Christmas Every Day

1942 The premiere of the world’s greatest movie

The movie Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Humphrey Bogart, opens in New York. Released to take advantage of the invasion of North Africa and buoyed by the Casablanca Conference of 1943, the film did well at the box office but it was not a smashing success. Only after the Second World War did it become a cult hit and viewed as a critical triumph.

The film, based on the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick’s, charts the dilemma of night-club owner Rick Blaine in French Morocco; he claims to stick his neck out for no one but will his good instincts and chivalry trump his love for another man’s wife?

The cast was superb. Everyone remembers the luminous Ingrid Bergman but there were two other radiant beauties involved with Rick: the lovely Yvonne (played by 19-year old French refugee Madeleine Lebeau who in real life was married to the actor who played he roulette croupier) and Annina, the Bulgarian newlywed (Joy Page). Claude Rains was never better than as corrupt Captain Louis Renault; Peter Lorre oiled his way on screen as the odious Ugarte (“You despise me, don’t you Rick?”); and Conrad Veidt (the highest-paid member of the cast) sneered as German Major Heinrich Strasser. Only Paul Henried underperformed as the wooden resistance leader Victor Lazlo. Dooley Wilson enchanted as the piano player Sam, singing “As Time Goes By” and “Knock on Wood”.

Consider these great lines:

Rick: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.

Yvonne: Where were you last night?  Rick: That’s so long ago, I don’t remember.  Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?  Rick: I never make plans that far ahead.

Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he’s just another blundering American. Renault: We musn’t underestimate “American blundering”. I was with them when they “blundered” into Berlin in 1918.

Renault: I’ve often speculated why you don’t return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Did you run off with a Senator’s wife? I like to think that you killed a man. It’s the romantic in me.
Rick: It’s a combination of all three.
Renault: And what in Heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.

Roger Ebert claimed Casablanca was “probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane“. Leonard Maltin said it was the best loved of all Hollywood films. But clever people who talk loudly in restaurants had other ideas. Pauline Kael thought it was far from great, Umberto Eco thought it was mediocre, a “a comic strip, a hotch-potch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects” while the New Yorker deemed the film “pretty tolerable”.  Ha!

1120 The loss of the White Ship

Henry I of England was a philoprogenitive individual: he produced children in great numbers. Henry sired at least 26 offspring by his wives and various mistresses, but of these only one legitimate son survived to maturity. This was Prince William, a 17-year old who died when the drunken crew of the “White Ship” which was taking him to England wrecked the vessel on a rock off the coast of Normandy. The prince had been safely put into a small boat which was rowing to shore when he demanded it turn back to rescue his sister. As others tried to clamber aboard, the boat capsized and all were drowned.

William’s death caused a succession crisis. Royal fashion was turning against illegitimate heirs, though a number of previous kings (including the lad’s grandfather) had been bastards, so Henry attempted to make his barons swear allegiance to his daughter Matilda (aka Maud). After Henry’s death many of the barons went back on their oaths and supported a male claimant, Stephen of Blois. The result was a generation of civil war and anarchy.

A 19th century poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans portrays Henry’s grief.

The bark that held the prince went down,
The sweeping waves rolled on;
And what was England’s glorious crown
To him that wept a son?
He lived, for life may long be borne
Ere sorrow breaks its chain:
Why comes not death to those who mourn?
He never smiled again.

There stood proud forms before his throne,
The stately and the brave;
But who could fill the place of one,–
That one beneath the wave?
Before him passed the young and fair,
In pleasure’s reckless train;
But seas dashed o’er his son’s bright hair–
He never smiled again.

He sat where festal bowls went round;
He heard the minstrel sing;
He saw the tour-ney’s victor crowned
Amid the knightly ring.
A murmur of the restless deep
Was blent with every strain,
A voice of winds that would not sleep–
He never smiled again.

Hearts, in that time, closed o’er the trace
Of vows once fondly poured,
And strangers took the kins-man’s place
At many a joyous board;
Graves which true love had bathed with tears
Were left to heaven’s bright rain;
Fresh hopes were born for other years–
He never smiled again.

1859 Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

In 1831 Charles Darwin boarded the survey vessel HMS Beagle for a trip to chart the coast of South America. A well-to-do young layabout with a passion for collecting bugs, Darwin joined the ship as a companion to the captain Robert Fitzroy. In the end the voyage of  the Beagle lasted five years taking him around the world, during which time he amassed a collection of specimens and fossils and a trove of observational data. The fruit of his labour was, first, The Voyage of the Beagle, and a series of books and papers on coral reefs, fossils and barnacles. His growing belief in biological and geological evolution over time did not see book form until he was jarred by similar findings by Alfred Russell Wallace. On this date in 1859 he published his masterwork On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin’s work revolutionized science, and though many of his findings are now considered obsolete or incomplete, Darwin maintains an honoured place in the history of intellectual life.

