|
|
|
|
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.
First time here? See the Index for
How it works
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.
Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)
Our news on your homepage (that is, if you use My Yahoo, which we recommend for your start-up page)
|
|
|
June 9th. O Vesta, grant me thy favour! In
thy service now I ope my lips, if it be lawful for me to come to thy
holy rites. I was wrapt in prayer; I felt the heavenly deity and the
glad ground gleamed with a purple light … They say that Rome had
forty times celebrated the Parilia [festival
honouring Pales]
when the goddess, Guardian of Fire, was received in her temple; it was
the work of that peaceful king [i.e. Numa]. Something of olden custom has come down to our time: a clean platter contains the food offered to Vesta. Lo, loaves are hung on asses decked with wreaths, and flowery garlands veil the rough millstones …Hence the baker honours the hearth and the mistress of hearths and the she-ass that turns the millstones of pumice work comes to a stop: the mills are empty and silent. It chanced that at the festival of Vesta I was returning by that way which now joins the New Way to the Roman Forum. Hither I saw a matron come down barefoot: amazed I held my peace and halted. An old woman of the neighbourhood perceived me, and bidding me sit down she addressed me … "This ground, where now are the forums, was once occupied by wet swamps … Here, too, there was a grove overgrown with bulrushes and reeds, and a marsh not to be trodden with booted feet … the ground is now dry; but the old custom survives." Thus the old woman explained the custom. Ovid, Fasti, VI. 249; today is the third day of the festival of Vestalia, in honour of Vesta, goddess of fire and hearth, Roman Empire (Jun 7 - 15) |
Australian Aboriginal
flag |
Qualis artifex pereo. (What an artist
dies in me!)
Attributed last words of the Roman Emperor Nero, who
committed suicide on June 9, 68 CE
We want neither the classic nor the romantic savage here. We have far too many of the murderous wretches about us already. The whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly court documents on which we have already wasted too much time.
Sydney Morning Herald on the Myall Creek Massacre; 1838
Time will not admit of our giving more than the foregoing brief outline
of Judge Burton's speech on passing sentence, during the delivery of which
the judge was deeply affected – to tears. His Honor was listened
to with the deepest attention by a crowded court; and we trust that the
remarks which fell from the Bench will have the effect they were intended
to produce on the audience – of showing them that the black man, like
the white man, has a soul to be saved, and that any outrage on the former
by the latter, will be as soon avenged, as would be an outrage on the
white man by the black savage.
Myall Creek Massacre trial: Regina v. Kilmeister and others (No.2), Supreme Court of New South Wales, Burton J,
November 26, 1838
Be it ever so humble
There's no place like home.
John Howard Payne, born on June 9,
1791; Home, Sweet Home
Attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats
against U.S. destroyers reportedly occurred on two separate occasions –
August 2 and August
4, 1964. Did the attacks actually occur? Answer: The
evidence of the first attack is indisputable. In the first edition of this
book I stated "The second attack appears probable but not certain." On
November 9, 1995, as the second edition was going to press, I learned in a
meeting in Hanoi with General Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's Defence
Minister during the war, that the presumed attack on August 4 did not
occur.
Robert S McNamara, In
Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, 2nd
edition, 1996 Source
(See LBJ and the Tonkin hoax in the Book of Days)
I
will continue – but can I? The pressure of this battle wipes out London
pretty quick.... It struck me that one curious feeling is, that the
writing 'I' has vanished. No audience. No echo.
Virginia
Woolf,
writing in her diary on June 10, 1940
Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act.
Marty
Feldman, British comedian, on
this day, 1969
June 9
is
the 160th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (161st in leap years), with 205
days remaining.
Calendar converter Almanacs,
calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc
Almanac screensavers
On this day
Dictionary
I
recommend
IMDB
days
IMDB years
Wikipedia days
Wiki decades
Wiki centuries
Timelines
Conversions
Calendrica
Lunabar
Birthday calculator
When 'Source'
links on this page move address or die, I might allow them to stay here, but the
Wayback Machine might help you
locate the original.
Feast day of St Columba,
Irish abbot, 'apostle to the Picts'
(Barberry, Barberis vulgaris, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Columba is one of three patron saints of Ireland, the other two being St Bridget and St Patrick. About the time that St Patrick was taken to Ireland as a slave, Columba was born. It was in the heart of the so called Dark Ages, the 6th Century, when Irish colonists and invaders, the Scots, began migrating to Caledonia (later known as Scotland).
Columba (Columkill; Columbkill; Colmcille; Colum;
Columbus; Columcille; Columbkille; Combs; December 7, 521 - June 9, 597 his feast day) was an Irish
missionary who helped re-introduce Christianity to Scotland and the north of England. He was born in Donegal to Irish
royalty, the
son of Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan.
Columba was a
poet who had learned Irish history and poetry from a bard named Gemman. Tradition has it
that, sometime around 560, he became involved
in a copyright wrangle with St Finnian over a psalter. The dispute eventually led to a
pitched battle in 561 during which many men were killed. (Columba's copy
of the psalter has been traditionally associated with the Cathach of St Columba.) It is said that on one occasion, so anxious was
Columba to have a copy of the Psalter that he shut himself up for a whole
night in the church that contained it, transcribing it laboriously by
hand. He was discovered by a monk who watched him through the keyhole and
reported it to his superior, Finnian of Moville. The Scriptures were so
scarce in those days that the abbot claimed the copy, refusing to allow it
to leave the monastery. Columba refused to surrender it, until he was
obliged to do so, under protest, on the abbot's appeal to the High King
Diarmaid, who said: "Le gach buin a laogh" or "To every cow
her own calf," meaning to every book its copy.
As penance for these deaths, Columba was ordered to make the same number of new converts as had been killed. Exiled in 563 to the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland, he founded and led a monastery there for 12 years, which became the centre of his evangelising mission to Scotland. They built a monastery consisting of huts with roofs of branches set upon wooden props, a rough and primitive settlement. For over 30 years he slept on the hard ground with no pillow but a stone. He and the monks of Iona, including Saint Baithen of Iona and Saint Eochod, then evangelized the Picts.
There are many stories of miracles that Columba performed
during his mission to convert the Picts. He made water from wine; made
water issue from a rock; calmed a storm at sea; provided a miraculous
catch of fish; multiplied a herd of cattle; drove a demon out of a milk
pail; and cured the sick. A book owned by the saint could not be destroyed
by water; through his prayers he destroyed a wild boar; he stopped
serpents from harming people; angels and manifestations of divine light
attended him throughout his life.
St Columba is associated with the story of how the robin got its red breast by pulling out the thorns piercing the crucified forehead of Jesus Christ.
Columba and
Nessie
Columba is also the
source of the first known reference to the Loch
Ness Monster. According to the story, in 565 he came across a group of
Picts who were burying a man killed by the monster, and brought the man
back to life. In another version, he is said to have saved the man while
the man was being attacked, driving away the monster with the sign of the
cross ...
Read on at the Saint Columba page at the Scriptorium
Columba Initiative Irish genealogy resources in the Scriptorium
Find an error or dead link?
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda
![Cuddle Up Day [ Jun 9 ]](http://img.123greetings.com/events/images/cuddleupday60.gif)
![Graduation [ May - June ]](http://img.123greetings.com/homeimages/side_graduation_1.gif){kind=small}
![Best Friends Day [ June 8 ]](http://img.123greetings.com/homeimages/side_bestfrnd_day_1.gif){kind=small}
![Father's Day [ June 18 ]](http://img.123greetings.com/homeimages/side_fathers_day_1.gif){kind=small}