Today's the Day

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • gradus
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 5606

    Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
    Colman of Lindesfarne is commemorated on this date - the Irish monk who was Bishop of Lindisfarne when he "lost" the argument about the dating of Easter, and who died back in Ireland on this date in 675.

    Also on this date: George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, is executed (reputedly by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey) in 1478; Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is first published (1678); Flora, a ballad opera performed in Charleston, South Carolina becomes the first opera performed in America (1735); Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops take control of Inverness on the very day that Handel's oratorio Samson is premiered in London (1745); a three-week mutiny by the slave "cargo" of the Meermin begins (1766); Joseph II (he of the "too many notes" story) bans all children under the age of 8 from working (1788); Victor Emmanuel II does indeed become "Re d'Italia" (1861); Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem is premiered in Leipzig (1869); Bulgarian freedom-fighter, Vasil Levski is executed by hanging by the country's Ottomon rulers ("whoever is killed in the cause of freedom never dies" - 1873); Russian police confiscate all copies of Leo Tolstoy's What I Believe In (1884); Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is first published (1885); Vincent d'Indy's Symphonic Triptych, Jour D'été à La Montagne is premiered in Paris (1906); Germany begins a blockade of Britain (1915); a strike in the Putilov Factory in Petrograd signals the start of the 1917 Revolutions; British troops occupy Dublin (1920); Clyde Tombough, studying photographs he'd taken in January, discovers Pluto (1930); Goebbels demands total dedication to the War effort from all Germans in his Sportpalast speech, in which he first indicates that the War is not going well for Germany (1943); Menotti's The Telephone is premiered in New York (1947); the Church of Scientology is founded (1954); Kenyan freedom-fighter, Dedan Kimathi is executed by hanging by the country's British rulers (1957); Britain begins a trial period of all-year-long BST (1968); the Chicago 7 trial verdicts are delivered (1970; all convictions are overturned two years later); snow falls in the Sahara Desert (1979); the IRA explodes two bombs in London's Victoria and Paddington stations (1991); Terry Pratchett is knighted (2009); and the first WikiLeaks classified documents are published (2010).

    Birthdays today include: Mary I (1516); Alessandro Volta (1745); Ernst Mach (1838); Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848); Enzo Ferrari (1898); Phyllis Calvert and Marcel Landowski (both 1915); Wallace Berman (1926); Toni Morrison (1931); Milos Forman (1932); Yoko Ono (1933); Graeme Garden (1943); Michael Buerk (1936); Sinead Cusack (1948); John Travolta (1954); and Len Deighton is 90 today.

    Last Days for: Kublai Khan (1294); Fra Angelico (1455); Martin Luther (1546); Michelangelo (1564); Charles Lewis Tiffany (1902 - on his son's 54th birthday); John Batterson Stetson (several of the hats removed in respect having been made by his company - 1906); Gustave Charpentier (1956); J Robert Oppenheimer (1967); Wallace Berman (1976 - on his 50th birthday, as he was reported to have predicted as a child); Ngaio Marsh (1982); Jacqueline Hill (1993); Kevin Ayers (2013); and, six months before her 100th birthday, the last surviving von Trapp sibling, Maria Franziska ("Louise" in the film, presumably to pre-empt any problems audiences might have had with two Marias - 2014).

    And the Sunday morning schedules for Radio 3 on this date, 1979 were:

    Bach and Handel: continuing a series of programmes of the "48" and the Op6 Concerti Grossi
    Your Concert Choice: Mozart "Haffner Serenade" (Zuckerman/ECO); Warlock "Curlew" (Partridge/Music Group of London)
    Music Weekly: Articles on Ernest Read; Robin Leggate; and Ernst Eulenburg, of the publishing firm, whose 100th birthday was approaching (he would live for more than another three years).
    From the Proms 1978: the John Alldis Choir performing works by Schubert, Gesualdo, Stravinsky, Schönberg, Bruckner ... and Brian Ferneyhough's Missa Brevis.
    ferney, I've only just started to read this thread, where on earth do you get all this stuff, you appear to be Whittaker's Almanac, sorry if I've missed an earlier explanation.

    Comment

    • ferneyhoughgeliebte
      Gone fishin'
      • Sep 2011
      • 30163

      Originally posted by gradus View Post
      ferney, I've only just started to read this thread, where on earth do you get all this stuff, you appear to be Whittaker's Almanac, sorry if I've missed an earlier explanation.
      I got a couple of books on daily customs and celebrations recently, and thought it might tickle the Forum to mention some of these. Then it stretched to seeking out other "historical" events associated with each day - everything's on the Internet, and I do a little double-checking with the aim of ensuring that inaccuracies are kept to a minimum.

