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fnordreetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day.


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Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson


 

 

 


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Carpe diem!

19


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Summer's last half moon waning high
Dims and curdles
James Merrill, 16.IX.65  

Let us to flowr'y meads repair, 
With deathless roses blooming, 
Whose balmy sweets impregn the air,
Both hills and dales perfuming. 
Since Fate benign our choir has join'd
We'll trip in mystic measure; 
In sweetest harmony combin'd
We'll quaff full draughts of pleasure. 
For us alone the pow'r of day
A milder light dispenses; 
And sheds benign a mellow'd ray
To cheer our ravish'd senses: 
For we beheld the mystic show,
And brav'd Eleusis's dangers."
We do and know the deeds we owe
To neighbours, friends and strangers.

Aristophanes, Ranae, Act 1. sc. i; the 'Chorus of the Initiated' at Eleusis; ancient paraphrase. The Greater Eleusinian Mysteries finished on this day.

Anatripsis (massage) can relax, brace, incarnate, attenuate: hard anatripsis braces, soft relaxes, much anatripsis attenuates, and moderate thickens.
Hippocrates of Kos, ancient Greek physician and scholar, c. 470 - 410 BCE, whose birthday is commemorated in Greece on this day; 'On surgery' (17)

The physician must be acquainted with many things and assuredly with anatripsis (massage), for things which have the same name have not always the same effects, for rubbing can bind a joint that is too loose, or loosen a joint that is too hard.
Hippocrates of Kos;  'On articulations' (9)

 International Talk Like a Pirate Day. See November 28 for Anne Bonney and Mary Read, who were convicted of piracy.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Monday, September 19, 1692.  About noon at Salem, Giles Corey was pressed to death for standing Mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the court and Capt. Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, but all in vain.
Judge Sewall; Giles Corey was one of 20 people executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692

Try stubbing out cigarettes with both feet while rubbing your back with a towel.
Chubby Checker, on how to do The Twist – his hit song entered the US charts on September 19, 1960

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910); today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
HL Mencken (1880 - 1956)

 

 

 

September 19 is the 262nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (263rd in leap years), with 103 days remaining.
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International Talk Like A Pirate Day

International Talk Like A Pirate Day, me hearties, be a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by two swashbuckling Yanks, John Baur ('Ol' Chum Bucket') and Mark Summers ('Cap'n Slappy'), who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when every bilge rat in the world should be talkin' like a pirate. For example, instead of "hello", an observer of this holiday would greet his mates with "Ahoy, me hearty!" each September 19.

Dave Barry, who writes a nationally-syndicated humour column, picked up the idea in 2002 and promoted the day. The day became "international" that same year when people in Australia learned of the holiday from Barry's column. By 2003, with the release of such pirate-flavoured films as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the holiday was established and celebrated by sea dogs and landlubbers alike the world over.

Source: Wikipedia

"When Sept. 19 rolls around and suddenly tens of thousands of people are saying "arrr" and "Weigh anchor or I'll give you a taste of the cap'n's daughter," it staggers us. They are talking like pirates -- not because two yahoos from the Northwestern United States told them to, but simply because it's fun."   Source

Talk Like a Pirate Day official UK Headquarters

 

 

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Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries

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Internet Sacred Text Archive CD-ROM

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Bunyan's Vanity FairStourbridge (or Stirbitch) Fair, for a fortnight in September, Stourbridge, England

If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair- keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers' fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and carting upon, and hardening the ground.
Daniel Defoe, Tour through Great Britain, 'Stourbridge Fair', 1724

This ancient fair started in 1211 with a grant from King John formalizing an annual fair held by the Leper Chapel of St Mary Magdalene at Steresbrigge, between August 24 and September 29. In 1589, King Henry VIII granted a charter to administer the fair to the magistrates and corporation of the University of Cambridge. The university vice chancellor had the same powers at the fair he had at the university, with the University controlling the weights and measures. In the 17th Century it was the largest fair in England, and at one time Stourbridge was the largest fair in Europe.

