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28


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... day was all of a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on.
Herodotus, writing after the eclipse on May 28, 585 BCE

… the prophetic priestesses are moved [by the god] each in accordance with her natural faculties … As a matter of fact, the voice is not that of a god, nor the utterance of it, nor the diction, nor the metre, but all these are the woman's; he [Apollo] puts into her mind only the visions, and creates a light in her soul in regard to the future; for inspiration is precisely this.
Plutarch (c. 45-125 CE), Moralia, 'The Oracles at Delphi', V, 397d

Thomas Topham, born in London, and now about thirty-one years of age, five feet ten inches high, with muscles very hard and prominent, was brought up a carpenter, which trade he practiced till within these six or seven years that he has shewed feats of strength; but he is entirely ignorant of any art to make his strength appear more surprising; Nay, sometimes he does things which become more difficult.
Dr John Theo Desagulier (Experimental Philosophy, London, 1763, Vol. 1, p. 289), contrasting feats of actual strength with the tricks of some performers  

There is no history: There is only Biography. The attempt to perpetuate, to fix a thought or principle, fails continually. You can only live for yourself: Your action is good only whilst it is alive— whilst it is in you. The awkward imitation of it by your child or your disciple, is not a repetition of it, is not the same thing but another thing. The new individual must work out the whole problem of science, letters, & theology for himself, can owe his fathers nothing. There is no history; only biography.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, May 28, 1839

The Commune is the end of the old governmental and clerical world, militarism, officialism, the exploitation, agiotage, the monopolies, of the privileges, to which the proletariat owes its serfdom, the Fatherland, its misfortunes and its disasters.
Eugene Varlin, during the Paris Commune, which fell on May 28, 1871

Life, life! Death, death! How curious it is!
Noah Webster, American lexicographer, who died on May 28, 1843

Pythia by Collier 

Pythia, by Collier


My books have no social significance, except a deleterious one; they're considered to have too much violence and too much sex. But all history has that.

Ian Fleming, British 'James Bond' author who was born on May 28, 1908; New Yorker, April 21, 1962

The trouble with Ian is that he gets off with women because he can't get on with them.
Rosamond Lehmann, on Ian Fleming

 

 

 

May 28 is the 148th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (149th in leap years), with 217 days remaining.
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PythiaPurification of Pythia, ancient Greece

From about 1400 BCE, the shrine at Delphi, Greece, was sacred, probably to Gaia, the mother earth goddess, or to a snake goddess. So important was it as a sacred site, it came to be described as Omphalos, the 'navel', or centre of the world. Later, it became sanctified to Apollo (son of Zeus, and god of the sun, light, youth, beauty, and prophecy), perhaps signifying a shift from matriarchal to patriarchal society, though this is uncertain and still a matter of academic enquiry and debate.

Delphi gained its name from the dolphin, and Apollo was said to have visited the place as one of those sea mammals that barely survive today's polluted Ionian sea. Snakes were part of Delphic lore until c. 800 BCE when Apollo was said to have slain the serpent that guarded the sanctuary, establishing the oracle anew. (Thus, Apollo became one of the many dragon-slayers of mythology: St George, St Martha and Hercules among them.)

The serpent's name was Python, and had been made from mud and slime by Gaia. At first the oracle priestess (sometimes two in shifts) could only be consulted on one day a year. She might have become entranced, by a drug perhaps; she answered questions in hexameter verse.

The priestess, Pythia (Sybil), seated on a tripod above a crack in the earth, went into a trance while chewing laurel leaves. The temple priests formulated the oracle from the glossolalia ('speaking in tongues', as it is sometimes known in the Christian tradition) which the priestess spoke in her ecstasy. Every four years (the third of each Olympiad), the Pythian Games were held in honour of the priestess, the winners receiving a laurel wreath from the city of Tempe; Apollo himself had instituted these games so the world would never forget his great feat in slaying Python.

PythiaThe leaders of ancient Greece relied on the Delphic oracle for her prognostications and clairvoyance. King Croesus once simultaneously asked seven oracles "What is the King of Lydia doing now?" Only the Delphic oracle answered correctly that he was cooking a tortoise and a lamb in a pot of bronze.

