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The nineteenth of August was called the Country Vinalia, because at that time a temple was dedicated to Venus and gardens were set apart for her, and then the kitchen gardeners went on holiday.
Varro, Ling. Lat. VI. 20

Do you think I have played my part pretty well through the farce of life?
Last words of the Roman emperor Augustus, to his friends, on this day, 14 CE

I beseech Minerva and Venus, of whom one protects the olive yard and the other the garden.
Prayer to the protective goddesses on Vinalia, ancient Rome

My God, forsake me not.
Last words of French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, who died on this day in 1662

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed – chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much toward getting back anything like the noble primeval forests … 
John Muir

There are people who have money and people who are rich.
Coco Chanel, French fashion designer, born on August 19, 1883

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
Coco Chanel

Youth is something very new: twenty years ago, no one mentioned it.
Coco Chanel; quoted in Marcel Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, 1972

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
Coco Chanel; ibid

There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.
Coco Chanel

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
Coco Chanel

Candy is dandy
but liquor is quicker.
Ogden Nash, American poet, born on August 19, 2002

Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
Ogden Nash

Poets aren't very useful.
Because they aren't consumeful or produceful.
Ogden Nash

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

Pre-order F9/11 now!

Fahrenheit 9/11 DVD or VHS

Pattern Recognition
By William Gibson

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM

Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About It

What Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom Hartmann

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World

Songs in the Key of W

Pagan Christianity

In Praise of Slowness

The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set
By CS Lewis

Hello Laziness!
By Corrine Maier

For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
By James Yee

The New Book of Goddesses & Heroines

The Spiral Dance
By Starhawk
20th Anniversary Edition

Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations

Life in a Medieval Village

Medieval Celebrations

Women's Activism and Globalization

The Atlas of Holy Places and Sacred Sites

Secrets and Lies

The Clash of Civilizations

Imperial Crusades

The Medieval Cookbook

The Spiritual Traveler

The Murray Bookchin Reader

Environmental Activism

Astro pic of the day

American Folklore

Permaculture

Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation: Backstage With Barry Humphries

Sun Goddess

African Folklore

Daily Everything

A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore

The Edible Asian Garden

The Secret Language of Birthdays

Live with Passion!
Anthony Robbins


More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at  
Cafe Diem!

Celtic Daily Prayer

Hidden Agendas

Poor Richard's Almanack
By Benjamin Franklin

Photo of the day

Wheel of the Year

The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

The Survival of the Pagan Gods

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

Feast day of Augustus Caesar

Deified first Roman emperor who lived from 63 BCE - 14 CE , remembered on this, his death day.
Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 102 (Pennick places it at August 29; most sources give August 19 at the death day)

Odin's Ordeal (Aug 17 - 25)

Feast day of St Christopher Robinson

Feast day of St Ezekiel Moreno Y Diaz

Feast day of St Guenninus

Feast day of St Guerricus

Feast day of St Hugh Green

Feast day of St James Denxi

Feast day of St Joachim Firayama-Diz

Feast day of St John Eudes

Feast day of St John Foyamon

Feast day of St John Nangata

Feast day of St John Yano

Feast day of St Louis of Toulouse
St Louis of Toulouse (February 1274 - August 19, 1297) was a cadet of the royal French house of Anjou who was made a Catholic bishop. The California mission and city of San Luis Obispo, California, are named after him and he is the patron saint of Valencia, Spain. He can be recognized in iconography as a boy bishop, often with a discarded crown by his feet.

More    More

Feast day of St Magnus

Feast day of St Mochta (Mochteus), bishop and confessor

Feast of the translation (repositioning of her relics) of St Nympha (Ninfa), Palermo, Sicily

Feast day of St Sarah (Sara)
St Sarah is a Patron Saint venerated by the Roma (Gypsy) people. She is also known as Sara-la-Kali (Sara the Black). The centre of her cult is Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a place of pilgrimage for Roma in the Camargue, in southern France, where legend identifies her as the servant of the two saints Mary (Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene) commemorated in the town. An alternative legend has her as a pagan of noble birth and being converted to the faith of Abraham.

