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Today in History
1793 French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined on this day November 3.Full Name: Olympe de Gouges [Marie Gouze]
Nationality: French
Profession: Playwright and Revolutionary
Why Famous: Beginning her career as a playwright in pre-revolutionary France, Gouges became politically active after the outbreak of revolution in 1789.
She was an advocate for abolishing slaves in the colonies, but is best known for her work as an early feminist writer. In this position she wrote her best-known work, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.
After publishing this she was arrested, tried and executed during the Reign of Terror, as an accused Girondist.
Born: May 7, 1748
Star Sign: Taurus
Birthplace: Montauban, Guyenne-and-Gascony,, France
Died: November 3, 1793 (aged 45)
Cause of Death: Executed by guillotine
Source: www.onthisday.com
Olympe de Gouges, Witness to Revolution
Sorry for the delay on "Today's in History". I've been travelling from south to north Italy.November 4, 1946 United Nations Educational, Scientific, & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was formed.
As early as 1942, in wartime, the governments of the European countries, which were confronting Nazi Germany and its allies, met in the United Kingdom for the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME). The Second World War was far from over, yet those countries were looking for ways and means to reconstruct their systems of education once peace was restored. Very quickly, the project gained momentum and soon took on a universal note. New governments, including that of the United States, decided to join in.
Upon the proposal of CAME, a United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London from 1 to 16 November 1945. Scarcely had the war ended when the conference opened. It gathered together the representatives of forty-four countries who decided to create an organization that would embody a genuine culture of peace. In their eyes, the new organization must establish the “intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind” and, in so doing, prevent the outbreak of another world war.
At the end of the conference, thirty-seven countries founded the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Constitution of UNESCO, signed on 16 November 1945, came into force on 4 November 1946 after ratification by twenty countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Greece, India, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States. The first session of the General Conference of UNESCO was held in Paris from 19 November to 10 December 1946 with the participation of representatives from 30 governments entitled to vote.
The political divisions of the Second World War marked the composition of the founding Member States of UNESCO. It was not until 1951 that Japan and the Federal Republic of Germany became Members, and Spain was accepted in 1953. Other major historical factors, such as the Cold War, the decolonization process and the dissolution of the USSR, also left their trace on UNESCO. The USSR joined UNESCO in 1954 and was replaced by the Russian Federation in 1992 alongside 12 former Soviet republics. Nineteen African states became Members in the 1960s.
As a consequence of its entry into the United Nations, the People's Republic of China has been the only legitimate representative of China at UNESCO since 1971. The German Democratic Republic was a Member from 1972 to 1990, when it joined the Federal Republic of Germany.
Some countries withdrew from the Organization for political reasons at various points in time, but they have today all rejoined UNESCO. South Africa was absent from 1957 to 1994, the United States of America between 1985 to 2003, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1986 to 1997 and Singapore from 1986 to 2007.
Source: www.unesco.org (adapted)
World Heritage Sites: A Complete Guide to 878 UNESCO World Heritage Sites
"Remember, remember! / The fifth of November ...Today is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. All across Britain, people light bonfires to remember this day in 1605, when King James I broke up the Gunpowder Plot. Catholics were persecuted under the reign of King James, so a group of Catholics hatched a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the king so that they could install a Catholic head of state. They managed to stash 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar underneath the House of Lords.
On the evening of November 5th, one of the men, Guy Fawkes, was alone guarding the gunpowder when the king's authorities stormed in and arrested him. They had been tipped off by an anonymous letter. Fawkes was tortured and eventually executed along with some of his co-conspirators.
On the night that Guy Fawkes was arrested, King James encouraged his subjects to light bonfires as a "testimony of joy" in celebration of his survival — as long as the bonfires were kept under control. Bonfires quickly lit up the night; one citizen, who lived near St. Paul's Cathedral in London, wrote that there was "great ringing and as great store of bonfires as ever I thincke was seene." The celebration became an annual event, with a spectacular display of bonfires and fireworks, but it also became an excuse for anti-Catholic demonstrations. Figures of Guy Fawkes were burned in effigy, as were other unpopular figures, especially the pope.
The English nursery rhyme "The Fifth of November" begins: "Remember, remember! / The fifth of November, / The Gunpowder treason and plot; / I know of no reason / Why the Gunpowder treason / Should ever be forgot!" and continues with lines like: "A rope, a rope, to hang the pope, / A penn'orth of cheese to choke him, / A pint of beer to wash it down, / And a jolly good fire to burn him."
Source: www.writersalmanac.org
Pity for The Guy: A Biography of Guy Fawkes
Tchaikovsky's Death on November 6, 1893Version 1: Natural death from cholera
On 20 October 1893, Tchaikovsky was healthy and in good spirits. He attended a play and had supper at a restaurant with relatives and friends, where he ate macaroni and drank white wine and mineral water. That night he developed a severe stomach upset, but was not worried as this was a common occurrence with him. But by the evening of 21 October, he had to resort to his physician, Dr Bertenson, who diagnosed cholera. By 23 October, Tchaikovsky had successfully passed through the most critical phase of the disease and there was real hope for his recovery. Unfortunately, he died two days later of a complication: kidney failure. The progress of the composer's illness was followed closely by many, since Dr Bertenson issued bulletins in the newspapers.
Version 2: Accidental death caused by suicidal behaviour
Tchaikovsky drank a glass of unboiled water during a cholera epidemic, in full knowledge of the risks he was running. Accounts of the motivation and timing of this act widely diverge.
Version 3: Suicide by poisoning
Tchaikovsky entered into a homosexual relationship with a member of the Imperial family (or someone close to the Court in other variants) and the Tsar served him an ultimatum: either face a humiliating public trial or commit suicide. Tchaikovsky chose the latter and with the help of his doctor took poison that simulated the symptoms of cholera. The doctor's bulletins to the newspapers were merely part of an elaborate cover-up.
Version 3a: Suicide by poisoning as a result of the Court of Honour's verdict
An elaborate variant of Version 3: the Tsar's threat of court action led Tchaikovsky's old classmates from the School of Jurisprudence to hold a secret court of honour, which decided that the composer should commit suicide to avoid bringing disgrace on the School. One or two days later he poisoned himself.
Version 4: Murder by poisoning
In this story, there is no suicide, and instead Dr Bertenson, on the orders of the Tsar, administers poison to an unknowing Tchaikovsky, then covers up the Royal crime.
