Today in History.....

[jasknight12]

One of the most popular musical films of all time, "The Sound of Music", starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, is released on 2 March 1965

 

[jasknight12]

The Ermenonville air disaster.

Turkish Airlines Flight 981 was a regularly scheduled flight from Istanbul Yesilköy Airport to London Heathrow Airport with an intermediate stop in Paris at Orly Airport.

On 3 March 1974, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating the flight crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, outside Paris, killing all 346 people on board.

At the time, it was the deadliest plane crash in aviation history. It still remains the fourth-deadliest plane crash in aviation history, the deadliest involving a DC-10 and the deadliest single-plane crash with no survivors.

The crash was caused when an improperly secured cargo door at the rear of the plane broke off, causing an explosive decompression which severed cables necessary to control the aircraft. Because of a known design flaw left uncorrected before and after the production of DC-10s, the cargo hatches did not latch reliably, and manual procedures were relied upon to ensure they were locked correctly.

 

[jasknight12]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premieres at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on 4 March 1877.

 

[topdog]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premieres at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on 4 March 1877.

Another interpretation - Matthew Bourne's choreography for Sadler's Wells in London. He made up a more contemporary story, and cast men as the swans. Featuring Adam Cooper as the swan and Scott Ambler as the prince in 1996.

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[jasknight12]

Italian Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri da Correggio, better known just as Correggio, dies on 5 March 1534. He was responsible for for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th century.

 

[jasknight12]

The Zeebrugge ferry disaster.

On 6 March 1987, the ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise, left dock in Belgium. Within minutes the ship was in trouble and in just 90 seconds it capsized, killing 193 people.

There were an estimated 539 people were on board including 80 crew members, lorry drivers transporting goods back to the UK and army personnel on weekend leave.

There were also families on board who had taken advantage of an offer in a national newspaper for £1 return day trips.

More British lives were lost in the disaster than in any other single event since the Second World War.

Many drowned trying to escape the sinking ship, while others sucbed to hypothermia in the frigid 3C waters.

As part of the outpouring of grief, Ferry Aid was an ensemble group of current and past musicians formed. They performed 'Let it Be' - all proceeds went to the disaster victim's families.

 

[jasknight12]

Leslie Arthur Julien Hutchinson, known as "Hutch" (born 7 March 1900), was one of the biggest cabaret stars in the world during the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1924 he left America for Paris, where he had a residency in Joe Zelli's club and became a friend and lover of Cole Porter. He was for some time the highest paid star in Britain and was one of the biggest stars during the twenties and thirties in the UK.

Hutch is rumoured to have had a lengthy affair in the mid-1930s with Edwina Mountbatten. The rumour scandalized the British upper classes, becoming the subject of tabloid news, and an embarrassment to the British Royal Family. The Mountbattens sued the tabloids for libel. Fans of Downton Abbey will note a similar storyline was dramatised in the show.

 

[jasknight12]

British actor John Inman dies 8 March 2007. He was best known for playing outrageously camp menswear shop assistant 'Mr Humphries' in the 1970s BBC television series "Are You Being Served'.

His portrayal was not without controversy, with other gay men fearing that the flamboyance was misrepresenting them. Inman said that "they thought I was over exaggerating the gay character. But I don't think I do. In fact there are people far more camp than Mr. Humphries walking around this country. Anyway, I know for a fact that an enormous number of viewers like Mr. Humphries and don't really care whether he's camp or not. So far from doing harm to the homosexual image, I feel I might be doing some good".

 

[jasknight12]

American composer Samuel Barber was born on 9 March 1910. He is one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century and received much recognition including being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice.

He had a long career and has many notable works, however he is most regarded for composing one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, the Adagio for Strings.

 

[jasknight12]

On 10 March 1876, the world's first telephone call was made. Alexander Graham Bell says "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" to his assistant Thomas Watson.

 

[jasknight12]

The Madrid train bombings - 11-M

On 11 March 2004, terrorists coordinated nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain.

The explosions killed 192 people and injured around 2,000. The bombings constituted the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain.

 

[jasknight12]

Vaslav Nijinsky (born 12 March 1889) was a ballet dancer and choreographer often considered to be the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. Born in Kiev to Polish parents, Nijinsky grew up in Imperial Russia but considered himself to be Polish.

