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Pip Wilson

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Today is

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid, Ch. 32

The easy, gentle, and sloping path ... is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne; Essais, Book II, Ch. 11

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?
Michel de Montaigne; ibid, Ch. 12

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right...We sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid

Saying is one thing and doing is another.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid, Ch. 31

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
Michel de Montaigne; Essais, Book III, Ch. 2

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid, Ch. 9

No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid, Ch. 13

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.
Michel de Montaigne; ibid
 

In barrenness …I hold a high place among English poets, excelling even Gray.
Author AE Housman (A Shropshire Lad; Terence; This is Stupid Stuff) writes of his sparse output, February 28, 1910

So here it is at last, the distinguished thing.
Last words of Henry James, novelist, who died on February 28, 1916, aged 72

(Henry) James had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.
TS Eliot  

When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect — but do not believe him. Never put your trust into anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no matter whether he is a Nobel laureate – may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical – always think for yourself.
Linus Pauling, American scientist, peace activist, author and educator, born on February 28, 1901; Linus Pauling: Scientist and Peacemaker (2001) by Clifford Mead and Thomas Hager

I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' [Pause.] The twenty-five percent is for error.
Linus Pauling; Pauling's reply to an audience question about his ethical system, following his lecture circa 1961 at Monterey Peninsula College, in Monterey, California.

Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.
Linus Pauling

Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Linus Pauling

From time to time throughout his long life, scientists and commentators dismissed him as a showman. Would that we had a whole troupe of such scientific showmen.
John Allen Paulos; speaking of Linus Pauling, The New York Times Book Review (November 5, 1995)

An extraordinary person – a scientist, educator, humanist, and statesman with worldwide impact in each of these roles.
John D Roberts; about Linus Pauling, Chemical & Engineering News (1990)

I realized that more and more I was saying, "It seems to me that we have come to the time war ought to be given up. It no longer makes sense to kill 20 million or 40 million people because of a dispute between two nations who are running things, or decisions made by the people who really are running things. It no longer makes sense. Nobody wins. Nobody benefits from destructive war of this sort and there is all of this human suffering." And Einstein was saying the same thing of course. So that is when we decided – my wife and I – that first, I was pretty effective as a speaker. Second, I better start boning up, studying these other fields so that nobody could stand up and say, "Well, the authorities say such and such."
Linus Pauling; interview at Big Sur, California (November 11, 1990)

If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.
Linus Pauling; as quoted by Sir Francis Crick in his presentation 'The Impact of Linus Pauling on Molecular Biology' (1995)

I have always wanted to know as much as possible about the world.
Linus Carl Pauling; Linus Pauling In His Own Words (1995) by Barbara Marinacci

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
Sir Stephen Spender CBE, English poet, novelist and essayist, born on February 28, 1909; as quoted in The New York Times (March 26, 1961)

I am very honoured by your wanting to write a life of me. But the fact is I regard my life as rather a failure in the only thing in which I wanted it to succeed. I have not written the books I ought to have written and I have written a lot of books I should not have written. My life as lived by me has been interesting to me but to write truthfully about it would probably cause much pain to people close to me – and I always feel that the feelings of the living are more important than the monuments of the dead.
Sir Stephen Harold Spender; Response to a would be biographer in 1980, as quoted in 'When Stephen met Sylvia' in The Guardian (April 24, 2004)

Ah, like a comet through flame she moves entranced
Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough
Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal.
Sir Stephen Spender; 'The Express' (l. 25–27) in Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1988) edited by Richard Ellmann and Robert O’Clair

They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
One cog in a golden singing hive ...
Sir Stephen Harold Spender; 'The Funeral' (l. 13–14)

Across this dazzling
Mediterranean
August morning
The dolphins write such
Ideograms:
With power to wake
Me prisoned in
My human speech
They sign: 'I AM!'
Sir Stephen Spender; from 'Dolphins'

Then, in a flush of rose, she woke and her eyes that opened
Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned.
From her dew of lips, the drop of one word
Fell like the first of fountains: murmured
'Darling', upon my ears the song of the first bird.
'My dream becomes my dream,' she said, 'come true ...'
Sir Stephen Spender; from 'Daybreak'

