Today's the Day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - apologies; the Thread title should now perhaps be more accurately called "Tomorrow's the Day". When I started, I wrote last thing at night so that it would appear at the very beginning of the relevant day, but, as I found more interesting facts from various websites, and double-checked the accuracy, it got later and later into my sleeping time, so I now write in the early afternoons (garden allowing).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

August 4th

The Feast Day of Mo Lua, the 6th Century Irish Priest, an amiable soul who believed that in offering strangers food and shelter, he was entertainin g Christ. Aspects of his hospitality gave rise to a certain reputation during his younger days - that he had fathered several children with the daughter of a local clan chief (he himself was similarly the son of a different clan chieftan) - all of whom were called locally "Ó Maoldomhnaigh", later anglicised into the surname "Maloney". He founded the village of Killaloe in County Clare, and was famed for his kindness to animals - so much so that, on his death, they all bewailed his loss. My kind of Saint.

And of Saint Sithney, the Patron Saint of Mad Dogs - the legend being that God asked him if he would be the Patron of Women seeking husbands, and he replied that he'd prefer to be the Patron of Mad Dogs, otherwise he'd never get any peace. Invoked against rabies, he is also the Patron of the village in Cornwall that bears his name, and in whose parish church he is believed to be buried. (No records of any cases of Rabies reported in Sithney - think on!)

Also on This Date: Chinese and Japanese astronomers record observations of a supernova in the constellation of Cassiopeia (1181); the Battle of Evesham, in which the forces of Henry III, led by his son Edward, defeat those of Simon de Montford (1265 - de Montford and his eldest son are both killed); a combined force Anglo-Dutch fleet capture Gibraltar from Spanish rule on behalf of Charles VI of Austria (1704); George Washington is raised to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason [3rd degree] in the Freemasons' Lodge, Fredericksburg, Virginia (1753); the first encounter between US 7th Army under General Custer and Sioux fighters at the Tongue River in Montana results in one death on each side (1873); Lizzie Borden's parents are murdered in brutal axe attacks (1892); the Greenwich Foot Tunnel opens under the Thames (1902); German troops invade Belgium as part of the von Schlieffen plan to invade France: Britain and Belgium declare War on Germany (1914); on the reccomendation of Jewish Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, an Iron Cross is awarded to Corporal Adolf Hitler (1918 - so high an award is rare for anyone with so low a rank as corporal - Hitler wears the medal throughout his twelve years in power. Gutmann's history saves him from persecution by the Gestapo in later years, and he emigrates to the United States in 1940); General Ionnis Metaxis suspends the Greek parliament to prevent a Liberal-Marxist Coalition, and imposes an authoritarian dictatorship (1936); the Gestapo discover and arrest the family of Anne Frank in Amsterdam (1944); the bodies of three Civil Rights workers, murdered 6 weeks earlier in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan, are discovered (1964); Idi Amin announces that Britain will have to "take responsibility" for British subjects of Asian origin living in Uganda, and gives the 80,000 Ugandan Asians 3 months to leave the country (1972); neo-Fascist group Ordine Nero detonates a bomb on a train in Bologna, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others (1974); President Carter forms the US Department of Energy (1977); a military coup brings Captain Thomas Sankara to power in the Republic of Upper Volta (1983 - exactly a year to the day later, he renames the country Burkina Faso ["the land of upright men"]); 2 LAPD officers are sentenced to 30 months in prison for violating Rodney King's Civil Liberties (1993 - they had been filmed 2 years previously brutally assaulting him after handcuffing him); Operation Storm, the final battle in the Croatian War of Independence begins (1995); 17 officials of humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger, are shot dead by members of the Sri Lankan Army and Police force in the North-Eastern Sri Lankan town of Muttur (2006);NASA launches the Phoenix robotic spacecraft on a mission to research any history of water on Mars (2008); six weeks into their sentence, Korean American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are released from their 12-year Hard Labour prison sentence in North Korea after ex-President Bill Clinton meets with North Korean officials (2009); Ms Piggy announces on Twitter the end of her relationship with Kermit the Frog (2015 - "This is our only comment on this private matter ... unless we get the right offer"); ... and this time last year, two drones detonate explosives close to beleaguered Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro as he addresses the Bolivarian National Guard - the event widely witnessed on TV and social media.

Birthdays Today include: Thomas Blackwell (1701); Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792); John Venn (1834); Walter Pater (1839); Harry Lauder (1870); Béla Balázs (1884); Louis Armstrong (1901); Eugen Schuhmacher (1906); Kurt Eichhorn (1908); William Schuman (1910); David Raskin (1912); Arthur Butterworth (1923); Carol Arthur (1935); David Bedford (1937); Simon Preston (1938); Martin Jarvis (1941); Billy Bob Thornton (1955); Tim Winton (1960); Barack Obama (1961); Olga Neuwirth & Lee Mack (both 1968).

Final Days for: William Cecil (1598); Viktor Hartmann (1873); Hans Christian Andersen (1875); Siegfried Wagner (1930); Marilyn Monroe (1962); Geoff Hamilton (1996); Victor Mature (1999).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Sunday, 4th August, 1979 were:

Aubade: Suppé Light Cavalry Ovt; Schönberg The Iron Brigade; Christmas Night Music; Addinsell Warsaw Concerto; Arnold: Padstow Lifeboat March; Coleridge-Taylor "Onaway! awake, beloved!" (from Hiawatha's Wedding Feast); Coates London Suite.
Stereo Release: Chopin 24 Preludes; Janacek Taras Bulba; Chopin Nocturnes Opp 9 & 15; Grechaninov Symph #4.
Bandstand: Solent Concert Band/Wesley Garner (Sharpe Fanfare & Soliloquy; Rimmer King Lear; Gregson Voices of Youth Suite.
Dresden State Orchestra: Beethoven Fidelio Ovt (conducted by Böhm); Mozart Exultate Jubilate (conducted by Klee - with Edith Mathis); Strauss Burleske (conducted by Kempe - with Malcolm Frager); Schumann Ovt, Scherzo & Finale (conducted by Sawallisch).

[LezLee]

Ahem! Should be Hans Christian Andersen

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ahem! Should be Hans Christian Andersen

Eeeps!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

August 5th

The Anglican Episcopal Church in the United States venerates three German Artists on this date - Albrecht Durer, Matthias Grunewald, and Lucas Cranach the elder. All three were Lutherans, and the Lutheran Church itself venerates the three, together with Hans Burgkmair, on 6th April (the date of Durer's death).

