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|
 Feast
day of St Paul's Shipwreck, public holiday, Malta
(See
below, This Day in History, 60 CE)
"This day is celebrated as a public holiday in
Malta and Gozo. The shipwreck of St Paul is described in the Acts of
the Apostles:27,28. Publius (who Luke calls Protos meaning
leader) whose father was healed by St Paul is thought to have
been the first Bishop of Malta consecrated by St Paul before he
left Malta."
Source
The
Conversion of the Maltese Population to Catholicism
"St Paul
preached the Gospel during his three-month stay in Malta. He
converted many Maltese to Christianity during his stay, one of them
being Publius. Publius was later appointed Bishop of Malta. The
conversion of the Maltese to Christianity was quite slow. However,
it is evident that by the 3rd Century A.D., Christianity
became the accepted religion among the majority of the
population."
Source
The legend of the spring
known as Ghajn Razul, Malta
"Tradition
has it that the spring known as Ghajn Razul was the work of
Saint Paul who needed water for his shipmates after their
shipwreck on Malta. The name 'Razul' is derived from the
Phoenician language and means 'apostle' thus giving more
credibility to the Pauline connection. Of more importance is the
fact that if this was truly the work of Saint Paul it would
point to his shipwreck being in St. Paul's Bay and not at Mistra
where there was another spring."
Source
St
Paul's Grotto, Malta
There
is a legend that states that St Paul's cave on the Mediterranean
island of Malta (where he was shipwrecked)
remains the same size regardless of how many pieces of rock are
removed from the cave as souvenirs.
Source
The legend of St Paul and
the viper, Malta
"This is well known legend. It is believed
that St Paul was gathering wood to make a fire to warm himself and
the other shipwrecked people, when out of the sticks came a venomous
viper that bit him. The Maltese expected him to die of poisoning but
instead no harm happened to him. It is said that from that day
snakes and scorpions in Malta are quite harmless and non-poisonous." Source
A Pauline legend, Malta
According to a Maltese legend, when St Paul was preaching at
Burmarrad, his voice carried as far away as Gozo where the people
there flocked on the coast to hear his sermon. Source
dies Ćgyptiacus
(Egyptian Day), or Unlucky Day,
Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, and right up till the
17th
Century, British almanacs printed lists of unlucky, or 'Egyptian', days, Dies
Aegypticus. The ancient Greeks, Romans and Chinese also had
lucky and unlucky days. In Britain it was believed that on an
Egyptian day, one should not commence a journey or major project,
nor eat goose-flesh.
Feast day
of St Alexander
of Lugo
Feast day
of St Alojzije
Stepinac
Feast day
of St Amantius
Feast day
of St Andrew
Feast day
of St Aponius
Feast day
of St Austrebertha
Feast day
of St Baldegundis
Feast day
of St Clare
Agolanti of Rimini
Feast day
of St Desideratus of Clermont
Feast day of St Erluph of Scotland, bishop, martyr
at Verdun (Werden)
Feast day
of St Eusebius of Murano
Feast day
of St Hugh
of Fosse
Feast day
of St Hyacinth
Feast day
of St Irenaeus
Feast day
of St Paganus of Sicily
Feast day
of St Paul and Ninety Companions
Feast day
of St Prothadius of Besançon
Feast day
of St Salvius of Albelda
Feast day
of St Scholastica,
virgin
(Mezereon, Daphne mezereon,
is
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Scholastica (c. 480 - 543) is a Catholic
saint.
Born in Italy,
she was the (twin?) sister of St Benedict
of Nursia. St Gregory
the Great in his Dialogues tells us that she was a nun
and leader of a community for women about five miles from St
Benedict's Abbey of Monte Cassino. We don't know what rule this
community followed, although it seems most likely it was the Rule
of St Benedict.
Feast day
of St Silvanus of Terracina
Feast
day of St Soteris,
or Coteris, virgin-martyr
(Silky fork moss, Mnium
heteomallum, is also
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Feast day
of St Trumwin of Whitby
Feast
day of St William of
Maleval
Feast
day of St Zoticus
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Shiwasu Matsuri, Mikado Jinja, Nango, Miyazaki
Prefecture, Japan (Jan 20 - Feb 20)
Yuki Matsuri,
or Snow Festival, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan (dates vary in early
February)
Hokkaido's largest festival. Snow images are made in the main
street, and a costume parade and skating contests are held. See February
7 for more.
Sounkyo Ice Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido,
Japan (Jan
29 - Mar
5)
World Marriage
Day
National
Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe to commemorate Italian Istrian
and Dalmatian
exiles and Foiba
massacres, Italy
1775 Charles
Lamb (d.
December
27, 1834),
English
essayist
and critic, best-known for his series of miscellaneous 'Essays of
Elia', but also among the greatest of English
letter writers, and a perceptive literary critic
1824 Samuel Plimsoll
(d. June 3, 1898),
inventor of the Plimsoll line for ships
 1862
William
Patrick Crick (Paddy Crick; d.
August 23, 1908), a 'wild man of
Sydney', a colourful,
hard-drinking solicitor, politician and newspaperman of Sydney, Australia. Crick
was a founder (with William Nicholas Willis and
Adolphus George
Taylor)
of Truth, a scurrilous but popular journal (first issue,
mid-August, 1890).
A Member of the
New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1889 and Cabinet Minister from
1899 - 1904, Crick was
expelled and found guilty of corruption while Minister for Lands. He
resigned to avoid expulsion from Parliament in 1906 (the NSW
Parliament website records an earlier expulsion,
on November
13, 1890, re-elected December 6, 1890).
In 1893 he was knocked down in a fight by John
Haynes, another
Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly.
