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.
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.
Marry in Lent
And you'll live to repent. East Anglian saying
On Ash Wednesday the priest said to the men of
Gotham, "If I should enjoin you to prayer, there is none of you that
can say your paternoster; and you be now too old to learn. And to enjoin
you to fast were foolishness, for you do not eat a good meal's meat in a
year. Wherefore do I enjoin thee to labour all the week, that thou mayest
fare well to dine on Sunday, and I will come to dinner and see it to be
so, and take my dinner." Another man he did enjoin to fare well on
Monday, and another on Tuesday, and one after another that one or other
should fare well once a week, that he might have part of his meat.
"And as for alms," said the priest, "ye be beggars all,
except one or two; therefore bestow alms on yourselves." A tale of the Wise Fools of
Gotham
Anywhere is paradise. George Harrison, born on
February 25, 1943
I look at you all see the love there
that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps. George Harrison; 'While
My Guitar Gently Weeps' (1968)
My idea in 'My
Sweet Lord', because it sounded like a 'pop song', was to sneak
up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended by
'Hallelujah', and by the time it gets to 'Hare Krishna', they're
already hooked, and their foot's tapping, and they're already
singing along 'Hallelujah', to kind of lull them into a sense of
false security. And then suddenly it turns into 'Hare Krishna', and
they will all be singing that before they know what's happened, and
they will think, "Hey, I thought I wasn't supposed to like Hare
Krishna!" George Harrison; interview with Mukunda Goswami (September
4, 1982)
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No one else can make you change,
And to see you're only very small
And life flows on within you and without you. George Harrison; 'Within
You Without You'
The world used The Beatles as an excuse to go mad. George Harrison
People seem to
seek happiness but they make it so complicated that they become
disgusted with the seeking. It is very simple! Let your head respond
to your heart and then act accordingly. Meher Baba, born on February 25, 1894
Don't worry. Be happy. Meher Baba
To exercise a Whim is always the sign of an independent
nature ... Meher Baba
To penetrate into the
essence of all being and significance and to release the fragrance of that inner
attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing, in the world
of forms, truth, love, purity and beauty—this is the sole game which has
intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments in
themselves can have no lasting importance.
Meher Baba; Discourses,
'The Place of Occultism in Spiritual Life', III, Volume II
As I see it every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself. Adelle Davis, nutritionist, born on February 25, 1904
Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. Adelle Davis
We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are. Adelle Davis
All of my life I been like a doubled up
fist ... poundin', smashin', drivin' – now I'm going to loosen
these doubled up hands and touch things easy with them. Tennessee Williams,
American playwright who choked to death on a nose spray bottle cap on
February 25, 1983
There are more Internet
connections on the island of Manhattan than there are on the entire
Indian continent. Shashi Tharoor, PhD, author, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and
Public Information of the United NationsSource
If I die from now on, OK! This film will go on for a hundred years. Dr Haing S
Ngor, Cambodian-born American actor (The Killing
Fields) who was murdered on February 25, 1996
Where Easter
celebrates the resurrection
of Jesus Christ after his death on the Cross,
Lent is concerned with the events leading up to and including Jesus'
execution by Rome. This took place
around the year 29 of the Common
Era in Roman occupied Jerusalem of Palestine.
There are traditionally 40 days in Lent which are
marked by fasting, both from foods
and festivities, and by other acts of penance. Lent is a season of
sorrowful reflection that is punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays
(the day of the resurrection). Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of
Lent. Because Lent is a season of grief that necessarily ends with a great
celebration of Easter, it is known in Eastern Orthodox circles as the
season of "Bright Sadness".
Though originally of pre-Christian content, the
traditional carnival celebrations
that precede Lent in many cultures, have become associated with the season
of fasting if only because they are a last opportunity for excess before
Lent begins. The most famous of pre-lenten carnivals in the West is Fat Tuesday
or Mardi Gras.
Fasting during Lent was in ancient times more
severe than it is today. Meat, fish,
eggs
and milk products were
strictly forbidden, and only one meal was taken each day. Today, in the
West, the practice is considerably relaxed, though in the Eastern church,
abstinence from the above mentioned food products is still commonly
practiced. Lenten practices (as well as other liturgical
practices) are more common in Protestant circles than
they once were.
It occurs forty days
before Easter,
not counting Sundays
(which are not included in Lent); it occurs forty-four days before Good
Fridaycounting Sundays. Its placement varies each year,
according to the date of Easter. The date
can vary from early February to as late as
the second week in March.
