List of all the days in the year
The names of all days...


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JANUARY 1:

 

Today is called – as most people know – NEW YEAR’s DAY. It is also called JESU DAY, because it was today – 8 days after his birth – that Jesus was circumcised in the Temple.

 

A couple of old Danish weather warnings are also attached to this day:

 

·         If the sun is shining, it will be a very fertile year. If it only shines for as long as it takes to saddle a horse the harvest will still be acceptable

·         If the sky is red at sunrise you will have bad weather most of the year

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1862:  Pierre de Coubertin  ( died 1937 )

 

1887:  Wilhelm Canaris  ( died 1945 )

 

1892:  Martin Niemöller  ( died 1984 )

 

1895:  J. Edgar Hoover  ( died 1972 )

 

1919:  J.D. Salinger  ( died 2010 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1559:  King Christian III  ( 56 years )

 

1972:  Maurice Chevalier  ( 84 years )

 

 

 

JANUARY 2:

 

Today’s name is ABEL’s DAY.  He was according to the Old Testament the son of Adam and Eve. And the legend tells that he was killed by his brother Kain.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1783:  C.W. Eckersberg  ( died 1853 )

 

1895:  Count Folke Bernadotte  ( died 1948 )

 

1920:  Isaac Asimov  ( died 1992 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

17:     Ovid  ( 74 years )

 

1977:  Erroll Garner  ( 56 years )

 

 

JANUARY 3:

 

Today’s name is ENOCH’s DAY. He was one of the 7 ancient fathers originating from Adam. Each of them died according to The Old Testament only when they were 365 years old.  Enoch was the son of Kain.  His name is now and then also spelled Henoch.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

106 BC:   Marcus Tellius Cicero  ( died 43 BC )

 

1883:  Clement Attlee  ( died 1967 )

 

1892:  John Ronald Tolkien  ( died 1973 )

 

1909:  Victor Borge  ( died 2000 )

 

1969:  Michael Schumacher

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1875:  Pierre Larousse  ( 58 years )

 

1923:  Jaroslav Hasek  ( 40 years )

 

 

JANUARY 4:

 

This day is called METHUSALEM’s DAY. He was Enoch’s son and became 769 years old. That’s where the expression “Old like Methusalem” comes from.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1643:  Sir Isaac Newton  ( died 1727 )

 

1785:  Jacob Grimm  ( died 1863 )

 

1923:  Don Butterfield  ( died 2006 )

 

1935:  Floyd Patterson  ( died 2006 )

 

1946:  Arthur Conley  ( died 2003 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1786:  Moses Mendelsohn  ( 57 years )

 

1960:  Albert Camus  ( 46 years )

 

1965:  Thomas Stearns Elliot  ( 76 years )

 

 

JANUARY 5:

 

This day is called SIMEONS DAY.  He was a pious preacher from Cicilia in Syria. He is the best known of the so-called stylites. He spent the last 26 years of his life on the top of a column outside the city of Antiochia. It was partly to live in peace from pilgrims and tourists. But he also used his time to answer questions from the pilgrims from up there at the top of the column. He was also called Simon Stylitis. He died in 459 AC.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1876:  Konrad Adenauer ( died 1967 )

 

1921:  Friedrich Dürrenmatt  ( died 1990 )

 

1932:  Umberto Eco

 

1938:  King Juan Carlos I

 

1952:  Uli Hoeness

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1589:  Catharine of Medici  ( 70 years )

 

1933:  John Calvin Coolidge  ( 61 years )

 

2002:  Astrid Henning-Jensen  ( 87 years )

 

JANUARY 6:

 

Today is called EPIPHANY – or THE THREE HOLY KINGS’ DAY. It refers to the three wise men Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior. They found – according to the legend – the Infant Jesus. Balthasar, who came from Ethiopia and consequently had dark skin, brought myrrh. Caspar came with incense, and Melchior brought gold. Later all three of them were named kings.

 

In the church calendar the day is also called Epiphany.  In the old Nordic countries it was called the 13th DAY, as it is 13 days after Christmas and the end of the Christmas period.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1412:  Jeanne d’Arc  ( died 1431 )

 

1706:  Benjamin Franklin  ( died 1790 )

 

1838:  Max Bruch  ( died 1920 )

 

1946:  Syd Barrett  ( Pink Floyd )

 

1955:  Rowan Atkinson  ( “Mr. Bean” )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1884:  Gregor Mendel  ( 62 years )

 

1919:  Theodor Roosevelt ( 61 years )

 

1993:  Dizzie Gillespie  ( 76 years )

 

1993:  Rudolf Nurejev  ( 55 years )

 

JANUARY 7:

 

This day is called CANUTE’s DAY.  It comes from Knud ( Canute ) Lavard, who on this day in the year 1131 was killed – 35 years old in Haraldsted Forest near Ringsted in Denmark. The killer was his cousin Magnus.

 

Knud was governor in the south of Jutland, and the whole family was gathered in Roskilde for Christmas celebrations. But king Niels’ son Magnus was afraid, that Knud intended to become king. Therefore, he killed him.  This started a revolution, and king Niels was murdered in Slesvig three years later.

 

Knud’s son, Valdemar the Great, arranged 38 years after the murder that the Pope made his father a Saint.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1663:  Arni Magnusson  ( died 1730 )

 

1800:  Millard Filmore  ( died 1879 )

 

1821:  Carl Christian Burmeister  ( died 1898 )

 

1941:  Iona Brown  ( died 2004 )

 

1964:  Nicolas Cage

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1131:  Knud Lavard  ( 35 years )

 

1989:  Emperor Hirohito  ( 88 years )

 

1992:  Ejlif Krogager  ( 82 years )  ( Tjaereborg Travels )

 

 

 

 

 

JANUARY 8:

 

Today’s name is ERHARDT’s DAY. He was an Irish monk, who in the year 600 AD came to the German city of Regensburg. He later became a bishop there. The rumour says that after he baptised the blind Ottilia, the daughter of a local duke, she was again able to see.

 

Erhardt’s skull is still in the cathedral of Regensburg.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1935:  Elvis Prestley  ( died 1977 )

 

1942:  Stephen Hawking

 

1947:  David Bowie

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1337:  Giotto  ( 69 years )

 

1642:  Galileo Galilei  (  ( 77 years )

 

1996:  Francois Mitterrand  ( 79 years )

 

 

JANUARY 9:

 

Today’s name is JULIANUS. He was a Christian, who was killed during emperor Diocletian’s persecution of the Christians. It happened in year 300 AD. Julianus and his wife Basilissa had made their house in Antinoe in Egypt a monastery and a hospital.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1908:  Simone de Beauvoir  ( died 1986 )

 

1913:  Richard Nixon  ( died 1994 )

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1873:  Napoleon III  ( 64 years )

 

 

 

 

JANUARY 10:

 

Today is called PAUL THE HERMIT’s DAY. He was a Christian Egyptian in a rich family in Theben.  Because of emperor Decius’ persecutions of all Christians Paul took refuge in the Egyptian desert. He lived in cave here for 90 years. He lived from the fruits from the palm trees. And the legend tells that a tame raven every day brought him half a bread.

 

Paul died 113 years old in his cave in the year 341 AC. He is often considered to be the first Christian hermit.

 

An old Danish saying for this day tells that the sun today has to shine for the time it takes a simple woman with ten thumbs to saddle a horse. It that happens there are great chances to have a good harvest.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1769:  Maréchal Michel Ney  ( died 1815 )

 

1869:  Rasputin  ( died 1916 )

 

1913:  Gustav Husak  ( died 1991 )

 

1929:  Tintin  J

 

1945:  Rod Stewart

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1778:  Carl von Linné  ( 71 years )

 

1862:  Samuel Colt  ( 47 years )

 

1917:  “Buffalo Bill” ( William F. Coby )  ( 71 years )

 

1951:  Sinclair Lewis  ( 66 years )

 

1986:  Jaroslav Seifert  ( 85 years )

 

JANUARY 11:

 

This day is called HYGINUS’ DAY. It has its name from the Roman pope Hyginus, who was killed during the reign of emperor Marcus Aurelius in 142 AC because of his faith. He introduced godfathers at the baptism of small children.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

                                                          

Famous people born on this day:

 

1755:  Alexander Hamilton  ( died 1804 )

 

1907:  Pierre Mendes-France  ( died 1982 )

 

1938:  Arthur Scargill

 

1957:  Brian Robson

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1914:  Carl Jacobsen ( 71 years )

 

1928:  Thomas Hardy  ( 88 years )

 

1941:  Emanuel Lasker  ( 72 years )

 

1952:  Jean de Lattre de Tassigny  (63 years )

 

1954 :  Oscar Straus  ( 84 years )

 

1966 :  Alberto Giacometti  ( 65 years )

 

 

JANUARY 12 :

 

This day is called REINHOLD’s DAY.  He was a stone mason in Cologne. He was murdered in the 13th century andhis body thrown into the Rhein.. The reason was that he being in charge of building a church asked the workers to work faster. Then they smashed his head and threw him into the river.

 

The day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

                                                          

1729:  Edmund Burke  ( died 1797 )

 

1876:  Jack London  ( died 1916 )

 

1893:  Hermann Göring  ( died 1946 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1960:  Nevil Shute  ( 61 years )

 

1976:  Agathe Christie  ( 86 years )

 

 

 

 

JANUARY 13:

 

Today is called HILARIUS DAY.  He was a bishop in Poitiers in France, who died in 367. He was among other things saint for handicapped children. And he is considered to be the first hymn writer in the Christian church.

 

This day is also the day of festival for all shoe makers.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1898:  Kaj Munk  ( died 1944 )

 

1970:  Marco Pantani  ( died 2003 )

 

 

Kendte døde på denne dag:

 

1864:  Stephen Foster  ( 58 years )

 

1929:  Wyatt Earp  ( 60 years )

 

1941:  James Joyce  ( 59 years )

 

 

JANUARY 14:

 

Today is called FELIX DAY.  Felix is a man’s name, which in Latin means happy and lucky. Felix was a Christian man, who could walk on water, when he was chased by emperor Decius’ troops in year 200 AC. In this way he saved - according to the legend - his life. He died around 260 AC.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1875:  Albert Schweitzer  ( died 1965 )

 

1931:  Catharina Valente

 

1941:  Fay Dunaway

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1957:  Humphrey Bogart  ( 58 years )

 

1972:  King Frederik IX.  ( 73 years )

 

1977:  Anthony Eden  ( 80 years )

 

1977:  Anaïs Nin  ( 74 years )

 

 

JANUARY 15:

 

Today is called MAURUS’ DAY.  He was a Benedictine monk, who around 500 made missionary work in France. He made miracles and cured dumb people and cripples.  He also founded the first Benedictine monastery in France,  Glanfeuil, in Anjou in the Loire region.  And he died around 550 AC.

 

Maurus is the patron of the coppersmiths.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1622:  Molière  ( died 1673 )

 

1900:  William Heinesen  ( died 1991 )

 

1906:  Aristotle Onassis  ( died 1975 )

 

1918:  Gamal Abdal Nasser  ( died 1970 )

 

1929:  Martin Luther King  ( died 1981 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1919:  Rosa Luxemburg  ( 48 years )

 

1919:  Karl Liebknecht  ( 48 years )

 

 

JANUARY 16:

 

Today is MARCELLUS’ DAY.  He was pope in Rome – died in 309. He had problems with the emperor all the time. And most of the time as pope he also had to look after the stables for emperor Maxentinus.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1853:  André Michelin  ( died 1931 )

 

1901:  Fulgencio Batista  ( died 1973 )

 

1931:  Johannes Rau  ( died 2006 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1969:  Jan Palach  ( 21 years )

 

2001:  Laurent Kabila  ( 61 years )

 

 

JANUARY 17:

 

This day is called ANTONIUS’ DAY. He was a hermit, one of the so-called “desert fathers”, a well known church father. He died 115 years old in 356 AC. He is patron for shepherds and for brush-makers.

 

In the 14th century a number og monasteries were built for the holy Antonius, including one in Præstø in Denmark.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1706:  Benjamin Franklin  ( died 1790 )

 

1860:  Anton Tjekhov  ( died 1904 )

 

1899:  Al Capone  ( died 1947 )

 

1942:  Muhamed Ali ( alias Cassius Clay )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1468:  Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg  ( 63 years )

 

1751:  Tomaso Albinoni  ( 80 years )

 

1961:  Patrice Lumumba  ( 36 years )

 

1991:  King Olav V  ( 88 years )

 

 

JANUARY 18:

 This is PRISCAS DAY. She was a 13 year old Roman girl, who due to her Christian faith was thrown into the lions’ cage by emperor Aurelian. But as they did not want to touch her she was beheaded instead.

 

 

Famous people born on this day: 

1689:  Montesquieu  ( died 1755 )

1786:  Carl Maria von Weber  ( died 1826 )

1892:  Oliver Hardy  ( died 1957 ) 

1904:  Cary Grant  ( died 1986 ) 

1913:  Danny Kaye  ( died 1987 ) 

1955:  Kevin Costner

  

Famous people died on this day: 

1878:  Antoine César Béquerel  ( 90 years )

1936:  Rudyard Kipling  ( 71 years ) 

2006:  Östen Warnerbrink  ( 72 years )

 

 

 

JANUARY 19:

 

Today’s name is PONTIANUS’ DAY. He was a Christian martyr, who had to suffer a very violent death because of his faith. He was whipped, walked on burning coal, had liquid plomb poured into his mouth. At the end he was thrown to the lions. But as they would not touch him he was at the end beheaded. It all happened in the year 160 AC.

 

An old Danish peasant saying tells that today you have to have half of you winter feed for your animals left, as the winter is now half finished.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1736:  James Watt ( died 1819 )

 

1807:  Robert E. Lee  ( died 1870 )

 

1839:  Paul Cézanne  ( died 1906 )

 

1923:  Markus Wolf  ( died 2006 )

 

1943:  Janis Joplin  ( died 1970 )

 

1946:  Dolly Parton

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1969:  Jan Palach  ( 21 years )

 

1990:  Herbert Wehner  ( 84 years)

 

1994:  Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis  ( 64 years )

 

1998:  Carl Perkins  ( 66 years )

 

2007:  Hrant Dink  ( 53 years )

 

 

JANUARY 20:

 

This day is called FABIAN’s and SEBASTIAN’s DAY.

 

The pious Fabian was appointed as pope in 236 AC following a “sign from heaven”. During the election a pigeon suddenly came and “parked” on his head. Then he was elected. And later he has often been portrayed with a pigeon. After a peaceful and constructive period he was at the end beheaded by the Roman emperor on January 20, 250 AC.

 

Sebastian was a Christian officer in emperor Diocletian’s army. His own soldiers killed him with arrows. But he only died when he was beheaded.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe Days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century based on his calculations appointed as particular unfortunate.  What old nonsense L  

 

Sebastian is the patron for sports people, crusaders, pot makers, soldiers and the police.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1775:  André-Marie Ampère  ( died 1836 )

 

1779:  Adam Oehlenschlæger  ( died 1850 )

 

1873:  Johannes V. Jensen ( died 1950 )

 

1920:  Federico Fellini  ( died 1994 )

 

1949:  Göran Persson

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1850:  Adam Oehlenschlæger  ( 71 years )

 

1984:  Johnny Weissmuller  ( 80 years )

 

1993:  Audrey Hepburn  ( 64 years )

 

 

 

JANUARY 21:

 

Today is called AGNES’ DAY. She was a young Christian Roman virgin, who refused to marry a non-Christian man. As revenge he sent her naked to a brothel. But the legend tells that God let her hair grow so much that she was no longer naked.

 

This day is also the first day in the period called Aquarius.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1886:  Wilhelm Furtwängler  ( died 1954 )

 

1905:  Christian Dior  ( died 1957 )

 

1924:  Telly Savales  ( died 1994 )

 

1941:  Placido Domingo

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1793:  Louis XVI  ( 39 years )

 

1924:  Vladimir Lenin  ( 54 years )

 

1950:  George Orwell  ( 47 years )

 

 

JANUARY 22:

 

This day is called VINCENT’s DAY. It has its name from a Spanish male nurse Vincent ( Vincentius ) in Zaragoza.  He was in 304 AC killed by the Roman emperor Dioclecian’s troops because of his faith. First he was perforated by lances, and then he was grilled over a fire. The legend tells that his prison after his death was transformed into a flower garden by God J

 

Vincent is the patron for Portugal and also for  wine growing J

 

An old Danish weather warning says that if the sun shines today the winter will soon be over.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1561:  Francis Bacon  ( died 1626 )

 

1849:  August Strindberg  ( died 1912 )

 

1909:  U Thant  ( died 1974 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1901:  Queen Victoria  ( 82 years )

 

1973:  Lyndon B. Johnson  ( 65 years )

 

2007:  Abbé Pierre  ( 95 years )

 

JANUARY 23:

 

This day’s name is EMERENTIA’s DAY. She was a woman, who according to the legend could help pregnant and childless women. But she was stoned to death by Roman soldiers because of her Christian faith in the year 304 AC.  She was buried next to her friend Agnes, who had been killed too for the same reason.

 

In the Medieval Ages Emerentia was often called upon by pregnant women because they believed she could help sick babies.

 

In Belgium this day is called:  Banard’s Day.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1783:  Stendhal   ( Marie-Henri Beyle )  ( died 1842 )

 

1832:  Eduard Manet  ( died 1883 )

 

1858:  Max Planck  ( died 1947 )

 

1898:  Sergei Eisenstein  ( died 1948 )

 

1928:  Jeanne Moreau

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1803:  Arthur Guinness  ( 78 years )

 

1806:  William Pitt  ( 43 years )

 

1944:  Edvard Munch  ( 81 years )

 

1989:  Salvador Dali  ( 85 years )

 

2005:  Johnny Carson  ( 80 years )

 

 

JANUARY 24:

 

Today’s name is TIMOTHEUS’ DAY. He was one of Paul’s friends and followers. He was born as the son of a Jewish mother and a pagan father, and he later became a Christian bishop in Efesos. At the end he was stoned to death in the year 97 AC, because he would not accept a festival for Dionysos. He was buried in Efesos. About two hundred years later his body was transferred to Constantinople.

 

In Belgium this day is called:  SOLZIC DAY.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

76:      Emperor Hadrian  ( died 138 )

 

1670:  William Congreve  ( died 1729 )

 

1705:  Farinelli  ( Carlo Broschi )  ( died 1789 )

 

1712:  Friedrich the Great  ( died 1786 )

 

1732:  Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais  ( died 1799 )

 

1888:  Ernst Heinkel  ( died 1958 )

 

1941:  Neil Diamond

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

41:      Emperor Caligula  ( 29 years )

 

1895:  Lord Randolph Churchill  ( 45 years )

 

1965:  Winston Churchill  ( 91 years )

 

 

JANUARY 25:

 

Today is called PAUL’s CONVERSION DAY. The name comes from the Jewish Pharisee Saulus, who was persecuting the Christians very actively.  He became blind, and when he later got his sight back again he converted to Christianity. After that he took the name Paul, which in Latin means “the small” or “the inferiour”.  He became the missionary for the pagans. And later he was executed in Rome.

 

Old Danish weather warnings for this day say:

 

·         If there is frost on this day it will remain cold until February 22

·         But if the weather is mild today February 22 will also be mild

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1759:  Robert Burns  ( died 1796 )

 

1874:  William Somerset Maugham  ( died 1965 )

 

1882:  Virginia Woolf  ( died 1941 )

 

1928:  Eduard Shevardnadse

 

1942:  Eusebio

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1559:  King Christian 2.  ( 78 years )

 

1947:  Al Capone  ( 48 years )

 

1990:  Ava Gardner  ( 68 years )

 

 

JANUARY 26 :

 

This day is called POLYCARPUS’ DAY. He was born about 69 AC and was one of the apostle John’s followers. He had not studied theology, but was rather a practical man and a very clever teacher. He became bishop in Smyrna ( today Izmir in Turkey ). And here he was condemned to death by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. When he 85 years old was burned on the bond fire in the year 155 AC the flames made a protection around him. The Roman soldier instead had to kill him with his sword.

 

Polycarpus’ written material belongs to the oldest material, which still exists.

 

He is considered a saint in the Roman Catholic church as well as in the Orthodox religion.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1763:  Karl 14. Johan  ( Jean Baptiste Bernadotte )  ( died 1844 )

 

1880:  Douglas MacArthur  ( died 1964 )

 

1904:  Sean MacBride  ( died 1988 )

 

1918:  Nicolae Ceaucescu  ( died 1989 )

 

1924:  Alice Babs

 

1925:  Paul Newman  ( died 2008 )

 

1928:  Roger Vadim  ( died 2000 )

 

1953:  Anders Fogh Rasmussen

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1854:  Peter von Scholten  ( 71 years )

 

1947:  Gerda Neumann  ( 32 years )

 

1973:  Edward G. Robinson  ( 80 years )

 

1993:  Robert Jacobsen  ( 81 years )

 

JANUARY 27:

 

Today is called CHRYSOSTOMUS’ DAY. Why ? Because bishop John in Constantinopel living around year 400 AC was called Chrysostomos, which means “ Golden Mouth”. He was called so because of his excellent and very precise speeches about the bible. At the end he was sent away to a far away place and died in the year 407.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1756:  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  ( died 1791 )

 

1859:  Emperor Wilhelm II  ( died 1941 )

 

1891:  Ilja Ehrenburg  ( died 1967 )

 

1934:  Edith Cresson

 

1947:  Björn Afzelius  ( died 1999 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1814:  J.G. Fichte  ( 51 years )

 

1901:  Giuseppe Verdi  ( 88 years )

 

1972:  Mahalia Jackson  ( 61 years)

 

2006:  Johannes Rau  ( 75 years )

 

 

JANUARY 28:

 

This day is called CHARLEMAGNE’s DAY.  It has its name from the German-Roman emperor Charles the Great / Charlemagne, who died on this day in the year 814 AC in Aachen. This was his city of residence.

 

He was the ruler over the Germanic and the Frankian empire. In a way he managed to unite Europe after the total collapse of the Roman empire as is therefore often considered to the father of Europe.  He has given his name to the so-called Charlemagne Prize  ( Karls Preis ), which each year is given in Aachen to a prominent European.

 

The Charlemagne Prize is in 2012 given to the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. In 1966 the then Danish prime minister Jens Otto Krag receive the prize.  See more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_Prize  

 

A special Youth Charlemagne Prize has also been started. It is given to a young person between 16 and 30 years, who has done something special for the understanding and cooperation between Europeans.

 

Charlemagne became a saint in 1165.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1768:  King Frederik VI  ( died 1839 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

814:    Charlemagne  ( 72 years )

 

1754:  Ludvig Holberg  ( 69 years)

 

2002:  Astrid Lindgren  ( 94 years )

 

 

JANUARY 29:

 

This day’s name is VALERIUS’ DAY. It has its name from bishop Valerius in Trier. According to the legend he was sent there by Saint Peter to make the Frankians Christians. He died in the 3rd century AC.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1749:  King Christian VII  ( died 1808 )

 

1860:  Anton Tjekhov  ( died 1904 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1906:  King Christian IX  ( 88 years )

 

1955:  Hans Hedtoft  ( 51 years )

 

 

 

JANUARY 30:

 

Today is called ADELGUNDE’s DAY.  She was a French princess who refused to marry a guy she was supposed to marry. She ran away and was hiding as a hermit. Later she founded a monastery in Maubeuge in the north of France. She died here in the year 684 AC.