Crick was a past master of what might be
called 'larrikin
politics' at a time when New South Wales politicians were not known
for mincing words. In September, 1890, when Truth was just a
month old, he published an attack on Sir Henry Parkes,
the State Premier, under the following heads:
CRICK ON PARKES
"Definition of a Scoundrel"
"Rifled Pursers and Ruined Reputations"
"Open and Underground Adultery"
"Cold-blooded Human Shark"
"Seventy Years of Sin"
"Attributes of Snakes and Monkeys"
"Crick Gets Show of Hands"
His words, from a speech, read, in part:
"Like that foul fiend of our race – the abortionist ... this
mental Mokanna exuded his most malignant maledictions to stifle my
political birth ... Impervious as was Parkes to shame, I found
means to pierce the adamantine crust of
Seventy Years of Sin
This Impersonation of Humbug
apes the cunning of the monkey and the
manner of the boa-constrictor."
The use of alliteration and invective was a
hallmark of Truth, perhaps best exemplified by its Associate
Editor at that time, and later Editor, fellow NSW larrikin
politician John
Norton (1858 - 1916), who, unsurprisingly, ended up in litigation
against Crick and his mortal enemy. It was often uncertain who actually owned Truth;
ownership was shifted around from person to person according to the
legal suits filed against it.
At a debating society debate, Crick once
threw a glass of water over the chairman, Justice William
Windeyer.
While Postmaster-General, Crick corruptly
prevented Louisa
Lawson (mother of Australia's national writer Henry
Lawson) from gaining royalties due to her for her invention of a
mail-bag fastener being used by the Post Office.
Crick
suffered from
cirrhosis of the liver and died of
hematemesis at the Sydney suburb of
Randwick, leaving an estate of
approximately Ł10,000.
Parliamentary Service
| Position |
Start |
End |
Period |
Parliament |
| Member
of the NSW Legislative Assembly |
16/2/1889 |
6/8/1906 |
17
year(s) 5 month(s) 22 day(s) |
|
| Member
for West Macquarie |
16/2/1889 |
13/11/1890 |
1
year(s) 8 month(s) 29 day(s) |
14th
(1889 - 1891) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
6/12/1890 |
6/6/1891 |
6
month(s) 1 day(s) |
14th
(1889 - 1891) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
20/6/1891 |
25/7/1894 |
3
year(s) 1 month(s) 6 day(s) |
15th
(1891 - 1894) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
17/7/1894 |
5/7/1895 |
11
month(s) 19 day(s) |
16th
(1894 - 1895) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
24/7/1895 |
8/7/1898 |
2
year(s) 11 month(s) 15 day(s) |
17th
(1895 - 1898) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
27/7/1898 |
14/9/1899 |
1
year(s) 1 month(s) 19 day(s) |
18th
(1898 - 1901) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
23/9/1899 |
11/6/1901 |
1
year(s) 8 month(s) 20 day(s) |
18th
(1898 - 1901) |
| Member
for West Macquarie |
3/7/1901 |
16/7/1904 |
3
year(s) 14 day(s) |
19th
(1901 - 1904) |
| Member
for Blayney |
6/8/1904 |
6/8/1906 |
2
year(s) 1 day(s) |
20th
(1904 - 1907) |
| Postmaster
General |
14/9/1899 |
28/2/1901 |
1
year(s) 5 month(s) 15 day(s) |
|
| Minister
without portfolio |
1/3/1901 |
10/4/1901 |
1
month(s) 10 day(s) |
|
| Secretary
for Lands |
11/4/1901 |
14/6/1904 |
3
year(s) 2 month(s) 4 day(s) |
|
| Chairman
of Committees |
22/9/1904 |
27/6/1905 |
9
month(s) 6 day(s) |
|
Source
Qualifications, occupations and interests
"Solicitor. Educated at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, William Crick was articled to R.J. Ryan in Dubbo in 1881, and later to T.M. Slattery and L.F. Heydon in Sydney (1884), J.A. Cahill (1885) and H. Dawson (1886). Was admitted to practice as a solicitor in November 1886 and went on to develop a lucrative Police Court practice, and for a time was in partnership with R.D. Meagher. He was a proprietor of
Truth with W.N. Lewis in 1890 but left after litigation over proprietorship with John Norton (1892-1895). In 1895 he founded the Land and Industrial Alliance with E.W. O'Sullivan. William Crick was a radical and protectionist.
Local Government Activity
"Alderman of the Sydney City Council for Belmore Ward
from 22 August 1904 until 30 November 1904. Member of the Works
Committee 1904. Member of the Health and By-Laws Committee 1904.
Personal
"Son of William Crick an English born labourer and later
farmer, and his wife, Irish born Margaret Mungovan. The family
moved from South Australia to New South Wales in 1868, with
William Senior becoming a selector at Spicer's Creek, near
Wellington. Married Mary Catherine Kelly on 30th June 1980 in
Sydney and had issue. Separated in 1892. An owner of racehorses, a
heavy gambler and drinker who was involved in many libel suits and
assault charges, William Crick was expelled from Parliament for
unruly behaviour in 1890 but was subsequently re-elected. In 1906
was accused by the Royal Commission on Lands Administration of
accepting bribes. Charges were subsequently laid but the
proceedings were dropped. Resigned from the Legislative Assembly,
but was then expelled and further struck off the roll of
solicitors in 1907."
Source
"Meanwhile, in the same part of South Randwick, there was another quite separate scheme, the brainchild of the ebullient Minister for Lands, one William Patrick Crick (April 1901-June 1904). If the labour farm was pedestrian but successful within its limited objectives, Crick's scheme was wildly ambitious and totally unsuccessful.
"He proposed to designate a large expanse of Crown land, very approximately that bordering the Long Swamp area and along what is now Anzac Parade all the way back to the Nine Ways at Kingsford. Working class families were to lease a plot and build a house. The plots were small by modem standards and were called "blocks". The scheme in southern Randwick was to be a prototype and a statute, the Blockholders Act 1901, was passed to ensure appropriate administrative support. The developments on the ground were called
'Blockholders' Leases'.
