Film of the Day
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 27 November James Pratt and John Smith executed for sodomy, 1835 On this day in 1835, the last two men to be publicly executed for buggery in England were hanged outside Newgate Prison in London, where a fairly large crowd had gathered. James Pratt, aged 30, and John Smith, aged 40, had been discovered in flagrante in the room of another man, William Bonill, by Bonill’s landlord, who had become suspicious about the string of men who would visit him. By climbing into the loft of the next door building, the landlord had been able to catch sight of what Pratt … Read more
How to Start a Revolution
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 25 January Police Day, Egypt Today is Police Day in Egypt. It is held annually to commemorate the day when 50 police officers were killed, more wounded, after a spat between local Egyptian policemen and the colonial ruler, Britain, got out of hand. The officers refused to hand over their weapons; the British sent in the army and surrounded the police station where they were holed up. Result: nasty. It was possibly just another day in the life of a colonial power and its variously contented subjects, but the event got wider currency when a local man photographed the melee and … Read more
The Hunter
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 9 July Queen Victoria creates Australia, 1900 On this day in 1900, the world’s sixth largest country was created by the Empress of India, Queen Victoria. It had of course existed since it broke away from Gondwana around 150-180 million years ago, and had been inhabited by various groups of indigenous “Australians” for at least 40,000 years. And collectively the landmass had been called Australia, or a variant on it, since before it had even been discovered – the Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Land of the South) of legend. But Australia had never existed as a political entity. Starting out initially … Read more
The Family Friend
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 9 May First recorded appearance of Mr Punch, 1662 On this day in 1662, Navy Board administrator Samuel Pepys went to Covent Garden, London, where he enjoyed “an Italian puppet play that is within the rayles there, which is very pretty, the best that ever I saw…”. The show was by a Pietro Gimonde from Bologna, and Pepys’s mention of it in his famous diary is the first record we have of Mr Punch. Today, Punch is a glove puppet, but back then he was a string marionette called Puncinello or Pulcinella or Pulliciniello, a character derived from the Italian commedia … Read more
Ida
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 22 December Beethoven debuts 5th Symphony, 1808 On this day in 1808, the composer Ludwig van Beethoven debuted his most famous work, the 5th Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. It was a big evening, lasting more than four hours, at which Beethoven also debuted his 6th Symphony, his 4th Piano Concerto, plus a few other items, with the whole evening rounded off by another debut, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, which he had written specifically as a big show-off finale piece. Possibly because there was so much new material to familiarise the orchestra with, partly because rehearsals were rushed, … Read more
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 September Tiffany and Co founded, 1837 On this day in 1837, Charles Lewis Tiffany and his partner Teddy Young opened a fancy goods and stationery shop in Lower Manhattan. Tiffany, Young and Lewis changed its name to Tiffany & Co when Charles Tiffany took sole control in 1853. At the same time he shifted its emphasis to jewellery. Growing fat on the revenue from its mail order operation, Tiffany also started to get a name as a provider of quality items – silverware, surgical instruments and swords. By the 1880s it had become closely associated with diamonds after buying the … Read more
Patton
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 11 April President Truman fires General MacArthur, 1951 Today in 1951, President Truman fired his most popular, successful general, Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur had been chief of staff of the US army in the 1930s, had been commander of the US Army in the Far East and supreme commander of the southwest Pacific during the Second World War. It was MacArthur who accepted the surrender of the Japanese in 1945 ,and it was MacArthur who effectively governed Japan between 1945 and 1951. It was also MacArthur who led the United Nations forces into Korea, where he was initially successful, before being pushed … Read more
Rudo y Cursi
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 March The Wanderers FC win first FA Cup, 1872 Today in 1872, the London football club Wanderers won the first football association cup, the oldest football competition in the world. It was the first of three wins of the cup for the club. The FA Cup is a knockout cup open to all football clubs who are established enough, and with facilities enough, to take part. In 1871-72, being the first season of the cup, there was a piecemeal and eccentric series of regulations – Wanderers managed to get to the final having won only one of their four games … Read more
The Infidel
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 21 March New Year’s Day, Bahá’í calendar If you’re a member of the Bahá’í faith, today is the first day of the new year. A religion that believes in one god, one spiritual source for all religions – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, whatever – and the equality of mankind, Bahá’í was only founded in the 19th century but has around five- to seven-million followers worldwide, spreading outwards from its foundational source in Iran. The largest grouping of Bahá’ís is in India. Right now it is probably the fastest growing religion in the world. It uses a solar calendar of 19 months of … Read more
Downfall
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 1 October Nazi leaders sentenced at the Nuremberg Trials, 1946 On the afternoon of this day in 1946, the individual sentences were read out at the conclusion of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The defendants were all political and military leaders of the Third Reich, and were charged with a) crimes against peace, b) planning and waging wars of aggression, c) war crimes and d) crimes against humanity. Several notable Nazis were not present – Adolf Hitler, Martin Boorman, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels. Three were already known to be dead; it was assumed Boorman was still alive. He was … Read more
Beauty Shop
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 March Queen Latifah born, 1970 Today in 1970, Queen Latifah was born, as Dana Elaine Owens, in Newark, New Jersey. An outgoing girl with an interest in sport and acting, she sang in a baptist choir as a child, picked up the Latifah monicker aged eight, formed a rap group, Ladies Fresh, in her first year of high school. She was the beatbox. At the age of 18 Fab 5 Freddy was given a copy of her rap Princess of the Posse by DJ Mark the 45 King, which led to her being signed by Tommy Boy Music. Her first … Read more
The Gatekeepers
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 13 September Rabin shakes hands with Arafat at the White House, 1993 On this day in 1993, Itzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, shook hands at the White House after signing the Oslo Accords. It was a historic moment. These modest proposals put in writing agreements about mutual recognition, the formation of a provisional Palestinian government, and Israel’s agreement to withdraw from some parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They wisely left thornier issues (the Jewish settlements, the future of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees) off the agenda. … Read more