Jelle Zeilinga De Boer, a geologist at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, USA, reported in Geology, August, 2001, that ethylene, rising up through fissures in the rock beneath the shrine, was probably the sweet-smelling vapour that put the priestess in her trance. Ethylene produces states of euphoria, associated with stimulus to the pleasure centres of the human brain. We know of this vapour from the 1st-Century CE writer, Plutarch (c. 45 - 125 CE), who, as a temple priest, was familiar with the shrine and reported that the priestess was under the influence of such a vapour. In his day, however, the vapours were weaker than in previous centuries, which may be attributed to changes in the bedrock beneath this fabled place.

Skeptical view of glossolalia    Socrates and Pythia    The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory    More on ethylene

Geology of the Delphic Oracle    Delphic Oracle's Lips May Have Been Loosened by Gas Vapors    Festivals in ancient Greece    More

 

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Apollo

Apollo slaying Python, by Goltzius

Apollo slaying Python, by Goltzius

Apollo ('destroy' or 'excite'), is a god in Greek and Roman mythology, the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin of Artemis (goddess of the hunt). In later times he became equated with Helios/Sol, god of the sun, and by proxy his sister was equated with Selene/Luna, goddess of the moon. Later, he was known primarily as a solar deity. In Etruscan mythology, he was known as Aplu. (Wikipedia)

Apollo was the god of hunting, pestilence and healing, in Greek and possibly cultures in Asia Minor. He was worshipped around 1300 BCE and earlier, to about 400 CE.

His cult centred at Delos, Pylo-Delphi and other sanctuaries. Literary sources include the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey (Homer); Hymn to Apollo (Hesiod) as well as various temple hymns.

He was the epitome of youthful manliness, and a distant rather than an intimate god. His mother is Leto; she wandered the world, suffering until she chanced on the isle of Delos where she found refuge.

Apollo is generally portrayed in art as a god of hunters carrying a bow and arrows, associated with a stag or roe, and also pictured with lions. A gracious player of the lyre, he became the patron god of poets and leader of the Muses.

However, Apollo was a merciless killer when he had to be, killing the many children of Niobe. He slew the Delphic python and the Olympic Cyclopes, but suffered temporary banishment for his crimes.

The Celts revered him under various synonyms. The sixth-century BC Greek historian Hecateus wrote that an unnamed island we today can clearly identify as Britain, was inhabited by the Hyperboreans (northerners) who "venerate Apollo more than any other god" and that Apollo returned to the island every nineteen years, to much celebration. Hecateus did not know it but he was describing the 19-year lunar metonic cycle which was unknown to Greek scholars until a century after the historian wrote.

Apollo was Christianised as St Vincent.

 

Festival of the goddess Diana, Roman Empire (May 26 - 31, 17 BCE)

Feast day of St Antoni Julian Nowowiejski

Feast day of St Bernard of Menthon (Montjoux)
Today is celebrated particularly in Switzerland. Born c.923 at Menthon, Savoy. Bernard was the evangelist to the people of the Alps for more than 40 years. The large dogs, trained to search for lost victims in the mountains, are named after him. He is the patron saint of mountaineers, skiers, and travellers in the mountains.

 

Feast day of St Caraunus (Cheron), martyr

Feast day of St Emilius

Feast day of St Germanus (Germain), Bishop of Paris
(Lurid fleur-de-lis, Irid lurida, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Born near Autun, c. 496, he died at Paris in 576. He was the Abbot of St Symphorian at Paris, and tried to stop civil strife and the vices of the Frankish kings, but with little effect. He founded a monastery in Paris where he was buried, and it is now famous as Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

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Feast day of St Heliconis

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Feast day of St Justus of Urgel

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Feast day of St Margaret Pole

Feast day of St Mariana

Feast day of St Paul Hanh

Feast day of St Podius

Feast day of St Robert Johnson

Feast day of St Senator

Feast day of St Thomas Ford

Feast day of St William of Gellone

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Ceremonies preceding Oak Apple Day (Oakapple Day), Castleton, UK

"CASTLETON near Sheffield. Branches of oak, elm and sycamore are tied to the pinnacles of the church tower on the eve of Oakapple Day, 29th May. On the day, flowers are collected, tied in bunches on a beehive shaped frame and a special posy called the Queen is put on top. The Garland King, who represents the Green Man, is covered down to the waist by the garland and rides on horseback with a procession through the town stopping for dancing outside six pubs. They eventually arrive at the May pole for more dancing. The May King then rides to the church where the garland is hauled to the top of the tower where it stays for a week. The ceremony ends with the placing of the Queen posy on the War Memorial and everyone joining the dancing."   Source

Amnesty International Day

National Reconciliation Week, Australia (May 27 - Jun 3)