So how did Tchaikovsky actually die? The distinguished scholar Alexander Poznansky devoted a whole monograph, Tchaikovsky's Last Days, to demonstrate exhaustively that versions 2-4 are based on nothing more solid than rumours. In the two weeks following the composer's death there are no records of these rumours. They suddenly began to circulate only after a commemorative performance of the Sixth Symphony on 6 November 1893. The slow, requiem-like Adagio finale now struck may as a premonition of death and made a great impression - in contrast to the premiere only three weeks earlier, when the Symphony had enjoyed only a moderate success (when Tchaikovsky was still in good health). In any case, none of the suicide stories actually explain the morbid character of the Sixth, since it had been conceived and written much earlier than the prospect of suicide looms in any of these stories. The only potential "explanation" would be a protracted depression that was reflected in the Sixth and eventually led to suicide - none of the sources, however, can corroborate this supposition.
This leaves us with no good reason to believe in a Tchaikovsky suicide, and the suicide stories cast no light on the Sixth Symphony - on the contrary, they are motivated by the assimilation of the Symphony to a sentimental and simple-minded narrative going back to Mozart's Requiem.
(© Dr Marina Frolova-Walker/BBC)
Source: www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution began on this date November 7 in 1917. It ushered in the first Marxist government in the world, and it eventually led to the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — the USSR. The Bolshevik Revolution was also known as the October Revolution, because Russia was still using the old-style Julian calendar, and the date under that calendar was October 25. Russia was in bad shape in 1917. The czar, Nicholas II, was increasingly unpopular.
The military — poorly equipped and poorly run — was suffering crippling losses to Germany in World War I. Food was scarce, and what little there was became subject to sky-high inflation. Food riots and labor strikes broke out in Petrograd, and set off the first revolution of 1917, the February Revolution (which took place in March).
Troops from the Petrograd garrison were ordered to put down the unrest, but many of them defected to the side of the protestors. Czar Nicholas was forced to step down. The provisional government that succeeded him gave people a brief taste of democracy, but the main cause of the unrest — Russia’s involvement in World War I — remained unchanged, so things didn’t improve.
Vladimir Lenin, who had been living as an exile and fugitive for 10 years, led the revolution. He had sneaked back across the border about six months earlier, and he rallied the Russian people with his slogan “Peace, land, and bread!” Lenin convinced the leaders of the rapidly growing Bolshevik Party to vote for an armed uprising, and gave the order for the workers’ militia to seize all government buildings.
Unlike the February Revolution, this one was virtually bloodless; the military was away fighting World War I, the czar’s palace was almost deserted, and there was almost no resistance from the Russian people, who were ready for a change. Later, the Soviet propaganda machine revised the official story and turned it into a glorious, heroic battle.
Source: www.writersalmanac.org
The Bolshevik Myth
Antonio wrote: ""Remember, remember! / The fifth of November ...Today is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. All across Britain, people light bonfires to remember this day in 1605, w..."
I have heard of Guy Fawkes day, but had no idea of the origin. Thank you
Mod
Today is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. All across Britain, people light bonfires to remember thi..."
When I was in London teaching Italian I remember the fireworks in Hyde Park!
Evelyn wrote: "Antonio wrote: ""Remember, remember! / The fifth of November ...Today is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night. All across Britain, people light bonfires to remember thi..."
Behind any historical event there is always a reason for that. I love thiskind of research. Thank you for reading.
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1934 was awarded today November 8, 1934, to Luigi Pirandello.Luigi Pirandello
Born: 28 June 1867, Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
Died: 10 December 1936, Rome, Italy
Prize motivation: "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art"
Field: drama, prose
Language: Italian
----
Banquet Speech
Luigi Pirandello's speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1934
(Translation)
I take deep satisfaction in expressing my respectful gratitude to Your Majesties for having graciously honoured this banquet with your presence. May I be permitted to add the expression of my deep gratitude for the kind welcome I have been given as well as for this evening's reception, which is a worthy epilogue to the solemn gathering earlier today at which I had the incomparable honour of receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1934 from the august hands of His Majesty the King.
I also wish to express my profound respect and sincere gratitude to the eminent Royal Swedish Academy for its distinguished judgment, which crowns my long literary career.
For the success of my literary endeavours, I had to go to the school of life. That school, although useless to certain brilliant minds, is the only thing that will help a mind of my kind: attentive, concentrated, patient, truly childlike at first, a docile pupil, if not of teachers, at least of life, a pupil who would never abandon his complete faith and confidence in the things he learned. This faith resides in the simplicity of my basic nature. I felt the need to believe in the appearance of life without the slightest reserve or doubt.
The constant attention and deep sincerity with which I learned and pondered this lesson revealed humility, a love and respect for life that were indispensable for the assimilation of bitter disillusions, painful experiences, frightful wounds, and all the mistakes of innocence that give depth and value to our experiences. This education of the mind, accomplished at great cost, allowed me to grow and, at the same time, to remain myself.
As my true talents developed, they left me completely incapable of life, as becomes a true artist, capable only of thoughts and feelings; of thoughts because I felt, and of feelings because I thought. In fact, under the illusion of creating myself, I created only what I felt and was able to believe.
I feel immense gratitude, joy, and pride at the thought that this creation has been considered worthy of the distinguished award you have bestowed on me.
I would gladly believe that this Prize was given not so much to the virtuosity of a writer, which is always negligible, but to the human sincerity of my work.
Prior to the speech, Professor Göran Liljestrand of the Caroline Institute remarked: «Society is a higher unit of life than the individual; it has a greater complexity and involves adjustments of different kinds. The conflicts arising from the necessity of such adaptations have been the subject of Mr. Pirandello's work. At present the problems concerned call for investigations along other lines than those followed by medicine and the other sciences. Mr. Pirandello, at once philosopher, poet, and dramatist, has been able to understand and describe different phases of human mentality. He has studied its changes in disease and their subtle relations to the normal mind. He has penetrated deeply into the obscure borderland between reality and dream. We honour him as one of the great masters of dramatic art.»
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969
Source: www.nobelprize.org
The Works of Luigi Pirandello
Maybe I will read a Pirandello play on the 8th in honor of this event!
Leslie wrote: "Maybe I will read a Pirandello play on the 8th in honor of this event!"Thank you for your attention Leslie. Start reading this first:
One, None, and One Hundred ThousandYou can find it here free: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600...
On November 9, 1918 died the inventor of the word “Surrealism”.Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire (Rome, 26 August 1880–9 November 1918, Paris) was a French poet, playwright, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother. Among the foremost poets of the early 20th century, he is credited with coining the word 'Surrealism' and writing one of the earliest works described as surrealist, the play “The Breasts of Tiresias” (1917, used as the basis for a 1947 opera). Two years after being wounded in World War I, he died in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 at age 38.
The term “Surrealism” was first used by Apollinaire concerning the ballet “Parade” in 1917. The poet Arthur Rimbaud wanted to be a visionary, to perceive the hidden side of things within the realm of another reality. In continuity with Rimbaud, Apollinaire went in search of a hidden and mysterious reality.