"Crick promoted the idea that 3000 settlers would take up lands; though the Lands Department identified only 497 blocks. In the years following 1901, a total of 16 leases were granted. Advances to lessees for building amounted to Ł381, but no building was undertaken. By 1920 not a single lease was occupied. The
'Crickville' dream, officially (and ludicrously) called 'Lilyville', faded from the scene.
"One seeming advantage for the whole unfortunate scheme was that its main axis was to be the Little Bay Tramway - the line now represented by Anzac Parade, from Kingsford's Nine Ways to Beauchamp Road, Matraville and beyond to La Perouse. This tramway was planned to service the Little Bay Hospital and was later available for the use of the Long Bay Gaol. The planned tram route was gazetted on 3rd October 1902. Many of the Lilyville blocks were to be sited along the western side of its route, with Crick's dream that resident workers would use the tram to get to work."
Source
Norton V Crick
"The parties in Norton v Crick
were among of [sic] Cyril Pearl's Wild Men of Sydney.
Pearl's portrait of John Norton is of a remarkable, litigious,
heavy drinking, wife beating, clever, Napoleon-fixated individual.
Norton only became a member of the Legislative Assembly in 1898,
sitting as a Protectionist candidate for the seat of
Sydney-Fitzroy. From 1899 to 1910 he was an Independent member for
various electorates. Born in England, at Brighton, in 1858 he
arrived in Sydney in 1884 after a spell working as a journalist in
what was then Constantinople. Dismissed for repeated drunkenness
from the Newcastle Morning Herald, in 1891 he joined
Taylor, Crick and Willis at Truth, becoming editor in 1891
(a position he lost because of his drinking habits), and
proprietor in 1896. He claimed to have coined the word
'wowser'. He was an almost permanent fixture in the courts,
forever defending libel suits or pursuing his quest for ownership
of Truth. On his relations with Crick and Willis, Cyril
Pearl commented:
"'At times they quarrelled violently
but the freemasonary [sic] of the political freebooter always drew
them together again. They were aggressive and accomplished
demagogues who made little or no attempt to conceal their complex
villainies. But the frequent exposure of these villainies served
only to consolidate their position as public heroes.'
"Norton's dismissal from Truth
was the basis of the litigation between himself and Crick that was
to last for three years, consuming hundreds of hours of court
time. The case at issue was one of many, arising in this
instance after Norton had been awarded Ł700 against Crick for
malicious prosecution:
"Crick fought back with a stay of proceedings. Norton had it set aside and issued a writ for
Crick's arrest. Crick fled to Melbourne, while his counsel, BR Wise, applied for another stay and a new trial, arguing that in the case of Taylor v Barton
[sic] the Privy Council had decided that a local member of Parliament could not be arrested while Parliament was in session.
"Norton represented himself.
Crick's counsel, Bernhard Ringrose Wise, was another lawyer-politician. At 29 years of age he served as Attorney-General under Parkes (1887-88). Pursuing an independent line of inquiry in the early 1890s, he developed views on industrial matters that brought him close to the Labor Party." Source
Crick expelled from Assembly,
1890
"Note that, although expulsion vacates the seat of a Member, it does not create any disability to serve again in the House, if re-elected. For example, in 1890 W.P. Crick was expelled from the Legislative Assembly and re-elected within the month."
Source:
Expulsion of Members of the NSW Parliament
"To be smashed at all times was
considered a badge of honour in the 1890s. When a Presbyterian MP
lamented that 'Parliament contained some notorious drunken
blackguards and licentious brutes' he drew a swift response from
one William Crick, MP, who bragged that he had been 'a confirmed
boozer' since the age of 16.
"'It may be,' he bellowed, 'that the honourable member for
Newtown – a human mullet – has poured into his carcass as much
grog as would make any other man drunk. But it may be that he has
not the necessary mental structure to be affected by alcohol. But
suppose that he never did taste strong drink – and he looks
foolish enough never to have done so. What great virtue is there
in that?'
"Adolphus George Taylor [qv
– PW], member for Mudgee, was suspended by Toby Tosspot [common
nickname of Sir Edmund
Barton, first Prime Minister of Australia – PW] for
claiming that no fewer than 35 members of the House were sloshed
at one sitting. Soon afterwards he was again suspended for
drunkenly alleging that the government was voting Ł100,000 for
the NSW military simply to create a branch of the public service
wherein to park 'incapable loafers who had not brains enough to be
put even in the Department of Lands'.
"He wasn't expelled for being drunk but for 'persistently and
wilfully obstructing the business of the House'.
"Fisticuffs in and around the chamber were commonplace, and
the source of a great deal of public amusement. But it was Norton
[John
Norton – PW], member for Fitzroy – a
blackmailing drunkard who made a fortune raking muck in his Truth
newspaper – who best embodied the spirit, and the
spirits, of the time.
"Having occupied his seat in the House for only three weeks,
in a state of near-constant intoxication, he capped off the last
evening of the session by relieving himself on the floor of the
Legislative Assembly.
"This was considered a bit much even in those days –
he was dragged screaming from the House, smashing a glass door on
the way out, but the self-appointed 'champion of the people'
suffered no electoral harm. He was easily re-elected at the
general election soon after." Source
"When Mr. Hindle, the member for Newtown, told the worshippers of the Primitive Methodist Church that
'Parliament contained some notorious drunken blackguards and licentious
brutes,' Crick, who boasted that he was 'a confirmed boozer' at 16, considered it necessary to uphold the honour of the drunks and the lechers from the floor of the House:
"'It may be,' he said, 'that the honourable member for
Newtown – a human mullet – has poured into his carcass as much grog as would make any other man drunk. But it may be that he has not the necessary mental structure to be affected by alcohol. But suppose that he never did taste strong drink. And he looks foolish enough never to have done so
[laughter]. What great virtue is there in that ? I have a horse in my stable that has never taken any intoxicating liquors. I have also a pet dog that has never drunk any whisky. But I do not know that he could come out and bark at
Gladstone or
Disraeli or Sir
Henry Parkes or Sir
George Dibbs because he has never tasted strong
liquor.' [hear hear]. And as for Mr. Hindle's mention of licentious brutes
'If he has not sinned in that particular direction,' Mr. Crick told his fellow legislators,
'it may be no fault of his. There are certain people connected with the harem of the Sultan of Turkey who could not sin in that
direction.'"