Stourbridge Fair was described by Daniel Defoe in 1724 as "not only the greatest in the whole nation but in the whole world".  In the drapers' section, called the "Duddery," it was said that over £100,000 worth of woollens had been sold in less than a week. By the mid-18th Century it had declined. Its importance dwindled even more thereafter and the fair was abolished in 1934.

The name came from a Cam tributary, the Stour, at the eastern end of the common. English Nonconformist author John Bunyan (1628 -
1688) used Stourbridge Fair as the model for Vanity Fair (pictured) in Pilgrim's Progress, which in turn prompted William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair.

 

Fast of Thoth, ancient Egypt
In the Alexandrian calendar, a one-day fast for the God of Wisdom and Magic.
Pennick, Nigel, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, 108

 

Greater Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient Greece (Sep 10 - 19)
Final day: "The initiates process along the Sacred Way, stopping at a sacred fig tree and crossing two bridges. At one of the bridges they encounter Baubo who tries to lighten Demeter's heavy mood by lifting up her skirts and making the goddess laugh. At the second bridge, they pass through some sort of challenge, which requires knowing a password. They enter the Initiation Hall and see the beatific vision."   Source

"The 9th and last day of the festival was called Plemo Choai, earthen vessels."
John Lempriere (c. 1765 - February 1, 1824), Bibliotheca Classica or Classical Dictionary (1788), Hippocrene Books, 1986

Source   A note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac

"The last day of the Great Mysteries at Eleusis was devoted to plenty in its liquid form. This was the day … of the Plemochoai, the 'pourings of plenty'. So called, also, were the two unstable circular vases that were set up for this ceremony. The writer who is our source on this point (Athenaios 496 B) cites a line from a tragedy according to which the Plemachoai were poured into a cleft in the earth, a chthonion chasma … One vessel was set up in the east, and the other on the west side, and both were overturned. The liquid with which they had been filled is not named."
Carl Kerenyi, Eleusis, Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (August 12, 1991)   Source

"Numerous and important were the advantages supposed to redound to the initiated, from their being admitted to partake of the [Eleusinian] mysteries, both in this life and that which is to come. First, They were highly honoured, and even revered, by their contemporaries. Indeed, they were looked upon as a kind of sacred persons: they were, in reality, consecrated to Ceres and Proserpine. Secondly, They were obliged by their oath to practice every virtue, religious, moral, political, public, and private. Thirdly, They imagined, that sound advice and happy measures of conduct were suggested to the initiated by the Eleusinian goddesses … Fourthly, The initiated were imagined to be the peculiar wards of the Eleusinian goddesses. These deities were supposed to watch over them, and often to avert impending danger, and to rescue them when beset with troubles … Fifthly, The happy influences of the teletae, were supposed to administer consolation to the Epoptae, in the hour of dissolution; for says Isocrates, 'Ceres bestowed upon the Athenians two gifts of the greatest importance; the fruits of the earth, which were the cause of our no longer leading a savage course of life; and the teletae, for they who partake of these entertain more pleasant hopes both at the end of life and eternity afterwards' …Sixthly, After death, in the Elysian fields, they were to enjoy superior degrees of felicity …"
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1810 Edition; 'Mysteries'

 

Commemoration of the birth of the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates of Kos, Greece
Celebrate life and health; send a thank-you note to someone who has helped you heal.

