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Kindly ignore misaligne tezt, an do on ny errors. It's gradually improving this site. Gradual being the operative word, because It's a big job for me. You'll generally know when you've reached the foot of the page when you see a mauve Almanac directory bar. The whole almanac, and I, are under reconstruction. A big thankyou, and bright blessings to you.

          

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Claudia, the peerless priestess of the tower-crowned goddess.
Propertius IV. 11. 52

Claudia took off her girdle and fastened it about the prow of the ship, and, like one divinely inspired, bade all stand aside; and then she besought the goddess ... And lo, she not only made the ship move, but even towed her for some distance up stream. Two things, I think, the goddess showed the Romans on that day; first that the freight they were bringing from Phrygia was ... truly divine, not lifeless clay but a thing of life and divine powers ... And the other was that no one of the citizens could be good or bad and she not know thereof. ... I am told that on the same subject of which I am impelled to speak at the very season of these holy rites Porphyry too has written a philosophic treatise.
Julian the Apostate, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods, 159, D; id. 161, C

... this day [Palm Sunday] gives many a Conception.
John Aubrey, Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects , 1695 [ie, it was a day of excess and lust]

Witnesses say that they [bees] are born out of the corpses of oxen, because they are created by beating the flesh of slaughtered calves; this causes worms to form which later become bees. It is correct to say that bees are born from oxen, just as hornets come from horses, drone-bees from mules, and wasps from asses.
St Isidore of Seville, whose feast day this is; Etymologies, Book 11, 4:3

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
'Drake's Prayer'. Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I on board his ship, Golden Hind, on April 4, 1581

Jag längtar till landet som icke är,
ty allting som är, är jag trött att begära.

(I long for the country that is not,
For everything that is I am tired of desiring.)
Edith Södergran, Russian-born Swedish-language poet, born on April 4, 1892; The Country That Is Not  

If a man hasn't discovered something he would die for, he isn't fit to live.
Martin Luther King, Jr, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968 

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself.
Martin Luther King, Jr

Salvation isn't reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it's being in the process and on the right road.
Martin Luther King, Jr

In small clumsy letters he wrote:
April 4th, 1984.
George Orwell describes the first entry in Winston Smith's secret diary; Nineteen Eighty-Four

Festival of Megalesia 
(or Megalensia, Magna Mater, Ludi Megalenses)
of Cybele, (Apr 4 - 10), ancient Rome

The meteorite idol

Magna Mater (Cybele, 'the All-Begetting Mother, who beats a drum to mark the rhythm of life'; Great Mother of the Gods), was the great mother and all other Roman goddesses may be seen as aspects of her. Earlier, the Greeks had identified her with the Titan goddess, Rhea, sister and wife of Cronus. 

This week-long festival was to celebrate the arrival in Rome of the idol of Cybele in 204 BCE. From 191 BCE, when Cybele's temple had been completed, the great festivities began on this day and were celebrated for six days each year. 

The prophetic Sibylline Oracles had advised that the stone of Cybele, the Anatolian mother goddess of mountains and fertility, must be brought to Rome to help bring about a victory against Hannibal the Carthaginian in what we now call the Second Punic War. So in 204, Cybele's sacred black statue, which was a meteorite (to which the Romans later added a likeness of the goddess) from Pessinus in Anatolia (in modern Turkey, it was the city ruled by the legendary King Midas), was shipped to Ostia. There, Scipio Nasica took custody of it and brought it to the city of Rome. On April 4, 204 BCE the ship bearing the idol ran aground at the mouth of the Tiber River.

By prayer, Claudia Quinta, a Vestal Virgin (a position held by several Claudias from various branches of the Claudian family), helped to release the grounded ship. Claudia, who had previously been falsely accused of breaking her holy vows, joined the throng that gathered at the ship, and, praying to Cybele, laid her hands on the ropes being employed to tow the foundering vessel. Although the crowd thought her mad, the ship came free of the mud, and in some versions of the tale (see Julian's, in the quotations section at the head of this page), she even towed the ship upstream with her girdle. Claudia and the goddess were brought to Rome in triumph. In the Middle Ages, Claudia was revered as the paragon of womanly virtue. A relief in the Capitoline Museum shows Claudia in the act of dragging the ship.

