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We are all going to Heaven, and Van Dyke is of the company.
Thomas Gainsborough (b. 1727), English artist; his last words, on this day in 1788

Physically, he was a delight to look upon. Tall, lithe, and free in every motion, he rode and walked as if every muscle was perfection, and the careless swing of his body as he moved seemed perfectly in keeping with the man, the country, the time in which he lived. I do not recall anything finer in the way of physical perfection than Wild Bill when he swung himself lightly from his saddle, and with graceful, swaying step, squarely set shoulders and well poised head, approached our tent for orders. He was rather fantastically clad, of course, but all seemed perfectly in keeping with the time and place. He did not make an armory of his waist, but carried two pistols. He wore top-boots, riding breeches, and dark blue flannel shirt, with scarlet set in front. A loose neck handkerchief left his fine firm throat free. I do not all remember his features, but the frank, manly expression of his fearless eyes and his courteous manner gave one a feeling of confidence in his word and in his undaunted courage.
George Armstrong Custer's wife, Libbie, on Wild Bill Hickok, murdered on August 2, 1876; Following the Guidon, 1890

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

Hidden Agendas

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM

The Elements of Ritual

The Spiral Dance
By Starhawk
20th Anniversary Edition

Hoodwinked

Uluru

Asian Mythology

Life in a Medieval Village

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Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth

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The Survival of the Pagan Gods

Feast day of St Ilia the Prophet, Ukraine and other Slavic cultures

Feast day of Ilya the Prophet in the Russian Orthodox Church

Also Ilinden (St Ilya Day), a day of remembrance of the Ilinden Uprising, Bulgaria/Republic of Macedonia. 

Pictured: "Elisha then beheld Elijah in a fiery chariot taken up by a whirlwind into heaven." (Elijah's chosen successor was the prophet Elisha.)

Ilia/Ilya is a Slavic version of the name Elias, which in turn is a version of Elijah, a prophet of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. His name has been variously translated as 'the Lord is God', 'whose God is the Lord', 'God the Lord', 'the strong Lord', 'God of the Lord', 'my God is the Lord', 'the Lord is my God', and 'my God is Jehovah'. Elijah is first introduced in 1 Kings 17:1.

The name Elias may also have links and be derived from the pagan Greek name Helios/Elios, spelt Ηλιος in Greek, and which literally means 'sun'. (Note that the Biblical Elijah ascended into Heaven in a fiery chariot.) It is known that the name existed for males in ancient Greece. At this time, the cult worshipping the sun God Helios was well established by all Greeks, despite being eventually replaced by Apollo. This implies the ancient name was derived from the god. Interestingly, there is evidence suggesting Helios, was also worshipped by the ancient Jews (source).

Like many characters of myth and legend, Elijah was at one time fed by ravens (1 Kings, 17:6: "And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook").

None of the old prophets is so frequently referred to in the New Testament as is Elijah. According to Matthew 11, John the Baptist was the Elijah that "was to come". Elijah appears in the Synoptic Gospels at the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Jesus became vividly bright, and was accompanied by both Moses and Elijah.

As Elijah was described as ascending into heaven in a fiery chariot, the Christian missionaries who converted Slavic tribes likely found him an ideal analogy for Perun, the supreme Slavic god of storms, thunder and lightning bolts. In many Slavic countries Elijah is known as Elijah the Thunderer (Ilija Gromovik), who drives the heavens in chariot and administers rain and snow, thus actually taking the place of Perun in popular beliefs.

