Duke Ellington

1899 – 1974

Music

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Ralph J. Gleason called him "America's most important composer."

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Contemporaries

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Georgia O'Keeffe

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Werner Heisenberg

Werner Heisenberg

Their World

Global Events

1903 Wright brothers achieve powered flight

1905 Einstein publishes theory of special relativity

1912 Sinking of the Titanic

1914 World War I begins

1917 Russian Revolution

1918 World War I ends; Spanish flu pandemic begins

1919 Treaty of Versailles signed

1920 League of Nations established

1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1929 Wall Street Crash; Great Depression begins

1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

1936 Spanish Civil War begins

1939 World War II begins

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor; US enters WWII

1944 D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; WWII ends

1945 United Nations founded

1947 India and Pakistan gain independence

1948 State of Israel established

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted

1949 People's Republic of China proclaimed

1950 Korean War begins

1953 Watson and Crick discover DNA structure

1955 Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1957 Sputnik launched; Space Age begins

1959 Cuban Revolution; Castro takes power

1961 Berlin Wall constructed

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

1964 Civil Rights Act signed in the United States

1969 Apollo 11: first humans walk on the Moon

1971 Bangladesh Liberation War and independence

1973 1973 oil crisis

In Their Field

1913 Stravinsky's Rite of Spring premieres, causes riot

1926 First commercial recordings of Delta blues

1935 Gershwin premieres Porgy and Bess

1948 Columbia Records introduces the LP record

1954 Elvis Presley records first single at Sun Studio

1959 Miles Davis releases Kind of Blue

1964 The Beatles arrive in America; British Invasion begins

1967 The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

1969 Woodstock music festival