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We find some of these felons to be very civil men, and say, that if they could have had any reasonable subsistence by friends, or otherwise, they should never have taken such necessitous courses for support of their wives and families. they argue it with much confidence that property is the original cause of any sin between party and party after civil transactions. And that since the Tyrant is taken off, and their government altered in nomine, so it really to redound to the good of the people in specie.
The Leveller newspaper (England), The Moderate, on August 7, 1649, when some destitute men were executed for stealing cattle, asserting that such crimes originate in private property   Source

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, 'The Chimney Sweeper'; England outlawed child apprenticeships in this trade on August 7, 1840

I was not happy until, "I outgrew my early religious faith, and felt free to think and act from my own convictions".
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, American suffragist, born on August 7, 1813

16^th-Century woodcut of spheres seen over Basel, Switzerland, August 7, 1566

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The Spiral Dance
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20th Anniversary Edition

Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations

Life in a Medieval Village

Medieval Celebrations

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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

Feast of 'Aut-Yer, Egypt
Personification of female joy. Source of date unknown.

Adonia, ancient Greece
"… the mourning festival for the dying hero Adonis. Also, the seventh day of each month is sacred to the God Apollo."   Source

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

Harvest holiday, Slavic Pagan
A holiday of bread, of the harvest of grain, with peasants ending their reaping in honour of the beard of Volos, the god of animals and wealth, and to Mother Earth in gratitude for a bountiful harvest.

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Feast day of St Agapitus

Feast day of St Agathangelus Nourry

Feast day of St Albert of Sicily

Feast day of St Cajetan of Thienna
(Common amaranth, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
St Cajetan, born Gaetano dei Conti di Tiene, also Thiene ( October, 1480 - August 7, 1547) was a Catholic saint, the founder of the order of the Clerics Regular — better known as the Theatines. He is not to be confused with his contemporary, Cardinal Thomas Cajetan.

Feast day of St Carpophorus

Feast day of St Cassian Vaz Lopez-Neto

Feast day of St Claudia

Feast day of St Donat

Feast day of St Donatian

Feast day of St Donatus of Arezzo

Feast day of St Donatus of Besancon

Feast day of St Edmund Bojanowski

Feast day of St Edward Bamber

Feast day of St Faustus

Feast day of St Felicissimus

Feast day of St Hilarinus

Feast day of St Hyperechios

Feast day of St Januarius, martyr

Feast day of John Mason Neale, priest (Anglican)

Feast day of St Jordan Forzatei

Feast day of St Julian

Feast day of St Magnus

Feast day of St Peter

Feast day of St Sixtus II, Pope

Feast day of St Stephen

Feast day of St Thomas Whitaker

Feast day of St Victricius

Feast day of St Vincent

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Independence Days, Bolivia (Aug 5, 6 and 7)

Tanabata, Weaving Loom festival, celebrated in some parts of Japan (but mostly on July 7)   Source

Feast day of the Name of Jesus
"There is no satisfactory reason for the nomination of the present day in our almanacs."

William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online


Doyo, or Dog Days, Japan (Aug 7 - 8)
In Europe, too, 'Dog Days' is the name given to the hot summer period when, apparently, the heat can make people mad. The Romans began this practice and set the Dog Days from July 3 till August 11.

Zaziuki, Ukraine
"On or around Aug 7, might be the same holiday as Spas. Particular attention was paid to the first sheaf (zazhinochnyi or zazhinnyi) which was usually brought into the house and threshed separately. Sometimes it was blessed and then mixed back in with the seed. The end of the harvest celebration was called Dozinki. The last sheaf (the dozhinochnyi orotzhinnyi) was also brought in the house where it was either decorated with flowers and ribbons or dressed in woman's clothing. It was then placed in the entrance corner of the home or near any religious icons until Oct 1, when it was fed to the cattle. Sometimes the last sheaf ceremony was merged with the ritual surrounding a small patch of field that was left uncut. The spirit of the harvest was said to precede the reapers and hide in the uncut grain. This small patch was referred to as the "beard" of Volos, the God of animals and wealth. The uncut sheaves of wheat in "Volos' beard" were decorated with ribbons and the heads were bent toward the ground in a ritual called "The curling ofthe beard". This was believed to send the spirit of the harvest back to the Earth. Salt and bread, traditional symbols of hospitality were left as offerings to Volos' beard."   Source

