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"Look aloft!" cried Starbuck. "The corpusants! The corpusants!" All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts were silently burning in the sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an altar.
Herman Melville; Moby Dick

The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable. A traveler journeys along a fine road. It has been strewn with traps. He falls into one. Do you say it is the traveler's fault, or that of the scoundrel who lays the traps?
Marquis de Sade, French author, born on June 2, 1740; in a letter to his wife 

Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change.
Marquis de Sade; from his last will and testament

I'm writing to tell you, my friend, that I stayed here (Bucharest) with the intention of becoming a teacher at the Bulgarian school, but I was sorely disappointed. I have fallen on such hard times, that I can hardly describe my miserable state. I'm quite broke, the rags I had aren't fit to wear any more and I'm ashamed to show myself in the street. I live in a draughty mill on the outskirts of Bucharest, together with my fellow-countryman Vassil Levski. It is better not to ask what we eat, because we only once in two or three days get hold of some bread to still our hunger ... I'm thinking of giving a lecture at the 'Brotherly Love' reading club one of these days, but I have no idea in what clothes I shall appear there! In spite of this critical situation I have not lost my courage and honour ... My friend Levski, with whom I share my lodging, has an incredible disposition. When things with us are at their lowest, he is as merry as when they are at their best. When it is perishing cold outside, and we have gone hungry for two or three days, he will be merry and sing. He sings while we are getting into bed in the evening and he sings the moment he opens his eyes in the morning. Whatever your despair might be, he will cheer you up and make you forget all your grief and suffering. It is a pleasure to live with such a character ...
Hristo Botev, Bulgarian poet and revolutionary hero who died on June 2, 1876; Bucharest, the end of 1868   Source

It's not the length of life that counts, it's the roundness in the holes.
Michael Leunig, Australian cartoonist, born on June 2, 1945

Me Tarzan, you Jane.
This was never said in a Tarzan movie. Johnny Weismuller, who played Tarzan in a number of pictures, was born on June 2, 1904

It is a multiple million eyed monster ...
Allen Ginsberg, American poet; Lysergic Acid, (written on June 2, 1959) in Collected Poems 1947-1980, p. 231)

The sort of men who get married are almost without exception commonplace, womanly, illiterate and unintelligent, lacking in personal independence, completely incapable of creating love in the intelligent woman or keeping alive love in the unintelligent woman for more than five years.
Bee Miles, Sydney eccentric; speaking to a Sydney Morning Herald journalist on the day of her retirement, June 2, 1965

June 2 is the 153^rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (154^th in leap years), with 212 days remaining.
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Feast day of St Erasmus (Elmo of Formiae), bishop and martyr
(Pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

This St Elmo/Erasmus is sometimes confused with another Elmo/Erasmus (Peter Gonzales) and both are patron saints of sailors.

"Bishop of Formiae, Campagna, Italy. Fled to Mount Lebanon in the persecutions of emperor Diocletian; was fed by a raven so he could stay in hiding. Discovered, he was imprisoned; an angel rescued him. Recaptured, he was martyred. One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Namesake for the static electric discharge called Saint Elmo's Fire."   Source

Elmo was martyred by being disembowelled at Formiae, Italy in about 303. His patronage includes: abdominal pains, ammunition workers, birth pains, danger at sea, explosives workers, sailors, seasickness and storms.

Sailors believed that the appearance of an electrical phenomenon known as 'St Elmo's Fire' was a good omen, as it tends to occur during severe thunderstorms. This, they conflated with their prayers for safety from the storm. It is possible that the Hindenburg airship disaster of 1937 was caused by St Elmo's fire.

St Erasmus/St Elmo might have become the patron of sailors because he is said to have continued preaching even after a thunderbolt struck the ground beside him.

From Wikipedia: The Acts of Saint Elmo were partly compiled from legends that confuse him with a Syrian bishop Erasmus of Antioch. Jacobus de Voragine in the Golden Legend credited him as a bishop at Formia over all the Italian Campania, as a hermit on Mount Lebanon, and a martyr in the persecutions under Eastern Roman Emperor Diocletian ...

