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reetings from Australia.
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Whan
that April with his showres soote (that is, sweet)
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr; Chaucer; Canterbury Tales(ll. 1-4), modernized
for The Norton Anthology of English Literature
Next came fresh Aprill full of lustyhed,
And wanton as a Kid whose horne new buds:
Vpon a Bull he rode, the same which led
Europa floting through th'Argolick fluds:
His hornes were gilden all with golden studs
And garnished with garlonds goodly dight
Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds
Which th'earth brings forth, and wet he seem'd in sight
With waues, through which he waded for his loues delight. Edmund Spenser(c. 1552 - 1599),
Englishpoet;
Faerie
Queen, The Cantos of
Mutabilitie
Immortal Venus, to whose Name
Millions of Altars daily flame;
Daughter of Jove, whos flatt'ring Art
Knows well to wound a Wretch'd Heart;
Sappho
April 1st:
Duly do ye worship the goddess [Venus],
ye Latin mothers and brides, and ye, too, who wear not the fillets and
long robe [Frazer:
'courtesans']. Take off the golden necklaces from the marble neck of the
goddess; take off her gauds; the goddess must be washed from top to toe.
Then dry her neck and restore to it her golden necklaces; now give her
other flowers, now give her the fresh-blown rose. Ye, too, she herself
bids bathe under the green myrtle … Learn now why ye give incense to
Fortuna Virilis in the place which reeks of warm water. All women strip
when they enter that place. Ovid, Fasti
, IV. 133SourceRoman
calendar
…
in the Beginning of [April] there is read
upon the Calends, Veneralia ludi, Senatus legitimus. Now, it is possible
these Veneralia, were feasts in honour of Venus, which they celebrated
with publick Sports; which perfectly agrees … with the Words of Ausonius.
Before Venus there stands a Candlestick, with a Wax-taper lighted, in the
Flame of which they burnt Grains of Incense. The lines of Ausonius are to
this purpose: "April does Honour to Venus cover'd with Myrtle. With this
Month is seen the Light of Incense, with which the beneficent Ceres
shines. Nor are those Perfumes wanting which are always issue from the
Paphian Goddess". Montfaucon, Antiq. Suppl. p. 19, on the Calendar of Philocalus
annexed to Valentine's illustrations of the months
'A
gush of bird song, a patter of dew A
cloud and a rainbow's warning; Suddenly
sunshine and perfect blue An
April day in the morning!' Harriet Prescott
Spofford(1835- 1921),
American writer
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green. Thomas Gray
(1716 - '71), English poet; 'Ode
on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude'
I open wide the portals of the Spring
To welcome the procession of the flowers,
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing
Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
I soften with my sunshine and my showers
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride. HW
Longfellow(1807
- '82),
American poet; 'The Poet's Calendar' for
April
No sooner doth St. All-fools' morn approach,
But waggs, ere Phebus mount his gilded coach,
In sholes assemble to employ their sense,
In sending fools to get intelligence;
One seeks hen's teeth, in farthest part of th' town;
Another pigeon's milk; a third a gown
From strolling cobler's stall, left there by chance;
Thus lead the giddy tribe a merry dance.
And to reward them for their harmless toil,
The cobler 'noints their limbs with stirrup oil.
Thus by contriver's inadvertent jest,
One fool expos'd makes pastime for the rest. Poor Robin's Almanac, 1728
April
is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. TS Eliot;'The Waste Land'
A cold April
The barn will fill. Traditional English proverb
An April flood
Carries away the frog and his brood. Traditional English proverb
April showers
Make May flowers. Traditional English proverb
When April blows his horn, [windy] It's good for both hay and corn. Traditional English proverb
The month
of April, the upland is misty,
the oxen are weary, the earth is bare,
feeble is the stag, playful the long-eared,
usual is a guest though he be not invited;
everyone has many faults where he is not loved;
blessed is he that is faithful. From a book of days
Oh,
to be in England
Now that April's there... Robert
Browning, English poet,
1812-89;
'Home Thoughts from Abroad'
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things which are mighty. Holy Bible, 1 Cor. 1:27
However big the fool, there is always a bigger
fool to admire him. Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the
sun, it shines everywhere. William
Shakespeare; Twelfth Night (3.1.39-40)
We have all seen how an appropriate and
well-timed joke can sometimes influence even grim tyrants … The most
violent tyrants put up with their clowns and fools, though these often
made them the butt of open insults. Desiderius
Erasmus; Praise of Folly
[Politicians]
never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge. Thomas Reed
The ultimate result of shielding men from the
effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools. Herbert Spencer
Who Is Not a
Fool?[Qui
non stultus?] Horace (65 - 8 BCE); Satires, 2.3.158
Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's
good to be silly at the right moment.
Horace
Then come jesters, musicians and trained dwarfs,
And singing girls from the land of Ti-ti,
To delight the ear and eye
And bring mirth to the mind. Sima Xiangru (c. 179 - 117 BCE); 'Rhapsody on the Shanglin Park'
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Euripides (484 - 406 BCE)
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the
wise seem foolish.
Quintilian; De Institutione Oratoria
It is human nature to think wisely and act
foolishly. Anatole France
(1844 - 1924)
The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do
foolishly. William
Shakespeare (1564 - 1616); 'As You Like It'
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. William Blake
A fool must now and then be right by chance. William
Cowper
The first of April, some do say, Is set apart for All Fools' Day.
But why the people call it so,
Nor I, nor they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment. Poor Robin's Almanac,
1790
April Fools' Day: This is the day upon which
we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. Mark Twain; Pudd'nhead
Wilson's Calendar, 1894
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the
rest of us could not succeed. Mark Twain
It is better to be a fool than to be dead. RL Stevenson
Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly,
better than wise people for their wisdom. Elizabeth Gaskell
You will do foolish things, but do them with
enthusiasm. Colette (1873 -
1954), in New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1961
A wise man can sometimes learn from a fool – as soon as it can be determined which is which.
Author unknown
Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.
George Chapman
Fools rush in – and get all the best seats.
Marybeth Weston
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he's talking about.
Author unknown
A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.
Author unknown
Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our
experience comes from our foolishness.
