Today's the Day

[french frank]

So it's true. It is impossible to mention the Lone Ranger without thinking of The Thieving Magpie.

How does that go then? Could you just hum the opening?

[Richard Tarleton]

... "Did you know Jay Silverheel's real name was Smith ? I guarantee this as a perfect conversation stopper."


.

Good grief, so it was - and he was a Canadian Mohawk to boot.....

And gurnemanz, yes...and una tontería is a silly remark or mistake.....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 27th

The Feast Day of the Venerable Bede (in the Orthodox Church - the 25th elsewhere, but I wasn't available to post for that date, and I couldn't possibly miss out celebrating my favourite dead Englishman). Patron saint of writers, historians, and of Jarrow - and by all accounts (and from his writing style) a thoroughly good bloke.

Also on this Date: Count Emicho of Leiningen, as part of his "German Crusade" of killing Jews, accepts an offering of gold from the Jewish citizens of Mainz as payment for his not killing them - he then sends his soldiers into Mainz to do it for him (1096 - despite the best efforts of some of the chief Burghers of the city, ordinary citizens join the Crusaders, and over 1,100 Jewish citizens are murdered); the Habeus Corpus Act is given Royal Assent (1679); a Court of Oyer and Terminer is established by the Governor of Massachusetts for the Salem Witch Trials (1692); Peter the Great founds the city of St Petersburg (1703); Garibaldi begins his assault on Palermo in the campaign for Italian Unification (1860); archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovers the cache of gold and other precious artefacts which he calls "Priam's Treasure" near the modern port city of Çanakkale, Turkey - which may be the site of Troy (1873); Mahler conducts the premiere of his 6th Symphony in Essen's Saalbau hall (1906); the Curtiss NC-4 seaplane completes the first transatlantic flight (1919 - the flight had begun nearly 3 weeks earlier, and had made several stops on the journey); the 15,000,000th and last Model-T car is made by Ford (1927); San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge opens (1937); 97 soldiers in the British Expeditionary Force are murdered in France after they have surrendered to SS Division Totenkopf (1940); the Bismarck is sunk (1941); SS Officer Reinhard Heydrich is shot by the Czech Resistance (1942 - he dies 8 days later); a military coup d'etat in Turkey removes the democratically-elected government (1960); 91% of Australians vote to give Aboriginal peoples greater rights and protection in a National Referendum (1967); Pakistani troops continue killing unarmed Bengali citizens in the Bangladesh War of Independence - more than 200 are murdered in the Bagbati Massacre (1971 - their bodies are then burnt); the worst-ever [so far] traffic accident in the UK occurs when 31 passengers on a coach trip to Grassington, North Yorkshire crashes down an embankment into the River Dibb (1975 - the driver is also killed, and the remaining 13 passengers are all injured); the Sex Pitols' God Save the Queen is released (1977); South Korean troops end a civil uprising in Gwangju, killing over 200 people (1980); the Corleonesi Mafia clan detonates a car bomb outside the Uffizi gallery, killing five people (1993 - four of them are a young family, including their five-day-old baby); after 20 years enforced exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn returns to Russia, where he will live for the remaining 14 years of his life (1994); Christopher Reeve is thrown from his horse, suffering permanent spinal damage (1995); Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth premieres at the Cannes Film Festival (2006); Barack Obama becomes the first US President to visit the Hiroshima Memorial Park in Japan, and meet survivors of the first Atomic Bomb attack (2016).

Birthdays Today include: Girolamo Mei (1519); Michael Altenburg (1584); Amelia Bloomer (1818); Julia Ward Howe (1819); Fromental Halévy (1799); Joseph Joachim Raff (1822); "Wild Bill" Hickok (1837); Arnold Bennett (1867); Georges Rouault (1871); Max Brod (1884); Louis Durey (1888); Dashiell Hammett (1894); John Cockcroft (1897); Rachel Carson (1907); Vincent Price (1911); Herman Wouk (1915 - he died 10 days before his 104th birthday); Bob Godfrey (1921); Christopher Lee (1922 - a day [and 9 years] after his friend Peter Cushing); Thea Musgrave (1928); Don Williams (1939); Cilla Black (1943); Ian Tracey (1955); Siouxsie Sioux (1957); Petroc Trelawny (1971); and Jamie Oliver (1975).

