Today, The Grandma has been searching L'Home dels nassos, a mythologicalCatalan character who can only be seen on December 31.
L'Home dels nassos (Man of the noses) is a mythological character whose tradition is kept in Catalonia.
The legend says that this man has as many noses as the year has days, and loses one every day and can only be seen on December 31.
In this way, children of Catalonia are led to believe that there is a man with 365 noses, and they are asked to search him on last day of the year. Being the last day of the year, he has only one nose remaining, the rest have been already lost.
Folk tales and myths, they've lasted for a reason. We tell them over and over because we keep finding truths in them, and we keep finding life in them.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about GrigoriRasputin, the Russianmystic and holy man, who was killed on a day like today in 1916.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, in Russian Григорий Ефимович Распутин,(21 January [O.S. 9 January] 1869-30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916) was a Russian mystic and holy man.
He is best known for havingbefriended the imperial family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, through whom he gainedconsiderable influence in the final years of the Russian Empire.
Rasputin was born to a family of peasants in the Siberian village of Pokrovskoye, located within Tyumensky Uyezd in Tobolsk Governorate (present-day Yarkovsky District in Tyumen Oblast).
He had a religious conversion experience after embarking on a pilgrimage to a monastery in 1897 and has been described as a monk or as a strannik (wanderer or pilgrim), though he held no official position in the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 1903 or in the winter of 1904-1905, he travelled to Saint Petersburg and captivated a number of religious and social leaders, eventually becoming a prominent figure in Russian society.
In November 1905, Rasputin met Nicholas II and his empress consort, Alexandra Feodorovna.
In late 1906, Rasputin began acting as a faith healer for Nicholas' and Alexandra's only son, Alexei Nikolaevich, who suffered from haemophilia. He was a divisive figure at court, seen by some Russians as a mystic, visionary and prophet, and by others as a religious charlatan.
The extent of Rasputin's power reached an all-time high in 1915, when Nicholas left Saint Petersburg to oversee the Imperial Russian Army as it was engaged in the First World War. In his absence, Rasputin and Alexandra consolidated their influence across the Russian Empire. However, as Russian military defeats mounted on the Eastern Front, both figures became increasingly unpopular, and in the early morning of 30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916, Rasputin was assassinated by a group of conservative Russian noblemen who opposed his influence over the imperial family.
Historians often suggest that Rasputin's scandalous and sinister reputation helped discredit the Tsarist government, thus precipitating the overthrow of the House of Romanov shortly after his assassination. Accounts of his life and influence were often based on hearsay and rumor; he remains a mysterious and captivating figure in popular culture.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born a peasant in the small village of Pokrovskoye, along the Tura River in the Tobolsk Governorate (now Tyumen Oblast) in the Russian Empire. According to official records, he was born on 21 January [O.S. 9 January] 1869 and christened the following day. He was named for St. Gregory of Nyssa, whose feast was celebrated on 10 January.
In 1897, Rasputin developed a renewed interest in religion and left Pokrovskoye to go on a pilgrimage. His reasons are unclear; according to some sources, he left the village to escape punishment for his role in horse theft.
Rasputin had undertaken earlier, shorter pilgrimages to the Holy Znamensky Monastery at Abalak and to Tobolsk's cathedral, but his visit to the St. Nicholas Monastery at Verkhoturye in 1897 transformed him.
A group of nobles led by Purishkevich, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Prince Felix Yusupov decided that Rasputin's influence over Alexandra threatened the Russian Empire. They concocted a plan in December 1916 to kill Rasputin,apparently by luring him to the Yusupovs' Moika Palace.
Rasputin was murdered during the early morning on 30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916 at the home of Prince Yusupov. He died of three gunshot wounds, one of which was a close-range shot to his forehead.
Little is certain about his death beyond this, and the circumstances of his death have been the subject of considerable speculation. According to Smith, what really happened at the Yusupov home on 17 December will never be known. The story that Yusupov recounted in his memoirs, however, has become the most frequently told version of events.
When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed. If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people! Pray Tsar of Russia. Pray.
Today, The Grandma has been watching some films interpreted by IngaSwenson, the Americanactress and singer, who was born on a day like today in 1932.
Inga Swenson (December 29, 1932-July 23, 2023) was an American actress and singer. She appeared in multiple Broadway productions and was nominated twice for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances as Lizzie Curry in 110 in the Shade and Irene Adler in Baker Street. She also spent seven years portraying Gretchen Kraus in the ABC comedy series Benson.
Inga Swenson was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on December 29, 1932, the youngest of three children of Geneva Pauline (née Seeger) and Axel Carl Richard 'A.C.R.' Swenson. Her father died in a car accident when she was 15.
Swenson graduated from Omaha Central High School in 1950. While attending OCHS, as a junior, Swenson won the state title in the National Forensic League's speech contest and later, she won the NFL's national contest. As a high school senior she was considered the school's best vocalist and she was also the president of the Central High Players. She studied drama at Northwestern University under Alvina Krause, among others, and was a member of the Alpha Phi sorority.
Early in her career, Swenson had supporting roles in the films Advise and Consent (1962) and The Miracle Worker (1962) in which she played Helen Keller's mother.
Swenson was a trained lyric soprano and starred on Broadway in New Faces (c. 1956), and The First Gentleman (1959), receiving Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in 110 in the Shade (1964) and Baker Street (1965). A life member of The Actors Studio, she said her favorite role was Lizzie Currie in the musical 110 in the Shade.
