Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 26: Wham! in China

When the pop duo Wham! took the stage at Bejing's People's Gymnasium on April 7, 1985, it was the culmination of 18 months work started by their manager, Simon Naptier-Bell. The Chinese wanted a Western musical act to play in China to help spur foreign investment, and Napier-Bell wanted Wham! to be that act. The only problem: the rock band Queen was also vying for this groundbreaking opportunity.

So Napier-Bell resorted to a little propaganda/homophobia. He drew up brochures that showed Wham! members George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley as clean-cut Brits, while depicting Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the dress and poses common to Queen performances. The ploy worked, and China gave Wham! the OK to play.

The band wound up playing two shows in the People's Republic (one in Beijing and one in Guangzhou), and faced some unique challenges with regards to the audience and their cultural expectations for attending a concert. They were quiet, forbidden from dancing, and didn't understand the concept of clapping along to the music. These problems dissipated as the concert went along, but it might not be a coincidence that it was another 10 years before a Western act (this time the Swedish duo Roxette) was cleared to play in China.

A documentary about the tour, Wham! in China: Foreign Skies was released in 1986. Footage shot for that project was used to create the music video for the song "Freedom," which I'm sure the Chinese government appreciated.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 25: Catholics get an American university that isn't Notre Dame

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops first discussed establishing an official Catholic university in the US in 1866. They adopted the name for the institution, The Catholic University of America, in 1885. Which doesn't seem like a name that would take 19 years to come up with. In any case, the first US bishop sent over to ask for papal approval to found the school went to Rome in 1882. But it wasn't until April 10, 1887, that the pope sent a letter that formally granted his approval to the school. The university incorporated that year, laid the cornerstone for its first building the following year (President Cleveland was in attendance), and opened for business in 1889.

The school was originally focused on graduate study in the areas traditional to pontifical universities: philosophy, theology, and canon law. The school opened an undergraduate division in 1904, and took on a law school in 1954. Today the school has just over 5300 students, and is located in a section of Washington DC that earned the nickname "Little Rome" as there are over 60 Catholic institutions in the area.

Notable alumni include actors Chris and Susan Sarandon, John Slattery, and Jon Voight; New York governor Kathy Hochul; and what seems like at least half of the current American cardinals.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 24: Charles Grodin debuts

Charles Grodin was born on April 21, 1935, though being born on Easter Sunday probably didn't mean much as his parents followed Orthodox Judaism. Grodin dropped out of college to pursue acting, and landed a number of small and supporting roles before breaking out in 1972's The Heartbreak Kid (though he turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate).

He was featured in comedic roles for much of the 1970s and '80s, most notably in Midnight Run. He would transition to family films in the 1990s and 2000s, and then took a break from film to focus on his family, TV commentary, writing, and theater. He returned to film in 2006, and had several parts in movies and TV until he stopped acting in 2017. He passed away in 2021 from bone marrow cancer.

His comedy film roles mostly had him playing the straight man, usually one put upon by unexpected circumstances. This played counter to his usual talk show persona, where he would be combative and verbally spar with Johnny Carson and David Letterman. While this was very much an act, it wasn't always obvious to viewers, many of whom wrote to NBC to complain. I have to admit I mostly know Grodin though his Letterman appearances (and his guest hosting when Letterman had heart surgery), and was always highly entertained by their exchanges.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 23: Tobias Hume switches from composing to decomposing

Unless you are a fan of viol music or have read the novel Loot and Loyalty by Jerzy Pietrkiewicz, it's unlikely you've heard of Tobias Hume. A Scot who served as an officer in the Swedish and Russian armies, he spent his non-military time composing music for the viol, which he felt was superior to the lute. This got him crosswise with Sting's favorite luteist, John Dowland, though it didn't seem to go beyond publishing a refutation of Hume's ideas.

Hume was occasionally whimsical (or eccentric, depending on your point of view) with his compositions, such as the one that would require two people to play the same viol, with one sitting in the lap of the other. He also had a work that required the player to hit the viol with their bow, which was odd for the time but is considered the first use of the technique now called col legno, which shows up in works by Mozart, Hayden, and Radiohead (among others).

