WTI Magazine #10 2013 Dec, 20
Author : Paolo Battaglia Translation by:
December 11, 1882 - Birth of Fiorello LaGuardia
Fiorello LaGuardia was certainly one of the most well-known Italian politicians of the 20th century. Nicknamed "the Little Flower," One of LaGuardia's first jobs was as an interpreter at Ellis Island where he looked on the procession of thousands of compatriots that came to seek their fortunes in America. In 1916, at the age of thirty-four, he was elected for the first time to Congress as a Republican. He served as a congressman until 1933, when he initiated the tradition of Italian American mayors in New York City. In the picture he is with Angelo J. Rossi (Italian American mayor of San Francisco) and with the mayor of Havana, Cuba, Antonio Mendieta Beruff at a mayors conference in Washington, D.C., in 1937.
December 12, 1871 Antonio Meucci
On 12 December 1871 Antonio Meucci set up an agreement with some Italian American businessmen in order to constitute the Telettrofono Company and to file a patent numbered 3335 and titled "Sound Telegraph". The photo shows several veterans of the Italian wars. The white-bearded man in the foreground is Antonio Meucci, who had hosted Giuseppe Garibaldi in his Staten Island home during his exile in the United States in the 1850's.
December 18, 1882 - Birth of Ralph De Palma
Ralph De Palma arrived as a child from the province of Foggia (Puglia), and grew up in Brooklyn. He was one of the most successful racecar drivers of his era, winning, among other competitions, the Indianapolis 500 in 1915 in a Mercedes, the same car he drove to win the Vanderbilt Cup in 1914 (in the photo)
December 20, 1961 - Italian release of "Colazione da Tiffany" (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
The soundtrack of the Blake Edward's movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" contains one of the standards of modern music: "Moon River" composed by Henry Mancini. Mancini (shown conducting) was nominated for a record-breaking seventy-two Grammys. (He won twenty). His standards include also the theme to The Pink Panther, and "The Days of Wine and Roses."
