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For all my Yule needs
Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret
Read MacDonald
Zodiac by Degrees
All Around the Zodiac
The 13th Sign
The Secret Language of Birthdays
The Mythology of Horses
Exploring Newgrange
Newgrange
Newgrange
Audio CD
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
Sabbat Entertaining
The Pagan Book of Days
Eight Sabbats for Witches
Celebrate the Earth
A Year of Holidays in the Pagan
Tradition
Wheel of the Year
The Five
Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq
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
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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
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
The Selected Poems of Kenneth Rexroth
Sacramental Acts
Christianity Before Christ
Jesus and the Lost Goddess
Body Wisdom
More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at
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Aries Taurus Gemini
Cancer
Leo
Virgo
Libra
Scorpius
Ophiuchus
Sagittarius
Capricornus
Aquarius
Pisces
 Sun enters Capricorn, 10th sign of the zodiac
(Dec 22 - Jan
19)
Capricornus is one of the constellations
of the zodiac.
It is commonly called Capricorn, especially in astrology. It
represents a horned goat, although it is commonly called the
sea-goat. Capricornus is one of the 88 modern constellations, and
was also one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy. Under its
modern boundaries it is bordered by Aquila,
Sagittarius, Microscopium, Piscis
Austrinus and Aquarius.
This
constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea,
the goat that suckled the infant Zeus after his mother Rhea saved
him from being devoured by his father Cronos (Saturn
in Rome) in Greek mythology.
The goat's broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia
or horn of plenty. Some ancient sources claim that this derives from
the sun "taking nourishment" while in the constellation,
in preparation for its climb back northward.
However, the constellation is often
depicted as a sea-goat, a goat with a fish's tail. One myth that
deals with this says that when the goat-god Pan was attacked
by the monster Typhon, he dove into
the Nile;
the parts above the water remained a goat, but those under the water
transformed into a fish.
In Sumeria, the
constellation was associated with the god Ea or Enki, who brought
culture out of the sea to humankind.
The constellation is located in an area of sky
called the
Sea
or Water, consisting of many watery constellations such as Aquarius,
Pisces,
and Eridanus.
The astrological sign
Capricorn (December 22 - January 19)
is associated with the constellation. In some cosmologies, Capricorn
is associated with the classical
element Earth,
and thus called an Earth Sign (with Taurus and
Virgo). Its polar
opposite is Cancer.
Source: Wikipedia
More goat folklore and mythology at August 10
in the Book of Days
"The
13 Constellations of the Zodiac
"The
Zodiac is the ring of constellations that the Sun seems to pass
through each year as the Earth orbits around it. Contrary to popular
belief, there are actually 13 zodiacal constellations, if you pay
attention to the way astronomers define them. In addition to
Capricornus,
Aquarius,
Pisces,
Aries,
Taurus,
Gemini,
Cancer,
Leo,
Virgo,
Libra,
Scorpius,
and Sagittarius,
"the Sun
also passes through Ophiuchus.
"Try
getting some astrologer to explain THAT one to you...
"While
you're at it, ask them to explain why all the 'Signs of the
Zodiac' are off by about one month. (hint: astrology was
invented more than 2000 years ago and the precession
of the Earth's pole has caused changes in the positions of the stars
since then)." Source
Astrology
The
Real Constellations of the Zodiac
Astrology:
Pro
Astrology: Con
Halcyon Days,
ancient Greece and Rome (Dec 14 - Dec 28)
The
seven days preceding and the seven following the shortest day
(Northern Hemisphere) were called by the ancients the Halcyon Days. The halcyon
bird (kingfisher – its name comes from the Greek meaning 'sea
conceiver'), was believed to lay its eggs on the sea, at the time
that it was calm. This was thus considered the best time for
mariners, and from this belief we obtain today's expression 'the
halcyon days', meaning the best days in one's life.
Alcyone is also the name of a star in the
constellation Pleiades; the early Arabs called it Al Jauz, the Walnut.
Read more on the Halcyon Days
 Winter Solstice at Brú na Bóinne
(Newgrange), Slane,
Republic of Ireland
Newgrange,
located in County Meath is the most
famous of all Irish prehistoric
sites. It is known as a passage tomb.
