Monday OT: February 17 is Giordano Bruno Day (Unofficial)

February 10 is day 48 of the Gregorian Calendar year,
Pungenday, Chaos 48, 3186 YOLD (Discordian)
And let us not forget 13.0.7.4.14 by the Mayan Long Count

bruno4
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Kindly Reduce Expectations
1958 Edsel Bermuda Station Wagon.

We are getting ready to head out on yet another multi-week adventure in the near future. This means that I need to write, post and schedule a whole bunch of OTs for the period of my absence, as well as some to bridge the gap between now and the start date. This means, among other things, that you shouldn't expect too much from them and will need to provide content as well as commentary yourselves (as if you don't already, heh). So, here we go ...

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On this day in history:

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1600 – On his way to be burned at the stake for heresy at Campo de' Fiori in Rome, the philosopher Giordano Bruno had a spike put through his tongue to prevent him from continuing to speak.  The spike in question was driven upward through the lower jaw and was only one of the last of the many tortures to which he was subjected.  He was tortured and executed for having the audacity to think for himself and to hold views not in accord with those of the superstitious theofascists who ran Europe at the time. He has become, over time, a martyr of both science and free thought (also known as heresy).  His sentence was pronounced by Pope Clement XVIII (obviously misnamed) and his inquisitors, a slew of Cardinals, included the future Pope Paul V and Cardinal Bellarmino , who compelled Gallileo to recant and prohibited the reading of Copernicus' works. All of Bruno's works were ordered destroyed. The church subsequently found cause to justify and support its actions against him, including his torture, in 1942 and again in 2000. 

1801 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr, Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.

1819 – The United States House of Representatives passes the Missouri Compromise for the first time.

1859 – The French Navy captured the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress that was manned by 1,000 Nguyen dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Viet Nam. The Vietnamese weren't able to free themselves from the French colonialists until the Batle of Dien Bien Phu on May 7, 1954 drove them to sign the Geneva accords in July of '54 and leave. Even though the Geneva accords mandated free elections, the Vietnamese were not yet allowed to be free. The US stepped in specifically to prevent any free elections out of a certainty that Uncle Ho would win in a landslide. Since he was to the left of Benito Mussolini, such a government would violate the fledgling Eisenhower Doctrine which, as a practical matter, without the propaganda and obfuscation, required that the US not willingly tolerate the creation or continuatin of any government to the left of Benito Mussolini with the exception of a few established European allies. The US was to stay there waging war on civilians and military alike until the Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973 officially ended the war. Even then, the war wasn't really over, and the US ws still actively occupying Vietnamese territory for over two more years until Saigon fell on April 30, 1975.

1863 – A group of citizens of Geneva founded an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1864 –  The H. L. Hunley became the first submarine to engage and sink a warship.

1867 – The first ship to transit the Suez Canal transited the Suez Canal.

1904 – Madama Butterfly premiered.

1913 – The Armory Show opened in New York City, displaying works of artists who were to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.

1959 –  The first weather satellite was launched to measure cloud-cover distribution.

1964 – In Wesberry v. Sanders the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that congressional districts have to be approximately equal in population.

1996 – Garry Kasparov beat the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

2008 – Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.

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Born this day in:

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1653 – Arcangelo Corelli, violinist and composer
1723 – Tobias Mayer, astronomer and academic 
1740 – Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, physicist and meteorologist
1781 – René Laennec, physician, invented the stethoscope 
1796 – Philipp Franz von Siebold, physician and botanist

1893 – Wally Pipp, first base, is one of the most famous ballplayers of all time and an important lesson about many things among certain baseball aficionados,. He was a power hitting first baseman who was good enough to bat cleanup behind Ruth in the Yankee lineup. (Please don't ask "Ruth who?") For whatever, disputed, reason, headache, temporary double vision, a day at the track, or what, he didn't start on June 2, 1925. The Yankees brought in a young rookie named Lou Gehrig to replace him. Gehrig went on to play for 2,130 consecutive games over the next 14 years.  Pipp wound up in Cincy.

