Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is unimpressed by cheese
Hili: A sandwich with cheese? Does that mean that we already ate smoked sirloin?
A: It means that I fancied a sandwich with cheese.
.
.
In Polish:
Hili: Kanapka z serem? Czy to znaczy, że polędwicę już zjedliśmy?
Ja: To znaczy, że mam ochotę na kanapkę z serem.
On this day:
1488 – Konrad Bitz, the Bishop of Turku, marks the date of his preface to Missale Aboense, the oldest known book of Finland.
1549 – Battle of Sampford Courtenay: The Prayer Book Rebellion is quashed in England.
1560 – The Catholic Church is overthrown and Protestantism is established as the national religion in Scotland.
1585 – Eighty Years’ War: Siege of Antwerp: Antwerp is captured by Spanish forces under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, who orders Protestants to leave the city and as a result over half of the 100,000 inhabitants flee to the northern provinces. [As per the two entries just above this one, religion brings nothing but peace…]
1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Raleigh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina.
1807 – Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1836 – British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages and deaths. [Of course, they knew nothing in those days – now we just randomly assign sex at birth, which is a much better system…]
1896 – Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom.
1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank is lynched in Marietta, Georgia, USA after his death sentence is commuted by Governor John Slaton.
1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s V-weapon program.
1945 – The novella Animal Farm by George Orwell is first published.
1947 – The Radcliffe Line, the border between the Dominions of India and Pakistan, is revealed.
1958 – Pioneer 0, America’s first attempt at lunar orbit, is launched using the first Thor-Able rocket and fails. Notable as one of the first attempted launches beyond Earth orbit by any country.
1970 – Venera program: Venera 7 launched. It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
1977 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole. [Sadly a feat that is becoming all too easy.]
1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey, France near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
1988 – President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash. [A state of emergency was declared and I arrived in Pakistan a week later not sure what to expect – everything was fine.]
1998 – Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an “improper physical relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that same day he admits before the nation that he “misled people” about the relationship.
2005 – The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, starts.
2008 – American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
2017 – Barcelona attacks: A van is driven into pedestrians in La Rambla, killing 14 and injuring at least 100.
2019 – A bomb explodes at a wedding in Kabul killing 63 people and leaving 182 injured.
Births:
1786 – Davy Crockett, American soldier and politician (d. 1836). [And there’s my earworm of the day, unfortunately…!]
1801 – Fredrika Bremer, Swedish writer and feminist (d. 1865).
1887 – Marcus Garvey, Jamaican journalist and activist, founded Black Star Line (d. 1940).
1893 – Mae West, American stage and film actress (d. 1980).
1900 – Pauline A. Young, American teacher, historian, aviator and activist (d. 1991).
1904 – Mary Cain, American journalist and politician (d. 1984).
1913 – Mark Felt (aka ‘Deep Throat’), American lawyer and agent, 2nd Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (d. 2008).
1920 – Maureen O’Hara, Irish-American actress and singer (d. 2015).
1929 – Francis Gary Powers, American captain and pilot (d. 1977).
1930 – Ted Hughes, English poet and playwright (d. 1998).
1932 – V. S. Naipaul, Trinidadian-English novelist and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2018).
1943 – Robert De Niro, American actor, entrepreneur, director, and producer.
1943 – John Humphrys, Welsh journalist and author.
1953 – Kevin Rowland, English singer-songwriter and guitarist. [An alternative earworm: “Come on Eileen…”.]
1954 – Eric Johnson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.
1957 – Robin Cousins, British competitive figure skater.
1958 – Belinda Carlisle, American singer-songwriter.
1960 – Sean Penn, American actor, director, and political activist.
1968 – Helen McCrory, English actress (d. 2021).
What a good way to go
In the aerospaceage inferno:
1673 – Regnier de Graaf, Dutch physician and anatomist (b. 1641). [Specialized in iatrochemistry and iatrogenesis, and was the first to develop a syringe to inject dye into human reproductive organs so that he could understand their structure and function.]
1720 – Anne Dacier, French scholar and translator (b. 1654).
1786 – Frederick the Great, Prussian king (b. 1712).
1809 – Matthew Boulton, English businessman and engineer, co-founded Boulton and Watt (b. 1728).
1969 – Otto Stern, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888).
1979 – John C. Allen, American roller coaster designer (b. 1907).
1983 – Ira Gershwin, American songwriter (b. 1896).
1990 – Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (b. 1918).
2007 – Bill Deedes, English journalist and politician (b. 1913).
Here is a quote from Mae West:
I speak two languages, Body and English. -Mae West, actress, playwright, singer, screenwriter, and comedian (17 Aug 1893-1980)
Pioneer 0 (1958) – This was pre-NASA or just transition to NASA time in the U.S. There was a world-wide peaceful use of space for scientific purposes activity carried out by several countries in 1957-58 under the heading of the International Geophysical Year. The U.S. efforts were carried out by the army, air force, and navy. There was no NASA yet. Pioneer 0 was an ambitious effort led by the Air Force Ballistic Missiles Division. As unsuccessful military launch efforts piled up, U.S. President and former WW2 army general Dwight Eisenhower lobbied the Congress and had passed on 29July1958, legislation that created a civilian space agency: NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agency was cobbled together from the existing NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) laboratories and several army/air force testing and launch facilities and became operational as NASA on October 1, 1958. NACA’s use of rockets up until that time was limited,to the best of my knowledge, to boosting aerodynamic shapes to hypersonic speeds in order to flight-test their characteristics for comparison with wind tunnel data and theoretical predictions. The NACA had been founded in 1915 to lead an effort by the U.S. to catch up to Europe in airplane technology post WW 1. NASA did address aeronautics in its first couple of decades but over time really became the “Space Agency” supporting research on humans in space, atmospheric science on Earth and other planets, and general space sciences.