Swenson appeared in two episodes of Bonanza: Inger, My Love (1962) and Journey Remembered (1963) as Hoss' mother. She portrayed Gretchen Kraus, the autocratic and acerbic German cook (later head housekeeper and budget director) in the TV sitcom Benson. Her portrayal garnered three Emmy nominations. She was cast after appearing in a multi-episode stint as the conniving revenge-seeking Ingrid Svenson, the Swedish birth mother of Corinne Tate (Diana Canova), on the TV sitcom Soap. Benson was a spinoff of Soap and shared the same producers. She also appeared as northern matriarch Maude Hazard in the mini-series North and South in 1985 and again in 1986.
Swenson retired from acting in 1998.
Swenson married actor/singer Lowell Harris in 1953, and the couple had two sons: Mark and James.
Swenson died in Los Angeles on July 23, 2023, at the age of 90.
Today, The Grandma has been watching some films interpreted by Debbie Reynolds, the Americanactress, singer, and businesswoman,who dies on a day like today in 2016.
Mary Frances 'Debbie' Reynolds (April 1, 1932-December 28, 2016) was an Americanactress, singer, andbusinesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years.
She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer with her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (1952).
Her other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), Susan Slept Here (1954), Bundle of Joy (1956 Golden Globe nomination), The Catered Affair (1956 National Board of Review Best Supporting Actress Winner), and Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), in which her performance of the song "Tammy" topped the Billboard music charts.
In 1959, she starred in The Mating Game (with Tony Randall) and released her first pop music album, titled Debbie.
She starred with Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952), How the West Was Won (1962), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964), a biographical film about the famously boisterous Titanic passenger Margaret 'Molly' Brown. Her performance as Brown earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Some of Reynolds' other films include The Singing Nun (1966), Divorce American Style(1967), What's the Matter with Helen? (1971), Charlotte's Web (1973), Mother(1996; Golden Globe nomination) and In & Out (1997).
Reynolds was also known as a cabaret performer; in 1979, she opened the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio in North Hollywood, which was eventually demolished in 2019. The building would go on to be sold at auction, despite efforts to turn it into a museum.
In 1969, Reynolds starred in a self-titled television program, The Debbie Reynolds Show, earning her a Golden Globe nomination. In 1973, she starred in the Broadway revival of the musical Irene, which earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in A Gift of Love (1999). After appearing in the popular early-2000s sitcom Will & Grace, Reynolds was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role of Bobbi (the lead character Grace Adler's mother).
Also around the turn of the millennium, Reynolds reached a new, younger audience with her role as Aggie Cromwell in Disney's Halloweentown series.
In 1988, she published her autobiography titled Debbie: My Life; in 2013, she released a second autobiography, titled Unsinkable: A Memoir.
Reynolds also had several business ventures (besides the ownership of her dance studio), including a Las Vegas hotel and casino; she was also an avid collector of film memorabilia, beginning with items purchased at the landmark 1970 MGM Auction. She served as president of The Thalians, an organization dedicated to mental health causes.
Reynolds continued to successfully perform on stage, television, and in films into her 80s.
In January 2015, she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
In 2016, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. In the same year, a documentary about her life was released, titled Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds -which would be her final film appearance; the film premiered on HBO on January 7, 2017.
Reynolds died on December 28, 2016, one day after the death of her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher.
Mary Frances Reynolds was born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, to Maxene N. 'Minnie' Harman and Raymond Francis 'Ray' Reynolds, a carpenter who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Reynolds was discovered by talent scouts from Warner Bros. and MGM, who were at the 1948 Miss Burbank contest. Both companies wanted her to sign up with their studio, and had to flip a coin to see which one got her. Warner Bros. won the coin toss, and she was with the studio for two years. When Warner Bros. stopped producing musicals, she moved to MGM.
On December 23, 2016, Reynolds's daughter, actress and writer Carrie Fisher, suffered a medical emergency on a transatlantic flight from London to Los Angeles, and died on December 27, 2016, at the age of 60 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
The following day, December 28, Reynolds was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after suffering a severe stroke, according to her son. Later that afternoon, Reynolds was pronounced dead in the hospital; she was 84 years old.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Caveof the Swallows, the cave in Aquismón, that was discovered on a day like today in 1966.
The Cave of Swallows, Cave of the Swallows (Sótanode las Golondrinas), is an open-air pit cave in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, México.
The elliptical mouth, on a slope of karst, is 49 by 62 m wide and is undercut around all of its perimeter, widening to a room approximately 303 by 135 meters wide. The floor of the cave is a 333-meter freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter drop from the highest side, making it the largest known cave shaft in the world, the second deepest pit in Mexico and perhaps the 11th deepest sheer drop in the world. List of deepest caves uses different criteria, not sheer drop but accessibility.
The cave has been known to the local Huastec people since ancient times. T. R. Evans, Charles Borland and Randy Sternswere first shown the cave on 27 December 1966. The first documented descent was on 4 April 1967.
The cave is formed in the El Abra and Tamabra formations, limestones of Middle Cretaceous age.
The cave's speleogenesis is still not fully known but is a result of solutional enlargement along a vertical fracture, with subsequent vadose enlargement.
The cave's Spanish name Sótano de las Golondrinas means Basement of the Swallows, owing to the many birds which live in holes on the cave walls. These are mostly white-collared swifts (vencejos in Spanish) and green parakeets (periquillo quila). Actual swallows are in fact rarely found here.
Each morning, flocks of birds exit the cave by flying in concentric circles, gaining height until they reach the entrance.