The term appeared for the first time in March 1917 (Chronologie de Dada et du surréalisme, 1917) in a letter by Apollinaire to Paul Dermée: "All things considered, I think in fact it is better to adopt surrealism than supernaturalism, which I first used" [Tout bien examiné, je crois en effet qu'il vaut mieux adopter surréalisme que surnaturalisme que j'avais d'abord employé].
He described “Parade” as "a kind of surrealism" (une sorte de surréalisme) when he wrote the program note the following week, thus coining the word three years before Surrealism emerged as an art movement in Paris.
L’Adieu
J’ai cueilli ce brin de bruyère
L’automne est morte souviens-t’en
Nous ne nous verrons plus sur terre
Odeur du temps brin de bruyère
Et souviens-toi que je t’attends.
(Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools, 1913)
-----
The Farewell
I’ve gathered this sprig of heather
Autumn is dead you will remember
On earth we’ll see no more of each other
Fragrance of time sprig of heather
Remember I wait for you forever
Source: www.en.wikipedia.org (adapted)
www.poetica.fr
Selected Writings
On this day November 10, in 1973, newspapers report the burning of 36 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.Published at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five is considered by many critics to be Vonnegut’s greatest work. It includes all of the elements that readers expect from Vonnegut: humor, satire, social criticism, and pacifism. The novel is the result of what Vonnegut describes as a twenty-three year struggle to write a book about the firebombing of Dresden, Germany which he witnessed as an American POW incarcerated in a former slaughterhouse. Perhaps not surprisingly, Vonnegut emerged from the experience an avowed pacifist.
Students who are unfamiliar with Vonnegut’s work may find the format of the novel a bit disconcerting. Vonnegut combines science fiction, autobiography, historical fiction, and modern satire in a “jumbled” depiction of the life of Billy Pilgrim. Billy, like Vonnegut, experiences the destruction of Dresden, and, as with Vonnegut, it is the defining moment of his life. Unlike the author, he also experiences time travel or coming “unstuck in time,” and abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. Because of Billy’s unique view of time, the story is told through a seemingly random recounting of the events of Billy’s life. Thus, the reader comes “unstuck in time” along with Billy.
In 1969, the United States was reeling from the growing violence of the anti-war and civil rights movements. The country had witnessed the assassination of two leaders who were considered icons of peace and hope for a better society, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. It is not surprising that in this atmosphere, Vonnegut’s novel gained an almost cult-like following among the generation that rejected what it saw as the materialism and shallowness of American society. Billy Pilgrim’s apparent acceptance of fate–he responds to every mention of death with the phrase “so it goes”–actually illustrates Vonnegut’s opposition to blind acceptance of socially acceptable cruelty. This opposition is illustrated in his depiction of the massacre at Dresden, and in Barbara’s joy in stripping her father of his dignity “in the name of love.”
Slaughterhouse-Five remains an effective indictment of the least attractive characteristics of human society. Ultimately, Vonnegut’s criticisms are still valid in the twenty-first century.
Source: www.penguinrandomhouse.com
Slaughterhouse-Five
Well said, Antonio! - )I am also an old fan of brother Vonnegut. My favorite book has always been his Cat's Cradle. And thank you for reminding us about the smell of burning books. It is a thrill that could be revived any time now. Peace!
Mark wrote: "Well said, Antonio! - )I am also an old fan of brother Vonnegut. My favorite book has always been his Cat's Cradle. And thank you for reminding us about the smell of burning books. It is a thrill..."
Thank you Mark!
November 11, 1992: Church of England votes for women priests.Women fighting for the right to be Anglican priests are celebrating a narrow victory. After a five-and-a-half hour debate the General Synod - the Church of England's parliament - passed the controversial legislation by a margin of only two votes. There were jubilant scenes among supporters outside Church House in Westminster, London, when the decision was announced.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, who had backed the proposal said he recognised the result would not please everyone.
"What binds us together in God's love as a Church is vastly more important than a disagreement about women's ordination,'' Dr Carey said. But the Reverend Peter Geldard, who opposed women priests, warned the decision would "put diocese against diocese, parish against parish and parishioner against parishioner".
The Church of England currently allows women to serve as deacons which means they can perform baptisms, marriages, and burials. However, they are not allowed to give communion or administer any of the other sacraments. The issue of whether to ordain women as priests has divided the Church since it was first debated 17 years ago. Traditionalist priests and bishops have threatened to resign over the issue.
More than 1,000 priests are expected to leave in the next few years and an opposition group, Cost of Conscience, is planning to form breakaway groups. One high-profile opponent of women priests is government minister Ann Widdecombe who recently left the Church of England.
Ms Widdecombe, who accused the Church of ''promoting political correctness above the very clear teachings of Scripture'', said she was considering becoming a Roman Catholic.
About 1,400 women deacons are waiting to be ordained priests. It is not expected any ordination of women will take place for at least a year as the change first needs to be approved by parliament.
Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday
Voices of This Calling: Experiences of the First Generation of Women Priests
November 12, 1990 - Sir Tim Berners-Lee with help from Robert Cailliau publish a formal proposal for the World Wide Web on this day in History. WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project
To: P.G. Innocenti/ECP, G. Kellner/ECP, D.O. Williams/CN
Cc: R. Brun/CN, K. Gieselmann/ECP, R.€ Jones/ECP, T.€ Osborne/CN, P. Palazzi/ECP, N.€ Pellow/CN, B.€ Pollermann/CN, E.M.€ Rimmer/ECP
From: T. Berners-Lee/CN, R. Cailliau/ECP
Date: 12 November 1990
The attached document describes in more detail a Hypertext project.
HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. It provides a single user-interface to large classes of information (reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line help). We propose a simple scheme incorporating servers already available at CERN.
The project has two phases: firstly we make use of existing software and hardware as well as implementing simple browsers for the user's workstations, based on an analysis of the requirements for information access needs by experiments. Secondly, we extend the application area by also allowing the users to add new material. Phase one should take 3 months with the full manpower complement, phase two a further 3 months, but this phase is more open-ended, and a review of needs and wishes will be incorporated into it. The manpower required is 4 software engineers and a programmer, (one of which could be a Fellow). Each person works on a specific part (eg. specific platform support).
Each person will require a state-of-the-art workstation , but there must be one of each of the supported types. These will cost from 10 to 20k each, totalling 50k. In addition, we would like to use commercially available software as much as possible, and foresee an expense of 30k during development for one-user licences, visits to existing installations and consultancy.
We will assume that the project can rely on some computing support at no cost: development file space on existing development systems, installation and system manager support for daemon software.
Abstract:
HyperText is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. Potentially, HyperText provides a single user-interface to many large classes of stored information such as reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line systems help. We propose the implementation of a simple scheme to incorporate several different servers of machine-stored information already available at CERN, including an analysis of the requirements for information access needs by experiments.