Circensian games, ancient Rome  (Apr 12 - 19; Sep 4 - 19)

Ginger Festival, at Daijin Shrine, Tokyo, Japan (Sep 11 - 21)  

Blessed Rainy Day, Bhutan
Source: The
Phoenix and Arabeth 1992 Calendar

Autumn Equinox festival at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico (Sep 17 - 26)

Feast day of St Acutius

Feast day of St Alphonsus de Orozco

Feast day of St Arnulph

Feast day of St Constantia

Feast day of St Desiderius

Feast day of St Dorymedon

Feast day of St Elias

Feast day of St Emily de Rodat

Feast day of St Eutychius, Bishop of Tours

Feast day of St Felix

Feast day of St Festus

Feast day of St Goeric

Feast day of St Hugh of Sassoferrato

 

Martyrdom of Januarius, by PesceFeast day of St Januarius (San Gennaro) Bishop of Benevento, and his companions, martyrs

The patron saint of blood banks, Naples and volcanic eruptions, Januarius (or, Gennaro) was martyred in the Diocletian persecution. He was the Bishop of Benvenuto. His head and a glass phial of his blood are preserved in a cathedral of Naples, where eighteen times a year the blood is shown publicly, having miraculously liquefied. The blood relic has been known since 1389, more than a millennium after the saint's death.

No mention of the liquefying blood was made until 1389, when on August 17, the phenomenon was first reported, by an anonymous traveller.

The 18 days on which the liquefaction takes place annually include his saint's day (September19), the Saturday before the first Sunday in May, and December 16.

Diocletian had him roasted in a furnace, but he survived; he then set wild beasts on him, but they licked his feet. Then Januarius's head was severed, and a woman collected two phials of his blood. Later, the ghost of Januarius directed a Neapolitan to find the severed head in a thicket. When the head and body were reunited, the woman approached with the solidified blood, which re-liquefied. On the appointed days, it has done so ever since. Or, so it is said.

"[Y]esterday's ceremony, which marked the 1,700th anniversary of the martyrdom of San Gennaro, was overshadowed by a claim made by an Italian scientist that the liquefaction was nothing but a fake.

"Margherita Hack, an astrophysicist, said: 'There is nothing mystical about this. You can make the so-called blood in your kitchen at home.'

"Professor Hack and fellow scientists at the Italian Association for the Study of the Paranormal said that the phial contained 'an iron-based chemical compound dating from medieval times'.

"The dark brown gel was solid until shaken , when it liquefied. Professor Hack said that the compound was hydrated iron oxide, or FeO (OH), which had the characteristics of blood.

"Her report has caused outrage in Naples. Marchese Pierluigi Sanfelice, an aristocrat who is one of the official guardians of the phial and takes part in the liquefaction ceremony, said that the Church had conducted tests on the phial in the 1980s which showed that its contents included haemoglobin, the key pigment in blood corpuscles."   Source

Feast day of St Lucy, virgin
(Devil's bit scabious, Scabiosa succisa, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
This Lucy's
cultus was suppressed in 1969 due to the untrustworthy nature of her history, and she is no longer in the Roman Catholic calendar.

Feast day of St Mary de Cerevellon

Feast day of St Nilus

Feast day of Ss Peleus, Pa-Termuthes, and companions, martyrs
They were enslaved in a rock quarry and martyred in the persecution of Diocletian.

Feast day of St Proculus

Feast day of St Sabbatius

Feast day of St Sequanus, or Seine, abbot

Feast day of St Sosius

Feast day of St Susanna

Feast day of St Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury
Commemorated in the Church of England. Theodore (602 - September 19, 690) was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was born at Tarsus in Cilicia (in present-day Turkey).

Feast day of St Trophimus

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days

Day of the Glories of the Army, Chile

Feast of San Gennaro, New York, USA (c. Sep 11 - 22)

Independence Day, Saint Kitts and Nevis (from the United Kingdom, 1983)

Women's Suffrage Day, New Zealand

A world chronology of women's suffrage    US chronology    Louisa Lawson, Australian suffragette

 

Mumia Awareness Week (Sep 19 - 25)

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook, 1954) is a black American journalist and political activist. He is most famous for his 1982 conviction and death sentence on charges of murder, and for the large subsequent campaigns for and against him.