      Keeps me off the streets!
      [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

      Comment

      • Wychwood
        Full Member
        • Aug 2017
        • 247

        Michael Buerk 83? No, he's still a couple of years short of qualifying for a free TV licence. (Obviously just a typo, fhg, because you've put him in the right position in the chronological listing).

        Thanks again, ferney, for keeping this thread going with such abundant entries. A daily go-to page for me.

        Comment

        • greenilex
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 1626

          Wikipedia on the Meermin mutiny is absolutely fascinating.

          One of the Malagasy mutineers survived on Robben Island for decades.

          Comment

          • ferneyhoughgeliebte
            Gone fishin'
            • Sep 2011
            • 30163

            Originally posted by Wychwood View Post
            Michael Buerk 83? No, he's still a couple of years short of qualifying for a free TV licence. (Obviously just a typo, fhg, because you've put him in the right position in the chronological listing).
            Oops! Yes - I went a smidgen too far to the left (and not for the first time in my life) Duly corrected.

            Thanks again, ferney, for keeping this thread going with such abundant entries. A daily go-to page for me.
            [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

            Comment

            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
              Gone fishin'
              • Sep 2011
              • 30163

              February 19th

              Brancusi Day in Romania - celebrating the life and work of the Artist Constantin Brancusi. Why aren't there more "feast days" for leading figures in the Arts? Why haven't we got an equivalent Moore or Hepworth Day? (Some of us, of course, already celebrate Shakespeare Day rather than the Greco-Roman dragon-slayer, but that's another matter ... )

              Also on this date: New Amsterdam is renamed New York with the signing of the Westminster Treaty, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1674); Handel's Alexander's Feast is premiered in London (1736); Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in Russia (1861); Thomas Edison patents the Phonograph (1878); Schubert's Third Symphony receives its first professional performance, in London and Kansas prohibits the sale and consumption of all alcoholic beverages (both 1881); Charles D Bolin establishes the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, with his partner, Will Keith Kellogg (1906); Beecham conducts the UK premiere of Strauss' Elektra at Covent Garden, the first Strauss opera to be performed in Britain (1910); in 1910, Mary Mallon is released from a three-year hospital quarantine imposed after her part in spreading a typhoid epidemic between 1900 - 07 - after her release, "Typhoid Mary" goes on to cause further outbreaks over the next five years; four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff travels by train to her grandparents' house in Lewiston, Idaho - the train is a mail train, and she has been sent by Parcel Post (1914); the 1st Pan African Congress is held in Paris (1919); Sibelius conducts the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in Helsinki (1923); Nazi police round up Jews for deprotation in Amsterdam - and are met with fierce resisitance (1941); Japanese aircraft bomb Darwin, killing 243 people, and President Roosevelt orders the detention and confinement of all American citizens of Japanese descent (both 1943 - Roosevelt's Executive Order is not rescinded until this day in 1976); Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasilieras No 3 is premiered on CBS Radio (1947); Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize of $10,000 following the publication of his Pisan Cantos (1949); Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is first published, and Robert Frost is awarded the (15th) Bollinger Prize (both 1963); test Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first test flight, piggy-backing a Boeing 747 "Jumbo Jet"; Cherry Coke is introduced by Coca-Cola, and the first episode of Eastenders is broadcast (both 1985); Tippett's The Rose Lake is premiered (1995); the Mars Odyssey probe orbits Mars, mapping the planet's surface using thermal emission imaging (2002); Simon Wiesenthal receives an honorary knighthood (2004); and this time last year, government forces bombard Gouta in Syria, killing over 100 civilians in the worst atrocity in the civil war for three years.

              Birthdays include: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473); Henry, first son of James VI/I (1594 - he dies aged 18, leaving his younger brother Charles as heir to the throne); David Garrick (1717); Luigi Boccherini (1743); Constantin Brancusi (1876); Cedric Hardwicke (1893); Andre Breton (1896); Grace Williams (1906); Merle Oberon (1911); Lee Marvin (1924); Gyorgy Kurtag (1926); Smokey Robinson (1940); Amy Tan (1952); Ray Winstone (1957); Helen Fielding (1958); and Erin Pizzey is 80 today.