Introduction
The current incompatibilities of the platforms and tools make it impossible to access existing information through a common interface, leading to waste of time, frustration and obsolete answers to simple data lookup. There is a potential large benefit from the integration of a variety of systems in a way which allows a user to follow links pointing from one piece of information to another one. This forming of a web of information nodes rather than a hierarchical tree or an ordered list is the basic concept behind HyperText …
Source: https://www.w3.org/Proposal.html
Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web
“Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes”1789 - On the 13th November, Benjamin Franklin writes “Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes”
The source of this oft-cited quip is a letter Franklin wrote to French scientist Jean-Baptiste Leroy. But there are some interesting things about the quote that are less well known. One is that Franklin wrote the letter in French, which he spoke, read and wrote fluently.
Another is that Franklin’s famous maxim was used in reference to the Constitution of the United States of America, which had been adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia two years earlier on September 17, 1787.
Two decades before the Constitution was adopted, during the height of the American Revolution, Franklin had served as the U.S. Ambassador to France. There, he played a vital role in gaining French support for the American cause, including desperately needed loans that helped fund the Continental Army and became an Ambassador.
A pioneer in the study of electricity Franklin became well known to French scientists. Jean-Baptiste Leroy was a physicist and member of the “Academe des Sciences” in Paris and became a friend of Franklin during his tenure in Paris. When Franklin wrote his letter to Leroy on November 13, 1789, the French Revolution had been underway in earnest for several months. Franklin had not heard from Leroy for more than a year and was concerned that he may have been killed or executed. Franklin wrote (as translated to English):
“Are you still living? Or has the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole. Great part of the news we have had from Paris, for near a year past, has been very afflicting. I sincerely wish and pray it may all end well and happy, both for the King and the nation. The voice of Philosophy I apprehend can hardly be heard among those tumults. If any thing material in that way had occurred, I am persuaded you would have acquainted me with it. However, pray let me hear from you…a year’s silence between friends must needs give uneasiness.”
The next sentence, which mentions the relatively new U.S. Constitution, contains Franklin’s famous “death and taxes” quote. He tells Leroy: “Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”
(In the original French, what Franklin wrote was: “Notre constitution nouvelle est actuellement établie, tout paraît nous promettre qu’elle sera durable; mais, dans ce monde, il n’y a rien d’assure que la mort et les impôts.” The English translations vary.)
In 1789, when he wrote his “death and taxes” letter to Leroy, Franklin was 83 years old and sensed that his own end was near. In the next to last paragraph of the letter, he noted:
“My health continues much as it has been for some time, except that I grow thinner and weaker, so that I cannot expect to hold out much longer.”
Five months later, on April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin died.
Although there continues to be heated debates about the meaning of key provisions of the U.S. Constitution, it has — as Franklin hoped – proven to be quite durable.
Source: www.brentwheeler.com
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Today in The History of PublishingOn this day, November 14 in 1851, Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville about the voyage of the whaling ship Pequod, is published by Harper & Brothers in New York. Moby-Dick is now considered a great classic of American literature and contains one of the most famous opening lines in fiction: “Call me Ishmael.” Initially, though, the book about Captain Ahab and his quest for a giant white whale was a flop … Here is one of the first reviews of Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, published in the London Spectator in October 1851 and re-reprinted, a month later, in the New York International magazine:
“This sea novel is a singular medley of naval observation, magazine article writing, satiric reflection upon the conventionalisms of civilized life, and rhapsody run mad.... The rhapsody belongs to word mongering where ideas are the staple; where it takes the shape of narrative or dramatic fiction, it is phantasmal—an attempted description of what is impossible in nature and without probability in art; it repels the reader instead of attracting him.”
The review concluded by ridiculing the novel for its employment of a first-person narrative—a peculiar choice, the reviewer scoffed, since "not only is Ahab, with his boat's-crew, destroyed in his last desperate attack upon the white whale, but the Pequod herself sinks with all on board into the depths of the illimitable ocean."...
But the first printings of Moby-Dick didn't have the Epilogue. The first editions of that most classic of classics were incomplete. This is the story of how one of the leading contenders for The Great American Novel—"the most ambitious book ever conceived by an American writer," "arguably the greatest single work in American literature"—started life as a critical mockery. It is the story of what can happen when literature, as an artifact, is what it has to be: mediated both by technology and by extremely fallible humans.
It started with copyright laws. In the mid-19th century, international copyright didn't yet exist. The British had their copyright; their former subjects had printing presses that would happily replicate British newspapers and novels. (The result of this discrepancy was delightfully Darwinian: American printers would "haunt the docks," awaiting the latest proofs from the United Kingdom so they could rush them to print before their competitors.)
By the 1840s, American authors had figured out a way to doubly exploit this state of affairs: If they published their works in Britain first, they realized, they could benefit—in Britain, at least—from the protection of British copyright laws. And then, if they could arrange for the same work to be printed in America at almost the same time as the British version was released, they could avoid the costly irony of having their work pirated in their own country.
Melville, for his first five novels, used that scheme fairly successfully. His books were printed in Britain; less than six weeks later, the American editions appeared. Which was a legal hack that benefited the author, the printer, and the public fairly nicely ….
Source: www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive (adapted - read full story)
Herman Melville's Genius: The Author of Moby-Dick on How to Think About Religion and Other Ideologies
Thank you, Antonio! - )I had read somewhere that Moby Dick was initially much better received in Britain than in the U.S., and that it was because of it's success in Britain that Americans were forced to reconsider it, or else face looking like dopes compared to their more literate English cousins. Interestingly, today, I can say with some confidence that Moby Dick is perhaps the most hated and defamed book in the entire GoodRead's network. But I'm not sure why.
Mark wrote: "Thank you, Antonio! - )I had read somewhere that Moby Dick was initially much better received in Britain than in the U.S., and that it was because of it's success in Britain that Americans were f..."
It's the destiny of all great literature to be often hated or misunderstood ...
Yes, I agree, that great works of Art, complex and sophisticated, have historically been very misunderstood, especially by the generation in which they first appear. But I find Art hatred a rather modern phenomenon. Maybe something they teach in the schools today; or a peripheral result of online anonymity?
Today’s funniest news in the History of music.On the 15 November, 1974 was published the song with the longest title.
"You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)" was the last official single by British rock group Faces. It later appeared on their 1976 greatest hits album Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces.
Released under the group title, Rod Stewart and the Faces, the single reached number 12 over Christmas 1974 in the UK singles chart.The song still holds the record for the longest song-title ever to hit the UK chart.
As hinted by the title, the song follows a man happy to be with his honey. "And I end up crying, but listen/I can be a millionaire/Honey when you're standing there/You're so exciting/You can make me dance.