The combination of military and musical careers apparently didn't go as well for Hume as you might think, as in his later years he became a resident of the London Charterhouse, an almshouse for older men of a higher than average station (such as gentlemen, soldiers, merchants, and servants of the royal family). During his time at Charterhouse he game himself a promotion to colonel (records indicate he never had a higher rank than captain), a title he used when publishing writings saying he could quell the rebels in Ireland or make the king 20 million pounds if given his own navy for three months. 

Howe entered Charterhouse at Christmas in 1629 and died there on Easter, April 16, 1645.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 22: Get your Sunday paper here!

While daily newspapers had been around for a while, up to 1780 no one had tried to put out a paper on Sunday. That changed on March 26, 1780, when the  British Gazette and Sunday Monitor put out its first edition.

If you want to know anything more than that about the paper, good luck. The best that I can tell the paper was published by an E. Johnson (though at least one site I found had his first initial as F) and published its last issue in 1805 (according to the Library of Congress). Though I also found a page that claimed it changed its name to The Times in 1788 (it didn't, that paper started in 1785 as the Daily Universal Register). 

Perhaps most galling (if you have gall to spare over this sort of thing) is that the Wikipedia page on the history of British newspapers claims that the world's first Sunday newspaper was The Observer. Whose Wikipedia page notes correctly that it's the world's oldest Sunday paper. Get this fixed, editors!

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 21: Antibiotic resistance gets a toe hold

On April 9, 1950, biochemists Thomas H. Jukes and Robert Stokstad announced that they discovered that adding antibiotics to animal feed leads to increased growth.  They found that using a 400 to 1 ratio of animal feed to antibiotics caused a 50 percent increase in size in piglets, with smaller gains in chicks and calves. This was a boon to the pharmaceutical market as it opened up a new market, and to livestock producers who were always looking to increase yield. 

But it's probably less of a boon to the rest of us, as the continual use of antibiotics kills off the susceptible bacteria, leaving only resistant strains, which then fill the niche opened up by the death of those other bacteria. Growers then have to move to new antibiotics and repeat this process all over again. Eventually you get bacteria resistant to most antibiotics, which can then spread through animals (and the humans who raise and eat them). 

The European Union banned the practice in 1999, while in the US the Food and Drug Administration has released several guidance letters trying to reduce the practice, but an outright ban has yet to be implemented.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 20: Easter comes early

I know, Easter happening on Easter isn't exactly news. But it kind of was on March 22, 1818, as that's the earliest possible date on which Easter can happen. This article gives more detail on the history of how the date of Easter is calculated and the possibility of Eastern and Western Christian churches finally agreeing on a common date for the holiday.

If you're interested in celebrating Easter on this earliest day, you should start taking care of yourself. The next year that Easter is on that date is 2285. But if you miss that one you only have to wait until 2353 for it to come around again.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 19: Arnold Houbraken is born

Arnold Houbraken was born in the Netherlands on March 28, 1660. He was sent to learn threadtwisting (not sure if that's for art or the actual manufacture of thread), but was also taught engraving. He would later study painting, and would move to Amsterdam after he was married to pursue art as a career.

But what he was best known for was writing, or at least the writing of one particular work, The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters. Published in three volumes (the last coming out after he died), this work is perhaps the greatest source of biographical information on 17th century Dutch painters. It is in some cases the only source for images of painters, as Houbraken included several engraved portraits. As comprehensive as the work is, it did miss some painters whose esteem would grow over time, most notably Jan Vermeer, who gets one mention in passing throughout the entire work. 

The book is included in the Digital Library of Dutch Literature's Basic Library of 1000 works from the middle ages to today that are seen as foundational for Dutch culture.

Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter 

Day 18: Kids pester local man to have Easter egg roll on his lawn

The origins of the White House Easter egg roll are murky, but it seems to have started with Dolley Madison in 1814. For years afterwards, it was not uncommon to see Easter egg rolls all over Washington DC on Easter Monday (and occasionally Good Friday), and in the 1870s the main location for the event was the Capitol.

As you might imagine, having hundreds of people running around rolling eggs and otherwise cavorting does a number on your green space. Congress didn't want to spend money fixing things after each year's roll, so in 1876 they banned the use of the Capitol grounds as aa children's playground. Heavy rain cancelled the event in 1877, but ads taken out in the newspapers on Easter Sunday 1878 reminded the locals that the Capitol was closed for egg rolling. 