More at May 24 in the Book of Days (Feast of the Three Marys)    More

Feast day of St Sebaldus (Sebald)
The patron of Nuremberg, Germany. He once told a peasant woman to throw icicles in the fire because there was no fuel, and the fire burned on. For this reason he is invoked during cold spells.

Feast day of Ss Timothy of Gaza, Agapius, and Thecla, martyrs
(Branched herb Timothy, Phleum panniculatum, is today's plant, dedicated to St Timothy.)

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Afghan Independence Day, Afghanistan (see below: 1919)
Afghan Independence Day has at various times been celebrated in Afghanistan on August 19 to commemorate the Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919. The treaty granted independence from Britain.

The day was celebrated until 1992, when mujahedeen backed by the United States overthrew the former communist regime backed by the Soviet Union. Civil wars and unrest prevented the celebrations. The Taliban, who captured Kabul in 1996 reinstated the holiday.

National Day of the Filipino Language, Philippines
Holiday for Quezon City, Quezon Province and other municipalities named after Manuel Quezon who was born on this day in 1878.

National Aviation Day, USA

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

1631 John Dryden (d. May 12, 1700), English poet and playwright who led the way in Restoration comedy, his best known such work being Marriage A-la-Mode, (1672). He savagely attacked playwright Thomas Shadwell in the poem MacFlecknoe, and attacked both Shadwell and Elkanah Settle in part two of 'Absalom and Achitophel'. In 1668, he was appointed to succeed William Davenant as Poet Laureate, a post which he lost when King James II was deposed twenty years later.

1689 Samuel Richardson, printer and author of Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753), was baptised in Mackworth, near Derby, England. Richardson had been an established printer and publisher for most of his life when, at the age of 51, he wrote his first novel – and immediately became one of the most popular and admired writers of his time.

More    More late starters and late achievers, in the Scriptorium

1744 Rev. John Brand (d. September 11, 1806), British antiquary, born in Durham, author of Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne's 'Antiquitates Vulgares' (1777), generally referred to as Popular Antiquities, "with very large corrections and additions" by William Carew Hazlitt, grandson of the radical English journalist and essayist, William Hazlitt. Like Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects by John Aubrey (1626 - 1697), the book catalogued and described the origins of many customs and became the standard British work on folklore. After Brand's death, a new edition embodying the Mss left by him, was published by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813. Brand was appointed secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1784 and was annually re-elected until his death.

The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs (1910) by T Sharper Knowlson was based on Brand's Popular Antiquities. Sadly, at time of writing the latter seems not to be available online, but references to Brand's works may be found in the library catalogue at the Society of Antiquaries of London.

"Brand's lack of system in compiling his material was apparently mirrored in his employment. After his death, the Society's accounts were found to be in complete disorder.

"Brand had a guarded attitude to strangers but improved on acquaintance. He was especially warm to those interested in his own line of study. As well as his Popular Antiquities (1777), based on Bourne's previous work, Brand left a vast mass of manuscript collections to add to that work. His History and Antiquities of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was published in London in two volumes in 1789."   Source

Other works    Brand family crest    Brand on 'will-o-the-wisp'

1870 Bernard Baruch (d. 1965), financier

1871 Orville Wright (d. 1958), American pioneer of aviation

1875 Stjepan Seljan (d. 1936), Croatian explorer

1877 Pierre Jules Ruff (d. 1942), Algerian anarchist and antimilitarist who died in a Nazi concentration camp

1878 Manuel Quezon (Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina; d. August 1, 1944), first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. In the Philippines he is considered the second President, after Emilio Aguinaldo.

1883 Coco Chanel (d. 1971), influential French fashion designer. In 1931, Chanel was hired by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn for one million dollars to dress his stars, including Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and Gloria Swanson.

"No doubt the sisters at the convent in Moulins, who took her in when she was 17, raised their eyebrows when the young woman left the seamstress job they had helped her get to try for a career as a cabaret singer. This stint as a performer--she was apparently charming but no Piaf--led her to take up with the local swells and become the backup mistress of Etienne Balsan, a playboy who would finance her move to Paris and the opening of her first hat business."   Source

1892 Alfred Lunt (d. 1977), actor

1902 Ogden Nash (d. 1971), American writer of mainly light and humorous verse

More

1906 Philo T Farnsworth (d. 1971), inventor, television pioneer

1909 Jerzy Andrzejewski, Polish novelist, short-story writer, and political dissident.

Portrayed in Czeslaw Milosz's Captive Mind (1953), which revealed the problems of intellectuals living under Stalinism. In the 1950s and '60s Andrzejewski moved towards more or less open criticism of the government, starting from the novel The Inquisitors (translated 1960). His ambiguities of style and thought eluded simplistic interpretation and several of his works went unpublished. In 1979 he helped found the workers' defence committee (KOR) to aid families of striking workers, who were jailed or dismissed from their jobs. 

