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reetings from Australia.
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Saint Bartholomew
Brings the cold dew. Traditional English saying: chilly evenings start this time of year in the UK
All the tears that St Swithin can cry,
St Bartlemy's dusty mantle wipes them dry. English traditional proverb
As St Bartholomew's Day, so the whole Autumn. English traditional proverb
If St Barthlemy's day be fair and clear,
Hope for a prosperous autumn that year. English traditional proverb
(Alternatively) If the twenty-fourth of August be fair and clear,
Then hope for a prosperous Autumn that year. English traditional proverb
Bathe your eyes on Bartimy Day,
You may throw your spectacles away. English traditional proverb
If the winde change on St Bartholomew's day at night,
The following year will not be good. English traditional proverb
All thunderstorms after St Bartholomew's Day are more or less
violent. English traditional proverb
At St Bartholomew
There comes cold dew. English traditional proverb
Bartholomew Fair,
by Ackerman, 1808
Here's that will challenge all the fairs,
Come buy my nuts and damsons and Burgamy pears!
Here's the Woman of Babylon, the Devil and the Pope.
And here's the little girl just going on the rope!
Here's Dives and Lazarus, and the World's Creation;
Here's the Tall Dutchwoman, the like's not in the nation.
Here is the booths where the high Dutch maid is,
Here are the bears that dance like any ladies;
Tat, tat, tat, tat, says little penny trumpet;
Here's Jacob Hall, that does so jump it, jump it;
Sound trumpet, sound, for silver spoon and fork.
Come, here's your dainty pig and pork! John
Phillips, on Bartholomew Fair; Wit and Drollery, 1682, in
William Hone,
The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year,
William Tegg and Co., London, 1878;
1825-26 edition online
We are all guilty – we all ought to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others. William
Wilberforce (1759 -
1833), English abolisher
of the British slave trade (among other great injustices), born on August 24, 1759; on Britain's slave trade
God Almighty has set before me two great objects:
the suppression of the slave trade, and reformation of manners. William
Wilberforce; from his diary, October 28, 1787. (By "manners," Wilberforce
meant what we might call "morals" today.)
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep. William
Blake, English visionary poet and artist; from 'The Chimney Sweeper'.
William Wilberforce campaigned against child labour in the chimneysweeping
industry.
We can no longer plead ignorance. We cannot evade it. We may spurn it. We may kick it out of the way. But we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it. Let us make reparation to Africa, as far as we can … William Wilberforce
… Let the policy be what it might, let the consequences be what they would, I am from this time determined that I would never rest until I have effected its
[the slave trade's] abolition. William Wilberforce
God Almighty has set before me two great objects,
the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners.
William Wilberforce
To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period would need a far less brilliant pen than
mine. Sir Max Beerbohm, British writer and caricaturist, born on August 24, 1872;
1880
You will think me lamentably crude: my experience of life has been drawn from life
itself. Sir Max Beerbohm; Zuleiha Dobson, Ch. 7
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth
nothing. Jorge Luis Borges, Argentinian author, born on August 24, 1899; 'Dead Men's Dialogue',
Dreamtigers (tr. Mildred Boyer)
Why should we accept that the "talent"
of someone who writes jingles for an advertising agency advertising dog
food and gets $100,000 a year is superior to the talent of an auto
mechanic who makes $40,000 a year? Who is to say that Bill Gates works
harder than the dishwasher in the restaurant he frequents, or that the CEO
of a hospital who makes $400,000 a year works harder than the nurse or the
orderly in that hospital who makes $30,000 a year? The president of Boston
University makes $300,000 a year. Does he work harder than the man who
cleans the offices of the university? Talent and hard work are qualitative
factors which cannot be measured quantitatively. Howard Zinn, American historian born on August 24, 1922; Source: ZNet
commentary, November
25, 1999
There is the past and its continuing horrors: violence, war, prejudices against those who are different, outrageous monopolization of the good earth's wealth by a few, political power in the hands of liars and murderers, the building of prisons instead of schools, the poisoning of the press and the entire culture by money. It is easy to become discouraged observing this, especially since this is what the press and television insist that we look at, and nothing more.
