Goodbye guano 'goldmine'

Nauru is the world's smallest independent republic, and once its richest. Boasting only about 14 square kilometres, it is largely composed of phosphates, the product of centuries of bird droppings. The mineral is a valuable ingredient of fertilizers such as superphosphate, and consequently the island's 10,000 people each receives the financial benefits that accrue - nearly $US31,000 per citizen in 1974.

Unfortunately for the citizens, the deposits are all but mined out and the nation is virtually bankrupt, yet another victim of globalization and putting profit before sustainable economics and agriculture. Soon will only be a memory the 'goldmine' that gave Nauru one of the world's highest rates of car ownership - with only one road to drive the cars on.

The Australian government bribed Nauru with millions of dollars to imprison asylum-seeking men, women and children who show up on Australia's shores: the so-called 'Pacific Solution' to a problem involving people fleeing persecution.

Concentration camp    Nauru detention centre    Pacific Solution    Australian immigration detention

Refugee Council of Australia – Statistics

Australia detains asylum seekers on remote Nauru and Christmas Island, and  warehouses refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia for years. Nauru Wire is about their  struggle against deportation to  countries where they fear persecution. Australia's thrown away 'boat people'  urgently need fair refugee assessments by DIMIA and the UNHCR.

Nauru camps "psychiatrist's nightmare": doctor

"Australia: Almost 450 asylum seekers, including more than 100 children, are still being held on the island of Nauru as part of the [Australian] Federal Government's 'Pacific solution'.

"According to the Government, most of the detainees are in good physical and mental health.

"But Dr Maarten Dormaar, the former head psychiatrist at the two Nauru detention camps, tells a very different story.

"Late last year he quit his job, unable to continue working in what he described as 'a psychiatrist's nightmare'."

CIA - The World Factbook 2007 - Nauru

Human rights activists sail from Sydney for Nauru
"Flotilla2004 will culminate in a voyage to Australia's offshore concentration camp in Nauru – arriving June 20th, 2004 – and involves a diverse range of groups and individuals using a diversity of tactics."
~flotilla~

On which day of the week were you born? Find out here

1682 Bartholomew Roberts (b. John Roberts; aka Bart Roberts; Black Bart; d. February 10, 1722), Welsh pirate who raided shipping off the Americas and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. Despite his short career, he was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, capturing far more ships than some of the best-known pirates of this era such as Blackbeard or Captain Kidd.

Pictured: Roberts's first flag shows him and Death holding an hourglass

Black Bart
The notorious outlaw of the American West, Black Bart, was a nickname of Charles Bolles (1829 - '88?), who adopted the name from a villainous character is a serialized fiction, The Case of Summerfield, by Caxton (a pseudonym of William Henry Rhodes). It's likely that the name of the fictional character, in turn, was derived from 'Black Bart' Roberts.

Highwaymen, outlaws, bushrangers, pirates, gangsters, etc in the Book of Days    More

1749 Edward Jenner (d. 1823), English physician and originator of vaccination. He realized that a local folk tradition amongst those who milked cows, that an infection with the so-called `cowpox' protected one from contracting smallpox, might hold the key to smallpox prevention.

Milestones in Immunisation

1768 Caroline of Brunswick (d. 1821), Princess of Wales

1794 Anna Brownell Jameson (d. 1860), British writer

1817 John Ross (d. February 5, 1903), Scottish-Australian explorer, first European to see the Todd River and Ferguson Ranges

1844 Julius Wellhausen (d. 1918), German biblical scholar

1866 Erik Satie (d. 1925), French composer

1873 Henri Barbusse (d. 1935), French novelist and journalist

1873 Dorothy Richardson (d. 1957), writer

1879 Simon Petlyura (d. 1926), Ukrainian independence fighter

1886 Alfonso XIII of Spain (d. 1941)

1898 Alfred Joseph Casson (d. 1992), painter

 
1909 Professor Julius Sumner Miller (d. April 14, 1987), American science popularizer, best known in Canada for his 'mad professor' work on TV's The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (this page has audio files) and in Australia for his hit show, Why Is It So? (video), which was broadcast from 1963 to 1986. In the 1950s, he was Walt Disney's 'Professor Wonderful' on The Mickey Mouse Club. He was also, briefly before his death, my friend, for which I am truly grateful.

