As much as I need to cut the time down, there are some biographies that I simply can't skip. Who warned of counting the chickens before they were hatched, or putting all the eggs in one basket? The man who declared that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and advised acting like a Roman when in Rome? He declaimed of his most famous character, "He is as mad as a March hare," but he said all those things in Spanish, his name was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He spent a fair bit of time in prison, five years in chains in Algiers and a couple of stretches in Madrid. He never made a consistent living, but he could certainly tell a story. How good a writer was he? Well, William Shakespeare and Roger Bacon both stole some prize phrases from him. He wrote at a time when tales of chivalry were all the rage in Spain, viewed almost as a cancer by the crown (the books were banned in the colonies), but nothing stopped their popularity. But after Don Quixote the genre simply died, Cervantes had both ridiculed and surpassed it.
Through mediaeval Europe Michaelmas was a very important holiday. It was harvest time, so it was time for a festival. The seasons were turning, it was the first day a responsible wife could put a goose on the family table - not only were they full weight from grazing, but butchering sooner risked hunger at the end of winter. And no, I really doubt that it was a coincidence that Cervantes was born on this day and named Miguel, it was common to name a child after the saint whose feast was being celebrated on the day of the birth.
The cop on the beat was created on this day, Jerry Lee Lewis shot his bass player, and the first death from cyanide put in Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules in Chicago was reported - and we'll all pay dearly trying open packages forever as a result.
1829 - British Home Secretary Robert Peel secured passage of the Metropolitan Police Act, which created The London Metropolitan Police and earned Peel the honorific of "The Founder of Modern Policing." He was certainly seen as the father of London's police, the bad guys called the new constables "peelers," most of London used the term "bobbies."
1970 - The New American Bible was published by the St Anthony Guild Press. It represented the first English-language Roman Catholic Bible to be translated from the original Biblical Greek and Hebrew languages. The Rheims-Douai Version of 1582 (New Testament) and 1610 (OT) had been based on Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
1976 - Jerry Lee Lewis, celebrating his 41st birthday, attempted to shoot a soda bottle with a .357 magnum. It isn't reported if he hit the bottle, he did hit Norman Owens, his bass player, twice in the chest. Lewis was charged with shooting a firearm within the city limits, Owens lived to sue the rocker who already was known as The Killer.
1982 - The first of seven persons in Chicago died of cyanide poisoning after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules that had been tampered with. The case remains unsolved, although the prime suspect served time for extortion. Johnson and Johnson recalled and destroyed 264,000 bottles of the pain killer, temporarily pulled all Tylenol products from the market.
Michaelmas, The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels in the Anglican church, the Roman calendar lists it as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels. Important holiday in middle ages, one of the regular "quarter days" for settling rents and accounts. English custom was to roast the first goose of the year on Michaelmas, when "stubble geese" (free range, if you will) were thought to be at their best and apples were plentiful. Michael is portrayed artistically in armor, often with his foot on the neck of a dragon, similar to St George but Michael has wings. The festival is observed in the Orthodox church on 8 November.
1547
- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish soldier, author - Born
the fourth son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, a deaf surgeon with a large family
and limited means, at Alcála de Henares, Spain, educated in a school headed
by a priest in Madrid, apparently did not study at any university. At
21 entered the service of an Italian prelate on a mission to the Spanish
Courts, returned to Rome with him during the early ferment of the Italian
Renaissance. Sometime after the prelate became a cardinal Cervantes left
and volunteered with the Spanish troops campaigning against the Turks.
During the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 he was shot through the left
hand, losing the use of it. After recovering from his wound, engaged in
a campaign against the Moslems in North Africa, lived a while in Italy
and returned to Spain. His ship was captured by Corsairs in 1575, he was
in prison in Algiers for five ears. After he was ransomed he returned
to Spain in 1580 where he wrote poetry and plays, most of which were not
presented a second night, married Catalina de Palacios in 1582, wrote
his first successful book, the "Galatea," a romance. Unable to support
himself with his plays he eventually served as a procurer for the Armada,
buying grain and oil from farmers, and later became a tax collector in
Grenada. He was imprisoned in the Carcel Real, Madrid in 1597 for a shortage
of funds that apparently was not directly his fault. He was imprisoned
at least twice, he was released in 1601 for the last time. Published "El
ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha" (The History of the Valorous
and Wittie Knight-Errant Quixote of the Mancha) in 1605, without seeing
much profit from it. Released a collection of short stories in 1613, the
second part of Don Quixote in 1615, and completed his last work, Persiles
y Sigismunda, just four days before his death on 23 April 1616 at Madrid.
It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as does oil above water.
Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it
is and not as it should be!
- Miguel de Cervantes, all four
quotes today.
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