A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience.
  Poetry does not state truth, it states the conditions within which something felt is true. Even while he is writing about the little portion of reality which is part of his experience, the poet may be conscious of a different reality outside. His problem is to relate the small truth to the sense of a wider, perhaps theoretically known, truth outside his experience.
Sir Stephen Spender; The Still Centre (1939) Foreword

We have found the secret of life!
Francis Crick, at the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, England, February 28, 1953

Crick's brag in the Eagle, the pub where we habitually ate lunch, that we had indeed discovered that "secret of life", struck me as somewhat immodest, especially in England, where understatement is a way of life.
  Crick, however, was right. Our discovery put an end to a debate as old as the human species: Does life have some magical, mystical essence, or is it, like any chemical reaction carried out in a science class, the product of normal physical and chemical processes? Is there something divine at the heart of a cell that brings it to life? The double helix answered that question with a definitive No.
James D Watson; DNA: The Secret of Life, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 2003, xii

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.
James Watson and Francis Crick, opening sentence of 'A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid'

February 28 is the 59^th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 306 days remaining (307 in leap years).
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Kalevala (National Epic) Day, Finland

The Finnish epic is called the Kalevala, written by the esteemed Finnish writer, Elias Lönnrot, whose aim it was to increase the Finns' awareness of their identity as a nation. He travelled about the country, collecting epic tales, Finnish and Karelian folklore, lyrics, spells, laments and proverbs. Today, the writings are commemorated around the whole nation.

"The material, old Finnish ballads and lyrical songs depicting 'the sons of Kalevala', were published in two editions, first 35 cantos in 1835 and then with 50 cantos in 1849.

"The central characters are old and wise Väinämöinen, skilled smooth Ilmarinen, adventurer-warrior Lemminkäinen, Louhi, the female ruler of Pohjola, and tragic hero Kullervo. The epic ends with decline of paganism: maid Marjatta gives birth to a son who is baptized king of Karelia and Väinämöinen departs the land of heroes.

"Kalevala, translated into 35 languages, has inspired many Finnish artists, the most prominent among them painter Akseli Gallén-Kallela and composer Jean Sibelius."   Source: The Daily Bleed