Ash Wednesday falls on the following dates in the
following years:
Some Christians treat Ash
Wednesday as a day for remembering one's mortality. Masses are traditionally
held on this day at which attendees are blessed with ashes by the priest
ministering the ceremony. The minister marks the forehead of each
celebrant with black ashes, traditionally in the shape of a cross, leaving a
mark that the worshipper traditionally leaves on his or her forehead until
sundown, before washing it off. This symbolism recalls the ancient Near
Eastern tradition of throwing ash over one's head signifying repentance
before God (as
related numerous times in the Bible). Often these Ash
Wednesday ashes are made by burning Palm leaves from the previous year's Palm
Sunday celebrations and mixing them with olive oil as a fixative.
In Roman Catholicism,
Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and abstinence.
The penitentialpsalms
are read.
"It is believed that the custom of wearing ashes was borrowed from the Jewish religion. For instance,
'Also, in every province that the king's command and decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and everybody lay in sackcloth and ashes.' (Esther 4:3 JPS)"
Source:
Czech Easter
"In
the mediaeval Western Church, a white curtain hung down in Parish
churches between the altar and the nave, and parted on feast days kept
during Lent. It was taken down in the last three days of Holy Week and
said to betoken 'the prophecy of Christ's Passion, which was hidden
and unknown till these days' (Liber Festivalis). Similarly, all
crucifixes and images were covered, a practice still followed in
some Anglican churches." Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988
Ash Wednesday bushfires (1983), Australia, February 16 in
the Book of Days
"The
timing of Easter depends on the Jewish Pesach, in English Passover,
which commemorates the sparing of the Hebrew first-born, as recounted in
Exodus,
since it is during this holiday that Jesus is believed to have been
resurrected.
The date of Easter
"Easter
and the holidays that are related to it are moveable
feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar (which follows the
motion of the Sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar
calendar like that used by the Jews. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was
decided that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day
of the first lunar month of spring (in theory, the Sunday after the first full moon
on or after the day of the vernal
equinox). Eventually, all churches accepted the Alexandrian method of
computing Easter, which set the northern hemisphere vernal equinox at 21
March (the actual equinox may fall one or two days earlier or later), and
the date of the full moon was to be determined by using the Metonic
cycle. A problem here is the difference between the western churches
and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The former now use
the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date of
Easter, while the latter still use the original Julian calendar. The World Council of Churches proposed a
reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in
Aleppo, Syria,
in 1997. This reform would have eliminated the difference in the date
between the Eastern and Western churches. The reform was due to be
implemented starting in 2001, but it failed. See Reform of the date of Easter.
"Computing
the date of Easter, known as computus,
is somewhat complicated. The Wiki page explains the traditional tabular
methods, but also has algorithms such as the one developed by the famous
mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.
"Easter
Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date for the
year. In June 325 A.D. astronomers approximated astronomical
full moon dates for the Christian church, calling them Ecclesiastical Full
Moon (EFM) dates. From 326 A.D. the PFM date has always been the EFM
date after March 20 (which was the equinox date in 325 A.D.)." Sourcewith some explanation, and discussion of popular errors
Lunabar will put moon phases, equinoxes, solstices, etc
on your desktop
Walburga,
or Walpurgis (born in Wessex,
c. 710,
died at Heidenheim,
February
25, 779)
was a nun of Wimborne under St Tatta and an English
missionary in Germany.
She was the daughter of Richard, King of the West
Saxons. Although a Christian saint, her name will ever be
associated with witchcraft because of Walpurgis
Night (see April
30), the eve of her other feast (May
1). On the dawn of her feast day on May 1, the evil spirits are
banished.
Together with
her brothers, St Wilibald
and St Winibald,
she travelled to
Württemberg
to assist St Boniface.
She became a nun and lived in the convent of Heidenheim
near
Eichstätt,
which was founded by Winibald. When he died in 760, she took over till
her death 19 years later.
An oily liquid flowed from her tomb, and
was a remedy for sickness. The most important day to commemorate
Walburga is April
30 (Walpurgisnacht
or Walpurgis Night), the date of the translation of her
relics to Eichstätt in 870, which is also a pagan festival
marking the beginning of summer and the revels of witches. It
has long been a witching night, particularly in Germany, and
happened to be the day that Adolf
Hitler and his mistress Eva
Braun committed
suicide.
In art she is
represented as a royal abbess or in the Benedictine habit with a small flask of oil on a
book; sometimes with a crozier, a crown at her feet, denoting royal
birth, and may be depicted in a family tree of the Kings of England.
