The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit
the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period,
enthralling audiences with action, music, dance, moveable scenery,
baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes, and special effects
such as trapdoor tricks, "flying" actors, and fireworks. These shows
have always had a bad reputation as a vulgar and commercial threat to
the witty, "legitimate" Restoration drama; however, they drew
Londoners in unprecedented numbers and left them dazzled and
delighted. Basically home-grown and with roots in the early
17th-century court masque, though never ashamed of borrowing ideas and
stage technology from French opera, the spectaculars are sometimes
called "English opera". The expense of mounting ever more elaborate
scenic productions drove the two competing theatre companies into a
dangerous spiral of huge expenditure and correspondingly huge losses
or profits.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_spectacular
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1488:
Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the
southern tip of Africa and landed in Mossel Bay.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias)
1787:
The Shays Rebellion was crushed, but prompted the drafting of the
Constitution of the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays_Rebellion)
1867:
Crown Prince Mutsuhito succeeded his father Kōmei as Emperor of Japan,
taking the title Meiji.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_period)
1959:
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash
on "The Day The Music Died."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_The_Music_Died)
1966:
The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first space probe to land on
the Moon and transmit pictures from the lunar surface to Earth.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but
because people refuse to see it." -- James A. Michener
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
Adriaen van der Donck was a lawyer and landowner in New Netherland,
for whom the city of Yonkers, New York is named. In addition to being
the first lawyer in the Dutch colony, he was a leader in the political
life of New Amsterdam, modern New York City, and an activist for
Dutch-style republican government in the Dutch West India Company-run
trading post. His efforts resulted in a municipal charter for the
city, which was enacted on February 2, 1653. Enchanted by his new
homeland, Van der Donck left detailed accounts of the land,
vegetation, animals, waterways, topography, and climate. He used this
knowledge to actively promote immigration to the colony, publishing
several tracts, including his influential Description of New
Netherland. He is also recognized as a sympathetic early Native
American ethnographer, having learned the languages and customs of the
Mahicans and Mohawks.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaen_van_der_Donck
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Today's selected anniversaries:
962:
Pope John XII crowned Otto the Great as Holy Roman Emperor, the first
in nearly 40 years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_I%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1848:
The Mexican-American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, granting the United States the Mexican Cession.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo)
1925:
Medical supplies to combat an outbreak of diphtheria reached Nome,
Alaska on dog sleds, inspiring the annual Iditarod race across Alaska.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iditarod)
1943:
World War II: The Battle of Stalingrad concluded with 91,000 tired and
starving German soldiers taken captive by the Red Army.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad)
1990:
President F.W. de Klerk declared the end of Apartheid in South Africa.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every
great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that
particular moment of history, or nothing happens." -- Coretta Scott
King
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Coretta_Scott_King)
The Radhanites were medieval Jewish merchants. Whether the term, which
is used by only a limited number of primary sources, refers to a
specific guild, or whether it is a generic term for Jewish merchants
in the trans-Eurasian trade network, is unclear. Jewish merchants
dominated trade between the Christian and Muslim worlds during the
early Middle Ages, from approximately 600 to 1000. Trade routes
established under the Roman Empire stayed open during that period
largely through their efforts. Their trade network covered much of
Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and parts of
India and China.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1796:
The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark (now
Niagara-on-the-Lake) to York (now Toronto), which was deemed to be
less vulnerable to attack by the United States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada)
1884:
The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary)
1946:
Norwegian politician Trygve Lie was elected the first UN
Secretary-General.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trygve_Lie)
1958:
Egypt and Syria merged to form the United Arab Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic)
2003:
The NASA Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during
reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on its 28th and final mission.
This was the second total loss of a Space Shuttle.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia)
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Wikiquote of the day:
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older
than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep
like the rivers. -- Langston Hughes
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes)