1730

James Ralph’s The Fashionable Lady; or, Harlequin’s Opera premieres in London; first known opera by an American composer.

J.S. Bach composes St. Matthew Passion.

1732

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s first opera Hyppolite et Aricie outrages Lully-ists. Benjamin Frankin begins publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac. George Washington born.

1735

William Hogarth etches The Rake’s Progress.

1738

G.F. Handel’s last Italian opera, Serse, premieres.

1757

William Smith’s Alfred is first American opera (or masque) performed in the US; story borrowed from Arne and music borrowed from all over.

1759

Voltaire lampoons Optimism in Candide.

1767

First victim of censorship: Philadelphia world premiere of The Disappointment: or the Force of Credulity (A New American Comic-Opera in Two Acts, by Andrew Barton, Esq.) cancelled because it allegedly mocked prominent locals (Barton was a pseudonym for an unknown author).

1776

Declaration of Independence signed. Revolutionary War begins.

1777

Richard Brinsley Sheridan writes comedy of manners, School for Scandal.

1779

Operatic style war between Gluck (reformist seeking to make drama more direct and profound) and Piccini (fervent adherent to singer/aria-dominated spectacle) comes to a head in Paris when both compose Iphigénie en Tauride.

1782

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos takes cynicism to new depths in Dangerous Liaisons.

1784

Joshua Reynolds paints Portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse.

1786

W.A. Mozart banishes gods, goddesses, kings, queens, fairies and monsters from the opera stage and replaces them with real humans in The Marriage of Figaro.

1790

First US census counts 3,929,214 people. Judith Sargent Murray publishes On the Equality of the Sexes.

1794

Tammany; or The Indian Chief by James Hewitt (music) and Ann Julia Hatton (libretto) premieres in New York; first known libretto by an American woman. Slaves of Algiers; or, A Struggle For Freedom premieres in Philadelphia; first opera with music by a woman, Alexandra Reinagle, who supported equal rights for women and freedom for slaves (libretto by actress Susanna Rowson).

Mary Wollstonecraft publishes treatise A Vindication of the Rights of Women in Philadelphia.

1795

Thomas Paine publishes The Age of Reason.

1796

Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery is first American cookbook.

1798

Alexander envy: Napoleon and 38,000 men land on Egypt’s shores with conquest on the mind.

1800

US Postal Service takes only 20 days to deliver letter from Portland, ME, to Savannah, GA.

1814

Birth of the lied: At age 17, Franz Schubert composes “Gretchen an Spinnrade.” John Vanderlyn’s nude Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos doesn’t sit well with New Yorkers.

1816

After the waltz is danced at a ball in London, Times alerts its readers: “We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last...it is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”

1819

Gioacchino Rossini takes Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake from page to stage.

1825

George Frederick Bristow born.

1826

Beethoven composes String Quartet, Op. 132.

1828

John James Audubon publishes first volume of The Birds of America; Noah Webster publishes American Dictionary of the English Language.

1838

US carries out Indian Removal Act of 1830, forcibly evacuating 17,000 Cherokee from Georgia; 4,000 die on their way to Oklahoma, earning the march its name, The Trail of Tears.

1839

‘Cinque’ leads 53 slaves in mutiny on Spanish ship Amistad. Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Fall of the House of Usher.

1840

Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann win lawsuit against Clara’s father giving them the right to marry before her 21st birthday.

1845

William Fry’s Leonora is first original opera composed and performed in US.

Famine in Ireland (1845-50). Frederick Douglass publishes autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

1846

Silas Gamaliel Pratt born.

1849

Henry David Thoreau declares The Duty of Civil Disobedience.

1850

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s shocks Americans with The Scarlet Letter.

1851

Herman Melville’s epic The Whale (better known as Moby Dick) appears.

1852

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery Uncle Tom’s Cabin sells a million copies.

1854

John Philip Sousa born.

1855

G. F. Bristow’s Rip Van Winkle premieres in New York; first known opera on an American subject.

Walt Whitman’s publishes first edition of lifelong effort, Leaves of Grass. Richard Dadd begins The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke (1855-64).

1857

Edgar Stillman Kelley born.

Jean-François Millet paints The Gleaners.

1858

Offenbach’s operetta Orpheus in the Underworld shocks Paris. Englishman Charles Worth establishes first haute couture fashion house in Paris.

1859

Victor Herbert and Henry de Koven born.

Darwin announces theory of evolution in On the Origins of the Species.