Originally built c. 3200 BCE, it lay lost for centuries until the
late-17th
Century. It was much restored between 1962 and
1975, under
the supervision of Prof. Brian O'Kelly, Dept. of Archaeology,
University
College, Cork (now called the National University of Ireland,
Cork). It consists of a vast man-made stone and turf mound retained
within a circle of huge kerbstones topped by a high inward-leaning
wall of white quartz. A long passage leads to a cruciform
(cross-shaped) chamber under the mound. Every year, at the time of
the Winter
Solstice,
the sun shines directly along this passage into the chamber for
about 15 minutes as it rises.
Newgrange
appears to have been built as a tomb. The alcoves in the cruciform
chamber hold large stone basins into which were placed the bodies of
those being laid to rest. The alignment with the sun is too precise
to have occurred by chance. It is speculated that the sun formed an
important part of the religious beliefs of the New Stone Age
people who built it. The kerbstones around the outside of the
passage tomb and some of the stones inside are engraved with
patterns of spirals and zigzags.
Near Newgrange
are many other passage tombs, the largest being
Knowth
and Dowth.
These were all built around the same time as Newgrange. Together,
they are some of the oldest man-made buildings in the world.
Source:
Wikipedia
"A 5000-year-old burial site in County
Meath, a region scattered with Celtic monuments in the mystical
heartland of Ireland where the early kings were crowned, amazes the
select few every winter solstice when the dawn rays of a weak,
wintry sun illuminate a secret, inner chamber ...
"A 60ft passage leads from the
quartz-glittering round entrance stone to a high-ceilinged chamber
where recesses held the cremated remains of the society's most
notable figures. The darkness of their resting place is punctuated
just once a year on the winter solstice ... and on the two or three
days before and after this date. As the sun rises (at 8.58am) a beam
of sunlight is channelled through a stone-bound slit in the roof of
the chamber to give the burial chamber a life-affirming glow. As the
minutes pass the beam of light slowly retreats down the long passage
towards the entrance stone, returning the burial recesses to pitch
blackness once more.
"Of course the 'how' is interesting and
the nearby Visitor Centre does a good job of explaining it. But the
fascinating idea is really why these hunter-gatherer/early farmers
bothered to go to all this trouble. Did they imagine the souls of
the dead would surf the sunbeam out of their tomb? Or was it
designed to lighten up their ghosts' dark, boring year? We will
never know, but 5000 years later visitors are still eager to
experience this natural/man-made wonder. In great numbers too, if
the 10-year waiting list is anything to go by. Get in touch with the
Office of National Monuments to get your name added to the list." Source
"Megalithic
mounds such as Newgrange entered Irish mythology as sídhe or
fairy mounds. Newgrange was said to be the home of Oenghus, the
god of love. The Passage Tomb at Newgrange was re-discovered in
1699 by the removal of material for road building. A major
excavation of Newgrange began in 1962; the original facade of
sparkling white quartz was rebuilt using stone found at the
site." Source
"Newgrange
may have been used not only to mark Winter Solstice sunrise, but
also full moon rise at certain times in the
Metonic
cycle, and may have had an interesting connection with the
swan
constellation in ancient times ...
"Mythical Ireland is an
exciting and comprehensive study of the ancient astronomers, along
with their
mythology
and legends, their
arcane
carvings, and the
astronomical
meaning of the sites. Some interesting questions are raised
along the way: Are there
star
maps at Loughcrew? Does Dowth have a connection with
Taurus
and the Pleiades? Is
Fourknocks
aligned with
Newgrange
and other
standing
stones? Why is the
Winter
Solstice marked at the
Boyne
Estuary? Is
Knowth
a complicated
lunar
construction? Is it aligned on the
equinoxes?
Did the ancient people see their gods
among
the constellations? Find out some of the answers at Mythical
Ireland."
Source
"For a very short time, the beam
of sunlight enters the chamber, illuminating the floor. It is a
narrow beam, only 34cm wide at the entrance and narrower in the
chamber. Originally, the beam would have struck the rear chamber
orthostat (C8) and, possibly, would have been reflected onto
another chamber stone, C10, which contains the famous triple
spiral ... After just 14 minutes, the shaft of light disappears
and once again the chamber returns to darkness."
Source:
Mythical Ireland
More on Newgrange Photo
of the light penetrating
More photos
Newgrange
info website Newgrange
information and photos
Irish
passage tombs and other Neolithic monuments in excellent context
101
Facts on Newgrange
Ursids meteor shower (Dec
17 - 26)
Soyal,
Zuni and
Hopi
This celebration of creation and
return of life to the world is the
Winter Solstice ceremony of the Zuni and the Hopi (Hopitu
Shinumu), 'The Peaceful Ones', also known as the Hopi Indians.