Final Days for: John Calvin (1564); Niccolò Paganini (1840); Thomas Bulfinch (1867); Robert Koch (1910); Leopold Nowak (1991); Luciano Berio (2003); Denis ApIvor (2004); and Bill Pertwee (2013).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Sunday, 27th May, 1979 were:

Mozart Piano Concertos: Stamitz Bassoon Concerto in F; Mozart Piano Concerto #9 in Eb
Your Concert Choice: Kozeluh Symphony in g minor; Rossini "Una voce poco fa" ( from The Barber of Seville); Charpentier "Depuis le jour" (from Louise); Ponce Concierto del sur; Prokofiev Winter Bonfire, Op 122.
Music Weekly presented by Michael Oliver, with features on Vincent d'Indy; Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies; and photographing Musicians.
NBCSO/Cantelli: Haydn Symphony #88, in G; Hindemith Concert Music for strings & brass; Wagner Rienzi Ovt.

[cloughie]

Happy birthday to the ‘Cornish One’. Surprised I’ve got that in before anton.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 28th

Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Day - promoting awareness of good practice, education, and encouraging a culture which welcomes discussion to highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene management. VAT on sanitary products is still levied at 5% throughout the EU, and will continue to do so until 2022 at the earliest.

Also on this Date: the earliest recorded predicted Solar Eclipse occurs (528 BCE - predicted at least forty years earlier by Greek philosopher Thales Miletus, the date of this eclipse is useful for historians in ascertaining other dates of events in relation to it); Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cramner declares Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn valid (1533); the first ships in the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon (1588 - the entire fleet of 130 ships takes three days to launch); Monteverdi's second opera, L'Arianna is premiered in Mantua (1608 - now lost, of course ); Royalist troops kill around 1,600 Parliamentarian defenders and citizens of Bolton (1644); the Paris Commune falls to government troops (1871); Edouard and Andre Michelin found their tyre company (1889); the world's oldest surviving Environmental Preservation Organizations, the Sierra Club, is founded by John Muir (1892); the first Isle of Man TT Race is held (1907); the first Glyndebourne Festival opens with a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Fritz Busch and directed by Carl Ebert (1934 - the next night, the same team produce Cosi fan tutte; also on 28th, the Dionne quintuplets, the first quins known to have survived infancy, are born in Ontario - two are still alive); Alan Turing submits his paper On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, in which he demonstrates how it is that some problems are "undecidable", using proofs he has calculated with early "computing machines" (1936); Volkswagen is founded by the Nazi German Labour Front (1937); Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler is premiered in Zurich (1938); Belgium surrenders to the Nazis; the first Allied infantry victory occurs when Norwegian, French, Polish and British forces recapture Narvik in Norway from the Nazi occupiers (both 1940); in revenge at the shooting of Heydrich, the SS kill more than 1,800 Czech citizens (1942); the first episode of Crazy People is broadcast on the BBC Home Service (1951 - it shortly becomes known as The Goon Show); Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in The Observer, drawing attention to human rights abuse around the world and calling for international action (1961 - Benenson had heard about two Portuguese students imprisoned for raising a toast "to freedom"; the article sparks the creation of Amnesty International); 66-year-old Francis Chichester completes his solo circumnavigation oif the world (1967 - he is the first person to do so travelling West to East via the Great Capes); less than six months after its creation, the power-sharing executive between Unionists and Nationalists in Northern Ireland is dissolved after a fortnight's general strike by Loyalists (1974); John Paul II becomes the first Pope to make an pastoral visit to Britain (1982); Mathias Rust, an 18-year-old pilot from West Germany lands his private plane in Moscow's Red Square (1987); Pakistan becomes the 7th country to test nuclear weapons, detonating weapons underground (1998 - sanctions are imposed immediately by the US, Japan, and other nations, but the day remains celebrated as "The Day of Greatness" [Youm-e-Takbir]); Leonardo's Last Supper goes back on public display in Milan, after 22 years of restoration work (1999); the clearing of the site of the World Trade Center buildings is completed, and commemorated with a closing ceremony (2002); 53% of voters in the Maltese Referendum on divorce vote in favour of the proposal to allow divorce "under certain conditions" (2011).

