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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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If "heaven is the Lord's," the earth is the inheritance of man,
and that consequently any honest traveller has the right to walk as he
chooses, all over that globe which is his. David-Néel was exceptional. Not only were
independent women travelers like her unusual, but Europeans versed in
Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy, who also spoke Tibetan and could
communicate with those they met, were extremely rare ... |
United
Nations Day stamps from Qatar |
No one ought ever do that again.
Annie
Edson Taylor, aged 63, first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel,
after accomplishing the feat on October 24, 1901
I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for
crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickle to two guys like you or me, but
to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless. I am going to turn
it over to ... Turn your back to me please, Henry. I am so sick now. The
police are getting many complaints. Look out. Yey, Jack; hello, Jack.
Jack, mamma. I want that G-note. Look out, for Jimmie Valentine, for he is
an old pal of mine. Come on, Jim, come on, Jimmie; oh, thanks. OK. OK. I
am all through; I can't do another thing. Hymie, won't you do what I ask
you this once? Look out! Mamma, mamma! Look out for her. You can't beat
him. Police, Mamma! Helen, mother, please take me out. Come on, Rosie. OK.
Hymes would not do it; not him. I will settle ... the indictment. Come on,
Max, open the soap duckets. Frankie, please come here. Open that door,
Dumpey's door. It is so much, Abe, that ... with the brewery. Come on.
Hey, Jimmie! The Chimney Sweeps. Talk to the Sword. Shut up, you got a big
mouth! please come help me up, Henny. Max come over here ... French
Canadian bean soup ... I want to pay, let them leave me alone ...
Last words of American gangster, Arthur Flegenheimer aka Dutch
Schultz,
October 24, 1935
That's a chapter, the last chapter of the 20th, 20th, the 21st
century that most of us would rather forget. The last chapter of the 20th
century. This is the first chapter of the 21st century.
George W Bush; on the Monica
Lewinsky scandal, Arlington Heights, Ill., USA,
October 24, 2000
Bushisms analysed Bushism of the day Bushisms at Amazon.com Bushism at Wikipedia Bush at Wikiquote More
October
24
is the 297th
day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (298th
in leap years),
with 68 days remaining.
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Wayback Machine might help you
locate the original.
October 24 is celebrated internationally as United Nations Day. It commemorates the coming into being of the United Nations Organisation on that day in 1945 when the UN Charter was ratified by all permanent members of the security council and more than half of the signatories.
It is celebrated as a holiday in Costa Rica, Haiti, Korea, Mauritius and Swaziland, a half-day holiday in Nepal, and an official flag day in Sweden.
The United Nations officially came into existence when the Charter was ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and by a majority of other signatories. The formation of the United Nations evolved from a number of other institutions including the Atlantic Charter, Food and Agriculture Organization, Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Moscow Declaration, and others.
In Memoriam: A video tribute to Sérgio Vieira de Mello (1948 - 2003) and all the United Nations staff who died in the Canal Hotel Bombing at the United Nations Office in Baghdad on August 19, 2003. The tribute was created and produced by Saatchi and Saatchi, Sydney, Australia. (5 minutes 50 seconds: English.)
United Nations Association of USA 60 Ways the UN makes a difference (PDF)
The United Nations in the news
World Development Information Day (UN)
The United Nations General Assembly instituted World Development Information Day at its twenty-seventh session in December 1972 with the object of drawing the attention of world public opinion each year to development problems and the necessity of strengthening international co-operation to solve them. The General Assembly also decided that World Development Information Day should coincide, in principle, with United Nations Day to stress the central role of development in the work of the United Nations.
Disarmament Week (UN) (Oct 24 - 30)
TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major US/Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens health, families and relationships, communities and the environment. Well worth supporting!
Thanks Almaniac Helen for alerting me to this great day. :)
Did medieval peasants work less than we do? I can't say for certain, but it wouldn't surprise me. A surf, or serf, through the Book of Days will show how many feast days were commemorated each week, unlike our own lean and over-commercialised holidays.
For in a hard-working society, it is rare and even subversive to celebrate too much, to revel and keep on reveling: to stop whatever you're doing and rave, pray, throw things, go into trances, jump over bonfires, drape yourself in flowers, stay up all night, and scoop the froth from the sea.
Anneli Rufus, World Holiday Book
The Abolition of Work Bob Black's famed and inspiring essay, published in the Almanac
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Highly recommended:
By Prof. Peter W Singer
To support this
project
By Robert Fisk
Astro pic of the day
Photo of the day
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Feast day of Malaclypse the Elder, Apostle of the Goddess Eris. The Discordian year The five
seasons: Chaos, Discord, Confusion, Bureaucracy, and The
Aftermath (as described in
The Book of Uterus of the
Honest Book of Truth which was revealed to
Lord Omar). The Five Apostles of Eris and Who They Be
See the calendar in operation in Today in the Discordian Calendar
Lilith's Day, Mesopotamia Iga Ueno Tenjin Matsuri, Ueno, Sugawara Shrine, Mie Prefecture, Japan (Oct 23 - 25) Eve of St Crispin; ceremony at Tenby, Wales An effigy made of the saint [October 25, qv] and suspended from a steeple or other height. In morning it was cut down and carried in procession through town. Suez Day, Egypt A public holiday in the Arab Republic of Egypt, commemorating the cease-fire between Egypt and Israel on October 24, 1973, which restored control of the Suez Canal to Egypt. Independence Day, Zambia (1964) A public holiday lasting two days, it celebrates the day on which Northern Rhodesia became the independent Republic of Zambia. Feast of the Spirits of
Air, Wicca Labour Day, New Zealand (2005, 4th Monday in October) A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac Fourth Monday in October, International School Library Day
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here 51 Roman emperor Domitian (d. 96) 1632 Anton van Leeuwenhoek (d.1723), Dutch microbiologist, the first to see bacteria 1710 Alban Butler (d. May 15, 1773; birth and death dates NS), English Roman Catholic priest and hagiographer. Butler's great work, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (usually referred to as Lives of the Saints), the result of thirty years study (4 vols, London, 1756 - 1759), has passed through many editions and translations. It is a popular and compendious reproduction of the Acta Sanctorum. 1788 Sarah Josepha Hale (Sarah Hale; d. April 30, 1879), American writer, perhaps best known as the author of the popular nursery rhyme, 'Mary's Lamb', better known as 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' 1811 Ferdinand Hiller (d. 1885), composer 1855 James S Sherman (d. 1912), Vice President of the United States
David-Néel was a French anarchist, singer, spiritualist, feminist, writer (My Journey to Lhasa), lecturer, photographer, Buddhist, architect, mail artist, Sanskrit grammarian and centenarian. Louise Eugénie
Alexandrine Marie David was the only daughter of a French father of
Huguenot ancestry and a Catholic mother of Scandinavian origin.