1860

South Carolina secedes from Union; battle of Fort Sumter the following year marks beginning of Civil War. Charles Dickens begins writing Great Expectations.

1862

Walter Damrosch born.

1863

Horatio Parker born.

The birth of modern art: Édouard Manet paints Olympia.

1865

Civil War ends. President Lincoln assassinated. 13th amendment abolishes slavery. Richard Wagner strikes the chord with Tristan and Isolde. Lewis Carroll publishes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

1867

Émile Zola offers advice on how to end a dull marriage in Thérèse Raquin.

1868

Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women begins life.

1870

Joseph Carl Breil born.

John D. Rockefeller and four partners incorporate Standard Oil Company. Heinrich Schliemann goes hunting for ancient Troy, discovers Priam’s palace and Helen of Troy’s jewels. Giuseppe Verdi’s Aïda premieres in Cairo.

1871

Frederick Shepherd Converse and Henry Hadley born.

1873

Mary Carr Moore born.

1874

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Proserpine tastes the pomegranate.

1875

Harry Lawrence Freeman born.

1876

Alexander Graham Bell successfully tests first telephone. Richard Wagner’s complete The Ring of the Nibelungs performed for first time at Bayreuth, Germany.

1877

Thomas Edison invents phonograph. Claude Monet paints Gare St-Lazare, Arrival of a Train.

1881

Charles Wakefield Cadman born.

Henry James’s analyzes American and British ways in Portrait of a Lady. Béla Bartók born.

1882

Alberto Bimboni born.

Igor Stravinsky born.

1883

Silas G. Pratt’s Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra premieres in Chicago.

Brooklyn Bridge opens. Buffalo Bill Cody opens his Wild West Show. 4000-year-old glove gets new look with introduction of first latex condom. Mark Twain writes Life on the Mississippi. Friedrich Nietzsche writes Thus Spake Zarathustra. Robert Louis Stevenson writes Treasure Island. Henrik Ibsen writes An Enemy of the People. Metropolitan Opera raises the gold curtain. Anton Webern born. Richard Wagner and Karl Marx die.

1884

Louis Gruenberg born.

1885

Deems Taylor born.

John Singer Sargent paints Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6). Alban Berg born.

1886

Statue of Liberty dedicated. Auguste Rodin sculpts The Kiss. Georges Seurat points the world to Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

1889

The Tacoma Building in Chicago is world’s first skyscraper. Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night exhibited at Salon des Indépendants. Adolf Hitler born.

1890

Eiffel Tower completed. National American Women’s Suffrage Association formed. Oscar Wilde writes The Picture of Dorian Gray. Emily Dickenson’s first volume of poetry published, four years after her death.

1891

First national park opens at Yellowstone, Wyoming. Thomas Hardy publishes Tess of the D’Urbervilles, subtitled A Pure Woman. Paul Gauguin paints Femmes de Tahiti (ou Sur la plage); Henri Toulouse-Lautrec paints Moulin Rouge.

1892

Ellis Island opens. Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Massenet’s Werther premiere. John W. Waterhouse paints Circe Invidiosa.

1893

The Martyr by Harry Lawrence Freeman premieres in Denver, CO; first known performance of an opera by an African-American composer. John Seymour, Bernard Rogers, Douglas Moore born.

Anton Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World, premieres at Carnegie Hall in New York. Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, premieres in Bologna; Arturo Toscanini conducts. Edvard Munch gives The Scream. London chef Auguste Escoffier creates last-minute dessert for opera singer Nellie Melba from poached peach halves and vanilla ice cream; later adds raspberry sauce and calls it Peach Melba.

1894

Claude Debussy offers musical answer to impressionism with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

1895

William Grant Still born.

Lumiere Brothers introduce motion pictures in France. Marconi sends first radio signals. Tchaikowsky’s Swan Lake danced for first time, two years after his death.

1896

Sousa’s El Capitan premieres in Boston. Damrosch’s The Scarlet Letter premieres in Boston. Howard Hanson, Virgil Thomson, Roger Sessions born.

Maison de l’art nouveau opens in Paris.

1897

Rev. Enoch Sontonga composes Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika (God Bless Africa) which eventually becomes anti-apartheid anthem. Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull flies for first time.

1898

George Gershwin born. George Frederick Bristow dies.

US occupies Philippines. Paris Metro opens. Constantin Stanislavsky creates Moscow Art Theater. G.B. Shaw writes The Perfect Wagnerite.

1899

Edgar Sillman Kelley’s melodrama-pantomine, Ben Hur, plays to thousands around the US.

