From the Times of London obituary, "Diffident and thoughtful in character, with a gentle nature and a precise love of words, Christopher Milne would become as gloomy as the moth-eaten old donkey Eeyore when the subject of his father's books was broached. His father, he said, had climbed on his infant shoulders and filched his good name. 'One day I will write verses about him and see how he likes it,' he once declared." Christopher Milne would grow to be a dedicated husband and father, a successful bookseller, and an author in his own right, but it took him half a century to really come to grips with being Pooh Bear's Christopher Robin. Only then could he say, "So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on top of the Forest, a little boy and his bear will always be playing."
When a patriotic Italian brought Leonardo's portrait of Mona Lisa del Giacondo home to Italy, attendance at the Louvre jumped with crowds entranced by four iron pegs behind a sheet of protective glass. After the thief was apprehended, the painting was exhibited widely in Italy before being returned to France, and the thief was sentenced to a term of one year and fifteen days.
I had a real problem with the holiday today, it appears that there aren't any celebrated on this day in modern times. Although I'm not suggesting that we bring Ludi Consualia back, it suggested the horse theme in the quotes. Today also marks the patent approval of the first successful adding machine, the founding of the American Bar Association, and a completely natural toxic chemical disaster.
To all those who sent their good wishes for my brief vacation, your wishes were granted.
1878 - The American Bar Association was organized at Saratoga Springs, New York to "advance the science of jurisprudence, promote the administration of justice and uniformity of legislation and of judicial decision throughout the Nation, uphold the honor of the profession of the law, encourage cordial intercourse among the members of the American Bar and to correlate the activities of the Bar organizations of the respective States.
1888 - William Seward Burroughs received four patents (388,116 - 388,119) for the first adding machine to record entries and print the results. A competing machine had been patented the year before, but it had no "tape."
1911 - Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian employee of the Louvre incensed that the Italian treasure Mona Lisa hung on the wall of a French museum, grabbed the picture off the wall during a maintenance day, removed the 77cm x 53cm oil on poplar wood painting from the frame in a stairwell and walked out. Two years later he offered it for sale to the Uffizi Museum in Florence on the condition that it never be returned to France, the painting was returned to the Louvre on 30 December 1913.
1959 - Hawaii was admitted to the Union as the 50th state. Labor and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin supported it, business opposed it, the Honolulu Advertiser had editorialized that Hawaii needed statehood "like a cat needs two tails," President Eisenhower signed it.
1983 - Minutes after returning from a three-year exile in the US and completely surrounded by soldiers, Philippine opposition leader Benigno Aquino was shot at the Manila airport. President Ferdinand Marcos denied responsibility for the act and appointed an investigative panel comprising five of his friends.
1986 - Poisonous gasses trapped in layers of sediment under the waters of Lake Nios in Cameroon are released by volcanic action, killing over 1,700 and force 20,000 to evacuate.
Ludi Consualia, Ancient Rome - Public games honoring Consus, the god of counsel and secret plans, also called Neptune or Poseidon. The shrine of Consus was located between the Palatine and Aventine hills in Rome, and was covered with dirt when the Circus Maximus was built. The shrine was dug up on this day each year, races were held (horse races and races of chariots drawn by mules). Legend retold by Plutarch and Livy holds that it was on Consualia that all the women attending the race were captured and became wives to the first men of Rome, recorded often in art as The Rape of the Sabine Women.
1920
- Christopher Robin Milne, English author, bookseller - Born at
Chelsea, London, England to Alan Alexander Milne, on his first birthday
he was given an Alpha Farnell Teddy Bear from Harrod's that he called
Pooh. Moved to Cotchford Farm in Sussex 1925. When Christopher went to
prep school at Gibb, London in 1929 his father announced that "The House
at Pooh Corner" would be the last Christopher Robin book. After Gibbs
he boarded at Stowe, learning to box to defend himself from the taunts
of classmates, in 1939 won a fellowship to read English at Trinity College,
Cambridge, commissioned to the Royal Engineers in July 1942, served in
the Middle East and Italy for three years until he was injured at Salerno,
completed his degree. Married his cousin Lesley Selincourt after the war,
against his mother's wishes, their daughter Clare was born with cerebral
palsy and Christopher became an arly advocate for wheelchair accessibility
and crafted special furniture for his daughter. In 1951 moved to the village
of Stoke Fleming and opened Harbour Bookshop in nearby Dartmouth, against
his mothers wishes. Grew to resent what he saw as his father's exploitation
of his name and visited less frequently, never saw his mother after his
father's death. Published three autobiographical books between 1974 and
1982; The Enchanted Places, The Path Through the Trees, and The Hollow
on the Hill, he also wrote The Open Garden in 1988. Suffered from myasthenia
gravis for his last several years, died on 20 April 1996.
My favorite animal is the mule. He has a lot more horse sense than a
horse. He knows when to stop eating. And he knows when to stop working.
- Harry S Truman
A man in passion rides a horse that runs away with him.
- Thomas Fuller
We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes
honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of
the grapes it has borne.
- Marcus Aurelius
Of course I don't believe in it. [pointing to horseshoe on his office
wall] But I understand that it brings you luck whether you believe in
it or not.
- Niels Bohr
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