Birthdays Today include: Geminiano Giacomelli (1692); William Pitt the younger (1759); Thomas Moore (1779); Carl Larsson (1853); George Dyson and Clough Williams-Ellis (both 1883); Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot (1888); Ian Fleming (1908); Thora Hird (1911); Patrick White (1912); György Ligeti (1923); Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925); Maeve Binchy (1939); Youri Egorov (1954); Kylie Minogue (1968); Carey Mulligan (1985); ... and Gladys Knight is 75 today.

Final Days for: Wulfstan (1023); Leopold Mozart (1787); Luigi Boccherini (1805); Anton Reicha (1836); Noah Webster (1843); Anne Brontë (1849); Boris Kustodiev and Charles Macpherson (both 1927); Alfred Adler (1937); Mary Lou Williams (1981); Eric Morecambe (1984); Sy Oliver (1988); Julius Eastman (1990); Beryl Cook (2008); and, five years ago, Maya Angelou.


And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Sunday, 28th May, 1989 were:

Morning's [sic] at Seven: Delius Brigg Fair; Warlock Capriol Suite.
Music Group of London: Ravel Pno 3o; Szymanowski Romance; Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge.
Your Concert Choice: Dvorak My Home; Wesley Symphony #5 in A; Schubert Sonata in G (D 894); Ireland A Downland Suite; Bliss Piano Concerto.
Music Weekly introduced by Michael Oliver, with features on Nikos Skalkottas; How Women are Treated in Opera; Singing on Stage ("a discussion between Mike Alfreds , Thomas Hemsley and Norman Platt.")
BBCSO conducted by Matthias Bambert: Rimsky-Korsakov Tsar Saltan Suite; Bartok Piano Concerto #3 (with Vladimir Ovchinikov); Dvorak Symphony No 9.

[vinteuil]

.

28 May is also the festal day of S Germanus of Paris [c.496-576], he of Saint-Germain-des-Prés ("He was unwearying and fearless in his endeavours to put a stop to civil strife and to curb the viciousness of the Frankish kings, but with little effect"), and also of St Bernard of Montjoux [c.996-c.1081], whose memorable achievement was the building of rest-houses for travellers at the top of the Alpine passes named after him, the Great and Little St Bernard (the dogs did not come till very much later.)



.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

How I missed St Bernard ...

[cloughie]

How I missed St Bernard ...

Most on these boards settle for Uncle Bernard!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 29th

Oak Apple Day - commemorating the Restoration of Charles II and the end of the Puritan Republic; the date chosen as it was on this date in 1660 that Charles entered London from exile in France (it is his birthday, too). It was first celebrated (as "Royal Oak Day") on the first anniversary of the King's return, and both Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn refer to that first celebration in their diary entries for that year. It was a national holiday, and children would take boughs of Oak-Apple sprays to decorate the doors of the wealthier citizens of a town in exchange for a gift of money. If the householders didn't pay, the children would sing

Shig-shag, penny a rag
Bang his head in Cromwell's bag
Bad cess to this house come to stay
Before next 29th of May

.

People were expected to wear an oak leaf, or some other symbol of their royalist allegience, prominently on display - children were entitled to pinch, kick, pelt with rotten eggs, or swipe with bunches of nettles anyone who was negligent in this respect. (And, in some parts of the country, if they negelcted to remove these tokens at noon!)

Most Oak-Apple customs have died out, but in Castleton in the Peak District (home of the Bluejohn Caves) there is still Garland Day, in which a chosen King is completely covered in greenery, fastened to a frame - he then rides on a horse (guided by others: he can't see a thing) leading a procession of Morris Dancers, Silver Band, and other revellers through the streets, stopping at St Edmund's Church, where the garland is removed, split into two and hoisted onto the Church spire and the War Memorial. There is a short prayer, and then pubs make a healthy profit.


And it's also World Digestive Health Day - each year focussing on a different aspect of digestive health to promote awareness and raise funds for research and prevention. This year the theme is Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal cancer.

