The colony of Jamestown was founded on this date in 1607 with 155 English settlers. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England opens as the first university museum in 1683. And England remains a land without true religious liberty in 1689 when Parliament passed the Act of Tolerance which protects dissenting Protestants, but excludes Roman Catholics.
The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic after 14 years of construction in 1883. Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight in 1940. Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory in 1930 becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. It was a flight of 11,000 miles over 19 days, which I would think puts it far above the Lindbergh flight of three years prior.
This was the base point date for Polish-German physicist and engineer Daniel Gabriel Farenheit (1686) who developed the Farenheit temperature scale. This date saw the birth of Swiss-French physician, journalist, and French Revolutionary politician Jean-Paul Marat (17430, German rabbi and founder of Reform Judaism Abraham Geiger (1810), American Jewish Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Benjamin Cardozo (1870), and second longest British monarch Queen Victoria (1819).
The world also welcomed in Priscilla Presley (1945), Tommy Chong (1939), and the legendary Bob Dylan(1941) on this date.
The lights went out on this date for Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison ended his struggles in 1879. John Foster Dulles (52nd US Secretary of State0 ceased his meddling in other nations’ affairs in 1959. And jazz great bandleader Duke Ellington composed his last in 1974.
In Canada, this day is celebrated as Victoria Day in honor of the queen of the 1800’s Victorian era.
Leave a Reply