Today in History

[Tamrin]

26 February

1802 - Birth of Victor Hugo, France, author (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Miserables)

1842 - Birth of Camille Flammarion, Mars researcher & popularizer of astronomy

1848 - Marx & Engels publish "The Communist Manifesto"

1870 - Wyatt Outlaw, black leader of Union League in North Carolina, lynched

1954 - William R Inge, English theologist/philosopher, dies at 93

1965 - Jimmie Lee Jackson, civil rights activist, dies of injuries

1984 - Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize winner, named 1st US poet laureate

Robert Penn Warren
(Named 1st US poet laureate this day 1984)

The end of man is knowledge, but [man] can't know whether
knowledge will save him or kill him; whether he is killed because
of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge
which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him

[Tamrin]

27 February

0280 - Birth of Constantine the Great, Roman emperor (306-37), adopted Christianity [for his subjects]

1807 - Birth of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Portland ME, poet (Hiawatha)

1861 - Birth of Rudolf Steiner, Kraljevic Austria, founder (doctrine of anthroposophy movement)

1912 - Birth of Lawrence Durrell, Darjeeling India, writer (Alexandria Quartet)

1934 - Birth of [Navarre] Scott Momaday, US author (House Made of Dawn, Pulitzer 1969)

1934 - Bith of Ralph Nader, Winsted CT, consumer advocate (Unsafe at Any Speed)

1989 - Konrad Loren, Austria zoologist (Nobel 1973), dies at 85

N. Scott Momaday
(Born this day 1934)

There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened.
At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began.
The Word did not come into being, but it was. It did not break upon the silence,
but it was older than the silence and the silence was made of it

[Tamrin]

28 February

1533 - Birth of Michel de Montaigne, France, essayist/philosopher

1638 - Henri duc de Rohan, French soldier/Huguenot leader, dies

1759 - Pope Clement XIII allows Bible to be translated into various languages

1823 - Birth of Ernest Renan, French philosopher/historian/scholar of religion

1915 - Birth of Sir Peter Medawar, England, zoologist, immunologist (Nobel 1953)

1916 - Henry James, US/British writer (Bostonians), dies in London at 72

1993 - Gun battle erupts at Waco TX between FBI & Branch Davidians

Ernest Renan
(Born this day 1823)

The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths
for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life

[Tamrin]

1 March
Ancient Rome: Matronalia (Feast of Juno)

1562 - Blood bath at Vassy; General de Guise allows 1200 Huguenots murder

1633 - George Herbert, English poet, dies at 39

1692 - Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, & Tituba arrest for witchcraft (Salem MA)

1848 - Birth of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, US, sculptor/designer (1907 $20 gold piece)

1858 - Birth of Georg Simmel, German philosopher/sociologist

1932 - Charles Lindbergh Jr (20 months), kidnapped in New Jersey; found dead May 12

1947 - International Monetary Fund began operations

Augustus Saint-Gaudens
(Born this day 1848)



The Statue of Silence was the first important commission for an original work of art
received by the young sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907).
The statue was moved from the New York City Lodge
to the Masonic Care Community of New York in 1922

[Tamrin]

2 March

1760 - Birth of Camille Desmoulins, France, journalist/pamphleteer/revolution leader

1797 - Horace [Horatio] Walpole, British horror writer, dies at 79

1896 - Battle of Aduwa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) defeats invading Italians

1904 - Birth of Dr Seuss [Theodor Geisel], children's book author (Green Eggs and Ham...)

1930 - David H Lawrence, poet/writer (Lady Chatterley's Lover), dies at 44

1939 - Howard Carter, British archaeologist/Egyptologist (King Tut), dies at 65

1939 - Mass [US] Legislature votes to ratify the Bill of Rights; 147 years late

Camille Desmoulins
(Born this day 1760)

[On July 12, 1789 he leapt on a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the
Palais Royal, and announced to the crowd the dismissal of the reformer [Jacques Necker]... he
addressed the passions of the public, calling them to "...take up arms and adopt cockades by
which we may know each other" and adding: "This dismissal is the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew
of the patriots!", claiming that a massacre of the partisans of reform was under preparation.]

Clemency is also a revolutionary measure

[Tamrin]

3 March
Arab: Mohammed's Birthday

1606 - Birth of Edmund Waller, England, poet (Penshust)

1703 - Robert Hooke, scientific genius, dies in London

1756 - Birth of William Godwin, philosopher/political writer (Caleb Williams)

1842 - 1st US child labor law regulating working hours passed (Massachusetts)

1847 - Birth of Alexander Graham Bell, Edinburgh Scotland, UK/US inventor (telephone)

1877 - Birth of Garrett Morgan, African-American inventor

1983 - Arthur Koestler, Hungarian/British writer (Dialogue With Death), dies at 77

Alexander Graham Bell
(Born this day 1847)

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it
exists and it becomes available only when a man is in
that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he
wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it

[Tamrin]

4 March

1394 - Birth of Prince Henry the Navigator, sponsors Portuguese voyages of discovery

1595 - Robert Southwell, English poet, hanged for becoming a Catholic priest

1888 - Amos Bronson Alcott, US theory/poet (Table Talk), dies at 88

1910 - Birth of Tancredo Neves, Brazilian Civil rights activist

1916 - Birth of Hans Eysenck, British / German psychologist

1934 - Birth of Jane van Lawick-Goodall, ethologist/chimp expert (1974 Walker Prize)

1963 - William Carlos Williams, US physician/poet, dies at 79

Prince Henry the Navigator
(Knights of Christ, formerly Knights Templar: Born this day 1394)



Insignia of the Portuguese Order of Prince Henry

[Tamrin]

5 March

1291 - Sa'ad al'Da'ulah, Jewish grand vizier of Persia, assassinated

1512 - Birth of Gerardus Mercator, Rupelmonde (Belgium), geographer/mapmaker

1616 - Copernicus' "de Revolutionibus" placed on Catholic Forbidden index

1625 - James I (VI), king of England (1603-25)/poet/author, dies at 58

1770 - Boston Massacre, British troops kill 5 in crowd

1953 - Josef V Stalin, soviet leader responsible for 11 million murders, dies at 73

1970 - Nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect

James I of England / VI of Scotland
(Died this day 1625)

I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman

[Tamrin]

6 March

1492 - Birth of Jean Luis Vives, Spanish theory/humanist/reformer

1619 - Birth of Cyrano de Bergerac, famous nose, dramatist (A Voyage to the Moon)

1665 - Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society starts publishing

1775 - 1st Negro Mason in US initiated [Prince Hall & 14 others], Boston

1926 - Birth of Alan Greenspan, US economist/Presidential advisor (Federal Reserve Board)

1941 - John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, sculptor (Mount Rushmore), dies at 73

1982 - Ayn Rand, author-philosopher (The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged), dies in New York at 77

Martin Niemöller
(Died this day 1984)

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]

7 March

0322 - BCE - Aristotle dies

1792 - Birth of John Herschel, Slough England, William Herschel's son, astronomer

1876 - Battle at Gura: Ethiopian emperor Yohannes beats Egyptians

1902 - Boers beat British troop in Tweebosch Transvaal

1907 - Birth of Mircea Eliade, religious historian (Le Yoga)

1912 - Roald Amundsen announces discovery of the South Pole [“Adventure is just bad planning”]

1941 - British troops invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia)

Alessandro Manzoni
(Born this day 1785)

When a friend, then, indulges in the joy of unburdening
a secret on to another friend's bosom, he makes the latter,
in his turn, feel the urge to taste the same joy himself