Kate Chopin publishes The Awakening; Leo Tolstoy completes Resurrection.

1900

George Antheil (“bad boy” of music), Aaron Copland, Frederick Loewe, Otto Luening, Kurt Weill born.

Albert Einstein announces theory of relativity. Freud writes The Interpretation of Dreams. Zitkala-Sa’s Impressions of an Indian Childhood, The School Days of an Indian Girl and An Indian Teacher Among Indians published in the January, February, March Atlantic Monthly. Unappreciated in America, Isadora Duncan takes her act to Europe, debuts in London and Paris. Puccini’s Tosca bows. Oscar Wilde dies at the age of 44.

1901

Ruth Crawford born.

Australia created. Mosquitoes discovered as cause of yellow fever. Verdi and Queen Victoria of England die.

1902

Richard Rodgers born.

Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande premieres.

1903

Vittorio Giannini born.

Wright Brothers fly first motorized airplane. Edwin Porter directs his film The Great Train Robbery. W.E.B. DuBois writes The Souls of Black Folk and Jack London heeds The Call of the Wild.

1904

New York subway opens. Leoš Janáček’s Jenufa premieres. Alexander von Zemlinsky and Arnold Schönberg establish Alliance of Creative Musicians to encourage new forms in music.

1905

Marc Blitzstein born.

Richard Strauss lifts the veil on Salome and causes a ruckus on two continents. Edith Wharton disses New York society in House of Mirth. Gustav Klimt paints The Three Ages of Women . Michael Tippett born.

1906

The Pipe of Desire by Frederick Shepherd Converse premieres in Boston; plays Met a year later making it the first American opera performed there.

Earthquake hits San Francisco on second day of Met’s spring tour; sets, costumes, orchestra instruments destroyed in fire; company members stranded outside of St. Francis Hotel and cannot return to their rooms. Enrico Caruso vows never to return to the city.

1907

Picasso’s The Ladies of Avignon (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon) introduces cubism. Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) buys farm in Peterborough, NH, that eventually becomes The MacDowell Colony, a working retreat for artists.

1908

Elliott Carter born.

Robert Henri, John Sloan, George Luks, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, George Bellows form Ashcan School of painters in Greenwich Village.

1909

Robert Perry and Matthew Henson are first Americans to arrive at North Pole. NAACP founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Schönberg’s Erwartung premiere. Gertrude Stein attempts cubism in writing with Three Lives. Frank Lloyd Wright completes Robie House in Chicago.

1910

Samuel Barber and Paul Bowles born.

Puccini’s The Girl of the Golden West premieres. Henri Rousseau paints The Dream.

1911

Gian Carlo Menotti and Bernard Hermann born.

Calbraith Rodgers lands in Pasadena, CA, completing first US coast-to-coast flight; journey was made in 49 days with 69 stops and 16 crash landings; a special train carrying spare parts trailed the airplane; Armour Meat Packing Company sponsored the flight to promote its grape soft drink Vin Fiz; Rodgers dies the following year when his plane dives into Pacific off the coast of Long Beach. Wassily Kandinsky paints Composition IV; Kandinsky was inspired to devote himself to painting after hearing Wagner’s Lohengrin; he was a lifelong friend of Schönberg.

1912

Met’s first world premiere by an American composer, Horatio Parker’s Mona, bows. Native American craze in American opera reaches a peak with Seattle premiere of Mary Carr Moore’s Narcissa (libretto by her mother, Sarah Pratt Carr). Hugo Weisgall and John Cage born.

Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks; 1,502 lives are lost.

1913

The American Maid (Sousa) premieres; 87 years later Glimmerglass Opera restores/revives it as The Glass Blowers. World premiere of Cyrano by Walter Damrosch. Vivian Fine born.

Ford Motor Company begins world’s first moving assembly line to make Model–T cars. First home electric refrigerator, The Domelre, sold in Chicago for $900. Police called to quell riots during first performance of The Rite of Spring (music by Igor Stravinsky, choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky) in Paris. International Exhibition of Modern Art (The Armory Show) brings Symbolism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, and Cubism to the US. Darktown Follies, a musical at Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre, introduces popular social dance Ballin’ the Jack; nightly migration by whites to Harlem begins. Oreo bakes a cookie. Benjamin Britten born.

1914

World premiere of Victor Herbert’s Madeleine at the Met. Norman Dello Joio born.

Ruth St. Denis and husband, Ted Shawn, open the Denishawn School; Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Edna Guy are among first enrollees. In film, The Perils of Pauline series begins.