 

The name of the day is in Belgium:  MARTINE’s DAY.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1882:  Franklin D. Roosevelt  ( died 1945 )

 

1927:  Olof Palme  ( died 1986 )

 

1931:  Gene Hackman

 

1937:  Vanessa Redgrave

 

1937:  Boris Spasskij

 

1941:  Dick Cheney

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1649:  Kong Charles I  ( 49 years )

 

1948:  Mahatma Gandhi  ( 79 years )

 

 

JANUARY 31:

 

Today’s name is VIGILIUS’ DAY. He was a bishop in Trient ( now Trentino ) in the Dolomites in the north of Italy. He is known for building many churches and also for an energetic fight against all the Roman gods.  The legend tells that once he turned over a statue for the Roman god for harvest, Saturnus, just with his prayers. This made people kill him. It happened in 405 AC.

 

The name of this day in Belgium is MARCELLO’s DAY.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1797:  Franz Schubert  ( died 1828 )

 

1902:  Alva Myrdal  ( died 1986 )

 

1920:  Nat Russell  ( died 1990 )

 

1938:  Queen Beatrix

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1606:  Guy Fawkes  ( 36 years )

 

1976:  Evert Taube  ( 86 years )






APRIL 25:

 

Today is MARKUS’ DAY.  The name comes from the evangelist Markus. According to the legend he followed the apostle Peter to Rome as his interpreter. After Peter’s crucifixion Markus went on to Alexandria, where he was a bishop and later in 67 AC was killed because of his faith.  He was first dragged through the city with a rope around his neck.

 

Markus was son of Maria. It was in her house the first Christian community met. And it was probably also here that Jesus had his last supper.

 

In the 9th century Marhus’ bones were entombed in the Markus Church in Venezia.

 

His symbol – the lion – is also the symbol for Venezia.

 

In Iceland people put up the flag today for “the first summer day”.

 

And today it is the flag day of the Faroe Islands.

 

Old Danish weather warnings tell that the cuckoo comes back from its winter season today.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1980:  An American attempt to liberate the hostages held on the US embassy in Teheran failed. Two of the airplanes with elite troops collided in the desert.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1599:  Oliver Cromwell  ( died 1658 )

 

1840:  Pjotr Ilich Tschaikowskij  ( died 1893 )

 

1918:  Ella Fitzgerald  ( died 1996 )

 

1945:  Björn Ulväus

 

1947:  Johann Cruyff

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1744:  Anders Celcius  ( 43 years )

 

1990:  Dexter Gordon  ( 67 years )

 

1995:  Ginger Rogers  ( 84 years )

 

 

 

 

APRIL 26:

 

Today’s name is CLETUS’ DAY. It’s called after pope Cletus – also called Anacletius. He was a pope in the period 76 – 90 AC and was the third pope ( after Peter and Linus ). He was beheaded in 91 and thereby became one of the martyrs of the church.

 

His remains are in the Vatican.

 

An old Danish weather warning says that even if it has been overcast the whole week we will have some sunshine on Saturday. Only three times a year this is not true. Nobody knows, though, when three exceptions happen L  

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1937: Guernica, an important city for the Basques, is bombed by German airplanes. 1645 people are killed and 900 wounded.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

121:    Marcus Aurelius  ( died 180 )

 

1711:  David Hume  ( died 1776 )

 

1812:  Alfred Krupp  ( died 1887 )

 

1889:  Ludwig Wittgenstein  ( died 1951 )

 

1900:  Charles Richter  ( died 1985 )

 

1926:  Erik Mortensen  ( died 1998 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1528:  Albrecht Dürer  ( 56 years )

 

1815:  Carsten Niebuhr  ( 82 years )

 

1910:  Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsen ( 78 years )

 

1984:  Count Basie  ( 80 years )

 

 

 

 

 

         

 

APRIL 27:

 

Today’s name is ANANIAS’ DAY.  It has its name from the Christian priest and monk Anasias, who was active in Persia in the beginning of the 4th Century. At the end he was together with St. Simeon and many of their supporters put in prison and all beheaded in 349.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    1994:  South Africa’s first democratic elections. ANC gets a huge victory, and the day is celebrated as the country’s Liberation Day.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1791:  Samuel Morse ( died 1872 )

 

1822:  Ulysses S. Grant ( died 1885 )

 

1881:  Sergej Prokofjev  ( died 1953 )

 

1932:  Pik Botha

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1521:  Ferdinand Magellan  ( his Portuguese name:  Fernao Magelhaes ) ( 41 years )

 

1937:  Antonio Gramsci  ( 46 years )

 

1972:  Kwame Nkrumah  ( 62 years )




APRIL 28:

 

This day is called VITALIS’ DAY. There are two possible people, who probably have given the day its name. One was a Christian, who was killed because of his faith in year 60 A.C. during the reign of emperor Nero.

 

The other one was a Roman citizen, who during his captivity refused to leave his Christian faith. He was then tortured and buried alive. This happened in year 171 A.C. under emperor Marcus Aurelius.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1969:  Charles de Gaulle steps down as the president of France, because a referendum has said no to his wish to abolish the Senate.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1758:  James Monroe  ( died 1831 )

 

1908:  Oskar Schindler  ( died 1974 )

 

1922:  Alistair MacLean  ( died 1987 )

 

1937:  Saddam Hussein  ( died 2006 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1772:  Johan Friedrich Struensee  ( 35 years )

 

1918:  Gavrilo Princip  ( 24 years )

 

1945:  Benito Mussolini  ( 62 years )


APRIL 29:

 

This day is called PETER MARTYR’s DAY. It has got its name from the Dominican monk Peter, who lived in the years 1206 – 52. He was prior at monestries in Como and in Milan. And the Pope later appointed him the church’s inquisitor in Lombardia in Northern Italy.  He persecuted all non-believers very energetically. He was in particular fighting against the Cathars, a sect which got its name from the Greek word katharos, which means clean. They were against the official church and preached poverty and asceticism. Peter considered them to be traitors. At the end assassins from the sect killed Peter with an axe in 1252. The killing was perhaps also linked to the fact that Peter himself originally came from a Cathar family.

 

The church, in particular the Dominican Order, succeeded in eliminating the Cathars all together in the 14th century.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1429:  Jeanne d’Arc arrives to Orléans and contributes to the end of the British siege of the city.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1854:  Henri Poincaré  ( died 1912 )

 

1899:  Duke Ellington  ( died 1974 )

 

1901:  Kejser Hirohito  ( died 1989 )

 

1922:  Toots Thielemans

 

1970:  André Agassi

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1951:  Ludwig Wittgenstein  ( 62 years )

 

1980:  Alfred Hitchcock  ( 81 years )

 

2006:  John Kenneth Galbraith  ( 98 years)

APRIL 30:

 

Today’s name is SEVERUS’ DAY.  It has got it from bishop Severus, who worked in Napoli around 400 AC. The legend tells that he was elected bishop, because a dove landed on his head just before the election. And the legend also says that he once called a dead man back to life, because he was needed to help his widow against ferocious creditors.

 

This day is also known to be the day when people in the old days made tricks to each other ( “Fools day” ). As everybody knows this tradition was later moved from the last day of April to the first.

 

In the northern part of Europe, especially in Scandinavia, tonight is called VALBORG’s EVENING. It’s an old Germanic tradition for the night before Valborg’s Day tomorrow ( named after the English-German nun Waltpurgis, who died in 779 ).  On this evening many people in the old days put up a so-called “Maj Stang” ( a “May Poll” ). It was a high pole, which was decorated with wreathes, new beech leaves and coloured strings. It should be a symbol of the fertility of the coming summer. People were gathering around this “May Pole”, and they often stayed all night in order to protect themselves against all the subterraneal creatures, which were supposed to be particularly active at this time of the year. People also for the same reasons put up bonfires on hills in the countryside on this evening and night.

 

In Sweden it is still a tradition to have “May Poles” and large parties. And tonight the tradition is to have bonfires burning witches. In Denmark this annual tradition is on June 23.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1789: George Washington becomes the first president of the United States.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1870:  Franz Léhar  ( died 1948 )

 

1883:  Jaroslav Hasek  ( died 1923 )

 

1909:  Queen Juliana  ( died 2004 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1883:  Edouard Manet ( 51 years )

 

1929:  Birger Sjöberg  ( 44 years )

 

1945:  Adolf Hitler  ( 56 years )


MAY 1:

 

This day is called PHILIP’s and JACOB’s DAY.  They were both apostles of Jesus. After the apostles separated in groups they went to Asia Minor ( nowadays Turkey ). Here both of them were killed around 100 AC.

 

Today is also called VALBORG’s DAY. Or VOLDERSMISSE. This name was used especially in Denmark in the old days. The name comes from the English-German princess Waltpurgis, who was a nun and an abbest in Hildesheim in Germany. She died in 779. Her remains were in 871 transferred to the city of Eichstädt.

 

The custom to celebrate May 1 as the Workers’ International Campaign Day was started at the the 2nd congress of the Socialist International in 1889. This was 100 years after the start of the French revolution. Already in 1888 workers in the US had organized manifestations on that day. The purpose was to have an 8 hours work day. The first Danish May 1 manifestation took place in 1890.

 

For many years May 1 was the day when employees on Danish farms could change to another job. The other annual day to change job was November 1.

 

You also have for this day a couple of old Danish weather warning:

 

  • If the rye cannot today cover a lark you will have bad weather this summer
  • Rain on this day means a drought for the rest of May

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1979:  Greenland’s home rule starts.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1853:  Calamity Jane  ( died 1903 )

 

1872:  Hugo Alfvén  ( died 1960 )

 

1916:  Glenn Ford  ( died 2006 )

 

1944:  Rita Coolidge

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1873:  David Livingstone  ( 60 years )

 

1904:  Antonin Dvorak  ( 63 years )

 

1945:  Joseph Goebbels  ( 47 years )

 

1965:  Spike Jones  ( 54 years )

 

1973:  Asger Jorn  ( 59 years )

 

 

MAY 2:

 

Today is called ATHANASIUS’ DAY. He lived in the years 293 – 373 in Egypt. He was for many years bishop in Alexandria, but a large part of the time he had to hide in the desert because of emperor Constantius’ persecutions of the Christians.

 

Athanasius was a small man with a great personality. And he is considered to be a very important “father of the church” by all Christian religions.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1952:  The first jet plane started on a normal civil route. It was a Havelland Comet jet plane. And the route was London – Johannesburg.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1729:  Catharina the Great   ( died 1796 )

 

1892:  Manfred von Richthofen  ( died 1918 )

 

1903:  Bing Crosby  ( died 1977 )

 

1912:  Axel Springer  ( died 1985 )

 

1936:  Engelbert Humperdinck

 

1942:  Jacques Rogge

 

1975:  David Beckham

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1519:  Leonardo da Vinci  ( 67 years )

 

1957:  Joseph McCarthy  ( 49 years )

 

1972:  J. Edgar Hoover ( 77 years )

 

1999:  Oliver Reed  ( 61 years )

 

2001:  Poul Dalsager  ( 72 years )


MAY 3:

 

Today’s name is HOLY CROSS DAY. The reason for this name is that an important church festival took place in the old days to celebrate that Constantine the Great’s mother, empress Helena, on this day in year 326 AC found the cross of Jesus in Jerusalem.  The legend tells that she forced a Jew to show her the place where Jesus had been crucified. On the spot she found three crosses. How did she find out which one was the one of Jesus ? By putting a dead woman next to each of the crosses. And when she was next to the cross of Jesus the woman came alive.

 

In Scandinavia farmers said in the old days that the harvest will be very good, if the sowing took place on Holy Cross Day.  And this is also the day, when the swallows return from their winter stay further south.

 

Another old Danish weather warning says that the “summer will be more or less like the weather on this day”.

 

Today is the United Nations’ international “World Press Freedom Day”.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:    1960: EFTA starts.  This is the “European Free Trade Association “ ( “ The Seven” ) consisting of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1469:  Niccolò Macchiavelli  ( died 1527 )

 

1886:  Marcel Dupré  ( died 1971 )

 

1898:  Golda Meir  ( died 1978 )

 

1903:  Bing Crosby  ( died 1977 )

 

1919:  Pete Seeger

 

1920:  Sugar Ray Robinson  ( died 1989 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1704:  Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber  ( 68 years )

 

1942:  Thorvald Stauning  ( 68 years ) – Danish prime minister

May 4:

 

This day’s name is called FLORIAN’s DAY.  Florian was a soldier in the army of the Roman emperor Diocletian. He became special in the sense that he decided to be a Christian. As such he tried to rescue 40 Christians from execution. But he was himself caught and tortured. At the end he was thrown into a river with a millstone around his neck. He died around year 300 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1924:  The Olympic Games in Paris open.  Altogether 3.089 athletes from 44 countries participate.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1825:  Thomas Huxley  ( died 1895 )

 

1928:  Hosni Mubarak

 

1929:  Johan Otto van Spreckelsen  ( died 1987 )

 

1936:  Audrey Hepburn  ( died 1993 )

 

1939:  Amos Oz

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1776:  J.F.J. Saly  ( 59 years )

 

1980:  Josip Broz Tito  ( 87 years )


MAY 5:

 

This day’s name is GOTHARD’s DAY.  He was a German, son of a farmer and became bishop in Hildesheim in Germany in 1022. He was also a close friend of the emperor. In his work he built 30 churches and did a lot for schools and for the arts.

 

Gothard died on May 5, 1038, and later an altar was built for him in the Alps – in what is now called the Saint Gothard pass.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1835:  The first railway in continental Europe opened in Belgium between Brussels and Mechelen.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1747:  Leopold the 2nd   ( died 1792 )

 

1813:  Søren Kierkegaard  ( died 1855 )

 

1818:  Karl Marx  ( died 1883 )

 

1943:  Michael Palin

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1821:  Napoleon Bonaparte  ( 52 years )

 

1943:  Ole Olsen  ( 80 years )

 

1977:  Ludwig Erhard ( 80 years )

 

 

MAY 6:

 

Today’s name is JOHANNES’ DAY  ( or JOHN’s DAY ). It is named after the apostle Johannes / John and especially after the event, when he in year 95 AC in front of the gate of Rome was thrown into boiling oil. But the legend tells that he afterwards walked away unhurt.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1994:  President Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II opened the Eurotunnel under the Channel.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1758:  Maxililien Robespierre  ( died 1794 )

 

1856:  Sigmund Freud  ( died 1939 )

 

1915:  Orson Wells  ( died 1985 )

 

1953:  Tony Blair

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1859:  Alexander von Humboldt  ( 90 years)

 

1910:  Edward VII  ( 69 years )

 

1992:  Marlene Dietrich  ( 91 years )

 

2002:  Pim Fortuyn  ( 54 years )

 

 

MAY 7:

 

This day is called FLAVIA’s DAY. She was a young beautiful Roman girl, who was Christian. But as emperor Domitian and his followers persecuted all Christians she was due to her faith sent off to the island Pandataria in the sea south west of Rome. This island is today called Ventotene and is only 1,5 sq.km ( 1 sq.m ) in size. Here she died as a prisoner in the year 95 AC.

 

Today is also one of the 32 socalled Tycho Brahe’s Days. These are special days selected by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century. He selected them on the basis of his calculations and considered them to be particularly unfortunate.  ( Good old nonsense L )

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1948: The Council of Europe started in Strasbourg.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1833:  Johannes Brahms  ( died 1897 )

 

1840:  Pjotr Tjajkovskij   ( died 1893 )

 

1892:  Josip Broz Tito  ( died 1980 )

 

1901:  Gary Cooper  ( died 1961 )

 

1919:  Eva Peron  ( died 1952 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

973:    Otto the Great  ( 61 years )

 

1825:  Antonio Salieri  ( 75 years )

 

 

MAY 8:

 

Today is called STANISLAUS DAY. He was bishop in Krakow in present day Poland. He criticized king Boleslaus’ immoral and violent government. This made the king so furious that he in 1079 cleaved the skull of the bishop and cut his body into many pieces. The legend tells that after the murder four eagles came down from heaven to put the bishop’s body together again.

 

It is also today the world’s RED CROSS DAY.  The Swiss founder of the organization Henri Dunant was born on this day.

 

In Belgium this day is called JOUR DE VICTOIRE  ( remembrance of peace in 1945 )

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1858:  The first cable under the Atlantic from Europe to the US started working.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1629:  Niels Juel  ( died 1697 )

 

1828:  Henri Dunant  ( died 1910 )

 

1884:  Harry S. Truman  ( died 1972 )

 

1926:  David Attenborough

 

1928:  Ted Sorensen

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1873:  John Stuart Mill  ( 67 years )

 

1960:  Hugo Alfvén  ( 78 years )

 

1999:  Dirk Bogarde  ( 78 years )

 

 

MAY 9:

 

This day has two names:  CASPAR’s DAY  and EUROPE DAY.

 

The name Caspar probably comes from one of the Three Wise Men from the East, who came to see Virgin Mary and her small child Jesus in Bethlehem, after he was born. Some people think that they were astrologists from Babylon. Caspar was the guy without beard. He brought incense to Virgin Mary and her baby.

 

The name EUROPE DAY  is caused by the fact that it was on this day In 1950 that the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, in a speech in Paris suggested that a new and binding cooperation should be started among the European countries. A cooperation where the participating countries transferred some of their national sovereignty to a common authority. Why? Because this would according to Mr. Schuman once and forever make wars between the European countries impossible.  The two key countries were France and Germany. They had fought numerous wars between each other – the latest one only five years earlier. The idea for such a new and pioneering cooperation was prepared by the French energetic and imaginative official, Jean Monnet.  And then proposed officially by the French government.  Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg were positive right away. And only two years later the first European Community, called the EuropeanCoal and Steel Community, started. This unique cooperation has since then developed enormously, and altogether 27 European countries are today members. More countries want to join. That is why EUROPE DAY in celebrated all over the continent on this day. In Belgium it is law that all public buildings must fly the European Flag today. More and more countries do the same.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   Robert Schuman’s proposal to start the EU.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1860:  John Barrie  (died 1937 )

 

1873:  Howard Carter  ( died 1939 )

 

1891:  May Warden  ( died 1978 )

 

1936:  Glenda Jackson

 

1945:  Jupp Heynckes

 

1955:  Anne-Sofie von Otter

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1707:  Dietrich Buxtehude  ( 70 years )

 

1805:  Friedrich Schiller  ( 46 years )

 

1976:  Ulrike Meinhof  ( 42 years )

 

1978:  Aldo Moro  ( 62 years )

 

 

MAY 10:

 

Today is called GORDIANUS’ DAY. He was one of emperor Julian’s servants. In his work he forced Christian prisoners to serve other gods than Christ. Later he became a Christian himself. He was then taken to prison, terribly tortured and at the end beheaded. This happened in year 362 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1940:  Winston Churchill is confirmed as prime minister in the UK.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1850:  Thomas Lipton  ( died 1931 )

 

1878:  Gustav Stresemann  ( died 1929 )

 

1899:  Fred Astaire  ( died 1987 )

 

1960:  Bono

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1774:  Louis XV  ( 64 years )

 

1775:  Caroline Mathilde  ( 24 years )

 

1977:  Joan Crawford  ( 72 years )

 

1999:  Shel Silverstein  ( 69 years )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAY 11:

 

This day is called MAMERTUS DAY. It carries its name from a bishop in Vienne in Gallia ( nowadays Southern France ). He was murdered in the year 477 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1949: The Soviet blockade of West Berlin stops.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1720:  Baron von Münchhausen  ( died 1797 )

 

1888:  Irving Berlin  ( died 1989 )

 

1892:  Margaret Rutherford  ( died 1972 )

 

1904:  Salvador Dali  ( died 1989 )

 

1931:  Rupert Murdoch

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1891:  A.E. Becquerel  ( 71 years )

 

1960:  John D. Rockefeller  ( 86 years )

 

1970:  Johnny Hodges  ( 63 years )

 

1976:  Alvar Aalto  ( 78 years )

 

1988:  Kim Philby ( 76 years )

 

2006:  Floyd Patterson  ( 71 years )

 

 

MAY 12:

 

Today’s name is PANCRATIUS’ DAY. He was a Christian man from Frygia ( in present day Turkey ), who was executed in year 304 AC because of his faith. It happened during emperor Diocletian’s fight against all Christians.

 

Another Pancratius, whose name might also be linked to this day, was killed in 896, because he was praying for the victory of emperor Anuf’s troops, when they conquered Rome.

 

An old Danish weather warning says:  Only if the nightingale is singing today the weather will be good for the rest of the spring and in the summer.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1797:  Napoleon conquers Venezia.

 

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1496:  Gustav Vasa  ( died 1560 )

 

1820:  Florence Nightingale  ( died 1910 )

 

1907:  Katharine Hepburn  ( died 2003 )

 

1928:  Burt Bacharach

 

1940:  Lill Lindfors

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1182:  Valdemar the Great  ( 51 years )

 

1884:  Bedrich Smetana  ( 60 years )

 

2005:  Monica Zetterlund  ( 68 years )

 

 

MAY 13:

 

This day is called INGENUUS’ DAY. It has its name from a Roman soldier, who worked in the legions of emperor Decius. But after he became a Christian, he was executed in year 250 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    1873:  The brewery Tuborg was founded.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1265:  Dante  ( died 1321 )

 

1588:  Ole Worm  ( died 1654 )

 

1717:  Maria Theresia  ( died 1780 )

 

1907:  Daphne du Maurier  ( died 1989 )

 

1940:  Bruce Chatwin  ( died 1989 )

 

1950:  Stevie Wonder

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1871:  Daniel Auber  ( 89 years )

 

1930:  Fridjof Nansen  ( 69 years )

 

1961:  Gary Cooper  ( 60 years )

 

 

MAY 14:

 

Today is called CHRISTIAN’s DAY.  The name itself comes from the word Christian, of course. But the reason why this day carries the name is not known. It is not a name of a saint. And it only entered the almanac in 1738.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    Louis XIV became king of France only 4 ½ years old.  He was king for 72 years. He is also called the “King of the Sun / Roi du Soleil”.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1686:  Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit  ( died 1736 )

 

1897:  Sidney Bechet  ( died 1959 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1847:  Fanny Mendelsohn  ( 42 years )

 

1912:  August Strindberg  ( 63 years )

 

1959:  Sidney Bechet ( 62 years )

 

1998:  Frank Sinatra  ( 83 years )

 

 

MAY 15:

 

This day is called SOFIE’s DAY.  The name comes from two different persons:

 

The first one was the widow Sofie, who went to Rome with her three daughters Fides, Spes and Caritas  ( which means faith, hope and love ). Here all three daughters were executed because of their faith. The mother died immediately after she had buried her daughters. This happened in the year 120 AC.

 

The other Sofie was a Roman virgin, who due to her Christian faith was killed in the year 300 AC  during the reign of emperor Diocletian.

 

This day is also the United Nations’ International Family Day.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1948:  The Arab countries attacked the newly created state of Israel.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1773:  Count Metternich  ( died 1859 )

 

1884:  Vilhelm Hammershøi  ( died 1916 )

 

1937:  Madeleine Albright

 

1952:  Mike Oldfield

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1886:  Emily Dickinson  ( 55 years )

 

1967:  Edmund Hopper  ( 85 years )

 

2003:  Rick van Steenbergen ( 79 years )

 

 

MAY 16:

 

Today it is SARA’s DAY.  It has the name from the wife of the patriarch Abraham ( from the old testament ). She was the mother of Isak.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1966: The cultural revolution in China starts.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1905:  Henry Fonda  ( died 1982 )

 

1919:  Liberace  ( died 1989 )

 

1955:  Olga Korbut

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1830:  Joseph Fourier ( 62 years )

 

1990:  Sammy Davis, Jr.  ( 65 years )

 

 

MAY 17:

 

 

Today is BRUNO’s DAY.   Bruno was a bishop in Würzburg in Germany. He was a son of the German-Roman emperor Conrad II.  Bruno died in 1045 when a ceiling fell down in his castle.

