1611 Manila, Philippines, Education: This is the foundation date of the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, oldest existing university in Asia and largest Catholic university in the world with 45,000 enrolments in 2017. Never been there but when in search for Machiavelliana I had an email correspondence with Machiavelli Chocolatier – Glorietta Mall in Manila. I was trying to mail order some of the product but the effort came to naught.
1789 Pitcairn Island, History: The Mutiny on the HMS Bounty was led by a badly miscast Omahan Marlon Brando. I know because I have seen the movie. Captain Bligh was later in New South Wales and precipitated the Rum Rebellion when he tried to sober up the soldiery. No prizes for guessing who won that one. We live in an area once called the Bligh Estate, land which he left to his daughter Elizabeth, who married Maurice O’Connell, ergo O’Connell Town, an enclave within Newtown. Got it?
1925 London, Literature: Faber and Faber publishers hired St Louis-born T.S. Eliot as an editor, allowing him to quit his job as a bank clerk at Lloyd’s of London, and devote himself full time to penning ever more incomprehensible, baffling, impenetrable, and obscure poetry that has kept the talking heads busy explaining it. Eliot had to work hard at achieving what he achieved as shown in marked up text below. Small solace for us auditors and readers.
1937 New York City, Medicine: Yellow Fever vaccine announced. The fever had spread with increased world transportation in the early 20th Century. In this year Max Theiler and Hugh Smith at the Rockefeller Foundation improved a vaccine so much that it was 99% effective. That vaccine, 17D, remains in use today until the anti-vaxxeers get to it.
1967 Ïles Sainte-Hélène y Notre Dame (QC): On the hundredth anniversary of Canadian Federation, the World’s Fair Expo 67 was held. Fifty million visitors passed through 90 pavilions from 62 countries and corporations. It left behind mountain of unpaid debts from the construction and Habitat 67, one of the constructs, 354 concrete boxes which the undergraduate designer thought preferable to houses or apartments. Most are one bedroom. It could be worse, the original design called from 1000 such blockhouses. This event was the model of the 1976 Olympics which left behind even larger debts and larger white elephant. Yes, he was an undergraduate when he concocted it, and he is on the TED trail even now justifying it. Get over it!
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