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Fourth Friday in February, Yell Up Helly Aa, Viking fire fest, Yell, Scotland A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac "Yell, the second-most northerly of the main Shetland Islands, hosts its own traditional Viking fire festival, the Up Helly Aa, at the village of Cullivoe, on the island's north-east coast, overlooking the island of Unst. "Whether a greeting for spring, or a celebration of the returning sun, the tradition of Up Helly Aa – held by a number of settlements across the Shetlands during January and February – fills the darkness of a winter's night from dawn to dusk with fire processions, participants wielding great blazing briars, and always ends up with a party through the night."   Source More at January 27   Sabbatu, Chaldean/Persian day of Earth Goddess Zamyaz Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar Feast day of St Antonia of Florence Feast day of St Caerealis Feast day of St Ermine Feast day of Pope St Gregory II (this source says today and February 11) Feast day of St Hedwig, Queen of Poland Feast day of Pope St Hilary (Hilarius) Born at Sardinia, he became the Sardinian archdeacon of Rome and trusted aide to Pope St Leo the Great (Pope Leo I). This Hilary became the 46th Pope on November 19, 461, and his synod of 465 is the earliest Roman synod whose records are extant. Hilarus erected several churches and other buildings in Rome, for which Liber Pontificalis, the main source for information about Hilarius, praises him: two oratories in the baptistery of the Lateran, one in honour of St John the Baptist, the other of St John the Apostle are due to him. He also erected a chapel of the Holy Cross in the baptistery, convents, two public baths, and libraries near the Church of St Lawrence Outside the Walls (Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura), one of the most important basilica churches of Rome, built over the site on which it was believed that St Lawrence was executed. Hilary died on February 28, 468, at Rome, of natural causes. He was buried in the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. Some sources give November 17 as his feast day. More   And more Feast day of St Macarius Feast day of the martyrs who died of the great pestilence in Alexandria, Egypt in 261 - 263. Feast day of St Oswald Oswald was an Anglo-Saxon prelate whose parents came from Denmark to England before his birth. He was educated by his uncle, Saint Odo of Canterbury and became a priest in the diocese of Winchester, England. He was a Benedictine monk at Fleury-sur-Loire, France, and elected Bishop of Worcester, England, in 962. He became Archbishop of York in 972. Working with Saint Dunstan and Saint Ethelwold, he helped to revive monastic and ecclesiastical discipline in England. Oswald founded the abbey at Ramsey (986) and the monastery at Winchester. He wrote theological treatises, and worked for the improved theological training of his clergy. Oswald washed the feet of 12 poor people each day. Feast day of St Proterius, patriarch of Alexandria, martyr (Purple crocus, Crocus vernus, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.) Feast day of St Pupulus Feast day of Ss Romanus of Condat, and Lupicinus, abbots Brothers who founded the monastery of Condat in the forest of Jura. St Lupicinus lived on moistened bread, used a chair or a hard board for a bed,  wore no stockings, walked in wooden shoes, died about 480. Romanus was the spiritual teacher of Saint Eugendus; ordained by Saint Hilary of Arles; he healed two lepers by embracing them. Feast day of St Rufinus Feast day of St Theophilus Feast day of St Villana de'Botti Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Sounkyo Ice Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5) Time of the Old Woman, Morocco (Feb 25 - Mar 4) Powamu, Pueblo/Hopi purification ceremony, (Feb 12 - 28)  Ayyám-i-Há (Intercalary Days in the Bahá'í calendar), Bahá'í Faith (Feb 25 - Mar 1) Maha Shivratri, Hindu (date varies) Maha Shivratri or Shivaratri (Night of Shiva) is a Hindu festival celebrated every year on the 14th day in the Krishna Paksha of the month Phalguna in the Hindu Calendar. The most significant practices on this day are offerings of Bheel (Bilva) leaves to the Lord Shiva, fasting and all night long vigil. Source: Wikipedia (A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac.) Officially, last day of Summer in Australia, except in Leap Years (then it's Feb 29)   Rabbits on the last day of the month In the 1920s, there was a custom in the UK to say the word 'rabbit' three times when going to bed on the last day of the month. The superstition did not end there: on rising, the person was to say 'hare' three times. However, sources differ on this point, with one saying that the words 'rabbit, rabbit, rabbit', and not 'hare' should be said on the morning of the month's first day ... Read more at Wilson's Almanac http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/ed4.html         1533 Michel de Montaigne (d. September 13, 1592), influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay. In his main work, the Essays, unprecedented in its candour and personal flavour, he takes mankind and especially himself as the object of study. He was a skeptic and a humanist. He was a councillor of the Court des Aides of Périgueaux, and, in 1557, he was appointed councillor of the Parlement in Bordeaux (a high court). From 1561 to 1563, he was at the court of Charles IX. While serving at the Bordeaux Parlement, he became very close friends with the humanist writer Étienne de la Boétie, whose death in 1563 deeply influenced Montaigne. 