|
Akitu Festival,
Sumeria (c. Mar 20 - 31)
Borrowed, or
borrowing days, Scotland
(Feb 12, 13
and 14,
and Mar 29, 30,
31)Feast day of St Acacius
(or Achates), Bishop of Antioch
Feast day of St Balbina
Feast day of St Benjamin,
deacon, martyr
Feast day of St Bonaventure
Tornielli
Feast day of St Daniel
Feast day of St Guy (or
Witen), Abbot at Ferrara
Feast day of St Guy of
Vicogne
Feast day of St Jane of
Toulouse
Feast day of St Machabeo
Feast day of St Renovatus
Feast day of St Theodulus
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
National Day, Malta
Oranges and Lemons
Service, St Clement Danes, Strand, London WC2
(weekday near 31 March)
"On or near 31 March every year
at St Clement Danes in the Strand, the Oranges and Lemons Service
takes place. This is a children's service, attended by the pupils
of St Clement Danes primary school. They read the lesson, recite
the famous nursery ' rhyme and, on occasions, play the tune on
handbells. At the conclusion of the service, each one is presented
with an orange and a lemon from a table outside the church (if
dry). The nursery rhyme, which begins with the lines:
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clement's
"was first recorded in Tommy
Thumb's Poetry Song Book in about 1744, sung to the tune familiar
to every child in the country. When the bells were restored to St
Clement Danes in 1920, after they had been silent since 1913 when
their timbers were found to be dangerous, the vicar decided to
inaugurate the service for children. On 31 March that year, he
distributed the oranges and lemons for the first time, which he
persuaded the Danish community in London to donate. This continued
until 1940 when, during the Second World War, the church was
nearly destroyed by bombing. In 1957 the church was restored as a
memorial to the RAF, and the familiar carillon now rings out at 9
o'clock, at noon and at 6 o'clock in the evening.
"The Danish association is unclear, though it is
said that Harold Harefoot, son of King Canute, was buried here
in 1040, and there was at some stage a massacre of Vikings in
the vicinity." Source
Thomas
Mundy Peterson Day, New Jersey, USA
An annual commemoration marking the rights of all citizens to vote.
César
Chávez Day
Official holiday in five states and many cities across the USA.
Freedom
Day, Malta
Transfer Day, US
Virgin Islands
At the Scriptorium
The
origins and folklore of April Fools' Day
The origin and
folklore of Easter
250 Constantius
Chlorus
(d. 306), Roman Emperor
 1135 Moses Maimonides
(d. December 13,
1204), Jewish
physician, rabbi, and philosopher. Born of Spanish
Jewish parents in Cordoba, Spain, he soon fled to Morocco
after the fall of Córdoba to the Almohads.
After that he lived in southern Syria
– now Israel
– and Egypt
from 1165, where
he was the doctor of Saladin, the Sultan
of Egypt.
As head of the Jewish communities in Egypt, he devoted
himself to the exposition of the Talmud.
His main works are: The
Commentary on the Mishna, The Guide of the Perplexed,
and The Mishneh Torah, a comprehensive code
of Jewish law. Most of Maimonides' works were written in Arabic. However, The Mishnah Torah
was written in Hebrew.
Maimonides was one of the few medieval Jewish
philosophers who also influenced the non-Jewish world. Even today he
is among the most respected of all Jewish philosophers. A popular
saying in the Middle Ages stated that From Moses
[of the Torah] to Moses [Maimonides] there has not been such a
Moses. He died at Cairo and
was buried at Tiberias in Palestine.
More
1499 Pope Pius IV (d. 1565)1504 Guru Angad Dev
(d. 1552),
Second Guru
of the Sikhs 1519 King Henry II of
France (d.
July 10, 1559) 1536 Ashikaga
Yoshiteru (d. 1565), Ashikaga shogun
1596 René
Descartes (d. 1650),
French philosopher and mathematician; to him is attributed much of
the Western strict conceptual division ('Cartesian dualism')
between mind and body, these days often argued against
.