The version of the Golden Legend did not relate how Erasmus fled to Mount Lebanon and survived on what ravens brought him to eat, an interesting pre-Christian mytheme. When he was recaptured, he was brought before the emperor and beaten and whipped, then coated with pitch and set alight (as Christians had been in Nero's games), and still he survived. Thrown into prison with the intention of letting him die of starvation, Erasmus managed to escape.

He was recaptured and tortured some more in the Roman province of Illyricum, after boldly preaching and converting numerous pagans to Christianity. Finally, according to the legend, his stomach was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass. This late legend may have developed from interpreting an icon that showed him with a windlass, signifying his patronage of sailors.

 

St Elmo's fire

St Elmo's Fire is an electro-luminescent discharge caused by ionisation of the air during thunderstorms inside a strong electric field. Benjamin Franklin correctly observed in 1749 that it is electric in nature. 

Physically, it is a bright bluish-white glow, appearing like fire in some circumstances, often in double or triple jets, from tall, sharply-pointed structures such as masts, spires and chimneys. Although referred to as "fire," St Elmo's Fire is in fact a kind of plasma caused by a massive atmospheric potential difference. It can also appear between the tips of cattle horns during a thunderstorm, or sharp objects in the middle of a tornado, but is not the same phenomenon as ball lightning, although they are related.

In ancient Greece, the appearance of a single one was called Helena and two were called Castor and Pollux.

It is named after Erasmus of Formiae (also called St Elmo), the patron saint of sailors (who held its appearance to be auspicious). It is named such because the phenomenon commonly occurs at the mastheads of ships during thunderstorms at sea.

References to St Elmo's Fire, often known as 'corposants' or 'corpusants' from the Spanish Cuerpos Santos (Holy Bodies), can be found in the works of Julius Caesar, Pliny, Antonio Pigafetta's journal of his voyage with Ferdinand Magellan and Herman Melville.

Source: Wikipedia

 