              Final days for: Georg Buchner (1837); Ernst Mach (1916); Robert Fuchs (1927); Hamilton Harty (1941); Andre Gide (1951); Georgios Papanikolaou (1962); John Grierson (1972); Joseph Szigeti (1973); Luigi Dallapiccola (1975); Umberto Eco and Harper Lee (both 2016); and it's 25 years since the death of Derek Jarman (1994).

              And, on this date in 1989 (a Sunday) the Radio 3 morning schedules were:

              Bach: Sonata in C; P&F in E minor (Peter Hurford)
              Yevgeni Mravinsky: Weber Oberon Ovt; Tchaik #4
              Your Concert Choice: Mercadante Clarinet Concerto; Beethoven Serenade Op 25; Nielsen Springtime in Fiinen; Brahms orch Schoenberg
              Music Weekly: articles on Cesar Franck; the Prokofiev Piano Sonatas; Music at the British Library; John McCabe on writing for Brass Bands.
              Strauss & Mozart: last of 6 programmes, including Strauss' 2nd Horn Concerto and his Deutsche Motette; and Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony.
              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

              Comment

              • edashtav
                Full Member
                • Jul 2012
                • 3670

                Originally posted by edashtav View Post
                Ah, Fra Angelico: his work has inspired a number of musical pieces. Which is your favourite one, I wonder?
                My favourite : Fibich op 56/3

                Comment

                • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                  Gone fishin'
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 30163

                  February 20th

                  John Cass Commemoration Day - late 17th-early 18th Century MP, who founded at least three scholls in the East London. Every year, staff and students of the John Cass School in Aldgate attend a Founder's Day service at St Botolph's Church, carrying red feathers as they process from school to church. They like to say that this is because Cass suffered a major haemorrhage as he was writing his Will, and the red feathers represent his blood on the quill he was using. (In actual fact, red feathers appear on his Coat-of-Arms, biut don't spoil their fun by telling!)

                  And it's also St Wulfric's day, named after the 12th Century hermit, reputed to have the gift of prophesy - he correctly told Henry I that he would shortly die ("and how's your tea, by the way, your majesty?") and reprimanded King Stephen for his wicked governance. He did all the hermitty things (sackcloth vest, cold baths, sleep deprivation, veagn diet) and after his own death, there was an undignified squabble over who had rights to his body (for the lucrative relicary market).

                  And it's the annual UN World Social Justice Day, promoting awareness of poverty, unemployment, and exclusion, with a view to "guaranteeing fair outcomes for all through employment, social protection, social dialogue, and fundamental principles and rights".

                  Also on this date:

                  Christian I of Denmark gives Orkney and Shetland to King James III of Scotland in lieu of a dowry for his daughter, Margaret (1472); nine-year-old Edward VI is crowned in Westminster Abbey (1547); Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto is premiered in London (1724); Jacobite troops occupy Fort Augustus on the South-West bank of Loch Ness (1745); the United States Post Office Department is established - fee is between 6 - 12 cents, depending on distance (1792); Pope Pius VI is taken prisoner by Napoleon's troops - he dies on the journey from Rome to France; Rossini's Barber of Seville is premiered in Rome (1816); Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, and his Concerto in Ab for 2 Pianos both receive their premieres in Szczecin, Poland (1827); Polish Nationalists begin a nine-day rebellion in Krakow against Austrian rule (1846); the Metropolitan Museum of Art is opened in New York and Cyrus Baldwin patents a hydraulic electric elevator (both 1872); Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is premiered in Moscow; the first of the various second versions of Bruckner's Romantic Symphony is premiered in Vienna (1881); a French translation of Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto is published in Le Figaro (1909); French president georges Clemenceau survives but is injured in an assassination attempt (1919); Golfers in South Carolina are arrested for "violating" the Sabbath (1927); Adolf Hitler arranges with German industrialists for funding for the nazi Party (1933); Virgil Thomson & Gertrude Stein's opera Four Saints in Three Acts is premiered in New York (1934); Anthony Eden resigns from Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet in protest at the appeasement policy towards Hitler, and Hitler himself declares his support of Japan in the Sino-Japanese War (both 1938); with a very sick sense of irony, Polish Jews are banned from using public transport on the very day that trains begin exporting the first Jewish detainees to the extermination camps (1941); Carl Orff's Die Kluge is premiered in Frankfurt (1943); Earl Mountbatten is appointed the last Viceroy of India, charged with overseeing the dismantling of British colonial rule (1947); Dylan Thomas arrives in New York for the start of his first American tour (1950); The African Queen is released (1952); John Glen becomes the first American to orbit the earth (1962); a four-month long series of reprisal killings begins in Northern Ireland between rival republican groups the IRA and the INLA (1975); eleven Northern Irish "loyalists" are sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of 19 randomly "chosen" Catholic citizens in Belfast (1979); the Soviet Union launches the Mir Space Station - it is in operation for the next ten years (1986); and protestors in Albania demolish a statue of former Communist leader, Enver Hoxha (1991).