But there is also the bubbling of change under the surface of obedience: the growing revulsion against endless wars, the insistence of women all over the world that they will no longer tolerate abuse and subordination ... There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of
color. Howard Zinn; A People's History of the United States, 1999 edition,
p 661
I am totally confident not that the world will get
better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been
played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to
foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a
possibility of changing the world.
Howard Zinn, 'We
Should Not Give Up the Game Before All the Cards Have Been Played'
I have tried hard to match my friends in their
pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering
people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening
everywhere, give me hope. Wherever I go, I find such people, especially young
people, in whom the future rests. And beyond the handful of activists there seem
to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend
not to know of one another's existence, and so, while they persist, they do so
with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing the boulder up the
mountain. I try to tell each group that they are not alone, and that the very
people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves
proof of the potential for such a movement. Howard Zinn, ibid
More important, I think, than who sits in the White
House is who sits outside it. Whenever social injustices have had to be
rectified, they were rectified not at the initiative of the president or
Congress or the Supreme Court but because of social movements.
Howard Zinn; interview, The Boston Globe,
November 14, 2004
Source
The most beautiful people
we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known
struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These
persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life
that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.
Beautiful people do not just happen. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist and author who died on August 24,
2004
For years, I have been
stalked by a bad reputation. Actually, I have been pursued by people who
have regarded me as the Death and Dying Lady. They believe that having
spent more than three decades in research into death and life after death
qualifies me as an expert on the subject. I think they miss the point. The
only incontrovertible fact of my work is the importance of life. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; The
Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying(her autobiography),
1997
I
always say that death can be one of the greatest experiences ever. If you
live each day of your life right, then you have nothing to fear. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross; ibid
(Sunflower,
Helianthus annuus, is
today's plant. It is dedicated to Saint Bartholomew
[Nathanael bar Tolomai], Apostle, whose feast day this is.)
The feast day of St Bartholomew
was so called in old England. This saint was one of the apostles of Jesus.
Not much is known about him, but he might be the same as Nathaniel:
45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets,
wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46 And Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!" 48 Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?"
Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." 49 Nathanael answered and said to Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" 50 Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these. 51 And He said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." John 1:45-51
(New King James Version)
His
symbol is a sickle,
or a
butcher's knife, in allusion to the knife with which he was
flayed alive for his faith.
The Irish celebrated today by sharpening tools for threshing the harvest. A high wind that destroyed the harvest was called
Beartlina Gaoithe, or 'Bartholomew of the Wind'.
At England's Croyland Abbey, until the time of King
Edward IV, the custom was to give knives to all visitors on this day.
The holiday has a relatively bloody history, being the date of the
impalement of 30,000 Transylvanians by Vlad
the Impaler (Dracula) as well as that of the St Bartholomew's Day
massacre (see This day in history, below, 1572). Bartholomew, along
with Saint Jude
Thaddeus is reputed to have brought the new religion of Christianity
to Armenia
in the 1st
Century.
"The Roman Martyrology says
that Bartholomew preached in India and Greater Armenia, where he was
flayed alive and beheaded by King Astyages at Derbend on the Caspian
Sea. Tradition has the place as Abanopolis on the west coast of the
Caspian Sea and that he also preached in Mesopotamia, Persia, and Egypt.
Pantenus of Alexandria (2nd century) is said by Eusebius to have found
in 'India' a Gospel of Saint Matthew attributed to
Bartholomew and written in Hebrew. The Gospel of Bartholomew is
apocryphal and was condemned in the decree of Pseudo-Gelasius."Source
Bartholomew Fair began with a vision. Rahere, the jester
of King Henry I, said he had seen the apostle Bartholomew in a vision and
he had directed him to found a church and hospital in his honour. After
the work was done, Rahere established a fair which was to begin on his
patron's day, and go for three days. It lasted from 1133 to
1855.
