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St Distaff's Day
About the 20th year of Henry
VII, Anthony Bonvise,
an Italian, came to this land, and taught people to spin with a
distaff, at which time began the making of Devonshire kersies and
Coxall clothes.
John
Stow
(c. 1525
- April
6, 1605),
English
historian
and antiquarian;
Stow's Chronicle (Stow's Annales, or a General Chronicle
of England from Brute unto this present year of Christ, 1580,
published in 1580, with other editions in 1592, 1601 and 1605)
Today
was named by some medieval English comedian after an imagined saint,
Distaff, and honours the
distaff, a sort of yarn-spinning device.
It was also called
'Rock Day' in England until the 19th Century, the custom being
for women to return (after the Christmas holidays) to this
attachment to the
spinning
wheel (which was also called a 'distaff', or 'rock'). Men
went back to work on Plough
Monday, the first Monday after
Twelfth Day (Epiphany).
Today is the first day after the 'twelve days of Christmas' which began on Boxing Day
(the Feast of St Stephen), December 26.
The women having gone back to the distaff, or rock, the men would
play the prank of setting the flax on fire; in retaliation the women
would drench the men from their water pails.
Most women would spin
whenever they had nothing else to do. Thus, women were associated
with the distaff. Because
an unmarried woman was likely to do a lot of this work rather than
caring for children and other domestic duties associated with
marriage and motherhood in those days, she was known as a spinster, a term that was commonly used
in Australia until about the 1960s and until more recently could
still be found in some official documents.
The spear side and the distaff
side were legal terms for male and female children with regard to
inheritance. There is a French proverb "The crown of France never
falls to the distaff".
The distaff is mentioned
by the Biblical King Solomon in Proverbs 31:19. It's
also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. This simple yarn-spinning
tool was replaced by the spinning wheel, though the wheel was around
before the days of Henry
VIII, as early as the 14th
century.
In a very unkind couplet,
the 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote:
Deceit, weeping,
spinning, God hath given
To women kindly, while they
may live.
In 1745, a woman at East
Dereham, in Norfolk, England spun from one pound of wool, 84,000
yards of thread, earning a mention in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
By the time of Chambers
(1881), the spinning wheel had almost vanished.
Good day for
beekeepers, according to Mayan chronological estimation. Source: The
Daily Bleed
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.)
Grandmothers' Day,
Bulgaria
Fasching
festivities begin, Munich,
Germany
Feast day of St Aldric,
Bishop of Mans
Feast day of St Anastasius
of Sens
Feast day of St Cedd,
Bishop of London
St Cedd was an Anglo-Saxon saint who evangelised heathen countrymen
in the English midlands. He lived at monastery at
Lindisfarne and
was appointed bishop of the East Saxons. Cedd built a monastery at
Tilbury, near the mouth of the
Thames.
Feast day of St
Charles of Sezze
Feast day of St Clerus of
Antioch
Feast day of St Crispin I
of Pavia
Feast day of St Crispin II
of Pavia
Feast day of St Felix
Feast day of St Januarius
Feast day of St Joseph Vaz
Feast day of St Julian of
Cagliari
Feast day of St Kentigerna,
widow
(Portugal Laurel,
Prunus
Lusitanica, is
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Feast day of St
Lucian of
Antioch, priest and martyr
St Lucian revised the Bible and was an influential theologian and
teacher of Christianity, particularly for the
Eastern
Orthodox and
Eastern
Catholics. He was born at
Samosata,
Kommagene,
Syria (now
Samsat,
Turkey). He was
for a while disaffected to orthodox doctrine, but afterwards
conformed to it. His death is uncertain. He might have been starved
to death. Another, more likely, possibility is that he was executed
by the sword. The traditional date ascribed to his execution is
January 7, 312, in
Nicomedia. He is in the
Church
of England calendar on
January 8.
