365 Great Stories From History
"365 Great Stories From History for Every Day of the Year" is a very useful book for anybody who, like me, is fascinated by events that happened on any particular day you care to mention.
It is compiled by W. B. Marsh and Bruce Carrick.
There are, in truth, other books which list births, deaths, saints' days and other events, but this one is different.
It does indeed have a selection of these snippets, but also has an article on each day going into more depth about one particular story.
For example, on 1st January there is an account of Samuel Pepys beginning his famous Diary in 1660. He actually kept it a secret during his lifetime, but it records many of the great events and figures of his lifetime, including Charles II, the Great Fire of London and the naval war against the Dutch, as well as revealingly candid personal details.
On 1st February, we learn about the struggling Parisian poet Henri Murger, who wrote a play on which Giacomo Puccini based "La Boheme", first performed on this day in 1896.
Then on 1st March, we read of a man born on this day in 1810 as Fryderyk Franciszek Szopen at Zelazowa Wola in Poland. He became better known as the great composer of music for the piano Frederic Chopin, but died before he was 40.
If you enjoy this sort of stuff, I usually regale passengers with a selection on my Coach Trips, the next of which is to the lovely little cathedral city of Ripon.
Posted by colin on Sunday 11th March, 2007 at 10:29am