Read on at the Megalesia article at the Wilson's Almanac Scriptorium 

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Palm Sunday (2004) A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac Commemorated from the earliest days of the Christian Church, today (in 2004) is Palm Sunday, the Sunday preceding Easter that commemorates the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem before his trial and crucifixion, seated upon an ass and his path strewn with palm fronds by his devotees. Palm Sunday is a moveable feast in the church calendar observed by Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant Christians. In olden days, throughout most of Europe, not having palm trees, they used branches of box, yew, willow, and so on. Hence 'pussy willow', an English plant, is called 'English palm' in some quarters. These boughs were blessed by the priest after mass and distributed to the people, who carried them in procession. Later they were burnt (the boughs, not the good parishioners), the ashes to be sprinkled on the heads of the worshippers on the next Ash Wednesday. Crosses were made of palm, sold to the people by priests as preventives of disease. In England, the branches for the clergy placed on the high altar; those for the laity on the south step of the altar. Blessed by the priest in case any demonic beings having influence in the leaves. The flowers and branches then fumed with frankincense from censers. Sometimes the procession featured a wooden ass on wheels, carrying a wooden mannequin of Christ. [Hone* says that after the procession the boys played with the ass around the town.] The people strewed their willow branches on the ground before it. The branches were then picked up; they were believed to protect from storms and lightning the ensuing year. Cakes were thrown from the steeple, boys would pick them up. Later, an angel was introduced into the procession. Boys would go a-palming the day before – into the forest to pick willow. They would return with willow branches in their hands, and sprigs of the willow in their mouths and their hats or button-holes. Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days) "Until lately, there existed at Caistor, in Lincolnshire, a Palm Sunday custom of a very quaint nature, and which could not have been kept up if it had not been connected with a tenure of property. It has been thus described: 'A person representing the proprietor of the estate of Broughton comes into the porch of Caistor Church while the first lesson is reading, and three times cracks a gad-whip, which he then folds neatly up. Retiring for the moment to a seat in the church, he must come during the second lesson to the minister, with the whip held upright, and at its upper end a purse with thirty pieces of silver contained in it; then he must kneel before the clergyman, wave the whip thrice round his head, and so remain till the end of the lesson, after which he retires. "The precise origin of this custom has not been ascertained. We can see in the purse and its thirty pieces of silver a reference to the misdeeds of Judas Iscariot: but why the use of a whip? Of this the only explanation which conjecture has hitherto been able to supply, refers us back to the ancient custom of the Procession of the Ass, before described. Of that procession it is supposed that the gad-whip of Caistor is a sole-surviving relic. The term gad-whip has been a puzzle to English antiquaries: but a gad [goad] for driving horses, was in use in Scotland so lately as the days of Burns, who alludes to it."   Chambers, ibid Pre-Christian origins? The Festival of Hilaria, in honour of the Mother of Gods, ancient Rome was a festival dedicated to Cybele and her consort, Attis. The rites, which had a strong life-death-rebirth association, began on March 15 with a procession of reed-bearers (cannophori). *William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online Folklore, customs, pre-Christian origins of:  Epiphany  Candlemas/Imbolc  Hall Sunday  Collop Monday  Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day   Ash Wednesday & Lent  Mid-Lent  Care Sunday  Painful Friday  Lazarus Saturday   Palm Sunday  Spy Wednesday  Maundy Thursday  Good Friday  Easter Saturday  Easter Easter Monday  Easter Tuesday  Hocktide  Ascension  Rogation Days  Whitsunday/Whitsuntide Corpus Christi  May Day/Beltaine  Lammas/Lughnasadh  Michaelmas  Halloween/Samhain Martinmas  Advent  Christmas Eve  Christmas  More at Articles