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22


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On the 22nd of March, 1819, about nine o'clock in the morning, a young man, some twenty-three or twenty-four years old, wearing the dress of a German student, which consists of a short frock-coat with silk braiding, tight trousers, and high boots, paused upon a little eminence that stands upon the road between Kaiserthal and Mannheim, at about three-quarters of the distance from the former town, and commands a view of the latter.
So begins Karl-Ludwig Sand, by Alexandre Dumas, Père

Those towns stood for everything eccentric – for abolition, short skirts, whole-wheat bread, hypnotism, phonetic spelling, phrenology, free love and the common ownership of property.
Helen Beal Woodward, in a 1945 magazine article on
Modern Times community, co-founded by Stephen Pearl Andrews,
American anarchist who was born on March 22, 1812

Every variety of interpretation has been put upon my opinions, usually the least favorable which the imagination of the writer could devise, with a view, apparently, of cultivating still further the natural prejudice existing in the public mind against any one bold enough to agitate the delicate and difficult question of the true relations of the sexes, and the legitimate role which the Passions were intended to play in the economy of the Universe. In the absence of any readiness on the part of the public to know the truth on the subject, false, extravagant and ridiculous notions have flooded the country in its stead. I reject and repudiate the interference of the State, precisely as I do the interference of the Church. A grand social revolution will occur. Tyranny of all kinds will disappear, freedom of all kinds will be revered, and none will be ashamed to confess that they believe in the Freedom of Love.
Stephen Pearl Andrews

World Day for Water

Stephen Pearl Andrews once offered, as an image of anarchist society, the dinner party, in which all structure of authority dissolves in conviviality and celebration …
Hakim Bey; Pirate Utopias

[Stephen Pearl Andrews] understood better than any other male contemporary the issues of sexual politics.
Historian Charles Shively   Source  

Light, more light!
Last words of the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who died on March 22, 1832

Nothing is more revolting than the majority; for it consists of few vigorous predecessors, of knaves who accommodate themselves, of weak people who assimilate themselves, and the mass that toddles after them without knowing the least what it wants.
Goethe

The night has a thousand eyes,
  And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
  With the dying sun.
Francis Bourdillon, English poet, born on March 22, 1852; The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Well, let's take what people think is a dignified death. Christ, was that a dignified death? Do you think it's dignified to hang from wood with nails through your hands and feet bleeding, hang for three or four days slowly dying, with people jabbing spears into your side, and people jeering you? Do you think that's dignified? Not by a long shot. Had Christ died in my van with people around Him who loved Him, the way it was, it would be far more dignified. In my rusty van.
Jack Kevorkian, almost-forgotten activist, who went on trial for murder on March 22, 1998; National Press Club, USA, July 29, 1996

There's no doubt I expect to die in prison. All the big powers, they've silenced me. ... So much for free speech and choice on this fundamental human right.
Jack Kevorkian

The president returned to the White House and called me in and said, I've learned from George Tenet that there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser under George W Bush, March 22, 2004 (the Bush administration after this date continued to assert that Saddam Hussein's regime was linked to 9/11)

 

 

 

March 22 is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in leap years), with 284 days remaining.
In the Gregorian Calendar today is the earliest date on which Easter Sunday can fall (April 25 is the latest).
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World Day for Water (UN)

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

Water is critical for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the alleviation of poverty and hunger, and is indispensable for human health and well-being.

The United Nations General Assembly, at its 58th session in December 2003, agreed to proclaim the years 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action, "Water for Life", and beginning with World Water Day, March 22, 2005.  

The Water for Life decade sets the world's goals on "a greater focus on water-related issues, while striving to ensure the participation of women in water-related development efforts, and further cooperation at all levels to achieve water-related goals of the Millennium Declaration, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation of the World Summit for Sustainable Development and Agenda 21."

The assembly called upon the relevant United Nations bodies, specialized agencies, regional commissions and other organisations of the United Nations to deliver a coordinated response, utilizing existing resources and voluntary funds, to make "Water for Life" a "decade for action".

The first water decade from 1981 to1990 brought water to over a billion people and sanitation to almost 770 million. Much more still needs to be done. Safe water supply and adequate sanitation to protect health are among the basic human rights. Today, there are still almost 1.1 billion people who have inadequate access to water and 2.4 billion without appropriate sanitation.