 

He became a saint following rumours about miracles near his grave.

 

Today is also the United Nations World Day for Telecommunications.

 

Today is also the national day of Norway. It was on this day that the country got its first democratic constitution, the Eidsvoll constitution following the independence from Denmark. Denmark only got its first democratic constitution 35 years later.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1814:  The signing of the first Norwegian democratic constitution.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1900:  Ayatollah Khomeini  ( died 1989 )

 

1918:  Birgit Nilsson  ( died 2005 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1727:  Catharina I.  ( 43 years )

 

1987:  Gunnar Myrdal  ( 89 years )

 

 

MAY 18:

 

 

This day is called ERIK’s DAY. It has its name from the Swedish king Erik the 9th ( or Holy Erik ). He was beheaded in a church by the Danish prince Magnus Eriksen on the way back from a crusade in Finland in the year 1160.  His bones are still today to be seen in the cathedral in Uppsala in Sweden.

 

The day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe’s Days. These are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century after his special calculations appointed as somewhat unfortunate days  ( what old non-sense L ).

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1936:  The Spanish civil war started. It lasted until 1939.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1869:  Zar Nikolaj II  ( died 1918 )

 

1913:  Charles Trenet  ( died 2001 )

 

1920:  Pope John Paul II   ( died 2005 )

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

1911:  Gustav Mahler  ( 51 years )

 

1990:  Jill Ireland  ( 54 years )

 

 

MAY 19:

 

This day is called POTENTIANA’s DAY.  It has its name from a 16 year old Roman girl, who together with her sister Praxedis was killed by the Roman emperor in the year 160 AC because of her Christian faith.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    1536:  Anne Boleyn, the second wife of king Henry VIII, is beheaded.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1760:  Antoine Bournonville  ( died 1843 )

 

1881:  Kemal Atatürk  ( died 1938 )

 

1890:  Ho Chi Minh  ( died 1969 )

 

1941:  Ritt Bjerregaard

 

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1536:  Anne Boloyn  ( 35 år )

 

1994:  Jacqueline Kennedy  ( 65 år )

 

 

MAY 20:

 

The name of this day is ANGELICA’s DAY. It is unknown where the name comes from. It is not a name of a saint. And it only came into the Almanach in 1727.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1944:  The assanination attempt against Hitler by German officers.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1806:  John Stuart Mill  ( died 1873 )

 

1882:  Sigrid Undset  ( died 1949 )

 

1908:  James Stewart  ( died 1997 )

 

1915:  Moshe Dayan  ( died 1981 )

 

1944:  Joe Cocker

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1506:  Christoffer Columbus  ( 55 years )

 

1834:  La Fayette  ( 83 years )


MAY 21:

 

This day’s name is HELENE’s DAY. It is called after the mother of emperor Constantine the Great, Helene. She found the cross of Jesus in Jerusalem and became a Christian. She built a number of churches, including the Church of the Cross in Bethlehem and the Apostles Church in Constantinopel ( nowadays Istanbul ). Helene died in 329 AC.

 

Today is also the United Nations’ international World Day for cultural diversity in dialogue and development.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1927:  Charles Lindbergh is as the first person flying solo over the Atlantic in the plave “Spirit of St. Louis”. He flew from New York to Paris. The distance was 5.800 km. And the tour lasted 33 hours and 29 minutes.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1527:  King Filip II  ( died 1598 )

 

1688:  Alexander Pope  ( died 1754 )

 

1904:  Fats Waller  ( died 1943 )

 

1921:  Andrej Sakharov  ( died 1989 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

337:    Constantine the Great  ( 55 years )

 

1895:  Franz von Suppé   ( 74 years )

 

1991:  Rajiv Gandhi  ( 47 years )


MAY 22:

 

This day is CASTUS’ DAY.  He was a young Roman from Carthago. He was like his friend Aemilius a Christian. Therefore, they were both imprisoned during emperor Decius’ persecution of all Christians. In the beginning they denied their faith. But when they later admitted their religion they were burnt alive in Carthago in the year 250 AC.

 

Today is the United Nations’ international day for biological diversity.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1892:  The American dentist Washinton Sheffield invented the tube for tooth paste. Until now tooth paste had been kept in jars.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1813:  Richard Wagner  ( died 1883 )

 

1907:  Lawrence Olivier  ( died 1989 )

 

1907:  Hergé  ( died 1983 )

 

1924:  Charles Aznavour

 

1946:  George Best  ( died 2005 )

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

1885:  Victor Hugo  ( 83 years )

 

1972:  Margaret Rutherford  ( 80 years )

 

 

MAY 23:

 

Today is called DESIDERIUS’ DAY.  It has its name after two different French bishops with the same name. They were both executed.

 

The first one was a bishop in Viennes in the south of France. He was killed in 364 AC.

 

The other one was a bishop in Langres in the Champagne area. He was stoned to death at the order of queen Brunhilde, because he had critisized her immoral life. It happened in 607 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1949:  The Federal Republic of Germany starts with Bonn as its capital

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1707:  Carl von Linné   ( died 1778 )

 

1848:  Otto Liljenthal  ( died 1896 )

 

1891:  Pär Lagerkvist  ( died 1974 )

 

1933:  Joan Collins

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1886:  Henrik Ibsen  ( 58 years )

 

1937:  John D. Rockefeller ( 98 years )

 

1945:  Heinrich Himmler  ( 45 years )

 

 

MAY 24:

 

Today’s name is ESTHER’s DAY.  It has its name from the Jewish girl Esther, who married the Persian king Xerxes. According to the Old Testament she did so to save the Jews from the persecutions of the Persians.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1976:  The Concorde plane is making its first flight from London/Paris to Washington DC.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1686:  Gabriel Fahrenheit  ( died 1736 )

 

1819:  Queen Victoria  ( died 1901 )

 

1925:  Mai Zetterling  ( died 1994 )

 

1941:  Bob Dylan

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1212:  Queen Dagmar  ( 26 years )

 

1543:  Nicolaus Kopernikus  ( 70 years )

 

1959:  John Foster Dulles  ( 71 years )

 

1974:  Duke Ellington  ( 75 years )

 

 

MAY 26:

 

This day is called BEDA’s DAY  ( or BEDE’s DAY ). He was a monk and priest, who worked in England around 700 AC.  He was born in 672 in Northumbria. Already at the age of 7 he started at a monestary. Later he was also an author and a poet of psalms. And it was him who suggested that our calendar should start with the birth of Jesus.

 

It was also Beda, who wrote a lot about religion in England before Christianity.

 

A special expression comes from Beda: to pour oil on stormy waters.  This was what he suggested a young priest to do, when a storm was about to start.

 

Beda died in 735 – 53 years of age.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1924: The US makes limits to immigration and stops it totally for Japanese and others.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1886:  Al Jolson  ( died 1950 )

 

1907:  John Wayne  ( died 1979 )

 

1926:  Miles Davis  ( died 1991 )

 

1968:  Crown Prince Frederik

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1762:  Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten  ( 48 years )

 

1976:  Martin Heidegger  ( 87 years )



MAY 27:

 

This day is called LUCIAN’s DAY. He was a Christian who together with others of the same faith was killed in year 200 AC in the town Tomi at the Black Sea.  Tomi was placed where the Romanian city of Constanta is today.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1703:  The city Saint Petersburg in Russia is founded by zar Peter the Great.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1894:  Céline  ( died 1961 )

 

1911:  Hubert Humphrey  ( died 1978 )

 

1923:  Henry Kissinger

 

1975:  Jamie Oliver

 

 

Famous people died on this day::

 

1564:  Jean Calvin  ( 55 years )

 

1840:  Niccolò Paganini  ( 58 years )

 

1936:  H.P.Hanssen  ( 74 years )

 

1965:  Jawaharlal Nehru  ( 75 years )


MAY 28:

 

This day is called VILHELM’S DAY.  It has its name from Vilhelm ( in French: Guillaume ), who was duke of Gascogne. He was one of Charlemagne’s closest allies, and they were fighting together against the Moors in Spain. Later he became a very religious man, and he founded a monastery. According to the legend he even became so religious that he was able to walk into a red-hot oven with getting harmed. And when he died in 812 AC the bells in his monastery started ringing all by themselves.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1987:  The 19 years old German Mathias Rust is landing his Cessna plane on the Red Square in Moscow.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1779:  Thomas Moore  ( died 1852 )

 

1884:  Edvard Benes  ( died 1948 )

 

1908:  Ian Fleming  ( died 1964 )

 

1925:  Bülent Ecevit  ( died 2006 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1787:  Leopold Mozart  ( 68 years )

 

1805:  Luigi Boccherini  ( 62 years )


MAY 29:

 

This day is called MAXIMINUS’ DAY. It has its name from bishop Maximus in Trier, Germany. He functioned in the period 330 – 352 AC. The legend tells that during one of his trips to Rome his donkey was eaten by a bear. He then put the saddle on the back of the bear, and it carried him the rest of the journey.

 

Maximinus died in 352 after a visit to Constantinopel. Here he had tried to reconcile the Eastern and the Western churches.

 

Today is also the United Nations’ international day for peacekeeping personnel.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  862:  The Viking chief Rurik ( probably a Dane from Hedeby / Hauthabu ) is founding the first Russian state in Novgorod.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1880:  Oswald Spengler  ( died 1936 )

 

1903:  Bob Hope  ( died 2003 )

 

1917:  John F. Kennedy  ( died 1963 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1259:  King Christoffer I  ( 40 years )

 

1982:  Romy Schneider  ( 44 years )

 

1994:  Erich Honecker  ( 82 years )


MAY 30:

 

This day is called VIGAND’s DAY. He was also called the holy Venantius of Arles ( in the south of France ). In his younger days he tried to convince his brother that he should give up his Christian faith. Instead he became himself a convinced Christian and lived as such for the rest of his life. At the end Vigand was killed in 370 AC because of his faith.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1431:  19 year old Jeanne d’Arc was burnt on the bondfire by the British in Rouen.  A court ruling said that she was a witch and a traitor.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1220:  Alexander Nevskij  ( died 1263 )

 

1672:  Peter the Great  ( died 1725 )

 

1846:  Carl Fabergé  ( died 1920 )

 

1909:  Benny Goodman  ( died 1986 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1431:  Jeanne d’Arc  ( 19 years )

 

1640:  Peter Paul Rubens  ( 63 years )

 

1778:  Francois Voltaire  ( 83 years )

 

1912:  Wilbur Wright  ( 45 years )

 

1960:  Boris Pasternak  ( 70 years )

 

1971:  Marcel Dupré  ( 85 years )


MAY 31:

 

Today is called PETRONELLA’s DAY. She was a daughter of the apostle Peter – or at least his spiritual daughter. She had promised never to marry. When a very rich and well regarded Roman gentleman suggested to her that they should marry she asked for three weeks to reflect upon it. After she had enjoyed the Holy Communion she starved herself to death. It happened in the year 100 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1915:  Zeppelins are making some of the first bombardments of London. 28 people were killed and 60 wounded.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1923:  Prince Rainier III  ( died 2005 )

 

1930:  Clint Eastwood

 

1945:  Rainer Werner Fassbinder  ( died 1982 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1809:  Joseph Haydn  ( 77 years )

 

1983:  Jack Dempsey  ( 88 years )


JUNE 1:

 

Today’s name is NICOMEDES’ DAY. He was a Roman soldier, who buried the martyr Felicula’s body. In doing so he revealed that was himself a Christian. Therefore, he was whipped to death with lead bullets. At the end his body was thrown into a river.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1958:  Charles de Gaulle become president of France.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1780:  Carl von Clausewitz  ( died 1831 )

 

1804:  Mikhail Glinka  ( died 1857 )

 

1922:  Povel Ramel  ( died 2007 )

 

1930:  Jack Lemmon

 

1935:  Norman Foster

 

 

Famous people died on this day: 

 

1943:  Leslie Howard  ( 50 years )

 

1954:  Marin Andersen Nexø  ( 85 years )

 

1962:  Adolf Eichmann  ( 56 years )


JUNE 2:

 

This day’s name is MARCELLINUS’ DAY.  The Christian Roman citizen Marcellinus Exorsista was because of his faith beheaded in year 304 AC during the reign of emperor Diocletian.

 

The legend says that when his remains later were moved to Müllenheim blind and deaf people and people with other physical handicaps were cured on that spot.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1992:  In a referendum the Danes voted NO to the EU Maastricht Treaty.  50,7 % voted no, and 49, 3 % voted yes.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1740:  Marquis de Sade  ( died 1814 )

 

1857:  Edward Elgar  ( died 1934 )

 

1904:  Johnny Weissmuller  ( died 1984 )

 

1940:  King Konstantin II

 

1946:  Inga Nielsen  ( died 2008 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1882:  Giuseppe Garibaldi  ( 75 years )

 

1990:  Rex Harrison  ( 82 years )

 

   

 

JUNE 3:

 

This day is called ERASMUS’ DAY. He was a bishop in the Greek city of Antiochia in the Middle East during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Due to the emperor’s terrible persecutions of the Christians Erasmus took refuge in the mountains in Lebanon and lived here as an eremit. Later he went back to his city and continued to convert people to his faith and also to cure the sick persons. He died a natural death around year 300 AC.

 

In the Middle Ages a legend about Erasmus became very popular. It told that he had been terribly tortured at least three times. Once he had all his intestines taken out. At another occasion he was put into a pot with boiling tar and sulphur. But in all cases he came out unhurt due to his faith.

 

Due to this legend people believed that Erasmus in particular would help persons with stomach deceases. And he is also often presented next to a pot on pictures from that time.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1965:  The US astronaut Edward White is the first man to make a space walk.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1808:  Jefferson Davis  ( died 1889 )

 

1906:  Josephine Baker  ( died 1975 )

 

1925:  Tony Curtis

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1764:  Hans Adolph Brorson  ( 70 years )

 

1875:  Georges Bizet  ( 37 years )

 

1924:  Franz Kafka  ( 41 years )

 

2001:  Anthony Quinn ( 86 years )

JUNE 4:

 

Today’s name is OPTATUS’ DAY.  He was a bishop in Numedia in North Africa ( nowadays Algeria ) around year 400 AC. He was a very skilled theologian, who was fighting against false doctrines in the church.

 

This day is also called the Day of Sacraments.

 

And it is the United Nations’ international day for children, who have been victims of aggression and abuse.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1783:  The brothers Montgolfier presented for the first time publicly their hot air balloon  ( now called a montgolfiere ).

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1867:  Carl Gustaf Mannerheim  ( died 1951 )

 

1912:  Robert Jacobsen  ( died 1993 )

 

1924:  Dennis Weaver  ( died 2006 )

 

1971:  Joseph Kabila

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1798:  Giacomo Casanova  ( 73 years )

 

1941:  Ex-emperor Wilhelm II  ( 82 years )

 

1942:  Reinhard Heydrich  ( 38 years )


JUNE 5:

 

The name of this day is BONIFACIUS’ DAY. He was an English monk, who together with 50 priests tried to make the invading Friseans Christians. But he failed, and at the end they killed him in year 755 AC.

 

In Denmark this day is also DAD’s DAY. It was a tradition started by Louise Smart ( married Dodd ) in Spokane in the state of Washington in the US in 1910. She wanted to celebrate her own father. During World War I  this American tradition was also taken up in Europe. And in Denmark it was permanently introduced from 1935. It has over the years been placed on different dates during the year. But now it is always on June 5. In the other Scandinavian countries it is celebrated on the second Sunday in November. In the US it is on the third Sunday in June, and it’s an official holiday.   Some people have said that Dad’s Day was actually invented by the producers of cigars and whiskey. But this is not true J

 

Today is also the United Nations international Environment Day.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1967: The Six Days War between Israel and the Arab countries started.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1723:  Adam Smith  ( died 1790 )

 

1883:  John Maynard Keynes  ( died 1946 )

 

1949:  Ken Follett

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1826:  Carl Maria von Weber  ( 40 years )

 

1963:  Henrik Kaufmann  ( 75 years )

 

2004:  Ronald Reagan  ( 93 years )


JUNE 6:

 

Today is called NOBERTUS’ DAY. He was the son of rich German parents, and like them he enjoyed a free and pleasant life during his youth. When he was 35 years of age he was one day hit by a lightening, when he was riding his horse.  Because of that he decided to change his life completely. He joined a monastery as a monk, and later on he became archbishop of Magdeburg. He died in 1134.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe’s days.  It was days which the Danish-Czech astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century because of his calculations considered to be unfortunate  ( what old nonsense L   )

 

And today is also one of the old so-called Tamperdays.  They were four yearly days celebrated by the Catholic church in the old days. On those days the Tamper Court was in session. It was the court for all matters concerning marriages. It existed in the period 1542 -1797.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1944:  The allied countries started the invasion of German occupied Normandy in France ( code names:  D-Day and Operation Overlord ).

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1799:  Alexandr Pushkin  ( died 1837 )

 

1869:  Siegfried Wagner  ( died 1930 )

 

1875:  Thomas Mann  ( died 1956 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1948:  Louis Lumière  ( 84 years )

 

1968:  Robert Kennedy  ( 43 years )


JUNE 7:

 

Today’s name is JEREMIAS’ DAY. He was one of the four great profets in the Old Testament. We know a lot about his activities from the Book of Jeremias in this Testament. Among many other things he predicted the destruction of Jerusalem.

 

Jeremias lived and worked for 40 years from the year 626 BC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1979:  The first direct elections to the European Parliament take place.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1848:  Paul Gaugain  ( died 1903 )

 

1879:  Knud Rasmussen  ( died 1933 )

 

1896:  Imre Nagy  ( died 1958 )

 

1917:  Dean Martin  ( died 1995 )

 

1940:  Tom Jones

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1965:  Judy Holliday  ( 44 years )

 

1970:  E.M. Foster  ( 91 years )

 

1980:  Henry Miller  ( 89 years )


JUNE 8:

 

Today’s name is MEDARDUS’ DAY. He was a bishop in St. Quintin ( today in France ) and in Tournai ( today in Belgium ).  When he died in the year 545 he gave away all his property.

 

Medardus is the patron for French vineyards and for the brewers.

 

Old Danish weather warning for this day:  As the weather is today it will continue to be for the coming eight weeks !

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1783:  20 % of Iceland’s population is killed by a volcanic eruption.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1671:  Tomaso Albinoni  ( died 1751 )

 

1930:  Bo Widerberg  ( died 1997 )

 

1940:  Nancy Sinatra

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

632:    Muhammed  ( 62 years )

 

1845:  Andrew Jackson  ( 78 years )

JUNE 9:

 

Today’s name is PRIMUS’ DAY. He was together with his brother Felicianus a Christian Roman, who tried to convert other Romans to Christianity. At the same time he refused to make sacrifices for the emperor – also when liquid lead was poured into his mouth. He was then thrown before lions and bears, but they refused to touch him. At the end the emperor’s soldiers had to behead him in order to kill him.

 

It all happened during emperor Diocletian’s persecutions of the Christians around 300 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1934:  Donald Duck is presented for the first time. It happens in the film “The Wise Little Hen”.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1672:  Peter the Great  ( died 1725 )

 

1865:  Carl Nielsen  ( died 1931 )

 

1893:  Cole Porter ( died 1964 )

 

1934:  Jacqui Wilson  ( died 1984 )

 

1934:  Donald Duck   J

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

68:     Nero  ( 31 years )

 

1870:  Charles Dickens  ( 58 years )

 

1964:  Max Beaverbrook  ( 85 years )

JUNE 10:

 

Today is called ONUPHRIUS’ DAY. It has its name from an Egyptian prince, who became Christian, and who decided to renounce on his inheritance. Instead he lived for about 60 years as a hermit in the desert. During the first period he lived from water and bread. But during the last 20 years an angel brought him food every day.  He died around 400 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1947:  The first SAAB car is produced.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1819:  Gustave Courbet  ( died 1877 )

 

1921:  Prince Philip

 

1922:  Judy Garland  ( died 1969 )

 

1923:  Robert Maxwell  ( died 1991 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

323 BC:  Alexander the Great  ( 33 years )

 

1190:  Frederik Barbarossa  ( 68 years )

 

1949:  Sigrid Undset  ( 67 years )

 

1967:  Spencer Tracy  ( 67 years )

 

 

JUNE 11:

 

 

Today’s name is BARNABAS’s DAY. He was one of the disciples of Jesus. He was closely related to the apostle Paul and took part in several of his trips. During a stay in Salamis in Cyprus Barnabas was caught by Jews and dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck. At the end he was thrown into a fire, where he died. It happened in year 61 AC.

 

In Denmark this day was until recently also called ”The Birthday of the Devil”. Why? Because today ( and December 11 ) was the last day to pay your regular down-payment and interest on your property loans.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1972:  Piet Hein receives the degree as honourable doctor at the Yale University in the US.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1864:  Richard Strauss  ( died 1949 )

 

1910:  Jacques Cousteau  ( died 1997 )

 

1934:  Prince Henrik of Denmark

 

1935:  Gene Wilder 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1859:  Count Metternich  ( 86 years )

 

1970:  Alexandr Kerenskij  ( 89 years )

 

1979:  John Wayne  ( 72 years ) 

JUNE 12:

 

Today’s name is BASILIUS’ DAY. He was a Christian monk from Cappadokia in Turkey, and he was killed because of his faith around year 300 AC. It happened during the persecutions of all Christians during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.

 

He was the father of Basilius the Younger, who was a very well known Father of the Church.

 

This day is also the United Nations’ international day against child labour.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1987:  President Ronald Reagan says these famous words in his speech at the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate:  Mr. Gorbatjov, tear that wall down!

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1897:  Anthony Eden  ( died 1977 )

 

1924:  George Bush

 

1929:  Anne Frank  ( died 1945 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1965:  A.P. Møller  ( 89 years )

 

2003:  Gregory Peck  ( 87 years )

 

2007:  Guy de Rothschild  ( 98 years )

JUNE 13:

 

This day’s name is CYRILLUS’ DAY. He was a bishop in Alexandria in present day Egypt. At the same time he was very active in trying to make the Slave people Christians, and he has even given name to their alphabet, the Cyrillic a. He was also a very important Father of the Church.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1990:  The formal removal of the Berlin Wall starts.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1870:  Jules Bordet  ( died 1961 )

 

1893:  Dorothy Sayers  ( died 1957 )

 

1961:  Tage Erlander  ( died 1985 )

 

1944:  Ban ki-moon

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1986:  Benny Goodman  ( 75 years )


JUNE 14:

 

This day’s name is RUFINUS’ DAY. He was a Christian officer in the Roman army under emperor Diocletian. But as the emperor persecuted all Christians, Rufinus was together with his colleague Valerius killed around year 300 AC.

 

Today is also the international blood donor day. It has been placed at the birthday of the Austrian professor Karl Landsteiner. He got the Nobel Prize for his works on blood types.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1907: The women in Norway gets the right to vote.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1868:  Karl Landsteiner  ( died 1943 )

 

1928:  Che Guevara  ( died 1967 )

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1994:  Henry Mancini  ( 70 år )

JUNE 15:

 

This day is called VITUS DAY.  He was a Roman boy, who was made a Christian by his teacher. He was known for curing sick people. When he refused to serve non-Christian gods, he was as 12 year old tortured together with his mother, while his non-Christian father was watching.  When his pains were at their maximum the legend tells that he and his mother was taken away by an angel.

 

Vitus was in the Medieval Ages one of the 14 emergency helpers – with epilepsy and cramps as his special fields.