Republic Day, Côte d'Ivoire (Independence in 1960 from France)

Labour Day, Western Samoa

Discovery Day, Trinidad & Tobago (1498)

Assyrian Martyrs' Day
"Assyrian history is noteworthy as much for the seemingly unending massacres and genocides against the Assyrian people as it is for the brilliant contributions to civilization. Assyrian Martyrs' Day (Shawwa b'Tabakh) is a special holiday that is commemorated on August 7th in remembrance of all Assyrians persecuted throughout history on account of their religion and heritage. Although August 7th, 1933 is the day when Assyrians were massacred in Simele, Iraq, Assyrians Martyrs Day remembers all massacres and genocides including that of 1915 when three-quarters of the Assyrian population was massacred by Ottoman Turks and Kurds along with 1.5 million Armenians."   Source

Assyria Online

First Sunday in August, Friendship Day, USA

Youth Day, Kiribati
The Republic of Kiribati is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The country's 33 atolls are scattered over 3,500,000 km² near the equator. Its name is pronounced 'kiribas' and is a Micronesian transliteration of 'Gilberts', the English name for the main group of islands: the former Gilbert Islands.

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

317 Constantius II, Roman emperor (d. November 3, 361, reigned 337 - 361)

1560 Elizabeth Bathory serial killer (d. 1614).

1598 Georg Stiernhielm, 'father of Swedish poetry'

1742 Nathanael Greene (d. 1786), American Revolutionary War general

1779 Carl Ritter (d. 1859), cofounder of the modern study of geography

1783 John Heathcoat (d. January 18, 1860), English inventor (lace-making machinery)

1813 Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis (d. August 28, 1876) American abolitionist, suffragist, and educator, friend of the poet Walt Whitman. She organised and led the first National Women's Rights Convention, in Worcester, Massachusetts, October 23 and 24, 1850. In 1853 she began editing the women's newspaper The Una, the first feminist periodical that was owned, written, and edited entirely by women, which she edited till 1855 (contributors included Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone).

"Davis planned to become a missionary, but was thwarted by the church's refusal to send single women to convert the heathen. An ardent suitor, Francis Wright, convinced her that there were abundant heathen in Utica, including himself, and after five months of courtship they were married in 1833 …

"Wright shared Davis's passion for causes. He was a wealthy merchant from a prosperous family in Utica, and he joined his resources and executive ability with Paulina's managerial skills and enthusiasm. They were active in the Bethel Church until they resigned in protest of its proslavery stance. In 1842, when the antislavery activist Abby Kelley was their guest, they organized meetings around Utica and served on the executive committee of the Central New York Anti-Slavery Society.

"In addition to abolitionism, the childless Wrights supported women's rights reforms. Although her husband prohibited her from public speaking, she joined forces with feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. She worked with Ernestine Rose on petitioning the New York state legislature in the late 1830s for married women's property rights and also studied women's health issues.

"Her husband's death in 1845 left Davis desolate but wealthy and free to embark on a career as a lecturer. She moved to New York City to study medicine, and in 1846 she gave her first lectures in anatomy and physiology, for women only. She toured the eastern United States with a mannequin imported from Paris, to demonstrate the female physiognomy and to urge women to become physicians. The mannequin's unveiling shocked some women, but others embraced the cause and became pioneering doctors."   Source