She is also sometimes represented in a group with St Philip
and St James
the Less, and St Sigismund,
King of Burgundy, because she is said to have been canonized by Pope
Adrian II on May
1, the festival of these saints. Sometimes she carries three ears of corn in her hand;
sometimes angels hold a crown over her. She may be shown together with her saintly
brothers, or with miracles taking place because of the oil extruding from her tomb.
"Boniface
was the first missionary to call women to his aid. In 748, in
response to his appeal, Abbess Tetta sent over to Germany St.
Lioba and St. Walburga, with many other nuns. They sailed with
fair weather, but before long a terrible storm arose. Hereupon
Walburga prayed, kneeling on the deck, and at once the sea became
calm. On landing, the sailors proclaimed the miracle
they had witnessed, so that Walburga was everywhere received with
joy and veneration. There is a tradition in the Church of Antwerp
that, on her way to Germany, Walburga made some stay there; and in
that city's most ancient church, which now bears the title of St.
Walburga, there is pointed out a grotto in which she was wont to
pray. This same church, before adopting the Roman Office, was
accustomed to celebrate the feast of St. Walburga four times a
year. At Mainz she was welcomed by her uncle, St.
Boniface, and by her brother, St. Willibald. After living some
time under the rule of St. Lioba at Bischofsheim, she was
appointed abbess of Heidenheim, and was thus placed near her
favourite brother, St. Winibald, who governed an abbey there.
After his death she ruled over the monks' monastery as well as her
own. Her virtue, sweetness, and prudence, added to the gifts of
grace and nature with which she was endowed, as well as the many miracles
she wrought, endeared her to all. It was of these nuns that Ozanam
wrote: 'Silence and humility have veiled the labours of the nuns
from the eyes of the world, but history has assigned them their
place at the very beginning of German civilization: Providence has
placed women at ever cradleside.' On 23 Sept., 776, she assisted
at the translation of her brother St. Winibald's body by St.
Willibald, when it was found that time had left no trace upon the
sacred remains. Shortly after this she fell ill, and, having been
assisted in her last moments by St. Willibald, she expired.
"St. Willibald laid her to rest
beside St. Winibald, and many wonders were wrought at both tombs.
St. Willibald survived till 786, and after his death devotion to
St. Walburga gradually declined, and her tomb was neglected. About
870, Otkar, then Bishop of Eichstadt, determined to restore the
church and monastery of Heidenheim, which were falling to ruin.
The workmen having desecrated St. Walburga's grave, she one night
appeared to the bishop, reproaching and threatening him. This led
to the solemn translation of the remains to Eichstadt on 21 Sept.
of the same year. They were placed in the Church of Holy Cross,
now called St. Walburga's. In 893 Bishop Erchanbold, Otkar's
successor, opened the shrine to take out a portion of the relics
for Liubula, Abbess of Monheim, and it was then that the body was
first discovered to be immersed in a precious oil or dew, which
from that day to this (save during a period when Eichstadt was
laid under interdict,
and when blood was shed in the church by robbers who seriously
wounded the bell-ringer) has continued to flow from the sacred
remains, especially the breast. This fact has caused St. Walburga
to be reckoned among the Elaephori, or oil-yielding saints
(see OIL OF
SAINTS). Portions of St. Walburga's relics
have been taken to Cologne, Antwerp, Furnes, and elsewhere, whilst
her oil has been carried to all quarters of the globe.
"The various translations of St.
Walburga's relics
have led to a diversity of feasts in her honour. In the Roman
Martyrology she is commemorated on 1 May, her name being linked
with St. Asaph's, on which day her chief festival is celebrated in
Belgium and Bavaria. In the Benedictine Breviary her feast is
assigned to 25 (in leap year 26) Feb ... If, however, as
some maintain, she was canonized during the episcopate of
Erchanbold, not in Otkar's, then it could not have been during the
pontificate of Adrian
II. The Benedictine community of Eichstadt is flourishing, and
the nuns have care of the saint's shrine; that of Heidenheim was
ruthlessly expelled in 1538, but the church is now in Catholic
hands." Catholic
Encyclopedia
Ethelbert (or
Ćthelbert, or Aethelberht) (c. 552
- February
24, 616)
was King
of Kent
from around 580
or 590
until his death. After his death, he was regarded as a saint.
