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reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

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Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

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Carpe diem! 11 Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Open links in a New Window

Today is

The owner of the memex let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.
Vannevar Bush; presaging hypertext ('As We May Think', 1945)

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.
Henry David Thoreau

A man cannot have a pure mind who refuses apple dumplings.
Charles Lamb

A week is a long time in politics.
Baron Harold Wilson of Rievaulx, British Labour statesman, born March 11, 1916, attrib. quotation

The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country.
Rupert Murdoch, Australian-American media magnate, born on March 11, 1931; The Guardian, February 11, 2003

There's one important thing you should know about Murdoch. He's evil. I defer to the ... Columbia Journalism Review: "Murdoch uses his diverse holdings ... to promote his own financial interests at the expense of real news gathering, legal and regulatory rules, and journalistic ethics. He wields his media as instruments of influence with politicians who can aid him, and savages his competitors in his news columns. If ever someone demonstrated the dangers of mass power being concentrated in few hands, it would be Murdoch."
Al Franken, American comic writer, on Rupert Murdoch

I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
Douglas Adams, British author, born on March 11, 1952; The Salmon of Doubt

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
"Very deep," said Arthur, "you should send that in to the 'Reader's Digest'. They've got a page for people like you."
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat.
Douglas Adams

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a position of power should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas Adams; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
Douglas Adams 

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
Douglas Adams

Life ... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast. 
Douglas Adams; Ford Prefect in So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish 

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio) 

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. ... There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 

First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII – and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.
Douglas Adams

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of.
Douglas Adams; Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 

Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort.
Douglas Adams; The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Chapter 1 

This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.
Douglas Adams; Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. 
Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 

I wrote an ad for Apple Computer: 'Macintosh – We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end.'
Douglas Adams

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
Douglas Adams

More Douglas Adams quotes at Wikiquote

March 11 is the 70^th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71^st in leap years), with 295 days remaining.
On the dating of items in the Almanac  Translate this page  Birthday star  Your birth day  Daily Everything  NNDB  Time/Date  Google
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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.

Johnny Appleseed Day, USA

John Chapman (1774 - 1847), who may have died on this day (some sources differ, and perhaps the most popular date is March 18), was known as Johnny Appleseed for his large number of fruit tree plantings. He is regarded as the 'patron saint' of orchardists in the USA, and this is celebrated as his day.

The American pioneer orchardist and Swedenborgian Christian missionary was known as 'Johnny Appleseed' because he planted apple trees in large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, and became an American legend while he was still alive, being portrayed in works of art and literature. He is considered an early conservationist, what would be called today an ecologist.

He did not spread seeds around, as depicted in this attractive but idealised  US Post Office depiction (left); rather, he planted apple trees or sold them at 6 cents each.

Each year the people of Fort Wayne, Indiana invite visitors from throughout the nation to celebrate the pioneer spirit of John Chapman.  

A larger version of the image above is one of about 25 images in our free Screensaver #SS1

"Johnny Appleseed, real name John Chapman, was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, September 26th, 1774 to Nathaniel Chapman and Elizabeth Symond Chapman. Nathaniel Chapman, was one of the Minutemen who fought at Concord on April 19, 1775, and later in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Johnny's Mother had three children: Elizabeth born in 1770, John, and Nathaniel Jr who died shortly after birth in 1776. His mother was sick from tuberculosis and died three weeks after her third child. It is reasonable to assume that Elizabeth's parents took care of John and his sister while their father was in the Army. John's father married Lucy Cooley of Longmeadow, MA in 1780 and had a family of ten children. Johnny and Elizabeth lived with them for some time in Longmeadow. Johnny was an almost legendary character and nature lover of the frontier days in the Middle West. Very little is known about his everyday life …

"John Chapman headed west about 1800. Known as Johnny Appleseed, he carried with him apples for planting, usually along streams (probably obtained seeds from cider mills in Pennsylvania). His earliest known apple nursery was planted near Steubenville, Ohio, in a valley near the Ohio River. He located them near settlements where he could walk back and forth to maintain them. He was a practical nurseryman, not a 'scatterer of seeds' as people believed and owned several orchards. He lived the rest of his life in Ohio and Indiana, wandering about barefoot, clad in rags ('wearing a tin kettle on his head', they say), tending the apple orchards he started wherever he found a good spot, and reading aloud from the Bible. He walked alone without gun or knife. He chopped down no trees and killed no animals. He lived very simply. He slept outdoors, ate berries and made his clothes from sacks. He made his drinking water in winter by melting snow with his feet. For Forty-nine years he roamed the American wilderness, devotedly planting apple trees. He created apple orchards in the wildernesses of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana, spanning an estimated area of 100,000 square miles. Some of these trees are still bearing fruit after 150 years … "   Source  

Australian Johnnies

"Some of the sundowners used to sow pumpkin, marrow, melon and other seeds near camping-places to ensure supplies of vegetables when they worked round that way months afterwards. 'Pumpkin Paddy' had over one hundred such gardens around the Condamine and Warrego Rivers. He liked potatoes and carried small ones, and thick peel, in a billy for sowing.

