Today's the Day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

31st August

The Feast Day of Saint Aiden of Lindisfane, the 7th Century bishop who founded Lindisfarne Priory, and whose far-reaching evangelism made him the single most important figure in the spread of Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian Christianity. He died on this date in 651, and is a patron Saint of Firefighters.

Also on This Date: Henry V dies whilst on campaign in France, and is succeeded by his 9-month old son, Henry VI (1422); Irish Rebel leader John Moore, supported by 1,000 French revolutionary soldiers, is declared President of the Republic of Connaught in Western Ireland (1798); Ralph Waldo Emerson delivers his The American Scholar lecture, calling for greater independence from European cultural dominance by American writers and Artists (1837); the Battle of Jonesborough in the American Civil War begins (1864); 43-year-old Mary Ann Nichols is murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel, London - the first of the five acknowledged victims of Jack the Ripper (1888); Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his airship design (1895); Thomas Edison patents his Kinetoscope which enables people to watch moving pictures (1897 - it does not project, so can only be veiwed by one person at a time); Australian troops cross the River Somme and break German lines at the beginning of the 4-day-long Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin (1918 - "the greatest military achievement of the war"); Brecht & Weill's Die Dreigroschenoper is premiered at the Schiffbauerdamm Theatre in Berlin, with sets by Casper Neher, conducted by Theo Mackeben, and with Lotte Lenya as Jenny (1928); the first US Neutrality Act bans sales of arms and cigarettes to beligerent countries (1935); Radio Prague begins broadcasting (1936); Gestapo sabateurs posing as Polish citizens take over the German radio station at Gleiwitz on the German/Poland border and begin broadcasting anti-German propaganda (1939 - one of a series of such incidents designed to justify the Nazi invasion of Poland; for extra conviction, they also murder by lethal injection a German national in the region who had been sympathetic to Poles, dress him up as a Polish sabateur and shot him several times, to make it look as if he has been shot whilst running away from the radio station); Yugoslav Royalist guerillas successfully attack a Nazi garrison at the Battle of Loznica (1941); Malaya gains Independence from Britain (1957); Trinidad & Tobago gain Independence from Britain (1962); Olga Korbut wins Gold Medals in Balance Beam and Floor Exercise events at the Munich Olympics, breaking the Laws of Physics as she does so (1972 - 45 years later, she is forced to sell the medals, raising £147,000 to help meet her debts - on the same day, Mark Spitz adds the 100m and 200m Butterfly race to his collection of a total of 7 Gold Medals at that year's Olympics); Uzbekistan & Kyrgyzstan both declare Independence from the Soviet Union (1991); Princess Diana is killed in a car crash in Paris, following pursuit by press photographers on motorbikes trying to get pictures of her with her partner, Dodi al-Fayed, who is also killed in the crash (1997); Norwegian Police recover the version of Munch's The Scream, stolen from he Munch museum in Oslo two years previously (2006); Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is impeached and removed from office by the Senate (2016 - we can live in hope)

Birthdays Today include: Caligula (12); Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741); Hermann von Helmholtz (1821); Amilcare Ponchielli (1834 - his first words, "Hello mudda, Hello farder"); Maria Montessori (1870); Alma Schindler/Mahler/Gropius/Werfel (1879); DuBose Heyward (1885); Lily Laskine (1893); Frederic March (1897); Bernard Lovell (1913); Alan Jay Lerner (1918); Raymond Williams (1921); James Coburn (1928); Roy Castle (1932); Martin Bell (1938); Emmanuel Nunes (1941); Van Morrison & Itzhak Perlman (both 1945); Susan Gritton (1965); Kirstie Allsopp & Vadim Repin (both 1971); Holly Earl (1992).

Final Days for: Matthias Grunewald (1528); John Bunyan (1688); François-André Danican Philidor (1795); Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1811); Charles Baudelaire (1867); Marina Tsvetaeva (1941); Georges Braque (1963); Rocky Marciano (1969 - the day before his 45th birthday); John Ford (1973); Henry Moore (1986); Ken Campbell (2008); Max Bygraves (2012); David Frost (2013).


