Q.

If you like opera – or, you know, watch cartoons, TV shows, or movies – you’ve likely heard arias from the Italian composer Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

You might have heard Kiri Te Kanawa singing ‘O mio babbino caro’ – from Puccini’s ‘Gianni Schicchi’ – in  ‘A Room with a View’ (1985).

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Or perhaps you remember the drama of Bruce Sledge singing ‘Nessun Dorma’ – from Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ – in ‘The Sum of All Fears’ (2002).  There will be violence…

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When he wasn’t composing some of the world’s most beloved arias, what did Puccini do for fun?

You wouldn’t find Giacomo carving soap or knitting doilies. When he wasn’t embroiled in tempestuous love affairs, this Tuscan-born composer was all about speed: fast bikes, fast cars, fast boats. The more speeding tickets, the better. None shall sleep, particularly if Puccini is behind the wheel.

How have other historical figures whiled away the hours?

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Famous Figures + Their Hobbies
• Winston Churchill – painting
• Marie Curie – bicycling
• Emily Dickinson – baking
• Thomas Edison – watching silent movies
• Albert Einstein – the violin, sailing. 😮 Pity Albert’s family. This Nobel Prize-winning genius couldn’t swim, refused to wear a life jacket, and often ran aground when he got lost in his thoughts 😮
• Duke Ellington – painting
• Sigmund Freud – hiking, mushroom-picking
• Thomas Jefferson – a polyhobbyist who liked playing chess, the violin, archeology
• Steve Jobs – the guitar
• Stanley Kubrick – collecting stationery + brown ink
• Felix Mendelssohn – drawing, painting, learning new languages
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – card tricks, bowling, billiards

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• Vladimir Nabakov – a lepidopterist who collected moths and butterflies
• Napoleon – playing chess
• Nostradamus – making jams and jellies
• Georgia O’Keefe – camping
• Prince – table tennis
• Teddy Roosevelt – boxing, judo
• Frank Sinatra – model trains, painting
• Jimmy Stewart – aviation
• J.R.R. Tolkein – glossopoeia, that is inventing new languages
• Mark Twain – patenting inventions. Check out his  ‘Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments’

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• Edith Wharton – interior decoration
• The Wright Brothers – cycling

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www.justcurious.ca

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Painting Insert: Sofonisba Anguissola. Portrait of the Artist’s Sisters Playing Chess. 1555