Enter President Rutherford B. Hayes. He wasn't particularly aware of the egg rolling tradition, and while on his daily walk some kids stopped him to ask if they could use the South Lawn of the White House now that the Capitol was off limits. Hayes went back to the White House, asked some staff about it, and instructed them to give access to any kid who came to the White House looking to roll eggs. 

The egg rolling tradition continues to this day, though the event is much more tightly controlled. There are other events besides egg rolling, and there are often appearances by celebrities or other members of government. At the end of the day all attendees get a commemorative wooden egg signed by the President and the First Lady.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 17: The Guantanamo Files drop

Starting on April 24, 2011, several hundred files regarding prisoners held in the US base at Guantanamo Bay were released by WikiLeaks and published by media outlets including The New York Times and The Guardian (the Times said they received the files independently from WikiLeaks, and they shared them with other media outlets). 

The files detailed the incarceration of over 150 individuals from Afghanistan and Pakistan, ranging in age from 14 to 89, many held for years without charges. Most of those were held specifically for intelligence gathering, rather than being considered a risk for terrorism. Most exhibited signs of mental illness due to their long confinement.

Along with these details was a statement given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stating that al-Qaeda would detonate a nuclear device in Europe if Osama bin Laden was captured or killed. Given that bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011, this was either a lie or al-Qaeda is playing a very long game.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter*

Day 16: Lidwina embarks on the road to sainthood

As a teenager, Lidwina was seriously injured in an ice skating accident, and never fully recovered from her injuries. In fact, she became progressively more disabled, losing function in everything but her left hand and prone to bleeding and the loss of body parts. There's some thought today that Lidwina was actually suffering from multiple sclerosis. 

Attestations taken during her lifetime stated that Lidwina rarely if ever slept or eat, and recorded instances of her ability to heal the sick or provide food that would last much longer than expected based on the quantity given. She continued her good works until her death on April 14, 1433.

Locals began to venerate Lidwina almost immediately, and several biographies (including one by Thomas à Kempis) helped to establish her following. Her relics moved to Brussels for a time after the chapel they were housed in in her hometown of Schiedam, the Netherlands was destroyed.  A new church was later built and the relics returned home. In 1890, Pope Leo XII made Lidwina a saint by equipollent canonization, which allows the pope to make someone a saint outside of the usual procedure due to the continued universal veneration of the individual.

* The date used here is when Easter would have fallen if the Gregorian calendar were in place in 1433, rather than the actual date of Easter that year reckoned by the Julian calendar. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 15: Anthony Fokker is born

Anton "Anthony" Fokker was born on April 6, 1890, in the Dutch East Indies, where his father owned a coffee plantation. The family moved back to the Netherlands when Fokker was four, and as he grew up he showed an interest in mechanical things but not much interest in school.

Fokker was sent to Germany as a young man to become an auto mechanic, but he had been interested in flying ever since seeing Wilbur Wright's flying demonstration in France in 1908. He transferred to a company that also made airplanes, and started to build and design his own models. After showing success he opened up his own company and started building his own planes. 

At the outbreak of World War I, the German government took over his factory, and Fokker started to build the warplanes that made him famous. Though his status didn't come without controversy, as he was seen as a less than ethical businessman, a designer who took credit for others' work, and he had issues with planes failing in flight due to problems with production or design (though he would argue that interference by German engineers and the military caused some of these problems). He also helped develop an interrupter gear that timed machine gun fire so it wouldn't hit the propeller, though it also had mechanical issues that caused crashes.

After the war, with Germany banned from rearming itself, Fokker moved his business (and most of his remaining stock) to the Netherlands. He expanded his business by moving to the US in the 1920s, where his planes were the choice of aviators and explorers like Richard Byrd and Amelia Earhart. That good publicity dimmed when Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne died in a Fokker plane crash. Fokker would later take his company public, which led to its acquisition by General Motors and his eventual resignation from the company. Fokker would die in the US in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 14: Patrick Pearse elected president of the Irish Republic

The Irish Republican Brotherhood planned on leading a rebellion in Ireland against British rule as early as 1914, taking advantage of Britain's involvement in World War I. This led to the establishment of a military council within the IRB, which continued to plan for a rising even though the leadership of the IRB and the related Irish Volunteers thought the timing wasn't right. 

