Timeline Austria
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25000BC
In 2005 archaeologists in northern Austria reported finding the remains
of two newborns dating back 27,000 years while excavating a hillside
near Krems. The newborns were buried beneath mammoth bones and with a
string of 31 beads, suggesting that the internment involved some sort
of ritual.
(AP, 9/26/05)
4800BC-4600BC More than 150 large temples,
constructed between during this period, were unearthed in fields and
cities in Germany, Austria and Slovakia in 2002-2005. A village at
Aythra, near Leipzig in eastern Germany, was home to some 300 people
living in up to 20 large buildings around the temple.
(AP, 6/12/05)
c3300BCE German hikers Erica and Helmut Simon
found a well-preserved prehistoric corpse, later named Otzi (Frozen
Fritz), on Sep 19, 1991, in a glacier on the Hauslabjoch Pass, about
100 yards from Austria in northern Italy. It was kept at the Univ. of
Innsbruck for study. In 1998 analysis indicated that the Ice Man had
internal parasites and carried the woody fruit of a tree fungus as a
remedy. Tattoos on the body were also found to be placed over areas of
active arthritis. A flint arrow was also found in his back.
(SFC, 4/27/96, p.A-5)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A4)(SFEC,
5/7/00, p.T4)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A1)
c1000BCE A Bronze Age salt mine of this time in
Hallstatt, Austria, had a pine and spruce staircase that survived into
the 21st century.
(Arch, 1/05, p.10)
899 Dec 8, Arnulf of Carinthia,
last emperor of Austria-France, died.
(MC, 12/8/01)
997 The name "Austria" first
appeared in a medieval manuscript.
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A16)
1192 Dec 20, English King Richard
I the Lion Hearted was captured in Austria on his return from the Third
Crusade. An entire year’s supply of wool from the Cistercian and two
other monasteries in England was promised as ransom for the King.
It was never paid in full.
(NG, 5.1988, pp. 569)(MC, 12/20/01)
1235 Jan 2, Emperor Joseph II
ordered the Jews of Galicia, Austria, to adopt family names.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1267 May 10, Vienna's Catholic
church ordered all Jews to wear distinctive garb.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1295 Trieste became a Free
Imperial City.
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Trieste.html)
1298 Jun 24, Rindfleish
Persecutions: Jews of Ifhauben, Austria, were massacred.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1298 Jul 2, An army under Albert
of Austria defeated and killed Adolf of Nassua near Worms, Germany.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1308 May 1, King Albert [of
Austria] was murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share
of the Habsburg lands.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1312 The Knights Templar were
suppressed by Pope Clement at the Council of Vienna. Pressured by King
Philip of France, Pope Clement reversed his 1308 decision and
suppressed the order.
(AHD, 1971, p.724)(SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(AP,
10/12/07)
1315 Nov 15, Swiss soldiers
ambushed and slaughtered invading Austrians in the battle of Morgarten.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1347-1350 Oct, The Black Death: A Genoese trading
post in the Crimea was besieged by an army of Kipchaks from Hungary and
Mongols from the East. The latter brought with them a new form of
plague. Infected dead bodies were catapulted into the Genoese town. One
Genoese ship managed to escape and brought the disease to Messina, in
Sicily. From this time forth the disease became an epidemic. It moved
over the next few years to northern Italy, North Africa, France, Spain,
Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, the Low countries, England,
Scandinavia and the Baltic. There were lesser outbreaks in many cities
for the next twenty years. An estimated 25 million died in Europe and
economic depression followed.
(V.D.-H.K.p.151)(NG, 5/88, p.678)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R42)
1365 The University of Vienna was
founded by Duke Rudolph IV.
(StuAus, April '95, p.2)
1386 The counts of Habsburg tried
to reach their goals by military force but were again defeated by Swiss
forces at the battle of Sempach.
(http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/old-swiss-confederacy-1291.html)
1388 The counts of Habsburg tried
to reach their goals by military force but were again defeated by Swiss
forces at the battle of Naefels.
(http://history-switzerland.geschichte-schweiz.ch/old-swiss-confederacy-1291.html)
1415 Sep 21, Frederick III, German
Emperor (1440-1493), was born in Innsbruck Austria.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1421 May 11, Jews were expelled
from Styria, Austria.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1421 May 23, Jews of Austria were
imprisoned and expelled.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1429 Jan 10, Order of Golden
Fleece was established in Austria-Hungary & Spain.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1447 The winged altarpiece of
Stephensdom in Vienna was completed. The cathedral also contains the
tomb of Friedrich III.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.67)
1477 Future Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I, a member of the Habsburg family of Austria, married Mary
of Burgundy, heiress of all the Netherlands. Maximilian had given Mary
a diamond engagement ring, a practice that soon spread. In 1996 Andrew
Wheatcroft wrote a history of the Habsburgs: "The Habsburgs."
(WSJ, 1/19/96, p.A-12)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.6)(SFC,
5/28/08, p.G2)
1477 The Seventeen Provinces, a
personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century,
became the property of the Habsburgs. They roughly covered the current
Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France
(Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1490 Anne of Brittany married by
proxy the recently widowed Maximilian of Hapsburg who had inherited
Burgundy and Flanders from his first wife. Brittany was under siege by
France and Maximilian failed to send troops in its defense. Anne had
her marriage annulled and married the French Dauphin who had been
engaged to marry Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Maximilian and
Mary of Burgundy. Anne’s portrait was later painted by Jan Mostaert.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A13)
1490 Linz became the capital of
the province of Upper Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.76)
1493 The World Chronicle of
Hartmann Schedel is held at the Library of the Academy of Fine Arts in
Vienna.
(StuAus, April '95, p.49)
1496 Mar 9, Jews were expelled
from Carinthia, Austria.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1498 Emperor Maximilian I
relocated his court from Innsbruck to Vienna and brought along the
court musicians. He also decided to include boy singers which gave rise
to The Vienna Boys School and Choir. In 1918 the Austrian government
took control of the court musicians, but not the boys choir, which
became a private institution. The boys choir began to give public
concerts in 1926. In 2007 the choir accepted its first African-born
member, Jens Ibsen (12) of Daly City, Ca.
(SFC, 12/8/07, p.A8)
1513 Jun 6, Battle at Novara:
Habsburgers vs. Valois.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1515 Jul 22, Emperor Maximillian
and Vladislav of Bohemia forged an alliance between the Habsburg
[Austria] and Jagiello [Polish-Lithuanian] dynasties in Vienna.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1516 Feb 23, The Hapsburg Charles
I succeeded Ferdinand in Spain.
(HN, 2/23/99)
1519 Jan 12, Maximilian I of
Hapsburg (59), Holy Roman Emperor and German Kaiser, died.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.11)(AP, 1/12/98)(PC, 1992, p.170)
1519 Jul 6, Charles of Spain was
elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona. The Catholic heir to the
Hapsburg dynasty, Charles V, was elected Holy Roman Emperor, combining
the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), Austria and
Germany. He was the grandson of Ferdnand and Isabella of Spain.
(V.D.-H.K.p.162)(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 7/6/98)
1522 Feb 7, Treaty of Brussels:
Habsburgers split into Spanish and Austrian Branches.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1523 Hans Judenkonig published in
Vienna the first manual of lute playing.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1526 Ferdinand of Austria was
elected King of Bohemia and inaugurated the Austro-Hungarian state.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(WSJ, 7/14/99, p.A23)
1527 Croatia formed a state union
with Austria.
(WSJ, 7/14/99, p.A23)
1529 Oct 15, Ottoman armies under
Suleiman ended their siege of Vienna and head back to Belgrade. The
Ottomans siege of Vienna was a key battle of world history. The Ottoman
Empire reached its peak with the Turks settled in Buda on the left bank
of the Danube after failing in their siege of Vienna.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)(TL-MB, 1988, p.13)(HN,
10/15/98)
1536 Feb 25, Jacob Hutter
(d.1536), Anabaptist evangelist from South Tyrol, was burned as a
heretic in Austria. He had founded of a "community of love" in 1528,
whose members shared everything.
(TL-MB, 1988,
p.13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Hutter)
1538 Feb 24, Ferdinand of Hapsburg
and John Zapolyai, the two kings of Hungary, concluded the peace of
Grosswardein.
(HN, 2/24/99)
1544 Sep 19, Francis, the king of
France, and Charles V of Austria signed a peace treaty in Crespy,
France, ending a 20-year war. The Peace of Crespy ended the fighting
between Charles V and Francis I. Henry VIII was not consulted. France
surrendered much territory and Charles gave up his claim to Burgundy.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)(HN, 9/19/98)
1556 Sep 9, Pope Paul IV refused
to crown Ferdinand of Austria emperor.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1556 Sep 12, Emperor Charles
resigned and his brother Ferdinand of Austria took over. Charles V
resigned and ended his days in a Spanish monastery. He bequeathed Spain
to his son Philip II, and the Holy Roman Empire to his brother
Ferdinand I. A few years of peace in Europe followed. The event formed
the basis for a later historical play by Friedrich Schiller, which was
in turn used by Verdi for his opera "Don Carlos."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.19)(WSJ, 3/21/96, p.A-12)(MC,
9/12/01)
1562 The Jesuits established a
secondary school in Innsbruck. It later became the Univ. of Innsbruck.
c1562 Austrian Archduke Maximilian
began breeding Spanish Andalusian horses.
(SFC, 7/6/02, p.D2)
1568 The Spanish Riding School in
Vienna began operating and became world famous for their Lipizzaners,
white horses.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.T5)
1571 Oct 7, Spanish, Genoese and
Venetian ships of the Christian League defeated an Ottoman fleet in the
naval Battle of Lepanto, Greece. In the last great clash of galleys,
the Ottoman navy lost 117 ships to a Christian naval coalition under
the overall command of Spain's Don Juan de Austria.
(AP,
10/7/07)(www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1760264/posts)
1574 A provincial academy was
founded in Linz.
(StuAus, April '95, p.39)
1576 Rudolf II was crowned King of
the Holy Roman Empire and moved the Imperial Court from Vienna to
Prague.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)
1578 Don John of Austria died of
fever. He was succeeded as Governor of the Netherlands by Alessandro
Farnese, Duke of Parma.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Jan 6, The Union of Atrecht
(French: Arras) was an accord signed in Atrecht (Arras), under which
the southern states of the Spanish Netherlands, today in Wallonia and
the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (and Picardy) regions in France, expressed their
loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized the landlord, Don
Juan de Austria. It is to be distinguished from the Union of Utrecht,
signed later in the same month. The Peace of Arras ensured that the
southern provinces of The Netherlands were reconciled to Philip II. It
joined the Low Country Walloons (Catholics) with those of Hainaut and
Artois.
(http://en.allexperts.com/e/u/un/union_of_atrecht.htm)(PCh, 1992, p.200)
1580 Austrian Archduke Karl
created a royal stud farm for horses in Lipizza.
(SFC, 7/6/02, p.D2)
1583 Rudolf II moved the Imperial
Court of the Holy Roman Empire from Vienna to Prague.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)
1585 Archduke Karl II, ruler of
Styria, granted the Faculties of Arts and Catholic Theology in Graz an
official Univ. charter. He entrusted the Jesuits with the
administration.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1586 Sep 10, Hans Hannibal Hutter
von Hutterhofen, Austrian nobleman, was born. Johannes Kepler later
drew up his horoscope.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A7)
1612-1626 Johannes Kepler, the Imperial Court
Mathematician of the Habsburgs, taught at the provincial academy of
Linz. Here he published his famous work Harmonices Mundi.
(StuAus, April '95, p.79)
1622 Paris Lodron, the
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, founded the Univ. of Salzburg.
(StuAus, April '95, p.87)
1625 May 15, In Upper Austria 16
rebellious farmers were hanged in Varcklamarkt.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1628 Aug 1, Emperor Ferdinand II
demanded that Austria Protestants convert to Catholicism.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1636 Aug 8, The invading armies of
Spain, Austria and Bavaria were stopped at the village of
St.-Jean-de-Losne, only 50 miles from France.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1640 Jun 9, Leopold I, Emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire (1658-1705), was born.
(HN
6/9/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1663 Apr 18, Osman declared war on
Austria.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1661-1714 Peter Strudel, Austrian painter, he was a
court painter of the Habsburgs and founded an art school that later
became the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
(StuAus, April '95, p.47)
1669 Emperor Leopold I sanctioned
the foundation of a higher school in Innsbruck, Austria. This is
considered to mark the founding of the Univ. of Innsbruck.
(StuAus, April '95, p.97)
1670 Feb 14, Roman Catholic
emperor Leopold I chased the Jews out of Vienna.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1670 Feb 27, Jews were expelled
from Austria by order of Leopold I.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1670 Jul 25, Jews were expelled
from Vienna, Austria.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1677 Pope Innocent XII confirmed
the imperial foundation of the Univ. of Innsbruck in a papal bull that
emphasized the Catholic character of the Univ. and decreed that the
important chairs of the Faculty of Theology be filled by members of the
Jesuit order.
(StuAus, April '95, p.97)
1678 Jul 26, Joseph I Habsburg,
German king, Roman catholic emperor (1705-11), was born.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1683 Feb 12, A Christian Army, led
by Charles, the Duke of Lorraine and King John Sobieski of Poland,
routed a huge Ottoman army surrounding Vienna.
(HN, 2/12/99)
1683 Sep 3, Turkish troops broke
through the defense of Vienna.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1683 Sep 12, A combined Austrian
and Polish army defeated the Ottoman Turks at Kahlenberg and lifted the
siege on Vienna, Austria. Prince Eugene of Savoy helped repel an
invasion of Vienna, Austria, by Turkish forces. Marco d'Aviano, sent by
Pope Innocent XI to unite the outnumbered Christian troops, spurred
them to victory. The Turks left behind sacks of coffee which the
Christians found too bitter, so they sweetened it with honey and milk
and named the drink cappuccino after the Capuchin order of monks to
which d'Aviano belonged. An Austrian baker created a crescent-shaped
roll, the Kipfel, to celebrate the victory. Empress Maria Theresa later
took it to France where it became the croissant. In 2006 John Stoye
authored “The Siege of Vienna.”
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-16)(HN,
9/12/98)(SFEC, 2/6/00, p.A1)(Reuters, 4/28/03)(WSJ, 6/3/03, p.D5) (WSJ,
12/6/06, p.D12)
1686 Jul 8, The Austrians took
Buda, Hungary, from the Turks and annexed the country. Hapsburg rule
lasted to 1918.
(HN, 7/8/98)(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1692 The Austrian Emperor assumes
the patronage of the Vienna art school founded by Peter Strudel and it
becomes the Academy of Fine Arts.
(StuAus, April '95, p.47)
1697 Sep 20, The Treaty of Ryswick
was signed in Holland. It ended the War of the Grand Alliance (aka War
of the League of Augsburg,1688-1697) between France and the Grand
Alliance. Under the Treaty France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715)
recognized William III (1650-1702) as King of England. The Dutch
received trade concessions, and France and the Grand Alliance members
(Holland and the Austrian Hapsburgs) gave up most of the land they had
conquered since 1679. The signees included France, England, Spain and
Holland. By the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally
ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The remaining
Spanish section was called Santo Domingo.
(www.caribbeanguides.net/hispaniola.htm)(www.jacobite.ca/documents/1697ryswick.htm)
1699 Jan 26, The Treaty of
Karlowitz ended the war between Austria and the Turks.
(HN, 1/26/99)
1701 Sep 7, England, Austria, and
the Netherlands formed an Alliance against France.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1703 Sep 30, The French, at
Hochstadt in the War of the Spanish Succession, suffered only 1,000
casualties to the 11,000 of their opponents, the Austrians of Holy
Roman Emperor Leopold I.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1704 Aug 13, The Battle of
Blenheim, Germany, was fought during the War of the Spanish Succession,
resulting in a victory for English and Austrian forces. The Duke of
Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Austria defeated the French Army at
the Battle of Blenheim. In 1705 Joseph Addison wrote the poem "The
Campaign" for the Duke of Marlborough to commemorate the military
victory over France and Spain at the Battle of Blenheim: "Do you not
think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.A6)
1705 May 5, Leopold I von Hapsburg
(b.1640), Emperor of Holy Roman Empire, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor)
1706 Mar 8, Vienna's Wiener
Stadtbank was established.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1713 Most European powers vowed to
respect the 1713 royal pronouncement of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles
VI, called the Pragmatic Sanction, in which he declared that if he had
no direct male heir upon his death, his Austrian domains would go to
his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa.
(HNQ, 7/29/99)
1713 The plague in Vienna ended.
The Karlskirche Church, designed by Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach
was built to commemorate this event. It is considered to be Vienna's
greatest Baroque church.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)
1717 May 13, Maria Theresa was
born in Vienna. She later became Archduchess of Austria, a Queen of
Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and a Holy Roman Empress.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_of_Austria)
1717 Aug 22, The Austrian army
forced the Turkish army out of Belgrade, ending the Turkish revival in
the Balkans.
(HN, 8/22/98)
1718 Jul 21, The Turkish threat to
Europe was eliminated with the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz
between Austria, Venice and the Ottoman Empire.
(HN, 7/21/98)
1732 Mar 31, Joseph Haydn
(d.1809), Austrian composer who helped develop the classical style, was
born. In his career he composed 104 symphonies, 82 string quartets and
60 piano sonatas. He also wrote some 175 baritone pieces for his
patron, the Hungarian prince Nickolaus Esterhazy, who played the
complex stringed instrument. The Canadian scholar David Schroeder
wrote: "Haydn and the Enlightenment."
(CFA, '96,Vol 179, p.42)(WUD, 1994, p.651)(WSJ,
8/26/97, p.A14)(HN, 3/31/98)
1732 The Kaiserbrunn (emperor’s
brook) was discovered by Emperor Charles VI while on a hunting
expedition. It later supplied over half of Vienna's daily requirement
of drinking water, through a 130-km-long, rock-cut tunnel called the
First Vienna Mountain Spring Pipeline, constructed in 1873.
(www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2006/12/10/stories/2006121000080200.htm)
1733 Oct 10, France declared war
on Austria over the question of Polish succession.
(HN, 10/10/98)
1737 Jul 18, The Turkish army beat
the Austrians in the Battle at Banja Luka.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1737 Sep 14, Johann Michael Haydn
(d.1806), composer and younger brother of Franz Joseph, was born in
Austria.
(http://www.haydn.dk/index.php)
1739 Sep 18, Turkey and Austria
signed peace treaty with Austria ceding Belgrade to Turks. [see Sep 23]
(MC, 9/18/01)
1739 Sep 23, The Austrians signed
the Treaty of Belgrade after having lost the city to the Turks.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1740 Oct 20, Maria Theresa became
ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia upon the death of her father,
Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.
(AP, 10/20/06)
1740 The ignoring of the Pragmatic
Sanction of 1713 led to the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740.
When Charles VI died in 1740, Maria Theresa’s claim was ignored by
Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, Augustus III of Saxony and Poland,
and Philip V of Spain, igniting a general European war.
(HNQ, 7/29/99)
1741 Mar 13, Jozef II, arch duke
of Austria, Roman Catholic German emperor (1765-90), was born.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1741 Jun 11, Austria ceded most of
Silesia to Prussia by Treaty of Breslau.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1742 Jan 24, Charles VII was
crowned Holy Roman Emperor during the War of the Austrian Succession.
(AP, 1/24/07)
1742 May 17, Frederick great
(Emperor of Prussia) beat Austrians.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1743 Sep 13, England, Austria
& Savoye-Sardinia signed the Treaty of Worms.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1744 Nov 25, Austrian forces
pillaged and killed Jews of Prague.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1744 The Royal Porcelain
Manufactory of Vienna began to use an upside down shield, resembling a
beehive, as its emblem. Royal Vienna porcelain was made until 1864.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 10/17/07, p.G2)
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria,
Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1745 Jun 4, Frederick the Great of
Prussia defeated the Austrians & Saxons.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1745 Dec 25, Prussia and Austria
signed the Treaty of Dresden. This gave much of Silesia to the
Prussians.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1747 Sep 16, The French captured
Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in
the Netherlands.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1748 Oct 18, The Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle brought the war of Austrian Succession, which began in
1840, to an end and upheld the Pragmatic Sanction.