"In the Ukraine, this day marked the beginning of autumn. It was said 'Until dinner, it's summer. After dinner, it's autumn.' Ilia is closely related to Perun and this was most probably one of Perun's holy days. After this day, no swimming was allowed as Ilia will curse anyone he finds swimming after his feast day."
Source: Earth, Moon and Sky

"In the Ukraine, this day marked the beginning of autumn. It was said 'Until dinner, it's summer. After dinner, it's autumn.' Ilia is closely related to Perun [Perun's Day, July 20] and this was most probably one of Perun's holy days. After this day, no swimming was allowed as Ilia will curse anyone he finds swimming after his feast day."   Source

"Archaeologist Zeev Weiss describes a mosaic recently uncovered in an ancient Jewish synagogue in Sepphoris in which a zodiac surrounds a striking portrayal of the Greek sun god Helios. Evidently similar artwork has been discovered in synagogues at Tiberias, Khirbet Susiya, Na'aran, Husifa, Yafia, Beit Alpha and Sephoris."   Source

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Feast of Anahita, ancient Persia
Goddess of Love and the Moon.
Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar

Feast day of Aphrodite and Eros, ancient Greece
"Feast of the Goddess Aphrodite and the God Eros, honoring love and passion. Also, the 2nd day of each month is sacred to the Agathos Daimon, the "Good Spirit" (roughly equivalent to a combination of the Will and the guardian angel of each person)."
Source: Earth, Moon and Sky

Festivals in ancient Greece

Dog Days, ancient Rome (Jul 3 - Aug 11)

Feast Day of St Basil the Blessed
"… a shoe-maker's apprentice who went about Moscow naked, taking goods from the shops to give to the destitute. It was said he rebuked the Czar, Ivan the Terrible. He died in Moscow in 1552."   Source

Feast day of St Betharius

Feast day of St Boetharius

Feast day of St Etheldritha (Alfrida; Alfreda), virgin
(Tiger lily, Lilium tigrinum, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Eusebius (Eusebius of Vercelli), Bishop of Vercelli, martyr
Born c. 283 in Vercelli, Piemonte, d. August 1, 371, Eusebius was a champion of St Athanasius and Catholic orthodoxy in the 4^th-Century controversy over Arianism, a controversy that cost him his friendship with St Lucifer of Cagliari. His feast day was formerly December 16, which marks the anniversary of his consecration as bishop. In Italy in 363 he worked with St Hilary of Poitiers to oppose the Arianizing Auxentius of Milan. Although sometimes referred to as a martyr, this is due to his sufferings and not having died a violent death, though some say he was killed by Arians.

More    More

Feast day of St Gundechar

Feast day of St Maximus of Padua

Feast day of St Our Lady of the Angels
Celebrated widely in Costa Rica.

Feast day of St Peter Julian Eymard (Peter Julian Eymund; Pierre-Julien Eymard)
Peter Julian Eymard (February 4, 1811 - August 1, 1868) was a French Catholic priest, founder of two religious orders. He was declared venerable in 1908, beatified in 1925, and canonized by Pope John XXIII on December 9, 1962.

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Feast day of St Peter of Osma

Feast day of St Stephen I, pope
Pope from May 12, 254 to August 2, 257. On August 2, 257, Stephen was sitting on the pontifical throne in the catacombs when Emperor Valerian's men came and beheaded him.

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Feast day of St Theodota

Feast day of St Thomas of Dover

Feast day of the Virgin of Angels
"The Virgin of the Angels is the patroness of Costa Rica. Pilgrims travel to her basilica in Cartago, where is she represented by a black stone called La Negrita (the dark one)."   Source

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

National Tree Planting Day, Lesotho

Independence Day, Jamaica

Freedom Day, Guyana

Days of the Water Nymphs, Macedonia
No clothes may be washed, and you may only swim or bathe if you are holding a piece of iron.
Source: The Daily Bleed

First Monday in August (?), Akwambo (Path Clearing Festival), Agona, Central Region of Ghana

"The Asafo companies weed footpaths leading to the streams or rivers, farms and other communal places, as well as paths, which lead to shrines. The following day, the whole community assembles at the ancestral shrines and the chief pours libation to the ancestral spirits to thank them for their protection during the previous year and then request for more blessing, abundant rainfall and good harvest for the ensuing year. At the stream or riverside where some of the sacrifices are offered, alligators and other species of fish come out to enjoy the mashed yams sprinkled on the water.

"With their bodies smeared with clay, the people then parade with twigs and tree branches through the town in groups amidst drumming, dancing and firing of musketry.