As planning continued, the council got the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly, to join in the rebellion rather than launch their own. In the week prior to Easter, the British intercepted a shipment of German arms meant for the rebels, which prompted the ICA to call off all actions for Easter Sunday. 

The IRB's military council on Easter, April 23 1916, and decided to go ahead with the rising, even if the ICA wouldn't be involved. Patrick Pearse was named both president of the Irish Republic and commander in chief of its army (made up of the Irish Volunteers and the ICA). New orders were sent out, and the rest is history.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 13: The Battle of Toulouse begins

One of the last battles of the Napoleonic Wars the Battle of Toulouse actually started after the abdication of Napoleon and the capitulation of the French Empire, but as news traveled slowly in those days the fighting continued. 

A force led by the Duke of Wellington pushed out of Spain and proceeded to Toulouse, one of the last strongholds for Napoleon in the south. Fighting began on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1814, with a plan of using a diversonary attack to draw off some of the French troops so that the main body of Wellington's army could take the Heights of Calvinet. Muddy fields and some battlefield confusion led to some disjointed fighting early on, but by the end of the day the main force had taken the heights, and the French pulled back behind the city's fortifications. 

From their new positions, the allied army was able to move its forces up the next day, leading the French commander to abandon the city. Officials turned the city over to Wellington on the 12th, at which point he learned of Napoleon's abdication. An armistice was signed a few days after that, once French military leaders were satisfied that the provisional government was legitmate.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 12: The central tower of Elgin Cathedral collapses

This sounds like a bad thing to have happen on Easter Sunday, and it would have been much worse if the cathedral had actually been holding services. By the time the central tower collapsed on April 5, 1711, Elgin Cathedral hadn't been used for religious purposes for about 150 years.

The cathedral was built in the 13th century, and was rebuild and expanded three times in its first 150 years after fires. It continued to grow until the Scottish Reformation in 1560, at which point the official church of Scotland became Protestant, and Catholic services were banned. The cathedral could only be used for religious purposes if it became a parish church, and as there was already a parish church in Elgin the cathedral was abandoned. It was given to the burgh of Elgin for use in education or for the poor, but not much was made of it and it eventually reverted to the crown.

From there the building went into decline, aided by the removal of the lead seals in the roof for use as ammunition (which never happened, as the ship that was transporting the lead sank in Aberdeen harbor). Part of the roof would later collapse, and its thought the cathedral's rose window was destroyed by forces loyal to Oliver Cromwell during the Protectorate. So it's not fully surprising that the central tower would collapse. Once that happened the stone was harvested for other building projects. 

The ruins of the cathedral still stand near Elgin and are open to visitors.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 11: Charlie Chaplin returns to the US

Charlie Chaplin was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the first half of the 20th century, successfully transitioning from silent era pictures like The Gold Rush to talkies like Modern Times and The Great Dictator.  He was also one of the founders of United Artists, a film studio run by filmmakers rather than businessmen. 

For all of his professional success, his personal life was more tumultuous. He had a fondness for younger women, and all of his four marriages were to women in their teens or early 20s. In between marriages three and four (to the then 18 year old Oona O'Neill), he was successfully sued for paternity by Joan Barry, even though bloodwork suggested he was not the father of her child. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would use the Barry case to charge Chaplin with violating the Mann Act, which prohibited taking women across state lines for sexual purposes. He was acquitted, but the case damaged his reputation.

As did his increasingly public support for leftist causes. While he always denied being a communist, the rumors about his political leanings grew during the 1940s, culminating in a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (he did not testify). All of this came to a head in 1952, when Chaplin left the US to go to London for a film premiere, and his permit to return to the US was revoked. Rather than submit to an interview to regain the permit, Chaplin decided to stay in Europe, which he did for 20 years.

He made his return to the US in 1972, to attend the Academy Awards, where he was being given an Lifetime Achievement award. He first flew from the UK to Bermuda, and on Easter Sunday, April 2, he flew to JFK airport in New York. He spent four days in the city, and was honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and then flew to LA for the Oscars, where received his award from Jack Lemmon after a 12 minute standing ovation.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 10: Grey's Anatomy premiers

Filling the Sunday timeslot of Boston Legal, which had just completed its first season, Grey's Anatomy debuted on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005. It was fairly well-received before blossoming into a bona fide hit in its second season. It helped that it aired in the slot after Desperate Housewives and was female-forward enough to hold that show's viewers and bring in younger viewers as well.

