Queen of Wands

32   33

Today is Day 108 of 2024

1397

Geoffrey Chaucer tells The Canterbury Tales for the first time in the court of Richard II.
A party of 29 pilgrims assembled at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, preparing to travel to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury.
After supper, the host proposes that they enliven their journey by telling stories.
The following morning the tellers of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales begin their journey.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
   ~ General Prologue to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

1853
President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento of Argentina makes it his misson to transform Argentina's wine industry.
This event is celebrated every year as Malbec World Day.

1871
Hall of Famer Cap Anson born in Marshalltown, Iowa.

1885
Danish author Isak Dinesen (Out of Africa), pen name of Karen Blixen born at Rungsted, Denmark.
In her later years, Blixen dressed sometimes as commedia dell'arte character Pierrot.

1894

Opening of Lowell Astronomical Observatory in Arizona.

1896
Ventriloquist Señor Wences born in Salamanca, Spain.

1897
Writer and playwright Thornton Wilder (Our Town) born in Madison, Wisconsin.
In 1962 Wilder spent twenty months in the town of Douglas, Arizona where he started his novel The Eighth Day

1923
Director, and screenwriter Lindsay Anderson (O Lucky Man!) born in Bangalore, British India.

1928
Writer Cynthia Ozick born in New York City.

1931
Journalist and photographer Malcolm Browne born in New York City.
He won the Pulitzer prize for Photography for a photo of a Bhuddist monk who immolated himself on a Saigon street in protest of the government.

1936
Poet Brendan Kennelly (The Book of Judas) born in Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland.

1957
English author and screenwriter Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) born in Redhill, England.

1960
Rock star Eddie Cochran sustained severe brain injuries in a car accident near Chippenham, Wiltshire and dies later at a hospital in Bath, England.

1961
The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba begins.

1964
Ford Mustang is introduced to the car buying republichood.

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Raven glides over the Grand Canyon on 20210222.
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This Day at the New Yorker

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