Sideshows displayed such wonders as The Wild Indian Woman and Child and The Giant Emew, from Brazil. Many locals opposed the noisy,
debauched fair, for many years.
St Bartholomew was skinned alive for his faith, so his
symbol in art is a knife. An old English custom has it that when a knife
or a pair of scissors is given as a present, the receiver must give a coin
in return. The gift, having been 'bought', makes the user responsible for
any ensuing injury.
Bartholomew doll
This old English term refers to a tawdry, overdressed
woman. It comes from the cheap toys sold at the old Bartholomew Fair.
Blessing the Mead
In medieval times, St Bartholomew was the patron of the
honey crop. At Gulval, Cornwall,
UK, the Blessing of the Mead ceremony
still takes place on St Bartholomew's Day. Mead is an ancient fermented
drink made from herb-infused honey. In ancient Rome this sweet drink was
offered to the gods of love and fertility.
Bartholomew's pig
It was the custom to
eat roast pig at the famous St Bartholomew's Fair so the term Bartholomew pig denoted a fat
person. (Thou whoreson little tidy
Bartholomew boar-pig-Shakespeare, Henry IV, Pt II, II, iv.)
Chimney sweeps' feast
In the early 19th Century a man named Jem White held
on this day each year a feast for London's chimneysweeps, in Smithfield.
Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps, inviting only the
younger urchins. James (Jem) White himself was head waiter.
Printers' feast day, old England
On this day, master printers used to put on a feast, which
was known as a way-goose, for all journeymen. The bosses gave money to the workmen
to spend in the taverns. The windows of every chapel, as a print shop was formerly called, were paned with paper,
and were replaced annually on this day.
The
Shepherds' Race, Markgröningen, Germany
In a delightful old (at least back to 1443) tradition from
Markgröningen, today shepherds from the lowlands gather on a field for
footraces. First the males, then the females race. The winners are crowned
and lead their prize, a garlanded sheep, in procession. The day is filled
with sack races, egg races, dancing and traditional games. One involves
tipping a beaker of water with the head, without getting wet, in order to
win a cockerel.
St Bart's Bun Race
This tradition takes place at St Bartholomew's Hospital,
near Sandwich, on England's
Kentish coast. On St Bartholomew's Day in 1217, the British ships of the Cinque Ports beat off a French invasion led
by a sorcerer and pirate named
Eustace the Monk. The importance of the
battle led to the naming of the hospital, and in modern times the
tradition has emerged of children winning currant buns after running
around the chapel once.
St Bart's dole
Long
ago at St Bartholomew's Hospital
in
Smithfield in the
City of London,
England, it was on the practice on this day for
the almshouse to make an offering called Saint Bartholomew's dole-
bread, cheese and ale -
to all who asked for it. It could have been enjoyed by pilgrims on their
way to Canterbury.
Fatten up
the fish
On St Bartholomew's Day in Germany, people with
carp-ponds start fattening up the fish for the traditional carp meal on
Christmas Day.
Today, or a near day at the end of August, begins
the Umhlanga week at the royal city of Lobamba, Swaziland. There
young girls gather reeds for several days and on the sixth bring
them to the queen or queen mother of this landlocked African
monarchy. Before the queen they dance the umhlanga, a slow processional
dance in which the girls, as a coming of age rite, throw reeds in
the air. On day seven the girls rebuild the screens around the royal
kraal with reeds.
The Nordic and Germanic
god Odin was the
chief of the Aesir sky
gods. He was worshipped as God of the Dead through the
Viking period
and is symbolised in art by a raven and a particular knot (valknut), Odin was patron of
the fanatical warrior cult, the Berserks. He was hung from an
ash tree, Yggdrasil(the world tree, or tree
of life), whence he gained the knowledge he sought. Today (and August 25) was
the commemoration of the day he discovered the runes.