What was probably not expected is that the young women who first flocked to the show can now watch it with their daughters. The show is the longest running primetime medical drama in US TV history, and will extend that with a 19th season in 2022-23.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 9: Vesta is discovered

Heinrich Olbers went to university to become a doctor, but wound up being best known as an astronomer. He also studied mathematics while at university, and while tending to a sick student came up with a new way to calculate the orbit of comets. He would set up a medical practice in Bremen, Germany after graduation, but found lasting fame from what he did in the observatory he set up on the top floor of his house.

Olbers discovered the asteroid Pallas the year after the asteroid Ceres was discovered, and theorized that they were remnants of a planet that had been destroyed. He wrote of this theory to astronomer William Herschel, with the suggestion that studying the area where the orbits of Ceres and Pallas intersected might lead to further discoveries. That idea bore fruit on Easter Sunday (March 29) 1807, when Olbers discovered another asteroid in that part of space. He let Carl Frederich Gauss name it in honor of his work calculating the orbit of Ceres, and Gauss gave it the name Vesta after the Roman goddess of hearth and home.

It turned out, though, that Olbers was looking in the right place for the wrong reason. These asteroids weren't pieces of a destroyed planet, but pieces of what could have accreted into a planet if it weren't for the gravitational force of Jupiter. That force kept the pieces moving too quickly to fuse together, so collisions would typically destroy them. Over time this created the asteroid belt that currently exists between Mars and Jupiter, with Vesta being one of the larger objects to survive. 

Olbers would go on to become the namesake of a comet, minor planet, lunar crater, and a paradox that asks why the night sky is dark if there are an infinite number of stars that should be visible in the night sky. How that paradox was named for him is a bit of a mystery, as it was posited by other astronomers, but his discussion of it in an 1823 almanac seems to have linked him to it for good. He died in 1840 at the age of 81.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 8: Jimmy Cagney dies

Jimmy Cagney was one of the biggest stars during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and his career as an actor and dancer spanned eight decades, from the 1919 stage production Every Sailor to an appearance in the 1984 TV movie Terrible Joe Moran. He starred in classic films like The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, for which he won an Academy Award.

Cagney had retired from acting in the early 1960s, but when he had a stroke in 1977 he was eventually convinced to start acting again by his wife Billie Vernon and restauranteur Ruth Zimmerman, who wanted him to do something to make up for the activities he could no longer do due to the stroke. He had small parts in Ragtime and in the aforementioned Terrible Joe Moran, though in the latter his dialogue was dubbed by Rich Little as further strokes had made a significant impact on his speech.

On Easter Sunday, March 30, 1986, Cagney suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 86.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 7: The RMS Royal Adelaide sinks

The RMS Royal Adelaide was a paddle steamer that ran a route between London and Cork. It left Cork on March 27, 1850, landed at Plymouth the following evening, and left for London on Good Friday morning with 250 deck passengers. It apparently ran on to a sandbar in the Tongue Sands in the Thames estuary, near Margate, and would eventually sink, taking all on board with it. Emergency signals had been sent, but not acted upon, and authorities were unaware that the ship had gone down until Easter Sunday.

This wreck should not be confused with the Royal Adelaide shipwreck of November 1865, when an iron ship of the same name was pushed onto Chesil Beach during a storm. Only seven of the 70 or so passengers and crew died, but four of the volunteers who came out to help save passengers and cargo apparently died from exposure when they spent the night on the beach after getting drunk off of salvaged booze. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 6: The Treaty of Westminster is signed

This treaty, signed on April 5, 1654, ended the first Anglo-Dutch War. Interestingly, you could say that the treaty was being negotiated before the war even started, as both the English and the Dutch wanted to come to agreement on a number of issues. The English wanted the Dutch to remove the royalist exiles who fled to the Netherlands after Cromwell took office. The Dutch wanted a number of changes, mostly on shipping and commerce. No agreement was made, tensions rose after England passed the Navigation Acts, and an incident at sea started the war.

