gwmain December 24: On this date last year, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, who earned Academy Award nominations for his scores to “Far From the Madding Crowd” (1967), “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971), and “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974), died.
December 23: George Catlin, friend, painter and chronicler of the American Indian, died on this date in 1872.
December 22: On this date in 1937, the Lincoln Tunnel, engineered by Ole Singstad, opened for traffic.
December 21: On this date in 1961, notorious mobster Joey Gallo was sentenced to 7 to 14 years in prison; he was murdered during his birthday party at Umberto’s Restaurant in Little Italy in 1972.
December 20: Frederick Bourne was born on this date in 1851; he would become president of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and a very wealthy man.
December 19: On this date in 1912, William Van Schaick, captain of the steamship General Slocum, which caught fire in the East River, resulting in the death of 1,200 people, many of whom are interred at Green-Wood, was granted a presidential pardon after serving 3 years at Sing Sing prison.
December 18: Gabriel Harrison, “the father of drama in Brooklyn,” who also had a career as a daguerrian photographer, and is described on his gravestone as “ARTIST, AUTHOR, ACTOR,” died on this date in 1902.
December 17: “Civic Virtue,” a sculpture by Frederick MacMonnies dating from 1920, was installed at Green-Wood a year ago today.
December 16: On this date in 1859, John E. Cook, a captain in John Brown’s army, was executed by hanging for taking part in the attack on the Harpers Ferry Arsenal.
December 15: On this date in 1900, Oswald Ottendorfer, editor and publisher of the German-language Staats-Zeitung newspaper, and funder of what is now the Ottendorfer Branck of NYPL on 2nd Avenue, died.