Feast day of Mania, ancient Rome
Today was the first day of the Roman festival for
the Manes, deified
ancestral spirits. In fact, according to some, the European St
Bartholomew's Day festivities grew out of this ancient festival.
"The rites of Mania were held in honor of Ceres,
Mania, and the Manes. This was the first day for opening the
Mundus Cereris, 'ritual pit of Ceres.' This pit was vaulted
and divided into two parts. The lowest part was consecrated to the
Underworld deities and also to the Manes, and closed with a stone.
This cover, the lapis manalis or 'stone of the Manes',
was removed today, on October fifth, and the eighth of November so
that offerings could be dropped down. When this barrier was
removed, the Manes rose into our world for a time. Mania was
Christianized into St. Bartholomew's Day festivities, which
continued until 19th century in London."Source
Mundus Cereris was the womb or labyrinthine passage
to the underworld, the domain of Ceres, the great Mother of
vegetation. The structure was vaulted in the shape of an inverted sky, divided into two parts, and
had a cover. We do not know for certain where the Mundus Cereris
was, or is, but in 1914 Giacomo Boni discovered on the Palatine Hill
in Rome a subterranean structure which he identified with the Mundus.
The cover was removed on August 24 (it is
believed by some, the European St Bartholomew's Day festivities grew out of this ancient festival), October 5 and
November 8,
and these days were religiosi, when the way was supposed to
be open to the lower world. First-fruits of the season would be
offered to the Manes
(ancestral spirits) and placed in the pit.
Because the cover to the Mundus, the Lapis Manalis (Stone of the Manes), is considered an
Ostium Orci (Gate of Hades), the Manes are freed to roam
for the day, so marriage was not permitted today, and nor were
battles nor business considered advisable.
One of the numerous spheres over which the
goddess Ceres
had influence was liminality, that is, boundaries and transitions
between different stages of social life, a function that she shared
with Janus. We note that this commemoration in its November
occurrence almost precisely coincides with the Celtic Samhain (October 31),
at which time the veil between the living world and that of the dead
is said to be its thinnest, and its Christian corollaries, All
Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, November 1
and 2
respectively.
Vulcanalia
fires extinguished, ancient Rome
The fires of the previous night were allowed to burn out, or put out if they had been
indoors.
Feast
day of Agios Dionysios, Patron Saint of Ionian Island of Zante The processions for Agios (Saint) Dionysios, patron
saint of the Ionian island of Zante, are marvellously colourful,
with the whole town strewing the roads with myrtle branches for the
saint to pass over.
Feast day of
St Audoenus (also called Audoen, Dado or Ouen),
Bishop of Rouen Today is the
feast day of a saint who died in 683 and was buried at Rouen,
France. In medieval times it was the practice for the legal
authorities of that town to select one prisoner from death row and
allow him to touch the shrine of St Ouen (or Audoen) and be
pardoned.
The day of Eshu,
Candomblé In the tradition of Candomblé (an African
religion practised chiefly in Brazil
but also in adjacent countries) and Yoruba
mythology, Eshu is one of the most malevolent deities. Eshu
(other names include Elegua, Eleda and Elegba)
is an Orisha,
and one of the most respected deities of the tradition. He has a
wide range of responsibilities: the protector of travelers, god of
roads, particularly crossroads, the deity with the power over
fortune and misfortune, and the personification of death, a
psychopomp.
In New
Ireland, and on near dates throughout much of Papua-New Guinea,
August 24 is Waratambar, the day of thanksgiving to God and Nature.
In New Ireland villages, people leave off work in fields,
plantations and fishing grounds to celebrate with song and dance,
often in costumes representing comic characters. It is a big day for
socialising with family and friends and to remember the goodness of
the harvest.
