Relating to or characteristic of the playwright Bertolt Brecht, who believed that theatre should be used to make political or social comment, and who therefore refused to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief by, for example, keeping the lights on in the auditorium.
Brechtian
Fact of the Day
When news of the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 reached Pope Urban III, he is said to have died immediately of shock and grief.
Quote of the Day
"Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος - let the die be cast
"
~ Julius Caesar
On This Day
1559 King Henri II of France was injured in a jousting accident when a lance shattered on his shoulder, sending splinters into his eye. He died 10 days later, leaving the throne of France to his son Francis II, husband of Mary Queen of Scots.
1688 The Immortal Seven - a group of seven politicians, religious leaders and nobles who were upset with the rule of James II - sent a letter to William of Orange, stadholder of the Netherlands, inviting him to invade England. The invitation provided William - later William III - with the cover of legitimacy he needed to effect the 'Glorious Revolution'.
1837 Punishment by pillory was finally abolished in Britain.
1882 Charles Guiteau, an American writer and lawyer, was executed by hanging almost exactly a year after he shot President James A. Garfield, who died of his wounds two months later.
1934 Hitler's political opponents and the leadership of the SA were either murdered or imprisoned in the Night of the Long Knives.
1937 The world's first emergency telephone number "999" was introduced in London.
1940 German military forces began their occupation of the Channel Islands, the only British territory to be occupied by the Nazis in Europe. They remained in control of the four islands - Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark - until May 1945.
