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There was a tree that spread its branches through all the worlds and that had its roots in three of the worlds. That tree was named Yggdrasil. One of its roots was in Asgarth, one was in Jotunheim, and one was in Niflheim that was the World of the Dead. The root that was in Niflheim was beside a well. Therein was the dreadful serpent, Nithogg: Nithogg gnawed for ever at the root of the World Tree, wanting to destroy it. And Ratatosk, the squirrel, ran up and down Yggdrasil making trouble between the eagle that was at the top of the tree and the serpent that was below. He went to tell the serpent how the eagle was bent upon tearing him to pieces, and he went back to tell the eagle how the serpent planned to devour him. Beside the root of the tree in Jotunheim was a well guarded by old Mimir the Wise. Whoever drank out of this well would know all of the things that are to come to pass. And beside the root that was in Asgarth was another well: the three sisters who are the Norns guarded it, and their names were Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld – Past, Present, and Future; they took the water of the well and watered Yggdrasil with it that the Tree of the World might be kept green and strong. This well was called Urda's well. Two swans were on the water of it; they made music that the Dwellers in Asgarth often heard. On the branches of the tree four stags grazed; they shook from their horns the water that fell as rain in Mithgarth. And on the topmost branch of Yggdrasil, the branch that was so high that the Gods themselves could hardly see it, was perched the eagle that the serpent was made to fear. Upon the beak of the eagle a hawk perched, a hawk that saw what the eyes of the eagle could not see.
Padraic Colum, Orpheus, Myths of the World, 1930   Source

But the Occult reason why the Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindu Aswatha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden – who among the western scholars can tell? Nevertheless, the fruits of all those "Trees," whether Pippala or Haoma or yet the more prosaic apple, are the "plants of life," in fact and verity. The prototypes of our races were all enclosed in the microcosmic tree, which grew and developed within and under the great mundane macrocosmic tree; and the mystery is half revealed in the Dirghotamas, where it is said: "Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come spirits who love the science, and where the gods produce all marvels." As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all those mundane trees, the "Serpent" dwells. But while the Macroscosmic tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree are the Serpents of the manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its reflected parts. The "tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth.
HP Blavatsky; The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, Part 1, IV

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Portumnalia (Portunalia) in honour of Portunes (Portunus; Portunis), Roman Republic

Celebrated on the 17^th day before the Kalends of September.

In Roman mythology, Portunes was a god of keys, gates and livestock. He later became associated with Palaemon and became primarily a god of ports and harbours, and the River Tiber. He was a protector of warehouses and the grain stored in them. On this day, keys were thrown into a fire for good luck, as his attribute was a key.

There is a temple of Portunus in Rome( pictured), in the ancient Forum Boarium by the Tiber. From here, Portunus watched over cattle-barges as they entered the city from Ostia.

The feast day was set on the day of the dedication of the Aedes Jani (Temple of Janus) in the forum Holitorium, built by the consul Gaius Duilius after his victory over Hannibal Gisco at Mylae (Tac. Ann. ii.49) between the fleets of Carthage and the Roman Republic, fought during the First Punic War.

The restoration of this temple was begun by Augustus and completed by Tiberius in 17 CE, but the dedication day of the restored structure was October 18. According to Pliny (NH xxxvi.28) Augustus dedicated in this temple a statue to Janus which was brought from Egypt, the work either of Scopas or Praxiteles.

The association of Portunes with Janus is almost an alter ego aspect, the former being associated with doors and the latter with gates, and both with keys and the act of opening. Portunes's temple (Fortuna Virilis) was situated near the port of the Tiber, which river was celebrated in the festival of the Tiberinalia on December 8.  

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Queen Amenartus, Queen-Initiate, ancient Egypt   Source

Feast day of Amenartus, Egyptian calendar
"Rituals were held in the Temples of Amen-Ra, and also in the houses of Horus and Osiris."   Source

Greater Panathenaea, ancient Athens, in honour of goddess Athena (c. Aug 8 - 17)
Tenth day: boat race.