Source: The Daily Bleed

1915 Ring Lardner, Jr (d. 2000), actor, screenwriter

1916 Marie Wilson (d. 1972), American actress

1919 Malcolm Forbes (d. 1990), publisher

1921 Gene Roddenberry (d. 1991), author, producer

1925 Claude Gauvreau (d. 1971), Quebec playwright, poet and polemist

1930 Frank McCourt, author

1938 Diana Muldaur, actress, dog breeder, dog judge (LA Law; Star Trek: The Next Generation)

1939 Ginger Baker, drummer, trumpet player; with Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton in Cream; later joined Clapton and Steve Winwood in the 1969 group Blind Faith

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1940 Johnny Nash, American pop singer (I Can See Clearly Now)

1940 Jill St John, actress

1942 Fred Thompson, Watergate counsel, Senator from Tennessee, actor (Cape Fear; Law & Order)

1944 Skip Williamson, American underground comix artist, co-founder (with Robert Crumb and Jay Lynch) of Bijou Funnies and creator of Snappy Sammy Smoot ("Don't wee wee on your teevee")

"In 1968, along with Robert Crumb and Jay Lynch, Williamson helped launch Bijou Funnies, one of the earliest and longest-running underground comics titles. The Comics Journal says that 'Skip Williamson is still the quintessential underground comix artist,' and that 'where [Robert] Crumb's primary comix aim was introspective ... Williamson took a broader look, skewering both left-wing trendiness and right-wing overreaction to a time of much-publicized left-wing trendiness. Crumb's approach may have been more ... artistically legitimate, but to those struggling to make sense of the sociopolitical chaos, Williamson was frequently the funnier.'

"During the 1970s and 80s Skip Williamson toiled in the carnal fleshpool of Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine where he created the 'Playboy Funnies' section and introduced millions of readers to his characters, the sordid Neon Vincent and the post-modern couple, Neil 'n' Void.

"Not content to let sleeping dogs lie, Skip Williamson continues to prod the plebeian rottweiler by self-publishing his own comic books Naked Hostility, Class War Comix, Pigheard, Gag Reflex and the on-going title Smoot, featuring his most famous character, the gullible and compulsive Snappy Sammy Smoot. Recently Williamson moved his home and studio to the Atlanta area where, down among the sheltering Southern Baptists, he intends to begin his fiery march to the sea."   Source

Hi Pip Wilson,
I just discovered my (Aug. 19) entry in Wilson's Almanac. Thanks, man. You might want to add a link to my new website www.skipwilliamson.com The Art & Life of Skip Williamson, from the rowdy days of the Underground Comix movement, through his years at Playboy magazine to art galleries and 
comix pages worldwide. Film-clips, animation, comix, and autobiographical nihilistic rant lushly illustrated.
Skip Williamson, November 3, 2005

Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days    More    More

1946 Bill Clinton ('Slick Willy'; 'Talk from the left, govern from the right'), 42^nd (1993 - 2001) President of the United States.

This is how the White House's official website describes that tricky stuff from the closing years of Clinton's presidency:

"In 1998, as a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young woman White House intern, Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. He was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought against him. He apologized to the nation for his actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for his job as president."   Source

William Jefferson Clinton's appalling record 

"He has signed a bill providing for federal funds to be distributed to 'faith-based' charitable organizations. 

"He has expanded the number of federal crimes for which the death penalty can be given to a total of sixty. 

"He has signed a bill outlawing gay marriages and has taken out ads on Christian radio stations touting his opposition to any form of legal same-sex couplings. 

"In a short span of time, he has been able to kick ten million people off welfare – that's ten million out of fourteen million total recipients. 