Cyril
Pearl, Wild Men of Sydney, Universal Books, Melbourne, 1958
"Patrick Crick, like Edward
Kelly, went down fighting. He was struck off the roll of attorneys, the Full Court deciding by an overwhelming majority, that he had been rightly condemned by Mr. Justice Owen. Crick then took out a writ against the Sergeant-at-Arms who had removed him from Parliament, claiming Ł2,000 damages. The case reached the Privy Council which held that, in the circumstances, the House was justified in its action.
"A month after the Privy Council delivered this judgment, Crick was dead. Even his implacable enemy, John Haynes, surrendered to the general mood of
'De mortuis nihil ...' 'There was general regret,' said the
Newsletter, 'at Mr. Crick's death, for whatever his political shortcomings, he was popular in his personal liberality and his hilarious nature. The one great thing that is claimed for him is that in the land troubles he had certain big politicians in the palm of his hand . . . and remained silent."
"The 'big politicians' may have been among the many Members of Parliament, including two Ministers, who attended his funeral. The church and the law were also well represented. Crick left Ł10,000.
From London, recovering from a great drinking bout, Norton wrote to E. W. O'Sullivan:
'The death of Crick gave me a great shock because in spite of our Truth and law fights, I always admired him, and liked him personally. He was a bright and brilliant mind, much more solid and stable than
A. G. Taylor. . . But now the stormy petrel of New South Wales politics sleeps peacefully upon the placid breast of the kind mother of us
all—Death.'
"Willis, after flirting with politics again, but unsuccessfully, went to England and became a publisher of cheap pornography. As the
'Anglo-Eastern Publishing Company,' he decorated the bookstalls with a series of gaily-jacketed books on prostitution, and gilded
vice—Should Girls be Told, Why Girls Go Wrong, White Slaves in a Piccadilly
Flat. One, Western Men with Eastern Morals, was removed from the Mitchell Library, Sydney, by order of H.M. Customs Department, that well-known academy of
literary criticism."
Pearl, 1958
Paddy Crick, Richard
Meagher, Justice
Sir William Windeyer and the Lemon
Syrup Case
Crick and the Arthur
Coningham divorce case Other
Crick cases
More
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
More
in the Lawson Chronology
 1890
Boris Pasternak (d. May 30, 1960),
Russian poet whose
novel Doctor Zhivago helped win him the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1958
but aroused so much opposition in the Soviet Union that he declined
the honour. He died in 1960, quite possibly starved to death
because of having been banned by the state from working.
Did the Communists starve the
Nobel-laureate author of Dr Zhivago?
Boris Pasternak,
Russian winner of the 1958 Nobel
Prize for Literature, in the years leading up to his death on
May 30, 1968, suffered appalling persecution by his own government.
He had won the Nobel Prize, but, like Alexander Solzhenitsyn after
him, was told that if he left the USSR to attend the awards ceremony
he would not be permitted to return. He was even expelled from the
union of Soviet writers.
Evidence that
the Communist regime of the Soviet Union might have wilfully starved
Boris Pasternak to death emerged in a book, Moscow:
Under the Skin, written by an Italian journalist,
Viro Roberti.
Roberti
interviewed the great author of Dr
Zhivago several
times during the ordeal. On March 15, 1960, Roberti met Pasternak,
who was emaciated and sickly looking. The novelist told the
interviewer, "I have been expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers
so that I shall starve. No one publishes my poetry or my
translations anymore, which was my daily bread. The first payments
from my editor have been confiscated by order of the authorities …"
Pasternak died
ten weeks later, on May 30, 1960. The monopoly State, it seems, had
exercised the full logic of its power, disallowing a genius, who had
been but mildly critical of communism in Dr Zhivago, the right even to
eat.
"In a February 21, 1966 newsletter, I wrote,
"Communism may be defined as government by potential
starvation. I have frequently tried to illustrate this power by
the case of Boris Pasternak … I have repeatedly raised the
question of whether he starved to death … I have never stated
that the communists did starve him to death but have insisted
that their system gave them the power to starve him and have
questioned whether they did so. The same power controls all
employment, all banks, all stores, all law courts, and all
communications. The plight of an individual who falls foul of
this power is obvious. Once dismissed from his job, he cannot
secure another; if he has savings in the bank, he cannot
withdraw them; he has no prospect of legal redress; he cannot
sell his possessions; and he has no free press to publicize his
condition. He retains the freedom to starve."
"There is now evidence from his own statements
that Pasternak himself was vitally concerned with this
possibility. This evidence is presented in a book, Moscow
Under the Skin, written by an Italian journalist, Viro Roberti, who
interviewed Pasternak several times during his ordeal."
Schwarz, Dr Fred, The
Three Faces of Revolution, Prospect House, Washington, USA,
1972, pp 43-48
"Suddenly (Pasternak's) eyes lit up and in a
harsh voice he exclaimed: `They have taken away this money in the
hope that I will go down on my knees and disown my novel and my
poetry. But nothing will ever make me yield . . . I yield only to
death!'
"Two days later the same friend, whose name I cannot
reveal, came to see me at the Central Telegraph Office and told me
that Boris Pasternak was 'gol kak sokol' (hungry as a hawk),
extremely poor and had to borrow money to exist. 'All his works have
been ostracised. Boris Leonidovich is unaware that his brother
Alexander helps him and seeks help for him from his friends. If he
knew this he would rather starve to death. He is also very ill!'"
