1st - All Fool's Day has been cancelled this year....(No joke!)

                                 - Diggers went to St. George's Hill (1649), declaring the World a Common Treasury for All.

                            -  Gogol (not to be confused with Google) born 1809, in the Ukraine. Quote: "Everywhere across whatever sorrows of which our life is woven, some radiant joy will gaily flash past." To find out more about this wonderful writer, Google Gogol.

                            - Milan Kundera, Czech writer, born (1929):

"We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture."

(The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

                         2nd - Argentina invades Falklands/Malvinas (1982)

                                - Pope John Paul II dies aged 84 (2005) (See Religion)

Among the encomiums to the late Pope, we hear Bush & Blair praising the Man of Peace they never listened to when he condemned their war. Do their consciences stir & will they now do penance? Don't hold your breath...

(The media expatiate about John Paul too. Let's try to remember George Ringo as well...)

 

                         4th - Martin Luther King, black American civil rights leader, assassinated (1968) .....He had a dream

                          9th - Baudelaire, French Poet, famous for 'Les Fleurs du Mal', born (1821)

(painting by Flavio Constantini)

L'Invitation au Voyage Mon enfant, ma soeur, Songe à la douceur D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble! Aimer à loisir, Aimer et mourir Au pays qui te ressemble! Les soleils mouillés De ces ciels brouillés Pour mon esprit ont les charmes Si mystérieux De tes traîtres yeux, Brillant à travers leurs larmes. Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté.

(Matisse - Luxe, calme et volupté)

                         -  Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English Poet, Illustrator, Painter, Founder of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, died 1882, aged 53 in Birchington-on-Sea, the village I was born in. Named in honour of Dante.

                                                            The Beloved ('The Bride')

                          10^th - First image of Black Hole , 2019.

                         11^th - Brixton Riot (1981)

                          13th - Samuel Beckett, writer, born 1906 in Dublin  (died 22nd December 1989 in Paris)

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett Worstward Ho, 1983

"To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now."
 Samuel Beckett, quoted in Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett, a Biography.

                         15th - Leonardo da Vinci born 1452

Also, first publication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). The good Doctor sarcastically defined OATS as 'a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' That notwithstanding, they are one of my favourite foods. Lucky Scots & horses! See another Dictionary here...

Jean-Paul Sartre 21 June 1905 -15 April 1980) French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy& Existentialism. 1964 Nobel Prize Literature. Towards the end of life, Sartre  described himself as a "special kind" of anarchist. "I have always been in agreement with anarchists, who are the only ones to have conceived of a whole person to develop through social action and whose chief characteristic is freedom..."

                         16th - Charlie Chaplin's Birthday (1889)

                               "As for politics, I'm an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can't stand caged animals. People must be free."   (Charles Chaplin)

                            19th - Byron died, aged 36 (1824)

                                 -  Dr Albert Hoffman, Swiss Chemist,  took world's first intentional psychedelic trip...on 2 wheels ('Bicycle Day'), 1943.

                          23rd - Shakespeare's Birthday (1564)

                                   - St. George's Day

                                   - Scientist finds A.I.D.S. virus (1984)

                          24th- Daniel Defoe died 1731, most famous for writing Robinson Crusoe (published 1791).

                                  Among many other works (eg Moll Flanders is well-known), also published A Journal of the Plague Year, quotes from which you can read here.

                          25th - International TV Turn-off week (till May 1st)

                                  - Thatcher tells us to "Rejoice" (1982)

                         26th - Remember Chernobyl? (1986) , Birthday of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889)

                            27th  - Ralph Waldo Emerson died 1882, aged 78. Friend of Thoreau.

                                                                                                                                         "Earth laughs in flowers" (Hamatreya)

- Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, born 1759, London, early human rights advocate, educational pioneer, icon of social mobility, key Enlightenment philosopher, first female war correspondent, wife on the anarchist William Godwin and mother of Mary Shelley.

                            28th - Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher, died 1951, aged 62. Last words "tell them I"ve had a wonderful life."

Philosophical Investigations.

                           "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." (Tractatus Logica-Philosophica)

"Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down into the green valleys of silliness."

He was also an architect, designed & built a  house for his sister.

quick click pic

                                     Saddam Hussein's Birthday (Many Happy Returns? Well, no, 'cos he was executed on 30 Dec. 2006)

                  Co-incidental juxtaposition of Iraq & Vietnam...

                           30th - Saigon government surrenders to Vietcong, ending Vietnam War (1975) ~ about time too!

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[Music by Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons: Concerto No.1 'Spring': I Allegro]