Today's the Day

[vinteuil]

The combination of the March "New Year", together with the eleven days' loss owing to the change of Calendar, accounts for our Tax Year beginning on 6th April - nobody ever protested "give us back our eleven days!" (contrary to folklore) - but NOBODY was going to pay their Taxes four months early!

... Mme v claims that the only time she glazed over during one of my elaborate explanatory perorations was when I was going in to too much detail of the background to out fiscal year beginning on 6 April coz of the eleven days and the original New Year being the Annunciation. This morning she was gracious enough to shew a degree of interest as I expatiated yet again on this innarestin' subject. Well, it's always an interest for them as is interested in xviiith century history and dates...

Mme v does not require your sympathy.

Thank you.


.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

March 26th

Purple Day in the US and Canada - dedicated to raising awareness of Epilepsy and overcoming common myths, prejudices and misconceptions about the neurological disorder, and support for those with the condition. It's also St Ludger's Day - the late 8th Century Bishop of Munster; he is a patron saint of Groningen, Deventer, East Frisia, Munster, and Werden - but not, alas, of horse racing.

Also on this Date: Saladin is inaugurated as Vizier of Egypt, taking an oath to give up "wine-drinking and to turn from frivolity to assume the dress of religion" (1169); William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop's Fables (1484 - the first time the stories are translated into English); Mozart's Piano Concerto in Bb K450 is premiered in Vienna (1784); the term "Gerrymandering" is coined in the Boston Gazette (1812 - the governor responsible for redrawing the constituencies was called "Gerry", and the resulting shape of the re-arranged voting district was said to look like a salamander); the Book of Mormon is first published (1830); the first Henley Regatta is held (1839); Jeanette Pickersgill makes history by becoming the first person to be cremated in Britain (1885); the German Social Democratic Party is founded ... in Poland (1922); the Road Traffic Act introduces compulsory driving tests, speed restrictions, and required specific Insurance cover for all drivers (1934); Howard Hanson's Third Symphony is premiered by the NBCSO, conducted by the Composer (1938); Frank Martin's Le Vin Herbé is premiered in Zurich (1942); Elliott Carter's The Minotaur is premiered in New York (1947); Jonas Salk announces the successful trial of a vaccine for Polio (1953); Witold Lutoslawski's Musique Funebre is premiered in Kotowice (1958); East Pakistan declares its independence from West Pakistan and names itself Bangladesh, triggering the Bangladesh War of Independence (1971 - today is celebrated as Independence Day in Bangladesh); the Biological Weapons Convention comes into force, forbidding its 182 signatories the use of Biological Weapons in Warfare (1975 - the Convention does not forbid the development of such weapons - y'know, just for academic purposes, like); Presidents Sadat, Begin, and Carter sign the Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty (1979); a breakaway group of four former Labour Party MPs [Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, David owen, and ... err ... ??? ... Sneezy???) form the UK Social Democratic Party ... in Poland (1981); 39 members of a UFO religious cult at Heaven's Gate in California commit suicide together, as they believe that this how they will join the Extra-Terrestrials in a spaceship hiding behind Hale-Bopp Comet (1997); during the Algerian Civil War, 52 people [32 of them under two years of age] in the village of Oued Bouaïcha are murdered by a group of men carrying knives and axes, one of many such massacres during the conflict (1998); "Rose", the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who is broadcast with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor (2005 - 11 million people watch); smoking in "wholly or substantially enclosed in public places" is banned in Scotland (2006); Saudi Arania leads a coalition of nine Middle Eastern and African countries in Operation Decisive Storm, a military intervention in Yemen which creates an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe (2015); Richard III is reburied in Leicester Cathedral (also 2015); protests in 99 cities throughout Russia, organised by Alexei Navalny, are held against political corruption, with President Putin held personally responsible for high-level corruption by 67% of people polled in a Survey (2017); and this time last year the worlds first total penile and scrotum transplant is successfully performed at John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Birthdays today include: Mary Beale (1633); Edward Bellamy (1850); AE Houseman (1859); Robert Frost (1874); Max Abraham (1875); Guccio Gucci (1881); Wilhelm Backhaus (1884); Julius Harrison (1885); Elsa Brandstrom (1888); Andre Cluytens (1905); Tennessee Williams (1911); Claudio Spies and Pierre Boulez (both 1925); Leonard Nimoy (1931); Alan Arkin (1934); Norman Ackroyd (1938); James Caan (1940); Richard Dawkins (1941); Erica Jong (1942); Bob Woodward (1943); Kyung-Wha Chung (1948); Patrick Susskind (1949); Paul Morley (1957); Richard Coles (1962); Keira Knightley (1985); - and Diana Ross is 75 today.