Source of date and info: The Daily Bleed    Mumia is still the issue (ZNet, August 29, 2005)

Eleven Days of Global Unity (Sep 11 - 21 annually)

 

 

 

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

86 Antoninus Pius (d. 161), Roman Emperor

866 Leo VI (d. 912), Byzantine Emperor

1377 Duke Albert IV of Austria (d. 1404)

1551 King Henry III of France (d. August 2, 1589)

1737 Charles Carroll of Carrollton (d. 1832), Declaration of Independence signatory, US Senator

1759 William Kirby (d. 1850), English entomologist

1828 Fridolin Anderwert (d. 1880), Swiss Federal Councillor

1839 George Cadbury, third son of Quaker John Cadbury, the founder of Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company, now part of the TNC (transnational corporation) Cadbury-Schweppes.

With his brother Richard he took over the family business in 1861 and in 1878 they acquired 14 acres of land in open country, four miles south of Birmingham where they opened a new factory in 1879. Over the following years more land was acquired and a model village was built for his workers which became known as Bournville.

1867 Arthur Rackham (d. September 6, 1939), British book illustrator – Rip van Winkle (1905), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"Rackham was born in London in 1867. He began to draw at a very young age and became a full time artist at the age of 25 working at the Westminster Budget. His very early illustrations gave no indication of the fancy that was to come. It was with the publication of the Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch in 1896 that the style that made Rackham famous first began to emerge, but it was the appearance of his Rip Van Winkle in 1905 that set Rackham upon his course to fame. Beginning with Rip Van Winkle, Rackham produced a series of lavishly illustrated books, most of which were published in signed/limited editions as well as in cloth bound trade editions."   Source

Arthur Rackham Society    Online gallery

1869 Ben Turpin, cross-eyed American silent film comedian. As a gag, Turpin had his eyes insured by Lloyd's of London in case they might come uncrossed.

St Ben Turpin

1894 Rachel Field, American novelist (All This and Heaven Toomovie)

"Rachel Field was born in New York City, grew up in western Mass., and summered as an adult on Sutton's Island, one of the Cranberry Isles off of Mount Desert. Although she died in her 40s, after an operation, she was a prolific writer of children's and adult books, and she was the first woman to win the Newbery Medal, for Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (1929)."   Source

Newbery Medal

1901 Joe Pasternak (d. 1991), Hungarian-born American film director in Hollywood

1904 Dr Bergen Evans (d. 1978), American lexicographer and educator, question supervisor for $64,000 Question

1905 Leon Jaworski (d. 1982), Watergate scandal special prosecutor

1908 Mika Waltari (d. 1979), novelist

1909 Ferry Porsche (d. 1998), automobile pioneer

1910 Jesse Lasky Jr (d. 1988), screenwriter

1911 Sir William Golding (d. 1993), British author; winner of the Nobel prize for Literature, 1983 (Lord of the Flies; The Inheritors)

1912 Kurt Sanderling, conductor

1913 Frances Farmer (d. 1970), actress

1919 Mary Midgley, philosopher

1921 Paulo Freire (d. May 2, 1997), Brazilian educator and influential theorist of education

1922 Damon Knight (d. 2002), science fiction writer

1928 Adam West, American actor

1928 William Hickey (d. 1997), actor

1930 Antonio Margheriti, film director

1931 Brook Benton (d. 1988), singer

1932 Mike Royko (d. 1997), columnist

1933 David McCallum, Scottish actor (Ilya Kuyakin in TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

1934 Brian Epstein (d. August 24, 1967), manager of The Beatles. Epstein worked in his family's record store in Liverpool. In the early 1960s, he visited the local Cavern Club to see The Beatles perform, and soon became their manager. In 1967, while his lads were at the peak of fame, he died by his own hand.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1935 Benjamin T Hacker RAdm. USN (d. 2003), naval aviator

1940 Bill Medley, singer

1940 Paul Williams, composer

1940 Zandra Rhodes, British fashion designer

1941 'Mama' Cass Elliot (d. July 29, 1974), singer with the The Mamas & the Papas

She didn't choke to death on a ham sandwich   Important dates in the career of the Mamas and Papas

1942 Freda Payne, singer, actress

1945 Randolph Mantooth, actor

1947 Steve Bartlett, former US Congressman and Mayor of Dallas, Texas

1948 Jeremy Irons, Oscar-winning English actor, born on the Isle of Wight. He worked as a busker before gaining attention in West End production of Godspell; he was in the TV classic Brideshead Revisited. Movies: Betrayal; Dead Ringers; Oscar for Reversal of Fortune.

