Why there are some major anniversaries to mark in 2019
From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first steps on the moon to the birth of Queen Victoria and the imprisonment of a witch, there are some big anniversaries to celebrate in 2019. Earlier this week, English Heritage published a list of its top 10 anni
YOU’VE tried haruspication, consulting the giblets of the festive fowl for clues to the events of the coming year, but still you’ve had no clear predictions (if you’re a vegan there has been no discernible feedback from that butchered Greggs’ faux sausage roll).
Sit back as Old McKay’s Almanac reveals what is to mourn or celebrate, and what is to come in 2019, the Year of the Pig. The old one, the Year of the Dog, the mangy cur which raised its leg all over 2018, is being dragged away and pacified, put to sleep by a continuous tape loop of Theresa May expounding on yet another cunning plan for Brexit. So this year will be all truffles ... well not exactly.
The news is mixed ... actually, it’s pretty terrible. There will be issues with global finance and stock markets – you didn’t need to be a seer to predict that one – and while you may lose friends, work relations and other connections, this usually is a good thing and better for you in the long run apparently. This is the Trump scenario, after all he’s lost or fired all those close to him and clearly lost touch with reality, but he’s still the most powerful man in the world, and sitting on a huge fortune.
This month brings a celebration of the life and work of Rasputin, born 150 years ago – Ra, Ra Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen, as biographers Boney M so succinctly put it. It’s also 100 years since the death of Rosa Luxemburg who, I’m pretty sure, set up one of the world’s first commercial radio stations, heard under the blankets by teenagers in the fifties and sixties, and which thrived until the pirates and then Tony Blackburn killed it.
January was also the month, 50 years ago, when the Beatles took to the roof of Apple Records to give their last live concert, to be closed down after noise complaints to the police. They played Get Back at high volume but it didn’t discourage plod, who braved the sonic waves to pull the plug from the amps.
As we segue into February the mop tops reappear, although five years earlier, to touch down by Pan Am and conquer America. Records were burned, the Bible Belt buckled and the short back and sides disappeared, at least until 2018. In the same year, 1964, Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, definitively proved he was the greatest by whupping the big bear Sonny Liston.
Yuri Gagarin, who would be 85 in March if he had lived, became the first human to journey into outer space when he looped the Earth in April 1961. That day is still celebrated in Russia every year as Cosmonautics Day, for which Trump Enterprises hold the franchise.
It was March, too, when Vincent van Gogh was born, in 1853. The contemporary public hated his work and he only sold one picture (until rich collectors cashed in later) and he even fell out with
Paul Gauguin who, granted, wasn’t easy to share a house with. After nine weeks together Vince had had enough of him and went for his former pal with a razor and, when Paul was quicker off his mark decided to blood the blade by cutting off his ear. It didn’t make sense at the time, because he was carted off to a lunatic asylum. On a starry, starry night, as the singer Don McLean commemorated it.
March may even bring Brexit, but who knows? Certainly not those negotiating it.
At the end of April the Japanese Emperor Akihito is abdicating. It didn’t used to be allowed for emperors to chuck it in, them being gods and such, but they changed the law so that he could. He made his final public appearance on New Year’s Day, waving to a crowd of 150,000 people. Crown Price Naruhito will inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne and his dad’s role, which involves a lot of waving and not much else. In Japan, the emperor is called Tenno, or heavenly sovereign, Mikado in English, about whom a terrible opera was written.
Nato was also founded 70 years ago in April, but it won’t make the century if Trump has his way.
May marks the death, 500 years ago, of Leonardo da Vinci, if not the world’s best artist, certainly the most expensive. His painting of the Mona Lisa with her quizzical smile has puzzled historians for centuries, who haven’t yet reached the obvious conclusion that Leo was a bit of a jokester.
It is also 200 years since the birth of Queen Victoria and had she not arrived neither would EastEnders. Queen Vic didn’t understand family planning and thus had nine children, but hated being pregnant and was disgusted by breast feeding. Hence her oft-repeated sentence: “We are not amused.”
In June, we’ll be celebrating by once again showing the Wizard of Oz back to back, the work and life of Judy Garland who died 50 years ago. It will also be 100 years since the Treaty of Versailles was signed, which brought an end to World War One but teed up number Two. Meanwhile, in July, Angel Merkel will be picking up her busfahrschein, aged 65, and retiring in due course as German Chancellor, when she will write her memoirs, largely about getting rid of the whingeing Brits. It may be called Get It Right Up Ye.
It’ll be 50 years since Woodstock, in August, when hordes of hippies descended on a farm north of New York to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and consume a monumental quantity of drugs. Some may still be there. It will also be 250 years since the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte and, three months earlier, his foe the Duke of Wellington, who crushed him at Waterloo, as anyone familiar with the canon of Abba knows.
There will be reams of newspaper and TV coverage in September about the outbreak of World War Two 80 years ago. I’m almost sure we won that one, but clearly not the subsequent peace.
It is also 80 years since the death of