366 days of gratitude

The Southern branch of CANZ (Celebrants Association of New Zealand) holds regular educational forums for its members.

Usually there’s at least one guest presenter.

Instead of inviting someone from outside, today’s forum invited us all to bring something to share so we could learn from each other.

We had laughter and tears; wisdom, wit and humour; talking and technology.

It was interesting, informative and inspirational.

Today I’m grateful for the opportunity to share and learn from others.

Word of the day

Dorsum – the dorsal part of an organism or structure; the back; upper, outer surface of an organ, appendage, or part.

Perfect Time

When I grow up, I want to remember that I always wanted to be about a thousand different things & one lifetime didn’t seem nearly enough. When I grow up, I hope it’s at the very end when it doesn’t matter anymore anyway… Perfect Time ©2014 Brian Andreas –  posted with permission.

From:

You can sign up for a daily email delivering a dose of whimsy like this at Story People.

 

Sunday soapbox

Sunday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

Wron gis wrong even if everyone is doing it. right is right even if no one is doing it. – Saint Augustine of Hippo

October 16 in history

456  Magister militum Ricimer defeated Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and becomes master of the Western Roman Empire.

1384  Jadwiga was crowned King of Poland, although she was a woman.

1758 Noah Webster, American lexicographer, was born (d. 1843).

1781 George Washington captured Yorktown, Virginia after the Siege of Yorktown.

1793  Marie Antoinette, was guillotined.

1793  The Battle of Wattignies ended in a French victory.

1813  The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon Bonaparte in the Battle of Leipzig.

1834  Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster burned to the ground.

1841  Queen’s University was founded in Kingston, Ontario.

1843 Sir William Rowan Hamilton came up with the idea of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers.

1846  William TG Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

1854 Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, was born (d. 1900).

1859  John Brown led a raid on Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

1869  The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, was “discovered”.

1869  Girton College, Cambridge was founded, becoming England’s first residential college for women.

1875  Brigham Young University was founded in Provo, Utah.

1882  The Nickel Plate Railroad opened.

1890 Michael Collins, Irish patriot, was born (d. 1922).

1905 The Partition of Bengal in India takes place.

1906 The Captain of Köpenick fooled the city hall of Köpenick and several soldiers by impersonating a Prussian officer.

1914 – The main body of NZEF sailed to war.

1916 Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood by opening the first U.S. birth control clinic.

1922 Max Bygraves, English singer/songwriter, was born (d 2012).

1923 The Walt Disney Company was founded by Walt and Roy Disney.

1925 Angela Lansbury, English-born actress, was born.

1928 Mary Daly, American feminist philosopher and theologian, was born (d. 2010).

1934  Chinese Communists began the Long March.

1936 Jean Batten crossed the Tasman on the last leg of her flight from Britain, landing in Auckland 10 1/2 hours after leaving Sydney.

1940 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was named the first African American general in the United States Army.

1940 The Warsaw Ghetto was established.

1943 Fred Turner, Canadian bass player (Bachman-Turner Overdrive), was born.

1945  The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in Quebec City.

1946  Nuremberg Trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial.

1949 Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announced a “temporary cease-fire”, effectively ending the Greek Civil War.

1951  The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated.

1964  Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin were inaugurated as General Secretary of the CPSU and Premier, respectively.

1968  United States athletes Tommie Smith and John Carloswere kicked off the USA’s team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute.

1968   Rodney Riots in Kingston Jamaica,  inspired by the barring of Walter Rodney from the country.

1970 In response to the October Crisis terrorist kidnapping, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invoked the War Measures Act.

1973  Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1975 The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), were killed by Indonesian troops.

1975 Rahima Banu, a 2-year old girl from the village of Kuralia in Bangladesh, was the last known person to be infected with naturally occurring smallpox.

1975  The Australian Coalition opposition parties using their senate majority, voted to defer the decision to grant supply of funds for the Whitlam Government’s annual budget, sparking the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.

1978 Pope John Paul II was elected after the October 1978 Papal conclave.

1978 – Wanda Rutkiewicz was the first Pole and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1984 Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1986  Reinhold Messner became the first person to summit all 14 Eight-thousanders.

1986  Ron Arad, Israeli Weapons System Officer, is captured by Lebanese Shi’ite militia Amal.

1987  Great Storm of 1987: Hurricane force winds hit much of the South of England killing 23 people.

1991  Luby’s massacre: George Hennard ran amok in Killeen, Texas, killing 23 and wounding 20 in Luby’s Cafeteria.

1993 Anti-Nazi riot  in Welling in Kent, after police stopped protesters approaching the British National Party headquarters.

1995  The Million Man March in Washington, D.C.

1995 – The Skye Bridge over Lock Alsh was opened.

1996  Eighty-four people were killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 football fans attempt to squeezed into the 36,000-seat Estadio Mateo Flores in Guatemala City.

1998  Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London on a warrant from Spain requesting his extradition on murder charges.

2002  Bibliotheca Alexandrina: a commemoration of the Library of Alexandria that was lost in antiquity, was officially inaugurated.

2006  A magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocked Hawaii.

2012 – The extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb was discovered.

2013  – Lao Airlines Flight 301 crashed on approach to Pakse International Airport in Laos, killing 49 people.

2014 – Belgrade Military Parade.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia