Tuesday
May 18, 1999
Barbeque
Poem: "Barbeque," by Richard Carlander, from Those Stones (Small Poetry Press, 1998).
MT. SAINT HELENS erupted on this day in 1980, blowing off the top 1,300 feet of its peak and spewing over a half-billion tons of ash into the sky.
It was on this day in 1944 that Polish troops overran MONTE CASSINO, a German stronghold southeast of Rome where thousands of American soldiers died in WWII.
Congress created the TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY on this day in 1933, a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program. Over 50 dams were constructed on the Tennessee River to provide flood control.
PATRICK DENNIS, author of the novel, Auntie Mame, was born on this day in 1921 in Evanston, Illinois. Auntie Mame is the story of an eccentric, middle-aged and somewhat scatterbrained woman based on Dennis' own real aunt.
It's the birthday of BERTRAND RUSSELL, the philosopher, mathematician, pacifist, and author, born in 1872 in Monmouthshire, England. He won the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature, in part for his book A History of Western Philosophy (1945).
It was on this day in 1860 that ABRAHAM LINCOLN was nominated as the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, beating out William Seward.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®