Thanks, Jim!
Your Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) became a short-lived Royal Aerospace Establishment in 1988, Jez. I had the honor of working with the RAE engineers on a joint NASA/RAE flight project in the80’s and 90’s. The RAE men and women were simply superb people, and working with them at Bedford and Farnborough was one of the most rewarding professional – both technical and human – times of my life.
NASA is still involved in aeronautics, it just doesn’t get as much notice as it used to. For instance, NASA Ames has done research that has gone into the X-59, an experimental supersonic jet designed to be quieter than older designs. See:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/x-59
I probably should have said that Nasa has really become a space agency though it does retain a very small amount of aeronautics research and technology. Yes Ames, as well as Langley, Armstrong, and Glenn still do some aeronautics work but the total agency aero budget is less than $900M out of the $25B agency budget. That $900M must support experimental (including flight research) at the three laboratories. While the quality of these slices of work are excellent, they represent only a sliver of NASA’s current remit. I’m sorry, but I don’t think any lab director would bet the continued existence of his/her facility on its aeronautics program.
I’m holding an image of the beautiful Maureen O’Hara in my mind to counteract the effects of the two earworms you introduced, Jez. 😉
Re the Bridget Driscoll record.
I know two people who have killed a pedestrian while driving a motor vehicle and one who was the pedestrian that was killed. Two were the result of inattention by the pedestrian and one by the driver and the pedestrian.
Not a pedestrian but one accident I know of the person was changing a tyre on the side of the road, a very dangerous thing to do by all accounts.
When on visits to London from the U.S. I always appreciated the gentle curbside reminders to “look right” before stepping into street.
I’m liking this series in this format.
Why is it “sad” that ice-breaking ship technology has advanced to where navigation to the North Pole is now easier and less dangerous? And is it easier, or just something that more well-off people want to devote their travel budgets to?
I assumed he meant loss of sea ice due to ocean warming.
Yup, that’s what I was referring to:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline
Surely, you do not wish to struggle over this trifle of a word, do you?
@ Jez
Ah. But it would make a billion Chinese traders very happy if the sea route from Shanghai to Rotterdam could be shortened by thousands of kilometres, surely. Perhaps that is partly why they have indicated that maybe, if they feel like it, they might start to peak out their coal burning sometime after 2050, by which time the Northwest Passage will be reliably open. And their people will get cheap electricity in the bargain.
Our sadness doesn’t really figure in the calculus.
An odd arctic tragedy of the commons…common area but different needs
Yay! Let’s create a shipping corridor through the already fragile Arctic ecosystem: shipping everything from household and commercial goods to gas and petroleum products. And also allowing for more oil and gas extraction in the de-iced Arctic. Ice loss in the Arctic greatly increases the positive feedback loop of global warming (no albedo, weakened jet stream) and increases the chances of an Arctic environmental disaster if used commercially. What could go wrong?
I know, that’s not your argument, and Russia and China don’t give a rat’s patootie about climate change when it comes to exploiting the Arctic and creating short-term economic benefits. Canada may also lose its Arctic sovereignty due to Russian Arctic expansion…another sadness that doesn’t figure in the calculus.
“Our sadness doesn’t really figure in the calculus.”
Clearly, it does – will you admit it?
Why would I admit to something that’s not true, TP? President Xi told America’s John Kerry to stop pestering him about emissions and climate change. China, India, and SE Asia will look to their own interests. Our Minister of the Environment (and Climate Change!) turns out to be an official adviser to the Chinese government — how the heck did that happen? He is Executive Vice Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a creature of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
I guess he’s going to lecture China on coal smoke and the biodiversity crisis while the Chinese laugh at him. More likely they will give him instructions on de-industrialization to take home to his boss, the man the Chinese call Little Potato. The Canadian elite is deep deep in China up to their eyeballs.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guilbeault-wants-china-as-ally-serves-as-advisor-to-beijing
“Why would I admit to something that’s not true, TP?”
So many questions – what justifies this standpoint?
Have you not studied the appropriate literature?
Go on, just confess, just this small little thing, give up, and zis vill be all ofah.
[ ok, I think I made my point with this amusing “struggle sparring”, dear komrade – I got it from reading Robert Jay Lifton ]
You are ahead of me, TP. I apologize for being thick and thank you for your patience.
Nicely done.
Hey, a little practice for the real-life scenario – sorta serious about that.
BTW this little sparring session is not to make any other statement than that.
Cheers
I hadn’t heard of Lifton, but his writing is very timely, thanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism
I imagine like Elton John, Hili would rather have ham on her sandwich than cheese.
How many days since the fire in Maui – 111 dead so far but only 9 identified. Meanwhile in Yellowknife, Northwest Territory they must evacuate as the fire grows near. That’s 20,000 people on a two lane road for many miles.
Yeah, I saw a photo of the cars lined up fleeing Yellowknife- as far as the eye can see.
I also read that there are still over 1,000 missing in Maui. What a nightmare.