|
Click stars for Universe today
Cafe
Diem! Our store
Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret
Read MacDonald
Fahrenheit 9/11
By Prof. Peter W Singer
Lempriere's Dictionary
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM
The New Book of Goddesses & Heroines
The Spiral Dance
By Starhawk
20th Anniversary Edition
Eats, Shoots & Leav
es
Uluru
Life in a Medieval Village
To support this
project
Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family
products and much more.
An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore; DVD &
book
The Permaculture Home Garden
By Linda Woodrow
The Big Buy - Tom Delay's Stolen Congress
The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of
Investigative Journalism in America
By Bruce Shapiro
Remotely
Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About
It
What
Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom
Hartmann
How
Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
Pagan
Christianity
Hello Laziness!
By Corrine Maier
For
God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
By James Yee
Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate
Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr
The Price of Loyalty
The
Torture Debate in America
The
Culture of the New Capitalism
The God Who Wasn't There
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
When Corporations Rule the World
Alternatives to Economic Globalization
Feminism Without Borders
Commercializat of Intimate Life
By Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Skeptic's Dictionary
Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals
Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy
By Robert F Kennedy, Jr
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of
Investigative Journalism in America
By Bruce Shapiro
Medieval Celebrations
Women's Activism and Globalization
The Atlas of Holy Places and Sacred Sites
Secrets and Lies
The Clash of Civilizations
Imperial Crusades
Aborigine Dreaming
The Medieval Cookbook
The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
The Murray Bookchin Reader
Environmental Activism
Astro pic of the day
American Folklore
Permaculture
Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature &
Art (Seyffert)
Sun Goddess
African Folklore
Daily Everything
A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore
A Dictionary of Saints Days, Fasts, Feasts and Festivals
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
The Edible Asian Garden
The Secret Language of Birthdays
Live with Passion!
Anthony Robbins
More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at
Cafe Diem!
Celtic Daily Prayer
Hidden Agendas
Poor Richard's Almanack
By Benjamin Franklin
Photo of the day
Mother Earth Spirituality
Wheel of the Year
The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The Survival of the Pagan Gods
|
 Full moon in October or November, spawning of the coral, Great Barrier Reef,
Australia
"Today we know that many corals living on the Great Barrier Reef spawn about four to five days after the full moon in October or November and sometimes in December.
"Over in Western Australia, the corals of the famous Ningaloo Reef and other reefs further north also experience an annual spawning event. But they are five months out of phase with their eastern cousins. Their spawning time occurs 7-9 days after the full moon in March and
April ..." Source
From Wikipedia: The
Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef. The reef is
located in the Coral Sea off the coast
of Queensland
in north-east Australia. It stretches
over 2,000 kilometres in length and can be seen from space. NASA image at
right.
Around
October, Mallee fowl laying, Australia
"Around
October, the female malleefowl starts to lay her eggs. She lays one egg
every 4 to 8 days and continues laying until January. While the female is
busy laying the eggs, the male's job is keeping the nest at the right
incubation temperature, about 33C, by shifting dirt.
"These birds believe that 'big is
best'. Their nest looks like a strange miniature volcano, but is really
a mound of dirt, a do-it-yourself incubator that stands at an incredible1
metre high and occupies an area up to 12 metres wide." Source
More phenology
(Nature/calendar relationships) in the Book of Days
 The Isia, ancient Egypt (Oct 28 - Nov 3)
Today is the first day of the ancient Egyptian Isia festival.
This was a week-long Autumn festival commemorating the mythological search
of Isis for her
son/lover Osiris
in order to restore life on earth. The festival has a connection with the
Eleusinian Mysteries, rites of ancient Greece centuries later.
Isis and Osiris are archetypes bearing a similarity to
other divine dualities such as Ishtar and
Tammuz (Damuzi),
Venus and Adonis,
Mary
and Jesus
Christ. The Egyptian story is believed to have influenced
Christianity.
"Professional
singers, musicians, and dancers, mostly female, would perform at the
temple during this festival. The performance involved actors playing the
parts of Isis and Nephthys in the mystery plays celebrating the death
and resurrection of Osiris. These were perhaps the oldest mystery plays
on earth, predating even those of Mesopotamia." Source
Egyptian
calendar On the dating
of Egyptian festivals and rites
Shop
Ancient Egypt
Feast of Baal (Ba'al; Haddad),
Phoenicia (civilization
in the north of ancient Canaan)
"The
Phoenician Sun God, Baal of the Heavens, was honored annually in ancient
times, on or around this date. He presided over nature and fertility,
and was associated with winter rain. Sacred sun-symbolizing bonfires
were lit in his honor by his worshipers in Syria." Source of date
Haddad
- בעל הדד -
حداد (in Ugaritic, 'Haddu') was a very important
northwest Semitic
storm god and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the Akkadian
god Adad.
