Source: Good News Network
150 years ago today, Scott Joplin, the African-American composer and pianist dubbed the “King of Ragtime,” was born in Texarkana, Arkansas. One of his first and most popular pieces, “Maple Leaf Rag”, became ragtime’s first influential hit, and is still instantly recognized today. Before he died at age 48, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, a ragtime ballet, and two operas (one of which, Treemonisha, was finally produced in full, to wide acclaim, in 1972).
His music was repopularized in the Oscar-winning film The Sting that featured several of Joplin’s compositions, most notably “The Entertainer” — HEAR that song below. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize. (1868)
MORE Good News on this Date:
- British naturalist Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” explaining his theory of evolution (1859)
- Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered an extraordinary skeleton, nicknamed “Lucy,” in Ethiopia’s Awash Valley–the 40% complete female Australopithecus afarensis that provided a huge treasure of scientific evidence (1974)
- The United States and Soviet Union agreed…
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