Today is Armed Forces Day in Egypt and Ivy Day in Ireland. (Ivy Day is not a horticultural celebration. The date marks the anniversary of the 1891 death of Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell; Irish favoring home rule traditionally pin a bit of ivy to their lapels in his honor. Ivy Day should not be confused with I.V. Day, celebrated only by drips.)
Here's your Today in History -
October 6, 1014 -
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria dies of a heart attach after an army of 15,000 of his men is returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home. For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars. I guess we shouldn't complain.
October 6 is the anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of literary criticism. It was on that date in 1536 that William Tyndale was recognized for his important contribution to world literature—the first translation of the New Testament into English—by being tied to the stake, strangled, and his dead body then burnt.
Ah, when men were men, women were women, and critics were murderous, torch-wielding fanatics!
October 6, 1976 -
During a televised debate, President and candidate Gerald Ford asserts that there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Ford loses the election. (I wonder if He and Dan Quayle ever had lunch.)
October 6, 1980 -
John Lydon, of band PiL and formerly the Sex Pistols, arrested for disorderly conduct in a Dublin bar. What a shock!!!
October 6, 1981 -
During a commemoration of the Yom Kippur War, armed gunmen leap from a truck and begin shooting into the reviewing stand at Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Along with Sadat, the assassins kill eight others.
And so it goes
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