He became celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterisations. He could perform en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time and his ability to perform seemingly gravity-defying leaps was legendary.

 

[topdog]

Vaslav Nijinsky (born 12 March 1889) was a ballet dancer and choreographer often considered to be the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century.

The other stunning thing about Nijinsky's career is how brilliant but short it was. He met famous Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1909 and joined his company, the Ballet Russes, and became his lover. He toured Europe and had both men and women throwing themselves at his feet. He was like the Beatles, except with all the adulation rolled up in to one man.

After two years he began choreographing his own pieces, and they were modern, unlike much of the rest of the companies more classical dances. They often contained very sexual scenes - so much so that they had to be cut when touring America.

As the power dynamic between mentor and apprentice changed, the relationship between Diaghilev and Nijinsky broke down.

Romola de Pulszky was a heiress who was smitten by the dancer and bought her way in to the company to be near him - and on a tour away from Diaghilev he proposed and they eloped in 1913.

This ended his career with the Ballet Russes which made Nijinsky a dancer/choreographer without a company. And because he was so modern, there were few dance institutions that wanted to sponsor avant-garde work. Further more he lacked the patience and business sense needed to make it on his own.

After a year of moving through money-losing several ventures, he retired to Romola's home in Austria-Hungary in June 1914 to await the birth of their first child. This put him, a Russian, in exactly the wrong place at the start of World War I. He was considered an enemy citizen and confined to his residence and unable to work for three years. It took the combined efforts of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Queen Alexandra of Denmark, Dowager Russian Empress Marie Feodorovna, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and the Pope Benedict XV to get him released, and he took asylum in New York. He tried several ventures in the US, but collapsed in 1918 and while he was hospitalized his schizophrenia was diagnosed.

He spent the rest of his life in sanatoriums in Zurich or Hungary and during World War 2 his wife carefully moved him from place to place to keep him away from the fighting armies. He died in 1950.

So when you look back, he really only had five years of brilliance and that's what his reputation is based on. Unfortunately Diaghilev never allowed movie cameras to film his dancers so there is no record of Nijinsky's actual dancing.

There is an interesting movie of his life, Nijinsky (1980), but it is based on his wife's highly edited version of his diaries so take the attitudes in it with a grain of salt. Still, it was one of few Hollywood films to deal with gay relationships and characters, though the tend to fall into the "tragic" category.

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[jasknight12]

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE (born 13 March 1884 in Auckland, New Zealand) was an English novelist.

His skill at scene-setting and vivid plots, as well as his high profile as a lecturer, brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s but has been largely neglected since his death.

As a gay man at a time when homosexual practices were illegal for men in Britain, Walpole conducted a succession of intense but discreet relationships with other men, and was for much of his life in search of what he saw as "the perfect friend". He eventually found one, a married policeman, with whom he settled in the English Lake District.

“The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”

 

[edkiko]

great

 

[jasknight12]

The Mikado, one of the most famous and best-loved of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas opens on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second longest run for any work of musical theatre at that time.

The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, and it is especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.

One of its best-known numbers is Ko-Ko’s song “I’ve Got a Little List,” for which directors through a century and beyond have made a point of changing phrases to build in contemporary cultural references to those who “never would be missed.”

 

[jasknight12]

On the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, Julius Caesar is stabbed to death by Brutus, Cassius and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March in Rome.

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

He is also known as a notable author of Latin prose.

Julius Caesar Quotes
Experience is the teacher of all things.
Veni, vidi, vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
I would rather be first in a village than second at Rome.
It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

 

[jasknight12]

On 16 March 1917, Grand Duke Michael declines the Imperial throne after his brother Tsar Nicholas II abdicates, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 300 year rule over Russia.

A heavy burden has been laid on me by the will of my brother, who, in a time of unexampled strife and popular tumult, has transferred to me the imperial throne of Russia. Sharing with the people the thought that the good of the country should stand before everything else, I have firmly decided that I will accept power only if that is the will of our great people, who must by universal suffrage elect their representatives to a Constituent Assembly, in order to determine the form of government and draw up new fundamental laws for Russia. Therefore, calling for the blessing of God, I ask all citizens of Russia to obey the Provisional Government, which has arisen and been endowed with full authority on the initiative of the Imperial Duma, until such time as the Constituent Assembly, called at the earliest possible date and elected on the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret suffrage, shall, by its decision as to the form of government, give expression to the will of the people.