As he was the King of Kent, he was regarded as the first
Christian king of England, and the monarch when St Augustine arrived bringing
monasticism to that island. On Whitsunday,
June
2, 597 King Ethelbert was baptized by St Augustine, commencing official recognition of Christianity in the British
Isles.
(Note: The year of Ethelbert's
death may have been slightly later, perhaps 618.
Note, too, that the authority William
Hone, has his
entry at February
24. However, most sources, such as Patron
Saints Index and Saints
O' the Day give his feast day as February 25. The latter
writes: "There seems to have been an unofficial cultus at Canterbury from early times, but his feast is found in calendars only from the
13th century, and generally on February 25 or 26, because Saint Matthias occupied February 24. He is commemorated in both the Roman and British Martyrologies.")
These are intercalary
days in the Bahá'í
calendar devoted to service and gift giving. The Ayyám-i-Há
holiday begins each year on the evening of February 25
and ends at sunset on March 1.
Of this period Bahá'u'lláh(1817
- '92),
the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, wrote: "It behoveth the
people of Bahá, throughout these days, to provide good cheer for
themselves, their kindred and, beyond them, the poor and needy, and
with joy and exultation to hail and glorify their Lord, to sing His
praise and magnify His Name."
Bahá'í communities typically host Ayyám-i-Há
festivities, with some communities exchanging gifts in the
manner of Christmas in Christian communities, sometimes with a
different gift for each of the four days (five in leap year).
Manger tętes d' l'eau (Ritual feeding of
springs) , Voudon
(Voodoo)Source
Norriture Rituelle des sources tęt
d' l'eau, Voudon
(Voodoo)Source
Coronado Day,
Mexico Today honours the search by the
explorer,
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, for the Seven Cities of
Cíbola in 1540. De
Coronado also explored the American Southwest. Regional festivals
are held in Mexico.
Katsuyama Sagicho, Katsuyama, Fukui
Prefecture, Japan (Feb 24 - 25) At 10 o'clock on this day pine
trees, symbolising a deity, are made into a bonfire on the
riverbank.
TenjinMatsuri, Japan Tenjin shrines in Japan celebrate
today in memory of
Sugawara
no Michizane (845 - 903), the scholar and
statesman. He loved
apricot trees, this man who was deified under
the name of Tenjin, so offerings of apricot-tree branches and rice
are made at these shrines.
Dairokuten-no-Hadaka Matsuri (Mud-slinging Festival),
Musubi Shrine,
Yotsukaido,
Chiba
Prefecture, Japan
"Youths clad only in fundoshi run from the shrine to the lake where
they cover themselves in 'purifying mud,' before returning to pray
for a good harvest. (A similar festival is held at Katori-jinja,
Noda-shi, Chiba, on April 3.)"
Source
Sounkyo Ice
Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5)
Februaristaking
commemoration,
Netherlands
Commemorating a strike against the
Nazi occupier, 1941.
The strike is remembered with a march past the Dokwerker, the
memorial unveiled in December 1952.
"Ida Lewis is one of the most famous personages
to have ever served in the Coast Guard or in this case, the U.S.
Lighthouse Service, one of the Coast Guard's predecessors.
She gained national notoriety during a time when most women in the
United States were not in the professional workforce nor on the
national stage. She overcame the biases of the time, through
skill and professional ability, to become the official keeper of
Lime Rock Light Station, a position she held until her death.
"She met a president, Ulysses S. Grant, a
Vice-President, Schuyler Colfax, made the cover of Harper's
Weekly, a national publication, in 1869, was featured in
stories in Putnam's Magazine and The New York Tribune,
and received accolades and awards from around the country ... Surprisingly, most of the
attention was not due to her first-rate skills and abilities as a
lightkeeper but rather for her abilities as a life-saver. In
fact, she was known as 'The Bravest Woman in America,' a title
bestowed upon her by the Society of the American Cross of Honor.
Light keepers were frequently asked to risk their lives to saved
the shipwrecked or others in danger of drowning and Ida Lewis did
just that countless times and received the nation's highest award
for lifesaving. She was an expert small boat handler and was
quite skilled with oars. Indeed, she could 'row a boat
faster than any man in Newport [RI].'"Source
Born in Melbourne,
the third of eight children of a baker, McCubbin worked for a time
as solicitor's clerk, a coach
painter, and in his family's bakery business while studying art at
the National
Gallery of Victoria's School of Design, where he met Tom
Roberts and studied under Eugene von Gerard. He also studied at
the Victorian Academy of the Arts and, in 1876, and from 1879 to 1882,
exhibited there, selling his first painting in 1880. In this period,
with the death of his father he became responsible for running the
family business.