1683 René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (d. 1757), scientist Peace, by Tenniel 1820 John Tenniel (d. 1914), illustrator (of, inter alia, Alice books) 1827 Charles Blondin (b. Jean Francois Gravelet; d. February 22, 1897), French funambulist (tightrope walker) whose spectacular crossings of Niagara Falls (USA/Canada) – the first on June 30, 1859 (qv) – made him world famous "One theme that ran through all I've read about Charles Blondin was his personality. Everyone who encountered Blondin found him to be a charismatic, confident, powerful man. He was a showman at heart and everything he did was dramatic. He seemed to have a very large ego, but received only admiration for this quality. Blondin loved his work, and the people loved 'The Great Blondin'."   Source 1833 Alfred von Schlieffen (d. 1913), German field marshal 1862 Canon Edwin Sidney Savage (d. 1947), Rector of Hexham Abbey and St Bartholomew the Great 1878 Pierre Fatou, French mathematician, who worked on iteration theory which was later analysed by Benoît Mandelbrot 1882 Geraldine Farrar, (d. 1967) American soprano 1894 Ben Hecht (d. 1964), playwright, film writer 1900 Wolfram Hirth (d. 1959), pilot and designer of aircrafts 1901 Linus Pauling (d. 1994), American scientist, peace activist, author and educator who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 becoming the only person in history to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes. In 1966, at the age of 65 when most people normally go into retirement, he began to champion the ideas of biochemist Irwin Stone, who proposed that massive doses of Vitamin C could prevent colds. Eventually he went beyond this, to the idea that Vitamin C could prevent cancer. 1903 Vincente Minnelli (b. Lester Anthony Minnelli; d. 1986), American film director (Meet Me in St Louis) More 1906 Bugsy Siegel (d. 1947), American gangster 1909 Sir Stephen Spender, CBE (d. 1995), British poet, critic, editor and translator; Poet Laureate. His early poetry – like that of WH Auden, Cecil Day Lewis, and Louis MacNeice, with whom he became associated at Oxford – was inspired by social protest. "Only the lucid friend to aerial raiders, the brilliant pilot Moon, stares down." 1915 Sir Peter Medawar (d. 1987), Brazilian-born Nobel Prize-winning British scientist 1915 Zero Mostel (Samuel Joel Mostel; d. 1977), Hollywood comedian 1917 Fidel Sánchez Hernández (d. 2003), former president of El Salvador (1967 - '72) 1925 Harry H Corbett, British actor who played Harold Steptoe in Steptoe and Son 1938 Klaus Staeck, graphic artist 1939 Erika Pluhar, actress and singer 1939 Tommy Tune, dancer, choreographer, actor 1942 Brian Jones, (d. 1969) musician, founder member of The Rolling Stones 1942 Peter Shelley, pop singer with two hits in the 1970s ('Love Me, Love My Dog'; 'Gee Baby') 1942 Joe South, musician 1945 Bubba Smith, American football player, actor (Police Academy) 1946 Robin Cook, British Labour Party politician, who was Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2001. He resigned from his post as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council on March 17, 2003 as a protest over the illegal invasion of Iraq. In a statement giving his reasons for resigning he said, "I can't accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support." He also praised Blair's "heroic efforts" in pushing for the so-called second resolution regarding the Iraq disarmament crisis. Cook's resignation statement in the House of Commons, received with an unprecedented standing ovation by fellow MPs, was described by the BBC's Andrew Marr as "without doubt one of the most effective, brilliant, resignation speeches in modern British politics" and "by far a better speech than he has made at any time in government". Source: Wikipedia Hansard text of Cook's resignation statement in the House 1948 Mike Figgis, director, writer, composer 1948 Bernadette Peters, actress, singer 1948 Mercedes Ruehl, actress 1952 William Finn, composer, lyricist 1957 Cindy Wilson, American singer (The B-52's) 1960 Dorothy Stratten (d. 1980), Canadian actress and Playboy model 1968 David V Duccini, philosopher 1970 Lemony Snicket, author of The Series of Unfortunate Events books 1987 Michelle Horn, actress   Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section Send free e-cards to friends & family for celebrations & any topic Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year. Maha Shivaratri [ Date varies ] Thinking Of You Birthdays Polar Bear Day [ Feb 27 ] Leap Day [ Feb 29 ] Varies Full Moon Day Varies Friday the 