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Chinese Activist Flees Seeks Shelter in America
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Shakespeare’s Birthday
The World Shakespeare Festival, the biggest celebration ever of the Bard and his work, begins in the United Kingdom on April 23, his birthday. Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), the renowned theater company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, the festival is an unprecedented collaboration among over 50 arts organizations from around the world. Offering almost 70 Shakespeare productions, the festival will run through November. What makes the festival extraordinary is the diversity of its productions: There will be performances of Shakespeare plays and other works inspired by Shakespeare’s plays, done in dozens of different languages by professional, semi-professional and amateur actors from dozens of different countries. Andrew Shuttleworth,…
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Space Needle Turns 50
By Harriet Baskas, msnbc.com contributor A popular way for visitors to get an overview of a city is from the observation deck of an iconic structure such as New York’s Empire State Building, Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) or Seattle’s Space Needle, which joins the Seattle World’s Fair in celebrating its 50th anniversary on April 21. Created as the centerpiece of the 1962 space-themed exposition, the 605-foot-tall Space Needle has been described as looking like “a UFO on stilts” and was for many years the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. Today, the still futuristic-looking Needle is an iconic landmark in the Emerald City, its most visited…
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Rome Founded
Apr 21 753 B.C. According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth century B.C., and the exact date of Rome’s founding was set by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C. According to the legend, Romulus and Remus were the sons of Rhea Silvia, the daughter of King Numitor of Alba Longa. Alba Longa was a mythical city located in the Alban Hills southeast of what would become Rome. Before the birth of the…
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Levon Helm Dies
Elliott Landy From left, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson of the Band in Woodstock, N.Y. More Photos » Levon Helm, Drummer and Rough-Throated Singer for the Band, Dies at 71 By JON PARELES Published: April 19, 2012 Levon Helm, who helped to forge a deep-rooted American music as the drummer and singer for the Band, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y. His death, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was from complications of cancer, a spokeswoman for Vanguard Records said. He had recorded several albums for the label. In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse…