Today is day 18 of the Gregorian Calendar year, Pungenday, Chaos 18, 3187 YOLD And let us not forget 13.0.8.3.10 mlc (the Mayan Long Count)
OK, it's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Not that today has anything to do with the Reverend King, beyond that he was born in Jauary but that's better than at least one recent birthday celebration, so there we are. This is where I throw up a short pithy quote from the good doctor, so, well and good, I shall do so, a few, in fact:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
The time is always right to do what is right.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Do any of those do the man justice? His life, his actions, his prose, his rhetoric, his speeches, his influence on others and on history? Nope, not at all. Every champion of the downtrodden acquires a great many enemies, especially amont the powerful and he was no exception. Jedgar The Hooved, the capo of a criminal conspiracy, colloquially known then as now as the Feebs became a sworn enemy of Dr. King and determined to take him down. The Hooved one even put him on his gang's COINTELPRO hit list. After all, did not Dr. King use the "E-Word", and is that not inherently communist? Everybody knows that the US is based on the principle that, as Pogo the Possum told us "some is more equal than others." Nonetheless, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1964, much to the chagrin of many. And, speaking of peace, he was, of course, an opponent of the war in Viet Nam. At first he was reluctant to risk the usccess of the civil rights movement by getting entangled with the peace movement too, but as time passed he began speaking more and more about how wrong the war was and about the need to end it. He also began more openly and directly addressing the economic and class warfare aspects of the mistreatment of the US' Black populace. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
On this day in history:
1670 – Henry Morgan captured Panama. 1778 – James Cook became the first European to find the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands" because that's how "explorers" behave 1788 – The first ships of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to settle Australia arrived at there. 1806 – The British conquered the Dutch Cape Colony and made it a British Colony. 1896 – An X-ray generating machine was exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith. 1911 – Eugene B. Ely landed an airplane on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay, the first such ship landing in history 1915 – Japan issued the "Twenty-One Demands" to the Republic of China 1919 – The Paris Peace Conference opened in Versailles, France. 1943 – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began 1945 – The Red Army liberated Kraków, Poland 1974 – A Disengagement of Forces agreement was signed between Israel and Egypt . 1976 – Lebanese Christian militias massacred 1,500 people in Karantina, Beirut. 1977 – Scientists identified the bacterium that causes Legionnaires' disease. 1978 – The European Court of Human Rights found the UK government guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland 1983 – The International Olympic Committee restored Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals . 1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was officially observed for the first time in all 50 US states.
Born this day in:
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
~~ Montesquieu 1659 – Damaris Cudworth Masham, philosopher and theologian 1689 – Montesquieu, lawyer and philosopher 1779 – Peter Mark Roget, physician, lexicographer, and theologian 1854 – Thomas A. Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell 1856 – Daniel Hale Williams, surgeon and cardiologist 1880 – Paul Ehrenfest, physicist and academic 1882 – A. A. Milne, author, poet, and playwright 1901 – Ivan Petrovsky, mathematician and academic 1905 – Joseph Bonanno, businessman 1921 – Yoichiro Nambu, physicist and academic, 1932 – Robert Anton Wilson, psychologist, author, poet, and playwright 1933 – Ray Dolby, engineer and businessman, founded Dolby Laboratories 1938 – Hargus "Pig" Robbins, session keyboard and piano player 1941 – Bobby Goldsboro, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1941 – David Ruffin, singer (The Temptations) 11943 – Dave Greenslade, keyboard player and composer 1953 – Brett Hudson, singer, songwriter, and producer 1963 – Carl McCoy, singer and songwriter 1969 – Jim O'Rourke, guitarist and producer 1971 – Amy Barger, astronomer 1971 – Jonathan Davis, singer and songwriter 1974 – Christian Burns, singer and songwriter 1976 – Damien Leith, Isinger, songwriter, and guitarist 1977 – Richard Archer, singer,songwriter, and guitarist 1982 – Quinn Allman, American guitarist and producer 1983 – Samantha Mumba, singer, songwriter, and actress 1984 – Kristy Lee Cook, singer, songwriter 1986 – Marya Roxx, singer and songwriter 1988 – Ronnie Day, singer and songwriter
Died this day in:
The pen is mightier than the sword.
also It was a dark and stormy night ... ~~Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1425 – Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, politician 1783 – Jeanne Quinault, actress, salonista, and playwright 1873 – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, poet, playwright, and politician 1878 – Antoine César Becquerel, physicist and academic 1936 – Rudyard Kipling, author and poet 1966 – Kathleen Norris, journalist and author 1990 – Melanie Appleby, singer 2000 – Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, architect 2004 – Galina Gavrilovna Korchuganova, test pilot and aerobatics champion 2007 – Brent Liles, bass player 2010 – Kate McGarrigle, singer, songwriter, and musician 2010 – Robert B. Parker, author and academic 2011 – Sargent Shriver, politician and diplomat 2015 – Tony Verna, director and producer, invented instant replay
Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Elementary School Teacher Day Thesaurus Day Maintenance Day National Peking Duck Day Winnie the Pooh Day It is also Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ; a truly horrifying goal that is luckily prodigiously unlikely to come to fruition.
Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies ;-)