"DR KARL KRUSZELNICKI: I rang up Julius Sumner Miller when I was in 'Quantum' and said, "I'd like you to come on to 'Quantum'." Quick as a flash, he said, "How much will you pay me?" I said, "We're the ABC, we got no dough. How much you want?" He said, "No, no! "I always let the buyer suggest the figure "and then I apply the multiplication factor between 2 and 10'."   Source

"Finally, a word on how to tackle a question. Read it. Read it quietly. Read it out loud to yourself or to someone who listens intently. Get your IMAGINATION in gear ! Draw a picture in your mind or a real one on paper or on the sand with your finger or with the toe of your boot. Get into dialogue on it. Use your hands - your arms - gesture - flail them - get excited! - show a passion! Find an analog - what is it like? Talk to yourself. Get 'mad' with it. At the table engage your family - do the experiment - come alive! Soon a faint light emerges - the light grows - an understanding comes forth. Soon too the enthousiasmos - that divine possession - so long fettered by inactivity - blossoms forth. Leonardo put it well: "Quiet water becomes stagnant. Iron rusts from disuse. So doth inactivity sap the vigour of the mind.""   Source

MP3s and wav files    Egg in the bottle?    JSM for USA postage stamp petition    More

Personal recollections of the Professor

It was long ago, about 1986. The Professor admonished me. "I must make it clear. Editors must publish my words precisely as I instruct them to. I will not tolerate misspelling. I frequently tell editors exactly how to present my words." 

So began my meeting with the late Professor Julius Sumner Miller, that wonderfully cantankerous Merlin who had been a part of Australian TV almost as long as anyone could remember. His off-screen was no different from his famed on-screen eccentricity. Hadn't I suspected that? The strange ways of the wacky Professor Wonderful, as Disney called him, could only be the product of a life whose eccentricities had worn deep channels in the man by their constant coursing through his being. 

I was then editor of a magazine named Simply Living, and this was an assignment I loved setting myself. When introduced to our photographer, Graeme Davey, the Professor asked me for the spelling of the surname of the British scientist Sir Humphry Davy. On discovering my ignorance, Professor Miller started proving the answer— D-A-V-Y — by reading from a book on the shelf. 

"But you're quoting from your own book." I baited him. 

"What of it?" 

"You can't go to a book of your own writing as corroboration of your claim that Davy is spelt D-A-V-Y." I needed to stand my ground to not be swamped by this expansive personality. 

"Notice," said the Professor, in the characteristic manner he always exhibited on his Why is It So? TV program, which, as I said, was his only manner. "Notice, if the editor had had any compe­tence, would he not have corrected ..." 

"But you might have told the editor not to change a word," I broke in. How would he react to this cheek from me? He paused long, looked at the others, and turned to me with a sheepish smile. 

"Wilson, you're a right honourable son-of-a-bitch!" ...
Read on  

Click to see a letter the Prof wrote me (opens in new window)

 

1911 Maureen O'Sullivan (d. 1998), Irish actress (played Jane in Tarzan features; was mother of Mia Farrow)                        

1918 Birgit Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano

1928 Idi Amin (d. August 16, 2003), military dictator of Uganda from January 25, 1971, to April 11, 1979

1931 Marshall Applewhite, a leader (with Bonnie Nettles, d. 1985) of the Heaven's Gate cult; he died in the cult's suicide on or about March 26, 1997. Heaven's Gate believed that Comet Hale-Bopp was associated with apocalyptic prophecies, and their suicide was timed just prior to when it passed perihelion on April 1, 1997.

1935 Dennis Potter (d. 1994), writer

1935 John Patrick, American playwright and screenwriter (Three Coins in the Fountain; The World of Suzie Wong)

1936 Dennis Hopper, US actor (Rebel Without a Cause; Easy Rider) and director

1937 Hazel R O'Leary, United States Secretary of Energy

1944 David Kelly, CMG (d. July 17, 2003), employee of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), an expert in biological warfare and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.

Kelly's discussion with Today Programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal. He was found dead days after appearing before the parliamentary committee charged with investigating the scandal. The Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death, ruled that he had committed suicide, but it is widely believed that he was murdered.

More on the death of David Kelly, in the Book of Days

Concerns regarding the official account of the death of David Kelly    The murder of David Kelly

Email sent several hours before his death by Kelly to US journalist Judith Miller on July 17, 2003 (PDF)

Mysterious Death of Dr. David Kelly: Murder theory that just won't go away

Who Ordered the Assassination of Dr David Kelly?

