*Ø* Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine | Book of Days | April 6 | Waltzing Matilda history, Phone In Sick Day, Raphael, Artemis Savior, Butch Cassidy, Petrarch, Laura

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6

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Oh, there once was a swagman camped in the billabongs,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he looked at the old billy boiling,
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"

Chorus:
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda my darling,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Waltzing Matilda and leading a waterbag,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came the jumbuck to drink at the waterhole,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee,
And he sang as he put him away in the tucker-bag,
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

Chorus

Up came the squatter a-riding his thoroughbred,
Up came policemen one two and three.
"Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker-bag?
"You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with we."

Chorus

Up sprang the swagman and jumped in the waterhole,
Drowning himself by the coolibah tree.
And his voice can be heard as it sings in the billabongs,
"Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?"

Chorus
AB 'Banjo' Paterson, original lyrics of 'Waltzing Matilda'; the version sung today has a few changes

Variations

swagman: an itinerant farmhand, carrying his 'matilda' or 'swag' (blankets and possessions rolled into a cylinder)
billabong: a creek (normally with a pronounced "oxbow" bend)
coulibah, or coolibah tree: a eucalypt (gum) tree )
waited till his billy boiled: a billy is a tin can used to heat water over a campfire to make tea
jumbuck: sheep
tucker-bag: bag or box used to store food
squatter: farmer/grazier who simply found good land and took possession; some became extremely rich
trooper: policeman or soldier on horseback

Swagman control

See 1895 in history, below

April 6th: It was, I remember, the third day of the games, when a certain elderly man, who sat next to me at the show, observed to me "… This seat I won in war, and thou didst win in peace, by reason of thine office in the College of the Ten." We were about to say more when a sudden shower of rain parted us; Libra hanging in heaven released the heavenly waters.
Ovid, Fasti, IV, 377 Roman calendar

Mistletoe is, however, seldom found on a hard-oak, and when it is discovered it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the 6th day of the moon (which for those tribes [Druids] constitutes the beginning of the months and the years) and after every thirty years of a generation, because it is then rising in strength and not one half its full size.
Pliny the Elder (Plinius maior or Gaius Plinius Secundus; 23 CE - 79), Natural History XVI xcv. 250 (see Coligny Calendar)

I want to tell you that the Scottsboro boys were framed by the bosses of the south and two girls. I was one of the girls and I want you to know that I am sorry I said what I did at the first trial, but I was forced to say it. Those boys did not attack me and I want to tell you all right here now that I am sorry that I caused them all this trouble for two years, and now I am willing to join hands with black and white to get them free.
Ruby Bates, Scottsboro accuser turned freedom fighter, before a crowd of 5,000 in Baltimore, USA, 1933

Youth, I forgive thee!
Dying words of King Richard I of England; said to Bertrand de Gourdon, who shot him with an arrow on April 6, 1199, while Richard besieged the Castle of Chaluz. Then to his attendants he added, "Take off his chains, give him 100 shillings, and let him go."

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde, who was arrested on April 6, 1895

I am truly horrified by modern man. Such absence of feeling, such narrowness of outlook, such lack of passion and information, such feebleness of thought.
Anarchist Alexander Herzen, born in Moscow on April 6, 1812

I have been boycotted everywhere ... It is tommyrot to say that we are all savages. Whites have shot, slowly starved and hanged us.
Anthony Fernando, Australian Aboriginal rights activist, born on April 6, 1864

I have fought for this cause since 1890, and will not give up as long as I live.
Anthony Fernando

Nothing easier. One step beyond the Pole, you see, and the North Wind becomes a South one.
Attributed to Robert Peary (1856 - 1920) , as his explanation of how he knew he had reached the North Pole, which he did on April 6, 1909

The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.
USA President Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924) in a speech requesting that the United States Congress declare war on Germany, which it did on April 6, 1917

Johnnie get your gun, get you gun, get your gun,
Take it on the run, on the run, on the run,
Hear them calling you and me;
Every son of Liberty
Hurry right away, no delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line.