 

534 BC The first actor in a written play

Say kids, ever wondered why actors are called “thespians”? Sure you did. It’s because the earliest known person to appear on a stage speaking lines written for him in the character of another was Thespis of Icaria. By stepping out from the traditional chorus and as a soloist and wearing masks that allowed him to portray different characters, Thespis essentially invented Greek drama at the Athenian festival to Dionysos in 534 BC. He also invented the theatrical tour, taking his show on the road with his props and costumes in a wagon.

Other notable thespians associated with November 23 are

Boris Karloff, né William Henry Pratt, and best known as the original film Frankenstein, was born on this day in 1887 in London. He began his theatrical career in Canada before achieving fame in Hollywood.

The next year saw the birth of  Adolph Marx, better known as Harpo, the silent Marx Brother.

To the list we can add Victor Joy (b. 1902), Susan Anspach (b. 1942), Diana Quick (b. 1946), and Namthip Jongrachatawiboon (b. 1982)

Departing this vale of tears on November 23 was the  unspeakably lovely Merle Oberon (d. 1979).

1922 Death of Marcel Proust

Any list of famous but essentially unread novels must include À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. Translated variously as In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past, it emerged in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927. It has been called the greatest novel ever to be written and is reputed to be highly influential among 20th-century writers. Try to find someone who can truthfully say he has read all of it.

1928 The birthday of Mickey Mouse

The addition of sound to motion pictures was a novelty when Walt Disney decided to make “Steamboat Willie”, a short black-and-white cartoon. The combination of synchronized sound effects and music was a big hit when it was premiered in New York. The film propelled Disney to prominence and led to a host of imitators. Though this was the third appearance of the cartoon rodent, the Disney Corporation considers this film to be Mickey’s birthday.

1558 Death of Bloody Mary and Accession of Elizabeth I

Mary Tudor was born in 1516, the only child of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon to survive. She was considered a princess and heir to the throne until her father divorced her mother (essentially for failure to provide a male heir) and married Anne Boleyn. Mary was stripped of her title, deemed legally a bastard, and was forced to wait upon her half-brother Edward, the product of her father’s third marriage.

Mary clung fiercely to her Roman Catholic faith through her father’s renunciation of the pope and her brother’s Protestant era. She refused to marry a Protestant and her father and brother refused her permission to become the bride of a foreign Catholic prince so she remained single. When Edward died in 1553, Mary survived a palace coup that put Lady Jane Grey on the throne for nine days and was proclaimed Queen of England. She was now 37. In 1554 she persuaded Parliament to allow her to marry Prince Philip of Spain, but the notion of a foreign Catholic prince produced a series of short-lived rebellions. Her groom, eleven years younger than she, was more enamoured of the throne than of his bride who was besotted with him.

Mary was determined to return England to the Catholic fold but had to wait on Parliamentary approval which she obtained late in 1554. The next year her government embarked on the extermination of the Protestant religious leadership of the country; those who did not flee to Europe were arrested and burnt at the stake. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, and bishops Latimer, Ridley, Hooper all went to the fire but so did over 200 ordinary English men and women: bricklayers, weavers, farmers, maids and widows. This policy, which was disliked by her husband’s Spanish advisers, earned her the nickname Bloody Mary.

Despite two episodes in which she appeared to be pregnant Mary remained childless. Philip stayed out of the country as much as he could except when he needed English support for a European war. She grew increasingly ill, perhaps from uterine cancer, and died in November 1558. She begged her half-sister Elizabeth (with whom she was never on good terms) to bury her next to her mother, to keep the country in the Catholic faith, to pay her debts, and provide marriage portions for her maids. Elizabeth, who was not at all a nice person, honoured none of her wishes. The two queens are, ironically, buried in the same Westminster Abbey tomb.

It is this tomb that contains a fictional manuscript on which my novel Neddy and the Virgins is based. Look for it after I find a publisher.

565

The death of Byzantine ruler Justinian I. The last of the Eastern Roman emperors to speak Latin as his native tongue, Justinian was born in 482 in what is now Macedonia and moved to the capital Constantinople after his adoption by his uncle Justin, a prominent general. When at the age of 70 in 518, Justin became emperor, Justinian grew to be a power behind the throne and an important army commander. On his uncle’s death in 527 he was crowned emperor. His reign, though not always successful, was one of the most significant in Byzantine history.

Justinian believed in religious unity, which to him meant persecution of pagans, Jews, and Christian dissidents. His wife, Theodora, who had risen to become imperial consort from low beginnings as an actress/prostitute (in the 6th century these were much the same thing), supported Monophysitism but Justinian clung to the orthodox Chalcedonian position. He closed the Academy in Athens, founded by Plato in the 4th century BC, causing the philosophers there to scatter to exile in Persia. When the Nike riots of 525 destroyed much of Constantinople, Justinian rebuilt splendidly, particularly Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom which for 1,000 years was the greatest edifice in Christendom.

His most influential decree was the recodification of Roman law, which was still a mishmash of ancient mandates from the days of the kings, the laws of the Republic, and the pagan Empire as well as the legislation of Christian emperors since Constantine. The result was a unified and rational body of law which forms the basis of many of the world’s legal systems today.

His ambition to drive back the western barbarians and reclaim the lost western empire outstripped his treasury and the talent of his generals. Though early success won North Africa, Italy and parts of Spain, continuous resistance from the Ostrogoths, new invasions of Lombards, and pressure from the Persian front drained the public purse and swamped much of the reconquered territories. A catastrophic plague in 541-42 depopulated the empire and gutted the army so that at his death Justinian left behind a weakened and bankrupt state.

1775 Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation

In order to hinder the rebellion of some American colonists in Virginia, British Governor John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, issues a proclamation calling loyal citizens to arms and offering to free any slaves who will serve the crown militarily. Perhaps as many as 2,000 slaves flee the plantations and take up Dunmore’s offer. The move outraged many prominent Virginians (loyal and disloyal) who supported slavery. They in turn issued proclamations that threatened runaway slaves with death. In the end, Dunsmore and hundreds of freed slaves were forced out of the colony but throughout the conflict the British kept offering freedom to escaping slaves whether they joined the army or not. When the revolutionary war ended, thousands of black slaves migrated to the loyal colony of Nova Scotia and slavery continued to plague America until the 1860s.

1839 The Newport Rising. The last significant rebellion in Britain was crushed on this day when police and army units faced thousands of armed peasants and workers supporting democratic reform and attempting to liberate some jailed rebels in Newport, Wales. Firing broke out in which 22 demonstrators were killed and 50 wounded.

1922 British archaeologist Howard Carter discovers the entrance to Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s (King Tut’s) tomb.

1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. A mob of students attacks the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages and starting a major diplomatic standoff that lasted until early 1981.

1995 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by a Jewish extremist who opposed Rabin’s peace proposals.

1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Thirty bloody seconds in an alley in Tombstone, Arizona created an enduring legend of the Old West.

In 1881, Tombstone was a prosperous town of 7,000 near the Mexican border, rich from a silver boom and full of legitimate merchants and their families, rubbing shoulders with smugglers, rustlers and murderers. The nature of social life may be be deduced by the presence of 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, numerous brothels and four churches. Such law as existed was provided by the Earp clan, brothers Wyatt (a deputy US Marshal), James, Vergil, Morgan, and Warren, and dissolute dentist “Doc” Holliday.

Providing a touch of colour and menace to the neighbourhood were “the Cowboys”, a gang of rustlers and smugglers led by Johnny Ringo, including Billy and Ike Clanton, “Curly” Bill Brocius, and the McLaury brothers. Animosity between them and the Earps was overt with the Cowboys making death threats against the lawmen. To some extent, the trouble stemmed from ranchers’ resentment of the dominance by townsfolk of local politics and the economy.

On the night of October 25, the animosities were fuelled by heavy drinking and threats against the Earps and Holliday by Ike Clanton who told listeners that on the morrow he would gun down his enemies. On the 26th Virgil and Morgan encountered Clanton, who was armed in violation of town ordinances; they pistol-whipped and arrested him. Later that day Wyatt also assaulted Tom McClaury. As more Cowboys drifted into town they heard the news and became incensed, loading themselves up with ammunition.The Earps decided to disarm them.

In a side-street, Doc Holliday with Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp confronted five Cowboys who ignored a call to hand over their weapons. Firing broke out at a distance of about 6′ and when the smoke cleared Ike Clanton and Billy Clairborne had fled, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury and his brother Frank were dead; Virgil and Morgan were wounded slightly.

Public opinion at the time was divided, with some feeling the Earps had been justified and others claiming that the Cowboys had been ambushed. A trial cleared the Earps but the armed hostility continued. More Earps and Cowboys were to die.