Nick Drake (1948–1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician, best known for his sombre guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years. Drake released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. None of his first three albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. Drake suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. On completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. He died from an overdose of amitriptyline in 1974 (grave pictured). Drake was credited as an influence by numerous artists during the 1980s, including The Dream Academy, who in 1985 reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to him. By the early 1990s, Drake represented a certain type of "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous 30 years. (more...)
1884 – Welsh physician William Price was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; he was acquitted in the subsequent trial, which led to the legalisation of cremation in the United Kingdom.
A photo of an original page from Leonardo da Vinci's journal, showing the world-renowned drawing known as the Vitruvian Man, created around the year 1492. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. Leonardo based his drawing on some hints at correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry in Book III of the treatise De architectura by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, thus its name. The accompanying notes are written in mirror writing and describe the drawing as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described by Vitruvius.
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