Panamanian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor

Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna, known professionally as Rubén Blades, is a Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Son Cubano salsa to his music, creating "thinking persons' (salsa) dance music". Blades has written dozens of hit songs, including "Pedro Navaja" and "El Cantante". He has received 21 Grammy Award nominations, winning twelve of them, along with twelve Latin Grammy Awards.

Born

1948

July 16

Died

Living

Era

1940s

Country

—

About

Rubén, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1948 Born

Also on July 16

What else happened on this day, through history

622 The Hijrah of Muhammad begins, marking the beginning of the Islamic calendar.
997 Battle of Spercheios: Bulgarian forces of Tsar Samuel are defeated by a Byzantine army under general Nikephoros Ouranos at the Spercheios River in Greece.
1054 Three Roman legates break relations between Western and Eastern Christian churches through the act of placing a papal bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia during Saturday afternoon divine liturgy. Historians frequently describe the event as the formal start of the East–West Schism.
1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: After Pope Innocent III calls European knights to a crusade, the forces of kings Alfonso VIII of Castile, Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II of Aragon and Afonso II of Portugal defeat those of the Berber Muslim leader Almohad, thus marking a significant turning point in the Reconquista and in the medieval history of Spain.

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The world in 1948

When Rubén arrived

april 1 Cold War: Communist forces respond to the introduction of the Deutsche Mark by attempting to force the western powers to withdraw from Berlin.
april 1 Faroe Islands gain autonomy from Denmark.
april 13 In an ambush, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital, and a British soldier, are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah. This event came to be known as the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.
april 16 The Organization of European Economic Co-operation is formed.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on July 16

Alexander Luria 1902– Russian psychologist and physician (died 1977) Assata Shakur 1947– American-Cuban criminal and activist (died 2025) Claude Lemieux 1965– Canadian ice hockey player Gordon Prange 1910–1980 American historian, author, and academic (died 1980) Hermine Braunsteiner 1919–1999 Austrian-German SS officer (born 1919) Larry Sanger 1968– American philosopher and businessman, co-founded Wikipedia and Citizendium Michael Flatley 1958– American-Irish dancer and choreographer Samuel Huntington 1731–1796 American jurist and politician, 18th Governor of Connecticut (born 1731) Sheri S. Tepper 1929–2016 American author and poet (died 2016)

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Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1948

Art Spiegelman 1948– Swedish-American cartoonist and critic Buck Martinez 1948– American baseball player and manager Carl Weathers 1948–2024 American football player and actor (born 1948) Carlos Salinas de Gortari 1948– Mexican economist and politician, 53rd President of Mexico Christopher Guest 1948– British-American actor and director Claude Jade 1948–2006 French actress (born 1948) Cliff Thorburn 1948– Canadian snooker player Davíð Oddsson 1948– Icelandic politician, 21st Prime Minister of Iceland (died 2026) Dayle Haddon 1948– Canadian model and actress (died 2024)

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Keep going

More to explore

Rubén's birthday July 16 Rubén's zodiac Cancer When Rubén arrived 1948