1611 London, Theatre: Today was the first recorded performance of William Shakespeare’s Scottish play ‘Macbeth.’ Toil and trouble, indeed. Posed below are three Republican Senators.
1828 Timbuktu, Geography: René Caillé found and mapped Timbuktu to win a prize from the Société de Géographie. There were many legends about this place and other Europeans had tried to find and failed, many of them perished. For centuries Timbuktu had been an important way station for travellers and a repository for learning. A book about it is discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1862 Paris, Science: Louis Pasteur completed the first tests of using heat to kill bacteria. This research led to the realisation that germs caused infection, disproving a common belief that in spontaneous generation of disease. (Anti-vaxxers are still there despite a century of free pubic education.) Sterilisation, vaccines, disinfection, and antibiotics all came through the door Pasteur opened.
1902 Paris, Science: Marie and Pierre Curie isolated radioactive radium chloride from pitchblende. She carried specimens around in coat pockets and suffered the consequences.
1968 Ottawa, Politics: Joseph Phillippe Pierre Yves Eliot Trudeau became leader the Liberal Party and Prime Minister when the incumbent Lester Pearson resigned. Trudeau’s finest hour might have been a few weeks later on 24 June on St John the Baptist Day in Montréal. Watch this space.
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