Death of Heinrich Schütz in Dresden, Germany. One of the most talented early German composers, Schütz was given the position of court composer in Dresden. Works by Schütz include Dafne, Musikalische Exequien, and Kleine geistliche Konzerte.
November 6, 1771
Lithograph of Senefelder, from Specimens of Polyautography
Birth of Alois Senefelder in Prague, then Imperial city (Reichsstadt) of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Senefelder studied at the University of Ingolstadt and aspired to be an actor and writer. The death of his father in 1791 forced him to leave his studies to support his mother and eight siblings, and he became an actor and wrote a successful play Connoisseur of Girls. In attempting to do some other things to supplement his lack of income from his chosen career, he quite accidentally invented lithography.
Problems with the printing of his play Mathilde von Altenstein caused him to fall into debt, and unable to afford to publish a new play he had written, Senefelder experimented with a novel etching technique using a greasy, acid resistant ink as a resist on a smooth fine-grained stone of Solnhofen limestone. He then discovered that this could be extended to allow printing from the flat surface of the stone alone, the first planographic process in printing. Ultimately he earned a nice living from it but never did fulfill his original dreams.
November 6, 1931
Birth of Mike Nichols (Michael Peschkowsky) in Berlin, Germany. Peschkowsky was only 7 when his family immigrated to the United States. He studied at the University of Chicago and then formed a performing group, “Second City”. There he began his work with Elaine May. On Broadway he performed in Barefoot in the Park, and The Odd Couple. He directed the films, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Catch-22, Silkwood, and Postcards from the Edge.
November 6, 1945
The War Crimes Trials start in Nürnberg.
November 6, 1978
Franz Josef Strauß becomes the Ministerpräsident (governor) of Bavaria.
