1865 Yale Glee Club
This week, the Yale Glee Club is having its own reunion timed to coincide with the anniversary of the organization’s founding in February of 1861. The Midnight at Yale feature tries to put the Glee Club’s longevity into proper perspective.
If your only exposure to choral music has been listening to Carmina Burana in Super Bowl commercials, please allow us to point out that we existed 106 years prior to the first Super Bowl and 74 years before Carmina Burana was composed.
That got us thinking.
1861 was, of course, the beginning of the American Civil War.
Theodore Roosevelt turned three in 1861, and Sigmund Freud turned six.
The Pony Express was in full swing.
The flush toilet was patented.
Russian Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom.
Italy was unified.
Kansas was admitted as the 34th state in the Union
In 1862, the Internal Revenue Service was founded and Claude Debussy was born.
The Brahms Requiem is eight years younger than the Yale Glee Club.
Wagner’s Tristan is three years younger.
The entire planethood of Pluto, from discovery to dismissal, is a subset of the Glee Club’s existence.
Hat tip to Leah Libresco.
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