1915

Zemlinsky composes A Florentine Tragedy after Oscar Wilde. Louis Armstrong buys his first cornet at the Colored Waifs’ Home. D.W. Griffith makes Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Vaslav Nijinsky makes US debut at Metropolitan Opera.

1916

Silas Gamaliel Pratt dies.

Margaret Sanger launches international birth-control movement. Charles Tomlinson Griffes finishes The White Peacock.

1917

World premiere of The Canterbury Pilgrims (Henry De Koven) at Metropolitan Opera. Robert Ward born.

Russian Revolution begins. US enters WWI. T.S. Eliot channels cats in Prufrock and Other Observations.

1918

World premiere of The Robin Woman: Shanewis (Charles Wakefield Cadman) at the Met. Leonard Bernstein born.

Russia’s last imperial family Nicholas and Alexandra Romanov and their five children murdered by Bolsheviks. Worldwide influenza epidemic breaks out. Puccini’s Il Trittico and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle premiere.

1919

Leon Kirchner born. Horatio Parker dies.

Mahatma Gandhi launches Satyagraha (nonviolent civil disobedience) movement. John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World published.

1920

Hadley’s Cleopatra’ s Night debuts at Met. Henry De Koven dies.

Prohibition begins. 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti arrested on charges of murder and robbery. D.H. Lawrence kisses and tells Women in Love. Cowl necks, halter tops and flapper dresses set the style for the decade.

1921

Jack Beeson, Seymour Barab, William Bergsma, Robert Kurka born.

US enacts first immigration quota.

1922

Frank Harling’s jazz opera, A Light from St. Agnes, plays to packed houses in New York, Chicago, Atlantic City and Paris. Gershwin’s Blue Monday (later renamed 135^th Street Blues) premieres in New York. Lucas Foss born.

Mussolini seizes power in Italy supported by tens of thousands of Fascists. First fright: F.W. Murnau films Nosferatu.

1923

Hadley’s Semper Virens premieres in Sonoma Cty, CA. Ned Rorem born.

Earthquake destroys Tokyo and Yokohama killing over 140,000 people. Existence of Ku Klux Klan confirmed. Chanel No. 5 debuts.

1924

Ezra Laderman born. Victor Herbert dies.

Teapot Dome Scandal: naval oil reserve leased to private individuals by the Secretary of the Interior. Janáček’s foxes come to life in The Cunning Little Vixen. Giacomo Puccini dies leaving his final opera Turandot uncompleted; ditto Ferruccio Busoni and Doktor Faust. Pablo Neruda writes 20 Love Poems and One Song of Despair.

1925

Kirke Mechem born.

Tennessee outlaws teaching of evolution after Dayton biology teacher John Scopes is accused of teaching Darwinian theory. Alain LeRoy Locke publishes The New Negro, an anthology of stories, poems, and essays defining the Harlem Renaissance. Ezra Pound publishes first volume of Cantos. Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby hit bookstores. Berg’s Wozzeck premieres. Luciano Berio born.

1926

Joseph D. Redding’s Fay-Yen-Fah is first American work presented by San Francisco Opera. Alberto Bimboni’s Winona premieres in Portland, OR; two years later Minneapolis premiere draws 9,000. Lee Hoiby and Carlisle Floyd born. Joseph Carl Breil dies.

Georgia O’Keefe paints Black Iris III.

1927

World premiere of Taylor’s 1906 The King’s Henchman at the Met. Dominick Argento born.

Death Comes for (Willa Cather’s) Archbishop.

1928

Freeman’s Voodoo premieres at Negro Grand Opera Co. in Harlem; broadcast on WGBS in New York.

Penicillin discovered. Doris Humphrey’s Water Study incorporates her theory of fall and recovery and uses only waves and natural human breath for sound. The first reality show: Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude premieres. Americans get their first taste of broccoli. Che Guevara born in Argentina.

1929

Andre Previn born.

Black Tuesday: stock market crashes. Three Penny Opera (Weill) premieres in Berlin. William Faulkner writes The Sound and the Fury; Ernest Hemingway writes A Farewell to Arms; Dorothy Parker writes The Big Blonde.

1930

Antheil’s Transatlantic premieres in Frankfurt. Stephen Sondheim born.

Nazis win majority in Germany Parliament. General Electric Company introduces flash bulb for taking photos. Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny premieres in Leipzig. Grant Wood finishes American Gothic.