Source: MacDonald,
Margaret Read, The
Folklore of World Holidays, Gale Research Inc, Detroit and
London, 1992, page 424 (citing Sawyer, Gene, Celebrations: Asia
and the Pacific, Friends of the East-West Center, 1978, p. 63)
Flag Day, Liberia Liberia is an African nation that has known
little peace or social justice, but it still celebrates the day on
which in 1847 the national flag was approved. The symbol bears
eleven stripes representing the men who signed the declaration of
independence.
Daimyo Matsuri, Japan This festival at Yuzawa, Japan, involves a parade of
floats and procession of people dressed as feudal lords and their
servants.
Kumogahata Agematsu Gyoji, Japan Today's ceremony at Kita-ku, Mount Atago, Japan,
involves a ten-metres column on which there are Chinese characters
spelt out in fire.
Awa Odori Dance Festival, Tokushima, Japan (Aug 22 - 25)
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
One of
Britain's, and the world's, great progressive activists of all
time, William Wilberforce had such a beautiful speaking and singing voice he was
known as 'the Nightingale of the House of Commons'.
A turning
point in his religious life was a tour of Europe. In the luggage of
a travelling companion he saw a copy of William Law's
book, A Serious Call To a Devout and Holy Life. He asked his
friend what the book was, and received the answer, "One of the
best books ever written." They agreed to read it together on
the journey, and from that journey on, Wilberforce embarked on a
lifelong commitment to practical spirituality.
He was elected
to parliament at 21 and remained there for 45 years, lobbying,
usually successfully, for Catholic emancipation, parliamentary
reform and the abolition of slavery. This last he tenaciously
pursued for 18 years.
William Wilberforce died on July 29, 1833. One
month later, Parliament passed the
Slavery
Abolition Act that gave all slaves in the British Empire their
freedom. The great reformer had lost a fortune on election campaigns
and died in poverty. In 1840, an act was passed forbidding anyone
under 21 from climbing chimneys, partly as a result of Wilberforce's
relentless campaigning against the exploitation of child
chimneysweeps.
"He introduced his first anti-slavery motion in
the House of Commons in 1788, in a three-and-a-half hour oration
that concluded: 'Sir, when we think of eternity and the future
consequence of all human conduct, what is there in this life that
shall make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the
principles of justice and the law of God!' The motion was
defeated. Wilberforce brought it up again every year for
eighteen years, until the slave trade was finally abolished on
25 March 1806. He continued the campaign against slavery itself,
and the bill for the abolition of all slavery in British
territories passed its crucial vote just four days before his
death on 29 July 1833. A year later, on 31 July 1834, 800,000
slaves, chiefly in the British West Indies, were set free."Source
Trailer from
Amazing Grace (biopic of
Wilberforce) from YouTube
1903 Graham
(Vivian) Sutherland, British artist whose controversial portrait of
Winston Churchill was destroyed by the statesman's widow, Lady
Spencer Churchill
1908Milton Wexler (d.
March 16, 2007),
American psychiatrist and campaigner for a cure for
Huntington's disease, a genetic disorder that his wife, Lenore,
suffered from. Wexler's insistence that it could be done "proved it
could be done," said Dr Francis Collins, a researcher of the
disease. "The search for the Huntington's gene became the paradigm
for all such gene hunts." Wexler was also a screenwriter: he
co-wrote The Man
Who Loved Women and That's Life!
with Blake
Edwards.
1912 Durwood
Kirby, co-host of 1960s American TV show Candid Camera
Author of more than fifteen books, Zinn
offers a radical re-telling of United
States history in his most popular work, A
People's History of the United States, first published in 1980
and often updated (it has sold over a million copies). Zinn is also
a vocal critic of US
foreign policy, arguing that the US
military often commits acts of terrorism,
and that since World
War II "there has not been a more warlike nation in the
world than the United States".