Why I believe David Kelly's death may have been murder    More

 

1948 William Bruford, drummer, songwriter

1950 Janez Drnovsek, Slovene politician

1955 Bill Paxton, actor

1956 Bob Saget, actor

1958 Paul Di'Anno, singer

1961 Enya, singer, songwriter

1965 Trent Reznor, singer, songwriter (Nine Inch Nails)

1966 Qusay Hussein (d. 2003), son of Saddam Hussein

1971 Maxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, wife of Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands

 

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 Rubber Band Day [ May 17 ] Birthdays Pick Strawberries Day [ May 20 ] Independence Day (Norway)

Varies Full Moon Day
Varies Friday the 13^th
Varies Hindu holidays
Varies Wesak Day (Malaysia)
Varies Buddha Purnima
Varies Birthmothers' Day
Varies Mothers' Day
Varies Mothers' Day (Sweden)
Varies Memorial Day (USA)
Varies Dragon Boat Festival (China)

 

May

15 International Day Of Families
16 Clergy Day
17 Rubber Band Day
17 Emergency Medical Services For Children Day
17 Constitution Day (Norway)
18 Visit Your Relatives Day
19 Plant Something Day
19 Hug Your Cat Day
19 Circus Day
20 Pick Strawberries Day
20 Be A Millionaire Day
20 Flower Day
20 Strawberry Festival (Maryland, USA)
21 Waitstaff Day
21 Greek Philosophers' Day
21 Neighbour Day
21 International AIDS Candlelight Memorial
22 Victoria Day (Canada)
22 Skyscraper Day
23 World Turtle Day
23 Bifocals Day
23 Mesmerism Day
25 Ascension Of Christ
25 Tap Dance Day
25 Self Reliance Day
25 Wine Day
26 Bob Day
26 Cherry Dessert Day
27 International Jazz Day
27 Bridge Day
28 Whale Day
29 Mount Everest Day
29 Wisconsin Day
30 Compact Disc Day
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)
3 Blueberry Festival (Florida)

... More Events

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1510 Death of Sandro Botticelli, painter of The birth of Venus.

1521 Edward Stafford, 3^rd Duke of Buckingham, was executed for treason.

1536 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared the marriage of England's King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn to be invalid.

1575 Death of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury.

1590 Anne of Denmark was crowned queen of Scotland. She was the consort of King James VI of Scotland (James I of England)

1642 Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve (1612 - '76) founded the Ville Marie de Montréal.

1673 Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet began their exploration of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

1727 Death of Catherine I of Russia.

1770 Captain James Cook named Queensland's Glass House Mountains in memory of Yorkshire glass furnace chimneys.

1775 American Revolutionary War: The Continental Congress banned trade with Canada.

1792 The New York Stock Exchange was formed.

1809 Napoleon I of France ordered the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire.

1814 Norway got its own constitution.

1814 Occupation of Monaco changed from the hands of the French to Austrian.

1817 Sixty-five-year-old Samuel Jessup died at Heckington, England. He was such a hypochondriac that in 21 years, from 1791 to 1816 he took an estimated 226,934 pills. In the last five years of his life, he was taking them at the rate of 78 per day. The facts came out in a court case concerning an apothecary's bill. The story was newsworthy in 19^th Century England, but would it be today?

1824 Thomas Moore, Irish poet ('Lalla-Rookh'), with the publisher John Murray, burnt Lord Byron's memoirs after his death, according to some sources. Other sources say that Moore sold them to Murray, who burned them because of their sexually explicit content.

"Early in September Byron. returned to La Mira, bringing the countess with him. A month later he was surprised by a visit from Moore, who was on his way to Rome. Byron installed Moore in the Mocenigo palace and visited him daily. Before the final parting (October 11) Byron placed in Moore's hands the manuscript. of his Life and Adventures brought down to the close of 1816. Moore, as Byron suggested, pledged the MS. to Murray for 2000 guineas, to be Moore's property if redeemed in. Byron's lifetime, but if not, to be forfeit to Murray at Byron's death. On the 17th of May 1824, with Murray's assent and goodwill, the manuscript was burned in the drawing-room of 50 Albemarle Street."   Source

1832 The Sydney Herald became a twice-weekly newspaper in its second year of publication.

1846 Adolphe Sax patented the Saxophone.

1861 The first colour photograph was exhibited at the Royal Institution, London.

1861 The first package holiday, one in Paris for Londoners, set off. The holiday was organized by Thomas Cook of London.

1875 USA: The Kentucky Derby was run for the first time.

1890 The world's first weekly comic paper, Comic Cuts, was published in London, by Alfred Harmsworth, whose wealth led him to become Lord Northcliffe.

1900 Boer War: The 217-day siege of the British garrison at Mafeking, South Africa, by Boers, was lifted.

 

1902 Archaeologist Valerios Stais found the Antikythera mechanism.

"The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient artifact believed to be an early clockwork mechanism. It was discovered in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythira and Crete, and has been dated to about 87 BCE.