Sacha Guitry (1885 - 1957)
To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making. Prince
Otto von Bismarck, German chancellor, born on April 1, 1815
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. Prince
Otto von Bismarck
When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice. Prince
Otto von Bismarck
When you want to fool the world, tell the truth. Prince
Otto von Bismarck
There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America. Prince
Otto von Bismarck
To Mr. Seward:
It is my desire that, in case Maximilian will surrender, he be sent here a
prisoner of war, but that in the event of his continuing the war, or
refusing to surrender, then he be shot. Joshua Norton I,
'Dei Gratia' Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico,
April, 1867
An
intellectual is someone who has found something more interesting than sex. Edgar Wallace, British mystery novelist, born on April 1, 1875
I was awfully
curious to find out why I didn't go insane. Abraham Maslow, American psychologist, born on April 1, 1908
Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been
thought to be. Abraham Maslow
She who
from April dates her years
Diamonds should wear lest bitter tears
For vain repentance flow; this stone
As emblem of innocence is known. Traditional
birthstone rhyme
April
April is the fourth month of the year in
the Gregorian Calendar, with 30 days. The
month is traditionally personified in art as a girl clothed with green,
with a garland of myrtle and hawthorn buds, holding in one hand
primroses
and violets, and in the other the sign of Taurus.
"The opening month (Lat. aperire, to open) when trees
unfold and the womb of nature opens with young life. In the French
Republican calendar of 1793 it was called Germinal, the time of budding (21
March to 19 April)." Ivor
H Evans, Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988
Robert Chambers*
doesn't agree that the word comes from Latin aperio, 'I open'. He suggests
it comes from Aphrodite, the Greek version of Venus, as the Romans
considered it Venus's month. The first day was Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis. Others have it that a Roman
goddess of love, Aprilis, was honoured when naming the month.
Anglo Saxon Oster-monath, probably meant east
winds prevailed. The term Easter may have come
from the same origin(Chambers 1881).
"It is the fourth month, in which thou art
honoured above all others, and thou knowest, O Venus, that both the poet
and the month are thine'."
April is the month of the house of Aries (March 21 - April 20) and the
house of Taurus (April
21 - May 22).
In the American backwoods tradition, the full moon of April is called pink
Moon.
"April is
named after the Greek goddess Aphrodite – Venus to the Romans. Venus,
the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She
was known to the Phoenicians as Astarte and Ashtoreth to the Hebrews and
King Solomon, who built a temple to her. On her birth the seas bubbled
and turned rosy, and she arose, full grown and standing on a seashell,
in all the surpassing glory of her loveliness and arrayed in the panoply
of her irresistible charms. She floated to Cyprus, arriving in April,
and as soon as her white feet touched the shore, grass and flowers
sprang up at her feet and she was sweetly received by the Three Graces."Source
The pentagram is
a fascinating arcane symbol and well known to Neopagans and occultists.
In my own view, the pentagram's origins are in part associated with the
passage of the planet Venus through the skies, a view propounded by Dan
Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but don't let that put you
off. Others, such as this Freemasonry website, dispute it, and I would hazard a
guess that's because of the sacred feminine associations of Venus, as the
Freemasons are a very masculine association.
I know there's a lot of current interest in this question, and Dan Brown's
assertion that a four-year Venus cycle informs the Olympics periodicity
seems wrong to me. As far as I know, the Venus path is on an eight-year
cycle. After that period, Venus, the Sun, Earth and the stars are in the
same relative positions (more).
However, I certainly ain't no astronomer and can only go by what I read.
If you have any information at all associated with this matter, or
anything to do with the pentacle and its origins, I'd be grateful if you'd
let me know.
Nick Anthony Fiorenza of Lunar Planner/The Venus Transit has very kindly
permitted the use of his animation. I recommend his fascinating site.
April Fools' Day
(Noddy Day, Gowkie Day, Gowkin' Day)
If this year's first day of April is like any
other, you'll have to keep your guard against the practical jokes that
others can play on you, much to your annoyance and their delight. But what
are the origins of the strange cult of April Fools' Day?
There are a couple of explanations put forward
by scholars to account for the trickery that takes place throughout much
of the Western world on April 1.
One
theory suggests that, because of the tradition of sending someone on 'a fool's errand', the practice might derive from the Biblical story in
which Jesus Christ was sent uselessly back and forth between
Annas, Caiphas,
Pontius Pilate and King
Herod, each of them not being able to resolve
what to do with him.
Sending
people on fools' errands has a long history. These days a teacher might
send an unruly pupil to another teacher with the message, "Please give
this boy a long weight". All that the lad gets, of course, is a long
wait. Or else he might be sent to the Industrial Arts teacher for a "left-handed hammer". Either way, the joke's on the boy, who
probably deserves it.
In
merry olde England the errand was for a gullible person to be sent to the
saddler's for a 'pen'orth (penny's worth) of salad oil'. In
this ruse, the pun is between 'salad oil' and the French 'avoir de la salade', to be flogged. So the poor dupe got a beating
for his innocent pains.
Other nasty people would send youths to a bookshop for the
'History of Eve's Grandmother',
or to a cobbler for a little strap oil (the butt of the joke would indeed
get the strap).
The Scots have always loved April Fool's jokes. They call an April Fool a
gowk (or cuckoo; Anglo-Saxon
geac, origin of the word geek), a name which even today sounds as descriptive of its meaning as it did in olden times.
The trick was to send the dupe with an envelope containing a message to
someone else's house a long way off. The letter inside would only read
This
is the first day of April:
Hunt the gowk another mile.
Condensed from the article at
the Wilson's Almanac Scriptorium
Gotham
(pron. 'goat ham') is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. On a hill was a
bush known as the 'Cuckoo Bush', which was planted as a memorial to
the fabled population of the town.
In
about the year 1540,
during the reign of Henry VIII(1491 - 1547),
an amusing collection of stories
was published, by the name of The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham,
by the mysterious 'AB of Phisicke Doctor' (actually, Pizisicke
Doctour).
The tale has it that King
John of England(1166
or 1167 - 1216) was
marching towards Nottingham, intending to pass through Gotham meadow.
Believing that any ground traversed by a king became forever after a
public road, the citizens of Gotham decided to try to prevent John from
passing.
Angered by them, the
king sent messengers to find out the reason for their rudeness, and
perhaps to impose a fine. Hearing of the messengers' approach, they
quickly decided to act as stupidly as they could, to avoid punishment.
Some were trying to drown an eel in a pond; some dragging their carts and
wagons to the top of a barn to shield a young tree from the sun's rays;
some tumbling cheeses downhill hoping they would find their way to
Nottingham market; some trying to hedge in a cuckoo which had perched on a
old bush ...
It is said that the
Gothamites say, "We ween there are more fools pass through Gotham than
remain in it." There is another Gotham, in Sussex, that lays claim to
the tales, but it is generally accepted that Nottinghamshire's village
is the place that gained the reputation as the 'town of fools', an
archetypal concept that is found in other cultures ...