Source: www.en.wikipedia.org
I still enjoy listening their songs and Rod stewart will never get old :)
On this day November 16 in 1849, a Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to a radical intellectual group. His execution is stayed at the last minute.Dostoevsky’s father was a doctor at Moscow’s Hospital for the Poor, where he grew rich enough to buy land and serfs. After his father’s death, Dostoevsky, who suffered from epilepsy, studied military engineering and became a civil servant while secretly writing novels. His first, Poor People, and his second, The Double, were both published in 1846-the first was a hit, the second a failure.
Dostoevsky began participating in a radical intellectual discussion group called the Petrashevsky Circle. The group was suspected of subversive activites, which led to Dostoevsky’s arrest in 1849, and his sentencing to death.
On December 22, 1849, Dostoevsky was led before the firing squad but received a last-minute reprieve and was sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he worked for four years. He was released in 1854 and worked as a soldier on the Mongolian frontier. He married a widow and finally returned to Russia in 1859. The following year, he founded a magazine and two years after that journeyed to Europe for the first time.
In 1864 and 1865, his wife and his brother died, the magazine folded, and Dostoevsky found himself deeply in debt, which he exacerbated by gambling. In 1866, he published Crime and Punishment, one of his most popular works. In 1867, he married a stenographer, and the couple fled to Europe to escape his creditors. His novel The Possessed (1872) was successful, and the couple returned to St. Petersburg. He published The Brothers Karamazov in 1880 to immediate success, but he died a year later.
Source: www.history.com
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Antonio wrote: "On this day November 16 in 1849, a Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to a radical intellectual group. His execution is stayed at ..."The D-Man! - )
Mark wrote: "Antonio wrote: "On this day November 16 in 1849, a Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to a radical intellectual group. His executi..."What The DMan would do is always the coolest thing one could possibly do in a given situation.
The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated on November 17 in 1869, in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work.
Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869–four years behind schedule. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal was opened to navigation. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama.
When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. Consequently, fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Major improvements began in 1876, however, and the canal soon grew into the one of the world’s most heavily traveled shipping lanes. In 1875, Great Britain became the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal Company when it bought up the stock of the new Ottoman governor of Egypt. Seven years later, in 1882, Britain invaded Egypt, beginning a long occupation of the country. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 made Egypt virtually independent, but Britain reserved rights for the protection of the canal.
After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under pressure from the United Nations, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping.
Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again following the Six Day War and Israel’s occupation of the Sinai Peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates the Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies. In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.
Source: www.history.com
The Suez Canal
November 18, 1477 in History of Publishing. First English dated printed book "Dictes & Sayengis of the Phylosophers" by William Caxton. From the beginning of the PREFACE: FOUR hundred years ago, in the year 1477, a great marvel appeared in England, and many of her proudest nobles and wealthiest citizens wended their way to the Almonry at Westminster, to see the small wooden printing press which William Caxton had brought from Bruges and there set up in a tenement called the "Red Pale," and to gaze in wonder at its almost supernatural productions.
The "Dictes and Wise Sayings of the Philosophers" was issued as a first-fruit of Caxton's press, and the causes which led to its selection form a story not without much historical interest.
In the year 1470 upon the restoration of King Henry VI to the throne of England, Edward IV and his partisans fought refuge at the Court of his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. William Caxton was then "Governor of the English Nation abroad," or Merchant Adventurers, whose head-quarters were at Bruges, and he was therefore the most influential among the many foreigners who resided in that city. There can be no doubt that during the few months which elapsed before Edward IV regained the English Crown, Caxton had it in his power to render many important services to his expatriated countrymen, and thus laid the foundations of that friendship and patronage which in after years proved of so much advantage to him, and which was in all probability a strong inducement to his adoption of a new vocation and settlement at Westminster.
However this may have been, it is certain that Earl Rivers, the brother of Edward's Queen, Elizabeth, was among the earliest to welcome and encourage Caxton. Good-will towards one who had always been a staunch adherent of the White Rose, and perhaps also a little pardonable vanity in wishing to see in print his own translation, may have led the Earl to patronise the infant press. So it came to pass that on the eighteenth day of November, 1477, was completed the "Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers," the book which is indisputably the first issued in this country bearing a distinct indication of its date of printing, and the only sure starting-point in the history of English Typography.
What grave incredulity would have seized the sagacious Earl and his sober printer had they been told that after the lapse of four centuries their countrymen would be honouring their memories in connection with that very work, and that a copy of it, however torn and time-worn, would be thought the brightest gem of which an English library could boast! How would the printer have laughed to scorn the idea that an art which would employ sunbeams instead of types — one almost as useful and precious as his own — would one day be used to reproduce with minutest accuracy this early work of the English press, and that this volume would be deemed a fitting tribute to his memory.
Source:
The Dictes and sayings of the philosophers. A facsimile reproduction of the first book printed in England by William Caxton in 1477
November 19 in History of Science FictionEarthquake Armageddon to hit Earth on November 19 due to Nibiru Planet X
NOVEMBER 19th will see earthquake Armageddon across huge swathes of the planet as tectonic plates collide and volcanoes erupt because of the effect of Nibiru Planet X, according to a group of astronomers and seismologists.
The destruction will hit vulnerable areas all over the world from France and Italy to Alaska and Russia, to the American West Coast, Indonesia and Japan – and loss of life is predicted to be in the millions. The group has been charting the movements of the so-called Black Star, aka Nemesis, Nibiru and Planet X, which they believe is a twin for our own Sun with massive gravitational influence pulling and squeezing the Earth.
NASA is sceptical as to its existence but that hasn’t stopped the American space agency spending millions of dollars on the hunt to find the Black Star. Astronomers have been running the Micron All Star Survey – a four year infrared study of the night sky – and NASA sent up their Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer to hunt for pseudo-stars known as Brown Dwarfs.
The theory is that the Black Star / Nemesis is a Brown Dwarf, a massive clump of gas and dust which attempted to become a star but failed. Gravity pulls the star together and heats it up but there is simply not enough mass to jump-start the nuclear reactions of stars like our own sun. As a result Brown Dwarfs radiate little or no light or heat – some are cooler than a domestic oven or the human body.
This makes them near-impossible to see, but their considerable mass can still impact on planets and stars. Members of astronomy website Planetxnews.com have been closely following the growing number of earthquakes and volcanoes hitting Earth in recent weeks and aligning them with the predicted path of the Black Star / Nemesis / Nibiru.
Writer Terral Croft said after a slight lull in seismic activity ripping apart the Earth’s crust there was to be a big rise culminating on November 19. He added: “Global seismic activity reaches a peak in the second two weeks of November moving into December 2017.
“The predicted backside alignment quake event is scheduled for November 19, 2017, when the Earth passes behind the Sun relative to the Black Star.” He predicted massive tremors along a fault originating in Indonesia and terminating near Gibraltar and warned: “This scenario can easily lead to new earthquake and volcanic activity for Italy and France.”
A spokesman for Space.com said Brown Dwarfs were notoriously difficult to spot and only existed as a theory until the late 1980s.He added: “Because brown dwarfs give off so little light and energy, they can be challenging to locate.