                  Birthdays today include: Franz Ignaz Beck (1734); Johann Peter Salomon (1745); Charles Auguste de Beriot (1802); Mary Garden (1874); Ansel Adams (1902); Ruth Gipps (1921); Gloria Vanderbilt (1924); Sidney Poitier (1927); Nancy Wilson (1937); Buffy Saint-Marie (1941); Mike Leigh (1943); Brenda Blethyn (1946); Tony Wilson (1950); and Gordon Brown (1951).

                  Last Days for: John Dowland (1626); Luigi Rossi (1653); Joseph II (1790); Frederick Douglass (1895); Robert Peary (1920); Max Schreck (1936); Percy Grainger (1961); Jacob Gade (1963); Anthony Asquith (1968); Ernest Ansermet (1969); Albert Wolff (1970); Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1972); Adrian Cruft (1987); A J Casson (1992); Ferruccio Lamborghini (1993); Toru Takemitsu (1996); Sarah kane (1999); Hunter S Thompson (2005); and Mildred Dredsselhaus (2017).


                  And the Radio 3 schedules for the morning of Saturday, 20th February, 1979 were:

                  Aubade: Elgar Froissart, Dvorak Silent Woods, Arnold Concerto for Phyllis and Cyril; Alfven Swedish Rhapsody
                  Record Review: Lionel Salter's BaL on the Bach Orchestral Suites; Robert Henderson on recent Chamber Music and Song releases
                  Record Release: Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis and lieder by Liszt
                  BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Ashley Lawrence in a programme of light Music by living British Composers (Anthony Hedges, Richard Rodney Bennett, Kenneth Platts, Charles Dakin, Trevor Roberts, and Eric Wetherell
                  Robin Ray presents a selection of recordings of popular classics, recorded over the past 75 years.
                  [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                  Comment

                  • Edgy 2
                    Guest
                    • Jan 2019
                    • 2035

                    Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                    Brancusi Day in Romania - celebrating the life and work of the Artist Constantin Brancusi. Why aren't there more "feast days" for leading figures in the Arts? Why haven't we got an equivalent Moore or Hepworth Day? (Some of us, of course, already celebrate Shakespeare Day rather than the Greco-Roman dragon-slayer, but that's another matter ... )

                    Also on this date: New Amsterdam is renamed New York with the signing of the Westminster Treaty, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1674); Handel's Alexander's Feast is premiered in London (1736); Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom in Russia (1861); Thomas Edison patents the Phonograph (1878); Schubert's Third Symphony receives its first professional performance, in London and Kansas prohibits the sale and consumption of all alcoholic beverages (both 1881); Charles D Bolin establishes the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, with his partner, Will Keith Kellogg (1906); Beecham conducts the UK premiere of Strauss' Elektra at Covent Garden, the first Strauss opera to be performed in Britain (1910); in 1910, Mary Mallon is released from a three-year hospital quarantine imposed after her part in spreading a typhoid epidemic between 1900 - 07 - after her release, "Typhoid Mary" goes on to cause further outbreaks over the next five years; four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff travels by train to her grandparents' house in Lewiston, Idaho - the train is a mail train, and she has been sent by Parcel Post (1914); the 1st Pan African Congress is held in Paris (1919); Sibelius conducts the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in Helsinki (1923); Nazi police round up Jews for deprotation in Amsterdam - and are met with fierce resisitance (1941); Japanese aircraft bomb Darwin, killing 243 people, and President Roosevelt orders the detention and confinement of all American citizens of Japanese descent (both 1943 - Roosevelt's Executive Order is not rescinded until this day in 1976); Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasilieras No 3 is premiered on CBS Radio (1947); Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize of $10,000 following the publication of his Pisan Cantos (1949); Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is first published, and Robert Frost is awarded the (15th) Bollinger Prize (both 1963); test Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first test flight, piggy-backing a Boeing 747 "Jumbo Jet"; Cherry Coke is introduced by Coca-Cola, and the first episode of Eastenders is broadcast (both 1985); Tippett's The Rose Lake is premiered (1995); the Mars Odyssey probe orbits Mars, mapping the planet's surface using thermal emission imaging (2002); Simon Wiesenthal receives an honorary knighthood (2004); and this time last year, government forces bombard Gouta in Syria, killing over 100 civilians in the worst atrocity in the civil war for three years.

