NOT EVERYONE KNOWS THIS…

By John Chaput

John Chaput was raised in Montreal, has lived in Western Canada for about 45 years, and is seriously thinking about settling down there. A retired journalist and editor, he is the author of three books about Saskatchewan sports history. He is also an amateur actor and has won two awards for his performances at Theatre Saskatchewan festivals.

DECEMBER 22, 1808

In what must have been the most prolific package of musical composition offered in one premiere, Ludwig van Beethoven presents a four-hour concert in Vienna consisting almost entirely of new material. The program begins with the Sixth (“Pastoral”) Symphony, continues with a soprano aria, the “Gloria” from the Mass in C minor, and the Fourth Piano Concerto, with Beethoven himself as soloist. And so ended ... the first half. After intermission came the powerful Fifth Symphony, the “Sanctus” from the Mass in C minor, a Beethoven piano improvisation, and, finally, his Choral Fantasy. Not everyone knows this, but the incredible package of masterworks was a flop. Cold weather made the Theatre an der Wien uncomfortable and the orchestra, which had put in little rehearsal time, performed so haphazardly that the Choral Fantasy had to be stopped and restarted. (So what? Just listen to the first movements of the Fifth Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto and marvel at what Beethoven could produce out of a simple four-note sequence.)

DECEMBER 21, 1891

An instructor of physical education at the YMCA International Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield, Mass., has the perfect number of students in his class – 18 – for a game of baseball. Too bad it’s December. So, as he has done several times before, Canadian-born Dr. James Naismith improvises a new game, which leads to grumbling among the class. Undaunted, Naismith mounts peach baskets at opposite ends of the gymnasium, gives them a soccer ball, splits the young men into two teams of nine, draws up some rules, and the game of basketball is born. Not everyone knows this, but the final score of the game was 1-0 and for at least one day a certain William R. Chase was the sport’s all-time leading scorer. Two things can be safely assumed: first, the point likely was scored on a layup; second, Mr. Chase probably spent the rest of his life insisting it was either a soft 30-foot jumper or a two-handed dunk with opponents hanging off of each arm.

DECEMBER 30, 1941

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers a stirring speech to the Canadian Parliament and is then ushered into the Speaker’s chamber for a hurried shoot with Ottawa portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. Deciding that Churchill’s omnipresent cigar is interfering with the session, Karsh snatches the cigar from the Prime Minister’s hand and clicks the shutter, recording the scowling, defiant expression in the portrait that would come to be known as “The Roaring Lion.” Churchill had spent much of the previous week in Washington, where he had given an equally stirring speech to Congress just two weeks after the Pearl Harbour attack had brought the United States into the Second World War. Not everyone knows this, but while in Washington, Churchill suffered a mild heart attack. So he was probably a little testy even before Karsh plucked his cigar from him. Despite the cardiac episode, Churchill stayed on the job for the next 3 1/2 years, and the photo graced the cover of Life magazine in May 1945.

DECEMBER 1, 1955

After a hard day of working in a department store in Montgomery, Alabama, 42-year-old Rosa Parks takes her seat in the front row of the “Colored” section of a city bus. When the bus picks up a bunch of white passengers, Parks and three other blacks are ordered by the bus driver to give up their seats and stand in the back of the bus. Parks refuses, is arrested and found guilty of breaking the city’s segregation laws, which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the beginning of effective mass civil rights protests in the United States. Not everyone knows this, but it was not the first time Parks had experienced a tense encounter with that bus driver. Back in 1943, Parks boarded the bus through the front door, paid her fare and took her seat, whereupon the driver ordered her to get off the bus and re-enter through the back door. Parks exited, the doors were shut, and the bus drove away.

DECEMBER 17, 1964

Three months after its debut in the United Kingdom, Goldfinger has its American premiere and is an instant hit. The film benefits from enormous publicity. In November, the cover of Life magazine featured actress Shirley Eaton strategically photographed lying nude on a bed, covered from head to toe in gold makeup, recreating her death scene. In addition, word of mouth is dominated by the mere name of Pussy Galore. Not everyone knows this, but American censors, while permitting the character’s full name to be used on screen, banned it from all promotional materials. It hardly mattered because actress Honor Blackman got a kick out of embarrassing interviewers by constantly dropping the full name in her comments. The film features one of the James Bond franchise’s greatest exchanges, where Sean Connery (as 007) asks, “Do you expect me to talk?” And Gert Frobe, as Auric Goldfinger, replies, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE!” And Connery did die ... 56 years later. That’s a lot of expectation.

DECEMBER 15, 1979

So you land on an orange space and you get a question on Sports & Leisure: What game did editors Chris Haney and Scott Abbott sit down to play on this date? If you answered, “Scrabble,” congratulations, you win a slice of (miniaturized plastic) pumpkin pie and you roll the die again. Haney, a photo editor for the Montreal Gazette, and Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press, were going to pass some time playing Scrabble but discovered they were missing some tiles. Thwarted, they decided to invent a game of their own and, over the next few hours, developed Trivial Pursuit. Not everyone knows this, but over the course of the past four decades the game, in its various formats and themed versions, has sold more than 100 million copies. So, for a (yellow) slice of lemon pie, here’s a History question: Who were Canada’s Prime Minister and America’s president on the night Trivial Pursuit was invented? (A: Joe Clark and Jimmy Carter.)