(HNQ, 7/29/99)(MC, 10/18/01)
1749 King George commissioned
Handel’s "Music for the Royal Fireworks" to highlight the end of the
War of the Austrian Succession.
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A20)
1750 The Jesuits at the Univ. of
Graz assumed a leading role in the reception of the work of Isaac
Newton in Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1751 Jul 30, Maria A. [Nannerl]
Mozart, Austrian pianist, Wolfgang's sister, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1756 Jan 27, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart (d.1791) was born on Gertreiderstrasse in Salzburg, Austria, the
son of violinist and composer Leopold Mozart. He later played string
quartets with Johan Baptist Vanhal, Haydn and Dittersdorf. The young
Mozart began composing minuets at age 5 and, with his older sister
Marianne, gave concerts in Munich and Vienna from age 6. At 13, Mozart
became director of concerts for the archbishop of Salzburg and in 1782
he married Constanze Weber against her father's wishes. Although Mozart
gave piano concerts throughout Europe and composed more than 600 works,
including 40 symphonies, he and his wife were plagued by debt. When
Mozart died in 1791, probably of heart disease, he was buried in an
unmarked pauper's grave. It was not until his works were published, in
many cases near the end of the 19th century, that Mozart's genius
became widely recognized. His works included "The Marriage of Figaro"
and "The Magic Flute." In 2005 Stanley Sadie authored “Mozart: The
Early Years,” which chronicled Mozart’s life to age 25.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, Par p.11)(HNPD, 1/26/99)(HN,
1/27/99)(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.D8)
1756-1763 The Seven Years War. France and Great
Britain clashed both in Europe and in North America. In 2000 "Crucible
of War" by Fred Anderson was published. France, Russia, Austria,
Saxony, Sweden and Spain stood against Britain, Prussia and Hanover.
Britain financed Prussia to block France in Europe while her manpower
was occupied in America.
(V.D.-H.K.p.223)(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)(WSJ, 2/10/00,
p.A16)
1757 Jun 18, Battle at Kolin,
Bohemia: Austrian army beat Prussia.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1757 Nov 22, Austrians defeated
Prussians at Breslau in the Seven Years War.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1760 Jun 23, Austrians defeated
the Prussians at Landshut, Germany.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1760 Aug 15, Frederick II
(1712-1786), king of Prussia, defeated the Austrians at the
Battle of Liegnitz.
(HN, 8/15/98)(WUD, 1994, p.565)
1760 Oct 9, Austrian and Russian
troops entered Berlin and began burning structures and looting.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1760 Nov 3, Following the Russian
capture of Berlin, Frederick II of Prussia defeated the Austrians at
the Battle of Torgau (Germany).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Torgau)
1762 Aug 5, Russia, Prussia and
Austria signed a treaty agreeing on the partition of Poland.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1762 Oct 5, Gluck's opera "Orfeo
ed Euridice" had its premiere at Vienna’s Burgtheater on the namesday
of Emp. Francis I. Gluck revised "Orpheus and Euridice" in 1774 for the
Paris Royal Opera.
(WSJ, 4/11/96, p.A-16)(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A20)(MC,
10/5/01)
1762 Dec 31, The Mozart family
moved from Vienna to Salzburg.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1764 Apr 3, Austrian arch duke
Jozef crowned himself Roman Catholic king.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1765 Mar 24, Austrian Empress
Maria Theresa issued a decree to establish a School for Healing Animal
Diseases. This led to the founding of the Univ. of Veterinary Medicine.
(StuAus, April '95, p.23)
1766 Mar 28, Joseph Weigl,
Austrian composer, conductor (Emmeline), was born.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1767 May 13, Mozart's opera
"Apollo et Hyacinthus," premiered in Salzburg.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1767 Christophe Willibald Gluck,
Vienna court Kappellmeister, composed his opera "Alcestis." It was
revised in 1776 for the Royal Paris Opera.
(WSJ, 10/21/99, p.A20)
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen of
Hungary invented the Automoton Chess Player. It was 1st demonstrated to
the Austrian court in 1770. In 2001 the deception was analyzed by James
W. Cook in his book "The Arts of Deception." In 2002 Tom Standage
authored "The Turk," an examination of the 18th century fascination
with automatons.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/12/02, p.W12)
1772 Upon the partition of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the Kingdom of Galicia and
Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, became the largest, most populous, and
northernmost province of Austria where it remained until the
dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Central_Europe))
1773 May 15, Prince Clemens Von
Metternich (d.1859), Chancellor of Austria, was born in Coblenz. His
policies dominated Europe after the Congress of Vienna.
(HN, 5/15/99)(WUD, 1994 ed., p.903)
1773 The Jesuit Order was
abolished at the Univ. of Graz.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1774 Dec 18, Empress Maria Theresa
expelled Jews from Prague, Bohemia and Moravia.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1775 Apr 8, Adam A. earl von
Neipperg, Austrian general, Napoleon's wife Marie lover, was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1775 Apr 23, Mozart's Opera "Il Re
Pastore" was produced (Salzburg).
(MC, 4/23/02)
1777 May 13, University library at
Vienna opened.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1778 The Faculty of Law was
established at the Univ. of Graz.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1780 Nov 29, Maria Theresa
Hapsburg (63), Queen of Austria, died.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1781 May 1, Emperor Josef II
decreed protection of population.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1781 May 25, Ferdinand, archduke
of Austria-Este, Governor-General (Sicily), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1781 Sep 6, Anton Diabelli,
Austria publisher and composer, was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1781 Count Arco, a secretary of
Austria’s Archbishop of Salzburg, fired Mozart from the service of the
Archbishop. Mozart then began working on his comic opera “The Abduction
from the Seraglio,” which premiered the next year.
(WSJ, 4/25/08, p.W14)
1782 Jul 16, Mozart's opera "Das
Entfuehrung aus dem Serail" (The Abduction from the Seraglio) premiered
in Vienna.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1782 The Univ. of Innsbruck was
changed to a lyceum with four departments.
(StuAus, April '95, p.97)
1783 After this year German
officially replace Latin as the language of instruction.
(StuAus, April '95, p.17)
1784 Apr 29, Premiere of Mozart's
Sonata in B flat, K454 (Vienna).
(MC, 4/29/02)
1785 Sep 1, Mozart published his
6th string quartet opus 10 in Vienna.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1787 Feb 18, Austrian emperor
Josef II banned children under 8 from labor.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1787 May 28, Johann Georg Leopold
Mozart (67), Austrian composer, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1787 Aug 10, Mozart completed his
"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."
(MC, 8/10/02)
1787 Aug 24, Wolfgang A. Mozart
completed his viola sonata in A, K526.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1787 Nov 25, Franz Xavier Gruber,
Austria, organist and composer (Silent Night), was born.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1788 Dec 18, Camille Pleyel,
Austrian piano builder and composer, was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1788 The Café Frauenhuber
was established in Vienna in what had been a medieval bathhouse.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C14)
c1789 The Marquis de Lafayette
wrote the original version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He
was appalled by the excesses of the revolution and fled to Austria
where he was imprisoned for 5 years.
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A12)
1790 Jan 2, Mozart's opera "Cosi
fan tutti" premiered in Vienna. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/2/02)
1790 Jan 26, Mozart's opera "Cosi
Fan Tutte" premiered in Vienna. [see Jan 2]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1791 Feb 20, Carl Czerny, pianist,
composer (Schule der Virtuosen), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1791 Jul 26, Franz Xavier Wolfgang
Mozart, 6th child of Austrian composer WAM, was born.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1791 Aug 4, The chief item in the
Peace of Sistova agreement between the Austrian Empire and Turkey was
the return of Belgrade to Turkey. The peace initiative resulted from
the terms of the Convention of Reichenbach between Prussia and Austria.
Belgrade had been taken in 1789 by the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II.
(HNQ, 6/25/99)
1791 Dec 5, Austrian composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, Austria, at age 35. His first
opera was "Idomeneo." In 1920 Hermann Abert authored “W.A. Mozart.” In
1991 Georg Knepler authored "Wolfang Amade Mozart," a Marxist view of
Mozart in his times. In 1995 Maynard Solomon published a psychoanalytic
biography of Mozart. In 1999 Peter Gay authored a Penguin short life of
Mozart and Robert W. Gutman authored the comprehensive biography
"Mozart."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.54)(AP, 12/5/97)(WSJ, 12/2/99,
p.A20)(WSJ, 3/1/08, p.W8)
1791 The lyceum at Innsbruck was
again granted University status.
(StuAus, April '95, p.97)
1792 Feb 7, Cimarosa's opera "Il
Matrimonio Segreto," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1792 Apr 20, France declared war
on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia, marking the start of the French
Revolutionary wars.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)
1792 Nov 6, Battle at Jemappes:
French army beat the Austrians.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1792 Dec 12, In Vienna Ludwig Van
Beethoven (22) received 1st lesson in music composition from Franz
Joseph Haydn.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1793 Mar 5, Austrian troops crush
the French and recapture Liege.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1793 Mar 18, The 2nd Battle at
Neerwinden: Austria army beat France.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1794 May 18, The 2nd battle of
Bouvines was between France and Austria.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1794 Jun 26, The French defeated
an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus. The French used a tethered
balloon to observe the battlefield and direct artillery fire.
(www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fleurus_1794.html)(NPub, 2002,
p.4)
1794 Sep 28, The
Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which was directed
against France, was signed.
(HN, 9/28/98)
1794-1824 Matthias Schmutzer, artist, produced over
1000 large-format watercolors of specimens from the imperial
gardens of Francis I. In 2006 H. Walter Lack authored
“Florilegium Imperiale: Botanical Illustrations for Francis I of
Austria.”
(WSJ, 5/27/06, p.P9)
1795 Mar 29, Beethoven (24)
debuted as pianist in Vienna.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1795 Aug 20, Joseph Haydn returned
to Vienna from England.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1795 Oct 24, Russia, Austria and
Prussia held a convention in Petersburg to finalize the 3rd division of
the Polish-Lithuanian Republic. Most of Lithuania with Vilnius went to
Russia, Warsaw and the left bank of the Nemunas River went to Prussia
and Cracow went to Austria. King Stanislovas Augustas of Poland was
forced from his capital and moved to Grodno (Gardinas).
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.5)(MC, 10/24/01)
1796 Apr 13, Battle at Millesimo,
Italy: Napoleon beat the Austrians.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1796 May 10, Napoleon Bonaparte
won a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
(HN, 5/10/99)
c1796 Numbered bank accounts
originated during the Hapsburg era.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C2)
1797 Jan 15, In St. Petersburg
Russia, Prussia and Austria signed and act that terminated the
Lithuanian-Polish state.
(LHC, 1/15/03)
1797 Jan 14, Napoleon Bonaparte
defeated Austrians at Rivoli in northern Italy.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1797 Jan 31, Franz
Schubert, Austrian composer, was born in Lichtenthal, Austria. His
works included the C Major Symphony and The Unfinished Symphony.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B11)(AP, 1/31/98)(HN,
1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1797 Feb 12, Haydn’s song "Gott
erhalte Franz den Kaiser," (popularized years later as "Deutschland
Uber Alles," by Nazis), premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1797 Apr 18, France and Austria
signed a cease fire.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1798 Apr 28, Joseph Haydn's
oratorio "The Creation" was rehearsed in Vienna, Austria, before an
invited audience.
(AP, 4/29/07)
1798 The Piber Stud Farm began
breeding Lipizzaner horses.
(SFC, 7/6/02, p.D2)
1799 Mar 12, Austria declared war
on France.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1799 Mar 19, Joseph Haydn’s "Die
Schopfung," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1799 Jul 30, The French garrison
at Mantua, Italy surrendered to the Austrians.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1799 Oct 24, Carl Ditters von
Dittersdorf (59), Austrian composer, died.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1800 Jun 14, French General
Napoleon Bonaparte pushed the forces of Austria out of Italy in the
Battle of Marengo. In 2007 the sword he wore was auctioned off for over
$6.4 million.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marengo)(SFC, 6/11/07, p.A2)
1800 Dec 3, Austrians were
defeated by the French at the Battle of Hohenlinden, near Munich.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1801 Apr 12, Josef Franz Karl
Lanner, Austrian composer, violist, was born.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1803 Nov 29, Christian Doppler
(d.1853), Austrian physicist who discovered the Doppler effect, was
born. Hubble used his name for the Doppler Effect, that describes the
apparent change in the frequency of a wave depending on whether the
wave is approaching or receding.
(WUB, 1994, p.426)(HN, 11/29/98)
1805 Apr 7, Beethoven conducted
the premiere of his "Eroica" symphony. It was 1st published in Vienna.
(MC, 4/7/02)(WSJ, 5/20/03, p.A1)
1805 Aug 9, Austria joined
Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the
Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain.
(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 10/19/98)
1805 Oct 20, Austrian general Karl
Mac surrendered to Napoleon’s army at the battle of Ulm.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1805 Nov 20, Beethoven's
"Fidelio," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1805 Dec 2, Napoleon Bonaparte
celebrated the first anniversary of his coronation with a victory at
Austerlitz over a Russian and Austrian army.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1806-1813 Trieste was held under French rule.
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Trieste.html)
1808 Mar 27, Joseph Haydn’s
oratorio "The Seasons," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1808 Dec 21, Ludwig van
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor and Symphony No. 6 in F Major had
their world premieres in Vienna, Austria.
(AP, 12/22/06)
1809 Apr 10, Austria declared war
on France and her forces entered Bavaria.
(HN, 4/10/99)
1809 Apr 20, Napoleon defeated
Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1809 Apr 22, At the Battle at
Eckmahl Napoleon beat Austrian archduke Karl.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1809 May 31, Composer Franz Joseph
Haydn died in Vienna, Austria on his 77th birthday. When Napoleon’s
armies marched into Vienna, the commanding general posted guards in
front of Haydn’s house to protect Haydn from trouble, and a young
officer was sent to sing for the old man.
(AP, 5/31/97)(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1809 Jul 5-1809 Jul 6, Napoleon
beat Austria’s archduke Charles at the Battle of Wagram. He annexed the
Illyrian Provinces (now part of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro), and abolished the Papal States.
(http://tinyurl.com/vx8dk)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wagram)
1809 Aug 4, Hapsburg Emp. Francis
I appointed Count Clemens von Metternich (36) minister of state.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)
1809 Oct 8, Hapsburg Emp. Francis
I appointed Count Clemens von Metternich (36) foreign minister of
Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)(ON, 5/04, p.1)
1809 Oct 14, The Treaty of
Schönbrunn ended hostilities between France and Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.371)
1809 Dec 16, Napoleon Bonaparte
was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
Metternich had convinced Francis I of Austria to offer his daughter
Marie Louise as a bride to Napoleon.
(AP, 12/16/97)(ON, 5/04, p.2)
1810 Salzburg, Austria was annexed
by Bavaria during the Napoleonic Wars and the Univ. of Salzburg was
suspended. The Univ. of Innsbruck was also abolished and transformed
back to a Lyceum.
(StuAus, April '95, p.87,97)
1811 The Technical Univ. of Graz
was founded as a Technical College.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1812 Nov 29, After a charity
concert organized by a group of aristocratic women, Joseph von
Sonnleitner, Secretary of the court Theater, founded a Society for the
Friends of Music of the Austrian Imperial State. This led to the
establishment of a school for voice and a conservatory.
(StuAus, April '95, p.39)
1813 Jun 26, Metternich met with
Napoleon at Dresden and informed him that he must sue for peace if he
wanted continued Austrian support.
(ON, 5/04, p.3)
1813 Aug
26-1813 Aug 27, The Battle of Dresden was Napoleon’s last major victory
against the allied forces of Austria, Russia and Prussia.
(www.napoleonguide.com/battle_dresden.htm)
1813 Oct 16-1813, Oct 19, In the
Battle at Leipzig (aka Battle of the Nations) Napoleon faced Prussia,
Austria and Russia and suffered one of his worst defeats.
(DoW, 1999, p.325)
1813 Oct 18, The Allies defeated
Napoleon Bonaparte at Leipzig.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1814 Sep, The Congress of Vienna
convened in late September and continued to June 8, 1815. Friedrich von
Gentz of Austria served as secretary to the Congress. It was held after
the banishment of Napoleon to Elba. The congress aimed at territorial
resettlement and restoration to power of the crowned heads of Europe
with Prince Metternich of Austria as the dominant figure. Viscount
Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington represented Britain. Alexander I
stood for Russia. Talleyrand stood for France. Prince von Hardenberg
stood for Prussia. In 2007 Adam Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The
Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna.” In 2008 David King
authored “Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War
and Peace at the Congress of Vienna.
(Econ, 4/14/07,
p.94)(www.bartleby.com/65/vi/Vienna-C.html)(SSFC, 4/6/08, Books p.4)
1814 Dec 24, Austrian Emperor
Francis I appointed Joseph Ritter von Prechtl as the first director of
the Polytechnical Institute of Vienna.
(StuAus, April '95, p.23)
1814 In Austria rebuilding began
of the 14th century Arenberg Castle following a major fire.
(SFC, 4/20/09, p.A2)
1815 Jun 8, The Congress of Vienna
ended. Negotiations had begun in 1812 to rearrange Europe following the
defeat of Napoleon. The final conclave began Nov 1, 1814. In 2007 Adam
Zamoyski authored “Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the
Congress of Vienna.”
(www.victorianweb.org/history/forpol/vienna.html)(WSJ, 8/1/07, p.D7)
1815 Sep 26, Russia, Prussia and
Austria signed a Holy Alliance. "Justice, charity and peace" were to be
the precepts that guided the Holy Alliance as envisioned by Czar
Alexander I of Russia. The alliance of Russia, Austria and Prussia was
formed after the downfall of Napoleon and later all European rulers
signed the agreement except the prince regent of Great Britain, the
pope and the sultan of Turkey. With no specific aims beyond mutual
assistance, the provisions of the Holy Alliance were so vague that it
had little effect on European diplomacy. Metternich quietly replaced
the entire alliance by the purely political alliance of 20 November,
1815, between Austria, Prussia, Russia and England.
(www.newadvent.org/cathen/07398a.htm)(HNQ, 7/7/98)
1815 Nov 20, The treaties known
collectively as the 2nd Peace of Paris were concluded. Austria’s
chancellor Klemens von Metternich helped create a “Concert of Europe,”
a system by which 4-5 big powers kept miscreants in check and managed
the affairs of smaller states for over a decade.
(http://tinyurl.com/2sqgp9)(Econ, 6/9/07,
p.68)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/07398a.htm)
1815-1850 This period is covered on the referenced
website.
(http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/austria/austime.html)
1816 The Music Society of Styria
established a school for voice.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1818 Dec 24, Franz Gruber wrote
"Silent Night."
(HFA, '96, p.44)(SI-WPC, 12/6/96)
1818 Dec 25, "Silent Night" by
Franz Gruber was performed for the first time, at the Church of St.
Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/25/97)
1819 Johann Wilhelm Klein of
Vienna, Austria, published a book on training dogs for the blind.
(ON, 12/03, p.5)
1820 Dec, Franz Schubert composed
his String Quartet No. 12 in C Minor (Quartettsatz). It was only
introduced to the public in 1867.
(www.owlhaven.com/schubert/schubertchron.htm)
1821 Mar 26, Franz Grillparzer's
"Das Goldene Vliess" premiered in Vienna.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1821 An independent institution
for the instruction of Lutheran and reformed theologies was established
at the Univ. of Vienna.