Although
Roman Catholic, Descartes opposed scholasticism and argued one can
doubt all, but not one's own existence as a thinking being. He
concluded God must exist and because God cannot be a deceiver, the
significance on sensory data must be evaluated by reason.
Descartes's
conceptions influenced European culture and thinking. Even his
opponents, Blaise Pascal, or, later, those like Voltaire, largely
followed him in his emphasis on analysis and in rejection of
tradition. Source:
The Daily Bleed
"With
the exception of parts of the Rules and a few fragments,
most of Descartes' early 'metaphysical' writings are lost. It
was after he moved to Amsterdam that Descartes began working in
earnest on the philosophical ideas upon which his fame now rests
…
"Descartes was hugely influential on
individual, and key, philosophers throughout the 17th and 18th
Centuries (Spinoza, Malbranche, Locke, Leibniz, etc.). His
insistence on a radical philosophy that dispensed, as far as
possible, with authority; his insistence on the perspective of
consciousness in epistemology; his attempt to raise the standard
of philosophical argumentation to a science akin to geometry;
his close integration of philosophy and physical science; his
emphasis on methodology, all were hugely important. Even
philosophers who rejected his thought spent a great deal of time
and energy doing so – Descartes could not be ignored." Source
1621
Andrew
Marvell (d.
August 16,
1678), English poet ('An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return
from Ireland'; 'To His Coy Mistress')
1675 Pope
Benedict
XIV (d. 1758)1732 Joseph Haydn
(d. 1809),
composer 1742 PDQ Bach (d. 1807),
fictitious composer
 1809
Nikolai Gogol
(Nicolay Gogol; d. March 4, 1852), Ukrainian-born
Russian
novelist, dramatist, satirist, founder of the so-called
critical realism in Russian literature. Perhaps his best known work
is Dead Souls,
seen by many as the first 'modern' Russian novel.
"In his later life Gogol came under
influence of a fanatical priest, Father Konstantinovskii, and
burned sequels for Dead Souls, just 10 days before he died
on the verge of madness on the 4th of March 1852. Gogol had
refused to take any food and various remedies were employed to
make him eat – spirits were poured over his head, hot loaves
applied to his person and leeches attached to his nose. Rumors
arise from time to time that Gogol was buried alive, a situation
familiar from the story The Premature Burial of the
contemporary writer Edgar
Allan Poe (1809-1849)."
Source
1809
Edward
FitzGerald (d. June 14, 1883), English
writer,
best known as the poet of the English
translation of the 'Rubáiyát'
of Omar
Khayyám
1811 Robert
Wilhelm Bunsen
(d. 1899),
chemist, inventor of the Bunsen burner
 1871 Young Griffo (Albert Griffiths; d. December 7, 1927), Australian
boxer, Lightweight* Boxing Champion of the World.
Young Griffo
was born at Sofala
on the goldfields of New South
Wales, and grew up in the tough dockside district of Millers Point in Sydney
(where Griffo is the usual nickname for anyone named Griffiths).
There he sold newspapers for a living and learned to bare-knuckle
fight. Australian boxer Larry
Foley saw him in a street fight and added him to the Foley's
Hall stable, and in 1893
the champion Young Griffo left for the USA, departing Sydney with
his entourage on the same steamship as Robert
Louis Stevenson, who was bound for Samoa.
Griffo's brilliant
career in America came to a grinding end in New York City in 1895, at the peak of
his international fame, after he was convicted of
raping William Gottlieb, an 11-year-old boy. He spent the last three decades of his life
drinking himself to death, was arrested for public drunkenness on
numerous occasions, sometimes committed to psychiatric hospitals,
worked in Tommy
Burns's troupe for a time, and famously sat vacantly for
years begging in Times Square, a familiar figure on the steps of the Rialto Theater.
He was also the star of Young Griffo vs. Battling Charles Barnett
(filmed on the roof of Madison Square Garden, May 4,
1895), the first
motion picture in the world to be screened before a paying audience, at 153
Broadway in New York City. It premiered on May 20,
1895, more than seven months before the Lumičre brothers showed
their film at the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris,
on December
28 – the event usually said to be the first movie-by-ticket
screening in the world.