Also on this Date: Constantinople falls to the Ottoman troops of 21-yr-old Sultan Mehmed II (1453); Sojourner Truth gives an improvised speech at a Stae Convention fo Women's Rights in Ohio (1851 - it is later published as "Ain't I a Woman?"); the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy is established (1867); Nijinsky's choreographed version of Debussy's Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Faune is premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (1912); The Rite of Spring is premiered at the newly-opened Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, conducted by Pierre Monteux (1913); Bing Crosby records White Christmas (1942 - on the same day, Michael Curtiz's film Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring James Cagney as George M Cohan, is released ); the first British Film Awards [later supplemented by Television to become the BAFTAs] are distributed (1949); Hillary and Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Everest (1953); Tippett's King Priam is premiered in Coventry as part of the Cathedral Reconsecration Arts Festival (1962); the Argentine garrison at Goose Green surrenders to British troops (1982); 39 football spectators are crushed to death at the Heysel Stadium disaster (1985 - over 600 others are injured); Discovery becomes the first Space Shuttle to dock with the International Space Station (1999); ... and it's a hundred years since Arthur Edington and Frank Watson Dyson made their measurements of the gravitational deflection of sunlight during a total Solar Eclipse which demonstrated the accuracy of Einstein's predictions in his General Theory of Relativity.

Birthdays Today include: Charles II (1630); Isaac Albeniz (1860); GK Chesterton (1874); Oswald Spengler (1880); Beatrice Lillie (1894); Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897); Bob Hope (1903); TH White (1906); Diana Morgan (1908); Tenzing Norgay (1914); Karl Munchinger (1915); John F Kennedy (1917); Iannis Xenakis (1922); Katie Boyle (1926); Helmuth Rilling (1933); André Brink (1935); Gary Brooker (1945); Michael Berkeley (1948); Francis Rossi (1949); Danny Elfman (1953); Pascal Dusapin (1955); Annette Bening (1958); Rupert Everett (1959); Noel Gallagher (1967); Tansy Davies Tansy Davies (1973); Sarah Millican (1975); Pearl Mackie (1987).

Final Days for: John Penry (1593); Israel Putnam (1790 - he of Ives' "Camp"); Josephine Bonaparte (1814); Humphrey Davy (1829); Bahá'u'lláh (1892); Mily Balakirev (1910); WS Gilbert (1911 - drowned whilst saving the life of Patricia Preece, who became Stanley Spencer's second wife); Cornelis van der Linden (1918); Josef Suk (1935); John Barrymore (1942); Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Fanny Brice (both 1951); Morgan Russell (1953); James Whale (1957); Eva Hesse (1970); Mary Pickford (1979); Romy Schneider (1982); Phyllis Tate (1987); George Rochberg (2005); Dennis Hopper (2010).



And the Radio 3 Schedules for Thursday 19th May, 1969 were:

Overture ("gramophone records")
Morning Concert ("gramophone records")
This Week's Composer Schumann (Blumenstuck, Op. 19,& Sonata in F minor, Op. 14)
Showcase ("a programme of recently-released gramophone records")
Music-Making Franz Reizenstein
Midday Concert ("gramophone records")

[french frank]

Also on this Date: Constantinople falls to the Ottoman troops of 21-yr-old Sultan Mehmed II (1453);

Thus causing Byzantine Greek scholars, bringing many ancient manuscripts, to flood into Western Europe: a key event that enriched the Renaissance in Italy with new insights into Classical antiquity. A cloud with a silver lining.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

:smile: I hadn't made that connection.

[vinteuil]

Oak Apple Day ...

Most Oak-Apple customs have died out, but in Castleton in the Peak District (home of the Bluejohn Caves) there is still Garland Day, in which a chosen King is completely covered in greenery, fastened to a frame - he then rides on a horse (guided by others: he can't see a thing) leading a procession of Morris Dancers, Silver Band, and other revellers through the streets, stopping at St Edmund's Church, where the garland is removed, split into two and hoisted onto the Church spire and the War Memorial. There is a short prayer, and then pubs make a healthy profit.

... there is also a fine Wiltshire Oak Apple Day custom in Great Wishford near Salisbury we used to go to when young - "Grovely, Grovely, and All Grovely!"

