29/12/09

Thomas à Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.  Nearly 300 Oglala and Lakota Sioux were killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.  Ireland became fully sovereign in 1937 when its current constitution went into effect and the 36 year civil war in Guatemala came to an end in 1996.

Born today:  Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), William Gladstone (1809-1898), Pablo Casals (1876-1973), Jon Voight (1938), Rick Danko (1942-1999), Marianne Faithfull (1946), Alan Rusbridger (1953), Brenda Wildhack (1968), Jude Law (1972) and Kieron Dyer (1978).

It is, not altogether unsurprisingly, the feast day of St. Thomas à Becket.