Although Anzac Day originally commemorated the heavy loss of life sustained by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (or ANZAC) while fighting the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I in Turkey on this day in 1915, since the end of World War II it has come to be a more general day of remembrance for all those whose lives have been lost in the service of their countries. In addition to Australia and New Zealand, the day is observed in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.
The holiday gained in popularity very quickly... Its first observation could be said to have taken place on April 30th of that year, when word of the fighting (and its terrible casualties*) first reached Australia; a half-day holiday was then declared, which was again observed the following year on April 5th. New Zealand was the first country to make the day an official holiday when it passed the Anzac Day Act in 1920. Throughout the 1920s the holiday was observed in Australia to varying degrees (depending on the state) but by 1927 was uniformly marked, with its date set on April 25th.
The 1930s saw the various rituals that are now associated with Anzac Day - dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions, sly two-up games - become part of Australian culture. The first dawn vigil took place at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927, and like the Remembrance Day service familiar in Canada and the UK is marked by the playing of The Last Post**. The dawn vigil was first introduced to New Zealand in 1939, and remains a feature of Anzac Day there; it stems from the battle itself, which commenced in the hours surrounding the dawn.
Despite the creation of the Australian Federation in January 1901 and a similar move towards independence for New Zealand in September 1907, Anzac Day is considered the day both countries were born, having been forged in the horrors of war and christened in the blood of its finest young men...
*Allied casualties amounted to 21,255 from the UK, an estimated 10,000 from France, 8,709 from Australia, 2,721 from New Zealand, and 1,358 from British India. **In the US, of course, the Memorial Day service every May is similarly serenaded by the playing of Taps.
I last published this video some four months ago - Christmas Day, to be precise - on the occasion of Annie Lennox's birthday; I'm republishing it here now because a) I love it so much, and b) it was used as the love theme in Derek Jarman's 1992 filmEdward II.
Even the most rabid of monarchists would have to admit that not everyone who's ever been born to (or indeed called upon) to fill a throne has been universally good at all aspects of reigning all the time; even in days of yore, when Kings were seen as living gods, it was accepted that some kings made war better than peace, for instance, or that most of them preferred the company of wenches to their queen.
The point is, allowances were made for these quirks in their personality, benefits of the doubt offered; no such allowances were made for the man who became Edward II, though. Even as a child, his interests were more yeomanly than royal. Fond of animals, possessed of the common touch, Edward would have just as soon shod a horse or thatched a roof as entered into a joust.
That the son of Edward I (whose nickname was Longshanks) had no interest in the arts of war was the scandal of the age; to remedy the situation, the King procured for his son a young Gascon named Piers Gaveston, whose reputation for prowess with weaponry of all kinds was then still unburdened by the bevy of allegations that would later be attached to him. In lieu of a royal bride, it was Gaveston who was by his side when Edward was invested as the first Prince of Wales in February 1301.
Gaveston likewise took pride of place at the January 1308 marriage of Edward (then King) to Isabella of France, the beautiful and conniving daughter of Philip IV; during Edward's coronation in February 1308 - which Gaveston was called upon to organize - he barely made it out of Westminster Abbey alive, owing as much to the fiasco of his own organization as it was to the royal status the King had seemingly bestowed upon him - allowing him to wear purple in defiance of sumptuary laws, for one. Yet Edward II did fulfil his principle duty as King - to secure the succession with the birth of an heir; the boy who would become Edward III is universally recognized as one of England's greater kings, in sharp contrast to the negative opinion earned by his father and passed down as received wisdom over the next seven centuries.
Edward II's twenty year reign ended with his forced abdication, imprisonment, and eventual murder*; even the means of death - by legend a red-hot poker was inserted into his anus - points to the savage bigotry of the times. Whether Edward and Gaveston were lovers will never be proven, at least not directly; indirectly, though, the evidence is incontrovertible. Henry VIII and Charles Brandon were as close friends as King and noble could be, yet no ignominy clung to either of them for it. Somehow, though, nothing Edward II ever did earned so much as a molecule of praise during his lifetime, surely a text book example of homophobia in action if ever there was one.