More
Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord (Eastern
Orthodox)
Christmas
Day in the Julian
calendar, the day on which Christmas is celebrated in most Eastern
and Oriental
Orthodox Churches. Today is the celebration of the divine liturgy of
Christmas as celebrated on this day in Eastern churches, including
the Russian and Ethiopian
Orthodox, which still use the Julian Calendar.
The Ethiopian Christians call today 'Ganna'.
Julian day calculator (popup)
Julian/Gregorian
calendar basics
Feast day of St Nicetas of
Remesiana
Feast day of St Raymond of Peñafort
This 13th-Century Spanish saint was an early member of the order of St
Dominic.
Spain had been
in possession of the Moors,
Muslims from
northern Africa, and
Raymond restored Christianity to much of the country. He established
friaries in
Tunis and
Murcia and schools in which Dominicans were
trained in the languages of the East – Arabic and Hebrew. Later,
he engaged his fellow Dominican, St
Thomas Aquinas, to write Summa
contra gentiles. Raymond had himself preached a
crusade against
the Moors.
Taken by King James of Aragon to the
Spanish island of Mallorca,
Raymond was successful in converting the natives, but the king's
immorality made him desire to leave. King James would not permit
this, so Raymond walked boldly to the sea, spread his cloak on the
waters, tied up one corner of it to a staff for a sail, and standing
on this was transported in six hours to
Barcelona. A chapel was
built where he landed, and the king was converted to Raymond's
faith.
In art, St Raymond is portrayed as a middle-aged Dominican crossing the sea on his cloak or as a Dominican holding a book and magister's wand, or with the Virgin and Child appearing to him. He may be pictured holding a key, the symbol of confession.
St Raymond is greatly venerated in Spain and Mallorca, and by the
Mercedarians. He is the patron saint of lawyers, including canon lawyers, and schools and faculties of
law; also
medical record librarians. He died at the age of one hundred years, in 1275.
More
Feast day of St Reinhold
Feast day of St Theodore of
Egypt
Feast day of St Tillo (Thillo)
of Solignac
Feast day of St Valentine
Feast day of St Wittikund
of Westphalia
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Pioneers' Day,
Liberia
Shusho-E Matsuri,
Japan (Jan 1
- 14)
Jinjitsu
(Festival of Seven Herbs), Japan
Seven-herb rice soup (nanakusa-gayu) is prepared on the
seventh day of January, a day known as jinjitsu, literally 'Human
Day'. It is also called
Nanakusa no
sekku. On the morning of January 7, or the night before,
people place the nanakusa (seven
edible wild herbs of
spring),
rice scoop, and/or wooden pestle on the cutting board and, facing
the good-luck direction, chant "Before the birds of the continent
(China) fly to Japan, let's get nanakusa" while cutting the herbs
into pieces.
Traditionally, the seven herbs are: Water
dropwort (seri, Oenanthe javanica); Shepherd's purse (nazuna);
Cudweed (gogyo, Gnaphalium affine); Chickweed (hakobera,
Stellaria media); Nipplewort (hotokenoza, Lapsana
apogonoides); Turnip (suzuna); Daikon (suzushiro).
"The Nana-kusa, Festival of the Seven Grasses, is held in Japan.
In early times, the Court and people went out to gather parsley and
six other edible herbs. These are traditionally powdered into stew
called the nanakusa-gayu, which is eaten as part of the New Year's
rituals. It is a type of rice-gruel or congee flavored with greens." Source
Shorinzan
Daruma-Ichi, Japan (Jan 6 - 7)
Frigg's day
Frigg was the chief goddess of old England,
associated with the distaff. Her followers were known as the
Freefolk.
Compulsory Christian sermon to the Jews of Rome,
17th Century
If you were Jewish and lived in Europe in previous centuries, life was particularly hard. For example, during Lent, the forty days preceding Easter, in many places it was customary, and permitted by the authorities, to throw stones at Jewish people.