Viro, Roberti,
Moscow:
Under the Skin
(Geoffrey Bles,
London, 1961), pp. 212-216
More
1892
Alan Hale, Sr
(Rufus Alan MacKahan; d.
January 22,
1950),
American actor (The
Adventures of Robin Hood;
It
Happened One Night)
1893 Jimmy Durante (Schnozzola; d. January 29,
1980), American actor, singer,
pianist, comedian, vaudevillean whose career in every
major entertainment performance medium spanned more than six
decades (Ziegfeld
Follies;
The Man Who Came to Dinner;
It
Happened in Brooklyn;
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; The Jimmy Durante Show). His signature expression:
"Good night Mrs Calabash,
wherever you are".
1894 Harold Macmillan (d. 1986), Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom
1897 Dame Judith Anderson
(b. Frances Margaret Anderrson;
d.
January 3, 1992), Australian-born stage
and motion-picture actress (Rebecca;
The Ten Commandments;
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof;
A Man Called
Horse;
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
1898 Bertolt Brecht
(d. August 14, 1956),
influential German Marxist
dramatist,
stage director,
poet
and theatrical reformer whose epic
theatre departed from the conventions of theatrical illusion and
developed the drama as a social and ideological forum for leftist
causes. His The
Threepenny Opera was the origin of Macheath, 'Mack the
Knife', the shady character immortalised not only in Brecht's
play but also in the famous Bobby Darin/Louis
Armstrong song
of that name.
Brecht, Bertolt
(1898 - 1956) International Brecht
Society
1901
Stella Adler, American actress, teacher, and founder of the Stella
Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York City (1949), where she
tutored performers in
Method acting
1904
John Farrow,
award-winning
Australian film director (Wake
Island), producer (The
Big Clock) and screenwriter (Around
the World in Eighty Days, 1956); husband of
Maureen
O'Sullivan,
father of Mia
Farrow
1905?
Chick Webb, black
American jazz drummer who led one of the dominant big bands of the
swing era. Its swing, precision, and popularity made it the standard
of excellence to which other big bands aspired.
1906 Lon Chaney, Jr
(d. July 12, 1973),
American actor (The Wolf Man;
House of Frankenstein;
The Mummy's Curse;
Dracula
vs. Frankenstein)
1910
Dominique Pire, Belgian
cleric and educator who was awarded the
Nobel Prize for Peace in
1958 for his aid to displaced persons in Europe after World War II
1914
Larry Adler (d.
August 7,
2001), American harmonica player generally considered to
be responsible for the elevation of the mouth organ to concert
status in the world of classical music. Composer: movie scores: A Cry from the Streets;
Genevieve; The Great Chase.
Along with fellow American, John Sebastian (father of
the same named folk-rock performer), Adler was responsible for the
harmonica, or mouth organ as Adler preferred to call it, becoming accepted in serious musical
circles.
1920
Alex Comfort (d.
March 26,
2000), English
anarchist,
gerontologist and author, best known for his books on sexual
behaviour. (The Joy of Sex; Reality and Empathy; Barbarism
and Sexual Freedom)
1930
Robert Wagner, American
actor
1932
Michael Anthony, West
Indian author of novels, short stories, and travelogues about
domestic life in his homeland of Trinidad. Written in a sparse
style, his works were often coming-of-age stories featuring young
protagonists from his native village of Mayaro.
1934
Fleur Adcock, New
Zealand-born British poet known for her tranquil domestic lyrics
intercut with flashes of irony and glimpses of the fantastic and the
macabre
1940
Roberta
Flack,
American
singer,
notable in the areas of
jazz,
soul, and
folk
"Her 1969 debut, First
Take, and 1970 follow-up, Chapter Two, did not sell
well until 1972, when the single 'The First Time Ever I Saw
Your Face' from First Take appeared on the soundtrack
of Play Misty for Me and subsequently hit No. 1. That same
year Flack began collaborating closely with vocalist Donny
Hathaway, whom she knew from college; together the pair produced
No. 1 hits such as 'Killing Me Softly with His Song' (1973) and
'Feel Like Makin' Love' (1974)."
Source
1941
Michael Apted,
English film director (Agatha;
Coal
Miner's Daughter;
Gorky Park;
Gorillas in the Mist;
Amazing Grace), producer, writer and actor. He is one of the
most prolific British film directors of his generation but is best
known for his work on the
Up series
of TV documentaries. In
2003 he was elected President of the
Directors Guild of America.
1944
Frances
Moore Lappé,
social change and
democracy
activist, and the author of 16 books,
including the three-million-copy bestseller,
Diet for a Small Planet
1944 Peter
Allen (d.
June 18,
1992),
Australian
singer-songwriter ('I Honestly Love
You'; 'I Go To Rio'; 'The More I See You'; 'I
Still Call Australia Home';
'Arthur's
Theme [Best That You Can Do]' [co-writer,
with Burt
Bacharach,
Carole Bayer
Sager and
Christopher Cross])
'I Go to Rio' on Google Video
'I Still Call Australia Home' on Google Video
1967
Laura Dern,
actress (Jurassic Park;
Blue Velvet;
Rambling
Rose), daughter of actors
Bruce Dern and
Diane Ladd
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application. Further details
 1468 BCE (sources vary; Wikipedia says 1469 BCE) Thutmose III set out, bound
for
Megiddo.