Republic Day in Azerbaijan and Armenia (both 1918)

 

 

 

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

1371 John the Fearless (d. 1419), Duke of Burgundy, France, son of Philip the Bold, father of Philip the Good, cousin of Philip the Mediocre

1524 Selim II (d. 1574), Ottoman Emperor

1588 Pierre Seguier (d. 1672), chancellor of France

1660 King George I of Great Britain (d. 1727)

1738 Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (Joseph Guillotin; d. March 26, 1814), French physician who, although he did not invent the guillotine, on October 10, 1789 proposed the use of a mechanical device to carry out death penalties in France

"… became professor of literature at the Irisnah College at Bordeaux. Later he studied medicine at Reims where he graduated in 1768 and two years later graduated from the university of Paris. In 1784 he was appointed to the government committee to examine the exhibitions of "animal magnetism" then being undertaken by Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) and by many considered to be an offence to public moral [sic] …

"Guillotin belonged to a small reform movement that sought to banish the death penalty completely. On October 10th 1789 – the second day of the debate about France's penal code – Guillotin proposed six articles to the new Legislative Assembly. In one of them he proposed that "the criminal shall be decapitated; this will be done solely by means of a simple mechanism." This was defined as a "machine that beheads painlessly". This uniform method of executing was to replace the inhumane methods such as burning, mutilation, drowning, and hanging. An easy death – so to speak – was no longer to be the prerogative of nobles. Guillotin also wanted the machine to be hidden from the view of large crowds, in accord with his view that the execution should be private and dignified …

"Guillotin argued for a painless and private capital punishment method equal for all the classes, as an interim step towards completely banning the death penalty. His colleagues, however, laughed when he claimed that a machine he had designed could cause immediate and painless separation of the head from the trunk. It was not until 1791 that a law was passed that everyone condemned to death in France should be decapitated."   Source

1759 William Pitt the Younger (d. 1806), Prime Minister of Great Britain at 24 years of age. While at the University of Cambridge, he befriended the young William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833; abolisher of the British slave trade), who would become a lifelong friend.

1779 Thomas Moore (d. February 25, 1852), Irish poet ('Lalla-Rookh'; best remembered for the lyrics of 'The Last Rose of Summer'). With the publisher John Murray, in 1824 he 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. Moore did, however, edit and publish Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life (1830).

"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." [sic]   Source

'The Young May Moon'

By Thomas Moore

The young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love;
    How sweet to rove
    Through Morna's grove,
When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake! -- the heavens look bright, my dear,
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear;
    And the best of all ways
    To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

 

1807 Louis Agassiz (d. 1873), zoologist and geologist

1836 Alexander Mitscherlich (d. 1918), chemist

1853 Carl Larsson (d. 1919), Swedish painter and interior designer

1858 Carl Rickard Nyberg, inventor

1884 Edvard Benes (d. 1948), politician

1892 Sepp Dietrich (d. 1966), SS officer, bodyguard of Adolf Hitler

1900 Tommy Ladnier (d. 1939), jazz musician

 

1908 Ian Fleming (d. 1964), British novelist who created the character James Bond. Besides the twelve Bond novels, Fleming is also known for the children's story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

He was educated at Eton College and Sandhurst military academy, then went to university on the Continent to study languages. He worked as a journalist and stockbroker before the Second World War. On the eve of war he was recruited as personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear-Admiral John Godfrey.

Fleming's background in intelligence work gave him the background and experience to write somewhat convincing spy novels. The first James Bond story, Casino Royale, was published in 1953. It is believed that in this initial story he based the female character 'Vesper Lynd' on real life SOE agent, Christine Granville.

Actor Christopher Lee is his cousin. Fleming wanted Lee to play the first Bond film villain, Dr No.

In the book The Man Who Was M: The Life of Charles Henry Maxwell Knight by Anthony Masters, it is claimed that during the war Fleming conceived the plan that successfully lured Rudolf Hess to fly into captivity in Britain. There's no other source for these claims.

Source: Wikipedia

"Fleming was plucked out of newspaper work to join British Naval Intelligence in 1939, when Churchill was still the First Lord of the Admiralty in Chamberlain's government. He became an aide to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey, and was known as "17F". He was trained at Intrepid's "Camp X", on Lake Ontario in Canada, where he became practised at underwater demolition. He rose to the rank of Commander. With the Director, he met with J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, in 1941, and had some influence in the establishment of the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA. …

"Other celebrities that worked for Intrepid in various capacities included Greta Garbo and Noël Coward. Coward was fluent in Spanish, and collected intelligence while touring Latin America, where Germany was preparing its US propaganda campaigns."   Source

"Dee, John Dee": The first James Bond?
Queen Elizabeth I had a court magician and astrologer, Dr John Dee, who also did some spying for England on his numerous trips abroad. He signed his letters to the queen, "007"- perhaps a true prototype for Fleming's James Bond.

