Today is Monday, Dec. 28, the 362nd day of 2009. There are 3 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History
On Dec. 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down because of differences with President Andrew Jackson.
On this date
In 1065, the original Westminster Abbey, located in London, was consecrated and opened this day in 1065 by Edward the Confessor and became the site of coronations and other ceremonies of national significance in England.
In 1694, Queen Mary II of England died after more than five years of joint rule with her husband, King William III.
In 1832, John C. Calhoun became the first vice president of the United States to resign, stepping down over differences with President Andrew Jackson.
In 1846, Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
In 1856, the 28th president of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was born in Staunton, Va.
In 1895, cinema was born. The organisers of the showing were the brothers August and Louis Lumière, the sons of the well known photographer Antoine Lumière from Lyon.
The two brothers are now viewed as being the inventors of the cinema. There had however been public film showings before this: the German brothers Skladonowsky for instance had presented a programme of films in the Berlin Varieté Wintergarten in November 1895.
In addition to the French brothers, Georges Mélies is also seen to have decisively paved the way for the cinema. Whilst the brothers principally shot those films that are now described as documentary films, Mélies added the dimension of fantasy to the film business which is perhaps not surprising given that he had previously earned his living as a magician.
Mélies was present at that legendary showing in the Grand Café at the end of December. Years later he recalled his encounter with Lumière: “‘Monsieur Mélies, you have the habit of astonishing your audiences. I would like to see in the Grand Café this evening’- ‘ Why?’ I asked him. ‘You will see something that will astonish you.’ To begin with he projected static images with his projector, as we usually did during our showings. I said: ‘We have been doing that for 20 years!” He had deliberately let the image stand still for some time. I then suddenly saw that the people on the screen were moving towards us. We were all completely baffled!”
30 years later the next quantum leap in the history of cinema was achieved with the introduction of sound films. The voice of the American singer Al Jolson was the first thing to be heard in a sound film.
Now cinema, which then went from strength to strength, has overtaken theatre, arts and literature in terms of his impact upon the public. Only the heroes of popular music are still able to keep up in terms of their mass suggestion and popularity.
What keeps the cinema together, why is the seventh art so attractive? One of most attractive definitions of film was provided by the American producer Sam Fuller in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Pierrot le Fou”.
Nowadays cinema sometimes reminds us of a giant, extravagant ocean liner, that is magnificent to watch, full of luxury items, but somehow immobile and on a collision course.
But there is still hope. In recent years many filmmakers have reflected on the cinema’s beginnings with the objective of astonishing the viewers with the most simple means, just as the Lumière brothers did – it is not a bad approach!
In 1897, brothers Charles and Emile Pathé founded the first film production company in the world, “Pathé Cinéma”. By 1908, the brothers already controlled a third of the world cinema market. The first Pathé producers were Ferdinand Zecca, Léon Gaumont and his secretary Alice Guy – the world’s first female producer. They usually shot one or two films per week, and motivated by profit, had no time to make complex or artistic films. The “Pathé Cinéma” held onto its monopoly until the rise of the US company that made Hollywood into a “film factory”.
In 1897, the play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” by Edmond Rostand, premiered in Paris.
In 1905, Earl “Fatha” Hines, the father of modern jazz piano, was born.
In 1905, the forerunner of the NCAA, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, was founded in New York City.
In 1908, a major earthquake followed by a tsunami devastated the Italian city of Messina, killing at least 70,000 people.
In 1917, the New York Evening Mail published “A Neglected Anniversary,” a facetious, as well as fictitious, essay by H.L. Mencken recounting the history of bathtubs in America.
In 1937, composer Maurice Ravel died in Paris.
In 1944, the musical “On the Town,” with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, opened on Broadway.
In 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance.
In 1958, the Baltimore Colts won the NFL championship, defeating the New York Giants 23-17 in overtime at Yankee Stadium, in what has been dubbed the greatest football game ever played.
In 1973, Alexander Solzhenitsyn published “Gulag Archipelago,” an expose of the Soviet prison system.
In 1981, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first American test-tube baby, was born in Norfolk, Va.
In 1982, Nevell Johnson Jr., a black man, was mortally wounded by a police officer in a Miami video arcade, setting off three days of race-related disturbances that left another man dead.
In 1989, Alexander Dubcek, the former Czechoslovak Communist leader who was deposed in a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, was named president of the country’s parliament.
In 1999, ten years ago, Clayton Moore, television’s “Lone Ranger,” died in West Hills, Calif., at age 85.
In 2004, five years ago. the U.S. Agency for International Development said it was adding $20 million to an initial $15 million contribution for Asian tsunami relief as Secretary of State Colin Powell bristled at a U.N. official’s suggestion the United States was being “stingy.”
In 2004, activist and author Susan Sontag died in New York at age 71.
In 2004, actor Jerry Orbach died in New York at age 69.
In 2005, former top Enron Corp. accountant Richard Causey pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to help pursue convictions against Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
In 2008, one year ago, a bomb-loaded SUV exploded at a military checkpoint in Afghanistan, claiming the lives of 14 schoolchildren in a heartbreaking flash captured by a U.S. security camera.
In 2008, the Detroit Lions completed an 0-16 season – the NFL’s worst ever – with a 31-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
Today’s Birthdays
Comic book creator Stan Lee is 87. Former United Auto Workers union president Owen Bieber is 80. Actor Martin Milner is 78. Actress Nichelle Nichols is 77. Actress Dame Maggie Smith is 75. Rock singer-musician Charles Neville is 71. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., is 65. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is 63. Rock singer-musician Edgar Winter is 63. Rock singer-musician Alex Chilton (The Box Tops; Big Star) is 59. Actor Denzel Washington is 55. Country singer Joe Diffie is 51. Country musician Mike McGuire (Shenandoah) is 51. Actor Chad McQueen is 49. Country singer-musician Marty Roe (Diamond Rio) is 49. Actor Malcolm Gets is 45. Actor Mauricio Mendoza is 40. Comedian Seth Meyers is 36. Actor Brendan Hines is 33. R&B singer John Legend is 31. Actress Sienna Miller is 28. Actor Thomas Dekker is 22. Actress Mackenzie Rosman is 20. Pop singer David Archuleta (“American Idol”) is 19.
Today’s Historic Birthdays
Thomas Henderson
12/28/1798 – 11/23/1844
Scottish astronomer
Edward Levy-Lawson Burnham
12/28/1833 – 1/9/1916
English creator of London Daily Telegraph newspaper
Woodrow Wilson
12/28/1856 – 2/3/1924
28th President of the United States (1913-21)
Frederick Pethick-Lawrence
12/28/1871 – 9/10/1961
English women’s suffrage movement leader
William Draper Harkins
12/28/1873 – 3/7/1951
American chemist
Sir Arthur Eddington
12/28/1882 – 11/22/1944
English astrophysicist
Carl-Gustaf Rossby
12/28/1898 – 8/19/1957
Swedish meteorologist
Earl “Fatha” Hines
12/28/1905 – 4/22/1983
American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer
Lew Ayres
12/28/1908 – 12/30/1996
American actor
Manuel Puig
12/28/1932 – 7/22/1990
Argentine novelist and screenwriter
Thought for Today
“Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.” – Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian statesman (1889-1964).
___________
Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122800004.html
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/index.html
http://www.todayinhistory.de/index.php
http://www.britannica.com/eb/dailycontent/rss