 

Today is also Waldemar’s Day.  It was on this day in 1219 that the Danish flag Dannebrog according to the legend fell from heaven during the Danish king Waldemar’s battle near Lyndanes outside Tallinn in Estonia.  That’s why Waldemar won the battle J   A Scottish bar in the centre of Tallinn has today put up a sign saying that the flag actually fell where the bar is.  It takes a lot of good whisky to believe that !

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1920:  This is called the Re-Unification Day, because on this day Southern Jutland was reunited with Denmark after 56 years under German rule.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1843:  Edvard Grieg  ( died 1907 )

 

1914:  Jurij Andropov  ( died 1984 )

 

1943:  Poul Nyrup Rasmussen

 

1943:  Johnny Halliday

 

1964:  Michael Laudrup

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1996:  Ella Fitzgerald  ( 78 years )



JUNE 16:


Today is called TYCHO’s DAY.  He was a bishop on Cyprus around 400 AC, and he was in particular known for fighting against the local non-Christian Afrodite cult.  He also got the name the Healer, as a lot of miracles happened later at his grave.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1976:  Bloodbath in Soweto in South Africa, where the policy opens fire against a student demonstration and kills 556 people.



Famous  people born on this day:


1313:  Giovanni Boccaccio  ( died 1375 ))


1890:  Stan Laurel  ( died 1965 )


1912:  Enoch Powell ( died 1998 )



Famous people died on this day:


1958:  Imre Nagy  ( 62 years )


1977:  Wernher von Braun  ( 65 years )


1986:  Erlendur Patursson  ( 72 years )





JUNE 17:


This day’s name is BUDOLF’s DAY.  It comes from the Benedictine monk Bothulf, who in the year 654 AC founded a monastery in Lincolnshire in England. The town nearby got its name from him – Bothulf’s Town. This name has today developed into the name Boston.  Bothulf died in year 680 AC.


An old Danish saying claims that “if it is raining on Budolf’s day the harvest will be better than the king’s gold!”


Today is also the United Nation’s international World Day against drought.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1789:  The French revolution starts.



Famous people born on this day:


1808:  Henrik Wergeland  ( died 1845 )


1882:  Igor Stravinskij  ( died 1971 )


1888:  Heinz Guderian  ( died 1954 )


1945:  Ken Livingstone


1945:  Eddy Merckx



Famous people died on this day:


1996:  Thomas Kuhn  ( 74 år )



JUNE 18:


Today is called LEONTIUS’ DAY.  The tribune of the Roman emperor Vespesian, Hypatius, had been sent out to the provinces to punish the Christians. But when the monk Leontius from Phoenicia had cured him from a serious illness he became a Christian himself.


TODAY’s EVENT:    1815:  Napolean is defeated in Waterloo.



Famous people born on this day:


1929:  Jürgen Habermas


1942:  Paul McCartney


1942:  Thabo Mbeki


1949:  Lech Kaczynski  ( died 2010 )



Famous people died on this day:


1928:  Roald Amundsen  ( 56 years )


1936:  Maxim Gorkij  ( 68 years )


1982:  Curd Jürgens  ( 67 years )



JUNE 19:


Today is called GERVASIUS’ DAY.  The legend tells that he and his twin brother Protasius were sons of Saint Vitalis. When their parents had died they handed out everything they owned to the poor and lived praying and fasting for the rest of their lives.


As Christians they were both killed in Milan around year 300 AC by the Roman general Astasius.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1991:  The last Soviet soldier leaves Hungary – after more than 45 years presence in the country.



Famous people born on this day:


1861:  Douglas Haig  ( died 1928 )


1941:  Vaclav Klaus


1945:  Radovan Karadzic


1945:  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi


1947:  Salman Rushdie


1957:  Anna Lindh  ( died 2003 )



Famous people died on this day:


1953:  Julius and Ethel Rosenberg  ( 35 and 38 years )


1977:  Olave Baden-Powell ( 88 years )


JUNE 20:


Today’s name is SYLVERIUS’ DAY. He was a pope in Rome around 536 AC. But when emperor Justinian and his empress wanted to nominate a non-Christian as bishop in Constantinopel the pope was naturally against. He was then sent to the isolated and non-inhabited island of Palmarola in the sea between Rome and Naples. Here he was mistreated so terribly that he died. Later he was appointed a saint by the church.


Today is also the United Nation’s international Refugee Day.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1989:  The Danish footballer, 25-year old Michael Laudrup, makes a contract with FC Barcelona for the amount of between 3,3 and 4 million €.



Famous persons born on this day:


1717:  J.F.J. Saly  ( died 1742 )


1819:  Jacques Offenbach  ( died 1880 )


1909:  Errol Flynn  ( died 1959 )


1928:  Jean-Marie le Pen



Famous persons died on this day:


1597:  Willem Barents  ( 47 years )


1787:  Karl Friedrich Abel  ( 64 years )


JUNE 21:


This day carries the name ALBANUS’ DAY. It got it from Albanus, who was a Christian and originally came from the north of Italy. He was by the church sent to many parts of Europe to promote Christianity. A large part of his mission work took place in England. Later he became bishop in the German city of Mainz.  Here he met a priest, who was persecuted by the Roman emperor Diocletian. Albanus decided to help him. He dressed himself like the priest to confuse his pursuers. Instead he was himself caught by the invading Vandals and beheaded in front of the altar in his own church. It took place around year 300 AC.


Albanus’ remains were later brought to England. Here they were stolen in the late 11th century by the Danish king Canute the Holy and brought to Odense in Denmark. Today they are still there in the city’s catholic church, which is called Saint Albani.


In Odense the local brewery also reminds people of Albanus. It was founded in 1859 and carries the name Albani. And in Copenhagen the English church has the name Saint Albans.


Today is also Summer Solstice. And it is the longest day of the year.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1964: It was discovered that the seabed under the North Sea had a lot of gas.



Famous people born on this day:


1905:  Jean-Paul Sartre  ( died 1980 )


1935:  Francoise Sagan  ( died 2004 )


1953:  Benazir Bhutto  ( died 2007 )


1955:  Michel Platini



Famous people died on this day:


1527:  Niccolo Macchiavelli  ( 58 year )


1908:  Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov  ( 64 years )


1970:  Sukarno  ( 69 years )


1980:  Bernt Kaempfert  ( 57 years )


JUNE 22:


Today is called the TEN THOUSAND MARTYRS’ DAY.  It has its name from this day in year 303 AC, when the Roman emperor Dioclecian crucified one of his generals, Achatius, and his 10.000 soldiers naked on mountain Ararat in the far east of present day Turkey. Why ? Because they all – according to the legend after they had heard a voice from heaven – had become Christians. They were terribly tortured, but they did not change their new faith. That’s why they all were crucified on this day 1709 years ago.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1812:  Napoleon started his war against Russia with his Grande Armee.



Famous people born on this day:


1767:  Wilhelm von Humboldt  ( died 1835 )


1898:  Erich Maria Remarque ( alias Erich Maria Kramer ) ( died 1970 )


1906:  Billy Wilder  ( died 2002 )


1949:  Meryl Streep


1964:  Dan Brown



Famous people died on this day:


1969:  Judy Garland  ( 47 years )


1978:  Jens Otto Krag  ( 64 years )


1987:  Fred Astaire  ( 88 years )




JUNE 23:


This day's name is PAULINUS DAY. He was born into a wealthy family in southern France and was Governor of the Roman province of Campania in central Italy. He and his Spanish wife decided to stop their secular life in 390 AC and went to Spain to live there. Later he was appointed bishop in the town of Nola, which lies east of Naples. In addition to building a great basilica in the city, he is the author of various religious writings. But in  year 409 AC he was suffering the martyr death because of his faith. His body lies in the cathedral in Nola. 


Today is also the UN international day for public services. 


But the day is of course best known for the Midsummer Eve celebration in the evening. Where does it come from? 


Like Christmas  Midsummer Eve a relic of the prehistoric northern European pagan traditions, where the year's longest day, Summer Solstice, was celebrated. Christian missionaries and priests gradually took over the old customs, so they could be used to serve the spread of Christianity. Today this is called SPIN. Midsummer is the Danish name for saint  John the Baptist, who was born on 24. June. (Midsummer Day). The Nordic tradition is to celebrate festivals the night before. The day / evening is celebrated today in many countries where the characteristic bright Nordic night, gives the conditions for an excellent evening experience.. It is celebrated in countries such as England, Ireland, Russia and northern France. However, most parties with bonfires take place in the Nordic and Baltic countries. 


And what about the witches, who are believed to fly to Bloksbjerg in Germany on a broom tonight in the Summer Eve? 


Witches were also, of course, a left-over from the "old days".  People believed that some persons were witches and were in direct contact with dark powers, and therefore often the cause of natural disasters and other accidents. Therefore, around 10 million alleged witches (almost all women) over the centuries been burned at the bonfires around Europe. The first known Danish witch burning took place in 1540


The test of whether a woman really was a witch, could take many forms. One of them was that the woman tied up with rope and thrown into the water. If she went to the bottom and drowned, she was innocent. If she were floating on the water, she was guilty and was burned  


People also believed that witches went off on their brooms either Maundy Thursday, Valborg’s Eve (April 30), or Midsummer Eve ( June 23 ). They went to Bloksbjerg in Germany or Hekkenfeld ( Hekla) in Iceland. Here they met the devil and paid tribute to him by kissing his ass. They were entertained and enjoyed themselves with special “whore-devils”. 


So do think about all this tonight, when you see the witch go off on her broom.. And also if you are yourself one of those who leave for Bloksbjerg  



An old Danish weather warning says that Midsummer evening rain is good for the priest and teacher! That is, it will be a good harvest. 



TODAY’s EVENT:  1894:  The International Olympic Committee IOC was founded at the Sorbonne in Paris. The founder was Pierre de Coubertin.



Famous people born on this day: 


1894: King Edward VIII (died 1972) 


1910: Jean Anouilh (died 1987) 


1929: June Carter (died 2003) 


1972: Zinedine Zidane 



Famous people died on this day: 


79:     Emperor Vespasian (70 years) 


1981: Zarah Leander (74 years) 


1989: Werner Best (86 years) 


1996: Andreas Papandreou (77 years) 


1998: Erik Mortensen (72 years) 



JUNE 24:

This day is called SAINT HANS’ DAY.  It has its name after John the Baptist  ( Johannes Døberen – or Hans ).  John the Baptist was half a year older than Jesus. The Christians decided to celebrate both birthdays on two pre-Christian holidays – the two yearly days of solstice.

The day is also called Midsummer Day.

Old Danish weather warnings say, that if the cuckoo calls after Saint Hans there is a great risk that the harvest will be bad.

Another old warning says:  If the quaking grass blossoms on the day of Saint Hans the harvest will be wet. If the cotton grass blossoms on Saint Hans the harvest will be dry.

TODAY’s EVENT:  1948:  The Western allies start the air bridge  ( Luftbrücke ) to West Berlin, which was cut off from the world by Soviet forces.

Famous people born on this day:

1850:  Horatio Kitchener ( died 1916 )

1895:  Jack Dempsey  ( died 1983 )

1969:  Sissel Kirkjebø

JUNE 25:

This day’s name is PROSPERS DAY.  He was born in the French city of Aquintanus and became in the 5th century one of the most important fathers of the Christian church. He was bishop in Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy for 22 years, and he is still the patron of this region.

Prosper died on June 25, 466 AC.

TODAY’s EVENT:  1950:  The Korean War started by the attack from North Korea on South Korea.


Famous people born on this day:

1852:  Antoni Gaudi  ( died 1926 )

1900:  Lord Mountbatten  ( died 1979 )

1903:  George Orwell  ( died 1950 )

1963:  George Michael


Famous people died on this day:

1767:  Georg Philipp Telemann  ( 86 years )

1997:  Jacques-Yves Cousteau  ( 87 years )

JUNE 26:

Today is called PELAGIUS DAY.  He was an Irish monk, who in particular is known for his denial of Augustin’s perception of the original sin. Pelagius thinks that people can choose between the good and the evil.  That’s why he refuses to talk about the original sin.

 

Another Pelagius was a young female dancer from the ancient city of Antiochia. She lived for many years in Jerusalem dressed as a man.

 

Today is also the United Nations’ Day agains abuse of and trade with narcotics. It is also the UN’s day for support to people who have been exposed to torture.

 

TODAY’s EVENTS:  1963:  President Kennedy makes during a visit to West Berlin the famous declaration:  “Ich bin ein Berliner !”  AND:  1992:  Denmark won the European Championship in football.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1824:  Lord Kelvin  ( died 1907 )

 

1869:  Martin Andersen Nexø  ( died 1954 )

 

1898:  Werner Messerschmidt  ( died 1979 )

 

1908:  Salvador Allende  ( died 1973 )

 

1933:  Claudio Abbado

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1810:  Joseph Michel Montgolfier  ( 70 years )

 

1989:  Thorkild Kristensen  ( 90 years )


JUNE 27:

 

This day is called SEVEN SLEEPERS’ DAY.  It comes from the legend about the seven Christian brothers, who were hiding in a cave in the mountains to protect themselves against the Roman emperor Decius’ soldiers.  When they still were found the soldiers blocked the entrance to the cave with huge stones to make the brothers die from starvation. When some shepherds 200 hundred years later ( in 447 AC ) found the brothers, the fresh air made them alive. After that they died ( again ), when they were told that Christianity in the meantime had won.

 

Old Danish weather warnings for this day say that rain on Seven Sleepers Day means a wet harvest – and that sunshine on Seven Sleepers Day means sunshine in the coming weeks.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1959:  The Swedish boxer Ingmar Johansson wins the world championship in heavy weight by a victory over Floyd Patterson.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1880:  Helen Keller  ( died 1968 )

 

1941:  Krzysztof Kieslowski  ( died 1996 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1844:  Joseph Smith  ( 39 years )

 

1999:  Georgios Papadopoulos  ( 80 years )

 

2001:  Jack Lemmon ( 76 years )

JUNE 28:

 

Today is ELEONORA’s DAY.  Until around 1800 it was called LEO’s Day ( after pope Leo II, who died in 684 AC ). Why the Danish almanac changed to Eleonora is not known.

 

It is believed that the name comes from Caroline Amalie ( Eleonora ), who lived 1796-1881, princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg. She was in 1815 married to the later Danish king Christian 8.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austia-Hungary was murdered in Sarajevo. This was the start of the First World War.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1491:  King Henry VIII  ( died 1547 )

 

1577:  Peter Paul Rubens  ( died 1640 )

 

1712:  Jean-Jacques Rousseau  ( died 1778 )

 

1912:  Sergiu Celibidache  ( died 1996 )

 

1926:  Mel Brooks

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1994:  Ulrik Neumann  ( 76 years )


JUNE 29:

 

Today is called PETRUS AND PAULUS DAY.  The name comes from the two apostles Petrus ( Peter ) and Paulus. They were both killed in Rome in 64 AC by emperor Nero ( 37-68 AC ). After Rome burnt down the Christians were blamed  and convicted to death.  It is believed that is was Nero himself, who organised the fire.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1149:  In the battle around Antiochia which was occupied by the crusaders, the muslim leader Nur-ad-Din succeeded in killing both Christian leaders, Raymond of Antiochia and Ali ibu-Wafa.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1798:  Giacomo Leopardi  ( died 1837 )

 

1868:  George Hale  ( died 1938 )

 

1886:  Robert Schuman  ( died 1963 )

 

1900:  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  ( died 1944 )

1929:  Oriana Fallaci  (  died 2006 )

 

1946:  Gitte Hænning

 

1963:  Anne-Sophie Mutter

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1149:  Raymond af Antiochia  ( 34 years )

 

1967:  Jane Mansfield  ( 34 years )

 

1969:  Moise Tshombe  ( 50 years )

 

2003:  Katherine Hepburn  ( 96 years )


JUNE 30:


Today is LUCINAS DAY.   She was a Christian Roman woman, who cared a lot for other Christians, who had been put to prison, brought food to them, etc. And she also participated in the burial of Christians who had been executed.  She died 95 years old in 365 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1859:  The French Charles Blondin is as the first person crossing the Niagara Falls on a tightrope. The distance is 300 meters and he is 90 meters above the falls.  About 10.000 people are watching.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1884:  Georges Duhamel  ( died 1966 )

 

1893:  Walter Ulbricht  ( died 1973 )

 

1917:  Lena Horne  ( died 2010 )

 

1918:  Susan Hayward  ( died 1975 )

 

1964:  Countess Alexandra

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1971:  Herbert Bibermann  ( 71 years )

 

2001:  Chet Atkins  ( 77 years )


JULY 1:

 

Today is called THEOBALDUS’ DAY: He was born in a noble family in Luxembourg. As a young man he went on pilgrim trips to several places, including Santiago de Compostella in Spain and to Rome. Later he settled down in Vincenza in Italy and became a priest there. After his death in Vincenza in the year 1066 AC the legend tells that many blind and leprous people came to his cave and were cured from their deseases.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1890:  The two colonial powers, England and Britain, are exchanging areas, so that Helgoland becomes German and Zanzibar British.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1481:  King Kristian 2nd   ( died 1559 )

 

1780:  Carl von Clausewitz  ( died 1831 )

 

1906:  Estée Lauder ( died 2004 )

 

1934:  Sidney Pollack  ( died 2008 )

 

1961:  Princess/Lady Diana  ( died 1997 )

 

                 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

251:    Emperor Decius  ( 44 years )

 

1961:  Céline  ( 67 years )

 

1974:  Juan Peron  ( 79 years )

 

2000:  Walther Matthau  ( 80 years )

 

2004:  Marlon Brando  ( 80 years )

 

 

JULY 2:

 

This day’s name is MARY’s VISITING DAY. It is called like that because it was today that virgin Mary visited her relative and girl friend Elisabeth, who some days earlier ( on June 24 ) had given birth to her baby boy John.  It was him, who later got the name John the Baptist. According to Christian sources he was at his time the most important roaming ascetic. In this capacity he baptised Jesus in the river Jordan. That’s where he got his name from.

 

Pope Urban VI decided in 1389 that this day should be a holiday. It was like that also in Denmark until 1770, when the energetic reformer Struensee made an end to it.

 

Concerning old Danish weather warnings for today the old peasant traditions say that the weather on this day will continue for the next 40 days and nights.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1981:  The Spanish town Huecar withdraws a declaration of war against Denmark. It was – probably by mistake – issued during the Napoleonic wars in 1809.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

419:    Emperor Valentinian  ( died 455 )

 

1714:  Christoph Willibald Gluck  ( died 1787 )

 

1905:  King Olav V  ( died 1991 )

 

1925:  Patrice Lumumba  ( died 1961 )

 

1929:  Imelda Marcos

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1566:  Nostradamus  ( 63 years )

 

1778:  Jean-Jacques Rousseau  ( 66 years )

 

1904:  Anton Tjekhov  ( 44 years )

 

1961:  Ernest Hemingway  ( 62 years )

 

1997:  James Stewart  ( 89 years )



JULY 3:

 

Today is called CORNELIUS DAY.  It probably has its name from pope Cornelius I, who was in function in the years 251-53 AC.  At the end he was by the Roman emperor sent to Civitavecchia – Rome’s old port – where he died shortly afterwards.  He was later made a saint.

 

Another possibility is that the name refers to a Roman leader with the same name. He governed in the city of Caesarea in nowadays Israel ( between Tel Aviv and Haifa ) and is mentioned in the bible.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1976:  The 20 year old Swede Bjorn Born won Wimbledon for the first time.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1423:  Louis 11.  ( died 1483 )

 

1883:  Franz Kafka  ( died 1923 )

 

1962:  Tom Cruise

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1904:  Theodor Herzl  ( 44 years )

 

1935:  André Citroën  ( 57 years )

 

1971:  Jim Morrison  ( 28 years )

 

JULY 4:

 

Today is called ULRICUS DAY.  He was brought up in the monastery in Saint Gallen in Switzerland. Later he became bishop in Augsburg for 50 years ( 923-73 ). Several legends tell about his great care for poor and sick people, about his building of churches and monasteries, and about his personal help and assistance against the Hungarians when they attacked Augsburg.  He was made a saint in 993.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1776:  In Philadelphia it was agreed that 13 British colonies would cut the relations to Britain. At the same time the Declaration of Independence was agreed.  Today is, therefore, a national holiday in the United States.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1807:  Guiseppe Garibaldi  ( died 1882 )

 

1872:  Calvin Coolidge  ( died 1933 )

 

1926:  Alfredo di Stefano

 

1927:  Gina Lollobrigida

 

1937:  Queen Sonja of Norway

 

1948:  Tommy Körberg

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1826:  John Adams  ( 91 years )

 

1826:  Thomas Jefferson ( 83 years )

 

1934:  Marie Curie  ( 67 years )

 

 

JULY 5:

 

This day is called ANSELMUS DAY.  It has its name after the scolastician and philosopher, archbishop Anselm of Canterbury  ( 1033 – 1109 ).  He was an Italian philosopher, who belonged to the Order of the Benedictines.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1962:  Algeria gets its independence from France.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1182:  Francis of Assissi  ( died 1226 )

 

1853:  Cecil Rhodes  ( died 1902 )

 

1911:  Georges Pompidou  (  died 1974 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1969:  Walter Adolph Gropius  (  86 years )

 

1975:  Otto Skorzeny  ( 67 years )

 

 

 

JULY 6:

 

Today is called DION’s DAY. The name comes from an Italian martyr, who was killed in Rome in the year 301 AC. Perhaps it also comes from another Dion ( abbreviation of the name Diosysitis ), who founded the monastry Athos in northern Greece. He died in 1390 during a pilgrimage.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1415:  Jan Hus, Chech reformer of the church, was killed on the bondfire in Constanz.

 

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1912:  Eva Braun  ( died 1945 )

 

1927:  Bill Haley  (  died 1981 )

 

1935:  Dalai Lama

 

1936:  Dave Allen  ( died 2005 )

 

1946:  Sylvester Stallone

 

1946:  George W. Bush

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

1415:  Jan Hus  ( 46 years )

 

1535:  Thomas More ( 57 years )

 

1854:  Georg Simon Ohm  ( 65 years )

 

1893:  Guy de Maupassat  ( 43 years )

 

1971:  Louis Armstrong  ( 70 years )

 

 

JULY 7:

 

Today’s name is WILLIBALD’s DAY. He was the first Englishman, who went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His name is often also spelled as Villibaldus. Later he became a monk. And at the end he was bishop in the city of Eichstätt in Bavaria in Germany. He died here in the year 787 AC.

 

It’s also today that the traditional bull-run in Pamplona in Spain starts.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1974:  West Germany wins the World Championship in football.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1860:  Gustav Mahler  ( died 1911 )

 

1887:  Marc Chagall  ( died 1985 )

 

1901:  Vittorio De Sica  ( died 1974 )

 

1940:  Ringo Starr

 

1940:  Jerzy Buzek

 

1958:  Michala Petri

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1300:  Edward I  ( 68 years )

 

1890:  Henri Nestlé  ( 76 years )

 

1930:  Arthur Conan Doyle  ( 71 years )

 

 

JULY 8:

 

Today’s name is KILLIAN’s DAY. It has its name from two different saints. The first one was a Scottish monk, called Killian. He became a bishop in Würzburg in Germany in 670 AC. Later he was killed in 689.