“They were originally theoretical objects, unseen until the late 1980s. As astronomical instruments grew more sensitive, more brown dwarfs have been detected, though they remain a challenge.”
Source: www.express.co.uk/news/science
Nibiru, Planet X: The Sign of the Son of Man?
November 20 - 1752: Thomas Chatterton is born. This proto-Romantic poet was dead before his eighteenth birthday, by his own hand. Chatterton has a serious claim to being the most precocious English poet who has ever lived. In his early teens, he fell in love with all things medieval, and invented the figure of the fifteenth-century monk Thomas Rowley, who would become the teenage boy’s alter ego. Thereafter, Chatterton would write the majority of his poems as Rowley, and even succeeded in passing them off as genuine medieval poems … for a while, at least.
He struggled to find a wealthy literary patron to support him: he sent some of his Rowley poems to Horace Walpole, but – ironically, given Walpole’s own fabricating habits – Walpole decided against publishing Chatterton’s ‘found’ poems because he suspected they might be forgeries.
Travelling to London in the hope of finding financial recognition there, Chatterton failed to make a living as a writer, and at the age of just seventeen, in August 1770, he committed suicide by poison – a phial of arsenic – in his Holborn flat. He would later be celebrated by a number of people including the Romantic poets William Wordsworth and John Keats, and the painter Henry Wallis, whose 1856 work The Death of Chatterton portrays the tragic doom of the young poet.
Source:
Works|23949091]
Today in the History of ArtRené Magritte was a Belgian Surrealist artist who has become well known for his witty and thought-provoking images. He was born today November 21, 1898. With no intention of making logically comprehensible works, Surrealists created fantastical visual imagery plumbed from the subconscious mind. Many of the great artists of the 20th century were Surrealists, including Salvador Dali, Man Ray, Jean Arp, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico.
René Magritte, Belgian artist, one of the most prominent Surrealist painters, whose bizarre flights of fancy blended horror, peril, comedy, and mystery. His works were characterized by particular symbols—the female torso, the bourgeois “little man,” the bowler hat, the castle, the rock, the window, and others.
After studying at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts (1916–18), Magritte became a designer for a wallpaper factory and then did sketches for advertisements. In 1922 he saw a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Song of Love (1914), an evocative and haunting juxtaposition of odd elements (a classical bust and a rubber glove among them) in a dreamlike architectural space; it had a great influence on Magritte’s mature style. For the next few years he was active in the Belgian Surrealist movement. With the support of a Brussels art gallery, he became a full-time painter in 1926.
His first solo show was held in 1927. It was not well received by the art critics of the day. That same year he and his wife moved to a suburb of Paris. There he met and befriended several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard, and he became familiar with the collages of Max Ernst. In 1930 Magritte returned to Brussels, where (except for the occasional journey) he remained for the rest of his life. During the 1940s he experimented with a variety of styles, sometimes, for example, incorporating elements of impressionism, but the paintings he produced in this period were not successful by most accounts, and he eventually abandoned the experimental. For the rest of his life he continued to produce his enigmatic and illogical images in a readily identifiable style. In his last year he supervised the construction of eight bronze sculptures derived from images in his paintings.
The sea and wide skies, which were enthusiasms of his childhood, figure strongly in his paintings. In Threatening Weather (1928) the clouds have the shapes of a torso, a tuba, and a chair. In The Castle of the Pyrenees (1959) a huge stone topped by a small castle floats above the sea. Other representative fancies were a fish with human legs, a man with a bird cage for a torso, and a gentleman leaning over a wall beside his pet lion. Dislocations of space, time, and scale were common elements. In Time Transfixed (1939), for example, a steaming locomotive is suspended from the centre of a mantelpiece in a middle-class sitting room, looking as if it had just emerged from a tunnel. In Golconda (1953) bourgeois, bowler-hatted men fall like rain toward a street lined with houses.
Two museums in Brussels celebrate Magritte: the René Magritte Museum, largely a biographical museum, is located in the house occupied by the artist and his wife between 1930 and 1954; and a new Magritte Museum, featuring some 250 of the artist’s works, opened in 2009 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
Source: www.britannica.com (adapted)
Magritte
St. Cecilia's Day. November 22It’s the feast day of Saint Cecilia, who was the patron saint of musicians because she sang to God as she died a martyr’s death. She was born to a noble family in Rome near the end of the second century A.D.
Not much can be said with confidence about St. Cecilia's life. According to her apocryphal acts, which date from the fifth century, she was a Roman from a noble family who was put to death in the second or third century for her Christian beliefs. How she became the patron saint of music and musicians is not exactly known, but according to legend she played the harp so beautifully that an angel left heaven to come down and listen to her. In any case, the Academy of Music in Rome accepted her as its patron when it was established in 1584.
In 1683, a musical society was formed in London especially for the celebration of St. Cecilia's Day. It held a festival each year at which a special ode was sung. The poet John Dryden composed his "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" in 1687 for this purpose. By the end of the 17th century it was customary to hold concerts on November 22 in St. Cecilia's honor—a practice which has faded over the years, but there are still many choirs and musical societies that bear her name.
It wasn’t really until the 1400s that people really began to celebrate her widely as the patron saint of music. Then, in the 1500s, people in Normandy held a large musical festival to honor her, and the trend made its way to England in the next century. Henry Purcell composed celebratory odes to honor her, and the painter Raphael created a piece called “The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia.” Chaucer wrote about her in the Second Nonnes Tale, and Handel composed a score for a famous ode to her that John Dryden had written.
Today, Saint Cecilia is often commemorated in paintings and on stained glass windows as sitting at an organ.
Source: www.encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com
The Life of St. Cecilia from Ms. Ashmole 43 and Ms. Cotton Tiberius E. VII: With Introduction, Variants, and Glossary
The beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky died today. He was 55. RIP Dmitri.
Mark wrote: "The beloved Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky died today. He was 55. RIP Dmitri."
R.I.P. https://www.theguardian.com/music/201...
Today in History of PublishingOn November 23, 1936, the first issue of the pictorial magazine Life is published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White.
Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike today’s The New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression, the influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day in 1936. By this time, Luce had already enjoyed great success as the publisher of Time, a weekly news magazine.
From his high school days, Luce was a newsman, serving with his friend Briton Hadden as managing editors of their school newspaper. This partnership continued through their college years at Yale University, where they acted as chairmen and managing editors of the Yale Daily News, as well as after college, when Luce joined Hadden at The Baltimore News in 1921. It was during this time that Luce and Hadden came up with the idea for Time. When it launched in 1923, it was with the intention of delivering the world’s news through the eyes of the people who made it.