In an early expansion of the Egyptian
Empire, Pharaoh Thutmose
(Tuthmosis) III of Egypt set forth towards Megiddo, Palestine, where the Battle of Megiddo
(Armageddon) was fought on April 16 of that
year (traditional dates), and Pharaoh conquered Canaan. He and his army of
perhaps 30,000 men marched in nine days from his border fortress of Sileh along
the Sinai road known as the "Ways of Horus"
to Gaza, the main Egyptian stronghold in Canaan. (A breakdown in discipline
amongst the Egyptian soldiers, who looted the fallen Canaanite army instead of
securing Megiddo, robbed the pharaoh of a quick victory and only after a long
siege did the city finally surrender.)
Much of the history is known from inscriptions in the
Hall of Annals in the Temple of
Amun at Karnak in ancient Thebes (modern Luxor).
The name Armageddon has entered our
language via Hebrew and Christian scriptures
(particularly through the Book of the
Revelation of St John) as the place, and/or event, of a supposed final apocalypse for the world, the site of the final battle between the
kings of the earth (incited by Satan) and the Christian God. The concept was borrowed by
early Christians from the Jews, the location for the battle being moved from the
Vale of Ghosts (Emeq Refaim) near the Temple
Mount in Jerusalem.
The word armageddon
is derived from Mount (Har in Hebrew) Megiddo, the site of the Battle
of Megiddo and other battles.
Thutmose was
an active expansionist ruler, sometimes referred to as the 'Napoleon of
Egypt', because he was recorded to have conquered 350 cities during his
rule, spreading his rule over much of the
Near East.
"This was said to be the day, in 1468 BC, when
Pharaoh Tuthmoses III of the 18th Dynasty set forth to Armageddon (Megiddo)
to do battle with an alliance of over three hundred princes. With an
estimated force of perhaps 30,000 men, this would have been the largest army
ever assembled. The Egyptians probably had half that number. This was the
largest battle that had ever been fought and so impressed were the Hebrews
by the event that it became a metaphor in the Book of Revelation for the
Apocalypse, or the final battle. After seizing power from Hatsheput ten days
earlier, who was killed, the warlike Tuthmoses III assembled this army to
put down the alliance of rebels and enemies, and in so doing took Egypt from
a nation to an empire."
Source
"In World War I, British Field Marshall Edmund
Allenby led Australian cavalry and Indian infantry up the Aruna Pass,
surprising and defeating Turks on the tell (mound) of ancient Megiddo.
Recent scholarship has proven that the 20th Century British warrior had very
much in mind the tactics of Tuthmosis III over 3,000 years earlier." Source
60 Traditional date of the shipwreck of St Paul, early
Christian missionary, on Malta (as told in Acts, Chapters 27 and 28).
 "In verse seven, Luke states that they were the guests
on Malta of a man named Publius, who was called "the first man of the island."
Ancient inscriptions reveal that the head official on Malta had the title "First
Man of the Island.'" Source
"When the Order of St. John of Jerusalem [Knights
Hospitaller, pictured – PW] established itself in Malta in 1530, the capital of the island was the old citadel of Mdina, referred to as Cittŕ Notabile by the Aragonese kings of Sicily. The Knights Hospitaller who had by then become an important sea-power, did not occupy the old capital, which lies several kilometres inland; instead they fixed their abode in the little town of Il Borgo, known today as Vittoriosa, which nestled behind Fort St. Angelo, the main castle of the Grand Harbour; it soon became their administrative headquarters since Mdina was considered to be too vulnerable.
"The Knights of Jerusalem had been over thirty years in possession of the island, when in 1565 Suleyman, the mighty Turk who earned the title of "the magnificent" for his exploits and personal qualities, sent a great army to seize Malta and to suppress the Order of St. John, which was becoming a serious obstacle to the Ottoman Empire. But the Knights, under the inspiring and brave leadership of their Grandmaster Fra Jean de Ia Valette, a Provencal, heroically resisted the formidable attack of the Turkish army. The shattered and dispirited Ottomans finally left the Island on 13 September, 1565 - a victory still commemorated by the
Maltese ...
"Not long after its completion, the new church was ceded to the
Jesuit Fathers who offered a new site to the parish priest
whereon to build a new church. A small church was built in due
time. As the City continued to grow, and its population
continued to increase, a bigger church was needed, so that the
existing one was pulled down and rebuilt on a modified plan. The
building of the new church was begun in 1639 and continued over
forty years. Grandmasters Jean Paul Lascaris Castellar
(1636-57), Nicolas Cotoner (1663-80), Gregorio Carafa (1680-90)
and Bishop Laurentius Astirias (1669-78) all contributed large
sums of money towards the new project as also did the Universitŕ
(the local Commune), the clergy and parishioners."
St Paul's Shipwreck Church, Malta
"As written in the Acts of the Apostles (28:2–7), St. Paul was bitten by a snake, which rose out of a fire built to warm the shipwrecked sailors. St Paul flung the snake back into the fire, and it was noted that he was unharmed, thereby convincing the heathen islanders that he was a god. As a punishment to the snakes of the island, he reputedly took away their ability to produce poison (Zammit-Maempel 1989). The cursed Maltese snakes also lost their eyes and tongues.
"Different fossils found in the Miocene rocks that form Malta are believed to be
'serpents' eyes' (palatal teeth of another fossil fish) and 'serpents' tongues' (sharks' teeth).
"As a result of their connection with St Paul, all fossil sharks' teeth from Malta were considered to possess supernatural powers, especially against poison."
Fossil
folklore: Sharks' teeth
Image of
Paul's shipwreck, and other religious art by Gustave Doré
822 King of Copán,
U-Cit-Tok, came to the throne. The Pre-Columbian
city of Copán is a
locale in extreme western Honduras, in the Copán
Department, near the Guatemalan border. It is the site of a major
Mayan
kingdom of the Classic era.
Source
More on Mayans at December
27 (631 CE) in the Book of Days
1258 The
Battle of
Baghdad: The Ilkhanid branch of the
Mongols under
Hulagu Khan (in alliance with the Roman Catholic
Pope Alexander IV) overran Baghdad.