By the early 1880s, his work began to
attract considerable attention and won a number of prizes from the
National Gallery, including a 30-pound first prize in 1883 in their
annual student exhibition, and by the mid-1880s began to concentrate
more on the works of the Australian bush that made him most famous.
In 1888, he became Master of the School of
Design at the National Gallery. In this position, he taught a number
of students who themselves became prominent Australian artists,
including Charles
Conder and Arthur
Streeton.
"Meher
Baba, the name
given to him by his disciples in the 1920's, was born Merwan
Sheriar Irani, into a Zoroastrian family. His father, Sheriar
Irani, was a devout seeker of God. In Persia, after days of
fasting and continuous meditation, Sheriar heard a voice tell him
to stop seeking what he strongly desired and to head back home –
one who was born to him would complete his search for God.
"Sheriar then traveled to Poona, India, where his sister lived
(Irani means 'from Iran'). Ten years later in 1883, he was
persuaded to give up his life as an ascetic an [sic] to begin a family
life …"Source
1901Zeppo
Marx (d. 1979), American comedian who was the
youngest of the Marx Brothers.
He was not a great comic talent like the others, but became their
agent.
Zeppo's famous brothers were Groucho
(Julius Henry Marx,
1890 - 1977), Chico (Leonard Marx, 1887 -
1961) and Harpo
(Adolph Arthur Marx,
1888 - 1964). Gummo(Milton Marx, 1892-1977)
is rather less known; he went into the dressmaking business with the
idiot-savant brother, Karl.
"Will forever be remembered by
Western audiences as the bombastic meglomaniac "Auric
Goldfinger" trying to kill Sean Connery and
irradiate the vast US gold reserves within Fort Knox in the
spectacular James Bond film Goldfinger (1964).
However, due to Frobe's thick German accent, his voice was
actually dubbed by English actor, Michael Collins!"
Source: IMDB
1913Jim
Backus (d. 1989), American actor (TV series: Gilligan's Island; character voice:
Mister Magoo). One of Backus's teachers in grade school was Margaret Hamilton,
who would later play Miss Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West, in The Wizard of Oz. He attended the Kentucky Military
Academy where one of his classmates was future fellow actor,
Victor
Mature. When Backus was doing radio plays, one of his characters,
Hubert Updyke III, would become the basis for Thurston Howell III in
Gilligan's Island.
The date of George Harrison's birthday is
generally accepted as today, but sometimes disputed. At time of writing
(February 23, 2004) Wikipedia places it at February
24, 1943
and says: "Until Harrison was in his 40s, he believed that he was born on February
25", and February 25 is what his birth certificate, his mother and
his wife affirm. Despite this, in his 40s, the musician decided to
start celebrating his birthday on February 24. No one seems to know
why. Some say that Harrison started a rumour that he was born on
February 24 as a joke.
However, for the reasons outlined above, I'm keeping George's birthday at February 25.
"Since George announced several years ago that he preferred to move his birthday to 24 February, things have been a bit muddled, I'll admit. Now it's true that his birth certificate, his parents, his siblings, and all other available documentation report his birthday to be on 25 February; but George decided the 24th was a more accurate date.
"I'm still mystified by this.
"George is not known for being astrologically inclined, so the idea that he gets a better star-chart on the 24th seems an improbable explanation.
"I'd also considered that perhaps it was a just-before/just-after-midnight sort of thing, where it was *possible* that his mother (and everyone else) merely mixed things up, what with the 24th and the 25th so close together at that hour.
"Then a new document came into my hands – a rare fanzine from 1964, detailing the making of
'A Hard Day's Night'. I'm ever so grateful to have it, naturally, and was even more amazed when a passage mentioned that on 25 February 1964 George's mum Louise called him at precisely the time he'd been born – 12:10am – to wish him all the best. The article intimated that this was a long-standing family tradition. One must, of course, consider that this is not the most primary of sources, but it's an interesting tidbit of information, if true ... and George's actual time of birth is reported nowhere else.
"Now if George had been born just ten minutes after midnight on the 24th, how could anyone have mistaken that day for the 25th? We must presume that George's parents were sufficiently aware of what was going on, and what day it really was; newborn George would have had a much less clear impression, one necessarily gathers.
"And if he were born ten minutes after midnight on the 25th, and endured yearly phonecalls from his well-meaning mum congratulating him on the day, why would George think the *real* date was the 24th?
"We can no longer ask either Mr. or Mrs.