1931

World premiere of Peter Ibbetson (Taylor) at the Met; revived in 1931-32, 1933-34, 1934-35 for total of 22 performances. Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing plays on Broadway.

Empire State Building opens becoming world’s tallest building at 102 stories, 1,250 feet high. Pearl Buck’s second novel, The Good Earth, arrives at top of best seller list and stays for two years. Salvador Dalí paints The Persistence of Memory. Charlie Chaplin writes, directs and stars as the Tramp in City Lights.

1932

Marvin David Levy born.

World’s most famous baby, 20-month-old Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., kidnapped from home in central New Jersey.

1933

Two more Met premieres: Gruenberg’s The Emperor Jones and Hanson’s Merry Mount. Leslie Adams born.

Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany; first concentration camp opens at Dachau. Japan leaves League of Nations. President Roosevelt unveils New Deal to provide work for thousands and relieve agony of Depression. Prohibition repealed. George Balanchine accepts Lincoln Kirstein’s invitation to come to US to start a ballet school.

1934

Premiere of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts in Hartford, CT; it is produced by the Friends and Enemies of Modern Music, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, directed by John Houseman, designed by Florine Stettheimer, conducted by the composer and performed by an all-black cast; moves to Broadway for 60 performances.

Mao Tse-Tung begins 6,000 mile Long March. Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk premieres in Leningrad; Stalin attends performance two years later and officially condemns the opera and composer.

1935

After a Boston tryout, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess premieres at Alvin Theater in New York. Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya emigrate to US. John Eaton and Conrad Susa born.

Social Security Act created to provide unemployment insurance and old-age pension. Pietro Mascagni’s final opera Nerone premieres at La Scala.

1936

Johnny Johnson is Weill’s first Broadway show. Steve Reich born.

Standard Oil of California strikes oil in Saudi Arabia. Dancer/choreographer Katherine Dunham visits the Caribbean gathering material for The Dances of Haiti.

1937

The Cradle Will Rock (Blitzstein) premieres in New York. The Man Without a Country (Damrosch) premieres at the Met. Amelia Goes to the Ball (Menotti) premieres in Philadelphia. Philip Glass, David del Tredici born. Henry Hadley and George Gershwin die.

Hindenburg blows up. Amelia Earhart lost over the Pacific in attempt to make around-the-world flight along equator. Helen Tamiris choreographs How Long Brethren to songs of protest. John Steinbeck’s famous nomads George and Lennie hit the road in Of Mice and Men.

1938

William Bolcom, John Corigliano, John Harbison and Charles Wuorinen born.

Minimum Wage Act signed by President Roosevelt guarantees workers 25 cents per hour and 44-hour maximum work week. Nazis burn synagogues, destroy Jewish shops and kill Jews in rampage that becomes known as “Kristallnacht,” the night of the broken glass. Billie Holiday sings Strange Fruit for first time at New York’s Café Society.

1939

Moore’s The Devil and Daniel Webster and Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief bow in NY.

Pan Am begins regularly scheduled air passenger flights across the Atlantic. Albert Einstein writes letter to President Roosevelt warning of the potential of nuclear energy in weapons. James Joyce publishes Finnegan’s Wake. Hollywood enjoys banner year with release of Beau Geste, Dark Victory, Destiny Rides Again, Drums Along the Mohawk, Gone With the Wind, Goodbye Mister Chips, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Only Angels Have Wings, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, The Women, Wuthering Heights and Young Mister Lincoln.

1940

Lewis Spratlan born. Frederick Shepherd Converse dies.

Paris falls to German forces; German air raids terrorize Great Britain. Patent for first xerographic machine sold to Haloid Company which eventually becomes Xerox. Agnes de Mille makes first major ballet Black Ritual using all African-American cast. Federico García Lorca writes Poet in New York.

1941

Weill’s Lady in the Dark premieres on Broadway.

December 7, a day that will live in infamy: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

1942

Meredith Monk born.

President Roosevelt issues Presidential Order for internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans in camps in the western US desert. It’s words vs. music in Richard Strauss’s Capriccio. Prokofiev completes War and Peace; he revises it four times before final version premieres in Leningrad in 1955. Yves Tanguy paints Indefinite Divisibility. Casablanca plays for the first time.

1943

Weill’s One Touch of Venus premieres on Broadway. Tania León born.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma opens on Broadway and runs for 2,248 performances.

1944

On The Town (Bernstein) premieres on Broadway. Amy Beach and Edgar Stillman Kelley die.

