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1974: Duke Ellington dies

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:57:31 GMT

The highest compliment Edward Kennedy Ellington knew how to pay to a fellow musician was to refer to him as being "beyond category." If any label could possibly capture the essence of Ellington himself, it would be that one. In a career spanning five decades, the man they called "Duke" put an indelible stamp on 20th-century American music as an instrumentalist, as a composer and as an orchestra leader. Equally at home and equally revered in the Cotton Club and Carnegie Hall, if any musician ever defied categorization, it was Duke Ellington. Fifty years after becoming a household name, and without slowing down professionally until the very end, Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington died on May 24, 1974, at the age of 75.
One of the keys to understanding Duke Ellington's persona is to know how and when he received his noble nickname. Unlike Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, who were called the King and Queen of their respective genres because of their professional accomplishments, Edward Ellington became the Duke because of his suave demeanor and elegant bearing while still a schoolboy in Washington, D.C. As Studs Terkel put it, "His casual, offhand manner, his easy grace, and his dapper dress gave him the bearing of a young nobleman." The same qualities would remain with Ellington throughout his adult life.
Even if Ellington had limited himself to being a composer, he would deserve a reputation as one of the 20th century's best purely on the strength of "Mood Indigo" (1930), "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" (1932), "Sophisticated Lady" (1933) and "Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me" (1940). But Ellington was much more than a composer. His Duke Ellington Orchestra served as an incubator for some of the greatest instrumentalists of the jazz age and became famous for a sound that no other orchestra could mimic. As the conductor/composer Andre Previn once said in comparing Ellington to another jazz orchestra leader of far more modest talent: "Stan Kenton can stand in front of a thousand fiddles and a thousand brass and make a dramatic gesture and every studio arranger can nod his head and say, 'Oh, yes, that's done like this.' But Duke merely lifts his finger, three horns make a sound and I don't know what it is."
The style of music that brought him to fame passed in and out of fashion over the decades following his commercial peak, but Ellington himself was never content to work within that style anyway. Over the course of his career, Ellington never stopped pushing himself into new territory, from long-form orchestral jazz compositions to sacred church music. "Every morning you wake up, it's a new day, isn't it?" he once said. "Is there any reason why a human being shouldn't be influenced by a new day?" Jazz historian Ralph Gleason called him "The greatest composer American society has produced." Duke Ellington himself would likely have been satisfied with simply "beyond category."

1940: Joseph Brodsky is born

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:57:29 GMT

Today is the birthday of poet Joseph Brodsky, born this day in St. Petersburg, Russia. His poetry treats such universal topics as life, death, and the meaning of existence.
Brodsky's early poetry won critical acclaim, but the Soviet government considered him a loafer and sentenced him to five years of hard labor for "social parasitism." His sentence was commuted when prominent literary figures protested. In 1972, Brodsky moved to the U.S. as an exile. He lectured at several universities while continuing to write poetry. His early works, including Verses and Poems (1965) and A Halt in the Waste Land (1970), were translated in 1973. In 1986, he published History of the Twentieth Century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year. He was poet laureate of the U.S. from 1991 to 1992.
Brodsky died on January 28, 1996.

