This page is big! If it fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar at the foot of the page.

reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

First time here?  See the Index for How it works

Celebrate each and every day with a free subscription to the daily ezine. You can apply by form or send a blank email. Read what the 'Almaniacs' (members) say about Wilson's Almanac.

I request your support if this website pleases and informs you, as this is my livelihood. Thank you, from the bottom of my fridge. 

Inquiries from publishers are welcome, but, dear reader, please don't use my work without my written permission. If I've inadvertently used something of yours that you consider not to fall under the fair use doctrine, please tell me and I'll remove it.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

Our news on your homepage (that is, if you use My Yahoo, which we recommend for your start-up page)

Carpe diem! 17 Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Open links in a New Window

Today is

In the feast of Christmas, there was in the king's house, wheresoever he lodged, a Lord of Misrule, or Master of Merry Disports, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. The Mayor of London, and either of the Sheriffs, had their several Lords of Misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastime to delight the beholders. These lords beginning their rule at Allhallond Eve, continued the same till the morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas Day, in which space there were fine and subtle disguising, masks and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters, nayles and points, in every house, more for pastimes than for game.
John Stow (c. 1525 - April 6, 1605), English historian and antiquarian; Stow's Chronicle (Stow's Annales, or a General Chronicle of England from Brute unto this present year of Christ, 1580, published in 1580, with other editions in 1592, 1601 and 1605)

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. The way of our prophets is the way of Truth. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (September 30, 1207 - December 17, 1273), Afghan Sufi poet and mystic

I silently moaned so that for a hundred centuries to come,
The world will echo in the sound of my hayhâ
It will turn on the axis of my hayhât.
Rumi; Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i, 562:7 (hayhâ and hayhât are corruptions of the same Persian word, meaning 'alas!', or 'woe is me')

From the moment you entered this world of existence,
A ladder was put in front of you so you could escape.
Rumi

The time for staying at home is over, It is time to enter the garden. The dawn of happiness has risen, the moment of union and vision is now.
Rumi; Diwan-e Shams-e Tabriz-i, 473

So delicate yesterday, the night-singing birds by the creek. Their words were:
You may make a jewellery flower out of gold and rubies and emeralds, but it will have not fragrance.
Rumi

What matter, I or they?
Mine or another's day,
So the right word be said
And life the sweeter made?
John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet, born on December 17, 1807; 'My Triumph'

The blue sky is the temple's arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.

So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.
John Greenleaf Whittier; 'The Worship of Nature'

The birds against the April wind
Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, "The land we leave behind
Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew."
John Greenleaf Whittier; 'What the Birds Said'

The airplane stays up because it doesn't have the time to fall.
Orville Wright, after making arguably the world's first powered flight, December 17, 1903

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.
Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol (published on December 17, 1843)

Light Christmas [light of the moon], light wheatsheaf;
Dark Christmas, heavy wheatsheaf.
Collected in R Inwards; Weather Lore

December 17 is the 351^st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (352^nd in leap years), with 14 days remaining.
On the dating of items in the Almanac  Translate this page  Find your birthday star  Daily Everything  NNDB  Time/Date  Google
Calendar converter  Almanacs, calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc  Almanac screensavers  On this day  Dictionary  I recommend
IMDB days  IMDB years  Wikipedia days  Wiki decades  Wiki centuries  Timelines  Convert weights, measures, etc  Calendrica  Lunabar
When 'Source' links on this page move address or die, I might allow them to stay here, but the Wayback Machine might help you locate the original.

Saturnalia, Roman Empire (Dec 7 - 23)

Four major Roman festivals were held in December, including the Saturnalia, which celebrated the returning Sun-god. Saturnalia (from the god Saturn) was the name the Romans gave to their holiday marking the Winter Solstice, and many of our Christmas customs derive from it. Saturn was a Roman cognate of the Greek god Chronos (Time). He devoured all his children except Jupiter (air), Neptune (water), and Pluto (the underworld, or grave). These time cannot consume. Like the Grim Reaper, he carries a sickle, and we know him in our day as Father Time.

The reign of Saturn was celebrated by the poets as a 'golden age'. According to the old alchemists and astrologers Saturn typified lead, and was a very evil planet to be born under. He was the god of seedtime and harvest and his symbol was a scythe, and he was finally banished from his throne by his son, Jupiter.

