September 29, 1918: Gustav Holst's "The Planets" Premieres

September 29, 1918: The Planets premieres at the Queen's Hall in London. Conducted by Adrian Boult, it is a series of 7 movements, designed to capture the spirit of the mythological inspiration of the 7 planets then known to be in the solar system, excluding, of course, Earth. (Pluto was not discovered until 1930.)

The composer was Gustav Holst. In spite of his German-sounding name, and World War I still going on, he was born and raised in England, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in the West Country. His ancestry was German and Swedish, and he marked the 4th generation of his family to be a classical musician. He was 44 years old at the time of the premiere of The Planets, which had worked on since 1914.

In an early sketch for the suite, Holst listed Mercury as "no. 1", which Greene suggests raises the possibility that the composer's first idea was simply to depict the planets in the obvious order, from nearest the sun to the farthest: Mercury, Venus, (Earth,) Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

But music historian Richard Greene wrote, "However, opening with the more disturbing character of Mars allows a more dramatic and compelling working out of the musical material." Especially since "The Great War" was still on, with no one yet knowing that the Armistice was coming in just 43 days. The movements are as follows, with the planets given names from Roman mythology:

1. Mars, the Bringer of War. In Greek mythology, the god of war is Ares. This movement usually runs about 7 minutes.

2. Venus, the Bringer of Peace. The Romans called the goddess of love Venus, while the Greeks called her Aphrodite. But in terms of the actual planets, Venus has a much more violent atmosphere than Mars. About 8 minutes.

3. Mercury, the Winged Messenger. Noted for his speed, the Greeks called the messenger of the gods Hermes. This is the shortest movement, usually coming in at under 4 minutes.

4. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity. Alliteration aside, this title was a bad choice by Holst: If he wanted a joyful movement for his piece, he should have chosen a planet and god other than the king of the gods, known as Zeus to the Greeks, who is usually depicted as a vain and angry god, one very easily angered. He has been called "the goddiest god ever to god."

As perhaps the most complicated movement, depending on the recording, it has the most varied performance time, running anywhere from 7 to 8 minutes.

5. Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age. Saturn was the father of Jupiter, known by the Greeks as Chronus, from which we get words relating to time: Chronal, chronological, chronic. It also takes the most time of any of the movements, sometimes running over 9 minutes.

6. Uranus, the Magician. The one planet whose name is taken from the Greeks, in Roman mythology, he is Caelus, god of the sky, sometimes said to be the father of the titans, including Saturn, and thus a progenitor of the gods. It runs about 6 minutes.

7. Neptune, the Mystic. Another odd title: The god of the sea, known as Poseidon to the Greeks, is associated with power, but not, then as now, with magic. It runs about 7 minutes.

In 2000, the English composer Colin Matthews, seeking to complete the solar system, wrote a new movement, "Pluto, the the Renewer." Unfortunately, in 2006, Pluto was downgraded to a "dwarf planet."

Pluto is the god of the underworld, known as Hades to the Greeks. They called his realm Tartarus, although, somewhere down the line, the realm itself became known as Hades, and the overseer became identified with the Biblical Devil Lucifer/Satan, and his realm with Hell. But the mythologies do not always depict Hades/Pluto as evil. Dark, yes; evil, not always. The Pluto version is also the god of wealth, leading to a government dominated by rich people being called a plutocracy.

Holst died in 1934. Boult, eventually knighted, lived until 1983. Imogen Holst, Gustav's daughter and biographer, and a composer in her own right, died the next year. So, while all of them lived to know of the discovery of Pluto, none of them lived to see a tribute to it added to The Planets. Imogen was his only child, and had no children herself, so his direct line died with her.

Opened in 1893, the Queen's Hall, named for Queen Victoria, became the home of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the 1930s. The Nazis destroyed it during the Blitz in 1941. It was never rebuilt: Both orchestras moved into the Royal Albert Hall, and the London Philharmonic moved into the Royal Festival Hall in 1951.

*

September 29, 1918 was a Sunday. Professional basketball barely existed. Professional hockey did, but it was too early for the season to start. Professional football was, at this point, very minor-league. And the baseball season was cut short due to World War I, with the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series on September 11, beating the Chicago Cubs. So there were no scores on this historic day.

July 13, 2015: The 1st Close-Up Pictures of the Planet Pluto

July 13, 2015: The New Horizons probe sends the 1st close-up pictures of the planet Pluto back to Earth.

Yes, I know: Pluto is officially no longer a planet. I'm still calling it a planet.