Source

"Water, like air, is a necessity of human life. It is also, according to Fortune magazine, 'One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.'

In the past ten years, three giant global corporations have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent of the world."   Source

Arsenic in Bangladesh drinking wells may be linked to irrigation    Water privatization    More    More

Efforts to privatise water infrastructure condemned

By Khalid Mustafa

KYOTO: The participants of the 3rd World Water Forum
on Friday came down heavily on IMF, World Bank and
other donor agencies for their efforts to privatise
the water infrastructure in the developing countries.

The participants lashed out at the donor agencies when
representatives of the IMF, World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, World Water Council started
presenting their viewpoints in the favour of the
"report of the world panel on financing water
infrastructure."

Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit by Vandana Shiva

 

 

When is Easter?

Easter is on a different date each year according to the Northern Vernal Equinox (may fall on March 20, 21 or 22) and the phases of the moon. 

From Wikipedia:

"The timing of Easter depends on the Jewish Pesach, in English Passover, which commemorates the sparing of the Hebrew first-born, as recounted in Exodus, since it is during this holiday that Jesus is believed to have been resurrected.

The date of Easter

"Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts, in that they do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar (which follows the motion of the Sun and the seasons). Instead, they are based on a lunar calendar like that used by the Jews. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325 it was decided that Easter would be celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the first lunar month of spring (in theory, the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox). Eventually, all churches accepted the Alexandrian method of computing Easter, which set the northern hemisphere vernal equinox at 21 March (the actual equinox may fall one or two days earlier or later), and the date of the full moon was to be determined by using the Metonic cycle. A problem here is the difference between the western churches and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The former now use the Gregorian calendar to calculate the date of Easter, while the latter still use the original Julian calendar. The World Council of Churches proposed a reform of the method of determining the date of Easter at a summit in Aleppo, Syria, in 1997. This reform would have eliminated the difference in the date between the Eastern and Western churches. The reform was due to be implemented starting in 2001, but it failed. See Reform of the date of Easter.

"Computing the date of Easter, known as computus, is somewhat complicated. The Wiki page explains the traditional tabular methods, but also has algorithms such as the one developed by the famous mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.

Source: Wikipedia

 

When is it this year? One explanation can be found in Chambers:

"Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st day of March; and if the full moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday after."
Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers's Book of Days)

Or, probably better:

"Easter Sunday is the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (PFM) date for the year. In June 325 A.D. astronomers approximated astronomical full moon dates for the Christian church, calling them Ecclesiastical Full Moon (EFM) dates. From 326 A.D. the PFM date has always been the EFM date after March 20 (which was the equinox date in 325 A.D.)." 
Source with some explanation, and discussion of popular errors

Lunabar will put moon phases, equinoxes, solstices, etc on your desktop

The date of Easter (US Naval Observatory)    The date of Easter (Anglican calculator)

Timing of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (Christian Churches of God)

Mid-Lent Sunday and the origins of Mothers' Day

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Festival of the Entry of the Tree, for the god Attis, ancient Rome

(Origins of Palm Sunday)

 

Cybele and Attis
Cybele and Attis

 

In this stage of the twelve-day Hilaria festival, the  priests of the goddess Cybele would carry pine (some say palm) trees through the streets today, for the god Attis. Over time, the sacred rites of this day were appropriated by the Christians, and they were attached to Palm Sunday.

In Roman mythology, Cybele's lover and son, or grandson, Attis, betrayed the goddess, and she drove him mad. In his fallen state, Attis castrated himself and died of haemorrhage, violets springing from his blood. (Castration apparently ran in the family. Attis's mother was Nana, who was impregnated by an almond of the tree sprung from the severed genitals of Agdistis Pausanias 7.17.8. Note that Pausanias's version of the Attis story differs from others; there are several Attis myths.) Fortunately for Attis, when he mutilated himself she was remorseful, and Zeus helped her resurrect him after three days. (The myth of Cybele and Attis has inspired one of the greatest of all Roman poems, the 93-line Attis of Catullus.)

