HistorTweet Week in Review - W/E April 3, 2010

[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 April 3, 2010:

[SFX: SOUND827]World: DATELINE Reykjavic, March 30, 1949 - Iceland heats up over Cold War politics, as rioters in Reykjavik protest decision to join NATO: http://bit.ly/c501o9
The Back-Story: [SFX:Taking It to the Streets; White Riot; Protest Song; It Can't Happen Here] In the years following the end of World War II, battle lines were formed in the Cold War between East and West. In 1949, Iceland's parliament came down on the West's side, voting to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The citizens of the capital city, Reykjavik, alarmed at the prospect of remilitarization, took to the streets in a protest that grew into a riot, with rocks hurled through the parliament building, and tear gas fired by riot police before order was restored. [SFX: Get Up, Stand Up]

[SFX: SOUND827]Sports: DATELINE London, April 2, 1977 - Red Rum wins world's toughest steeplechase for record 3rd time: http://bit.ly/cIoCag
The Back-Story: [SFX: Red Red Wine; You Did It in a Minute; Adventures in Babysitting; Born to Run] England's Grand National Steeplechase is a course so grueling that, often, only 20% of the horses in the field complete it. It is a course that Red Rum was born to run. Although the horse failed to distinguish himself early in his career, following a bout with debilitating bone disease and a tepid comeback attempt which caused most to write him off, he was purchased by a taxi driver and aspiring horse trainer who molded him into a champion. In the span of five years, he won the English Grand National 3 times and placed twice, becoming, along the way, the last horse to win back-to-back, the only horse to win 3 times, and the only horse totake the English and Scottish Grand Nationals in the same year. [SFX:Three Times a Lady; You're the Tops; It Keeps You Running; And I Ran]

[SFX: SOUND827]: Things that make you go Huh?: DATELINE Great Britain, April 1, 1957 - BBC reports mild winter, dearth of spaghetti weevil in Switzerland, yield bumper spaghetti crop: http://bit.ly/1az2cH (video)
The Back-Story: [SFX:Fool Me Once; Get Up, Stand Up; Come, Ye Thankful People, Come; You Can't Do That on Television] At a time when television was young and spaghetti was one of the more exotic foods in the British diet, the BBC aired a hoax documentary, in its Panorama program, showing Swiss women carefully harvesting pasta from trees, as reporter Richard Dimbleby explained the forces behind that year's bumper crop, how years of cultivating had produced uniformly long strands, and how the spaghetti was dried, some shared among the harvesters in celebration. Among those who got the joke, some wrote to the BBC, indignant that they would use a serious program for an April Fool's joke; among those who didn't, some wrote to ask for advice on growing their own spghetti. These latter received the reply, "Place a few strands in a tomato tin and hope for the best." [SFX: Lies, Lies, Lies; Some of my Lies Are True; The Girl Is Mine; Greatest American Hero]

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

March 28: Author Maxim Gorky
March 29: British Prime Minister Sir John Major
March 30: Painter Vincent Van Gogh
March 31: Mathematician Rene Descartes
April 1: Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff
April 2:Writer Hans Christian Andersen, and
April 3: Author Washington Irving

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