In the evenings a large flock of swifts circles the mouth of the cave and about once each minute, a group of perhaps 50 breaks off and heads straight down towards the opening. When they cross the edge, the birds pull in their wings and free-fall, extending their wings and pulling out of the dive when they reach the heights of their nests. Watching this has become popular with tourists.
Temperatures in the cave are low. Vegetation grows thickly at the mouth, The cave floor is covered with a thick layer of debris and guano. The fungi in the guano may cause histoplasmosis in humans.
The cave floor and walls are inhabited by millipedes, scorpions, insects, snakes and birds. From the floor at the bottom of the main shaft, there is a series of narrow pits known as The Crevice, totalling some 140 m, which brings the total depth of the cave to 515 m.
Do not always run away from the darkness! Remember the beautiful lakes which are hidden inside the dark caves! In the least expected places, there exist the most beautiful treasures!
Today, The Grandma has been reading about PhilSpector, the Americanrecord producer and songwriter, who was born on a day like today in 1939.
Harvey Phillip Spector (December 26, 1939-January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter, best known for his innovative recording practices and entrepreneurship in the 1960s, followed, decades later, by his two trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s.
Spector developed the Wall of Sound, a production style that is characterized for its diffusion of tone colors and dense orchestral sound,which he described as a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in pop music history and one of the most successful producers of the 1960s.
Born in the Bronx, Spector moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and began his career in 1958, as a founding member of The Teddy Bears, for whom he penned, To Know Him Is to Love Him, a U.S. number-one hit. In 1960, after working as an apprentice to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Spector co-founded Philles Records, and at the age of 21, he became the youngest-ever U.S. label owner at the time. Dubbed the First Tycoon of Teen, Spector came to be considered the first auteur of the music industry, for the unprecedented control he had over every phase of the recording process.
He produced acts such as The Ronettes, The Crystals, and Ike & Tina Turner, and typically collaborated with arranger Jack Nitzsche and engineer Larry Levine. The musicians from his de facto house band, later known as The Wrecking Crew, rose to industry fame through his hit records.
In the early 1970s, Spector produced the Beatles' Let It Be and several solo records by John Lennon and George Harrison. By the mid-1970s, Spector had produced eighteen U.S. Top 10 singles, for various artists. His chart-toppers included the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin, the Beatles' The Long and Winding Road, and Harrison's My Sweet Lord.
Spector helped establish the role of the studio as an instrument, the integration of pop art aesthetics into music (art pop), and the genres of art rock and dream pop. His honours include the 1973 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, for co-producing Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, a 1989 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a 1997 induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2004, Spector was ranked number 63 on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest artists in history.
Following one-off productions for Leonard Cohen (Death of a Ladies' Man), Dion DiMucci (Born to Be with You), and the Ramones (End of the Century), from the 1980s on, Spector remained largely inactive, amid a lifestyle of seclusion, drug use, and increasingly erratic behavior.
In 2009, after two decades in semi-retirement, he was convicted of the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson and sentenced to 19 years to life in prison, where he died, in 2021.
Harvey Philip Spector was born on December 26, 1939. He later added a second l to his middle name, which he preferred over Harvey.
Spector's early musical influences included Latin music in general, and Latin percussion in particular. This is perceptible in many if not all of Spector'srecordings, from the percussion in many of his hit songs: shakers, güiros (gourds), and maracas in Be My Baby and the son montuno in You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (heard clearly in the song's bridge, played by session bassist Carol Kaye, while the same repeating refrain is played on harpsichord by Larry Knechtel).
Spector's trademark during his recording career was the so-called Wall ofSound, a production technique yielding a dense, layered effect that reproduced well on AM radio and jukeboxes. To attain this signature sound, Spector gathered large groups of musicians (playing some instruments not generally used for ensemble playing, such as electric and acoustic guitars) playing orchestrated parts -often doubling and tripling many instruments playing in unison- or a fuller sound. Spector himself called his technique a Wagnerian approach to rock & roll:little symphonies for the kids.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about SissySpacek, the Americanactress and singer, who was born on a day like today in 1949.
Mary Elizabeth 'Sissy' Spacek (December 25, 1949) is an Americanactress, set dresser, and singer.
She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for four British Academy Film Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. Spacek was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011.
Spacek was born in Quitman, Texas and grew up in Texas. She aspired from a young age to have a career as a recording artist. In 1968, at age 18, she recorded a single, John, You Went Too Far This Time, under the name Rainbo.
Spacek began her professional acting career in the early 1970s, making her initial debut as an extra in Andy Warhol's Women in Revolt (1971). Her breakout role came with Terrence Malick's crime film Badlands (1973), which earned her a nomination for the British Academy Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles. She rose to international prominence with her portrayal of Carrie White in Brian De Palma's horror film Carrie (1976), for which she received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After appearing in the films Welcome to L.A. (1976) and Robert Altman's 3 Women (1977), Spacek won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Loretta Lynn in the biographical musical film Coal Miner's Daughter (1980).
Spacek's other Oscar-nominated roles include Missing (1982), The River (1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986), and the In the Bedroom (2001). Her other prominent films include Raggedy Man (1981), JFK (1991), Affliction (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Nine Lives (2005), North Country (2005), Four Christmases (2008), Get Low (2010), The Help (2011), and The Old Man & the Gun (2018).
She received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the television films The Good Old Boys (1995) and Last Call (2002), and for her guest role on the HBO drama series Big Love (2011). She portrayed matriarch Sally Rayburn on the Netflix drama thriller series Bloodline (2015–2017), Ruth Deaver on the Hulu psychological horror series Castle Rock (2018), and Ellen Bergman on the Amazon Prime Video psychological thriller series Homecoming (2018).
