Today we’re off to Masada and the Dead Sea, so Hili will be very truncated. However, in a few hours there will be a long post about our visit to the Old City yesterday.
Hili: Do not disturb.Me:Oh, sorry
In Polish:
Hili: Nie przeszkadzaj.Ja: O, przepraszam.
Hili is studying Botany from the ground up.
On this day:
1492 – Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.
1522 – The Victoria returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition and the first known ship to circumnavigate the world.
1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)
1628 – Puritans settle Salem, which became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
1642 – England’s Long Parliament bans public stage-plays.
1803 – British scientist John Dalton begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.
1870 – Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.
1901 – Leon Czolgosz, an unemployed anarchist, shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1915 – World War I: The first tank prototype, developed by William Foster & Co. for the British army, was completed and given its first test drive.
1936 – Spanish Civil War: The Interprovincial Council of Asturias and León is established. [My wife’s mother was Asturian and my son was born in the region.]
1939 – World War II: The British Royal Air Force suffers its first fighter pilot casualty of the Second World War at the Battle of Barking Creek as a result of friendly fire.
1946 – United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.
1955 – Istanbul’s Greek, Jewish, and Armenian minorities are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom; dozens are killed in ensuing riots.
1962 – The United States government begins the Exercise Spade Fork nuclear readiness drill.
1962 – Archaeologist Peter Marsden discovers the first of the Blackfriars Ships dating back to the second century AD in the Blackfriars area of the banks of the River Thames in London.
1966 – Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid, is stabbed to death in Cape Town, South Africa during a parliamentary meeting.
1970 – Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of the PFLP and taken to Dawson’s Field, Jordan.
1972 – Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian “Black September” terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day.
1976 – Cold War: Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot Viktor Belenko lands a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States; his request is granted.
1983 – The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, stating that its operatives did not know that it was a civilian aircraft when it reportedly violated Soviet airspace.
1991 – The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
1991 – The Russian parliament approves the name change of Leningrad back to Saint Petersburg. The change is effective October 1.
1997 – The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people lined the streets and 2 1⁄2 billion watched around the world on television. [I wasn’t one of them – I was too busy being best man at my oldest friend’s wedding. A friend of the bride took a break from being a Tellytubby (!) to sing during the service. Bizarrely, WEIT reader Dom also knows the Tellytubby actress / performer through a different set of friends, probably confirming USian theories that Brits all know each other…]
2003 – Mahmoud Abbas resigns from his position of Palestinian Prime Minister. [He’s managed to hang on in as President of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, without the bother of holding any elections since.]
2007 – Israel executes the air strike Operation Orchard to destroy a nuclear reactor in Syria.
2013 – Forty-one elephants are poisoned with cyanide in salt pans, by poachers in Hwange National Park. [Bastards!]
2018 – Supreme Court of India decriminalised all consensual sex among adults in private, making homosexuality legal on the Indian lands.
2022 – Boris Johnson resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Liz Truss.
2022 – Russo-Ukrainian War: Ukraine begins its Kharkiv counteroffensive, surprising Russian forces and retaking over 3,000 square kilometers of land, recapturing the entire Kharkiv Oblast west of the Oskil River, within the next week.
Births:
1620 – Isabella Leonarda, Italian composer and educator (d. 1704).
1766 – John Dalton, English chemist, meteorologist, and physicist (d. 1844).
1795 – Frances Wright, Scottish-American author and activist (d. 1852). [Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, utopian socialist, abolitionist, social reformer, and Epicurean philosopher, who became a US citizen in 1825.]
1800 – Catharine Beecher, American educator and activist (d. 1878).
1855 – Ferdinand Hummel, German pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1928).
1860 – Jane Addams, American sociologist and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935).
1860 – May Jordan McConnel, Australian trade unionist and suffragist (d. 1929).
1863 – Jessie Willcox Smith, American illustrator (d. 1935).
1888 – Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., American businessman and diplomat, 44th United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (d. 1969).