Whereas the original mission of Time was to tell the news, the mission of Life was to show it. In the words of Luce himself, the magazine was meant to provide a way for the American people “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events … to see things thousands of miles away… to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed… to see, and to show…” Luce set the tone of the magazine with Margaret Bourke-White’s stunning cover photograph of the Fort Peck Dam, which has since become an icon of the 1930s and the great public works completed under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Life was an overwhelming success in its first year of publication. Almost overnight, it changed the way people looked at the world by changing the way people could look at the world. Its flourish of images painted vivid pictures in the public mind, capturing the personal and the public, and putting it on display for the world to take in. At its peak, Life had a circulation of over 8 million and it exerted considerable influence on American life in the beginning and middle of the 20th century.
With picture-heavy content as the driving force behind its popularity,the magazine suffered as television became society’s predominant means of communication. Life ceased running as a weekly publication in 1972, when it began losing audience and advertising dollars to television. In 2004, however, it resumed weekly publication as a supplement to U.S. newspapers. At its re-launch, its combined circulation was once again in the millions.
Source: www.history.com
The Great Life Photographers
Thanks, Antonio! - )Very cool. He was my wife's favorite.
“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England today November 24 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species.
Darwin, who was influenced by the work of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and the English economist Thomas Mathus, acquired most of the evidence for his theory during a five-year surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle in the 1830s. Visiting such diverse places as the Galapagos Islands and New Zealand, Darwin acquired an intimate knowledge of the flora, fauna, and geology of many lands. This information, along with his studies in variation and interbreeding after returning to England, proved invaluable in the development of his theory of organic evolution.
The idea of organic evolution was not new. It had been suggested earlier by, among others, Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin, a distinguished English scientist, and Lamarck, who in the early 19th century drew the first evolutionary diagram—a ladder leading from one-celled organisms to man. However, it was not until Darwin that science presented a practical explanation for the phenomenon of evolution.
Darwin had formulated his theory of natural selection by 1844, but he was wary to reveal his thesis to the public because it so obviously contradicted the biblical account of creation. In 1858, with Darwin still remaining silent about his findings, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace independently published a paper that essentially summarized his theory. Darwin and Wallace gave a joint lecture on evolution before the Linnean Society of London in July 1858, and Darwin prepared On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection for publication.
Published on November 24, 1859, Origin of Species sold out immediately. Most scientists quickly embraced the theory that solved so many puzzles of biological science, but orthodox Christians condemned the work as heresy. Controversy over Darwin’s ideas deepened with the publication of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), in which he presented evidence of man’s evolution from apes.
By the time of Darwin’s death in 1882, his theory of evolution was generally accepted. In honor of his scientific work, he was buried in Westminster Abbey beside kings, queens, and other illustrious figures from British history. Subsequent developments in genetics and molecular biology led to modifications in accepted evolutionary theory, but Darwin’s ideas remain central to the field.
Source: www.historytoday.com
The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
“The Mousetrap,” a murder-mystery written by the novelist and playwright Agatha Christie, opens today November 25 in 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre in London. The crowd-pleasing whodunit would go on to become the longest continuously running play in history, with more than 10 million people to date attending its more than 20,000 performances in London’s West End.
When “The Mousetrap” premiered in 1952, Winston Churchill was British prime minister, Joseph Stalin was Soviet ruler, and Dwight D. Eisenhower was president-elect. Christie, already a hugely successful English mystery novelist, originally wrote the drama for Queen Mary, wife of the late King George V. Initially called “Three Blind Mice,” it debuted as a 30-minute radio play on the queen’s 80th birthday in 1947. Christie later extended the play and renamed it “The Mousetrap”—a reference to the play-within-a-play performed in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
On November 25, 1952, 453 people took their seats in the Ambassadors Theatre for the London premiere of Christie’s “Mousetrap.” The drama is played out at “Monkswell Manor,” whose hosts and guests are snowed in among radio reports of a murderer on the loose. Soon a detective shows up on skis with the terrifying news that the murderer, and probably the next victim, are likely both among their number. Soon the clues and false leads pile as high as the snow. At every curtain call, the individual who has been revealed as the murderer steps forward and tells the audience that they are “partners in crime” and should “keep the secret of the whodunit locked in their heart.”
Richard Attenborough and his wife, Sheila Sim, were the first stars of “The Mousetrap.” To date, more than 300 actors and actresses have appeared in the roles of the eight characters. David Raven, who played “Major Metcalf” for 4,575 performances, is in the “Guinness Book of World Records” as the world’s most durable actor, while Nancy Seabrooke is noted as the world’s most patient understudy for 6,240 performances, or 15 years, as the substitute for “Mrs. Boyle.”
“The Mousetrap” is not considered Christie’s best play, and a prominent stage director once declared that “‘The Mousetrap'” should be abolished by an act of Parliament.” Nevertheless, the show’s popularity has not waned. Asked about its enduring appeal, Christie said, “It is the sort of play you can take anyone to. It is not really frightening. It is not really horrible. It is not really a farce, but it has a little bit of all these things, and perhaps that satisfies a lot of different people.” In 1974, after almost 9,000 shows, the play was moved to St. Martin’s Theatre, where it remains today. Agatha Christie, who wrote scores of best-selling mystery novels, died in 1976.
source: www.history.com
The Mousetrap
I've been a Christie fan since I was 12 years old, but I've never really understood the phenomenal success of "The Mousetrap." Personally, I think "And Then There Were None" to be better. The theme is similar - strangers cut off from the rest of the world, knowing that there is a murderer in their midst. However, while "And Then There Were None" can be tense and claustrophobic (see the classic 1945 version by Rene Clair or the more recent BBC/Lifetime version), "Mousetrap" is not scary. It's a nice, comfortable mystery play.
Diane wrote: "I've been a Christie fan since I was 12 years old, but I've never really understood the phenomenal success of "The Mousetrap." Personally, I think "And Then There Were None" to be better. The theme..."You are right in saying this. It seems one those literary mysteries difficult to understand. There are many around in world literature
On this day November 26 in 1862, Oxford mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson sends a handwritten manuscript called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground to 10-year-old Alice Liddell.The 30-year-old Dodgson, better known by his nom de plume Lewis Carroll, made up the story one day on a picnic with young Alice and her two sisters, the children of one of Dodgson’s colleagues. Dodgson, the son of a country parson, had been brilliant at both mathematics and wordplay since childhood, when he enjoyed making up games. However, he suffered from a severe stammer, except when he spoke with children. He had many young friends who enjoyed his fantastic stories: The Liddell children thought his tale of a girl who falls down a rabbit hole was one of his best efforts, and Alice insisted he write it down.