Also on This Date: the Battle of Maserfield between rival Anglo-Saxon kings Oswald of Northumria and Penda of Mercia ends with the slaying and dismemberment of Oswald, whose remains were displayed from a tree - possibly giving the place its name Oswestry (641 - or 642, depending which of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are consulted); the last major Viking invasion is repelled and defeated by the joint forces of Wessex & Mercia at the Battle of Tettenhall near Wolverhampton (910); Henry I's Coronation is held in Westminster Abbey (1100); Scottish knight John de Menteith hands William Wallace over to English soldiers in Glasgow (1305 - "They may take our lives, but they will never ... oh!"); Humphrey Gilbert claims Newfoundland for the English Crown - the first English colony in America (1583); the Mayflower and the Speedwell depart from Southampton, taking English Puritans to America to bulid new lives away from religious persecution (1620 - the Speedwell develops a leak, so the two ships have to dock in Dartmouth, for repairs - after a further launch was followed by a further leak [possibly sabotage from the ship's Master, who isn't keen on the trip], the decision is made to abandon the Speedwell, and its passengers transfer to the Mayflower, where, on 6th September, they finally make their "proper" departure from England); John Peter Zengler, journalist for the New York Weekly Journal, is acquited in his Trial for seditious libel on the grounds that what he had written was actually true (1735); the Secretary of the British Admiralty rejects Francis Ronalds' invention of the electric telegraph as being "wholly unnecessary" (1816 - it will be another 20 years before the device becomes widespread, in which time British Sailors carry on waving semaphore flags at each other. Meanwhile, on this date in 1857, US businessman Cyrus W Field [with a handy annual subsidy of £1,400 - about £130,000 today] begins laying the first Transatlantic Telegraph Cable at the coast in County Kerry - he lays the last section of cable exactly one year later to the day at Trinity Bay in Newfoundland); Income Tax (3% on all incomes above $800) is introduced in the United States to fund the Civil War (1861 - on this same day, the flogging of US soldiers is abolished); Bertha Benz, wife of the car maker, makes the first long distance automobile journey - a return trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim: a distance of 121 miles (1888 - the route she followed is now known as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route); Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie newspaper comic strip makes its first appearance (1924); members of the Y Mudiad Cymreig ["The Welsh Movement" - including poet Saunders Lewis] and Byddin Ymreolwyr Cymru ["the Self-Rule Army of Wales"] merge to create Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru (1929); the Soviet Union annexes Latvia (1940); over 1,000 Japanese PoWs escape from Cowra PoW Camp in New South Wales (1944 - in the ensuing round-up, 231 prisoners are killed and 108 wounded; 4 Australian servicemen are also killed in the re-capture. On the same day, Polish Insurgents attack Gęsiówka Extermination Camp and release 348 Jewish prisoners); Reg Smythe's comic strip Andy Capp makes its first appearance in the Daily Mirror (1957); the USA, USSR, & UK sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, ending all nuclear weapon test explosions except those conducted underground (1963); the Beatles' Revolver is released (1966); the South Pacific Forum [later renamed the Pacific Island Forum] is founded in Wellington, New Zealand aimed at establishing greater co-operation between nations of the Pacific (1971); the Soviet exploration space probe Mars 6 is launched (1973); 11,329 striking air-traffic controllers are sacked by President Reagan for ignoring his demand that they return to work (1981 - he decertifies the strikers' Union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Association for good measure); a Cave-in at the Copiapo Copper-Gold Mine in northern Chile traps 33 miners (2010 - it takes 69 days before the men are rescued - at a cost of over $20million, the cost shared between the Mine Owners [whose indifference to Health & Safety led to the collapse], the Chilean Government, and public donations); a white supremacist from Winsconsin shoots dead 6 Sikhs as they worship in the Winsconsin temple (2012 - a further 4 people are wounded, including a Police Officer attempting to protect them); an failed attempt to repair a damaged drainage system at the Gold King mine in Colorado results in 3,000,000 gallons of toxic waste being pumped into the Animas River (2015).

Birthdays Today include: Guillaume DuFay (1397); Antonio Cesti (1623); Vitus Bering (1681); Leonardo Leo (1694); Niels Henrik Abel (1802); Ambroise Thomas (1811); Guy de Maupassant (1850); Louis Wain (1860); Joseph Merrick (1862); Oskar Merikanto (1868); Hans Gal & Erich Kleiber (both 1890); Joan Hickson & John Huston (both 1906); Betty Oliphant (1918); Neil Armstrong (1930 - he spends his 39th birthday with his Apollo 11 colleagues in quarantine, just in case they've brought back any unpleasant microbes from the Moon); ... and Betsy Jolas is 93, Vladimir Fedoseyev 87, and Christopher Gunning 75 today.


Final Days for: Thomas Linley jnr (1777); Siŋté Glešká (1881); Henri Litolff (1891); Friedrich Engels (1895); George Butterworth (1916); Millicent Fawcett (1929); Carmen Miranda (1955); Josef Holbrooke (1958); Richard Burton (1984); Alec Guinness (2000).