"In a procession, they go through the principal routes and then to the durbar ground to meet the chief and his elders.

"There is a vigil kept at night and patronized mainly by the youth. It is a time when people come together to renew family and social ties. Performing groups, which are dormant are revitalized and new groups initiated."   Source

 

Day of airborne forces in Russia

National Tree Day, Australia (2009)

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

1533 Theodor Zwinger (d. 1588), medical scholar

1672 Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (d. June 23, 1733), Swiss scholar

1754 Pierre Charles L'Enfant (d. 1825), architect, city planner

1788 Leopold Gmelin (d. 1853), chemist

1815 Adolf Friedrich von Schack (d. April 14, 1894), German poet and historian of literature

1832 Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (d. February 17, 1907), founder and first president of the Theosophical Society, well-known as the first prominent person of Western descent to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. After his death, the leadership of the society devolved onto the shoulders of HP Blavatsky's protegé, Annie Besant. Olcott chose Sydney as headquarters of the newly chartered Australasian Section in 1891. Even though the section failed, it was effectively reorganised by Besant in a triumphal lecture tour of the antipodes in 1894, with Sydney again headquarters.

The American who revived Buddhism in Sri Lanka   William Q. Judge and Henry S. Olcott

See also Charles Webster Leadbeater

1854 Milan I, king of Serbia

1868 Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923), king of Greece

1871 John Sloan (d. 1951), artist

1891 Sir Arthur Bliss, British composer (A Colour Symphony; Checkmate). Master of the Queen's Music (1952).

1892 Jack L Warner (Jack Eichelbaum; (d. 1978), Hollywood producer

"With his brothers Harry, Albert and Sam, he founded Warner Brothers Pictures Inc. in 1923. They would release the first motion picture with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson. In the 1930's they would give employment to a parade of stars, including Bette Davis, 'Errol Flynn' and Paul Muni, as well as James Cagney, 'Edward G. Robinson' and a man whose star would eventually rise in the 1940s, Humphrey Bogart. Decades later, the firm's successor, Warner Communications Inc., would merge with Time Inc. to become Time Warner Inc., the world's largest media and entertainment company …

"At the 16th Academy Awards ceremony, when Casablanca (1942) was named Best Picture, Hal B Wallis, the film's producer, was on his way to the stage to accept the Oscar when Jack cut him off and accepted on behalf of the studio. At the time, the Oscar for Best Picture customarily went to the studio. But, Jack's public rudeness had two consequences: first, Wallis resigned from Warner Brothers in protest; second, producers began exerting more power with the Academy. Within eight years, starting with American in Paris, An (1951), the Oscar for Best Picture would go to the film's producer(s) instead of the studio."   Source

1897 Max Weber (d. 1974), Swiss Federal Councilor

1900 Helen Morgan, actress (d. 1941)

1905 Karl Amadeus Hartmann (d. 1963), composer

1905 Myrna Loy (Myrna Williams; d. 1993), American Academy Award-winning motion picture actress (The Jazz Singer; Too Hot to Handle)

1905 Rudolf Prack (d. 1981), actor

1912 Vladimir Zerjavic (d. 2001), Croatian UN statistician

1914 Beatrice Straight (d. 2001), Academy Award-winning actress

1915 Gary Merrill (d. March 5, 1990), actor

1922 Gwen Plumb (d. June 5, 2002), Australian actress and broadcaster

1924 James Baldwin (d. 1987), American writer and civil rights activist (Another Country; Nobody Knows My Name)

"The eldest of nine children, Baldwin grew up in poverty-stricken Harlem, where his father was a preacher. Between the ages of 14 and 16 Baldwin himself preached at a small revivalist church, the Fireside Pentecostal. His first and most critically acclaimed novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), was inspired by his experiences there.

"Baldwin was heavily influenced by his Harlem middle school French teacher, famed poet Countee Cullen. Cullen, who obtained his master's degree from Harvard University, was a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing of artistic expression that emerged from the community of Harlem in New York City in the 1920s, also known as the New Negro Movement. Cullen devoted himself to the education of children in the last period of his life, and concentrated on teaching and writing children's books. He opened up a new world of literary and artistic possibilities for black youth in Harlem, including James Baldwin.

