World Events
1861-65
1867
America purchases
Alaska from Russia.
1870-71
Franco-Prussian War.
1876
Invention of the telephone.
1886
Statue of Liberty dedicated.
1898
United States
War with Spain begins.
1901
Queen Victoria dies. U.S. President McKinley
murdered.
Theodore Roosevelt becomes President.
1903
Orville Wright makes first successful airplane flight.
1909
Peary reaches North Pole.
1914
Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand leads to
outbreak
of World War I. Panama Canal opens.
1915
Lusitania, a passenger ship, sunk by German submarine.
1917
Russian Revolution.
U.S. enters war.
1918
World War I ends.
1919
Treaty of Versailles signed.
1926
First TV transmission.
Puccini's Life
1858
Giacomo Puccini is born.
1863
Puccini's father, Michele Puccini, dies.
1876
Puccini sees Verdi's famous opera Aida, which inspires him to dedicate his life to being an operatic composer.
1880
Puccini receives scholarship from Queen Margherita to attend Milan Conservatory.
1884
Puccini's mother, Albina Magi, dies. Le villi, his first opera, premieres in Milan.
1886
Birth of his son, Antonio, to Elvira Gemignani.
1889
Edgar premieres in Milan.
1893
Manon Lescaut premieres
in
Turin.
1896
LA BOHÈME premieres
in Turin.
1900
Tosca premieres in Rome.
1904
Madame Butterfly premieres in Milan. Puccini
marries
Elvira Gemignani.
1910
La fanciulla del West premieres in New York.
1917
La rondine premieres
in Monte Carlo.
1918
Il trittico premieres
in New York.
1924
Puccini dies.
1926
Turandot, Puccini's last opera, premieres in Milan.
Musical Events
1887
Gramophone invented by Berliner. Patent taken out for the first disc.
1871
Verdi's Aida premieres
in Cairo.
1883
Metropolitan Opera, New York, founded.
1891
Carnegie Music Hall, New York, opens.
1897
First recording of an
operatic aria.
1900
Arthur Sullivan (of operetta fame) dies. Kurt Weill and Aaron Copeland are born.
1903
First complete opera recording: Verdi's Ernani by Italian HMV.
1907
De Forest invents first radio tube and transmits music from NYC to Brooklyn.
1912
First "blues" song is published -- W.C.
Handy's
Memphis Street Blues.
1916
First use of the word "jazz" in print, when Variety reports on jazz bands in Chicago.
1920
First U.S. commercial radio station, WWJ, Detroit.
1922
BBC begins
broadcasting concerts.
1926
NBC broadcasts its
first music program.
