Today in History

[Tamrin]

17 January

1562 - Edict of St Germain recognizes the Huguenots in France

1706 - Birth of Benjamin Franklin, Boston, kite flyer/statesman/wit/inventor

1771 - Birth of Charles Brockden Brown, father of American novel (Wieland)

1853 - Birth of Alva Vanderbilt Beaumont, women's rights advocate & activist

1893 - Queen Liliuokalani deposed, Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic

1899 - Birth of Robert Maynard Hutchins, US, educator/civil libertarian

1964 - Terence Hanbury White, novelist (The Once and Future King), dies at 57

Charles Brockden Brown
(Born this day 1771)

Of all the forms of injustice, that is the most egregious which makes
the circumstances of sex a reason for excluding one half of mankind
from all those paths which lead to usefulness and honor

[Tamrin]

18 January
US: Martin Luther King Jr Day
Virginia: Lee-Jackson Day

1689 - Birth of Charles de Montesquieu, France, philosopher/writer (Lettres Persanes)

1778 - Captain James Cook stumbles over Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands)

1779 - Birth of Peter Roget, thesaurus fame/inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard)

1840 - Birth of Austin Dobson, England, poet/critic/biographer

1908 - Birth of Jacob Bronowski, British mathematician/cultural historian

1936 - Bro. Rudyard Kipling, author (Gunga Din, Nobel 1907), dies in Burwash England at 70

1985 - US renounces jurisdiction of World Court despite previous promise

Austin Dobson
(Born this day 1840)

Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go

[Tamrin]

19 January

0570 - Birth of Mohammed, Islamic prophet (Koran)

1568 - Death of Miles Coverdale, 80, publisher of the first printed English Bible

1736 - Birth of James Watt, Scotland, inventor (steam engine)

1793 - French King Louis XVI sentenced to death

1798 - Birth of Auguste Comte, philosopher/founder (sociology & positivism)

1840 - Antarctica discovered, Charles Wilkes expedition (US claim)

1990 - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Indian guru, dies at 58

Patricia Highsmith
(Born this day 1921)

Neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not

[Tamrin]

20 January

1569 - Miles Coverdale, English bible translator Great bible, dies at 80

1807 - Napoleon convenes the great Sanhedrin, Paris

1866 - Birth of Richard Le Gallienne, English writer (Maker of Gainborg)

1891 - Bro. David Kalakahua, emperor of Hawaii, dies

1900 - John Ruskin, English writer/critic (Dearest Mama Talbot), dies of influenza at 81

1910 - Birth of Joy Adamson, naturalist/author (Born Free)

1948 - Mahatma Gandhi, India's pacifist, assassinated - 30 January

Joy Adamson
(Born this day 1910)

Since we humans have the better brain, isn't it our responsibility
to protect our fellow creatures from, oddly enough, ourselves?

[Tamrin]

21 January

1793 - Louis XVI, French king (1774-93), beheaded by revolutionaries at 38

1799 - Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccination is introduced

1813 - Birth of John C Frémont, [Pathfinder], map maker/explorer (western US)/Governor (AZ)

1884 - Birth of Roger Nash Baldwin, founder (American Civil Liberties Union)

1924 - Birth of Benny Hill, Southampton England, comedian (Benny Hill Show)

1950 - George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair], author (Animal Farm, 1984), dies from tuberculosis in London at 46

1959 - Cecil B[lount] de Mille, producer (10 Commandments), dies at 77

Roger Nash Baldwin
(Born this day 1884)

So long as we have enough people in this country willing
to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy

[Tamrin]

22 January

1561 - Birth of Francis Bacon, England, statesman/essayist (Novum Organum)

1729 - Birth of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Germany, critic/dramatist

1771 - Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to Britain

1788 - Birth of Lord [George Gordon Noel] Byron, England, romantic poet (Don Juan)

1814 - 1st Knights Templar grand encampment in US held, New York City NY

1858 - Birth of Beatrice Potter Webb, England, economist

1941 - British/Australian troops capture Tobruk from Italians [Well done! Bro. Jack]

Beatrice Potter Webb
(Born this day 1858)

If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room full of people,
I would say to myself, 'You're the cleverest member
of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class
of the cleverest nation. . . why should you be frightened?

[Tamrin]

23 January

0638 - Start of Islamic calendar

1622 - William Baffin, British explorer, dies at about 38

1647 - Scottish Presbyterians sell captured Charles I to English parliament

1883 - Gustave Doré, French illustrator, dies at 51

1957 - Willie Edwards, US black, murdered by KKK at 25

1960 - Piccard & Walsh in bathyscaph "Trieste" reach 10,900 meters in Mariana Trench

1962 - British spy Kim Philby defects to USSR

Derek Walcott
(Born this day 1930)

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles
the fragments is stronger than that love which
took its symmetry for granted when it was whole

[Tamrin]

24 January

1732 - Birth of Pierre de Beaumarchais, France, playwright (Barber of Seville)

1776 - Birth of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, German writer/judge/composer (Undine)

1839 - Charles Darwin elected member of Royal Society

1908 - General Baden-Powell starts Boy-Scouts

1965 - Winston Churchill, PM of Britain (C) (1940-45, 51-55), dies at 90

1986 - L[aFayette] Ron[ald] Hubbard author/founder of Scientology (Dianetics,Death Quest), dies at 74

1989 - Barbara C. Harris, confirmed as the first female bishop in the Anglican Church

Pierre de Beaumarchais
(Born this day 1732)

Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time,
madam, is all that distinguishes us from the other animals

[Tamrin]

25 January

1627 - Birth of Robert Boyle, Ireland, physicist/chemist/author (experiments with color)

1759 - Birth of [Bro.] Robert Burns, Alloway Scotland, poet (Auld Lang Syne)

1851 - Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women's Rights Convention (Akron)

1874 - Birth of [William] Somerset Maugham, Paris, novelist/poet (Of Human Bondage)

1882 - Birth of Virginia [Adeline] Woolf, London, author (Jacob's Room, To the Lighthouse)

1918 - Russia declared a republic of Soviets

1947 - Al Capone, Chicago gangster, dies of syphilis at 48

Robert Boyle
(Born this day 1627)

Divers of Hermetic Books have such involv'd Obscuritys that
they may justly be compar'd to Riddles written in Cyphers.
For after a Man has surmounted the difficulty of deciphering
the Words & Terms, he finds a new & greater difficulty
to discover ye meaning of the seemingly plain Expression

[Tamrin]

26 January
Australia Day
India: Republic Day

1788 - Captain Arthur Phillip forms English colony at Botany Bay New South Wales as a penal colony

1824 - Edward Jenner, discoverer (vaccination), dies

1885 - Charles George Gordon, British Governor-General, & troops slain at Khartoum

1887 - Battle of Dogali, Abyssinian Emperor John IV defeats Italians

1893 - Birth of Bessie Coleman, 1st black airplane pilot [“The air is the only place free from prejudices”]

1950 - India becomes a republic ceasing to be a British dominion

1951 - The Temple Beth Israel of Meridian, Miss. became the first Jewish congregation to allow women to perform the functions of a rabbi

Edward Sapir
(Born this day 1884)

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone,
nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily
understood, but are very much at the mercy of the
particular language which has become the medium
of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion
to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially
without the use of language and that language is
merely an incidental means of solving specific problems
of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter
is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously
built upon the language habits of the group