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Historical Moments On this day

Joseph Cosgrove

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On this day 09 May 2012 Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" becomes the most expensive contemporary art piece to be sold at auction for $86.9 million dollars. I couldn't find any info on who bought it.
 

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On this day 09 May 2012 Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" becomes the most expensive contemporary art piece to be sold at auction for $86.9 million dollars. I couldn't find any info on who bought it.
Wow, I could stood for hours in front of this piece of art (crap) and admire its beauty and geniality of artist. :)
In this one painter invested at least some effort. There is pieces of modern art which literally took 10 minutes to be made and then sold for couple millions
Looking at Mark Rothko work almost all of his paintings looks absolutely same only different colors and sizes of rectangle.
Maybe I'm stupid and backwardy , but could someone explain to me how this ... can be considered as piece of art and even sold for that much?
Any better house wall painter who knows proper techniques could mad this on your wall for couples tenths of bucks.

Joe, what is your opinion on this and other similar contemporary, modern art? I heard somewhere that when crappy work like that hits unrealistically high prices there's money washing going on. Which is good, because that way at least would make some sense.
 
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Ratu Sukuna Day
(Celebrated on the last Monday of the month of May)

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Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, KCMG, KBE (22 April 1888 - 30 May 1958) was a Fijian chief, a scholar, legionnaire, and statesman. He is regarded as the forerunner of the post-independence leadership of Fiji.
He did more than anybody to lay the groundwork for self-government by fostering the development of modern institutions in Fiji, and although he died a dozen years before independence from the United Kingdom was achieved in 1970, his vision set the course that Fiji was to follow in the years to come.


War hero and Scholar.

(Brief Mil/Edu background)

It was at this point in his life that the connections cultivated by Sukuna's father throughout his career proved decisive. No Fijians to date had graduated from a university, and the British colonial administration was unwilling to encourage higher learning for the natives. However, Ratu Madraiwiwi was personally acquainted with the colonial Governor, Sir Francis Henry May, and in 1911 asked him to try to arrange for his son to study at a British university on the grounds that he had passed the matriculation exams at Wanganui Collegiate School. May's influence persuaded the British Colonial Secretary, reluctantly, to grant Sukuna a one-year leave of absence from his responsibilities in Fiji to study history at Wadham College, Oxford, in 1913. Financial constraints had prevented him from realising his dream of pursuing a four-year law degree at Cambridge.




Ratu Sukuna and other chieftains of Lau in Vanuabalavu, 1918 after service in France and Before he left again for England.


Ratu Sukuna had little time to settle down to his studies. World War I broke out and Sukuna applied for enlistment in the British Army. The British government, however, had a policy of refusing enlistment to Fijians, a policy rationalised by a wish to avoid exploiting the native people. Believing that Fijians would never gain the respect of their British rulers, without proving their worth on the battlefield, Sukuna enlisted in the French Foreign Legion instead. He fought bravely and was wounded towards the end of 1915 and forced to return to Fiji. He returned to France the following year, however, with the Native Transport Detachment, a newly formed contingent assisting the British Army. Apparently, the British colonial authorities had had a change of heart about native participation in the war. For his wartime service, Ratu Sukuna was awarded France's highest military honour, the Croix de Guerre.

Now a war hero, Ratu Sukuna had no difficulty raising funds for his return to Oxford. Towards the end of 1918 he graduated from the history course that was shortened for returned servicemen. He proceeded to the Middle Temple in London, and by 1921 had graduated with both a BA and an LL.B degree. He thus became the first-ever Fijian to receive a university degree.


Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna Day (commonly known as Ratu Sukuna Day) was a national public holiday in Fiji until the year 2010, when the Prime Minister, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, declared both Ratu Sir Lala Sakuna Day and National Youth Day to no longer be public holidays [opposition parties and many indigenous Fijians since then have been fighting to reverse this decision]. It was originally celebrated annually on the last Monday of May, in honour of Lala Sukuna (1888-1958), the national father of modern Fiji, whose death anniversary falls on 30 May. The week leading up to Ratu Sukuna Day is marked by public celebrations with speeches and events, with an address from the President of Fiji on the closing day. Members of the public enter Parliament grounds to polish Rt Sukuna's statue.

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On this day, 17th June in 1631 Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spends more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal.

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Built between 1631 and 1648 the Taj Mahal is not only one of the world's most famous mausoleums but also one of the grandest symbols of love and devotion.

Situation on the banks of the Yamuna River in the Agra District in Uttar Pradesh, it was ordered by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to commemorate his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Ustad-Ahmad Lahori was appointed the main architect and 20,000 artisans were brought from all across the empire to build it. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and is regarded today as one of the finest achievements of Indo-Islamic architecture.
 

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And also on 17th June, but a little later,1885 Statue of Liberty arrives in NYC aboard French ship `Isere'.
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The Statue of Liberty or in full Liberty Enlightening the World was first proposed by the French thinker Édouard René de Laboulaye as a gift from the French people to America and to commemorate the abolition of slavery.

Designed by the French sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi, construction began in 1870 with Gustave Eiffel designing and building the interior metal framework. The statue was completed in France before being disassembled and shipped to America in 1885. It was then reassembled on what was then called Bedloe Island (now Liberty Island) in New York Harbour and dedicated by President Grover Cleveland in 1886.

The statue depicts Liberty striding forward with a torch raised in her right hand, her left holds a tabula ansata with the date of the declaration of independence. Emma Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus" composed to raise money for the statue was inscribed inside the pedestal in 1903 with its famous lines " "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,". The monument is now not only a symbol of Liberty but of the city of New York and America itself. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

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Today, the 18th of June, futur President Charles de Gaulle makes his Appel du 18 Juin,
 

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Today 10 July 1040. The legend of Lady Godiva is one of the most famous tales to have come down to us from medieval England, yet how much is fact and how much fiction remains unclear.

The story tells how Lady Godiva, married to the local ruling Leofric, Earl of Merica, pleaded with her husband to reduce the crippling taxes on the city of Coventry. Finally the Earl, sick of her pleas, says he will, but only if she rides though the town naked. The lady then covers her body with her long hair and asks the population to stay inside and bar doors and windows. The people comply out of respect, all except one man named Tom, the origin of our term peeping Tom.

Lady Godiva certainly existed, the chronicler Florence of Worcester (d. 1118) mentions Leofric and Godiva but not her infamous ride. The earliest surviving source is the Chronica by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236). A later source, Ranulf Higden, adds that Leofric did take away all taxes except for those on horses. During the reign pf Edward I (1272-1307) Coventry did indeed have no taxes imposed on it except for horses. Peeping Tom however appears to be a later 17th century addition to the story.

In 1997 Coventry, after a many decades, brought back the city's tradition of a parade to commemorate their famous noblewoman.
 
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