A felled pine tree was covered with violets and carried to the shrine of Cybele on Mount Dindymus. It might be that one main tree was carried solemnly, and participants and bystanders waved smaller trees and branches. At the shrine, in what is obviously a Spring Equinox symbol for this life-death-rebirth deity, strikingly similar to Easter, Attis was mourned for three days until, in ritual, he was resurrected by the love of Cybele, following which the devotees engaged in joyous and unrestrained celebration.

The Emperor Claudius (10 BCE - 54) popularised the custom, from Phrygia (in modern Turkey, home of Cybele), of swathing the young pine tree like a corpse, in linen and wool. Wreaths of violets, said to have sprung from Attis's spilled blood, decorated the procession. Dendrophori - tree bearers - carried the pine through the city gates to Cybele's sanctuary, on the hill where St Peter's now stands.

The god was dead on March 22; his holy blood ran down to redeem the earth. Two days of mourning followed, but when night fell on the eve of the third day, March 25, the worshippers turned to joy. At this time, the priest opened the tomb to reveal that the god was not still there. The worshippers cheered as the priest announced, "Be of good cheer, neophytes, seeing that the god is saved; for we also, after our toils, shall find salvation!"

"For suddenly a light shone in the darkness; the tomb was opened; the God had risen from the dead ... [and the priest] softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation.  The resurrection of the God was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave."
Frazer, JG, The Golden Bough, Ch. 34, 'The Myth and Ritual of Attis'; Ch. 35, 'Attis as a God of Vegetation'; Ch. 36, 'Human Representatives of Attis'

Note that March 25 is nine months (the human gestation period) before December 25; ie, Spring Equinox is nine months before Winter Solstice.

As the orgiastic cult of Cybele spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome, the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her.

Cybele and Attis: See the Scriptorium's article on the Megalesia

How are ancient gods and saviours like Jesus Christ?

Cybele's festival of the Hilaria, see March 15 in the Book of Days

Attis, from original sources    Attis at Wikipedia

 

Violets sprang from the blood spilled by Attis

 

Akitu Festival, Sumeria (c. Mar 20 - 31)

Festival of Hilaria, in honour of the Mother of Gods, ancient Rome (Mar 15 - 27)

Quinquatria, Festival of Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, ancient Rome (Mar 19 - 23)

Week of Solidarity with the Peoples Struggling Against Racism and Racial Discrimination (UN) (Mar 21 - 28)

The earliest day on which Easter can occur

Feast day of St Basil of Ancyra, martyr

Feast day of St Basilissa

Feast day of St Benevenuto Scotivoli of Osimo

Feast day of St Callinica

Feast day of St Catharine of Sweden, Abbess
(Pilewort, Ficaria verna, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Darerca

Feast day of St Deogratias of Carthage

Feast day of St Epaphroditus

Feast day of St Harlindis of Arland

Feast day of St Hugolinus Zefferini

Feast day of St Isnard de Chiampo

Feast day of St Lea, widow, of Rome

Feast day of St Nicholas von Flüe, patron saint of Switzerland
Born
in 1417 in the Canton of Unterwalden, Switzerland, and dying in the Ranft valley in 1487, this St Nicholas was first a farmer, then a soldier. Married with ten children, in 1467 he announced his intention to lead a contemplative, religious life. Although his wife Dorothy supported him, his friends and family were alarmed. He helped negotiate a peace in the civil war (1481). St Nicholas von Flüe was canonized in 1947.

Feast day of St Octavian

Feast day of St Paul of Narbonne

Feast day of St Saturninus

Feast day of St Trien

Feast day of St Zachary
St Zachary was elected pope in 741 He sanctioned the assumption of the Frankish crown by Pepin the Short,
King of the Franks, and denounced the iconoclasm of the Byzantine emperor, Constantine V. St Zachary opposed the trade in Christian slaves and translated St Gregory the Great's Dialogues into Greek.

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Arab League Day, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
This commemorates the formation of the Arab League at a conference in London on March 22, 1945.

Tree Planting Day, Lesotho
Today is a national holiday in Lesotho, the southern African nation, formerly Basutoland.

Emancipation of the Slaves Day, Puerto Rico
Today is a national holiday marking the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico on March 22, 1873.

