Today in History

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 28 December
Childermas (Mass of the Holy Innocents)

1706 - Death of Pierre Bayle, French theologian (History of Criticism)

1859 - Death of Thomas Babington Macaulay, English essayist and historian

1882 - Birth of Sir Arthur Eddington, English astrophysicist, cosmologist and mathematician

1902 - Birth of Mortimer Adler, US philosopher, educator and author

1903 - Birth of John von Neumann, Hungarian-American-German mathematician (Game Theory)

1931 - Birth of Guy Debord, French situationist philosopher

1989 - Newcastle Earthquake, Australia (5.6 magnitude)

Roy Hattersley
British journalist, Labour-parliamentary leader
(Born this day 1932)

Familiarity with evil breeds not contempt but acceptance

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 29 December
Feast day of St Thomas à Becket (murdered this day 1170)

1809 - Birth of M. Ill. Bro. Bro. Albert Pike, US frontiersman, attorney, soldier, writer and Freemason

1809 - Birth of William Gladstone, FRS, British Prime Minister (four terms)

1894 - Birth of Christina Rossetti, English poet (Goblin Market)

1922 - Birth of William Gaddis, American author (The Recognitions)

1926 - Death of Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian writer

1937 - Death of Don Marquis, American playwright, novelist and poet ('Archy and Mehitabel)

1939 - Death of Bro. Madeleine Pelletier, French physician, psychiatrist and Freemason

M. Ill. Bro. Bro. Albert Pike
(Born this day 1809)

The practical object of Masonry is the physical and moral amelioration
and the intellectual and spiritual improvement of individuals and society

[Tamrin]

Friday, 30 December
Philippines: Rizal Day (celebrates the life of National Hero, Bro. José Rizal)

1837 - The Grand Lodge of Texas was instituted

1847 - Birth of John Peter Altgeld, German-US politician (Governor-IL)

1865 - Birth of Bro. Rudyard Kipling, Indian born British author (Jungle Book, Gunga Din)

1869 - Birth of Stephen Leacock, English born Canadian economist, writer and humorist

1879 - Birth of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Hindu philosopher, yogi (Maharshi Research Institute)

1942 - Birth of Vladimir Bukovsky, Russian neurophysiologist, political dissident and author

1961 - Birth of Douglas Coupland, Canadian novelist

Bro. Dr. José Rizal
Philippines' national hero, doctor, painter, sculptor, poet, dramatist and novelist
(Executed this day 1896)

It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal.
It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 31 December
New Year’s Eve

1384 - Death of John Wycliffe (Doctor Evangelicus), English religious reformer and bible translator

1691 - Death of Robert Boyle, FRS, Anglo-Irish chemist and author (The Sceptical Chymist)

1720 - Birth of Charles Edward Louis Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), pretender to the British throne

1880 - Birth of Bro. George C Marshall, US 5 star General, eponymous Marshall Plan (Nobel 1953)

1908 - Birth of Simon Wiesenthal, concentration camp survivor, Nazi hunter

1980 - Death of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian cultural philosopher

1991 - The Soviet Union officially dissolved

Samson Raphael Hirsch
German Rabbi (neo-Orthodox)
(Died this day 1888)

The prophet of the new message came into their midst with the cry of "religion allied
to progress"; he filled the blank, pacified their conscience and wiped out their shame.
With this magic word he turned irreligion into Godliness, apostasy into priesthood, sin
into merit, frivolity into virtue, weakness into strength, thoughtlessness into profundity

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 1 January
New Year’s Day

1854 - Birth of Sir James Frazer, FRS, British anthropologist, author (The Golden Bough)

1863 - Birth of Pierre de Coubertin, French Baron (revived Olympic games)

1879 - Birth of E M Forster, English novelist (Howard’s End, A Passage to India)

1895 - Birth of Bro. J Edgar Hoover, KBE, American founder of the FBI

1909 - Birth of Bro. Barry M Goldwater, US Senator & presidential nominee

1919 - Birth of J D Salinger, US author (Catcher in the Rye)

1992 - Death of Grace Hopper, US Admiral and computer scientist

Wilhelm Canaris
German Admiral, WWII head of military intelligence
(Born this day 1887)

I die for my fatherland. I have a clear conscience. I only did my duty
to my country when I tried to oppose the criminal folly of Hitler

[Tamrin]

Monday, 2 January
Sumeria: Nativity of Inanna, goddess of earth, queen of heaven
Ancient Egypt: Advent of Isis, celebrates her return to Egypt from Byblos (Gebal), Phoenician city of the Giblimites (stone-squarers), with the body of Osiris, found in and raised from an ashera (pillar of wood)