The Mongols
massacred some 800,000 of the city's inhabitants, including the
Abbasid
caliph
Al-Musta'sim,
and destroyed large sections of the city.
"On
Friday the 2nd of Safar [February 8] the Dawatdar and his followers were
killed. Sulaymanshah and seven hundred of his relatives were brought in, hands
bound, and questioned.
"'Since
you are a star-gazer and astrologer and know about good and ill portents in
the heavens, how is it you didn't see your own day of doom and didn't advise
your lord to come before us in peace?' he was asked.
"'The
caliph was headstrong and ill-starred,' he replied. 'He did not listen to
the advice of his well-wishers.' An order was given for him and all his
followers to be martyred. Amir Hajjuddin, the son of the 'Big' Dawatdar,
was also killed. The heads of all three were sent to Mosul by Malik Salih,
Badruddin Lu'lu's son. Badruddin, having been a friend of Sulaymanshah's,
wept, but in fear for his own life he hung the heads on the gibbet.
"After
that, when the Caliph Musta'sim saw that it was all over, he summoned the
vizier and asked, 'What's to be done?'
"In
reply he quoted this line of poetry: '"They think the matter is simple,
but it is a sword whose edges have been sharpened for meeting."'
"After
Basra was destroyed, the caliph and his three sons, Abu'1-Fadl Abdul-Rahman,
Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad, and Abu'l-Managib Mubarak, came out on Sunday the 4th of
Safar 656 [February 10, 1258]. With him were three thousand sayyids, imams,
cadis, grandees and dignitaries of the city. He approached Hulagu Khan, and
the padishah did not exhibit any anger but asked after his health kindly and
pleasantly. After that he said to the caliph, 'Tell the people of the city
to throw down their weapons and come out so that we may make a count.' The
caliph sent word into the city for it to be heralded that the people should
throw down their weapons and come out. The people disarmed themselves and
came out in droves, and the Mongols killed them."
Jumi'u't-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles): A History of the Mongols, translated by WM
Thackston (Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures, 45, 1998 - 9)
Source
1355
The St
Scholastica's Day riot broke out in Oxford,
England,
leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days. A conflict broke out between the scholars at Oxford university and the
citizens; the scholars lost. The Church took revenge against the citizens, requiring that on every St Scholastica's Day, February 10, the mayor and 62 citizens should attend St Mary's Church and pay a penny each.
The penance ended nearly half a millennium later, in
1825, when the mayor
of the time refused to take part.1542
Queen Catherine
Howard of England was confined in the Tower
of London to be executed
three days later for treason (adultery).
1567 An explosion
destroyed the Kirk o' Field
house in Edinburgh, Scotland. The second husband of
Mary, Queen of Scots,
Lord Darnley is found strangled, in what many believe to be an assassination.
1635 The Académie française in Paris was expanded
to become a national academy for the artistic elite.
1722 Death of
Bartholomew
Roberts (b. 1682),
Welsh
pirate,
in battle with HMS Swallow, commanded by Captain
Chaloner Ogle.
1763 French and Indian War: The 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed by the Kingdom of Great Britain, France and Spain together with
the Treaty of Hubertusburg to end the French and Indian War and the Seven
Years' War. France ceded Canada to Great
Britain.
1788 The first marriages in Australia were performed by Rev.
Richard
Johnson, who married 14 (one source says five) couples, all convicts. The colony
was 15 days old.
1814 The Battle of Champaubert took place.
1837 The Russian author, Aleksandr
Pushkin (Alexander Pushkin; b. 1799), Russian playwright of
Boris Godunov, was killed in a duel with
his brother-in-law.
1840 Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
married Prince Albert of Saxe
Coburg-Gotha.
1846 Many Mormons began their migration west from Nauvoo,
Illinois, USA.
1863 The
world-famous dwarfs General Tom Thumb (3
feet, 4 inches) and Lavinia Warren
(2 feet, 8 inches) were married in New York
City before a gathering of 2,000.
1863
Alanson Crane patented the fire
extinguisher.
1870 The
YWCA was founded (New York
City).
1880 American Emperor Norton I
was buried at the Masonic Cemetery in San Francisco. The cortege was two miles
long; estimates of up to 30,000 subjects turned out to pay homage and celebrate.
Emperor Norton
His Archives
1889 The Church of England authorized use of the Revised Version of
the Bible.
1898 The treaty of USA with Spain ended their war.
1908 Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi),
Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience,
was nearly killed by a Pathan who regarded the compromise, under which Indians
were expected to give their finger-prints voluntarily, as a betrayal of Indian
interests; Gandhi refused to prosecute his assailant.
1910 The Dreadnought
Hoax
The Dreadnought Hoax was a practical
joke pulled by Horace de Vere Cole in 1910. Cole tricked the
Royal Navy
into showing their flagship, the warship HMS
Dreadnought to a supposed delegation of Abyssinian
royals.
The hoax
involved Cole and five friends - future author Virginia
Woolf, her brother Adrian Green, Guy Ridley, Anthony Buxton and artist Duncan
Grant –
who dressed up in blackface and turbans to make
them look oriental. Their only main fault was that the "royals" could
not eat anything or their make-up would be ruined. Adrian Green took the role of
"interpreter". The operation cost Cole Ł4000.
On
February 10, 1910 the trick began. Cole had an accomplice send a telegram to the
HMS Dreadnought which was then moored in Weymouth. The
message said that the ship must be prepared for the visit of a group of princes
from Abyssinia and was signed by Foreign Under-secretary Sir
Charles Hardinge.
Cole with
his entourage went to London's Paddington Station where Cole claimed that he was
"Herbert Cholmondesly" of the
UK Foreign Office and demanded a special train to
Weymouth. The stationmaster arranged a VIP coach.
In
Weymouth, the navy welcomed the princes with an honor guard. Unfortunately,
nobody had found an Abyssinian flag, so the navy proceeded to use that of Zanzibar and
to play Zanzibar's national anthem. Their visitors did not appear to notice.
