Make up picks...
Great grabs on Bosch and Rembrandt, both were on my hotlist, I'll just go into other categories and try to do some VBD. I probably could have done better, but alot of my wish list fell in round 15.
15.19 COMPOSITION Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55) (aka Eroica) by Ludwig van Beethoven
Also known as the Eroica (which is Italian for "heroic") this musical work is sometimes cited as marking the end of the Classical Era and the beginning of musical Romanticism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFltqVS8d9I for an incredible performance by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Beethoven had originally conceived of dedicating the symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte in admiration of the ideals of the French Revolution, and Napoleon as their embodiment. When Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French in May 1804, Beethoven became disgusted and went to the table where the completed score lay. He took hold of the title-page and scratched the name Bonaparte out so violently with a knife that he created a hole in the paper.[1] He later changed the title to Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo ("heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man").
The work is a milestone in the history of the classical symphony for a number of reasons. The piece is about twice as long as symphonies by Haydn or Mozart — the first movement alone is almost as long as many Classical symphonies, if the expositional repeat is observed. The work covers more emotional ground than earlier works had, and is often cited as the beginning of the Romantic period in music.[citation needed] The second movement, in particular, displays a great range of emotion, from the misery of the main funeral march theme, to the relative solace of happier, major key episodes. The finale of the symphony shows a similar range, and is given an importance in the overall scheme which was virtually unheard of previously whereas in earlier symphonies, the finale was a quick and breezy finishing off, here it is a lengthy set of variations and fugue on a theme Beethoven had originally written for his ballet music.
The second movement, a funeral march, is frequently performed on memorial occasions. Serge Koussevitzky performed it to commemorate the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The second movement was also used as a funeral dirge during the memorial service following the "Munich massacre" terrorist attacks during the 1972 Summer Olympics. It was played by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
16.02 INVENTION Indoor Plumbing - Harrapans The ability to remove sewage from and bring clean water into places of dense human habitation makes the modern city possible. Without it, we’d still have cities, but not like the ones we know. A high-rise building would be impossible, really, without toilets and plumbing. Remove apartment buildings, office towers, and dense downtown cores from your picture of the world and you have to change the whole rest of your picture too, because the implications keep rippling.
First documented in the Harrapan Civilization (a Indus valley civilization in modern India) around 2500 BC, they had indoor toilet like facilities with running water and covered sewage pipes along street sides. The theory and development of modern plumbing has taken steps back along the way, but without the ability to remove the waste, we lose most of the benefits of modern city living and its lifestlye that allows many of the other arts to advance (due to specialization of tasks).