Saturnalia was celebrated for seven days beginning on December 17. It honoured the corn-god Saturn and his consort, Ops, the goddess of plenty. Normal activities were suspended during this time period. Slaves and masters were temporarily on an equal footing, and the theme was goodwill to all. (The Roman masters were civilized enough to not kill their slaves afterwards, as seems to be the custom with such holidays in more primitive cultures.)

During this wild week, public business was suspended, the law courts and schools were closed and no criminals were punished, no wars were fought nor any business conducted. People spent much time gambling and feasting, and roles were reversed with masters waiting on their servants. Slaves wore their masters robes, and the patricians, wearing fantastic costumes, roamed the streets with their slaves. Age and rank were forgotten for the fiesta and all Romans, citizens or not, were free for the day. This was a time for people to say what they felt, without fear of consequences, and political satire formed much of the entertainment.  

Roman festivals and notable days in the Book of Days    Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Strenae and sigillaria

Strenae, which were boughs to which were attached cakes or sweetmeats, were exchanged by visitors and guests. Other common gifts included wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-like clay figures, a particular favourite of children. 

Over the years, Saturnalia expanded to a whole week, from December 17. It also degenerated from mostly tomfoolery, marked chiefly by having masters and servants switch places, to sometimes debauchery, so that the word 'saturnalia' came to mean 'orgy'.

It's probable that Christians in the fourth century assigned December 25 as Jesus Christ's birthday (and thus Christmas) because pagans already observed this day as a holiday. As Christianity expanded in Europe, Jesus' birth continued to be celebrated on December 25, and as each nationality converted to Christianity its own customs were added to the celebration, but none informed our modern Christmas and New Year more than this ancient Roman festival.

The custom of decorating churches and houses with holly at Christmastime is of great antiquity and may derive from its earlier use by the Romans in the festival of the Saturnalia, which occurred at the same season, or from the old Teutonic custom. Gift giving, a Christmas tradition, was practised in the Saturnalia. The early Christian fathers denounced it but had little effect.

The twelve days of Christmas owe their origin to the Roman Saturnalia, a festival in honour of Saturn, the god of Agriculture. The first day is December 26 and the twelfth and last is Epiphany, ie, January 6.

King (or Lord) of Misrule

According to Brewer (Ivor H Evans, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988), in mediaeval and Tudor Britain, the King of Misrule was the director of the Christmastime horseplay and festivities, called also the Abbot, or Lord of Misrule, and, in Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason. A King of Misrule was appointed at the royal court. Polydore Vergil says that the Feast of Misrule was derived from the Roman Saturnalia.

According to the anthropologist James Frazer in The Golden Bough, there was a darker side to the Saturnalia festival – the Lord of Misrule was a human scapegoat. In Durostorum, Roman soldiers would choose a man from among them to be the Lord of Misrule for thirty days. At the end of that thirty days, his throat was cut on the altar of Saturn:

... the Roman soldiers at Durostorum in Lower Moesia celebrated the Saturnalia year by year in the following manner. Thirty days before the festival they chose by lot from amongst themselves a young and handsome man, who was then clothed in royal attire to resemble Saturn. Thus arrayed and attended by a multitude of soldiers he went about in public with full license to indulge his passions and to taste of every pleasure, however base and shameful. But if his reign was merry, it was short and ended tragically; for when the thirty days were up and the festival of Saturn had come, he cut his own throat on the altar of the god whom he personated.
James Frazer, The Golden Bough, Ch. 58. 'Human Scapegoats in Classical Antiquity'

It is interesting to note that in Babylon around 600 - 200 BCE, the goddess Ishtar's New Year festival was a Saturnalian-style carnival:

Ritual combats were in progress in the streets symbolizing the ascendancy of Chaos, very much as in the earlier New Year festival at Erech, held in honour of Ishtar in the autumn, a Saturnalian carnival like the Persian Sacaea, may have been enacted, in which a mock king reigned for five days while everything was in uproar. [E. O. James, Seasonal feasts and festivals, London, 1961: 85]
Source