Index Hundreds of feast days of saints, gods and goddesses at Wilson's Almanac Book of Days Processions of St Spridon, Patron Saint of Corfu A Palm Sunday rite, also undertaken on the Saturday of Easter, on August 11, and on the first Sunday in November. Feast day of St Agathopus Feast day of St Aleth of Dijon Feast day of St Benedict the Black (Benedict the Moor; il Moro; Benedict the African) Feast day of St Gaetano Catanoso Feast day of St Guier Feast day of St Gwerir of Liskeard Feast day of St Henry of Gheest Feast day of St Hildebert of Ghent Feast day of St Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, Spain (Isidore of Seville) (Red crown imperial, Fritillaria imperialis, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.) Isidore, a cleric, historian, rhetorician and linguist, lived from c. 560 - April 4, 636. He was was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and has the reputation of being one of the great scholars of the early Middle Ages. He was brother to St Fulgentius of Écija, St Florentina and St Leander of Seville. In ecclesiastical art he is often represented with bees (which he said [(Etymologies, Book 11, 4:3; see quote at head of today's page] are generated from decomposed veal), or standing near a beehive, or else surrounded by a swarm of bees. He may also be shown with his siblings. Isidore is patron saint of the Internet, as well as computer technicians, computer users, computers, schoolchildren and students. Other saints associated with bees    More    Medieval bestiary: Isidore Feast day of St Micheal de Sanctis Feast day of St Peter of Poitiers Feast day of St Plato, abbot Feast day of St Theodulus Feast day of St Tigernach of Clogher Feast day of St Zosimus of Palestine Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Nagasaki Takoage, or Kite-Flying Event, Nagasaki, Japan (Apr 3 - 29) Ose Matsuri, Ose Shrine, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan "Unique festival in which men dressed in women's clothes dance a lively jig on board a boat afloat in the harbour which is festooned with flags and streamers."   Source On the shore, taiko groups play their drums and many stalls sell local produce. Qingming Festival, China, if a leap year (April 5 if not) National Walk to Work Day, USA International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action In 2006, the UN General Assembly declared the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action. The events will raise awareness about landmines and progress toward their eradication. The battle against landmines is being won, with some countries already achieving mine-free status. But victory will depend on the unflagging commitment of the governments of those countries where mines still exist and on the sustained support of the international community, according to Max Gaylard, director of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS).   186 Caracalla (d. 217), Roman emperor, born at Lyons, France 1648 Grinling Gibbons (d. 1721), master wood-worker 1785 Bettina von Arnim (d. 1859), lyricist 1802 Dorothea Dix (d. July 17, 1887) (not to be confused with the journalist Dorothy Dix, 1870 - 1951), tireless American social activist who, from the early 1840s to well after the American Civil War, drew on the most advanced 19th century ideas about psychiatric treatment to successfully lobby almost every State legislature to create asylums for the insane. Unfortunately for her legacy, these state hospitals grew into enormous "museums of madness" that served as the deserving targets for later reformers' zeal. Early progressives in the Book of Days 1843 William Jackson, photographer 1870 George Albert Smith (d. 1951), president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1875 Pierre Monteux (d. 1964), conductor 1876 Maurice de Vlaminck (d. 1958), painter 1884 Isoroku Yamamoto (d. 1943), naval commander 1885 Arthur Murray (d. 1991), dancer, founder of a world-famous dancing academy 1892 Edith Södergran (d. 1923), pioneer of poetry in the Swedish language in Finland. Södergran had a significant impact on Nordic poetry, especially 1920s Finnish modernism. Comparable as a modernizer of poetry only to Katri Vala, Edith Södergran became one of the most loved Nordic writers. 