Today in History

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 31 March
Ancient Rome: Festival of Luna, goddess of the full moon

1596 - Birth of René Descartes, French-Dutch philosopher ( Principia Philosophiae

1631 - Death of John Donne, English metaphysical poet

1809 - Birth of Bro. Edward FitzGerald, English translator (Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

1855 - Death of Charlotte Brontë, English author (Jane Eyre)

1914 - Birth of Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and poet, 1990 Nobel Prize

1926 - Birth of John Fowles, British novelist (Collector, French Lieutenant’s Woman)

1927 - Birth of Cesar Chavez, US farm labor leader (United Farm Workers)

Andrew Lang
Scottish author (The Blue Fairy Book)
(Born this day 1844)

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts
— for support rather than illumination

[Tamrin]

Monday, 1 April
April Fools’ Day (Noddy Day, Gowkie Day, Gowkin' Day)

1697 - Birth of the Abbé Prévost, French novelist, historian and journalist

1908 - Birth of Abraham H Maslow, US psychologist (humanistic psychology)

1922 - Birth of William Manchester, American author, biographer and historian

1926 - Birth of Anne McCaffrey, American fantasy and science fiction author

1929 - Birth of Milan Kundera, Czech-French novelist (Unbearable Lightness of Being)

1930 - Death of Zawditu, 1^st reigning female monarch of Ethiopia since Makeda

1940 - Birth of Wangari Muta Maathai, Kenyan environmental and social activist (Nobel Peace Laureate)

Edmond Rostand
French poet and dramatist (Cyrano de Bergerac)
(Born this day 1868)

A pessimist is a man who tells the truth prematurely

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 2 April
International Children's Book Day (Hans Christian Andersen born this day 1805)

1725 - Birth of Bro. Giacomo Casanova, Venetian soldier, spy, diplomat, writer and adventurer

1840 - Birth of Émile Zola, French novelist (Nana, J'Accuse)

1877 - Initiation of Bro. Lawrence Hargrave, Australian inventor in United Service Lodge of NSW (EC)

1891 - Birth of Max Ernst, German painter, sculptor, graphic artist and poet

1927 - Birth of Kenneth Tynan, British author and theatre critic

1948 - Birth of Joan D. Vinge, American science fiction author (The Snow Queen)

2008 - Death of Paul Arden, American author and inspirational speaker

George MacDonald Fraser
British author (Flashman)
(Born this day 1925)

There's a point, you know, where treachery is so
complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 3 April
Considered the least unlikely date of crucifixion (33 CE)

1593 - Birth of George Herbert, English metaphysical poet (5 Mystical Songs)

1822 - Birth of Edward Everett Hale, US clergyman and author (Man without a Country)

1837 - Birth of John Burroughs, US writer and nature enthusiast (Burroughs Medal namesake)

1880 - Birth of Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher (Sex and Character)

1934 - Birth of Jane Goodall, British primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist

1950 - Death of Carter G Woodson, American "father of black history"

2000 - Death of Terence McKenna, American writer and polymath

Graham Greene
British writer (Our man in Havana)
(Died this day 1991)

Sentimentality — that's what we call the sentiment we don't share

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 4 April
Ancient Rome: Megalesia (first day of festival honouring the Great Mother)

1507 - Ordination of Martin Luther as a Catholic priest (credited as Protestant founder)

1774 - Death of Oliver Goldsmith, Irish poet (She Stoops to Conquer)

1778 - Initiation of Bro. Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), Les Neuf Soeurs Lodge, Paris

1792 - Birth of Thaddeus Stevens (“The Great Commoner”), American abolitionist and anti-mason

1802 - Birth of Dorothea Dix, US social activist (drew attention to the treatment of mental inmates)

1928 - Birth of Dr. Maya Angelou, American poet, playwright and novelist

1968 - Murder of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., US civil rights leader

Edith Södergran
Swedish-speaking Russian-Finnish poet

My self-confidence comes from the fact that I have discovered my own
dimensions. It does not behove me to make myself smaller than I am

[Tamrin]

Friday, 5 April
Ancient Rome: Festival of Felicitas, honouring Fortuna, goddess of fate and fortune

1588 - Birth of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (Leviathan)

1765 - Death of Edward Young, English poet (Love of Fame)