"He has promised states 'bonus funds' if they can reduce their welfare numbers further, and made it easier to get these funds by not requiring the states to help the ex-welfare recipients find jobs. 

"He has introduced a plan that would bar any assistance to teenage parents if they drop out of school or leave their parents' home. 

"Though he is careful not to draw attention to it, he supports many of the old provisions of Newt Gingrich's 'Contract With America,' including lowering the capital gains tax. 

"In spite of calls from Republican governors like George Ryan of Illinois to support a moratorium on capital punishment, he rejected all efforts to slow down the number of executions even after it was revealed that there are dozens of people on death row who are innocent. 

"He has released funds for local communities to hire over a hundred thousand new police officers and supports laws that that put people behind bars for life after committing three crimes--even if those crimes were shoplifting or not paying for a pizza. 

"There are now more people in America without health insurance than when he took office, even though he campaigned on the idea of universal health care. And universal health care has now been removed from the Democrats platform. 

"He has signed orders prohibiting any form of health care to poor people who are in the United States illegally. 

"He supports a ban on late-term abortions and promised to sign the first bill to cross his desk that includes an exemption only if the mother is in jeopardy. 

"He has signed an order prohibiting any U.S. funds going to any country to be used in helping women secure an abortion. 

"He signed a one-year gag order that prohibits using any federal funds in foreign countries where birth control agencies mention abortion as an option to pregnant women. 

"He refused to sign the international Land Mine Ban Treaty already signed by 137 nations – but not by Iraq, Libya, North Korea, or the United States. 

"He has scuttled the Kyoto Protocol by insisting that 'sinks' (e.g., farmlands and forests) be counted toward the U.S. percentage of emissions reductions, thus making a mockery of the whole treaty (which was written primarily to reduce the carbon dioxide pollution from cars and factories.) 

"He has accelerated drilling for gas and oil on federal lands at a pace that matches, and in some areas exceeds, the production level during the Reagan administration. 

"He has approved the sale of one California oil field in the largest privatization deal in American history, and he opened the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (something even Reagan wasn't able to do). 

"And he became the first President since Richard Nixon not to force the auto manufacturers to improve their mileage per gallon – which would have saved millions of barrels of oil each day." 
Source: Michael Moore, Stupid White Men, Chapter 10, 'Democrats, DOA' 

 

If you came upon Bill Clinton struggling in a raging river, and you had a choice between rescuing him or taking a prize-winning photograph, what shutter speed would you use?

Clinton timeline

1946 Beat Raaflaub, conductor

1948 Tipper Gore, American author, activist for 'Parental Advisory' labels on music

1952 Jonathan Frakes, actor, director (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

1955 Peter Gallagher, actor (The O.C.)

1963 John Stamos, actor (Full House)

1965 Kevin Dillon, actor

1965 Kyra Sedgwick, actress

1966 Lee Ann Womack, country music musician

1969 Matthew Perry, American actor, (TV Friends; movies Fools Rush In; The Whole Nine Yards)

"He hit the big screen in the date movie Fools Rush In, with Salma Hayek, in 1997; in the comedy Almost Heroes, with the late Chris Farley, in 1998; and in the romantic comedy Three to Tango, with Neve Campbell and Dylan McDermott, in 1999."   Source

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Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards Have A Nice Day Birthdays Be An Angel Day [ Aug 22 ] Aviation Day [ August 19 ]

Varies Full Moon Day
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Varies Hindu holidays
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Early August Friendship Day
Varies Janmashtami
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September Fathers' Day (Australia)

August

19 Daffodil Day
19 Soft Ice Cream Day
19 Spicy Food Day
20 Lemonade Day
20 Zoroastrian New Year
22 Be An Angel Day
23 Hug Your Sweetheart Day
23 Ride The Wind Day
25 Kiss And Make Up Day
26 Women's Equality Day
26 Cherry Popsicle Day
26 Toilet Paper Day
27 Just Because Day
27 Banana Lovers Day
29 Lemon Juice Day
29 Chop Suey Day
30 Toasted Marshmallow Day
31 Eat Outside Day

September

1 Cherry Popover Day
3 Football Day
5 Labor Day
5 Be Late For Something Day
5 Teachers' Day (India)
5 Cheese Pizza Day

  ... More Events

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293 BCE The oldest known Roman temple to Venus was founded and the institution of Vinalia Rustica (see above) began (some sources put this at August 18).