 

The other saint is Danish and carried the name Kjeld. He became a priest in the town of Viborg in Jutland in 1147. And the legend tells that he once turned out a fire in the town by praying from the roof of the church. He became a saint in 1188.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1497:  The Portuguese discoverer Vasco da Gama starts his voyages from Lisbon to try to find the route to India by sailing around the south of Africa.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1838:  Ferdinand von Zeppelin  ( died 1917 )

 

1839:  John D. Rockefeller  ( died 1937 )

 

1882:  Percy Grainger  ( died 1961 )

 

1933:  Marty Feldman  ( died 1982 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1822:  Percy Byssche Shelley  ( 30 years )

 

1967:  Vivien Leigh  ( 54 years )

 

1994:  Kim Il-sung  ( 82 years )

 

 

JULY 9:

 

Today is called SOSTRATA’s DAY. This is a Greek female name, but not a known saint. And nobody knows today why this day has this name. The day was earlier called Cyrille’s Day and also Joanna’s Day.

 

Other sources say that the name of this day is AGILOF’s DAY.  Named after a bishop in Cologne in the 8th century AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  2006:  Italy wins the world championship in football over France.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1901:  Barbara Cartland  ( died 2000 )

 

1916:  Edward Heath  ( died 2005 )

 

1929:  King Hassan II  ( died 1999 )

 

1932:  Donald Rumsfeld

 

1956:  Tom Hanks

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1440:  Jan van Eyck  ( 55 years )

 

 

JULY 10:

 

Today is called CANUTE THE KING’s DAY. The reason is that it was on this very day in 1086 that the Danish king Knud den Hellige ( Holy Canute ) was killed in Sct. Alban’s church in the city of Odense. The murderers were leaders of a revolution against the king. He had without success tried to find refuge in the church.

 

Canute is not known to have done anything, which was specifically religious or holy. But his brother king Erik Ejegod still succeeded in having him made a saint in the year 1101.

 

An old Danish weather warning says that Drought on Canute the King’s Day will make the farmers sad.   This means that if it is very dry today the harvest will be bad.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1991:  Boris Jeltsin takes his oath as president of Russia.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1509:  Jean Calvin  ( died 1564 )

 

1606:  Corfitz Ulfeldt  ( died 1664 )

 

1871:  Marcel Proust  ( died 1922 )

 

1903:  Werner Best  ( died 1989 )

 

1943:  Arthur Ashe  ( died 1993 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

138:    Emperor Hadrian  ( 62 years )

 

1086:  King Holy Canute  ( 43 years )

 

2006:  Sjavil Basajev  ( 41 years )

 

 

JULY 11:

 

Today’s name is JOSVA’s DAY. He was the one who according to the old testament followed Moses and took the Jews to the Holy Land. Later he was Moses’ successor.

 

This day is also the United Nations’ international Population Day.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1995:  The massacre in Srebrenica, where thousands of men and boys were murdered by the Bosnian-Serbian army under general Ratko Mladic.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1767:  John Quincy Adams  ( died 1848 )

 

1912:  Sergiu Celibidache  ( died 1996 )

 

1920:  Yul Brynner  ( died 1985 )

 

1927:  Herbert Blomstedt

 

1934:  Giorgio Armani

 

1990:  Caroline Wozniacki

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1937:  George Gerschwin  ( 39 years )

 

1989:  Laurence Olivier  ( 82 years )

 

 

JULY 12:

 

Today is called HEINRICH’s DAY.  It has its name from Holy heinrich, who was German-Roman emperor in the years 1002-24.  He created the bishopric Bamberg and organized the building of many churches and monasteries.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1920:  The Panama Canal was officially opened by US president Woodrow Wilson.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1854:  George Eastman  ( died 1932 )

 

1895:  Kirsten Flagstad  (  died 1962 )

 

1904:  Pablo Neruda  ( died 1973 )

 

1937:  Lionel Jospin 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1536:  Erasmus of Rotterdam  (  70 years )

 

1845:  Henrik Wergeland  ( 37 years )

 

1850:  Robert Stevenson  ( 78 years )

 

1935:  Alfred Dreyfus  ( 76 years )

 

 

JULY 13:

 

This day is called MARGRETHE’s DAY.  It has its name from the Christian Margrethe from Antiochia in the Middle East.  A general fell in love with her. But as she did not want to abandon her Christian faith he put her to jail. According to the legend she met a dragon here. It disappeared immediately, when she made the sign of the cross. She was beheaded in the year 275 AC.

 

An old Danish weather warning tells, that if it rains on this day lots of rain will follow during the summer, and the harvest risks to rotten,

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1837:  Queen Victoria moves as the first British monarch into Buckingham Palace.

 

 

100 BC:  Julius Caesar  ( died 44 BC )

 

1813:  Theophilus Hansen  ( died 1891 )

 

1913:  Mærsk McKinney Møller  ( died 2012 )

 

1942:  Harrison Ford

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1793:  Jean-Paul Marat  ( 50 years )

 

 

 

JULY 14:

 

Today’s name is BONAVENTURA’s DAY. He lived in 1221-74 and was a bishop in the Italian city of Albano. At the same time he was a cardinal. In his youth he was mortally ill. But the legend says that he recovered when his mother promised Saint Fransisco that her son would become a monk in his monastery. So he did until he was elected bishop.

 

Bonaventura was one of the most significant theologians in the scolastic school in Christianity. He became a saint in 1482.

 

This day is also the BASTILLE DAY. This was the day when the French revolution started in 1789. The special event was that the masses conquered the Bastille prison in Paris. Today is a holiday in France.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1941: British troops conquer Syria.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1862:  Gustav Klimt ( died 1918 )

 

1904:  Isaac Singer  ( died 1991 )

 

1912:  Woody Guthrie  ( died 1967 )

 

1913:  Gerald Ford  ( died 2006 )

 

1918:  Ingmar Bergman  ( died 2007 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1881:  Billy the Kid  ( 22 years )

 

1887:  Alfred Krupp  ( 75 years )

 

1965:  Adlai Stevenson II  ( 65 years )

 

 

JULY 15:

 

This day is called THE DAY OF THE APOSTLES.  The reason is that it was today Jesus sent his apostles throughout the world to make missionary work.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1215:  Magna Charta was signed – a number of freedom letters which limited the powers of the British monarch.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1606:  Rembrandt  ( died 1669 )

 

1932:  Nina van Pallandt

 

1946:  Sultan Hassanal Bolkiak of Brunei

 

1949:  Carl Bildt

 

1961:  Forest Whitaker

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1930:  Leopold Aner  ( 85 år )

 

1997:  Gianni Versace  ( 50 år )

 

 

JULY 16:

 

Today is SUSANNE’s DAY.  It refers to two different girls of the same name. The first Susanne was according to the Old Testament married to Joachim of Babylon. She is accused of being unfaithful by two judges, who have been discretely watching her in her bath. But she refuses to make love to them. She is rescued by the profet Daniel, who manages to disclose the lies of the two judges.

 

The other Susanne was from Rome. She was killed in 293 AC because of her Christian faith. She refused to make gifts to the Roman gods.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1903:  Denmark makes a record by having minus 0,9 degrees on this day of July.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1828:  Enrico Dalgas  ( died 1894 )

 

1872:  Roald Amundsen  ( died 1928 )

 

1911:  Ginger Rogers  ( died 1995 )

 

1964:  Miguel Endurain

 

1967:  Will Ferrell

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1985:  Heinrich Böll  ( 67 years )

 

1989:  Herbert von Karajan ( 81 years )

 

 

 

JULY 17:

 

This day’s name is ALEXIUS’ DAY. He was a young Roman, who decided to leave his rich parents’ home, give all his possessions to the poor and live the rest of his life as a beggar and preaching the Christian message. He died 34 years later in the year 430 AC.

 

Alexius is the patron of the beggars and the pilgrims.

 

Today is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe’s Days. These were days, which the Danish-Czech astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century through his calculations appointed as specially unlucky.  ( What old nonsense J )

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1918:  Zar Nicolas II and his family were killed by the bolcheviks.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1787:  Friedrich Krupp  ( died 1826 )

 

1935:  Billie Holiday ( alias Eleonora Fagan )  ( died 1959 )

 

1935:  Donald Sutherland

 

1952:  David Hasselhoff

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1790:  Adam Smith  ( 67 years )

 

1967:  John Coltrane  ( 39 years )

 

 

JULY 18:

 

This day’s name is ARNOLFUS’ DAY.  He was a high-level official in the court of the Frankian king Chlota 2nd . But when his wife joined a monastery he went himself to the service of the church. He becomes bishop in Metz, and later he lives as a hermit.

 

He died in the year 641 AC. And the legend tells that many wonders took place at his grave later on.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1953:  Elvis Presley made his first record “My Happiness”. It was a present to his mother.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1918:  Nelson Mandela

 

1921:  John Glenn

 

1950:  Richard Branson

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1817:  Jane Austen  ( 43 years )

 

1889:  Elvira Madigan ( alias Hedvig Jensen ) og Sixten Sparre

 

1892:  Thomas Cook  ( 84 years )


JULY 19:

 

Today is called JUSTAS DAY.  She was a Spanish potter in Sevilla. When she refused to give one of her bowls as a sacrifice to a non-Christian goddess she was revealed as a Christian.

 

When she according to the legend together with her sister Rufina also spoils a picture of an idol she was taken to the Roman governor. Here she was treated with red-hot bars until she perishes. After that her dead body was thrown into a well. It happened around 300 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1969: The Belgian Eddie Merckx wins Tour de France.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1814:  Samuel Colt  ( died 1862 )

 

1834:  Edgar Degas  ( died 1917 )

 

1846:  Edward Charles Pickering  ( died 1919 )

 

1946:  Ilie Nastase

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1937:  J.M. Barrie  ( author of  Peter Pan )  ( 77 years )

 

1992:  Judge  Paolo Borsellino  ( 52 years )

 

1999:  John F. Kennedy, Jr. ( 38 years )

 

 

JULY 20:

 

This day’s name is ELIAS’ DAY.  It has two different men as its origin.

 

One is the prophet of the Jews, Elias, often considered to be the most important prophet.  According to the Old Testament he insists on obeying only ONE god – despite of all the non-Christian cults and their temptations. And the day he felt that he was about to die he invited his servant Elisa for a walk to Betel and Jerico. When they arrive to the shores of the river Jordan Elias takes off his mantle, beats the water with it – then the water splits in two and a road across is ready. On the other side of the river a fire carriage with fire horses arrive, and they carry Elias to heaven. So far the old legend.

 

The other Elias is the bishop of Jerusalem, which in the year 500 AC is forced to leave by the emperor of Byzantium.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1969:  The crew on Apollo 11 made the first manned landing on the moon.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1919:  Edmund Hillary  ( died 2008 )

 

1925:  Jacques Delors

 

1938:  Nathalie Wood  ( died 1981 )

 

1964:  Chris Cornell

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1922:  Andrei Markov  (  66 years )

 

1951:  King Abdullah of Jordan  ( 69 years )

 

1973:  Bruce Lee  ( 32 years )

 

 

JULY 21:

 

This day’s name is EVERUS’ DAY. He was a saint. But we do not know more about him.

 

The Catholics are today celebrating Laurentius of Brindisi – one of the founders of the church.

 

This day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe’s Days. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe appointed these days as specifically unfortunate days in the 17th century. He claimed that his calculations showed it.  What old nonsense !

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1994:  Tony Blair became leader of the Labour party.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1893:  Hans Fallada  ( died 1947 )

 

1899:  Ernest Hemingway  ( died 1961 )

 

1910:  Viggo Kampmann  ( died 1976 )

 

1920:  Isaac Stern  ( died 2001 )

 

1948:  Cat Stevens

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1908:  Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov  ( 64 years )

 

1944:  Claus von Stauffenberg  (  37 years )

 

1998:  Alan B. Shepherd  ( 75 years )

 

 

JULY 22:

 

The name of this day is MARIA MAGDALENA’s DAY.  She is the sister of Lazarus and Martha. In the Western tradition she is often regarded as the sinner ( read: prostitute ), who praises Jesus while listening to his speech. She is present near Jesu cross on Good Friday, and she is according to Marcus the first person, who sees the revived on Easter morning: 

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1952:  During a visit to Odense in Denmark the American actor Danny Kaye makes headlines by lying down in the bed of Hans Christian Andersen.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1822:  Gregor Johann Meldel  ( died 1884 )

 

1882:  Edward Hopper  ( died 1967 )

 

1887:  Gustav Ludwig Hertz  ( died 1975 )

 

1946:  Mireille Mathieu

 

1978:  Dennis Rommedahl

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1832:  Napoleon II  ( 21 years )

 

1853:  C.W. Eckersberg  ( 70 years )

 

2003:  Uday Hussein  ( 39 years )

 

 

 

 

 

 

JULY 23:

 

This day is called APOLLINARIUS’ DAY.  He was a disciple of the apostle Peter, who sent him to Ravenna. Here he became a bishop.  During the later persecutions of the Christians he was caught and whipped to death.  According to the legend many wonders later happened at his grave.

 

Today is the first of the socalled ”Dog Days”, which run until August 23. The name comes from the the dog star Sirius, which around now rises before the sun.

 

Old Danish weather warning:  As the Dog Days start they will end.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1952:  The European Coal and Steel Community starts with six countries as members: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.  It is the first EU.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1888:  Raymond Chandler  (  died 1959 )

 

1892:  Haile Selassie  ( died 1975 )

 

1957:  Theo van Gogh  (  died 2004 )

 

1973:  Monica Lewinsky

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1885:  Ulysses S. Grant  ( 63 years )

 

1966:  Montgomery Clift  ( 45 years )

 

1999:  Hassan II  ( 70 years )

 

2011:  Amy Winehouse  ( 28 years )

 

 

JULY 24:

 

This day is called CHRISTINA’s DAY.  It has its name from the martyr Christina. Her non-Christian father arranged that she was killed, because she did not accept his idols. When she was thrown on the bondfire about a thousand non-Christians who were watching caught fire.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1967: President Charles de Gaulle made his famous speech in Montreal, where he said  “Vive le Quebec Libre”  ( Long live Free Quebec ).  When Canada’s prime minister Lester Pearson corrected him he decided to shorten his state visit and go home to France.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1783:  Simon Bolivar  ( died 1830 )

 

1802:  Alexandre Dumas  ( died 1870 )

 

1983:  Daniele De Rossi

 

 

Famous people died on this day

 

1862:  Martin van Buren  ( 90 years )

 

1980:  Peter Sellers  (  55 years )

 

 

JULY 25:

 

Today is called JAKOBUS DAY – after the apostle Jakob the Older.  He was as the first apostle martyr during the reign of king Herodes.

 

Two old Danish weather warnings for this day:

 

            * As the weather is today it will be for the coming 30 days

            * If it rains, it will be a mild winter

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   306:  Constantine th Great is declared Roman emperor.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1848:  Arthur Balfour  ( died 1930 )

 

1886:  Bror von Blixen-Finecke  (  died 1946 )

 

1894:  Gavril Princip  ( died 1918 )

 

1967:  Matt Le Blanc

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1834:  Samuel Taylor Coleridge  (  61 years )

 

1980:  Vladimir Vysotski  (  42 years )

 

2003:  John Schlesinger  ( 77 years )

 

 

JULY 26:

 

Today is ANNA’s DAY. She was the mother of Virgin Mary. According to the legend she became pregnant by kissing her husband Joakim.  When Joakim died she married again and got another daughter called Mary.  One gave birth to Jakobus the Older  ( see yesterday ) and to John ( the Baptist ). The other Mary was the mother of Jakobus  the Younger.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1947:  CIA was created.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1856:  George Bernard Shaw  ( died 1950 )

 

1894:  Aldous Huxley  ( died 1963 )

 

1908:  Salvador Allende  ( died 1973 )

 

1928:  Stanley Kubrick  ( died 1999 )

 

1943:  Mick Jagger

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1952:  Eva Peron  (  31 years )

 

1983:  Charles Rivel  ( 87 years )

 

 

 

 

JULY 28:

 

Today is called AURELIUS’ DAY. He was Spanish and from Cordoba. His father was a Muslim and his mother a Christian. He was of mixed Spanish-Moorish blood. So was his wife Natalia. They were both Christians. And for that reason the local Moorish emir ordered them to be beheaded. It happened in the year 852 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1937: Japanese troops conquer Beijing.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1902:  Karl Popper  ( died 1994 )

 

1929:  Jacqueline Kennedy  ( died 1994 )

 

1938:  Alberto Fujimori

 

1954:  Hugo Chavez

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1655:  Cyrano de Bergerac  ( 36 years )

 

1741:  Antonio Vivaldi  ( 63 years )

 

1750:  Johann Sebastian Bach  ( 65 years )

 

1794:  Maximilian Robespierre  ( 36 years )

 

1890:  Vincent van Gogh  ( 37 years )

 

1968:  Otto Hahn  ( 89 years )

 

 

JULY 29:

 

Today’s name is OLAV’s DAY. Or OLSMESSE. It has its name from the first Norwegian Christian Viking king Olav Haraldsson. He was only 35, when he was killed by axes in the battle of Stiklestad in central Norway in the year 1030.

 

As the legend tells that many wonders later happened at his grave he was made a saint with the name Holy Olav.

 

Olav’s remains are today in Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim in Norway.

 

This day is also the national day of the Faroe Islands.

 

Two old Danish weather warnings for today say the following:

 

<!--[if !supportLists]--> 1)      <!--[endif]--> Saint Oluf with rain is a bad sign. Meaning that the harvest then will be bad

<!--[if !supportLists]--> 2)      <!--[endif]--> Full moon today is a warning of a cold winter

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1836:  The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is officially presented.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1805:  Alexis de Tocqueville  ( died 1859 )

 

1871:  Grigorij Rasputin  ( died 1916 )

 

1883:  Benito Mussolini  ( died 1945 )

 

1905:  Dag Hammarskiöld  ( died 1961 )

 

1925:  Mikis Theodorakis

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1030:  Holy Olav  ( 35 years )

 

1974:  Erich Kästner  ( 73 years )

 

1983:  David Niven  ( 74 years )

 

1990:  Bruno Kreisky  ( 79 years )

 

 

JULY 30:

 

Today’s name is ABDON’s DAY. Two different persons are the origin of the name:

 

One is according to the Old Testament one of Israel’s last judges. The name Abdon means Servile in Hebrew.

 

The other Abdon was together with his friend Sennen two Christians, who buried the executed Christian martyrs. They came under attack for this by the Roman authorities, and they were thrown before wild animals. When they did not want to touch them they were beheaded instead. It happened during the rule of emperor Diocletian in the year 304 AC.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1966:  England wins the World Championship in football over West Germany by 4-2 on Wembley.

 

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1863:  Henry Ford  ( died 1947 )

 

1941:  Paul Anka

 

1947:  Arnold Schwarzenegger

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1718:  William Penn  ( 74 years )

 

1811:  Miguel Hidalgo  ( 58 years )

 

1898:  Otto von Bismarck  ( 83 years )

 

 

JULY 31:

 

Today’s name is GERMANUS’ DAY. He was born in the year 378 AC in Germany and was as a laywer governor in one of the Roman provinces in Gaul ( France ). Here he was convinced to become a Christian by the local bishop, and he and his wife each joined a monastery. Later he was nominated bishop of the city of Auxerre ( in present day Burgundy ).

 

He died 66 years old on this day in the year 448 AC. He was later nominated a saint under the name Saint Germanus of Auxerre.

 

 

TODAY’s EVENT:    1980:  Not fra from Leningrad ( now Saint Petersburg ) the city of Andersengrad in enaugaurated in honour of Hans Christian Andersen.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1527:  Emperor Maximilian II  ( died 1576 )

 

1912:  Milton Friedman  ( died 2006 )

 

1931:  Ivan Rebroff  ( died 2008 )

 

1944:  Geraldine Chaplin

 

1965:  J.K. Rowling

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1875:  Andrew Jackson  ( 67 years )

 

1886:  Franz Liszt  ( 75 years )

 

1944:  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  ( 44 years )

 

1964:  Jim Reeves  ( 40 years )

 

1993:  King Baudouin  (  63 years )

 

 

AUGUST 1:

 

This day’s name is PETER’s PRISON DAY.  It comes from The Acts of the Apostles. They tell that Peter in the year 43 AC was imprisoned in Jerusalem by Herodes Agrippa. The legend also tells that an angel liberated Peter by breaking his chains. These chains still seem to be kept in two churches in Rome.

 

Afterwards Peter went to Rome, where he started the first Christian congregation. The Roman-Catholic church considers him to be the first pope. According to the legend Jesus said the following to him:  You are Peter  ( which means rock ). And on this rock I want to build my church.  This quotation can be read on the inside of the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

 

There are two old Danish weather warnings for today:

 

<!--[if !supportLists]--> ·         <!--[endif]--> Rain on this day means rain the rest of the month

<!--[if !supportLists]--> ·         <!--[endif]--> Strong winds on Peter’s Day predict a bad harvest

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1902: The US is buying the ownership of the Panama Canal from France.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

10 BC:  Emperor Claudius  ( died 54 AC )

 

1819:    Herman Melville  ( died 1891 )

 

1936:    Yves Saint-Laurent  ( died 2008 )

 

1947:    David Bowie

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1714:      Queen Anne  ( 49 years )

 

1973:      Walter Ulbricht  ( 80 years )

 

2005:      King Fahd  ( 82 years )   


AUGUST 2.


Today’s name is HANNIBAL’s DAY.  We don’t know, why it has this name. It is certainly not referring to the famous general of that name from Carthago. He lived in the period 247 – 183 BC.  The name of each of the 365 days of the year refers to Christian persons living after year 0.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1931: Albert Einstein encourages all scientists not to work for military purposes.


Famous persons born on this day:


1869:  King Constantine I  ( died 1923 )


1876:  A.P. Møller  ( died 1965 )


1905:  Karl Amadeus Hartmann  ( ied 1963 )


1932:  Peter O’Toole


1942:  Isabel Allende



Famous people died on this day:  


1921:  Enrico Caruso  ( 48 years )


1922:  Alexander Graham Bell  ( 75 years )


1934:  Paul von Hindenburg  ( 87 years )


1997:  William S. Burroughs  ( 83 years )



AUGUST 3:


Today’s name is NICODEMUS’ DAY.  He was a Jewish wise man, who was a member of the Supreme Council in Jerusalem, and who lived at the same time as Jesus.  Though he was a Jew he gave Jesus a number of favours, including defending him in the Council.


In the TV series Jesus from Nazareth from 1977 Sir Laurence Olivier played the role of Nicodemus.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1778:  The La Scala opera in Milano is inaugurated.



Famous people born on this day:


1872:  Prince Carl / King Haakon VII  ( died 1957 )


1920:  P.D. James


1926:  Tony Bennett


1946:  Jack Straw



Famous people died on this day:


1977:  Makarios  ( 64 years )


2006:  Elisabeth Schwartzkopf  ( 89 years )



AUGUST 4:


Today’s name is DOMENICUS’ DAY. He was the founder of the Dominican monastic order in 1215.  He lived himself a very ascetic life. Everything he owned he gave to the poor. He slept directly on the ground. And around his waist he always carried a heavy chain of iron.


When the pope approved this order in 1215 it was called the sermon order.  Only from the 15th century it got its present name.


Domenicus died in 1221 and was buried in Bologna.


TODAY’s EVENT:   The person with the highest documented age ever dies. She is the 122 year old French woman,  Jeanne Colment.