Hadad is often called simply Ba'al
'Lord', but this title is also used for other gods. Hadad was equated with
the Anatolian
storm-god Teshub,
the Egyptian
god Set
(Seth), the Greek
god Zeus,
and the Roman
god Jupiter.
Deities
of many cultures in the Book of Days See
also Baal, the Hebrew meaning
Kadash
Kinahu: Complete Directory Gateways
to Babylon: Adad/Rimon
Ludi Victoriae Sullanae, ancient
Rome (Oct 26
- Nov 1)
Feast day of Fyribod
This Norse calendar
event marks the beginning of bad weather and the cold Winter.
Hagal commences
The Runic half-month
of Hagal commences today, represented by the hailstone of transformation.
It is a harbinger of the need to undergo the necessary preparations before
the harsh northern Winter.
Shop
Runes
Feast day of St Abraham
Feast day of St Edsige
(Eadsige; Eadsimus; Eadsin) (Anglican Church)
St Edsige (d. 1050),
was Archbishop
of Canterbury and crowned King St Edward
the Confessor.
Feast day of St Faro, Bishop
of Meaux
Feast day of St Godwin
St Godwin of Stavelot was a Benedictine
abbot of
the monastery
of Stavelot-Malmédy,
Belgium,
who died in 690.
Feast day of St Honoratus of
Vercelli
Feast day of St Joachim Royo
Feast day of St John Dat
Feast day of Ss Simon the Apostle
(Simon the Canaanite) and Jude
Thaddeus (Jude Lebbeus; Libbeus), Apostle
(Late
chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum
scrotinum and Scattered starwort, Aster passiflorus, are
today's
plants, dedicated to St Simon and St
Jude respectively.)
Today is shared by two Christian saints for their feasts: St
Simon and St Jude. Most old authorities say today's patron saints were
fishermen, but some have it that they were the shepherds to whom the angels of the
Lord announced Jesus
Christ's birth. In the ancient Runic calendar this day is marked by
a ship because of the association with fishing.
The apostle
Simon, called Simon the Zealot in Luke
6:15 and Acts
1:13; and Simon Kananaios ('Simon' signifying
שמעון "hearkening; listening", Standard
Hebrew Šimʿon, Tiberian
Hebrew Šimʿôn), was one of the most obscure among the apostles
of Jesus;
little is recorded of him aside from his name. Few pseudepigraphical
writings were connected to him (but see below), and Jerome
does not include him in De viris illustribus. St Simon is
said by some to have preached in Britain and to have been martyred there.
He was supposed to have been sawn to death in Persia, so he is the patron
saint of woodcutters. Sometimes in art he carries a fish, because, like St
Peter, he was a
fisherman.
To distinguish him
from Simon Peter,
he is called Kananaios, or Kananites (Matthew
10:4; Mark
3:18), and in the list of apostles in Luke 6:15, repeated in Acts
1:13, Zelotes, the 'Zealot'. Both titles derive from the Hebrew
word qana, meaning The Zealous, though Jerome
and others mistook the word to signify the apostle was from the town of Cana
(in which case his epithet
would be 'Kanaios') or even the region of Canaan.
As such, the translation of the word as 'the Cananite' or 'the Canaanite'
is purely traditional and without contemporary extra-canonic parallel.
Simon is often associated with St Jude as a proselytizing team, and the
most widespread tradition is that after evangelizing in Egypt,
he joined Jude in Persia,
where both were martyred. This version is the one found in the Golden
Legend.
St Jude, also
called Thaddeus and sometimes Libbius, was said by one old scholar to have
been a son of St Joseph
by a wife prior to Mary, thus he
would be a brother of Jesus
Christ. He is represented in art carrying a
staff, and also the club by which he was martyred with St Simon in Persia.
He also carries a carpenter's square representing his trade.