Chorus:
Over There, Over There
Send the word, send the word,
Over There
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum tumming everywhere
So prepare,
Say a Prayer
Send the word,
Send the word to beware
We'll be over, we're coming over.
And we won't be back till it's over over there!
George M Cohan, American songwriter; WWI rallying song 'Over There', 1917

April 6 is the 96^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (97^th in leap years), with 269 days remaining.
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Phone in Sick Day

(Date is variable)

Phone In Sick Day

"Resist corporate rule by phoning in sick. During one World Phone In Sick Day, over 2,000 British Airways employees phoned in sick to protest airline policies, and so on.

"Inspired by the 'consumer terrorists' – known as Decadent Action. This protest is modest: 'We want to remind Americans of their history. The American Revolution was in large part a revolt against corporations, which are bodies formed to allow rich people to shirk responsibility for abuses – they allow exploitation without representation. The Founding Fathers thought corporations immoral, and they were illegal here during the first 50 years of the Republic.'"

Source

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Scottish Tartan Day

A day set aside for the celebration of Scottish influence.

"On December 19^th 1991, in response to action initiated by the Clans & Scottish Societies of Canada, the Ontario Legislature passed a resolution proclaiming April 6^th as Tartan Day, following the example of other Canadian provinces.

"America followed suit on March 20^th 1998, when Senate Resolution 155 (S.Res. 155), proposed by US Senate Republican majority leader Trent Lott, was passed unanimously.

"The resolution, with its preamble, is as follows:

S. Res. 155

"Whereas April 6 has a special significance for all Americans, and especially those Americans of Scottish descent, because the Declaration of Arbroath, the Scottish Declaration of Independence, was signed on April 6, 1320 and the American Declaration of Independence was modelled on that inspirational document ..." Source

On this day in 1320 the Scots reaffirmed their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.

Artemis the Saviour
"Not much is known about this Greek lunar festival which took place on the 6^th day of Mounichion, except that it honored Artemis Soteira, Artemis the Savior." Source

Festival of Megalesia (Magna Mater) of Cybele (Apr 4 - 10), ancient Rome

Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.)

Formerly, Lady Day, Britain

Feast day of St Amand of Grisalba in the Roman Catholic Church

Feast day of St Berthane

Feast day of St Brychan

Feast day of St Celestine, pope

Feast day of St Celsus (in Irish, Ceallach), archbishop of Armagh

Feast day of St Diogenes

Feast day of St Elstan

Feast day of St Florentius

Feast day of St Gennard

Feast day of St Marcellinus of Carthage
Marcellinus of Carthage was a Christian martyr and saint who died in 413. He was secretary of state of the Western Roman Empire under Roman Emperor Honorius and a close friend of St Augustine of Hippo, as well as a correspondent of St Jerome's.

Feast day of the Martyrs of Hadiab, Persia
These one hundred and twenty martyrs suffered at Seleucia, in the year of Christ 345, of king Sapor the thirty-sixth, and the sixth of his great persecution, on the 6^th day of the moon of April, which was the 21^st of that month. They are mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the 6^th.
From Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints

Feast day of St Paul Tinh

Feast day of St Pierina Morosini

Feast day of St Platonides

Feast day of St Prudentius, bishop of Troyes

Feast day of St Rufina

Feast day of St Sixtus, pope, martyr
(Starch hyacinth, Hyacinthus racemosus, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Timothy

Feast day of St Ulehad

Feast day of St William, abbot of Eskille, confessor

Feast day of St Zefirino Agostini

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints

Nagasaki Takoage, or Kite-Flying Event, Nagasaki, Japan (Apr 3 - 29)

Victory Day, Ethiopia

Van Riebeeck Day, founding of Capetown, South Africa, by Jan van Riebeeck

Chakri Memorial Day, Thailand

The date of organization of the Church of Christ, and the start of the Restoration Movement by Joseph Smith Junior, from which are various offshoots such as the Community of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, officially organized on April 6, 1830.

Springtime festival, France
"A children's springtime festival takes place in which candle holding miniature pine boats are cast into the Moselle River to symbolize the "sea of life" and the happiness of sailing it's sacred waves."
Source: Earth, Moon and Sky

Early April - early May, Pillar Festival, Suwa taish Shrine, Shimosuwa-machi, Nagano, Japan

"A ceremony held every sixth year in which large fir trees are cut down and used to replace four posts of shrine's building. The ceremony has 4 parts; Yamadashi (taking the tree from the forest), Satobiki (parading it through the street), Kawawatashi (carrying it across a river) and Hikitate (erecting it in the shrine precincts)." Source

Tax year commences, UK
The start of the tax year in the United Kingdom (arising from the 11-day correction to March 25 at the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752).