... and the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Friday, 31st August, 1979 were:

Overture: Wagner Dawn & Siegfried's Journey; Bach Sinfonia (from Cantata 29); Mendelssohn Rondo brillante in Eb; Ravel Introduction and Allegro; Berlioz King Lear Ovt; Debussy Nocturnes; Williamson Seascape; Britten 4 Sea Interludes.
This Week's Composer: Martinu (The Epic of Gilgamesh)
The Burnell Piano Trio plays new works by British Composers (John Hall Pno 3o #2; Alfred Nieman Chamber Sonatas)
Edinburgh International Festival: Songs by Stenhammer, Strauss, Schubert, Ravel, Alfven, & Brahms (Hakan Hagegard & Thomas Schuback)

[vinteuil]

... Malaysia gains Independence from Britain (1957)

... a pedant and old South East Asia hand writes : not quite. Malaya gained independence in 1957.

Malaysia came in to being in 1963 with the federation of Malaya with the crown colonies of North Borneo (which joined as Sabah), Sarawak, and Singapore. Singapore was expelled from the federation in 1965, a rare case of a country becoming independent against its own will.

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed - adjusted.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh! And 31st August is two-thirds through the year. (Starting on Jan 1st.)

[LMcD]

Oh! And 31st August is two-thirds through the year. (Starting on Jan 1st.)

For some reason, people never seem particularly grateful when I remind them that 'the nights are closing in'.
On the other hand, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who believe that Autumn starts on September the 21st or thereabouts, whereas the Met Office insist that it's the 1st.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For some reason, people never seem particularly grateful when I remind them that 'the nights are closing in'.

It was this past week that I noticed how dark it was by 8:30 - not helped by the rain clouds.

On the other hand, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who believe that Autumn starts on September the 21st or thereabouts, whereas the Met Office insist that it's the 1st.

Ah - I'm with the Met on this one: Autumn = Sept, Oct, Nov; Winter = Dec, Jan, Feb; Spring = Mar, Apr, May; then back to Autumn for June, Jly, & Aug

[Joseph K]

For some reason, people never seem particularly grateful when I remind them that 'the nights are closing in'.

For some reason the end of summer always comes as something of a relief to me.

[vinteuil]

On the other hand, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who believe that Autumn starts on September the 21st or thereabouts, whereas the Met Office insist that it's the 1st.

... not a question of being old-fashioned or otherwise : for astronomers and the like the seasons go from the 21st or thereabouts of September, December, March, June; but from as early as 1780, for meteorologists seasons start on the first of September, December, March, June.

My tidy mind has always preferred the meteorologists' option.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season#Four-season_calendar_reckoning

,

[Richard Tarleton]

for meteorologists seasons start on the first of September, December, March, June.

My tidy mind has always preferred the meteorologists' option.

if you're lucky enough to live somewhere where people come on holiday, the start of the new term signals their departure and peace descending. That is followed by "pensioners' fortnight"

Birders get a sniff of autumn in August when the first high Arctic breeding waders start to trickle through - knot, sanderling and the like.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

1st September

On This Date: the Battle of Tippermuir [a village 4 miles from Perth] is fought in the Wars of the Four Kingdoms, resulting in a victory for the Royalist forces of the Marquis of Melrose against a larger force of Scottish Covenanters led by Lord Elcho (1644); Mozart's 6 S4tets dedicated to Haydn are published in Vienna (1785 - the composer's "Opus 10"); the asteroid Juno is discovered by German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding (1804); one of the largest Solar Storms recorded is observed by British astronomers Richard Carrington [the event is later called "the Carrington Event"] and Richard Hodgson - it causes extraordinary aurora activity, and severely disrupts telegraph communications (1859); Confederate troops withdraw from Atlanta in the American Civil War (1864 - General Hood orders the burning of supplies and ammunition to prevent their falling ointo enemy hands - with results familiar to anyone who has seen Gone With the Wind); Napoleon III surrenders to the Prussian forces at the Battle of Sedan, bringing an end to his reign, and to the Second Empire (1870); Cetshwayo kaMpande succeeds his father as King of the Zulu Kingdom (1873); Emma Nutt starts work at the Edwin Holmes Despatch Company in Boston - the world's first female telephone operator (1878); the Battle of Kandahar results in a decisive victory for the British Army against Afghan forces, and ends the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1880); the Russian city of St Petersburg is renamed Petrograd (1914 - on the same day the Passenger Pigeon becomes extinct with the death of Martha, its last surviving member); Lorado Taft's sculpture, the Fountain of Time, marking 100 years of peace between Britain and the USA is unveiled in Chicago (1920); the Wehrmacht invades Poland (1939 - on the same day, the Iron Cross is inaugurated for German soldiers, and Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic forced euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people); ANZUS - a Pacific Ocean security Treaty between the US and Australia & New Zealand - is formed (1951); Scribner's publishes Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952); the First Cod War begins as Iceland expands its fishery zone from 4 nautical miles to 12 (1958); the United Nations announces that the World's population has reached 3 billion (1962 - it's now 7.5 billion); heads of 8 Arab states sign the Khartoum Resolution, deciding to have "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with israel" (1967); a military coup in Libya brings Colonel Gaddafi to power (1969); Bobby Fischer defeats Boris Spassky to become World Chess Champion at a competition in Reykjavik (1972); Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to study Saturn close-up (1979); a Korean passenger airline accidentally trespasses ionto Soviet airspace and is shot down by Soviet fighter plane, killing all 269 people on board, including a US Congressman (1983); Islamic terrorists occupy a school in Beslan, Russia, taking children and staff hostage (2004);