Spacek has also ventured into music, and recorded vocals for the soundtrack album of Coal Miner's Daughter, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart and garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. She also released a studio album, Hangin' Up My Heart (1983), which was critically well-received and peaked at number 17 on Billboard Top Country Albums chart.
Mary Elizabeth Spacek was born on Christmas Day 1949, in Quitman, Texas, the daughter of Virginia Frances (née Spilman, 1917-1981) and Edwin Arnold Spacek Sr., a Wood County, Texas agricultural agent in Quitman.
Spacek initially aspired to a singing career. Under the name Rainbo, she recorded a 1968 single, John You Went Too Far This Time, the lyrics of which chided John Lennon for his and Yoko Ono's nude album cover for Two Virgins. When sales of her music sputtered, she was dropped by her record label.
Spacek switched her focus to acting, enrolling at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. She worked as a photographic model (represented by Ford Models) and as an extra at Andy Warhol's Factory. She appeared in a non-credited role in his film Trash (1970). With the help of her cousin, actor Rip Torn, she enrolled in Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and later the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York.
Spacek's most prominent early role came in De Palma's film Carrie (1976)playing Carrie White, a shy, troubled high school senior with telekinetic powers.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Tropical Cyclone Tracy, asmall tropical cyclone that devastated the Australian city of Darwin on a day like today in 1974.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from24 to 26 December 1974.
The small, developing easterly storm had initially appeared likely to pass clear of the city, but then turned towards it early on 24 December. After 10:00 p.m. ACST, damage became severe, and wind gusts reached 217 kilometres per hour before instruments failed. The anemometer in Darwin Airport control tower had its needle bent in half by the strength of the gusts.
Residents of Darwin were celebrating Christmas, and did not immediately acknowledge the emergency, partly because they had been alerted to an earlier cyclone (Selma) that passed west of the city, and did not affect it in any way. Additionally, news outlets had only a skeleton crew on duty over the holiday.
Tracy killed 71 people, caused $837 million in damage (1974 AUD, about $7.69 billion in 2022), or about US$5.2 billion (2022 dollars). It destroyed more than 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 percent of houses.
It left more than 25,000 out of the 47,000 inhabitants of the city homeless prior to landfall and required the evacuation of over 30,000 people, of whom many never returned. After the storm passed, the city was rebuilt using more stringent standards to cyclone code. The storm is the second-smallest tropical cyclone on record (in terms of gale-force wind diameter), behind only the North Atlantic's Tropical Storm Marco in 2008.
On 20 December 1974, the United States' ESSA-8 environmental satellite recorded a large cloud mass centred over the Arafura Sea about 370 km northeast of Darwin. This disturbance was tracked by the Darwin Weather Bureau's regional director Ray Wilkie, and by senior meteorologist Geoff Crane.
On 21 December 1974, the ESSA-8 satellite showed evidence of a newly formed circular centre near latitude 8° south and longitude 135° east. Crane -the meteorological duty officer at the time - issued the initial tropical cyclone alert, describing the storm as a tropical low that could develop into a tropical cyclone.
Later in the evening, the Darwin meteorological office received an infrared satellite image from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's satellite, NOAA-4, showing that the low pressure had developed further and that spiralling clouds could be observed. The storm was officially pronounced a tropical cyclone at around 10 p.m. on 21 December, when it was around 200 km to the north-northeast of Cape Don (360 km northeast of Darwin).
Cyclone Tracy was first observed on the Darwin radar on the morning of 22 December.
Over the next few days, the cyclone moved in a southwesterly direction, passing north of Darwin on 22 December. A broadcast on ABC Radio that day stated that Cyclone Tracy posed no immediate threat to Darwin. However, early in the morning of 24 December, Tracy rounded Cape Fourcroy on the western tip of Bathurst Island, and moved in a southeasterly direction, straight towards Darwin. The bureau's weather station at Cape Fourcroy measured a mean wind speed of 120 km/h at 9:00 that morning.
By late afternoon on 24 December, the sky over the city was heavily overcast, with low clouds, and was experiencing strong rain. Wind gusts increased in strength; between 10 p.m. (local time) and midnight, the damage became serious, and residents began to realise that the cyclone would not just pass by the city, but rather over it.
On 25 December at around 3:30 a.m., Tracy's centre crossed the coast near Fannie Bay. The highest recorded wind gust from the cyclone was 217 kilometres per hour (135 mph), which was recorded around 3:05 a.m. at Darwin Airport.
The anemometer (wind speed instrument) failed at around 3:10 a.m., with the wind vane (wind direction) destroyed after the cyclone's eye passed over. The Bureau of Meteorology's official estimates suggested that Tracy's gusts had reached 240 kilometres per hour. The lowest air pressure reading during Tracy was 950 hectopascals, which was taken at around 4 a.m., by a Bureau staff member at Darwin Airport. This was recorded during the eye of the cyclone.From around 6:30 a.m., the winds began to ease, with the rainfall ceasing at around 8:30 a.m. After making landfall, Tracy rapidly weakened, dissipating on 26 December. Total rainfall in Darwin from Cyclone Tracy was at least 255 mm.
In February 1975, Whitlam announced the creation of the DarwinReconstruction Commission, which was given the task of rebuilding the city within five years, focusing primarily on building houses. The commission was headed by Tony Powell.
The damage to the city was so severe that some advocated moving the entire city. However, the government insisted that it be rebuilt in the same location.
