Today in History

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 16 February
UN: Kyoto Protocol Day (2005)

0600 - Pope Gregory the Great decrees saying "God bless You" is the correct response to a sneeze

1519 - Birth of Gaspard de Coligny, Huguenot leader and French Admiral

1838 - Birth of Henry Adams, US historian, writer (Education of Henry Adams)

1852 – Birth of Charles Taze Russell, US founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses

1944 – Birth of Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize winning US novelist

1954 – Birth of Iain Banks, Scottish author (Humanist Society of Scotland)

1992 – Death of Angela Carter, British novelist (Magic Toyshop)

Bro. Francis Galton, FRS
English explorer, statistician and anthropologist (eugenics )
(Born this day 1822)

Poor humanity! I often feel that the tableland of sanity
upon which most of us dwell, is small in area, with unfenced
precipices on every side, over any one of which we may fall

[Tamrin]

Friday, 17 February
Hindu: Kali Yuga (432,000 years) commenced this day 1302 BCE
Lord Howe Island: Discovery Day, 1788

1600 - Martyrdom of Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher and religious reformer (plurality of worlds)

1673 - Molière (Jean Baptiste Poquelin), French playwright (Learned Lady)

1848 - Birth of Louisa Lawson, Australian 'Mother of Women's Suffrage'

1864 - Birth of Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, Australian poet (Waltzing Matilda)

1908 - Death of Geronimo (Goyaałé), Bedonkohe Apache chief (Apache Wars)

1934 - Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage), Australian multimedia megastar

1986 - Death of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher (Kingdom Happiness)

Col. Henry Steel Olcott
US co-founder of The Theosophical Society
(Died this day 1907)

The lampooners and denunciators of our time have as little succeeded in
shaking the faith of believers in the reality and value of mystical initiation,
as did their precursors in the olden times that of their believing contemporaries.
It has been simply the array of conjecture against experience, of surmise against
knowledge. The wise have had but a feeling of contemptuous pity for the army
of critics whose conclusions have rested upon wholly mistaken premises, and
whose verdict has been colored by exaggerated prejudice and foolish mistrust

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 18 February
Zoroastrian: Day of Spenta Armaiti (earth and fertility goddess)

1546 - Death of Martin Luther, German biblical scholar and religious reformer

1564 - Death of Michelangelo, Italian artist and sculptor

1836 - Birth of Swami Ramakrishna (Gadadhar Chatterji), Indian mystic and Hindu leader

1896 - Birth of André Breton, French poet and principal theorist of Surrealism

1909 - Bro. William Howard Taft, 27^th US President, was made a Mason at Sight

1925 - Death of James Lane Allen, US writer (Choir Invisible)

1967 - Death of Robert J Oppenheimer, US physicist (creator of atomic bomb)

Isaac Casaubon
naturalized English classical scholar, theologian
(Born this day 1559)

It mightily affects me to see how many there were in the earliest times
of the Church, who considered it as a capital exploit to lend to heavenly
truth the help of their own inventions, in order that the new doctrine
might be more readily received by the wise among the Gentiles.
These officious lies, they were wont to say, were devised for a good end

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 19 February
Commemoration of Copernicus (born this day 1473)

1473 - Birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer (heliocentrism)

1811 - The Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia was instituted

1915 - Death of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, India's social reformer and politician

1916 - Death of Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist, philosopher and psychologist

1942 - About 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the Australian city of Darwin (first of 64 raids)

1949 - Ezra Pound, US-born anti-Semitic fascist and poet, awarded the first Bollingen Prize for Poetry

1951 - Death of André Gide, French Nobel Prize winning author

Bro. Eduard Douwes Dekker (aka, Multatuli)
Dutch anarchist essayist and novelist
(Died this day 1887)

There is only one evil, one crime, one sin: lack of heart

[Tamrin]

Monday, 20 February
UN: World Day of Social Justice

1805 - Birth of Angelina Grimke, US reformer, abolitionist, politician and lawyer

1860 - Death of Henry Drummond, English banker and religious leader

1888 - Birth of Georges Bernanos, French author and soldier

1895 - Death of Frederick Douglass, US anti-slavery leader, escaped slave

1902 - Birth of Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist

1927 – Birth of Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE, Bahamian actor, director, author, and diplomat

