It is another one of those days. There is no one I care all that much about today. So forgive me if this is short and uninspired.

On this day in 1804, the great physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber was born. Working with Gauss, he invented the first electromagnetic telegraph. He was something of a protege of Gauss and the two of them did a lot of work together. Weber continued to work on electromagnetism this whole career and the unit for magnetic flux is named after him.

The great actor F. Murray Abraham is 74 today. I’ve seen him in a lot of good films, but what I most care about is Amadeus, which is one of my favorites. He’s a good example of the fact that there are a lot of really good actors who never get the kind of roles where they can really show their stuff. Well, he got one of the greatest roles ever written. It’s clear that he understands that. And he nailed it. So did everyone in the film, but he had The Role:

Other birthdays: exactly the kind of composer who makes me say I don’t like Romantic period music, Ferdinand Hiller (1811); botanical artist Marianne North (1830); Russian landscape painter Konstantin Yuon (1875); Batman creator Bob Kane (1915); Rolling Stone Bill Wyman (77); and Marxist economist Stephen Resnick (1938).

The day, however, belongs to the great playwright Moss Hart who was born on this day in 1904. He is best known for a series of comedies that he wrote with George S. Kaufman. The most notable of which is the great, The Man Who Came to Dinner. He later moved to Hollywood where he became a successful screenwriter writing diverse films such as Gentleman’s Agreement and Hans Christian Andersen.

Happy birthday Moss Hart!