Month: January 2018

January 11

532 – Nika riots in Constantinople: A quarrel between supporters of different chariot teams-the Blues and the Greens-in the Hippodrome escalates into violence. 630 – Conquest of Mecca: The prophet Muhammad and his followers conquer the city, Quraysh surrender. 1693 – A powerful earthquake destroys parts of Sicily and Malta. 1759 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,...
Alberto Giacometti

The Sound of Music

The Down Town Glee Club is looking for male singers: Thinking about getting back to choral singing? Never sung with a group before? We may be just what you’re looking for. We’re a user-friendly male chorus that has been performing American popular music for 90 years. Beginning with traditional choral music, we expanded our programs...

Disproving the Maxim That Everybody Talks about the Weather, But Nobody Does Anything About It

Mayor Bill de Blasio, accompanied by a phalanx of elected officials and climate activists, came to Manhattan Youth’s Downtown Community Center in Tribeca on Wednesday afternoon to announce a pair of initiatives that aim to combat the effects of climate change. First, he announced that the City had filed suit in federal court on Tuesday...
Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Comptroller Scott Stringer (center, left and right) are flanked by (from left, Naomi Ages, the the Climate Liability Project Lead at Greenpeace USA, Damaris Reyes, executive director of Good Old Lower East Side, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben at a Wednesday press conference announcing the City's lawsuit against five major oil companies, seeking damages inflicted on New York as a result of global warming.

January 10

49 BC – Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war. AD 9 – The Western Han dynasty ends when Wang Mang claims that the divine Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the dynasty and the beginning of his own, the Xin dynasty. 1645 – Archbishop William Laud is beheaded...

‘The Room Where It Happened’

Battery Park City has lost its only house of worship. On Sunday, the final masses were said at the Saint Joseph Chapel, within the Gateway Plaza complex. This brings melancholy closure to a years-long struggle by parishioners and community leaders to save the church, which has been buffeted by rising rents and declining interest from...

January 9

475 – Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople, and his general, Basiliscus gains control of the empire. 1150 – Wanyan Liang and other court officials murder Emperor Xizong of Jin. Wanyan Liang succeeds him as emperor. 1349 – The Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the...
Rudolf Bing and Maria Callas