1989: sex, lies and videotape wins top prize at Cannes

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:57:04 GMT

Sex, lies and videotape, the debut feature from the 26-year-old writer-director Steven Soderbergh, wins the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on this day in 1989.
Born in Georgia on January 14, 1963, and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Soderbergh took university-level film courses and began making short films while still in high school. He got his first big break directing a full-length concert video for the band Yes, which earned him a Grammy nomination. He would expand his short film Winston, made in 1987, into sex, lies and videotape, which he reportedly wrote in a little more than a week. The film focused on the repressed Ann (Andie MacDowell) and her lawyer husband John (Peter Gallagher), who is having a steamy affair with Ann’s sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). John’s old college friend Graham (James Spader) returns to town and reveals his penchant for videotaping women talking about their sexual experience, further complicating the situation when he becomes involved with Ann.
In addition to the coveted Golden Palm, sex, lies and videotape garnered Cannes’ top acting honors for Spader. Released in August 1989, the $1.2 million film was aggressively marketed by its distributor, Miramax Films, and went on to gross some $26 million. With an Academy Award nomination for his original screenplay, Soderbergh was anointed as one of the darlings of the burgeoning 1990s independent film movement.
After a series of low-budget commercial failures (including 1991’s Kafka, 1993’s King of the Hill and 1996’s Schizopolis, in which he also starred), Soderbergh ended his slump with the stylish, funny Out of Sight (1998), an adaptation of one of Elmore Leonard’s best-selling crime novels that starred George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. After enjoying moderate success with another crime film, The Limey (1999), Soderbergh had a banner year in 2000, releasing two acclaimed hits: Erin Brockovich and Traffic. The first film earned Julia Roberts her first Oscar for Best Actress, while the second, a complex drug-war drama and Soderbergh’s most ambitious effort to date, won him the Academy Award for Best Director.
Now one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Soderbergh scored his biggest commercial success ever with Ocean’s Eleven (2001), headlined by frequent Soderbergh collaborator Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Roberts, among other big names. Two sequels, released in 2004 and 2007, were also box-office hits. The director’s more ambitious films during this period, including Solaris (2002), Full Frontal (2003) and The Good German (2006), were less successful. In late 2008, Soderbergh returned with Che, a biopic of the Argentine guerrilla Ernesto “Che” Guevara, starring Benicio Del Toro in the title role.

1543: Copernicus dies

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:57:01 GMT

On May 24, 1543, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus dies in what is now Frombork, Poland. The father of modern astronomy, he was the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the sun.
Prior to the publication of his major astronomical work, "Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs," in 1543, European astronomers argued that Earth lay at the center of the universe, the view also held by most ancient philosophers and biblical writers. In addition to correctly postulating the order of the known planets, including Earth, from the sun, and estimating their orbital periods relatively accurately, Copernicus argued that Earth turned daily on its axis and that gradual shifts of this axis accounted for the changing seasons.
He died the year his major work was published, saving him from the outrage of some religious leaders who later condemned his heliocentric view of the universe as heresy. By the late 18th century, the Copernican view of the solar system was almost universally accepted.

1964: Riot erupts at soccer match

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:56:12 GMT

A referee's call in a soccer match between Peru and Argentina sparks a riot on this day in 1964. More than 300 fans were killed and another 500 people were injured in the violent melee that followed at National Stadium in Lima, Peru.
The match was a qualifier for the 1964 Olympics and the Peruvian fans were fiercely cheering on their team with only a few minutes left in a close game. When the referee disallowed an apparent goal for Peru, the stadium went wild. The resulting panic and crowd-control measures taken caused stampedes in which people were crushed and killed.
The extent of this disaster has only been surpassed once. In 1982, 340 people died at a match in Moscow when a late goal caused fans who had exited the game to attempt to return suddenly. Meanwhile, police were forcing people to exit; those caught in the middle were crushed.
Large-scale soccer disasters date back to 1946 when 33 fans were crushed to death in Bolton, England, when overcrowded conditions caused a barrier to collapse onto fans.