(StuAus, April '95, p.18)
1822 Jul 22, Gregor Johann Mendel
(d.1884), Austrian botanist who developed the theory of heredity, was
born.
(HN, 7/22/98)(NH, 6/01, p.30)
1822 Oct 15, Alfred Meissner,
Austrian physician and writer, was born.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1823 Dec 20, Franz Schubert's
"Ballet-Musik aus Rosamunde," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1824 Sep 4, Anton Bruckner,
composer and Wagner disciple, was born in Austria.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1825 May 7, Italian composer
Antonio Salieri (74) died in Vienna, Austria.
(AP, 5/7/97)(MC, 5/7/02)
1825 Oct 25, Johann Strauss
(d.1899), Austrian orchestra conductor and composer, was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1405)(HN, 10/25/98)
1826 Mar 21, Beethoven's Quartet
#13 in B flat major (Op 130) premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1826 The Faculties of Philosophy
and Law were reestablished at the Univ. of Innsbruck.
(StuAus, April '95, p.97)
1827 Mar 26, Ludwig von Beethoven
(56), German composer, died in Vienna. He had been deaf for the later
part of his life, but said on his death bead "I shall hear in heaven."
It was later determined that he suffered from lead poisoning. In 1995
Tia DeNora authored "Beethoven and the Construction of Genius." In 2000
Russell Martin authored "Beethoven’s Hair: An Extraordinary Historical
Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved."
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A5)(AP, 3/256/97)(HN, 3/26/99)(SFC,
10/18/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/17/02, p.A12)
1827 Mar 29, Composer Ludwig van
Beethoven was buried in Vienna amidst a crowd of over 10,000 mourners.
(HN, 3/29/01)
1827 Aug 22, Josef Strauss,
Austrian composer (Dorfschwalben aus Austria), was born.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1827 Emperor Francis I
reestablishes the Univ. of Graz. It thus became known as the
Karl-Franzens Univ. in honor of its founder and patron of
reestablishment.
(StuAus, April '95, p.53)
1829 Oct 29, Maria A. [Nannerl]
Mozart, Austrian pianist (Wolfgang's sister), died.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1830-1916 Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, Austrian
writer: "No one is so eager to gain new experience as he who doesn’t
know how to make use of the old ones."
(AP, 11/6/00)
1831 Nov 14, Ignaz Joseph Pleyel
(74), Austrian composer and piano builder, died.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1831 The Austro-Italian insurance
company Assicurazioni Generali Austro-Italiche was established.
(www.generali.ro/eng_despre_noi/istorie.htm)
1836 Jan 27, Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer (masochism), was born.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1837 Oct 17, Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, Austrian composer, died at 58.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1838 Feb 20, Ludwig Boltzmann
(d.1906), Austrian atomic physics engineer, was born. [see 1844]
(HN, 2/20/98)
1840 May 29, Hans Makart, Austrian
painter (Plague in Florenz), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1840 Nov 4, The School for Mining
and Metallurgy in the village of Vordernberg was established.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1841 The Salzburg Cathedral's
Music Society founded the Mozarteum to preserve the memory of Mozart
and to promote the instruction and performance of music.
(StuAus, April '95, p.91)
1841 The Johann Maresch pottery
company began operating in Aussig, Bohemia (later Usti nad Labem, Czech
Rep.). At this time Bohemia was under Austrian rule and the firm used
the mark “JM Austria.”
(SFC, 9/12/07, p.G7)
1842 Apr 29, Karl Millocker,
conductor, composer (Beggar Student), was born in Austria.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1843 Apr 14, Joseph Franz Karl
Lanner (42), Austria, composer, violist, died.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1844-1906 Ludwig Boltzmann (d.1906), Austrian atomic
physics engineer, was born. His Vienna tombstone read "Entropy is the
logarithm of probability." [see 1838]
(WUD, 1994, p.167)(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A16)
1847 Nov 25, Friederich von
Flotow's opera "Martha" was produced in Vienna.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1848 Mar 13, Metternich was
overthrown by a mob in Vienna. This ended his career as foreign
minister of Austria and Emp. Francis I elevated him to the rank of
prince.
(ON, 5/04,
p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1848 Mar 15, In Hungary an
uprising against Habsburg rule began in front of the national museum in
Budapest.
(Reuters, 3/15/07)
1848 Mar 23, Hungary proclaimed
its independence of Austria.
(HN, 3/23/99)
1848 Mar, Italian nationalists
celebrated as Austrian forces fled Milan.
(WSJ, 3/13/09, p.A9)
1848 May 29, Battle at Curtazone:
Austrians beat Sardinia-Piemonte.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1848 Jun 17, Austrian General
Alfred Windischgratz crushed a Czech uprising in Prague.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1848 Nov, Emperor Ferdinand
abdicated in favor of Franz Joseph.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_of_Austria)
1848 The painter-poet Josef Victor
von Scheffel published cynical poems with titles as 'Biedermann's
Evening socializing' and 'Bummelmaier's Complaint' in the Viennese
satirical magazine 'Fliegende Blätter' (Flying Leaves). These
names were combined into the pseudonym 'Gottlieb Biedermaier' by Ludwig
Eichrodt, who together with Adolf Kussmaul published poems by the
schoolmaster Samuel Friedrich Sauter under this name. The spelling
finally changed into 'Biedermeier' in 1869 when Eichrodt published
'Biedermeier's Liederlust'.
(www.rupertcavendish.co.uk/Biedermeier/WhatisBiedermeier/whatisbiedermeier.htm)
1848 Trieste became a separate
Kronland of the Austrian monarchy.
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Trieste.html)
1848 The Austro-Italian insurance
company Assicurazioni Generali Austro-Italiche began placing a picture
of the winged lion of St. Mark on policies.
(www.generali.ro/eng_despre_noi/istorie.htm)
1849 Mar 7, The Austrian Reichstag
was dissolved.
(HN, 3/7/99)
1849 Mar 23, Battle of Novara
(King Charles Albert of Sardinia vs. Italian republic). Austria’s Gen.
Radetzky (83) crushed the Piedmontese forces. Charles Albert abdicated
and was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel II, who reigned until
1861.
(PCh, 1992, p.449)(SS, 3/23/02)
1849 Jun 17, Russian troops
invaded Hungary.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.448)
1849 Jul 2, The leaders of the
Republic of Rome surrendered to French and Austrian forces. Garibaldi,
his wife and some 4,700 men left Rome with the intent to fight a
guerrilla war against Austria.
(ON, 10/06, p.5)
1849 Jul 31, Garibaldi asked San
Marino for asylum from Austrian forces. San Marino brokered for
Garibaldi’s surrender to Austrian forces. Garibaldi and his wife
escaped, and made their way to Ravenna. Anita Garibaldi died enroute.
Garibaldi managed to reach safety in the Kingdom of Sardinia.
(ON, 10/06, p.7)
1849 Aug 9, Russian forces
defeated the Hungarians at the Battle of Temesovar.
(PC, 1992 ed, p.448)
1849 Aug 11, Lajos Kossuth,
president of Hungary, abdicated in favor of Gen. Gorgey as Russia
intervened in the Hungarian revolution.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1849 Aug 13, Hungary’s Gen. Gorgey
surrendered to the Russian forces. Russia gave Hungary back to Austria.
(PC, 1992 ed,
p.448)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Kossuth)
1849 Aug 28, Venice, under Daniele
Manin, surrendered to Austrians under Count Radetsky, following a siege
since July 20 after proclaiming independence.
(HTNet, 8/28/99)(MC, 8/28/01)
1849 Archduke Johann, the Styrian
Prince, declared that the Mining Academy in the village of Vordernberg
be moved to Leoben.
(StuAus, April '95, p.65)
1849 In Vienna, Austria,
balloonists dropped bombs to break up a revolt.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, Z1 p.8)
1850 Jul 14, The 1st public
demonstration of ice made by refrigeration took place. James Harrison
of Australia designed an ice-making machine. It was an improvement on
one invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834.
(MC, 7/14/02)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1850 Aug 22, Nikolaus Lenau (48)
(pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch), Hungarian-born poet and writer,
died in Austria.
(MC, 8/22/02)(Internet)
1851 Responsibility for the Vienna
School for Voice and Conservatory was transferred to the state and the
city of Vienna.
(StuAus, April '95, p.39)
1853 Oct 2, Austrian law forbade
Jews from owning land.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1854 Elisabeth of Bavaria (16)
married the Habsburg Emp. Franz Josef II (23).
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A13)
1855 May 4, Camille Pleyel (66),
Austrian piano builder, composer, died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1856 May 6, Sigmund Freud
(d.1939), father of psychology and the Viennese physician who
discovered the unconscious, was born. He treated his hysterical
patients by encouraging them to associate freely. He insisted that
sexual desires and fears lay just beneath the surface of
everyone’s mind. A biography of Freud was later written by Peter
Gay. Freud was the founder of theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis,
the first to try to make emotional energies the "object of empirical
science." Freud's influence had spread beyond medicine and social
science and into contemporary arts. The National Socialists condemned
Freud’s theories as a "denial of all moral values" and the embodiment
of "the high level of moral dissolution peculiar to Jewry."
(V.D.-H.K.p.281-282)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)(HN,
5/6/98)(HNPD, 3/24/00)
1857 Apr 27, Establishment of
Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1857 Jul 15, Carl Czerny (66),
Austrian pianist, composer, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1857 Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868),
Austrian writer, authored his novel “Indian Summer.” He noted the issue
of bureaucracy long before it was covered by sociologists.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)
1857 The Vienna-Trieste railway
was completed.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Trieste)
1857 Ludwig Moser (d.1916) started
a glassmaking shop in Carlsbad. The work was intended for royal
families around the world and included intricate gold overlay and
detailed hand painting.
(SFC, 3/5/96, z-1 p.2)
1858 Apr 7, Anton Diabelli (76),
Austrian publisher, composer, died.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1858 Apr 29, Austrian troops
invaded Piedmont.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1859 Apr 9, Realizing that France
had encouraged the Piedmontese forces to mobilize for invading Italy,
Austria began mobilizing its army.
(HN, 4/9/00)
1859 May 3, France declared
war on Austria.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1859 May 9, Threatened by the
advancing French army, the Austrian army retreated across the River
Sesia in Italy.
(HN, 5/9/00)
1859 May 10, French emperor
Napoleon III left Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the
Austrian army in Northern Italy.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1859 May 20, A scratch force of
Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of
Montebello, in northern Italy.
(HN, 5/20/00)
1859 May 28, The French army
launched a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
(HN, 5/28/00)
1859 May 30, The Piedmontese army
crossed the Sesia River and defeated the Austrians at Palestro, Italy.
(HN, 5/30/00)
1859 Jun 4, The French army under
Napoleon III took Magenta from the Austrian army after a bloody battle
in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/4/99)
1859 Jun 24, At the Battle of
Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French
army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph
I in northern Italy. Some 6,000 men died in the battle and thousands of
wounded were effectively abandoned as witnessed by Henri Dunant (31),a
Swiss businessman seeking Napoleon for a land development proposal. In
1862 Dunant published “A Memory of Solferino” and began a campaign for
a volunteer society to aid wounded soldiers.
(HN, 6/24/99)(ON, 4/08, p.11)
1859 Jul 8, With the signing of
the truce at Villafranca Austria ceded Lombardy to France. France also
received Nice and Savoy.
(HN, 7/8/99)
1859 Jun 11, Prince Metternich
(b.1773), Austrian diplomat and statesman, died in Vienna.
(WUD, 1994 ed., p.903)(Internet)
1860 May 2, Theodor Herzl,
journalist, founder (Zionist movement), was born in Austria.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1860 Jul 7, Gustav Mahler,
conductor of the Vienna State Opera House, was born in Kalischat,
Bohemia, Austria.
(HN, 7/7/98)(MC, 7/7/02)
1862 May 15, Arthur Schnitzler,
playwright, novelist (La Ronde), was born in Austria.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1862 May 25, Johann N. Nestroy
(60) Austrian actor (Einmal Keine Sorgen Haben), died.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1862 In Austria Julius Meinl
founded a coffee and food store in Vienna. After 20 years his roasting
factory served all of Austria-Hungary. The company developed into a
chain and later into the Meinl Bank.
(Econ, 8/2/08, p.74)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)
1864 May 9, Austria and Denmark
held a ship battle at Helgoland.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1864 Nov 10, Austrian Archduke
Maximilian became emperor of Mexico.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1864 The Imperial State
Manufactory Vienna, a maker of porcelains since 1744, closed. The
royalty owned firm used the beehive or shield mark.
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.G2)
1866 Jun 15, Prussia attacked
Austria.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1866 Aug 23, Treaty of Prague
ended the Austro-Prussian war.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1867 Feb 13, Johann Strauss' "Blue
Danube" waltz premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1867 Jun 19, Mexican Emperor
Maximillian (35) was executed on the orders of Benito Juarez by a
firing squad in Queretaro. The event was immortalized in a painting by
Manet.
(HN, 6/19/98)(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T10)(PCh, 1992,
p.505)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.17)
1867 Trieste was granted status as
an independent province of the Habsburg Empire.
(http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/AUT/aut-hun.html)
1867 The Univ. of Applied Arts was
established as the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts.
(StuAus, April '95, p.43)
1867 Maximillian’s wife Carlotta
returned to the Miramar Castle just outside Trieste. It had been built
for Archduke Maximilian.
(SSFC, 10/10/04, p.D7)
1868 May 9, Anton Bruckner's 1st
Symphony in C premiered.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1869 Oct 1, Austria issued the
world's first postal card, the Correspondenz Karte, a plain-line card
printed with a 2-kreuzer stamp.
(Hem, 6/96,
p.97)(http://shilohpostcards.com/webdoc2.htm)
1869 Ludwig Karl Kahlbaum in
Innsbruck, Austria, described for the 1st time the medical condition of
catatonia. He compiled a list of almost 40 signs involving unusual
movements. For decades it was thought to be a type of schizophrenia. By
2006 it was still not well understood.
(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.B6)
1870 Feb 7, Alfred Adler,
psychiatrist (Inferiority Complex), was born in Austria.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1870 Mar 6, Oscar Strauss,
composer (Ein Walzertraum), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1870 Jul 21, Josef Strauss (42),
Austrian composer (Dynamids), died.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1870 Sep 6, The last British
troops to serve in Austria were withdrawn.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1871 Oct 14, Alexander von
Zemlinsky (d.1942), composer (Schneeman), was born in Vienna, Austria.
His work included "Frulingsbegrabnis" (a cantata from 1897), "Die
Seejunbfrau" (1902-1903), "Eine Florentinische Tragodie" (an opera from
1914-1915), "Symphonic Songs" (1929), and "Der Zwerg" (The Dwarf, an
opera from 1921) and 7 other operas.
(WSJ, 6/11/98, p.A20)(MC, 10/14/01)
1872 April 10, The Polytechnical
Inst. of Vienna became the Vienna Univ. of Technology.
(StuAus, April '95, p.23)
1873 Aug 18, Leo Slezak, Austria
tenor, actor (Othello), was born.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1874 Apr 5, Johann Strauss, Jr.'s
Opera "Die Fledermaus" was produced in Vienna.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1874 Sep 13, Arnold Franz Walter
Schoenberg (d.1951), 12-tone composer, was born in Vienna, Austria. He
wrote the book "Style and Idea" and composed such works as the 21 songs
of "Pierrot Lunaire" based on a poem by Albert Giraud translated into
German by Otto Erich Hartleben, "Moses und Aron," "A Survivor from
Warsaw" and "Erwartung."
(LGC-HCS, 1970, p. 562-575)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A8)(WSJ,
8/22/96, p.A12)(MC, 9/13/01)
1874 The Imperial Technical Univ.
in Graz became a state institution.
(StuAus, April '95, p.58)
1875 Feb 2, Fritz Kreisler,
violinist, composer, was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1875-1926 Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet. He was
born in Prague to German-speaking parents. His works include New Poems
(1907), his autobiographical novel: "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids
Brigge," and his masterpieces the "Duino Elegies" and "The Sonnets to
Orpheus." His mistress was Lou Andreas-Salome, a novelist, essayist and
clinical psychologist. Ralph Freedman wrote a biography of Rilke
titled Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke in 1996. His complete works
were published in 1966 and an annotated edition in 1996. In 1997 his
early work was published: "Diaries of a Young Poet," translated by
Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. On the new year day: "And now let us
believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of
things that have never been, full of work that has never been done,
full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to
take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon
those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things."
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/15/97, p.A20)(AP,
1/1/98)
1877 Dec 30, Johannes Brahms' 2nd
Symphony in D, premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1878 Bosnia came under
Austro-Hungarian. This continued until 1918. A representative from
Vienna governed the area.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.65)(Econ, 10/20/07, p.72)
1879 Oct 2, A dual alliance was
formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agreed
to come to the other's aid in the event of aggression.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1880 Aug 25, Robert E. Stolz
(d.1976), Austrian composer, conductor, was born. He initially
auditioned under Johann Strauss and later became conductor at the
Theater-an-der-Wien.
(WSJ, 12/28/99, p.A16)(MC, 8/25/02)
1880-1942 Robert Musil, Austrian writer. His work
included "The Man Without Qualities."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, BR p.9)
1881 Nov 28, Stefan Zweig
(d.1942), poet, essayist, dramatist (Beware of Pity), was born in
Vienna, Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Zweig)
1881 Dec 8, Vienna's Ring Theater
was destroyed by fire and 640-850 people were killed.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1881 Anton Romako (Vienna) painted
"Girl on a Swing (Olga van Wassermann)."
(SFC, 8/29/01, p.E5)
1881 The area around Bosnia was
annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
(SFC, 4/15/97, p.A10)
1882 Apr 17, Artur Schnabel,
pianist (Beethoven Piano Sonatas), was born in Lipnik, Austria.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1883 Anton Webern (d.1945),
Austrian composer, was born.
(WSJ, 2/14/00, p.A20)
1884 Jan 6, Gregor Mendel
(b.1822), Austrian botanist and Augustine monk, died at age 61. He is
considered to be the father of genetics.
(NH, 6/01, p.30)(MC, 1/6/02)
1885 Feb 9, Alban Maria Johannes
Berg, composer, was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1885 May 29, Alfred von Meissner
(63), Austrian physician, writer (Ziska), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1885 Oct 24, Johann Strauss'
operetta, "The Gypsy Baron," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1885 Dec 2, Karl Goldmark's opera
"Queen of Sheba," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1886 Karl von Frisch, Austrian
ethologist, was born. In the 1940s he first described the method by
which honeybees describe the source of gathered pollen to their fellow
bees. The bees perform a dance is that integrates information about the
orientation of the sun and the distance to the pollen source.
(WUD, 1994, p.569)(NH, 9/97, p.60)
1887 Aug 12, Erwin Schrodinger,
physicist, was born in Austria.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1887 Oct 6, Maria Jeritza,
[Jedlicka], singer (Vienna Opera, Met Opera), was born in Austria.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1887 Nov 14, Bernhard Paumgartner,
musicologist, conductor, composer, was born in Austria.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1887 Aloys Zötl (b.1831),
Austrian naïve artist, died. Zotl’s paintings included "The
Rhinoceros."
(WSJ, 4/9/03, p.D10)
1887 Geographers of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire set fixed points to measure altitude in
connection with the European measurement of meridional and parallel
degrees. One marker at Rakhiv, Ukraine, was later interpreted to mark
the center of Europe.
