February 13, 2012

2012Daniel C. Gerould, American playwright and academic (born 1928)^[†]

Daniel Charles Gerould was the Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center and Director of Publications of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. A scholar, teacher, translator, editor, and playwright, Gerould was a specialist in US melodrama, Central and Eastern European theatre of the twentieth century, and fin-de-siècle European avant-garde performance. Gerould was one of the world’s most recognized “Witkacologists,” a leading scholar and translator of the work of Polish playwright, novelist, painter, and philosopher Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz ("Witkacy"). Gerould was best known for introducing English-language audiences to the writings of Witkiewicz through such work as Stanisław I. Witkiewicz, The Beelzebub Sonata: Plays, Essays, Documents, Witkacy: Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz as an Imaginative Writer, The Witkiewicz Reader, and his original translations of most of Witkiewicz’s plays.

2012The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.^[†]

The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 in the context of European integration. Its 2025 annual budget was €7.7 billion.