Heraclia in Kynosarges, ancient Greece (Aug 12 - 19)

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Feast day of St Clare of Montefalco

Feast day of St Donatus

Feast day of St Drithelm

Feast day of St Hiero

Feast day of St Hyacinth

Feast day of St James the Deacon

Feast day of St Jeanne Delanoue

Feast day of St John of Monte Marano

Feast day of St Juliana

Feast day of St Liberatus, abbot, and six monks, martyrs

Feast day of St Mamas (Mamus)
(Snapdragon toadflax, Antirrhinum linaria, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Myron

Feast day of St Paul

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Shab-e-Bara'at, The Night of the Tree of Extremity (Lote-Tree of Extremity), Islam
On the dating of items in the Almanac

The Tree of Extremity has a leaf with a name on it for every person on earth; it grows in the seventh and highest heaven, but has its roots in the sixth. On this night (also known as the 'Night of Forgiveness' or 'Mid-Sha'ban') it is shaken; if your leaf falls, you will die in the coming year. It is said that on this night Allah Himself descends to the lowest heaven, forgiving the sins of those true penitents who turn their faces towards him. Many prayers are said in mosques. Mid-Sha'ban is the 15^th day of the month of Sha'ban in the Islamic calendar. Supporters of observing this time recommend fasting during the month; however, they believe fasting during Sha‘baan should not interfere with fasting during Ramadan. Some Sunnis, however, deem the event as a reprehensible innovation, or bid'ah, contending that the event has no religious or textual basis.

"Whichever child is to be born during the coming year is written down on the list on this night, and the name of whoever is going to pass away in the coming year is deleted from the list."   Source

More

Folklore Holidays, Koprivshtitsa, Bulgaria (Aug 15 - 17)

Celebration of the birth of Marcus Garvey, Rastafarianism

On which day of the week were you born? Find out here

1601 Pierre de Fermat, mathematician

1629 John III of Poland (d. 1696)

1761 William Carey (d. June 9, 1834), English missionary and Baptist minister

1786 Davy Crockett, American frontiersman, warrior against the Creek Indians, and Congressman (d. March 6, 1836).

Although a real person, he is now almost a legendary hero. One of his sayings, which were published in almanacs between 1835 and 1856 (along with those of Daniel Boone and Kit Carson) was, "Be always sure you are right, then go ahead".

1882 Samuel Goldwyn (born Shmuel Gelbfisz; d. 1974), Polish-born American film producer, co-founder of MGM.

"Famed for his relentless ambition, his bad temper and his genius for publicity, Goldwyn became Hollywood's leading 'independent' producer – largely because none of his partners could tolerate him for long. Born Shmuel (or Schmuel) Gelbfisz, probably in 1879, in the Jewish section of Warsaw, he was the eldest of six children of a struggling used-furniture dealer. In 1895, he made his way to England, where relatives anglicized his name to Samuel Goldfish. There he begged or stole enough money for a ticket in steerage across the Atlantic. He reached the United States, probably via Canada, in 1898. Goldfish gravitated to Gloversville, New York, in the Adirondack foothills, then the capital of the U.S. leather glove industry; he became one of the country's most successful glove salesmen. After moving his base of operations to Manhattan and marrying the sister of Jesse L. Lasky, who was then a theatrical producer, Goldfish convinced Lasky and 'Cecil B. DeMille' to go into movie producing. The new company's first film, Squaw Man, The (1914), was one of the first features made in Hollywood; the company later became the nucleus of Paramount Pictures."  Source

Just some of the many Goldwyn productions

Porgy and Bess (1959)    Guys and Dolls (1955)    Hans Christian Andersen (1952)

Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The (1947)    Best Years of Our Lives, The (1946)

1887 Marcus Garvey (d. June 10, 1940), publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and international proponent of black nationalism

1887 Emperor Blessed Karl of Austria (d. 1922). He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 3, 2004. This is the penultimate step before the declaration of sainthood by the Catholic Church and means that in the Catholic Church he is now referred to as 'Blessed'. The Pope also declared October 21, the date of Karl's marriage in 1911 to Princess Zita, as Karl's feast day.

Pope prepares Austrian emperor for sainthood

"The last emperor of Austria, Karl I, will be beatified by the Pope tomorrow amid fierce political and religious argument over how saintly he really was.

