There are not too many times in history where terror has formed a framework for rules. One marked exception is the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror which, we are apt to forget, was a formal though shortlived rule of law. More often, terror is the tool of our enemy, the logical conclusion been the relatively… Continue reading #OTD 20 August
Category: The Calendar
#OTD 19 August
In 44 BC, not long after Caesar’s murder on the ides of March, the senate changed the name of the month of his birth, Quintilis, to Julius. By the 19th day of the following month Sextilis in the following year 43 BC, Caesar’s great nephew and adopted son and heir Octavian had wrangled an appointment… Continue reading #OTD 19 August
#OTD 18 August
We know that the birth of the first English child in a New World English colony took place on 18 August 1587. And that’s about all we know. Her grandfather and governor of the colony returned to England for supplies; the Spanish Armada held things up for a while; and by the time he returned-… Continue reading #OTD 18 August
#OTD 17 August
In 1960 on the eve of a proposed summit with US President Eisenhower, USSR President Khrushchev announced that a US plane had been shot down over USSR territory. The Washington DC Evening Star reported “Summit Plans Believed Intact – No Shift Report After Red Attacks”. Other front page stories included Princess Margaret’s marriage and a… Continue reading #OTD 17 August
#OTD 16 August
Competing narratives are the great battle of history. A good example is finding out what happened on 16 August 1819 at St Peter’s Fields. You can do one of four things. First, don’t celebrate anything, the course taken by Manchester’s Tory led council in the sesquicentenary of 1969. Secondly, read the plaque erected by Manchester’s… Continue reading #OTD 16 August
#OTD 15 August
On 15 August 1945, a week or more after the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an emperor of Japan spoke to the common people for the first time, informing them of the decision to accept surrender. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, 15 August has often featured in Japan’s dealings with outsiders. On 15 August… Continue reading #OTD 15 August
#OTD 14 August
And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have… Death is the great leveller but an old age pension irons out the wrinkles. The Great Depression saw old age poverty in the US reach 50% and on 14 August 1935 FDR signed the Social… Continue reading #OTD 14 August
#OTD 13 August
On 13 August 1888, William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut filed his patent for a pay phone: The object of my invention is to provide an apparatus that may be used in connection with a telephone as a pay-station, the said apparatus being provided with a coin-controlled lock that prevents the sending of messages, while it… Continue reading #OTD 13 August
#OTD 12 August
The death of Cleopatra on 12 August 30 BC is something that we in the west understandably see in a western context: end of Hellenistic Age, rise of Rome, and so on. But the queen’s death did not quite mark the very end of the Hellenistic Age. Two thousand years later, as the Middle East… Continue reading #OTD 12 August
#OTD 11 August
George Antheil was a polymath, an avant garde musician who self-styled himself into Hollywood as the “Bad Boy of Music”. A side interest was female endocrinology, and he authored “The Glandbook for the Questing Male”. Born in New York of German parents, experienced in the affairs of Europe, active in the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and,… Continue reading #OTD 11 August