Easter Sunday1818, 2285
In the Gregorian Calendar March 22 is the earliest date on which Easter Sunday can fall (April 25 is the latest).

 

 

 

1459 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

1599 Anthony van Dyck (d. 1641), painter, Flemish-born artist, portraitist to Charles I of England

1797 Wilhelm I (d. 1888), King of Prussia and German Emperor

 

 

Stephen Pearl Andrews1812 Stephen Pearl Andrews (d. May 21, 1886), anarchist abolitionist, Modern Times community founder (with Josiah Warren, 1799 - 1874), born at Templeton, Massachusetts, USA. 

He was a lawyer, author (The Sovereignty of the Individual; Science of Society) and free-love advocate; it is said that he knew 32 languages.

He started with a brilliant career at the American bar and sacrificed it by his zealous work for the abolition of slavery. Andrews also contributed frequently to the Truth Seeker, a journal of rational thought that is still in publication (other eminent contributors included Thomas Edison, Clarence Darrow, Mark Twain, Robert G IngersollHL Mencken, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Margaret Sanger). By the 1860s, he was propounding an ideal society called Pantarchy, and from this he moved on to a philosophy he called "universology", which stressed the unity of all knowledge and activities.

Andrews was cited in the article on Anarchism by none other than Prince Peter Kropotkin in the famed 1910 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica.

"Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews were brilliant and idealistic men, social reformers whose dream was to create a utopia where everyone would live in harmony, where profit would be a dirty word and absolute personal freedom – including 'free love' – would be the ultimate goal.

"So it was almost 150 years ago that Warren and Andrews founded Modern Times, a social experiment that occupied, for a volatile 13 years, the land that now is part of Brentwood. Short-lived though it was, Modern Times left its mark as a place whose time had not yet come: Its maverick residents, who never numbered more than 150, were free to cohabit with or without marriage. To be sure, this was what gave the place its reputation as a 'Sodom of the pine barrens,' but it was only part of what Modern Times was about. The village operated harmoniously for several years without police, courts or crime. All residents were allowed total personal freedom as long as their actions hurt no one else. Food, clothing, land and housing – all the necessities – were sold at cost."   Source

See also the entry for Andrews in Joseph McCabe's A Biographical Dictionary of ... Freethinkers.  

Andrews Bibliography    The Science of Society    More

 

1817 Baha'u'llah (d. 1892), prophet of the Baha'i faith

1817 Braxton Bragg (d. 1876), American Confederate general

1846 Randolph Caldecott (d. February 12, 1886), English illustrator after whom the prestigious Caldecott Medal for American children's book illustration is named

1852 Francis Bourdillon, English poet

1861 Walter Francis Willcox (d. 1964), American statistician and Census Bureau head

1868 Robert Millikan, American physicist

1887 Chico Marx (d. 1961), comedian, actor

1907 Lucia dos Santos (d. 2005), one of the three Fatima witnesses

1908 Louis L'Amour (d. 1988), author

1909 Gabrielle Roy (d. 1983), author

1910 Nicholas Monsarrat, British author (The Cruel Sea; The Tribe That Lost Its Head)

1912 Karl Malden, actor

1920 Werner Klemperer (d. 2000), actor who played bumbling Colonel Klink in 1960s TV series Hogan's Heroes

1920 James Brown, American soul singer ('I Got You [I Feel Good]')

1923 Marcel Marceau, French mime artist

"Marcel Marceau – universally acclaimed as the world's greatest mime, was born in Strasbourg, France. Marceau's interest in the art of mime began at an early age when he would imitate with gestures anything that fired his imagination. Later he discovered such silent screen artists as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and his admiration for these great actors inspired him to pursue the art of silence as a profession."   Source

"In 1946, he enrolled as a student in Charles Dullin's School of Dramatic Art in the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre in Paris, where he studied with the great master, Etienne Decroux, who had also taught Jean-Louis Barrault. The latter noticed Marceau's exceptional talent, made him a member of his company, and cast him in the role of Arlequin in the pantomime entitled Baptiste – which Barrault himself had interpreted in the world famous film 'Les Enfants du Paradis'. Marceau's performance won him such acclaim that he was encouraged to present his first 'mimodrama', called Praxitele and the Golden Fish, at the Bernhardt Theatre that same year. The acclaim was so unanimous that Marceau's career as a mime was firmly established."   Source