14 CE Death of Augustus, first Roman emperor, at Nola in Campania, aged 75.

1099 Crusaders beat the Saracens (Muslims) in the Battle of Ascalon.

1186 Death of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Brittany, stamped by a horse in a tournament.

1391 Jehenna de Brigue and her neighbor, Macette de Ruilly, were led to the Paris Pig Market and burned alive as witches.

Brigue and Ruilly were convicted in Europe's first secular witchcraft trial. Macette's husband, Jean de Ruilly, accused Brigue of witchcraft because she helped him get well while he was ill. After Brigue's conviction, her execution was delayed when she claimed she was pregnant. While being tortured, she admitted she wasn't pregnant and claimed Macette hired her to kill her husband. Macette then confessed to the charges as she was being tortured on the rack. Both women were mitered as sorcerers and executed.

Source The Daily Bleed

1503 Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia; b. 1431) died accidentally of poison intended for a guest. This was less than two years after naughty Alex threw the famous orgy known as the 'Banquet of Chestnuts' (October 30, 1501).

1561 Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots; Mary I of Scotland) returned to Scotland.

1662 Blaise Pascal (b. 1623), the French philosopher, writer and mathematician who invented the first digital calculator, died at the convent of Port Royal, France, at the age of 39.

1692 Salem Witch Trials: In Salem, Massachusetts five women and a clergyman were executed after being convicted of witchcraft.

1775 A rain of earwigs fell over Stroud, England.

1789 Sir William Herschel discovered Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. In Greek mythology, Enceladus was one of the Gigantes.

 

1791 USA: Almanackist Benjamin Banneker (1731 - 1806), African-American astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher, sent a copy of his just-published almanac to Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, quoting Jefferson's own words on slavery back at him, and presenting an appeal on behalf of African-Americans' "humiliating condition (slavery) ...".

Jefferson acknowledged Banneker's intellectual achievements, but did not help to abolish slavery, and himself kept many slaves. Banneker's almanac helped convince many Americans that African-Americans were not intellectually inferior to whites.

More

 

 

1812 War of 1812: USS Constitution defeated the British frigate Guerrière off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British shot is said to have bounced off the Constitution's sides, earning her the nickname 'Old Ironsides'.

1813 Gervasio Antonio de Posadas joined Argentina's second triumvirate.

1819 Death of James Watt (b. 1736), engineer.

1820 Former convict Joseph Wild (c. 1759 or 1773 - 1847) discovered Lake George, near modern-day Canberra, the capital of Australia. In 1810 Wild received a ticket-of-leave and in January 1813 he was granted a conditional pardon. Lake George's most celebrated characteristic is its ability to disappear and reappear over relatively short periods of time, sometimes being a wide lake, sometimes a grassy plain used for grazing sheep. In normal seasons it is Australia's largest inland fresh water lake; on six known occasions it has been completely dry.

Earthquakes on the Lake George Fault

1839 Presentation of Louis-Jacques Daguerre's new photographic process to the French Academy of Sciences.

1845 "A violent T10-11 tornado devastated Montville (Seine-et-Maritime) in France. Sources give conflicting information as this lunch-time tornado travelled 15 or 30 km, was 100 or 300 m wide and killed 70 & injured 130 or (less probable) killed 200 people."   Source

1848 California Gold Rush: The New York Herald broke the news to the East Coast of the United States, that there was a gold rush in California (although the rush had started in January).

1855 YMCA World Alliance, the first international voluntary organization, was founded.

1859 Jean Francois Gravelet, the great Blondin, carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back across Niagara Falls.

"According to Colcord, the trip was a nightmare. In the unguyed centre section, the pair swayed violently. Blondin was fighting for his life. He broke into a desperate run to reach the first guy rope. When he reached it and steadied himself, the guy broke. Once more the pair swayed alarmingly as Blondin again ran for the next guy. When they reached it Blondin gasped for Colcord to get down. Six times in all Colcord had to dismount while Blondin struggled to gather his strength. In the end Blondin had to charge the crowd on the brink to prevent the press of people forcing them back in the precipice."   Source

See also Henri L'Estrange, The Australian Blondin    More

1862 Indian Wars: During an uprising in Minnesota, Lakota warriors decided not to attack heavily-defended Fort Ridgely and instead turned to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.