Famous people born on this day:


1792:  Percy Shelley  ( died 1822 )


1821:  Louis Vuitton  ( died 1892 )


1859:  Knut Hamsun  ( died 1952 )


1901:  Louis Armstrong  ( died 1971 )


1912:  Raoul Wallenberg  ( died 1947 )



Famous people died on this day:


1526:  Juan Sebastian Elcano  ( 50 years )


1875:  Hans Christian Andersen  ( 70 years)



AUGUST 5:


This day is called OSVALDUS DAY.  It comes from the English king Osvaldus, who lost his life on this day in 642 AC in the battle against non-Christians. He had in 635 founded the monastery Lindisfarne on a small island outside the coast of Northumberland in the north-east of England.  The conquest of England by the Vikings in 793 started by their conquest of this monastery.


The legend tells that in the years after the death of Osvaldus his right hand stayed unchanged, because he earlier had been blessed by bishop Aidan after he had distributed food to the poor.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1884:  The foundation stone of the Statue of Liberty in New York was layed on Bedloe’s Island in the harbour of New York.



Famous people born on this day_


1399:  Johann Gutenberg  ( died 1469 )


1737:  Johann Friedrich Struensee  ( died 1772 )


1850:  Guy de Maupassant  ( died 1893 )


1912:  Abbé Pierre  (  died 2007 )


1930:  Neil Armstrong



Famous people died on this day:


1895:  Friedrich Engels  ( 75 years )


1962:  Marilyn Monroe  ( 36 years )


1984:  Richard Burton  ( 59 years )


2000:  Alec Guinness  ( 86 years )



AUGUST 6:


Today is called CHRISTI EXPLANATION DAY.  It is called so because according to the gospels it was on this day that Jesus took three of his disciples, Peter, Jacob and John, up on the Tabor mountain to pray. And while they were there – the legend tells – a voice from heaven declared that Jesus was the son of God. Afterwards Jesus “spoke” to Moses and Elias about his coming death in Jerusalem.  


TODAY’s EVENT:  1890:  As the very first ever William Kemmler was executed in the electrical chair in the US.



Famous people born on this day:


1881:  Alexander Fleming  ( died 1955 )


1917:  Robert Mitchum  ( died 1997 )


1928:  Andy Warhol  ( died 1987 )



Famous people died on this day:


1660:  Diego Velazquez  ( 61 years )


1973:  Fulgenio Batista  ( 72 years )


1978:  Pope Paul VI  ( 81 years )


2005:  Robin Cook  ( 41 years )



AUGUST 7:


This day’s name is DONATUS DAY.  It comes from Donatus in Arezzo in Italy. According to the legend he could just with the power of prayers repair important holy objects.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1991:  The World Wide Web is made publicly available on the Internet.



Famous people born on this day:


1867:  Emil Nolde  ( died 1956 )


1876:  Mata Hari  ( died 1917 )


1919:  Kim Borg  ( died 2000 )


1942:  Carlos Monzon



Famous people died on this day:


1957:  Oliver Hardy  ( ”Gokke” )  ( 65 years )


1993:  Red Adair  ( 79 years )



AUGUST 8:


Today is called RUTH’s DAY.  It is because of Ruth, who is mentioned in Rut’s Book in the Old Testament.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1786:  Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain, is climbed for the first time.



Famous people born on this day:


1908:  Arthur Goldberg  ( død 1990 )


1937:  Dustin Hoffman


1981:  Roger Federer



Famous people died on this day:


1973:  Vilhelm Moberg  ( 75 years )




AUGUST 9:


Today is called ROMANUS’ DAY. It has its name from the young Roman soldier Romanus. When he in the year 258 AC saw how Laurentius was tortured and killed ( see August 10 ) he decided to become a Christian. According to the legend he saw a white person removing the blood from Laurentius’ blessings. When he himself afterwards started preaching his new Christian faith, he was himself killed.


Today is the United Nations’ International Day for the original people on earth.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1484:  The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican opens.



Famous people born on this day:


1896:  Lev Vygotskij  ( died 1934 )


1939:  Romano Prodi


1940:  Tom McEwan


1963:  Whitney Houston  ( died 2012 )



Famous people died on this day:


1969:  Sharon Tate  ( 26 years )


1975:  Dmitrij Sjostakovitj  ( 69 years )



AUGUST 10:


Today is called LAURENTIUS’ DAY. The name comes from Laurentius, who was the “finance minister” of pope Sixtus. When the pope and Laurentius denied to hand over the valuables to the Roman emperor the pope was killed.  Immediately after Laurentius insisted on being killed too. It happened three days later. The legend tells that when Laurentius was fried over the fire he called the emperor and asked to be turned around , so that he also could be fried on the other side. It happened in Rome in the year 258 AC.


During the nights around August 10 St. Laurentius’ tears fall from heaven.


TODAY’s EVENT:   70:  Roman troops conquer and destroy Jerusalem.


Famous people born on this day:


1874:  Herbert Hoover  ( died 1964 )


1928:  James Dean  ( died 1952 )


1940:  Les Humphries


1960:  Antonio Banderas



Famous people died on this day:


1250:  King Erik Plovpenning  ( 34 years )


1806:  Michael Haydn  ( 69 years )





AUGUST 11:


Today’s name is HERMAN’s DAY. He was a German Jew, who became a Christian in the year 1131. Later he was very active to convince other Jews  also to turn to Christianity.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1999:  On this day the world’s most watched total eclipse of the sun took place.



Famous people born on this day:


1897:  Enid Blyton  ( died 1968 )


1921:  Alex Haley  ( died 1992 )


1943:  Pervez Musharraf


1950:  Steve Wozniak



Famous people died on this day:


1919:  Andrew Carnegie  ( 84 years )


1996:  Rafael Kubelik  ( 82 years )


2001:  Jorge Amado  ( 79 years )



AUGUST 12:


This day is called CLARA’s DAY. She was the founder of the Classis Nun Order, which she created on the basis of the rules laid down by the Franciscans. And she started the first Clara Monastery in the Saint Damiani Church in Assissi in Italy. Clara died in the year 1253.


She is the patron of all washing ladies.


Today is also the United Nations’ International Youth Day


The first Danish Clara Monastery was founded in 1258 in Roskilde.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1851: Isaac Singer gets his patent on his sewing-machine.



Famous people born on this day:


1503:  King Christian III  ( died 1559 )


1930:  George Soros


1939:  George Hamilton


1953:  Kim Bassinger


1971:  Pete Sampras



Famous people died on this day::


30 BC.:  Cleopatra  ( 39 years )


1848:  George Stephenson  ( 67 years )


1955:  Thomas Mann ( 80 years )


1964:  Ian Fleming  ( 56 years )


1982:  Henry Fonda  ( 77 years )



AUGUST 13:


Today’s name is HIPPOLYTUS’ DAY. He was a very skilled priest from Asia Minor, probably the most important theologist in the 3rd century. He was very critical towards the bishops in Rome and other places, and in a way he was the first “anti-pope”. The Roman authorities deported him to a work camp, where he met pope Victor I. They ended up being in agreement.


Hippolytus died in captivity in Sicily in the year 235 AC. He is a very important source about Christian habits, rituals and forms of life in Rome in the beginning of the 3rd century.


TODAY’s EVENT:   1961: The Berlin Wall is built.  It will last for 28 years.



Famous people born on this day:


1812:  Georg Carstensen  ( died 1857 )  ( the founder of Tivoli )


1899:  Alfred Hitchcock  ( died 1980 )


1926:  Fidel Castro


1948:  Kathleen Battle


1970:  Lisa Nilsson



Famous people died on this day:


1910:  Florence Nightingale  ( 90 years )


1946:  H.G. Wells  ( 80 years )



AUGUST 14:


Today is called EUSEBIUS’ DAY. He was a Roman priest, who after seven months in prison died in 357.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1980:  Lech Walesa ( pronounced Walensa ) starts the huge strike in Gdansk against the Communist authorities in Poland.



Famous people born on this day_


1771:  Walter Scott  ( died 1832 )


1777:  H.C. Ørsted  (  died 1851 )


1867:  John Galsworthy  ( died 1933 )


1914:  Poul Hartling  ( died 2000 )


1949:  Morten Olsen



Famous people died on this day:


1951:  William Randolph Hearst  ( 90 years )


1984:  J.B. Priestley  ( 90 years )


1988:  Enzo Ferrari  (  90 years )


1994:  Elias Canetti  ( 89 years )



AUGUST 15:


Today is called MARY’s ASCENSION DAY.  Virgin Mary was the mother of Jesus.  Maria ( Mary ) is the Greek version of the Aramaic name Mirjam.  According the the New Testament the young woman Mirjam/Maria got the message from an angel that she with the help of the Holy Gost would conceive a son.  She called him Jesus, and was born in a crib in Bethlehem. Afterwards she had to escape to Egypt with her husband Josef and the child. Some years later they returned to their home town Nazareth.  Maria was later present at her son’s crucifixion.


A catholic dogma from 1950 says that Mary like her son was taken to heaven. It is celebrated in the catholic church on the third Sunday in August.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1843:  Tivoli in Copenhagen opens.



Famous people born on this day:


1769:  Napoleon Bonaparte  ( died 1821 )


1771:  Walter Scott  ( died 1832 )


1925:  Oscar Peterson  ( died 2007 )


1945:  Alain Juppé



Famous people died on this day:


423:    Flavius Honorius  ( 39 years )


1967:  René Magritte  ( 69 years )


1996:  Sergiu Celibidache  ( 84 years )



AUGUST 16:


Today’s name is ROCHUS DAY.  He was born around 1350 in a rich family in Montpellier in the south of France. He was very pious, and when his parents died he gave all their belongings to the poor.  According to the legend he was also able to cure sick people.


When plague come to town during the church meeting in Constanz in 1414 they asked Rochus to come. And the plague disappeared.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1960:  Archbishop Makarios proclaims the independence of Cyprus  ( from the United Kingdom ).



Famous people born on this day:


1888:  T.E. Lawrence  ( died 1935 )


1913:  Menachim Begin  ( died 1992 )


1929:  Bill Evans  ( died 1980 )


1958:  Madonna  ( born Madonna Louise Ciccone )



Famous people died on this day:


1949:  Margret Mitchell  ( 49 years )


1977:  Elvis Presley  ( 42 years )


2003:  Idi Amin  ( 75 years )



AUGUST 17:


Today’s name is ANASTASIUS DAY.  There are two persons, who are the origin of this name.


One is bishop Anastasius in Persia. He was killed because of his faith in 620 AC.


The other was a soldier from Dalmatia. He was also killed because if his Christian faith during emperor Diocletian’s persecusion of the Christians.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1999: An earthquake in Izmir in Turkey kills 17.000 people and 44.000 are wounded.



Famous people born on this day:


1786:  Davy Crockett ( died 1836 )


1893:  Mae West  ( died 1980 )


1920:  Maureen O’Hara  


1943:  Robert de Niro



Famous people died on this day:


1786:  Frederick the Great ( 74 years )


1850:  Honoré de Balzac  ( 51 years )


1983:  Ira Gershwin  ( 87 years )


1987:  Rudolf Hess  ( 93 years )





AUGUST 18:


Today’s name is AGAPETUS’ DAY. He was a 14 year old Roman boy, who had become Christian. For this reason the Roman authorities arrested him and threw him in front of the lions in Circus Massimus.  But as they did not touch him he was instead thrown on the bonfire. It happened around year 200 AC.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1966: The cultural revolution in China starts.



Famous people born on this day:


1750:  Antonio Salieri ( died 1825 )


1830:  Emperor Franz Joseph I  ( died 1916 )


1859:  Anne Brøndum ( married Ancher )  ( died 1935 )


1933:  Roman Polanski


1936:  Robert Redford



Famous people died on this day:


1227:  Djengis Khan  ( 62 years )


1992:  John Sturgess  ( 81 years )



AUGUST 19:


Today’s name is SEBALDUS’ DAY. He was according to the legend a Christian prince from Dacia, perhaps Denmark.


He went to Paris to study, but married a princess. He left her already on the wedding night to go to Rome. Later he lived alone in the Poppenreuth area west of Nurenberg in Germany. He died in a monastery in that city.


It happened in the year 770 AC. Other legends claim that it happened later – in the 11th century.


Sebaldus is the patron of Nuremberg.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1991:  A coup is trying to unseat Michail Gorbatjov as the leader of the Soviet Union. It failed.



Famous people born on this day:


1883:  Gabrielle Coco Chanel  ( died 1971 )


1946:  Bill Clinton



Famous people died on this day:


14:      Emperor Augustus  ( 51 years )


1662:  Blaise Pascal  ( 39 years )


1819:  James Watt  ( 83 years )


1977:  Groucho Marx  ( 87 years )



AUGUST 20:


Today is called BERNARD’s DAY. He lived in the years 1090 – 1153 and was a devoted Christian. He founded the Order of the Cistercienses, and he also started the monastery in Clairvaux in the south of France.


The legend tells that one day Virgin Mary appeared before him. She squeezed some milk out of her breast, and the drops falling on Bernard were collected and kept in the monastery.


An old Danish weather warning says that strong winds will often blow on this day.


And this day is one on the 32 socalled Tycho Brahe days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century on the basis of his calculations appointed as specifically unfortunate days.  ( What old nonsence   )


TODAY’s EVENT:  1968:  The Soviet Union and some of its allies invade Czechoslovakia.



Famous people born on this day:


1898:  Vilhelm Moberg  ( died 1973 )


1923:  Jim Reeves  ( died 1964 )


1941:  Slobodan Milosovic  ( died 2006 )


1944:  Rajiv Ghandi  ( died 1991 )



Famous people died on this day:


1672:  Jan de Witt  ( 48 years )


1940:  Lev Trotskij  ( 61 years )



AUGUST 21:


His day is called SALOMON’s DAY.  It has its name from King Salomon, who was king of Israel in the period 965-926 BC.  According to the bible he was the son of David.


And this day is also one on the 32 socalled Tycho Brahe days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century on the basis of his calculations appointed as specifically unfortunate days.  ( What old nonsence   )



TODAY’s EVENT:  1942: The battle of Stalingrad starts.



Famous people born on this day:


1805:  August Bournonville  ( died 1879 )


1904:  Count Basie  ( died 1984 )


1923:  Shimon Peres


1938:  Kenny Rogers



Famous people died on this day:


1947:  Ettore Bugatti  ( 66 years )


2005:  Robert A. Moog  ( 71 years )



AUGUST 22:


Today is called SYMPHORIAN’s DAY.  He was a young Christian in Roman Gallia ( now France ). He was beheaded by the Roman authorities, because he refused to sacrifice to the goddesses in the Cybele temple. It happened in 179 AC.


According to old Danish weather warnings today is the first day of autumn.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1864:  Red Cross was founded in Geneva by the Swiss citizen Henri Dunant.



Famous people born on this day:


1862:  Claude Debussy  ( died 1918 )


1902:  Leni Riefenstahl  ( died 2003 )


1904:  Deng Xiaoping  ( died 1997 )


1928:  Karlheinz Stockhausen


1934:  Norman Schwarzkopf



Famous people died on this day:


1922:  Michael Collins  ( 32 years )


1978:  Jomo Kenyatta  ( 86 years )



AUGUST 23:


Today’s name is ZACHÆUS’ DAY. He was a small customs official, who climbed a tree to be able to watch Jesus walking into Jerusalem.


This day is also the United Nations’ international day for remembrance of slavery and its abolishment.


Today is also the European day of memory for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.


And old Danish weather warnings say that today is the last of the so-called “Dogs Days”.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1913:  The statue “The Little Mermaid” by Edvard Eriksen was installed at Langelinie in Copenhagen.



Famous people born on this day:


1754:  King Louis XVI  ( died 1793 )


1852:  Arnold Toynbee  ( died 1883 )


1912:  Gene Kelly  ( died 1996 )


1930:  Michel Rocard



Famous people died on this day:


1305:  William Wallace  ( 33 years )


1926:  Roberto Valentino  ( 31 years )


1960:  Oscar Hammerstein II  ( 65 years )



AUGUST 24:


This day is called BARTHOLEMEW’s DAY. He was one of the disciples of Jesus. According to the legend he was able to cure sick people. And he brought Christianity to India. Here he was later brutally killed because of his belief.


Bartholemew is often in pictures in the churches shown with a knife in his hand. 


An old Nordic name for this day is BERTEL BRYDESTRÅ ( meaning Bertel who breaks the straw ). The reason probably is that farmers who did not manage to have their harvest indoor by this day took the risk that the strong storms in late August would break the straw.


In the old Nordic traditions it was not allowed to use artificial light indoor for work until after this day.


TODAY’s EVENT:     1572:  12.000 huguenots ( protestants ) were killed in Paris on

the night of Bartholomew



Famous people born on this day:


1635:  Peter Griffenfeld  ( died 1699 )


1919:  Niels Viggo Bentzon  ( died 2000 )


1929:  Yassir Arafat  ( died 2004 )


1948:  Jean-Michel Jarre



Famous people died on this day:


79:      Plinius the Older  ( 56 years )


1831:  August von Gneisenau  ( 71 years )



AUGUST 25:


Today is called LOUIS’ DAY. It has its name from the French king Louis IX ( or Holy Louis ). He was his country’s king in the period 1226 – 70 and had the continent’s biggest army at that time. In 1270 he went on a crusade to Tunisia. He wanted to make the local sultan a Christian. He did not succeed. Instead he was killed himself on this day. He became 55 years. The pope made him a saint in 1297.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1830:  The Belgian revolution against the Dutch starts – leading to the country’s independence.



Famous people born on this day:


1530:  Ivan the Terrible ( IV )  ( died 1584 )


1912:  Erich Honecker  ( died 1994 )


1918:  Leonard Bernstein  ( died 1990 )


1930:  Sean Connery


1943:  Peter Bastian



Famous people died on this day:


1270:  Louis IX  ( 55 years )


1776:  David Hume  ( 65 years )


1900:  Friedrich Nietzsche ( 56 years )


1908:  Henri Becquerel  ( 54 years )



AUGUST 26:


Today’s name is IRENAEUS DAY.  He was a monk from Lyon in Gallia ( France ). He was thrown into a well and killed, because he had arranged a Christian funeral of the holy Concordia. It happened in year 258 AC.


TODAY’s EVENT:   55 BC:  Julius Caesar invades England with his Roman legions.



Famous people born on this day:


1676:  Robert Walpole  ( died 1745 )


1740:  Joseph Montgolfier  ( died 1810 )


1904:  Christopher Ischerwood  ( died 1986 )


1910:  Mother Teresa  ( died 1997 )


1948:  Kent Kirk



Famous people died on this day:


1666:  Frans Hals  ( 86 years )


1974:  Charles Lindbergh  ( 72 years )



AUGUST 27:


Today’s name is GEBHARDUS’ DAY.  He was a German noble man, who joined the church and became bishop in Constanz at the Lake of Boden. He also was the founder of the Benedictinean monestary Petershausen in Switzerland. He died on this day in the year 996 AC.


TODAY’s EVENT:   79 AC:  The town Pompeji in Italy is destroyed by the volcano Vesuvio.



Famous people born on this day:


1770:  Georg Friedrich Hegel  ( died 1831 )


1908:  Lyndon B. Johnson  ( died 1973 )


1909:  Lester Young ( died 1959 )


1929:  Ira Levin


1942:  Per Stig Møller



Famous people died on this day:


1645:  Hugo Grotius  ( 62 years )


1965:  Le Corbusier  ( 61 years )


1975:  Hailie Selassie  ( 83 years )


1979:  Earl Mountbatten  ( 83 years )



AUGUST 28:


This day is called AUGUSTINUS’ DAY. He was born in North Africa and lived in the period 354 – 430 AC. He is one of the four so-called fathers of the church ( the three others were Antonis, Gregorius and Hieronymus ). He was bishop in Hippo Regius ( in today’s Algeria ). According to the legend he prayed with success to god when the Vandals tried to invade the city in 420.


As a father of the church he created the lessons of the original sin.


He was also the founder of Augustine monastic order.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1963:  Martin Luther King is in Washington DC making his famous speech:  I have a dream!



Famous people born on this day:


1749:  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( died 1832 )


1828:  Lev Tolstoi  ( died 1910 )


1913:  Robertson Davies  ( died 1995 )


1969:  Jason Priestley



Famous people died on this day:


430:    Aurelius Augustin  ( 76 years )


1967:  Charles Darrow  ( 78 years )





AUGUST 29:


This day is called JOHN THE BAPTIST’s EXECUTION DAY.  As you probably know John the Baptist was beheaded at the orders of king Herodes. His head was afterwards served on a silver plate to Salome, because the king would like to show his appreciation of her dance for him.


TODAY’s EVENT:  2005:  The hurricane Katrina hits the US Golf coast, including New Orleans. About 1800 people are killed.



Famous people born on this day:


1632:  John Locke  ( died 1704 )


1915:  Ingrid Bergman  ( died 1982 )


1920:  Charlie ”Bird” Parker  ( died 1955 )


1923:  Richard Attenborough


1924:  Dinah Washington  ( died 1963 )


1944:  Rajiv Gandhi  ( died 1991 )



Famous people died on this day:


30 BC:  Cleopatra  ( 39 years )


1877:  Brigham Young  (  71 years )


1982:  Ingrid Bergman  ( 67 years )



AUGUST 30:


Today’s name is BENJAMIN’s DAY. He was the youngest son of patriarch Jacob and his wife Rachel in the Old Testament. Rachel died when she gave birth to Benjamin.  The best known of Benjamin’s 12 brothers was Joseph.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1645:  Dutch immigrants are making peace with the American Indians in New Amsterdam  ( now New York ).



Famous people born on this day:


1797:  Mary Shelley  ( died 1851 )


1871:  Ernest Rutherford  ( died 1937 )


1947:  Ex-Queen Anna-Maria of Greece


1958:  Anna Politskovskaja  ( died 2006 )



Famous people died on this day:


1483:  King Louis XI  ( 60 years )


2003:  Charles Bronson  ( 82 years )


2006:  Glenn Ford  ( 90 years )



AUGUST 31:


Today is called BERTHA’s DAY – after the Christian English queen Bertha, who around 500 AC made king Edelbert a Christian too.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1997:  Diana, the princess of Wales, dies in a traffic accident in Paris.



Famous people born on this day:


12:      Caligula  ( died 41 )


1866:  Georg Jensen  (  died 1935 )


1880:  Wilhelmina  ( died 1962 )


1928:  James Coburn  ( died 2002 )


1945:  Itzhak Perlman



Famous people died on this day:


1867:  Charles Baudelaire  ( 46 years )


1973:  John Ford  ( 81 years )


1986:  Urho Kekkonen  ( 86 years )


1997:  Lady Diana  ( 36 years )




SEPTEMBER 1:


This day is called AEGIDIUS’ DAY. He was born in Greece and settles later down as a hermit in Provence in Gallia ( France ). He lives from the milk of a hind, which comes to see him. He builds the monastery Saint-Gilles next to his hollow in the forest – with help from the local king Wamba, and he is its abbot until he dies on this day in the year 721 AC.


Aegidius is considered to be one of the Christians helping people in difficulties. And he is famous for helping persons who are paralysed or who suffer from cancer. He also gives special help to nursing mothers 


TODAY’s EVENT:  1715:  Louis XIV, ( the King of Sun ), dies after 72 years rule.  He is the monarch who has rules for the longest period in the history of Europe.



Famous people born on this day:


1875:  Edgar Rice Burroughs  ( author of Tarzan )  ( died 1950 )


1946:  Barry Gibb


1962:  Ruud Gullit



Famous people died on this day:


1715:  Louis XIV  ( “The King of Sun” )   ( 77 years )


1980:  Albert Speer  ( 75 years )



SEPTEMBER 2:


Today’s name is ELISA’s DAY. He was according to the Old Testament a profet, who lived around 850 BC.