Final Days for: Heinrich Isaac (1517); Thomas Elyot (1546); John Vanbrugh (1726); Ludwig van Beethoven (1827); Francois Joseph Fetis (1871 - the day after his 87th birthday); Walt Whitman (1892); Sarah Bernhardt (1923); David Lloyd-George (1945); Raymond Chandler (1059); Noel Coward (1973); Madeleine Dring (1977); Roland Barthes (1980); Anthony Blunt (1983); Eugen Jochum (1987); Alex Comfort (2000); and Tomas Transtromer (2015).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Monday, 26th March, 1979 were:

Overture: Schubert Overture in the Italian Style; Dvorak Symphony #5 (BBCSSO/John Carewe)
Morning Concert: Wolf-Ferrari Susanna's Secret, Ovt; Prokofiev Piano Concerto #3 Janacek Cunning Little Vixen Suite
This Week's Composer: Liszt ("Dante" Sonata; Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude; Totentanz)
Talking About Music (Antony Hopkins)
Music Making: Bournemouth Wind Trio; Cynthia Glover & Edna Blackwell (Music by Purcell, Zipoli, Arne, Stanley, Arrieu, Head, Bantock, and Francaix)
Anthony Hedges: Prayers from the Ark - Martyn Hill/the Composer
BBC Welsh SO conducted by Irwin Hoffman: Ives Third Symphony; Brahms Serenade #1

[Padraig]

Interesting to read of the origin of Gerrymandering - Boston Gazette 1812. It was a key issue in the early days of the Civil Rights movement in Derry/Londonderry in the sixties. Now the Supreme Court in USA is dealing with the issue once again when computer-drawn maps will be challenged in two states where suspected gross gerrymandering, carried out by both Parties, takes place. Luckily it could not happen in England.

[greenilex]

Tell that to Chilworth, Nursling and Rownhams...

[teamsaint]

Tell that to Chilworth, Nursling and Rownhams...

Yes, I was amazed a few years back to discover that the Flower Roads are in Romsey.......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tell that to Chilworth, Nursling and Rownhams...

Medetected irony in Padraig's "Derrymandering" post.

[Padraig]

Medetected irony in Padraig's "Derrymandering" post.

You might be right, ferney; but funnily enough I missed the pun.

[Wychwood]

What a wonderful morning schedule that day. Thanks, fhg. We will not see its like again.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

March 27th

International Whisk[e]y Day - initiated by journalist Michael Jackson (not, obviously ... ) whose birthday today was to enjoy the pleasures of the world's various whiskies and whiskeys, and to raise funds for Parkinson's Research (the disease which eventually took Jackson's life). Not to be confused (although, if one is a little too enthusisatic in one's celebration, this would be easy) with World Whisky Day, which is every third Saturday in May, or National Bourbon Day, on June 14th.
It's also World Theatre Day, celebrating the Performing Arts and their special significance in promoting international co-operation.