And the Radio 3 Schedules for Saturday, 5th August, 1989 were:

Morning Concert: d'Indy Symphonie sur un chant montagnard francais; Nielsen Flute Concerto; Schumann Vln Sonata in a, Op 105; Suk Fantastic Scherzo.
Haydn & Beethoven Piano Trios: 2nd of 4 programmes (Haydn f# H XV 26; Beethoven "Ghost")
Record Release: Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence; Rossi Poi che manco speranza; Vivaldi Concerto in C for Sopranino Recorder, RV442; Strozzi Voglio morire; Paganini Vln Conc #1; Verdi "Ella giammi m'amo" (from Don Carlo); Strauss Aus Italien.
Mozart S4tets & S5tets: 3rd of 5 programmes (4tet in d K173; 5tet in D K593)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

August 6th

On This Date: Francis II, 45th Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates and abolishes the title inaugurated by Cherlemagne over a thousand years earlier (1806); Bolivia gains independence from Spain (1825); Britain annexes Lagos (1861); the first execution by Electric Chair is perpetrated in Auburn Prison, New York (1890 - the process takes over eight minutes, the first "shock" is unsuccessful, and the equipment needs time to recharge - "an awful spectacle - far worse than hanging", and "they'd've done better using an axe" are two of the reports of witnesses); Serbia declares War on Germany, and Austria declares War on Russia (1914 - this is also the date of the first aerial bombing of a city, when a German Zeppelin drops bombs on Liege); Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim the English Channel (1926); New York Judge Joseph Force Crater, about to face questioning about possible "financial iregularities" spends the day destroying files in his office, cashes cheques to the value of £63,000 [at today's rates], meets his mistress and his lawyer for dinner, leaves the restaurant ... and vanishes into thin air, never to be seen again (1930); the Soviet Union annexes Estonia (1940); the first nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima (1945); Gottfried von Einem's opera Dantons Tod with libretto by the composer & Boris Blacher, is premiered at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Ferenc Fricsay (1947); the Government of Cuba nationalizes all foreign-owned property in the country (1960); Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes the second person to orbit the Earth - and the first person to get Space Motion Sickness and vomit in space (1961 - he becomes a Hero of the Soviet Union on his return to Earth 3 days later); Jamaica gains Independence from Britain (1962); in order to ascertain the age of Prometheus, an ancient bristlecone pine tree growing in Wheeler Peak, Nevada, a student is authorised to cut it down to count the rings (1963 - it was at least 4,862 years old, and possibly over 5,000); Hans Werner Henze's opera The Bassarids, with a libretto [in German translation] by WH Auden & Chester Kallman is premiered at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi (1966); Tim Berners-Lee publishes an explanation of the World Wide Web project, bringing it to wider attention (1991 - WIKI mentions on one page that "this date is sometimes confused with the public availability of the first web servers, which had occurred months earlier" - one example of this "sometime confusion" appearing on the WIKI page for August 6, "WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet"); Science magazine publishes an article by [among others] David S McKay claiming that a meteorite discovered in Antarctica twelve years earlier might contain evidence of traces of life from Mars (1996 - the emphasis was later shifted to the "might"); 28 inmates of an Islamic faith-based mental asylum are killed in a fire in Tamil Nadu (2001 - they had all been chained to their beds, illegally, and their treatment had included frequent beatings to "drive out the devil" and being given holy water to drink - patients were deemed "cured" when they had a dream in which they were given a "divine command" to return home); NASA's space rover Curiosity lands on Mars, crushing a cat as it does so (2012 - the mission is to explore the geology of the Gale crater; two months later, the rover sends the first "selfie" from another planet - AND, exactly a year later it sends a transmission of "Happy Birthday to You": the first [as far as we know!] interplanetary broadcast of Music);

Birthdays Today include: Johann Bernoulli (1667); Daniel O'Connell (1775); Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809); Susie King Taylor (1848); Paul Claudel (1868); Alexander Fleming (1881); John Middleton Murry (1889); Paula Fürst (1894); Willie Brown (1900); Maria Ludwika Bernhard (1908); Charles Crichton (1910); Lucille Ball (1911); Robert Mitchum (1917); Elisabeth Beresford & Frank Finlay (both 1926); Andy Warhol (1928); Howard Hodgkin (1932); Chris Bonington (1934); Barbara Windsor (1937); Allan Holdsworth (1946); M. Night Shyamalan (1970); Geri Halliwell (1972); ... and it is the 400th anniversary of the baptism of Barbara Strozzi.

