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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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Some of our maids sitting up late last
night to get things ready against our feast today, Jane called up
about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the
City. So I rose, and slipped on my night-gown and went to her window,
and thought it to be on the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest;
but, being unused to such fires as followed, I thought it far enough
off, and so went to bed again, and to sleep ... By and by Jane comes
and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned
down tonight by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all
Fish Street, by London Bridge. So I made myself ready presently, and
walked to the Tower; and there got up upon one of the high places,
…and there I did see the houses at the end of the bridge all on
fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side … of the
bridge … Samuel Pepys, diary entry, September 2 1666. Pepys discontinued his famous diary on May 31, 1669 I
loafe and invite my soul. Now
I see the secret of making the best persons: it is to grow in the open
air and to eat and sleep with the earth. I stayed a long time by the bedside of a
new patient ... In an adjoining ward I found his brother ... It was
in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong Unionist, the
other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides, both badly
wounded, and both brought together after a separation of four years.
Each died for his cause. |
Walt Whitman |
I am as
bad as the worst, but thank God I am as good as the best.
Walt Whitman; on himself
… a most
surprising compound of plain grandeur, sentimental affection and
downright nonsense.
Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt
Whitman
I really
have a secret satisfaction in being considered rather mad.
William Heath Robinson, English illustrator
and cartoonist, born on May 31, 1872
I hold the crimson fruit
and plumage of the palm;
flame- tree, that scarlet spirit,
in my soil takes root.
My days burn with the sun
my nights with moon and star,
since into myself I took
all the living things that are.
Australian poet,
Judith
Wright, born on May 31, 1915, writes in her poem The Maker
about her pregnancy with her daughter Meredith
Why not?
Last words of American
psychonaut Timothy Leary, who crossed over on May 31, 1996 Source
(Reuters reported his last
words were, "Oh really? Yeah."
Source)
At one point in his final delirium, he spoke the words
"Why not." He uttered the phrase repeatedly, in different intonations: as a question, as a statement, softly, loudly, thoughtfully, ruefully, and confidently. He died soon after, and that was the last thing he said out loud.
Timothy Leary website
on the last words of
Timothy Leary (d. May 31, 1996); 'Tim's Last Trip'
You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological
weapons ... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them.
George W Bush,
lying in remarks to reporters, May 31, 2003. The labs were later judged not to contain any such weapons, that they most likely were used for weather
balloons.
May
31 is
the 151st
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (152nd
in leap years), with 214
days remaining.
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locate the original.
Ludi saeculares, or Centennial Games held in 17 BCE
These games of Rome were the
climax of the rites of the goddess Diana which began on May 26. During
the time of the Roman republic
they were called ludi Tarentini, Terentini, or Taurii,
while during the empire
they bore the name of ludi saeculares.
In the days
preceding this so-called centennial event, heralds were sent about
to invite the people to a spectacle which no one had ever beheld,
and which no one would ever behold again. Great sporting events and sacrifices took place
in the Circus
Flaminius, so that evil deities would not enter the city.
The first celebration of the ludi saeculares in the reign of Augustus Caesar took place in the summer of the year 17 BCE (Tacit. Ann. xi.11); the second took place in the reign of Claudius, 47 CE (Suet. Claud. 21). The third games were in the reign of Domitian, in 88 (Suet. Dom. 4) – so we can see that they weren't actually commemorated only every 100 years – and the last in the reign of Marcus Iulius Philippus (Philip the Arab) in 248, which was generally believed to be just 1,000 years after the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus.
The celebrations were concerned essentially with the chthonian divinities Dis (Dis Pater) and Prosperpina, but on the first day the games, in the Tarentum, sacrifices were offered also to Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, Venus, Apollo, Mercury, Ceres, Vulcan, Mars, Diana, Vesta, Hercules, Latona and the Parcae.
Roman festivals and notable days in the Book of Days Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days
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