1959: John Foster Dulles dies

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:55:51 GMT

After battling cancer for nearly three years, former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles dies. Dulles served as secretary of state from 1953 until shortly before his death in 1959 and was considered one of the primary architects of America's Cold War foreign policy during that period.
Dulles was born in 1888, the son of a Presbyterian minister. President Dwight D. Eisenhower would later joke that the serious Dulles had been preparing to become secretary of state since he was a toddler. This was not far from the truth. Dulles' great-uncle was John W. Foster, who served as secretary of state during the 1890s (and for whom John Foster Dulles was named). His uncle, Robert Lansing, had filled the same position during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Thus, when Eisenhower selected Dulles to be his secretary of state in 1952, he was keeping a family tradition alive. Dulles, however, was not one to merely follow in the footsteps of his famous relatives. He was determined to have an impact on U.S. foreign policy. He brought to his thinking about international relations a strong dose of religion, which often had the effect of simplifying complex issues into contests between good and evil, right and wrong. He was also ferociously anticommunist.
As secretary of state, Dulles was most famous for developing the notion of "massive retaliation." In this theory, Dulles posited that the United States should make it known that it was ready and willing to use its massive nuclear arsenal to retaliate against threats to American interests around the globe. Dulles believed that it would never come to that, since the Soviets, faced with nuclear annihilation, would back away from the "brink" of atomic warfare. The secretary was also well known for his views on Third World neutralism. In Dulles' view, neutralism in the battle against communism was a sin. During his tenure, Dulles saw the United States through several foreign policy crises, including the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1956, however, it was discovered that Dulles was suffering from lung cancer. Over the next two-and-a-half years, Dulles bravely battled the disease, continuing his work as secretary of state between trips to the hospital for treatment. On April 22, 1959, Dulles resigned his position when he became too weak to fulfill his duties. Christian Herter replaced him as Secretary of State.

1864: Battle of North Anna continues

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:54:57 GMT

Union General Ulysses S. Grant continues to pound away at Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in the engagement along the North Anna River in central Virginia, that had begun the day before. Since early May, Lee and Grant had been slugging it out along an arc from the Wilderness to Spotsylvania and to Hanover Junction, on the North Anna River. Grant was doing what other Union commanders had failed to do since 1861: ensuring that the Army of Northern Virginia was in constant action to prevent them from retooling.
The cost in men, however, was frighteningly high. Grant had lost 33,000 troops in the fighting at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania. Worse, he could not gain the upper hand over Lee. As they raced along the arc, Lee had the advantage of moving along the interior lines, while Grant moved on the outside. As a result, Lee always had a shorter distance to the next point on the waltz around Richmond.
At North Anna, Lee beat Grant to the river and quickly assumed a strong position on the high, steep banks. Grant had made two attacks the previous day but each failed. On May 24, the Yankees again probed Lee's position but could not penetrate the Confederate defenses. On another part of the line, a Union brigade carried out an unauthorized assault by a general named James Ledlie, who was evidently drunk. Crossing near Ox Ford in the strongest part of the Confederate line, Ledlie's men nearly broke through before retreating. Surprisingly, Ledlie never faced any punishment, despite the fact that 220 men were lost in the charge.
The engagement at North Anna was small by the standards of this campaign. Grant was wise to refrain from an all-out assault on the Confederate position. However, he was not as cautious just a week later at Cold Harbor, Virginia, where Northern soldiers were butchered wholesale in a devastating attack on fortified Rebels.

1991: Thelma and Louise featuring 1966 Ford Thunderbird, released

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:54:11 GMT

On this day in 1991, the critically acclaimed road movie "Thelma and Louise" debuts in theaters, stunning audiences with a climactic scene in which its two heroines drive off a cliff into the Grand Canyon, in a vintage 1966 green Ford Thunderbird convertible.
The road movie genre, which traces its roots as far back as Homer's "Odyssey," always involves a journey of some kind, in which the hero--almost invariably male--is confronted by challenges and learns something essential about himself along the way. Though the road movie historically didn't have to involve an actual road, the increase in the production of road movies in the mid- to late-20th century suggests the impact of the growing automobile industry and the public's fascination with the freedom inherent in a car. Two now-classic examples, "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) and "Easy Rider" (1969), helped define and popularize the road movie genre for a new generation of viewers.
"Thelma and Louise," directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Callie Khouri, reworked the road movie genre by replacing the typically male leads with two women.
In this version, Thelma, played by Geena Davis, is a housewife repressed by her temperamental husband, while Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a steely waitress hiding a trauma in her past. Soon after the two friends set off in Louise's T-Bird convertible for a weekend vacation in a fishing cabin, events take a violent turn, and they are forced to go on the run. They drive towards Mexico, taking ever more desperate actions to elude capture along the way, culminating in their suicidal yet oddly triumphant dive into the Grand Canyon.
The iconic Thunderbird, first produced in 1955, was Ford's attempt to create a sports car that would also provide an element of luxury. From the beginning, T-Birds became highly collectible cars, and new and limited edition models were introduced each year to keep up with the growing competition. 1966 was in fact the final year in which Ford manufactured T-Bird convertibles; sales were slow, and their marketing department decided the line's luxury image was intact without the drop-top model. In addition to its co-starring role in "Thelma and Louise," the 1966 Thunderbird has made prominent appearances in several other films, including Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 teen drama "The Outsiders" and David Lynch's quirky, violent road movie "Wild at Heart" (1990).