"Baldwin moved to Paris in 1948, where he remained for the next eight years. During this time he created some of his most famous work, including the essay collection Notes of a Native Son (1955) and the novel Giovanni's Room (1956), where Baldwin explores the broad issues of race, sexuality, and identity. His work Nobody Knows My Name (1961) deals more explicitly with the subject of race relations in the United States.

"An active participant in the civil rights movement in the 1950s, Baldwin lived in later years in both the U.S. and France, where he died in 1987."   Source

1924 Carroll O'Connor (d. 2001), American actor (TV series: All in the Family)

1932 Peter O'Toole, Irish-born British actor (Lawrence of Arabia; The Lion in Winter; Lord Jim)

• 1962 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Lawrence of Arabia
• 1964 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Becket
• 1968 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Lion in Winter
• 1969 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• 1972 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Ruling Class
• 1980 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Stunt Man
• 1982 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Leading Role - My Favorite Year

"Irish leading man of prodigious talents. Born in Ireland, but raised in Leeds, England, the son of a bookie. As a boy, he decided to become a journalist, beginning as a newspaper copy boy. Although he succeeded in becoming a reporter, he discovered the theatre and made his stage debut at 17. He served as a radioman in the Royal Navy for two years, then attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included 'Albert Finney', Alan Bates, and Richard Harris. He spent several years onstage at the Bristol Old Vic, then made an inconspicuous film debut in 1960. In 1962, O'Toole was chosen by David Lean to play T.E. Lawrence in Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia. The part made O'Toole an international superstar. He continued successfully in artistically rich films as well as less artistic but commercially rewarding projects. He received Academy Award nominations (but no Oscar) for seven different films. However, medical problems brought on by his drinking threatened to destroy his career and life in the 1970s. He survived by giving up alcohol and after serious medical treatment, returned to films with triumphant performances in The Stunt Man (1980) and My Favorite Year (1982). His youthful beauty lost to time and drink, O'Toole has found meaningful roles increasingly difficult to come by, though he remains one of the greatest actors of his generation. He has two daughters, Patricia and Catherine, from his marriage to actress Siân Phillips. He also has a son by model 'Karen Brown'. He is partnered with 'Jules Buck' in Keep Productions."   Source

1934 Valery Bykovsky, cosmonaut

1939 Wes Craven, horror film director

1942 Chet Helms (d. June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's '1967 Summer of Love', music promoter and a cultural figure in San Francisco during its hippie period in the late Sixties

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1942 Isabel Allende, author

1948 Dennis Prager, radio talk show host and author

1951 Lance Ito, judge in the OJ Simpson case

1953 Butch Patrick, actor

1957 Mojo Nixon, rockabilly musician, actor

1964 Mary-Louise Parker, actress

1972 Kevin Smith, actor, director, screenwriter

1976 Sam Worthington, English-born Australian actor (Dirty Deeds; Avatar)

1977 Edward Furlong, actor

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August

1 Respect For Parents Day
1 Girlfriends Day
2 Ice Cream Sandwich Day
3 Watermelon Day
3 Grab Some Nuts Day
4 Champagne Day
4 Coast Guard Day
4 Pie Day (Minnesota, USA)
5 Blackmail Day
5 Mustard Day
6 Halfway Point Of Summer
6 Cards For Sister
6 International Forgiveness Day
7 Lighthouse Day
8 Cheesecake Day
9 Send An Email Greeting Day
10 Lazy Day
10 Grab Some Nuts Day
11 Sons And Daughters Day
11 Chinese Valentine's Day
12 Thank You Day
12 Aloha Day
13 Left-Handers Day
14 Independence Day (Pakistan)
15 Sit Back And Relax Day
15 Independence Day (India)
16 True Love Forever Day
16 Joke Day
16 Roller Coaster Day
17 #2 Pencil Day
19 Daffodil Day
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22 Be An Angel Day
23 Hug Your Sweetheart Day
23 Ride The Wind Day

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338 BCE Rise of Macedon: Philip of Macedon crushed Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea.