1949 Twiggy Lawson (née Lesley Hornby), fashion model, known for her thinness. In the swinging 60s, she was the world's most famous model. She has acted in several movies, notably Ken Russell's 1971 film version of The Boyfriend and also Madame Sousatzka.

1950 Joan Lunden, journalist, television host

1952 Nile Rodgers, musician, composer

1956 Rex Smith, actor

1958 Kevin Hooks, actor, director

1958 Lita Ford, singer

1964 Trisha Yearwood, American singer

1964 Patrick Marber, British playwright

1965 Alexandra Vandernoot, Belgian actress

1965 Cheri Oteri, American actress and comedian

1966 Soledad O'Brien, American journalist

1966 Eric Robert Rudolph, American criminal

1969 Tapio Wilska, Finnish singer

1970 Victor Williams, American actor

1970 Yuka Imai, Japanese seiyu (voice actress)

1970 Takanori Nishikawa, Japanese pop/rock star

1974 Jimmy Fallon, American actor and comedian (Saturday Night Live)

1974 Victoria Silvstedt, Swedish model

1977 Ryan Dusick, American drummer (Maroon 5)

1978 Michelle Alves, Brazilian supermodel

1979 Dannielle Brent, British actress

1980 Tegan and Sara Quin, Canadian singer/songwriters

1987 Danielle Panabaker, American actress

1990 Patrick Breeding, of the boy band, B5

 

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September

19 Thank You Day
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October

1 World Vegetarian Day
1 Independence Day (Nigeria)
1 Pumpkin Day
1 International Day Of Older Persons
1 National Day (China)
2 Name Your Car Day
2 Mahatma Gandhi's Birthday
2 World Farm Animals Day
4 Taco Day
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4 St Francis Day

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7 Send A Smile Day
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7 Frappe Day
8 Tube Top Day

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335 Dalmatius was raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle, Constantine I.

690 Death of Theodore of Tarsus (b. 602), Archbishop of Canterbury.

1356 The English, led by Edward, the Black Prince, defeated the French at the Battle of Poitiers.

1513 Spanish conquistador, Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475 - 1519), became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, from the Panamanian coast.

1665 The Great Plague of Britain reached its greatest destructiveness in the week ending on this day. Ten thousand died in this week; about 100,000 died altogether. It is generally believed to have been bubonic plague, an infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis transmitted via a rat vector.

"Whole streets seemed to be desolated, and not to be shut up only, but to be emptied of their inhabitants; doors were left open, windows stood shattering with the wind in empty houses, for want of people to shut them ..."
Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days)    Pandemic News (popup)

 

1692 Salem witch trials: Giles Corey (aka Choree, or Cory), an 80-year-old farmer, was pressed to death (his body piled with heavy stones) after having been brought before the court to plead to his indictment for witchcraft (he was accused of being a wizard), but refused to do so, or stood 'mute'. He then became one of twenty people executed in the Salem, Massachusetts witch hysteria period. 

None of the victims of the witch trials was burned, as is sometimes imagined; all were hanged, with the exception of Corey.

Technically, Corey was not executed but tortured, for under both English and New English law a man who refused to answer could not be tried. In such cases, 'peine forte et dure', or torture, could be applied. Such torture was not abolished in England until 1772.