Click thumbnail for poster
"'When Griffo was in his prime the
boxer scarcely lived who could get a glove on him. Lavigne, Dixon,
and all the best of the light-weights and featherweights tried, and
were made to look ridiculous by the dodging, ducking, and
side-stepping of the Antipodean. The battle with Dixon was
especially notable. Old Chocolate was then at his best, and besides
being a hard hitter, was a clever boxer and great general. For
twenty-five rounds the colored champion exhausted all his skills to
land effectively on the elusive Griffo. In that time he did not land
half-a-dozen blows. Griffo hit Dixon at will, but not hard enough to
hurt him. So the contest went the limit'.
"Griffo may have seen much more success had it not been
for his heavy drinking. Legend has it in later years he would wager
on his ability to stand in one spot and avoid punches without taking
a step back or sideways."
Source
"The streets of Sydney were once filled with the sound of the newspaper criers. Perhaps the most famous was
'Griffo', born Albert Griffiths, a resident of The Rocks. Long before he was recognised as Australia's first world champion feather weight boxer - he built a reputation as a news vendor down at Circular Quay and woe betide anyone who might wish to challenge his patch. Griffo's method of dealing with would-be interlopers was to draw a
'kerchief' from his pocket, spread it at his feet and then, placing his feet squarely on it and with fists raised, he would yell:
'Come on! Come and Take It'. No one could dislodge him from the tiny square. It is reported that a world heavy weight champion later said that he
'couldn't put a glove on him' in spite of the difference in their size.
" Source
"One of the greatest defensive fighters
of all time, Young Griffo compiled an outstanding record while
eschewing traditional training methods. Born in Australia, the
illiterate Griffo got his first experience fighting while selling
newspapers on the docks of Sydney. When noted Australian boxer Larry
Foley saw him in a street fight, Foley added Griffo to his stable of
fighters. Griffo first started boxing under the old London Prize
Ring Rules in 1886 ...
"In 1893, Griffo journeyed to the United States and
dazzled fans with his incredible ability to avoid getting hit. He
used to boast that he could stand on a handkerchief and dodge
punches without taking a step in any direction. Griffo fought a host
of notables, usually competing as a lightweight, although he did not
earn a title shot. He fought three draws with George Dixon, which
could have gone Griffo's way had the rules allowed the rendering of
a decision. He also lost a controversial decision to Hall of Famer
Jack McAuliffe, who barely touched Griffo in ten rounds." Source
"His name is Young Griffo. You don't remember him, do
you? Very few people do ... He was Young Griffo, the cleverest
featherweight America had ever seen." Source
(1927)
"Young Griffo or
Alfred Griffith, as he is known outside the prize ring was arraigned
before Judge Moore in the Court of Sessions, Brooklyn, N.Y., May 25
(1895), charged with an unprintable offence ... The eleven-year-old boy complainant, William Gottleib,
was placed under $100 bonds to prosecute."
-Police News. May 26,
1895
Young
Griffo's Summer of 1895
May
4, 1895: Film of Griffo 'Young Griffo
vs. Battling Charles Barnett', Directed by Otway Latham.
Ramsaye-Million
p. 136 maintains that this film was the first to be publicly
projected onto a screen. References: Blum-Silent
p. 7; Musser-Emerge
pp. 94, 98; Ramsaye-Million
pp. 134, 136, 180-181, 185, 210; Robertson-Guinness
pp. 3, 5: FilmHistory-3-3
p. 252.
(This
source says Young Griffo was born on April 15,
1869. This
source says January
1, 1871.)