More

1930 Stephen Sondheim, American composer of musicals (Sweeney Todd; A Little Night Music)

1930 Pat Robertson, American televangelist and 1988 presidential candidate

1931 William Shatner, Canadian actor, played Captain James T Kirk in Star Trek TV series

1933 May Britt, Swedish actress

1934 Orrin Hatch, American politician (Senator from Utah)

1935 M Emmet Walsh, actor

1936 Roger Whittaker, Kenyan-born British singer and songwriter ('The Last Farewell')

1940 Haing S Ngor (murdered February 25, 1996), Cambodian-born American actor (Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The Killing Fields, 1984)

"On the 25 February, 1996, Dr Haing S Ngor was gunned down in front of the Chinatown apartment he used in Los Angeles. Just two days later, three 19-year-old boys, members of a local gang, were arrested and charged with the murder, which was apparently a simple robbery gone wrong. Haing was shot after refusing to hand over a locket, holding a photo of his late wife."   Source

1941 Bruno Ganz, Swiss actor

1943 George Benson, jazz musician

1946 André Heller, artist

1946 Rudy Rucker, science fiction author

1947 Harry Vanda, Dutch-born member of Australian rock band The Easybeats ('Friday on My Mind'), who with partner George Young had a huge influence on Australian rock music

"In 1964, Dutch-born Harry Vanda met fellow Easybeats whilst all were living at the Villawood migrant hostel.

"For the first few years of The Easybeats' existence, the songs - eight Top 5 hits in less than two years - were written by George Young with lyrics from singer Stevie Wright. But by the end of 1966 George began to write more closely with the band's lead guitarist Harry Vanda. Their first hit together was 'Friday On My Mind'.

"Meanwhile, under the guidance of Vanda and Young, AC/DC with George's younger brothers Malcolm and Angus launched a career that has resulted in over 90 million album sales internationally and a ranking as the fifth largest selling artists in American music history."   Source

1948 Andrew Lloyd Webber, British composer

"In 1965, he met Tim Rice, who would be his collaborator on his first successes, and began writing for the theatre. In 1972, Andrew married Sara Hugill, with whom he had two children. They were later divorced, and Andrew married Sarah Brightman in 1984. This marriage also ended, and in 1991 Andrew married his third wife, Madeleine. They are currently married with three children.

"Besides his many stage compositions, Lloyd Webber has also written film scores, pop songs, a requiem, and is the owner of the Really Useful Company, which, along with producing shows, also owns many of the West End's theatres. Among his many achievements are seven Tony Awards, three Grammys, five Oliviers, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. He was the first person to have three different shows playing in New York and London. He was knighted in 1992, and in 1997 was named Lord Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton."   Source

Webber musicals

1949 Fanny Ardant, French actress

1955 Pete Sessions, American politician

1956 Lena Olin, Swedish actress

1959 Matthew Modine, American actor (Full Metal Jacket)

1966 Artis Pabriks, Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs

1976 Reese Witherspoon, American actress

 

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March

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28 Hot Tub Day
28 Respect Your Cat Day
30 Doctors' Day
31 Bunsen Burner Day

April

1 April Fools' Day
1 Firefighters Day
1 World Catfish Festival (Mississippi, USA)
1 Taro Festival (Hawaii, USA)
2 Great Lovers Day
2 Reconciliation Day
2 Peanut Butter And Jelly Day
3 Find A Rainbow Day
3 Chocolate Mousse Day
3 Circus Day
3 Workplace Napping Day
4 Tell A Lie Day
4 Vitamin C Day
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5 Tomb Sweeping Day
6 Animated Cartoon Day
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238 Gordian I and his son Gordian II were proclaimed Roman emperors.