(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.A1)
1888 May 10, Maximilian Raoul
Walter Steiner (Max Steiner), composer (Gone With Wind), was born in
Vienna.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1889 Apr 20, Adolf Hitler
(d.1945), dictator of Nazi Germany, was born in Braunau, Austria. The
German Fascist leader, promised to bring Germany to the promised land
on one condition: that the state would have total control over all the
organs, organizations, and citizens of the nation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.309)(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)
1889 Apr 26, Ludwig Wittgenstein
(d.1951), philosopher (Tractatus), was born in Vienna, Austria. He
pondered the nature of knowledge and the limits of language. He argued
that the criteria for the correct use of any language must be social.
"The human body is the best picture of the human soul."
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.4)(SFC, 1/31/98, p.E1)(WSJ,
8/21/98, p.W13)(AP, 1/3/01)(MC, 4/26/02)
1890 Mar 21, Austrian Jewish
communities were defined by law.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1890 Aug 5, Erich Kleiber,
conductor (NBC Symphony 1945-46), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 8/5/02)
1890 Sep 10, Franz Werfel, author
(40 Days of Musa Dagh), was born in Austria.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1891 Dec 22, Edward L. Bernays,
1st public relations agent, was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1891 In Austria Daniel Swarovski
invented a machine to cut crystal stones to resemble faceted diamonds.
His company prospered and in 2004 the Swarovski company placed a
crystal star atop the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in NYC.
(WSJ, 12/22/04, p.A1)
1891-1938 Bergasse 19 in Vienna is where Freud
(1856-1939) lived and practiced psycho-analysis until he was forced out
by the Nazis.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.70)(WUD, 1994, p.568)
1892 Feb 16, Jules Massenet's
Opera "Werther," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1892 Mar 9, Joseph Weinheber,
Austrian poet, writer (Adel und Untergang), was born.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1892 May 16, Richard Tauber,
[Ernst Seiffert], Austria-British, tenor, conductor ("Deine ist mein
ganzes Herz"), was born.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1892 Jul 22, Arthur Seyss-Inquart,
Austrian chancellor, Nazi war criminal, was born.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1892 Oct 4, Engelbert Dollfuss,
Austrian Fascist chancellor, was born. He was killed by Nazis in 1934.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1892 In Vienna the Hotel Bristol
opened.
(WSJ, 9/26/08, p.A20)
1893 Mar 31, Clemens Krauss,
conductor (Berlin State Orch-1937), was born in Vienna.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1894 Aug 28, Karl Boehm, Austrian
conductor, was born. Famed for his interpretations of Wagner and
Beethoven.
(RTH, 8/28/99)
1894 Roland Paris, Austrian
sculptor, was born. He specialized in satirical bronzes and was a
student of Henry van de Velde, one of the founders of the Bauhaus.
(SFC, 9/2/98, Z1 p.6)
1895 Mar 9, Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer (Masochism), died.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1896 Oct 11, Anton Bruckner
(b.1824), Austrian composer (Te Deum, Wagner Symphony), died at 72.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Bruckner)
1897 Mar 24, Wilhelm Reich
(d.1957), Austrian-US psychoanalyst (character analysis), was born. In
1999 Farrar, Straus & Giroux published: "American Odyssey: Letters
and Journals 1940-1947."
(WUD, 1994, p.1209)(MC, 3/24/02)
1897 May 29, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold, movie composer (Violanta), was born in Brno, Austria.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1897 Jun 21, In Austria a giant
Ferris wheel, designed by Walter Bassett of England, opened in Vienna.
It was built in the Wurstelprater amusement park to commemorate the
50th anniversary of the accession of Emperor Franz Joseph to the
Habsburg throne.
(Econ, 5/31/08, p.71)(http://tinyurl.com/3tawph)
1897 Oct 8, Emperor Karl Joseph I
named Gustav Mahler director of Vienna Opera.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1897 Nov 3, David Schwarz of
Austria crashed his 156-foot aluminum powered airship with 2 propellers
on its maiden flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1897 Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
helped found the Vienna Secessionist art movement. He was chosen as its
1st president. It rebelled against the sentimental academic painting of
the 19th century.
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.W14)(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1897-1904 Henry-Louis de La Grange, French writer,
focused on these years in Vienna in writing his multivolume biography
of Gustav Mahler titled: Vienna: The Years of Challenge. Vol. 1 in
English was released in 1973. A 3-volume French edition came out
between 1979-1984. A new 4-volume English was launched in 1995.
(WSJ, 6/9/95, p.A-12)(SFEC, 6/7/98, DB p.37)
1898 Sep 10, Empress Elisabeth of
Bavaria (60), Queen of Hungary and wife of Emp. Franz Josef II, was
assassinated in Geneva by the Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni. A 1997
German rock musical, "Elisabeth," by Michael Kunze and Sylvester
Levay was based on her life.
(EWH, 1968, p.744)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A1,13)
1898 Oct 1, The Univ. of
Economics and Business Admin. of Vienna was founded as the
Imperial-Royal Export Academy.
(StuAus, April '95, p.27)
1898 Oct 18, Lotte Lenya, actress
and singer (Appointment, Semi-Tough), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1898 The Seccession building was
completed and later housed Klimt's Beethoven Frieze in its gilt-domed
gallery.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)
1899 May 8, Friedrich August von
Hayek (d.1992), Austrian-born British economist, was born. He found
solutions to problems proposed by Keynesian economics. He was dedicated
to illuminating the problems of socialism and held that inflation,
unemployment and recession result from governmental interference. He
won a Nobel prize in 1974.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1899 Jun 3, Johann Strauss (73),
Jr., composer ("Waltz King"), died.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1899 Dec 31, Karl Millocker (57),
Austrian conductor and composer, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1899 Gustav Klimt painted "Nude
Veritas."
(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1899 The railway station of Vienna
was built exclusively for Emperor Franz Josef by Otto Wagner.
1900 Jan 13, To combat Czech
nationalism, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary decreed that
German would be the language of the imperial army.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1900 Apr 25, Wolfgang Pauli,
physicist (Nobel 1945), was born in Austria.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1902 Mar 9, Composer Gustav Mahler
married Alma Schindler in Vienna.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1902 Apr 8, Josef Krips, conductor
(London Symph 1954-63), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1902 May 3, Walter Slezak, actor
(Bedtime for Bonzo, Inspector General), was born in Vienna.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1902 Jun 23, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy renewed the Triple Alliance for a 12 year
duration.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1902 Sep 1, The Austro-Hungarian
army was called into the city of Agram to restore the peace as Serbs
and Croats clashed.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1902 Nov 17, Lee Strasberg, acting
coach and actor (And Justice for All), was born in Austria.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1902 Nov 22, Emanuel Feuermann,
cellist (Chicago Symphony Orchestra), was born in Kolomea, Galicia
(under crown of Austria).
(MC, 11/22/01)
1902 Nov 25, Franz Lehar's opera
"Wiener Fraueen," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1902 Gustav Klimt painted
"Portrait of Emilie Flöge."
(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1903 Jan 3, The Bulgarian
government renounced the treaty of commerce tying it to
Austro-Hungarian empire.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1903 Feb 11, Anton Bruckner's 9th
Symphony premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1903 Feb 19, The Austria-Hungary
government decreed a mandatory two year military service.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1903 Oct 4, Ernst Kaltenbrunner,
Austrian Nazi (SS/SD) and successor to Reinhard Heydrich, was born. He
was hanged in 1946.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1904-1984 Reverend Karl Rahner, Austrian theologian:
"The theological problem today is to find the art of drawing religion
out of a man, not pumping it into him."
(AP, 6/26/99)
1905 Jan 26, Maria Augusta von
Trapp (d.1987), Austrian singer, inspired "Sound of Music," was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_von_Trapp)(SSFC,
10/14/07, p.B6)
1905 Dec 5, Otto Preminger,
director and producer (Laura, Exodus), was born in Austria.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1906 Apr 28, Kurt Gödel
(d.1978), Austrian mathematician, was born in the Moravian city of
Brno. Godel later developed his incompleteness theorem showing that
within any logical system, no matter how rigidly structured, there are
always questions that cannot be answered with certainty, contradictions
that may be discovered, and errors that may lurk.
(V.D.-H.K.p.340)(SFC, 6/14/05, p.D2)
1906 Felix Salten (1869-1945),
Austrian writer, authored the novel “Josephine Mutzenbacher,” the
fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, a notorious
pornographic novel. In 1923 he authored “Bambi.”
(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1906 The first cornea transplant
was performed in Austria by Dr. Eduard Zirm.
(www.lionseyebank.org/facts.htm)
1907 Apr 29, Fred Zinnemann
(d.3/14/97), Hollywood film director, was born in Vienna. His films
included "A Hatful of Rain," "The Sundowners," "The Nun’s Story," "From
Here to Eternity," "Julia" and "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) with Paul
Scofield.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)(MC, 4/29/02)
1907 Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
painted the portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I.” In 2006 it sold for a
record $135 million to cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder. Adele
Bloch-Bauer (d.1925) was the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist
in Vienna.
(SFC, 6/19/06,
p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt)
1907 Adolph Hitler (18) applied to
study art in Vienna but was rejected. A pair of his watercolor
paintings were reported in 1999 to be in Dubai, UAR, under the
ownership of the Bonyad Mostazafan foundation.
(SFC, 7/6/99, p.C3)
1908 Jan 4, Angela Maria "Geli"
Raubal, Austrian nude model, Hitler's cousin and lover, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1908 Feb 1, Movie producer and
animator George Pal was born in Austria-Hungary.
(AP, 2/1/08)
1908 Apr 5, Herbert von Karajan,
Nazi, conductor (Berlin Philharmonic), was born in Austria.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1908 Oct 6, Austria annexed Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1908 Nov 14, Oscar Strauss'
musical "The Chocolate Soldier," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1908 Dec 1, The Italian Parliament
debated the future of the Triple Alliance and asked for compensation
for Austria’s action in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1908 The Karntner-Durchgang is an
American Bar in Vienna at the top of Kartnerstrasse designed by
architect Adolf Loos.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)
1909 Feb 16, Serbia mobilized
against Austria and Hungary.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1909 Mar 6, Gerhart Hauptmann's
"Griselda," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1909 Sep 13, Herbert Berghof,
actor (Belarus File), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1909 Adolf Hitler painted a series
of views around Linz, Austria, including the watercolor "Mountain
Chapel."
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.D12)
1909 Sigmund Freud‘s only visit to
the United States was to accept an honorary degree at Clark University
in 1909. G. Stanley Hall, the president of the university in Worcester,
Massachusetts, had invited Freud to "[set] forth your own views" in a
series of lectures at a conference honoring Clark‘s 20th anniversary.
Following a visit to New York City, Freud delivered five lectures at
Clark, all of them in German. He then went on to visit Niagara Falls
and the Adirondacks before returning to Europe.
(HNQ, 6/4/00)
1911 Jan 22, Bruno Kreisky,
bandleader, chancellor (1970-83), was born in Austria.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1911 May 18, Composer Gustav
Mahler (50) died in Vienna, Austria. His wife Alma Schindler married
Walter Gropius in 1915. Mahler left his 10th symphony unfinished. A
1996 recording was made based on work by Remo Mazzetti Jr. who in turn
based his work on the late Deryck Cooke. In 2004 Cornell Univ. Press
published “Gustav Mahler: Letters to His Wife.”
(SFEC, 5/18/97, DB p.52)(AP, 5/18/01)(WSJ, 12/15/04,
p.D10)
1911 Egon Schiele, Austrian
expressionist, painted "Dead City III."
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A7)
1912 Feb 4, Erich Leinsdorf,
available conductor & banana eater, was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1912 Jun 26, Gustav Mahler's 9th
Symphony premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1912 Nov 24, Austria denounced
Serbian gains in the Balkans; Russia and France backed Serbia while
Italy and Germany backed Austria.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1912 Dec 5, Italy, Austria, and
Germany renewed the Triple Alliance for six years.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1912 Egon Schiele, Austrian
expressionist, painted "Portrait of Wally."
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.A7)
1913 Jan 20, Karl Wittgenstein
(b.1847), Viennese industrialist and father of philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951), died of throat cancer. In 2009 Alexander
Waugh authored “The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War.”
(WSJ, 2/28/09,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wittgenstein)
1913 Aug 12, Kurt Kaszner, actor
(Cmdr Fitzhugh-Land of the Giants), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1913 Sep 11, Hedy Lamarr, actress,
was born in Austria. She featured in numerous minor roles in
Austro-German film prior to her 1938 Hollywood arrival and gained
significant notoriety for her libidinous 10 nude scene in the Czech
film 'Ecstasy' (1932). She was cast in many romantic films
including 'Samson and Delilah' and 'My Favorite Spy' "Any girl can be
glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid"-- Hedy
Lamarr.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1913 Oct 18, Austrian-Hungary
demanded that Serbia and Albania leave.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1914 Jun 28, Austrian Archduke
Francis Ferdinand, heir to Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sofia,
were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, by a Serb nationalist. As the
royal couple rode through the streets of Sarajevo in an open touring
car, seven young radicals from an obscure Serbian-Bosnian nationalist
group, called the Black Hand, lay in wait. An initial assassination
attempt failed, but a wrong turn brought the car near Gavrilo Princip,
who fired two shots at point-blank range into the couple's bodies.
Within minutes, both the Archduke and Sophia were dead. Princip was
arrested, but political tensions were so high between Austria-Hungary
and Serbia that war broke out as a result. Like falling dominoes,
international alliances brought one country after another into the
conflict. The event triggered World War I.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(V.D.-H.K.p.252, 284-285,290)(AP,
6/28/97)(HNPD, 6/28/98)
1914 Jul 23, Austria and Hungary
issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke
Ferdinand; the dispute led to World War I.
(AP, 7/23/98)
1914 Jul 26, Austrian-Hungary
condemned a Serbian ultimatum.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1914 Jul 28, Austria-Hungary
declared war on Serbia, beginning World War I. The New York Stock
Exchange closed for 4 1/2 months.
(CFA, '96, p.50)(HN, 7/28/98)
1914 Aug 6, Austria-Hungary
declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.
(AP, 8/6/00)
1914 Aug 12, Great Britain
declared war on Austria-Hungary.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1914 Dec 2, Austrian troops
occupied Belgrade, Serbia.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1914 Egon Schiele (b.1990),
Viennese artist, made his "Reclining Woman With Raised Chemise."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1914 The Mozarteum of Salzburg
became a publicly accredited conservatory.
(StuAus, April '95, p.91)
c1914-1919 Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951),
Viennese-born philosopher, wrote his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
while serving in the Austrian army during WW I. He had "set out to
chart the logical limits of language and ended with poetic gestures
toward what words could not capture." In 1996 Marjorie Perloff wrote
"Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the
Ordinary."
(SFEC, 10/27/96, BR p.4)
1915 Jan 2, Karl Goldmark (84),
Austria-Hungarian composer (Queen of Saba), died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1915 May 23, Italy declared war on
Austria-Hungary in World War I.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1915 Jun 22, Austro-German forces
occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreated.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1915 Aug 5, The Austro-German Army
took Warsaw, in present-day Poland, on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1915 Sep 2, Austro-German armies
took Grodno, Poland (Belarus).
(HN, 9/2/98)
1915 Nov 7, An Austrian submarine
torpedoed the Italian passenger ship Ancona, and 272 were killed.
(www.theshipslist.com/ships/descriptions/ShipsA.html)
1915 Egon Schiele made his
"Self-portrait With Striped Armlets."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1916 Nov 21, Franz Jozef I, King
of Austria and Hungary, died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1916 Egon Schiele, Viennese
artist, made his "Reclining Woman Exposing Herself."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1916 Charles I took the throne and
worked for peace as the Austro-Hungarian empire neared its end. He
abdicated at the end of the war in 1918 and died in Portugal in 1922 at
age 34. In 2003 the Vatican attributed a miracle to the last emperor of
Austria-Hungary, paving the way for the eventual beatification and
sainthood of Charles I.
(AP, 12/21/03)
1917 Mar 23, Austrian Emperor
Charles I made a peace proposal to French President Poincare.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1917 Aug 14, The Chinese
Parliament declared war on the Central Powers, Germany and Austria,
during World War I.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1917 Oct 24, The Austro-German
army routed the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy. In what came to be
known as the 1st blitzkrieg German and Austro-Hungarian forces took at
least 250,000 Italian soldiers as prisoners on the Isonzo Front.
(HN, 10/24/98)(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1917 Dec 7, The US declared war on
Austria-Hungary with only one dissenting vote in Congress and became
the 13th country to do so.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1917 Gustav Klimt, Austrian
modernist, created his oil painting "Garden of Flowers."
(WSJ, 7/17/02, p.D12)
1917 Egon Schiele, Viennese
artist, made his "Kneeling Girl Propped on Her Elbows."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1918 Jan 25, Austria and Germany
rejected U.S. peace proposals.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1918 Feb 6, Gustav Klimt (b.1862),
Austrian Symbolist artist, died. He helped found the Vienna
Secessionist art movement (1897) and was chosen as its 1st president.
(WSJ, 7/11/01,
p.A15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt)
1918 Mar 3, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World War
I. Germany and Austria forced Soviet Russia to sign the Peace of Brest,
which called for the establishment of 5 independent countries: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
which ended Russian participation in World War I, was annulled by the
November 1918 armistice. The treaty deprived the Soviets of White
Russia.
(HN, 3/3/99)(LHC, 3/1/03)(AP, 3/3/08)
1918 Apr 15, Clemenceau published
secret French-Austrian documents.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1918 Sep 25, Brazil declared war
on Austria.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1918 Oct 18, Czechs seized Prague,
renounced Hapsburg's rule and declared independence from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. Masaryk proclaimed the foundation of
Czechoslovakia from Pittsburgh, Pa.
(HN, 10/18/98)(http://tinyurl.com/856hg)
1918 Nov 4, Austria signed an
armistice with Allies.
(HN, 11/4/98)
1918 Oct 31, Egon Schiele (28),
Viennese artist, died in the flu epidemic. He produced some 3,000
drawings and 300 paintings in about 12 years.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E3)(MC, 10/31/01)
1918 Nov 3, The Austro-Hungarian
Empire dissolved.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1918 Nov 12, Emperor Karl of
Austria-Hungary, husband of Zita, relinquished participation in the
Austrian state and then fled to Switzerland. Austria became a republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_I_of_Austria)(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)
1918 Dec 1, The Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes formed and was ruled by the Serbian Karageorgevic
dynasty. It included the previously independent kingdoms of Serbia and
Macedonia, the Hungarian-controlled regions of Croatia and Slovenia,
the Austrian province of Dalmatia, Carniola and parts of Styria,
Carinthia and Istria.
(AP, 10/3/97)(HN, 10/3/98)(HNQ, 3/26/99)(LCTH,
10/3/99)
1918 Egon Schiele made his crayon
sketch: "Edith Schiele on Her Deathbed."
(WSJ, 11/19/97, p.A20)
1918 Austria enacted legislation
to keep artworks from leaving the country.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A20)
1918 Italy gained Trieste from the
Hapsburg Empire.
(www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Trieste.html)
1918 Vienna became the capital of
the Republic of Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.14)
1918 The first democratic
elections were held.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A16)
1918 Gustav Klimt (b.1862),
artist, died. He helped found the Vienna Secessionist art movement
(1897) and was chosen as its 1st president.
(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1919 Apr 3, Austria expelled all
Habsburgs.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1919 Jun 20, Treaty of Versailles:
Germany ended the incorporation of Austria. [see Jun 28]
(MC, 6/20/02)
1919 Jun 28, The Treaty of
Versailles was signed in France, ending (WW I) World War I. World War I
began in 1914 and ended on this date. Germany signed the Treaty of
Versailles under protest. Books by participants included "Peacemaking"
by Harold Nicolson; "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" by John
Maynard Keynes; and "The Truth About the Peace Treaties" by David Lloyd
George. In 2000 Richard Holmes authored "The Western Front." Nearly 1
million British died and nearly 2 million each for France, Germany,
Russia and Turkey. In 2002 Margaret MacMillan authored "Paris 1919: Six
Months That Changed the World."