"There can be no doubt that scandalous abuses often resulted from the exuberant license assumed by the Lord of Misrule and his satellites. It need, therefore, occasion no surprise to find their proceedings denounced in no measured terms by Prynne and other zealous Puritans. 'If,' says the author of the Histrio-Mastix, 'we compare our Bacchanalian Christmasses and New-year's Tides with these Saturnalia and Feasts of Janus, we shall find such near affinitye betweene them both in regard of time (they being both in the end of December and on the first of January) and in their manner of solemnising (both of them being spent in revelling, epicurisme, wantonesse, idlenesse, dancing, drinking, stage-plaies, masques, and carnall pompe and jollity), that we must needes conclude the one to be but the very ape or issue of the other. Hence Polydore Virgil affirmes in express tearmes that our Christmas Lords of Misrule (which custom, saith he, is chiefly observed in England), together with dancing, masques, mummeries, stageplayes, and such other Christmass disorders now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals; which (concludes he) should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them.'

"In Scotland, previous to the Reformation, the monasteries used to elect a functionary of a similar character, for the superintendence of the Christmas revels, under the designation of the Abbot of Unreason. The readers of the Waverley Novels will recollect the graphic delineation of one of these mock-ecclesiastics in The Abbot. An ordinance for suppressing this annual burlesque, with other festivities of a like kind, was passed by the Scottish legislature in 1555. In France, we find the congener of the Lord of Misrule and the Abbot of Unreason in the Abbas Stultorum – the Abbot or Pope of Fools."
Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1864 edition here; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)

Mummers

In Rome's Saturnalia, there were people masquerading. Early Christians, on the Feast of Circumcision and New Year's Day, used to run around in masquerade making fun of pagan customs. Probably they even joined in some mask games. The role of mummers grew over the years, being especially associated with St Stephen's Day (December 26, also known as Boxing Day).

Macrobius, Saturnalia

Much of what we know today about this festival comes from Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Roman grammarian and Neoplatonist philosopher, who flourished during the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius (395 - 423). The most important of his works is the Saturnalia, containing an account of the discussions held at the house of Vettius Praetextatus (c. 325 - 385) during the holiday of the Saturnalia. The first book is devoted to an inquiry as to the origin of the Saturnalia and the festivals of Janus, which leads to a history and discussion of the Roman calendar, and to an attempt to derive all forms of worship from that of the sun.

Macrobius: The Saturnalia, the Latin text of the critical edition edited by Ludwig von Jan (Gottfried Bass; Quedlinburg and Leipzig, 1852), web edition by Bill Thayer.

Father Time

"Our concepts of Father Time (usually found in cartoons around New Year's Eve these days, but historically found as part of the Saturnalia festival when it was pushed to the first of the new year to avoid conflict with Christmas) and the Grim Reaper carrying a scythe are directly derived from Cronus. Both of these more modern figures are sometimes accompanied by a crow. Robert Graves wrote that the word Cronos and the god may have actually meant 'crow,' but once again it could just be a result of confusion with the similar-sounding words for crow (Latin 'cornix' or Greek 'corone').

"The three Greek words that were either related originally or related through confusion later were: Chronus (meaning 'time'), Cronus (the god of harvest before the Greek gods took over), and corone (meaning 'crow'). Sometimes just having words similar to each other is enough to mix stories up with one another. Whether they are connected because they sound similar or because they have similar roots is unknown.

"All three words are definitely now linked in some fashion. Images of the Grim Reaper in engravings in the Middle Ages that show a skeletal figure holding a scythe and hourglass with a crow nearby show this connection. (You can go to the Grim Reaper picture page to see some of these images.)"   Source

Find an error or dead link? 
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda

Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! For all my Yule needs Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald Golden Bough Folklore classic Yule Decking the Halls Folklore & traditions of Christmas plants The Winter Solstice The Fires of Yule A Keltelven Guide for Celebrating the Winter Solstice Christianity Before Christ The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors 101 Myths of the Bible Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year Be A Goddess The Wiggles - Yule Be Wiggling The Oxford Dictionary of Saints The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Daily Everything Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Lord of the Rings   To support this project Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.     Search for posters An Inconvenient Truth By Al Gore; DVD & book The Permaculture Home Garden By Linda Woodrow The Corporation Highly recommended DVD A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy 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 Pagan Christianity Songs in the Key of W For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire By James Yee Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy By Robert F Kennedy, Jr The Price of Loyalty The Torture Debate in America The Culture of the New Capitalism Lawless World The Great War for Civilisation By Robert Fisk The God Who Wasn't There A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Alternatives to Economic Globalization Feminism Without Borders Commercialization of Intimate Life By Arlie Russell Hochschild The Skeptic's Dictionary Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them 365 Goddess Adventures in a TV Nation Michael Moore Drawing Down the Moon Globalization/Anti-Globalization Body Wisdom More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at   Cafe Diem! Celtic Daily Prayer Dude, Where's My Country? Photo of the day Mother Earth Spirituality Bushwhacked Shamanism A Christmas Carol Dickens' Christmas Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Make your own modern Saturnalia Biblioteca Arcana website has a Saturnalia ritual, by a modern author named Apollonius Sophistes, for use today: Saturnus should be an old, dignified but jovial man; his usual attribute is the sickle. For this ritual, the image needs to be standing and have legs that can be bound. A traditional Father Christmas or St. Nicholas may work well. Look for an image with nature symbols (e.g. plants) and symbols of bounty (e.g. a cornucopia or bag of presents). If possible, the image should have a reservoir inside capable of holding oil; if this is not possible, have a separate vessel that can be placed in front of or behind the Saturnus … This ritual compresses the Consualia (for Consus, God of the Storage Bin), the Saturnalia (for Saturn, God of Sowing), and the Opalia (for Ops, Goddess of Plenty) into a single festival, a Brumalia, or Winter Solstice (Bruma) ritual. See also the Saturnalia Chants. The primary sources for this ritual are Macrobius's Saturnalia (Bk. I, Chs. 7, 8, 10, 11) and HH Scullard's Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (pp. 205-7). (There is additional information available on the Saturnalia, Consualia and Opalia; see De Saturno & Jano Tractatus for background information on Saturn.) Similarly, Nova Roma website has a page of ideas for your modern Saturnalia: On a modern note – wild parties with lots of food and drink is good. Letting the children of the household lead the common rituals, and waiting on them (assuming you don't do so in everyday circumstances ...) at mealtimes, and deferring to them in decisions on party ideas would work for role reversals. No children in the house? Maybe you can borrow one for a day. We don't have slaves, but, for a nice touch of role reversal, we could purchase the services of a nanny or a housekeeper for the duration of Saturnalia. It would be a role reversal of sorts, for instead of being the slave of your home, someone else would be doing the chores and cooking and childcare while you got to party down! … The customary greeting for the occasion is, "Io, Saturnalia!" – io (pronounced "oy") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, there"). More on Saturnalia at Candlegrove   Ursids meteor shower (Dec 17 - 26) The Ursids meteor activity begins annually around December 17 and runs for a week plus, until the 25th or 26th. Halcyon Days, ancient Greece and Rome (Dec 14 - 28) Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.) Advent (Nov 30 - Dec 25), season of the coming of Jesus Christ Feast day of St Begga, widow and abbess Feast day of St Florian Feast day of St Lazarus Feast day of St Olympias, widow (White cedar, Cupressus thyoides, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.) Feast day of St Sturmi of Fulda Feast day of St Yolanda Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Kasuga Wakamira (Shrine) Matsuri, continues (Dec 13 - 18), at Nara Prefecture, Japan Las Posadas, Mexico (Dec 16 - 25) Celebration day for Babaluaiye, Voudon (Voodoo)   Source     Sow Day, Orkney Islands, Scotland Harking back to ancient rites from Viking Norway, every family that kept swine would slaughter a sow for Yule, a reminder of the time when the boar, an animal sacred to Freyr, the god of Yule and fertility, was sacrificed at Yule and its flesh eaten as part of the feast. Freyr's name means 'master', 'lord', 'the supreme'. Snorri Sturluson