Arafat claimed to have been born in Jerusalem
on August
4, 1929; some of his legal personal documentation states the
same. A birth certificate registered in Cairo,
Egypt
shows August
24, 1929
as his date of birth and Cairo as the place (Wikipedia);
he appears at both dates in the Book of Days.
Matlin was discovered in a stage production of the
Tony award winning
play 'Children of a Lesser God' and was cast for the movie
version Children of a
Lesser God (1986). This was the film debut of the young
actress, and she won the Academy Award for Best
Actress.
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
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application. Further details
The eruption caused the death of thousands, including the polymathic author and scientist,Pliny
the Elder*, who that day was in command of the Roman fleet at Misenum, which
was not far off. Pliny
launched his galleys and crossed the bay to
Stabiae
to observe the phenomenon directly, and also to rescue some of his friends from
their perilous position on the shore of the
Bay of Naples. His family were with him,
including his nephew, Pliny
the Younger, who has left an interesting account of what happened on the
occasion. He observed an extraordinary dense cloud ascending in the direction of
Vesuvius, of which he writes:
I cannot give you a more
exact description of its figure, than by resembling it to that of a pine tree;
for it shot up to a great height in the form of a tall trunk, which spread out
at the top into a sort of branches. It appeared sometimes bright, and sometimes
dark and spotted, as it was either more or less impregnated with earth and
cinders.
The volcano is currently
active, even if no eruption is expected for the near future.
"According to Pliny the Younger, a 12-mile high
cloud of ash and rock was thrown into the air, blocking out the sun. By
chance, the wind was blowing from the northwest, so when the volcanic matter
began to fall, it was blown in the direction of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae,
and other sites to the southeast. The eruption produced total darkness, as
well as electrical discharges from atmospheric disturbances. Ash, pumice, and
rock fell, initially with a low density. This piled up in streets, on
rooftops, and fell in through every open space such as windows. Some roofs
collapsed under its weight and falling debris may also have caused injury.
"This phase of the eruption continued for the rest of the
day. People wandered around in darkness, pushing their way through pumice and
debris, which was piling up. Some may have tried to escape, while others
decided to wait it out. Surely no one had experienced such a catastrophe
before so they did not know what to expect from it.
"Shortly after midnight, ground surges of magma and volcanic
mud began as well as pyroclastic surges, avalanches of noxious gases and ash
rushing from the cone of Vesuvius with terrific force at over 100 kilometers
an hour. Herculaneum, which was situated at the base of Vesuvius, was hit with
a surge and entombed in volcanic mud. Several pyroclastic surges roared toward
Pompeii but were stopped from doing too much damage by the northern city wall
right behind our city block. At about 7:30 am, enough pumice stones and debris
had piled up that a pyroclastic surge finally rolled up over the top of the
city wall, shearing off any buildings that were not already buried by volcanic
matter. All people still present in the city died instantly, literally baked
alive by the hot air of the surge. This is why on many of the plaster casts
the limbs are pulled in toward the body, in what is described as the
"pugilistic attitude," as the heat contracted all their flexor
muscles.
"Thousands of people died within the city during the
eruption. Many more were probably killed in the surrounding landscape as they
tried to flee, but little archaeological work has been done on Pompeii's
hinterland."Source
On August 24, 79
CE, he was stationed at Misenum, at the time of the great eruption
of Mount
Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii
and Herculaneum.
A desire to observe the phenomenon directly, and also to rescue some of his
friends from their perilous position on the shore of the Bay
of Naples, led to his launching his galleys and crossing the bay to Stabiae
(near the modern town of Castellammare
di Stabia). His nephew, Pliny the Younger, provided an account of his
death, and suggested that he collapsed and died through inhaling poisonous
gases emitted from the volcano. However, Stabiae was 16 km from the vent, and
his companions were unaffected, so it is more likely that he died through a
different cause, such as a stroke
or heart
attack.
