This page is big!
If it fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar at the foot of the page.
reetings from Australia.
Welcome to
this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations,
birthdays and events.
Celebrate each
and every day with a free subscription to the daily ezine. You can apply by
form or send a blank email. Read
what the 'Almaniacs' (members) say about Wilson's Almanac.
I request your
support
if this website pleases and informs you, as this is my livelihood. Thank
you, from the bottom of my fridge.
Inquiries from
publishers are welcome, but, dear reader, please don't use my work without
my written
permission. If I've inadvertently used something of yours that you
consider not to fall under the fair use
doctrine, please tell me and I'll remove it.
Pretending to be
disgusted by the drab old buildings and narrow, winding streets of
Rome, he [Nero] brazenly set fire to the City; and though a group of
ex-consuls caught his attendants, armed with oakum and blazing
torches, trespassing on their property, they dared not interfere. He also coveted the
sites of several granaries, solidly built in stone, near the Golden
House [Nero's palace]; having knocked down their walls with
siege-engines, he set the interiors ablaze. This terror lasted for
six days and seven nights, causing many people to take shelter in the
tombs ... Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas,
enraptured by what he called "the beauty of the flames"; then put
on his tragedian's costume and sang 'The Fall of Ilium' from
beginning to end. Suetonius, Lives
of theTwelve Caesars, on the Great Fire of
Rome, July 18,
64; it is from this
that we get the phrase "fiddling while Rome burns." This
account is disputed by many historians. Nero himself blamed the
Christians (who declared that the world would end in fire) and
persecuted them without mercy.
We
were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs
began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit
lightheaded; maybe you should drive ..." And suddenly there was a
terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like
huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car,
which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las
Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn
animals?" Then it was quiet again. My
attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to
facilitate the tanning process. "What the hell are you yelling
about?" he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and
covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to drive." I hit the brakes and aimed the Great
Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning
those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. Hunter
S Thompson, American writer, born on July 18, 1939; Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas
John Dee visited by
Emperor Rudolf II of Bohemia (detail)
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have
lived more than people who cannot or will not read ... It is not true
that we have only one life to live, we can live as many more lives and
as many kinds of lives as we wish. SI Hayakawa, Canadian academic, born on July
18, 1906
"The Esala
Perahera is held in the lunar month of July-August. On the day
following the new moon in July, an Esala tree is cut and kap planted
as a vow that the perahera will be held. Owing to an overlay of
Hindu influences, the processions now are confined for five days
within the precincts of the four Hindu devales, or temples. On the
fifth night, the four peraheras emerge into the street and combine
with the Maligawa Perahera at the entrance to the Mahgawa. The
Randoli Perahera, which is the main one, is named after the randoli,
the golden palanquins in which the queen and the monarch's
concubines formerly brought up the rear, adding lustre to the
pageant. The four golden palanquins now represent the four devales."Source
Find an error or dead link?
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda
dies
Alliensis,
Roman Empire This
day commemorated the disastrous defeat of the Roman army by the
Gauls at the River Allia in 390 BCE. A day of bad omens.
"Rudolf II, patron of Kepler and briefly Brahe was
fascinated by alchemy, astrology, and other ways in which human art
interfered in or perfected nature. Here
one of his court painters has, through art, depicted Rudolf as an
assemblage of natural objects: fruits, vegetables, grains, and
flowers." Source
1811William Makepeace Thackeray
(d. 1863), writer (Vanity
Fair), born in Calcutta, India. Among the pen-names he used
were MA Titmarsh, CH Yellowplush, GS Fitzboodle, and Théophile
Wagstaff.
In 1961, Nelson Mandela became the leader of the
ANC's armed wing
and terrorist organization,
Umkhonto
we Sizwe (translated as Spear of the Nation, also abbreviated as
MK), which he co-founded. Mandela also
raised funds for MK abroad, and arranged for paramilitary training,
visiting various African governments and forming alliances with
Communist parties worldwide. He was arrested with a number of
colleagues and sentenced to prison, convicted of about 200 charges
of terrorism and sabotage. Mandela had personally approved the
Church
Street Massacre.
When Mandela was put on
trial, approximately 90 pages of documents in his own handwriting
were presented as evidence against him. One was the famous 'How
to be a Good Communist', by Chinese Communist theoretician,
Liu Shaoqi.
Others included handwritten summaries of texts by Communists
Mao Zedong
(Strategic Problems of China's Revolutionary War) and
Che Guevara
(Guerrilla Warfare).
While in prison, Mandela was repeatedly offered his freedom by South African
President PW Botha if he would renounce the use of terrorism, but
Mandela refused to do so. After the fall of the Soviet Union, when
South Africa's place in Cold War geo-strategy had changed, and after
Aparthaid was ended, Mandela was allowed to go free from his
comfortable, if not luxurious, house on Robben Island.
Mandela
sings 'We have pledged to kill the whites', from YouTube
Mother, let me congratulate you on
the birthday of your son.
You worry so much about him. Here he lies,
he earns little, his marriage was unwise,
he's long, he's getting thin, he hasn't shaved.
Oh, what a miserable loving gaze!
I should congratulate you if I may
mother on your worry's birthday.
It was from you he inherited
devotion without pity to this age
and arrogant and awkward in his faith
from you he took his faith, the Revolution.
You didn't make him prosperous or famous,
and fearlessness is his only talent.
Open up his windows,
let in the twittering in the leafy branches,
kiss his eyes open.
Give him his notebook and his ink bottle,
give him a drink of milk and watch him go.
from Selected Poems (Penguin)
1935 Don Lane,
corrupt Queensland, Australia police commissioner
1939 Dion (Dion
DiMucci), American rock 'n' roll singer, performed with The
Belmonts (A Teenager in Love)
then had a successful solo career (hits: Runaround Sue; The Wanderer); inducted into
the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989
reetings from Australia.
How it works
![Summer [ Jun 21 Sep 22 ]](http://img.123greetings.com/homeimages/side_summer_1.gif){kind=small}
