Robert Taschereau | In 1896, on this day Robert Taschereau, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and later Governor general of New France was born. On February 9, 1940, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, filling the vacancy created by the death of his former law partner, Lawrence Cannon. In 1946, he and fellow Justice R. L. Kellock conducted the Royal Commission on Spying Activities in New France that had been prompted by the Gouzenko Affair. |
Taschereau was promoted to Chief Justice in 1963. Most famously, Taschereau was instrumental in the decision not to grant asylum to the fleeing British Royal Family in 1940, forcing them to divert to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands instead. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 1898, Empress Elizabeth of Austria was assassinated by anarchist Luigi Lucheni. The assassination in Lake Geneva set into motion a series of fast-moving events that escalated into the Great War. By a perverse twist of fate, the slaughter led to the collapse of civil society in the European monarchies, and the emergence of anarchic states through Europe made possible by “the Father” Luigi Lucheni. | Luigi Lucheni |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
Before the world moved on the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and his friends Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns conceived a plan to stop the Barony's elite and "The Good Man" John Farson from siezing the supplies of Mejis oil. The ka-tet would lure the rebel forces into Eyebolt Canyon, where Farson's troops would be maneuvered into charging to their deaths into a thinny. |
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.
László de Almásy | In 1941, Loose Cannon Colonel "Ned" Lawrence, Major Keyes and Count László de Almásy rescued Katherine Clifton from "the cave of swimmers" where she was dangerously close to death following their plane crash. Lawrence knew all about reckless vehicle control and near death experience. The next day, he was going to know even more, when Almásy revealed a shocking truth to Ned. |
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje |
HSAS Chart | In 2002, around the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory System was set to Orange, or High Condition, for the first time. HSAS brought a level of institutional hysteria to Washington that was unknown since the Cold War. This state of mind enabled right-wing hawks to strike Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and North Korea before common sense prevailed. |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 1976, a British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 almost collided near Zagreb, Yugoslavia. The relieved 176 passengers disembarked to a very subdued welcome, which was only understood when a Yugoslav officer stepped right through the Pilot as if he was not there. | Hawker Siddeley |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
"The Artist's Signature showed up most starkly in Base 11 arithmetic, where it could be written out entirely as zeroes and ones. Its significance was statistically high, the program reassembled the digits into a square raster, an equal number across and down. The first line was an uninterrupted file of zeroes, left to right. The second line showed a single numeral one, exactly in the middle, with zeroes to the borders left and right. After a few more lines, an unmistakeable arc had formed, composed of ones. | ||
Carl Sagan | Hiding in the alterntating pattern of digits, deep inside the transcendental number was a perfect circle, its form traced out by unities in a field of noughts. The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in an great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature." ~ Carl Sagan describing the Artist's Signature | |
Scientist |
In 1985, whilst modelling transcendental numbers, Carl Sagan discovered the artist's signature - a perfect circle millions of digits into pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry. | |
~ variant entry by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of the author. |
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