Today in History

[Tamrin]

27 January

1593 - Vatican opens 7 year trial against scholar Giordano Bruno

1756 - Birth of [Bro.] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austria, musical prodigy/composer (Figaro [Magic Flute])

1832 - Birth of Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], author (Alice in Wonderland)

1834 - Birth of Dmitri Mendeleev, chemist (discovered periodic table of the elements)

1851 - John James Audubon, conservationist (Audubon Society), dies at 65

1888 - National Geographic Society organizes (Washington DC)

1973 - US & Vietnam sign cease-fire, ending longest US war & military draft

Friedrich von Schelling
(Born this day 1775)

Architecture in general is frozen music

[Tamrin]

28 January

0814 - Charlemagne, German emperor/Roman Emperor (800-814), dies at 71

1561 - By Edict of Orleans persecution of French Huguenots is suspended

1819 - Sir Stamford Raffles 1st lands in Singapore

1833 - Birth of Charles George Gordon, London England, military hero/general (China, Khartoum)

1903 - Birth of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, crystallographer (1st woman in Royal Society)

1977 - The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith published an 18-page document ruling out the admission of women to the Roman Catholic priesthood because women lacked a "natural resemblance which must exist between Christ and his ministers"

1986 - 25th Space Shuttle (51L)-Challenger 10 explodes 73 seconds after liftoff

Bill Jordon (Baron Jordon)
(Born this day 1936)

For far too many people, 19th century working and living
standards will continue unchanged into the 21st century

[Tamrin]

29 January

1688 - Birth of Emanuel Swedenborg, Sweden, religious leader (Angelic Wisdom)

1737 - Birth of Thomas Paine, U.K. / U.S., political essayist (Common Sense, Age of Reason)

1850 - Birth of Lawrence Hargrave, Australia inventor (box kite)

1888 - Edward Lear, poet/author, dies at 75

1916 - 1st bombings of Paris by German Zeppelins takes place

1939 - Birth of Germaine Greer, Melbourne Australia, feminist/author (Female Eunuch)

1956 - H[enry] L[ouis] Mencken, US essayist/critic/satirist (Smart Set), dies in Baltimore MD at 75

Romain Rolland
(Born this day 1866)

Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow

[Tamrin]

30 January
England : Women Peerage Day (1958)

1647 - Scots agree to sell King Charles I to English Parliament for £400

1649 - Charles I, King of Great Britain (1625-49), beheaded for treason

1775 - Birth of Walter Savage Landor, Warwick England, critic/writer (Imaginary Conversation)

1939 - Birth of Eleanor Smeal, feminist/president (NOW)

1948 - Mahatma Gandhi, India spiritual and political leader, assassinated by Hindu extremists

1958 - House of Lords passes bill allowing women in

1995 - Gerald M Durrell, British zoologist/author (Mockery Bird), dies at 70

Eleanor Smeal
(Born this day 1939)



Move over a little more gracefully, boys!

[Tamrin]

31 January
Lerwick, Shetland Islands: Up-Helly-Aa/Norse fire festival
Nauru: Independence Day (1968)

1606 - Guy Fawkes convicted in the "Gunpowder Plot", executed at 35

1788 - [Bonnie Prince] Charles E Stuart, English pretender, dies at 67

1865 - Congress passes 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in America (121-24)

1920 - Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, at Howard University, incorporates

1945 - Eddie Slovik, 1st US soldier executed for desertion since Civil War at 25

1964 - US report "Smoking & Health" connects smoking to lung cancer

1968 - Nauru (formerly Pleasant Island) declares independence from Australia

Zane Grey
(Born this day 1872)



Men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things

[Tamrin]

1 February
US: National Freedom Day
Pagan Irish: Festival of the goddess Brigid
Roman Catholic: Commemoration of St Brigid of Kildare, Irish nun

1552 - Birth of Sir Edward Coke, England, jurist/politician (defended common law)

1669 - French King Louis XIV limits freedom of religion

1709 - British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued after being marooned on a desert island (Fernandez Island) for 5 years, his story is the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"