On this day in 1645, a certain Mr John Evelyn was present at what seemed to be an annual event in Rome. Large numbers of Jewish people were forced to sit in a cathedral and listen to a sermon designed to convert them to Christianity.
"They are constrained to sit till the hour is done, but it is with so much malice in their countenances, spitting, humming, coughing, and motion, that it is almost impossible they should hear a word from the preacher. A conversion is very rare."
Robert
Chambers,
(Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection
with the calendar, etc,
W
& R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879
Edition is online and 1869 edition here
with CD-ROM available; See also The English
Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)
Izanagi no-Mikoto
and Izanami no-Mikoto, Arima, Japan
The
inhabitants of Arima in Kumano worship the spirit of this goddess.
Each participant, priest, miko or layman, offers a branch of
plum-tree (peach was formerly
donated) on which he (or she) has attached a slip of paper with his name and age (or date of birth). After the
ceremony, every person retrieves the offering they have made, as
"a souvenir from Izanagi and Izanami, for protection throughout
the year". The goddess is also worshipped with the music of flutes
and drums, and with flags, singing and dancing.
1768 Joseph Bonaparte (d. 1844), eldest brother
of Napoleon, King of Naples
and Spain
1800 Millard Fillmore (d. 1874), 13th President of the United
States, from 1850 - '53
1831
Heinrich von Stephan (d. 1897), organizer of
the German
postal union and founder of the Universal postal union
 1844
Marie-Bernarde Soubirous
(St
Bernadette of Lourdes; d.
April 16,
1879), French shepherdess and
visionary who claimed to have experienced some of the most famous apparitions in
Christian history.
On February 11, 1858, at Lourdes
in southern France, the
13-year-old farm girl saw the first of 18 visions of a woman who was later accepted by the
Roman Catholic Church as being the Virgin Mary.
(Bernadette's visions led to Lourdes becoming the world most
celebrated place of Christian
pilgrimage.)
During the
17th and
second-last of
these visions, Mary announced her presence with the words,
"I am the
Immaculate Conception" (not "I am the Immaculately Conceived"
as perhaps one might expect).
On the ninth vision, the lady told
Bernadette to drink from the spring that flowed under the rock.
Although there was no known spring there, and the ground was hard
and dry, Bernadette did as she was told and dug into the dirt, and a
spring appeared which continues flowing to this day. The water of
the spring is claimed to have miraculous healing properties; in the
many decades since then, about 70 cures have been verified by the
Church as miraculous, but only after extremely rigorous scientific
and medical examinations failed to find any other explanations.
The other content of Bernadette's visions
was simple, and focused on the need for prayer and penance.
Her 17th
vision, which went for over an
hour, was on March 25, 1858.
During this vision, the second of two "miracles of the
candle" occurred. Bernadette was holding a lighted candle;
during the vision it burned down, and the flame was in direct
contact with her skin for over 15 minutes but she showed no sign of
experiencing any pain. This was witnessed by many people present,
including a doctor who timed it. Despite the flame, there was no
sign that her skin was in any way affected, so the doctor monitored
Bernadette closely but did not intervene. After the vision ended,
the doctor examined her hand but found no evidence of any burning,
and she was completely unaware of what had been happening. The
doctor then briefly applied a lighted candle to her hand and she
reacted immediately.
Since the appearances of the Virgin to
young Bernadette, more than 200 million people have visited
the shrine of Lourdes. Bernadette died of asthma on April 16,
1879, which is her feast day. Her body is said to be incorruptible; that is, it does not
decompose (more at April 16 in the Book of Days). Bernadette was canonized by Pope
Pius XI in
1933; she is also
honoured on February 18 in France.
Her patronage includes bodily ills,
illness,
Lourdes, France,
people ridiculed for their piety,
poverty,
shepherdesses,
shepherds,
sick people,
and sickness.
Today Lourdes has a population of around
15,000 inhabitants but is able to take in some 5,000,000 pilgrims
and tourists every season.