"While Austrian monarchists are delighted to see the first member of the defunct Habsburg dynasty set on the path to sainthood, critics claim that Karl I was an alcoholic adulterer who advocated the use of poison gas in the First World War.

"But the Vatican insists that he performed a miracle – the requirement for beatification. In 1960 a Polish nun based in Brazil was cured of severe leg sores and varicose veins after praying to him [What more proof do these skeptics want?! – PW]."
Source: Telegraph UK

"So why has the Pope beatified a man who seems to have done so little to have deserved it and so much – 10,000 dead, gassed Italians – to disqualify him? Is it, perhaps, because Karl was once titular Grand Duke of Kraków, and His Holiness was once Archbishop and Grand Metropolitan of the same city? Or is it simply because the time has finally come for the grand old man to retire?"   Source

Austria's last emperor was a saint, some say; others disagree

1893 Mae West (d. 1980), American sex symbol, actress and screenwriter

"Mae West was born in Brooklyn, New York to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including 'SEX' for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role was a small part in the 1932 film "Night After Night", her scene has become famous. A coat check girl exclaims, 'Goodness! What lovely diamonds!', after seeing Mae's jewlery [sic]. Mae replies, 'Goodness had nothing to do with it'. Her next film, in which she starred, was in 1933. 'She Done Him Wrong" was based on her earlier and very popular play, 'Diamond Lil'. Mae West went on to write and star in seven more films, including 'My Little Chickadee', with W. C. Fields. Her last movie was 'Sextette' in 1978, two years before her death."   Source

1904 Leopold Nowak, musicologist

1911 Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion

1913 W Mark Felt, FBI agent and top official of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). After 30 years of denials, Felt revealed himself in May 2005 to be the Watergate informant called 'Deep Throat'.

1920 Maureen O'Hara, Irish-born Hollywood actress (The Hunchback of Notre Dame; The Quiet Man)

1929 Jiang Zemin, President of the People's Republic of China

1929 Francis Gary Powers (d. 1977), U-2 pilot

1930 Glenn Corbett (d. 1993), actor

1932 VS Naipaul, Trinidadian-born writer

1939 Ed Sanders, American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, novelist and publisher who has been called a bridge between the Beat and the Hippie generations

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list    CounterCulture Wiki

1942 Shane Porteous, Australian actor (TV series A Country Practice)

1943 Robert De Niro, American actor (The Godfather; Cape Fear)

1958 Belinda Carlisle, singer, guitarist

1959 David Koresh (born Vernon Howell), Branch Davidian cult leader, who died along with 95 of his followers in a 1993 fire as law enforcement authorities ended a 51-day siege by storming their Waco, Texass, compound

1960 Sean Penn, American actor, director (Colors; Casualties of War)

1964 Colin James, blues musician

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1389 The relic blood of St Januarius (San Gennaro), the 4^th-century bishop of Benevento, Italy, was first seen to liquefy. The 18 days on which the liquefaction still takes place annually include his feast day (September19), the Saturday before the first Sunday in May, and December 16.

The Roman emperor and great persecutor of the early Church, Diocletian, had him roasted in a furnace, but he survived; he then set wild beasts on him, but they licked his feet. Then Januarius's head was severed, and a woman collected two phials of his blood. Later the ghost of Januarius directed a Neapolitan to find the severed head in a thicket. When the head and body were reunited the woman approached with the solidified blood, which re-liquefied. On the appointed days, it has done so ever since. Or, so it is  said.

His head and a glass phial of his blood are preserved in the cathedral of Naples, and eighteen times a year the blood is shown publicly, having miraculously liquefied.

"The cry 'San Gennaro, fa dunque presto!' ('Do it quickly!') is often heard as the anxious seconds turn into minutes. If the blood liquefies – a dramatic phenomenon that baffles even modern science – all is well and the Neapolitans erupt in jubilation. If it remains congealed, then they fear the omen of disaster."   Source

1676 Death of Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen, novelist.

1807 The Clermont, Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, left New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world. He reached Albany, 150 miles distant, in 32 hours.

1821 The first large-scale auction of Australian wool was held in London.

1843 In Honolulu, American novelist Herman Melville signed aboard the frigate United States and began the journey that is the basis for White Jacket.