Also on this Date: Pope Clement V excommunicates Venice (1309); Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland, Ireland, [and France] (1625); Andrew Rankin is granted a patent for his designs for the modern urinal (1866); the first Rugby International match is played between England and Scotland (1871 - Scotland win); Smetana's opera The Two Widows is premiered in Prague (1874); riots break out in Basingstoke in protest against Salvation Army demands for total temperance (1881 - the "Basingstoke" joke in Ruddigore makes a little more sense); Apache leader Geronimo surrenders for thethird and final time to the US Army (1886 - he lives the remainder of his 22 years as a Prisoner-of-War, albeit one with celebrity status); Mary Mallon ["Typhoid Mary"] is put into quarantine after infecting over 50 people with typhoid (1915 - she remains there for the remaining 23 years of her life); Berg's Chamber Concerto is premiered in Berlin (1927); Charlie Chaplin receives the Legion d'Honneur (1931); 1112 French Jewish citizens are deported from internment camps in Northern France to Auschwitz externmination camp, the first of over nearly 74000 people to be so deported - 47,000 of whom are gassed as soon as they arrive (1942); Argentina declares war on the Axis powers (1945 - six weeks before VE day, and six months before VJ day); a bomb, intended for West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, explodes at the Munich Police Headquarters, killing an officer (1952 - the plot to send the bomb was led by future Prime Minister of Israel and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Menachem Begin); Singing in the Rain is released in New York (1952); the Good Friday Earthquake kills 125 people in Anchorage in Alaska (1964); the Soviet Union launches Venera 8 the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful landing on the surface of Venus (1972); two Boeing 747 Jumbo Jets collide on a runway in Tenerife, killing 583 passengers (1977); a group of ex-prisoners seeking revenge on police detonate a car bomb outside the Russell Street Police Headquarters in Melbourne, killing one officer and injuring 22 other people (1986); the Bush [snr] administration begins funding anti-Castro propaganda broadcasts to Cuba (1990); Richard Durn opens fire at the end of a Council Meeting in Nanterre, France, killing 8 Councellors and injuring 19 other people "Because I am frustrated and I do not want to die alone, because I have had a shitty life. I want to feel powerful and free just once." - he commits suicide the next day by throwing himself from the fourth floor of the police station (2002); and, eleven years after being decommissioned, HMS Scylla, a Royal Navy frigate, is sunk off the coast of Cornwall to make the first intentional artificial reef in Europe (2004).

Birthdays Today include: Georges-Eugene Hausmann (1809); Wilhelm Röntgen (1845); Vincent d'Indy (1851); Henry Royce (1863); Patty Hill (1868); Heinrich Mann (1871); Ludwig Miles van der Rohe (1886); Ferde Grofe (1892); Gloria Swanson (1899); Ben Webster (1909); Dick King-Smith (1922); Sarah Vaughan (1924); Mstislav Rostropovich and Sylvia Anderson (both 1927); Julian Glover (1935); Michael York (1942); Poul Ruders (1949); Maria Ewing (1950); Maria Schneider (1952); Patrick McCabe (1955); and Quentin Tarentino (1963).

Final Days for: James VI/I (1625); Jan Vaclav Stamitz (1757); Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1770); Georg Gilbert Scott (1878); Nikolay Alexandrovich Sokolov (1922); Arnold Bennett (1931); Stewart MacPherson (1941); Yuri Gagarin (1968); Arthur Bliss (1975); Harald Saerverud (1992); Ian Dury (2000); and both Dudley Moore and Billy Wilder (2002).


And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Monday, 27th March, 1989 were:

Morning Concert: Wagner Tannhauser Ovt; Bruckner Locus Iste; Wolf Italian Serenade; Elgar Coronation March; Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet Ovt; Koechlin Prelude a une fete populaire & Choral pour une fete de plein air; Dvorak Carnival Ovt; Johann Strauss Sangerslust Polka
Composer of the Week: Elgar ( P&CM #1; Cockaigne; Falstaff - all conducted by the composer)
Morning Sequence: Seiber Six Yugoslav Folk songs; Dvorak Slavonic Dances Op 46; Ireland A London Overture; Vaughan Williams Five English Folk Songs; Britten Five Flower Songs; Schubert Piano Trio in Eb
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Berlioz Corsaire Ovt; Spohr Vln Conc #7; David Matthews Chaconne for Orch

[oddoneout]

HMS Scylla, a Royal Navy frigate, is sunk off the coast of Cornwall to make the first artificial reef in Europe (2004).

Perhaps more accurately 'the first intentional artificial reef'? Given that there are a few other vessels sunk around our shores...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps more accurately 'the first intentional artificial reef'? Given that there are a few other vessels sunk around our shores...

- excellent suggestion; duly incorporated.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

March 28th

Noisey Birdsong day. (Or so it seems, following World Whisk[e]y Day yesterday. Oyshhh!)


Birthdays today include: Fra Bartolomeo (1472); Raphael (1483); Joseph Weigle (1766); Joseph Bazalgette (1819); Maxim Gorky (1868); Willem Mengelberg (1871); Paul Whiteman (1890); Flora Robson (1902); Rudolf Serkin (1903); Dirk Bogarde and Herschel Grynszpan (both 1921); Freddie Bartholomew (1924); Robert Ashley (1930); Michael Parkinson (1935); Mario Vargas Llosa (1936); Samuel Ramey (1942); Nick Frost (1972); Stefani Germanotta (1986).