1898 Agnes Ayres (d. 1940), silent film actress, starred with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik 1902 Louise Leveque de Vilmorin (d. 1969), actress 1906 Bea Benaderet (d. 1968), actress (The Beverly Hillbillies; Petticoat Junction), voice of Betty Rubble in The Flinstones from 1960 - '64 1906 John Cameron Swayze (d. 1995), Amerian journalist, television host 1908 Robert Askin (later, Sir Robin Askin), corrupt Premier of New South Wales, Australia, in the 1960s 1911 Max Dupain (d. 1992), Australian photographer 1915 Muddy Waters (d. 1983), blues musician 1932 Anthony Perkins (d. 1992), American actor, best known for his role as the mad, evil Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho 1945 Daniel Cohn-Bendit (pictured at right), French radical activist of the 1960s, known internationally as 'Danny the Red'. Spokesperson and leader of the of the 'May Revolution' in Paris (1968), expelled from France that year. Member of the European Parliament for Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (The Greens) (1994 - '99). Member of the European Parliament for Les Verts (The Greens) (from 1999). His homepage    More    And more 1960 Hugo Weaving, Nigerian-born English-Australian film and stage actor best known for his roles as Agent Smith in the The Matrix and Elrond in The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, as well as the title character of V for Vendetta Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section Send a free e-card greeting for today's celebrations to a loved one Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year.   Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards Love ecards Birthdays Laugh Week [ Apr 1 - 7 ] Palm Sunday [ Varies ] Varies Full Moon Day Varies Friday the 13th Varies Holi Varies Purim Varies Mothers' Day (UK) Varies Ugadi Varies Gudi Padwa Varies Daylight Saving Time Begins / Ends Varies Ram Navami Varies Palm Sunday Varies Mawlid al-Nabi Varies Orthodox Holy Friday Varies Good Friday Varies Easter Varies Baisakhi Varies Mahavir Jayanti Varies Hanuman Jayanti Varies Tamil New Year Varies Bengali New Year Varies Malayalam New Year April 1 April Fools' Day 1 Firefighters Day 1 World Catfish Festival (Mississippi, USA) 1 Taro Festival (Hawaii, USA) 2 Great Lovers Day 2 Reconciliation Day 2 Peanut Butter And Jelly Day 3 Find A Rainbow Day 3 Chocolate Mousse Day 3 Circus Day 3 Workplace Napping Day 4 Tell A Lie Day 4 Vitamin C Day 4 Independence Day (Senegal) 5 Lady Luck Day 5 Thank Your School Librarian Day 5 Bell Bottoms Day 5 Tomb Sweeping Day 6 Animated Cartoon Day 6 California Poppy Day 6 Caramel Popcorn Day 6 International Fun At Work Day 6 Tartan Day 6 International Special Librarians' Day 7 Coffee Cake Day 7 Lets Someone Else Clean Day 7 Ham Radio Day 7 World Health Day 8 Buddha Day (Japan) 8 Hana Matsuri 9 Astronauts Day 10 Siblings Day 10 Salvation Army Founder's Day 11 Cheese Fondue Day 11 Civil Rights Day 12 Look Up At The Sky Day 12 Big Wind Day 13 Thomas Jefferson Day 14 Pecan Day 15 Tax Day (USA) 15 Fast Food Day   ... More Events Visit the Blogmanac, where today's Almanac is 'live' And I hope you will sign my GuestMap If you are enjoying this page, click to receive similar items daily with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Webmaster, webmasters free content, or else articles at very reasonable rates Pip Wilson's articles are available for your website or publication, on application. Further details 539 BCE Babylonian King Nabonidus, at a New Year's celebration in the last year of his 27-year reign, put his hands in the hands of the god Marduk as a symbol of renewal. Later Babylonian kings were required each year to renew their kingship by taking the hands of the image of Marduk in his great temple of Esagila at Babylon. Only the king could perform this ceremony, which had been simply omitted during Nabonidus's 10-year sojourn in Tema, where he had been organizing the defence of his kingdom. Presumably, if this date is correct, Akitu extended as far as this day. Akitu was the Babylonian New Year's festival, celebrated to honour the supreme god Marduk, his crown prince Nabû, and other gods. Marduk, who is a cognate of Jehovah of the ancient Hebrews, was the solar god who defeated the sea goddess Tiamat and took claim to the creation of the world. According to the Babylonians, it was Tiamat who caused the Great Flood, freeing Marduk from the stigma of being a murderer of innocent men, women, and children. Marduk was the consort of the goddess Sarpanit, and in the south, sometimes of Ishtar. More 397 Death of St Ambrose (b. c. 340), bishop of Milan. 636 Death of St Isidore of Seville. 1292 Death of Pope Nicholas IV (b. 1227). 