D-Day: 3 million men led by General Eisenhower land on Normandy Beach in France. Tippett’s protest against Nazis and Negro oppression, A Child of Our Time, premieres. New York City Opera gives first performance on February 21 (Puccini’s Tosca). Martha Graham choreographs Appalachian Spring to Aaron Copland’s score (winner of 1945 Pulitzer Prize).

1945

Thomas Pasatieri born.

Germany surrenders in Reims; Hitler dies; over 6,000,000 Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and others killed by Germans. US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, immediately killing over 70,000 people; Japan surrenders aboard the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. United Nations Founding Conference meets in San Francisco. Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes premieres.

1946

The Medium (Menotti) receives world premiere at Columbia University. Charles Wakefield Cadman dies.

Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech marks beginning of Cold War. Juan Peron elected President of Argentina. First all-electronic computer designed by John William Mauchly; it is called the ENIAC and weighs 30 tons. Benjamin Spock publishes The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Jackson Pollock ushers in abstract expressionism with Untitled, 1946. Earl Silas Tupper seals suburban leftovers.

1947

The Mother of Us All (Thomson/Stein) premieres at Columbia University in New York. Street Scene (Weill, lyrics by Langston Hughes) premieres on Broadway. The Telephone (Menotti) premieres in New York; it and the composer’s The Medium are first American operas recorded complete. The Trial of Lucullus (Sessions) premieres in Berkeley, CA. John Adams born.

Jackie Robinson desegregates major league baseball when he is signed by Brooklyn Dodgers. Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire premieres. Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis form The Actor’s Studio. Christian Dior revives haute couture.

1948

State of Israel declared and is immediately attacked by surrounding Arab States. Polaroid Land Camera goes on sale. Ballet Society presents premiere of Balanchine’s Orpheus (music by Stravinsky, sets and costumes by Isamu Noguchi). Morton Baum, Chairman of the Finance Committee of City Center of Music & Drama, invites Balanchine and Kirstein to establish a permanent ballet company to be called New York City Ballet. Andrew Wyeth responds to abstraction with the realistic Christina’s World. Gore Vidal publishes The City and the Pillar.

1949

NYCO presents its first world premiere, Troubled Island by African-American composer William Grant Still. Blitzstein’s Regina (directed by Robert Lewis, choreographed by Anna Sokolow) premieres in New Haven, moves to Broadway. Weill’s final musical theater piece Lost in the Stars premieres on Broadway. Stephen Paulus, Shulamit Ran, Daniel Catán born.

Jonas Salk starts polio research with funding from the March of Dimes. Richard Wright publishes Native Son.

1950

Menotti’s The Consul premieres in Philadelphia, moves to Broadway, wins Pulitzer Prize. Foss’s The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County premieres at Indiana University. Libby Larsen born. Kurt Weill, Walter Damrosch die.

Mao Tse-Tung signs 30-year Treaty of Friendship with Soviet Union. North Korea attacks South Korea. Langston Hughes publishes Montage of a Dream Deferred. Eugène Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano confounds for first time. Marilyn Monroe makes film debut in All About Eve.

1951

Pulitzer prize awarded to Douglas Moore for Giants in the Earth. World premiere of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors on NBC; stage premiere follows in a year. New York City Opera presents world premiere of David Tamkin’s The Dybbuk. (Gershwin had signed a contract in 1929 with the Met to write an opera based on Solomon Ansky’s Yiddish play that was the source for Tamkin’s opera. A librettist was chosen and Gershwin began sketching themes, but the musical rights had not been secured and Gershwin had to abandon the project.) World premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in Venice. Anthony Davis born.

US detonates hydrogen bomb in Bikini Islands. Remington Rand Corporation unveils the first commercial digital computer, called “UNIVAC” (Universal Automatic Computer); US Census Bureau is first customer. Katherine Dunham choreographs Southland in response to racial injustice in the United States. Americans love I Love Lucy.

1952

Trouble in Tahiti (Bernstein) premieres in Waltham, MA.

King George VI dies; his daughter Elizabeth II crowned Queen of England. Merce Cunningham makes Suite By Chance to electronic score by John Cage. Othello begs for one more kiss in Orson Welles’ classic film.

1953

NYCO gives world premiere of Giannini’s The Taming of the Shrew, first opera to be televised entirely. Tod Machover born.

Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson discover structure of DNA. James Baldwin publishes Go Tell in on the Mountain. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible premieres on Broadway. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premieres in Paris.

