Carpe diem!

2

Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search

Open links in a New Window

Today is

The first three days of January rule the coming three months.
Traditional English weather proverb

As the weather is on the second of January, so it will be in September.
Traditional English weather proverb

Dripping water hollows out a stone, a ring is worn away by use.
Ovid, Roman poet, who died on this day in 17 CE; Epistulae Ex Ponto, Book IV

Woe to the vanquished.
Livy, Roman historian, who died on this day in 17 CE; History, V, 48  

To pester, insult, deride, desecrate – and to venerate –
is your domain, Inanna.
Downheartedness, calamity, heartache – and joy and good cheer –
is your domain, Inanna.
Trembling, affright, terror – dazzling and glory –
is your domain, Inanna.
Hymn to Inanna, from Jacobsen, Thorkild, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion    Source

If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him.
Cardinal Richelieu, French statesman and chief minister to King Louis XIII, who on this day in 1635 established the French Academy, which still exists; (attributed quotation)

The great queen of heaven, Inanna, I will hail!
The only one, come forth on high, I will hail!
The pure torch that flares in the sky,
the heavenly light shining bright like the day,
the great queen of heaven, Inanna, I will hail!
Of her standing in the sky like the sun and moon,
known by all lands from south to north,
of the greatness of the holy one in heaven
to the Lady I will sing.
Hymn to Inanna, from Jacobsen, Thorkild, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion    Source  

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

Hathor Rising

The Search for God in Ancient Egypt

A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Magic in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends

Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Egyptian Paganism for Beginners

The Great Goddesses of Egypt

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Ways

Be A Goddess

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints

Philosophy of Popular Superstitions 1853

Spellcraft

The Encyclopedia of Saints

Daily Everything

(Ovid)

Who's Who in Classical Mythology

The Survival of the Pagan Gods

Lord of the Rings

To support this project
Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.

 

 

Search for posters

An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore; DVD & book

The Permaculture Home Garden
By Linda Woodrow

The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD

A Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy

Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About It

What Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom Hartmann

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World

Pagan Christianity

For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
By James Yee

Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr

The Price of Loyalty

The Torture Debate in America

The Culture of the New Capitalism

 

Lawless World

 

The Great War for Civilisation
By Robert Fisk

The God Who Wasn't There

A Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy

When Corporations Rule the World

Alternatives to Economic Globalization

Feminism Without Borders

Commercialization of Intimate Life
By Arlie Russell Hochschild

The Skeptic's Dictionary

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

It's Been a Good Life

Isaac Asimov's Treasury of Humor

Adventures in a TV Nation
Michael Moore

Drawing Down the Moon

Globalization/Anti-Globalization

Body Wisdom

More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at  
Cafe Diem!

Celtic Daily Prayer

Dude, Where's My Country?

Photo of the day

Mother Earth Spirituality

Bushwhacked

Shamanism

10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF & World Bank

Click to promote 
your blog or website 
another excellent 
way we do

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings.
Four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

The Quadrantids annual meteor shower (Jan 1 - 5)
The meteors appear to radiate from an area inside the constellation Boötes; the name comes from Quadrans Muralis, an obsolete constellation that is now part of Boötes. The best date to view the Quadrantids is January 3 or 4, although they can viewed from January 1 - 5.

Old Roman Catholic: Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus (most years)

Commemoration of Pastor Johann Loehe, Lutheranism

Tenth of Tevet (Asarah B'Tevet; Siege of Jerusalem), Judaism (approximate date)
A minor fast day in Judaism, falling either seven or eight days after the conclusion of Hannukah. This moveable feast (actually, in this case, a fast) commemorates the onset of the siege that Nebuchadrezzar of Babylonia laid to ancient Jerusalem, an event that ultimately led to the destruction of Solomon's Temple (the First Temple) and Babylonia's conquest of southern Israel's Kingdom of Judah. Many rabbis have designated it as a day of remembrance for the Holocaust.