The older profet Elias ( 873 – 851 BC ) selected Elisa as his disciple and his successor. It happened while Elisa was ploughing his parents’ land. The legend tells, that Elias blessed Elisa before he himself went to heaven on board a fire carriage.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1945:  The Second World War ends by the official surrender of Japan.



Famous people born on this day:


1925:  Ross Conway  ( died 2000 )


1952:  Jimmy Connors



Famous people died on this day:


1872:  N.F.S. Grundtvig   ( 89 years )


1910:  Henri Rousseau  ( 64 years )


1937:  Pierre de Coubertin  ( 74 years )


1969:  Ho Chi Minh  ( 79 years )


1973:  J.R.R. Tolkien  ( 81 years )



SEPTEMBER 3:


This day is called SERAPHIA’s DAY. She was a young slave from Antiochia in Syria. She was a Christian, and she managed to convince her master, Saint Sabina of Umbria, to become a Christian too. For that reason she had a lot of trouble with the Roman authorities. And at the end she was in the year 120 AC condemned as a witch and beheaded, because two soldiers who had raped her became ill afterwards.


TODAY’s EVENT:  301:  San Marino is founded. The state is one of the smallest and also the world’s oldest republic, which still exists.


Famous people born on this day:


1875:  Ferdinand Porsche  ( died 1951 )


1900:  Urho Kekkonen  ( died 1986 )


1947:  Kjell Magne Bondevik





Famous people died on this day:


1658:  Oliver Cromwell  ( 59 years )


1883:  Ivan Turgenjev  ( 65 years )


1948:  Edvard Benes  ( 64 years )





SEPTEMBER 4:


Today’s name is THEODORA’s DAY. She was a 17 year young Christian girl in Caesarea ( which is between Haifa and Tel Aviv in today’s Israel ). She comforted other Christians who had been condemned to death. As a punishment she was herself killed by the Romans. First they cut one of her breasts off, and then they drowned her.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1944: Allied forces liberate Brussels and Antwerp.



Famous people born on this day:


1824:  Anton Bruckner  ( died 1896 )


1917:  Henry Ford II  ( died 1987 )



Famous people died on this day:


1907:  Edvard Grieg  ( 64 years )


1963:  Robert Schuman  ( 67 years )


1965:  Albert Schweitzer  ( 90 years )


1989:  Georges Simenon  ( 86 years )


SEPTEMBER 5:


This day’s name is REGINA’s DAY. She was a young girl in Eastern France. She had become a Christian due to her nurse. But for this reason she was sent away from home by her non-Christian father. She was put in prison, tortured and at the end killed by the Roman authorities in 250 AC.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1800:  French occupation troops in Malta surrender to the British.



Famous people born on this day:


1638:  Louis XIV ( ”The Sun King ”)  ( died 1715 )


1791:  Giacomo Meyerbeer  ( died 1864 )


1940:  Raquel Welch




Famous people died on this day:


1569:  Pieter Breughel  ( 42 years )


1997:  Mother Teresa  ( 87 years )


1997:  Georg Solti  ( 85 years )



SEPTEMBER 6:


This day is called MAGNUS DAY. There are probably 3 different people behind that name:


The first one is a Christian with this name. He was persecuted during the reign of emperor Decius around 250 AC.


The second Magnus lived in the 7th century AC as a hermit near Sankt Gallen. After that he starts missionary work in Bauern. And at the end he starts the Benedictine monastery in Sankt Mang near Füssen. The legend tells that he kills a dragon and with his stick sends away bears as well as snakes.


The third Magnus was killed in 1115, and near his grave at the Orkney Islands lots of miracles happen later on.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1991:  The Soviet Union recognizes the declaration of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.



Famous people born on this day:


1757:  Marquis de Lafayette  ( died 1834 )


1888:  Joseph P. Kennedy  ( died 1969 )


1943:  Britt Ekland



Famous people died on this day:


1683:  Jean Baptiste Colbert ( 64 years )


1901:  William McKinley  ( 58 years )


1907:  Sully Prudhomme  ( 65 years )


1962:  Hanns Eisler  (  64 years )


1966:  Hendrik Verwoerd  ( 65 years )


2007:  Luciano Pavarotti  ( 72 years )



SEPTEMBER 7:


This day is called ROBERT’s DAY. He was a cardinal in Rome in the late 16th century. He is best known for his book from 1576. In that book he was arguing strongly against the protestants. 


TODAY’s EVENT:  1986: Bishop Desmund Tuto becomes the first black leader of the Anglican church in South Africa, when he is nominated archbishop of Cape Town.



Famous people born on this day:


1533:  Elizabeth I  ( died 1603 )


1913:  Anthony Quale  ( died 1989 )


1923:  Peter Lawford  ( died 1984 )


1930:  Baudouin I ( died 1993 )


1936:  Buddy Holly  ( died 1959 )



Famous people died on this day:


1962:  Karen Blixen  ( 77 years)




SEPTEMBER 8:


Today’s name is MARIA’s BIRTHDAY.  Virgin Mary was born on this day. It is also called Our Lady’s Day. Her parents were Joachim and Anna.


According to the early Christian faith Maria was the mother of Jesus as well as the second Eve. He corrected the sins of Eve by giving birth to the saviour of the world.


This day is also the United Nations’ international day for the ability to write and read. In other words: the day against illiteracy.


Old Danish weather warnings say about this day:


Today the summer will end

If there are no clouds on the sky today the autumn will be very mild

The swallows will leave today and hide on the buttoms of lakes and moors. And they will return on March 25 – Maria’s Annunciation Day


TODAY’s EVENT:  1664: The Dutch colony in America Nieuw Amsterdam was handed over to the British, who in 1669 renamed it New York.



Famous people born on this day:


1157:  Richard Lionheart  ( died 1199 )


1783:  N.F.S. Grundtvig  ( died 1872 )


1841:  Antonin Dvorak  ( died 1904 )


1925:  Peter Sellers  ( died 1980 )


1963:  Whitney Houston  ( died 2012 )



Famous people died on this day:


1949:  Richard Strauss  ( 85 years )


2003:  Leni Riefenstahl  ( 101 years )



SEPTEMBER 9:


Today is called GORGONIUS DAY. He was an employee at the imperial court in Rome in the beginning of the 4th century. But as a Christian he was persecuted by emperor Diocletian and was killed. At first he was severely wounded and then salt and vinegar was poured on him. Finally, he was put on the bond fire. This gave him later the status as a martyr.


Gongordius is the patron of the notaries.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1850:  California becomes the 31st state of the United States of America.



Famous people born on this day:


1828:  Lev Tolstoj  ( died 1910 )


1941:  Otis Redding  ( died 1967 )


1960:  Hugh Grant



Famous people died on this day:


1901:  Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  ( 37 years )


1960:  Jussi Björling  ( 49 years )


1976:  Mao Zedong  ( 83 years )




SEPTEMBER 10:


Today is called BURCHARDT’s DAY. It comes from the Christian man Birchhardt. He came originally from Wessex in England. But he went to Germany to help Bonifacius in his work to preach the gospel. At the end he became archbishop in Würzburg in Germany. He died in the year 754 AC.


Today is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe days. They are days, which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century on the basis of his calculations considered to be specifically unfortunate.  ( What old nonsense ! )


TODAY’s EVENT:  2002:  Switzerland becomes the 190th member of the United Nations.



Famous people born on this day:


1659:  Henry Purcell  ( died 1695 )


1890:  Franz Werfel  ( died 1945 )


1914:  Robert Wise  ( died 2005 )



Famous people died on this day:


1797:  Mary Wollstonecraft  ( 38 years )


1983:  John Vorster  ( 68 years )



SEPTEMBER 11:


This day is called HILLEBERT’s DAY. He was bishop in Tours in France. And he was a famous psalm poet. He died in 1134.


TODAY’s EVENT:  2001:  The terror attack on the World Trade Centre in New York costs about 3.000 lives.



Famous people born on this day:


1786:  Friedrich Kuhlau  ( died 1832 )


1881:  Asta Nielsen ( died 1972 )


1885:  D.W. Lawrence  ( died 1930 )


1917:  Ferdinand Marcos  ( died 1989 )


1945:  Franz Beckenbauer



Famous people died on this day:


1971:  Nikita Khrustjov  ( 77 years )


1973:  Salvador Allende  ( 65 years )


2003:  Anna Lindh  ( 46 years )




SEPTEMBER 12:


Today is called GUIDO’s DAY. He was a young Belgian tradesman from Anderlecht. One day he decided to leave his work, his home and his city to go on a 7 year pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. When he came back he continued his pious life. And when he died on this day in the year 1112 the legend tells that a large column of fire raised above him.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1905:  The Town Hall of Copenhagen – designed by the architect Martin Nyrop on the basis of the town hall in Siena, Italy – was inaugurated. 



Famous people born on this day:


1852:  Herbert Henry Asquith  ( died 1928 )


1888:  Maurice Chevalier  ( died 1971 )


1913:  Jesse Owens  ( died 1980 )


1944:  Barry White  ( died 2003 )



Famous people died on this day:


1977:  Steven Biko  ( 31 years )


1992:  Anthony Perkins  ( 60 years )


1993:  Raymond Burr ( 76 years )


2003:  Johnny Cash  ( 71 years )



SEPTEMBER 13:


Today’s name is CYPRIANUS’ DAY. He wrote many of the very first descriptions of the Christian church and is there a very important source about those times. During emperor Decius’ persecutions of the Christians he was beheaded in the year 258 AC.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1993:  Israel and the PLO make an agreement on peace in Washington DC.



Famous people born on this day:


1813:  Clara Schumann  ( died 1896 )


1860:  John Joseph Persching  ( died 1948 )


1874:  Arnold Schönberg  ( died 1951 )


1894:  J.B. Priestley  ( died 1984 )


1905:  Claudette Colbert ( died 1996 )


1944:  Peter Cetera



Famous people died on this day:


81:      Emperor Titus Flavius  ( 42 years )


1321:  Dante Aligheri  ( 56 year )  


1598:  Philippe II of Spain  ( 71 year )



SEPTEMBER 14:


This day is called the CROSS’s EXALTATION DAY.  Emperor Heraclius made in the year 631 AC this day a holiday as a remembrance of the victory over the Persians in 614. At this occasion the holy cross from the Burial Church in Jerusalem was taken back from the non-Christians.


TODAY’s EVENT:  1949:  Konrad Adenauer becomes the first West German chancellor. 



Famous people born on this day:


1760:  Maria Luigi Cherubini  ( died 1842 )


1769:  Alexander von Humboldt  ( died 1859 )


1965:  Dmitri Medvedev



Famous people died on this day:


1927:  Tomas Masaryk  ( 87 years )


1982:  Grace Kelly  ( 53 years )


SEPTEMBER 15:

 

Today’s name is ESKILD’s DAY. It is named after the monk Eskild. He was probably an Englishman, and he was by the church sent to Sweden to promote Christianity. Here he was stoned to death, and his dead body was pulled through the area until it went into many pieces. The legend tells that he – following a sign from heaven – was buried on the place, which today is called Eskildstuna. It happened in the year 1016.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1959: Nikita Krustjov visits as the first Soviet leader ever the United States.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1857:  William Taft  ( died 1930 )

 

1876:  Bruno Walter  ( died 1962 )

 

1890:  Agathe Christie  ( died 1976 )

 

1894:  Jean Renoir  ( died 1985 )

 

1914:  Jens Otto Krag  ( died 1978 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1945:  Anton Webern  ( 62 years )

 

1978:  Willy Messerschmidt  ( 80 years )

 

1980:  Bill Evans  ( 51 years )

 

2006:  Oriana Fallaci  ( 77 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 16:

 

Today’s name is EUFEMIAS’s DAY. She was a young Christian daughter of a politician in Chalcedon ( which was a town in what is today part of the Asiatic half of Istanbul ). She was persecuted terribly during the reign of emperor Diocletian, but she did not die from the treatment. Only when a bear one day bate her head off she perished.  It happened in the year 290 AC.  The legend tells that many wonders happened at her grave afterwards.

 

Today is also the United Nations’ international for the preservation of the ozon layer.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1795:  England conquers Cape Town in South Africa.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1891:  Karl Dönitz  ( died 1980 )

 

1926:  B.B. King

 

1956:  David Copperfield

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1736:  Gabriel Fahrenheit  ( 50 years )

 

1977:  Maria Callas  ( 53 years )

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 17:

 

Today’s name is LAMBERTUS’ DAY. He was a highly esteemed bishop in Maastricht, and he was also a very energetic missionary. He was murdered in his home by French noble men, whom he had attacked for living a very sinful life. It happened in the year 703 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1787: The American constitution is signed in Philadelphia by 39 out of 42 delegates.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1883:  William Carlos Williams  ( died 1963 )

 

1918:  Chaim Herzog  ( died 1997 )

 

1929:  Stirling Moss

 

1931:  Anne Bancroft ( died 2005 )

 

1936:  Rolv Wesenlund

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1179:  Hildegard of Bingen  ( 81 years )

 

1948:  Folke Bernadotte  ( 53 years )

 

1996:  Spiro Agnew  ( 78 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 18:

 

Today is called TITUS DAY. He was a friend and companion of the apostle Paulus. You can say that he was his secretary, as he was the one writing things down. Titus was twice sent alone to Efesos and to Korinth. When Paulus leaves Crete he nominates Titus as the local bishop.

 

Titus dies according to the legend in 107 AC. He was 95 years old.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1973:  West Germany and East Germany become members of the United Nations.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1709:  Samuel Johnson  ( died 1784 )

 

1905:  Greta Garbo  ( died 1990 )

 

1971:  Lance Armstrong

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1961:  Dag Hammarskiöld  ( 56 years )

 

1970:  Jimi Hendrix  ( 28 years )

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 19:

 

Today’s name is CONSTANTIA’s DAY. She was a close relative of emperor Constantine the Great ( who lived in the years 285 – 337 AC ). The legend tells that she was cured from a serious illness by the The holy Agnes.

 

This day is also International Day for Talk like a Pirate” – a special day invented in 1995 by the two American John Baur and Mike Summers.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1946:  Winston Churchill suggested in a speech in Zurich the creation of a United States of Europe.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1551:  King Henri III  ( died 1589 )

 

1882:  Storm P. ( died 1949 )

 

1911:  William Golding ( died 1993 )

 

1934:  Brian Epstein  ( died 1967 )

 

1949:  Twiggy

 

1962:  Janni Spies

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

1710:  Ole Rømer  ( 66 years )

 

1881:  James Garfield  ( 50 years )

 

1927:  Michael Ancher  ( 78 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 20:

 

This day’s name is TOBIAS’ DAY. He was a young, religious Jewish man, who lived around 200 before Christ.  Once he went on a long and very dangerous trip to Media ( an ancient country in present day Kurdistan ) to pick up money for his blind father Tobit.  The legend tells that he on the trip was protected by the angel Raphael.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1946: The first film festival in Cannes takes place.

 

Famous persons born on this day:

 

1851:  Henry Festing Jones  ( died 1928 )

 

1918:  Bjørn Wiinblad  ( died 2006 )

 

1934:  Sophia Loren

 

1937:  Monica Zetterlund  ( died 2005 )

 

 

Famous persons died on this day:

 

1863:  Jacob Grimm  ( 78 years )

 

1957:  Jean Sibelius  ( 92 years )

 

2005:  Simon Wiesenthal  ( 97 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 21:

 

This day is called MATTHEW’s – named after the evangelist Matthew. He was originally a customs officer and his symbol is a man with wings.  There is some doubt, if he really is the author of the Gospel of Matthew.

 

There are 3 ancient Danish weather warnings for this day:

 

    * Nice weather on this day means a lot of fruit next year

    * The winter will be best, if the rooks are heading south today

    * On this day the worms will dig themselves further down in the ground

 

The day is also the International Peace Day of the United Nations ( for global cease-fire and for non-violence )

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1919:  After a pause during World War I the Orient Express resumes its tours between Paris and Istanbul.

 

 

1866:  H.G. Wells  ( died 1946 )

 

1909:  Kwame Nkrumah  ( died 1972 )

 

1931:  Larry Hagman

 

1934:  Leonard Cohen

 

1947:  Stephen King

 

1957:  Kevin Rudd

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

19 BC:   Virgil  ( 51 years )

 

1558:  Charles Quint   ( 58 years )

 

1832:  Sir Walter Scott  ( 63 years )

 

1860:  Arthur Schopenhauer  ( 72 years )

 

1957:  Haakon 7.  ( 85 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 22:

 

Today is called MAURITIUS’ DAY after the army leader Mauritius from Jerusalem. He was together with his 6.666 soldiers killed by the Roman emperor Maximian’s troops, because they refused to give gifts to non-Christian gods and to take part in the persecution of the Christians.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1862:  US president Abraham Lincoln declares all slaves free.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

 

1791:  Michael Faraday  ( died 1867 )

 

1875:  Carl Grimberg  ( died 1941 )

 

1931:  Fay Waldon

 

1932:  Ingemar Johansson  ( died 2009 )

 

1940:  Anna Karina

 

1953:  Ségolène Royal

 

1976:  Ronaldo

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1985:  Axel Springer  ( 73 years )

 

1989:  Irving Berlin  ( 101 years )

 

1999:  George C. Scott  ( 71 years )

 

2001:  Isaac Stern  ( 81 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 23:

 

This day is called LINUS DAY – named after pope Linus in Rome. He was the first pope after Saint Peter, and he died in 79 AC.

 

Today is also autumn equinox. This means that day and night are equally long.  On the southern hemisphere they, of course, have spring equinox today.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1941:  Charles de Gaulle creates a French government-in-exile in London.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

480 BC:    Euripedes  ( didd 406 f.Kr. )

 

1889:  Walter Lippmann  ( died 1974 )

 

1916:  Aldo Moro  ( died 1978 )

 

1926:  John Coltrane  ( died 1967 )

 

1930:  Ray Charles  ( died 2004 )

 

1938:  Romy Schneider  ( died 1982 )

 

1943:  Julio Iglesias

 

1949:  Bruce Springsteen

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

79:      Pope Linus  ( age unknown )

 

1241:  Snorri Sturlason  ( 63 years )

 

1666:  Francois Mansart  ( 68 years )

 

1939:  Siegmund Freud  ( 83 years )

 

1973:  Pablo Neruda  ( 69 years )

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 24:

 

This day is called TECLA’s DAY. It has its name from a young, beautiful girl from Lydia  ( which was an area in what is now southern Turkey ) – a daughter of a local grocer. She converted to Christianity after she had heard the apostle Paul.  After that she leaves her husband, cuts her hair short, pretended to be a man and accompanies Paul on his travels. Due to that she experiences a lot of persecutions, and she ends up living as a hermit in a cave in Seleukia near the river Tigris. She becomes very old and dies in her cave in the year 90 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1862: Otto von Bismarck is nominated prime minister in Germany by Wilhelm I.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1717:  Horace Walpole  ( died 1797 )

 

1725:  Arthur Guinness  ( died 1803 )

 

1890:  Alan Patrick Herbert  ( died 1971 )

 

1896:  Francis Scott Fitzgerald  ( died 1949 )

 

1941:  Linda McCartney  ( died 1998 )

 

1972:  Pierre Amin Gemayel  ( died 2006 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1904:  Niels Finsen  ( 44 years )

 

1945:  Hans Geiger  ( 63 years )

 

2004:  Francoise Sagan  ( 69 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 25:

 

Today’s name is CLEOPHAS’ DAY. He was one of the disciples of Jesus.  According to the bible Jesus appeared before him and his brother, when they were on their way to Emaus.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1972:  A referendum in Norway about membership of the EU  gives 46,51 % YES and 53,49 % NO.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1644:  Ole Rømer  ( died 1710 )

 

1764:  Fletcher Christian  ( died 1793 )

 

1897:  William Falkner ( died 1962 )

 

1906:  Dmitrij Sjostakovitj  ( died 1975 )

 

1944:  Michael Douglas

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1849:  Johan Strauss the Older  ( 45 years )

 

1970:  Erich Maria Remarque  ( 72 years )

 

1983:  Ex-King Leopold III of Belgium  ( 82 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 26:

 

Today’s name is ADOLF’s DAY. It is called after the young man Adolf, who had a Christian mother and a Muslim father. When the father had died, his relatives told the authorities that Adolf and his brother John were Christians. And they were both executed. It happened in the year 824 AC.

 

Today is also “The European Day for Languages”

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1580:  Francis Drake comes back to England after having sailed around the world in 33 months in his ship “The Golden Hind”.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1849:  Ivan Pavlov  ( died 1936 )

 

1888:  T.S. Elliot  ( died 1965 )

 

1889:  Martin Heidegger  ( died 1976 )

 

1898:  George Gershwin  ( died 1937 )

 

1936:  Winnie Mandela

 

1945:  Bryan Ferry

 

1948:  Olivia Newton-John

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1902:  Levi Strauss  ( 73 years )

 

1917:  Edgar Degas  ( 83 years )

 

1937:  Bessie Smith  ( 39 years )

 

1945:  Béla Bartok  ( 64 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 27:

 

This day’s name is COSMAS’ DAY. She was like her twin brother Demianus a medical doctor, who treated people without being paid. Due to their Christian faith they were both beheaded during the persecutions of emperor Diocletian. It happened in the year 287 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1825:  The world’s first public railway is inaugurated between Stockton and Darlington in England. It is 27 miles, has 32 wagons and runs with a speed of 10 miles per hour.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1601:  King Louis XIII  ( died 1643 )

 

1722:  Samuel Adams  ( died 1803 )

 

1862:  Louis Botha  ( died 1919 )

 

1942:  Alvin Stardust

 

1958:  Shaun Cassidy

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1891:  Ivan Gontjasov  ( 79 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 28:

 

Today is called WENCESLAUS’ DAY. It has its name after Bratislaus, duke of Bohemia. He lived in the years 907 – 35 AC. His brother Boleslaus was jaloux at Wenceslaus, not so much because he was a devoted Christian, but because he was very popular. Therefore, he hired a number of criminals to kill him. The legend tells that God afterwards punished the murderers by making them insane.

 

The main street in Prague has its name from Wenceslaus.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1066:  William the Conqueror arrives in Hastings in the south of England.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

551 BC:  Confutse  ( died 479 BC )

 

1841:  Georges Clemenceau  ( died 1929 )

 

1934:  Brigitte Bardot

 

1954:  Margot Wallström

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

48 BC: Emperor  Pompejus  ( 58 years )

 

1895:  Louis Pasteur  ( 73 years )

 

1970:  Gamal Abdel Nasser  ( 52 years )

 

1991:  Miles Davis  ( 65 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 29:

 

This day is called SAINT MICHAEL’s DAY. It’s called after the arch angel Michael. According to the legend he is standing at the gate of paradise. From here he shows the soals the way to heaven.

 

Old Danish weather warnings for today:

 

·          If the nights are clear on Saint Michael the winter will be very severe, so watch out !

·          Strong winds on this day means a cold winter

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1789:  The US Congress meets for the first time.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

       

1547:  Miguel de Cervantes  ( died 1616 )

 

1758:  Horatio Nelson  ( died 1805 )

 

1931:  Anita Ekberg

 

1936:  Silvio Berlusconi

 

1943:  Lech Walesa

 

1956:  Sebastian Coe

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1560:  Gustav Vasa  ( 64 years )

 

1902:  Emile Zola  ( 62 years )

 

1913:  Rudolf Diesel  ( 53 years )

 

1967:  Carson McCullers  ( 50 years )

 

 

SEPTEMBER 30:

 

Today’s name is HIERONIMUS’ DAY. It is named after one of the so-called church fathers. He lived in the years 340 – 420 AC. And he was for many years in charge of a monastery in Bethlehem. He is in particular known as the man who translated the Old Testament into Latin. A translation which still today is the Catholic church’s official translation of the bible.