Pahos, prayer sticks, are made prior to the Soyal ceremony,
to bless all the community, including their homes, animals, and
plants. The sacred underground ritual chambers, called
kivas, are
ritually opened to mark the beginning of the
Kachina season,
and the kachina dances begin.
Diane
Stein (The Goddess Book of Days,
Llewellyn Publications, St Paul Minnesota, 1989) says that the Soyal begins on the New Moon and lasts for a month over the
Winter Solstice period, and the major ceremonies are usually about eight days before the Solstice. It is dedicated to Spider Woman, the Hawk Maiden
signifier of rebirth.
Basilindia,
ancient Greece (Dec 22 -
28)
Midwinter holiday.
(Source:
The Phoenix
and Arabeth
1992 Calendar)
Festivals in ancient Greece
Festival of Demeter, ancient Greece
Greeks celebrated in the winter solstice the birth of the goddess Demeter
(Ceres).
Saturnalia,
ancient Rome (Dec17
- 23)
Larentalia, ancient Rome (pre-179 BCE)
A
festival in honour
of Larenta (Acca
Larentia), the wife of Faustulus and the nurse of Romulus and Remus,
or the she-wolf that suckled them. The Larentalia was originally held this
day in ancient Rome but some time after 179 BCE it was moved to the more
propitious (odd-numbered) day following (December
23).
Also held on the last
day of April.
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.)
Norse-Celtic: Sul, the Sun. (Ritual of Order of Bards,
Ovates and Druids) from the ceremony for 'The Evening of the Winter
Solstice'
The
Wild Hunt, Orkney
Islands
"Belief
in the Wild Hunt is found throughout the British Isles, as well
across Northern Europe ...
"The hunt was originally led by Woden (Odin) later
also by Frau Gauden. In Norse myth, Odin in his guise of wind-god
was pictured as rushing through mid-air on his eight-footed steed (Sleipnir).
As it was thought that the souls of the dead were wafted away on the
winds of a storm, Odin was worshipped as the leader of all
disembodied spirits and eventually the storm became associated with
his passing. In this character he was known as the Wild Huntsman and
the passage of his hunt known as Odin's Hunt, the Raging Host or
Asgardreia …
"Orkney folklore
is a mishmash of Norse, Celtic and British legend and as such has
its own variation of the Wild-Hunt. In the Orcadian variant the
fairies
or trows
were on occasions seen on midnight rides, galloping furiously
through the air on white horses and often driving a cow before them.
"The Orkney hill-folk were at their most active on
'rife' nights (Festival Nights) such as
Yule,
Halloween and New Year's Eve. Similar to the Orkney fairies, the
Irish have a 'version' of the Wild Hunt known as the 'Aes Sidhe'
– the hosts of the Sidhe – who rode out from their hollow hills
on the eves of the
four great
fire festivals Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane and Lughnasadh ...
"... Sometimes after [the hunt] had passed, it left
behind a small black dog which had to be kept and carefully tended
for a full year unless it could be frightened away.
"The
usual recipe (which incidentally was also the way to get rid of
changelings) was to brew beer in eggshells and for some reason this
was supposed to startle the spectral dog and scare him away."
Source
Fiesta
of Santo Tomas, Guatemala (Dec 22 - 25)
Celebrated
by the Chichicastenango Indians. This festival features the
flying-pole ceremony: a pole made from a tall pine is consecrated
and erected in the village. Platforms and ropes are attached,
dancers climb to the very top and, attached to ropes coiled around
trees, they fly into the air in ever-widening circles.
Source: The Daily Bleed
Feast day of St Abban
Feast day of St Adam of
Saxony
Feast day of St Alexander
of Jerusalem
Feast day of St Amaswinthus
of Málaga
Feast day of St Flavian of
Acquapendente
Feast day of St
Frances Xavier
Cabrini (Mother Cabrini)
St Frances Xavier Cabrini (July
15, 1850
- December 22, 1917)
known during her life as Mother Cabrini, was the first American
citizen to be canonized.
Feast day of St Honoratus
Feast day of St Hunger of
Utrecht
Feast
day of St Zeno
of Nicomedia
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Day of National Mourning, Mexico (José
Maria Morelos;
1815)
Late
December, Kotohira-gu Shukiku, Kotohira-gu Shrine, Kagawa
Prefecture, Japan
This is a Shinto shrine festival featuring
kemari, a
ceremonial game older than, but similar to, soccer.