1355 Charles IV was crowned in Rome as Holy Roman Emperor on the death of Louis IV. 1513 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Henry VIII of England, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Pope Leo X signed the Treaty of Mechlin, forming an alliance to invade France. Pope Leo's extravagance offended even some cardinals, who plotted an assassination attempt (which was foiled); the plan was to inject poison into his formidable haemorrhoids. 1581 England:  At Deptford dock, Queen Elizabeth I dined on board Golden Hind, the ship in which Sir Francis Drake had just completed his historic circumnavigation of the planet, and, after dinner, knighted him and made him the mayor of Plymouth. After all, for every one pound she had invested in his amazing voyage, she had earned 47 pounds from the plunder of the New World – a good investment any time in history. Drake's famous ship, which remained on public view for another eight decades or more, was originally called Pelican, but in 1578 Drake renamed it Golden Hind, or Hinde, renamed in mid-voyage 1577 by Drake as he prepared to enter the Straits of Magellan. The naming of the ship is sometimes given a mythological origin, though Drake actually renamed his flagship as a gesture to flatter his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, whose armorial bearings included the crest "a hind, or" (in heraldry, a 'hind' is a roe, and 'or' means gold). The name derives from the old English word 'hind' meaning doe, or female deer. The third of the famous Twelve Labours of Herakles (or Hercules) was to catch the immortal deer known as the Kerynitian Hind, or the Hind of Ceryneia, also known also as Taugete the daughter of Atlas. This sacred deer was the pet of the goddess Artemis (Diana) and had golden horns and bronze hooves. Herakles's task was difficult because he could not risk harming the deer for fear of upsetting the goddess. "THE ELAPHOI KHRYSOKEROI were five golden-horned deer sacred to the goddess Artemis. Of these, the first four drew the chariot of Artemis. "The fifth of these immortal deer, known as the Kerynitian Hind, roamed free amongst the mountains of Arkadia. Herakles was set to fetch it as the third of his twelve labours. After the task was completed he set it free to placate the goddess Artemis."   Source [The Golden Hinds were] larger than bulls, and from their horns shone gold ... Five were there in all; and four thou [Artemis] didst take ... to draw thy swift car. But one escaped over the river Keladon, by devising of Hera, that it might be in the after days a labour for Herakles, and the Keryneian hill received her. Callimachus, Hymn III to Artemis 98   Related: The Horned God and Christianity Drake's Drum Sir Francis Drake's drum was with Drake when he circumnavigated the world and when he died of dysentery off Panama in 1596. The worn drum, with Drake's coat of arms painted on one side, is currently located in the Drake, Naval and West Country Folk Museum at Buckland Abbey in Devonshire, Drake's former home. It is said to beat at times of danger for England. The drum, so it is said, was heard at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Scapa Flow in 1918 and at the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. Some said it was even heard when Germany surrendered in 1918. Another version of the legend is that the drum should be beaten to summon Drake in times of danger for England. An extract from the poem 'Drake's Drum' by Sir Henry Newbolt: Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, Strike et when your powder's runnin' low; If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago. Photo of Drake's Drum    Buckland Abbey    Drake's Drum    More Big Drake webpage   More Hero or villain? Sir Francis Drake : The Queen's Pirate 1687  Declaration of Indulgence issued by James II of England, ending state persecution of Catholics and Non-conformists. 1701 Death of Joseph Haines, entertainer and author. 