Harrison Senior, alas, since they have passed on. But I once
asked his sister Louise at a conference what she thought of all
this, and she says her understanding, as well as that of her
family, was that George's birthday was the 25th. She was
uncertain what George's motive would be for changing the date." Source
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!! You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
If you are enjoying this page, click to
receive similar items daily with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac
ezine
Webmaster,
webmasters free content, or else articles at very reasonable rates
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your website or publication, on
application. Further details
1634The assassination of
Count Wallenstein (Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Wallenstein, or Waldstein, Czech: Valdštejn, b. September
24, 1583), Czech
soldier and politician who gave his services (an army of 30,000 to 100,000 men)
during the Danish Period of the Thirty
Years' War to Ferdinand II for no charge except the right to plunder the
territories that he conquered.
1825Robert Owen(1771 -
1858), Welsh-born social
reformer, trade unionist, communalist, pioneer of the
cooperative movement and
later spiritualist, announced to the House of Representatives, USA, his utopian
plan to create the township of
New
Harmony, Indiana.
Historic
New Harmony, Indiana "New Harmony is the site of two of America's great
utopian communities. The first, Harmonie on the Wabash (1814-1824), was
founded by the Harmony Society, a group of Separatists from the German
Lutheran Church. In 1814, led by their charismatic leader Johann Georg Rapp,
they left their first American home, Harmonie, PA.
Indiana's lower Wabash Valley on the western frontier gave them the
opportunity to acquire a much larger tract of land. In 1825, the Harmonists
moved back to Pennsylvania and built the town of Economy
near Pittsburgh. Robert Owen, Welsh-born industrialist and social philosopher,
bought their Indiana town and the surrounding lands for his communitarian
experiment."Source
The New Harmony corn maze "a most
elegant flower garden with various hedgerows disposed in such a manner as to
puzzle people to get into the little temple, emblematic of Harmony, in the
middle. The Labyrinth represents the difficulty of arriving at harmony. The
temple is rough on the exterior, showing that, at a distance, it has no
allurements, but it is smooth and beautiful within to show the beauty of
harmony when once attained." Description of the Indiana Maze 1882
Question: At what age to take children into your mills?
Robert Owen: At ten and upwards.
Question: Why do you not employ children at an earlier age?
Robert Owen: Because I consider it to be injurious to the children, and not beneficial to the proprietors.
Question: What reasons have you to suppose it is injurious to the children to be employed at an earlier age?
Robert Owen: Seventeen years ago, a number of individuals, with myself, purchased the New Lanark establishment from Mr. Dale. I found that there were 500 children, who had been taken from poor-houses, chiefly in Edinburgh, and those children were generally from the age of five and six, to seven to eight. The hours at that time were thirteen. Although these children were well fed their limbs were very generally deformed, their growth was stunted, and although one of the best schoolmasters was engaged to instruct these children regularly every night, in general they made very slow progress, even in learning the common alphabet. I came to the conclusion that the children were injured by being taken into the mills at this early age, and employed for so many hours; therefore, as soon as I had it in my power, I adopted regulations to put an end to a system which appeared to me to be so injurious.
Question: Do you give instruction to any part of your population?
Robert Owen: Yes. To the children from three years old upwards, and to every other part of the population that choose to receive it.
Question: If you do not employ children under ten, what would you do with them?
Robert Owen: Instruct them, and give them exercise.
Question: Would not there be a danger of their acquiring, by that time, vicious habits, for want of regular
occupation?
Robert Owen: My own experiences leads me to say, that I found quite the reverse, that their habits have been good in proportion to the extent of their instruction.
On April 26, 1816, Robert Owen appeared before
Robert Peel's House of Commons Committee, UK
1836Samuel Colt(1814 -
'62) received a patent for his
revolver. On January 4,
1847 he rescued his faltering gun company by winning a contract to
provide the US government with 1,000 of his .44 calibre weapons.
1841 At the acrimonious height of the
Opium Wars, China placed a
bounty on the heads of British persons. The Opium Wars were two wars fought
between Britain
and China. In the
second, France
fought alongside the British. The Opium Wars and the subsequent signing of
various treaties resulted in the opening of the ports in various parts of China.
The wars were fought because China banned the importation of opium
and the British wanted to sell opium to balance a trade deficit with China.