"The wreck was discovered in 1900 at a depth of about 40m (140 feet), and many statues and other works were retrieved from it by sponge divers. On May 17, 1902 archaeologist Valerios Stais noticed that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it.

"The mechanism is the oldest surviving geared mechanism, made from bronze in a wooden frame, and has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. The most commonly accepted theory of its function is that it was an analog computer designed to track the movements of heavenly objects. Recent working reconstructions of the device support this analysis. The device is all the more impressive for its use of a differential gear, which was previously believed to have been invented in the 13^th century CE.

"The late Professor Derek de Solla Price, a science historian working at Yale University, published an article on the mechanism in Scientific American in June 1959 while the device was still only partially inspected. In 1973 or 1974 he published an analysis based on gamma ray imaging by Greek archaeologists. He claimed that the device had been built by a Greek astronomer, Geminus of Rhodes. His conclusion was not accepted by experts at the time, who believed that the Ancient Greeks had the theoretical knowledge but not the necessary practical skills ...

"The Antikythera mechanism is occasionally interpreted as an anachronism by those attempting to prove the occurrence of time travel (see anachronism and time travel)."

Source: Wikipedia  

"After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games."   Source

A reconstruction of the mechanism   The clockwork computer

The "Computer" of Antikythera    Gears from the Greeks   More

1915 The last British Liberal Party government (Herbert Henry Asquith) fell.

1919 The Committee of One Thousand formed to oppose Winnipeg General Strike.

1920 KLM, the Dutch airline, began operation, with its Amsterdam-London service.

1924 The first discovery of victims of Friedrich Haarmann (Fritz Haarmann), the 'Butcher of Hanover'. The unlicensed butcher sold human meat as beef on the black market. It is believed that he killed between 40 and 50 boys.

1933 Vidkun Quisling and Johan Bernhard Hjort formed Nasjonal Samling – the national-socialist party of Norway.

1940 World War II: Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium.

1943 World War II: Surviving RAF Dam Busters returned.

1943 The United States Army contracted with the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School to develop the ENIAC.

1944 Type IX U-boat: U-884 was launched.

1954 The United States Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruling school segregation of races unconstitutional.

1961 Cuba's President Fidel Castro offered exchange of eleven Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 tractors, an offer refused by the USA.

1963 The Australian Federal Government approved the establishment of a US naval base at North West Cape, Western Australia.

1964 Bob Dylan appeared at the Albert Hall, London, his first major UK appearance.

1967 Six-Day War: President Abdul Nasser of Egypt demanded dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Israel.

1969 Irishman Tom McClean became the first person to make a transatlantic crossing in a rowing boat.

1970 Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

1973 Watergate scandal: Televised hearings began in the United States Senate.

1974 Thirty-three people died from bombings in Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland.

1974 The Symbionese Liberation Army hideout in Los Angeles, California was burned to the ground in a showdown with police; six SLA members, including Camilla Hall, died.

1978 Ten weeks after it was stolen from a Swiss cemetery, the coffin of Charlie Chaplin was recovered.

1983 Lebanon, Israel, and the United States signed an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

1987 Iran-Iraq War: The USS Stark (FFG-31) was struck by a missile from an Iraqi Mirage fighter, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.

1989 Playwright Václav Havel, a leading figure in the so-called Velvet Revolution of 1989, was freed from a Czech prison by communist authorities. He later became President of Czechoslovakia.

1990 Researchers in England said that they had found that at least three of Winston Churchill's broadcast speeches during World War II were in fact spoken by an actor, Norman Shelley, who read from Hansard (parliamentary records), because the Prime Minister was too busy to speak on the air. Mr Shelley had long asserted this to be the case. (At least one source refutes the claim.)

Debunked

1995 Jacques Chirac assumed the presidency of France

1999 Ehud Barak was elected prime minister of Israel.

2001  "Enron CEO Ken Lay meets with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Milken, and 12 other California Republicans at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. There they share (according to Enron emails) "an insider's conversation of what's going on with the energy situation." Later, during his campaign for governor, Schwarzenegger claims he is unable to remember anything about the meeting, including whether he even met Ken Lay."   Source

2002 Death of Dave Berg (b. 1920), MAD Magazine cartoonist.

Comix, comics and cartoons in the Book of Days

2003 Mozilla Firefox: The web browser was renamed from Phoenix to Firebird, later to become Firefox.

2004 Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, USA.

 

 

Tomorrow: Apollo the sun god

 

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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.

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