And it was in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth (day) of the month, that Nebuchadnetzar, King of Babylon came, he and all his hosts, upon Yerushalayim, and he encamped upon it and built forts around it. And the city came under siege till the eleventh year of King Tzidkiyahu. On the ninth of the month famine was intense in the city, the people had no bread, and the city was breached.
Second Melachim 25

Feast day of St Abel

Feast day of St Acutus

Feast day of St Adelard, abbot
He was a grandson of Charles Martel and thus cousin to Charlemagne, who made him a count. He wrought miracles, which caused his body to be enshrined in 1010. Adelard died in 827. 

Feast day of St Airaldus

Feast day of St André Fardeau

Feast day of St Anne Hmard

Feast day of St Anne Maugrain

Feast day of St Basil the Great

Feast day of St Bentivoglio de Bonis

Feast day of St Blidulf of Bobbio

Feast day of St Carola Lucas

Feast day of St Eugenda

Feast day of St Isidore of Antioch

Feast day of St Laurent Bâtard

Feast day of St Macarius the Younger (Macarius or Makarios of Alexandria), anchoret

(Groundsel, Senecio vulgaris, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

A confectioner in Alexandria, Egypt, he withdrew, in about the year 325, into the Thebaid in Upper Egypt. Later, he went into remoter deserts near Libya where he lived on the tiniest amount of food. Once, when he killed a gnat that bit him, he exposed himself for six months (because he had lost the opportunity to suffer when he killed the insect) to the hordes of flies in the Sceté marshes, at the end of which time he could only be recognised by his voice, because of a mass of putrid sores.

On another occasion, when tempted to go to Rome to serve the sick in hospitals, which appealed to his sense of self-glory, he did penance by carrying two large baskets of sand through the wilderness. An acquaintance asked him what he was doing; he said, "I am tormenting my tormentor". He returned home in the evening, very tired, but free of the temptation. 

One quaint story tells of how the saint was given a bunch of newly-picked grapes. He very much wanted to eat them, but he saw this as sinful so he conquered this desire and gave the grapes to another monk, who was ill. That monk, also wanting to maintain abstinence, gave the grapes to another, who gave them to a third and so on. After some time the bunch of grapes returned to an astonished St Macarius, who gave thanks to God.

Once, he took a dead pagan out of his sepulchre and used him as a pillow, whereupon devils came to scare him, and called the dead pagan to go with them, but the body under the saint said he couldn't because someone was lying on top of him. Macarius punched the body and said he could go if he wanted, whereupon the devils said that the saint had vanquished them. Another time, the devil came with a scythe to hit the saint, but could not because of Macarius's virtue. 

One time, he made a nine-mile journey into the desert, placing a reed at every mile so he could find his way back. The devil pulled them up and put them at Macarius's head while he slept. Or, so it is said. 

Macarius is patron of confectioners, cooks and pastry chefs.

Feast day of St Many Martyrs Who Suffered in Rome

Feast day of St Narcissus

Feast day of St Perrine Androuin

Feast day of St Suzanne Androuin

Feast day of St Timothy

Feast day of St Victoire Bauduceau Réveillère

Feast day of St Vincentian

Feast day of St Vitus (not the Vitus associated with St Vitus's Dance)

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.)

Visit of the Magi, Austria, till January 6

Shusho-E Matsuri, Japan (Jan 1 - 14)

Casé gâteaux (Breaking the Cakes), a communal form of a mager-loa, Voudon (Voodoo) (Jan 2 - 4)

Day of the Glorification of the Heroes of Independence, Haiti

Shigoto Hajime, Begin Work Day, Japan (beginning of the work year)

Granada Day, Spain (1492)

Second day of activities for Feast of the Circumcision, Syria
Women go visiting today; yesterday they had to remain at home (to serve visitors) as others went visiting.
Wernecke, Herbert H, Christmas Customs Around the World, The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, USA, 1959, p 122

Amamehagi Demons Festival, Monzen-machi, Ishikawa, Japan (Jan 2 - 6)
Amamehagi equate to Namahage, men representing gods in the guise of demons, who visit houses dressed in straw coats to warn children against laziness and bad behaviour in the new year.