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Mother Shipton's Day On the dating of items in the Almanac The Wednesday following Whitsunday, for reasons unknown to your almanackist, is said by some to go by this name. Mother Shipton, whose real name was the rather un-English-sounding Ursula Sontheil, was a celebrated soothsayer in Cambridge, England and the wife of Toby Shipton, a carpenter. To some, she is also the patron saint of women working in laundries.  Ursula was born in a cave at Knaresborough, Yorkshire (where Guy Fawkes once lived) in 1488, in the reign of Henry VII just fifteen years before Nostradamus, in an era in which prophetic utterances were widely sought – and just as readily condemned. According to Yorkshire legend (and that is probably the true origin of her 'life'), Ursula Sontheil's birth was the result of a liaison between her mother and Satan. Perhaps as would be expected from such a union, she was a stunning but not attractive child, at least according to one antique biographer:  Very morose and big boned, her head very long, with very great goggling, but sharp and fiery Eyes, her Nose of an incredible and unproportionate length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange Pimples of diverse colours, as Red, Blew, [sic] and mixt, which like Vapours of Brimstone gave such a lustre of the Night, that one of them confessed several times in my hearing, that her nurse needed no other light to assist her in the performance of her duty. She is generally supposed to have sold her soul to the Devil for the power of foretelling future events ... Read on at the Mother Shipton page at the Scriptorium   Ludi Saeculares, or Centennial Games, ancient Rome Feast day of St Adalgis Feast day of St Alexander Feast day of St Blandina Feast day of St Bodfan Feast day of St Eugene I Feast day of St Guy of Acqui Feast day of St John de Ortega Feast day of Ss Marcellinus and Peter, martyrs "Though we know very little about these two martyrs under Diocletian, there is no question that the early church venerated them. Evidence of the respect in which they were held are the basilica Constantine built over their tombs and the presence of their names in the first eucharistic prayer. "Pope St. Damasus says that he heard the story of these two martyrs from their executioner who became a Christian after their deaths. Marcellinus, a priest, and Peter, an exorcist, died in the year 304. According to a legendary account of their martyrdom, the two Romans saw their imprisonment as just one more opportunity to evangelize and managed to convert their jailer and his family. The legend also says that they were beheaded in the forest so that other Christians wouldn't have a chance to bury and venerate their bodies. Two women found the bodies, however, and had them properly buried."   Source Feast day of St Nicholas Peregrinus Commemoration of St Nicephorus's death, Greek Orthodox Church (Catholic f.d. March 13) Feast day of Ss Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons, Sanctus, Attalus, Blandina, and the other martyrs of Lyons "A group of Christians that include Photinus, Sanctius, Vetius, Epagathus, Maturus, Ponticus, Biblis, Attalus, Alexander, Blandina, and companions. They were attacked by a pagan mob and then tried as Christians in the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Lugdunum, Gaul. Writers from Lyons and Vienne provided very graphic descriptions of the terrible torments endured by these martyrs."   Source Feast day of St Stephen of Sweden Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Shapatu of Ishtar, Babylonia Goddess of Love and Battle. Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar Mother Earth Day "Sacred to Mother Earth in her fecund aspect." Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 76 Gawai Dayak, Malaysia "Harvest festival of thanksgiving to the rice god." Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day), Italy Commemorates the birth of the Repubblica Italiana and the end of the monarchy (see On this day in history, 1946, below). Botev Day (Poetry Day), Bulgaria Today is the anniversary of death (June 2, 1876) of Khristo Botev (Hristo Botev; b. 1848), Bulgarian poet and hero in the revolutionary movement against Turkey. The day is celebrated with poetry festivals and concerts. Ruth W Gregory, Anniversaries and Holidays, American Library Association, Chicago, 1983, p. 68 (Gregory has this date at May 20, according to the Julian calendar) Air raid sirens throughout all Bulgaria are switched on for a few minutes on every June 2, exactly at 12 o'clock. Bulgarians stand up to honour the ones who have fought and died for their country. Every nation should have a Poetry Day! Does yours? National Reconciliation Week, Australia (May 27 - Jun 3) Green Week (May 31 - Jun 3) Xenia name day in Slovakia       On which day of the week were you born? Find out here 1740 Marquis de Sade (d. 1814), French author, imprisoned in the Bastille for his sexual perversions, where he