On this date in 1825, Il barbiere di Siviglia was performed at the Park Theatre.
On this day in 1932 Groucho Marx performed on radio for the first time.
On this day in 1095 Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.
On this day in 1476, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) defeated Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Báthory and became the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.
On this day in 1915, Albert Einstein presented the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
On this day in 1936 Noel Coward’s Tonight at 8:30 premiered in New York City.
On this day in 534 BC, Thespis of Icaria became the first recorded actor to portray a character onstage.
On this day in 1831, Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable was first produced.
On this day in 1877 Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph.
On this day in 1347, Cola di Rienzo repelled an attack by Roman nobles led by the Orsini and Colonna families.
On this day in 1620 the Mayflower reached Cape Cod.
On this day in 1307, William Tell shot apple off his son’s head, assuming that actually happened.
On this day in 1558 Elizabeth I ascended the English throne.
On this day in 1849, a Russian court sentenced writer Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group.
On this day in 1533 Francisco Pizzaro arrived in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.
On this day in 1905, David Belasco’s The Girl of Golden West premiered in New York City.
On this day in 1918, Allied troops occupued Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
On this day in 1859, Jules Leotard performed the first flying trapeze circus act in Paris.
On this day in 1862 Verdi’s La forza del destino premiered in St. Petersburg.
On this day in 1983 Bill Gates introduced Windows 1.0.
On this day in 1939 Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo, premiered.
On this day in 1912, the Deutsche Opernhaus (now Deutsche Oper Berlin) opens with a production of Beethoven’s Fidelio.
On this day in 1913 Mohandas K Gandhi was arrested for leading an Indian miners march in South Africa.
On this day in 1872, suffragist Susan B. Anthony voted in defiance of the law, and was later fined $100.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