(HFA, ‘96, p.32)(AP, 6/28/97)(HN, 6/28/98)(WSJ,
8/16/00, p.A20)(SSFC, 12/15/02, p.M3)
1919 Austria enacted laws that
barred the Habsburgs from public office and resulted in the
confiscation of their property.
(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A13)
1919 Austria was obliged to pay
reparations to countries ravaged by WW I fighting.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.97)
1920 Jan 15, The United States
approved a $150 million loan to Poland, Austria and Armenia to aid in
their war with the Russian communists.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1920 Mar 1, Austria became a
kingdom again under Admiral Horthy.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1920 Oct 10, The Carinthian
Plebiscite determined the border between Austria and the newly
formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinthian_Plebiscite)
1920 Dec 15, China won a place on
the League Council; Austria was admitted.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1920 The 1897 play, "Reigen," by
Arthur Schnitzler had its premiere in Vienna. The name meant round
dance and represented a circle of sexual encounters and was promptly
closed down by police. A 1998 adaptation by David Hare featured Nicole
Kidman and Iain Glen in "The Blue Room."
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A21)
1920 The Graz School for
Voice became a fully accredited conservatory.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1920-1933 Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist, spent this
period in Berlin. In 2002 his writings from this time were translated
by Michael Hofmann and published as "What I Saw: Reports From Berlin
1920-1933." His later novel "The Radetzky March covered the waning days
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M3)
1921 Mar 6, Julius Rudel,
conductor (NYC Opera), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1921 May 30, Salzburg, Austria,
voted to join Germany.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1921 Economist Ludwig von Mises
wrote a full-scale refutation of socialist economics and predicted the
precise nature of its failure.
(WSJ, 1/30/97, p.A16)
1921 The film "Lady Hamilton"
starred Liane Haid (d.2000 at 105) of Austria.
(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C8)
1922 Apr 1, Karl I (b.1887),
leader of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, died. Also known in the West as
Charles I, he took the throne in 1916 and worked for peace, abdicating
at the end of World War I, a few years before his death. In 2004 he was
beatified by Pope John Paul VI.
(AP, 10/3/04)(www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/KarlI/)
1922 Aug 8, Rudi Gernreich,
designer (1st women's topless swimsuit, miniskirt), was born in Vienna,
Austria.
(MC, 8/8/02)(Internet)
1922 The Vienna Porcelain Factory
began operations. It considered itself to be the successor to the
original royal factory (1744-1864).
(SFC, 10/17/07, p.G2)
1923 May 4, In Vienna, Austria,
bloody street battles took place between Nazis, socialists and police.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1923 Sep, The Int’l. Criminal
Police Commission (Interpol) formed in Vienna.
(www.exxun.com/ekio/io_interpol_2088.html)
1923 Felix Salten (1869-1945) a
Viennese Jew, wrote his antifascist allegory "Bambi, A Life in the
Woods." It was translated into English by Whittaker Chambers (28) and
published by Simon & Schuster in 1928. In 1942 it was made
into an animated Disney film.
(WSJ, 10/14/97,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1924 May 2, Theodore Bikel,
Austrian-US folk singer, actor (Russians Are Coming), was born.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1924 The Austrian silent film
"Hands of Orlac" was made by Robert Wiene. Wiene was the expressionist
who made The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.D4)(SFC, 1/7/97, p.E1)(SFC,
1/17/96, p.D7)
1925 Rudolf Steiner (b.1861),
Austrian philosopher and educator, died. He was the founder of the
spiritual view called anthroposophy which included a complicated theory
of child development that formed the basis of the Waldorf method for
teaching children.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A7)
1926 Dec 29, Rainer M. Rilke (51),
Austrian songwriter and writer (Wise Queen), died.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1926 Arthur Schnitzler of Austria
authored his novel "Traumovelle." English versions were called "Dream
Story" or "Rhapsody." It was the basis for the 1999 Kubrick film "Eyes
Wide Shut."
(SFC, 7/24/99, p.B1)
1927 Oct 6, Paul Badura-Skoda,
pianist (Mozart specialist), was born in Vienna, Austria.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1927 Pez candy originated in
Austria as a breath mint for cigarette smokers. The name came from
"pfefferminz," the word for peppermint in German. The line was
imported to the United States in 1952, when the company decided it
could do better with fruit candy dispensed by plastic toys.
(SFEC, 4/5/98,
p.C11)(http://money.cnn.com/2002/06/13/pf/q_pez/)
1828 Nov 19, In Vienna German
composer Franz Schubert (31) died of syphilis. In this year he composed
his song cycle "Schwanengesang." His work included the C-Major
Symphony, string quartets, 3 piano sonatas, and the C-Major String
Quartet. Otto Erich Deutsch catalogued his work [hence the "D" numbers]
and wrote a documentary biography. In 1997 Brian Newbould wrote
"Schubert: The Music and the Man."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.32)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A16)(WSJ,
5/13/97, p.A21)(HN, 11/19/00)
1929 Apr 8, Walter Berry, singer,
ex husband of Christa Ludwig, was born in Austria.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1929 Oct 3, The Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes formally changed its name to the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. It included the regions of Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Macedonia. King Alexander I renamed
the Balkan state called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
Yugoslavia. The Kingdom had been formed on December 1, 1918 and was
ruled by the Serbian Karageorgevic dynasty. It included the previously
independent kingdoms of Serbia and Macedonia, the Hungarian-controlled
regions of Croatia and Slovenia, the Austrian province of Dalmatia,
Carniola and parts of Styria, Carinthia and Istria.
(AP, 10/3/97)(HN, 10/3/98)(HNQ, 3/26/99)(LCTH,
10/3/99)
1930 Apr 1, Cosima Liszt (92),
wife of Austrian composer Richard Wagner, died.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1930 Dec 8, Maximilian Schell,
Austrian actor and director (Odessa File, Julia), was born.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1931 In Austria a run on
Creditanstalt bank set off a chain of events that took Britain off the
gold standard and raised fears that America might follow. Its failure
rippled around the world and intensified the Depression.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.83)(Econ, 9/12/09, p.86)
1932 Feb 25, Adolf Hitler of
Austria got German citizenship.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1932 Oct 19, Austria forbade
demonstration by Nazis and antifascists.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1933 Mar 4, Chancellor Dollfuss
dissolved the Austrian parliament.
(www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2005/mar2005p17_1890.html)
1934 Jul 25, There was a Nazi coup
in Vienna. Austrian Premier Engelbert Dollfus was shot and killed by
Nazis. Hitler murdered Austria's Chancellor Dollfus.
(WUD, 1994, p.424,1682)(TMC, 1994, p.1934)(HN,
7/25/98)
1934 The music drama "Der Weg Der
Verheissung" was created by Kurt Weill, Franz Werfel and Max Reinhardt
in exile in Austria.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A19)
1935 Stefan Zweig (1881-1942),
Austrian novelist, wrote the libretto for the opera Die Schweigsame
Frau (The Silent Woman) with music by Richard Strauss. It was banned by
the Nazis and Zweig was driven into exile.
(Econ, 5/23/09,
p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Zweig)
1935 Austrian physicist Erwin
Schrodinger imagined putting a cat into a sealed box along with a flask
of Prussic acid, a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, an electric
relay and a hammer. If the atom decayed, the Geiger counter would
detect the radiation and send a signal to trip a relay, which would
release the hammer, which would smash the flask and poison the cat. The
famous unperformed experiment became known as Schrodinger’s cat.
(Econ, 10/3/09,
p.100)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat)
1936 Mar 23, Italy, Austria and
Hungary signed Pact of Rome.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1937 Feb 14, Austrian leader
Schuschnigg threatened to restore the Hapsburg monarchy.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1937 May 28, Alfred Adler (67),
Austria psychiatrist (Individual Psychology), died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1937 Alban Berg (1885-1935),
Austrian composer, wrote his opera "Lulu." It was based on two dramas
by German fin-de-siecle playwright Frank Wedekind (1864-1918). It tells
the story of a sexually attractive dancer who several men and women
become obsessed with, often dying as a result, and who ends up as a
prostitute murdered by Jack the Ripper.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_Berg)(AP, 2/5/10)
1938 Jan 12, Austria recognized
the Franco government in Spain.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1938 Feb 20, Hitler demanded
self-determination for Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia. As
Hitler's quest for Lebensraum ("living space") expanded into
Czechoslovakia, thousands of Czechoslovakian soldiers and airmen
escaped to participate in the liberation of their country.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1938 Mar 9, In Vienna, Kurt
Schuschnigg defied the Nazis calling for a decree on independence.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1938 Mar 12, Germany invaded
Austria after the Austrian Nazi Party invited German troops to march in
and the union came to be know as the Anschluss. Hitler took over
Austria and a chunk of Czechoslovakia. The Nazis took over Austria and
expelled all Jews and other political opponents from the universities.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)(TL, 1988, p.111)(TMC, 1994,
p.1938)(StuAus, April '95, p.18)
1938 Spring, Cardinal Theodor
Innitzer of Vienna met with Hitler and then directed all Catholic
clergy and laity to "unconditionally support the great German State and
the Fuhrer."
(SFEC, 9/7/97, BR p.4)
1938 Mar 26, Herman Goering warned
all Jews to leave Austria.
(HN, 3/25/98)
1938 Mar, Within days of the
Anschluss squads of Nazis and Austrian museum personnel emptied the
Viennese palaces of the Rothschild brothers, Alphonse and Louis. After
the war Clarice Rothschild, the widow of Alphonse, recovered much of
the collection, which had been hidden in the Alt Aussee salt mines near
Salzburg. She was forced to give up many works as "donations" in
exchange for export licenses.
(WSJ, 7/6/99, p.A13)
1938 Apr 6, U.S. recognized the
German conquest of Austria.
(HN, 4/6/98)
1938 Apr 10, Germany annexed
Austria.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1938 Apr 26, Austrian Jews
required to register property above 5,000 Reichsmarks.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1938 Aug 7, Nazi's closed the
theology department of Innsbruck university.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1938 Aug 28, Mauthausen
concentration camp began operating in Austria.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1938 Dr. Feng Shan Ho (d.1997),
Chinese consul general in Vienna, rescued thousands of Jews by giving
them exit visas after the Nazis annexed the country.
(SFC, 8/15/01, p.A15)
1938 Freud was convinced to flee
Vienna for England after Germany annexed Austria and after his daughter
was arrested by the Gestapo and held in custody for a day. He died in
London on September 23, 1939.
(HNQ, 3/24/00)
1939 Feb 11, Franz Schmidt (64),
Austrian composer, died.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1939 Oct 31, Otto Rank,
[Rosenfeld], Austria psychoanalyst (Trauma of Geburt), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
c1939-1945 Some 119,000 people died at the Mauthausen
Concentration Camp in Austria.
(SFC, 2/25/00, p.A16)
1941 Oct-1941 Nov, Nazi doctor
Aribert Heim, dubbed "Dr. Death," worked at the Mauthausen
concentration camp near Linz, Austria, as camp doctor. Heim fled
Germany in 1962.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1942 Feb 23, Stefan Zweig
(b.1881), Austrian Jewish writer (Die Welt von Gestern), committed
suicide with his wife in Brazil. Zweig's nostalgic but rather
impersonal memoirs of the "Golden Age of Security", The World of
Yesterday, was published posthumously in 1943. His last novel (The
Ecstasy of Transformation) was published posthumously in Germany in
1982. In 2008 it was translated into English as “The Post-Office Girl.”
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/szweig.htm)(WSJ, 6/21/08,
p.W9)(Econ, 5/23/09, p.91)
1942 Mar 15, Alexander van
Zemlinsky (70), Austrian-US composer (African Dance), died.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1942 May 7, Felix Paul von
Weingartner, Austria conductor, composer, died.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1942 Oct 10, 1,300 Austrian Jews
were transported to Theresienstadt.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1942 Joseph Schumpeter
(1883-1950), former Austrian minister of finance (1919-1920), authored
"Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy," in which he predicted the
decline of the family. He introduced here the concept of “creative
destruction:” that old ways of doing things are constantly being swept
away for new ones.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter)(Econ, 11/24/07, SR
p.11)
1943 Oct 31, Max Reinhardt,
Austrian stage manager (Turandot), died.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1943 Dec 2, 1st RSHA transport out
of Vienna reached Birkenau camp.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1943 Sister Restituta Kafka was
beheaded by the Nazis for putting up crosses in a hospital. Pope John
Paul II planned to beatify her in 1998.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B3)(SFC, 6/22/98, p.A10)
1944 Mar 17, The United States
Eighth Air Force bombs Vienna.
(HN, 3/17/00)
1944 Hans Asperger, Austrian
pediatrician 1st described a syndrome (Asperger’s syndrome) that
related to autism, which was 1st described in 1943 by psychiatrist Leo
Kanner. Symptoms included problems with social interaction.
(SSFC, 2/2/03, Par p.4)
1945 Mar 29, German SS as well as
Hitler Youth members shot at least 57 laborers in woods near the small
town of Deutsch Schuetzen, later part of Austria. In 2009 German
prosecutors charged a 90-year-old alleged former member of Hitler's SS
with 58 counts of murder.
(AFP, 11/17/09)
1945 Mar 30, The Soviet Union
invaded Austria during World War II.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1945 Apr 13, Vienna fell to Soviet
troops.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1945 May 2, The Soviet Union
announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of
Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.
(AP, 5/2/97)
1945 May 5, The 761st Tank
Battalion, an all black unit under Gen. Patton, linked with Russian
allies near Steyr, Austria.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.B4)
1945 May 5, The Mauthausen
Concentration camp in Austria was liberated.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1945 May, In Austria US Army
officers and troops plundered a “gold train” on its way to Germany from
Hungary that carried gold, jewels, paintings and other valuables seized
by the Nazis from Jewish families. A 2001 suit filed in Miami said the
army falsely classified it as unidentifiable and enemy property, which
avoided having to return the goods to their rightful owners. The suit
alleged that the US made no effort to return the goods and lied to
Hungarian Jews who sought information about their property after the
war. In 2004 the property was estimated to be worth ten times its
original $200 million valuation. In 2005 the US government reached a
$25.5 million settlement with families of the Hungarian Holocaust
victims for distribution to needy Holocaust survivors.
(AP, 12/20/04)(SFC, 3/12/05, p.A5)
1945 May, The Allies liberated
Austria. [May 8 was VE-Day]
(StuAus, April '95, p.44)
1945 May, The Univ. of Vienna
reopened.
(StuAus, April '95, p.18)
1945 Jul 31, Pierre Laval, premier
of the pro-Nazi Vichy government, surrendered to U.S. authorities in
Austria; he was turned over to France, which later tried and executed
him.
(AP, 7/31/05)
1945 Oct 8, Felix Salten (b.1869),
Austrian writer and the creator of Disney’s Bambi (1923), died in
Switzerland. In 1906 he authored the novel Josephine Mutzenbacher, the
fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, a notorious
pornographic novel.
(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Salten)
1945 Nov 30, Russian forces took
Danzig, and invaded Austria.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1945 Austria retrieved some 18,000
looted artworks from a US Army depot in Munich. The bulk of them were
restituted to former owners over the next 3 years.
(WSJ, 12/9/98, p.A20)
1945 Some 40,000 anti-Soviet
Cossacks, who had surrendered to the British, were turned over to the
Red Army. Some 30,000 Yugoslavs were handed over to Tito under the
pretense that they were being sent to Italy. The Yugoslavs were locked
into trains and taken to Slovenia, where they were shot and buried in
mass graves.
(WSJ, 3/17/98, p.A16)
1945 The far-right Freedom Party
was founded.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)
1945 Anton Webern (b.1883),
Austrian composer, died. He was accidentally shot by an American
soldier policing his town.
(WSJ, 2/14/00, p.A20)
1946 May 13, US condemned 58 camp
guards of Mauthausen concentration camp to death.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1947 Jul 30, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, 5x Mr. Universe and film star, was born in Thal bei
Graz, Austria. In 2003 he was elected governor of California.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, Par p.4)(Internet)
1947 Paula von Preradovic,
Austrian poet, wrote a new Austrian anthem after the old one was
pinched by the Germans.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.3)
1948 Jan 8, Richard Tauber (55),
Austria-British tenor, composer (Lehar), died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1948 Oct 24, Franz Lehar,
Austrian-Hungarian composer (Wiener Frauen), died at 78.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1949 Oct 9, In Austria general
elections brought losses to both the People’s Party and the Socialists.
Many former Nazis rallied behind the new Union of Independents.
The government was composed of a coalition of the People’s Party and
the Socialists.
(EWH, 1968, p.1185)
1949 Leonie Rysanek (d.1998 at
71), singer-actress, made her debut in Innsbruck. She became a leading
opera singer and sang in 2,100 performances.
(SFC, 3/9/98, p.D3)
1952 Emilie Flöge, Viennese
fashion designer, died. She was a long time companion of Gustav Klimt.
Dr. Wolfgang Fischer later authored "Gustav Klimt and Emilie
Flöge, An Artist and His Muse."
(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.W14)
1953 Robert Musil (d.1942),
Austrian author, got published in short form in English his unfinished
book "The Man Without Qualities" set in Vienna around 1913. A full 2
volume set ($60) was published in 1995.
(WSJ, 4/12/95, A-12)
1954 Jan 11, Oscar Straus (83),
Austrian composer (The Chocolate Soldier), died.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1954 Jan 12, Austria's worst
avalanche killed 200. 9hrs later a 2nd one killed 115.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1955 May 15, A treaty was signed
in Vienna by the representatives of the four powers and Austria. It
formally reestablished the Austrian republic in its pre-1938 frontiers
as a “sovereign, independent and democratic state.”
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)
1955 Sep 21, The last allied
occupying troops left Austria.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1955 Aug 25, Last Soviet forces
left Austria.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1955 Oct 25, Austria resumed its
sovereignty after the departure of last Allied occupation forces, for
1st time since German occupation of 1938.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)
1955 Oct 26, Austria, under
request by Russia, promulgated a constitutional law of perpetual
neutrality.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-33385/Austria)(Econ,
11/24/07, SR p.8)
1955 Nov 5, The new Vienna Opera
house opened.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1955 The Austrian Neutrality Pact
negotiations led to the pullout of Allied and soviet troops. Rudolf
Kirchschlaeger represented Austria.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E5)
1956 Nov, Austria provided
humanitarian aid to nearly 200,000 Hungarians fleeing their homeland
after Soviet tanks crushed freedom fighters aiming to overthrow
repressive communist rule.
(AP, 10/20/06)
1957 May 12, Erich von Stroheim
(b.1885), Austrian-US actor and director, died in Paris. His films
included "Grand Illusion," "The Merry Widow," and "Greed." In 2000
Arthur Lennig published the biography "Stroheim."
(WSJ, 2/23/00, p.A20)(MC, 5/12/02)
1959 Nov 20, Seven European
nations (Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,
Switzerland) signed the Stockholm Convention to form the European Free
Trade Association (EFTA). The organization becoming operative on May 3
1960.
(www.iceland.org/efta/the-mission/int-organizations/efta/)
1960 May 3, Austria became a
founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), along
with Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. The
agreement took effect in 1994.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR
p.7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association)
1961 Jun 3, JFK and Khrushchev met
in Vienna.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1961 A Vienna Convention barred
the taxing of foreign diplomatic staff.
(AP, 9/15/02)
1963 The Graz Conservatory for
Voice became the Academy of Music and Drama.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1963 In Austria a Vienna
Convention produced a treaty that protected the right of individuals
jailed in a foreign land to contact their national consulate.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A3)
1964 The Philosophical Faculty
resumed teaching at the Univ. of Salzburg.