"Corey was stripped naked, a board placed on his chest, and then heavy stones piled on top. The pressing lasted for two days, until Corey finally died of suffocation. The magistrate stopped the torture occasionally in order to hear anything Corey might wish to confess. 'More weight,' was all Giles Corey would say."   Source  

More on pressing

1710 Death of Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer (b. 1644).

1777 First Battle of Saratoga/Battle of Freeman's Farm/Battle of Bemis Heights.

1778 The Continental Congress passed the first budget of the USA. Montgolfier

1783 Watched by France's King Louis XVI, the Montgolfier Brothers, Joseph and Jacques, tested altitude on living creatures by sending aloft in a balloon a sheep, a rooster and a duck. The rooster did not survive the landing.

1796 George Washington's Farewell Address

1798 Isaac Nichols became the first recorded hotel licensee in Australia.

1799 "All England" saw a UFO, as reported in Gentleman's Magazine:

"On Sept. 19 [1799], all England saw, at 8:30 p.m., a beautiful ball blazing with white light, and which passed from N.W. to S.E. It moved rapidly with a gentle tremulous motion, and noiselessly. The light cast by it was very vivid, and few red sparks detached themselves from it ... On Nov. 12, something like a large red pillar of fire passed north to south over Hereford, and alarmed people in the Forest of Dean, dome [sic] miles away. Flashes of extremely vivid electrical sort preceded its appearance, and at intervals of half an hour, several hours before. This was at 5:45 a.m ... On this night the moon shone with uncommon vividness, when between 5 and 6 a.m., bright lights in the sky became stationary. They then burst with not perceptible report, and passed north leaving behind them beautiful trains of floating fire. Some were pointed, some radiated. Some sparkled and some had large columns ... Nov. 19, at 6 a.m., folk of Huncoates, Lincolnshire, were alarmed by vivid flashes lasting 30 seconds, from a ball of fire passing in the sky."
Harold T Wilkins, Flying Saucers on the Attack   Source


1819
It was such a beautiful autumn day, that English poet John Keats was inspired to take out pen, pad and ink, and write one of the best-loved poems in English, Ode to Autumn.

'Ode to Autumn'

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


1846 Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette – an apparition of the Virgin Mary that allegedly appeared to two shepherd children, Maximin Giraud and Melanie Calvat, near La Salette near Grenoble, France.

Marian apparitions    Shrines to the Virgin Mary

1862 American Civil War: Battle of Iuka, Mississippi, USA: Union troops under General William Rosecrans defeated a Confederate force commanded by General Sterling Price.

1863 American Civil War: Battle of Chickamauga.

1876 American inventor Melville Bissell patented the carpet sweeper.

1881 James Garfield, 20th President of the United States, who was shot on July 2, 1881, died. He held the office of 20th US president for just four months.

"On July 2, 1881, in a Washington railroad station, an embittered attorney who had sought a consular post shot the President.

"Mortally wounded, Garfield lay in the White House for weeks. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, tried unsuccessfully to find the bullet with an induction-balance electrical device which he had designed. On September 6, Garfield was taken to the New Jersey seaside. For a few days he seemed to be recuperating, but on September 19, 1881, he died from an infection and internal hemorrhage."   Source

1888 The world's first beauty contest took place in Belgium and was won by 18-year-old Bertha Soucaret of Guadeloupe.

1890 Sydney, Australia: Maritime Strike of 1890 – Striking unionists were attacked at Circular Quay by police. It was today that the Treasurer of New South Wales, William McMillian, earned the nickname 'Machine Gun' McMillan, though machine guns were neither used nor even dispatched, as they had been in Melbourne on August 30.

"On 19 September, town 'blades' and defiant graziers drove bullock teams of wool bales to the Quay through crowds of unemployed, strikers and onlookers who responded with cheers, cat-calls, stones; an attempt to cut lines to the teams and unorganised abuse. The Riot Act was 'read' twice at the Quay since the crowd would not disperse when ordered to. The first 'mumbling' of the Act completed, the mounted police charged the crowd and bedlam followed. ... What is common and borne out by the on-the-spot drawings are the panic stricken bystanders trying to escape the plunging, rearing horses, while a number of verbal accounts refer to swords drawn against individuals, the 'extreme' viciousness of the constables, and the continuing attack and counterattack through the lanes and back streets around the Quay for some hours afterwards. McMillan received his sobriquet 'Machine-Gun' at this time, many people believing that he ordered out a detachment of these weapons to mow the crowd down should they show any fight during the procession of wool to the Quay."   Source

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson

 

Kate Sheppard1893 Women's suffrage: In New Zealand, the Electoral Act of 1893 was consented to by the governor giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote, with that country becoming the first nation to do so. Cook Islands women went to the polls first, on October 14. See also Kate Sheppard (pictured).

