This Was The Week That Was

Today

On this day in 1903, the first Westerns were copyrighted. Kit Carson, with a running time of 21 minutes, showed our hero escaping from red Indians; in the 15-minute The Pioneers our heroine escapes from red Indians.

Tomorrow

ITV was launched in 1955 and its lunchtime news featured the first female news reader, Barbara Mandell. The first commercial was for Gibbs SR toothpaste.

Wednesday

Saxophonist John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, in 1926 and the world of jazz became his Elsinore; he played with Miles Davis on the classic albums Round About Midnight and Kind of Blue.

Thursday

Branwell Bronte died of drinks and drugs in 1842. Readers of Wuthering Heights wondered where his loving sister Emily got the idea for the degenerate and alcoholic Hindley Earnshaw.

Friday

In 1906 composer Dmitri Shostakovitch was born in St Petersburg. Leningrad, as it later became, gave its name to his seventh symphony, which was first performed there in during the most discordant days of the Second World War.

Saturday

In 1687 the Parthenon, the fifth-century BC monument dedicated to the frigid Athene ("Parthenos Maiden") in Athens, was redecorated. A mortar fired by the Venetian army detonated the defenders' store of explosives.

Sunday

The first 3-D feature film, a silent nautical yarn called The Power of Love, was premiered in Los Angeles in 1922. The first "talkie" in three dimensions was not seen until 25 years later.