In the centuries since he's gone from a reviled monster to a fascinating anomaly to a gay icon thanks almost entirely to pop culture; Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II was not only the first portrayal of the unfortunate King but is one of the earliest plays in English as well, having been performed since at least 1592. The most sensational recent work about Edward II is Derek Jarman's fanciful 1992 filmEdward II, in which the King was portrayed by Steven Waddington and Gaveston by Andrew Tiernan; Isabella, better known to us now as the She-Wolf of France, was played to stunning effect by Tilda Swinton.
*As with most high-profile murders, conspiracy theories abound. * share on: facebook
The Pioneer 10 spacecraft passed the orbit of Pluto on this day in 1983, effectively making it the first ever man-made object to leave the solar system, although it has yet to pass the heliopause or the Oort cloud.
[In the years since its composition on this day in 1792, La Marseillaise has fallen in and out of favour almost as dramatically as its own notes rise and fall while being sung... The rallying cry of the French Revolution, it was adopted as the new Republic's national anthem by the National Convention in July 1795; naturally it was banned outright by those noted monarchists Napoleon, Louis XVIII, and Napoleon III. Reinstated briefly after the July Revolution of 1830, it wouldn't be until 1879 that it would be permanently enshrined. It's shown sung here by noted French operatic tenor, Roberto Alagna, in an arrangement by Hector Berlioz, conducted by Semyon Bychkov.]
1185 - Japan's Emperor Antoku drowned, at the age of six, when he was purposely dropped into the Kanmon Straits which separate Kyūshū and Honshū during a sea battle between warring clans and the Imperial Family; he was succeeded by Emperor Go-Toba, who was the fourth son of Emperor Takakura and therefore his predecessor's younger brother.
1605 - Naresuan, King of Siam, died; he was succeeded by his brother Ekathotsarot.
1849 - Canada's Governor-General Lord Elgin signed the Rebellion Losses Bill, which outraged the English population of Montreal and triggered rioting in that city.
1915 - The Battle of Gallipoli began with the invasion of Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops, who landed at Cape Helles and what is now known as Anzac Cove.
1974 - The so-called Carnation Revolution - a leftist military coup in Portugal - restored democracy after more than forty years as a corporate fascist state under the Estado Novo, most famously led by António de Oliveira Salazar. The revolution is notable in that the revolutionaries produced no casualties, although government forces did kill four people.
1982 - Having landed a contingent of Royal Marines on South Georgia as part of Operation Paraquet the Royal Navy's destroyer Antrim intercepted and disabled the Argentinian submarine Santa Fe, with the able assistance of her Westland Wessex HAS.Mk3 helicopter; the helicopter's crew had already demonstrated distinction in rescuing 16 SAS commandos from the Fortuna Glacier on April 21st. Today this very craft resides in the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton in Somerset. VISIT
1988 - A court in Israel sentenced John Demjanuk to die for his having committed war crimes while serving as an SS guard at Treblinka during World War II.
2005 - The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum was returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937.
I am interested in everything, especially stuff I've never heard of; I consider it my responsibility as a human to comfort the troubled and my duty as an artist to trouble the comfortable.
You are a Social Justice Crusader, also known as a rights activist. You believe in equality, fairness, and preventing neo-Confederate conservative troglodytes from rolling back fifty years of civil rights gains.
The holiday gained in popularity very quickly... Its first observation could be said to have taken place on April 30th of that year, when word of the fighting (and its terrible casualties*) first reached Australia; a half-day holiday was then declared, which was again observed the following year on April 5th. New Zealand was the first country to make the day an official holiday when it passed the Anzac Day Act in 1920. Throughout the 1920s the holiday was observed in Australia to varying degrees (depending on the state) but by 1927 was uniformly marked, with its date set on April 25th.
