1st / 2nd - Cross-quarter day of Imbolc - ancient pagan fire festival between Yule and the Vernal (Spring) Equinox (ie. midway between December 22 and March22. It's one of the four midway or cross-quarter festivals, or Greater Sabbats: Imbolc, Beltane/Mayday, Lammas, Samhain/Halloween, each one halfway between an Equinox and a Solstice. The four Lesser Sabbats consist of the two Solstices (Yule and Litha) and the two Equinoxes (Ostara and Mabon.) Thus there are eight Sabbats, or stations of the Wheel of the Year.
2nd - James Joyce's Birthday (1882)
Dubliners, "The Dead" |
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3rd - Buddy Holly died (1959), but still lives on...
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6th - Elizabeth II became Queen (1952)
- Bob Marley's Birthday (1945) [if your sound is on, you'll hear '3 Little Birds'...] Celebrate with a spliff?
 'Emancipate yourself from mental
slavery...none but ourselves can free our minds'(Redemption Song) |
7th - English Monarchy abolished by Parliament (1649). If they could do it then...
| 7th Feb - English Novelist, Charles Dickens, born 1812 |
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11th - China ends its ban on Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Dickens et al. (1978)
- Death of A Salesman A(rthur) Miller, American Playwright, famously
married to Marilyn Monroe (2005)
- Death of Eisenstein, Russian Film Director (1948), aged 50. Developed 'Montage' technique.
('Battleship Potemkin')
13th - Anniversary of US & British firebombing of Dresden (1945)
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 for Love, Romance, Passion... |
14th - 
St Valentine's 
15th - Worldwide Protest against War on Iraq (2003)
17th - Random Acts of Kindness Day (as is every day!)
18th - Drink Too Much Wine Day!
19th - Copernicus, Renaissance mathematician & astronomer, born (1473); first to formulate mathematical model of heliocentric solar system:
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20th - Utopian Society started chain-letter campaign telling Americans that 'profit is the root of all evil' (1934)
~evidently didn't succeed!
- Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide (2005), Fear & Loathing survives...
21st - Birth of W.H. Auden
(1907), British poet.  Hits include: 'Museé des Beaux Arts', 'September 1, 1939', 'Funeral Blues', 'In Memory of W.B.Yeats', 'The Unknown Citizen', 'Night Mail', 'Lay your sleeping head, my love'... Yours truly witnessed his reading in the Royal Festival Hall, London, 1970. In age, his creased face gave him the appearance of a venerable tortoise. |
23rd - Poor Keats died aged 26 (1821): 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water'
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25th - Dictator Ferdinand Marcos forced to leave Philippines after non-violent 'People Power', so-called Revolution (1986)
28th - Birthday of Charles Blondin
'Better pass boldly into that other
world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.'
