Today in History

[Tamrin]

2 July

1566 – Nostradamus, French astrologer/physician/prophet, dies in Salon

1877 - Birth of Hermann Hesse, Switzerland, novelist/poet (Steppenwolf, Nobel 1946)

1881 - [US] Pres Garfield shot by Charles J Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker

1883 - After several failed attempts in the previous years, a Grand Lodge of Victoria is established

1937 - Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan disappear over Pacific Ocean

1970 - Jessie Street, Australian civil rights activist, dies

1961 - Ernest Hemingway killed himself in Ketchum Idaho

Jessie Street
(Died this day 1970)

If you don't refer expressly to women,
they will be excluded from rights

[Tamrin]

3 July

1863 - Battle of Gettysburg, Pa ends, major victory for North

1874 - Birth of Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata, Kawaka NZ, Maori political/cultural leader

1883 – Birth of Franz Kafka, Czech, author (Metamorphosis, Trial, Amerika)

1915 - US military forces occupy Haiti, remain until 1934

1971 - Jim Morrison, rocker (Doors), dies of heart failure in Paris

1976 - Israel launches rescue of 103 Air France crew & passengers being held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers

1984 - [US] Supreme Court rules Jaycees may be forced to admit women as members

Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata
(Born this day 1874)

If we are serious about nationhood, the partnership must incorporate the essence of
an indigenous people recognising the importance of that people in holding on to their
culture, their mana, whilst moving forward in contemporary times, in testing times

[Tamrin]

4 July
US & Possessions: Independence Day (1776)
Italy: Garibaldi Day (1807)

1776 - Declaration of Independence-US gains independence from Britain

1781 - Bro. Robert Burns was made a Mason in Lodge St David (Tarbolton) Mauchline No.133, Ayrshire

1804 - Birth of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mass, author (House of 7 Gables, Scarlet Letter)

1807 - Birth of [Bro.] Giuseppe Garibaldi, unified Italy

1826 - John Adams & Thomas Jefferson, [US] Presidents, die (James Monroe, died this day 1831)

1884 - Statue of Liberty presented to US in Paris

1905 - Birth of Lionel Trilling, author (1969 Poses Award, Liberal Imagination)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

(Excerpt, US Declaration of Independence, signed this day 1776)



Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved

[Tamrin]

5 July

1687 - Isaac Newton's PRINCIPIA published by Royal Society in England

1781 - Birth of [Bro.] Sir Stamford Raffles, founded Singapore

1853 - Birth of [Bro.] Cecil John Rhodes, South Africa, politician, diamond merchant

1857 - Birth of Clara Zetkin, German women's rights advocate

1865 - William Booth founded Salvation Army in London

1889 - Birth of Jean Cocteau, France, writer/artist/film maker (Le Potamak)

1950 - Law of Return passes, guarantees all Jews right to live in Israel

Clara Zetkin
(Born this day 1857)

We would, however, perform an injustice to the bourgeois women's
rights movement if we would regard it as solely motivated by economics.
No, this movement also contains a more profound spiritual and moral aspect

[Tamrin]

6 July
Luth: Commemoration of Jan Hus, martyr
Old Catholic: Commemoration of St Thomas More, humanist/martyr

1415 - Jan Hus burned for heresy by the Church at Constance, Germany

1535 - Sir Thomas More executed in England for treason

1747 - Birth of [Bro.] John Paul Jones, [US] naval hero ("I have not yet begun to fight")

1830 – The Grand lodge of Florida was instituted.

1885 - 1st inoculation (for rabies) of a human being, by Louis Pasteur

1962 - William Faulkner, author, inventor of Yoknapatawpha Co, dies at 64

1971 - [Bro.] Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, jazz musician (Hello Dolly), dies at 70

Jan Hus
(Martyred this day 1415)

In 100 years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform cannot be suppressed

(Around 1515 Martin Luther was having misgivings about the Church and, in 1517,
nailed his famous 95 Theses of Contention on to the church door at Wittenberg)

[Tamrin]

7 July

1647 - Thomas Hooker, clergyman, father of American democracy, dies

1898 - US annexes Hawaii

1907 – Birth of Robert A Heinlein, sci-fi author (Stranger in a Strange Land)

1908 - [US] Great White Fleet leaves SF Bay

1923 – Birth of Jean Kerr, Scranton Pa, novelist (Please Don't Eat the Daisies)

1940 - Birth of Ringo Starr, Beatles' drummer/actor (Magic Christian)

1987 - Kiwanis Clubs end men-only tradition, vote to admit women

Thomas Hooker
(Died this day 1647)

They [the people] who have the power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power,
also, to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them

[Tamrin]

8 July
US: Liberty Bell Day [1835]

1789 – The Grand Lodge of Connecticut was instituted

1835 - Liberty Bell cracks (again)

1838 – Birth of Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, invented rigid dirigibles

1893 – Birth of Fritz Perls, father of Gestalt therapy

1898 – Birth of Alec Waugh, London, novelist (Island in the Sun); brother of Evelyn

1918 - Birth of Nelson Mandela, Transkei South Africa, jailed political activist

1969 - US troop withdrawal begins in Vietnam

Alec Waugh
(Born this day 1898)

A man desires praise that he may be reassured,
that he may be quit of his doubting of himself; he is
indifferent to applause when he is confident of success

[Tamrin]

9 July
Argentina: Independence Day (1816)

1816 - Argentina declares independence (led by Bro. José de San Martín) from Spain

1850 - Bab [Bahá'í prophet] executed in Tabriz, Iran

1858 - Birth of Franz Boas anthropologist/linguist (Mind of Primitive Man)

1887 – Birth of Samuel Eliot Morison, historian (Admiral of the Ocean Sea)

1932 – Birth of Donald Rumsfeld, politician (involved in Watergate)

1977 - Dr Loren Eiseley, professor of Anthropology (Animal Secrets), dies at 69

1978 - Nearly 100,000 demonstrators march on Wash DC for [US] ERA

Siyyid 'Alí Muhammad Shírází (Báb)
(Martyred this day 1850)

Be steadfast (istaqim), O seeker of piety (tuqan),
in the station of affirming the divine unity (maqám al-tawhíd)

[Tamrin]

10 July
Coventry, England: Lady Godiva Day (1040)

1099 – El Cid “The Master” (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar), feared by Moors, died

1509 - Birth of John Calvin, Protestant religious reformer/theologian

1723 - Birth of Sir William Blackstone, England, jurist (Blackstone's Commentaries)

1856 - Birth of Nikola Tesla, physicist, developed alternating current

1867 – Birth of Finley Peter Dunne, US, journalist/humorist (Mr Dooley)

1871 - Birth of Marcel Proust, France, novelist (Remembrance of Things Past)

1875 – Birth of Mary McLeod Bethune, SC, slave/educator (Bethune-Cookman College)

Alice Munro, author (Dance of the Happy Shades)
(Born this day 1931)

The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems
to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple

[Tamrin]

11 July

1274 - Birth of Robert the Bruce, Scotland, King (1328-1329)

1405 – Zheng He, Ming admiral, sails to explore the world for the first time

1804 - [US] VP Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken

1812 - US invades Canada (Detroit frontier)

1899 – Birth of E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White, writer (Charlotte's Web, Elements of Style)

1916 - Birth of Gough Whitlam, (ALP) Australia, PM (1972-75)

1989 - Sir Laurence Olivier, acting great, dies at 82

Gough Whitlam
(Born this day 1916)

The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post,
whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race