Final Days for: Diego Velázquez (1660); John Snell (1679); Eduard Hanslick (1904); Bix Beiderbecke (1931); Cedric Hardwicke (1964); Ingolf Dahl (1970); Lizzie Douglas (1973); Gregor Piatigorsky (1976); Edward Durell Stone (1978); André Weil (1998); Joan Trimble (2000); Larry Adler & Dorothy Tutin (both 2001); Julius Baker (2003); Robin Cook (2005); John Hughes (2009); Marvin Hamlisch, Robert Hughes, Bernard Lovell, & Ruggiero Ricci (all 2012); ... and it is the 50th anniversary of the death of Theodor W. Adorno.


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Wednesday, 6th August, 1969 were:

Overture: "gramophone records"
Your Midweek Choice: "gramophone records"
This Week's Composer: Stravinsky (Capriccio; Symphony in 3.)
Folk Songs from Canada: "A Centennial Collection of Folk Songs - episode 6: Songs of Courtship and Marriage"
Historic Organs: John Lade introduces a recital of Music by du Mage & Dandrieu, played by Marie-Claire Alain on the organ of Uzes Cathedral.
Haydn Piano Trios: 5th of 12 programmes played by the Oromonte Piano Trio (3os in g minor, H XV 19 & C Major, H XV 27).
Northern Prom: BBCNSO conducted by Christopher Ball, with Clive Lythgoe (piano) [no works specified]

(followed by a "Young Artists Recital" given by Judith Pearce, Antony Pay, & David Atherton)

[LezLee]

I'm being really cruel to you, but once a pedant, always a pedant!

You mean Andy Warhol and Chris Bonington

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm being really cruel to you, but once a pedant, always a pedant!
You mean Andy Warhol and Chris Bonington

And who on earth was Frenec Fricsay?!

[vinteuil]

And who on earth was Frenec Fricsay?!

... a friend of Cherlemagne?

.

[Padraig]

And who on earth was Frenec Fricsay?!

Dear dear ferney, he was a nineteenth century celebrity cook, or chef, known for his frantic style in the kitchen and his fowl mouth.

[LezLee]

Of course it's a very clever ruse to make sure we read every word!

[Wychwood]

... a friend of Cherlemagne?

.

I hope it was a glass (or two) of post-prandial champagne that was the culprit, freney.
Cheers -- and thanks again for compiling these gems day after day.

[johncorrigan]

Ferney, August 6th is also the death day of Lizzie Douglas, aka the magnificent Memphis Minnie, who died in 1973 in Memphis, Tennessee. Minnie, a great singer, musician and songwriter was one of the first people to lift up the electric guitar and play the blues. I love this article by Langston Hughes in the early 40s writing about one of Minnie's shows in the 230 Club in Chicago.

http://www.ralphmag.org/CB/memphis-minnie.html

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Duly noted <ho-ho> jc - and the post on your nice new blues calendar, too

[Richard Tarleton]

Birthdays Today include: Howard Hodgkin (1932)

The Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszak writes entertainingly about Hodgkin - The ludicrous amount of time Hodgkin spends on his pictures — it took him three years to paint Venice in the Autumn, a picture the size of an exercise book, in which an area of red is topped by an area of black — must chiefly be spent wondering how he has got away with it all. My guess is that people like Hodgkin for the same reason they like sun-dried tomatoes and gazpacho. His art makes you forget you are in England. Only in England would a man be knighted for producing art that taps into the urge to move abroad.