245 (?) CE The Roman
emperor Diocletian
(d. 312?), born at
Dalmatia (date and year
of his birth and death are conjectural).
Gaius
Aurelius
Valerius Diocletianus, born Diocles, was emperor from November
20, 284
to May
1, 305.
Diocletian brought to an end the period known as the 'Crisis
of the Third Century' (235
- 284).
He established an autocratic
government and was responsible for laying the groundwork for the
second phase of the Roman
Empire, which is known variously as the 'Dominate', the
'Tetrarchy', the 'Later Roman Empire', or the 'Byzantine
Empire'. His reforms ensured the survival of the Roman Empire,
in the East, for more than a thousand years. In 305,
at the age of 59, after almost dying from a sickness, Diocletian
retired to his palace near the administrative centre of Salona
on the Adriatic
Sea, taking up his beloved hobby of growing cabbages.
When solicited at a later date to resume the honours which he had
voluntarily resigned, his reply was, "Would you could see the
vegetables planted by my hands at Salona, you would then never think
of urging such an attempt." He was the only Roman Emperor to
remove himself from office.
The
Diocletian Persecution
In the Book of Days the short biographies of many Christian
saints contain words such as "suffered in the Diocletian
Persecution". It was this emperor whose name is grimly
associated with much suffering and a great many deaths. In 303,
the last and greatest persecution
of Christians by the Roman Empire began. In the earlier part of
Diocletian's reign, Galerius
was more the instigator (see February
24, 303) of such persecution than Diocletian himself. However,
in the later part of Diocletian's reign, Diocletian embraced the
policy of persecution with unequivocal zeal. This wave of
persecution lasted until 311.
The earlier persecutions under Decius
from the Winter of 250
to the following Spring
of 251 martyred many
Christians as well.
Diocletian
Palace in Split More
More
Ruins
of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia, by
Adam, Robert
1400
Luca della Robbia
(d. 1481),
Italian sculptor (Madonna of Rose Garden)
1095
Roger II
of Sicily (d. 1154),
King of Sicily
1178 Emperor
Antoku of
Japan (d. 1185)
1546
Kuroda
Yoshitaka (d. 1604),
Japanese daimyo
1550
Cesare Cremonini (d.
1631), Italian philosopher
1639 Jean-Baptiste Racine (d.
1699), French
dramatic poet (Andromaque). (Date of his
baptism; some sources give December 21
as his birth date.)
More1666 Guru Gobind
Singh (d. 1708), tenth and last
of the Ten
Gurus of Sikhism
1690
Meidingnu Pamheiba
(d. 1751), King of
Manipur
1694 Hermann
Samuel Reimarus (b. 1768), German philosopher and writer
1696
James
Oglethorpe (d. 1785),
English general and founder of the State of
Georgia
1723 Karl
Friedrich Abel (d. 1787), German baroque composer
1765
Johann
Friedrich Pfaff (d.
1825), German mathematician
1805 John
Obadiah Westwood (d.
1893), British entomologist
1807
Johann Sebastian Welhaven (d.
1873), Norwegian
poet
1819
Franz
Wilhelm Abt (d. 1870),
German composer
1819
Pierre
Ossian Bonnet (d.
1892), French mathematician
1853
Teresa Carreño
(d. 1917),
Venezuelan pianist
1853
Yevgraf
Fyodorov (d. 1919),
Russian mathematician
1856
Frank B
Kellogg (d. 1937),
US Secretary of State, Nobel laureate
1858
Giacomo Puccini (d.
1924),
Italian composer of operas (La Bohême;
Tosca;
Madama
Butterfly).
It was said that Puccini's wife was so
distrustful of his philandering, that when attractive women came to
visit, she washed his underwear in camphor and put bromide in his
coffee.
1860 Austin
Norman Palmer, popularizer of a handwriting style1866 Käthe
Paulus (d. 1935), Germany's first female parachutist 1869 Edwin
Arlington Robinson (d. 1935), American poet 1874 Franz Schmidt
(d. 1939),
composer 1876 Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti (d. 1944), poet and editor 1883 Edgar Varèse
(d. 1965),
composer 1887
Srinivasa
Aaiyangar Ramanujan
[shrinivAsa Aiyangar ramAnadjan] (d. April 26, 1920),
Indian mathematician;
one
of India's greatest mathematical geniuses
More
1888 J Arthur Rank
(d. 1972),
film producer1899 Gustav Gründgens
(d. 1963),
actor and film director
 1905 Kenneth Rexroth
(d. June 6,
1982), American poet/essayist/critic/translator
who influenced Beat
poetry; he also translated many Chinese and
Japanese poets into English; author of Communalism:
From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century. He is regarded as
a chief figure in the San
Francisco Renaissance.