Read on at
the article at
the Wilson's Almanac Scriptorium
How New York City came to be called Gotham
In 1807, New
York-born writer, Washington
Irving(1783 - 1859), invented the name for New York in the
humorous article, 'Salmagundi'. By Irving's time, Gotham had long been
associated with stupidity, even though we can see that the original story
was actually about an ironic kind of cleverness. Washington Irving thought
this just the name to give to a city that he believed to be inhabited by
fools. He used the term of his fellow city people because it conveyed the
sense of New Yorkers as know-it-alls and cunning fools – but they had
method in their madness.
April Fool
cartoon by Thomas
Nast (1840 - 1902) (click thumbnail)
"Thomas Nast's cartoon about All Fool's Day actually appeared in the April 2, 1864 issue of
Harper's Weekly ...
"Nast's cartoon is a mosaic of several April Fool's pranks. The inset pictures on the upper-left and upper-right depict Union soldiers and sailors, respectively, tricking their comrades about where the Confederate enemy lurks, and obscuring their vision. The small circles in the middle of each side show a phony newspaper headline announcing that the Union has captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. On the center-left,
'Mr. Shoddy' is upset because he will no longer be able to supply his inferior goods to the Union military at inflated prices. (See the archive for the cartoon of
February 7,
1863, 'One of the Effects of the War.') On the center-right, New York Tribune
editor Horace Greeley ('Mr. Fogey') is surprised (and fooled) to see
that his headlines continually urging 'On to Richmond!' have come true
..."
From Harper's Weekly,
March 30, 1861 (click thumbnail)
"WE publish on the preceding page a picture of the morning of the 1st April, opposite the Astor House, on the Park, in New York City. Some of the personages in the picture are enjoying the usual frolics of the day.
"The origin of this fool-making custom, like that of may other of our oldest customs, is involved in considerable doubt and uncertainty. It prevails, besides in this country, in Scotland, Germany, Sweden, and France—in which latter place the victims of the jokes are styled poissons d'Avril, or April fishes. But in none of these countries is its origin reasonably explained. Some suppose it to be derived from the abduction of the Sabine women by the Romans under Romulus, at the feast in honor of Neptune, which occurred on the 1st of April; others trace it from the mockery of our Saviour by the Jews ; while still others ascribe it to the act of old father Noah, in sending out the dove from the ark before the waters of the deluge had subsided.
"The following extract from an old poem will certify to the antiquity of the custom:
"'The first of April some do say
Is set apart for All-Fools' Day;
But why the people call it so
Nor I nor they themselves do know.
But on this day are people sent
On purpose for pure merriment;
And though the day is known before,
Yet frequently there is great store
Of these forgetfuls to be found,
Who're sent to dance Moll Dixon's round;
And having tried each shop and stall,
And disappointed at them all,
At last some tell them of the cheat,
And then they hurry from the street,
And straightway home with shame they run,
And others laugh at what is done.
But 'tis a tiling to be disputed,
Which is the greater fool reputed,
The man that innocently went,
Or he that him design'dly sent.'
"A city reporter says
"'The number of tricks and hard practical jokes played upon unsophisticated persons, such as sending Jimmy for a bottle of
"stirrup oil," dispatching Betty in search of a pint and a half of ' pigeons milk,' or requesting your illiterate friend to buy you a copy of the Life and Adventures of Eve's Mother,' in the Bowery, would require several volumes for their description. The most common methods of fooling people practiced in this city consist in pinning endless rag-tails to ladies' dresses, fastening paper appendages to the men's coat skirts, perpetrating cruel stories about the arrival of rich cousins from California with bags of the auriferous metal, and sending people extraordinary letters, containing extraordinary intelligence, and asking the most extraordinary things. Sometimes these nonsensical jokes result in the most serious consequences, and we have known
"pistols and coffee" for two to be the not unfrequent denouement. Latterly the sport of fool making is confined principally to little boys and girls, who indulge in a regular carnival of merriment. Those whose mammas and papas allow them
"the freedom of the city" kick up a most beautiful excitement among their grown-up superiors, while
"—in-door young ones club their wicked wits, And almost frighten
servants into fits.'"
Source
Find an error or dead link?
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda
Festival of Venus (Veneralia, or Festum Veneris et Fortunae
Virilis), Roman
Empire
This
was a women's festival, seeking good relations with men, ruled
over by the goddess Venus Verticordia. She was the
Roman goddess of beauty and
sensual love, identified with Aphrodite. Some accounts say she
sprang from the foam of the sea, others say she was the daughter of
Jupiter and a nymph named Dione. Her husband was Vulcan, but she had
affairs with Mars and many other gods and demigods. She and
Mercury
had a child, Cupid. By Anchises she had child Aeneas, through whom
the Romans regarded her as the founder of their race.
In Rome, women removed
jewellery from the statue of the goddess, washed her, and adorned
her with flowers, and similarly bathed themselves in the public
baths wearing wreaths of myrtle on their heads. It was generally a
day for women to seek divine help in their relations with men.
The worship of the goddess Fortuna
Virilis was also part of this festival.
"Venus
Verticordia This Roman festival was consecrated to
Venus Verticordia (the Heart-turner), 'Goddess of Beauty, Mother
of Love, Queen of Laugher, Mistress of the Grapes.' At the
temple of Venus, women washed Her statue, replaced her golden
necklace and other jewelry, and offered Her roses and other
flowers. Women bathed in myrtle and scented water and wore
crowns of myrtle. Ovid says Venus requested them to bathe
beneath the green myrtle. English folklore says myrtle won't
grow unless planted by a woman."Source
"The Kalends of
April are sacred to Venus, as is the entire month, and this day
has been called the Veneralia. Public games, ludi, would be held
in honor of the deity.
"This
day was also known as All Fools Day to the Romans, and they would
spend the entire day celebrating with comic hilarity, doing things
backwards, wearing women's clothes, dancing in the streets, and
generally carrying on in the most in the most foolish and
congenial manner. This is one of the few Roman holidays that has
preserved some of its original character, under the modern name
April Fools Day.
"In
Egypt, this day was celebrated as the Birthday of the god Hathor."Source
Feast day of St Gilbert de
Moray, Bishop of Caithness, in Scotland
King Alexander II appointed him archdeacon of Moray. Enemies set his accounting ledgers ablaze, but miraculously, they survived.
He killed a dragon with an arrow. Fierce proponent of Scottish independence, often opposing the archbishop of York.
Died 1245.