Sources: Wikipedia
et al
"Oldest of 6 children in a very poor family headed by Francois and Louise Casterot. Hired out as a servant from age 12 to 14. Shepherdess. On 11 February 1858, around the time of her first Communion, she received a vision of the Virgin ... She received 18 more in the next 5 months, and was led to a spring of healing waters. She moved into a house with the sisters of Nevers at Lourdes where she lived, worked, and learned to read and write. The sisters cared to the sick and indigent, and at age 22 they admitted Bernadette into their order since she was both. Always sick, and often mistreated by her superiors, she died with a prayer for Mary's
aid. Body is incorruptible.."
Source
"The events of 1858 resulted in Lourdes becoming one of the most important pilgrim shrines in the history of Christendom, ending with the consecration of the basilica in 1876. But Saint Bernadette took no part in these developments; nor was it for her visions that she was canonized, but for the humble simplicity and religious trust that characterized her whole life."
Source
Lourdes Grotto webcams A
selection of the words of Pope John-Paul II at Lourdes in 2004
Lourdes Apparitions
Art Gallery Gallery
1912
Charles Addams (d. 1988), US cartoonist, creator of
The Addams Family
"In 1964, Charles Addams was approached by the television
producer, David Levy, to do a comedy show, based upon the
characters in his famous drawings. Charles had to finally give the
characters names, and identifiable personalities. On September 18,
1964 the TV show 'The Addams Family' was born.
"While only lasting a few short years, It was a forerunner to many
of the special effects seen in movies today. The show was
consistently in the top 25 shows." Source
Addams
bibliography
1925 Gerald Durrell,
OBE (d.
January 30,
1995), Indian-born
English naturalist,
zookeeper,
author
(My Family and
Other Animals) and
television presenter. He is best
remembered for writing books based on his life as an animal
collector and enthusiast. He was the brother of novelist
Lawrence
Durrell. He founded the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and
the Jersey Zoo (now renamed Durrell Wildlife) on the Island of
Jersey.
1928
William Peter Blatty, American
author
(The Exorcist) and screenwriter.
He was a friend of Groucho
Marx.
"Years before he
became famous for writing 'The Exorcist', Blatty appeared on Groucho
Marx's quiz show, 'You
Bet Your Life' (1950), posing as an Arab sheik with so many
wives that he could not recall how many he had. Groucho was
completely taken in. When Blatty revealed that it was a hoax after
a couple of minutes, he told Groucho that he did it because George
Fenneman had said that Groucho was an expert at spotting
phonies. Groucho replied, 'That is incorrect, because I've had
Fenneman in my employ now for 14 years.'
"When he won a
substantial amount of money on Groucho
Marx's Quiz Show, Marx asked what he intended to do with his
winnings. He replied that he would take a year off from his job
and write a novel. That novel was 'The Exorcist'."
Source
1936
Ben Cropp, Australian
underwater film maker and fisherman, member of the International
Scuba Diving Hall of Fame
Ben Cropp's website
1942 Paul Revere, singer, musician
(Paul Revere
& the Raiders), and
conscientious objector
 1945
Jay Lynch, American underground
comix artist (Nard 'n' Pat), co-founder (with Robert
Crumb and Skip
Williamson) of Bijou Funnies
"While dreaming of
becoming a comic artist, Jay Lynch noticed that American
mainstream comics in the 1960s were dull and on their way back. So
Lynch decided to become an underground artist and helped set up a
distribution system for those underground
comix. But he has made a considerable amount of comics as
well, including famous works like 'Nard 'n' Pat' comics starring
the hip and horny Pat the cat. Also he has contributed to various
magazines and other projects (like the Wacky Packages by
Art
Spiegelman, for whom he did some sketches). Also, he has
contributed to several popular comic series like 'The Simpsons',
'Archie', 'Duckman', 'X-men' and Mad magazine. Recently he has
been working on twenty new Wacky Packages."