Early progressives in the Book of Days    More

1836 Evander Law, American Confederate general

1846 WG Spence (William Spence; d. December 13, 1926), the "mildest-mannered man that ever ran a strike", Scottish-born Australian trade union leader and politician who played a leading role in the formation of both Australia's largest and most powerful union, the Australian Workers Union (he was its first president, 1894), and the Australian Labor Party. In 1886 Spence also helped form the Amalgamated Shearers' Union. He was also a Primitive Methodist preacher, a member of the Creswick militia, prominent in the temperance movement, and leader of the Amalgamated Miners Association (AMA). He informed the 1891 NSW Strikes Commission: "I do not believe in strikes at all". He thought unionists "must demand the respect of capitalists to such an extent that the latter would ultimately come to the former and say, 'We will go mates on this or that concern'". By August 8, 1891, when the Amalgamated Shearers' Union and Pastoralists' Union drew up an agreement. Spence branded strikes as "barbarous". In 1901 he was elected to the first Australian House of Representatives as MP for Darling. Spence was associated with the more conservative wing of the Australian Labor Party, led by Billy Hughes. In the 1916 conscription debate, Spence sided with Hughes. As a result he was expelled from the party along with Hughes and the other conscriptionist MPs. He was also deposed as president of the AWU and shortly after was expelled from the union. At the 1917 federal election, although Hughes was easily returned to power, Spence lost his seat, mainly because the AWU organised the rural workers to oppose him. Shortly after he was returned to Parliament at a by-election for the Tasmanian seat of Darwin, but he retired in 1919. In 1972 the Canberra suburb of Spence was named after William Guthrie Spence. In October 2003 the Australian Workers' Union named its Melbourne headquarters in Spence's honour.

Wikipedia says: The AWU grew from a number of earlier unions, notably the Australasian Shearers Union, founded by William Spence and David Temple in Creswick, Victoria in 1886. This union joined with shearers' unions in Bourke and Wagga in New South Wales to form the Amalgamated Shearers Union of Australia in 1887. In 1894 this union amalgamated with the General Labourers Union, which had formed in 1891, to form the Australian Workers' Union. The Queensland Shearers Union, formed in 1887, and the Queensland Workers Union merged in 1891 to form the Amalgamated Workers Union of Queensland. In 1904 the AWUQ amalgamated with the AWU, to form a union with a combined membership of 34,000.

Parliamentary Service

Qualifications, occupations and interests

"Union official. Arrived in Geelong, Victoria, with family in 1852. Family moved to Spring Hill near Creswick in 1853. Had no formal education. At 13 was a shepherd on a station in Wimmera; at 14 had a miners right; butcher boy in 1861; became a gold miner, rising to shift boss and manager. Involved in the flurry of union organisation which preceded formation of Amalgamated Miners Association of Victoria (AMA) in 1874; blackballed by mine owners; in 1882 until 1891 was the general secretary which from 1884 embraced other unions. Prominent in Maritime Strike of 1890 and in Queensland shearers strike in 1891. Helped to found the Australian Workers' Union in 1894. Contributed to and helped edit Australian Worker. In Creswick was a member of militia and of debating society. Secretary and Sunday school superintendent at Creswick Presbyterian Church; In 1880s often preached with Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians. Teetotaller and temperance advocate. Supported formation of progressive Political League in Victoria from 1891 until 1892, breaking with Amalgamated Miners Association on the issue. Supported federation. Author."   Source

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry & Louisa Lawson    Former members of NSW Parl't

Maritime Strike, 1890    Shearers' Strike, 1891    More    More

1867 Emil Nolde (d. 1956), painter

1869 Edwin Brady (d. August 22, 1952), writer (The Ways of Many Waters; Australia Unlimited; River Rovers), journalist and editor (Australian Workman – succeeded by George Black in 1892; The Dead Bird, later called Bird-o'-Freedom and then renamed The Arrow; The Grip; Worker; The Native Companion et al), friend of Henry Lawson. Brady was one of the founders of the Australian Labor Party.

He is not so well known these days, but a century ago EJ Brady was one of Australia's best-known poets and authors. What's more, he had an important role in one of the most seminal moments in the life of Australia's most famous writer, Henry Lawson.