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-oak-apple-day-in-great-wishford-1961-online

http://calendarcustoms.com/articles/great-wishford-grovely-ceremony/

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 30th

The Feast Day of Joan of Arc, who was burnt at the stake on this date in 1431, aged about 19 years old. Not canonised for nearly another 500 years, she is the Patron Saint of France (one of them - nine altogether); martyrs; captives; military personnel; people ridiculed for their piety; prisoners; soldiers; and of women who have served in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) and the Women's Army Corps. Busy lass.

Also on this Date: the Great Rising [often referred to as the Peasants' Revolt, even though very few peasants were involved] begins (1341); Jerome of Prague is burnt at the stake as a heretic (1416 - he has preached that God is accessible to people without the need for clergy); Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour (1536); in Kentucky, in a duel which has escalated from an argument about a horse racing bet, Charles Dickinson shoots Andrew Jackson in his chest, and in return Jackson shoots Dickinson, killing him (1806 - Jackson carries the bullet for the rest of his life [he dies in 1845], as doctors think it is too close to his heart for them to operate safely; he becomes the 7th President of the United States 26 years later) Napoleon arrives on Elba for his 9-month exile (1814 - on the same day, the Treaty of Paris is signed, restoring French borders to their 1792 positions); East India Company ship Arniston, carrying 378 passengers [including soldiers invalided in the Napoleonic Wars] is wrecked off the coast of Western Cape, Africa - only 6 men survive (1815); Queen Victoria survives an assassination attempt as she travels with Prince Albert down Constitution Hill (1842); Smetana's Bartered Bride is premiered at the Provisional Thetre, Prague (1866); twelve people are killed in a stampede triggered by a woman falling down a staircase on the newly-opened Brooklyn Bridge (1883 - the Bridge had been opened just six days, when she fell, the rumour quickly spread that the bridge itself was collapsing); Warren Harding officiates at the Dedication ceremony for the newly completed Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC (1922); Howard Hanson's "Nordic" Symphony is premiered by the Augusteo Orchestra [later renamed the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia] in Rome, conducted by the Composer (1923); 13 Chinese Nationalist Protesters are shot dead by members of the British-run Shanghai Municipal Police (1925 - the massacre triggers the formation ot the anti-imperialist May 30th Movement in China); Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex is premiered at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, conducted by the composer (1927); Chicago police open fire on striking steel workers, killing 10 of them, and injuring more than 67 others (1937); Walter Piston's ballet The Incredible Flutist is premiered by the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fieldler (1938); Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas two nineteen-year-olds in Athens climb the Acropolis and tear down the Swastika, inspiring renewed support for the Greek Resistance movement (1941 - the boys are sentenced to death by the Nazis, but they never find out who the two are); the RAF launch a 90-minute bombing raid on Cologne (1942); Mengele becomes the Medical Officer of the Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz Exttermination Camp (1943); Luigi Nono's Incontri is premiered in the State Hall, Darmstadt by the Southwest German Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Rosbaud (1955); Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge is first played in the large auditorium of West German Radio, Cologne (1956); Britten's War Requiem is premiered in Coventry Cathedral (1962); miltary dictator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko, subjects his political predecessors to a show trial and has them publicly hanged for High Treason (1966); Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is published in Buenos Aires (1967); Charles de Gaulle returns to France from a visit to Germany, encouraging his supporters to take to the streets against left-wing demonstrators (1968); three members of the anti-zionist Japanese Red Army attack Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 26 people and injuring over 80 others (1972 - two of the terrorista are themselves killed, and the other injured); the European Space Agency is founded (1975); Bagladesh President Ziaur Rahman and 6 of his bodyguards are shot dead by a group of army officers (1981); Feldman's Coptic Light is premiered by the NYPO conducted by Gunther Schuller (1986); a 33-foot tall papier-mache statue, the Goddess of Liberty, is unveiled by protestors in Tiananmen Square (1989); Disney's Finding Nemo is released (2003); Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia is sentenced to 50 years imprisonment for War Crimes comitted in the Sierra Leone Civil War (2012)

Birthdays Today include: Karl Friedrich Naumann (1797); Mikhail Bakunin (1814); Karl Gustavovich Fabergé (1846); Ernest Duchesne (1874); Howard Hawks (1896); John Gilroy (1898); Irving Thalberg (1899); Mel Blanc (1908); Benny Goodman (1909); John Marks (1825); Robert Ryman (1930); Pauline Oliveros (1932); Tim Waterstone (1939); Zoltan Kocsis (1952); Colm Meaney (1953); Colm Tóibín (1955); Harry Enfield (1961); Helen Sharman (1963); and Rachael Stirling (1977).