Source
Comix,
comics and cartoons in the Book of Days
More
More
1947
Jann Wenner, founder
and publisher of Rolling Stone
magazine
1948 Kenny Loggins, American singer
1956 David Caruso, American actor
1964
Nicolas Cage, American actor
1978
Jean
Charles de Menezes (d.
July 22,
2005),
Brazilian
electrician who was shot and killed (as a
suspected terrorist) by unnamed
Metropolitan Police officers at
Stockwell tube station on the
London Underground. He was entirely
innocent. Police authorities released
misinformation and lies about the killing until the correct information was
leaked to the media.
More
Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign
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January
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
9
Apricot Day
11
Thank You Cards
11
Make Your Dreams Come True Day
11
Step In A Puddle And Splash Your Friend Day
11
Tattoo Pride Day
12
Roller Skating Day
12
Make Your Mark Day
12
Rubber Band Veteran Day
12
Family Communications Day
12
Pharmacists' Day
13
Accordion Day
13
Door-To-Door Salespeople Day
13
Blame Someone Else Day
14
Makar Sankranti
14
Pongal
14
Dress Up Your Pet Day
14
Assembly Line Worker's Day
14
Oatmeal Festival (Colorado, USA)
15
Strawberry Ice Cream Day
15
World Religion Day
Mid-Jan
Martin Luther King, Jr Day, USA
16
Nothing Day
Mid-Jan
Robert E Lee Day (Alabama, USA)
16
Appreciate a Dragon Day
16
Elementary School Teachers Day
...
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application. Further details
1325 Alfonso IV became King of Portugal.
1450 The
foundation of University of Glasgow.
1536 The
death of Catherine of
Aragon, first wife of England's King Henry
VIII.
1558 France captured Calais after 212 years, the last continental possession of England.
1566 Pius V became
pope.
1584 Last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia.
1598 Boris
Godunov seized the throne of Russia.
1610 Galileo
Galilei observed the four largest moons of Jupiter
for the first time. He named them and in turn the four are called the Galilean
moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto).
1618 Francis
Bacon, philosopher, became
Lord Chancellor of England.
1714 The
first typewriter patent was issued, England, to a Mr Mills.
1782 The first American commercial bank opened (Bank of North America).
1784 David
Landreth of Philadelphia opened the first seed business in the USA.
1785 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American
Dr John Jeffries travelled from Dover,
England to Calais, France in a gas balloon,
becoming the first to cross the English
Channel by air.
1789 First nationwide United
States election
(George Washington was elected,
John Adams Vice-President).
1800 The
first transatlantic wireless telephone service opened,
London to
New York City.
1800 Revolution
broke out
in Switzerland.
1807 Blockade
of the French coast by the British.
1830 The
first railway station was opened, at Mt Clare,
Baltimore, USA.
 1871 "Thomas Gale with John Allen as a passenger ascended in
his balloon 'Young Australian' from Victoria Park Sydney. After floating for
about 2 hours, passing over the University, Five Dock and Cockatoo Island, they
came down in Delonges Bay between Tarban Creek and Kissing Point.
"The car struck the southern bank and was dragged
across the bay where is stuck fast in the mud and the balloon collapsed. Gale
claims to have reached a height of 2.5 miles. The 'Young Australian' was 72 feet
high and 112 feet at widest point of circumference. An earlier attempt on
January 2 had been abortive as the seams burst when inflating the
balloon." Source
1894 WK Dickson
received a patent
for motion
picture film.
1901 Alferd
Packer was released from prison after serving 18 years for cannibalism.
1904 'CQD' was introduced as the international distress
signal (CQ = 'seek you', D = Danger); replaced by 'SOS' in 1906.
1905 The
first government appointment of a black man in the USA was approved by the Senate
– he was head of the South Carolina customs services.
1918 VI
Lenin abolished the constituent assembly in
Russia and established the
'dictatorship of the proletariat'.
1919
Argentina: Beginning of 'Bloody Week' ('Semaine
Sanglante') in Buenos Aires.
