|
|
|
|
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)
|
|
|
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness – Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now! Omar Khayyám, Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer, born May 18?, 1048; from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám; tr. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883) The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ, Khayyam, who stitched the
tents of science, Nothing remains now for me to do but to pass upon you the awful sentence of the law, and that sentence is
– That you be taken back to the prison from whence you came, and that you be taken from thence, on Monday next, to a place of Execution, and that you there be hanged by the Neck until you are Dead; and that your body shall afterwards be dissected and anatomized; and may the Lord God Almighty, of his infinite goodness, have mercy on your soul! |
Ralph Metzner, May 18,
1936 |
All around us lay the dead and dying,
amid the groans and cries of the wounded. Our surgeons came up quickly,
and, taking possession of a farmhouse, converted it into a hospital, and
we began to carry ours and the enemy's wounded to the surgeons. There
they lay, the blue and the gray intermingled; the same rich, young
American blood flowing out in little rivulets of crimson; each thinking he
was in the right … The blue and the gray took their turn before the
surgeon's knife … with no anesthetic to soothe the agony, but, gritting
their teeth, they bore the pain of the knife and saw, while arms and legs
were being severed from their bodies. There was just one case that was no
exception
… He was a fine looking officer and colonel of some Louisiana
regiment of the Confederate army. He had been shot through the leg and was
making a great ado about it. Dr Kittoe, of our regiment, examined it and
said it must be amputated; the poor fellow cried and howled: "Oh I never
can go home to my wife on one leg …" "Well," said the gruff old
surgeon, "that, or not go home at all." The colonel finally said yes,
and in a few minutes he was in a condition (if he got well) to wear a
wooden leg when he went home.
Wilbur Fisk Crummer; With Grant
at Donelson, Shiloh and Vicksburg. The USA Civil War Battle of
Vicksburg commenced on May 18, 1863
Of all kinds of caution, caution in love is
perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
Bertrand Russell, English
philosopher born on May 18, 1872, Marriage and Morals
It's co-existence or no existence.
Bertrand Russell
One
of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that
one's work is terribly important.
Bertrand Russell; December 23, 1954, in a
broadcast on 'Man's Peril' – the H-bomb
In his youth Wordsworth
sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good
poetry, and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was called a
'bad' man. Then he became 'good,' abandoned his daughter, adopted
correct principles, and wrote bad poetry.
Bertrand Russell
The governors of the world believe,
and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching
falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I
disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth
is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can
only do harm.
Bertrand Russell
Freedom of opinion is important for many
reasons, especially because it is a necessary condition of all progress,
intellectual, moral, political, and social. Where it does not exist, the
status quo becomes stereotyped, and all originality, even the most
necessary, is discouraged.
Bertrand Russell
Many people would sooner die than think;
In fact, they do so.
Bertrand Russell
Behind every
successful man there stands an astonished woman.
Frank Capra, Italian-American film
director, born on May 18, 1897
Life forms illogical patterns. It is haphazard and
full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows
whether any of them will ever return?
Dame Margot Fonteyn, British ballerina, born on May 18, 1919
Great artists
are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of
pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
Dame Margot Fonteyn
Genius is
another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is
inexplicable.
Dame Margot Fonteyn
Minor
things can become moments of great revelation when encountered for the
first time.
Dame Margot Fonteyn
May
18
is
the 138th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (139th in leap years), with 227
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.
Kallynteria, ancient Greece
Purification ceremonies of the goddess Pallas Athena. A thorough cleaning of Athena's temple by women under the direction of Athena's priestess. In Greece, this day was also celebrated as the Feast of Pan, the Greek god of flocks and shepherds, and the god Apollo.
Find an error or dead link?
Like to make a suggestion, or just say "G'day"?
Meet me at Corrigenda