wrote Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue. By order of the king and at his mother-in-law's request, the 23-year-old bridegroom of five months was imprisoned, in theory for excesses committed in a brothel he was frequenting for a month, but probably because he was spending his wife's money too fast. He spent the next 27 years in prisons, and to overcome boredom he started to write sexually graphic novels and plays. More    More   1743 Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (d. August 26, 1795), late-18th-Century roving adventurer, freemason and alchemist who mixed with most of the major figures in Europe at that time, including Casanova, Mozart, Goethe and Catherine the Great. There are two Cagliostros or, at least, two accounts of his life. In one popular version he was a cunning fraud and, in the other, he was a nobleman and great magus. The former states that Cagliostro was born Giuseppe Balsamo to a poor family in Palermo, Sicily, and, when his father died, he was educated at the expense of some of his mother's relatives. It has been said that he robbed his uncle and forged a will, and spent time in Palermo's prisons more than once. His reputation as a charlatan is so great, he even shows up as a crooked Marvel Comics character ... Read on at the Cagliostro page in the Scriptorium Alchemists in the Almanac Cornelius Agrippa  Roger Bacon  John Dee  Edward Kelley  Robert Fludd  Isaac Newton Paracelsus  James Price  Tycho Brahe  Raymond Lulle   Elias Ashmole The Alchemy Web Site   Wilson's Almanac Alchemy Clock (a bit of fun)     Shop Alchemy   1835 Pope Pius X (d. 1914). His feast day is August 21. 1836 Mily Balakirev (d. 1910), composer 1840 Thomas Hardy (d. January 11, 1928), English author whose books were set in the imagined county of Wessex (Tess of the d'Urbervilles) "A rumour has persisted since Hardy's death that it is not the author's heart that was buried beside Emma. The story goes that Hardy's housekeeper placed his heart on the kitchen table, where it was promptly devoured by her cat. Apparently a pig's heart was used to replace Hardy's own. Truth? Fiction? We will probably never know."   Source 1857 Sir Edward Elgar (d. 1934), British composer (Pomp and Circumstance) 1899 Lotte Reiniger (d. 1981), film director 1904 Johnny Weissmuller (d. January 20, 1984),  Olympic gold medallist in swimmer, actor (Tarzan movies; Jungle Jim TV show and movies) Tarzan Chronology 1917 Heinz Sielmann, scientific publicist 1920 Marcel Reich-Ranicki, critic 1926 Milo O'Shea, Irish comic actor 1929 Norton Juster, author and architect 1936 Sally Kellerman, American actress (Maj. Margaret 'Hot Lips' O'Houlihan in M*A*S*H, the movie) 1940 Constantine of Greece, formerly Constantine II, King of the Hellenes, King of Greece from 1964 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974 1941 Charlie Watts, rock drummer (The Rolling Stones) "The first line-up of Brian Jones' Group was: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Dick Taylor, Ian Stewart, drummer Tony Chapman and Brian himself. But Dick Taylor (later with The Pretty Things) had chosen for a student-life and Chapman had left too ... Charlie replaced him, we were a step closer to the real Stones. In the early days, Watts was the drummer of The Blues Incorporated. Charlie is the favourite Stone of Keith Richards who says: It's Charlie Watts' band, without him, we wouldn't exist. And, according to Mick Jagger, Charlie always exaggerates with everything ... One thing for sure is that Charlie really hates being a rock star. He never had a 'rock star' kind of life and does not even know what it is supposed to be. He certainly is the quietest of the Stones and is always amazed to get such ovations in concert. He likes the early Gretsch kits (the ones with the round logo on them!) and always uses a Gretsch kit live. "He also loves jazz and released some albums with his quintet. In 1964, he even published 'Ode to a highflying bird', a little book about his all-time favorite musician, Charlie Parker ..."  Source 1941 Stacy Keach, American actor 1942 Barry Levinson, producer 1943 Peter Heisterkamp (d. 1977), aka 'Palermo', artist 1944 Marvin Hamlisch, composer, musician 1945 Michael Leunig, often referred to simply as 'Leunig', Australian cartoonist (The Adventures of Vasco Pajama) 1946 Peter Sutcliffe, British serial killer infamous as the 'Yorkshire Ripper', convicted in 1981 of the murders of thirteen women and attacks on seven more from 1975 to 1980 1948 Todd Rundgren, singer and producer 1948 Jerry Mathers, American child actor (TV series Leave It to Beaver) 1955 Dana Carvey, actor, comedian 1971 Anthony Montgomery, actor (Star Trek: Enterprise) 1972 Wayne Brady, actor, comedian (Whose Line Is It Anyway?)   Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section Send a free e-card greeting for today's celebrations to a loved one Do you forget birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule your cards to be sent during the coming year. Zodiac birthday Free astrology e-cards World Environment Day [ Jun 5 ] Birthdays Shavuot [ Varies ] Summertime! Varies Full Moon Day Varies Friday the 13th Varies Hindu holidays Varies Buddha Purnima Varies Memorial Day (USA) Varies Dragon Boat Festival (China) Varies Pentecost Varies Shavuot Varies Fathers' Day   May 31 Poetry Day 31 World No Tobacco Day June 1 Children's Day (China) 3 Love Conquers All Day 3 Egg Day 3 Family Day 3 Tattoo Day 3 Repeat Day 3 Strawberry Festival (New Jersey, USA) 3 Blueberry Festival (Florida, USA) 4 Cheese Day 5 World Environment Day 6 Applesauce Cake Day 6 D-Day Anniversary 7 Boone Day 8 Best Friends Day 8 Ice Cream Day 8 World Ocean Day 9 Cuddle Up Day 9 Profess Your Love Day 10 Iced Tea Day 10 Great Turtle Races Day 10 Strawberry Festival (West Virginia, USA) 10 Tomato Festival (Louisiana, USA) 10 Mourn For Your Money Day 10 Tomato Festival (Texas, USA) 11 Red Rose Festival 11 King Kamehameha Day (Hawaii) 12 Diary Day 13 Kitchen Klutzes Of America Day 13 Lobster Day 14 Flag Day 15 Sneak A Kiss Day 15 Smile Power Day 15 Electricity Day 15 A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed Day 15 Career Nursing Assistants Day 16 Morticians Day 17 International Violin Day 17 World Juggling Day 17 Sweden-America Day 17 Sandcastle Day (Oregon, USA)   ... 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   261 BCE Death of Antiochus I Soter, King of the Seleucid empire and successor of Alexander the Great. 455 Geiseric and the Vandals entered Rome, and plundered the city for two weeks. They departed with countless valuables, spoils of the Temple in Jerusalem brought to Rome by Titus, and the Empress Eudoxia and her daughters Eudocia and Placidia. 575 Benedict I became Pope. 597 On Whitsunday King Ethelbert, Saxon king of England, was baptised by St Augustine of Canterbury, commencing official recognition of Christianity in the British Isles. 657 St Eugene I became Pope. Today is his feast day. 815 Death of St Nicephorus. Today is his feast day in the Orthodox Church, March 13 Roman Catholic. 1070 The sacking of Peterborough Abbey, England, by the Normans and Hereward the Wake. 1567 Seán Ó Néill (Shane O'Neill; b. c. 1530), Earl of Tyrone and Irish rebel, was killed by by the MacDonnells. 1572 Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was executed in the Tower of London, for treason, allegedly for having participated in the Ridolfi plot with King Philip II of Spain to put Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne and restore Catholicism in England.   1581 James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, was beheaded at Edinburgh. Justice for Douglas? After ruling Scotland for ten years under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth I, Morton fell foul of factionalism at court and found himself on the scaffold.  What is striking about his execution is that he was beheaded by a device known as 'the Maiden', or 'Scottish Maiden' (aka 'the Widow'), a forerunner of the guillotine (not to be confused with the Iron Maiden, a hollow device like a sarcophagus, with spikes in its interior, in which the victim was confined). It is believed that Douglas himself had introduced the contraption into Scotland for the purpose of beheading the Laird of Pennycuick. Records show that the Maiden dates to 1564 (one Thomas Scott, a murderer, had been executed in Scotland in 1566), so an old reference that "he who invented the maiden first hanselled it" is erroneous. The Maiden was modelled on the Halifax (Yorkshire) gibbet (pictured), which was a feared guillotine-like device used on felons who stole property worth at least thirteen and a half pence. It is believed it severed its last head in 1650, but it found a new incarnation in the invention of a French physician, Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738 - 1814), who proposed the guillotine to carry out death penalties in France because he sincerely desired to reduce the suffering of those condemned to death. The belief that Guillotin was also executed on his own device is erroneous as well, as he died of ill health. It is interesting to note, with regard to Guillotine, that his family, ashamed of the good doctor's invention, petitioned the parliament to change its name. When this was refused, they changed their family name instead.   More 1615 The first Récollet missionaries arrived at Quebec City, from Rouen, France.   1630 France: A group of Ursuline nuns accused Father Urbain Grandier (15?? - 1634), the parish priest of St-Pierre-du-Marché of Loudun, of witchcraft. Cardinal Richelieu orchestrated his murder. On November 30, 1633, Fr Urbain was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Angers. In 1634, he was found guilty of 'diabolical pact' and the practice of witchcraft. On August 18, 1634, he was sentenced to death, tortured, and then burnt alive at the stake. Urbain Grandier by Alexandre Dumas free online (Project Gutenberg) More 1,000 years of Christian barbarity   1716 Death of Ogata Korin, Japanese painter. 