He is still remembered in vulcanology
where the term plinian (or plinean) refers to a very
violent eruption of a volcano after a long period of being dormant. The
term ultra-plinian is reserved for the most violent type of plinian
eruption such as the 1883
destruction of Krakatoa.
The story of his last hours is told in an interesting
letter addressed twenty-seven years afterwards to Tacitus by the Elder
Pliny's nephew and heir, Pliny
the Younger (Epp. vi.16), who also sends to another correspondent an
account of his uncle's writings and his manner of life (iii.5):
"He began to work long before daybreak.…He
read nothing without making extracts; he used even to say that there was no
book so bad as not to contain something of value. In the country it was only
the time when he was actually in his bath that was exempted from study. When
travelling, as though freed from every other care, he devoted himself to
study alone. In short, he deemed all time wasted that was not employed in
study."
1542 Spanish explorer
Francisco de Orellana reported the discovery of new lands in South America, east
of Quito. He also reports having encountered women warriors there, so the river
was named the Amazon.
When news of the massacre reached the Vatican there was
jubilation. Cannons roared and bells were rung. A special commemorative medal
was even struck by the Catholic Church to commemorate
the slaughter of scores of thousands of French Christians. Pope Gregory XIII (he
of the Gregorian Calendar) commissioned Italian artist
Giorgio Vasari to immortalise the massacre in a mural, which
is said to still hang in the Vatican.
The Pope sent Cardinal Orsini to convey, in person, his
happy blessings and goodwill to the Queen Mother for her butchery.
"Suddenly – and without warning – the devilish work
commenced. Beginning at Paris, the French soldiers and the Roman Catholic
clergy fell upon the unarmed people, and blood flowed like a river
throughout the entire country. Men, women, and children fell in heaps before
the mobs and the bloodthirsty troops. In one week, almost 100,100
Protestants perished. The rivers of France were so filled with corpses that
for many months no fish were eaten. In the valley of the Loire, wolves came
down from the hills to feel upon the decaying bodies of Frenchmen. The list
of massacres was as endless as the list of the dead!"Source
Following the restoration of the
monarchy in England and the fall of the Puritans, Parliament passed what is also
known as The Bartholomew Act, requiring all clergymen to follow the BCP. Two
thousand clergymen left the church in the face of repression and were denied the
right to trial by jury. Now, if they could only find another country in which to
settle …
1690Job Charnock established a
trading post for the East India Company in Kalikata, West Bengal (Calcutta, India).
1736 A remarkably corpulent
boar was found by the Thames River in London. It was found to have escaped from
a butcher some five months before, and lived in the sewers, where it increased
its value from ten shillings to two guineas (42 shillings).
1770 English poet Thomas Chatterton
(b. 1752) committed suicide in
London at the age of only 17, defeated, poor and hungry. The former child
prodigy produced some of the most remarkable works in English literature that,
even as forgeries, were brilliant in and of themselves. However, his publishers
took advantage of him and paid him only pennies for his work, and often he would
have no food for days.
1814General Ross, commander of
British forces, ordered the burning of Washington,
DC. The White House and Capitol were burned.
When the British Expeditionary Force entered the barely-defended
city, President and Mrs Madison escaped in the nick of time. The British found
the table set for a banquet for forty, which they sat down and ate before
torching the building. When the president's residence was later painted white
during its restoration, it received its common name.
1853 The first potato chips were prepared by Chef George Crum, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA.
1857Beginning of the Panic of 1857, one of the most severe economic crises
in US history.
1869 The waffle iron was
patented by Cornelius Swartout.
1872 Queensland, Australia,
extended its borders to 60 miles from the shoreline. This brought Thursday
Island and the Torres Strait Islands within its boundaries.
1875 Captain Matthew Webb
became the first person to swim the English Channel, taking 21 hours and 45
minutes.
1940 An
article in The Lancet revealed the
first clarification of penicillin by Australian scientist Howard Florey and
Ernst Chain. Together with Alexander Fleming, they received the Nobel Prize.