Jude is the
patron saint of desperate and lost causes, because his New
Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the
environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers
had done before them. Many Christians, especially in the past, reckoned
him as Judas Iscariot and avoided prayers on behalf of him. Therefore he
was also called the "Forgotten Saint". Devotion to Saint Jude
began again in earnest in the 1800s,
starting in Italy
and Spain,
spreading to South
America, and finally to the U.S.
(starting in the area around Chicago)
in the 1920s.
Novena prayers to Jude helped people, especially newly arrived immigrants
from Europe, deal with the pressures caused by the Great
Depression, World
War II, and the changing workplace and family life. People used to pray to him when
all else failed, and even today one might see newspaper classified
advertisements with prayers to St Jude. Jude is traditionally depicted
carrying the image of Jesus in his hand or close to his chest, betokening
the legend of the Image
of Edessa. Saint Jude is also the patron saint of the Chicago
Police Department.
St Jude's
day was in olden times in Britain always expected to be rainy. Chestnuts
are traditionally eaten today.
Apple peel custom
An old custom
has it that today one can peel an apple in one long strip and, turning
around three times with the peel in one's hand, one should say
St Simon and St Jude, on you I intrude
By this paring I hope to discover,
Without any delay, to tell me this day
The first letter of my own true lover.
When the peel
is dropped over the left shoulder it will fall as the initial letter of
one's lover-to-be; if it breaks, no marriage will ensue.
More
on St Jude More
on St Simon Legenda
Aurea: Lives of Saints Simon and Jude
Shop Saints
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days
Pre-1751, Lord Mayor's Day, London
Until 1751, the Lord Mayor of London was elected
on this day. See November
9 for post-1751 celebrations.
Last
Thursday in October, Punky Night, Hinton St George, England
Hinton St George, Somerset, England: a
celebration for children and adults who carry candle-lit punkies
(the best one wins a prize) [what
the hell is a punky? - PW] made out of mangel-wurzels,
a type of beet, and sing old punky songs. A note about
the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac
Last week of October, Pirates Week, Cayman Islands
"This is the islands' national festival and
takes place in the last week of October. Pirates Week consists
of colourful, free wheeling celebrations in the streets, family
oriented district days, costumed pirates and wenches, and
underwater and land based treasure hunts, which commemorate the
days when the Cayman Islands were the haunt of pirates and
buccaneers. At the beginning of Pirates Week, George Town comes
under siege and the pirates invade, arriving on a seventeenth
century replica of a Spanish galleon, as well as tall ships,
dive boats, submarines, and rowboats. There's no looting or
plundering but the invading pirates do fight the defenders of
the island, capture the governor and throw him in jail for the
week. The rest of the week is a series of special events
throughout the island, with all the locals and tourists alike
encouraged to dress up like their favorite pirate or wench. The
weekend street parties are wild affairs with live music, food
kiosks, beer tents, and more. So take a trip back in time to
when pirates pillaged and plundered, swashbuckling was a way of
life, and Blackbeard ruled the seas." Source
Oxi
Day, Greece
Oxi (pron. 'ochi') Day
is a
Greek public holiday commemorating the day in 1940 when Prime Minister Ioannis
Metaxas (Yannis Metaxas), although an admirer of Fascism and Nazism, said ochi (no) to the Italian ambassador
who demanded the right of Mussolini's forces to set up a military base
on Greek soil. War broke out between the two nations within hours.
Military parades are held throughout Greece today and towns are decked in
the blue and white national colours. School children also parade in
their home towns.
Tenrikyo Matsuri
Tenri City,
Japan, is the headquarters of the Tenrikyo sect of Shintoism. Today's
annual festival attracts hundreds of thousands of Shintoists.
Okunchi Matsuri (Oct 28 - 30)
The Okunchi
Matsuri is a festival held from October 28 - 30 at Karatsu Shrine, Karatsu.
It features a float or yamagasa
parade with fourteen floats, a custom dating back to 1819. Many of the
floats, including the papier-mâché red lion at the head of the parade,
date back to last century.
Mokosh Day,
Ukraine
"Mokosh was honored on the
Friday between Oct 25 and Nov 1. She was given offerings of vegetables.
One reference fixes this date on Oct 28."
Source
Disarmament
Week (UN) (Oct 24 - 30)
National Magic Week, USA
(Oct
25 - 31)
Czechoslovakia
gained its independence
from Austria-Hungary
(1918);
holiday in the Czech
Republic, Remembrance
Day in Slovakia.