"The issue of women's suffrage was forced into prominence in New Zealand by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, led by Kate Sheppard. Sheppard (born in 1848) was one of the first female cyclists and a firm believer in equality of status in marriage. As head of the Temperance Union she proved to be a persistent and determined campaigner for women's political emancipation. Sheppard's efforts were aided by the politician Sir John Hall, who advocated feminist views in parliament, and provided support and astute advice to the Temperance Union."   Source

"Although a number of other territories had enfranchised women before 1893, New Zealand can justly claim to be the first self-governing nation to grant the vote to all adult women."   Source: History of the Vote: Votes for Women

A world chronology of women's suffrage    US chronology

Early progressives in the Book of Days   Louisa Lawson, Australian suffragette

 

1900 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid committed their first robbery together.

1934 Bruno Hauptmann was arrested in New York and charged with kidnapping the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator.

1944 An armistice between Finland and Soviet Union was signed. (End of the Continuation War.)

1945 UK: 'Lord Haw-Haw' (William Joyce) was sentenced to death in London for treason.

1952 The US barred Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England.

1955 Juan Perón was deposed by a military coup in Argentina.

1957 The first American underground nuclear bomb test was conducted.

1960 Chubby Checker's hit song, 'The Twist', entered US charts.

1967 When the rock group The Who ended their performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour US TV show, an explosion burned and deafened guitarist Pete Townshend. Drummer Keith Moon had put too much flashpowder in his drum kit.

Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1970 The Rolling Stones released Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert. It reached Number 1 in the UK and Number 6 in the USA, where it went platinum.

1970 The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, UK.

1972 A parcel bomb sent to the Israeli Embassy in London killed one diplomat.

1973 King Carl XVI Gustaf (b. 1946) acceded to the throne of Sweden.

1974 USA intelligence sources revealed that striking Chilean labor unions, instrumental in destabilizing the Salvador Allende government, were secretly bankrolled by the CIA. Allende was deposed by Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973.   Source

1981 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel (Simon and Garfunkel) reunited after 11 years for a concert in New York's Central Park, with an audience of 400,000.

1982 Scott Fahlman posted the first recorded instance of the smiley emoticon :-) to an online bulletin board.

The first :-) Smiley

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E Fahlman             :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman
 
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
        
:-)
        
Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
        
:-(

1983 Saint Kitts and Nevis gained independence.

1985 Mexico City was struck by Mexico's worst earthquake in a century, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale, with the loss of thousands of lives.

1989 A terrorist bomb exploded a Union de Transportes Aùriens DC-10 Series 30 in mid-air above the Tùnùrù Desert, Niger, killing 171.

 

Click for online Otzi

1991 German tourists, Helmut and Erika Simon discovered Ötzi the Iceman (the modern nickname of a well-preserved natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BCE at about 3,200 m (about 10,500 ft) in a glacier of the Ötztaler Alps on the border between Austria and Italy.

More

1995 The Washington Post published the Unabomber's manifesto.

1997 Guelb El-Kebir massacre in Algeria; 53 killed.

2001 Commencement of combatant activities in Afghanistan (the date designated by USA President George W Bush in Executive Order 13239 of December 12, 2001).

2003 Musician Elliott Smith played his final concert at Redfest in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, only weeks before his suicide.

2007 Shinzo Abe, the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, announced his resignation, effective September 19.

 

Tomorrow: Omens at Alexander's birth

 

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fnord norton


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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