1904 – Hans Morgenthau, political scientist, philosopher, and academic
1912 – Andre Norton, Author
1922 – Tommy Edwards, singer and songwriter
1923 – Buddy DeFranco, clarinet player and bandleader
1929 – Chaim Potok, rabbi and author 
1940 – Vicente Fernández, singer, songwriter, actor, and producer
1940 – Gene Pitney, singer-songwriter 

1942 – Huey P. Newton, activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party, a public service organization for a persecuted and harassed populace that became, as a result, a persecuted and harassed organization.

1944 – Karl Jenkins, saxophonist, keyboard player, and composer (Soft Machine)
1948 – José José, singer, songwriter, producer, and actor
1949 – Fred Frith, guitarist and songwriter
1950 – Rickey Medlocke, guitarist
1954 – Lou Ann Barton, singer and songwriter
1957 – Loreena McKennitt, singer, songwriter, accordion player, and pianist
1966 – Michael Lepond, bass player
1966 – Quorthon, guitarist and songwriter
1972 – Billie Joe Armstrong, singer,songwriter, guitarist, actor, and producer
1972 – Taylor Hawkins, singer, songwriter and drummer
1972 – Lars Göran Petrov, singer and drummer
1982 – Daniel Merriweather, singer, songwriter
1983 – Kevin Rudolf, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer

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Deaths

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Died this day in:

1600 – Giordano Bruno, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher 
1673 – Molière, French actor and playwright
1715 – Antoine Galland, orientalist and archaeologist
1909 – Goyaalé aka Geronimo, tribal leader
1982 – Thelonious Monk,  pianist and composer
1986 – Jiddu Krishnamurti,  philosopher and author 
1994 – Randy Shilts,  journalist and author 
2006 – Ray Barretto, drummer
2006 – Bill Cowsill, singer,songwriter and guitarist 
2014 – Wayne Smith,  singer

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Presidents' Day
Giordano Bruno Day (Unofficial), and, Ironically enough
Random Acts of Kindness Day
National Public Science Day
World Human Spirit Day

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Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies Wink

Arcangelo Corelli

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Wally Pipp

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Tommy Edwards

Buddy DeFranco

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Gene Pitney

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Fred Frith

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Lou Ann Barton

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Thelonious Mink

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Mulligan and Monk

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Ms. Brton redux

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Gratuitous Encryption Zone
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Image is Giordano Bruno's Statue in Campo Fiori, by enhydra lutris

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It's an open thread, so do your thing

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We should have returned sometime last night, but that doesn't mean that I will show up today. That remains to be seen.

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Comments

Now that is something
worth celebrating!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS
Human Spirit Day. It is strange and, no doubt, excessively random that Random Acts of Kindness Day, National Public Science Day, and World Human Spirit Day should all fall on the day that Bruno was burned alive at the stake for possessing overmuch human spirit and refusing to recant and submit to the official mandated superstition of the day.

have a good one.

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3 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

Et al

Bruno was a bit out of synch with his time to say the least.

Bruno's cosmology distinguishes between "suns" which produce their own light and heat, and have other bodies moving around them; and "earths" which move around suns and receive light and heat from them. Bruno suggested that some, if not all, of the objects classically known as fixed stars are in fact suns.

According to astrophysicist Steven Soter, he was the first person to grasp that "stars are other suns with their own planets."

Bruno wrote that other worlds "have no less virtue nor a nature different from that of our Earth" and, like Earth, "contain animals and inhabitants".

from wiki

Thanks for bringing bruno. Welcome home. Have a good one...

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma

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1 user has voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma

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2 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Azazello's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPg_jbGYzgA width:500 height:300]

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4 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello
Thanks for reading and for adding that clip to the mix.

Have a great one.

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1 user has voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Azazello's picture

@enhydra lutris

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0 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

enhydra lutris's picture

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --