Today in History

[Tamrin]

6 February
Waitangi Day-New Zealand Day (1840)

1626 - Huguenot rebels & the French sign Peace of La Rochelle

1778 - France recognizes US, signs treaty of aid in Paris; 1st US treaty

1783 - Lancelot "Capability" Brown, English architect (Kew), dies at about 67

1840 - Waitangi Day; treaty signed between Britain & Maoris of New Zealand

1897 - Ebenezer C Brewer, British writer (Dictionary of Phrase & Fable), dies

1899 - Spanish-American War ends, peace treaty ratified by Senate

1918 - Britain grants women (30 & over) the vote

John Henry Mackay
(Born this day 1864)

I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
(akin to John Galt's oath, by Ayn Rand)

[Tamrin]

7 February
World: Boy Scouts Day (1910)

1478 - Birth of Sir Thomas More, lawyer/lord chancellor of England/saint (Utopia)

1812 - Birth of Charles Dickens, England, novelist (Oliver Twist, Tale of 2 Cities)

1906 - Birth of Henry P'u-I, last emperor of China, puppet emperor of Manchukuo

1946 - Filibuster in US Senate kills fair employment bill & anti-lynching legislation

1950 - Senator Joe McCarthy finds "communists" in US Ministry of Foreign Affairs

1960 - Old handwriting found in at Qumran, near the Dead Sea

1990 - Dom Helder Camara, nonviolent/human rights Bishop of Brazil, dies

Dom Helder Camara
(Died this day 1990)

When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint.
When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist

[Tamrin]

8 February

1587 - Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1560-87), beheaded at 44

1612 - Birth of Samuel Butler, England, poet/satirist (Hudibras) (baptized)

1819 - Birth of John Ruskin, writer/critic/artist/Gothic Revivalist (Prerafaelite)

1828 - Birth of Jules Verne, France, pioneered sci-fi (From the Earth to the Moon)

1878 - Birth of Martin Buber, German/Israeli philosopher/theologist (Ich und Du)

1894 - [US] Enforcement Act repealed, making it easier to disenfranchise blacks

1925 - Marcus Garvey enters federal prison in Atlanta GA

John Ruskin
(Born this day 1819)

An architect should live as little in cities as a painter.
Send him to our hills, and let him study there what
nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome

[Tamrin]

9 February

1863 - Birth of Anthony Hope [Hopkins], London, novelist

1881 - Feodor M Dostoevski, Russian novelist (Crime & Punishment), dies at 59

1897 - Birth of Sir Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith, pioneer Australian aviator

1926 - Teaching theory of evolution forbidden in Atlanta GA schools

1944 - Birth of Alice Walker, US, novelist (Color Purple, Meridian)

1952 - Norman Douglas, essayist/novelist, dies

1995 - J William Fulbright, (Senator-D-AR)/anti-Vietnam War, dies at 89

George Ade
(Born this day 1866)

A good folly is worth what you pay for it

[Tamrin]

10 February

1775 - Birth of Charles Lamb, London England, critic/poet/essayist

1824 - Birth of Samuel Plimsoll, Bristol England, inventor (Plimsoll line for ships)

1890 - Birth of Boris L Pasternak, Russia, novelist/poet (Dr Zhivago, Nobel 1958)

1893 - Birth of Jimmy Durante, New York NY, long-nosed comedian (and good-night Mrs Calabash)

1898 - Birth of Bertolt Brecht, Germany, playwright (Mother Courage)/composer

1964 - Destroyer Voyager sinks off Australia after colliding with aircraft carrier Melbourne

1992 - Alex Haley, US writer (Autobiography of Malcolm X, Roots), dies at 70

Jimmy Durante
(Born this day 1893)

All of us have schnozzles… if not in our faces,
then in our character, minds or habits.
When we admit our schnozzles, instead of defending them,
we begin to laugh, and the world laughs with us

[Tamrin]