The Argentine police invent the electric prod to
convince those in doubt and straighten out those who buckle ... Discepolin's
last tango sings that the world was and will continue to be a dirty joke ...
Workers,
demonstrating for the 8-hour work day, were fired on, leaving four dead and
about 30 wounded. Clashes with authorities the day of the funerals left another
50 dead. Workers seeking refuge in the Vasena factory were driven out as 30,000
infantrymen were called out. A General Strike shut down the trade unions,
printing works, libraries, etc. The anarchists involved were attacked by trade
union reformists and paramilitary groups ('Les défenseurs de l'Ordre')
acting in concert with the police.
By January 16 the strike
was crushed in blood, with as many as 700 dead and 2000 wounded. Argentinian
anarchism was decimated by repression, and the reformist trade unions were in
control.
Source: The Daily Bleed
1926 George Burns and
Gracie Allen married.
Gracie: What's the difference between an
umbrella and a pickle?
George: You're making this up?
Gracie: Yes.
George: What's the difference between an umbrella and a pickle? (Thinks
for a moment.) I give up.
Gracie: Oh? I give up, too.
George: I thought you said you make up riddles.
Gracie: I do. I make up riddles. I don't make up answers.
1920
Death of Edmund Barton
(b. 1849), first Prime Minister
of Australia.
1927 First international telephone
call – New York City to London.
1933 Australian
aviation pioneer Bert Hinkler
(b. 1892) was presumed killed in a plane crash near
Florence,
Italy.
1934 Sir
Charles Kingsford-Smith broke the Sydney-Melbourne round trip record, taking
just 17 hours.
1937 Queen
Juliana of the Netherlands married Prince
Bernhard.
1941 The Argonauts, a club for children, began
on ABC radio.
1945 British
General Bernard Montgomery held a press conference in
which he claimed credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
1945
The
Allies completed the new Burma Road, to replace the road into
China destroyed by
Japanese troops.
1953 President Harry
Truman announced that the United
States had developed a hydrogen bomb.
1957 Blacks
boycotted buses after a fare increase,
South Africa.
1959 The United
States recognised the new Cuban government of Fidel
Castro.
1961 The
first broadcast of the TV series
The
Avengers, starring
Patrick Macnee as John Steed. (His three female companions
were, in order: Catherine Gale, Emma Peel, Tara King.)
1961 Cuba: Education nationalised in famous
literacy campaign. When the US and American free-market business owned Cuba, the
mob and CIA forgot to educate the populace except in craps and whorehouses.
Source: The Daily Bleed
1965
Indonesia's
President Sukarno withdrew his country from the UN, having been angered at
Malaysia's becoming a member of the
UN Security Council.
1968 USA:
San Francisco's
KMPX-FM, a pioneering 'underground' radio stations, held a
'grass ballot' vote among its
listeners. Among those elected were:
Bob Dylan (President)
Paul Butterfield (Vice-President)
George Harrison (UN Ambassador)
Jefferson Airplane (Secretary of Transportation)
and Grateful Dead (Attorney-General)
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1970
Max
Yasgur, on whose farm the Woodstock Festival was held, was sued by his
neighbours because of US$35,000 worth of damage they claimed the festival-goers caused.
1973 Six
people were killed and 15 wounded in a
New Orleans sniper attack.
1975
OPEC
raised the price of oil by 10 per cent.
1977 The
government of Argentina reported that the country's rate of inflation rose by
345.5 per cent in 1976.
1979 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
were overthrown by Vietnamese troops.
1980 US President
Jimmy
Carter authorized legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.
1980 A nun
was elected mayor of Dubuque,
Iowa, USA.