1850 Argentina's War of Independence hero, General José de San Martín, died in Boulogne-sur-Mer (France), at the age of 77.

1862 Indian Wars: An uprising began in Minnesota as desperate Dakota people (also called the Santee Sioux) attacked white settlements along the Minnesota River. They were overwhelmed by the US military six weeks later, and in the largest legal mass execution in American history, thirty-eight Native Americans were executed by hanging in a single day on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota.

Minnesota's Uncivil War   Dakota War of 1862    Detailed history of trials, with documents    More    And more

1863 American Civil War: In Charleston, South Carolina, Union batteries and ships bombarded Confederate-held Fort Sumter. Bombardment did not end until December 31, 1863.

1863 Burke and Wills began their Australian exploratory expedition.

1875 Death of Wilhelm Bleek, linguist.

1877 USA: Arizona blacksmith FP Cahill was fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill died the next day, becoming the first person killed by the 'Kid'.

1891 The electric self-starter for an automobile was patented.

1894 American feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman, was released from prison after serving ten months. She sold a report about her prison experience for $150 to the New York World, which published it the day after her release.

Anarchist luminaries   Early progressives in the Book of Days    CounterCulture Wiki

1896 In Croydon, England, Bridget Driscoll, the first person to be killed by a car was run over by a vehicle travelling at 6 km/h.

1910 USA: When a New York garment factory opened in defiance of a strike, women strikers broke through police lines and demolished the factory. They threw sewing machines out the window, smashed tables and chairs. Garment workers in those days still toiled up to 15 hours a day for as little as 50 cents. The industry-wide strike started in June when the women workers of one of the most notorious New York sweatshops walked out. Only a few weeks after the walkout, 60,000 were on strike up and down the east coast. As the strike spread, so did violence against it. Pickets were assaulted and beaten – one woman was disabled for life. In September, the strike led to an agreement that finally improved working conditions and wages.  

Source: The Daily Bleed

1914 World War I: The German army of General Hermann von Francois defeated the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf at the Battle of Stalluponen.

1915 Jewish American Leo Frank was lynched for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

1915 The automatic electric car starter was patented.

1917 British war poets Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918) and Siegfried Sassoon (1886 - 1967), both convalescing from battle fatigue at the Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, met and formed a brief but intense friendship.

1918 US: IWW War Trials in Chicago; 95 Wobblies were sent to prison for up to 20 years.

Beautiful Losers: The Historiography of the Industrial Workers of the World

1943 World War II: The US 7^th Army under General George S Patton arrived in Messina, Italy followed several hours later by the British 8^th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L Montgomery, thus completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

1945 Indonesia proclaimed itself independent from the Netherlands, with Dr Sukarno as President.

1945 Charles de Gaulle, Provisional President of France, commuted the death sentence of Nazi collaborating president Henri Pétain to life imprisonment.

1946 Sergeant Lambert became the first person to be ejected from a plane by means of its emergency escape equipment, at Wright Field in Ohio, USA.

1950 Death of Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa; b. c. December 1863; date of death might be August 19, as sources differ),  Wichasha Wakan (Medicine Man or Holy Man) of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He participated at about the age of twelve in the Battle of Little Big Horn of 1876, and was wounded in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. He was the author of Black Elk Speaks: being the life story of a holy man of the Oglala Sioux (1932).

1953 The first documented beginning of what became today's Narcotics Anonymous. Frank Carnahan, Doris Carnahan, Guilda Krause, Paul Rosenbluth, Steve Ryan and Jimmy Kinnon met "for the purpose of organizing an AANA group". The name was to be San Fernando Valley Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. It is believed the first recovery meeting was on October 5 of the same year.

1960 Gabon gained independence from France.

1961 East German authorities commenced the construction of the Berlin Wall. They erected the three-metre wall to stem the tide of refugees from Communism, running at about 2,000 per day at the time.

1962 East German border guards killed 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin.

1962 USA: Los Angeles County Coroner officially labelled Marilyn Monroe's death a "probable suicide". Norman Mailer (author of The Naked and the Dead ) subsequently theorised she was murdered, partly on the grounds that "it is extremely rare for a woman to commit suicide in the nude".