(StuAus, April '95, p.87)
1964 The Winter Olympics was held
in Innsbruck, Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.95)
1965 The Faculty of Law was
established at the Univ. of Salzburg.
(StuAus, April '95, p.87)
1966 Andreas Rett, an Austrian
doctor, first describe the complex neurological disorder that came to
be called Rett’s syndrome. The cause was later found to be a mutation
in a gene called MeCP2.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.90)
1968 Mar 2, In Switzerland the
World Ice Pairs Figure Skating Championship in Geneva was won by
Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov (USSR). The Ladies Figure
Skating Championship was won by Peggy Fleming (USA). The Men's Figure
Skating Championship was won by Emmerich Danzer (Austria).
(SC,
3/2/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Figure_Skating_Championships)
1970 Mar 1, Kreisky's
social-democrats won the Austrian parliamentary election.
(http://tinyurl.com/3tv72y)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_legislative_election,_1970)
1970 Mar 21, Marlen Haushofer
(b.1920), Austrian writer died. Her 1962 novel “The Wall” was her only
work translated into English.
(WSJ, 4/25/09,
p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlen_Haushofer)
1970 Apr 21, Bruno Kreisky
(1911-1990) became the 1st socialist chancellor of Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Kreisky)
1970 The Graz Academy of Music
and Drama became the University of Music and Drama.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1970 The Univ. of Klagenfurt in
the Carinthia province of Austria was founded.
(StuAus, April '95, p.73)
1971 Dec 22, The UN General
Assembly voted to ratify the election of Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007) of
Austria to succeed U Thant as the 4th Secretary-General.
(AP, 12/22/99)
1971 Dec 28, Maximilian Raoul
Walter Steiner (b.1888), Austrian-born American composer, died. He is
known best for the score he composed for the classic film “Gone with
the Wind” and for the score and hugely popular theme song for the film
“A Summer Place.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Steiner)
1971 Ivan Illich (1926-2002),
Austrian philosopher, anarchist social critic and former Catholic
priest, authored "De-Schooling Society."
(SFC, 12/4/02,
p.A28)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich)
1971 Gottfried von Einem
(1918-1996), Austrian composer, composed the opera "The Visit of the
Old Lady," based on the 1956 play by Friedrich Durenmatt.
(WSJ, 4/16/97,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_von_Einem)
1972 Jan 1, Kurt Waldheim
(1918-2007) of Austria began serving as the UN Secretary-General. He
continued until Jan 1, 1982.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
1973 Sep 29, Wystan Hugh Auden
(b.Feb 21, 1907), English born American poet, critic and playwright
(Spain, Platonic Blow), died in Austria after suffering from
Touraine-Solente-Gole in which the skin of the forehead, face, scalp,
hands, and feet becomes thick and furrowed. He wrote the libretto for
Benjamin Britten’s first music drama, "Paul Bunyan." In 1999 Edward
Mendelson published "Later Auden," which covered the years 1939-1973.
{USA, Poet, Austria, Playwright}
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden)(WSJ,
1/8/98, p.A7)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1973 The Univ. of Art and
Industrial Design in Linz was founded was established.
(StuAus, April '95, p.83)
1973 Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989),
Austrian zoologist, won the Nobel Prize.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Lorenz)
1974 The Austria National Gallery
bought W. de Kooning's "Woman V" (1953) for $850,000.
(http://tinyurl.com/3rr4bw)
1974 Rudi Gernreich, Austrian
engineer, introduced the first "thong bikini."
(WSJ, 6/7/99,
p.A8)(www.bikiniscience.com/chronology/1970-1975_SS/1970-1975.html)
1974 Rudolf Kirchschlaeger (d.2000
at 85) began serving as president of Austria and continued to 1986.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.E5)
1975 Jul 6, Otto Skorzeny
(b.1908), German-Austrian SS officer, died. He was the commando leader
who rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from imprisonment after
his overthrow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny)
1975 Jun 27, Robert Stolz
(b.1880), Austrian composer (Freuhling im Prater), died.
(http://robert.stolz.free.fr/Biography.htm)
1975 Das Brucknerhaus, a new
concert hall in Linz, Austria, was dedicated to Anton Bruckner, who had
played regularly on the organ of the Old Cathedral.
(StuAus, April '95, p.76)
1975 Dec 21, There was a terrorist
kidnapping of Saudi oil minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani and other
ministers at the OPEC gathering in Vienna, Austria. Three people were
killed and 11 taken hostage. The oil ministers were taken to North
Africa in a hijacked plane in a $1 billion ransom drama. Carlos the
Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, later admitted to planning the
attack. In 2001 Germany sentenced Hans-Joachim Klein to 9 years for his
role in the attack.
(WSJ, 12/4/95, p.B-1)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(SFC,
2/16/01, p.D2)
1976 Dec 7, The UN Security
Council endorsed Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007) of Austria for a 2nd 5-year
term as UN Secretary-General.
(www.worldofquotes.com/history/12_7/6/index.html)
1976 A German edition of Robert
Musil's diaries was published. In 1999 Philip Payne published an
abridged version "Diaries 1899-1942."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, BR p.9)
1976 The Winter Olympics were
again held in Innsbruck, Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.95)
1978 Nov 5, In Austria 50.5% of
the voters said no to turning on the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant
and the Austrian nuclear power program came to a halt. The plant at
Zwentendorf, begun in 1970, was completed at a cost of 8 billion
Austrian schillings and was intended to be the first of six Austrian
nuclear plants.
(www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn166zwented)
1979 Jun 18, President Carter and
Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT II strategic arms
limitation treaty in Vienna. The agreement set a ceiling on long-range
bombers and missiles and limited development to only one new land-base
missile system for the duration of the treaty.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HNQ, 11/15/99)
1979 The UN opened a major branch
in Vienna, Austria, as a third world center. It was promoted by
Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. The complex cost Austria $880 mil. and was
rented to the UN for a nominal annual rent of one dime.
(SFC, 2/17/96, p.A14)
1981 Aug 14, Karl Bohm (b.1894),
Austrian conductor and early Nazi sympathizer, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_B%C3%B6hm)
1981 Friedrich Karl Flick
(1927-2006), Austrian billionaire industrialist, became embroiled in a
major postwar political party financing scandal (the Flick Affair) when
it surfaced that some of his managers had given millions of German
marks to German political parties. Flick sold his company to Deutsche
Bank in 1985.
(AP, 10/6/06)
1983 May 24, Fred Sinowatz
(1929-2008) became Austrian Chancellor and continued for 3 years.
(AP,
8/12/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
1984 Oct 23, Oskar Werner
(b.1922), Austrian actor (Fahrenheit 451), died of a heart attack.
(www.filmbug.com/db/330521)
1985 Dec 27, Palestinian
guerrillas opened fire inside the Rome and Vienna airports; a total of
twenty people were killed, including five of the attackers, who were
slain by police and security personnel. Abu Nidal was considered
responsible. President Reagan blamed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
(AP, 12/27/97)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A6)(NYT, 10/8/04,
p.A12)
1985 Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007),
former sec-gen. of the UN, authored his autobiography: “In the Eye of
the Storm,” as he prepared to run for the presidency of Austria.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.97)
1986 Jun 8, Kurt Waldheim, an
alleged Nazi, was elected president of Austria.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Waldheim)
1986 Jul 8, Kurt Waldheim was
inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his
alleged ties to Nazi war crimes. He was barred from entering the US due
to his services as an officer in a German army unit implicated in war
crimes in the Balkans. He served to 1992.
(SFC, 2/17/96, p.A14)(AP, 7/8/97)
1987 Apr 27, The US Justice
Department barred Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the
US, saying he aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of
Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
(AP, 4/27/97)
1987 Jun 25, Pope John Paul II
received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim at the Vatican, a meeting
fraught with controversy because of allegations that Waldheim had
hidden a Nazi past.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1987 Kurt Waldheim, Austrian
president and former U.N. secretary general, was barred from entering
the U.S. for his past involvement in Nazi war crimes.
(HNQ, 10/22/99)
1988 Feb 15, Austrian President
Kurt Waldheim vowed in a televised address not to "retreat in the face
of slanders" concerning his service for the German Army during World
War II.
(AP, 2/15/98)
1988 Feb 29, A Nazi document was
discovered that implicated participation of Austrian president and
former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim in WWII deportations.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1988 Mar 10, Prior to the 50th
anniversary of the Anschluss, Austrian President Kurt Waldheim
apologized on his country's behalf for atrocities committed by Austrian
Nazis.
(AP, 3/10/08)
1988 Jun 23, Pope John Paul II
began his second papal visit to Austria, where he met with President
Kurt Waldheim, despite controversy over Waldheim's alleged involvement
in Nazi war crimes.
(AP, 6/23/98)
1988 Jun 24, Pope John Paul II, on
a visit to Austria, condemned Nazism during a stopover at the
Mauthausen death camp.
(AP, 6/24/98)
1989 Feb 12, Thomas Bernhard
(b.1931), Austrian novelist and playwright, died. He hated petty and
conservative Austrian qualities and was known as a teller of difficult
truths. His 1963 novel “Frost” was published in the US in 2006.
(SSFC, 10/22/06,
p.M4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bernhard)
1989 Feb 27, Konrad Lorenz
(b.1903), Austrian zoologist (Nobel 1973), died. He studied instinctive
behavior in animals, especially in grey geese and is considered to be
the founder of modern ethology. He discovered the principle of
imprinting in psychology. His books included “King Solomon’s Ring”
(1952).
(www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0830309.html)
1989 Jul 16, Conductor Herbert von
Karajan (b.1908) died near Salzburg, Austria.
(AP, 7/16/99)
1989 Jul 17, Austria formally
applies to join the European Community.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1989/index_en.htm)
1989 Aug 19, The "Pan-European
Picnic" helped precipitate the fall nearly three months later of the
Berlin Wall. Members of Hungary's budding opposition organized a picnic
at the border with Austria to press for greater political freedom and
promote friendship with their Western neighbors. Some 600 East Germans
got word of the event and turned up among the estimated 10,000
participants. They took advantage of the excursion to escape to Austria.
(AP, 8/19/09)
1989 Zita, the last Hapsburg
empress died.
(Hem., Dec. '95, p.69)
1990 Mar 13, Bruno Bettelheim
(86), Austrian-US psychoanalyst, committed suicide. His books included
"The Empty Fortress" (1967), on infantile autism and "the Use of
Enchantment" (1976), a study of fairy tales. In 1996 Richard Pollak
wrote: "The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim." In
2002 Theron Raines authored "Rising to the Light: A Portrait of Bruno
Bettelheim."
(SFC, 12/29/96, BR p.1)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.M4)(MC,
3/13/02)
1990 Jul 29, Bruno Kreisky,
Austria’s longest-serving chancellor and an architect of its policy of
neutrality, died at age 79.
(AP, 7/29/00)
1991 Apr 21, Willi Boskovsky (81),
Vienna Philharmonic conductor (New Year's concerts), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Boskovsky)
1991 Jun 9, Pianist Claudio Arrau
died in Austria at age 88.
(AP, 6/9/01)
1991 Chancellor Franz Vranitzky
admitted Austrian complicity in the Holocaust.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A13)(SFC, 4/24/00, p.A12)
1991 Joerg Haider resigned as
governor of Carinthia after praising Nazi Germany for having a "proper
employment policy." By 1996 he led the Freedom Party, Europe’s
strongest nationalist party.
(SFC, 10/25/96, p.A16)
1992 Mar 29, Paul [G J von]
Henreid (84), Austrian actor (Laszlo-Casablanca), died.
(www.pgtw.bc.ca/histor3.htm)
1992 Nov 27, In Austria part of
the Vienna Hofburg (Imperial Palace) was destroyed by fire.
(http://tinyurl.com/93qvm)
1992 Thomas Klestil (1933-2004)
became president of Austria.
(WSJ, 7/7/04, p.A1)
1993 Dec, Vienna Mayor Helmut Zilk
(1927-2008), lost part of his hand to a letter bomb. Authorities later
tried and convicted right-wing extremist Franz Fuchs of sending pipe
and letter bombs targeting refugees and minorities, and officials like
Zilk who supported them. Fuchs, dubbed "the Austrian Unabomber," after
the American mail-bomber Theodore Kaczynksi, hanged himself in his
prison cell in 2000 while serving a life sentence for the string of
attacks.
(AP, 10/24/08)
1993 A new Univ. building was
constructed for the Univ. of Music and Drama in Graz in the shape
reminiscent of a grand piano.
(StuAus, April '95, p.62)
1993 A new Jewish Museum opened in
Vienna.
(USAT, 9/24/04, p.3D)
1993 The Bajuvarian Liberation
Army began aiming letter bombs against foreigners and figures linked to
immigrant or refugee issues.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A14)
1994 Oct 9, In the Austrian
parliamentary election 22.6% voted extreme-right. The ruling coalition
of the Social Democratic Party and the People’s Party retained a
legislative majority but lost 23 seats.
(www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-768.html)
1994 Oct, Kim Jong Ryul, a North
Korean colonel who spent two decades going on European shopping sprees
for his country's rulers, faked his death at the end of one of his
trips and started a new, secret life in Austria in the hope that the
oppressive regime would crumble within years. He left behind a wife and
two children. In 2010 Austrian journalists Ingrid Steiner-Gashi and
Dardan Gashi authored an account of Ryul’s work for Kim Jong Il.
(AP, 3/5/10)
1995 Jan 1, Austria, Finland and
Sweden joined the European Union. Sweden held their elections to the
parliament later that year on 17 September. Austria held its elections
on 13 October, 1996 and Finland on 20 October, 1996.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union)(Econ,
5/1/04, p.26)
1995 Austria established a fund to
compensate Holocaust victims with payments limited to $7,000.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A13)
1995 Johan Eliasch (33),
Swedish-born English business executive, acquired the financially
ailing Head NV from the Austrian government for $1 million plus the
assumption of more than $300 million in debt.
(WSJ, 4/7/07, p.A5)
1996 Jan 20, US Ambassador Swanee
Hunt gave the Austrian government a list of sites where weapons were
stockpiled by the US in the 1950s as a precaution against a Soviet
takeover.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Jun 9, The latest
unemployment rate was 4.9%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)
1996 Jun 13, About $150 billion
was deposited in 26 million numbered accounts in Austria, a country of
7.5 million people. Many of the accounts were attributed to new Russian
immigrants and gangs. The state prosecutor, Wolfgang Mekis, was put
behind bars for trying to extort $600,000 from Valentina Hummelbrunner,
the onetime receptionist of former Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei
Gromyko.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C2)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a
Big Mac in Austria was $3.40.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Aug 31, The country’s first
gay wedding took place in the Evangelical Church in Vienna’s Simmering
district.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A4)
1996 Sep 13, Pres. Thomas Klestil
was admitted to Vienna Gen’l. Hospital for pneumonia.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 24, Chancellor Franz
Vranitzky began as acting head of state.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 2, The Bajuvarian
Liberation Army targeted 8 prominent people including Chancellor Frank
Vranitzky.
(SFC, 10/3/96, p.A14)
1996 Oct 13, In Austria the
far-right Freedom party of Joerg Haider received 27.6% of the vote. The
Conservative People’s Party led by Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schuessel
won with 29.6%, while the Social Democrats got 29.1%.
(SFC, 10/14/96, p.A12)
1997 Jan 19, Chancellor Franz
Vranitzky announced his resignation after 10 years in office.
(SFC, 1/20/96, p.A13)
1997 Mar 1, It was announced that
the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra would allow Ann Lelkes, a harpist who
had played with the orchestra for 26 years, to become an official
member. There still existed an unofficial but firm policy against
admitting members of racial or ethnic minorities.
(SFC, 3/1/97, p.E1)
1997 Jul 22, A campaign was
started to rename all public places named after poet Ottokar Kernstock,
the man who wrote the words of the "Swastika Song," the election theme
of Adolph Hitler’s Nazis.
(SFC, 7/23/97, p.A11)
1997 Sep 2, Viktor E. Frankl (b.
1905), psychotherapist, died in Vienna at age 92. He was the author in
the 1960s of "Man’s Search for Meaning." He developed logotherapy, a
theory whose primary belief is that man’s primary motivational force is
his search for meaning. His teachings are called the 3rd Vienna School
of Psychotherapy after Freud and Adler. He held that one can discover
the meaning of life in 3 different ways: "by creating a work or doing a
deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the
attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering." Frankl's autobiography,
"Reflections," was translated by Joseph Fabry (d.1999 at 89) and his
wife.
(WSJ, 9/4/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.C4)(SFC, 5/12/99,
p.C6)
1997 Dec 11, From Austria
scientists reported in Nature that they had demonstrated a form of
tele-transportation. They teleported the physical condition of a photon
using a phenomenon called entanglement.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A4)
1997 Gordon Brook-Shepherd
published "The Austrians."
(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A16)
1997 The Austrian film "Tempo" was
a first film by Stefan Ruzowitzky and followed the misadventures of a
bike messenger in Vienna.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D6)
1997 The Austrian film "The
Unfish" was directed by Robert Dornhelm. It was about a woman who
sleeps with strangers in the belly of a stuffed whale that was her dead
uncle’s circus prop.
(SFC, 1/9/98, p.D6)
1998 Feb 7, Falco (40), Austrian
born pop singer, died while on vacation in an auto crash in the
Dominican Republic. His hits included "Der Kommissar," "Rock Me
Amadeus," and "Vienna Calling."
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)
1998 Mar 2, Natascha Kampusch (10)
vanished in Vienna, Austria, on her way to school, triggering a massive
search that extended into neighboring Hungary. In 2006 Kampusch, who
had been held captive in a cellar, managed to escape. Wolfgang
Priklopil (44), her alleged abductor, committed suicide by jumping in
front of a train. In 2007 Natascha’s mother, Brigitta Sirny authored:
"Desperate Years: My life Without Natascha." In 2008 Herwig Haidinger,
the former head of Austria's Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau,
accused authorities of ignoring a tip in April 1998 from a local
policeman that pointed to Priklopil. He also alleged that Interior
Ministry officials refused to look into that accusation once Kampusch
reappeared, so to avoid a scandal before parliamentary elections that
fall.
(AP, 8/24/06)(AP, 8/8/07)(AP, 2/11/08)
1998 Mar 27, Ferdinand Porsche
Jr., creator of the Porsche sports car, died at age 88 in Zell am See,
Austria. He was born in Wiener-Neustadt and moved to Germany with his
family after WW I where his father became chief engineer of
Daimler-Benz, the manufacturer of the Mercedes Benz cars. He wrote an
autobiography titled "Cars Are My Life."
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)(AP, 3/27/99)
1998 Apr 19, Thomas Klestil (66)
was re-elected president, a largely ceremonial post, with 63% of the
vote. In Dec he planned to marry a former aide, Margot Loeffler, 22
years his junior.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A10)(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C3)
1998 Apr, Pope John Paul II forced
Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, accused of sexually molesting young boys,
to relinquish all duties.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B3)
1998 Jun 19, Pope John Paul II
visited Austria for 3 days.
(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B3)
1998 Jul 3-5, 1998 Vienna
celebrated the 400th anniversary of opera.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.T3)
1998 Aug 3, In Austria Hermann
Nitsch (b.1938) ignored animal rights protestors and began a 6-day
festival during which he planned to kill pigs and bulls and paint
pictures with their blood. This was his 100th such performance (named
the 6-Day Play after its length) and it took place at his castle,
Schloss Prinzendorf.
(SFC, 8/4/98,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Nitsch)
1998 Oct, Austria’s BAWAG bank
lost some $600 million following a disastrous bet on the yen. Losses
were covered by taking money from the strike fund of OGB, the
federation of trade unions that owned the bank. In 2007 Helmut Elsner,
head of BAWAG, went on trial along with 8 others including Walter
Flottl, the former head of BAWAG, and Flottl’s son, and independent
banker who arranged the yen trades.