1720 The South Sea Bill: In return for a loan of £7,000,000, to finance war with France, the English House of Lords granted The South Sea Company a monopoly of trade with Spanish South America. The SSC underwrote the English National Debt (£30 million), on a promise of 5 per cent interest from the Government. Related: South Sea Bubble, January 22, 1720 in the Book of Days 1721 Sir Robert Walpole entered office as the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom under King George I. 1774 Asked on his deathbed if his mind was at ease, English writer Oliver Goldsmith (b. 1728) replied: "No it is not". The poet, novelist, playwright, and member of Samuel Johnson's circle was regarded by his friends, somewhat erroneously, as an oaf. Said Dr Johnson: "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had." Source: Literary Calendar 1783 Annonay, near Lyon, France: The Montgolfier brothers, Joseph-Michel (1740 - 1810) and Jacques-Etienne (1745 - '99), gave the first public unmanned hot-air balloon demonstration. They sent up an 800-cubic metre linen bag, lined with fireproofed (with alum) paper, fastened by about 2,000 buttons.  The ten-minute flight covered about one and a half kilometres, reaching a height of about 400 metres. Fearing that their secret would be discovered and copied by others who would take credit for the invention, the brothers had at first tried to maintain secrecy around their experiments. However, they soon realised this was impossible, so performed this feat in Annonay's public square. Unfortunately, the balloon was destroyed by fire from the burning straw and wool – people near the crash site were afraid to approach the unidentified flying object. However, because their achievement had been witnessed and documented, the Montgolfier brothers were registered by the French Science Academy as the first to create a flying object. Sources differ as to actual date in 1783 of this experiment (there appears to be some confusion , which is still generally accepted as first successful flight of any object achieved by humans. The subsequent test sent up the first living beings in a nacelle attached to the balloon: a sheep, a duck and a cockerel, to ascertain the affects of the air at higher altitude. This was performed at Versailles, before Louis XVI of France, to gain his permission for a trial human flight. An ascension in a fixed balloon took place around October 15, to an altitude of 26 m. Meanwhile, another Frenchman, Jacques Charles (1746 - 1823), was working on the first hydrogen balloon. This was safer  and more efficient (hydrogen is the lightest of all gases). His first flight (unmanned also) took place only three weeks after the Montgolfiers' demonstration at Annonay, which had inspired his interest. The Charles hydrogen balloon was launched on August 27, 1783, but was ripped to shreds by the fearful townsmen of Gonesse, near Paris. 1807 Death of Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de Lalande French astronomer. 1812 US President James Madison enacted a ninety-day embargo on trade with the United Kingdom. 1812 England: Luddite Riots at Stockport; Mr Goodwin's steam-looms were destroyed. 1814 Napoleon abdicated for the first time. 1817 Death of André Masséna (b. 1758), French soldier. 1818 The US Congress adopted the flag of the United States as having 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (20 stars) with additional stars to be added whenever a new state is added to the Union. George Washington's family heraldry had a stars-and-stripes configuration and some believe it might have influenced the flag's design. 1820 Australia: The foundation stone was laid of a building on the George St site of what later became Sydney's grand Queen Victoria Building (QVB, opened July 21, 1898, qv). 1841 President William Henry Harrison (b. 1773) died of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and the elected president with the shortest term served (just one month). 1842 Death of Jean Moufot (b. 1784), French philosopher and mathematician. 1846 Death of Solomon Sibley (b. 1769), Senator, Michigan Territory. 1850 Los Angeles, California was incorporated as a city. 1861 Death of John McLean (b. 1785), US Supreme Court justice. 1865 American Civil War: A day after Union forces captured Richmond, Virginia, US President Abraham Lincoln visited the Confederate capital. 1866 Alexander II of Russia narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the city of Kiev. A design for a city gate to commemorate his escape was the inspiration for Mussorgsky's The Great Gate of Kiev from Pictures at an Exhibition. 1883 The government of the colony (now state) of Queensland, Australia, annexed New Guinea; action that was disallowed by the British government. 1884 Death of Marie Bashkirtseff (b. 1860), artist. 1887 Argonia, Kansas elected Susanna Medora Salter as the first female mayor in the United States. 1887 The town of Bathurst, NSW, Australia was attacked by an aboriginal raiding party. 