Origins and folklore of Halloween,  in the Scriptorium
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
1585 Cornelius
Jansen (or Jansenius; died
of plague, May
6, 1638),
theologian, inspirer of the Jansenists.
He
had gained the favour of the Roman Catholic Church and was made
Bishop of Ypres,
Belgium, for a book he wrote, Mars Gallicus, that condemned
France as heretical
for siding with Protestant countries as a political measure against
Spain.
However,
an unfinished treatise
on the theology of St Augustine
of Hippo (Augustinus Cornelii Jansenii), published
posthumously (1640),
showed that the good bishop was (in the eyes of Jesuits, at least)
close to Protestantism
(Calvinist) by inclination. Jansenism emphasized original sin, human depravity, the
necessity of divine grace, and predestination. Therefore, on May 31, 1653, Pope Innocent X condemned Jansen as a
heretic.
1718 Ignacije Szentmartony (d. 1793), Croatian
geographer
1793 Eliphalet Remington (d. 1861), firearm
manufacturer
1794 Robert
Liston (d. December 7, 1847), Scottish physician
who performed the first operation in Britain on an anaesthetised
patient
More
1804 Pierre François Verhulst (d. February
15, 1849),
mathematician
and a doctor in number
theory
1846 Georges Auguste Escoffier,
French chef de cuisine of
the Carlton and Savoy hotels, London; 'the king of chefs and the
chef of kings'
 1848 Tasma
(Jessie Couvreur; d. October 23, 1897),
Australian lecturer, author (Uncle Piper of
Piper's Hill; The Penance of
Portia James) and journalist who took her pen-name from her home
in the State of Tasmania.
Following her European success as a novelist, she had a
successful life as a lecturer on Australia to audiences in Europe. From 1894 she was the Brussels
correspondent for the Times of London. The King of Belgium invited
her to talk with him about this subject at his palace. Her fame subsided,
quite a lot in the shadow of the better-known Bulletin
school of writers, which began in the 1880s and continued for several
decades. That school was at its peak in Australia in the mid-90s when
Tasma was at hers in Europe, thus she was eclipsed.
"...
Jessie Couvreur wrote on issues such as politics, economics and social
movements, as well as controversial issues such as divorce law reform,
women's suffrage and the abuse of women ...
"Tasma was also
an esteemed lecturer on Australia, so much so that she was awarded l'Ordre
des Palmes Academiques by the President of France, an award 'rarely
given to foreigners and even more rarely to women'." Source
"In her
lifetime, in the second half of the nineteenth century, Tasma, born
Jessie Huybers, married first to Charles Fraser, later to Auguste
Couvreur, was a famous woman. Her first novel, Uncle Piper of
Piper's Hill, was praised as 'the book of the year' when it
was published in London for Christmas 1888. After the publication in
1890 of her second novel, In Her Earliest Youth, the London Times
said she was 'surpassed by few British novelists'. She was
compared to George Eliot, described as the Australian Jane Austen, and
her characterisation was said to equal that of Charles Dickens ...
"For six years
before her second marriage, Tasma lived the life of a 'New Woman',
the independent woman then beginning to appear both in real life and in
fiction. From her base in Paris she earned her own living and was
involved in the radical issues of the day. An interviewer wrote, 'She
was not a woman to hide the light of her militant radicalism under a
bushel. When pressed to talk about her method of writing, she spoke
instead of the latest developments in collectivism, and made an
impassioned plea for the poor'." Source
Lawson & Co:
associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson Tasma,
by Patricia Clarke
See also Rosa Praed (1851
- 1835), another literary Australian in 1880s London
1875 Gilbert Grosvenor
(d. February
4, 1966),
editor
of the National
Geographic Magazine from 1903
to 1954.
He was the President of the National
Geographic Society (1920
- '54).
1879 EM Forster (d. 1970), novelist
1892 Dink Johnson (d. 1954), jazz
musician
1896 Howard Hanson, composer
1902 Elsa Lanchester (d. 1986), actress
1903 Evelyn Waugh (d. April
10, 1966),
British journalist and novelist
(The Loved One; Decline
and Fall; Brideshead
Revisited)
A
guide to his works
 1897 Edith Head (d. October 24,
1981), American costume designer, Hollywood
wardrobe mistress. She is both the most honoured costume designer
and woman in Academy Award
history to date. However, her involvement was often managerial and
her employees did much of the designing. Perhaps this is what she
meant when she said, "I've designed films I've never seen."