The Russian revolution escalates and he is arrested and imprisoned. He was the first of the Romanovs to be murdered by the Bolsheviks, at the age of 39, on 13 June 1918.

 

[trencherman]

March 15, 2018 On this date, 53 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered one of the best presidential addresses ever delivered to the Congress of the USA.

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[topdog]

On 16 March 1917, Grand Duke Michael declines the Imperial throne after his brother Tsar Nicholas II abdicates, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 300 year rule over Russia.

Grand Duke Michael wanted out of the Romanov family the same way Michael Corleone wanted out of the Mafia in the Godfather movies. But just like Corleone, it seemed like every time he made his way out, he got pulled right back in.

After his brother George died right at the turn of the last century, Michael was the heir to the throne held by his oldest brother Nicholas. He breathed a sigh of relief when Nicholas finally had a son - Alexi - which took him off the hook.

He was in love with a married woman - Natalia - and she bore his child. But even when Nicholas sent him away to the Crimea, he and Natalia still managed to meet. Eventually Natalia divorced and, in a move that shocked the Russian Court, Michael married her.

This is not just a love story. Michael was deliberately breaking rules left and right trying to get thrown out of the Romanov family. He was required to get the blessing of the Czar before he married - he did not. He was required to marry a princess from another royal family - he married a commoner. And he certainly could not marry a woman with a living husband - but he did just that.

In 1912 he moved with his wife and family to Paris, where they lived quite happily away from the turmoil of Russia, the strikes and unrest, and the court.

But WWI arrived and Michael went back to command a regiment. He was actually one of the more successful Russian commanders in the war (not a high bar to clear), and that's where he was when he got the news that not only had his brother abdicated the throne, he had abdicated for his son as well. Which made Michael the czar, whether he wanted the title or not.

Michael deferred, turning the decision over to the people and the Duma, saying that the people should decide if they want a czar. Neither the people nor the Duma got that chance when the Bolsheviks dissolved the Duma and after the October Revolution took control. Michael was confined to house arrest, though he was let out for an hour to see his brother before the former Czar and his family were shipped off to Siberia.

Michael was sent in the other direction - to the Caucuses and held there. His wife tried to smuggle him out to Finland and then England, but his cousin King George V refused to give him asylum*, as he also refused the former czar's family.

As the Czech army approached the city where Michael was held, the situation became too dangerous for both Michael's wife and son. They managed to get out and eventually found their way to England. But days later the local Bolshevik put together a plot to kill Michael. They snuck him and his assistant out to a forest under the pretense of putting him on train, and shot them both. Later the regional Bolshevik party covered their tracks by saying that it was their own idea - and certainly Lenin in hindsight approved. A few weeks later the former czar and his family were killed as well.

In the 1990s, after a review of the existing records, an official Russian committee declared that Michael was not a criminal, as he had been portrayed in history, but rather an innocent man murdered for political purposes.

* Note - It can be hard to understand today why George V would refuse his cousins - who were also his allies in the war - asylum in Britain, and instead leave them to certain death in Russia. But there were huge current events in 1917/1918 that made that impossible, in the King's mind.

• The first is that toll of the war was at its height - Britain had faced huge losses and the population was suffering through food and fuel shortages.
• Although Germany was definitely portrayed as the villain, many also blamed Russia for mobilizing and triggering war.
• Aristocrats in all capitals were also blamed for starting the war, and then being shielded from its consequences. (Which actually wasn't true, but it was the perception.) There was no sympathy among the newspapers or population for rescuing rich princes and grand dukes.
• The Russian Revolution - This struck the British monarchy to the core. They were very aware that if it could happen in Russia in could happen in Britain - especially triggered by this terrible war that seemed to have no end in sight.
• The Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the war - they broke with Britain and France and made their own peace with Germany and walked away. The population in Britain was livid. Anything Russian was seen as being as bad as being German.

For these reasons, George felt that bringing the Romanovs to Britian would only destabilize an already fragile nation that he was trying to hold together in those war-torn revolutionary times.

Even in hindsight it is hard to argue with that assessment. Monarchies fell throughout Europe during and after the War. The Windsors managed to navigate through that period and preserve an institution that proved very valuable in making it through the next war some twenty years later.