Birthdays Today include: Edward Alleyn (1566); Giacomo Torelli (1608); Johann Pachelbel (baptised 1653); Engelbert Humperdinck (1854); Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875); Tulio Serafin (1878); Othmar Schoeck (1886); Violet Carson (1898); Yvonne de Carlo (1922); Rocky Marciano (1923); Art Pepper (1925); Soshana Afroyim (1927); Boxcar Willie (1931); Seiji Ozawa (1935); Barry Gibb (1946); Don Blackman (1953); Steve Pemberton (1967); ... and Lily Tomlin is 80, and Leonard Slatkin, 75 today.

Final Days for: Adrian IV (1159); Jan Brueghel II (1678); Cornelis de Man (1706); Francois Girardon and his principal patron, Louis XIV (1715 - the latter after a 72-year reign - the longest of any European monarch so far); Johann Ernst Bach (1777); Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1912); Siegfried Sassoon (1967); Albert Speer (1981); Vagn Holmboe (1996); Terry Frost (2003); Kyffin Williams (2006); Hal David (2012);


... and the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Friday, 1st September, 1989 were:

Morning Concert: Fauré Cantique de Jean Racine; Offenbach Duo in C Op 52; Sibelius Belshazzar's Feast Op 51; Bach Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue; Rameau Les Boreades Suite; Wolf Italian Serenade.
Composer of the Week: Copland (2 movts from Music for a Great City; Duo for Fl & Pno; Proclamation; Organ Symphony)
Friday Sequence: Saint-Saens Variations on a Theme by Beethoven; Beethoven Pno 3o in Bb (WoO 39); Schumann S4tet #1; Chopin/Saint-Saens Sonata in Bb minor; Roussel Flute 3o; Beethoven Serenade Op 25.
British Music: Piggott The Quest; Pickard Symph #2 (BBCPO/Odaline de la Martinez with Malcolm Binns).

[johncorrigan]

On This Date: the Battle of Tippermuir [a village 4 miles from Perth] is fought in the Wars of the Four Kingdoms, resulting in a victory for the Royalist forces of the Marquis of Melrose against a larger force of Scottish Covenanters led by Lord Elcho (1644);

Tippermuir is now called Tibbermore, ferney - whenever I drive past the sign for it, I always sing 'We'll support you Tibbermore!'...in a footie fan type of way!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tippermuir is now called Tibbermore, ferney - whenever I drive past the sign for it, I always sing 'We'll support you Tibbermore!'...in a footie fan type of way!

Ah! That explains why, when I was trying to find the place via Google, all I got was the battle! Many thanks, jc!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

2nd September

The Feast Day of Saint Hieu, a 7th Century Irish-born missionary mentioned by Bede as aiding St Aiden in spreading the Gospel to the heathens of Northumberland. Aiden appointed her tha Abbess of the Hartlepool Abbey, and she later took on the responsibilities of the Monastry in Healaugh, near Tadcaster - the first woman to have charge of a double monastry.