1417: First Death of Flamel: "Nicolas Flamel, the famous and successful medieval alchemist, 'died' and was buried with his wife and adept Pernelle, in his home town of Paris, having first achieved the Philosopher's Stone and attained immortality. They were seen on several occasions during the 17th century in India, then still more again in Paris in the 18th, having returned to occupy their old house and laboratory in rue Marivaux. Their 'graves' contained only lengths of wood wrapped in funeral clothes."   Source

1471 Death of Pope Paul II, (b. 1418).

1621 The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags. This treaty was kept, by both sides, for fifty years. 

1638 Freethinker Anne Hutchinson was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.

1687 Death of Jean Baptiste Lully (b. 1632), French composer.

1765 The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax levied from England on the American colonies.

1809 Charles XIII succeeded Gustav IV Adolf to the Swedish throne.

1820 Death of Stephen Decatur (b. 1779), sailor.

1829 After almost four centuries of Ottoman rule, Greece's borders were established by a conference in London.

1831 Australia's oldest school, The King's School, was founded at Parramatta, NSW.

1832 Death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (b. 1749), writer and poet.

1841 Cornstarch was patented in the USA.

1871 USA: In North Carolina, William Holden became the first governor of a US state to be removed from office by impeachment.

1873 Slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico.

1880 In Melbourne, women were admitted to Australian universities for the first time.

1880 The first modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was made. The myth had started with a sighting by the medieval saint, Columba.

Nessie    Nessie and St Columba    The Legend of Nessie

China's 'Loch Ness Monster' resurfaces    Nessie's 1933 appearance, at the Book of Days (May 2, 1933)

1895 At a private screening in Paris, Auguste and Louis Lumière gave the first demonstration of a celluloid cinematograph film, ushering in the era of motion pictures.

1896 Death of Thomas Hughes (b. 1822), novelist.

1897 In Adelaide, Edmund Barton headed a conference that set out this day much of what eventually became Australia's Constitution. (In 1901, Barton became the first Prime Minister of the Commonwealth.)

1903 In a rare occurrence due to a drought, water ceased to flow over the Niagara Falls.

1904 The Daily Illustrated Mirror, USA, published the world's first colour pictures in the daily press.

1905 Harper's Bazaar rejected Mark Twain's pro-peace short story, 'The War Prayer', as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine". Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Unfortunately, Twain had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, so the 1,300-word classic tale remained unpublished until 1923.

1907 In protest at the despised pass laws, South African Asian residents led by Mohandas Gandhi began a campaign of civil disobedience.

1907 The world's first taxi fare meters were used, in London, England.

1922 A Mr Box held a demonstration in Melbourne, Australia, to show the extraction of gas from household garbage.

1933 The Nazis of Germany opened the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich.

1939 World War II: Germany took Memel from Lithuania.

1941 USA: Washington's Grand Coulee Dam began to generate electricity.

1942 The French Resistance commenced receiving messages in Morse code broadcast by the BBC in London.

1945 Cairo, Egypt: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan joined to establish the Arab League.

1946 The the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan became independent from Britain.

1954 Closed since 1939, the London gold market reopened.

1956 Sir Eugène Goossens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, was fined £80 by a local court after being stopped by Australian customs with pornographic items. The interception of his luggage had followed a period of surveillance after Goossens's dalliance with Rosaleen Norton, the so-called 'Witch of Kings Cross'.

1958 Faisal became King of Saudi Arabia.

1958 In South Africa, women protested against the apartheid Pass Laws in their country.

1958 Elizabeth Taylor's third husband, Mike Todd, was killed in an air crash.

1960 Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Townes received the first patent for a laser.

1963 In the House of Commons, British cabinet minister and Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, affirmed that there had been no impropriety between him and Christine Keeler, a London showgirl.

The so-called 'Profumo Affair' rocked the UK and discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan. Profumo had entered into an affair with Keeler, not suspecting that she was also sleeping with Yevgeny Ivanov, a naval attaché at the embassy of the Soviet Union.

While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, another player in the affair, Keeler's friend Mandy Rice-Davies made the quip for which she is most remembered. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied having an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?"

Christine Keeler and that chair

1965 Bob Dylan "went electric," releasing his first album featuring electric instruments, Bringing It All Back Home.

 

1968 USA: A MOBE (Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam) conference in Lake Villa, Illinois brought together MOBE, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), and Yippie (Youth International Party) activists to plan the 1968 Democratic Party Convention demonstrations

At the same time, a 'Yip-In', organized by Abbie Hoffman and fellow Yippies, was held at NYC Grand Central Terminal. Six thousand people showed up to sing songs, chant and dance. A group climbed up on the station's information desk and tore the arms off the booth's four clocks. Two cherry bombs went off. A police riot ensued.

