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  • 2022-09-12 (xsd:date)
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  • Was the Queen's Golden Piano First Owned by Saddam Hussein? (en)
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  • On July 24, 2020, a false tweet was posted that claimed Queen Elizabeth II had posed in front of a gold-colored piano that was stolen from former Iraq President Saddam Hussein. It read, The golden piano is owned by the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It was stolen from Iraq during the Gulf War. And it was recently seen behind Elizabeth the Queen of Britain in the Royal Palace! The picture of the queen was from her Christmas message that was issued in December 2018. Shortly after the message was broadcast, a tweet from a since-suspended Twitter account named @JackieBhird appeared to have started the rumor. The account may have been a parody of Scottish journalist Jackie Bird. The tweet read, Her majesty's gold piano was rescued from Sadam [sic] Hussain's palace during the Gulf war. BBC - News @BBCScotlandNews #goldpiano. The false rumor may have been born out of the history of Hussein's links to the ownership of gold bars, a gold-plated AK-47 assault rifle, and perhaps other gold-colored items. First, here's some background on the tweet's mention of the Persian Gulf War, a conflict with a timeline spanning late 1990 and early 1991. According to the Royal British Legion, a coalition air war known as Operation Desert Storm began on Jan. 17, 1991. The coalition set its sights on striking military, economic, and communications targets in Iraq and Kuwait to force Iraqi troops to withdraw. The war ended within weeks, with a cease-fire being announced at the end of February. According to a YouTube video produced by the Royal Collection Trust in 2019, the gold piano shown in the tweet was part of the White Drawing Room in Buckingham Palace. It was not stolen or rescued from Hussein in the early 1990s. The history of the gold piano dated all the way back to 1856, when it was ordered by the queen's great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria from the London firm of Érard. A black-and-white picture hosted by the Getty Images website showed the piano in the White Drawing Room in 1947. David Winston, a piano restorer and conservator, said it had taken an entire year to restore the gold piano. He also spoke about the history of its design: Jonathan Marsden, the director of the Royal Collection Trust, said that the gold piano was likely to have been played by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the same room where it rests today. He also added an interesting bit of history about the royal family's relationship with German composer Felix Mendelssohn: In sum, the rumor was false that said the gold piano pictured behind the queen during her Christmas message in 2018 was stolen or rescued from Iraq. The truth was that it was ordered by Queen Victoria in 1856 and had nothing to do with Hussein, Iraq, or the Middle East. (en)
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