Wednesday

Oct. 16, 1996

Down by the Salley Gardens

by William Butler Yeats

WEDNESDAY 10/16

Today's Reading:"Down by the Salley Gardens" by W. B. Yeats.

It's the birthday of novelist, poet, and sculptor Gunter Grass, born in Danzig, Germany, in 1927. His book, THE TIN DRUM, was one of the first German novels to deal with the generation that grew up during the Nazi era.

The first U. S. birth control clinic was opened on this day in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York, by a group led by Margaret Sanger.

Former U. S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was born on this day in Maine, Minnesota, 1898.

Playwright Eugene O'Neill (LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT) was born on this day in New York City in 1888.

It's the birthday of David Ben-Gurion, considered the father of modern Israel and the nation's first premier. He was born in Plonsk, Poland, in 1886.

On this day in 1859, abolitionist John Brown and 21 of his followers seized the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and took 60 locals hostage, hoping that slaves in the area would revolt.

It's the birthday in Dublin, Ireland, of poet, dramatist Oscar Wilde, 1854. In LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN he wrote: "We are all in the gutter; but some of us are looking at the stars."

It was on this day in 1846 that ether was first used as an anesthetic, by dentist William T. G. Morton at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The earliest known surviving photograph was taken on this day in 1839 by Joseph Saxton with his home-made camera.

The dethroned French queen, Marie Antionette, was executed by guillotine in Paris on this day in 1793.

Lexicographer Noah Webster was born on this day in West Hartford, Connecticut, 1758.

Yale University was founded on this day in 1701 by Congregationalists who were upset with Harvard's growing liberalism.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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