13th Varies Buddhist e-cards Varies Christian e-cards Varies Hindu e-cards Varies Jewish e-cards Varies Muslim e-cards Varies Pagan e-cards Varies Peace e-cards Varies Friendship e-cards Varies Chinese New Year Varies Vasant Panchami Varies Maha Shivaratri Varies Mardi Gras Varies Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) Varies Ash Wednesday / Lent Varies Holi February 24 Calendar Day 24 Obnoxious Day 24 Children's Day 25 Cuddle Day 27 Polar Bear Day March 1 Pig Day 1 Share A Smile Day 1 St David's Day 1 Peanut Butter Lovers' Day 2 Banana Cream Pie Day 2 Give Up Easily Day 3 I Want You To Be Happy Day 3 Employee Appreciation Day 3 National Anthem Day (USA) 3 Hina Matsuri (Japan) 4 Tavern Day 5 Say Hi To Mom Day 5 Multiple Personality Day 6 Chocolate Cheesecake Day 6 Dentists' Day 7 Cereal Day 8 International Women's Day 8 No Smoking Day 9 Telephone Day 10 Money Day 11 Dream Day 11 Frankenstein's Birthday 12 Plant A Flower Day 12 Alfred Hitchcock Day 12 Department Store Day 13 Uranus Day 14 Pi Day 14 Potato Chip Day 14 Genius Day 14 White Day 15 Ides Of March 15 Buzzard Day 16 Everything You Do Is Right Day 16 St Urho's Day 16 Curlew Day 16 Hiccup Day 17 St Patrick's Day 17 St Patrick's Day Parade (New York) 17 Submarine Day 18 Paper Dress Day ... More Events Visit the Blogmanac, where today's Almanac is 'live' And I hope you will sign my GuestMap 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   364 Valentinian I was elevated as Roman Emperor. 661 Ali ibn Abu Talib (b. c. 599), the first Imam of Islam according to Shia Muslims, was assassinated. As Ali was praying in the mosque of Kufa, the Kharijite Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam murdered him with a strike of his poison-coated sword. 1258 Hulagu Khan sacked Baghdad. 1326 Death of Duke Leopold I of Austria. 1510 Death of Juan de la Cosa (b. 1460), Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. 1574 The Spanish Inquisition's first victims in the New World, two Englishmen and an Irishman, were burned at the stake in Mexico City, guilty of "Lutheran heresies". 1700 February 28 was followed by March 1 in Sweden, thus creating the Swedish calendar. 1783 King George III instituted the Order of St Patrick, a knighthood order to keep the Irish peers acquiescent. 1784 John Wesley chartered the Methodist Church. 1788 Australia's first farm was established by Henry Dodd, at Farm Cove, Sydney. 1790 John Irving  became the first convict to be freed in Australia. 1814 The British settlement at Norfolk Island was abandoned because it served no strategic nor commercial purposes, and had proved too expensive to run. 1827 The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad offering commercial transportation of both people and freight. 1844 A gun on USS Princeton exploded while the boat was on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others. 1849 Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States began with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbor. 1850 USA: The University of Utah opened in Salt Lake City, Utah. 1851 Pressure began to end the convict transportation to Australia system: the Anti-Transportation League was formed in Hobart. The flag they designed strongly influenced the current Australian flag. 1854 The United States Republican Party was organized in Ripon, Wisconsin. 1861 Colorado was organized as a United States territory.   1874 Arthur Orton, the false claimant to the Tichborne fortune, was found guilty of perjury.   The strange Tichborne Case So ended a celebrated English impersonation case. In March, 1853, Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne, heir to the ancient Hampshire baronetcy, sailed for South America. On April 20, he departed from there on the Bella for Jamaica. The ship sank, and Tichborne was not heard of again. In October 1865, 'RC Tichborne' showed up in Wagga Wagga, Australia, in the person of a man known locally as Tom Castro. On Christmas Day, 1866, Tichborne/Castro landed in England where he claimed the baronetcy. The real Roger's mother, Dowager Lady Henriette Felicité Tichborne, confirmed the impostor as her son, though the rest of the family was not deceived at all. We should note here that antique pictures show that Roger Tichborne was a very slender man, but the claimant was very obese, looking about twice the weight of Roger. Finally the impostor lost in court, where he was revealed as Arthur Orton, son of a Wapping (England) butcher. Orton found himself sentenced to 14 years' hard labour. The false claimant to the Tichborne fortune had been found guilty of perjury after 260 days, in the longest trial in English history to that time. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera Trial by Jury is said to have been based on the famous Tichborne Case. "Henriette died before the trial got to court. Eventually, Orton was convicted of fraud and perjury. He was sent to prison for 14 years, and after serving ten years, he was released and immediately sold his story to a newspaper for £3,000. He died a few years later, and his gravestone was inscribed: 'Sir Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne; born 5 January 1829; died 1 April 1898'."   