(Econ, 7/21/07, p.73)
1998 The Austrian film "The
Inheritors" was directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. It was about a group of
peasants who inherit a farm after their employer is murdered.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.E1)
1998 In Austria the Vienna based
Four Paws animal rights group opened a bear sanctuary for dancing bears
and unwanted pet bears.
(SFC, 7/8/02, p.A3)
1999 Jan 1, The Maastricht Treaty
specified that a monetary union will be established by this date, and
laid down several criteria that EU nations must fulfill in order to
join. Some of the criteria included: maximum budget deficits of 3% of
GDP, a cap on government debt of 60% of GDP. The European economic and
monetary union (EMU) was scheduled to start with a new "Euro" currency.
Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain made the transition. Public use was
set for Jan 1, 2002. [see Jan 4]
(WSJ, 9/25/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(SFC,
11/16/96, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 4, The euro, the new
money of 11 European nations, got off to a strong start on its first
trading day, rising against the dollar on world currency markets and
closed in New York at $1.181. A founding principal of the euro area
held that national central banks be independent of their governments.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.C2)(AP, 1/4/00)(HN, 1/4/01)(Econ,
2/25/06, p.77)
1999 Feb, 22, It was reported that
McDonald's had opened new experimental sites dubbed McCafe to compete
with the local coffeehouses.
(SFC, 2/22/99, p.A8)
1999 Feb 23, Heavy rain and snow
in the Alps left 5 people dead and 13 missing in Austria, Switzerland,
France and Germany. An avalanche in the Austrian Alps at Galtuer killed
9 people and at least 30 were missing. The death toll in Austria rose
to 33 by Feb 25.
(WSJ, 2/23/99, p.A1)(SFC, 2/24/99, p.A8)(WSJ,
2/26/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 26, In Landeck, Austria,
the death toll from recent avalanches reached 37.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A16)
1999 Mar 7, In Austrian state
elections the anti-immigration Freedom Party of Joerg Haider won 42.1%
of the vote in Carinthia.
(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Apr 8, In Carinthia
far-right leader Joerg Haider was elected governor.
(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 15, Austria began
accepting refugees from Kosovo. The Austrian Army and Red Cross built a
camp for 5,000 refugees in Shkoder, Albania.
(SFC, 4/27/99, p.A8)
1999 May 29, A multiple vehicle
collision set off a 15-hour fire in the Tauern Tunnel and at least 12
people were killed.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C4)
1999 Jun 16, Austria reported that
it found animal feed contaminated with Dioxin.
(WSJ, 6/17/99, p.A18)
1999 Jun 25-27, The Danube Island
Festival was billed as Europe's largest youth party.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.T3)
1999 Jul 16-18, In Wiener Neustadt
the Woodstock '99 "One World" experienced music festival was projected
to have an audience of 250,000.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.D9)
1999 Oct 3, The far-right Freedom
Party (the Blues) led by Joerg Haider (49) won 2nd place behind the
Social Democrats, who won with 33% of the vote. The conservative
People’s Party (the Blacks) fell to 3rd place with 27%.
(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A12)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A12)(Econ,
11/24/07, SR p.6)
1999 Oct 12, The 3rd place
Austrian People's Party refused to revive a coalition with the Social
Democrats.
(WSJ, 10/13/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 29, In Upper Austria
police arrested 8 unidentified ringleaders of a neo-Nazi group that
planned a political coup.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 2, An explosion leveled a
3-story apartment building in Wilhelmsberg and 9 people were killed.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.D5)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.A1)(SFC,
12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 4, In Austria 5 people
died and 25 injured when a barrier gave way in a stampede at
snow-boarding event in Bergisel Stadium in Innsbruck.
(SFEC, 12/5/99, p.A26)
1999 Dec 29, In Austria an
avalanche killed 9 German tourists hiking near Galtuer. 13 people were
buried but 4 survived.
(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A20)
2000 Jan 6, Two Austrian banks,
Bank Austria and Creditanstalt, agreed to a $40 million settlement with
an estimated 1,000 Holocaust victims or their heirs for having
confiscated their assets.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D2)
2000 Jan 19, In Austria the
union-backed Social Democrats and the pro-business Austrian People's
Party formed a coalition (the Reds and Blacks) to keep the right-wing
Freedom Party of Joerg Haider out of the government.
(SFC, 1/21/00, p.D2)
2000 Jan 21, In Austria the 2-day
old ruling coalition collapsed.
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A11)
2000 Jan 31, The European Union
warned Austria that its 14 members would diplomatically isolate Austria
if the Freedom Party of Joerg Haider entered into a coalition
government.
(SFC, 2/1/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 1, Wolfgang Schuessel,
head of the Austrian People's Party, outlined a plan to Pres. Thomas
Klestil to incorporate the Freedom Party.
(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A18)
2000 Feb 3, In Austria Pres.
Thomas Klestil swore in members of the Freedom Party after Joerg Haider
signed a declaration accepting Austria's responsibility for Nazi crimes
during WW II.
(SFC, 2/4/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 4, In Austria the new
governing coalition took power and triggered diplomatic sanctions and
protests.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 28, In Austria Joerg
Haider, governor of Carinthia, resigned as head of the Freedom Party.
His official resignation took place May 1.
(SFC, 2/29/00, p.A10)(SFC, 5/2/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 28, In Niedersill,
Austria, a massive avalanche killed 11 people.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.A15)
2000 May, The Iranian embassy in
Vienna granted refuge to Holocaust denier Wolfgang Frohlich.
(www.adl.org/presrele/holocaustdenial_83/3756_83.asp)
2000 Jul 7, The parliament
approved a $415 million fund to compensate Nazi-era victims of forced
labor.
(SFC, 7/8/00, p.C14)
2000 Sep 12, The EU lifted
diplomatic sanctions against Austria.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct 8, It was reported that
Austria had agreed to pay $400 million to slave and forced laborers
sent there by Hitler during WW II.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.A28)
2000 Nov 11, In Austria a fire
consumed a cable car crammed with skiers and snowboarders in an Alpine
tunnel at Kitzsteinhorn mountain near Kaprun. 155 people, mostly
children and teenagers, were killed. In 2008 a settlement provided
relatives of the people who died a share of euro13.9 million (US$21.5
million) in compensation,
(WSJ, 11/15/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/16/00, p.A1)(AP,
11/11/05)(AP, 6/17/08)
2000 Nov 19, 4 skiers died in
avalanches in the Tyrol.
(SFC, 11/20/00, p.A10)
2000 Nov 28, Liane Haid, film
star, died at age 105. She had starred in 90 films between 1915 and
1942.
(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C8)
2000 Dec 16, Joerg Haidar, a
far-right Austrian leader, visited Pope John Paul II along with a 250
person delegation to present a Christmas tree from Carinthia. This
provoked heavy clashes between protesters and police.
(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D1)
2001 Mar 25, Elections for
Vienna’s City Hall showed Socialists poised to win a controlling
majority.
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A8)
2002 Jan 1, In Europe 50 billion
new euro coins and 14 billion new euro notes began circulating in 12
participating countries in the most ambitious currency changeover in
history: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Luxembourg, Spain, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.
(SFC, 1/2/02, p.A8)(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Feb 26, A train wreck in
Wampersdorf left 7 people dead.
(SFC, 2/27/02, p.A7)
2002 Jul 27, In Austria a hand
grenade exploded in the X-Large Disco makeshift discotheque in Linz,
frequented by young Serbian and Croatian immigrants, wounding 27
teenage revelers.
(AP, 7/27/02)
2002 Sep, In Austria the Ars
Electronica Center in Linz held its annual 6-day festival with prizes,
installations, lectures, seminars and concerts featuring the latest in
digital and electronic media.
(WSJ, 9/25/02, p.D8)
2002 Nov 24, In Austria Chancellor
Wolfgang Schuessel's conservative party made large gains to dominate
parliamentary elections.
(AP, 11/24/02)
2003 Feb 28, In Austria a
conservative-led coalition assumed governing power in Austria backed by
Joerg Haider’s anti-immigrant party.
(AP, 2/28/03)
2003 Apr 4, In Algeria 8 Austrian
tourists were reported missing. Searchers using camels and helicopters
equipped with heat-seeking sensors were already scouring the Sahara
Desert for 21 tourists, mostly Germans, who vanished in Algeria over
the past six weeks.
(AP, 4/4/03)(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A8)
2003 May, Heineken paid $2.2
billion for BBAG, Austria's leading beer maker.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.63)
2003 May, A 16th century
gold-plated "Saliera," or salt cellar, by Florentine master Benvenuto
Cellini, valued at $69.3 million, was stolen from Vienna's Art History
Museum by a single thief when guards ignored a burglar alarm. The
figurine is later recovered.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2003 Jul 19, The first Human
Tongue Transplant took place in Vienna, Austria. Tongue transplants had
been performed for years on animals, but this was the first attempt at
transplanting a human tongue. It was carried out at Memorial University
Hospital in Vienna, Austria during a 14-hour operation by Dr. Rolf
Ewers and eight surgeons. It was performed on an unidentified
42-year-old patient who was suffering from a malignant tumor affecting
his tongue and jaw. Doctors believed he would ultimately be able to
talk, have feeling and limited movement, but probably won’t regain the
sensation of taste.
(http://tinyurl.com/5ehhps)(http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3964)
2003 Dec 23, Hans Koller (82),
Austrian jazz saxophonist, died. In 1946 he founded the Hot Club Vienna
and later launched an international career.
(SFC, 12/24/03, p.A16)
2003 The first Homeless World Cup
tournament was held in Austria with just five countries competing. The
project aimed at helping homeless people turn their lives around.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2004 Mar 7, In Austria Joerg
Haider Haider's Freedom Party won 42.4 percent of the vote, compared to
just over 38 percent for the rival Socialists in Carinthia province.
(AP, 3/8/04)
2004 Apr 25, In Austria Heinz
Fischer, the candidate of the opposition Social Democrats, defeated
Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, a conservative rival backed by
right-wing populist Joerg Haider in a presidential election.
(AP, 4/25/04)
2004 May 31, In Austria a
catamaran filled 27 people overturned on Hinterbruehl Grotto, Europe's
largest underground lake, drowning 5 people after the boat's railings
formed a cage 5 feet down on the lake floor.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 Jul 6, President Thomas
Klestil (71), who helped distance Austria from its Nazi past and
strengthened the country's ties with emerging Eastern European
democracies, died two days before he was to leave office.
(AP, 7/7/04)
2004 Aug 10, In Austria a bus
carrying mostly British tourists veered off a road in the province of
Salzburg and rolled down an embankment, killing at least five people.
(AP, 8/10/04)
2004 Oct 7, Austria's Elfriede
Jelinek won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and plays that
depict violence against women, explore sexuality and condemn far-right
politics in Europe. Her books included “The Piano Teacher” (1988),
which was adopted for a 2001 film.
(AP, 10/7/04)(SFC, 10/8/04, p.A4)
2005 Jan 1, Austria was forecast
for 2.4% GDP growth with a population at 8.2 million and GDP per head
at $39,130.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.87)
2005 Apr 26, Actress Maria Schell
died in Preitenegg, Austria, at age 79.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2005 May 11, Lawmakers in Austria
and neighboring Slovakia voted overwhelmingly to ratify the new
European constitution, giving much-needed support to the charter
intended to strengthen the 25-member European Union.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Austrian authorities
reported the break up a major human trafficking ring led by Romanian,
Moldovan and Ukrainian criminals who smuggled more than 5,000 East
Europeans to the West, many enduring horrific conditions in tiny hiding
spaces in cars, trucks and trailers.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 30, In Graz, Austria, the
body of a slain infant was found at an apartment complex. 3 more soon
discovered: 2 stuffed in a basement freezer, one entombed in a paint
bucket filled with concrete and one in a plastic bag beneath debris in
a garden shed.
(AP, 6/3/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Austria an
explosion ripped through a pizzeria in a town in the southeastern
province of Styria, killing 2 children and injuring 7, in a blast that
may have been the result of an attack.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 21, Austria’s Health
Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat announced a cow in an alpine farm Austria
has been found to be infected with mad cow disease.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Austria IAEA
representatives of more than 100 countries gathered at the UN nuclear
agency's Vienna headquarters to consider strengthening international
laws meant to safeguard nuclear materials from theft and prevent
terrorist attacks on atomic power plants.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jun 28, Austria launched an
energy exchange to trade carbon allowances in accord with the Kyoto
treaty to deal with greenhouse gases.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.64)
2005 Jul 8, In Austria an
89-nation UN conference approved broadening a treaty meant to keep
nuclear material from the hands of terrorists, opening the way for
states to ratify the agreement. The Convention of the Physical
Protection of Nuclear Material originally obligated the 112 countries
that have accepted it to protect nuclear material during international
transport. The amended version expands such protection to materials at
nuclear facilities, in domestic storage and during domestic transport
or use.
(AP, 7/8/05)
2005 Aug 11, In Vienna the board
of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iran suspend all
nuclear activities it resumed earlier this week.
(AP, 8/11/05)
2005 Sep 5, In the town of
Soelden, Austria, a 1,500-pound chunk of concrete being used for
construction at a ski resort fell from a helicopter and hit a gondola
cable, hurling dozens of passengers to the ground and killing 9
Germans. In 2006 the helicopter pilot was convicted of criminal
negligence and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
(AP, 9/5/05)(AP, 6/23/06)
2005 Sep 20, Simon Wiesenthal
(96), the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals
following World War II, then spent the later decades of his life
fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died in
Austria.
(AP, 9/20/05)(Econ, 9/24/05, p.102)
2005 Sep 26, Archaeologists in
northern Austria reported finding the remains of two newborns dating
back 27,000 years while excavating a hillside near Krems. The newborns
were buried beneath mammoth bones and with a string of 31 beads,
suggesting that the internment involved some sort of ritual.
(AP, 9/26/05)
2005 Oct 17, Commodities brokerage
Refco Inc. said it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it struck a
deal to sell its core futures brokerage business to a group of private
equity investors for $768 million. BAWAG, Austria’s 4th largest bank,
gave Refco a top-up loan of 350 million euros just hours before the
bankruptcy. In 2007 it was revealed that Wolfgang Flottl, a hedge fund
manager, had his investments sour in 1997 causing BAWAG to lose over $1
billion. The losses were hid from auditors for 7 years. Helmut Elsner,
former boss of BAWAG (1995-2003), faced charges along with 8 others for
the bank’s near collapse.
(Reuters, 10/17/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)(WSJ,
1/25/06, p.A1)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.73)
2005 Nov 14, EU Council decision
Nr. 2005/815/EB officially gave Vilnius, Lithuania, and Linz, Austria,
status as a European Capital of Culture for the year 2009.
(www.culturelive.lt/en/european_capitals_of_culture)
2005 Nov 17, Austria’s Interior
Ministry said British historian David Irving has been arrested on a
warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust. On Dec 20, 2006, a court
ruled to release Irving (68) and allow him to serve the rest of his 3
year sentence on probation.
(AP, 11/17/05)(SFC, 12/21/06, p.A18)
2005 Dec 5, Austria officially
finished paying out nearly $350 million in restitution to former slave
and forced laborers compelled to work during WW II under Nazi control.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A8)
2005 Dec 15, Dr. Heinrich Gross
(90), a psychiatrist who worked at a clinic where the Nazis killed and
conducted cruel experiments on thousands of children, died in Vienna.
Gross was a leading doctor in Vienna's infamous Am Spiegelgrund clinic.
(AP, 12/22/05)(SFC, 12/23/05, p.B5)
2005 Dec 29, Hannah Lessing, chief
fund overseer, said about 3,000 people have been cleared to receive the
first payments from an Austrian fund to compensate Holocaust survivors,
and another 3,000 should be approved shortly.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2006 Jan 7, Heinrich Harrer (93),
an Austrian mountaineer and former Nazi who became a friend and tutor
of the young Dalai Lama, died. Actor Brad Pitt played Harrer in the
1997 film "Seven Years in Tibet," which was based on Harrer's 1953
memoir of his time in Tibet.
(AP, 1/7/06)(Econ, 1/21/06, p.83)
2006 Jan 17, Austria said it will
honor an arbitration court decision and give five precious Gustav Klimt
paintings to a California woman who says the Nazis stole them from her
Jewish family.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 24, Vienna's subway
tracks cracked, German authorities shut a key canal to ships after it
iced up, and a zoo moved its penguins indoors as a deadly deep freeze
tightened its arctic grip on much of Europe.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 28, A 2-day European
conference on the future of the EU ended in Salzburg, Austria. European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that Europe must face
globalization head-on and not shy away from the issue.
(AP, 1/28/06)
2006 Jan 30, The University of
Vienna announced that it plans to build a new Holocaust research center
in honor of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Feb 20, In Austria right-wing
British historian David Irving (67) pleaded guilty to charges of
denying the Holocaust and conceded that he was wrong to say there were
no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 20, UN mediated talks on
the future status of Kosovo opened in Vienna as Serbs and ethnic
Albanians staked out tough positions.
(AP, 2/20/06)
2006 Mar 6, Austrian authorities
said several cats have tested positive for the deadly strain of bird
flu in their first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal
other than a bird.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 31, In Austria Gertraud
Arzberger (33), who stuffed the bodies of two of her four newborn
infants in a freezer and entombed two others in plastic buckets filled
with cement, was convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to
life imprisonment. Her live-in companion, Johannes Genser (39), was
convicted as an accessory and was sentenced to 15 years.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Apr 7, In Austria a 2-day
meeting began in Vienna for European Imams aimed at creating a distinct
identity for European Muslims.
(SFC, 4/7/06, p.A16)
2006 Apr 9, In Austria a gathering
of Imams and Islamic leaders urged European governments to launch
affirmative action-style programs and streamline citizenship paths to
help ease integration for the continent's 33 million Muslims.
(AP, 4/9/06)
2006 Apr 27, Austria, in its role
as current president of the EU, began a poster campaign called
"Temptress Europe" designed to reawaken Europeans to the continent's
"sensuous" side.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 May 11, The EU and Latin
America opened a three-day summit in Vienna with over 60 national
leaders attending, including Venezuela's fiery, often anti-Washington
President Hugo Chavez. Bolivian President Evo Morales said that foreign
oil companies would not be compensated for oil and gas resources that
have been nationalized, and European Union president Austria called for
explanations.
(AFP, 5/11/06)
2006 May, Austrian financial
institutions and the government stepped in to stem a run on BAWAG,
Austria’s 4th largest bank. Creditors alleged that BAWAG, owned by the
OGB trade union federation, was complicit in the October 2005
bankruptcy of Refco.
(Econ, 5/6/06, p.72)
2006 Jun 5, Austria’s Bawag PSK
bank agreed to pay at least $675 million to avoid prosecution and
settle bankruptcy claims for its role in the collapse of Refco Inc, a
US commodities brokerage firm.
(SFC, 6/6/06, p.C6)
2006 Jun 13, In Austria Western
countries at a 35-nation UN meeting pushed for consensus on the need
for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment, but diplomats said that most
nonaligned countries were preparing to endorse Tehran's right to
continue the work.
(AP, 6/13/06)
2006 Jun 21, Scores of students
chanting "Bush Go Home!" marched through Austria's capital to protest a
visit by President Bush for the annual US-EU summit. The summit
produced no breakthroughs but showed Bush moving toward better
cooperation with Europe on Iran, energy, climate change and other
fronts. Bush accused Iran of dragging its feet on a Western incentive
package aimed at getting Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment activity.
(AP, 6/21/06)(WSJ, 6/22/06, p.A4)(AP, 6/21/07)
2006 Jun 25, It was reported that
Iran had purchased 800 high-caliber sniper rifles made by Steyr
Mannlicher, an Austrian firm.