Head amassed an incredible 35 Academy Award
nominations, and won Oscars for The Heiress, Samson and Delilah
(both 1949), All About
Eve, A Place
in the Sun (1951), Roman Holiday
(1953), Sabrina
(1954), The Facts of
Life (1960), and The Sting (1973).
The Internet Movie Data Base
listing for Ms Head shows the grand sum of 429 movies on which
she worked.
These
include:
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982)
Rooster Cogburn (1975)
Great Waldo Pepper, The
(1975)
Airport 1975 (1974)
Ash Wednesday (1973)
Myra Breckinridge
(1970)
Barefoot in the Park
(1967)
Vertigo (1958)
Ten Commandments, The
(1956)
Search for Bridey
Murphy, The (1956)
Rear Window (1954)
Sunset Blvd (1950)
Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court, A (1949)
Notorious
(1946)
Pictured above: Audrey Hepburn meets designer Edith Head during Hepburn's first photo shoot at Paramount
Shop
Edith Head
1909 Francis Bacon, British painter
1912 Sir Richard Doll
(d. July
24, 2005),
British
epidemiologist
and physiologist
who proved the cigarette smoking-lung cancer connection
1914 Dr Jonas
Salk
(d. 1995), American immunologist, discoverer of polio vaccine
1916 Jack Soo
(d. 1979), Japanese-American
actor
1922 Simon
Muzend (d. 2003)a, Zimbabwean politician
1927 Cleo Laine (born
Clementina Campbell), British jazz singer and actress
1932 Suzy
Parker, actress
1937 Charlie Daniels, musician
1938 Anne
Perry, novelist
1939 Jane
Alexander, actress
1941 Hank B Marvin, English
lead guitarist of the (mainly) instrumental group The
Shadows, formed initially as a backing band for Cliff
Richard and probably Britain's most
influential band before the era of The Beatles
1944 Dennis
Franz, actor
1945
Wayne Fontana,
English musician, co-founder
of The Mindbenders
1948 Telma
Hopkins, singer
1949 Bruce
Jenner, athlete
1955 Bill
Gates, software tycoon, co-founder and Chairman of Microsoft
1967 Julia
Roberts, actress
1974
Joaquin Phoenix, Puerto Rican-born actor
Phew!!
Have a rest before the big This
day in history section
Send
a free e-card to friends and family for today's celebrations and any
topic
Do you forget
birthdays and anniversaries? Schedule
your cards
to be sent during the coming year.
Varies
Full
Moon Day
Varies
Friday
the 13th
Varies
Buddhist
e-cards
Varies Christian
e-cards
Varies Hindu
e-cards
Varies
Jewish
e-cards
Varies
Muslim
e-cards
Varies
Pagan
e-cards
Varies
Peace
e-cards
Varies
Friendship
e-cards
Varies
Bhai
Dooj
Varies
Eid
ul-Fitr
Varies
Hari
Raya
Varies
Sukkot
Varies Navratri
Varies
Karva
Chauth
Varies
Simchat
Torah
Varies
Durga
Puja
Varies
Daylight
Saving Time Begins
/ Ends
4th
Mon. in Oct. International
School Library Day
October
24 United
Nations Day
25 Say
"Hey" Day
25 Picasso
Day
26 Mule
Day
27 Boxer
Shorts Day
28 Chocolate
Day
28 Statue
Of Liberty Day, USA
29 The
Internet's Birthday
30 Candy
Corn Day
30 Bodybuilders'
Day
31 Halloween
31 Samhain
31 Magic
Day
November
1 All
Saints' Day
1 Nutty
Pecan Day
1 Play
A Game Of Chess Day
1 World
Vegan Day
1 Authors
Day
1 Cake
Appreciation Day
2 All
Souls' Day
2 "Practice
Being Psychic" Day
2 Deviled
Egg Day
2 Piggy
Bank Day
2 Admission
Day (North Dakota, USA)
3 Sandwich
Day
3 Tunnel
Day
3 Independence
Day (Panama)
4 Candy
Day
4 King
Tut Day
4 Mule
Day (Georgia)
4 Deer
Festival (Georgia)
4 Flag
Day (Panama)
5 Guy
Fawkes Day
5 Doughnut
Day
5 Guru
Nanak's Birthday
6 Halfway
Point Of Autumn
6 Peanut
Butter Lover's Day
6 I
Love Nachos Day
6 Saxophone
Day
7 Hug
A Bear Day
...
