Today in 1931, the monumental statue of Christ the Redeemer (above) on the summit of Corcovado Mountain, Rio de Janeiro, opened for business. The most ginormous Jesus in the world at the time, the statue stands 30 metres tall (98 feet), 28 metres (92 feet) from fingertip to fingertip, with a head weighing 30 tons and hands 3.2 metres long. It is covered in a mosaic of soapstone triangles, on the backs of which the local women who helped make them wrote the names of their boyfriends, children and family members.
Jesus Christ Superstar, the pop opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, opened on Broadway today in 1971. Originally made as an album, 3 million copies sold in 18 months, and pirate stage productions appeared all over the US before the opening night of this official version. Christians protested that Jesus wasn’t divine enough, Mary Magdalene was too much Jesus’s girlfriend, Judas was the show’s real hero, and that there was no resurrection. Maybe Caiaphas summed up the spirit of the show: ‘One thing I’ll say for him, Jesus is cool.’
‘I’m definitely not an atheist, but Christ has more relevance for me as a human being than He does as God. It’s much more amazing that a man could go through all that than a God.’ Tim Rice, lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar
Christopher Columbus made landfall on San Salvador Island in the Bahamas today in 1492 and claimed it for the King and Queen of Spain and for Catholic Christianity. He and his crew had completed a two-month Atlantic crossing from southern Spain, and had ‘discovered’ the Americas. Believing he had landed in India, he called the local people ‘Indians’. Until 1971, today was Columbus Day in the US, but Congress changed it to the second Monday in October.
Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII, bore him his first legitimate son, Edward, today in 1537, in Hampton Court Palace. Edward was the prize for which Henry had broken with Rome, but it was left to him, as King Edward VI, to be the first properly Protestant King of England. Tragically, Jane died 11 days later.
Cecil Frances Alexander, the Victorian hymn writer, died in Derry, Ireland, today in 1895. Celebrated in her own time for the trio she wrote in her 20s – ‘Once in Royal David’s city’, ‘All things bright and beautiful’, and ‘There is a green hill far away’ – her hymns are still sung around the world, although their poetry and piety has dated rather badly.
We were only little babies
Knowing neither good nor harm,
When the Priest of God Most Holy
Took us gently in his arm.
And he sprinkled our young faces
With the water clear and bright,
And he signed our Saviour’s token
On our little foreheads white.
Cecil Frances Alexander, Hymns for Little Children, 1848
Piero della Francesca, the celebrated 15th century Italian artist, died today in 1492, at his home in San Sepolcro. Beloved for his mastery of perspective, his harmonious, pale colours, and his quietly watchful figures, Piero created a new way of picturing moments in the life of Christ, including his amazing renderings of the annunciation, the baptism, and the resurrection.
Image: Edmund