Male Circumcision/Male Genital Mutilation (MC/MGM) is a culturally determined, body mutilation ritual that has been practiced on an estimated 650 million men and boys worldwide and 77 million in the United States. Each year 1.2 million boys in the United States undergo MC/MGM. Fifty-eight percent of all newborn boys are at risk of undergoing MC/MGM. Legislators, policy makers, psychologists, therapists, doctors, nurses, parents and spouses should be aware of the consequences of MC/MGM. The International Coalition for Genital Integrity (ICGI) in cooperation with the National Organization of Circumcision Resource Information Centers (NOCIRC) and Stop Infant Circumcision Society (SIC Society) sponsor the Genital Integrity Awareness Week in Washington, D.C. during the first week of April, Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Sadogashima matsuri, Sadogashima-island,
Niigata, Japan
A month-long Festival in Sado island.
"Main feature of this festival is
Ondeko,the famous traditional performing art in Sado island, in
which people play taiko drums wearing devil masks."Source
Fiscal
Years Fiscal Year begins, Antigua
and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, British Virgin
Islands, Burma, Canada, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Equatorial
Guinea, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Gaza Strip, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Isle
of Man, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Lesotho, Malawi, Malta,
Montserrat, Namibia, Niue, Pitcairn Islands, Qatar, Singapore, South
Africa, St Helena, St Lucia, Swaziland, Tokelau, United Kingdom,
West Bank of Israel.Source
First Day of Work, Japan The
official start of school years in most universities and schools. Also, the
official First Day of Work at companies and offices for new university
graduates hires, marked by welcoming ceremonies and speeches. However
April Fools' Day is not commonly
commemorated in that country.
The Pigasus Award is
the name of an annual tongue-in-cheek honour recognized by noted skepticJames
Randi. The awards seek to expose parapsychological
frauds that Randi has noted over the previous year. Randi usually makes his
announcements of the awards from the previous year on April
1.
The award was originally called the Uri Award,
after magician and self-styled 'psychic' Uri
Geller, and was first announced in the appendix of Randi's book Flim-Flam!.
The 1982 book listed the award's recipients from 1979, 1980 and 1981.
A tale that is probably apocryphal and
certainly Victorian:
"During a ball in St. Petersburg one
evening, Bismarck flattered an attractive partner with some
well-chosen words. 'One can't believe a word you diplomats
say,' she exclaimed. 'What do you mean?' Bismarck asked. 'Well, when a diplomat says
"Yes," he means "perhaps."
When he says "perhaps," he means "no." And if he should
say "no" – well, he's no diplomat.'
"'Madam, you are quite right,'
Bismarck replied. 'It's part of our profession, I fear. But with
you ladies the exact opposite is the case.' 'How so?' 'When she says
"no," she means "perhaps." When she says "perhaps," she means "yes." And if she says
"yes" – well, she's no lady!'"
1875Edgar Wallace(d.
February 10, 1932),
British novelist, playwright, journalist who produced popular
detective and suspense stories, practically inventing the modern
thriller. His prolific output, however, undermined his reputation as
a fresh and original writer.
1908Abraham Maslow
(d. June 8, 1970), American
psychologist, originator of the 'hierarchy of needs', a
schematic representation of human needs, motivations and desires
"Maslow saw
human beings' needs arranged like a ladder. The most basic needs,
at the bottom, were physical – air, water, food, sex. Then came
safety needs – security, stability – followed by
psychological, or social needs – for belonging, love,
acceptance. At the top of it all were the self-actualizing needs
– the need to fulfill [sic] oneself, to become all that one
is capable of becoming. Maslow felt that unfulfilled needs lower
on the ladder would inhibit the person from climbing to the next
step. Someone dying of thirst quickly forgets their thirst when
they have no oxygen, as he pointed out. People who dealt in
managing the higher needs were what he called self-actualizing
people."Source
1929Milan KunderaCzech
novelist (The
Joke, 1964; The
Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1984), short-story writer,
playwright and poet. Kundera's works combine erotic comedy with
political criticism. Until 1989, all of his books were banned in his
country.
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1778 New Orleans, USA
businessman Oliver Pollock created the '$' symbol.
" … (actually trader
Pollock's bad handwriting in receipts of purchases from a local Spanish
outpost is to blame – he abbreviated 'pesos' as a 'p' and an 's'
which he overlapped; when Congress later adopted the "Spanish milled
dollar" as the currency of the young U.S., Congressman Robert Morris, a friend
of Pollack who had seen the receipts, perpetuated the use of two vertical
lines overlapped by an 's' as the 'dollar sign')."Source
1795 Martial law was declared in
France following food riots.
1810 Napoleon married Maria Louisa, archduchess of
Austria "on which occasion some of the waggish Parisians called him 'un
poisson d' Avril,' a term which answers to our April fool. On the
occasion of his nuptials, Napoleon struck a medal, with Love bearing a
thunderbolt for its device." (William Hone, The
Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London,
1878; 1825-26 edition
online.)
1817
"At Paris, on the 1st of April, 1817, a young lady pocketed a watch in
the house of a friend. She was arrested the same day, and taken before the
correctional police, when being charged with the fact, she said it was an
April trick (un poisson d'Avril.) She was asked whether the watch was
in her custody? She denied it; but a messenger was sent to her apartment, and
it was found on the chimney-place. Upon which the young lady said, she had
made the messenger un poisson d'Avril, 'an April fool.' The pleasantry,
however, did not end so happily, for the young lady was jocularly recommended
to remain in the house of correction till the 1st of April, 1818, and then to
be discharged as un poisson d' Avril." (Hone, ibid)
1818 (Sometime in April) Dr David Brewster's kaleidoscope was first exhibited in London. Brewster showed his invention to an optician before he had secured a
patent in 1817, and the kaleidoscope was manufactured in the hundreds of thousands within three months, selling out in London and Paris, with the good doctor not gaining the financial benefits.
Initially intended as a science tool, it was quickly turned into a toy, and in
fact a craze.
1860The Tower of London April Fools' joke. In March 1860 a large
number of Londoners received in the mail printed invitations which read:
"Tower of London, The White Gate – Admit the Bearer and Friend to view
the Annual Ceremony of Washing the White Lions, on Sunday April 1st,
1860."The trick was highly successful. There is no White Gate: cabs were
seen all day driving around the Tower looking in vain for it.
1863 The first
wartime conscription law in the USA went into effect.
1867 Paris staged the
World Fair, showing off a remodelled urban
area with 137 km of new avenues.