The group
inspected the fleet. They gave cards printed in Swahili and
talked with each other in a broken Latin. To show their appreciation, they
yelled "bunga bunga". They asked for prayer mats and bestowed fake
military honours to some of the officers. One officer familiar to both Cole and
Woolf failed to recognize either one.
When they
were departing by train, Anthony Buxton sneezed and blew off his false whiskers
but managed to stick them back before anyone noticed. Cole had not had enough
and told to a train conductor that he could serve royals lunch only with white
gloves.
In London,
they revealed the ruse by sending a letter and a group photo to The Daily
Mirror. The Royal Navy briefly became an object of ridicule and
demanded that Cole be arrested. However, Cole and his compatriots had not broken
any law. The Navy sent two officers to cane Cole as a punishment – but Cole
countered that it was they who should be caned because they had been fooled in
the first place.
Source: Wikipedia
1913 The bodies of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions were
found in a tent in Antarctica, only 11 miles from a food cache.
1931 New Delhi
became the capital of India.
1933 The
New
York City-based Postal Telegraph Company introduced the first singing
telegram.
1933
In round 13 of a boxing match at New York
City's Madison Square Garden, Primo
Carnera knocked out Ernie Schaaf, killing him.
1942 Glenn Miller received the first gold record, for Chattanooga Choo Choo, the first million-selling record.
1943
Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) began a 21-day fast at Aga Khan Palace to end
a deadlock of negotiations between Viceroy and Government of India regarding
disturbances.
Gandhi Timeline
1947 Italy ceded most of Venezia Giulia to Yugoslavia.
1951 American comic,
Stan Freberg,
recorded his hit comedy record, 'John
and Marsha'.
1954 President Dwight
Eisenhower warned against United
States intervention in Vietnam.
1955 The eviction began of 60,000 black people from their homes in
Sophiatown, near Johannesburg.
1962 The
USSR and USA exchanged spies: captured US pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged by the USSR for
their secret agent Rudolf Abel who was being held by the Americans. The two
walked to freedom from opposite sides of a Berlin bridge, passing in silence in
the middle.
1964
The aircraft carrier HMAS
Melbourne collided with the HMAS Voyager off the south coast
of New
South Wales, Australia
with the loss of 82 lives.
1964
The press reported on this day that "millions of teenage boys are spending
extra time in front of the mirror trying to make their hair look like Paul
McCartney's ..." following an appearance of The Beatles on The Ed
Sullivan Show the night before.
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1967 The 25th Amendment
to the United States Constitution was ratified.
1971 US: National protests against US invasion of
Laos included 1,500 protesters and nine arrests at the University of Washington
in Seattle.
1981 A fire at the Las
Vegas Hilton hotel-casino kills eight
and injures 198.
1989 Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming
the first African American to lead a major American political
party.
1990 South
African President FW de Klerk announced that Nelson
Mandela would be released the next day.
1990 Perrier Water pulled product from shelves due
to benzene in its water.
"The Australian Consumers
Association's food policy officer, Mr Matt O'Neill, says the health benefits
of drinking bottled water over tap water are minimal. 'Bottled water must be
one of the cleverest gold-mine products, given that all you have to do is go
to the tap and get it free,' he says."
Source
[PDF]The
True Face of Bottled Water: Part One
"The Institute of Medicine,
an arm of the National Academy of Science, found in a 1992 study that
deceptive bottled water labeling was a widespread practice. 'Spring
water' with mountains and a lake on the label actually came from an
industrial parking lot next to a hazardous waste site. Brands sold as
'pure glacier water' came from groundwater nowhere near any current
glacier …
"Another brand of bottled water called
Everest, with mountains on the label, lists the source as the municipal water
supply of Corpus Christi, which, as one report noted, 'is near the Gulf
of Mexico and nowhere near Everest or any other mountain'."
Source: Debunking a myth
"Ozone to bromate (Consumer Alert:
'What's in bottled water?' Australian Consumers' Association, Choice, 4 May 2000):
'…some waters naturally include bromides, which can be converted
into bromate by ozonation … Bromate is only one of a number of chemical
by-products left behind by ozone and chlorine treatment. Ozonation is a
popular way of disinfecting bottled water because it's very effective but,
unlike chlorine, it doesn't leave behind a chemical taste or smell.'
"And too much bromate is definitely not a
good thing. According to the National Health and Medical Research Council
(NHMRC), its many reversible effects include nausea, diarrhoea and central
nervous system depression. As if that wasn't bad enough, irreversible
effects can include kidney failure and deafness. And bromate is a suspected
carcinogen." Source
Toxic
Sludge is Good For You
1992 In Indianapolis, Indiana boxer Mike Tyson
was convicted of raping a Miss Black American contestant named Desiree Washington.
1996 Deep Blue, a
computer, defeated chess grand master Garry
Kasparov for the first time.
1998 USA: A college dropout
became the first person to be convicted of a hate crime
committed in cyberspace.
1998 USA: Voters in Maine repealed a gay rights
law passed in 1997
becoming the first US state to abandon such a law.
1999
Avalanches in the French
Alps near Geneva
killed at least 10.
2003
France
and Belgium
broke the NATO
procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective
measures for Turkey
in case of a possible war with Iraq.
2003
Muslims
celebrated the Islamic
festival of Eid
al-Adha. See also Hajj. 2005
North
Korea and weapons of mass destruction: North
Korea suspended participation in multi-nation talks to discuss
its arms program and officially admitted to developing nuclear
weapons.
Tomorrow: Gasparilla Pirate Fest
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I frequently make use of their generously liberal 'fair use', 'copyleft'
and 'anti-copyright' policies, with much gratitude.
© My own copyright
policy is also liberal, but as this is my livelihood, conditions apply.
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