"Lemon-trees growing in unexpected places along the Rich­mond River are known as the Parson's Lemons after the Rev A. C. Selwyn, who used to ride on horseback to stations and selections, carrying pocketfuls of citrus seeds to be sown by the river as 'comfort for future travellers'."

Bill Beatty, A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales and Traditions, The Discovery Press, Penrith, NSW, Australia, 1960

[sundowner. A swagman who arrives at a homestead at nightfall too late for work but gets shelter for the night.
billy. Container for boiling tea.
Source]

"Sundowner is Australian and New Zealand slang for a tramp, especially one who seeks food and lodging at sundown when it is too late to work."   Source

Apple folklore links    Last Orchard in Johnny Appleseed's Hometown    About the apple    Apple folklore    

Apple folklore at folklore.org (it's not what you think)    See also The Man Who Planted Trees - The tale of Elzéard Bouffier

What's the story with Johnny Appleseed? Straight Dope staff report (2004)

"Johnny Appleseed: A Pioneer Hero" from Harper's Magazine November 1871

The Real Johnny Appleseed Story    More   And more

Granny Smith and her apple

Your almanackist went to primary school and university near the street where Granny Smith (Maria Ann Smith; 1799 - 1870) produced the famous apple variety that bears her name. "The farm lay between the present North Road and Abuklea Road, Eastwood, with its northern boundary midway between today's Irene Crescent and Longview Street and its southern boundary crossing Threlfall Street."   Source