17CE - Death of Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid), Roman poet

17CE - Death of Titus Livius (Livy), Roman historian

1492 - Spain recaptures Granada from the Moors (Granada Day)

1866 - Birth of Gilbert Murray, Australian-born British classical scholar

1901 - Bro. Theodore Roosevelt, was made a Mason in Matincock Lodge #806, Oyster Bay, New York

1920 - Birth of Isaac Asimov, Russian-American scientist, author (I Robot, Foundation Trilogy)

1923 - Rosewood Massacre, Florida - Ku Klux Klan’s destruction of a black residential area

Jim Bakker
fraudulent American 'televangelist' (Praise The Lord ministry)
(Born this day 1939)

The more I studied the Bible, however, I had to admit that the prosperity message
did not line up with the tenor of Scripture. My heart was crushed to think that
I led so many people astray. I was appalled that I could have been so wrong,
and I was deeply grateful that God had not struck me dead as a false prophet!

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 3 January
Ancient Rome: Festival of Pax, goddess of peace (Our Lady of Peace)

0106 - BCE - Birth of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman and author (Academica)

1793 - Birth of Lucretia Coffin Mott, US, teacher, minister, abolitionist and feminist

1803 - Birth of Douglas William Jerrold, English dramatist and writer (Punch)

1870 - Birth of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, aka Henry Handel Richardson, Australian author

1892 - Birth of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, South African-born British writer (Lord of Rings)

1909 - Birth of Victor Borge, Danish piano-playing comedian

1945 - Death of Edgar Cayce (“the sleeping prophet”), American “psychic” (Disciples of Christ)

Father Damien the Leper (born Jozef De Veuster)
Belgian-born missionary priest (Molokai, Hawai’i)
(Born this day 1840)

Here I am a priest, dear parents, here I am a missionary in a corrupt, heretical, idolatrous country.
How great my obligations are! Ah! do not forget this poor priest running night and day over
the volcanoes night and day in search of strayed sheep. Pray night and day for me, I beg You

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 4 January
Roman Catholic: Memorial of Elizabeth Ann Seton, US saint, died this day 1821

1688 - European discovery of New Holland (Australia) by William Dampier, English privateer

1786 - Death of Moses Mendelssohn, Jewish-German philosopher (Haksalah)

1884 - Establishment of Fabian Society, London

1941 - Death of Henri Bergson, French philosopher (Le Rire, Nobel 1928)

1960 - Death of Albert Camus, French author (Stranger)

1965 - Death of T S Eliot, American-born English poet (The Waste Land)

1986 - Death of Christopher Isherwood, British writer (Lions & Shadows)

Bro. Charles Sherwood Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb
famous midget (Born this day 1838)
with his wife Lavinia: Also pictured is
Bro. Stratton’s Masonic apron (initiated 3 October 1862)

If the husband once give way to his wife's capricious sway,
for his breeches he next day may go to whoop and holloa

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 5 January
Twelfth Day Eve, or Epiphany Eve (& eve of the Epiphanios of the goddess Kore)

1474 - Banishment of François Villon, French poet, thief, murderer and vagabond

1769 - Birth of Jean Baptiste Say, French economist and businessman

1893 - Birth of Paramahansa Yogananda, Indian guru

1922 - Death of Sir Ernest Shackleton, Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer

1932 - Birth of Umberto Eco, Italian philologist and writer

1943 - Death of George Washington Carver, American botanist and inventor

1970 - Death of Max Born, German-British physicist (Nobel 1954)

Stella Gibbons
English journalist, poet and novelist, (Cold Comfort Farm)
(Born this day 1902)

It was curious that persons who lived what the novelists called a
rich emotional life always seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake

[Tamrin]

Friday, 6 January
Epiphany: Old Christmas Day (Twelfth day of Christmas), celebrates the Magi’s visit
Byzantium, Greece and Egypt: Epiphany of Kore and Days of Aeon

1412 - Birth of Joan of Arc, French martyr

1878 - Birth of Carl Sandburg, American poet(Rootabaga Stories)

1883 - Birth of Khalil Gibran, Lebanese mystic poet (The Prophet)

1911 - Birth of Joey Adams, American comedian (Friars’ Club)

1914 - Birth of John C Lilly, American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst and philosopher

1915 - Birth of Alan Watts, English writer (Book on the Taboo)

1931 - Birth of E.L. Doctorow, US novelist (World's Fair)

Heinrich Schliemann
German polyglot, archaeologist (Troy)
(Born this day 1822)

I have opened up a new world for archaeology