Berchtold's Tag (Berchtold's Day), Switzerland
Nut festival (founding of Berne).    Source: The Daily Bleed

Good Luck Day, Macedonia   Source: The Daily Bleed

Foundation Days (Jan 1, 2), Republic of China

Beginning of Work, Japan
Work begun properly on this day will prosper.

Coon Carnival, Cape Town, South Africa (Jan 1, 2)

1642 Mehmed IV, sultan (Turkey)

1647 Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon's Rebellion (1676), Virginia, USA

1699 Osman III, sultan (Turkey)

1713 Marie Dumesnil, tragic actress (Racine's Phadre, Hermione)

1727 James Wolfe, British general who fought the French in Canada

1777 Christian Daniel Rauch (d. 1857), sculptor

1788 Étienne Cabet, French utopian socialist and influence on Robert Owen. Utopian colonies based on his ideas were founded in Illinois, Iowa and Texas. Cabet wrote the highly popular utopian novel, Voyage en Icarie (1839), of an ideal communist city.

The Texas colony failed due to dissension and bad weather – a condition which prevails to this day.

The Illinois colony lasted eleven years, but because, partly, of the authoritarianism of Cabet, the community divided. One group remained with Cabet, who died in Saint Louis, Missouri on November 9, 1856, surrounded by the faithful. The other group settled in Iowa where the Icarienne community published two papers, including The Communist-Libertarian.

Source: The Daily Bleed    Early progressives in the Book of Days

1822 Rudolf Clausius (d. 1888), physicist, contributions to thermodynamics

1858 Beatrice Webb (d. April 30, 1943), British socialist, economist and social reformer, wife of Sidney Webb (1859 - 1947; co-founder of the Fabian Society and the London School of Economics). In 1898, the Webbs conducted a year-long research journey in North America, Australia and New Zealand. In 1932, the Webbs visited the Soviet Union, where they were famously duped by Stalinism.

"Although unhappy with the lack of political freedom in the country they were impressed with the rapid improvement in the health and educational services and the changes that had taken place to ensure economic and political equality for women. When they returned to Britain they wrote a book on the economic experiments taking place in the Soviet Union called Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? (1935). In the book the Webbs predicted that "the social and economic system of planned production for community consumption" of the Soviet Union would eventually spread to the rest of the world. They added that they hoped this would happen through reform rather than revolution.

"Despite the Stalinist purges and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Webbs continued to support the Soviet economic experiment and in 1942 published The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942)."   Source

1863 Lucia Zarate, who became lightest known adult human (allegedly 2.1 kg at 17)

1866 Prof. Gilbert Murray, Australian-born classical scholar

1886 Florence Lawrence, Hollywood's first 'star' and one of the few to have a rhyming name (d. 1938)

1893 Sybil Morrison, English pacifist feminist

1905 Sir Michael Tippett, British composer (oratorio, A Child of Our Time)

1920 Isaac Asimov (d. 1992), prolific Russian-born science fiction author

"By March 18, 1941, Isaac Asimov had written thirty-one stories, sold seventeen, and fourteen had been published. At that time, he considered himself nothing more than a third-rate writer. That evening, he sat down to write his thirty-second story, based on an idea suggested by Astounding editor John W. Campbell the day before. By April 8, he finished the story, titled 'Nightfall', and on April 9 he took it to Campbell. Two days later, he received this letter from Campbell, and the history of science fiction was changed forever."   Source

1935 Ward Austin ('Pally'), popular Sydney disc jockey in the 1960s

1936 Roger Miller (d. 1992), country music singer (Hit song: 'King of the Road')

1938 David Bailey, British photographer

1939 Jim Bakker, American 'televangelist', founder of the Praise The Lord ministry, jailed in 1992 for defrauding his parishioners

1952 Graham Strachan (Shirley Strachan; d. August 29, 2001), lead singer of hugely popular1970s Australian rock band, Skyhooks. He died in a helicopter crash.

