Today in History

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 14 December
Ancient Rome: Beginning of Halcyon Days (14 days)

1784 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was made a Mason in the Viennese Masonic lodge called "Zur Wohltätigkeit" ("Beneficence")

1799 – Death of Bro. George Washington, 1st President USA (1789-97)

1873 – Death of J Louis R Agassiz, Swiss geologist and paleo-biologist

1897 – Birth of Margaret Chase Smith, American politician (Presidential nominee)

1974 – Death of Walter Lippmann, US journalist (One of Dynasty)

1989 – Death of Andrei D Sakharov, Soviet Physicist/Dissident/1975 Nobel peace prize winner

1994 - The United Grand Lodge of England issued a statement that it found the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, the source of all Prince Hall Masonry in the United States, to be regular and deserving of recognition

St. John of the Cross, Spanish mystic
(Died this day 1591)

The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in
it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong
wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not,
if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 15 December
Ancient Rome: Consualia, commemorating Consus — god of the harvest
Ancient Rome: Festival of Fortuna — goddess of happy journeys and prosperous returns
London: Annual feast and song festival of the [url=http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/dec/15.htm
]Men's Society of Piu[/url][/b]

1779 - American Union Lodge, a travelling lodge under the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, met and proposed that George Washington become the General Grand Master of Masons in the United States. There is no evidence that Washington ever heard about this and no evidence that he ever held any Masonic position other than Master of a lodge (and no evidence that he attended this lodge while he was Master, or possibly ever)

1793 - Birth of Henry Charles Carey, US economist (Principles of Political Economy)

1832 - Birth of Bro. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, French engineer (Eiffel tower & Statue of Liberty’s frame)

1874 - The Grand Lodge of Wyoming was instituted

1890 – Murder of Tatanka Yotanka (Chief Sitting Bull) Sioux holy man (Little Big Horn, Ghost Dance)

1906 - Birth of Betty Smith, German / US novelist (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)

1966 – Death of DeMolay Bro. Walt Disney, animator (born 5/12/1901) widow, Lillian, died this day 1977

Muriel Rukeyser, American poet
(Born this day 1913)

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 16 December
Ancient Rome: Feast Day of Sapienta (or Sophia) goddess of wisdom
South Africa: Day of Reconciliation (1994) – Formerly, Afrikaner Day of the Covenant

1770 - Birth of Bro. Ludwig van Beethoven, Bonn Germany, composer (Ode to Joy)

1773 - A delegation of Brethren from Lodge St. Andrew's (met at the Green Dragon Inn, Boston) reputed to have attended a local tea party

1775 - Birth of Jane Austen, English novelist (Pride & Prejudice)

1786 - The Grand Lodge of Georgia was instituted.

1899 - Birth of Sir Noel Coward, English playwright (In Which We Serve-1942 Academy Award)

1901 – Birth of Margaret Mead, American anthropologist

1917 - Birth of Arthur C. Clarke, English science fiction author

Boston Tea Party
(Held this day 1773)

Rally, Mohawks — bring out your axes! And tell King George we'll pay no taxes
on his foreign tea! His threats are vain — and vain to think to force our girls
and wives to drink his vile Bohea! Then rally boys, and hasten on to meet our
Chiefs at the Green Dragon. Our Warren's there, and bold Revere, with hands
to do and words to cheer for Liberty and Laws! Our country's "Braves" and firm
defenders shall ne'er be left by true North-Enders, fighting Freedom's cause!
Then rally boys and hasten on to meet our Chiefs at the Green Dragon

“Rally Mohawks” song

[Tamrin]

Friday, 17 December
Ancient Rome: Saturnalia
Venezuela: Bolivar Day (1830)

1273 – Death of Rumi (Jalâl ad-Dîn Muhammad Balkhî), Persian poet and Sufi mystic

1493 - Birth of Philippus A Paracelsus, Swiss physician/alchemist (Liber paramixum)

1796 – Birth of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Canadian novelist

1807 - Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, US abolitionist poet (Snow-bound)

1867 - The Grand Lodge of Idaho was instituted.

1907 – Death of Lord Kelvin of Largs (William Thomson), British physicist

1967 - Harold Holt, Australian Prime Minister (1966-67), drowns at 59

Bro. Simon Bolivar
(Died this day 1830)

We have ploughed the sea
(Referring to the evils of the old regime reappearing after the revolutions)

[Tamrin]

Saturday, 18 December
Ancient Rome: Festival of Epona, Celtic horse goddess (cult adopted by Rome)
World: International Migrants’ Day

1786 - The Grand Lodge of New Jersey was instituted

1803 – Death of Johann G von Herder, German philosopher/theologist/poet

1843 - The Grand Lodge of Wisconsin was instituted

1870 - Birth of D T Suzuki, Kanazawa Japan, Zen Buddhist scholar (Zen in the Art of Archery)

1913 – Birth of Alfred Bester, US science fiction author

1939 – Birth of Michael Moorcock, English science fiction author

1946 - Birth of Stephen (Steve) Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist

Christopher Fry, English playwright
(Born this day 1907)

