Daily Chat 31/10/09

Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517.  A cyclone devastated India, killing more than 200,000 in 1876.  The Lincoln Highway, the first national highway to be built for automobiles in the United States, was dedicated in 1913.  It was 5454 kilometres long and stretched from Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.  The Battle of Britain ended in 1940.  Stalin's body was removed from Lenin's Tomb in 1961 and Louise Woodward was convicted of second degree manslaughter in 1997.

Born today:  Johannes/Jan Vermeer (1632-1675), John Keats (1795-1821), Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), Dale Evans (1912-2001), Jimmy Savile (1926), Kinky Friedman (1944), Michael Kitchen (1948), Larry Mullen, Jr. (1961), Johnny Marr (1963) and Marco van Basten (1964).

It is Halloween, Samhain or (if you're Cornish) Calan Gwaf.

Daily Chat 30/10/09

Guangzhou was sacked by Arab and Persian pirates in 758.  Prince Wilhelm of Denmark became George I, King of the Hellenes, in 1863.  Orson Welles's radio broadcast of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds created panic in several locations across the United States in 1938, as listeners thought they were hearing a real news broadcast.  Jackie Robinson, of the Negro League's Kansas City Monarchs, signed a contract to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first black player in American Major League baseball, in 1945.

Born today:  John Adams (1735-1826), Richard Sheridan (1751-1816), Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), Ezra Pound (1885-1972), Anna Wing (1919), Louis Malle (1932-1995), Grace Slick (1939), Henry Winkler (1945), Diego Maradona (1960) and Gavin Rossdale (1967).

It is the feast day of St. Serapion of Antioch.

Daily Chat 29/10/09

Three people were killed as a result of the first trial for witchcraft in Paris in 1390.  Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded for allegedly plotting against James I in 1618. Mozart's Don Giovanni had its debut in Prague in 1787. Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form Tanzania in 1964.

Born today:  Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), Bob Ross (1942-1995), Denny Laine (1944), Richard Dreyfuss (1947), Dan Castellaneta (1957), Rufus Sewell (1967) and Edwin van der Sar (1970).

It is Republic Day in Turkey.

Daily Chat 28/10/09

The first university in the New World, Universidad Santó Tomas de Aquino, was founded in what is now the Dominican Republic in 1538.  It closed in 1832.  The college that would become Harvard University was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636.  The first train in Spain, between Barcelona and Mataró, opened in 1848.  No clue whether that's on a plain or if there was rain.  The Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York harbour in 1886.  Mussolini and the Fascists (sounds almost like a band) took over the Italian government in 1922.

Born today:  Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), Elsa Lanchester (1902-1986), Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Cleo Laine (1927), Joan Plowright (1929), David Dimbleby (1938), the Anti-Chri, er, Bill Gates (1955), Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (1956) and Julia Roberts (1967).

It is Oxi Day in Greece.