By May 1975, Darwin's population had recovered somewhat, with 30,000 residing in the city. Temporary housing, caravans, hotels, and an ocean liner (MV Patris), were used to house people, because reconstruction of permanent housing had not yet begun by September that year. Ella Stack became Mayor of Darwin in May 1975 and was heavily involved in its reconstruction.
However, by the following April, and after receiving criticism for the slow speed of reconstruction, the commission had built 3,000 new homes in the nearly destroyed northern suburbs, and completed repairs to those that had survived the storm. Several new building codes were drawn up, trying to achieve the competing goals of the speedy recovery of the area and ensuring that there would be no repeat of the damage that Darwin took in 1974.
By 1978, much of the city had recovered and was able to house almost the same number of people as it had before the cyclone hit. However, by the 1980s, as many as sixty percent of Darwin's 1974 population had left, never to return. In the years that followed, Darwin was almost entirely rebuilt and now shows almost no resemblance to the pre-Tracy Darwin of December 1974.
Although a Legislative Assembly had been set up earlier in the year, the Northern Territory had only minimal self-government, with a federal minister being responsible for the Territory from Canberra. However, the cyclone and subsequent responses highlighted several problems with the way the regional government was set up. This led Malcolm Fraser, Whitlam's successor as Prime Minister, to give self-government to the Territory in 1978.
Many of the government records associated with Cyclone Tracy became publicly available on 1 January 2005 under the 30-year rule.
The cyclone ends. The sun returns; the lofty coconut trees lift up their plumes again; man does likewise. The great anguish is over; joy has returned; the sea smiles like a child.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about PeggyGuggenheim, the American art collector, bohemian, and socialite, who died on a day like today in 1979.
Marguerite 'Peggy' Guggenheim (August 26, 1898-December 23, 1979) was anAmerican art collector, bohemian, andsocialite.
Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Guggenheim collected art in Europe and America between 1938 and 1946. She exhibited this collection as she built it.
In 1949, she settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life. The Peggy GuggenheimCollection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.
Guggenheim's parents were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Her mother, Florette Seligman (1870-1937), was a member of the Seligman family. When she turned 21 in 1919, Guggenheim inherited US$2.5 million, equivalent to US$42.2 million in 2022.
Guggenheim's father, Benjamin Guggenheim, a member of the Guggenheim family, who died in the sinking of the Titanic, had not amassed a fortune comparable to his siblings; therefore her inheritance was far less than that of her cousins. She had a sister, Barbara Hazel Guggenheim, who became a painter and art collector.
She first worked as a clerk in an avant-garde bookstore, the Sunwise Turn, in Midtown Manhattan, where she became enamored of the members of the bohemian artistic community.
In 1920, she went to live in Paris. Once there, she became friendly with avant-garde writers and artists, many of whom were living in poverty in the Montparnasse quarter of the city. Man Ray photographed her, and was, along with Constantin Brâncuși and Marcel Duchamp, a friend whose art she was eventually to promote.
She became close friends with writer Natalie Barney and artist Romaine Brooks and was a regular at Barney's salon. She met Djuna Barnes during this time and in time, became her friend and patron. Barnes wrote her best-known novel, Nightwood, while staying at the Devon country house, Hayford Hall, that Guggenheim had rented for two summers.
Guggenheim urged Emma Goldman to write her autobiography and helped to secure funds for her to live in Saint-Tropez, France, while writing her two volume Living My Life.
Guggenheim wrote her autobiography entitled Out of This Century, later revised and re-published as Confessions of an Art Addict that was released in 1946 and is now published by Harper Collins.
In January 1938, Guggenheim opened a gallery for modern art in London featuring Jean Cocteau drawings in its first show, and she began to collect works of art.
Guggenheim often purchased at least one object from each of her exhibitions at the gallery. After the outbreak of World War II, she purchased as much abstract and Surrealist art as possible.
Her first gallery was entitled Guggenheim Jeune, the name ingeniously chosen to associate her gallery with both the epitome of a gallery, the French Bernheim-Jeune, and bearing the name of her own well-known family.
The gallery on 30 Cork Street, next to Roland Penrose's and E. L. T. Mesens' show-case for the Surrealist movement, proved to be successful, thanks to many friends who gave advice and who helped to run the gallery. Marcel Duchamp, whom she had known since the early 1920s when she lived in Paris with her first husband Laurence Vail, had introduced Guggenheim to the art world; it was through him that she met many artists during her frequent visits to Paris. He taught her about contemporary art and styles and he conceived several of the exhibitions held at Guggenheim Jeune.
The Cocteau exhibition was followed by exhibitions of Wassily Kandinsky (his first solo exhibition in England), Yves Tanguy, Wolfgang Paalen, several other well-known artists, and some lesser-known artists.
Peggy Guggenheim held group exhibitions of sculpture and collage, with the participation of the now-classic moderns Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Constantin Brâncuși, John Ferren, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Kurt Schwitters. She also greatly admired the work of John Tunnard (1900-1971) and is credited with his discovery in mainstream international modernism.
Following World War II and her 1946 divorce from Max Ernst, she closed The Art of This Century Gallery in 1947 and returned to Europe, deciding to live in Venice, Italy.
In 1948, she was invited to exhibit her collection in the disused Greek Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. In 1949, she established her collection in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (unfinished palazzo of the lions) on the Grand Canal.
Her collection became one of the few European collections of modern art to promote a significant number of works by Americans. In the 1950s she promoted the art of two local painters, Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani.