He wrote the letter, which took up nearly the whole of the front page of the broadsheet
The Australian Star of May 24, 1890, in defence of Belgian missionary Father
Damien (Damien De Veuster) of Molokai, Hawaii, whom Dr Charles M Hyde, a former missionary to Molokai, had accused of contracting leprosy from having sexual relations with women at the leper colony he worked in. Twenty-five
copies of the letter were printed in 32-page, coverless booklet form
at the Ben Franklin Printing Works, without the printer's imprint
(presumably the Sydney printers knew how libellous it was).
Stevenson also stayed in Sydney at the Oxford Hotel, now the Supreme Court building, and at Richmond Terrace in the Sydney
Domain (while on the seas his address was care of R. Towns & Co,
Sydney).
Around this time, he also wrote about the poverty he witnessed in the Domain. Stevenson arrived in Sydney in February
on the German steamship Lubeck butsuffered a relapse
of his serious ill health in Sydney ("being a blooming prisoner
here in the club, and indeed in my bedroom" he wrote in a letter to
Charles Baxter*), and, since it seemed that only in the warmer
climes of the South Pacific did he ever have respite from his
illness, he and his wife Fanny set sail from Sydney on April 10, on
board the Janet Nicoll ("had a cruel rough passage to
Auckland, for the JANET is the worst roller I was ever aboard of. I
was confined to my cabin, ports closed, self shied out of the berth,
stomach [pampered till the day I left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg]
revolted at ship's food and ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging
with one hand to the plate, with the other to the glass, and using
the knife and fork [except at intervals] with the eyelid," he wrote to Sidney
Colvin), visiting dozens of islands and returning to Sydney in
August, by which time the writer's health had returned. They stayed
until September; during this short visit he wrote to Henry James
from the Union Club, "Kipling** is too clever to live ... I
must tell you plainly – I can't tell Colvin – I do not think I
shall come to England more than once, and then it'll be to die.
Health I enjoy in the tropics; even here, which they call sub- or
semi-tropical, I come only to catch cold. I have not been out since
my arrival; live here in a nice bedroom by the fireside, and read
books and letters from Henry James, and send out to get his TRAGIC
MUSE, only to be told they can't be had as yet in Sydney, and have
altogether a placid time. But I can't go out! The thermometer was
nearly down to 50 degrees the other day – no temperature for me,
Mr. James: how should I do in England? ... The sea, islands, the
islanders, the island life and climate, make and keep me truly
happier. These last two years I have been much at sea, and I have
NEVER WEARIED". From the Union Club in September he wrote to Mrs Charles
Fairchild, "You are quite right; our civilisation is a hollow
fraud, all the fun of life is lost by it; all it gains is that a
larger number of persons can continue to be contemporaneously
unhappy on the surface of the globe." On August 19
from the Union Club, Stevenson wrote to
Marcel Schwob: "I am just now overloaded with work. I have
two huge novels on hand - THE WRECKER and the PEARL FISHER, in
collaboration with my stepson: the latter, the PEARL FISHER, I think
highly of, for a black, ugly, trampling, violent story, full of
strange scenes and striking characters. And then I am about
waist-deep in my big book on the South Seas: THE big book on the
South Seas it ought to be, and shall. And besides, I have some
verses in the press, which, however, I hesitate to publish. For I am
no judge of my own verse; self-deception is there so facile. All
this and the cares of an impending settlement in Samoa keep me very
busy, and a cold (as usual) keeps me in bed."
* "This visit to Sydney
has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made myself a prisoner here in
the club upon my first arrival. This is not encouraging for further
ventures; Sydney winter – or, I might almost say, Sydney spring,
for I came when the worst was over – is so small an affair,
comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland." Why he
wrote this when he arrived in February, the last month of Summer,
1890, is unknown to your almanackist.
** Sydney was getting some
interesting visitors in the 1890s. Among these, Rudyard Kipling
was in Sydney in mid-November, 1891, in the same week as Henry Morton
Stanley. The American economist Henry George
was in Sydney in May, 1890 between Stevenson's visits.
1922In France, Henri Landu, found guilty of the murders of ten
still missing women, was executed on the guillotine.
"Henri Desire Landru, 'The French Bluebeard,'
was guillotined for the murders of 10 women, and one boy, the son of one of
his victims.
"Landru was a conman long before he became a murderer. He was not a handsome
man, but he was possessed of a silver tongue, an intelligent mind, and, one
must assume, great personal charisma."Source
1936 Australian country
and western singer Tex Morton's
cut his first record ('Texas in Spring').
1939 UK: In
Islington,
London, construction began on a new type of
air-raid shelter, known as the
Anderson Shelter,
which went on to be built all over London, saving the lives of countless citizens.