Born in
1905 and orphaned at the age of twelve, Rexroth spent most of his
teenage years in Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter
and helped run a jazz coffee house, mingling with the musicians,
artists, writers, radicals and eccentrics of the roaring twenties.
Disillusioned with the Bolsheviks, he became an anarchist and was
for several years an active member of the IWW (Wobblies). In
his late teens, he began hitching all over the country, working in
the Far West as a ranch cook and wrangler, and at various farm and
forestry jobs, and camping in the mountains.
Along the way he met Emma Goldman,
Eugene Debs,
Louis
Armstrong,
Clarence
Darrow, DH
Lawrence,
Alexander Berkman, Sacco and Vanzetti, and an astonishing variety of
others – anarchists, Communists, Wobblies, dadaists, surrealists,
occultists, prostitutes, gangsters, cops, judges, jailers, hoboes,
hillbillies, lumberjacks, cowboys, Native Americans. He is said to have read
the entire
Encyclopædia
Britannica "like a novel" once a year. His books
indicate familiarity with subjects ranging from political anarchism,
painting,
and world religions,
to classical Chinese
literature and philosophy.
In
1927, he
moved to San Francisco, where his work in labor, civil rights and
antiwar struggles, his founding of the Libertarian Circle, and his
writings, radio programs and public poetry readings helped lay the
foundation for the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s.
Sources: The
Daily Bleed
and Wikipedia
Introduction
to Sacramental Acts: The Love Poems of Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth
Rexroth Archive, an impressive collection of works by and about
Rexroth
Communalism,
Seabury 1972, e-text
The Beat Museum
More: The
Daily Bleed Anarchist Encyclopedia
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1905
Pierre Brasseur (d. 1972), actor
1907 Dame Peggy Ashcroft
(d. 1991), English actress (A Passage to India)
1907
Doris Miles
Disney, writer
1912 Lady Bird
Johnson, First
Lady of the United States,
1963 - '69 1917 Gene Rayburn
(d. 1999), game
show host 1922 Barbara
Billingsley,
American actress 1922 Jack Brooks,
American politician 1922
Ruth Roman (d. 1999),
American actress
who survived
the sinking of the SS
Andrea Doria
ocean liner
 1943
Paul Wolfowitz,
former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, US Deputy Secretary of
Defense, President of the
World Bank
(resigned after scandal); later visiting scholar at the right-wing
American Enterprise Institute. As
George W Bush's
Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was one of the most most fanatical
and hawkish neocon
advocates of Bush's illegal and failed policy to invade Iraq.
Wolfowitz had been a student of
Leo Strauss.
Wolfowitz found public prominence through his
involvement in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, criticized in
Fahrenheit
9/11, the film by
Michael
Moore. According to
Suzanne Goldenberg's profile of Wolfowitz published in
The Guardian,
"one of the most indelible moments of the film ... is when Paul
Wolfowitz ... puts a generous dollop of spit on his comb before
smoothing his hair for a television appearance." She describes
Wolfowitz as the "intellectual high priest of the Bush
administration's hawks". 1945 Diane Sawyer,
journalist 1946 Rick Nielsen,
musician (Cheap Trick)
1948 Lynne Thigpen
(d. March 12,
2003),
actress
1949 Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb
(d. 2003), twin
musicians in Australian pop group The Bee Gees,
brothers of Barry
and Andy Gibb1951
Charles
de Lint, Canadian
fantasy
author and
Celtic folk
musician 1951 Gerald
Cavendish Grosvenor, Duke of
Westminster 1962 Ralph Fiennes,
actor 2001 Cc
the cat, the first cloned pet
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69 CE
Emperor
Vitellius was beheaded at Rome.
401 St Innocent I began his reign as Roman Catholic
pope.
795 Leo III succeeded Pope Adrianus (Adrian) I.
877 Britain: King
Alfred the
Great passed a law that no servant had to work during the 12 days of celebration
following Midwinter – roughly equating with the 12 Days of Christmas, a Christian period
of celebration created to replace the pagan Saturnalia.