(SSFC, 6/25/06, Par p.7)
2006 Jul 10, Fred Wander (b.1917),
writer and Holocaust survivor, died in Vienna. His 1970 novel, “The
Seventh Well,” describes his survival. The German edition was
translated to English in 2007.
(SFC, 12/11/07,
p.D2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wander)
2006 Aug 3, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
(90), German-born opera soprano, died in Schrums, Austria.
(SFC, 8/4/06, p.B9)
2006 Aug 9, Roland Horngacher,
Vienna's top police commander, was suspended from duty on suspicion of
improperly accepting gifts, including travel vouchers from the former
head of an Austrian bank linked to the collapse of U.S. commodities
broker Refco Inc.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Sep 17, In northern Austria a
Czech bus veered off a road and into a ditch, killing 4 people and
injuring 38.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Oct 1, Austrians began voting
in national elections that could swing the republic back to the
political center after more than six years of influence by the extreme
right. Without absentee ballots, the Social Democrats won 35.7%, giving
it the largest proportion of parliamentary seats. The People's Party,
led by Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel, came in second with 34.2%,
followed by the Freedom Party, which campaigned on an anti-foreigner
platform, with 11.2%. The Greens came in fourth with 10.5%.
(AP, 10/1/06)(AP, 10/2/06)(Econ, 10/7/06, p.60)
2006 Oct 3, Austria's government
resigned, two days after the center-right coalition lost parliamentary
elections. It will remain in office until a new government is formed.
(AP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 5, Friedrich Karl Flick
(79), Austrian billionaire industrialist, died. His father was
convicted at Nuremburg in 1947 of using slave labor in Nazi Germany. In
1981 Flick became embroiled in a major postwar political party
financing scandal when it surfaced that some of his managers had given
millions of German marks to German political parties. Flick sold his
company to Deutsche Bank in 1985.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct, Thousands of centipedes
again plagued the western Austrian village of Roens. For the past 6
years the venomous arthropods have invaded the village in the spring
and autumn, and scientists have had no explanation.
(SFC, 10/14/06, p.C8)
2006 Nov 4, Swathes of Austria,
Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands
and went dark for up to an hour in the late evening as cold Germans
rushing to switch on heaters sucked up electricity from Europe's
interconnected networks.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 20, In Austria 35 nations
tried to find common ground in a fractious session focusing on what to
do about Iran's requests to the UN nuclear watchdog agency for help on
projects including building a plutonium-producing reactor.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 21, In Austria diplomats
said most of the 35 nations at a key meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog
agency have agreed to deny Iran technical aid for a plutonium-producing
reactor.
(AP, 11/21/06)
2007 Jan 8, Austria's two main
political parties, the Social Democrats and the People's Party, agreed
to form a new coalition government.
(AP, 1/8/07)
2007 Jan 22, Scientists warned
that glaciers will all but disappear from the Alps by 2050, and that
most would be gone by 2037.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.A4)
2007 Feb 7, Austrian authorities
said they have uncovered a major international child pornography ring
involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, including
hundreds in the United States, who paid to view videos of young
children being sexually abused.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Mar 5, in Austria a
helicopter and a small plane collided in the air and crashed near a ski
slope, killing all eight people aboard the two aircraft.
(AP, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 8, In Austria delegates
to a 35-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency
approved the suspension of nearly two dozen nuclear technical aid
programs to Iran as part of UN sanctions imposed because its nuclear
defiance.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Apr 13, An Austrian bank
recently bought by a US-led consortium acknowledged it told a
Cuban-born client to take her business elsewhere and suggested that
Washington's ban on commerce with Cuba was behind the decision.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 21, Iran signed a major
gas development and production agreement with Austrian energy group OMV.
(Reuters, 4/21/07)
2007 May 4, In Austria a standoff
pitting Iran against most others delegations at a 130-nation nuclear
conference deepened, with organizers adjourning the third straight
session in as many days without breaking a deadlock over the language
of the meeting's agenda.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 7, In Austria a
130-nation nuclear meeting stalled for its sixth straight day after
Iran refused to commit itself to a compromise meant to break a deadlock
caused by Tehran's opposition to language of the gathering's agenda.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 8, In Austria officials
said Vienna's City Hall has launched a "sex hotline" to raise money for
the capital's main public library. Callers paid 53 cents a minute to
listen to an actress read breathless passages from erotica dating to
the Victorian era.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2007 May 11, Austrian authorities
said they have arrested 40 suspects and seized thousands of videos, CDs
and DVDs as part of a yearlong crackdown on child pornography. Police
in Italy made two arrests in connection with the investigation, which
was code-named Operation Max. The server was located in St. Petersburg,
Russia, and since has been shut down.
(AP, 5/11/07)
2007 Jun 1, Rakhat Aliyev, the
Kazakh ambassador to Austria until he was dismissed on May 26, was
arrested for alleged involvement in the suspected kidnapping of two
senior managers of a bank he controls. He appealed to Austrian
authorities not to extradite him to his homeland to face kidnapping
charges.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 14, In Austria Kurt
Waldheim (b.1918), former UN Secretary-General (1972-1982), died. He
was elected Austrian president in 1986 despite an international scandal
about his secretive World War II military service for the Nazis.
(AP, 6/14/07)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.97)
2007 Jul 6, Austrian authorities
arrested Michael Berger (35), an investment banker wanted by the FBI,
who fled after being convicted of securities fraud in NYC more than
five years ago.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Aug 8, An Austrian federal
court rejected Kazakhstan's request to have its ex-ambassador to
Austria, a former son-in-law of the Central Asian nation's autocratic
president, extradited to face kidnapping charges in his homeland.
(AP, 8/8/07)
2007 Aug 31, In Vienna, Austria,
negotiators from 158 countries reached basic agreement on rough targets
aimed at getting some of the world's biggest polluters to reduce
emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
(AP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 7, Pope Benedict XVI paid
tribute to Holocaust victims, extending his "sadness, repentance and
friendship" to the Jewish people as he began a 3-day pilgrimage to
Austria.
(AP, 9/7/07)
2007 Sep 8, In Austria Pope
Benedict XVI blasted Europeans for being selfish and not having enough
children, in a sermon at the 850-year-old pilgrimage site of Mariazell.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 11, Keyboardist Joe
Zawinul (75), who played with Miles Davis and helped shape jazz fusion
with his band Weather Report, died in his native city of Vienna.
(Reuters, 9/11/07)
2007 Oct 10, Austrian authorities
arrested a Turkish-born man (76) suspected of fatally shooting a
younger Turkish associate (58) and slicing off the victim's penis in
what investigators called an "honor killing."
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 11, Werner von Trapp
(91), a member of the Austrian family made famous by the musical "The
Sound of Music," died in Waitsfield, Vt.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2007 Foreign nationals made up
nearly 10% of Austria’s population.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.8)
2008 Jan 8, In Vienna, Austria, a
court convicted an accountant of embezzling $1.8 million from the
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights to support his mistress, a crime
that forced the respected group to fold. The 43-year-old accountant to
three years in jail, two of which were suspended. His 31-year-old girl
friend was sentenced to two years, 16 months of which could be served
on parole.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Feb 2, An Iraqi government
official said Iraq has halted oil exports to Austria's OMV, the leading
oil and gas group in central Europe, to protest a deal with the
self-ruled Kurdish region.
(AP, 2/3/08)
2008 Feb 8, In western Austria a
fire engulfed a home for the elderly, killing at least 11 people.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 21, Hans Janitschek (73),
an Austrian journalist who spent years as a UN consultant and also
served as secretary general of the Socialist International
organization, died suddenly at UN headquarters. Janitschek wrote
several political biographies, co-authored Waldheim's autobiography and
published more than a dozen books.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2008 Feb 22, In Tunisia 2 Austrian
tourists were kidnapped. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa later claimed
responsibility and warned western tourists to stay away. The 2 tourists
were released on October 31.
(AFP, 3/11/08)(WSJ, 3/11/08, p.A1)(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Mar 1, A violent storm
plagued parts of Europe and deaths rose to 10 after two people in
Poland were killed by falling objects because of hurricane-strength
winds. Germany reported 2 deaths, the Czech Rep. 2 deaths and 4 more in
Austria.
(AP, 3/2/08)
2008 Mar 12, In Austria a dispute
began with the opening of "Religion, Flesh and Power," a collection of
about 50 paintings, drawings and sculptures, some with homo-erotic
themes, by Austrian artist Alfred Hrdlicka (80). Among them is
Hrdlicka's rendition of the Last Supper: a large, loosely rendered
black and white etching that shows Jesus and his disciples engaging in
sex acts on the table where they shared their final meal before
Christ's crucifixion.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2008 Mar 25, In western Austria
some 70 vehicles were involved in a pileup on an autobahn killing one
person and injuring at least 37 others.
(AP, 3/25/08)
2008 Apr 19,
In Austria 3 men posing as policemen were shot along S1 highway,
one fatally, when they tried to rob two men who turned out to be real
officers.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Apr 26, In Austria police
found a woman (42), missing since 1984, in the town of Amstetten
following a tip. Elisabeth said her father, Josef Fritzl, had kept her
captive in a cellar for almost 24 years, that he had repeatedly raped
her, and that she gave birth to 7 children, one of whom later died. In
November Fritzl (73) was charged with murder as well as rape, incest,
false imprisonment and slavery. On March 18, 2009, Fritzl pleaded
guilty to all charges against him, including homicide, after his
daughter appeared unexpectedly in the courtroom. On March 19 Fritzl was
convicted of homicide and sentenced him to life imprisonment in a
secure psychiatric facility.
(AP, 4/27/08)(AP, 11/13/08)(AP, 3/18/09)(AP, 3/19/09)
2008 May 14, In Austria
investigators discovered the bodies of five people after a man turned
up at a Vienna police station saying he had killed his wife and
daughter.
(AP, 5/14/08)
2008 Jul 1, Josef Branis (66)
fatally shot four relatives in two houses in the Vienna suburb of
Strasshof after being evicted from his sister's Vienna apartment. He
was arrested in August after being on the run for weeks. On Jan 27,
2009, Branis (67) was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading
guilty.
(AP, 1/27/09)(www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25495397/)
2008 Jul 4, In Austria 9 people,
including a prominent executive who fled to France in an attempt to
elude justice, were convicted of criminal charges in a major Austrian
bank fraud case linked to the 2005 collapse of New York-based
commodities brokerage Refco Inc. Vienna Federal Court Judge Claudia
Bandion-Ortner found the defendants responsible for euro1.4 billion
(US$1.9 billion) in losses at BAWAG, Austria's No. 4 bank.
(AP, 7/4/08)
2008 Jul 7, Austria’s ruling
coalition crumbled and new elections were expected as early as
September. The left-right alliance broke up after 18 months in office.
(WSJ, 7/8/08, p.A12)(Econ, 7/12/08, p.63)
2008 Jul 9, German investigators
carried out raids on 600 homes in Austria, Switzerland and Germany
seeking chemicals used to produce an illicit date-rape drug.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Aug 11, Fred Sinowatz (b.
1929) former Chancellor of Austria (1983 to 1986), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Sinowatz)
2008 Sep 3, Swiss prosecutors said
police have broken up an Internet child pornography ring operating in
at least four European countries where men exchanged details about
their contacts with young girls. In all investigators said they had
identified 600 people in Germany, 40 in Austria, 13 in Switzerland and
four in Liechtenstein using the forum.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 28, Austrians voted in
parliamentary elections that analysts say could bolster the standing of
the country's far-right and give the main ruling parties their worst
results in years. The rightist Freedom Party (18%) and the Alliance for
the Future of Austria (11%), capitalized on voter discontent and got a
combined 29%. The voting age had recently been lowered to 16.
(AP, 9/28/08)(AP, 9/29/08)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.16, 56)
2008 Oct 11, Austrian politician
Joerg Haider (b.1950) died in a car accident while speeding drunk. His
far-right rhetoric at times sounded sympathetic to the Nazis and
contemptuous of Jews and led to months of international isolation for
the Alpine republic. At the time of his death, Haider was governor of
the province of Carinthia and leader of the Alliance for the Future of
Austria, a party he formed after breaking away from the far right
Freedom Party in 2005.
(AP, 10/11/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.99)
2008 Oct 17, The UN added Japan,
Austria, Turkey, Mexico and Uganda as members to the 10 non-permanent
seats of the Security Council, replacing Belgium, Indonesia, Italy,
Panama and South Africa.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Nov 4, In Austria 2 men and a
woman were arrested in the raid in the southern town of Villach. The
raid on a suspected gang of international jewel thieves recovered an
uncut ruby known as the "Prince of Burma" worth 3.2 million euros ($4.1
million). The ruby along with diamonds and other gems were stolen from
a German jewelry dealer in Milan, Italy, in August.
(AP, 11/6/08)
2008 Nov, The coffin of Austrian
billionaire Friedrich Karl Flick (d.2006) was stolen from a cemetery in
Velden, southern Austria. Thieves demanded 6 million euros ($9 million)
for the coffin's return. It was found in Nov 2009 by private
investigators in Budapest. A 41-year-old Hungarian lawyer, identified
only as Barnabas Sz., was suspected of masterminding the crime and was
in police custody. Four other suspects were still at large.
(AP, 12/2/09)
2009 Jan 11, Slovakia reopened a
nuclear power plant it was forced to shut down as part of its bid to
join the European Union, prompting condemnation from neighboring
Austria, which described the reactor at Bohunice as unsafe.
(AP, 1/11/09)
2009 Jan 12, In Nigeria Susanne
Wenger (93), Austrian-born sculptress, died. She had been initiated as
a Yoruba traditional priestess and was responsible for towering works
of art in one of Nigeria's two World Heritage sites.
(AFP, 1/13/09)
2009 Jan 13, In Austria Umar
Israilov (27), a Chechen refugee, was shot dead on a Vienna street.
Officials said they had no proof the killing was political, but human
rights activists said his death was linked to his opposition to
Chechnya's pro-Moscow president. On Jan 28 Austrian authorities
arrested seven suspects, all Chechens, in the killing. On February 19
Polish police arrested Turpal Ali J. (31), a man suspected of killing
Israilov.
(AP, 1/28/09)(AP, 2/22/09)
2009 Jan 21, Germany banned the
production, sale or possession of a synthetic marijuana-like drug known
as "Spice," effective as of Jan 22, becoming the 4th nation to ban the
substance, marketed as an herbal room-freshener, after Austria, the
Netherlands and Switzerland.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 31, The Vatican announced
that the Pope has tapped the Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner (54) to be
auxiliary bishop in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria province. Wagner
caused a stir in 2005 when he was quoted as saying that he was
convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina earlier
that year was "divine retribution" for tolerance of homosexuals and
laid-back sexual attitudes in New Orleans.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Mar 19, Josias Kumpf (83), a
former Nazi concentration-camp guard, was deported from Wisconsin to
Austria, despite objections from his lawyer that the guard was simply
present at the Trawniki Labor Camp in Poland but committed no acts of
persecution [see Nov 3, 1943].
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Apr 1, In Austria Julius
Meinl V (49), chairman of the Meinl Bank, was arrested in a potential
$4 billion fraud case involving a real estate fund created by the bank.
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 9, Amnesty International
said immigrants and ethnic minorities living in Austria are more likely
to be suspected of crimes than whites and are regularly denied their
right to equal treatment by the country's police and judicial system.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 29, The WHO raised its
alert for swine flu from level 4 to level 5, its 2nd highest alert
level. Austria and Germany confirmed cases of swine flu, becoming the
third and fourth European countries hit by the disease. US health
officials reported that a 23-month-old child in Texas has died from the
disease. The World Health Organization called an emergency meeting to
consider its pandemic alert level.
(AP, 4/29/09)(SFC, 4/30/09, p.A8)
2009 May 2, In Austria an
avalanche killed 6 hikers not far from the popular Soelden ski resort
in the alpine province of Tyrol.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 24, In Austria groups of
rival worshippers at a Sikh temple in Vienna pulled knives and at least
one handgun in a mass fight. 16 people were wounded and one preacher
died the next day. The Vienna temple attended by lower-caste Sikhs was
attacked by Sikhs from a higher caste who accused preachers of being
disrespectful of the religion's Holy Book.
(AP, 5/24/09)(AP, 5/25/09)
2009 Jun 8, Final results showed a
British far-right party won its first-ever parliamentary seats in EU
elections. The British National Party, which does not accept nonwhite
members and calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, won
two of Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament. Austria's Freedom
Party, which also campaigned on an anti-Islam platform, more than
doubled its share of the vote to 13.1%. Hungary's Jobbik party, which
describes itself as Euro-skeptic and anti-immigration and wants police
to crack down on what it calls "Gypsy crime," won three of the
country's 22 seats and almost 15% of the vote. The Greater Romania
Party, which is, among other things, pro-religion, anti-gay and
anti-Hungarian, made surprise gains, winning almost 9% of the vote and
taking two of Romania's 33 seats. A bloc of center-right parties
remained the largest group.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jul 13, Turkey and four EU
countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary) formally agreed to
route the Nabucco natural gas pipeline across their territories,
pushing ahead with a US- and EU-backed attempt to make Europe less
dependent on Russian gas.
(AP, 7/13/09)(Econ, 7/18/09, p.47)
2009 Aug 2, In Austria researchers
unveiled two piano pieces recently identified as childhood creations by
the revered composer.
(AP, 8/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Austrian authorities
arrested British-born Julius Meinl V (b.1959), head of Meinl Bank, for
suspected breach of trust and deception of investors in a potential $4
billion fraud case involving a real estate fund created by the bank. He
had spun much of his family’s property portfolio into Meinl European
Land (MEL). By 2007 MEL had lost €1.8 billion in an attempt to support
its share price. He was released after posting a €100 million bail.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C1)
2009 Sep 18, In Vienna, Austria, a
150-nation IAEA nuclear conference passed a resolution directly
criticizing Israel and its atomic program for the first time in 18
years. Iran hailed the vote as a "glorious moment." 49 voted for the
resolution. 45 were against and 16 abstained from endorsing or
rejecting he document.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Oct 20, Talks in Vienna meant
to persuade Iran to send most of its enriched uranium abroad, and thus
delay its potential to make a nuclear weapon, bogged down over fierce
Iranian resistance to French participation.
(AP, 10/20/09)
2009 Nov 17, California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger visited his native Austria.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Dec 1, In Vienna Japanese
diplomat Yukiya Amano took the helm of the UN atomic watchdog (IAEA),
pledging a steady hand to steer the agency through the storm
surrounding Iran's nuclear drive. Mohamed ElBaradei (67), the outgoing
Egyptian chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), handed
over his leadership to Yukiya Amano.
(AP, 11/30/09)(AFP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 5, Austrian artist Alfred
Hrdlicka (81) died. His controversial works in metal, paint and pencil
alienated as much as attracted the public.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 10, Austria’s parliament
passed legislation allowing same-sex couples to enter into civil
unions. The bill was slated to become law on Jan 1.
(SFC, 12/11/09, p.A2)
2010 Jan 14, Austrian scientists
stopped a 2-week old avalanche experiment that involved burying pigs in
snow and monitoring their deaths, following vehement protests by animal
rights activists.
(SFC, 1/15/10, p.A2)
2010 Feb 16, In Austria 14
countries and the European Commission adopted the Danube River Basin
Management Plan, a cleanup plan for the Danube River and its
tributaries. Participating countries included Austria, Bosnia,
Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Montenegro,
Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
(AP, 2/16/10)
2010 Mar 12, Austrian government
officials said they have identified at least two mass graves of some 70
Nazi victims on property used by the army. The victims were
concentration camp inmates and others, all killed by the SS to
eliminate witnesses to Nazi atrocities shortly before Soviet troops
arrived.
(AP, 3/12/10)
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Subject = Austria
End of file.