                    Birthdays include: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473); Henry, first son of James VI/I (1594 - he dies aged 18, leaving his younger brother Charles as heir to the throne); David Garrick (1717); Luigi Boccherini (1743); Constantin Brancusi (1876); Cedric Hardwicke (1893); Andre Breton (1896); Grace Williams (1906); Merle Oberon (1911); Lee Marvin (1924); Gyorgy Kurtag (1926); Smokey Robinson (1940); Amy Tan (1952); Ray Winstone (1957); Helen Fielding (1958); and Erin Pizzey is 80 today.

                    Final days for: Georg Buchner (1837); Ernst Mach (1916); Robert Fuchs (1927); Hamilton Harty (1941); Andre Gide (1951); Georgios Papanikolaou (1962); John Grierson (1972); Joseph Szigeti (1973); Luigi Dallapiccola (1975); Umberto Eco and Harper Lee (both 2016); and it's 25 years since the death of Derek Jarman (1994).

                    And, on this date in 1989 (a Sunday) the Radio 3 morning schedules were:

                    Bach: Sonata in C; P&F in E minor (Peter Hurford)
                    Yevgeni Mravinsky: Weber Oberon Ovt; Tchaik #4
                    Your Concert Choice: Mercadante Clarinet Concerto; Beethoven Serenade Op 25; Nielsen Springtime in Fiinen; Brahms orch Schoenberg
                    Music Weekly: articles on Cesar Franck; the Prokofiev Piano Sonatas; Music at the British Library; John McCabe on writing for Brass Bands.
                    Strauss & Mozart: last of 6 programmes, including Strauss' 2nd Horn Concerto and his Deutsche Motette; and Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony.
                    The Yes Album was released on this day (19/02) in 1971 by Atlantic Records
                    “Music is the best means we have of digesting time." — Igor Stravinsky

                    Comment

                    • teamsaint
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 25202

                      I think the days are getting longer.
                      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                      I am not a number, I am a free man.

                      Comment

                      • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                        Gone fishin'
                        • Sep 2011
                        • 30163

                        [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                        Comment

                        • greenilex
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 1626

                          Today our local authority sets its budget for the forthcoming year, and we are going to sing a few inspiring ditties to support schools, care homes and so on looking for more funding...can’t conjure cash out of thin air, but we can cheer up the Civic Centre.

                          Comment

                          • edashtav
                            Full Member
                            • Jul 2012
                            • 3670

                            Going back to February 19th, I was shocked by Ferney's revelation that the first stage production of a Richard Strauss Opera had occurred on that day in 1910. Oh my goodness, how late, can that really be true?

                            I can find no evidence to the contrary but have I unearthed a truffle?

                            By my reckoning, the earliest concert performance of a snippet from a Strauss Opera, the so-called Love Scene from Feuersnot occurred on Saturday, 22nd November in the Queen's Hall, London conducted by Edward Elgar and, in the audience was the great Polish pianist, Paderewski.
                            EE added another fascinating British Premiere, a suite by Humperdinck, whose English title might suggest it had been written by Tchaikovsky. So... over to you For3 sleuths, name that suite!

                            Comment

                            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                              Gone fishin'
                              • Sep 2011
                              • 30163

                              Originally posted by edashtav View Post
                              Going back to February 19th, I was shocked by Ferney's revelation that the first stage production of a Richard Strauss Opera had occurred on that day in 1910. Oh my goodness, how late, can that really be true?

                              I can find no evidence to the contrary but have I unearthed a truffle?

                              By my reckoning, the earliest concert performance of a snippet from a Strauss Opera, the so-called Love Scene from Feuersnot occurred on Saturday, 22nd November in the Queen's Hall, London conducted by Edward Elgar and, in the audience was the great Polish pianist, Paderewski.
                              EE added another fascinating British Premiere, a suite by Humperdinck, whose English title might suggest it had been written by Tchaikovsky. So... over to you For3 sleuths, name that suite!
                              I'm a bit lost by your astonishment, ed - why should the first British performance of an opera by Strauss a mere 13 months after its first German performances be regarded as "late"? Guntram and Feuersnot wouldn't be snapped up by a British company, and the Wilde association would prevent Salome from getting a look in.

