Histortweet Week in Review - W/E August 22, 2009

[SFX: CHURCHBELL] Greetings, History Lovers! Welcome to This Tweet in History, the Week In Review, podcasting to you on tape delay from our North American Studios.


Here are your top stories for the week ending August 22, 2009:


[SFX: SOUND827]World: DATELINE Mexico, August 20, 1940: Stalin to Mercader: Want to learn about communism? Just axe Trotsky! http://bit.ly/26xmel

The Back-Story:

[SFX: Kalinka] In the struggle for succession after Lenin’s death, Josef Stalin won, and Leon Trotsky lost. After living in a series of countries following his exile, Trotsky and his family found a home and security in Mexico. [SFX: I Think I will Travel to Rio] In 1936, the increasingly paranoid Stalin tried several bolsheviks, including, in absentia, Trotsky in absentia, and his fate was sealed. Following an unsuccessful attempt by machine-gun wielding assassins, the NKVD enlisted a trusted family friend, communist Ramon Mercador, who, on pretext of having Trotsky read his manuscript, attacked him with the blunt end of an ice axe. Trotsky died the following day.

[SFX: SOUND827]Sports: DATELINE America, August 16, 1954 – Sports fans and swimsuit fans rejoice: your illustrious journal has arrived: http://bit.ly/DLeBw

The Back-Story:

[SFX: Allstar].The third time was a charm for “Sports Illustrated.” Following the failure of two magazines with that name, Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine, decided that the country needed a national magazine with sports coverage. Unable to buy rights to the name to “Sport” for $200,000, Luce secured the rights to “Sports Illustrated,” for a fraction of that cost. The first issue hit the stands in August of 1954. The famed swimsuit issue debuted 10 years later.[SFX:Yellow Polka Dot Bikini]


[SFX: SOUND827]: Things that make you go huh? [SFX: Things that make you go hmm?]DATELINE Paris, August 21, 1911 – Peruggia slips Mona Lisa under clothes; alert Louvre staff notices blank spot on wall the following day: http://bit.ly/Yl5cr:

The Back-Story:

[SFX: Mona Lisa] On the morning of August 22, 1911, an amateur painter set out to paint a model’s reflection in the newly installed glass that covered the Mona Lisa, intending to show the folly of covering the masterpiece in glass. He was greeted by a bare wall. [SFX: Has Anybody Seen My Baby?]Thinking that the museum had removed the picture for photographing, he inquired, and, ultimately, it was discovered that the painting had been stolen the day earlier. Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employe of the Louvre, had removed it from its frame, stuffed it under his clothes, and left undetected. Two years later, he tried to sell the unsellable painting, with the stipulation that it be hung in Italy’s Uffizi museum, restoring to Italy what had been stolen by Napoleon. He was arrested, and the Mona Lisa was restored to Paris. [SFX: Back to Paris]

[SFX: SOUND827] This week’s birthdays:[SFX: In the Club]

August 16: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin

August 17:Frontiersman Davy Crockett

August 18 Mexican Presendente Felipe Calderon

August 19: American President Bill Clinton

August 20: American President Benjamin Harrison

August 21: Jazz great Count Basie

and August 22: Chinese statesman, Deng Xiaoping

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