describes him as being handsome, powerful, merciful and kind, and calls him "God of the World" (veraldar gódh). Freyr had control of the weather, both rain and sunshine, thus the fertility of the earth; he was both a god of peace and a brave warrior. He was also the ruler of the elves. The centre of his cult was the city of Uppsala in Sweden. In Norse Mythology, Freyr had a boar named Slídhrugtanni or Gullinborsti – 'Golden Bristles' – created by the dwarves Brokk and Eitri . Gullinborsti could run as fast as any horse and glowed with a golden light that could drive away shadow and turn night into day. The solar attributes of this fantastic beast are clear. Freyr also owned the ship Skidbladnir ('wooden-bladed'), which always sailed directly towards its target, and which could become so small that it could fit in Freyr's pocket. On Yule Eve, the Vikings brought the best boar in the herd into the hall where the assembled company laid their hands upon the animal and made their unbreakable oaths over it. When heard by the boar, these oaths were thought to go straight to the ears of Freyr himself. Once the oaths had been sworn, the boar was sacrificed in the name of Freyr and the feast of boar flesh began, and so, probably, began the boar feast of the Orkneys.   Feast day of Agios Dionysios, Patron Saint of the Ionian island of Zykanthos A feast that is also held on August 24. Dionysios's processions are very impressive and the whole town strews the roads with branches of myrtle for its saint to pass over. National Day, Bhutan (1907) Wright Brothers Day, USA (by Presidential Proclamation)       1619 Prince Rupert, Royalist commander in the English Civil War, born in Prague 1778 Humphry Davy (d. May 29, 1829), English chemist, inventor of the Davy safety lamp used by miners; he discovered sodium, calcium, barium, magnesium, potassium and strontium 1796 Thomas Chandler Haliburton (d. 1865), novelist 1799 Titian Peale (d. 1885), artist 1807 John Greenleaf Whittier (d. 1892), American Quaker poet, abolitionist and reformer, born near Haverhill, MA; a pioneer in regional literature as well as a crusader for many humanitarian causes. When The Atlantic Monthly gave a party to celebrate the poet's 70th birthday, Mark Twain, in a speech, shocked the diners by comparing Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes (all guests) to three drunken tramps in the Sierras.   The sun that brief December day   Rose cheerless over hills of gray,   And, darkly circled, gave at noon   A sadder light than waning moon.   Slow tracing down the thickening sky   Its mute and ominous prophecy,   A portent seeming less than threat,   It sank from sight before it set Brief biography    More    Poems and Ballads    Whittier Postcards Shop American Poetry   Shop Whittier    Complete Works at Project Gutenberg The Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier: A Readers' Edition    More   1830 Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt (d. 1870), French writer 1853 Herbert Beerbohm Tree (d. 1917), actor 1872 Mistinguett (d. 1956), actress, singer 1873 Ford Madox Ford (d. 1939), writer 1874 William Lyon Mackenzie King (d. 1950), three times prime minister of Canada  1893 Erwin Piscator (d. 1966), film director 1894 Arthur Fiedler (d. 1979), American conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra 1894 Hans Henny Jahnn (d. 1959), dramatist, narrator and essayist 1901 Lee Strasberg (d. 1982), actor, director, acting teacher 1903 Erskine Caldwell (d. 1987), American novelist (God's Little Acre; Tobacco Road)   1906 Simo Häyhä (d. 2002), 'most successful sniper in history' 1908 Willard Frank Libby (d. 1980), physicist and chemist, inventor of radiocarbon dating 1911 André Claveau (d. 2003), French singer, Eurovision Song Contest winner 1919 Ezekiel Mphahlel, South African author/teacher. His autobiography (Down Second Avenue, 1959), a South African classic, combines a young man's coming of age with penetrating social criticism of apartheid. 1925 Rock Hudson (d. 1985), actor 1929 William Safire, columnist 1930 Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse magazine 1930 Armin Mueller-Stahl, actor 1936 Tommy Steele, British entertainer (musical Half a Sixpence) 1937 Kerry Packer, Australian media tycoon Packer is a keen polo player, was a long-time chain smoker, and remains an avid gambler, fabled for his titanic wins and losses. In 1999 it was reported that a three-week losing streak at London casinos cost him almost AU$28 million dollars – described at the time as the biggest reported gambling loss in British history. The same report stated that he had once won AU$33 million at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas and that he often won as much as AU$7 million each year during his annual holidays in the UK. Packer is also known for his sometimes volcanic temper, and for his perennial contempt for the media and for journalists.   Wikipedia 1938 Gordon Lightfoot, musician 1939 Eddie Kendricks, musician 1941 Gene Clark, musician 1942 Paul Butterfield (d. 1987), musician 1943 Ron Geesin, musician 1943 Lauren Hutton, model, actress 1944 Jack L Chalker, novelist 1944 Lorne Michaels, producer 1947 Wes Studi, actor 1975 Milla Jovovich, actress, model   Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section Send free e-cards to friends & family for celebrations & any topic Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year. Zodiac birthday Free