1954

Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street premieres in New York; wins 1955 Pulitzer Prize. Copland’s The Tender Land receives world premiere at NYCO. Blitzstein’s English translation of Three Penny Opera (Weill/Brecht) opens at Theatre de Lys in New York; reopens the following year and runs for 2,611 performances. Tobias Picker born. Harry Lawrence Freeman dies.

US Supreme Court rules segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. Team from Harvard Medical School performs first kidney transplant operation. Swanson & Sons introduces first frozen TV dinner with roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes and peas.

1955

Floyd’s Susannah receives world premiere at Florida State University. Bergsma’s The Wife of Martin Guerre premieres in New York. Bright Sheng born.

Rosa Parks refuses to relinquish her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, AL. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, is killed by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milan in Money, MS, for allegedly whistling at a white woman. First McDonalds restaurant opens in Des Plains, IL. Anna Sokolow choreographs Rooms. Allen Ginsberg Howls in San Francisco. Bill Gates born.

1956

Candide (Bernstein) premieres on Broadway. The Ballad of Baby Doe (Moore) premieres in Central City, CO, directed by modern dance legend Hanya Holm. Ricky Ian Gordon born.

Elvis Presley sings Heartbreak Hotel.

1957

Bernstein’s West Side Story premieres on Broadway. Lee Hoiby’s The Scarf premieres at Spoleto Festival (Italy) Festival. David Lang, Mikel Rouse, Tan Dun born. Mary Carr Moore and Robert Kurka die.

Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites premieres in Milan. Norman Dello Joio composes Meditations on Ecclesiastes. Paul Taylor’s Seven New Dances forecasts the Judson Movement in modern dance. Dr. Seuss introduces The Cat in the Hat. Joseph McCarthy, who led government hunt for communists from 1947-1954, dies at age of 48.

1958

Barber’s Vanessa receives world premiere; wins Pulitzer Prize. NYCO presents first all-American spring season, including world premiere of Kurka’s The Good Soldier Schweik; company premieres of Ballad of Baby Doe, Tale For a Deaf Ear (Mark Bucci), Trouble in Tahiti, Lost in the Stars (Weill), The Taming of the Shrew; revivals of Regina, The Old Maid and the Thief, The Medium, Susannah.

US launches first satellite, Explorer I. Jack Kilby goes to work for Texas Instruments and invents the microchip. Seagram Building (Mies van der Rohe, architect) opens in New York.

1959

NYCO’s second all-American spring season: world premiere of Weisgall’s Six Characters in Search of an Author; company premieres of Maria Golovin (Menotti), Street Scene, Wuthering Heights (Floyd), The Triumph of Saint Joan (Dello Joio), The Scarf, The Devil and Daniel Webster, He Who Gets Slapped (Robert Ward); revivals of Susannah, Regina, Ballad of Baby Doe and The Medium. Barber’s A Hand of Bridge premieres at Spoleto (Italy) Festival. George Antheil dies.

Alaska and Hawaii become 49th and 50th states. Castro seizes power in Cuba. Mary Leakey finds hominid fossil in Tanzania. Edward Albee tells The Zoo Story. Miles Davis is Kind of Blue.

1960

NYCO spring season is third all-American affair and includes extended tour of the Eastern Coast; repertory includes Blitzstein’s Cradle Will Rock, in its company premiere, plus The Consul, Susannah, Street Scene, Ballad of Baby Doe and Six Characters in Search of an Author. Aaron Jay Kernis born. Alberto Bimboni dies.

Niger, Mauritania, Mali, French and Belgian Congo, Chad, Nigeria and Madagascar gain independence. United and TWA airliners collide over Brooklyn, NY. It’s a mod, mod, mod, mod, mod world: well dressed men and women sport mini-skirt, hot pants, bell bottoms, psychedelic prints, go-go boots, fur vests and Nehru jackets; Rudi Gernrich introduces the monokini (topless swimsuit) for women. Lucas Foss premieres Time Cycle and Luciano Berio composes Circles for his wife, Cathy Berberian. Alvin Ailey makes Revelations.

1961

The Crucible (Ward), based on Arthur Miller’s play, premieres at NYCO; wins 1962 Pulitzer Prize. Jake Heggie, Lowell Liebermann, Michael Torke born.

Peace Corps founded to encourage young people to work in poor nations in Africa, Asia and South America. US government agrees to increase aid to South Vietnam for fight against Viet Cong rebels. Bay of Pigs invasion. Berlin Wall erected. Julia Child publishes Mastering the Art of French Cooking and inaugurates The French Chef the following year on WGBH-TV in Boston

1962

Floyd’s The Passion of Jonathan Wade (first version) premieres at NYCO. Mark Adamo born.