1888 The London-Berlin railway was completed. 1892 A sighting of dark round object crossing the moon; Scientific American, 75 - 251. 1896 Gold was discovered in the Yukon. 1901 A steamship captain reported seeing vast ripples or shafts of light across the surface of the sea, appearing suddenly, dying out gradually after 15 minutes, revolving about 60 mph. Reported in Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 28 - 29. 1905 In India, an earthquake near Kangra killed 370,000. Having occurred in a poor, coloured country, the event is quite unremarkable. 1910 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience, sent Count Leo Tolstoy a copy of Indian Home Rule, sought his comment. Tolstoy replied: "The question of Passive Resistance of greatest importance not only for India but for humanity". 1911 HMAS Warrego, a warship assembled in Australia from British-made parts, was launched in Sydney. 1918 World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme ended. 1919 Death of Sir William Crookes (b. 1832), chemist and physicist. 1921 USA: American Federation of Labor (AFL) president Samuel Gompers asked President Warren G Harding to free all political prisoners. 1939 Faisal II, not yet four years of age, became King of Iraq on the death of his father, King Ghazi. For most of his reign, Faisal's uncle Abdul Illah ruled as regent (until the king came of age in 1953). 1945 World War II: American troops liberated Ohrdruf death camp in Germany. 1949 Twelve nations – Britain, Canada, the US, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Portugal – signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 1953 Allen W Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh. 1954 Soviet Union diplomat, Vladimir Petrov, defected to Australia, admitting he was a spy. Information supplied by Petrov and his wife, Evdokia, included details on British spies for the USSR, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. On April 13, conservative Prime Minister Robert Menzies informed Parliament of the defection and announced a Royal Commission into Soviet espionage in Australia. The Leader of the Labor Opposition, Dr Herbert Vere Evatt, was one who attended the inquiry, with the purpose of exposing what he saw as a plot by PM Menzies. Evatt's behaviour at the commission was noted by many to be very strange, and eventually his leave to appear was withdrawn. (It is now widely acknowledged that 'Doc' Evatt was suffering from early signs of mental illness.) Later, Justice Meagher of the New South Wales Court of Appeal observed in an address to the St James Ethics Centre, August 27, 1998: "... Dr H. V. Evatt ... was the Chief Justice of New South Wales' Supreme Court from 1960 to 1962. When he was appointed he was suffering from advanced senility. He plainly could not manage the job. He was old and ill, uncomprehending and inarticulate, incontinent and barking mad."   Source Evatt, whose distinguished career included being the 3rd President of the United Nations General Assembly (1948) and helping to draft the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dismissed the Royal Commission's report when it was handed down in October 1955, and rather foolishly went further. He told Parliament that Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, had personally promised him that all claims about Soviet espionage in Australia were false. The House fell about laughing, Menzies saw his chance and called an election. Evatt claimed it was Menzies politicking, and for many years some members of the Australian Labor Party continued the 1950s party line that there was no Soviet espionage in Australia, only Menzies's skill at working the electorate. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, this theory has been shown not to accord with the facts and has sharply declined in popularity. The picture at right shows Mrs Evdokia Petrov, being 'escorted' by KGB goons to Mascot Airport in Sydney, to fly her back to the USSR. Alerted by the press, an angry Australian crowd assembled at Sydney airport, shouting and threatening the guards who literally pushed Mrs Petrov onto a BOAC Constellation. Eventually, she was taken off board at Darwin airport and able to remain in Australia. The Petrovs were set up by ASIO (Australia's spy agency) as 'Sven and Maria Anna Allyson', and lived in Bentleigh, a suburb of Melbourne. "It was a severe blow to the KGB, which, of course, denied everything. The KGB