1871 USA: The Gunfight at Hide Park, or Newton Massacre, took place. It was the name given to an Old West gunfight that occurred in Newton, Kansas. It was well publicised at the time, but historically it has very little written about it, and it is not a well-known incident, despite having had more killed as a result of it than more famous gunfights such as the Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, both of those taking place in 1881.

1871 Long after the death of his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning wrote to a family friend: "The simple truth is that she was the poet, and I the clever person by comparison".

1886 Polish-born English author Joseph Conrad, became a British subject.

1888 Spain: In Seville, Ricardo Mella republished the newspaper Solidaridad which would become, as Max Nettlau characterised it, one of the last ramparts of anarcho-collectivism in Spain. On January 12, 1889 it published his article, 'La Anarquía no admite adjetivos' ('Anarchy needs no adjectives').

Source: L'Ephéméride Anarchiste via The Daily Bleed

1894 A large anarchist gathering in New York welcomed Emma Goldman on her return. Among the speakers were American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre, English anarchist Charles Mowbray, and Italian anarchist Maria Roda.

1895 American frontier murderer and outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, was killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.

1902 Australia: Sydney businessman and philanthropist Quong Tart was bashed and all Sydney was shocked. The once-poor immigrant who was said to be "as well known as the Governor himself" died at his home in Ashfield (photo) on July 26, 1903.

1919 Afghanistan gained independence from the United Kingdom, having defeated the latter in the Third Anglo-Afghan war. Through the ages, Afghanistan has been occupied by many far larger forces including the Persian Empire, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, the British, the Soviet Union and the United States. In all cases until recently, and despite what appears to outsiders to be their tribally divided society, the fiercely patriotic Afghans have united to successfully defeat the occupiers.

1920 Russia: Start of the peasant insurrection in Tambov. The Bolshevik dictatorship was unable to suppress the revolt until May, 1921. Similar problems had arisen in 1917, when peasants seized land from the gentry, reaching the level of near insurrection in Tambov.

Source: The Daily Bleed

1929 The radio comedy show Amos and Andy made its NBC debut starring Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll.

1934 The creation of the position of Führer was overwhelmingly approved by the German electorate with 89.9 per cent of the popular vote.

1934 The first All-American Soap Box Derby was held in Dayton, Ohio.

1936 Federico García Lorca (b. 1898) died.

1942 World War II: The Dieppe Raid – Allied forces raided the German-held port of Dieppe, France.

1945 Vietnam War: The Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, took power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

1945 Following the Battle of Britain, the British people held a Day of National Thanksgiving.

1953 Cold War: The CIA helped to overthrow the government of Mohammed Mossadegh (1882 - 1967) in Iran and reinstate the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

1955 In the Northeast United States, severe flooding caused by Hurricane Diane, claimed 200 lives.

1960 Cold War: In Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage.

1960 Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 5 with the dogs Belka and Strelka (Russian for 'Squirrel' and 'Little Arrow'), 40 mice, 2 rats and a variety of plants. The spacecraft returned to earth the next day and all animals were recovered safely.

1966 China's Cultural Revolution: "The students of Beijing Fourth, Sixth and Eighth Middle Schools held a 'struggle meeting' in the Zhongshan Concert Pavilion at Zhongshan Park, which is next to Tiananmen Square. On a stage in front of an audience of thousands they whipped and kicked more than twenty 'members of the black gang' from the three schools and the City Education Bureau. Sun Guoliang, the head of the Beijing City Education Bureau, suffered three fractured ribs. Wen Hanjiang, the Vice Principal of the Eighth Middle School, lost consciousness as he bled on stage. According to an interviewee, all were so severely beaten that they 'no longer looked human'."   