By the age of 18, she had already visited
England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in
Madame
Blavatsky's
Theosophical Society. In the period 1914 - '16 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the Tibetan monk Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong travelling companion, and whom she would later adopt. At age 54, David-Néel was the first European woman to venture into Tibet's capital, Lhasa. Disguising herself as a pilgrim, she journeyed into Tibet's 'forbidden city' in 1932. She died in Digne, France, in 1969 at the age of 101, and a museum is kept there in her honour.
1868 Charles Conder (d. February 9, 1909), English-born painter, who emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art. He is associated with such well-known Australian artists as Julian Ashton, Tom Roberts, Sir Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.
Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
From November, 1892, they worked as house-painters together for John Hawley in Bourke, New South Wales, until Lawson resigned. On about November 24, Lawson, Gordon and probably socialist Ernest De Guinney set out for Hungerford in 'The Corner Country' (where NSW, Qld and SA meet; map). In mid-December, after De Guinney left them, or was forced away from them, Gordon and Lawson tramped along the Warrego River and worked as picker-ups at Toorale Station, though Jim Gordon calls it Fort Bourke (probably wrongly). They walked in summer heat for hundreds of miles through desert country. It's uncertain at recisely which point they separated on the road. In 1916, when Lawson moved to Leeton, NSW, in order to 'dry out', he bumped into Gordon and they renewed their friendship of 24 years earlier. Lawson later wrote: "Wringing my hand almost off at the wrist he said 'Good night and God bless you – God bless us both. We are Jim and Harry again now'." They went fishing and camping together around Leeton, while Lawson tried (rather vainly) to get sober, and plotted making a literary comeback (more).
Jim Gordon is a character in
Chapter One of my novel,
Faces in the Street, so I am grateful to Gordon's
descendant, Rosalie Raftis, nee Gordon, who sent me the
following information about the poet: "He was born under the flap of
a tilted cart at Bloody Gully just outside Creswick, Victoria ...
the birth wasn't registered until 1875 in
Skipton.
He spent quite some time in Creswick with his grandmother, Janet
Morgan, nee Tannahill, while his parents worked away. His
father had come to Australia in 1863 as a 16 year old; he was born
in Inverness, his mother was born in Geelong ...his great great
grand uncle (think I've got that right) was
Robert
Tannahill poet of Paisley, who wrote in a similar vein to
Robbie Burns.
His brother Tom had the post office and general store at
Nangus, his
youngest brother Aeneas (my grandfather) had a store at Wards River
– they were a family of store keepers as was their grandfather James
Gordon of Inverness. Reference to Jim Gordon in diary of Miles Franklin Royal Mail Hotel, Hungerford
1882 Dame Sybil Thorndyke (d. June 9, 1976), British actress (The Lady of the Camellias; Nicholas Nickleby; Smiley Gets a Gun; A Passage to India) 1887 Victoria Eugenia (d. 1969), Queen of Spain
1888 Captain Francis Edward de Groot (d. [appropriately] April 1, 1969), the man who upstaged Premier of New South Wales Jack Lang by cutting the ribbon at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on March 19, 1932
1891 Rafael Trujillo (Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina; d. 1961), President of the Dominican Republic 1896 Jack Warner (born Jack Waters), English character actor 1903 Melvin Purvis (d. 1960), FBI chief 1904 Moss Hart (d. 1961), American playwright and lyricist who wrote comedy hits, usually with George S Kaufman, such as The Man Who Came to Dinner 1915 Bob Kane (d. 1998), cartoonist and creator of Batman 1915 Tito Gobbi, Italian baritone 1925 Luciano Berio (d. 2003), Italian composer 1929 George Crumb, composer 1929 Yordan Radichkov, Bulgarian writer and playwright 1930 The Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr; d. 1959), rock and roll star 1931 Sofia Gubaidulina, composer 1936 Bill Wyman, musician (The Rolling Stones)
For the longest time, being an actor must have been agonising for F Murray Abraham. He was 45 years of age before he got a really good role – then it all broke loose for him. Milos Forman cast him as the slimy, neurotic court composer, Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) in Peter Shaffer's story, Amadeus, and Abraham won an Oscar for his compelling performance. Are you a late starter? I hope this will encourage you; with a look at some other late bloomers
All the President's Men (1976) ... Sergeant Paul Leeper, arresting officer #1 The Sunshine Boys (1975) ... Mechanic The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1974) ... Taxi Driver How to Survive a Marriage (1974) TV Series ... Joshua Browne Serpico (1973) (uncredited) ... Detective Partner They Might Be Giants (1971) ... Clyde (the usher)
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