1856 - Birth of Booker T. Washington, African-American political leader, educator and author

1886 - Initiation of Bro. Rudyard Kipling, Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 782 (EC), India

1917 - Birth of Robert Bloch, American horror writer (Psycho)

1964 - Death of Bro. Douglas MacArthur, US General (Pacific theater-WWII)

1997 - Death of Allen Ginsberg, US beat poet (Howl)

Bro. Georges-Jacques Danton
Prominenent French Revolutionary
(Executed this day 1794 for being too moderate)

In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 6 April
Ancient Greece: Festival of Artemis Soteira (Artemis the Saviour)

1741 - Birth of Bro. Nicolas Chamfort, French writer (Maximes et Pensées)

1806 - Birth of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese)

1928 - Birth of James D Watson, geneticist (co-discovered DNA, with Francis Crick)

1931 - Birth of Ram Dass (b. Richard Alpert), American consciousness author (Be Here Now)

1945 - Birth of Bob Marley, Jamaican Reggae musician/singer (Whalers — No Woman)

1992 - Death of Isaac Asimov, US academic and science fiction writer (I Robot)

2010 - Death of Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief of the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation (their first female Chief)

Richard the Lionheart
Crusader King of England
(Died this day 1199)

“Youth, I forgive thee!”

Dying words, said to Bertrand de Gourdon, who had
shot him with an arrow, while Richard besieged the
Castle of Chaluz. Then to his attendants he added,
"Take off his chains, give him 100 shillings, and let him go"

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 7 April
World Health Day (World Health Organisation established this day 1948)

1770 - Birth of William Wordsworth, English poet laureate (The Prelude)

1772 - Birth of F M Charles Fourier, French socialist philosopher (attractive work)

1836 - Death of William Godwin, English journalist, anarchist philosopher and novelist

1884 - Birth of Bronislaw Malinowski, Polish anthropologist (Argonauts of the Western Pacific)

1889 - Birth of Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Nobel laureate, poet, educator, diplomat and feminist

1931 - Birth of Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower

1939 - Birth of Sir David Frost, British journalist, comedian and writer

Francis Xavier
Spanish counter-Reformation Catholic missionary (co-founder of the Jesuits)
(Born this day 1506)

Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards

[Tamrin]

Monday, 8 April
Buddhist: Kambutsue, Buddha's birthday (Mahayana tradition)
Roma (Gypsy): Nation Day

0563 - BCE - Birth of Gautama Buddha (as celebrated in the Mahayana tradition)

1790 - The Grand Lodge of New Hampshire was instituted

1859 - Birth of Edmund Husserl, German mathematician and philosopher (Phenomenology)

1911 - Birth of Emil Cioran, Romanian philosopher and essayist

1945 - Hanging of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-fascist

1973 - Death of Pablo Picasso, Spanish-French painter (Guernica)

1981 - Death of Bro. Omar Bradley, last US 5 star General, (Normandy)

Glendon Swarthout
American writer (The Shootist)
(Born this day 1918)

I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid-a-hand on.
I don't do these things to other people and I require the same of them

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 9 April
US & England: Churchill Day (Bro. Churchill made an honorary US citizen, this day 1963)

1553 - Death of François Rabelais, French author (Gargantua/Pantagruel)

1626 - Death of Francis Bacon, English Renaissance polymath (New Atlantis)

1898 - Birth of Bro. Paul Robeson, US singer (Old Man River), actor and footballer

1905 - Birth of James W Fulbright, American Senator (Fulbright Scholarship)

1925 - Initiation of Bro. Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, Australian aviator, Gascoyne Lodge, WA

1929 - Birth of Prof. Fred Hollows, AC, NZ-born Australian ophthalmologist and anarcho-syndicalist

1930 - Birth of Nathaniel Branden, US psychotherapist, former Objectivist and writer

Elias Lönnrot
Finnish physician, linguist, philology and folklorist (Kalevala - national epic)
(Born this day 1802)

Dear my kinsman, friend fraternal, you my fairest foster-brother!
Come and sing with me in concord, let us sing and say together,
Since together we have got here coming from two different quarters!
Seldom do we see each other, rarely reap the fruits of friendship,
Here within these barren borders, in these careful Northern confines