Holmenkollen Ski Festival

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Holmenkollrennene or Holmenkollen skifestival, in English Holmenkollen ski festival, is a traditional annual ski event in Holmenkollen, Oslo, Norway. The full official name of the event is Holmenkollen FIS World Cup Nordic. The event is taking place in March and except for 1898 and the war years 1941–1945 it has been arranged every year since 1892. It is arranged by Skiforeningen.

Arbor Day

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Women's Day

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Vasaloppet

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Alessandro Manzon's Birthday

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Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni (7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet and novelist. He is famous for the novel The Betrothed, generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature.

Manzoni was born in Milan, Italy, on 7 March 1785. Pietro, his father, aged about fifty, belonged to an old family of Lecco, originally feudal lords of Barzio, in the Valsassina. The poet's maternal grandfather, Cesare Beccaria, was a well-known author, and his mother Giulia had literary talent as well. The young Alessandro spent his first two years of life in cascina Costa in Galbiate and he was wet-nursed by Caterina Panzeri, as attested by a memorial plate affixed in the place. In 1793 his parents broke their marriage and his mother began a relationship with the highbrow Carlo Imbonati, moving to England and later to Paris. For this reason, their son was brought up in several religious institutes. Alessandro Manzoni was a slow developer, and at the various colleges he attended he was considered a dunce. At fifteen, however, he developed a passion for poetry, and wrote two sonnets of considerable merit. Upon the death of his father in 1805, he joined the freethinking household of his mother at Auteuil, and spent two years mixing with the literary set of the so-called "ideologues", philosophers of the 18th-century school, among whom he made many friends, notably Claude Charles Fauriel. There too he imbibed the anti-Catholic creed of Voltairianism. [Read more on Wikipedia]

Vivaldi's Birthday

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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741), nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.

Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for poor and illegitimate children where Vivaldi worked between 1703 and 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income.

Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers. [Read more on Wikipedia]

A portrait of Antonio Vivaldi in 1725

Girl’s Day

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