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

 

1972 "The royal Canadian Mounted Police were called in to investigate a creature which had appeared on the surface of Thetis Lake, British Columbia, and chased two boys, Gordon Piles and Robin Flewellyn, up the beach. It was about five feet tall, silver-coloured, and shaped like a human being apart from enormous ears an, scaly skin and a monster face. Flewellyn was cut on the hand by six razor-sharp points on the creature's head. Two other witnesses saw it four days later. A similar monster had been seen climbing up a riverbank in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1937."   Source

1975 The cricket test match between England and Australia was called off after the pitch was vandalised by supporters of armed robber George Davis.

1979 The Vietnamese-backed government of Cambodia sentenced Pol Pot, ex-dictator of that country, to death for genocide, in his absence.

1980 A Saudi Arabian Airlines Tristar burned after making an emergency landing in Riyadh Saudia Arabia, killing 301.

1981 Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi sent two Sukoi Su-22 fighter jets to repel two United States fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. The American jets destroyed the Libyan fighters.

1987 Hungerford Massacre: In the United Kingdom, Michael Ryan killed 16 with an assault rifle and then committed suicide.

1989 Polish president Wojciech Jaruzelski nominated Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki to be Prime Minister, with the latter thus becoming the first non-communist in Polish power in 42 years.

1990 Iraq's President Saddam Hussein offered to release all Western hostages in exchange for the Allies' withdrawal from the Gulf conflict.

1991 Tass newsagency in the USSR reported that Mikhail Gorbachev had fallen ill at his dacha on the Black Sea, and the running of the country was being performed by an "emergency committee".  In fact a coup had occurred (August 18).

1999 In Belgrade, tens of thousands of Serbians rallied to demand the resignation of president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic.

2002 A Russian Mi-26 helicopter carrying troops was hit by a Chechen missile outside Grozny, killing 118 soldiers.

 

Phoney freedom websites

From the Blogmanac

With the Iraq crisis, it's easy to forget that Russia has its own Iraq, and it's called Chechnya.

The Russian government has a pretty propaganda site (with sweet pictures like the one shown at right) called Chechnya Free, to fool web searchers looking for info on the tragedy.

China pulls the same trick for Googlers of "human rights China"; see this phoney site, humanrights-china.org. Then there is China's cutesy Tibet tourism site, which says that the era of Dalai lama rule: " ... basically ended in 1951 when Tibet was liberated and came to a complete end in 1959 when rebellion led by the Dalai Lama was pacified and the People's Government of the Tibet, Autonomous Region was set up", neglecting to mention that China killed one million people before turning Tibet into its new tourist resort.

On the other hand, if you find a genuine Chechnyan site like this you will read things to make us weep, but which we should all know, like:

"Estimates indicate that during the first and second war in Chechnya, on a Chechen population of 1 million, 150,000 - 200,000 civilians died or disappeared. This amounts to 15% - 20% of the entire population." [References]

One of the happy headlines in the phoney site is: "Builders are in demand in Grosny". Below is a picture from another genuine site, Free Chechnya, that will explain why.




A good site to bookmark is the official website of the Chechen separatist movement.

It is inconceivable that in Europe there hasn't been any movement of rebellion against all this, a rally, not a symbolic one, but a huge and imposing rally that says how all this is intolerable! The tragedy of Chechnya is the tragedy of Russia. Europe is a happy and thoughtless continent. A continent that doesn't think about it. About nothing. When it will be forced to think about it, it risks to pay a very high price. It's better it would begin to think about it.
Adriano Sofri, on Russia's occupation of Chechnya

There is nothing more dangerous in the war of ideas than the "realpolitik" approach which brought us so many disasters in the past. After all, was not Osama bin Laden a by-product of similar "marriage of convenience" at one point? Was it not true also in the case of Saddam Hussein? And is it not true that your new "partners" such as Russia secretly sell military equipment (including nuclear technology) to the Axis of Evil countries even now?
Will the United States ever learn this lesson, or will it continue forever to build up new enemies while fighting present ones?
Yelena Bonner (wife of Andrei Sakharov) and Vladimir Bukovsky; from an open letter on Chechnya to President George W Bush

Permalink of this post in Wilson's Blogmanac

 

 

2003 A car-bomb attack on UN headquarters in Iraq killed the agency's top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other employers.

2005 The first-ever joint military exercise between Russia and China, called Peace Mission 2005, began.

 

 

Tomorrow: Bernard of Clairvaux, not-so-nice saint

 

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