1867 USA: (Sometime
in April) Joshua
Norton I, 'Dei Gratia' Emperor of the United States and Protector of
Mexico, claimed the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (Emperor Maximilian of Mexico)
as a POW.
An ancient ship
we've heard the tales –
Was forced ashore by southern gales
Nothing left – no masts or sails,
Just timbers like mahogany.
Will it be discovered soon
That ancient ship beneath a dune?
Only the sun, the stars, the moon
Are witness to this mystery. Author unknown
Australia:
On this day in 1876, a local curiosity was referred to by Mr John Mason, of Belfast,
Victoria, in the following letter to the
MelbourneArgus newspaper:
Sir,-Riding along the beach from Port Fairy to Warrnambool in the summer of 1846, my attention was attracted to the hull of a vessel embedded high and dry in the Hummocks, far above the reach of any tide. It appeared to have been that of a vessel about 100 tons burden, and from its bleached and weather-beaten appearance, must have remained there many years. The spars and deck were gone, and the hull was full of drift sand. The timber of which she was built had the appearance of cedar or mahogany. The fact of the vessel being in that position was well known to the whalers in 1846, when the first whaling station was formed in that neighbourhood, and the oldest natives, when questioned, stated their knowledge of it extended from their earliest recollection. My attention was again directed to this wreck during a conversation with Mr M'Gowan, the superintendent of the Post-office, in 1869, who, on making inquiries as to the exact locality, informed me that it was supposed to be one of a fleet of Portuguese or Spanish discovery ships, one of them having parted from the others during a storm, and was never again heard of. He referred me to a notice of a wreck having appeared in the novel Geoffrey Hamlyn, written by Henry Kingsley, in which it is set down as a Dutch or Spanish vessel, and forms the subject of a remark from one of the characters, a doctor, who said that the English should never sneer at those two nations - they were before you everywhere. The wreck lies about midway between Belfast and Warrnambool, and is probably by this time entirely covered with drift sand, as during a search made for it within the last few months it was not to be seen.
---Yours, &c.,
JOHN MASON
This is one early reference to the 'Mahogany Ship',
which since the mid-19th
Century many people have believed to lie in the sands
between Warrnambool
and Port Fairy, Victoria. In 1836, two survivors from a wrecked
sealer at the Hopkins River mouth walked back along the coast to the whaling outpost at (now) Port Fairy
and gave the first account of the wreck, describing an unusually designed
vessel, already in an advanced state of disrepair.
It has been postulated it might be a
16th-Century Portuguese caravel lost in 1522 under the command of
Cristovao de
Mendonca (Cristóvão de Mendonça). (It has been claimed that the so-called
'Dauphin Map' (also known as the 'Harleian
Map', one of the Dieppe
Maps) of
Portuguese origin and dated 1532
depicts Australia's north and east coast, including Port Phillip Bay, Victoria and the mouth of the Yarra
River, also in the state of Victoria.)
Another
theory has it that the Mahogany Ship is an ancient Chinese vessel; still
others suggest a French whaler, a Dutch ship and many others.
Another theory links the ship to Portuguese sea captain
Gomes de Sequeira, lost in
1525.
It is conventionally believed that Captain James Cook (1728 - '79), the great English navigator,
"discovered Australia" in 1770.
However, it is probable that Malaccan
traders (from what is now Indonesia) were frequent visitors for centuries
before that. The pre-1770 Portuguese, Chinese, French, etc, connections are less certain but often
conjectured. However, the first recorded landfall by a European was in 1606 when Willem Jansz sailed down the east coast in
the Duyfken (or Duijfken, meaning 'Little Dove'), part of a fleet
of twelve ships.
Since the 1880s,
the Mahogany Ship, if it ever existed, seems to have vanished, perhaps in the
shifting sands. A reward of $250,000 posted by the Victorian Government in 1992
brought many searchers employing a variety of methods, but nothing was found.
More recently (2000), a 3-metre-long plank of European white oak, the same timber used to build Portuguese caravels,
was turned up in the sand, adding to the mystery as oak is not native to
Australia.
"The shipwreck of a whaleboat at the mouth of the Hopkins river in 1836 remains Warrnambool's earliest recorded shipping disaster.
"It was this event, which may well have gone unnoticed, which caused the three survivors to walk back to the whaling station on Griffith Island, at Port Fairy, along the shore line.
"It was during this return journey that they discovered an old shipwreck at the mouth of the Merri River, just south of Tower Hill. This shipwreck has since become internationally famous as The Mahogany Ship, believed to be a Portuguese caravel lost in 1522. The Portuguese, under the command of Cristovao de Mendonca, had sent and
[sic] exploratory expedition down the east coast of Australia."
Source
"[Richard] Osburne recorded that he had seen the old wreck on several occasions when riding from Warrnambool to Port Fairy in the late 1840's. Osburne first wrote of the
'Mahogany Ship' in his 'HISTORY OF WARRNAMBOOL' (published 1887).
"In his publication Osburne copied the 1876 'Mason Account' (by John Mason, his confirmed sighting of the wreck in 1846). Osburne then wrote that he remembered the wreck
"'...high in the hummocks between Belfast and Warrnambool in 1847 or 1848, but it was much nearer Warrnambool than Belfast - in fact only two or three miles from the former place - to the west of the big hummock which was supposed to fill Warrnambool Bay with drift sand washed by the Merri River, until the cutting was made'.
"Osburne went on to say that the wreck may have been
one of the early Spanish or Portugese explorers, and a thorough search should be
organised." Richard Osburne and the 'Mahogany Ship'
"In Europe, in 1519, learning of the voyage that Magellan was about to undertake - to map the Spice Islands into the Spanish sphere of influence - King Manuel of Portugal sent a fleet under the command of Albuquerque to Goa, and thence on to
'find the Islands of Gold'. One of the ship's captains was Cristoval de Mendonça. By all accounts Mendonça arrived, with another ship captained by Pedro Eanes, at Cape York (the tip of Queensland, Australia) which was the outer limit of Portugese sea-knowledge in January of 1522.
"By the end of 1524, Mendonça was to sail down the coasts of Australia and NZ, out into the Pacific, and finally to report back to King João III. If we allow him 5 months returning to Portugal from Goa, and 2 months returning from cape York, then his round-the-Pacific expedition would have taken 2 & 1/2 years. He described his encounters inside the Great Barrier Reef as
'The Dangerous Coast' and clearly marked the coastline as he travelled south, including the reef now known as Cook reef where Cook ran aground. Great Sandy Island is marked on the map, and he seems to have continued south as far as Botany Bay. What happened then ?