By the early 1960s, Guggenheim had almost stopped collecting art and began to concentrate on presenting what she owned. She loaned out her collection to museums in Europe and in 1969 to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, which was named after her uncle. Eventually, she decided to donate her home and her collection to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, a gift that was concluded inter vivos in 1976, before her death in 1979.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is one of the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the twentieth century.Works in her collection embrace Cubism, Surrealism, and abstract expressionism.
Guggenheim lived in Venice until her death in Camposampiero near Padua, Italy, following a stroke. Her ashes are interred next to her dogs in the garden of her home, the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Later it was renamed as the Nasher Sculpture Garden in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Christmas Meeting of 1888, a fact that is considered to be the official start of the FaroeseNationalMovement, and happened on a day like today in 1888.
The Faroe or Faeroe Islands (in Faroese Føroyar) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
The official language of the country is Faroese, which is closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Icelandic.
Located 320 kilometres north-northwest of the United Kingdom, the islands have a total area of about 1,400 square kilometres with a population of 54,676 as of August 2023. The terrain is rugged, and the subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) is windy, wet, cloudy, and cool. Despite the northerly climate, the temperatures are moderated by the Gulf Stream and average above freezing throughout the year, hovering around 12 °C in summer and 5 °C in winter. As a result of its northerly latitude and proximity to the Arctic Circle, the islands experience perpetual civil twilight during summer nights and very short winter days. The capital and largest city, Tórshavn, receives the fewest hours of sunshine of any city in the world at a mere 840 per year.
While archaeological evidence points to earlier human habitation, Færeyinga Saga and the writings of Dicuil place initial Norse settlement in the early 9th century. As with the subsequent Settlement of Iceland, the islands were mainly settled by Norwegians and Norse-Gaels, who additionally brought thralls of Gaelic origin.
The Christmas Meeting of 1888 (in Faroese Jólafundurin 1888) is considered to be the official start of the Faroese National Movement.
On December 22, 1888 the only newspaper at that time in the Faroe Islands, Dimmalætting, carried the following notice:
ALL AND EACH
are invited to gather in the house of Parliament on the second day of Christmas at 3 o'clock in the afternoon where we will discuss how to defend the Faroese language and Faroese traditions.
The invitation, signed by nine prominent Faroemen, marked the inception of a new era in Faroese history -the rise of the National Movement.
In spite of a raging storm and slushy roads, a large crowd of people gathered in the house of the Løgting that afternoon. Speeches were made and patriotic songs were sung. The highlight of the meeting came when the poet Rasmus Effersøe recited a battle hymn written for the occasion by young Jóannes Patursson. The message of the lengthy poem was evident in the first stanza:
Now the hour has come, when we must join hands and rally around our native tongue.
The meeting ended with the acceptance of a six-point resolution:
As soon as there were enough Faroese schoolbooks available, Faroese should be used as an educational language in schools.
In history, the emphasis must be on Faroese national history.
In religion, all Danish rote learning should be abolished and the subject matter rendered in Faroese.
Priests must be free to use Faroese in and outside the Church.
Faroese should be used for all official ends and purposes.
Finally, the resolution stressed the necessity of establishing a Faroese Folk High School.
The Faroese independence movement (in Faroese Føroyska Tjóðskaparrørslan), or the Faroese national movement (Føroyska Sjálvstýrisrørslan), is a political movement which seeks the establishment of the Faroe Islands as a sovereign state outside of Denmark.
Reasons for independence include the linguistic and cultural divide between Denmark and the Faroe Islands as well as their lack of proximity to one another; the Faroe Islands are about 990 km from Danish shores.
Norsemen settled the islands around 800 AD, bringing the Old Norse language that evolved into the modern Faroese language. These settlers are not thought to have come directly from Scandinavia, but rather from Norse communities surrounding the Irish Sea, Northern Isles and Western Isles of Scotland, including the Shetland and Orkney islands, and Norse-Gaels. A traditional name for the islands in the Irish language, Na Scigirí, means the Skeggjar and possibly refers to the Eyja-Skeggjar (island-beards), a nickname given to the island dwellers.
According to Færeyinga Saga, emigrants left Norway who did not approve of the monarchy of Harald I of Norway. These people settled the Faroes around the end of the 9th century. It is thus officially held that the islands' Nordic language and culture are derived from the early Norwegians. The islands were a possession of the Kingdom of Norway (872-1397) from 1035 until their incorporation into Denmark.
In the status quo, the Faroe Islands is an autonomous area of the Kingdom of Denmark, sharing this distinction with Greenland. In response to growing calls for autonomy, the Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands was passed on March 23, 1948, cementing the latter's status as a self-governing country within The Unity of the Realm.
The Act has also allowed the vast majority of domestic affairs to be ceded to the Faroese government, with the Danish government only responsible for military defence, police, justice, currency and foreign affairs.
The Faroe Islands are not part of the European Union. The Faroe Islands also have their own national football team and are a full member of FIFA and UEFA.
Today, The Grandma has been reading one of her favourite plays, A Doll's House, written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and premiered on a day like today in 1879.
A Doll's House (in Danish and Bokmål Et dukkehjem) isa three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879,having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879.
The play concerns the fate of a married woman, who at the time in Norway lacked reasonable opportunities for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated world, despite the fact that Ibsen denied it was his intent to write a feminist play. It was a great sensation at the time, and caused a storm of outraged controversy that went beyond the theatre to the world of newspapers and society.
In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play that year. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen'sautographed manuscripts of A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value.
The title of the play is most commonly translated as A Doll's House, though some scholars use A Doll House. John Simon says that A Doll's House is the British term for what [Americans] call a dollhouse. Egil Törnqvist says of the alternative title: Rather than being superior to the traditional rendering, it simply sounds more idiomatic to Americans.
Ibsen's German agent felt that the original ending would not play well in German theatres. In addition, copyright laws of the time would not preserve Ibsen'soriginal work. Therefore, for it to be considered acceptable, and prevent the translator from altering his work, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ending for the German premiere. In this ending, Nora is led to her children after having argued with Torvald. Seeing them, she collapses, and as the curtain is brought down, it is implied that she stays. Ibsen later called the ending a disgrace to the original play and referred to it as a barbaric outrage. Virtually all productions today use the original ending, as do nearly all of the film versions of the play.
A Doll's House was based on the life of Laura Kieler (maiden name Laura Smith Petersen), a good friend of Ibsen. Much that happened between Nora and Torvald happened to Laura and her husband, Victor. Similar to the events in the play, Laura signed an illegal loan to save her husband's life -in this case, to find a cure for his tuberculosis. She wrote to Ibsen, asking for his recommendation of her work to his publisher, thinking that the sales of her book would repay her debt. At his refusal, she forged a check for the money. At this point she was found out. In real life, when Victor discovered about Laura's secret loan, he divorced her and had her committed to an asylum. Two years later, she returned to her husband and children at his urging, and she went on to become a well-known Danish author, living to the age of 83.
Ibsen wrote A Doll's House when Laura Kieler had been committed to the asylum. The fate of this friend of the family shook him deeply, perhaps also because Laura had asked him to intervene at a crucial point in the scandal, which he did not feel able or willing to do. Instead, he turned this life situation into an aesthetically shaped, successful drama. In the play, Nora leaves Torvald with head held high, though facing an uncertain future given the limitations single women faced in the society of the time.
Kieler eventually rebounded from the shame of the scandal and had her own successful writing career while remaining discontented with sole recognition as Ibsen's Nora years afterwards.
Ibsen started thinking about the play around May 1878, although he did not begin its first draft until a year later, having reflected on the themes and characters in the intervening period (he visualised its protagonist, Nora, for instance, as having approached him one day wearing a blue woolen dress). He outlined his conception of the play as a modern tragedy in a note written in Rome on 19 October 1878. A woman cannot be herself in modern society, he argues, since it is an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint!
Ibsen sent a fair copy of the completed play to his publisher on 15 September 1879. It was first published in Copenhagen on 4 December 1879, in an edition of 8,000 copies that sold out within a month; a second edition of 3,000 copies followed on 4 January 1880, and a third edition of 2,500 was issued on 8 March.
A Doll's House received its world premiere on 21 December 1879 at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, with Betty Hennings as Nora, Emil Poulsen as Torvald, and Peter Jerndorff as Dr. Rank.
Writing for the Norwegian newspaper Folkets Avis, the critic Erik Bøgh admired Ibsen's originality and technical mastery: Not a single declamatory phrase, no high dramatics, no drop of blood, not even a tear. Every performance of its run was sold out. Another production opened at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm, on 8 January 1880, while productions in Christiania (with Johanne Juell as Nora and Arnoldus Reimers as Torvald) and Bergen followed shortly after.
A Doll's Housequestions the traditional roles of men and women in 19th-century marriage. To many 19th-century Europeans, this was scandalous. The covenant of marriage was considered holy, and to portray it as Ibsen did was controversial. However, the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw found Ibsen'swillingness to examine society without prejudice exhilarating.
Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police force, that was founded on a day like today in 1917.
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (AREOC, in Russian Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия),abbreviated as VChK (in Russian ВЧК), and commonly known as Cheka (in Russian Чека), was the first of a succession of Soviet secret-police organizations known for conducting the Red Terror.
Established on December 5 (Old Style) 1917 by theSovnarkom, it came under the leadership of Bolshevik revolutionary FelixDzerzhinsky. By late 1918, hundreds of Cheka committees had sprung up in the Russian SFSR at all levels.
Ostensibly set up to protect the revolution from reactionary forces, class enemies such as the bourgeoisie and members of the clergy, it soon became the repression tool against all political opponents of the communist regime. At the direction of Vladimir Lenin, the Cheka performed mass arrests, imprisonments, torture, and executions without trial.
In 1921, the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered at least 200,000. They policed labor camps, ran the Gulagsystem, conducted requisitions of food, and put down rebellions and riots by workers and peasants and mutinies in the Red Army.
The organization was dissolved in 1922 and succeeded by the State Political Directorate or GPU.
The official designation was All-Russian Extraordinary (or Emergency) Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (in Russian Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем при Совете народных комиссаров РСФСР, Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya po borbe s kontrrevolyutsiyey i sabotazhem pri Sovete narodnykh komisarov RSFSR).
In 1918 its name was changed, becoming All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering and Corruption.
A member of Cheka was called a chekist (in Russian чеки́ст). Also, the term chekist often referred to Soviet secret police throughout the Soviet period, despite official name changes over time. In The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn recalls that zeks in the labor camps used old chekist as a mark of special esteem for particularly experienced camp administrators.
The term is still found in use in Russia today (for example, President Vladimir Putin has been referred to in the Russian media as a chekist due to his career in the KGB and as head of the KGB's successor, FSB).
The chekists commonly dressed in black leather, including long flowing coats, reportedly after being issued such distinctive coats early in their existence. Western communists adopted this clothing fashion. The Chekists also often carried with them Greek-style worry beads made of amber, which had becomefashionable among high officials during the time of the cleansing.