1775: John Hancock becomes president of Congress

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:53:26 GMT

On this day in 1775, John Hancock is elected president of the Second Continental Congress.John Hancock is best known for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence, which he jested the British could read without spectacles. He was serving as president of Congress upon the declaration's adoption on July 4, 1776, and, as such, was the first member of the Congress to sign the historic document.
John Hancock graduated from Harvard University in 1754 at age 17 and, with the help of a large inherited fortune, established himself as Boston's leading merchant. The British customs raid on one of Hancock's ships, the sloop Liberty, in 1768 incited riots so severe that the British army fled the city of Boston to its barracks in Boston Harbor. Boston merchants promptly agreed to a non-importation agreement to protest the British action. Two years later, it was a scuffle between Patriot protestors and British soldiers on Hancock's wharf that set the stage for the Boston Massacre.
Hancock's involvement with Samuel Adams and his radical group, the Sons of Liberty, won the wealthy merchant the dubious distinction of being one of only two Patriots—the other being Sam Adams—that the Redcoats marching to Lexington in April 1775 to confiscate Patriot arms were ordered to arrest. When British General Thomas Gage offered amnesty to the colonists holding Boston under siege, he excluded the same two men from his offer.
While Hancock served as president of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Samuel Adams' cousin John Adams convinced Congress to place Virginian George Washington in command of the rebel army. In 1776, the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain. The next year, John Hancock returned home to Massachusetts, where he served as a major general in the militia and sat in the Massachusetts constitutional convention that adopted the world's first and most enduring constitution in 1780. Having helped to create the new state government, Hancock proceeded to serve as the state's first governor, a position he held on and off until his death in 1793.

1883: Brooklyn Bridge opens

yasmine_arabstoday@hotmail.com (London - Arabstoday) — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:52:21 GMT

After 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is opened, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.
John Roebling, born in Germany in 1806, was a great pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges. He studied industrial engineering in Berlin and at the age of 25 immigrated to western Pennsylvania, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his living as a farmer. He later moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he found work as a civil engineer. He promoted the use of wire cable and established a successful wire-cable factory.
Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension bridges, which at the time were widely used but known to fail under strong winds or heavy loads. Roebling is credited with a major breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology: a web truss added to either side of the bridge roadway that greatly stabilized the structure. Using this model, Roebling successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio. On the basis of these achievements, New York State accepted Roebling's design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan--with a span of 1,595 feet--and appointed him chief engineer. It was to be the world's first steel suspension bridge.
Just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge.
The two granite foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge were built in timber caissons, or watertight chambers, sunk to depths of 44 feet on the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the New York side. Compressed air pressurized the caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions, and more than a hundred workers suffered from cases of compression sickness. Compression sickness, or the "bends," is caused by the appearance of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that result from rapid decompression. Several died, and Washington Roebling himself became bedridden from the condition in 1872. Other workers died as a result of more conventional construction accidents, such as collapses and a fire.
Roebling continued to direct construction operations from his home, and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877, Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge. Roebling's health gradually improved, but he remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. On May 24, 1883, Emily Roebling was given the first ride over the completed bridge, with a rooster, a symbol of victory, in her lap. Within 24 hours, an estimated 250,000 people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using a broad promenade above the roadway that John Roebling designed solely for the enjoyment of pedestrians.
The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately towers, was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The connection it provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.