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("They'll greet us with flowers and candy . .. sort of")

Thirty years ago this December, the Soviet Union decided it was a good idea to take advantage of an unstable region by launching an invasion of Afghanistan. Convinced this would be easy and "what the Afghan people wanted", Moscow quickly moved to set up a Soviet backed regime and to fold Afghanistan into the Communist bloc. Or tried to anyway.

Dallas Townsend (CBS News): In recent days U.S. Intelligence has detected the influx of a battalion of Soviet troops, about five hundred men, into Afghanistan.”

Oddly enough, the news warranted only a scant 16 second mention at the end of this CBS World News Roundup broadcast from December 16, 1979. The big news was still the ongoing Hostage drama in Tehran. We were, it seemed, a bit preoccupied to notice what the other hands were doing.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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(Nikita Khruschev and friend - On this day he and the turkey had a lot in common)

On this typical average day in 1964 news came from Moscow that Premier Nikita Khruschev "needed a rest" and was quickly removed from office, sending more than the average shockwave around the world.

Sam Jaffe (ABC News Moscow): “From all outward appearances, the Soviet people responded calmly to the news that Nikita Khruschev has been replaced. Most Muscovites learned of the changes on their way to work today. All Soviet newspapers carried a brief announcement that Premier Khruschev had requested retirement because of his age and poor health”.

This newscast, via WXYZ in Detroit from Friday October 16, 1964 also mentions the ongoing Auto Plant and newspaper strikes and an ever-folksy Paul Harvey extolling the virtues of yet another life insurance policy.

All in all, a typical average day. Kind of like this one.

Or not.

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(Dmitri Shostakovitch - every new note was anticipated)

One of his most popular Chamber pieces, the op. 57 Piano Quintet had its premier in Moscow in November of 1940, with Shostakovitch at the piano and The Beethoven String Quartet, the group he dedicated the work to. Within weeks, the manuscript was in New York and had it's American premier with Vivian Rivkin at the piano with the Stuyvesant String Quartet. This recording was made on May 7-8 of 1941 and there is some controversy whether this recording was the world premier or the recording made by Shostakovitch himself with the Beethoven Quartet was the world premier. It's sort of a moot point, considering there was a war going on and records were something of a luxury commodity at the time, and access to Soviet recordings was never easy anyway.

In any event, this recording was made shortly after the U.S. Premier and strangely, it's never seen the light of reissue, even as a historic document. It's been recorded scores of times since the premier, with no doubt infinitely better interpretations. But with all that said, this is the first one, or the first Western one and it was the only recording for some time. And a lot of people formed their first impressions on the piece based on this interpretation.

So imagine you've never heard this work before.