Also in December 1971…
2nd: At a meeting at the Dubai Guesthouse, the emirates of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain agree to join together as the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Emir of Abu Dhabi, is named as the first president of the UAE, which joins the United Nations the following week.
4th: Montreux Casino burns down during a concert by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. The cause of the fire, as later described by Deep Purple in the song ‘Smoke on the Water’, is ‘some stupid with a flare gun’. The rock group are in the Swiss town to record their Machine Head album at the casino, but now have to find another venue. 16th: Two weeks after its world premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Steve Reich’s Drumming for percussion and voices is recorded in a live performance in the city’s Town Hall. Reich himself is one of the 13 performers on the recording, released as a limited-edition double LP. Included with each LP is a copy of Reich’s handwritten score of the work.
18th: The American golfer Bobby Jones dies aged 69. The winner of The Open Championship on three occasions and the US Open four times, Jones founded and co-designed the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, US, in 1933, then co-founded The Masters tournament to be played on it the following year. The Masters would go on to become one of golf’s four ‘majors’.
19th: Starring Malcolm Mcdowell as the central character of Alex, Stanley Kubrick’s
A Clockwork Orange premieres in New
York. The movie, which is based on Anthony Burgess’s dystopian novel of the same name, attracts acclaim and revulsion in equal measure, the latter due to its graphic depictions of violence. Classical music – including Purcell, Rossini and, especially, Beethoven – features in the soundtrack.