EJ Brady, was part of the circle of writers now known as 'The Bulletin School', a remarkable stable of writers who dominated the Australian literary scene for several decades from the 1880s. He was a great mate of Lawson's, but also a friend or acquaintance of many of Australia's greats: Roderic Quinn, Christopher Brennan, AB 'Banjo' Paterson, Victor Daley, Mary Gilmore, Ethel Turner, John Le Gay Brereton, Brunton Stephens – he even 'discovered' the writers Katherine Mansfield and Katharine Susannah Prichard.

Brady was born at Carcoar, New South Wales on August 7, 1869. He was proud of a long family tradition in Northern Ireland and the United States, and once remarked that "my pedigree has always been longer than my purse". 

His father, Edward Brady, fought in the American Civil War and Indian Wars before coming to this country where he worked as a trooper in the Mounted Police Force, on the trail of bushrangers in central and western NSW. In 1880 Edward and Hannah Brady took the family to Washington for two years, and Edwin, who had been schooled at Oberon, had to adjust to American ways. Perhaps it was here that he discovered the republicanism that informed his views for most of his life ...

Read on at the Edwin Brady page in the Scriptorium

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson    Was Brady a bomber?

1876 Mata Hari (Margaretha Geertruida Zelle; d. 1917) Dutch-born exotic dancer who, by sleeping with top military and governmental personnel, spied for both sides in World War I.

Mata Hari was variously described as a spy, an actress, a prostitute or an exotic dancer. She was executed on October 15, 1917 at the Château Vincennes near Paris after admitting to having given information to a German officer.

She told her judge that she had received money for sex, not for secrets. "Harlot, yes, but traitress, never!" she said. Rumour has it that during the execution, the squad members had to be blindfolded so as not to succumb to her charms. Another rumour claims she blew a kiss to her killers before the firing began. She told the firing squad to aim for her face, not her heart.

Pictures

1883 Joachim Ringelnatz (d. 1934), writer

1885 Billie Burke (d. 1970, American actress best known as Glinda the Good Fairy in The Wizard of Oz

1886 Louis Alan Hazeltine, inventor (neutrodyne circuit, making radio possible)

1890 Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (d. September 5, 1964), American activist, originally an effective 'Wobblies' (IWW, which was heavily influenced by anti-authoritarian anarcho-syndicalism) labor organizer (see Bread and Roses strike in the Book of Days). She was 'the rebel girl' of the Joe Hill song of that name, and author of Sabotage: the Conscious Withdrawal of Workers' Efficiency. 

Gurley Flynn abandoned her youthful anti-authoritarianism and went over to the extreme authoritarian side, becoming an active Communist, a position she maintained to her death, years after she and everyone else knew of Marxism-Leninism's horrors. She became Chairman of the national committee of the Communist Party of the United States. Flynn was honoured with an elaborate state funeral in Red Square, Moscow.

She had been a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), but was expelled because of her Communist activities. 

"Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was born in Concord, New Hampshire, on August 7, 1890, to Thomas and Annie Gurley Flynn. From her parents she absorbed principles of socialism and feminism that would inform the rest of her life. After several moves, in 1900 the family settled in the Bronx in New York City, where Flynn attended public schools. At the age of 16 she gave her first public address to the Harlem Socialist Club, where she spoke on 'What Socialism Will Do for Women.' Her striking appearance and dynamic oratory made her an enormously popular speaker. Upon her arrest for blocking traffic during one of her soapbox speeches she was expelled from high school, and in 1907 she began full-time organizing for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)."   Source

Her remains are in Chicago's Waldheim Cemetery, near the grave of Eugene Dennis, friend and fellow Communist Big Bill Haywood and the Haymarket martyrs, these latter, ironically, being anarchists such as those repressed for decades by the totalitarian state in which Gurley Flynn had made her home.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: Statement at the Smith Act Trial    Some of her writings    More    More

1903 Louis Leakey (d. October 1, 1972), Kenyan archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa; husband of