1867 - Bricklayers start working 8-hour days

1889 - Birth of Gertrude Caton-Thompson, British archaeologist (Zimbabwe, Southern Arabia)

1902 - Birth of Langston Hughes, poet/translator (The Weary Blues) [& died this day 1967]

1933 - Dutch bishops forbid membership in non-catholic unions

Charles Lenox Remond
(Born this day 1810)

Color is made to obscure the brightest endowments,
to degrade the fairest character, and to check
the highest and most praiseworthy aspirations

[Tamrin]

2 February
US: Groundhog Day (To ski or not to ski)

1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends Mexican War; US acquires Texas, California, New Mexico & Arizona for $15 million

1859 - Birth of Havelock Ellis, US physician/sexologist (Psychology of Sex)

1882 - Birth of James Joyce, Ireland, novelist/poet (Dubliners, Ulysses, Finnigan's Wake)

1882 - Knights of Columbus forms in New Haven CT

1905 - Birth of Ayn Rand, writer (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead)

1943 - Battle of Stalingrad ends with final surrender of the German army, turning point of WWII

1970 - Bertrand Russell, philosopher, British MP, dies in Merioneth at 97

Nell Gwyn
(Born this day 1650)

Pray, good people, be civil. I am the Protestant whore

[Tamrin]

3 February
US: 4 Chaplains Memorial Day

1468 - Johann Gensfleisch Gutenberg, printer, dies

1821 - Birth of Elizabeth Blackwell, Bristol England, 1st woman physician

1826 - Birth of Walter Bagehot, England, economist/sociologist

1894 - Birth of Norman Rockwell, US, artist/illustrator (Sat Evening Post covers)

1920 - Birth of Henry Heimlich, doctor/inventor (Heimlich maneuver) [linked caution]

1924 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President (1913-21), dies at his home in Washington at 67

1943 - The Allied troopship S.S. Dorchester was torpedoed by a German sub and went down with a loss of 600 lives. As it sank, four chaplains gave up their lifejackets to shipmates, thereby also perishing in the icy waters. The bravery of Rev. Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rev. George Lansing Fox (Methodist), Father John Washington (a Catholic priest) and Alexander David Goode (a Jewish rabbi) led [US] Congress afterward to mark February 3rd as "Four Chaplains Day"

Norman Rockwell
(Born this day 1894)

Some folks think I painted Lincoln from life,
but I haven't been around that long. Not quite

[Tamrin]

4 February

1819 - Birth of Joshua Norton, San Francisco CA, Norton I, emperor of USA

1822 - Free American Blacks settle Liberia, West Africa

1841 - Birth of Clément Ader, French inventor (1st to fly a heavier-than-air craft)

1893 - Birth of Raymond Dart, Australian paleoanthropologist (Australopithecus)

1902 - Birth of Charles A Lindbergh, Detroit MI, pilot (1st fly solo across Atlantic)

1906 - Birth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologist (Confessing Church)

1913 - Birth of Rosa Lee Parks, civil rights activist (bus protester)

Jacques Prévert
(Born this day 1900)

Our Father which art in heaven - Stay there -
And we will stay on earth - Which is sometimes so pretty

[Tamrin]

5 February

1631 - Rhode Island, founder, Roger Williams arrives in Boston from England

1848 - Birth of Joris-Karl Huysmans, France, writer (Against the Grain)

1866 - Birth of Arthur Keith, Scottish anthropologist

1881 - Thomas Carlyle, historian/essayist, dies in London at 85

1914 - Birth of William S Burroughs, St Louis, novelist (Naked Lunch)

1917 - Birth of Zsa Zsa Gabor [Zsa Sari], Budapest Hungary, actress (Queen of Outer Space)

1928 - Birth of Andrew M Greeley, author/reverend

Joris-Karl Huysmans
(Born this day 1848)

Worshiping the Devil is no more insane than worshiping God...
It is precisely at the moment when positivism is at its high-water mark
that mysticism stirs into life and the follies of occultism begin