Final Days for: Christopher Marlowe (1593); Peter Paul Rubens (1640); Alexander Pope (1744); François Boucher (1770); Voltaire (1778); William Hurlstone (1906); Wilbur Wright (1912); Georg von Trapp (1947); Boris Pasternak (1960); Claude Rains and G. W. Pabst (both 1967); Marcel Dupré (1971); Sun Ra (1993); and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (2011).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Wednesday, 30th May, 1979 were:

Your Midweek Choice: Khachaturian Masquerade Suite; Poulenc Suite Francais; Gershwin An American in Paris; Pichl "Mars" Symphony; Flotow Ach so fromm (Martha); Ries Piano Concerto #3 in c# minor.
This Week's Composer: Copland (El Salon Mexico; Symphony #3)
Music for Organ "Peter Williams plays Chorale Preludes by Bach and his predecessors Buxtehude, Scheidemann, de Grigny and Böhm"
Russian Folk Music "A sequence of music featuring a variety of soloists and ensembles(Moscow Radio recording)"
American Music for 'cello & piano (Barber Sonata for cello and piano; Mario Davidovsky Synchronisms 3, for cello and electronic sounds; John Cage Bacchanale for prepared piano; George Crumb Sonata for solo cello; Beatrice Witkin Chiaroscuro, for cello & piano.
BBCSSO conducted by Steuart Bedford (Mozart Pno Concs K415 & 482 [with Murray Perahia] and Symphony K318)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

May 31st

The Feast Day of St Petronilla - in some traditions, the daughter of St Peter (!) who cured her of Palsy, but who, because she was so beautiful, kept her locked in a tower to keep her safe from male interest; which led to her going on hunger strike from which she died. Some confused messages here - especially when the fact that she might have lived in the Third Century (there are no references to her before the 4th Century, whilst other early Christian martyrs are recorded), well over a hundred years after St Peter's death. There is mention of Peter having a daughter in the supressed Gnostic Gospel of St Peter, but her name isn't mentioned - so it may be that Petronilla's name got grafted on to the story. Wha'evva - she is the Patron Saint of the Duaphins of France [not much call, these days], treaties between Poeps and the Frankish Emperors [ditto], and Mountain Travellers ... and she is invoked by sufferers from "fevers".

World No Tobacco Day - encouraging a complete abstinence from all forms of tobacco consumption on this day.