1966 China's Cultural Revolution: "Beijing 101st Middle School, students tortured more than ten teachers. They forced teachers to crawl on a path paved with coal cinders until knees and palms bled. They whipped them with copper-buckled belts. Some female teachers suffered having half of their heads shaved, in a hair style called 'yin-yang head.' The painting teacher, Chen Baokun, was beaten badly and then drowned in a fountain."   

Source: Student Attacks Against Teachers: The Revolution of 1966    Mao holocaust

1966 Toronto, Canada: John Lennon expressed his admiration for American draft dodgers.

1969 A Category 5 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi, USA, coast, killing 248 people and causing US$1.5 billion in damage (1969 dollars).

1969 The Woodstock weekend continued: artists included Richie Havens, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, The Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix. Not bad for one day.

List of musicians at Woodstock    Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1970 Venera program: Venera 7 was launched. It later became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from another planet.

1971 Bangladesh: Operation Omega brought food and medicine to war victims across the closed India-East Pakistan (Bangladesh) border.

1973 USA: Of CBS's 186 affiliates, 94 refused to telecast the Tony award-winning drama Sticks and Bones, by David Rabe, about a blind, embittered Vietnam veteran's homecoming. The defection of the affiliates, the largest in the history of network TV, made it virtually impossible to sell commercial spots for the telecast; thus the 100-minute program was shown in many cities without ads.

1977 The day after Elvis Presley's death, USA President Jimmy Carter issued the following statement:

"Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique and irreplaceable. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense and he was a symbol to people the world over, of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of his country. Or as James Brown once put it, 'he taught white America to get down.'"

1978 Double Eagle II, bearing American men (Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman), became the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Preque Isle, Maine.

1979 The Battle for Terania: At Terania Creek, near Nimbin in New South Wales, a protest to stop logging was in full swing. It became one of Australia's best-known actions against destruction of wilderness, and many of its strategies and tactics, and much of its culture, influenced later environmental campaigns locally and internationally.

Terania Creek 20^th anniversary    Some Children of the Dream    Personal recollection

Terania Rainforest Nursery    Terania Rainforest Publishing    Commissions and Inquiries

Timeline    Nightcap National Park    More

 

 

1980 Australia: The baby Azaria Chamberlain was taken by a dingo at the great monolith, Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock). (Later the story was made into a Hollywood film, Evil Angels, aka A Cry in the Dark, in which Meryl Streep as Azaria's mother, Lindy Chamberlain, lost her reputation for doing good accents, at least with Australian audiences.)

Eventually, Lindy Chamberlain was cleared of having killed her daughter, but not before she had spent time behind bars in a case that greatly dominated the Australian consciousness for years.

Uluru is the second largest monolith in the world (after Mount Augustus, also in Australia). It was discovered to Europeans by William Gosse's party on July 19, 1873.

"A search of the Chamberlain's car produced what appeared to be the blood of an infant on the seats and on a pair of scissors in the vehicle.  After that, the Chamberlains were arrested and tried for the murder of their baby daughter.  They insisted they were innocent, but the evidence appeared to say otherwise.  Lindy was convicted of murder and Michael was declared an accessory to the crime.  Lindy went to prison."   Source

"Wendy Carlisle, ABC Radio National presenter: After Lindy was released, there was the Royal Commission and the quashing of her conviction, and then something curious started to happen: people started to write to her and say sorry for all that had happened.

"Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (reading from such a letter) : 'Lindy, my name is …. I want to apologise to you and ask for your forgiveness in my feelings against you in once and for a long time believing of your guilt of the death of your loved daughter, Azaria.

"'At the time I was a serving police officer in (a certain Australian state) and the feeling there was you were guilty as hell. I even got first-hand knowledge from a Northern Territory policeman that you were "shonky as shit". Please excuse the language. I even disliked you further when a serving policeman got into the court-house one day and said that Michael was looking embarrassed with his head down and you were there doing your fingernails and kept looking at the people in the gallery with a cold, hard face. That made you even more guilty as we dug into his every word.'

"[Lindy, to interviewer] I have to say I did do my fingernails, it gave me something to do when you felt like hitting people. My lawyers used to get upset with me for that, but it was better than jumping up and screaming at people.

