Anniversaries and commemorations come and go daily. Most of us, even the best historians, miss most occasions. If we think of history as events then we are faced with a continually showering in the grains of sand. Nevertheless, we do pick out certain patterns in the remembrance of historical dates. The blog here reminds us of some dates where the local, state, national, and global perspectives entwine.
What Time is It? It is flow of a sandstorm that will on each day compress somewhere into a structure – sandstone, selected and only remembered in the longue durée.
On 10 January 1845, Elizabeth Barrett receives a love letter from the younger poet Robert Browning; on May 20, they meet for the first time in London. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
On 10 January 1870, John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
On Saturday, 10 January 1920, The League of Nations Covenant enters into force. On January 16, the organization holds its first council meeting, in Paris.
On Saturday, 10 January 1920, The Treaty of Versailles takes effect, officially ending World War I.
On Sunday, 10 January 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan makes the “Wind of Change” speech for the first time, to little publicity, in Accra, Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana).
On Monday, 10 January 2000, CASA issues an Airworthiness Directive which grounds all aircraft after being advised the day before that more contaminants had been found in fuel produced at Mobil’s Altona refinery in Melbourne.
On Monday, 10 January 2000, America Online announces an agreement to purchase Time Warner for $162 billion (the largest-ever corporate merger).
On Saturday, 10 January 2015, A farewell is held at Cairns Convention Centre for the eight Cairns children who were killed in December. Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten are among the mourners.
Images Citations in Composite: ID 17208541 © Anhong | Dreamstime.com; ID 35001957 © DiversityStudio1 | Dreamstime.com; ID 156394527 © Gerd Zahn | Dreamstime.com
Neville Buch