Today in History

[Tamrin]

Monday, 25 October

1147 - Armies of the Second Crusade (1147-49) destroyed by Saracens at Dorylaeum

1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer, author, dies in London

1415 - Battle of Agincourt, Welsh longbow defeats the armored French knight

1616 - Dutch sea captain Dirk Hartog landed in Australia (more than 150 years before Cook)

1800 - Birth of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, England, poet, abolitionist, historian

1854 - The Light Brigade charges (Battle of Balaklava, Crimean War)

1881 - Birth of Pablo Picasso, Spain, artist (3 Dancers, Guernica)

Admiral Richard E Byrd, polar explorer (1926)
(Born this day 1888)

Few men during their lifetime comes anywhere near exhausting the resources
dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 26 October
Ancient Egypt: Moon Festival of Hathor
International: Intersex Awareness Day

1466 - Birth of Desiderius Erasmus, Holland, scholar/author (In Praise of Folly)

1759 - Birth of Bro. Georges Danton, France, revolutionary leader

1764 - Death of William Hogarth, British painter.

1879 - Birth of Leon Trotsky, Russian revolutionary (pres of 1st Soviet)

1881 - Shootout at the OK Corral, in Tombstone, Arizona

1902 - Death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American feminist

1916 - Margaret Sanger arrested for obscenity (advocating birth control)

Bro. Georges Danton
(Born this day 1759)

In revolutions authority remains with the greatest scoundrels

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 27 October
Coptic: Feast Day of St Frumentius, Apostle of Ethiopia (d. c.383)
UN: Universal Children’s Day

0939 - Death of King Athelstan I of England

1728 - Birth of James Cook, captain/explorer, discovered Sandwich Islands & claimed Australia

1858 - Death of Ida Pfeiffer, Viennese-born great world traveler

1858 - Birth of Bro. Theodore Roosevelt, (R) 26th US President (Nobel 1906)

1914 - Birth of Dylan Thomas, Swansea, Wales, poet (Child's Christmas in Wales)

1927 – Death of Squizzy Taylor, Melbourne gangster, in a shoot-out with John 'Snowy' Cutmore.

1939 - Birth of John Cleese, comedian/actor (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers)

Fran Lebowitz, American writer
(Born this day 1950)

Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals.
To actual women, it is simply a good excuse not to play football

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 28 October
Ancient Egypt: First day of Isia festival, commemorating the search of Isis for Osiris
Phoenicia: Feast of Baal (Ba'al; Haddad)

0312 - Constantine, 32, wins the battle at Milvian Bridge (In hoc signo vinces)

1585 – Birth of Cornelius Jansen, theologian ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansenism
]Jansenism[/url][/b])

1704 – Death of John Locke, English empirical philosopher

1886 – Dedication of the Statue of Liberty

1903 - Birth of Evelyn Waugh, London, author (Brideshead Revisited)

1914 - Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, founded at Howard University, incorporates

1914 - Birth of Dr Jonas Salk, NYC, medical researcher, made polio a fear of the past

[url=http://www.njfreemason.net/Statue%20of%20Liberty%20history.htm
]Liberty Enlightening the World (Statue of Liberty)

[/url]
(Dedicated this day 1886)

The Virgin is consecrated to Isis, just as Leo is consecrated to her husband
Osiris ... The sphinx, composed of a Lion and a Virgin, was used as a symbol to
designate the overflowing Nile ... they put a wheat-ear in the hand of a virgin,
to express the idea of the months, perhaps because the sign of Virgin was called
by the Orientals, Sounbouleh or Schibbolet, that is to say, epi or wheat ear

[url=http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/oct28.html
]Brother Joseph Jerome de Lalande[/url][/b]
founder of Lodge Des Neuf Soers (Nine Sisters),
Paris; Astronomie par M. de la Lande, 1731
(Today is the Isia, for Isis)[/center]

[Tamrin]

Friday, 29 October

0539 - BCE - Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia.