Also on this Date: the reign of Roman Emperor Petronius Maximus comes to an end after 75 days when he is stoned to death by an angry mob (455); Henry II of France lays the first stone of the New Bridge (Pont Neuf) - the oldest extant bridge crossing the Seine (1578); with an entry mentioning a visit to "The World's End drinking house ... and there merry, and so home late", Samuel Pepys writes his last entry in his Diary (1669 - he cites his fears that he may be losing his sight as the reason for writing no more; he doesn't, and lives another 34 years); after three years, the Revolutionary Tribunal, chief instrument of the Reign of Terror, is dissolved (1795); Rossini's Thieving Magpie is premiered at La Scala, Milan (1817); the clocks in the Tower of the Palace of Westminster are started (1859); more than 2200 people are killed when the South Fork Dam in Johnstown, Pennsylvania breaks (1889); John Harvey Kellog files for a patent for "Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same" (1895 - he receives the patent a year later); the Boer War comes to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, in which the Boer Republics become independent states under the sovereignty of the British Crown (1902); Belgian citizen, Miss Pottelsberghe de la Pottery, becomes the first aircraft passenger (1908); the first meeting of the National Negro Committee is held in New York (1909 - it changes its name the next year to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]); the incomplete RMS Tiatanic is launched on the first of its sea trials (1911); the Battle of Jutland - the largest sea battle of the First World War (1916); over 37 black citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma, are killed and more than 800 injured when attacked with clubs, guns, and bombs by white mobs (1921 - some of the attackers use their private aircraft to get a better aim); 40,000 people are killed in an earthquake in the city of Quetta [now in Pakistan] (1935); Japanese aircraft begin a week-long series of attacks on Sydney Harbour (1942); up to 70,000 people are killed in an earthquake in the Ankash region of Peru (1970 - the quake lasts about 45 seconds); the only High School Prom to be held in the White House [so far] occurs when President Ford's daughter reaches graduation age (1975); the first episode of children's cartoon Peppa Pig is broadcast on Channel 5 (2004); Vanity Fair magazine reveals the identity of Watergate Informant "Deep Throat" to be former FBI Associate Director, Mark Felt (2005); six civilian ships in International waters attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid are boarded by Israeli troops (2010 - nine of the activists are killed outright during the subsequent struggle, another one dies after four years in a coma, and ten Israeli soldiers are wounded); asteroid QE2 and its moon reach their closest approach to Earth [just over 3.5 million miles] (2013 - they will be a smidgen closer on their next "visit": in another 222 years); and, this time last year, the Ugandan Parliament imposes a Tax on the use of social media, which, of course, has nothing to do with widespread criticism of President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 34 years (the cost is about 4p per day per user - but, over the year, that amounts to about 3% of the average annual wage in Uganda).

Birthdays Today include: Margaret Beaufort (1443); Feodor the Bellringer (Tsar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible's son - 1557); Marin Marias (1656); Jean-Pierre Christin (1683); Hieronymus von Colloredo (boo-hiss - 1732);Ludwig Tieck (1773); Louise Farrenc (1804); Walt Whitman (and all his multitudes - 1819); Kusumoto Ine (1827); Julius Petri (1852); Walter Sickert (1860); Saint-John Perse (1887); Denholm Elliott (1922); Ellsworth Kelly (1923); Clint Eastwood (1930); Shirley Verrett (1931); Terry Waite (1939); Sharon Gless (1943); Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945); John Bonham (1948); Archie Punjabi (1972); Colin Farrell (1976);

Final Days for: Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria (1076); Tintoretto (1594); Joachim Neander (1680); Haydn (1809); Joseph Grimaldi (1837); Franz Strauss (1905); Marie‐Auguste Durand (1909); Elizabeth Blackwell (1910); Billy Strayhorn (1967); CLR James (1989); Ton de Leeuw and Timothy Leary (both 1996); Danny La Rue (2009); Benjamin Lees and Louise Bourgeois (both 2010) and Carla Lane (2016).


And the Radio 3 Schedules for the morning of Wednesday, 31st May, 1989 were:

Morning Concert: Spohr "Magic Flute" Pot-pourri; Delibes Coppelia (excerpts); Offenbach Orpheus in the Underworld Ovt; Mozart Concerto for 2 Pianos; Brahms/Collin Hungarian Dance #5 & Heymann Amusez-vous [both performed by the Comedian Harmonists]; Waxman Carmen Fantasy.
Composer of the Week: Schumann ( Faust Scene 1; Zwielicht [from Op 39]; Rhenish Symphony)
New Zurich S4tet: Stravinsky Concertino; Shostakovich S4tet #3
Harpsichord Recital by Mitzi Meyerson: Balbastre Pieces de clavecin (Prelude; La d'Esclignac; La Monmartel ou la Brunoy; La d'Hericourt; La Courteille; La Bellaud) A. Forqueray Pieces de clavecin, Suite #1 in d minor (Allemande; La Laborde; La Cottin; La Portugaise; La Bellmont; La Forqueray; La Couperin)
Midweek Choice: Bach,/Stokowski Prelude in Eb minor (Book 1 No 8, BWV 853); Haydn Piano Sonata in g minor; Bach Cantata BWV195; Massenet Scenes Napolitaines; Mozart Piano concerto #9; Gade Symphony #5 in d minor

[Richard Tarleton]

Shirley Verrett (1931)

What a voice - here in one of her great roles.....(she of course sings it in the great Giulini recording)