In 1921, the Troops for the Internal Defense of the Republic (a branch of the Cheka) numbered at least 200,000. These troops policed labor camps, ran the Gulag system, conducted requisitions of food, and subjected political opponents to secret arrest, detention, torture and summary execution. They also put down rebellions and riots by workers or peasants, and mutinies in the desertion-plagued Red Army.
After 1922, Cheka groups underwent the first of a series of reorganizations; however the theme of a government dominated by the organs persisted indefinitely afterward, and Soviet citizens continued to refer to members of the various organs as Chekists.
As its name implied, the Extraordinary Commission had virtually unlimited powers and could interpret them in any way it wished. No standard procedures were ever set up, except that the commission was supposed to send the arrested to the Military-Revolutionary tribunals if outside of a war zone. This left an opportunity for a wide range of interpretations, as the whole country was in total chaos. At the direction of Lenin, the Cheka performed mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of enemies of the people. In this, the Cheka said that they targeted class enemies such as the bourgeoisie, and members of the clergy.
The Cheka engaged in the widespread practice of torture. Depending on Cheka committees in various cities, the methods included: being skinned alive, scalped, crowned with barbed wire, impaled, crucified, hanged, stoned to death, tied to planks and pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, or rolled around naked in internally nail-studded barrels. Chekists reportedly poured water on naked prisoners in the winter-bound streets until they became living ice statues. Others reportedly beheaded their victims by twisting their necks until their heads could be torn off.
The Cheka detachments stationed in Kiev reportedly would attach an iron tube to the torso of a bound victim and insert a rat in the tube closed off with wire netting, while the tube was held over a flame until the rat began gnawing through the victim's guts in an effort to escape.
Women and children were also victims of Cheka terror. Women would sometimes be tortured and raped before being shot. Children between the ages of 8 and 13 were imprisoned and occasionally executed.
The real point is that totalitarian regimes have claimed jurisdiction over the whole person, and the whole society, and they don't at all believe that we should give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.
Today, The Grandma has been reading some BrandonAnderson's works, the American author, who was born on a day like today in 1975.
Brandon Winn Sanderson (bornDecember 19, 1975) isan American author of high fantasy and science fiction.
He is best known for the Cosmerefictional universe, in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive, are set.
Outside of the Cosmere, he has written several young adult and juvenile series including The Reckoners, the Skyward series, and the Alcatraz series. He is also known for finishing Robert Jordan's high fantasy series The Wheel of Time. Sanderson has created several graphic novel fantasy series, including White Sand and Dark One.
He created Sanderson's Laws of Magic and popularized the idea of hard magic and soft magic systems.
In 2008, Sanderson started a podcast with author Dan Wells and cartoonist Howard Tayler called Writing Excuses, involving topics about creating genre writing and webcomics.
In 2016, the American media company DMG Entertainment licensed the movie rights to Sanderson's entire Cosmere universe, but the rights have since reverted back to Sanderson. Sanderson's March 2022 Kickstarter campaign became the most successful in history, finishing with 185,341 backers pledging $41,754,153.
Brandon Winn Sanderson was born on December 19, 1975, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the eldest of four children. Sanderson became a passionate reader of high fantasy novels while a teenager, and he made several early attempts at writing his own stories. After graduating from high school in 1994, he went to Brigham Young University (BYU) as a biochemistry major. He took a two-year leave of absence from 1995 to 1997 to serve as a volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was assigned to serve in South Korea.
After completing his missionary service, Sanderson returned to BYU and changed his major to English literature. While an undergraduate, Sanderson took a job as a night auditor at a local hotel in Provo, Utah, as it allowed him to write while working.
One of Sanderson's roommates at BYU was Ken Jennings, who nearly ten years later became famous during his 74-game win streak on the American game show Jeopardy!.
Sanderson graduated from BYU in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts. He continued on as a graduate student, receiving an M.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing in 2004. While at BYU, Sanderson was on the staff of Leading Edge, a semi-professional speculative fiction magazine published by the university, and served as its editor-in-chief for one year.
In 2006, Sanderson married Emily Bushman, an English, Spanish, and ESL teacher and fellow BYU alumna who later became his business manager. They have three sons and reside in American Fork.
The idea of hard magic and soft magic was popularized by Sanderson for world building and creating magic systems in fictional settings. The terminology of hard and soft originate from hard and soft sciences, which lends itself towards hard science fiction and soft science fiction. Both terms are approximate ways of characterizing two ends of a spectrum.
Hard magic systems follow specific rules, the magic is controlled and explained to the reader in the narrative detailing the mechanics behind the way the magic works and can be used for building settings that revolve around the magic system.
Soft magic systems may not have clearly defined rules or limitations, or they may provide limited exposition regarding their workings. They are used to create a sense of wonder to the reader.
Sanderson's three laws of magic are creative writing guidelines that can be used to create magic systems for fantasy stories:
-An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
-Weaknesses, limits and costs are more interesting than powers.
-The author should expand on what is already a part of the magic system before something entirely new is added, as this may otherwise entirely change how the magic system fits into the fictional world.
Additionally, there is a zeroth law:
-Always err on the side of what's awesome.
Sanderson is adjunct faculty at Brigham Young University, teaching a creative writing course once per year.
Sanderson also participates in the weekly podcast Writing Excuses with authors Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and web cartoonist Howard Tayler. He began hosting the podcast Intentionally Blank with Dan Wells in June 2021, where they discuss random things they enjoy.
When I write my books, actually, I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.
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