Today in History

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 7 January
Ethiopian Coptic Church: Ganna Christmas (blessing the children)

1610 - Galileo discovers 1st 3 Jupiter satellites, Io, Europa & Ganymede

1618 - Francis Bacon, philosopher, became Lord Chancellor of England

1800 - Birth of Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States

1925 - Birth of Gerald Malcolm Durrell, OBE Britain, zoologist and writer (My Family and Other Animals)

1928 - Birth of William Peter Blatty, American screenwriter and novelist (The Exorcist)

1975 - AR Ammons, US writer, received Bollingen Prize for poetry (Sphere)

1990 - Tower Of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far

Charles "Chas" Samuel Addams
American cartoonist (The Addams Family)
(Born this day 1912 — Centenary of his birth)

Sometimes people have had terrible childhoods. And sometimes they just haven't found
their special place in life. And sometimes they're dogs from hell and must be destroyed

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 8 January
Ancient Rome: Feast day of Justitia, goddess of justice
North-east Greece / Macedonia: Gynaecocratia, reversal of gender roles[/b]

1642 - Death of Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist and astronomer

1823 - Birth of Alfred Russel Wallace, British zoologist, co-discoverer (natural selection)

1844 - Establishment of the Grand Lodge of Iowa

1880 - Death of H.I.M. Bro. Norton I, “Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico”

1902 - Birth of Carl Rogers, US psychologist (Client-Centered Therapy)

1941 - Death of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, British founder of the Scouting movement

1942 - Birth of Stephen Hawking, English physicist (Black Holes & Baby Universes)

Marco Polo, Venetian merchant & explorer (China)
(Died this day 1324)

I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men
might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said
in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen,
Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco,
son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice

[Tamrin]

Monday, 9 January
Ancient Egypt: Festival of Isis

1757 - Death of Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, French science writer

1859 - Birth of Carrie Chapman Catt, American women's rights leader (League of Women Voters)

1902 - Birth of Josemaría Escrivá, Spanish author and religious leader (Opus Dei)

1908 - Birth of Simone de Beauvoir, France, author (Mandarins, The Second Sex)

1941 - Birth of Joan Baez, US folk singer and human rights advocate

1946 - Death of Countee Cullen, US poet (Harlem Renaissance)

1947 - Death of Karl Mannheim, Hungarian-German-British Sociologist (Diagnosis of Our Time)

Caroline Herschel
German-British astronomer (1st female hon. member of the Royal Society)
(Died this day 1843)

However long we live, life is short, so I work. And however important man becomes, he is
nothing compared to the stars. There are secrets, dear sister, and it is for us to reveal them

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 10 January
Commemoration of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (beheaded this day 1645)

1429 - Order of the Golden Fleece established in Austria-Hungary & Spain

1778 - Death of Carolus Linnæus "Carl von Linné," Swedish "Father of Taxonomy"

1834 - Birth of Sir John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton, English statesman

1887 - Birth of John Robinson Jeffers, American poet (Give Your Heart to the Hawks)

1917 - Death of Bro. William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, US solier, bison hunter and showman

1946 - The first General Assembly of the United Nations met in London

1984 - US establishes full diplomatic relations with Vatican after 117 years

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
(Beheaded this day 1645)

Some hypocrites and seeming mortified men, that held down their heads,
were like the little images that they place in the very bowing of the vaults
of churches, that look as if they held up the church, but are but puppets

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 11 January
Scotland: Auld New Year

1755 - or 1757 - Birth of Alexander Hamilton, American politician, statesman, lawyer and soldier

1839 - Birth of Bro. Eugenio María de Hostos, Puerto Rican independence advocate

1842 - Birth of William James, US psychologist and philosopher

1885 - Birth of Alice Paul, US feminist, ERA advocate and founder of the National Woman's Party

1887 - Birth of Aldo Leopold, founder of the Wilderness Society

1903 - Birth of Alan Paton, South African author and anti-apartheid activist

1928 - Death of Thomas Hardy, English son of an operative master mason, novelist and poet

(Depiction of Newton by William Blake)

Sir Isaac Newton, FRS & PRS
English mathematician and scientist
(Elected to Royal Society this day 1672)

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such
as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 12 January
Anglo-Saxon: Day of Frigg (the All-Mother)

1628 - Birth of Charles Perrault, French compiler of fairy tales (Cinderella; Sleeping Beauty)

1797 - Birth of Bro. Edmund Burke, Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and philosopher

1829 - Death of Friedrich von Schlegel, German poet, critic and scholar

1863 - Birth of Vivekananda, Hindu religious leader, reformer

1965 - Death of Lorraine Hansberry, African-American author and playwright

1976 - Death of Agatha Christie, British mystery writer (10 Little Indians)

1990 - Death of Laurence J Peter, author (Peter Principle)

Howard Stern
US media personality (“shock jock”)
(Born this day 1954)

I still feel like I gotta prove something... There are a lot
of people hoping I fail. But I like that. I need to be hated

[Tamrin]

Friday, 13 January
Old New Year: Orthodox New Year’s Day under the Julian calendar (Gregorian 13/14 January)

1599 - Death of Edmund Spenser, English poet (Faerie Queene)

1691 - Death of George Fox, English founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

1818 - The Grand Lodge of Indiana was instituted

1866 / 1877 - Birth of George Gurdjieff, Greek-Armenian-Russian mystic

1926 - Birth of Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, American feminist author

1927 - Birth of Sydney Brenner, FRS, British Biologist and Nobel Laureate

1941 - Death of James Joyce, Irish novelist and poet (Ulysses)

Antoinette Bourignon
Flemish mystic, French religious fanatic
(Born this day 1616)

I am pure nothing; but God is everything in me.
He teaches me, he works, he speaks in me,
without nature contributing more than the mere tool,
as a brush contributes to the art of a beautiful painting

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 14 January
Old England: Feast of the Ass (commemorates the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt)

1875 - Birth of Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian doctor, humanitarian, organist (Nobel 1952)

1896 - John Dos Passos, US novelist and artist (One Man's Initiation)

1898 - Death of Charles L. Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), English author, mathematician, logician

1921 - Birth of Murray Bookchin, American anarchist, libertarian socialist speaker and writer

1925 - Birth of Yukio Mishima, Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director

1940 - Birth of Julian Bond, US civil rights leader, politician, professor and writer

1994 - Death of Federica Montseny, Spanish anarchist Minister of Health (1936)

Martin Niemöller
German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor
(Born this day 1892)

In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 15 January
Martin Luther King’s Birthday (1929)

1535 - Henry VIII declares himself head of English Church

1622 - Baptism of Jean-Baptiste Molière, French dramatist (Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope)

1809 - Birth of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French politician (libertarian socialist)

1842 - Birth of Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first native-born Catholic Saint

1908 - Birth of Edward Teller, Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

1929 - Birth of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader

1950 - Death of Bro. Henry Harvey “Hap” Arnold, US 5 Star General (Army & Air Force)

Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxembourg
German Communists
(Both murdered this day 1919)

The basic law of capitalism is you or I, not both you and I — K.L.

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains — R.L.

[Tamrin]

Monday, 16 January
Ancient Rome: Feast of Concordia (goddess of agreement and understanding)

1794 – Death of Bro. Edward Gibbon, British historian (Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire)

1874 - Birth of Bro. Robert Service, British-born Canadian poet (Cremation of Sam McGee)

1893 - American sugar planters overthrew the government of Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii

1928 - Birth of William Kennedy, American writer and investigative journalist

1932 - Birth of Dian Fossey, American zoologist (Gorillas in the Mist)

1933 - Birth of Susan Sontag, US essayist, cultural theorist and political activist

1947 - Birth of Laura Schlessinger (Dr Laura), psychiatrist, radio talk show host

Franz Brentano
German philosopher and psychologist
(Born this day 1838)



An unconscious consciousness is no more a
contradiction in terms than an unseen case of seeing