1942 The Duke of Kent (the
youngest brother of King George VI of England) died in an air crash while serving Britain
in World War II.
1943 Death
of Simone
Weil (b. 1909),
French author,
Christian
mystic and
anarcho-syndicalist warrior. She died of
cardiac
failure at the age of 34. The coroner's report said that "the
deceased did kill and slay herself by refusing to eat whilst the
balance of her mind was disturbed".
1944World War II: French and Allied troops started the attack on Paris.
1944 The Romanian government
surrendered as Soviet troops captured Jassy and Kishinev.
1958 The
submarine USS Nautilus completed a
record underwater trans-Atlantic crossing of six and a half days.
1960A temperature of -88°C (-127°F) was measured in Vostok, Antarctica
– a world-record low.
1960 The US Surgeon General
approved the live-virus oral polio vaccine developed by Dr Albert Sabin.
1966China's Cultural
Revolution: "The Red Guards
of the Middle School attached to Qinghua University transported truck loads of
Red Guards from twelve middle schools to Qinghua University campus, where they
beat the administrators and professors. After several persons at the Department
of Electronic Engineering were beaten, their blood stained the ground. Someone
marked a circle around the blood and wrote 'dog blood.' That day Red Guards
ordered those in the 'ox-ghost and snake-demon team' to pull down a white marble
monument which was built in 1905 to commemorate the founding of the school.
Those heavy stones were moved under the lashes of whip, kicks and punches. That
night, all school-level cadres at both the University and the attached middle
school were detained in the Science Building, and there in a small room, a
beating was inflicted upon each of them. No one escaped without serious injury.
"In elementary schools, the oldest students were
thirteen years. At Beijing Lishihutong Elementary School, a teacher surnamed Ye
was forced to swallow nails and balls of excrement . The students of Beijing
Yuquan Elementary School shaved half of the heads of four female teachers. At
Beijing Sanlihe Third Elementary School, after students shaved half of her head,
the music teacher, Ms. Zhang, and her husband, the painting teacher, were forced
to slap each other's face in front of many of their students. Zhao Guangqian,
the dean of Beijing Zhongguyouyi Elementary School, committed suicide by jumping
from a chimney after being insulted and beaten. Zhao Xiangheng, the principal of
Beijing Shijiahutong Elementary School, committed suicide by jumping from a high
building."
Epstein died of a drug
overdose, likely from some sort of sleeping pills, on August 27, 1967. The death was
officially ruled accidental, although it has often been speculated that it was a
suicide.
1967Abbie Hoffman and a group
of Yippies entered the New York
Stock Exchange and threw dollar notes from the gallery. Traders on the floor
scrambled to pick them up.
1968Francedetonated its first hydrogen bombin the South Pacific,
becoming the world's fifth nuclear power.
1968 Chicago, USA, Democratic
Party National Convention demo: "MOBE's (National Mobilization to End the War in
Vietnam) marshal
training sessions continue in Lincoln Park. Karate, snake dancing, and crowd
protection techniques are practiced. Women Strike for Peace holds a women-only
picket at the Hilton Hotel, where many delegates are staying. At the 11 PM
curfew, poet Allan Ginsberg, chanting, and musician Ed Sanders lead people out
of the park."Source
She developed what is now known as the Kübler-Ross model. Kübler-Ross completed her
degree in psychiatry at the University of Colorado in 1963 and also
received more than 20 honorary doctorates. The March 29, 1999 issue of
Time Magazine named her one of 'The Century's Greatest Minds' in a
summary of the 100 greatest scientists and thinkers of the century.
2004 Two
airliners in Russia,
carrying a total of 89 passengers, exploded within minutes of each other after
flying out of Domodedovo
International Airport, near Moscow,
leaving no survivors. The explosions were caused by suicide bombers (reportedly
female) from the Russian Republic
of Chechnya.
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