1780 The Gordon Riots began as a pogrom against Catholics. "It overflows its sectarian beginnings and for several days London plebeians run amok – two thousand prisoners are liberated as every major prison in the city is destroyed; houses of establishment figures are trashed, toll houses and the Bank of England assaulted. The well-to-do flee the city in 'the largest exodus since the plague'. The uprising includes Afro-Americans, ex-slaves, impressed sailors and debtors, and English, Irish, Italians, Germans and Jews — everyone."   Source 1780 The first running of The Derby, Britain's famous horse race, at Epsom Downs.   1800 The first smallpox vaccination in North America, at Trinity, Newfoundland. 1802 British Parliament voted 10,000 pounds to Dr Edward Jenner for his discovery of a smallpox vaccine, and 1,200 to Henry Greathead for his invention of a lifeboat. 1829 Western Australia was founded. 1835 PT Barnum's circus began its first USA tour. Online recreation of Barnum's American Museum   1863 USA: African-American freedom-fighter Harriet Tubman ('Black Moses'; 1820 - 1913) freed 750 slaves in a raid. She and James Montgomery led 300 African-American troops of the Union's Second South Carolina Volunteers on a raid of plantations along the Combahee River. Backed by three gun boats, Tubman's forces set fire to the plantations and freed 750 slaves. An escaped slave, she worked as a guerrilla, farmhand, lumberjack, laundress and cook, refugee organizer, raid leader and intelligence commander, nurse and healer, revival speaker, feminist and fundraiser, all as part of the struggle for liberation from slavery and racism. John Brown was to refer to her as "General Tubman" and called her "one of the bravest persons on this continent". Frederick Douglass said of her, "Excepting John Brown ... I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people". "August 12, 2005 · Two great grand-nieces of Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman are heading to Ghana, where their ancestor will be honored with a festival, statue dedication and street re-naming in the capital."   Source (with audio): NPR Source   List of African-American abolitionists    Harriet Tubman Day, March 10 1855 The Portland Rum Riot occurred in Portland, Maine, USA. 1865 With the surrender of the forces of General Edmund Kirby Smith at Galveston, Texas, the American Civil War came to an end. 1868 British military forces annexed the lands of the Maratha people in India after defeating them. 1876 Hristo Botev (Khristo Botev; b. 1848) died heroically as a voevode of 200 rebels who had set out to die for the liberation of Bulgaria. He was a Bulgarian poet and revolutionary, and an early libertarian and propagandist for freedom. The inscription chiselled on the granite rock by which he was killed reads: "Your prophecy has come true - you live on!" Hristo Botev's official website (Bulgarian)    Early progressives in the Book of Days 1886 USA: President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House. 1896 Guglielmo Marconi took out a patent in the USA for the first wireless voice transmission device. 1897 Mark Twain, responding to rumours that he was dead, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying, "The report of my death was an exaggeration". 1909 The premiere of Les Sylphides, led by Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky, in Paris. 1912 Carl Laemmle created Universal Studios. 1916 The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) Mesabi Range strike. This resulted in the Bisbee Deportation, one of the most infamous labor deportations, on July 12, 1917, with workers being rounded up, put into cattle cars and dumped in the desert. 1919 Galleanists (followers of Italian anarchist, Luigi Galleani) carried out a series of coordinated bombings across the Eastern United States. 1924 The government of the United States conferred citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country. It was to be another 43 years before a similar law was passed in Australia. 1930 The first baby born on a vessel passing through the Panama Canal. 1946 Birth of the Italian Republic: In a referendum, Italians decided to turn Italy from a monarchy into a republic. After this referendum, the king of Italy Umberto II di Savoia (Humbert II) was exiled. 1952 Television broadcasting began in Canada, at Montreal, Quebec. 1953 London, UK: The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, the first to be televised. "Swapped Hotel Finds In 1953, television reporter Irv Kupcinet was in London to cover the coronation of Elizabeth II. In one of the drawers in his room at the Savoy he found some items that, by their identification, belonged to a man named Harry Hannin. Coincidentally, Harry Hannin – a basketball star with the famed Harlem Globetrotters – was a good friend of Kupcinet's. But the story has yet another twist. Just two days later, and before he could tell Hannin of his lucky discovery, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin. In the letter, Hannin told Kucinet that while staying at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, he found in a drawer a tie – with Kupcinet's name on it! (Mysteries of the Unexplained)"   Source Aha! :: Synchronicity Central :: Log your coincidences 1954 Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that Communists had infiltrated the Central Intelligence Agency. 