More
Events
Visit
the Blogmanac, where today's Almanac is 'live'
And
I hope you will sign my GuestMap
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
 If you are enjoying this page, click to
receive similar items daily with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac
ezine
Webmaster,
webmasters free content, or else articles at very reasonable rates
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your website or publication, on
application. Further details
306 Maxentius
was proclaimed Roman emperor.
312 Battle of Milvian Bridge:
Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated the
forces of Maxentius,
who was killed. Constantine converted himself and the empire to Christianity.
Maxentius drowned in the Tiber River.
1492 Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba.
1516 Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier
Sinan Pasha (d. April
3, 1596) defeated the Mameluks near Gaza.
1531 Battle
of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad
ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeated the army of Lebna
Dengel, Emperor
of Ethiopia. The southern part of
Ethiopia fell under Imam Ahmad's control.
1538
The first university
in the New
World, the Universidad
Santo Tomás de Aquino, was established.
1589
Convicted of devouring at least 15 people, including his own son, alleged German
werewolf
Peter Stubbe (Peter
Stump) was
broken on the breaking wheel, beheaded and burnt. From 1564 to 1589 Peter Stubbe stalked
the villagers of Bedburg, Germany,
where he was known as the
'Werewolf of Bedburg'.
1638 A large sum
of money (780 pounds) and 400 books from the estate of Mr John
Harvard (1607 - '38), a
clergyman, went to the college established in Cambridge, Massachusetts by
Puritans from England. The college later grew into
Harvard University.
1664
The
Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot,
later to be known as the Royal Marines, was established.
1668 Newgate prison,
England: Seventen-year-old Thomas Savage,
"A Profligate Apprentice who murdered a Fellow-Servant, was executed
twice, and finally buried 28th of October, 1668".
"Being brought to the place of execution at Ratcliff
Cross, he made a short speech, wherein he exhorted people, both old and young,
to take warning by his untimely end how they offended against the laws of God
and man. After which, having said a very pathetic prayer, and breathed forth
such pious ejaculations as drew tears from the eyes of the beholders, he was
turned off the cart, and struggled for a while, heaving up his body. Which a
young man, his friend, perceiving, he struck him several blows upon his breast
with all his strength, to put him out of his pain, till no motion could be
perceived in him. Wherefore after he had hung a considerable time, and was to
all appearance dead, the people moving away, the sheriff ordered him to be cut
down, when, being received into the arms of some of his friends, he was conveyed
into a house not far from the place of execution. There being laid upon a table,
he began, to the astonishment of the beholders, to breathe, and rattle in the
throat, so that it was evident life was whole in him. Hereupon he was carried
from thence to a bed in the same house, where he breathed more strongly, and
opened his eyes and mouth, though his teeth were set before, and he offered to
speak, but could not recover the use of his tongue.
"However, his reviving being blazed abroad within an hour, the
sheriff's officers came to the house where he was, and carrying him back to the
place of execution, hung him up again till he was really dead. After which his
body was carried by his mourning friends to Islington, and buried on 28th of
October, 1668, being seventeen years of age."
Source
1704 English empirical philosopher,
John Locke,
72, died at Oates, the home of Sir Francis Masham in High Laver, Essex.
His last words: "Cease now", addressed to Lady Masham, who sat at his
bedside reading the Psalms aloud.
1746 An earthquake
greatly damaged Lima
and Callao, in Peru.
"At least 5,000 persons were killed, many of them when a seismic seawave (tsunami) swept the coast. Because of the Lima earthquake, there is an annual
festival of the Miracle Christ in Peru, and to this day, the custom of wearing purple during the month of October is observed in commemoration of that event."
Source
List
of major earthquakes
1776 American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains – British forces arrived at White Plains,
attacking and capturing Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
1793 Eli Whitney patented the
cotton gin.
1794 Death of John
Smeaton, civil engineer.
1806
Death of English novelist and poet, Charlotte
Turner Smith (b. 1749). Early anarchist William
Godwin reported that in the late 1790s
Smith's house was a vital gathering place for radical intellectuals.
1829 St Mary's Cathedral was founded,
Sydney, Australia.
1831 English chemist and physicist, Michael Faraday, invented a device to create electrical energy by spinning a copper disc between the poles of a magnet.
1845 The first bowling green in Australia was set up at the rear of a hotel in Hobart,
Tasmania, by the publican William Turner.