 

The legend tells that Hieronimus also one day pulled a thorn out of the paw of a lion.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1791:  In Vienna Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte is played for the first time.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1908:  David Oistrakh  ( died 1974 )

 

1935:  Udo Jürgens

 

1936:  Flemming Flindt  ( died 2009 )

 

1956:  Frank Arnesen

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1955:  James Dean  ( 24 years )

 

1985:  Simone Signoret  ( 64 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 1:

 

Today’s name is REMIGIUS’ DAY  after bishop Regius. He lived from 438 to 533 AC. Already as 22 years old he became bishop in Reims in the eastern part of present day France. He was the patron for France.

 

This day is also the United Nations Day for Older People.

 

And it is the international vegetarian day.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1795:  Belgium becomes part of the French Republic.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1881:  William Boeing  ( died 1956 )

 

1908:  Herman D. Koppel  ( died 1998 )

 

1920:  Walter Matthau  ( died 2000 )

 

1924:  Jimmy Carter

 

1935:  Julie Andrews

 

 

Famous people died on this day::

 

1979:  Roy Harris  ( 81 år )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 2:

 

Today’s name is DITLEV’s DAY. The origin has been forgotten. It is only known that the name has been linked to this day since 1725.  There are no known saints with this name.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1870: Rome becomes the capital of the newly established Italy.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1452:  King Richard III  ( died 1485 )

 

1847:  Paul von Hindenburg  ( died 1934 )

 

1869:  Mahatma Ghandi  ( died 1948 )

 

1876:  A.P. Møller  ( died 1965 )

 

1890:  Groucho Marx  ( died 1977 )

 

1904:  Graham Greene ( died 1991 )

 

1951:  Sting

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

322 BC:   Aristotle  ( 62 years )

 

1935:  Georg Jensen  ( 69 years )

 

1985:  Rock Hudson  ( 59 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 3:

 

Today’s name is METTE’s DAY. It has its name from the pious Mechtild from Magdeburg in Germany. She lived in the 13th century and had many enemies among the monks, because she criticized their way of life.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1906:  SOS becomes the international sign of emergency.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1867:  Pierre Bonnard ( died 1947 )

 

1938:  Eddie Cochran  ( died 1960 )

 

1941:  Chubby Checker

 

1976:  Seann William Scott

 

1981:  Zlatan Ibrahimovic

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1226:  Francis of Assisi  ( 44 years )

 

1929:  Gustav Streseman  ( 51 years )

 

1931:  Carl Nielsen  ( 66 years )

 

1987:  Jean Anouilh  ( 77 years )

 

1988:  Franz Josef Strauss  ( 73 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 4:

 

This day is called FRANCISCUS DAY – after Francis of Assissi.  He was born in 1182 as a son of a rich merchant of clothes. His father wanted, that he should be called Franciscus, which means “the small French”. His mother was from the south of France. Later Francis went into the service of the church and founded the Order of the Franciscans. The legend tells that he on his body had the same wounds as Jesus.  He died in 1226.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1957: The Soviet Union launched the first satellite called Sputnik I.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1814:  Jean-Francois Millet  ( died 1875 )

 

1895:  Buster Keaton  ( died 1966 )

   

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1669:  Rembrandt  ( 63 years )

 

1947:  Max Planck  ( 89 years )

 

1970:  Janis Joplin  ( 27 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 5:

 

Today is called PLACIDUS DAY.  He was the son of a rich Roman, and he assisted Benedict in the building of his monastery for monks. Later he became one of the disciples of Benedict, and he was killed because of his faith around year 500.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1864:  Calcutta is almost completely destroyed by a cyclone. About 60.000 people are killed.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1713:  Denis Diderot  ( died 1784 )

 

1864:  Louis Lumière  ( died 1948 )

 

1936:  Vaclav Havel  ( died 2011 )

 

1951:  Bob Geldorf

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1791:  Grigorij Potemkin  ( 52 years )

 

1880:  Jacques Offenbach  ( 61 years )

 

1943:  Ole Olsen  ( 70 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 6:

 

This day is called BRODERUS’ DAY.  Nobody knows today the origin of this name.

 

The day is also one of the 32 so-called Tycho Brahe days. These are days which the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in the 17th century - based on his observations - named as particularly unfortunate  days.  What old nonsense L

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1981: Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat is killed in a coup in Cairo.

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1808:  King Frederik 7.  ( died 1863 )

 

1820:  Jenny Lind  ( died 1887 )

 

1887:  Le Corbusier  ( Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris )  ( died 1965 )

 

1914 : Thor Heyerdahl  ( died 2002 )

 

1930 : Hafez Al-Assad  ( died 2000 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day :

 

1981:  Anwar Sadat  ( 63 years )

 

1985:  Nelson Riddle  ( 66 years )

 

1989:  Bette Davis  (  81 years )

 

2011:  Steve Jobs  ( 56 years )

OCTOBER 7:

 

This day’s name is AMALIE’s DAY. This is not a saint. And it is not known from whom the day has its name.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1950:  China invades Tibet.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1885:  Niels Bohr  ( died 1962 )

 

1900:  Heinrich Himmler  ( died 1945 )

 

1931:  Desmund Tutu

 

1943:  Oliver North

 

1952:  Vladimir Putin

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1849:  Edgar Allan Poe  ( 40 years )

 

2006:  Anna Politkovskaya  ( 48 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 8:

 

Today is called INGEBORG’s DAY.  Nobody knows why. She is not a saint.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    1982:  Helmut Kohl becomes federal chancellor of West Germany.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1884:  August Tørsleff  ( died 1968 )

 

1895:  Juan Peron  ( died 1974 )

 

1941:  Jesse Jackson

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1953:  Kathleen Ferrier  ( 41 years )

 

1967:  Clement Attlee  ( 84 years )

 

1992:  Willy Brandt  ( 79 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 9:

 

Today is called DIONYSIOS’ DAY.  He was a Greek bishop who was promoting Christianity in France in the 3rd century AC.  He was killed in the year 258.  The legend says that he after the beheading himself carried his head from Montmartre to St. Denis.

 

Today is also the United Nations’ international postal day.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :    1000:  The Viking Leif den Lykkelige ( Leif the Happy ) lands in Wineland  ( now New Foundland in Canada )(

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1899:  Thorkil Kristensen  ( died 1989 )

 

1908:  Jacques Tati  ( died 1982 )

 

1940:  John Lennon  ( død 1980 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1967:  Ernesto ”Che” Guevara  ( 39 years )

 

1974:  Oskar Schindler  ( 66 years )

 

1978:  Jacques Brel  ( 49 years )

 

1995:  Alec Douglas-Home  ( 92 years )

OCTOBER 10:

 

This day’s name is GEREON’s DAY.  According to the legend he was a Christian officer, who was in charge of 10.000 knights.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1971:  The London Bridge is re-opened in Lake Havarsu City in Arizona.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1813:  Giuseppe Verdi  ( died 1901 )

 

1861:  Fridtjof Nansen  ( died 1930 )

 

1901:  Alberto Giacometti  (  died 1966 )

 

1913:  Claude Simon  ( died 2005 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1659:  Abel Tasman  ( 56 years )

 

1982:  Leonid Brezhnev  ( 76 years )

 

1985:  Orson Welles  ( 70 years )

 

1985:  Yul Brynner  ( 70 years )

 

2000:  Sirimavo Bandaranaike  ( 84 years )

 

2004:  Christopher Reeve  ( 52 years )

 

2010:  Joan Sutherland  ( 84 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 11:

 

Today’s name is PROBUS’ DAY.  The background is not known. There is no known saint with that name.

 

In Belgium the day’s name is Gommaar’s Day – after the patron of the Flemish town of Lier.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1884:  Eleanor Roosevelt  ( died 1962 )

 

1885:  André Maurois  ( died 1967 )

 

1937:  Bobby Charlton

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1531:  Ulrich Zwingli  ( 47 years )

 

1896:  Anton Bruckner  ( 72 years )

 

1963:  Edith Piaf  ( 48 years )

 

1987:  Uwe Barschel  ( 43 years )

 

2008:  Jörg Haider  ( 58 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 12:

 

This day is called MAXIMILIAN’s DAY.  This comes from bishop Maximilian, who was killed in 285 AC and later made a saint.  He is today the patron of Austria.

 

It is Spain’s national day today.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1492:  Christoffer Columbus lands on the Bahama Islands. He believes it is India and calls it West Indies.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1866:  Ramsay MacDonald  ( died 1937 )

 

1920:  Christopher Soames  ( died 1997 )

 

1935:  Luciano Pavarotti  ( died 2007 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1730:  Frederik 4.  ( 59 years )

 

1870:  Robert E. Lee  ( 63 years )

 

1915:  Edith Cavell  ( 50 years )

 

1924:  Anatole France  ( 80 years )

 

1997:  John Denver  ( 50 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 13:

 

This day is called ANGELUS’ DAY – after the monk Angelus ( Latin for angel ), who was killed in Africa around 1050 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:    1923:  Ankara becomes the capital of Turkey – replacing Istanbul.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1798:  Herman Wilhelm Bissen  ( died 1869 )

 

1921:  Yves Montand  ( died 1991 )

 

1925:  Margaret Thatcher

 

1934:  Nana Mouskouri

 

1941:  Paul Simon

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

54:      Claudius  ( 64 years )

 

1928:  Emperess Dagmar ( Maria Federovna )  ( 81 year )

 

1985:  Tage Danielsson  ( 57 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 14:

 

Today is called CALIXTUS’ DAY. It has its name from pope Calixtus, who in the early 3rd century introduced four special days, when the church each year should deal with problems related to peoples’ marriages.  He was taken to prison, because he promoted Christianity. And when he continued to do so in the jail the prison guards put a big stone around his neck and threw him into a well. He died in the year 222 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1964:  Martin Luther King receives Nobel’s Peace Prize.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1890:  Dwight D. Eisenhower  ( died 1969 )

 

1927:  Roger Moore

 

1939:  Ralph Lauren

 

1940:  Cliff Richard

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1941:  Hjalmar Söderberg  ( 73 years )

 

1944:  Erwin Rommel  ( 53 years )

 

1959:  Errol Flynn ( 50 years )

 

1960:  Sigurd Hoel:  ( 70 years )

 

1977:  Bing Crosby:  ( 74 years )

 

1990:  Leonard Bernstein  ( 72 years )

 

1996:  Hermod Lannung  ( 101 years )

 

1999:  Julius Nyerere  ( 77 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 15:

 

This day is called HEDEVIG’s DAY.  She was a Polish duchess, who after having given birth to 3 boys and 3 girls decided to live alone for the rest of her life. She built a monastery in Trebnitz  ( now in German Sachsen-Anhalt ). She died in 1243.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:    1946:  Ten top nazi leaders are executed in Nürnberg.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

 

70. BC:   Virgil  ( died 19 BC  )

 

1844:  Friedrich Nietzsche  ( died 1900 )

 

1908:  John Kenneth Galbraith  ( died 2006 )

 

1924:  Lee Iacocca

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1917:  Mata Hari  ( 41 years )

 

1934:  Raymond Poincaré  ( 74 years )

 

1946:  Hermann Göring  ( 53 years )

 

1964:  Cole Porter  ( 73 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 16:

 

This day is called GALLUS’ DAY. It has its name from the Irish monk, who lived in the 7th century. He started as monk in Switzerland in 613, and he refused to take a number of important positions in the church. He died in his cell in 640 and was also buried there. About a hundred years later the monastery St. Gallen was built above his grave.  The legend tells that many wonders happen at his grave.  St. Gallen is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1978:  The Polish cardinal Karol Wojtyla is nominated as pope John Paul II.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1854:  Oscar Wilde  ( died 1900 )

 

1886:  David Ben-Gurion  ( died 1973 )

 

1888:  Eugene O’Neill  ( died 1953 )

 

1890:  Michael Collins  ( died 1922 )

 

1908:  Enver Hoxha  ( died 1985 )

 

1927:  Günter Grass

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1793:  Marie Antoinette  ( 38 years )

 

1925:  Christian Krohg  ( 73 years )

 

1981:  Moshe Dayan  ( 66 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 17:

 

This day is called FLORENTINUS DAY.  The name comes from bishop Florentinus in Orange in Vaucluse in the south of France. He died in 525.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1979:  Mother Teresa receives Nobel’s Peace Prize.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1900:  Jean Arthur  ( died 1991 )

 

1915:  Arthur Miller  ( died 2005 )

 

1918:  Rita Hayworth  ( died 1987 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1757:  Rene-Antoine de Réaumur  ( 74 years )

 

1849:  Frédéric Chopin  ( 39 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 18:

 

 

Today is called LUCAS’ DAY after the evangelist, who followed the apostle Paulus from around 50 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1867:  The US buy Alaska from Russia for the amount of 7,2 mill. Dollars.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1547:  Justus Liptius  ( died 1606 )

 

1777:  Heinrich von Kleist  ( died 1811 )

 

1920:  Melina Mercouri  ( died 1994 )

 

1926:  Chuck Berry

 

1926:  Klaus Kinski  ( died 1991 )

 

1927:  George C. Scott  ( died 1999 )

 

1939:  Lee Harvey Osvald  ( died 1963 )

 

 

 

Famous people died on this day::

 

1889:  Antonio Meucci  ( 81 years )

 

1931:  Thomas Edison  ( 84 years )

 

1966:  Elizabeth Arden  ( 88 åyears )

 

1982:  Pierre Mendes-France  ( 75 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 19:

 

Today’s name is BALTHASAR’s DAY.  It has its name from one of the Three Wise Men. He was dark and had a dark beard. The legend tells that he came from Ethiopia. It was him who brought myrrhe to baby Jesus. Myrrhe is the suc of the Commiphora tree. It grows in Africa and Arabia. It has an aromatic smell and a bitter taste.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1453:  The hundred years’ war ends with the conquest by the French troops of Bordeaux from the British.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1863:  Auguste and Louis Lumière  ( died 1954 and 1948 )

 

1927:  Pierre Alechinsky

 

1931:  John le Carré

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1216:  John without Land  ( 50 years )

 

1745:  Jonathan Swift  ( 78 years )

 

1937:  Ernest Rutherford  ( 66 years )

 

 

 

 

OCTOBER 20:

 

Today’s name is FELICIANUS’ DAY.  It has its name from bishop Felicianus. He was taken to prison by the Roman emperor Decius during the persecutions of the Christians around 250 AC.  On his way to Rome he was tortured to death.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1973:  The Opera House in Sydney is inaugurated.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1632:  Christopher Wren  ( died 1723 )

 

1891:  Jomo Kenyatta  ( died 1978 )

 

1917:  Jean-Pierre Melville  ( died 1973 )

 

 

 

1946:  Elfriede Jelinek 

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1920:  Max Bruch  ( 82 years )

 

1964:  Herbert Hoover  ( 90 years )

 

1994:  Burt Lancaster  ( 81 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 21:

 

Today’s name is URSULA’s DAY. Or THE 11.000 VIRGINS’ DAY.  These names come according to the legend from an event in the year 451 AC.  Ursula was a Christian English princess – daughter of the king.  Together with 10.999 other virgins she left England to go to Rome on a journey of penance. But during the trip they were near Cologne in Germany attacked by the Huns. They were all killed – except one virgin, who managed to hide from the attackers.

 

A church was built in Cologne in remembrance of this event.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1833:  Alfred Nobel  ( died 1896 )

 

1912:  Georg Solti  ( died 1997 )

 

1949:  Benjamin Netanyahu

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1266:  Birger Jarl  ( 56 years )

 

1805:  Lord Horatio Nelson  ( 47 years )

 

1984:  Francois Truffaut  ( 52 years )



OCTOBER 22:

 

Today’s name is CORDULAS’ DAY.  She was the only one of the 11.000 virgins, who survived the attacks by the Huns in the year 451 AC near Cologne in Germany ( see October 21 ). But when she the following day came out from her hide she was killed too.

 

Her remains were placed in the Johannitten Kirche in Cologne in 1278.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :   1962:  President John F. Kennedy says in a TV transmitted speech that the USA has started a blockade of Cuba, because Soviet missile bases have been detected on the island. This is the start of the Cuba crisis.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1811:  Franz Liszt  ( died 1886 )

 

1844:  Sarah Bernhardt  ( died 1923 )

 

1917:  Joan Fontaine

 

1919:  Doris Lessing

 

1943:  Catherine Deneuve

 

 

Famous people died on this day

 

1906:  Paul Cezanne  ( 67 years )

 

1995:  Kingsley Amis  ( 73 years )

 

1998:  Eric Ambler  ( 91 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 23:

 

This day is called SEVERIN’s DAY. He was a bishop in Cologne in Germany around 380 AC. He was according to the legend able to do miracles. He died around 400 AC

 

In Denmark Severin is the patron for holy and miraculous springs. And during a drought it was a very good idea to send your prayers to him to ask for rain.

 

According to old Danish traditions Severin’s Day is a good day to start slaughtering the pigs.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1956:  The Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union starts.

 

This day is, therefore, the national day of Hungary.  They celebrate the uprising Soviets in  as well as the day of their independence in 1989.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1918:  Ulrik Neumann  ( died 1994 )

 

1925:  Johnny Carson  ( died 2005 )

 

1940:  Pelé

 

1945:  Kim Larsen

 

 

Famous people died onthis day:

 

1157:  King Svend Grathe  ( 30 years )

 

1950:  Al Jolson  ( 64 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 24:

 

This day is called PROCLUS DAY after a bishop in the 5th century in Cyzicus ( in today’s Anatolia in Turkey ). He was dismissed because of his special views on Jesus, and he died in 446 AC.

 

This day is also United Nations Day, because it was on October 24, 1945 that the UN treaty came into force. All five permanent members of the Security Council and more than half of UN’s member states had ratified the treaty by that day.

 

Today’s  proverb:  There is no money in poetry. But there is no poetry in money either.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1945: The United Nations come into force.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

 

1915:  Bob Kane  ( died 1998 )

 

1930:  Johan Galtung

 

1985:  Wayne Rooney

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1601:  Tycho Brahe  ( 55 years )

 

1948:  Franz Lehár  ( 78 years )

 

1957:  Christian Dior  ( 52 years )

 

1974:  David Oistrach  ( 66 years )

 

 

 

OCTOBER 25:

 

Today is called CRISPINUS’ DAY.  He was a Christian shoemaker, who was killed together with his brother because of their faith.  The executioners cut out their skin in strips.

 

He has later become the patron of shoemakers and tanners.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1962:  The American author John Steinbeck receives the Nobel Prize in literature.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1825:  Johann Strauss the Younger ( died 1895 )

 

1838:  Georges Bizet  ( died 1875 )

 

1881:  Pablo Picasso  ( died 1973 )

 

 

Famous people died on this day::

 

1400:  Geoffrey Chaucer  (57 years )

 

1992:  Roger Miller  ( 56 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 26:

 

Today is called AMANDUS DAY.  He was a very popular bishop in Maastricht in Holland. But we was also a very aggressive person. He died in 679 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT :  1863:  The Red Cross is started by Henri Dunant. It came into function for the first time in the Danish-Preussian war in 1864.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1759:  Georges Danton  ( died 1794 )

 

1879:  Lev Trotskij  ( died 1940 )

 

1911:  Mahalia Jackson  ( died 1972 )

 

1916:  Francois Mitterrand  ( died 1996 )

 

1947:  Hilary Clinton

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1972:  Igor Sikorski  ( 73 years )

 

1979:  Park Chung Hee  ( 62 years )

 

 

 

 

OCTOBER 27:

 

Today’s name is SEM’s DAY. He was according to the Old Testament the oldest of Noa’s three sons. He was a patriarch and the ancestor of the Hebrews.

 

It is from Sem that the name semites originates. This is the people, which Jews as well as Arabs belong to.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1981:  The Soviet submarine U-137 strands on the rocks near the Swedish naval base in Karlskrona. It is 10 km inside Swedish territorial waters. The NATO name for this sort of Soviet subs is the whisky class. People were therefore talking about “Whisky on the rocks”.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1466:  Erasmus of Rotterdam  ( died 1536 )

 

1728:  James Cook  ( died 1779 )

 

1782:  Niccolò Paganini  ( died 1840 )

 

1858:  Theodore Roosevelt  ( died 1919 )

 

1939:  John Cleese

 

1946:  Peter Martins

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1975:  Rex Stout  ( 89 år )

 

 

OCTOBER 28:

 

Today’s name is SIMON’s AND JUDA’s DAY. It has its name from the two apostles, who tried to bring Christianity to Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia. According to the legend they were both killed by hits from clubs in Persia in the year 71 AC.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1886:  The Statue of Liberty in New York’s harbor is inaugurated. It is a present from France.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1818:  Ivan Turgenev  ( died 1883 )

 

1846:  Auguste Escoffier  ( died 1935 )

 

1909:  Francis Bacon  ( died 1992 )

 

1955:  Bill Gates

 

1967:  Julia Roberts

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1412:  Queen Margrethe I  ( 59 years )

 

1704:  John Locke  ( 72 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 29:

 

This day’s name is NARCISSUS’ DAY.  He became a bishop in Jerusalem, when he was already quite old. And according to the legend many miracles happened around him. He was probably of Greek origin. He died around the year 220 AC, when he was 116 years old.

 

Narcissus is also part of Greek mythology. But this has nothing to do with the bishop.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:  1923:  Turkey becomes a republic after 400 years with the Osmannic government.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1507:  The Duke of Alba  ( died 1582 )

 

1879:  Franz von Papen  ( died 1969 )

 

1897:  Joseph Goebbels  ( died 1945 )

 

1925:  Ben Chapman  ( died 2008 )

 

1934:  Prince Richard

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1618:  Walter Raleigh  ( 64 years )

 

1917:  Joseph Pullitzer  ( 70 years )

 

1933:  Albert Calmette  ( 70 years )

 

1981:  Georges Brassens  ( 60 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 30:

 

Today’s name is ABSALON’s DAY.  It comes from king David’s son, Absalon ( or Absalom ). According to the old testament he was very pretty. But he lost his life during an escape, because his hair got caught by a tree L

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   2005:  Frauenkirche in Dresden is re-inaugurated after 13 years of reconstruction. It was destroyed in February 1945.

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

 

1735:  John Adams  ( died 1801 )

 

1821:  Fjodor Dostojevskij  ( died 1881 )

 

1932:  Louis Malle  ( død 1995 )

 

1960:  Diego Maradona

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1910:  Henri Dunant  ( 82 years )

 

1975:  Gustav Ludwig Hertz  ( 88 years )

 

 

OCTOBER 31:

 

Today is called LOUISE’s DAY. It has its name after queen Louise, married to king Frederik VIII of Denmark. She was born on this day in 1851.

 

It is also on this day in 1517 that the Reformation started, when Martin Luther put up his famous 95 theses on the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg.

 

Tonight is called All Saints Night. According to the legend all witches, ghosts  and the forces of darkness are free and around this evening. And in many places people tell ghost stories and take warnings.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:   1517: Martin Luther is publishing his famous 95 thesis on the door of the cathedral in Wittenberg.

 

 

 

Famous people born on this day:

.

1632:  Johannes Vermeer  ( died 1675 )

 

1795:  John Keats  ( died 1821 )

 

1887:  Chiang Kai-shek  ( died 1975 )

 

1929:  Bud Spencer

 

1937:  Tom Paxton

 

1964:  Marco van Basten

 

 

Famous people died on this day:

 

1984:  Indira Gandhi  ( 67 years )

 

1993:  Federico Fellini  ( 73 years )

 

2006:  P.W. Botha  ( 80 years )