Who Was Tchaikovsky?
Ugg Boot
Before we begin todays journey, let's have a little trivia question. Here goes:
Who did Pocahontas marry?
....and, don't forget to turn your clocks back. Why do we do that? Who came up with that crazy idea? Well, I'll tell you. Day-light Saving Time was actually the brain child of Benjamin Franklin in his essay called "An Economical Project". He wrote it while living in France. The funny thing is that Mr. Franklin intended the whole thing as a joke poking fun at the party-going, late rising French that he was living among at the time. He proposed that the time should be changed to allow the French people to rise closer to the sunrise so that they would go to bed closer to the sunset, thus saving candle and lamp oil. His proposal, being in jest, suggested that the time be changed by several hours rather than the one hour commonly used today. A few people, missing the point, took the essay to heart and began to experiment with changing their clocks to reflect the changing sunlight hours.
What do you really know about Tchaikovsky? What is his whole name? What country was he from? Let's take a look at some strange and not so strange history.
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Russia in 1840. The name totally gave that one away. In 1877, Tchaikovsky befriended a wealthy widow who adored his music and supported him financially, but never wanted to meet him. With her financial support (which ceased in 1890), he quit his job at the Conservatory and devoted all his time to his compositions. Also in 1877, however, his personal life took a dramatic turn. His homosexuality causing him feelings of guilt, he decided to marry a 28-year-old former student of the Conservatory just to quiet rumors. While married Tchaikovsky attempted suicide, and the marriage ended when Tchaikovsky fled to St. Petersburg. (His wife died in 1917, after spending more than 20 years in an insane asylum.) Click on the link above for more about Tchaikovsky.
Today in History:
1275 - Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1553 - Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.
1682 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
1795 - The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
1810 - United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state. I wonder how the Osmonds in Branson feel about that.
1904 - First New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes biggest in United States of America, and one of the biggest in world.
1924 - The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
1936 - Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
1946 - First commercially-sponsored television program airs (Geographically Speaking, sponsored by Bristol-Myers).
1949 - An airliner flying from Paris to New York crashes near the Azores. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan.
1961 - NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
1962 - Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.
1981 - The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
Happy Birthday:
1401 - Catherine of Valois, queen of Henry V of England (d. 1437)
1728 - James Cook, British naval captain and explorer (d. 1779)
1811 - Isaac Singer, American inventor (d. 1875)
1858 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1919)
1933 - Floyd Cramer, American popular pianist (d. 1997)
1939 - John Cleese, British actor and writer
1940 - John Gotti, American gangster (d. 2002)
1941 - Dick Trickle, auto racer. Now there's a name to be proud of. Were his parents intentionally trying to get this kid beat up in school or what?
1967 - Scott Weiland, American singer (Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver)
1984 - Kelly Osbourne, English television personality
Deaths on this day:
1789 - John Cook, American farmer and Governor of Delaware (b. 1730)
2003 - Rod Roddy, American television announcer (b. 1937)
Who did Pocahontas marry?
....and, don't forget to turn your clocks back. Why do we do that? Who came up with that crazy idea? Well, I'll tell you. Day-light Saving Time was actually the brain child of Benjamin Franklin in his essay called "An Economical Project". He wrote it while living in France. The funny thing is that Mr. Franklin intended the whole thing as a joke poking fun at the party-going, late rising French that he was living among at the time. He proposed that the time should be changed to allow the French people to rise closer to the sunrise so that they would go to bed closer to the sunset, thus saving candle and lamp oil. His proposal, being in jest, suggested that the time be changed by several hours rather than the one hour commonly used today. A few people, missing the point, took the essay to heart and began to experiment with changing their clocks to reflect the changing sunlight hours.
What do you really know about Tchaikovsky? What is his whole name? What country was he from? Let's take a look at some strange and not so strange history.
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Russia in 1840. The name totally gave that one away. In 1877, Tchaikovsky befriended a wealthy widow who adored his music and supported him financially, but never wanted to meet him. With her financial support (which ceased in 1890), he quit his job at the Conservatory and devoted all his time to his compositions. Also in 1877, however, his personal life took a dramatic turn. His homosexuality causing him feelings of guilt, he decided to marry a 28-year-old former student of the Conservatory just to quiet rumors. While married Tchaikovsky attempted suicide, and the marriage ended when Tchaikovsky fled to St. Petersburg. (His wife died in 1917, after spending more than 20 years in an insane asylum.) Click on the link above for more about Tchaikovsky.
Today in History:
1275 - Traditional founding of the city of Amsterdam.
1553 - Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus is burned at the stake just outside Geneva.
1682 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded.
1795 - The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid, which establishes the boundaries between Spanish colonies and the U.S.
1810 - United States annexes the former Spanish colony of West Florida.
1838 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state. I wonder how the Osmonds in Branson feel about that.
1904 - First New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes biggest in United States of America, and one of the biggest in world.
1924 - The Uzbek SSR is founded in the Soviet Union.
1936 - Mrs Wallis Simpson filed for divorce which would eventually allow her to marry King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, thus forcing his abdication from the throne.
1946 - First commercially-sponsored television program airs (Geographically Speaking, sponsored by Bristol-Myers).
1949 - An airliner flying from Paris to New York crashes near the Azores. Among the victims are violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan.
1961 - NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket in Mission Saturn-Apollo 1.
1962 - Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force became the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane was shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.
1981 - The Soviet submarine U 137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.
Happy Birthday:
1401 - Catherine of Valois, queen of Henry V of England (d. 1437)
1728 - James Cook, British naval captain and explorer (d. 1779)
1811 - Isaac Singer, American inventor (d. 1875)
1858 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1919)
1933 - Floyd Cramer, American popular pianist (d. 1997)
1939 - John Cleese, British actor and writer
1940 - John Gotti, American gangster (d. 2002)
1941 - Dick Trickle, auto racer. Now there's a name to be proud of. Were his parents intentionally trying to get this kid beat up in school or what?
1967 - Scott Weiland, American singer (Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver)
1984 - Kelly Osbourne, English television personality
Deaths on this day:
1789 - John Cook, American farmer and Governor of Delaware (b. 1730)
2003 - Rod Roddy, American television announcer (b. 1937)
posted by Crazy B @ 9:17 AM
2 Comments:
no no no. pocahontas married abraham lincoln. sheesh. that's right. now you remember.
Everybody knows that Pocahontas married Lewis and Clark, duh. By the way, have you ever poked a hontas? If you do, don't forget to use protective gear. And watch out--they'll knot up on ya.
I have no idea what any of that meant.
Bye now.
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