1864 American Civil War: Second Battle of Fair Oaks ended – Union
forces under General Ulysses S Grant withdrew from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the
Confederate defences around Richmond, Virginia.
1868 Thomas
Edison applied for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.
1880 The murder trial of Australian bushranger
Ned Kelly
commenced in Melbourne.
1884 The Times of London reported that in a
life boat on the open sea, a cabin boy named Richard Parker had been
cannibalised by the three surviving crew members of the wrecked yawl Mignonette. In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe
had published a story called The
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym which told of a parallel set of
circumstances to the Mignonette's misfortune, in which a sailor was also eaten. His
name was Richard Parker.
"In the summer
of 1993, my parents took in three Spanish language students. My father told
them about Richard Parker one evening over supper … All conversation stopped
when a local programme started talking about the remarkable story. Dad went on
to break the silence by saying how weird coincidences always occur whenever
Richard's tale is mentioned. He told them about Edgar Allan Poe.
"Two of the
girls went white. 'Look what I bought today' said one. She reached into
her bag and pulled out a copy of the Poe story. "So have I!" said the other
girl. Both had gone shopping that day and independently bought the very same
book containing the Richard Parker story. And as if events are trying make
my story totally unbelievable my father told the same story to his language
class the following year. Again one of the girls pulled a copy of the Poe
book from out of her bag!"
Craig
Hamilton-Parker's grandfather's cousin was the real-life Richard Parker More
Essay on Pym by David Grantz Shop Poe
 1886 The
49-metre-tall statue of
'Liberty
Enlightening the World' was dedicated in New
York Harbor by President Grover
Cleveland. She was created by French sculptor and
Freemason,
Frédéric-Auguste
Bartholdi. It has been said that the face is that of his mother.
The
original idea of the Statue of Liberty was not received well by either the US federal nor
New York state governments. However, due to a campaign stated by publisher
Joseph Pulitzer, funds were raised for the American half of the bill in only
five months.
In Roman
mythology, Liberty is Libertas,
the goddess of freedom. Originally a deity of personal freedom, she evolved to
become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill
and the Forum.
She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure wearing a pileus
(a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a
spear.
 Libertas
was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to
the Freemasons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic
Republic, as much as a gift from France to America. The cornerstone of the
statue has an inscription that records that it was laid in a Masonic ceremony.
It is believed that Bartholdi conceived the original statue as an effigy of the
Egyptian goddess Isis,
and only later converted it to a 'Statue of Liberty' for New York Harbor
when it was rejected for the Suez Canal ...
Read
on at the Statue
of Liberty page in the Scriptorium
Masonry and the Statue of Liberty
1886 The ticker-tape parade was 'invented', in New York
City when office workers spontaneously threw ticker tape
into the streets as the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.
1893 The British Royal Navy's first destroyer, HMS Havock, went on trials.
1914 George Eastman of Kodak announced a colour photographic
process.
1916 The Australian Conscription Referendum, promoted by Billy
Hughes, seventh Prime Minister of Australia, was
defeated; the Labor Party split on the issue. (Hughes died on this day in 1952.)
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
1918 Czechoslovakia
gained its independence from Austria-Hungary.
1919 Prohibition
began: The United States Congress passed the Volstead
Act over President Woodrow Wilson's veto.
1922 March on
Rome: Italian
fascists led
by Benito Mussolini marched on Rome and took over the
Italian government.
1925 The court-martial began of General Billy Mitchell (1879 - 1936),
which led to the end of a military career for the man regarded as the father of the US Air
Force.
When the Navy dirigible Shenandoah crashed in a storm on September 3, 1925,
killing 14 of the crew, Mitchell issued a 6,000-word diatribe accusing senior leaders in the Army and Navy of
incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense".
He was court martialed, found guilty of insubordination
(the one officer voting not guilty was Douglas A MacArthur), and suspended from active duty for
five years without pay.
In
1946, President Harry
Truman posthumously bestowed a special medal on Mitchell in recognition of
his foresight in aviation. In 1955, the Air Force voided Mitchell's court-martial. His son
petitioned in 1957
to have the verdict set aside, which the Air Force denied while expressing
regret about the circumstances under which Mitchell's military career ended.
1936 US President Franklin Roosevelt rededicated the Statue
of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
1940 World War
II: Italy
invaded Greece.
Greek Prime Minister Ioannis
Metaxas (Yannis Metaxas) said "ochi" to Italy.
