Royal Barges, Papal Footnotes, and the Vice-President Who Voted No

Royal Barges, Papal Footnotes, and the Vice-President Who Voted No

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Episode description

Royal Barges, Papal Footnotes, and the Vice-President Who Voted No

On 17 July 1717, King George I sailed the Thames whilst fifty musicians performed Handel’s newly commissioned Water Music on a floating barge. The public turned out in hundreds of boats to listen, uninvited. That same date in 1048, Poppo of Brixen was elected Pope Damasus II and lasted just twenty-three days before dying, barely enough time to learn where anything was. In 1850, astronomer John Adams Whipple captured the first photograph of a star other than the Sun: Vega, whose light had travelled twenty-five years to reach a glass plate in Massachusetts. And in 2008, Argentine Vice-President Julio Cobos cast the deciding vote against his own government’s agricultural export tax, telling the Senate his conscience compelled him to do so. The chamber, by all accounts, went berserk. Clara Vale explores outdoor concerts that changed music, papal elections that ended before they started, the birth of photographic astronomy, and political decisions that make history whether you planned to or not.

Chapters

  • Intro A warm July evening in 1717. The Thames glittering. Fireworks. Hundreds of boats. A royal barge. And fifty musicians about to play something nobody’s heard before.
  • Handel’s Water Music: A Royal Concert on the Thames On 17 July 1717, King George I took a river party up the Thames whilst Handel’s newly commissioned Water Music played from a floating barge of fifty musicians. The king was delighted. The public turned out in droves. The music is still being performed three centuries later.
  • Damasus II: The Twenty-Three Day Pope On 17 July 1048, Poppo of Brixen was elected Pope Damasus II during a turbulent period for the Catholic Church. He died twenty-three days later, barely enough time to begin. His successor went on to reform the papacy. Damasus got a footnote.
  • Vega: The First Star to Be Photographed On 17 July 1850, astronomer John Adams Whipple captured the first photograph of a star other than the Sun. The star was Vega. The image was faint and blurry, but astronomy was never quite the same. The universe became a place you could document.
  • The Vice-President Who Voted No On 17 July 2008, a tied vote in the Argentine Senate on controversial agricultural export taxes went to Vice-President Julio Cobos, who cast the deciding vote against his own government. The chamber went berserk. His approval ratings soared. He served out his term.
  • Outro History rewards the ones who show up, whether you’re a composer with a royal commission, a pope who barely unpacked, an astronomer with a camera, or a vice-president with a vote that’s going to cause trouble.

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