Between our birth and death we may touch understanding,
As a moth brushes a window with its wing

[Tamrin]

Sunday, 19 December
Ancient Rome: Festival of Juventas, goddess of youth

1820 - Birth of Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, American author reformer/women's suffrage leader

1848 - Death of Emily Brontë, English author (Wuthering Heights)

1875 - Birth of Carter G. Woodson, African-American historian, author, journalist

1910 - Birth of Jean Genet, novelist (Our Lady of the Flowers; The Thief's Journal)

1915 - Birth of Edith Piaf (E Giovanna Gassion), Paris France, chanteuse (Little Sparrow)

1940 - Birth of Phil Ochs, American protest singer

1960 – Birth of Derrick Jensen, American author and activist

Richard Leakey
Kenyan politician, paleoanthropologist and conservationist
(Born this day 1944)

An evolutionary perspective of our place in the history of the earth reminds us
that Homo sapiens sapiens has occupied the planet for the tiniest fraction of that
planet's four and a half thousand million years of existence. In many ways we
are a biological accident, the product of countless propitious circumstances. As
we peer back through the fossil record, through layer upon layer of long-extinct
species, many of which thrived far longer than the human species is ever likely to
do, we are reminded of our mortality as a species. There is no law that declares
the human animal to be different, as seen in this broad biological perspective, from
any other animal. There is no law that declares the human species to be immortal

[Tamrin]

Monday, 20 December

1894 - Birth of Bro. Robert Gordon Menzies, iconic “Liberal”, long-serving Australian PM

1902 - Birth of Max Lerner, US educator and journalist

1902 - Birth of Sidney Hook, US philosopher (Pragmatism)

1968 - Death of John Steinbeck, US Pulitzer Prize-winning author

1984 - Death of Stanley Milgram, American social psychologist (Milgram Experiment)

1993 - Death of W Edwards Deming, US economist (helped Japan after WWII)

1996 - Death of Carl Sagan, US astronomer, novelist (Contact)

Dora Montefiore
English-Australian women's suffragist, socialist, poet and journalist
(Born this day 1851)

Socialism is being attacked in every country where it is a growing force with the
weapons which the reactionary knows have been dipped in the poison of untruth,
but which he does not scruple to use. In Anglo-Saxon countries every Socialist
is marked down as “an Atheist and a free-lover”; it is, therefore, inconvenient
to those who are weak-kneed, or who are desirous of, making their way in
unaccustomed circles, to be known as active Socialists. It is much safer, when
pressed on the subject, to admit they are “in favour of Socialist principles”

[Tamrin]

Tuesday, 21 December
Solstice
Zoroastrian: Yaldâ Festival (Birth of Mithra)

1845 - Birth of Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister

1849 - Birth of James Lane Allen, American novelist and short story writer

1879 - Birth of Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, mass murderer

1889 - Death of Joseph Barber Lightfoot, English theologian and Bishop of Durham

1892 - Birth of Dame Rebecca West, English, journalist/novelist/critic/feminist (Meaning of Treason)

1940 - Death of F Scott Fitzgerald, US author (Great Gatsby, Zelda)

1945 - Death of George S Patton, US general (Sicily/Normandy)

Maud Gonne
Hermeticist (Golden Dawn), Irish nationalist (Irish Joan of Arc)
(Born this day 1865)

The English may batter us to pieces,
but they will never succeed in breaking our spirit

[Tamrin]

Wednesday, 22 December
Ancient Egypt: Festival of Isis
Wicca: Yule Sabbat

1639 - Baptism of Jean-Baptiste Racine, French dramatist (Andromaque)

1753 - The Royal Arch degree was conferred in Fredericksburg Lodge in Virginia. This is the first unquestioned evidence of the conferral of this degree

1869 - Birth of Andre Gide, Nobel Prize winning French author

1880 - Death of George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), Victorian novelist

1894 - Court-martial of Alfred Dreyfus, French officer (later vindicated)

1951 – Birth of Charles de Lint, Canadian fantasy author and Celtic folk musician

1989 - Death of Samuel Beckett, Irish/French writer (Waiting for Godot)

José Maria Morelos, revolutionary priest
(Executed this day 1815)

May slavery be banished forever together with the distinction between castes,
all remaining equal, so Americans may only be distinguished by vice or virtue

[Tamrin]

Thursday, 23 December
Ancient Egypt: Day of Hathor
Celtic: The Secret of the Unhewn Stone
Festivus (a holiday for the rest of us)

1790 - Birth of Jean-François Champollion, deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphics

1805 - Birth of Bro. Joseph Smith Jnr, Sharon VT, founder of Mormon church

1812 – Birth of Samuel Smiles, English author (Self-Help; Thrift), reformer and biographer

1834 - Birth of Thomas R Malthus, English vicar/economist (moral restraint)

1926 – Birth of Robert Bly, American poet, author

1948 - Hideki Tojo, Japan PM & 6 other Japanese hanged for war crimes by US

1996 - 4 women ordained priests in Jamaica, 1st in 330-year Anglican history

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa,
Sicilian writer (Der Leopard)
(Born this day 1896)

If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change