1135 Norman
nobles recognised Stefanus van Blois as English king.
1216 Pope Honorius III officially approved the Order
of Preachers (Dominicans), founded by St
Dominic.
1337 Daito Kokushi, leader of O-To-Kan Rinzai school in
Japan, died, aged 54.
1550
Burial
of
Richard
Plantagenet, alleged son of
Richard
III.
ichard Plantagenet was a
poor working man, but perhaps he was the son of a king.
In
about 1545, Sir
Thomas Moyle began to have built on his estate, a mansion later
named Eastwell House. Sir Thomas was surprised to observe that one of the
bricklayers, whenever he had a break, would have his nose firmly planted in a
particular book. No matter how the nobleman tried to discover the title of the
book that held the tradesman's interest, he could not. Soon, he discovered that
the book was written in Latin.
When
he asked the bricklayer how he came to be able to read in a classical language,
Sir Thomas Moyle was told this tale by the man. He had had lodgings, as a child,
with a schoolmaster, and sometimes there was a visit by a gentleman who paid all
his fees. At the age of 16 the lad was taken by the gentleman to a stately home
where he was spoken to by a distinguished man wearing the
Order of the Garter
sash. Some time later he was taken to Leicestershire where he was shown into the
army tent of King
Richard III (1452 - '85, king of England from 1483 [crowned on July 6]
to 1485; pictured)
who called him his son, and said,
"I am your father, and if I prevail in tomorrow's battle, I will provide for you
as befits your blood. But it may be that I shall be defeated, killed, and that I
shall not see you again … Tell no one who you are unless I am victorious."
Later,
the bricklayer said, he saw in Leicester the naked corpse of the king on a
horse, so he remained secretive about his true identity, and soon chance led him
into the trade of bricklaying.
Moyle,
feeling sorry for this scion of royalty, built a cottage for the man on his
property, and provided for his food, but the old man lived only another three or
four years.
The
man's name was Richard Plantagenet, the same as his alleged father. At Eastwell,
where he died, his name on the parish register of deaths has a mark next to it
that indicates noble lineage. There is a well at Eastwell Park that bears his
name, and local tradition points to an uninscribed tomb in the churchyard as
being his resting place. The parish
register states Richard Plantagent was buried at Eastwell on December 22, 1550.
Richard III and Anne Neville had one known
son, Edward Plantagenet (1473 - April 9, 1484), who died not long after
being invested with the title of Prince of Wales. Anne
also died before her husband. A lasting mystery surrounding the accession of
Richard was the disappearance and presumed death of Richard's nephews, known as
the Princes in the Tower.
Richard
appears in the 2002
List of '100 Great Britons'
(sponsored by the BBC
and voted for by the public), alongside such other 'greats' as David
Beckham, Aleister Crowley, and Johnny
Rotten. The BBC History Magazine lists him under "doubtful
entrants, based on special interest lobbying or 'cult' status", and
comments: "On the list due to the Ricardian lobby, but a minor
monarch".
Richard
III Society, headquartered in London, England
Richard III Society,
American Branch -- includes links to online editions of many primary texts and
secondary sources
Richard
III article at dmoz.org The
Slandered King
The Plantagenet
dynasty of English monarchs
1603 Death of Mehmed III (b. 1566), Ottoman
Emperor.
1715
James Francis Edward
Stuart, son of the deposed Catholic king of England, James II, landed at
Peterhead in
Scotland to lead a
Jacobite rebellion.
1738
Death of Constantia Jones,
British prostitute.
She had been sentenced to hang for stealing 36 shillings and
a half-guinea
(the equivalent of
about £300 today), based on flimsy evidence.1807 The Embargo Act, forbidding
trade with all foreign countries, was passed by the United States
Congress, at the urging of President
Thomas
Jefferson. 1809 The Non-Intercourse Act,
lifting the Embargo Act except for the United
Kingdom and France,
passed the United States
Congress. 1826
Death of
Michael Massey Robinson (b.
1744), English-born,
Oxford University-educated
Australian
convict, lawyer, public servant and poet. He was the first
Poet Laureate
of Australia, and for this office, on
January 30,
1818 was awarded two
cows from the
New South Wales government's herd. 1828 Death of William Hyde Wollaston
(b. 1766),
noted English chemist. 1849 The execution of Fyodor
Dostoevsky was cancelled at the last second.