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Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! Our store Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald The Price of Loyalty: Bush, the White House, & the Education of Paul O'Neill The Da Vinci Code Ancient Ways Garden Witchery The Twilight of American Culture Golden Bough Folklore classic The Pagan Book of Days Eight Sabbats for Witches Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year The Trouble with Islam A Calendar of Festivals Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals Rupert Sheldrake The Book of Spells Hitchhiker Douglas Adams biography Starship Titanic Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul The Restaurant at the End of the Universe The Salmon of Doubt Mostly Harmless Wish You Were Here Life, the Universe and Everything Spellcraft The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Daily Everything   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 Ghost Plane 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 Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set By CS Lewis Hello Laziness! By Corrine Maier The Great War for Civilisation By Robert Fisk A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Alternatives to Economic Globalization Feminism Without Borders The Skeptic's Dictionary Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 365 Goddess Adventures in a TV Nation Michael Moore Drawing Down the Moon Globalization/Anti-Globalization 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 Rich Media, Poor Democracy Robert McChesney Shamanism 10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF & World Bank Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Feast day of Hercules, or Herakles, Roman Empire A day of strength and feats of great courage. A greater festival to this god was held on August 12 (qv). Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 50 Farvardigan, The Ten Days of the Dead, ancient Persia, Zoroastrianism (Mar 10 - 20) Festival of the god Mars, ancient Rome (Mar 1 - 19) Feast day of St Abdiesus Feast day of St Aengus the Culdee Hermit near the river Nore where he was known to commune with angels. Feast day of St Amunia Feast day of St Aurea of San Millán Feast day of St Benedict Crispus of Milan Feast day of St Constantine II (Constantine of Scotland) He was a missionary to the Picts in Scotland under St Columba and then St Kentigern. Martyred in 874 in a cave near Crail by Danish Viking invaders, he is thus considered a martyr in Scotland for defending the Christian land against pagan invaders. Considered Scotland's first martyr. Feast day of St Constantine of Carthage Feast day of St Constantine of Cornwall Probably the same as Constantine of Scotland. Feast day of St Eulogius of Cordova (Eulogio) (Cornish heath, Erica vagans, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.) In art, this Spanish martyr, scourged and beheaded by the Muslim Moors in 859, is depicted as a priest with a palm, book, a sword in his chest, and a scimitar in his head. He may have a Moor at his feet, and a missioner's cross. Patron of carpenters and coppersmiths. Feast day of St Firmian Feast day of St Firmus Feast day of St Gorgonius Feast day of St Heraclius Feast day of St John Righi Fabriano Feast day of St Peter the Spaniard Feast day of St Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem Feast day of St Trophimus Feast day of St Vigilius of Auxerre Feast day of St Vindician of Cambrai Feast day of St Zosimus Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints King's Birthday Holiday, Denmark Todai-ji Shunie, Tōdai-ji temple, Nara, Japan, (Mar 1 - 14) Reestablishment of Lithuania's Independence, Lithuania Red Nose Day in the United Kingdom (2005) Youth Day, Zambia       1544 Torquato Tasso (d. 1595), Italian epic poet of the late Renaissance ('Jerusalem Delivered') 1785 John McLean (d. 1861), US Supreme Court justice 1819 Sir Henry Tate (d. 1899), British sugar manufacturer and philanthropist who endowed the Tate gallery in London. He refused a knighthood more than once until he was told the Royal Family would be offended if he refused again. 1876 Carl Ruggles (d. 1971), composer 1885 Sir Malcolm Campbell, British holder of world speed records on sea and land   1890 Vannevar Bush (d. 1974), author of As We May Think; visionary American electrical engineer who developed the first electronic analog computer, and envisaged hypertext, without which your Almanac links would yield results like this   "Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) is the pivotal figure in hypertext research. His conception of the Memex introduced, for the first time, the idea of an easily accessible, individually configurable storehouse of knowledge. Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson were directly inspired by his work, and, in particular, his ground-breaking article, 'As We May Think.'"   Source Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (July, 1945), presaging one of humankind's greatest inventions, hypertext More Hyper-thanks Thanks to geniuses like Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson, et al, here is hypertext in glorious action from the best online dictionary I have found, HyperDictionary. (This definition alone contains 72 hyperlinks.) hypertext    <hypertext> A term coined by Ted Nelson around 1965 for a    collection of documents (or "nodes") containing    cross-references or "links" which, with the aid of an    interactive {browser} program, allow the reader to move easily    from one document to another.    The extension of hypertext to include other media - {sound},    {graphics}, and {video} - has been termed "{hypermedia}", but    is usually just called "hypertext", especially since the    advent of the {World-Wide Web} and {HTML}.     1892 Raoul Walsh (d. 1980), film director 1898 Dorothy Gish (d. 1968), actress 1899 King Frederick IX of Denmark (d. 1972) 1903 Lawrence Welk (d. 1992), American entertainer 1903 Ronald Syme (d. 1989), classicist and historian 1910 Robert Havemann, (d. 1982) chemist 1915 Hans Peter Keller (d. 1988), writer 1915 Karl Krolow (d. 1999), lyricist and essayist 1916 Harold Wilson (d. 1995), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom  from 1964 - '70 and 1974 - '76 1917 Nancy Cato, Australian author (All the Rivers Run) 1919 Mercer Ellington (d. 1996), musician, composer 1921 Astor Piazzolla (d. 1992), tango composer 1927 Joachim Fuchsberger, actor 1930 Geoffrey Blainey, Australian historian and author (The Tyranny of Distance) 2001 Boyer Lectures by Professor Geoffrey Blainey 1931 Rupert Murdoch, Australian-American global media executive and the controlling shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, based in New York, and Fox News. Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded News Corp into British and American media, and in recent years has become a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet, and other forms of media. In November 2006, on the eve of the USA mid-term elections, when deaths in Iraq had reached a probable figure of 650,000, Murdoch downplayed the number of deaths: "The death toll, certainly of Americans there, by the terms of any previous war are quite minute," he said. "Of course no one likes any death toll, but the war now, at the moment, it's certainly trying to prevent a civil war and to prevent Iraqis killing each other." "As this report shows, he is a far-right partisan who has used his empire explicitly to pull American political debate to the right. He is also an enabler of the oppressive tactics employed by dictatorial regimes, and a man who admits to having hidden money in tax havens."   Source Whack a Murdoch! Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism Read Outfoxed review Murdoch: Bigger than Kane    Who is Rupert Murdoch? - Center for American Progress Murdoch says US death toll in Iraq 'minute'    More   1934 Sam Donaldson, reporter 1936 Rev. Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader (d. 1990) 1936 Antonin Scalia, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court 1948 Dominique Sanda, actress 1950 Bobby McFerrin, singer 1950 Jerry Zucker, producer, director, writer   1952 Douglas Adams, British science fiction/comedy novelist (The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe) who died, aged 49, on May 11, 2001 Biography from his official website "Douglas Adams was born in Cambridge in March 1952, educated at Brentwood School, Essex and St John's College, Cambridge where, in 1974 he gained a BA (and later an MA) in English literature. He is the creator of all the various manifestations of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life as a BBC Radio 4 series in March 1978. Since then it has been transformed into a series of best-selling novels, a TV series, a record album, a computer game and several stage adaptations. It is currently under development as a major motion picture."   Source   Douglas Adams was patron of Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and Save the Rhino International "The BBC's head of comedy, Geoffrey Perkins, who produced the original Hitchhiker's radio series, said: 'I'm absolutely devastated. I've known Douglas for 25 years. He was absolutely one of the most creative geniuses to ever work in radio comedy. 'He probably wrote one of the greatest radio comedy series ever; certainly the most imaginative.'" Obituary    BBC fan site    Sadgeezers fansite   Shop Douglas Adams   1955 Nina Hagen, singer 1959 Nina Hartley, pornographic film actress 1964 Shane Richie, British actor 1965 Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, British television presenter 1968 Lisa Loeb, singer 1971 Johnny Knoxville ('Jackass'), television personality 1979 Benji Madden, musician (Good Charlotte) 1979 Joel Madden, musician (Good Charlotte) 1981 David Anders,