216 BCE Punic Wars: In the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal destroyed the Roman army of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Publius Terentius Varro in what is considered one of the great masterpieces of the tactical art.

257 St Stephen I, pope, was executed.

320 Yat-Balam (Penis of the Jaguar) founded the dynasty that ruled Yaxchilan (in what is now the state of Chiapas, Mexico) throughout the five centuries of the Mayan civilisation.

461 Death of Majorian (b. 457), Roman Emperor (assassination).

 

1100 England's King William Rufus (William II of England; b. c. 1056) was killed when shot through the chest by an arrow while hunting.

Was William a pagan sacrifice?

The Celts celebrate the main part of the festival of Lughnasadh from sunset on August 1 until sunset on August 2. On August 2, 1100 English King William Rufus was killed when shot through the chest by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. Rufus ('the Red') was a son of William the Conqueror, and his elder brother, Richard, had also died in the New Forest. Rumours probably abounded that Richard and Rufus were victims of heathen ill will, for William the Conqueror had expelled the dwellers of the New Forest.

These were the pagans, for that is what the word pagan originally meant.

\Pa"gan\ (p[=a]"gan), n. [L. paganus a countryman,

peasant, villager, a pagan, fr. paganus of or pertaining to

the country, rustic, also, pagan, fr. pagus a district,

canton, the country, perh. orig., a district with fixed

boundaries: cf. pangere to fasten. Cf. {Painim}, {Peasant},

and {Pact}, also {Heathen}.]

Source

 

Pagans were thus the dwellers in the forest/countryside, whose old religions were at odds with, and ruthlessly suppressed by, monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam, the hegemonies of which led to the longstanding pejorative connotations of the term.

The legend says that on the night of August 1, Rufus dreamt of his blood reaching to heaven, darkening the sky. The same night, an English monk dreamt that King William Rufus entered a church and picked up a crucifix; he gnawed at Christ's arm, then the figure kicked him, making him fall backwards, and smoke and flames came out of his mouth. The monk told his abbot, Serlo, of the dreams and Serlo sent a warning to William, who had many enemies for he was known as an oppressor of England, taxing the people heavily. However, the haughty king dismissed the abbot's prescient warning.

It's possible that William the Red was killed by his younger brother who was with him on that hunting trip and was crowned King Henry I almost immediately. Tradition has it that William's bleeding body was taken by a charcoal burner named Purkiss (or Purkis), to Winchester Palace, and for his kindness he was rewarded with an acre or two of land. (It is interesting to note that a charcoal-burning family named Purkiss still lived on the same land at least as late as the 1880s.)

William's body was left by the nobles to lie overnight at the place where he fell, which might indicate their feelings towards him. A stone (relatively new, having been erected by Earl De La Warr in 1745) known as the Rufus Stone marks the spot. (GB Ordnance Survey Grid Ref. SU 270 124)

 

Sacrificial kingship

It's widely believed amongst neo-Pagans that William and other kings who died violent deaths on or near Celtic cross-quarter days, such as this one, were actually victims of sacrificial kingship. This ritual of pre-Christian times in Europe was related to giving thanks to the sun for a good harvest. Such sacrifice was also practised in ancient Greece, and the Celts might have acquired the practice from there.

Lughnasadh would be the time for the king to reaffirm his sacred 'marriage' to the prosperity of the kingdom. One notes that both the murder of King Olaf of Norway, and his feast day (July 29), are close to Lammastide (Lughnasadh, August 1); sacrificial kingship is also known in other parts of Europe. Also, apparently it is known in Africa: Walby, Celestin, 'The African Sacrificial Kingship Ritual and Johnson's Middle Passage', African American Review 29.4 (1995): 657-669. It has strong connections with the self-sacrifice of Odin in Norse mythology, and to the Christian myth of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

William Rufus might have been the last pagan sacrifice of a king, and his death disguised for the Christian authorities as a hunting accident. Some of the clergy, by the way, hated Rufus and saw his death as divine judgment, while some contemporary accounts said he was accidentally shot by his friend William Tirel.