1959 Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997) wrote his poem Lysergic Acid, San Francisco.   Erowid Allen Ginsberg Vault CIA Dope Calypso (poem) Ginsberg's FBI file AllenGinsberg.org LSD Timeline 1938 - 1973 Shop Allen Ginsberg   Shop Beat Poetry More Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list    CounterCulture Wiki   1962 Vita Sackville-West, author of The Edwardians, All Passion Spent, and a long poem evoking the beauty of the English countryside, The Land, died in Sissinghurst Castle, Kent. She was the chief model for the character Orlando in the novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf, and her son, Nigel Nicolson, wrote in Portrait of a Marriage (1973) of her sexless but loving friendship with his father and her intense love affair with another woman. 1964 The PLO was founded, in Jerusalem. 1964 The Rolling Stones played their first show in the USA, in Lynn, Massachusetts, as part of a tour including The Chiffons, Bobby Goldsboro and Bobby Vee. 1965 Vietnam War: The first contingent of Australian combat troops arrived in South Vietnam. 1965 Bee Miles, who for three decades was a famous character on the streets of Sydney, reciting Shakespeare and scamming free taxi rides, announced her retirement. Bee (or Bea) Miles (September 17, 1902 - December 3, 1973), was a famous Sydney eccentric, in a town known for its eccentrics  – individualists such as Webster (the immensely popular soap-box orator, a genius about whom, sadly, little or nothing appears to have been published); the Flying Pieman; Rosaleen Norton the Witch of Kings Cross; the Bengal Tiger; William Chidley the natural health fanatic; Dulcie Deamer the Queen of Bohemia; and of course, Sydneytown's favourite Mister Eternity.   More   1966 The US spacecraft Surveyor I landed on the moon. 1967 Protests in West Berlin against the arrival of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, turned into fights, during which young Benno Ohnesorg was killed by a police officer. His death led to the founding of the terrorist group Movement 2 June. 1967 Riots began in African-American sections of Boston, USA. 1969 In Ottawa, Canada the National Arts Centre opened its doors to the public for the first time. 1975 French sex workers occupied a Lyon church in protest against excessive fines and taxes, as well as a lack of police action against violence. In the following months, churches in other regions of France were occupied in similar protests by French sex workers. These events are seen as the birth of the modern sex worker rights movement. 1977 Native American civil rights activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced in Fargo, North Dakota, to two consecutive life terms for the killing of two FBI agents, in one of the most corrupt trials in recent US history. International Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier (February 6)    More    Peltier chronology 1979 Pope John Paul II visited his native Poland, becoming the first pope to visit a Communist country. 1987 Australia: After years in prison, Lindy Chamberlain was pardoned for the crime of killing her baby, Azaria, at Uluru (Ayers Rock), on August 17, 1980. 1987 Celebrated Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia (Andres Segovia; b. 1893) died. 1988 Singer James Brown's wife Adrienne claimed diplomatic immunity while fighting numerous traffic violations on grounds that she was married to the Official Ambassador of Soul. 1989 Ten thousand Chinese soldiers were blocked by 100,000 citizens protecting students demonstrating for democracy in Tienanmen Square, Beijing. The demonstrations culminated in the June 4 Massacre. Google news results on Human Rights in China    Photos    Human rights in China China's propaganda 'human rights' site        More 1989 Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, 52, married 19-year-old model Mandy Smith. They divorced two years later. In a side note, Wyman's son dated Mandy's mother. Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list 1997 USA: Timothy McVeigh was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 terrorist bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 1998 The CIH computer virus was discovered in Taiwan. 1999 The Bhutan Broadcasting Service brought television transmissions to the Kingdom for the first time. 2003 Europe launched its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan. 2005 The construction of Northrop Grumman X-47B, the world's first unmanned surveillance attack aircraft that can operate from both land bases and aircraft carriers, was launched.     Tomorrow: Another sleepy, dusty, Delta day    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

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