 

Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section

Send free e-cards to friends & family for celebrations & any topic

Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year.

Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards Eid ul-Adha [ Varies ] Birthdays Japanese New Year [ Jan 1 - 3 ]   Flowers Of The Month [ January ]

Varies Full Moon Day
Varies Friday the 13^th
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 Hanukkah
Varies Eid ul-Adha

December

21 Yule
25 Christmas
25 Christmas Around The World
26 Boxing Day
29 Enjoying ESP Day
30 Day Before New Year's Eve Day
31 New Year's Eve

January

1 New Year
1 Bad Hangover Day
1 Universal Hour Of Peace
1 Daydreamers' Day
1 Solemnity Of Mary
1 Bloody Mary Day
1 New Year's Day Parade (Wisconsin, USA)
2 Science Fiction Day
2 Get Over It Day
3 Drinking Straw Day
3 Start Your New Year's Resolution Day
3 Festival Of Sleep Day
4 Flower Basket Day
4 Spaghetti Day
4 Trivia Day
4 Blender Day
5 Take The Cake Day
5 Get On The Computer Day
5 Turn Up The Heat Day
5 Bird Day
6 Cuddle Up Day
6 Twelfth Night / Epiphany
6 Smith Day
6 Three Kings Day Parade (New York)
6 Orthodox Christmas
7 Nordic Festival (Montana, USA)
8 Bubble Bath Day
8 Secret Pal Day
8 Elvis "The King's" Birthday
8 Eat Something Raw Day
8 Postal Day
9 Clean Off Your Desk Day
9 Dance Day
9 Coming-Of-Age Day
9 Stepfathers' 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

 

17 CE The Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, b. 43 BCE) and the Roman historian Livy (Titus Livius, born 59 BCE) died in Rome – possibly on the same day.

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) was a celebrated Roman poet. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, and reminded the young poet that even the poet Homer had lived and died in poverty. But Ovid loved poetry, and he had friends such as Virgil, Horace, Tibullus and Propertius.

The Emperor Augustus became his liberal patron, then in 8 CE banished him for some unknown reason. In his exile, despite the fact that he desired the death of the emperor, he flattered him in his writings. Ovid died in banishment at Tomos on the Euxine sea, in the reign of Tiberius.

Ovid's Almanac
Because of Ovid's Fasti ('The Festivals'), an almanac of its time, with unique information on the Roman calendar, today we know a significant amount about Roman customs and how Romans celebrated their days.

Somewhat remarkably, his eminent contemporary writer, Livy, died on the same day. At least, so wrote William Hone (The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, Vol., 1, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-'26 edition online), though I have no other evidence. He was the great Roman historian, whose history of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita – 'From the Founding of the City'), filled 140 books, of which only 35 are still extant. Few details of his life are known.

Works of Ovid online    Works of Livy online

Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at Its Bimillennium (at Amazon.com)

69 CE Vitellius (15 CE - 69) was named Roman emperor by the Roman Lower Rhine army. He reigned till his death on December 22 of the same year, one of the emperors in the 'Year of the four emperors'.

On that day, the practorians refused to allow him to resign in the face of greater force from Vespasian, and forced him to return to the palace, when he was on his way to deposit the insignia of empire in the Temple of Concord. On the entrance of Vespasian's troops into Rome he was dragged out of some miserable hiding-place, driven to the fatal Gemonian stairs, and there struck down. "Yet I was once your emperor," were his last words.

 

366 The Alamanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers, invading the Roman Empire.

533 Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a new name upon elevation to the papacy.

 

725 High Mayan monarch, 18-Rabbit (Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil; Waxaklahun U-Bah-Chan, high king of Copan), installed Cauac-Sky as ruler of Quiriguá. 18-Rabbit of Copan was probably captured by the ruler of nearby Quirigua and died or was sacrificed years later, May 3, 738.

He was the Mayan snake divinity of Naranjo, an ancient city of the Maya civilization in the Peten department of Guatemala, about 10 km west of the border with Belize.