1980 USA: San Francisco marked the 100th
anniversary of the death of America's only monarch, Norton I, Dei Gratia Emperor of the
United States and Protector of Mexico, with lunch-hour ceremonies at Market and
Montgomery streets. Best ruler the country ever had.
http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/nort.html
http://www.discordia.org/~keeper/norton.html
http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/principia.html
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/norton.html
http://www.notfrisco.com/nortoniana/index.html
Source: The Daily Bleed
Emperor Norton
at Wilson's Almanac
1983 Sunshine Chariot, a
solar-powered car, made the first solar-powered crossing of Australia.
"Hans Tholstrup left Perth in the Sunshine
Chariot, a solar-powered bathtub-like machine. Twenty days later, he
pulled up in front of the Sydney Opera House, the first man to have
travelled across Australia by means of solar energy."
Richard Perno, Diary of Australia, Kangaroo Press,
Kenthurst, NSW, 1987
1984 Brunei became the
sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).
1989 Akihito
became Emperor of Japan.
1990 The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public
due to safety concerns – it was leaning.
"At the time that Galileo arrived at (Pisa)
University, some debate had started up on one of Aristotle's 'laws' of
nature--namely, that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects.
Aristotle's word had been accepted as gospel truth, and there had been few
attempts to actually test Aristotle's conclusions by actually conducting an
experiment!
"According to legend, Galileo
decided to try. He needed to be able to drop the objects from a great height.
The perfect building was right at hand--the Tower of Pisa, 54 meters tall.
Galileo climbed up to the top of the building carrying a variety of balls of
varying size and weight, and dumped them off of the top. They all landed at the
base of the building at the same time … Aristotle was wrong." Source
l995
"Two women had spent the day photographing quilts north of Seattle, arriving
back at their home in Warm Beach, WA, late that evening. As one of the women was
unloading her camera equipment from the car, both women suddenly became aware of
a very bright light passing overhead at a relatively fast rate." Source
1996 One of the worst blizzards in
American history hit the eastern states killing more than 100.
1999 US Senate: The impeachment
trial of President Bill
Clinton began.
"Clinton
was impeached on December 19, 1998 by the House of Representatives on
grounds of perjury
and obstruction of justice, becoming the first
elected U.S. President to be impeached (and the second since Andrew
Johnson). The Senate, however, in a trial that started on January 7,
1999, voted not
to convict Clinton of the charges on February
12, allowing Clinton to stay in office for the remainder of his second
term. The impeachment cited abuse of powers and for perjury --
lying under oath to a grand jury regarding matters related to his sexual
affair with Monica Lewinsky (uncovered by an investigation
into the unrelated Whitewater scandal). The perjury charge was
defeated with 55 "not guilty" votes and 45 "guilty" votes.
On the obstruction of justice article, the chamber was evenly split, 50-50. A
two-thirds majority, 67 votes, is necessary to convict the President on
impeachment charges.
"Clinton
was charged with lying under oath about his affair with Lewinsky to gain
advantage in a sexual harassment case brought by Paula Jones, a case he later
settled paying Paula Jones $850,000. A Federal judge found Clinton also to be
in contempt of court for lying in a deposition and ordered him to pay a
$90,000 fine. This contempt citation led to disbarment proceedings similar to Richard
Nixon's. To avoid these Clinton surrendered his law license." Source: Wikipedia
Tomorrow: The Earl of Stair and the 9 of
Diamonds
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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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reetings from Australia.
How it works
Birthday of Sekhmet (Sokhit, Sakhet, Sakhmet, Sachmet),
who, in Egyptian mythology, was the goddess
of the healing arts. She was a deity of the Memphis triad; sometimes
depicted in art as a lion-headed woman with the sun disk and uraeus
serpent headdress, and was often shown with lionesses, with which she was associated. Sekhmet ('the powerful one') was also a war and disease
goddess – in spite of being a cause of disease, she was also prayed to
for help in healing. The center of her cult was in Memphis,
and her husband was Ptah (later, as Ptah-Seker);
their son himself was a healing god Nefertem
(though whether he was her son was in dispute – Bast and Wadjet were
touted as his mother in their respective cities).