1942 The Alaska
Highway was completed.
1949 Georges
Bidault became Prime Minister of France for the
second time
1950
The Jack Benny Show,
starring comic Jack
Benny (1894 - 1974), premiered in the USA (it ran for 15 years).
1955 HMAS Melbourne,
an Australian aircraft carrier, was commissioned. It was cut up for scrap in
Japan in 1985.
1956 Elvis Presley appeared
for the second time on the Ed Sullivan Show.
1958 Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli became Pope and took the name
Pope John
XXIII, a position he
held until his death in 1963.
1958 The state opening of British parliament was televised for the
first time.
1961 Liverpool music
shop owner Brian Epstein was asked for a Beatles record, and his curiosity was
aroused.
Shop Beatles
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: It was confirmed
to the American public that Soviet
Union premier, Nikita
Khrushchev, had agreed to US President John
F Kennedy's demands about the
cessation of its nuclear missile program on Fidel
Castro's Cuba.
1965 Nostra
Aetate, the 'Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian
Religions' of the Second Vatican Council, was promulgated by Pope
Paul
VI.
1965 In St Louis, Missouri, USA, the 630-foot-tall
catenarian steel Gateway Arch was completed.
1968
USA: Fifteen members of the YIP (Youth International Party, or Yippies), including Abbie Hoffman and his
wife Anita, assembled in front of the US Armed Forces Recruiting Station in
Times Square, NYC. They distributed roses and leaflets that announced the
welcome of 'Hanoi Rose' from 'Tic Tok, North Viet Nam.' 'Hanoi
Rose', wearing an Oriental dress and speaking with the assistance of Yippie
Ken Lampe as her 'interpreter', gave a press interview and said that she
came to the US to "look the GIs in the eye".
1968 Australia's postal service, the Postmaster General, abolished
twice-daily mail deliveries. We still haven't forgiven them.
1969 BOAC (now British Airways) began its UK to Australia service.
1970 A land speed record was set by Gary
Gabelich in a rocket-powered vehicle called Blue Flame.
1970 Australia: Three people died in a train crash near Heathcote, a
southern suburb of Sydney.
1970 "US:
Senator James William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, accuses the tricky Nixon administration of conducting an illegal war
in Laos without congressional knowledge or approval. For several years, US planes were
engaged in an extensive bombing campaign of suspected Communist territory in
Laos, including the Ho Chi Minh trail, where supplies moved from North Vietnam
to forces in Laos & South Vietnam. In 1965, the CIA set up a charter airline
code-named Air America, to assist Laos' anti-Communist drug lords by
transporting raw opium for sale outside of Indochina. In 1970, despite congressional
criticism, the US steped [sic] up its bombing of eastern Laos & its military aid
to Laos' anti-Communist factions. See Al McCoy's 'The Politics of Heroin
in SE Asia', the best book on the
subject." Source
1977 The UN General Assembly censured Israel for establishing
settlements in the Occupied Territory.
1982 Felipe Gonzalez, 40, became the first Socialist prime minister
of Spain in a landslide election win.
1985 Former
Australian Prime Minister
Malcolm
Fraser was announced a member of the 'Commonwealth Group of Eminent
Persons', the task of which was to try to dissuade South Africa from its
apartheid policy.
1985 Australia: Laurie Brereton, the New South Wales Minister for Public Works,
announced that Sydney would soon be serviced by a monorail system. The
announcement and the construction which followed were hounded by considerable
protest from a large number of people who believed in their hearts that it was
possible to further uglify the city.
1986 The centennial of the Statue of Liberty's dedication was celebrated in New
York Harbor.
1988 Abortion: 48
hours after announcing it was abandoning RU-486, French
manufacturer Roussel Uclaf stated that it would resume distribution
of the drug, bowing to pressure from the government of France.
1988 In a BBC television program, Prince Charles attacked modern
English architecture.
1998
An Air China
jetliner was hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan. After
landing the plane safely, Yuan Bin was arrested.
2005 Plame
affair: Lewis
Libby, vice president Dick
Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted in the Valerie
Plame case. Libby resigned later that day.
Tomorrow: Raleigh executed
Main calendar
| Yesterday |
Tomorrow |
Search
Edith Head gives good wardrobe.
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.
Read more about today at Wilson's
Blogmanac
|
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Celtic
tree month of Ngetal
(Reed) commences (Oct 28
- Nov 24)
