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Happy Saturday.

The first performance of the ballet, The Nutcracker, took place in St. Petersburg, Russia,

on December 6th, 1892 in the old style calendar that Russia was still using at the time.

That is December 18th on the Gregorian calendar,

which is the calendar we used today.

We are bringing our episode on The Nutcracker out

as today's Saturday classic for its 133rd birthday,

at least approximately,

if you sort of disregard the calendar math.

This episode originally came out on December 13th, 2021.

Please enjoy.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I-Heart Radio.

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Fry. The Nutcracker. It has become such a huge tradition for so many people around Christmas.

I know for my own part, my mom and I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts Production of the Nutcracker together for many, many years. We had a family friend a little

older than me who went from being Clara as a child to being asked to come back and be the

sugar plum fairy after she had gone on to continue her dance education in New York.

For a whole lot of people, the Nutcracker is the first ballet they ever experience, or maybe the

only ballet they ever experience. And it's by far the biggest show and the biggest source of

ticket revenue for a lot of ballet companies.

And even if you have never experienced this whole ballet, music from the Nutcracker has also become a huge part,

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