"One hypothesis is that Mendonça and Eanes opted to sail NE rather than SE to climb away from the onset of winter. If that's what happened, then their course would have found Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, and finally Fiji – and all three islands are clearly marked on the map. Arriving in Fiji, it is likely that the two ships would have split up, now that they knew they were in a vast ocean, and while Eanes was to sail back west to the Australian continent and then south, Mendonça would sail to the south.
"Eanes reached Cape Howe. In 1963, in 250 feet of water, a local fisherman, Olav
Mannes, trawled a vase to the surface. It was thermolinescence dated as 16th
century, of Portugese origin. If Eanes had been in trouble with his ship, he may
have been able to reach a safe harbour at Warrnambool. The ship was beached and
abandoned. In 1991 the Victorian Government offered a 1/4 million dollar reward
for the discovery of the sailing ship, known as the 'mahogany wreck'; it is
still buried in the dunes, but relics have been found. They include sword,
rapier hilt, pewter jug, soike, and a galley latch. Eanes and his crew would not
have survived long on the continent."
1891 The first telephone link between London and Paris was opened.
1897Jandamarra,
or 'Pigeon', the Australian Aboriginal insurrection leader, was killed.
Jandamarra, a former police tracker, used the caves and surroundings of Windjana
Gorge and Tunnel
Creek, inland from Derby, in the Kimberleyregion of Western
Australia, as hideouts in a guerrilla
struggle to fight European expansion.
In late 1894, a posse of about 30 heavily
armed police and settlers attacked Jandamarra and his followers, who had staked
out Windjana Gorge in preparation for an attack. In the battle that ensued,
Jandamarra killed a police constable but was wounded himself and he lay low for
some time, so that many thought he had died.
The police recruited a remarkable black tracker, known as Micki, who
came
from the Pilbara
region and
was said to possess magical powers and had no
fear of the rebel leader. Jandamarra was finally tracked down and killed by
Micki at Tunnel Creek on this day, putting an end to the battle for Bunuba
lands.
1897 USA: "Everest (Kansas). The whole town saw an
object fly under the cloud ceiling. It came down slowly, then flew away very
fast to the southeast. When directly over the town it swept the ground with its
powerful light. It was seen to rise up at fantastic speed until barely
discernible, then to come down again and sweep low over the witnesses. At one
point it remained stationary for 5 min at the edge of a low cloud, which it
illuminated. All could clearly see the silhouette of the craft. (FSR 66, 4)"Source
1924Adolf
Hitler was sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the
Beer Hall Putsch.
However, he spent only nine months in jail. Hitler began to dictate Mein Kampf to
Rudolf Hess, its original title being
Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice; Settling Accounts with the Destroyers of the National Socialist
Movement, leading one wag to comment: "Everyone needs an editor."
1924 The first
revenue flight for Belgium's Sabena Airlines.
1924 HMV
introduced the first gramophone to change records automatically.
1932USA: Five hundred school children, most with haggard faces and
in tattered clothes, paraded through
Chicago's downtown section to the
Board of
Education offices to demand that the school system provide them with food.
"The end of
the war on April 1, 1939, did not end the killings. Franco systematically
slaughtered some 200,000 of his opponents ... in a carnage of genocidal
proportions that was meant to physically uproot the living source of the
revolution...
"[I]t was a
vindictive counterrevolution that had its only parallel, given the population
and size of Spain, in Stalin's one-sided civil war against the Soviet people."Source:
The Daily Bleed
1955Hobart,
Tasmania, became the first Australian city to introduce parking
meters.
1957 Spaghetti harvest hoax: "The respected
BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and
the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were
enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with
footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge
numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how
they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC
diplomatically replied that they should 'place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin
of tomato sauce and hope for the best.'"
"The hoax Panorama programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard
Dimbleby, featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest.
"It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying
them in the sun to dry." BBC
watch/listen
1963Oz magazine, theunderground magazine, was launched in Sydney, Australia.
In Australia, the editors – Richard Neville, Richard Walsh, and Martin Sharp
– were charged under obscenity laws. In England, Neville, Felix Dennis, and
Jim Anderson were put on trial for corrupting public morals. Oz finally
ceased publication in 1973.
See also July 19, 1971 (Marty
Feldman calls the Old Bailey trial judge "a boring old fart").
"Oz
magazine started
in Australia in 1963 and, almost by chance, came to London in 1966. Its radical
content of libertarianism, obscenity, pornography and anti-establishment free
thinking constantly pushed at the limits of permissiveness. Much of its
psychedelically inspired artwork was by Martin Sharp."Source
"Martin [Sharp]'s contributions were noticed by
Richard Neville, Editor of the University of NSW 'Thuranka' [sic – Tharunka – PW] , and by Richard
Walsh. Editor of Sydney University magazine 'Honi Soit'. Both editors wanted
to publish their own magazine and asked Sharp and Shead to become contributors.
Australian 'Oz' magazine
hit the streets on April Fool's Day, 1963. The popularity of 'Oz' magazine with
its lampooning and social satire continued to increase during the few years it
was published. and gained Martin sufficient following to prompt his first one
man exhibition at the Clune Galleries in Sydney in 1965. 'Art for Mart's Sake'
was virtually sold out on the opening night, broadening the artist's horizon. At
that time the obvious destination for young artists was London."Source
"Issue 28, otherwise known as "Schoolkids OZ"
became a cause celebre during and following the prosecution of its
editors Richard
Neville, Jim
Anderson and Felix
Dennis for obscenity in
1973.
This prosecution brought the magazine to the attention of a far wider public
than would have been the case had it simply been ignored.
John Lennon and
Yoko Ono joined the
protest march against the prosecution and organised the recording of "God
Save Oz" by the Elastic
Oz Band, released on
Apple Records, to raise
funds and get publicity."Source
"On 14th July 1971 John
[Lennon] made a statement in support of 'Oz' magazine. It was during this press
conference that John sang 'The End Of The Road' which was later issued on a
flexi-disc free with 'Oz'. This can also be heard on
Lost Lennon Tapes - Volume One."
Source
1973North Vietnam released more than 590 prisoners of war.
1973 John Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a new
'country' with no laws or boundaries, called Nutopia. Its national anthem, at the end of one of their albums, was silence.
1974
'Hanoi Jane',
Jane Fonda arrived in North Vietnam on her second visit.