"He was recognized as the featherweight world champion when he defeated Torpedo Billy Murphy and must be considered a all time great for his abilities. Griffo was a featherweight but in those times he was allowed to take on all comers, which he did with zeal. Early accounts of his career have Griffo fighting a young black boxer Called
[sic] Pluto and they drew in two contests with the longest going 70 rounds! National recognition came when Griffo weighing 112 pounds won a tourney for 140 pound boxers, that was followed by a Australian title wining
[sic] effort against
Nipper Peakes. Now he challenged the best of Australia the most notable of which was a win over Billy Murphy for a version of the world title in a 15th round knockout. After one title defense Griffo set sail for America in search of bigger money and more recognition. He earned immediate recognition in fights that were declared
draws against very the good Solly Smith, George Lavigne and Johnny
Herst." Source
Nipper
Peakes Young
Pluto Young
Griffo in International Boxing Hall of Fame
*This
site has Young Griffo as Featherweight Champion in 1900
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
Young
Griffo remembered More
More
And more
1885
Pascin (b.
Julius Mordecai Pincas; d. June
5, 1930),
Bulgarian artist known as
the 'Prince of Montparnasse' who, despite constant
partying during his
lifetime, created thousands of watercolours, sketches, drawings and caricatures.
1890
William
Lawrence Bragg (d. July
1, 1971)
Australian physicist who won the Nobel
Prize in Physics in 1915,
which he shared with his father, William
Henry Bragg (1862
- 1942).
Three Nobels from the one high school
Robin Warren, who was awarded the 2005
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, went to the same school
as Lawrence Bragg, St
Peter's College in Adelaide, and so did Howard
Florey, the pharmacologist (Nobel Prize for Physiology or
Medicine in 1945 for his role in the extraction of penicillin).
Another boy from St Peter's, which is not a selective high school,
is Andy
Thomas, the Australian astronaut with NASA and Mission
Specialist for the STS-114
Space
Shuttle Discovery. The school's 40 Rhodes
Scholars should probably get a mention as well. 1900
Richard
Alexander Walter Windsor, Duke of Gloucester 1911 Elisabeth Grümmer
(d. November
6, 1986),
Alsatian soprano 1912
Hermann Höcherl
(d. May 18, 1989),
German politician 1914
Octavio Paz (d.
April 19, 1998), Mexican
poet ('The Other Mexico'; 'The Bow and the Lyre'),
critic and diplomat.
He was awarded the 1990 Nobel
Prize for Literature. Paz's
father worked as a secretary for the anarchist Emiliano
Zapata.
"In
1937 during the Spanish Revolution, Paz participated in the Second
International Congress of Anti-Fascist Writers in Valencia and
met, among others, André Malraux, André Gide and Ilya Ehrenburg
(recorded in the collection Bajo Tu Clara Sombra Y Otros
Poemas (1937)).
"By the time the Cold War began, Octavio Paz rejected the
Marxist left. His works show in turn influence by Marxism,
surrealism (together with Andre Breton and Benjamin Peret),
existentialism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Central themes were
history, violence, lies and truth, corruption and revolution, as
reflected in the reality of Latin American and its literature.
Many of Paz's later poems are based on paintings by Joan Miró,
Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tapies, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roberto
Matta." Source: The
Daily Bleed
More
1914 Maria Lang
(d. 1991), prolific Swedish mystery writer. Lang's best known
characters are Puck Ekstedt and Christer Wijk, who are considered
classical figures in Swedish mystery novels. Her own alter ego is
the author Almi Graan, who started to appear in her stories from the
1960s. Lang also wrote children's books and short stories.
1915 Albert Hourani
(d. January
17, 1993),
historian1916
Norman David Mayer (d. December
9, 1982), anti-nuclear
weapons activist who was shot four times on December
8, 1982 by the United
States Park Police after threatening to blow up the Washington
Monument. He had no explosives as he had claimed.
1922 Richard Kiley
(d. March 5, 1999),
actor, singer 1926 John
Fowles (d.
November 5,
2005), British novelist (The French Lieutenant's Woman) 1927 César Chávez
(Cesar Chavez;
d.
April 23, 1993), American labor
activist
"Blending the nonviolent resistance of
Gandhi with the organizational skills of his mentor, the social
activist Saul Alinsky, Mr. Chavez captured worldwide attention
in the 1960's. Leading an initially lonely battle to unionize
the fields and orchards of California, he issued a call to
boycott grapes that soon became a cause celebre." Source
More1927 William Daniels,
actor
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Roman festival of Luna, goddess of
the full moon