Final Days for: St Stephen Harding (1134), the Devon-born Benedictine monk who, with like-minded fellows, co-founded the Abbey at Citeaux - these Cistercians had become concerned by the wealth of the Abbey in which they had grown up, and its close relationship with Aristocratic benefactors, and sought to return to a more austere form of life and devotion, closer to the founding principles of St Benedict himself. St Stephen Harding himself used to be commemorated on this day until 1683, when it was moved to April 17th until 1965, when it changed again, to 26th January (a moveable feastday). And for John Clifford (1461); Ivan the Terrible (1584); Modeste Musorgsky (1881); Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1911); Virginia Woolf (1941); Sergei Rachmaninoff (1943); WC Handy (1958); Marc Chagall (1985); Maria von Trapp (1987); Eugene Ionescu (1994); Anthony Powell (2000); Peter Ustinov (2004); Maura Lympany (2005); Maurice Jarre (2009); John Arden (2012); Richard Griffiths (2013); and Ronald Stevenson (2015).

Also on this date: Caligula becomes Roman Emperor (37); Roman emperor Pertinax is murdered by his Praetorian Guards, who then auction the throne to the highest bidder , Didius Julianus (193); Viking forces led by Ragnar Lodbrok occupy Paris (845); Beethoven's The Creatures of Prometheus is premiered in Vienna (1801); the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra gives its very first concert, conducted by Otto Nicolai (1842); Britain and France declare War on Russia in the Crimean War (1854); Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier is premiered in Milan (1896); Parry's setting of Blake's Jerusalem - written less than three weeks earlier - is premiered by a choir 300 strong at a "Fight for Right" Movement meeting in the Queen's Hall (1916); Imperial Airways passenger aircraft City of Liverpool crashes in Belgium, following an onboard fire, killing all fifteen passengers - this is widely believed to be the first aircraft destroyed deliberately by one of its passengers (1933); Franco enters and occupies Madrid after a three-year siege, effectively bringing the Spanish Civil War to an end (1939); following an uprising in Lhasa by Tibetan independency protestors, the Chinese Government dissolves the Tibetan government (1959); a whisky store on Cheapside Street in Glasgow catches fire, resulting in the deaths of 19 firefighters - over a million gallons of spirit takes 450 firemen over a week to extinguish (1960); poet and Nobel laureate, Giorgos Seferis makes a defiant statement on the BBC World Service against the Military Junta that had siezed power in Greece in a coup d'etat two years earlier (1969); one of the reactors at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station suffers a partial meltdown, and the consequent leakage of radioactive material causes an Emergency to be declared (1979 - on the smae day in the House of Commons, parliament passes a vote of No Confidence in Prime Minister James Callaghan); President George Bush I awards the Gold Medal of Congress to Jesse Owens - who has been dead for ten years (1990); BBC Radio 5 Live broadcasts for the first time (1994); around 93 non-combatant Kosovan Albanian citizens, mostly men in their sixties, are murdered by a gang of Yugoslav soldiers, policemen, and paramilitaries in the village of Izbica (1999); and Lance Corporal Matty Hull is killed when British Armoured vehicles are "friendly fired" on by US Air Force fighter planes during the Iraq War (2003).

And the Radio 3 shedules for the morning of Friday, 28th March, 1969 were:

Overture: (gramophone records)
Morning Concert: BBCSSO/Christopher Seaman
This Week's Composers: Roussel & Duparc (no details on the Genome)
Music Making: the Melos Ensemble (the Schubert 8tet + Flute) and an ensemble (vocal 4tet & piano duet) suitable for the Brahma Liebeslieder Walzer

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

March 29th

The Feast Days of 6th Century Royal Welsh saints Gwladys of Brycheinog (modern-day Brecon) and her husband, Gwynllyw, who (in some reports) abducted her when her father refused their marriage - the two families nearly came to battle, but were stopped by ... King Arthur (who, in turn, was only persuaded from abducting Gwladys himself by the advice of his foster brother, Cai - Arthur in these early Welsh stories is a much less "heroic" figure than in later versions). The marriage was successful; their son was St Cadoc the Wise (Cattwg Ddoeth), but Gwynllyw regretted the sinful acts of his youth, and decided to become a hermit to atone: his wife joined him, living an austere life, fasting or on a vegatarian diet, and taking cold baths together in the River Usk, but after a while, they agreed to separate, to avoid temptation.