It was18-Rabbit who, on January 10, 738, dedicated the final (sixth) phase of the Ball Court at Copán.

"Mayan rulers used numbers in their names. This could be 'Eighteen Rabbit' or 'Eighteen Gopher Provider', there is still debate about the translation. David Stuart reads the name as Waxaklahun Ubah K'awil. which he translates as '18 are the bodies of K'awil'. Represented by a rabbit or a gopher, K'awil is the god associated with kingship.

"His reign began in 695 AD and ended with his death on May 3, 738. He was killed in a battle with the city of Quirigua, or he may have been captured and sacrificed. The event is referred to as the 'axing' of 18 Rabbit."   Source

See also December 27, 631 CE

18-Rabbit    Early History of Belize    Mayan History

 

1235 Emperor Joseph II ordered Jews of Galicia Austria to adopt family names.

1492 Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, fell to the army of the Christian Queen Isabella I of Castile, ending 700 years of Arab rule in Spain. Known as Granada Day.

 

1536 Anabaptist leader and social revolutionary, John of Leiden (Jan van Leiden; Jan Beukelsz; Jan Beukelszoon; John Bockold; John Bockelson; 1509? - 1536), 'The Prophet', was executed. He had preached a coming apocalypse, and advocated polygamy and free love.

John of Leiden was a tailor's apprentice who became the leader of the Anabaptists of the German town of Münster on the executions of Muncer and Storck. His predecessors had tried to establish a theocracy. He had a magnificent coronation, and coins were struck for his reign; he was represented as a monarch and prophet in one.

He sent out twelve apostles to announce his reign through all Low Germany. He also married twelve wives at one time, decapitating one of them in the presence of the others when she was rude to him. Leyden defended his theocracy against the bishop of Münster for a year, but was betrayed by his own people and executed on this day in 1536.

"Even Catholicism's most successful and outspoken critic, Martin Luther himself, sided with the Church in condemning the Anabaptists. He joined with other Protestant reformers and recommended that all adherents of the Anabaptist creed be put to death.

"So the greatest reform movement that Christianity has ever known demonstrated that intolerance was considered as virtuous to them as it was to the all powerful Catholic Church, just as the Catholic Church had been as intolerant to Paganism as Paganism had been to it."   Source

The Anabaptists of Münster

 

1635 Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu established the Académie Française.

1756 At Tuam, Ireland, at 4 pm, a bright light (Aurora Borealis) amazed the citizens. It faded away by degrees, but, at seven, a "sun of streamers" appeared right across the sky.

1757 Robert Clive's forces recaptured Calcutta, India, avenging the Black Hole of Calcutta incident.

1769 The British Royal Academy opened. Painter Sir Joshua Reynolds was its first president.

1788 USA: Georgia became the fourth state of the Union.

1798 George Bass discovered the most southerly point of the Australian mainland, Wilsons Promontory.

1800 The free black community of Philadelphia petitioned USA Congress to abolish slavery.

1840 John William Draper in New York took the first photograph of the moon.

1873 A decree from Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, proclaimed that a worldwide Bible Convention be held in San Francisco on this day.

1878 USA: Farmer John Martin, while out hunting, saw a rapidly moving flying disk at high altitude near Denison, Texas. He became the first to use the word 'saucer' to describe a UFO phenomenon.

1882 USA: John D Rockefeller became immensely powerful with the establishment of an oil 'trust', or cartel.

1888 Marvin Stone was awarded the patent for the drinking straw.

1891 Australian aviation pioneer Edmund Hargrave flew in a kite for a period of 14 seconds, for a distance of eight metres.

1896 Jameson Raid: Sir Leander Starr Jameson's raid into the Transvaal ended in defeat. The debacle triggered the Boer War.

1900 Queen Victoria wrote her famous line, "We are not amused".

1903 US President Theodore Roosevelt closed a Missouri post office when it refused to employ a black postmistress.

1904 Australia: At Melbourne's Exhibition Building, opera singer Ada Crossley and Australian composer Percy Grainger were greeted by 20,000 fans.