1941 In protest against the ill treatment of Jews by the Nazis, a
strike ('Februaristaking') was held in the
Netherlands.
1948
A Communist coup d'etat took control of the state in
Czechoslovakia. The
response from the West was quick but merely cosmetic. Both the United States and Great
Britain denounced the Communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia, but neither
took any direct action.
1974 At a media conference, President Nixon told the American people
"I don't expect to be impeached and I will not resign".
1983American playwright Tennessee Williams (b. 1911), choked to death on a nose spray bottle cap that
accidentally dropped into his mouth while he was using the spray. However, some, among them his brother, Dakin Williams, believe he was
murdered.
1985 A series of
teachers' strikes around New South Wales were triggered by the dismissal of
Bega teacher Richard O'Neill who had refused a transfer by the Department of
Education to Bathurst.
1988Jimmy Swaggart, the American televangelist, was banned by the
elders of his fundamentalist Christian church following his admission of
long-term liaisons with prostitutes.
Two days later, three 19-year-old boys,
members of a local gang, were arrested and charged with the murder, which
apparently was a robbery gone wrong. Haing was shot after refusing to hand over
a locket, holding a photo of his late wife. His wife had died in his arms, of
hunger and beatings, while they were both in Cambodia (Kampuchea) under the
Communist dictatorship headed by Pol Pot.
During his captivity under the Marxists, Haing was
frequently subjected to imprisonment and torture. At one time, after having
been caught foraging for food for his family, Haing was crucified over a fire
and had one of his fingers chopped off.
As a medical student in Phnom Penh during the Indo-China War
days, the young Haing had met Australia's best known war cameraman, Neil
Davis (One
Crowded Hour). The two became drinking buddies, and Davis told him
stories of his home Down Under. Haing wondered if he would ever get to
Australia.
Later, as things turned for the worse in Cambodia, he escaped
the country and tried to get to Australia, although Davis had by now been killed
in a combat zone. Rejected for refugee
status by Australian immigration officials in Thailand because he had no
identification (such papers would have been a death sentence under the Khmer
Rouge, as was the wearing of spectacles, signifying bourgeois origins), Haing moved to the US as a refugee in 1980.
A medical doctor with no acting experience,
Haing came to international prominence in 1984 through his Academy Award-winning
performance as Cambodian photographer
Dith Pran who, like Haing, was a
survivor of the 'killing fields',
Cambodia's 'holocaust'. Haing
was the first non-professional since
Harold Russell four
decades earlier in The Best Years of Our Lives,
to win an Oscar. As Haing's memoirs Survival in the Killing
Fields showed, the doctor's own experiences had been even more
horrific than those of the photographer he portrayed in the film. He was,
however, a very quiet man as I can attest.
I had the pleasure and honour of hosting him in Sydney for a few days in the
early '90s, when he
told me, quietly and without rancour, about his experiences under the
Communists, his friendship with Davis, and his failed attempt at immigration to my
country.
In America, Haing established a modestly
distinguished acting career, while continuing to work with human rights
organisations in Cambodia and elsewhere with a view to improving the conditions
in resettlement camps, as well as attempting to bring the perpetrators of the
Cambodian massacre to justice, something the world's ruling elites seem to have decided
will never be.
1998 The European Union criticised the United States for a plan it released outlining governance and maintenance of key Internet functions, including the registration of Internet addresses. Europe's leaders felt the United States was unfairly seeking to consolidate permanent control over the Internet.
2003MSNBC cancelled
Phil Donahue's
Donahue TV show, citing low viewership, despite the fact that
Donahue was the highest rated show on MSNBC at the time. Soon
after the show's cancellation,
AllYourTV.com reported it had received a copy of an internal NBC
memo that stated Donahue should be fired because he would be a
"difficult public face for NBC in a time of war". Donahue was the
only host of a talk show on any cable network that had a decidedly
anti-war stance against the then proposed
invasion of
Iraq in 2003. MSNBC is owned by
Microsoft
Network and NBC;
NBC is wholly owned by
General
Electric, the world's 14th-largest military
contractor.
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Ash Wednesday:
Lent begins (2004)
When is Easter?
Walburga,
or Walpurgis (born in 
![Valentine's Day [ Feb 14 ]](http://img.123greetings.com/homeimages/side_efeb_valen_1_1.gif)
If you are enjoying this page, 
A medical doctor with no acting experience,
Haing came to international prominence in 1984 through his Academy Award-winning
performance as Cambodian photographer