He
had been convicted and sentenced to death on November 16 for allegedly taking
part in anti-government activities.1864
American Civil War: Savannah,
Georgia, USA, fell to General William Tecumseh Sherman. 1880 English novelist, George Eliot (b. 1819), who
had married her friend John Cross just a few months before on May 6, died of a
sudden kidney ailment.
"Cross never
married again. In her will she expressed her wish to be buried in Westminster
Abbey, but Dean Stanley of Westminster Abbey rejected the idea and Eliot was
buried in Highgate Cemetery. Eliot's interest in the interior life of human
beings, moral problems and strains, anticipated the narrative methods of
modern literature. D.H. Lawrence once wrote: 'It was really George Eliot who
started it all. It was she started putting action inside.'" Source
1884
Death of John
Chisum, American cattle
baron.1885 Ito Hirobumi, a samurai, became
the first Prime Minister of
Japan.
1888
Australian writer Henry Lawson published his first short story, His Father's Mate.
1894 The Dreyfus Affair began in France when Alfred Dreyfus (1859 - 1935)
was wrongly convicted of treason. Dreyfus
was later sent to Devil's
Island.
The Affair was a
political cover-up
which divided France
for many years in the late 19th
Century.
It
centred on the 1894 treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery
officer in the French army. Dreyfus was, in fact, innocent: the conviction
rested on false documents, and when high-ranking officers realised this they
attempted to cover up the mistakes. The writer, Emile Zola, exposed the affair
to the general public in his friend Georges Clemenceau's
Paris literary daily, L'Aurore
(The Dawn) on January 13, 1898, in
a famous open letter,
entitled J'Accuse! (I Accuse!),
addressed to the Président de la République
Félix
Faure and accusing many people for the injustice. Dreyfus was not pardoned
until July 21,
1906.
In the words of
historian Barbara W Tuchman, it
was "one of the great commotions of history".
1895 Wilhelm Röntgen,
the German physicist, photographed his wife's hand with
X-rays,
to reveal the bones within. While conducting experiements, he had first noticed
the 'new' rays on
November 8 the same year.
In 1901, Röntgen was awarded the very first
Nobel Prize in Physics.
1899
Death of Dwight L Moody
(b. 1837), American
evangelist.
1902 Death of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (b. 1840), sexologist. 1910 In
Leipzig,
Germany, British officers Lieutenant Trench and Captain Brandon were convicted
of spying.
1910 In
Lancashire,
Britain, 350 died in a mining disaster.
1917 Peace talks
between Germany and the Russian Bolshevik government began at
Brest-Litovsk.
1919 British
Prime Minister David Lloyd George announced that Ireland would have
self-government with two parliaments.
1921 US Congress
set up a US$20 million fund to aid the 20 million starving people in the
USSR.
1933 USA: The first attack of 'The
Mad Gasser of Roanoke' (Botetourt County, Virginia, USA)
– the name given to the person or persons believed to be behind of a
series of apparent gas attacks that occurred in
Botetourt County, Virginia during the early 1930s, and in
Mattoon, Illinois during the mid-1940s.
"The sinister sneak somehow
pumped noxious gas into the homes of the unsuspecting, driving them to dizziness
and vomiting …
"The first
'attacks' happened three days before Christmas 1933 at the home of Cal
Huffman in rural Haymakertown in western Botetourt.
"About 10 p.m.,
Huffman's wife detected a foul odor and became nauseated. The smell returned a
half-hour later.
"It returned again
at 1 a.m., this time causing the Huffmans' daughter, Alice, 20, to become so ill
that a doctor had to resuscitate her.
"A neighbor
reported seeing a shadowy figure running away from the house …
"After a while,
the physicians began to wonder whether some of the victims merely suffered from
a bad case of nerves.
"The Botetourt
County Board of Supervisors, however, approved a $500 reward for apprehension of
the gasser – an appreciable amount of money during the Great Depression …
"The last report
came Feb. 11, and after that, police and everyone else dismissed the whole
affair as hysteria.
"The Roanoke
Times, which had treated the attacks as fact in its news pages, proclaimed in an
editorial that 'Roanoke Has No Gasser' and that the paper had 'so
believed from the first.'"
Source
1937
USA: The Lincoln Tunnel opened to
traffic.
1940
Nathanael West (b.
1903)
American
author of
The Day of the
Locust and
Miss
Lonelyhearts, died
with his wife in a car crash.