1618 - Sir Walter Raleigh is executed in London

1656 – Birth of Edmond Halley, British geophysicist, mathematician, physicist, meteorologist and astronomer

1740 - Birth of James Boswell, Scotland, Samuel Johnson's biographer

1863 - International Committee of the Red Cross founded

1882 - Birth of Jean Giraudoux, Bellac France, playwright (Eglantine, Provinciales)

1911 – Death of Joseph Pulitzer, American newspaperman (Pulitzer Prizes)

Cyrus the Great
(Conquered Babylon this day 539 BCE)

I can never be persuaded that the soul lives on longer
than it dwells in this mortal body: It too dies on separation.
Remember this as my last and dying words

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 30 October

1270 - 8th & last crusade is ended

1751 - Birth of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish playwright (School for Scandal)

1821 - Birth of Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Russian novelist & short-story writer

1871 - Birth of Paul Valéry, French poet, essayist and critic (La Jeune)

1885 - Birth of Ezra Pound, Hailey, Idaho, poet (Cantos)

1937 – Bro. Lyndon B. Johnson, US President (1963 – 1969), was made a Mason in Texas

1938 - Orson Welles panics the US with broadcast of "War of the Worlds"

Orson Welles
(Famously broadcast “War of the Worlds” this day 1938)

I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 31 October
US: All Hallows Eve (you know, Halloween)
Witch: Samhain, sabbat
World: National UNICEF Day

1517 - Luther posts 95 theses on Wittenberg church - Protestant Reformation begins

1793 - Execution of the Girondins at Paris, during the Reign of Terror

1795 - Birth of John Keats, London, England, romantic poet (Ode to a Grecian Urn)

1926 - Bro. Erich Weiss better known as magician Harry Houdini, dies in Detroit

1987 - Joseph Campbell, US mythologist (Mythic Image), dies at 83

2004 - Scotland pardoned 'Witches' and Cats convicted in 16th & 17th Centuries

2008 - Death of Studs Terkel, American activist and progressive journalist

Catherine Helen Spence
Scottish-born Australian journalist, social and political reformer, pioneer feminist and author
(Born this day 1825)

As we grew to love South Australia, we felt that we were in
an expanding society, still feeling the bond to the motherland,
but eager to develop a perfect society, in the land of our adoption

[Tamrin]

Monday, 1 November
Celtic: Samhain; beginning of year & most important holiday
Mexico: El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)
Ang, RC, Luth: Solemnity of All Saints' Day:

0079 - Pompeii buried by Mt Vesuvius

1512 - Michelangelo's paintings on ceiling of Sistine Chapel, 1st exhibited

1530 - Birth of Étienne de La Boétie, French author

1871 - Birth of Stephen Crane, American author (Red Badge of Courage)

1893 - Birth of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Anderson_(philosopher)
]John Anderson[/url][/b], Scottish-born Australian philosopher ([url=http://epress.anu.edu.au/sdsc/hedley/mobile_devices/ch02.html
]Sydney Realism[/url])
(I studied philosophy under his son [url=http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/sandy/burdekin01.html
]A.J. ‘Sandy’ Anderson[/url][/b])

1922 - Ottoman Empire abolished

1922 - The cornerstone of the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, in Alexandria, Virginia, was laid in a Masonic ceremony

Étienne de La Boétie, French author
(Born this day 1530)

That which controls you has only two eyes, has only two hands, has only
one body and but one thing which the least of men in all the cities has, but
more than you all, it is the advantage which you give him to destroy you

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 2 November
Catholic: All Souls Day
Israel: Balfour Declaration Day (1917)
Australia: Melbourne Cup Day

1734 - Birth of Bro. Daniel Boone, frontiersman/explorer (US Hall of Fame-1915)

1755 - Birth of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, “Let them eat cake” (falsely attributed)

1917 - Balfour Declaration proclaims support for a Jewish state in Palestine

1930 - Ras Tafari crowned Haile Selassie I, 225th emperor of Solomonic Dynasty

1942 - Montgomery (Br) defeats Rommel (Ger) in battle of Alamein (WW II)

1950 – Death of George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Fabian

1961 - James Thurber, humorist (The Male Animal), dies at 66

Bro. Daniel Boone
(Born this day 1734)

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 3 November

0039 - Birth of Lucan, Cordova Spain, Latin poet (Bellum Civile)

1831 – Birth of Ignatius Donnelly, US Congressman and author (Atlantis)

1874 – Birth of Lucy Maud Montgomery, Canadian novelist

1901 - Birth of Andre Malraux, France, novelist/art historian (L'Espoir)

1920 – Birth of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oodgeroo_Noonuccal
]Oodgeroo Noonuccal[/url][/b] (formerly, Kath Walker), MBE, Australian poet, political activist, artist, educator, campaigner for Aboriginal rights

1952 – Birth of Roseanne Barr, American comic actress

1979 - 63 Americans taken hostage at US Embassy (Teheran, Iran)

Olympe de Gouges, French playwright, journalist and feminist
(Guillotined this day 1793)

Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds
throughout the universe; recognize your rights
("The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen" – 1791)