress) –
- Kelly Clarkson (singer) –
Died
- Reverend Eleazar Wheelock (founded Dartmouth College) –
- Lucy Maud Montgomery (author) –
- Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (became the first person to die during a space mission) –
- Bud Abbott (comedian & actor) –
- Estée Lauder (started a kitchen business blending face creams and built it into a multimillion-dollar international cosmetics empire) –
- Elizabeth Post (etiquette expert) –
Events
- La Marseillaise composed–
- U. S. Library of Congress established–
- The soda fountain was patented–
- Joshua Slocum left Boston on his 37-foot sloop named Spray. He arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, on June 27, 1898, becoming the first sailor to have circumnavigated the globe alone–
- Spain declared war on the United States (Spanish-American War)–
- British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II–
- Hubble space telescope launched–
- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger inaugurated as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He took the name Pope Benedict XVI–
Weather
- A local windstorm blew down commercial buildings and damaged ships in Galveston, Texas–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
