this weekend in history

February 17

• In 1904, Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” premieres at La Scala theatre in Milan, and it becomes one the most frequently performed operas. Based on a short story and a play by the same name, it tells the story of American sailor in Nagasaki, Japan, who marries and abandons a young Japanese geisha known as Madame Butterfly.

• In 1972, the Volkswagen Beetle overtakes Ford’s famous Model T as world’s best-selling car when 15,007,034th vehicle

A SCENE from ‘The Long Weekend’ benefits the Bahamas National Trust, the Bahamas Feeding Network and Lend a Hand Bahamas.

Each of the non-profit organisations will have one night during the nine-night run with all net proceeds to its cause from the barbequing and backbiting comedy.

It’s being staged at the Atlantis Theatre. Opening night was yesterday evening and the play runs nightly (except for Monday,

February 18

February 20) until Saturday, February 25.

It starts at 7.30pm and is intended for audiences 13 years or older. Tickets can be purchased by contacting the Atlantis box office.

CHARLOTTE May Pierstorff

comes off the assembly line, breaking a world car production record held for more than four decades. The first designs for the Beetle were done by AustroBohemian automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche in the 1930s at the behest Adolf Hitler to create a compact, reliable and affordable car for the people.

• In 1546, Martin Luther, the German priest, theologian and leader of the Protestant Reformation, dies at age 62 in Eisleben, Saxony. His “95 Theses,” which put forth two central beliefs – that the Bible is the central religious authority and that humans may reach salvation only by their faith and not by their deeds – sparked the Reformation in 1517, resulting in the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church.

• In 1930, Pluto, which was once believed to be the ninth planet, is discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W Tombaugh. Today, we know that Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune.

February 19

• In 1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opens to the public. It later becomes one of the foremost museums in the world. It had founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens –businessmen and financiers as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day. In 1880, the museum moved to its current site in Central Park. The original Gothic-Revival-style building has been greatly expanded in size since then, and the various additions now completely surround the original structure.

• In 1914, five-year old Charlotte May Pierstorff (who weighed 48.5 pounds or 22.0 kg) is mailed by parcel post on a train from Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparents’ house 73 miles away in Lewiston, Idaho. After the incident, American parcel post regulations were changed to prohibit the shipment of humans.

TOdAY’S TARGeT

Best described as a number crossword, the task in Kakuro is to fill all of the empty squares, using numbers 1 to 9, so the sum of each horizontal block equals the number to its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the number on its top. No number may be used in the same block more than once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Kakuro increases from Monday to Sunday.

Cryptic Puzzle

Across

1 Quarrel has bearing on the French (6)

4 Drink calmed us when upset (8)

9 Highballs for slipshod enthusiasts? (6)

10 Devastated Iran starts being bitter about pollution (4,4)

12 Innocuous meat preparation (4)

13 A bit of exercise? (5)

14 Where needles are kept just in case (4)

17 Sometimes it puts us completely in the shade (5,7)

20 In sound condition though possibly highly strung (3,2,1,6)

23 Almost get to every one (4)

24 Part of church left for contemplation (5)

25 A number of us scowl (4)

28 The painting represents type of resistance patriot (8)

29 Group of players the French keep together (6)

30 Like a shattering snore by a worker? (8)

31 Dolly’s involved in marine insurance (6)

Down

1 Exhibit doubt when the tea is freshly brewed (8)

2 Vessel with an officer and any other sailor (8)

3 See about learning (4)

5 Not prepared to grow crops (12)

6 Laws the expert may break (4)

7 Want to disguise hatred (6)

8 Pulse fast - 49? (6)

11 Announcement from the Roman Capitol (12)

15 Nails badly finished off (5)

16 Meat jelly made with a non-Eastern spice (5)

18 Dilatory perhaps but performed with skill (8)

19 Many employees are students (8)

21 Moderate disposition (6)

22 He had high-flying ambition but became unstuck (6)

26 It’s very hard but laundrymaids do it (4)

27 Bird run over by train (4)

Across