"[Lindy reading from letter again] 'And so Lindy, I helped brand you as guilty. And I just knew that you were guilty. I was glad when they jailed you and had no compassion for you.

"'About 12 months ago, I wanted to write to you and ask for your forgiveness for judging you, for I did not have that right. Although I did not know what to believe, but I decided I would not judge you again and when my friends discussed you I would not be involved in the discussion.

"'On Saturday while walking through the ABC Shop, I saw a large stack of your books and I picked it up and decided to buy it. I went home and did not get much of a chance to read it until church on Sunday and from that time on, I have not been sleeping well or concentrating on anything except your book. I knew as I began reading about Azaria's birth that you loved her and that you did not have any thought even to 'do away' with her. From that moment I knew without a shadow of doubt that you were, and are innocent. My knowledge went beyond belief, but I know with every fibre of my being that you are innocent of that terrible frame-up. I was, and am still, terribly ashamed of my former feelings.

"'I wonder what it was at that time that Australians wanted "blood" from you. Hatred is a horrible thing, and I have never seen a nation with so much hatred. I am going to write to the Northern Territory government and suggest they pay you an adequate compensation for the unrighteous things done to you. I also intend to tell them they need to put on Azaria's birth [sic] certificate that she died from killing by a dingo.'

"[Lindy, to interviewer] That's an interesting about-face, although what interests me here, and I'm not supposed to say things like this because I'm supposed to say isn't support wonderful, which support is. But it's interesting here that this person who is a police officer went from believing I was guilty from gossip, to believe I was innocent because she read about Azaria's birth. Nowhere in there does she mention looking at any of the facts, so although she's come to the right conclusion in the end, she still did on feelings instead of facts, and this is one thing that Australia needs to learn, they've got to look at the facts."   Source: 'Women Who Transgress', Background Briefing

Azaria Chamberlain disappearance    Lindy Chamberlain's website

Chamberlains' car revs up a special day    More

1987 Donald Harvey was charged with the murder of 28 people in Ohio, USA.

1987 Former Nazi boss Rudolf Hess committed suicide in Spandau Prison, Berlin, aged 93. He had been imprisoned since landing in Scotland in 1943 during a bizarre - and abortive - attempt to negotiate a peace proposal with the Allies.

1988 Pakistani President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq and US Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in a plane crash shortly after take-off from Bahawalpur Airport.

1989 An Australian airliner became the first commercial plane to fly London to Sydney non-stop.

1989 An electronic tagging device, to keep track of criminals' whereabouts, was used in Britain for the first time, on Richard Hart, an accused burglar awaiting trial.

1991 Australia: The Strathfield Plaza tragedy. Wade Frankum went on a shooting spree in a Sydney suburban shopping mall, killing seven people before taking his own life. For some time afterwards, there was still a billboard at Strathfield that said "If you've got time to kill, relax at Strathfield Plaza".

"There is strong evidence that the potent images in American Psycho were lodged in Wade Frankum's unbalanced mind – where highly disturbed sexuality and murderous impulses dwelt – in the days before he set out on his final journey. The copy of the book was, according to Milton, 'well-thumbed.' Even more revealingly, when Frankum arrived at Strathfield railway station on Aug. 17, he obliquely warned the stationmaster of the impending horror. 'You had better go home, Clive,' he said. These are almost the same words as those spoken by the hero of American Psycho to a woman he is about to murder."
Time, January 6, 1992   Source

 

1995 "Armed robbers mug former Mouseketeer Billie Jean Matay in a Disneyland parking lot. Afterwards, while she is reporting the incident to security, Matay's three young grandchildren witness several costumed performers backstage with their heads removed. Matay sues the park for emotional distress, but the case is thrown out of court."   Source

1999 A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck northwestern Turkey, killing more than 17,000 and injuring 44,000.

2001 "Announcement of Discovery

"A 5000 year old alphabet has been found on six global continents.
Translations and grammar suggest a global human culture thrived in antiquity"   Source

2002 In Santa Rosa, California, USA,the Charles M Schulz Museum opened to the public.

 

Tomorrow: Who's in Napoleon's tomb?

 

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