1944
German troops
demanded the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium. See Battle of the Bulge.1944 The Vietnam People's
Army was formed to resist Japanese occupation of Vietnam. 1961 James Davis
became the first US soldier to die in Vietnam.
1964
USA:
Comedian Lenny Bruce was
convicted of obscenity.1965 John Lennon, obsessed with his weight problem, yet determined to be
"bigger than
Elvis", penned the lines, "Help me if you can, I'm feeling down/And I do
appreciate you – being round".
In later years, the
other Beatles taunted Lennon for his excess consumption of food, in songs such
as 'Mean Mr Mustard' and 'Piggies'. 'The Fat Beatle' was later
advised by his wife, Yoko
Ono, that there is only one way out for a food addict,
leading to the composition of a later hit, 'Cold Turkey'. (See also, 'Happy
Xmas [War is Oval]'.)
More on Lennon at the
Scriptorium Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1974
Grande
Comore, Anjouan
and Mohéli
voted to become the independent nation of Comoros. Mayotte remained under French
administration.
1975
Palestinian
terrorists seized more than 70 hostages, including several oil ministers, at the
Austrian
OPEC summit in
Vienna. The group was led by the terrorist known as
Carlos the Jackal.
1975
USA: The FBI placed Native American activist,
Leonard Peltier,
on the
Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Peltier has been in prison since
February 6,
1976, which is now known as
International Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier.
More
Peltier chronology
1984
Dom Mintoff resigned as prime minister of
Malta.
1984
The
Bernhard Goetz
subway shooting
on an express train in the Bronx, New York.
1988
South
Africa, Angola and
Cuba signed treaties for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from
Angola.
1988 Francisco Alves Mendes Filho
(b. 1944), known as
Chico
Mendes, was murdered by Darci Alves, son of cattle
rancher Darly Alves.
Who Was Chico Mendes?
Earthkeeper Hero Chico Mendes
1989
After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu took over as
president of Romania,
ending Nicolae Ceauşescu's
Communist
dictatorship.
1989 Berlin's Brandenburg
Gate re-opened after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East
and West
Germany.
1989
The Kempsey bus crash: A bus crash
20 km north of
Kempsey,
NSW,
Australia claimed the lives of 35 people.
1989
Death of Samuel Beckett, writer,
winner of the Nobel Prize in
literature 1969.
1990
Lech
Wałesa was sworn in as President of Poland.
1991
After just a year of trading,
Australia's cut-price airline, Compass, collapsed, leaving Christmas holiday
travellers stranded at airports.
1993
Australia: The Native Title Act restored some
land and rights lost by
indigenous Australians.
1993
'Operation Toys for Guns' began in New
York City.
1997
Acteal
massacre: Forty-five unarmed Mayan Indians attending a prayer meeting of Roman
Catholic activists for indigenous causes in the
small village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas were massacred by paramilitary
forces supported by the PRI dictatorial party in power for nearly 70 years.
More
1999
The Spanish Civil Guard found
near Calatayud
(Zaragoza)
another van loaded by ETA
with 750 kg of explosives (see related event
on December
21, 1999).
1999 Tandja Mamadou became President of
Niger.
2000
Russia
officially acknowledged that
Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who helped
tens of thousands of Jews escape Nazi-occupied Hungary, was killed by Soviet
authorities for political reasons. Source
2001
Afghanistan's UN-supported interim government was sworn in, with
Hamid Karzai
as prime minister, and 29 cabinet members – including two women.
2001 Richard
Reid attempted to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden
in his shoes.
 2012 According to occult scientist,
Terence McKenna
(1946 - 2000), the end of the world as we know it will occur on this day at 11:10 PM.
His Timewave
Zero theory claims time to be a fractal wave of increasing
novelty that
ends on this day.
"[McKenna has] worked out a computer model based on an intuitive decoding of the I Ching
to prove it mathematically. Before you scoff at McKenna's claims, bear in mind
that the ancient Mayan calendar, a calendar accurate to within MINUTES for
THOUSANDS of years ends at precisely the same time... But McKenna is no mere
doomsday prophet and once you've been exposed to the psychedelic mindscape of
the man referred to as 'the Timothy Leary of the Nineties' (by Leary himself!),
your worldview may never be the same ever again...."
Source
 [McKenna's
Timewave Zero calculations differ from the Mayan calendar's 'last day'
only by hours. See yesterday, December 21, 2012]
More at this page in the Scriptorium
More
And more
Tomorrow: The Secret of the Unhewn Stone
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