1893 – Claire Lee Chennault, American general and pilot (d. 1958).
1921 – Norman Joseph Woodland, American inventor, co-created the bar code (d. 2012).
1925 – Jimmy Reed, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1976).
1928 – Robert M. Pirsig, American novelist and philosopher (d. 2017).
1941 – Roger Law, English illustrator.
1943 – Richard J. Roberts, English biochemist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate.
1943 – Roger Waters, English singer-songwriter and bass player.
1947 – Sylvester, American singer-songwriter (d. 1988).
1958 – Buster Bloodvessel, English singer-songwriter.
1967 – Macy Gray, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actress.
1972 – Idris Elba, English actor.
1973 – Greg Rusedski, Canadian-English tennis player and sportscaster.
1974 – Tim Henman, English tennis player and sportscaster. [I’d never realised before that Rusedski and Henman shared a birthday.]
That flesh is but the glasse, which holds the dust
That measures all our time; which also shall
Be crumbled into dust:
1635 – Metius, Dutch mathematician and astronomer (b. 1571).
1649 – Robert Dudley, English geographer and explorer (b. 1574).
1939 – Arthur Rackham, English illustrator (b. 1867).
1952 – Gertrude Lawrence, English actress, singer, and dancer (b. 1898).
1966 – Margaret Sanger, American nurse, educator, and activist (b. 1879).
1994 – Nicky Hopkins, English pianist (b. 1944).
2011 – Michael S. Hart, American author, founded Project Gutenberg (b. 1947).
2012 – Elisabeth Böhm, German architect (b. 1921).
2012 – Terry Nutkins, English naturalist, television presenter and author (b. 1946).
2018 – Burt Reynolds, American actor, director and producer (b. 1936).
2019 – Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean politician, 2nd President of Zimbabwe (b. 1924).
2021 – Jean-Paul Belmondo, French actor (b. 1933).
Two American politicians, Chris Christie (1962) and Carly Fiorina (1954), were born on this day.
John Zorn has a 4 piece group – akin to Ornette Coleman’s innovative groups – Zorn named Masada.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada_(band)
They have tons of recordings.
I found that a striking name for a band, and was glad for it – I learned something. Has some depth.
I’m actually learning new things by reading the Wikipedia link above.
I think I’m getting good at italicizing too — it’s fun.
Wow. Masada and the Dead Sea….the hits keep on coming! Seriously, my guess is that photos of these two historic areas cannot do them the justice that standing in the full physical environment conveys. My wife and I have appointments to renew our expired passports in a few weeks.
Can’t you just send them in and get a new one? Why an appointment? The fact that you had passports means you’re a US citizen.
Not in general, no. According to the State Department, there are some conditions that have to be met for one to be able to renew one’s passport by mail. I suppose Jim fails one or more of those conditions.
In particular, you can’t just send it in unless it was issued within the last 15 years. So if you wait too long, then you have to go through the application process for a new passport.
I once tried to use my still-valid Canadian passport as photo-ID at our local (Canadian) Passport Office and was flatly told that it was not an acceptable form of photo-ID there.
The Dead Sea is in the news today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-66728207
Thanks for the link and the resultant amazing photo of the cave (maybe more a crevice) and view from high above the Dead Sea. Now this gives the expression “high risk research” an entirely new meaning. Well worth the click.
I’m not sure if we’ll see any readers’ photos today, so here are some of the photos from the Bird Photographer of the Year 2023 winners just in case: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2023/sep/05/bird-photographer-of-the-year-2023-winners-in-pictures
Enjoy Professor! I loved climbing Masada to see the sunrise over the Dead Sea many years ago. So beautiful.
The cat in the picture looks reasonably independent. Good. I’m in a house with my friend’s two cats. One of them is quite independent, but the other one punches my door (I’m working from my friend’s place) from time to time and yowls loudly. I have to go out and talk to it to calm it down. They’ve both been fed.
That’s not being dependent. That’s being on the Wrong Side of the Door.