FERRUCCIO BUSONI, Italian pianist and composer was born on this date (d. 1924); an Italian composer, pianist, teacher of piano and composition, writer on musical questions, and conductor. This important musician was torn by several major conflicts. Like Rachmaninoff, he was one of the great pianists of his day, yet yearned for more time for composing, his first love.

He was an Italian who wanted to contribute to the musical life of his own country, and yet was far more attracted to the musical heritage of Germany, where he settled and spent most of his life. He was married, but apparently liked the fellas, too. At least that’s what pianist Egon Petri (1881-1962) claimed – and he was in a position to know. He once walked in on his famous teacher and discovered him in bed with Italian Futurist painter, Umberto Boccioni.

ALBERTA HUNTER, American singer, born (d. 1984); an American blues singer, songwriter and nurse. Her career had started back in the early 1920s, and from there on, she became a successful jazz and blues recording artist, being critically acclaimed to the ranks of Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith.

In the 1950s, she retired from performing and entered the medical field, only to successfully resume her singing career in her eighties. Though married, Hunter was a Lesbian who had relationships with Lottie Tyler (Bert Williams' niece) and kept company with well known bisexuals in the Harlem community, including Ethel Waters and her lover of many years, Ethel Williams. Alberta Hunter's life is documented in Alberta Hunter: My Castle's Rockin' (1998), a documentary by Stuart Goldman Productions, and in Cookin' at the Cookery, a biographical musical by Marion J. Caffey that has toured the United States in recent years.

SAMUEL DELANY, African American, writer and academic, award winning science-fiction author. Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born in New York City. Delany is an award-winning American science fiction author and has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels The Einstein Intersection, Nova, Hogg, Dhalgren, and the Return to Nevèrÿon series. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is widely respected in the academic world as a literary critic.

Staff Sergeant ERIC ALVA, born today, was the first U.S. military service member injured in the Iraq Occupation. He was in charge of eleven Marines in a supply unit when, on March 21, 2003, he stepped on a land mine, losing his right leg. He joined the United States Marine Corps in 1990 at the age of nineteen. He is a native of San Antonio, Texas.

He works with Democratic representative Martin Meehan of Massachusetts and, with a bipartisan group of representatives to Capitol Hill, reintroduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, legislation that would repeal the Pentagon's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding homosexual conduct. Alva also served as the Grand Marshall of the 2008 Chicago Gay and Lesbian Pride parade held in June 2008.

Today is the birthday of American television anchor and political commentator RACHEL MADDOW. Her syndicated talk radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, aired on Air America Radio. She was also a guest host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Race for the White House.

Maddow now hosts a preemient nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC and she was the first out Gay anchor to be hired to host a prime-time news program in the United States.  Rachel (don't you feel like you can call her by her first name even if you haven't actually ever been introduced?) earned a degree in public policy from Stanford University in 1994. At graduation she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship.

She was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University. Her doctoral thesis is titled HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons. She was the first openly Gay American to win a Rhodes scholarship.

Maddow wrote Drift, which examines attitudes toward and policies about war. It was hailed by every critic as a concise and well thought out treatise of the subject. Her analysis is on point at every turn. 

In these troubled days she is must-watch television (even if she is annoyingly repetitive and pedantic from time to time…Rachel…hire a good editor!...we love you!)

This is the birthday of the two-time gold-medal winning speed skater IREEN WUST. Born in Goirle, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands, the long track all round speed skater won the gold medal in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games 3000-meter event becoming the youngest Dutch Olympic champion in Winter Games history. She won gold again in the 1500 m. race at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, the competition she won a bronze medal in Turin.