Ian Fleming Centenary

 

1910 T-Bone Walker (d. 1975), American blues singer

1910 Lady Rachel Kempson (d. 2003), actress

1911 Fritz Hochwälder (d. 1986), author

1912 Patrick White (d. September 30, 1990), Australian Nobel Prize-winning novelist (1973) "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature"

1914 WGG Duncan Smith (d. 1996), World War II pilot

1915 Joseph H. Greenberg (d. 2001), linguist

1916 Walker Percy (d. 1990), author

1917 Papa John Creach (d. 1994), musician

1921 Heinz G Konsalik (d. 1999), author

1921 Tom Uren, Australian politician, minister in the Whitlam and Hawke Australian Labor Party governments

1923 György Ligeti, composer

1923 Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (d. 1998), actor, director, producer

1925 Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone

1925 Bülent Ecevit, Prime Minister of Turkey

1930 Edward Seaga, Jamaican prime minister

1931 Carroll Baker, actress

 

1934 The Dionne Quints freakshow

Dionne quints

Corbeil, Ontario, Canada, between 3 and 6 am: During the dark days of the Great Depression,  the Dionne quintuplets were born two months prematurely to a poverty-stricken young French-Catholic farming couple, Oliva and Elzire Dionne. They were to become part of a family of 13.

The girls, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne, became the first quintuplets to survive infancy. Each weighing no more than 0.9 kilos (2 pounds), they were put next to a stove in their family's simple farmhouse to keep warm, and mothers from surrounding villages brought breast milk for them.

The unusual occurrence, combined with the Dionne family's poor background, made them the sensation of depression-era Canada and even inspired three Hollywood movies. Dr Allan Roy Dafoe, the doctor who delivered the babies, also became an international celebrity.

In 1935, the Ontario government took the quints from their parents, making them wards of the state, and placed them in a hospital-cum-tourist attraction called Quintland where they were exploited for commercial gain by many individuals, local businesses and national and multinational corporations. The sisters were the nation's biggest tourist attraction – more popular than Niagara FallsBy the time of the girls' tenth birthday, about three million gawking tourists had visited the 'theme hospital. The Ontario government and local businesses alone made an estimated half billion dollars off the quints. 

In 1998, the survivors tried to find out what happened to around $1 million that disappeared from a trust fund set up for them when they were taken from their parents. On a brighter note, the sisters finally won four million dollars as compensation from the Ontario government, though far less than what the government had received in taxes from Dionne-oriented exploitation.

In Quebec, the Remaining Quintuplets Are Broke and Bitter (1998)

Dionne Quintuplet Digitization Project has lots of info and pictures

Dionne family genealogy

Pierre Berton,  The Dionne Years

John Nihmey , Time of Their Lives: The Dionne Tragedy

 

1936 Betty Shabazz, civil rights leader and wife of Malcolm X

1938 Osvaldo Romberg, painter, architect

1944 Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City

1944 Gladys Knight, American singer; had some group with a silly name

1945 John Fogerty, musician (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

1946 K Satchidanandan, Malayalam poet

1947 Sondra Locke, actress

1949 Wendy O Williams, musician (The Plasmatics) (d. 1998)

1962 Roland Gift, musician (Fine Young Cannibals)

1964 Christa Miller, actress (The Drew Carey Show, Scrubs)

1965 Chris Ballew, musician

1968 Kylie Minogue, Australian pop singer and actress

2003 Prometea, first cloned horse

 

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May

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28 Whale Day
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30 Compact Disc Day
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1 Children's Day (China)
3 Love Conquers All Day
3 Egg Day
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Thales585 BCE A solar eclipse occurred, as predicted (according to Herodotus) by Thales of Miletus (pictured; c. 635 - 543 BCE), the Greek philosopher and father of science. However, this was no ordinary eclipse, if such can be ordinary.

On this day, while King Alyattes of Lydia (619 - 560 BCE), was battling King Cyaxares (625 - 585 BCE) of Media (Iran) by the Halys River in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), this pheomenon of Nature led to a remarkable phenomenon of history.

