Wednesday, February 25, 2009

It's that Lenten season again

Memento homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris (Remember that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.)

So begins forty days of prayer, fasting, contemplation and community service and not the Lentil season, which is marked by forty days of legume eating and gas passing (but that's another story.)



Tip of the day - don't embarrass yourself by calling attention to the smudge mark on your friend's forehead today


Today in History:
February 25, 1570 -
Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England, for the sin of being a Protestant.



As Elizabeth was already the head of her own religion, Church of England,



this Papal Bull did not make her break stride.


February 25, 1815 -
Able was I ere I saw Elba.



Napoleon leaves his exile on the Island of Elba, intending to return to France.


February 25, 1888 -
John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State to President Eisenhower, was born on this date.



Haven't we all made a fool of ourselves over John Foster Dulles.


Feb 25 1922 -
Henri Landru, the notorious French serial killer known as "Bluebeard", guillotined for murdering ten women, and one boy. His motive was purely financial; by placing classified ads Landru lured selected women into his clutches, married them, and disposed of their bodies without a trace. While denying guilt to the end, a drawing given to his attorney had written on the reverse, "I did it. I burned their bodies in my kitchen oven".



Charles Chaplin based his movie, 'Monsieur Verdoux' on this case.


Feb 25 1932 -
Austrian Adolf Hitler is granted German citizenship, to meet a "minor" technical requirement in order to run for president.




Feb 25 1983 -
Playwright Tennessee Williams found dead in his New York hotel room after he choked on a bottle cap during the night.



Once again, another victim of not reading the pill bottle label correctly.


Feb 25 1996 -
Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian who won the 1984 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Killing Fields, shot during a robbery attempt in the carport of his Los Angeles apartment.




And so it goes.

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