"In 1970, Eleanor Lester, a theater critic writing in the New York Times, called Hoffman 'the boldest, most imaginative producer-director-performer of avant-guard theater' and compared him to Shakespeare in his 'genius for reaching a multi-level audience.' Hoffman's masterpieces, she listed, were the throwing away of money at the New York Stock Exchange and the levitation of the Pentagon (1967), the Grand Central Station Yip-in 'massacre' and the Yippie demonstrations in Chicago (1968), and the Conspiracy Trial of the Chicago Seven (1969-1970), which, as described by Dwight Macdonald in another context, was Abbie's show, 'a chance to act out in largest publicity his ideas about radical politics as theater, about 'putting on' the squares and goosing the media.'"   Source

Trial of the Chicago 7 and related items at March 19, 1969; March 22, 1968August 23, 1968; September 17, 1968; September 17, 1969 January 23, 1970 and November 21, 1972.

 

1975 A fire at the Brown's Ferry nuclear reactor in Decatur, Alabama, USA, caused dangerous lowering of cooling water levels.

1978 Karl Wallenda of the Flying Wallendas died after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1980 USA: 30,000 marched against conscription, Washington, DC.

1984 Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California were charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges were later dropped as completely unfounded.

1986 Australian businessman Alan Bond bought the British-based Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment Co, reportedly for $232 million. Bond later went to jail in Australia for fraud, over other business dealings.

1986 Australia and Britain announced an agreement on a reciprocal health system whereby Australians holidaying in the UK could receive health cover in public hospitals, and vice versa.

1987 "... [A]n unassuming barge called the Mobro 4000 began a 6,000 mile voyage, looking for a port that would take its cargo – nearly 3,200 tons of trash. With its escort, the tugboat Break of Day, the Mobro would sail along the coast of the Eastern and Southern United States, down into the Gulf of Mexico and through the Bahamas, before finally returning to New York, still bearing its load of garbage.

"The saga of the Mobro began when the city of Islip, New York realized that its landfills were, well, full …"  

Source

1993 The Intel Corporation shipped the first Pentium chips (80586) 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.

1995 Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned after setting a record for 438 days in space.

 

1999 USA: The trial began for Dr Jack Kevorkian (b. 1928) on murder charges for the first time. Acting as his own lawyer, Kevorkian told a jury in Pontiac, Michigan, he was merely carrying out his professional duty in a videotaped assisted death shown on TV's 60 Minutes. Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder.

Kevorkian is a controversial American medical doctor who is most famous for his support for assisted suicide.

 

Four years into prison term, Kevorkian all but forgotten

February 23, 2003
"Four years ago, when he was convicted of second-degree murder, Jack Kevorkian was one of the most famous people in America, ranking just a notch behind the president in name recognition.

"Today, as his nation prepares for war, he sits in a cell in Lapeer, almost totally forgotten and with seemingly little chance of ever getting out alive. He says he now only wants to work to change the law and promises never to help another patient die. But nobody seems to care.

"The man who made physician-assisted suicide famous was on the cover of Time Magazine, dominated the airwaves and was the subject of intense debate everywhere from philosophy classes to bowling alleys. Was he an angel of mercy or a mass murderer? Was he the John Brown of a new civil rights movement destined to win Americans the last right - the right to legally die when one wanted to? …

"When Kevorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in April 1999, he thought public outrage would soon force his release. Exactly the opposite happened. Then-Gov. John Engler announced prisoners could no longer be interviewed by the broadcast media."

Source

Not Dead Yet: The Resistance    International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force    Kevorkian Verdict


 

Tomorrow: The death of Ronald Opus – an urban legend

 

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Wikipedia and David Brown's prodigious Daily Bleed are both excellent resources that aid my research.
I frequently make use of their generously liberal 'fair use', 'copyleft' and 'anti-copyright' policies, with much gratitude.
© My own copyright policy is also liberal, but as this is my livelihood, conditions apply.

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