Also on This Date: the Battle of Actium ends with a decisive victory for Octavian over Mark Antony, and effectively brings the Roman Republic to an end (31 BCE); Saladin and Richard I sign the Treaty of Jaffa, guaranteeing a 3-year Truce between them, and ending the Third Crusade (1192); a fire breaks out at the bakery of Thomas Fariner in Pudding Lane, London (1666); the last day in which Britain uses the Julian Calendar (1752 - tomorrow would be the 14th Sept); the United States Department of the Treasury is formed (1789); over 200 Revolutionary partisans begin a 4-day massacre of prisoners, clerics, and hospital inmates, killing over 1200 people in that time (1792); the Royal Navy begins a 3-day phosphorous bomb assault on Copenhagen to prevent the Danes from providing the French with ships for their navy (1807 - the first bombardment of civilian targets in modern warfare); white coal miners at the Rock Springs Mine in Wyoming turn on Chinese colleagues [who are paid less, so more attractive to the Mine owners] murdering at least 28 of them (1885); Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt declares his fondness for the "old West African proverb, 'speak softly, and carry a big stick'" at an address to the Minnesota State Fair (1901); Georges Méliès' hand-coloured version of his film A Trip to the Moon is released in his own cinema at the Robert-Houdin Theatre in Paris (1902); Hauptmann, Brecht & Weill's Happy End is premiered at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin (1929 - it fails to repeat the success at the same theatre the previous year of Die Dreigroschenoper, and closes after just 7 performances); the Free City of Danzig is annexed by the Nazis (1939); the Japanese foreign minister signs the Instrument of Surrender, formally ending the Second World War (1945 - on the same day, Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnamese independence from French Indochina); the first elections in Tibetian history are held creting the first Tibet Parliament in Exile (1960 - on the same day, Walton's 2nd Symphony is premiered at the Edinburgh Festival by the RLPO conducted by John Pritchard); Peter Maxwell Davies' opera The Lighthouse is premiered at the Edinburgh Festival (1980); 7 people are killed and 28 injured when rival bike gangs engage in a gunfight in Sydney (1984); Transnistria declares itself an independent Soviet Republic (1990 - it still regards itself as an autonomous region, but is regarded by the UN as a part of Moldova); ... and, this time last year, 90% of the collection of the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro is destroyed in a fire during its 200th anniversary celebratory year.

(It's also 50 years since the first ATM was installed in the US, in New York - over 2 years after the first in the UK.)

Birthdays Today include: Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548); Georg Böhm (1661); William Somervile (1675); Hans Jæger (1854); Ruth Bancroft (1908);Donald Watson (1910); Bill Shankly (1913); Francis Matthews (1927); Horace Silver (1928); Victor Spinetti (1929); Billy Preston (1946); John Zorn (1953); Salma Hayek (1966); ... and Moira Stewart is 70 today.

Final Days for: Simeon Stylites (459); Francesco Landini (1397); Thomas Telford (1834); Henri Rousseau (1910); Ho Chi Minh (1969); JRR Tolkien (1973); Tadeusz Baird (1981); Otto Luening (1996); Rudolph Bing (1997); Emmanuel Nunes (2012 - 2 days after his 71st birthday); David Jacobs (2013).


... and the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Tuesday, 2nd September, 1969 were:

Overture: "gramophone records"
Morning Concert: "gramophone records"
This Week's Composer: Chopin (the 24 Preludes played by Yonty Solomon)
Concerto: unspecified 'cello Conc played by Joan Dickson with the BBCSSO conducted by "Bryan Bai. kwill" (???)
Music Making: performances by the Northern Brass Ensemble, and by the Borean Wind Ensemble.

[johncorrigan]

(It's also 50 years since the first ATM was installed in the US, in New York - over 2 years after the first in the UK.)

...and it was Reg Varney of 'On the Buses' fame who made the first cash withdrawal in UK. Wonder who it was in the States? Probably Trump!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

3rd September

80 Years ago today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2qlZHW-fDI

Also, the Feast Day of St Gregory the Great, "Gregorius noster" for the pre-Norman English; the pope who sent St Augustine to bring the Gospel to the heathen English. He of the "Non angli, sed angeli" quip (possibly) and the standardision of Plainchant named after him by John the Deacon, 300 years after Gregory's death. Gregory, who began his pontificate on this date in 590, is a Patron of Musicians & singers (I like the distinction!) and Teachers & Students (which must have called upon his powers of arbitration at times).