1978 "A barge
appeared in Sydney Harbor [sic] towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were
expecting it. Dick
Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith's
Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica
for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going
to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for
ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of
Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly
the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited
blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor
was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and
shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white
plastic sheets beneath."Source: The Top 100 April
Fools' Day Jokes of All Time (No 12)
1983
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp:
Thirty thousand anti-nuclear campaigners joined hands around
the American Air Force Base at
Greenham Common, UK,
past the Aldermaston nuclear research centre and ending at the ordnance factory in Burghfield,
making a human chain 14 miles long along 'Nuclear Valley'. An opposing group, the
Coalition for Peace through
Security, arranged for a plane to fly overhead trailing a banner reading "CND –
Kremlin's April Fools" (referring to the Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament, one of the organizers).
1984 American soul singer
Marvin Gaye was killed by a gunshot wound in Los Angeles in an argument with his father. He was 44 years old. Gaye's father received probation after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
1987 In his first speech on the subject of HIV/AIDS,
US President Reagan declared that the disease was
"public health enemy No. 1".
1988 Iraq was accused of gassing Kurdish villagers. At the time, Iraq's
Saddam Hussein was being militarily equipped by the leadership of Western nations, who turned a blind eye to the
atrocities (see December
20, 1983 in the Book of Days). However, the accusation against Iraq is disputed by the CIA's senior political analyst during the Iran-Iraq War, Dr Stephen C Pelletiere (professor, US Army War College), who believes Iran did
the gassing. See March
16, 1988 in the BoD.
1990 Strangeways Prison riot,
Manchester, UK (continued from March 31, qv).
The rumour went around the
world that the tomb of Socrates had been found on the Acropolis in Athens, and
that among the archaeologists' finds was the bottle that contained the poison
self-administered by the great philosopher. The bottle was even said to contain a
few drops of the deadly hemlock toxin.
"In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought
the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco
Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park
in Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves
were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a joke a few hours
later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press
secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the
Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and
would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial."Source
1998 "Saddam Hussein and his sons may have been ruthless, power-hungry dictators, but that didn't stop them from trying to give the people of Iraq a good chuckle every April Fool's Day. On April 1, 1998 the
Babil newspaper, owned by Hussein's son Uday, informed its readers that President Clinton had decided to lift sanctions against Iraq, only to admit later that it was just joking. One can imagine the knee-slapping guffaws when readers realized how they'd been taken for a ride. The laughs continued in 1999 when Uday mischeviously
[sic] announced that the monthly food rations would be supplemented to include bananas, Pepsi, and chocolate. Again, just a joke. At this point, the Husseins appear to have run out of material, because in 2000 they recycled the sanction-lifting gag, and in 2001 trotted out the ration-supplement crowd-pleaser one more time. The merciless quality with which the same joke was repeated year after year had an almost surreal quality to it. In fact, it almost makes one sympathize with Saudi Arabia's chief cleric, the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, who in 2001 decreed that the celebration of April Fool's Day should be banned altogether. It's not known if the Sheikh had his neighbor's hijinks in mind when he issued the ban." Source: The Top 10 Worst April Fool's Day Hoaxes Ever
First
found on March 26, 1999, Melissa came to be one of the most infamous
computer worms the world has ever seen. It shut down Internet mail
systems that became clogged with infected emails propagating the worm.
"A Kazakh newspaper (Novoye Pokoleniye) reported that
Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, would become
the first Kazakh woman to fly into space. The world's first child astronaut
would be her one-year-old daughter whom she was bringing along in this
history-making event.
"Nazarbayeva, the president of Khabar Television, and well known in the nation
was already a Kazakh celebrity. Her mission in space would be to launch a new
satellite that would transmit Khabar TV to the remote recesses of the earth and
to run a few women-issue related experiments. The experiments included the
cleaning of portholes in open space, nail varnishing and hair dyeing in a vacuum
and wet cleaning in zero gravity conditions."Source
2003 The plenary session of the Fiji Summit was attended by 4,700
delegates who enjoyed the brilliant fireworks display put on for the occasion by
the people of Jordan. After a moving rendition of Peace on Earth by
several hundred international stars from the music world, to which the thousands
of delegates sang along, President Bush's inspired television address to the
world [excepts below] was watched by the delegates and an estimated world
audience of four billion people.
At the invitation of US President George W Bush,
representatives of 190 countries had met in the South Pacific nation of Fiji for
the Inaugural Global Peace Imagination Summit. All the nations present pledged
just 10 per cent of their defence budgets to fund Bush's new brainchild, the
Global Peace Imaginatorium. Although the pledges are a mere fraction of national
war chests, the resulting peace foundation is already bigger than any one
institutional, business or national entity in the world. Pundits said that its
very size will help protect it from pressures from the enormous world armaments
industry.
Washington sources say that
the purpose of the multi-trillion dollar institute will be to solicit from
citizens of the world ideas for alternatives to war in cases in which conflicts
arise. Suggestions, whether from professional conflict resolution practitioners,
diplomats, academics, or ordinary citizens, are to be rewarded with cash
disbursements. Every suggestion will be rewarded, and is then eligible for entry
to higher levels of reward according to the judgement of panels of
democratically elected representatives from all nations.
The speech
President Bush stunned the
world with his televised address to the world, for which his government had set
aside 25 billion dollars of armaments purchase money to promote, so scarcely a
man, woman or child in the world did not know about the Summit nor Mr Bush's
speech.
His opening remarks brought
gales of laughter from the floor of the Summit. "I know a lot of people in the
media think I'm nuts. Maybe you think I'm nuts," he said with a grin. "Some members of my White House inner circle think I'm a bit nuts, too.
Especially now.
"But ladies and gentleman,
I don't think I've ever been so sane in my life! [Applause] The human
race has chosen war as a means of settling disputes for thousands of years, and
it's time is over. It not only hasn't solved anything, but its consequences
have gotten far worse. It's over. Finis. Kaput!
"A hundred years ago,"
he told the now silent crowd, "when armies collided in battle, about 10 per
cent of the casualties were civilian and 90 per cent were combatants. Today,
it's the other way round. The whole nature of warfare has changed, and no
longer can we believe that the people who die or get burned and maimed in battle
might in some way have to accept responsibility for their own actions. Today,
the innocent are the main victims. Not only that, but our generals now sit in
comfortable air-conditioned offices, nowhere near the field of battle, and make
decisions on the deployment of weapons whose unspeakably tragic consequences
they will never see, and that our grandparents could never have conceived of –
weapons that can level vast areas of civilisation in one moment. We know in our
hearts the difference between right and wrong, and this is wrong, ladies and
gentlemen, this iswrong.