Sobered by the sudden darkening of the sky, the superstitious Lydians and Medians promptly signed a peace treaty, packed up their gear and went home. This is one of the cardinal dates – some say the oldest – from which other dates in the human record can be calculated.

861 CE Paris, France was burned by the Vikings, not for the first time.

1357 Death of King Afonso IV of Portugal.

1502 The Treaty of Perpetual Peace between Scotland and England was signed.

1503 James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor were married by Pope Alexander VI, according to Papal Bull.  

1533 Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared the marriage of King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn valid.

1555 England: Alchemist and scientist John Dee was imprisoned for the crime of 'calculating' – practising the pagan craft of mathematics.

1588 The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, began to set sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel (it took until May 30 for all ships to leave port).

1734 New York City passed a law protecting fish.

1741 In about the year 1703, there had been in London a man named Joyce, a native of Kent, whose great feats of strength won him the name of 'the second Samson'. However, the greatest strongman of his day was Thomas Topham, (1710 - '49), an Islington, London publican known as 'the British Samson'. On this day he lifted three hogsheads of water, weighing 832 kg (1,836 lb) in the presence of thousands of spectators at Coldbath Fields, England. Topham often awed Londoners with feats such as bending two-inch thick iron bars over his arm, and pewter dishes between his fingers. His venue was the Mitre Tavern on Fleet Street, a favourite haunt of the Royal Society.

In 1749 his wife was unfaithful to him; he stabbed her to death then took his own life.

"Topham, although possessing all around strength, excelled in gripping feats, most of which are faithfully documented in a contemporary authors witness of his strength namely Dr. John Theo Desagulaier's work (London 1763) called, 'A course of Experimental Philosophy.' Topham (sometimes spelled Thopham) could snap pipe stems in his outstretched fingers, could crush pipe bowls by squashing them with his first and second fingers with just lateral pressure, bend thick pokers by stroking them in a blow across his forearm (as did John Grimek in the 1950's after his posing exhibitions) and would bend thick iron bars around his neck. He is also credited with being able to lift 224 lbs. (101.6 kgs) overhead "easily" with just his little finger (using a loop)..." 
Source: Some amazing feats of grip strength

More

1754 French and Indian War: In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under 22-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Washington defeated a French reconnaissance party in south-western Pennsylvania.

1774 American Revolutionary War: The first Continental Congress convened.

1805 Death of Luigi Boccherini, musician.

1805  Napoleon was crowned in Milan, Italy.

1811 Death of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, British minister.

1813 The first crossing of the Blue Mountains, NSW, was completed by Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth and William Lawson, the trio usually known just by their surnames, Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson.

1814 In order to gain some semblance of order and authority in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania, southernmost state of Australia), Governor Lachlan Macquarie (1762 - 1824) proclaimed a pardon to all the island's bushrangers, except for those who had murdered in the furtherance of their careers.

"In April 1809 Macquarie was appointed Governor of New South Wales to replace William Bligh* whose governorship had been wracked with controversy."   Source

* Of the Bounty mutiny

'Van Diemen's Land'
(Traditional)

Come, all you gallant poachers,
That ramble free from care,
That walk out of a moonlight night,
With your dog, your gun, and snare;
Where the lusty hare and pheasant
You have at your command,
Not thinking that your last career
Is on Van Diemen's Land

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

 

1830  USA: Congress authorised Indian removal from all states to the western prairie.

1838 Adelaide's Theatre Royal, the first theatre in South Australia, opened.

1843 Noah Webster, American lexicographer and originator of Webster's Dictionary in 1828, died aged 84.

1845  Fire in Quebec, Canada, destroyed 1,500 homes.

1849 Death of Anne Brontë (b. 1820), British author.

1851 The Sydney Morning Herald published a letter by the discoverer of gold in Australia, Edward Hargraves, exhorting the employed residents of the colony not to leave their jobs and go rashly into a gold rush.

1863 American Civil War: The 54th Massachusetts, the first African American regiment, left Boston, Massachusetts to fight for the Union.

Paris Commune1871 The Paris Commune collapsed after a week of intense fighting that left 33,000 dead. French government troops put down the commune, a revolt of city workers and other Republicans in the wake of the Prussian siege of Paris. The savage fighting killed a further 20,000 people.

Some 4,000 Communards were sentenced to death, and as many were transported to New Caledonia. Some of the Communards were shot against what is now known as the Communards' Wall in the Père Lachaise cemetery. The police dissolved workers' syndicates and, encouraged by the state, employers no longer tolerated union organising.