11 February
Japan: Foundation Day (660 BCE)-accession of Emperor Jimmu

1543 - Battle at Wayna Daga, Ethiopian/Portugese troops beat Moslem army

1650 - René Descartes, philosopher "I think therefore I am", stops thinking [quoted 1/2/10]

1657 - Birth of Bernard Fontenelle, France, scientist/writer (Plurality of Worlds)

1821 - Birth of Auguste Édouard Mariette, French Egyptologist, (dug out Sphinx 12/16/42)

1868 - Léon Foucault discovers 1st physical proof of Earth's rotation, dies

1963 - Sylvia Plath, poet/novelist (Ariel), kills herself in London at 30

1986 - Frank [Patrick] Herbert, sci-fi author (Dune), dies at 65

Bernard Fontenelle
(Born this day 1657)

Let us be well assured of the Matter of Fact,
before we trouble our selves with enquiring
into the Cause. It is true, that this Method
is too slow for the greatest part of Mankind,
who run naturally to the Cause, and
pass over the Truth of the Matter of Fact

[Tamrin]

12 February

1663 - Birth of Dr Cotton Mather, witchcraft authority

1804 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (Zum ewigen Frieden), dies in Königsberg, Prussia at 79

1809 - Birth of Charles Darwin, Shrewsbury England, discovered evolution (Origin of species)

1809 - Birth of Abraham Lincoln, Hodgenville KY, (R) 16th President (1861-65)

1818 - Chile gains independence from Spain

1828 - Birth of George Meredith, England, poet/novelist (Shaving of Shagpat)

1909 - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded

George Meredith
(Born this day 1828)

The man or country that fights priestcraft and priests is to my mind
striking deeper for freedom than can be struck anywhere

[Tamrin]

13 February

1766 - Birth of Thomas Malthus, Rookery Surrey UK, economist/demographer/population expert

1858 - Sir Richard Burton & John Speke explore Lake Tanganyika, Africa

1887 - Birth of Alvin York, famed US soldier with 25 kills in WWI

1907 - English suffragettes storm British Parliament & 60 women are arrested

1908 - Birth of Pauline Frederick, journalist/correspondent (UN, NBC TV)

1924 - King Tut[ankhamun]'s tomb opened

1974 - Dissident Nobel writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn expelled from USSR

Pauline Frederick
(Born this day 1908)

When a man gets up to speak, people listen then look.
When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen

[Tamrin]

14 February
Chinese New Year (Year of the Tiger)
World : St Valentine's Day (269)

1483 - Birth of Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, prince/founder Mogols-dynasty

1779 - James Cook, British explorer, murdered by natives in fracas with Hawaiians

1780 - William Blackstone, English lawyer, dies at 56

1817 - Birth of Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist/lecturer/editor

1856 - Birth of Frank Harris, England, journalist/writer (My Life & Loves)

1882 - Birth of George Jean Nathan, US, editor/author/critic (American Mercury)

1929 - St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago IL, 7 gangsters killed

Frank Harris
(Born this day 1856)

The Christian churches were offered two things: the spirit of Jesus
and the idiotic morality of Paul, and they rejected the higher inspiration...
Following Paul, we have turned the goodness of love into a fiend
and degraded the crowning impulse of our being into a capital sin

[Tamrin]

15 February
US: Presidents' Day

1564 - Birth of Galileo Galilei, Pisa, Italy, astronomer/physicist

1748 - Birth of Jeremy Bentham, London England, philosopher/originator (Utilitarian)

1820 - Birth of Susan Brownell Anthony, Adams MA, women's suffragette

1861 - Birth of Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician/philosopher (Adventures of Ideas)

1901 - Birth of Christmas Humphreys, England, lawyer/writer/Buddhist (Awakening of Zen)

1975 - Julian Huxley, biologist, dies

1975 - Pelham G Wodehouse, writer, dies

Sir Julian Huxley
(Died this day 1975

Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler
but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat