It is the 45th anniversary of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F Kennedy, changed the course of American politics and destroyed the world's optimism that there could be a swift end to the Cold War.
To mark the occasion here's a little sample of songs from Stephen Sondheim's lauded but commercially unsuccessful musical Assassins. A weird choice of theme for a musical, it was based around the story of Oswald and other gun-toting mad people who either shot or attempted to shoot US Presidents.
The show was unfortunate in its timing. It was first released in 1990, an era of gung-ho George Bush Snr politics and the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, and later attempts to revive it were hit by the events of 11th September 2001. It hasn't been on stage since, and I have never seen it, but any excuse for a bit of Sondheim...
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