"My friends," President
Bush continued, "for a long time I myself mistakenly believed that war is all
right. That it's OK. That it's 'patriotic'. I suppose it is because I
had never been in one, who knows. Maybe it was just the culture I was brought up
in, the movies and TV shows I watched and the books I read as a kid. Whatever
the reason, like so many people, I had never really thought 'outside the
square'. I saw some nation do something I didn't like, and I automatically
thought of war as a solution.
"Then something big
happened, ladies and gentlemen, and even now it makes the hair stand up on the
back of my neck. One night about ten weeks ago, I woke up at about 3 o'clock
in the morning in a cold sweat, with some realization running through my head
… and I don't even quite know how to explain it, but somehow I knew that if
we just tried to do things differently, we would actually do it. Suddenly
I trusted people again. I trusted that people could solve the problems of people
– and do it fast. All that was needed was the will, a bit of money, and the
encouragement of leaders. I thought, how can I even call myself a leader
if I do not lead people into something new and better?
"I said to the First Lady, 'You know, I've been
wrong. Almost all of us have been wrong. For thousands of years, we've all
been wrong. And as President of the USA, I'm gonna come right out and say I
was wrong. That we all have to do things differently, totally differently, from
now on. No one else has as much of a chance to turn things around as me today,
and I'm not going to squander this chance.' Laura looked at me a bit funny [audience
laughs] but I think she knew deep down that something profound had happened
to my thinking, and maybe I was right. Maybe together, human beings could
do it.
"Men and women of the
world, I'm here tonight to tell you I was wrong: War is not the solution!"
President Bush paused at
this point for 90 seconds of thunderous clapping. Following several minutes more
of his speech, his concluding remark, met again with sustained applause that
ended in a standing ovation, were these words, heard by two-thirds of the
world's population:
"Men and women of Planet
Earth: We can do this. We can put people on the moon, we can build the Internet,
we can spend trillions and trillions of dollars on frivolous and evil things.
Many nations represented tonight in this auditorium, including my own, can build
– have built – weapons of mass destruction that can destroy the world many
times over. Yet millions of people are starving and have no access to clean
water. We have to stop this now; we can't say 'it's how things should be
because they always were'. Enough is enough! We have the technology to do
almost anything we can imagine.
"From this night onwards, we also have the technology
of this wonderful Global Peace Imaginatorium to begin to help us clear the fog
from our minds. Because, ladies and gentlemen, it is only our lack of
imagination, and the fog in our minds, that has kept humankind in this tragic
cycle of suffering since time began. Now we will make it an honor for a human
being to come up with solutions, just as we will make it a disgrace to use the
old methods and to be stuck in old thinking, like I was.
"The Imaginatorium will not stop war and create a new
world, but it will foment ideas on how to do this – ideas that have been
lacking. Ideas that no leader has ever before thought of asking you to think up.
(I don't take the credit for this. Laura says it was the pizza I ate before
going to bed.)[Laughter]
"My friends of all nations, all creeds and all races: now,
having realized my own past errors of thought, I ask you to join with me to
eradicate what is obsolete from our minds. Because it all comes from our minds.
I know that now. As John Lennon and Yoko Ono put it so well way back when,
"War is over. If you want it."
[Standing ovation]
2003 "Stop the war or the
dogs get it!"
By Celeste Fremon
"On April 1, the fliers began appearing around the
North Central Animal Shelter, near 26th and Figueroa streets. 'We Will Kill
Our Pets To Protest the War,' screamed the big block letters on 8-by-10 sheets
stapled to fences and telephone posts. The loathsome sacrifice would occur at 6
p.m. Sunday, April 6, at the Silver Lake Dog Park, purportedly the work of
Raelian Pet Owners United To Stop the War. (You remember the Raelians. They're
the we-cloned-a-baby-because-the-space-people-told-us-to-do-it folks.) As
justification, the flier contained some vague reference to the Assyrians of
Mesopotamia sacrificing prized animals to end tribal warfare.
"A hoax? The people at L.A.'s Department of Animal
Services weren't so sure. The shelter faxed a flier to the Northeast Division
of the Los Angeles Police Department which, in turn, faxed it to the Counter
Terrorism Bureau of the LAPD. Yet, here was the creepy part: It isn't illegal
to kill a healthy pet as along as you do it 'humanely.'
"Lieutenant Kevin McClure, Northeast Division's
watch commander, decided a public spectacle did not constitute humane treatment
and set out to investigate the threat to L.A.'s pet. By 5:45 p.m., at the
Silver Lake Dog Park, plenty of dogs and dog owners were present, but no obvious
Raelians. Nevertheless, three LAPD officers (including McClure), three park
rangers, a couple of animal-regulation officers, an animal-rights activist, plus
two people from the SPCA arrayed themselves in force across the street from the
park. The SPCA guys, clad in flak jackets with 9mm sidearms, had a vaguely
SWAT-like aura.
"By 6:10, with still no Raelians in evidence,
giddiness started to set in. Tom Cotter, the supervising park ranger, pointed to
an unsuspecting woman driving a dog-filled SUV, 'Now there's a friggin'
Raelian if I ever saw one!'
"Meanwhile, the SPCA's Lieutenant Doug Buck, who
had been watching the park through binoculars, spotted four suspiciously dogless
persons who, when questioned, claimed not to be Raelians but lookie-loos who
came on the off chance something exciting would happen. 'All of us are cat
owners,' said the group's leader, a 30-something sporting around 35
earrings, the largest of which resembled an enormous, multicolored dead worm.
"By 6:45, everybody waspretty much ready to
pack it in — although McClure said he assigned a black-and-white to stay in
the area.
"Early Monday morning, the
Raelians' Salem Assli, who identified himself as the Raelians' 'Los
Angeles guide,' finally weighed in via e-mail. 'The flier is a hoax by some
people who are obviously trying to make the Raelians look bad.'" Source
2004Gmail,
an email service from Google,
was
launched.
2005Wikipedia, the free online
encyclopaedia, became a victim of an onslaught of April Fool's jokes.
"Today
Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, was the victim of an
onslaught of practical jokes, as April Fool's Day kicked in in various
timezones around the world. Wikipedia contributors were kept busy tidying up
and removing prank articles and changes made by other Wikipedia contributors,
and were expecting to be cleaning up the aftermath for days afterwards.
"The most highly visible prank was the prank 2005 Britannica takeover
of Wikimedia encyclopaedia article ..." Source: Wikinews
reetings from Australia.
How it works
April Fools' Day
(Noddy Day, Gowkie Day, Gowkin' Day)
... Read on
at the 
Genital Integrity Awareness Week (USA)
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