Also on This Date: the Republic of San Marino is founded by St Marinus (301); the Coronation of Richard the Lionheart is held in Westminster Abbey (1189 - Jewish leaders attempting to present the new king with gifts are stripped and flogged, and kicked out of the ceremony, leading to a rumour among the thronged crowds that the King had ordered all Jews to be killed ... so they indulged in the sort of behaviour that has become all too familiar in this chronology); Oliver Cromwell leads his Parliamentarian troops to a resounding victory against Royalist forces at the Battle of Dunbar (1650 - exactly a year to the day later, he also leads his army to victory against the forces of Charles II at the Battle of Worcester: the last Battle of the Civil War); on the death of his father, Richard Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England (1658); the Royal Exchange [yup - "Tumbledown Dick" wasn't as successful as his dad] is birnt down in the Great Fire of London (1666);the Treaty of Paris is signed, bringing an end to the American War of Independence (1783); Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery (1838); Bruckner finishes the score of his Sixth Symphony after a few days short of 2 years' work, and dedicates it to Anton van Ölzelt-Newin, his landlord (1881); Schönberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces are premiered at a Promenade Concert in the Queen's Hall, London, by the New Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by Henry Wood (1912 - the pieces appeared at the end of part one, preceded by Gounod's Hymn to St Cecilia, and followed by the Mendelssohn 1st Pno Conc); Malcolm Campbell becomes the first person to reach a speed exceding 300mph in a motor car at a Land Speed event in Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah (1935); on hearing of Britain's declaration of War, Unity Mitford attempts suicide by shooting herself in the head with a pistol which Hitler had given her as a present (1939 - she survives for another 9 years, and is visited in hospital by Hitler); Hindemith's ballet score [minus choreography] The Four Temperaments is premiered by the Boston SO, conducted by Richard Burgin, with Lucas Foss the piano soloist (1941 - this is on the same date that the Nazis use hydrogen cyanide, Zyklon-B to murder prisoners in Auschwitz Extermination Camp - the "guinea pigs" are Soviet Prisoners-of-War); Jews in the Łachwa Ghetto in Belarus rise up against the Nazis when they try to liquidate the ghetto and "resettle" the occupants (1942 - the first such uprising of the War: most of the escapees are killed, and only 90 of the residents survive the War); Anne Frank and her family are deported to Auschwitz (1944); the European Convention on Human Rights comes into effect (1953); Sweden switches from driving on the left to the right (1967 - overnight); a little under a year after its launch, the Viking 2 lander lands on the surface of Mars (1976); the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an international Bill of Rights for women, signed by 99 countries nearly 2 years earlier, comes into effect (1981); Protestant thugs start a picketing of Holy Cross RC Girls Primary School in Belfast, shouting abuse and throwing stones, fireworks and condoms filled with urine at the children and parents as they try to get to school each day for the next 10 weeks (2001); the Beslan school siege comes to an end when Russian troops attack the school building, killing the 34 Islamist terrorists who had taken more than 1100 people hostage - as well as 334 of the hostages [186 primary school-age children] (2004); in Canberra, Australia, Chris the Sheep sets the world record for the largest fleece [nearly 91lbs-worth] shorn in a single shearing (2015 - the background isn't a happy one; Chris [named after a character in Father Ted] was discovered unable to move because of his unshorn burden, and was sedated to prevent further distress during the long shearing - which subsequently revealed severe skin infections caused by ... well, "things" getting caked in the fleece. There is a happy ending - Chris made a full recovery and was happily settled on a farm in New South Wales as of 2016); China & the US ratify the Paris Global Climate Agreement (2016); and, last year, the Met Office declares 2018 the joint hottest Summer since records began, sharing the honours with 1976, 2003, and 2006.

Birthdays Today include: Pietro Locatelli (1695); Abraham Trembley (1710);Jacob Christian Fabricius (1840); Ferdinand Porsche (1875); Eduard van Beinum (1901); Knut Nystadt & Memphis Slim (both 1915); Bengt Lindström (1925); Alison Lurie (1926); Caryl Churchill (1938); Susan Milan (1947).

Final Days for: Oliver Cromwell (1658); Ivan Turgenev (1883); Albéric Magnard (1914 - killed by German soldiers as he tries to prevent them from invading his property - they set fire to his house whilst he is still in it shooting at them); ee cummings (1962); Louis MacNiece (1963); Joseph Marx (1964); Harry Partch (1974); Morton Feldman (1987); Frank Capra (1991); Jane Tomlinson (2007); John Ashbery (2017).

... and the Radio 3 Schedules for the Morning of Monday, 3rd September, 1979 were:

Overture: Brahms St Anthony Vars (orch); Haydn "Drum Roll" Symph; Mozart Pno Conc #9; Strauss Till Eulenspiegel.
This Week's Composer: Schubert [snap!] (Des Teufels Lustschloss Ovt & "Was kiimmert mich ein sumpfig' Land; Jch lach', ich wein'" (D 84); Menuetto and Finale (Wind 8tet, D 72); Konzertstück in D (D 345); Quartetsatz in c minor (d 703); Trio: Die Advocaten (D 37).
Piano Recital by Iruyo Kamiya (Schönberg Op11; Chopin 24 Preludes, Op28).
Live from the Edinburgh International Festival (the Polish Chamber Orch, conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk - Bacewicz Concerto for strings; Bujarski Musica Domestica; Gorecki 3 Pieces in an Old Style; Rossini String Sonata #3; Haydn Symph #47 .