1483 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, d. 1520), Italian Renaissance painter and architect who died on his 37^th birthday

"THE liberality with which Heaven now and again unites in one person the inexhaustible riches of its treasures and all those graces and rare gifts which are usually shared among many over a long period is seen in Raphael Sanzio of Urbino, who was as excellent as gracious, and endowed with a natural modesty and goodness sometimes seen in those who possess to an unusual degree a humane and gentle nature adorned with affability and good-fellowship, and he always showed himself sweet and pleasant with persons of every degree and in all circumstances." Source

1812 Alexander Herzen (Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen; d. January 21, 1870), Russian anarchist known as 'the father of Russian socialism'

1815 Robert Volkmann, composer

1864 Anthony Fernando (Anthony Martin Fernando; d. January 9, 1949), early Australian Aboriginal activist and toymaker, possibly descended from John Martin, an African-American convict in the First Fleet who had children with Dharug tribe women. In London he sold toy skeletons, telling purchasers that they represented the deaths of Australian indigenous people.

Pinned to his overcoat were scores of small toy skeletons and he wore a placard with the words, 'This is all Australia has left of my people'. On his own accord, in the 1920s, Fernando picketed Australia House in London, on behalf of Indigenous Australians. A remarkable autodidact and traveller, his journeys took him to Asia, Europe and England.

"He tried to petition the Pope and was accused of being a German spy.

"Fernando was born in Sydney in 1864, the son of an Aboriginal mother, his 'guiding star' from whom he was separated as a child. He claimed to have been brought up in the home of a white family who denied him an education and treated him like a pet. He complained bitterly about the mission system, describing its settlements as 'murderhouses' – instead proposing that an Aboriginal state be established in Australia's north, free from British and Australian interference, under the mandate of a neutral power." Source

1866 Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker, d. 1909), US outlaw (some sources give other dates of birth). Most historians believe that Cassidy and his partner in crime, Sundance, died in a shoot-out in San Vincente, Bolivia.

"Successfully eluding the law became ever harder as the West grew more populated and law enforcement became better organized, however. When the railroads hired the Pinkerton Agency to chase down Cassidy, he and Harry Longabaugh, along with Etta Place (who was likely a Browns Park girl named Ann Bassett), went to South America and purchased a ranch in Argentina. After a few short years of trying to make it as honest ranchers, the pair again turned to easier methods of obtaining money. After robbing banks in several South American countries, the pair was finally trapped by troops in Bolivia.

"What happened afterwards is the central myth surrounding Cassidy. Some claim he and Sundance were killed, others emphatically believe that another pair of outlaws were killed by the troops and that Cassidy and Longabaugh purposefully let it be known they had been killed." Source

More

1884 Walter Huston (d. 1950), film director, father of director John Huston and grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston

1890 Anthony Fokker (d. 1939), Dutch designer of aircraft

1892 Lowell Thomas (d. 1981), American travel writer

1926 Ian Paisley, United Kingdom politician

1928 James D Watson, geneticist (co-discovered DNA, with Francis Crick)

1929 André Previn, American composer, conductor and pianist

1931 Baba Ram Dass (b. Richard Alpert), American consciousness guru and author (Be Here Now).

He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University who became well known for his controversial research program which studied the effects of LSD. Alpert worked closely with Dr Timothy Leary at Harvard, where the two conducted many experiments on the effects of LSD. The pair were dismissed from the university in 1963 due to their controversial research.

Official Ram Dass website

1937 Merle Haggard, American country musician who once spent two years in prison for burglary

1942 Barry Levinson, producer, director

1947 John Ratzenberger, American actor (played the postman character in TV series, Cheers)

1976 Candace Cameron, actress

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April

1 April Fools' Day
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
16 Rubber Eraser Day
16 Freak-out Day
16 Leonardo da Vinci's Birthday
17 Stress Awareness Day
17 Eggs Benedict Day
17 Birthday Of The Queen (Denmark)
18 Cheeseball Day
17 Nosy Neighbour Appreciation Day
18 Time Out Day

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