Source More hoaxes and frauds, in the Wilson's Almanac Scriptorium   1883 The first vaudeville theatre was opened, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 1890 Australia: "The Melbourne Argus published a list of names and addresses of people who had seen a 30-foot monster wandering round Euroa in Australia. 'The existence of some altogether unheard-of monster is vouched for by a cloud of credible witnesses.' Officials of the Melbourne Zoological Gardens arranged a posse of 40 men armed with a big net who hunted for the monster all day without success. 'A statement that enormous tracks were found,' wrote Charles Fort, 'may be only a sop to us enlightened, or preposterous, ones.'"   Source 1900 The Boer War: General Sir Redvers Buller's British force relieved the Boer siege of Ladysmith in Natal after 18 days. 1901 Jupiter's red spot was first observed. 1916 Henry James (b. 1843) died in London at 72, with the words "So here it is at last, the distinguished thing". TS Eliot later commented: "James had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it." 1933 Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree was passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire. 1935 Nylon was discovered by Wallace Carothers. 1944 "Hanna Reitsch, Nazi Germany's celebrated female test pilot, suggested that Adolph Hitler should create a suicide squadron of glider pilots. Hitler was skeptical of the idea, believing that such a squadron would not be an effective use of Germany's limited resources. The delicate blonde's enthusiasm finally won him over; he agreed to investigate the possibility of adapting the V-1, which was designed to be a pilotless robotic bomb, to a kamikaze vehicle. Reitsch promptly formed a Suicide Group, and was herself the first person to take the pledge: 'I hereby ... voluntarily apply to be enrolled in the suicide group as a pilot of a human glider-bomb. I fully understand that employment in this capacity will entail my own death.' As it turned out, neither she nor anyone else was ever called upon to make that sacrifice, as the squadron was never deployed …"   Source 1947 The February 28 Incident: In Taiwan, a civilian rebellion was suppressed with large loss of civilian lives.       1953 James Watson and Francis Crick informally announced that they had determined the chemical structure of DNA. Crick walked into the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, England and announced "We have found the secret of life!" The formal announcement came on April 25, following the publication of their paper ('A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', Nature, April 2). As Crick and Watson enjoyed their shepherd's pie, their lager, and their epochal discovery, on the opposite side of the planet, namely in Braeside Hospital in Stanmore, a suburb of Sydney, Australia (where it was about to become the first day of March), your almanackist was so excited by this news and the chance of being born simultaneously with DNA, that he decided to commence his emergence into the open air. Original DNA model   1958 The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was founded, London. 1959 Johnny O'Keefe's successful TV show, 6 O'Clock Rock, began on Australian TV. 1966 The Cavern Club, the famous Liverpool venue where the Beatles got  their start, went into liquidation. 1970 Led Zeppelin performed in Copenhagen under the pseudonym Nobs, because of a threat of suit by Count Evan von Zeppelin, a relative of the airship designer Ferdinand (1838 - 1917), if the band played under the name Zeppelin in Denmark. Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list 1972 Sino-American relations: The United States and People's Republic of China signed the Shanghai Communiqué. 1973 Militant Native American activists captured the Sioux village of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, USA, challenging the authorities to repeat the massacre that happened there on December 29, 1890. 1974 After seven years, the United States and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations. 1975 A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London, killed 43 people. 1977 Australia: The Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo, NSW, was opened. 1979 Television's talking horse from 1961 - '65, Mister Ed, died. 1983 The final episode of M*A*S*H was broadcast in the USA, becoming the most watched television episode in history, with 106 - 125 million viewers in the US (estimate varies by source). 1986 Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was shot dead as he walked home from a Stockholm cinema. 