 

Harvest, death and rebirth

Despite its marital associations, Lughnasadh was also a mourning feast. A long tradition of a symbolic funeral procession during Lammas continues today in Lancashire, England's Wakes Week, and long wake processions such as one across the Yorkshire moors, called the Lyke Wakes Walk. To this day, young men carry an empty coffin about 60 km (about 40 miles) along an ancient track. We must bear in mind that while Lughnasadh is the god Lugh's marriage, when the sun is called upon to allow a successful harvest from the feminine earth, it is also Lugh's wake, for he is the Sun-King, whose light begins to pale after the Summer Solstice.

Lughnasadh, too, recalls the theme of death, because, as the first of the three harvest Sabbats, (Lughnasadh, Mabon and Samhain), ancient people celebrated the ripening grains and corn, which must be mowed (killed) for 'rebirth' to begin. The Greek mythological story of Demeter and Persephone, likewise, is a story about the cycle of death and rebirth associated with grain. Here is where the theme of the sacrificed god motif is so central, Lugh's death being essential for rebirth of the land to take place.

Lugh's death is a sacrifice that will occur again with the new growth in the spring, and must be repeated each year. Thus it was that pagan kings sometimes had a duty to sacrifice themselves for the land, although we do not fully know to what extent human or animal sacrifice occurred in pagan cultures. All we know is that in those times, kings did at times allowed themselves to be sacrificed at the end of the year, whereupon a new king could be appointed and the cycle could begin anew.

'Prodigies' and omens at William's Death

The Biddenden Maids were conjoined twins who were born in Biddenden, Kent, in 1100. In the popular imagination of the time, the death of King William was associated with the Maids and other 'anomalous' occurrences.

"It may be urged that the date fixed for the birth of the Biddenden Maids is so remote as to throw grave doubt upon the reality of the occurrence. The year 1100 was, it will be remembered, that in which William Rufus was found dead in the New Forest, (with the arrow either of a hunter or an assassin in his breast.' According to the Anglo-saxon Chronicle, several 'prodigies' preceded the death of this profligate and extravagant monarch. Thus it is recorded that 'at Pentecost blood was observed gushing from the earth at a certain town of Berkshire, even as many asserted who declared that they had seen it. And after this, on the morning after Lammas Day, King William was shot.' Now, it is just possible that the birth of the Biddenden Maids may have occurred later, but have been antedated by the popular tradition to the year above mentioned. For such a birth would, in the opinion of the times, be regarded undoubtedly as a most evident prodigy or omen of evil. Still, even admitting that the date 1100 must be allowed to stand, its remoteness from the present time is not a convincing argument against a belief in the real occurrence of the phenomenon; for of the dicephlic Scottish brothers, who lived in 1490, we have credible historic evidence. Further, Lycosthenes, in his 'Chronicon Prodigiorom atque Ostentorum', published in 1557, states, upon what authority I know not, that in the year 1112 joined twins resembling the Biddenden phenomenon in all points save in sex were born in England."
Ballantyne

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1589 France's King Henry III (b. 1551) died, having been stabbed the previous day by Jacques Clément.

1610 Henry Hudson sailed into what it is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean.

1718 An alliance was formed between Britain, France, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Netherlands to maintain the Treaties of Utrecht, repudiated by Spain.

1776 Delegates to the Continental Congress began signing the United States Declaration of Independence.

1788 Thomas Gainsborough (b. 1727), the English painter, died.

1798 Second Coalition: End of the Battle of the Nile between French and British navies; France was defeated.

1830 Charles X of France was overthrown.

1834 The South Australian Association was granted a charter to found a colony.

1857 Australia: Hobart and Launceston, Tasmania were linked by telegraph.

1858 The first street letter boxes in the US were installed in Boston.

1865 Lewis Carroll's masterpiece, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was published in England.

1870 Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opened in London.