1909 [January 2 - 6] Anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman lectured in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Pasadena, USA on such topics as 'The Psychology of Violence' and 'Puritanism, the Greatest Obstacle to Liberty'. Some of Los Angeles's leading drama critics attended her lecture, 'The Drama, the Most Forcible Disseminator of Radicalism'.

1920 USA: Attorney General A Mitchell Palmer unleashed a nationwide reign of terror, with raids on suspected anarchist, communist, unionist and radical Americans, arresting at least 2,700 (possibly as many as 6,000) after issuing orders for the arrest (without warrants), and illegal detention of 10,000 Americans, many of them trade union members and officials. Thugs with badges destroyed personal property, printing presses, books, and so on. None of the 2,700 people arrested were charged with any explicit crime.

Palmer, in coordination with Justice Department agent J Edgar Hoover and immigration commissioner Anthony Caminetti, ordered the arrest of approximately 10,000 alien radicals. The US Bureau of Investigation carried out nationwide Palmer Raids. Federal agents seized labor leaders and literature in the hopes of discouraging labor activity. A number of citizens were turned over to state officials for prosecution under various anti-anarchy statutes.

Source: The Daily Bleed

 

1942 Manila was captured by the Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur commenced evacuating the Philippines.

1952 Pope Pius XII announced that television is a threat to family life.

1959 The Lunik 1 spacecraft was launched by the USSR, the first unmanned space craft to pass close to the moon.

1960 A sit-in for racial integration was held at Woolworth stores, USA.

1965 President Sukarno pulled Indonesia out of the United Nations.

1968 The first successful human heart transplant operation was performed in South Africa, by Dr Christiaan Barnard. The patient, Louis Washkansky, lived another 18 days.

1971 Sixty-six people died at Glasgow's Ibrox Park football stadium when panicked fans trampled others as metal barriers gave way.

1973 The Camden News of Arkansas, USA, published a letter reporting a fall of tiny frogs from the sky during a thunderstorm.

1975 Elizabeth Domitian was named first female premier in the Central African Republic.

1975 USA: A court ruled that John Lennon and his lawyers may get access to Department of Immigration files regarding his deportation case, to determine if the government case was based on his 1968 British drug conviction or his anti-establishment comments during the Nixon administration years.

1976 Britain granted limited self-government to the Solomon Islands.

1979 Sid Vicious went on trial for the murder of Nancy Spungen, but died before he heard the verdict.

1980 US president, Jimmy Carter, advised the Senate not to ratify the SALT nuclear arms treaty as long as the Soviets were still occupying Afghanistan.

1981 Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was arrested.

1985 Australia's first women-only surf carnival was held at Queenscliff, New South Wales.

1987 MacDonald's, the publisher of Enid Blyton books, announced that, due to racist connotations, henceforth it would withdraw all references to golliwogs in her 'Noddy' stories.

1991 Soviet troops occupied the Communist Party headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Lithuanians demonstrated in protest.

1996 Bangladesh: An estimated 100,000 Bangladeshi women travelled from the countryside to attend a rally in Dhaka, the capital, to protest Islamic clerics' attacks on women's education and employment.

1998 Russia began to circulate new rubles to stem inflation and promote confidence.

1999 A severe snowstorm smashed into the Midwestern USA, causing 14 inches (359mm) of snow at Milwaukee, Wisconsin and 19 inches (487mm) at Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, temperatures plunged to -13°F (-25°C), and 68 deaths were reported.

2002 Levy Mwanawasa took office as the third President of Zambia.

2002 Eduardo Duhalde was appointed interim President of Argentina by the Legislative Assembly.

2004 Stardust successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples that it returned to Earth on January 15, 2006.

2006 An explosion in a coal mine led to the death of 12 of 13 miners in the 2006 Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia, USA.

2006 Fifteen people died in the Bad Reichenhall ice rink roof collapse tragedy in Bavaria, Germany.

 

Tomorrow: Tolkien; Mel Gibson

 

 Main calendar | Yesterday | Tomorrow | 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