Also on this date: Edward of York defeats the lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton, becoming Edward IV (1461); Gustave IV succeeds his father Gustav III of Sweden when the latter dies after being shot at a Masked Ball two weeks earlier (1792 - exactly twelve years later to the day, Gustav IV himself abdicates after a coup d'etat); Beethoven makes his first public appearance as a pianist at the premiere of his Second Piano Concerto in Vienna (1795 - on this day in 1827 his funeral is held; up to 30000 people attend the prcession) ; Heinrich Marschner's Der Vampyre is premiered in Leipzig (1828); Wagner's Das Liebesverbot is premiered in Magdeburg (1836); ice on the River Erie blocks the mouth of of the Niagara River; the Niagara Falls stop flowing (1848); Britain annexes the Punjab (1849); Sepoy Mangal Pandey, protesting against having to bite bullet cartridges he believes greased with cow and pig fat, urges rebellion against British rule; he is executed by hanging 12 days later, and the Indian Rebellion begins six weeks later (1857); the Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria (1871); Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin is premiered in Moscow (1879, on the same day as the Battle of Kambula in the Anglo-Zulu War, in which up to 2,000 of the 20,000 Zulus are killed); Robert Falcon Scott makes his final entry in his diary - this is taken as the day that he and his colleagues Henry Robertson Bowers, and Edward Adrian Wilson died (1912); Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem is premiered in New York, conducted by John Barbirolli (1944); the last enemy action of the Second World War on Britain occurred when a V-1 rocket bomb falls on the Hertfordshire village of Datchworth (1945); Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are sentenced to death for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union (1951 - on the very same day, The King and I premieres on Broadway); Some Like It Hot is released (1959); the 23rd Amendment is ratified, allowing citizens of Washington DC to vote in presidential elections (1961); Lt William Calley of the US army is convicted of premeditated murder for his part in the My Lai massacre on 16th March, 1968 and sentenced to Life imprisonment (1972 - he is released after three-and-a-half years under House Arrest); NASA's Marriner 10 space probe becomes the first to fly by Mercury on the same day that the Terracotta Army is unearthed by farmers in the Lintong District of China (1974); Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia become members of NATO (2004); the first same-sex wedding ceremonies in England are held (2014); and Britain invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (2017).

Birthdays today include: Edwin Lutyens (1869); William Walton (1902); Chapman Pincher (1914); Pearl Bailey (1918); John Vane (1927); Richard Rodney Bennett (1936); John Suchet (1940); Eric Idle (1943); and Brendan Gleeson (1955).

Final Days for: Nicolaus Bruhns (1692); Thomas Coram (1751); Emanuel Swedenborg (1772); Charles Wesley (1788); Gottfried van Swieten (1803); Johann Heinrich Voss (1826); Charles-Valentine Alkan (1888); Georges Seurat (1891); Alexandre Guilmant (1911); Charles Villiers Stanford (1924); Karol Szymanowski (1937); Joyce Cary (1957); John Lewis (2001); and Patty Duke (2016).


And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Thursday, 29th March, 1979 were:

Overture: Rossini String Sonata #5; Chopin 4 Mazurkas Op24; Dvorak Czech Suite
Morning Concert: Chabrier Espana; Rodrigo Fantasia pera una gentilhombre; Sarasate Zigeunerweisen; Moszkowski Spanish Dances
This Week's Composer: Liszt Elisabeth's death (The Legend of St Elisabeth); Angelus: Priere aux anges gardiens; Sursum corda
Rohan de Saram: Bach Suite #3; Kodaly Sonata Op8
Beethoven Six Songs to words of Gellert, Op 48; Fauré L'horizon chimfirique
North German Radio SO conducted by André Previn: Berlioz Beatrice & Benedict Ovt; Mozart Linz Symphony; Strauss Alpine Symphony (with an interval talk on the relationship of performers and composers in the late 20th Century).

[greenilex]

Wonder what the Usk is like for bathing? Could one imitate Gladys on a warm evening?

[gurnemanz]

A good day to make the most of still being European.