During a visit to the Liddells, English novelist Henry Kingsley happened to notice the manuscript. After reading it, he suggested to Mrs. Liddell that it be published. Dodgson published the book at his own expense, under the name Lewis Carroll, in 1865. The story is one of the earliest children’s books written simply to amuse children, not to teach them. The book’s sequel, Through the Looking Glass, was published in 1871. Dodgson’s other works, including a poetry collection called Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, and another children’s book, Sylvia and Bruno, did not gain the same enduring popularity as the Alice books. Dodgson died in 1898.
Source: www.history.com
A Selection from the Letters of Lewis Carroll to His Child-Friends
Nov 28 -1582 William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway.What mysteries surround the marriage William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway? Differences in ages? Scandal - pregnant before marrying! A Hasty Marriage! What was the wedding like? Interesting information about the family, life and times of William Shakespeare
Anne Hathaway lived in a small village called Shottery and Stratford-upon-Avon would have been the nearest town, only 1 mile away, with shops and a market. She was the daughter of Richard Hathaway, one of eight children, who lived in a farmhouse called Hewland Farm in Shottery. Anne would not have attended any school and was therefore illiterate. She would have seen marriage as an important event - when she met William Shakespeare she was 25/26 years old and probably was viewed as being 'left on the shelf' - but she did have a dowry! A dowry consisted of money, goods, and/or property that an Elizabethan woman might bring to a marriage.
William must have been only 17/18 years old when he courted Anne - she was 8 years older! Anne became pregnant prior to their marriage! A Scandal! Gossip! The Shakespeare and Hathaway families must have been furious! Hasty arrangements must have been arranged for the marriage. The age of consent for marriage was 21 (and boys would generally not marry until they had reached this age) As William was only 18 he would have needed his father's permission to marry!
There were no Registry Office marriages or marriages conducted by a Justice of the Peace. Everyone was married in Church. Problem! William and Anne needed to get married as quickly as possible! Their intention to marry had to be announced in the church 3 times on three consecutive Sundays or Holy days - this is called Crying the Banns. Reading the Banns allowed time for any objections to be raised or pre-contracts to be discovered.
A marriage would not be legal if the Banns were not read! This would mean a delay to the wedding! But there was an alternative, faster way than reading the Banns! Permission from a Bishop! A sworn statement confirming that there were no pre-contracts and the marriage would be lawful was presented to the Bishop of Worcester!
The Bishop of Worcester then issued a Marriage Bond, confirming that the marriage would be lawful. The Marriage Bond was presented at the local church. This meant that only one reading of the Banns was required! There are two documents regarding the marriage - but the names conflict!
There are 2 different entries mentioned in the Episcopal Register at Worcester on November 27th 1582 and November 28th 1582. The entry on 27th November refers to the marriage of "Wm Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton". The entry on 28th November refers to the marriage of "William Shagspeare and Anne Hathwey"
Ann Whateley or Anne Hathwey? Was there a mystery? Was William involved with two different women? Or was this simply an Admin error? Various spellings were used at the time - there were at least 16 different spellings of Shakespeare including Shakspere, Shakespere, Shakkespere, Shaxpere, Shakstaff, Sakspere, Shagspere, Shakeshafte and even Chacsper! Shakespeare always signed himself as "Shakspere"
Source: www.literarygenius.info (adapted)
The Secret Life of William Shakespeare
Mod
The crowd-pleasing whodunit would g..."
I went to see it when studying English in London ages ago, something like 27 years ago!!!!
On 28th November 1814 The Times in London was printed by automatic, steam powered presses for the first time. These presses, built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, meant that newspapers were now available to a new mass audience, and by 1815 The Times had a circulation of approximately 5,000 people. Now, 200 years later, newspapers around the globe inform millions of people about hundreds of topics, from current events and local news, to sports results, opinion pieces, and comic strips.
The Times, along with many other newspapers, is now available online, on desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, with a circulation of over 390,000 people. Newspapers themselves date back further than November 1814, to the early 17th century when printed periodicals started replacing hand-written news sheets and the term ‘newspaper’ began to make its way into common vernacular.
These first newspapers are defined as such because they were printed and dated, had regular publication intervals, and contained many different types of news. As the technology of printing improved, the spread of newspapers to more and more people grew – it may be said that as the physical printing press was invented, ‘the press’ as an entity came into being.
Source: www.blog.oup.com
From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899
Three of most significant birth events in the history on the 29th of November.1832: Louisa May Alcott is born. She is best known for Little Women, a novel she didn’t really want to write. When her publisher suggested the idea of writing a ‘girls’ story’ to her, Alcott was less than enthusiastic. She had never written such a book before, and had no love for the genre, considering it ‘moral pap’. However, she did like the idea of the money (as did her father), and so churned out the book quickly. It was a huge bestseller and the publishing phenomenon of the age.
1898: C. S. Lewis is born. Best-known as the author of the seven-book Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis also wrote a trilogy of science-fiction novels and various influential works of literary criticism (such as The Allegory of Love), as well as popular theology books such as The Problem of Pain. He destroyed the first draft of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when his friends criticised it; he rewrote it from scratch. Lewis based the protagonist of his ‘space trilogy’ on his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. The two men were friends for several decades when they both taught at the University of Oxford, and Lewis’s series science-fiction novels, which began with Out of the Silent Planet in 1938, feature a hero, Elwin Ransom, who is a philologist, like Tolkien. After their very first meeting, Lewis wrote of Tolkien in his diary: ‘No harm in him, only needs a smack or so.’
1948: George Szirtes is born. The poems of this Hungarian-born British poet include ‘Metro’ and ‘Bridge Passages’. Born in Budapest on 29 November 1948, Szirtes travelled to England in 1956 as a refugee, and he grew up in London. In 2004 he won the T. S. Eliot Prize for his poetry.
Source: www.interestingliterature.com
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On this day a landmark obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, ends in the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had been sued for obscenity in publishing an unexpurgated version of Lawrence’s novel, which deals with the affair between the wife of a wealthy, paralyzed landowner and his estate’s gamekeeper.
The book had been published in a limited English-language edition in Florence in 1928 and Paris the following year. An expurgated version was published in England in 1932. In 1959, the full text was published in New York, then in London the following year. Lawrence was born to a poor coal-mining family in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, in 1885.
His mother struggled to teach her children refinement and a love of education. She depended heavily on Lawrence for emotional support and nurturing. He won a scholarship to Nottingham High School, worked as a clerk, and attended University College in Nottingham, where he earned a teaching certificate.
His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911. The following year, Lawrence fell in love with Frieda Weekley, the German wife of a fellow teacher. The pair fled to Germany and wed after Frieda divorced her husband. In 1913, Lawrence published his first major novel, Sons and Lovers, an autobiographical novel set in a coal town.
The couple returned to England, and Lawrence’s next novel, The Rainbow (1915), was banned for indecency. After World War I, Lawrence traveled to Italy, Australia, and Mexico and wrote several more novels, including Women in Love (1921). He died of tuberculosis in France in 1930, at the age of 44.
Source: www.history.ca