While the Dutch navy lost a number of naval battles, the English were still locked out of the Baltic and southeast Asia by the Dutch (and their Danish allies), and both countries suffered economically. This brought both parties back to the negotiating table, with the resulting treaty that settled few of the issues from the original negotiations, but at least brought peace.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the treaty was the secret clause that required the Dutch to keep William III from leading the Netherlands. This was done through the Act of Seclusion, which was then deemed null after the Restoration, as the Dutch argued that the agreement was made with the Commonwealth of England. William would not only go on to lead the Netherlands, but became the king of England, Ireland, and Scotland after the Glorious Revolution.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 5: Jacob Roggeveen names Easter Island

Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer, was sent to the Pacific to find Davis Land, a mysterious island located near South America and named for the pirate who claimed to have seen it in 1687. Roggeveen didn't find it - no one did, as it doesn't quite seem to exist - but on April 5, 1722, he stumbled across this island and named it for the holiday.

What's not clear is what name the island had up to that point. We often refer to it today as Rapa Nui, but that name wasn't given until the 1800s, and is also the name of the indigenous people who inhabit the island. There are two or three possible names, including one that translates as "The Navel of the World," which to me is the clubhouse leader on romantic notions alone.

Roggeveen would go on to be the first European to sight Bora Bora and Samoa. He did this while sailing for the Dutch West India Company, and would actually be arrested by agents of the Dutch East India Company for violating their monopoly. He eventually got that sorted out, and even worked for that company for a time in Batavia (now Jakarta) before going home to serve as a notary and publisher of controversial religious pamphlets. Easter Island would be annexed by Chile, of which it is still a part today.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 4: The first voyage of the East India Company

The East India Company, an English venture set up to generate trade from Asia, saw its first voyage set off on April 22, 1601. Sort of. The five ships left port in February, but adverse winds kept them from clearing the English Channel until Easter Sunday.

In any event, the voyage succeeded in the way most English adventures abroad did, through violence. They captured a Portuguese ship, and used its cargo to help finance the establishment of two trading factories in what is today Indonesia. From there the EIC would spread throughout Asia, most notably in India, with the results that made the British so beloved in that part of the world.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 3: RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta goes on air

The debut of an Irish language radio station in Ireland may not seem that important, but when this station went live on April 2, 1972, it was a big step for people who were trying to revive the Irish language after years of suppression. 

There was an intent to provide Irish language radio from the founding of the Irish state, but economic considerations frustrated those plans. The one Irish radio station in operation did broadcast some Irish language programming, but that amount dwindled over time, a trend that accelerated in the 1950s and '60s as the new Irish broadcaster, RTE, focused on providing more profitable content.

This raised the ire of Irish language supporters, and the issue of Irish language radio was swept up into a broader civil rights campaign to promote Irish in official publications and services. This campaign spawned an Irish language pirate radio station, whose success finally prodded RTE to launch an official Irish language radio station. 

You will not be surprised that one of the first things aired on the station was Easter Mass. 

The station continues to air, and has provided 24 hour service since 2001. An Irish language TV station launched in 1996, and there are several local Irish language stations as well. In 2005, the station relented a bit with respect to the majority language in Ireland and allowed music with English language lyrics during a late night show (11pm to 1am), with the first song played being "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes (as chosen by listeners, which is kind of surprising for 2005).

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 2: Chloe Kim is born

Appropriate given that we just had the Winter Olympics, American snowboarder Chloe Kim was born on April 23, 2000. Kim is the two-time reigning Olympic and world champion in halfpipe, and has won six gold medals in superpipe at the X Games. Suffice it to say she's pretty good at snowboarding. 

Another Lent, another Lentorama, this year with an historical theme:

Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

40 days of world events that happened on (Western Christian) Easter Sunday. And while they won't all be connected to Easter specifically, our first entry is.

Day 1: Pope Francis livestreams the Urbi et Orbi address and blessing 

We go all the way back to 2020 for this one. The Urbi et Orbi blessing is typically given by the Pope on the most solemn occasions of the Catholic church: Easter, Christmas, and the election of a new Pope. With the world at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Francis opted to livestream the 2020 blessing rather than have people congregate in St. Peter's Square as usual. This followed an extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing a couple of week previously, which was given from the doors of St. Peter's and also without public attendance. 

Future blessings would also adapt to the pandemic, though Francis was able to give the blessing and address for Christmas 2021 from the traditional spot (a balcony in the central loggia of St. Peter's) and with people in the square. Which maybe wasn't for the best given that the omicron variant was on the rise, but it seems to have gone off without too much trouble.