U.S. sends 8,000 troops to Viet Nam. Supreme Court rules state-sponsored prayer in schools unconstitutional. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring describes effects of pesticides and other chemicals on the environment. James Meredith becomes first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi in spite of Governor Ross Barnett’s attempt to bar his entry. Alan Shepard is first American in space. Édith Piaf dies in Paris on October 11; upon hearing the news her friend Jean Cocteau also succumbs. Tippett’s King Priam premieres in Coventry, England. Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony (Baba Yar) with text by Yevgenii Yevtushenko premieres. Chuck Berry twists. Roy Lichtenstein paints Blam. Ken Kesey publishes One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

1963

Menotti’s The Last Savage premieres at Opéra-Comique (Paris) as Le dernier sauvage.

US and Soviet Union ratify nuclear test ban treaty. Two hundred thousand people march on Washington, DC, to support the passage of civil rights legislation; largest ever non-violent demonstration in US. Martin Luther King, Jr., tells throng, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: we hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal.” Kennedy assassinated in Dallas. Bob Dylan sings antiwar Blowin’ in the Wind. Betty Friedan writes The Feminine Mystique.

1964

Sessions’ Montezuma premieres in Berlin; US premiere given twelve years later in Boston. Hoiby’s Natalia Petrovna premieres at NYCO; revised 1980 as A Month in the Country. Marc Blitzstein killed in Fort-de-France, Martinique. Louis Gruenberg dies.

Malcolm X assassinated. Surgeon General reports on dangers of smoking cigarettes. IBM introduces System 360 Computer which becomes standard business computer. Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show; I Want to Hold Your Hand hits No. 1.

1965

World premieres of Lizzie Borden [http://www.usoperaweb.com/2002/september/beeson.htm] (Beeson) and Miss Julie (Rorem) at NYCO. Pasatieri’s The Women bows at Aspen.

President Johnson announces War on Poverty. Civil rights rioting occurs in Selma, AL, and Los Angeles. Ralph Nader publishes Unsafe at Any Speed, a report on automobile safety. Blackout plunges New England into darkness during the evening rush hour.

1966

Antony and Cleopatra (Barber) given world premiere to open new Metropolitan Opera House. Carrie Nation (Moore) premieres at Lawrence, KS. Vittorio Giannini and Deems Taylor die.

National Organization of Women founded by Betty Friedan. First direct-dial telephone call placed. Hans Werner Henze’s The Bassarids premieres. Simon and Garfunkel sing Sounds of Silence. Truman Capote introduces nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood.

1967

Mourning Becomes Electra (Levy) given world premiere at Met.

South African surgeon Christian Barnard performs the first heart transplant on Louis Washkansky who lives for 18 days afterward. Gabriel García Márquez finishes One Hundred Years of Solitude. Aretha Franklin demands Respect and hits No. 1.

1968

Weisgall’s Nine Rivers From Jordan premieres at NYCO. Bernard Rogers dies.

Martin Luther King, Jr., assassinated. Robert Kennedy assassinated. George Crumb composes Echoes of Time and the River. Stanley Kubrick films 2001: A Space Odyssey. Janis Joplin gives Cheap Thrills.

1969

Douglas Moore dies.

Woodstock Music and Art Festival held at Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Stanford, UCLA, Univ. of CA-Santa Barbara and Univ. of UT host ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. Patrons of New York’s Stonewall Inn stand up to police raid, setting off three days of riots that mark the official beginning of the organized gay rights movement in the US. Penderecki’s The Devils of Loudon premieres. Talley Beatty choreographs Black Belt for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Grateful Dead releases Aoxomoxoa.

1970

Floyd’s Of Mice and Men premieres in Seattle after Kurt Herbert Adler refuses it in San Francisco.

President Nixon appears on TV announcing advancement of US troops “not more than 21 miles into Cambodia;” American campuses erupt in protest; four unarmed protesters killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University, OH. Berio’s Opera premieres in Santa Fe. The Boys in the Band premieres on Broadway. Toni Morrison publishes The Bluest Eye. Mary Richards turns the world on with her smile in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

1971

Argento’s Postcard from Morocco premieres in Minneapolis. Hoiby’s Summer and Smoke premieres in St. Paul. Igor Stravinsky dies.

Eliott Carter composes String Quartet No. 3.