also took action against Evdokia Petrov, who was by then a ranking KGB official in Australia. Petrov had not told his wife he intended to defect. "Mrs. Petrov was arrested at the Soviet Embassy and escorted under guard to the airport in Sydney. She was being sent back to Moscow, presumably to answer charges for her husband's defection, an act she apparently knew nothing about, even though that day's papers carried the news. Alerted by the press, an angry Australian crowd assembled at the Sydney airport, shouting and threatening the guards who literally pushed Mrs. Petrov onto a BOAC Constellation, so hard that she lost one of her high-heeled shoes and had to walk barefoot to her seat. "The plane flew off toward Darwin, the next stop. During the flight, a Russian-speaking stewardess asked Mrs. Petrov if she had seen the newspapers reporting how her husband had begged her to join him. She had not. She went to the women's lavatory where the stewardess read the appeal from the newspaper, translating it for Mrs. Petrov. She nodded, then stated that she wanted to stay with her husband."   Source More 1955 The Australian government revealed that a new outback atomic testing site had been established at Maralinga, South Australia. It was the scene of UK nuclear testing and contaminated with radioactive waste in the 1950s. British and Australian servicemen were purposely exposed to fallout from the blasts, to see what happened, facts which were revealed in the McClelland Royal Commission between 1984 and 1985. Maralinga was formerly the home of the Maralinga Tjarutja, a southern Pitjantjatjara Indigenous Australian people. 1962 The Southern Aurora, the first passenger train to travel between Sydney and Melbourne on a uniform-gauge railway track, pulled into Melbourne for the first time.. 1964 The Beatles occupied all of the top five positions on the Billboard singles chart in the United States with 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Twist and Shout', 'She Loves You', 'I Want to Hold Your Hand', and 'Please Please Me'. 1968 Martin Luther King Jr, US black civil rights leader, was shot dead in a Memphis, Tennessee, motel while visiting the city in support of striking sanitation workers during the Poor People's Campaign. Petty criminal James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder following his plea of guilty, which he later retracted. King died in St. Joseph's Hospital. King Conspiracy Theories    Triumphant in Death    One theory Martin Luther King's Son Says: James Earl Ray Didn't Kill MLK!    More in the Book of Days    More                                                                                                                                                                                          1968 Apollo program: NASA launched Apollo 6. 1969 Dr Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart. 1969 USA: The controversial Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was cancelled after the brothers, Dick Smothers and Tom Smothers, failed to submit an episode before its broadcast date. 1973 The World Trade Center in New York was officially dedicated. 1975 Vietnam War: Operation Baby Lift – A United States Air Force C-5A Galaxy crashed near Saigon, South Vietnam shortly after takeoff, while transporting orphans; 172 people were killed. 1976 Prince Norodom Sihanouk resigned as leader of Cambodia and was placed under house arrest. 1979 President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan was executed. 1981 Riots in predominantly black London district of Brixton. 1983 Space Shuttle Challenger made its maiden voyage into space.   1984 Winston Smith, the main character of George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four, began writing in his secret diary.     1984 US President Ronald Reagan called for an international ban on chemical weapons. 1984 Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp: The women protesters were evicted from Greenham Common by Newbury District Council. However by nightfall the women all returned to reform the camp. 1991 USA: Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with their plane over Merion, Pennsylvania. 1994 Netscape Communications Corporation was founded (under the name 'Mosaic Communications Corporation') by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark. Tomorrow: The date of Noah's landing Main calendar | Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Arab contributions to culture