In 1884, the Third Republic parliament was forced to pass legislation recognising workers' organising rights, but included no provisions encouraging collective bargaining.

Source: The Daily Bleed et al    More, and picture relating to hunger in the siege

Early progressives in the Book of Days    CounterCulture Wiki

Some famous people in the Book of Days and Le Père Lachaise Cemetery    More    And more

1881 During a severe thunderstorm, periwinkles fell on Worcester, England.

1892 In San Francisco, California, USA, early conservationist John Muir organised the Sierra Club.

1919 Danzig was made a free city.

1932 Dutch engineers completed the world's biggest dam, the dyke on the Zuider Zee.

1934 The Glyndebourne festival was inaugurated.

1936 Alan Turing submitted On Computable Numbers for publishing.

1937 In Washington, DC, USA, President Franklin D Roosevelt pushed a button signalling the start of vehicular traffic over the Golden Gate Bridge.

1940 World War II: Belgium surrendered to Germany.

1940 Death of Friedrich Karl von Hessen, Prince Frederick of Hesse (b. May 1, 1868), Friedrich Karl Ludwig Konstantin, Prinz und Landgraf von Hessen, brother-in-law of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany and elected king of Finland (October 9, 1918; renounced the throne on December 14).

1942 World War II: In retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (b. 1904), Nazis in Czechoslovakia killed more than 1,800 people.

1948 Death of Unity Mitford, British fascist sympathiser.

1959 Able, a Rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a Squirrel monkey, became the first living beings to successfully return to Earth after traveling in space aboard the Jupiter AM-18.

Monkeys in space

 

1961 Amnesty International was founded, by English lawyer Peter Benenson, Irish Nobel Laureate Seán MacBride (chairman from 1961 to 1975) and others, with an article, 'The Forgotten Prisoners', in the London Observer and the Paris Le Monde.

Amnesty International is a worldwide campaigning movement that works to promote all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience; ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners; abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners; end political killings and "disappearances"; and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups.

 

1964 The Palestine Liberation Organization was formed

1966 Ike Turner and Tina Turner's 'River Deep - Mountain High' was released. Producer Phil Spector considered this the high point of his legendary career and was so embittered by it not doing well in America that he went into seclusion for two years.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1967 The 65-year-old solo yachtsman Francis Chichester arrived in Britain after 119 days of sailing around the world.

1969 Sound engineer Glyn Johns mixed the second of the Beatles Bootlegs.

1969 A People's Park Bail Ball benefit was held at Winterland in San Francisco. Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jefferson Airplane entertained.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list    CounterCulture Wiki

1975 Fifteen West African countries signed the Treaty of Lagos, thus creating the Economic Community of West African States.

1977 In Southgate, Kentucky, USA, the Beverly Hills Supper Club was engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.

1985 Thousands drowned in a cyclone in Bangladesh.

1985 David Jacobson was taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon. He was released in November, 1986.

1987 Nineteen-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evaded Soviet air defence and landed his Cessna plane in Red Square in Moscow

He was immediately detained and was not set free until August 3, 1988. He was released on parole by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, who was acting President of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Guardian Interview with Mathias Rust

 

Wilson's Webcam Watch

The image of Red Square at right, if it's appearing, is generated by a live webcam. Webcam images refresh at set intervals, so if you refresh this page it might show a changed image. If you click it, you'll go to an enlargement or the recommended webcam site.

List of  featured webcams

Recommend a webcam or report malfunction

 

1987 A robot probe found the wreckage of the USS Monitor near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

1995 Neftegorsk, Russia was hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake, killing at least 2,000 people (two-thirds of the town's population).

1998 Nuclear testing: Pakistan responded to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions.

1999 In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's newly-restored masterpiece, 'The Last Supper', was put back on display.

2002 Washington DC's medical examiner declared that Chandra Levy's death was the result of homicide.

 

 

Tomorrow: England's Oak Apple Day

 

 Main calendar | Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search

 

 

Top Ten Least Impressive James Bond Gadgets


10. Remote-control squirrel

9. Digital clock that is also a radio

8. An illegal cable box

7. Cuff links shaped like dice

6. Panasonic wet-dry beard trimmer with night vision

5. Football-shaped phone

4. A refreshing soda that combines both lemon and lime

3. Shampoo and conditioner in one

2. Futuristic green liquid that fights bad breath

1. Delicious low-fat cheesecake


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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