3 March 1869 - Sir Henry Wood born.

English conductor who introduced the highly successful annual Promenade Concerts in London in 1895 and in which he served as principal conductor until his death in 1944. They continue today at the Royal Albert Hall which became the venue following the destruction of its first location Queen's Hall in 1941. 

A mixture of classical and popular music the Proms are a feature of the British summer, officially known as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts so named after Wood's death.  

He was knighted in 1911.

Yes, opened in 1893 and destroyed by German bombing on the night of 10/11 May 1941, the same night that the Houses of Parliament were destroyed.

3 March 1869 - Sir Henry Wood born.

English conductor who introduced the highly successful annual Promenade Concerts in London in 1895 and in which he served as principal conductor until his death in 1944. They continue today at the Royal Albert Hall which became the venue following the destruction of its first location Queen's Hall in 1941. 

A mixture of classical and popular music the Proms are a feature of the British summer, officially known as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts so named after Wood's death.  

He was knighted in 1911.

The proms are the only night of the year when the English become unabashed patriots. The last night of the proms is begun with a classical piece and then descends into a patriotic extravaganza, which is shown on large open air screens across the country where tumultuous crowds join in.

Recently Lefties have tried to tone it down a bit, even they daren't try to stop it, but it continues in its unapologetic jingoistic form, long may it do so. 

4 March 1678 - Antonio Vivaldi born.

Italian composer born in Venice. Best known for his violin concerti The Four Seasons (1718-20). 

4 March 1678 - Antonio Vivaldi born.

Italian composer born in Venice. Best known for his violin concerti The Four Seasons (1718-20). 

A violin genius if ever there was one. . The music Vivaldi wrote was revolutionary and has always stood the test of time. The other great violinist was Paganini who was so unique and brilliant in his day 1782 - 1840 that it was said that he had a pact with the devil. Alas the devil didn't cure his syphilis which eventually killed him

4 March 1678 - Antonio Vivaldi born.

Italian composer born in Venice. Best known for his violin concerti The Four Seasons (1718-20). 

A violin genius if ever there was one. . The music Vivaldi wrote was revolutionary and has always stood the test of time. The other great violinist was Paganini who was so unique and brilliant in his day 1782 - 1840 that it was said that he had a pact with the devil. Alas the devil didn't cure his syphilis which eventually killed him

So his interest in the FANY did him in eh?

5 March 1953 - Sergei Prokofiev died.

Russian composer who fled to the West in 1918 just as his career was taking off. He settled in France and only returned to Russia in 1927 on tour before being invited to reside permanently in 1936. His best known work today is his symphonic tale for children Peter and the Wolf (1936). 

He died on the same day as Stalin in March 1953.

I won't go into much detail with composers as Art has, if I may say so, an unexpectedly wide knowledge of musical matters and can give more information than I can. 

6 March 1888 - Louisa May Alcott died.

American novelist, author of the enduring classic Little Women (1868). She followed it up with two sequels and a number of novels in a similar vein, but none quite reached the fame of Little Women.

This is probably the piece Prokovievs most famous for, as it's used in everything from dramas, films to adverts. It's The Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet

I know it as the theme tune for the BBC's The Apprentice, never knew it was Prokofiev.

7 March 1802 - Sir Edwin Landseer born.

English painter and sculptor who specialized in the portrayal of animals making him one of the most popular artists of the 19th century.

He sculpted the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square, installed in 1867, but is best known for his painting The Monarch of the Glen (1851) which has been reproduced many times since for a variety of uses, especially advertising of all things Scottish.

I love his paintings.

Mark, I feel like we're the only survivors of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. 

My survival skills are about as useless as theirs.

8 March 1859 - Kenneth Grahame born. 

British author, born in Scotland but lived in England. His main career was at the Bank of England so he had little time for writing. But after his retirement through ill health in 1908 he wrote the enduring children's classic The Wind in the Willows which has remained in print and been adapted for stage, screen and TV many times.

9 March 1763 - William Cobbett born.

The great English Radical writer of the early 19th century, but largely unknown today.

After an early career in the army he sailed for a new life in the fledgling USA in 1792 settling in Philadelphia. He opened a bookshop running a pro-British campaign much to the annoyance of his fellow Americans forcing him to return to England in 1800.

In 1802 he published a Radical newspaper The Political Register in which he attacked Britain's conduct of the war with France resulting in a two year prison sentence in 1810. In 1804 he also began publishing reports on Parliamentary debates, but financial difficulties compelled him to sell the publication rights to Thomas Hansard; today Hansard's remains the official record of events in Parliament.

His increasing condemnation of the government and his campaigns for the underprivileged again sent him into voluntary exile in the USA in 1817 where he remained for two years. Upon his return he campaigned tirelessly on behalf of the poor, especially the rural poor. Between 1822 and 1826 he published Rural Rides accounts and observations of life in the rural south and Midlands of England published together in book form in 1830.

He was elected to Parliament at the fifth attempt in 1832 aged 69 and died three years later.

Wind in the Willows will ever be a go-to for children, but my personal favourite was The Reluctant Dragon.  "Don't you bung stones" is still used in my house.

Over here bung, in that context, means to throw, is it a word used in the US?

10 March 1934 - Thomas Anstey Guthrie died.

English novelist who wrote under the name F Anstey. By far his best known work is his first novel Vice Versa (1882) about a father and son changing bodies which has been dramatized several times. None of his subsequent novels received such popularity, except perhaps The Brass Bottle (1900) which was the inspiration for the US TV series I Dream of Jeannie.

Actually, Major, I don't recall anyone ever using the word "bung" in a sentence over here, so it is not a common word at all.  My son and I figured it out easily from the drawing in the book where the boy and the dragon are sizing each other up.  It is the dragon who says "don't you hit me, or bung stones, or squirt water" to the boy.  We coined the term to mean verbal barbs or false allegations.  It was a delight to be reminded of Kenneth Grahame.  I still have my copy of The Reluctant Dragon.  The price stamped on the cover: $1.00 new.

Allow me to insert a sweet here from when we learned the months with Maurice Sendak:

"In March the wind blows down my door

and spills my soup upon the floor

It laps it up and roars for more.

Blowing once, blowing twice

Blowing chicken soup with rice."

11 March 1970 - Erle Stanley Gardner died.

American author best known for his Perry Mason series of detective novels and short stories - nearly 90 between 1933 and 1973 (two posthumously). He was a prolific writer producing hundreds more under a variety of pseudonyms along with a number of travel books. 

He died aged 80 as the USA's best selling novelist of the 20th century.