                              Thanks for the Elgar information - what year did he conduct the Feuersnot scene?
                              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                              Comment

                              • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                                Gone fishin'
                                • Sep 2011
                                • 30163

                                February 21st

                                International Mother Language Day - a UNESCO initiative to celebrate linguistic diversity and promote minority languages and multilinguism, The origins are in the tragic story of the attempt by the new Pakistan Government to impose Urdu as the official language of the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) of whose 69 million citizens, 44 million were Bengali speakers, In the protests against the decision in 1952, several people (many of them students) were killed by armed police - and 21st Feb has been referred to as Language Martyrs' Day in Bangladesh.

                                And in Tagum City in the Philippines, it's the start of Musikahan Festival, showcasing the singing talents of the Tagumenyos, Mindanaoans and Filipinos.

                                Also on this date: Thomas Beckett is canonised (1173); James I, the 30-year-old King of Scotland, is assassinated (1424); Joan of Arc's interrogation begins (1431); Mikhail I becomes the first Romanov Tsar of Russia (1613 - a dynasty lasting 304 years); British tropps surrender Inverness Castle to Bonnie Prince Charlie (1746); the last invasion of Britain takes place, when French troops land in Abergwaun (Fishguard - 1797); the first steam-propelled locomotive, designed by Richard Trevithick, begins work at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales (1804); the Greek War if Independence from the Ottoman Empire begins (1821); the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper using an Native American language, is published (1828); the first sewing machine - invented by John Greenough - is patented (1842); The Communist Manifesto is published (1848); Musorgsky's Khovanschina, completed and edited by Rimsky-Korsakoff, is premiered in St Petersberg (1886); Delius' A Village Romeo & Juliet is premiered in Berlin (1907); Debussy's Images, book 2 is premiered in Paris (1908); Mahler conducts his last concert (1911); the Battle of Verdun begins (1916); Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le Toit is premiered in Paris (1920); the first edition of The New Yorker is published (1925); Lehar's Der Zarewitsch is premiered in Berlin (1927); Alka Seltzer goes on sale for the first time (1931); Edwin Land demonstrates the first "polaroid" camera (1947); Identity Cards are abolished in Britain (1952); Gerald Holtom designs the CND Peace Badge (1958); Malolm X is shot dead in New York by three followers of the Nation of Islam movement (1965); President Nixon meets Chairman Mao in Beijing (1972); Israeli fighter planes shoot down a Libyan civilian aeroplane that had strayed over the Sinai desert, killing 108 people (1973); three of President Nixon's aides are imprisoned for their part in the Watergate affair (1975); and American televangelist, Jimmy Swaggart makes a tearful confession of his sins (without going into details) on his television show (1988).

                                Birthdays today include: Carl Czerny (1791); John Henry Newman (1801); Leo Delibes (1836); Charles-Marie Widor (1844); Kenneth Alford (1881); Andres Segovia (1893); Anais Nin (1903); WH Auden (1907); Douglas Bader (1910); Robert Mugabe (1924); Sam Peckinpah (1925); Nina Simone (1933); Alan Rickman (1946); Kelsey Grammer (1955); Simon Holt (1958); and Charlotte Church (1986).

                                last Days for: Baruch Sinoza (1677); George Ellery Hale (1938); Bronislava Nijinska (1972); Mikhail Sholokhov(1984); Morton Gould (1996); John Thaw (2002); Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (2017); and a year ago, Billy Graham.


                                And the Radio 3 morning schedules for Tuesday, 21st February, 1989 were:

                                Morning Concert: Chopin Krakowiak, Mozart K186, and Figaro Ovt, Strauss Wind Serenade, Smetana, orchestral pieces from Bartered Bride, Bach Concerto for 2 Violins, and Saint-Saens' Wedding Cake
                                Composer of the Week: Franck
                                French Viol Duos by Boismortier, Sainte Colombe, & Marais
                                Janacek and Sibelius: Suite Op 3, and 7th Symphony
                                BBC Singers: Blacher Vocalises; Maw 5 Irish Songs
                                Ulster Orchestra: Parry Unwritten Tragedy, Barry Of Queens' Gardens, Smyth Concerto for Violin & Horn, Elgar Funeral March, Ferguson Partita.
                                [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X