Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is satisfied:
Hili: We have reached a consensus.
A: About what?
Hili: That I’m always right.
.
.
In Polish:
Hili: Osiągnęliśmy konsensus.
Ja: W jakiej sprawie?
Hili: Tego, że ja mam zawsze rację.
Sunday: Hili dialogue
August 20, 2023 • 3:50 am
On this day:
636 – Battle of Yarmouk: Arab forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid take control of the Levant away from the Byzantine Empire, marking the first great wave of Muslim conquests and the rapid advance of Islam outside Arabia.
1191 – Richard I of England initiates the Massacre at Ayyadieh, leaving 2,600–3,000 Muslim hostages dead.
1858 – Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s same theory.
1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.
1882 – Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow, Russia.
1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.
1938 – Lou Gehrig hits his 23rd career grand slam, a record that stood for 75 years until it was broken by Alex Rodriguez.
1940 – In Mexico City, exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe by Ramón Mercader. He dies the next day.
1940 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes the fourth of his famous wartime speeches, containing the line “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”.
1962 – The NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered civilian ship, embarks on its maiden voyage.
1968 – Cold War: Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.
1975 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.
1977 – Voyager program: NASA launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
1988 – Iran–Iraq War: A ceasefire is agreed after almost eight years of war.
1988 – The Troubles: Eight British soldiers are killed and 28 wounded when their bus is hit by an IRA roadside bomb in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.
1989 – The pleasure boat Marchioness sinks on the River Thames following a collision. Fifty-one people are killed.
1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup: More than 100,000 people rally outside the Soviet Union’s parliament building protesting the coup aiming to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev.
1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, the Oslo Accords are signed, followed by a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. the following month.
1998 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules that Quebec cannot legally secede from Canada without the federal government’s approval.
2020 – Joe Biden gives his acceptance speech virtually for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Births:
1710 – Thomas Simpson, English mathematician and academic (d. 1761).
1719 – Christian Mayer, Czech astronomer and educator (d. 1783).
1890 – H. P. Lovecraft, American short story writer, editor, novelist (d. 1937).
1919 – Walter Bernstein, American screenwriter and producer (d. 2021).
1923 – Jim Reeves, American singer-songwriter (d. 1964).
1927 – Yootha Joyce, English actress (d. 1980).
1934 – Sneaky Pete Kleinow, American country-rock pedal-steel guitarist and songwriter (d. 2007).
1934 – Tom Mangold, German-English journalist and author.
1941 – Dave Brock, English singer-songwriter and guitarist.
1942 – Isaac Hayes, American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, and actor (d. 2008).
1944 – Rajiv Gandhi, Indian lawyer and politician, 6th Prime Minister of India (d. 1991).
1948 – Robert Plant, English singer-songwriter.
1949 – Phil Lynott, Irish singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (d. 1986).
1958 – David O. Russell, American director and screenwriter.
1966 – Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2004).
1970 – Fred Durst, American singer-songwriter.
1974 – Amy Adams, American actress.
1974 – Misha Collins, American actor.
1979 – Jamie Cullum, English singer-songwriter and pianist.
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living:
1912 – William Booth, English preacher, co-founded The Salvation Army (b. 1829).
1915 – Paul Ehrlich, German physician and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1854).
2001 – Fred Hoyle, English astronomer and author (b. 1915).
2012 – Phyllis Diller, American actress and comedian (b. 1917).
2013 – Elmore Leonard, American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter (b. 1925).
2017 – Jerry Lewis, American actor and comedian (b. 1926).
2021 – Igor Vovkovinskiy, Ukrainian-American law student and actor, American tallest person (b. 1982).
Thanks for the reminders of the NASA Viking and Voyager missions of the mid-70’s. The pictures of desert and boulder fields out to the horizon taken on the surface of Mars (Vikings) and rings and moons of Jupiter and Saturn (voyager) are among the most startling and memorable images I can ever recall seeing in real time in that time period and were matched or maybe exceeded only by the more recent Horizon mission to the outer planets and comet and asteroid rendezvous photos fifty years later. I can still see myself sitting in a NASA auditorium and hearing the ooohs and ahhhs of my fellow engineers and scientists as pictures came in. Thanks for the lovely memories Jez.
The anniversary of his death seems as good a reason as any (as if any reason were needed) to reread Elmore Leonard’s “Ten Rules for Writing.”
Leonard spent his career as a genre writer, starting out with westerns in the 1950s and eventually becoming the premier crime novelist of his era. But Leonard’s influence — particularly the crispness of his dialogue and the spareness of his prose — extended far beyond genre fiction to some of the leading belletrists of our time. Martin Amis and Saul Bellows, among many others, were Leonard enthusiasts. Here’s an admiring interview that Amis conducted with Leonard.
Age at death (approximately) of the birthday piglets :
Thomas Simpson: 51
Christian Mayer: 64
H P Lovecraft: 47
Walter Bernstein: 102
Jim Reeves: 41
Yootha Joyce: 53
Sneaky Kleinow: 73
Isaac Hayes: 66
Rajiv Ghandi: 47 (I don’t know about
others, but he was assassinated)
Phil Lynott: 37
Dimbag Darrel: 38
I’m surprised how many died at such a young age.
Of the ones who exchanged the diurnal to the eternal this day:
William Booth: 83
Paul Ehrlich: 61
Fred Hoyle: 86
Phyllis Diller: 97
Elmore Leonard: 88
Jerry Lewis: 91
Igor Vovkovinskiy: 39
Except for Igor and Paul, much riper ages than the birthday ones.
Thanks, Nicolaas – interesting!
On the news this morning I saw a quick report on the Russian mission to the moon. They said it crashed….
Space is hard…
Wasn’t that a spoof to start with?
…ran out of fuel without locating a civilian target??
I expected it, although I’m a bit disappointed since it could have done some good science from its landing location near the lunar south pole. Their space program gets little funding and the staff that built the successful Soviet probes and landers are retired or dead. I might be missing one, but I can only remember two prior post-Soviet Russian space probe attempts: Mars 96 and Phobos-Grunt. They both failed. I expected Luna-25 to crash during its landing attempt, since landing is usually the most difficult phase of the mission but it actually managed to crash before a landing was attempted. Apparently, the engine fired too long putting it into an unplanned orbit that intersected the surface.
Spain!
+1