1876 USA: Wild Bill Hickok (James Hickok; James Butler Hickok), US Marshal and fastest gun in the west, was shot in the back by Jack McCall while playing poker in the Deadwood Saloon, Deadwood, South Dakota. McCall was later tried and hanged on March 1, 1877.

On July 21, 1865, in the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Hickok shot Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.

The Dead Man's Hand

The hand that Hickok held at the time he was shot was a pair of eights and a pair of aces. In poker, the hand later became known as the 'dead man's hand'.

James "Wild Bill" Hickok, American frontiersman and marshal    More

1903 Fall of the Ottoman Empire: Unsuccessful uprising of Balkan people against Ottoman Turkey.

1908 At Ballyconneely on the west coast of Ireland, a phantom city of houses of different architectural styles was seen in the sky for three hours. . Similar apparitions had been seen in that region in 1796, 1797 and 1801.

1918 British, French and American troops supported the White forces against the Bolsheviks in Russia, and seized Archangel.

1921 Death of Enrico Caruso  (b. 1873), opera singer.

1923 Death of Warren G Harding (b. 1865), 29^th President of the United States.

1931 Albert Einstein urged all scientists to refuse military work.

1934 Gleichschaltung: Following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler proclaimed himself Führer (Leader) of the Third Reich. The event marked an escalation in persecution of German Jews.

1935 British Parliament passed the Government of India Act which separated Burma and Aden from India, and created a central government in New Delhi.

1939 Albert Einstein suggested to President Franklin Roosevelt that atomic research should commence in the US. Roosevelt's approval led to the construction of the first atomic bomb.

1945 World War II: The Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discussed the future of defeated Germany, concluded.

1948 Alger Hiss (1904 - 1996), testified in the Joseph McCarthy hearings.

1955 Velcro was patented.

1963 the US Government informed the United Nations that it was ceasing sales of military equipment to South Africa, in line with the UN resolutions concerning sanctions against that country.

1967 The second Blackwall Tunnel opened in Greenwich, London.

1972 Death of Paul Goodman (b. 1911), American author (Growing Up Absurd), freethinker, anarchist cultural critic, poet and Gestalt Therapy theorist.

1973 The Washington Star-News reported that Mr Roy Sullivan, a ranger in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, who was in The Guinness Book of Records for suffering the world's most lightning strikes to his person (four), had survived a fifth such strike. During his life (he shot himself on September 28, 1983, reputedly over a rejected love), he survived seven lightning strikes.

1990  Five days after allegedly having been given by US Ambassador April Glaspie the 'green light' to invade Kuwait, Saddam Hussein of Iraq did so, invoking the wrath of the USA and President George HW Bush's denunciation of the invasion as an act of naked aggression, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

1997 Australian ski instructor Stuart Diver was rescued as the sole survivor from the 1997 Thredbo landslide at Thredbo, New South Wales, Australia, in which 18 lives were lost. For 66 gruelling hours Diver lay buried beneath mud, rubble and snow, dressed only in his pyjamas.

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1997 Fela Kuti (b. 1938), Nigerian musician and human rights activist, died in Lagos, of AIDS-related heart failure. He was mourned by the nation and as many as one million people attended his funeral.

 

2002 Wilson's Almanac ezine No 650 posted the following notice to members:

"The government of my country, Australia, and several others apparently, are planning an invasion of Iraq.

"A decade ago a coalition of nations did the same thing, and a suborned media had most of us believing that very few human beings were being killed.

"Today we know that perhaps 200,000 Iraqis were killed and God knows how many live with broken and burned bodies.

"Mr Howard, Mr Bush: we don't need your stinking war.

"War is obsolete. We expect our 'leaders' to spend more money on searching for other solutions."

Myths of the 'War on Terrorism' and Iraq

 

2004 Monday demonstrations against social cutbacks began in Germany.

 

Tomorrow: Thomas Francis Meagher, Irish nationalist

 

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