Opera Stops Mid-Note

February 4th, 2005

in 1587, Italian playwright and composer Claudio Monteverdi, realized he had made a mistake translating a Greek word while he was in the middle of attempting a recreation of classic Greek theater. He had thought that the Greeks sung their entire performance – but the word he had mistranslated meant spoke. It was a good thing he had discovered his error early on – otherwise he might have produced an entire play where nothing was spoken, only sung.

in 1866, faith healer Mary Baker Eddy begins to tout the spiritual healing techniques of her mentor, Phineas Quimby. She feels that simply reading from a Bible will cure all ills and heal wounds. This theory is found sorely lacking a few weeks later, when she dies after a fall on an icy road.

in 1904, Ambassador Li’Kanto’Mk of the Congress of Nations is brought before Q’B’Ton’ra, the ruler of the Mlosh homeworld. The officers of his ship stand with him, and Q’B’Ton’ra has a special interest in the humans. “They will make excellent slaves,” he says, examining them. “Strong, unlike our people. Stupid, like yours.” The ship’s crew is thrown into a holding cell; on the way there, they see a massive fleet being prepared.

in 1295, Agha Mohammed Khan, great Moghul of the Indian people, was born in Peshawar. He led one of the largest nations in Islam for 20 years, and transformed much of Asia into a home for the word of the Prophet.

in 1969, Wilhelm Schoemann finds himself in the alternate universe he has helped neo-Nazis create. He has decided to look up his doppelganger and see what he would have done had he been on the victorious end of a war. The devastation that he sees his double has caused brings him to the brink of suicidal despair.

in 1974, the laughably inept band of would-be revolutionaries known as the Symbionese Liberation Army tried to kidnap heiress Patty Hearst in Berkeley, California. When they showed up at her apartment, though, they found no one – Hearst had gone to Beverly Hills for the weekend on a whim, and stayed with friends through Tuesday. They were arrested at the apartments after a neighbor heard them break in.

in 1985, Congressmen of the Constitutionalist Party introduce the Alien Sedition Amendment in their first full session in complete control of both houses. They fail to get the 2/3 majority needed for the amendment to pass, but they have hopes that they can bring it back on a later date.

in 2003, in the closing days of the Northwestern Insurrection, the Washington Soviet launches a nuclear missile at troops stationed in Sacramento, California Soviet. The former capitol of California is utterly destroyed, and many leaders of the Soviet States of America call for nuclear retaliation against the People’s Republic, but Comrade President Cobb refused to do it; “These comrades are misguided,”, he told his nation, “but, they are still our brothers and sisters in the Great Struggle. We cannot and will not treat their lives as expendable.”


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