The 9th "planet" from the Sun is so far out, it takes 248 years to make a single revolution around the Sun. In other words, the last time that Pluto was in the position from the Sun that it is in 2022 was in 1774 -- before the independence of the United States of America. Andrew Jackson was 7 years old, Napoleon Bonaparte was 5, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was 4. Its elliptical orbit means that, for 20 of those 248 years -- including, recently, from 1979 to 1999 -- it was closer to the Sun than the 8th planet, Neptune.

Pluto is so far out, it took New Horizons 9 years to get there from Earth. It was launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 19, 2006. New Horizons then went on to study the Kuiper Belt, something of a 2nd asteroid belt, beyond Pluto.

*

July 13, 2015 was a Monday. There were no scores on this historic day: The only major league sport in season was baseball, and this was during their All-Star Break. 

February 18, 1930: Clyde Tombaugh Discovers the Planet Pluto

February 18, 1930: Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers the planet Pluto, raising the number of known planets in Earth's solar system to 9.

The 6 planets closest to the Sun had all been known since antiquity. In ascending order of distance from the Sun, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. From the naked eye on Earth, each of the others can be seen.

When 2 or more of them are close together in the sky, it is known as a "conjunction." It has been speculated that a conjunction of of 3 of them -- perhaps Venus, the closest to Earth; Mars, the next-closest; and Jupiter, the largest in the system -- formed the Star of Bethlehem, which led the the Wise Men to the birth of Christ. (The Bible never calls them "kings," and it has been credibly suggested that they were astronomers, or perhaps astrologers; either way, they would have studied the planets known at the time.)

In 1781, British astronomer William Herschel discovered a new planet. He named it "Georgium Sides," meaning "Georgian Star," after the King at the time, George III. Eventually, like the other planets, it was given a name from mythology: Uranus.

But this 7th planet didn't move the way astronomers had predicted. Using Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion, they predicted that there must be an 8th planet out there. In 1846, German astronomer Johann Galle discovered Neptune. But it still didn't affect Uranus enough to explain all of its odd movements, and Neptune didn't always move as expected, either. American astronomer Percival Lowell suggested a 9th planet was out there, but died in 1916, before it could be found.

Clyde William Tombaugh was born on February 4, 1906 outside Chicago in Streator, Illinois, and grew up in Burdett, Kansas. As a boy, he built his own telescopes, and sent his findings to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Impressed, they offered him a job in 1926.

Eventually, his job became to take the data already available, and use it to find Planet 9. Using Lowell's predictions, he examined photographs he took from the Observatory's 13-inch astrograph in January 1930, and, on February 11, wrote his paper confirming that Planet 9 had been found. On May 1, 1930, the American Astronomical Society and Britain's Royal Astronomical Society jointly announced the discovery, and the official naming, of the planet Pluto. Not only was it a name from mythology, but its 1st 2 letters were Percival Lowell's initials.

In 1978, it was discovered that Pluto was actually the smallest planet in the solar system, taking that presumed status away from Mercury. So speculation began that there had to be a 10th planet out there. But when Voyager 2 sent data back from Neptune in 1989, it was discovered that Neptune's mass had been overestimated, and that explained any remaining questions about Uranus' orbit. Later, more powerful telescopes proved beyond any doubt that there is no Planet 10 in our solar system. They were also, by 1992, able to discover planets orbiting distant stars.

On August 24, 2006, the size of Pluto, and the relatively large size of its moon Charon, suggesting a "double planet," led to a reconsideration of Pluto's definition. But instead of promoting Charon and ruling that there were actually 10 planets, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto, reclassifying it as a "dwarf planet," leaving 8 planets in the solar system, and Neptune as the furthest from the Sun.

Tombaugh went on to discover 15 asteroids, several variable stars, star clusters, and one known comet. He served in World War II, and taught at New Mexico State University.

He was not available for reaction to the denigration of his discovery: He died on January 17, 1997, at 90. Through his brother, Robert, he is the great uncle of Los Angeles Dodgers pitching star Clayton Kershaw.

Nor did Tombaugh live to see the first close-up pictures of his discovery, taken by the unmanned New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.

*

February 18, 1930 was a Tuesday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA had not yet been founded. But the entire NHL, 10 teams, were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Americans beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-4 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Maroons, 3-2 at the Boston Garden. The Maroons folded after the 1938 season.

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at the Ottawa Auditorium. The Pirates moved after the season, becoming the Philadelphia Quakers. The Senators moved in 1934, becoming the St. Louis Eagles. Each team lasted only one more year after its respective move, and folded. 

* And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Cougars, 2-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. In 1932, the Cougars were renamed the Detroit Red Wings.