2005 – Death of Hunter S Thompson, American journalist and author (Gonzo journalism)

Henri de Lubac
French theologian and anti-fascist
(Born this day 1896)

Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy

[Tamrin]

Monday, 21 February
Babylon: Day of Ishtar[/color] (goddess of love and battle)
World: Brotherhood Day

1677 - Death of Baruch Spinoza, Dutch Jewish philosopher

1801 - Birth of John Henry Newman, English cardinal and author (Dream of Gerontius)

1900 - The Grand Lodge of Western Australia was instituted in Perth with 37 lodges

1903 - Birth of Anaïs Nin, French novelist (Winter of Artifice, House of Incense)

1907 - Birth of Wystan Hugh Auden, US poet (Age of Anxiety-Pulitzer 1948)

1927 - Birth of Erma Bombeck, US writer, humourist

1965 - Murder of Malcolm X, US black Moslem leader

Group Capt. Sir Douglas Bader
(Born this day 1910)

Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that.
That's nonsense. Make up your mind, you'll never use crutches
or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all
the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never
let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 22 February
U.S.: Washington’s Birthday (1732)

1788 - Birth of Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (Principle of Sufficient Reason)

1832 - Death of Bro. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet

1857 - Birth of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder (Boy Scouts, Girl Guides)

1889 - Birth of Robin G Collingwood, British philosopher and historian

1892 - Birth of Edna St Vincent Millay, American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist

1978 - Death of Phyllis McGinley, American writer and poet

1987 - Death of Andy Warhol, US pop artist (15 minutes of fame)

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
German physicist (electromagnetic theory of light)
(Born this day 1857)

Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world
of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow border-
land of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is
possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper under-
standing of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest
importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 23 February
US: Iwo Jima Day (1945)

1455 - Johannes Gutenberg prints 1st book, the Bible (estimated date)

1633 - Birth of Samuel Pepys, English navy expert, composer and diarist

1821 - Death of John Keats, English Romantic poet (To Autumn)

1836 - The Alamo besieged by Santa Anna; entire garrison eventually killed

1898 - In France, Emile Zola, French writer, imprisoned for writing his "J'accuse" letter

1905 - Rotary Club International established by 4 men in Chicago

1995 - Death of James Herriot, English veterinary surgeon and author

Karl Jaspers
German psychiatrist and philosopher
(Born this day 1883)

Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our
potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of
more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them

[Tamrin]

Friday, 24 February
Inauguration of Gregorian Calendar (1582)

0303 - Emperor Galerius issues 1st official Roman edict for persecution of Christians

1582 - Pope Gregory XIII announces new style calendar

1810 - Death of Henry Cavendish, FRS, British scientist (hydrogen)

1853 - The Grand Lodge of Minnesota was instituted

1928 - Birth of Michael Harrington, US socialist and author (Fragments of Century)

1962 - Birth of Michelle Shocked, American singer/songwriter

1983 - Death of Tennessee Williams, US playwright (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

George Moore, Irish novelist
(Born this day 1852)

After all there is but one race — humanity

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 25 February
Commemoration of Bro. Sir Christopher Wren (died this day 1723)

1707 - Birth of Bro. Carlo Goldoni, Italian writer (Servant of Two Masters)

1778 - Birth of M.W. Bro. José Francisco de San Martín, liberated Argentina, Chile & Perú

1861 - Birth of Bro. Rudolf Steiner, Austrian philosopher and educator

1894 - Birth of Meher Baba, Indian spiritual figure (self-declared avatar of the age)

1916 - Birth of Reinhard Bendix, German-American sociologist (Kings or People)

2001 - Death of Bro. Sir Donald Bradman, iconic Australian cricketer

2005 - Death of Peter Benenson, English founder of Amnesty International

Benedetto Croce
Italian idealist philosopher and politician
(Born this day 1866)

We are products of the past and we live immersed in the past, which encom-
passes us. How can we move towards the new life, how create new active-
ities without getting out of the past and without placing ourselves above it?
And how can we place ourselves above the past if we are in it and it is in us?
There is no other way out except through thought, which does not break off
relations with the past but rises ideally above it and converts it into knowledge