1986 USA: Though the comments were on tape, acting Beloved and Respected Comrade Leader President Ronald Reagan denied that he called reporters "sons-of bitches" for asking questions at a photo op. Presidential mouthpiece Larry Speakes claimed Reagan said, "It's sunny and you're rich."   1993 USA: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms staged an armed raid against the Branch Davidian community outside Waco, Texas, with a warrant to arrest cult leader David Koresh (b. Vernon Howell) on federal firearms violations. Four agents and six Davidians died in the raid and a 51-day standoff began. (April 19 was the horrific climax.) "Few Americans realize that on February 28, 1993 when BATF agents in National Guard helicopters zoomed in on the Branch Davidians' church and home, Mount Carmel Center, they did so with guns blazing, like Americans raiding a Vietnamese village in that far off war.... It is likely FBI agents deliberately sabotaged negotiations with Davidians to prevent their exiting Mount Carmel. Their goal was to destroy the building and its damaging evidence, even if that meant the massacre of dozens of men, women and children, all witnesses to the brutal attack."   Source "After the February raid by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) of David Koresh's dissident religious community at Waco, Texas, the FBI and the U.S. Army took over, mounting a 51-day siege. This included such psy-war tactics as sleep deprivation of the inhabitants of the community by means of all-night broadcasts of recordings of the screams of rabbits being slaughtered. Finally, despite David Koresh's pledge to surrender upon completion of his written explanation of the meaning of the Seven Seals, the FBI and the Army attacked. At dawn on April 19, 1993, and throughout the morning, tanks rammed holes in the main building and pumped (in the FBI's words) 'massive amounts' of CS gas into the building, despite knowing that inside were more than a dozen children. The tanks demolished parts of the compound and created tunnels for the wind to blow through. The buildings at this point were saturated with inflammable CS gas and spilled kerosene."   Source "The apocalyptic church at Mt. Carmel made their living by selling weapons. They were licensed to own, sell and buy any type of gun, even fully automatic machine guns (legal possession of a machine gun only requires completing a form and paying a $200 tax). Church members obtained all required licenses and permits and cooperated fully with authorities during repeated investigations. In May, 1992, when they learned of ATF interest, David Koresh telephoned the ATF office and invited them to come out and talk. "While many of us find the trade in assault-style weapons repugnant and the juxtaposition with Christianity incongruous, numerous examples in American history make this the rule, not the exception. The Mormon Church financed settlements in Utah, world missions, and its great Tabernacle partly on the patent fortunes of the Browning family, inventors of the breech-loading Winchester, the repeating rifle, the box-magazine rifle, the machine-gun, and the automatic rifle – all standard equipment of the U.S. Army from Wounded Knee to the Mekong Delta. "Contrary to their intelligence assessment, ATF was not dealing with a 'destructive cult' of compliant, brainwashed robots."   Source Janet Reno in the Book of Days    Waco siege in the Book of Days    Waco: The Rules of Engagement Waco: Rules of Engagement video free online    Waco: A New Revelation video free online   1998 Kosovo War: Serbian police began the offensive against the KLA in Kosovo. 1998 USA: Even though the imminent threat of military strikes had been averted by a UN agreement, 5,000 rallied in New York City protesting US war and sanctions against Iraq. Demonstrations were also held in at least 30 other cities. 2001 USA: An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter Scale hit the Nisqually Valley area of Washington. There were no reports of any deaths. 2002 Ethnic conflict in India: At least 55 were killed in Ahmadabad, India when Hindus burned Muslim homes. 2003 A US appeals court upheld its controversial ruling that the 'Pledge of Allegiance' recited by generations of American school children is unconstitutional because it invokes the name of God.  US pledge declared unconstitutional Posted Sat, 01 Mar 2003  "A US appeals court on Friday upheld its controversial ruling that a patriotic oath recited by generations of American school children is unconstitutional because it invokes the name of God.  "The Ninth Circuit court of appeals rejected a bid by the government of President George W. Bush to overturn its decision on the oath, known as 'the pledge of allegiance,' setting the scene for a high-profile Supreme Court showdown. "The court said that reciting the pledge in schools placed 'students in the untenable position of choosing between participating in an exercise with religious content or protesting.'" Source Was the USA founded on Christianity?   2004 More than 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally formed a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.   Tomorrow: Wear a leek in your hat, unless it's Leap Year    Main calendar | Yesterday | Feb 29 | Mar 1 | Search     Wikipedia and David Brown's prodigious Daily Bleed are both excellent resources that aid my research. 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. Read more about today at Wilson's Blogmanac

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