May 7 through the years...

Here are just some of the wonderful and shocking things that have happened on this day in history:

1429 – Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans, pulling an arrow from her own shoulder and returning wounded to lead the final charge. The victory marks a turning point in the Hundred Years' War.

1664 – Louis XIV of France inaugurates The Palace of Versailles.

1824 – World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna.

1832 – Greece is recognised independent by the Treaty of London. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria is chosen King.

1840 – Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is born.

1892 – Leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito is born.

1895 – In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention – the first in the world radio receiver. Today, Russia and Bulgaria celebrate this day as the Day of Radio.

1915 – World War I: a German submarine U-20 sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turned many formerly pro–Germans in the US against the German Empire.

1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document will take effect the next day.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with about 20 employees.

1948 – The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress.

1954 – Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat.

1960 – Cold War: U-2 Crisis – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

1977 – World famous blogger and bon vivant Kris McCracken is born. Aside from his own fame, McCracken fathered the far more famous and talented Henry Fitzgerald McCracken, internet sensation and genral erweiterte Mann. Other, less important events include Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau does a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II and Marie Myriam wins the Eurovision Song Contest for France with her song L'oiseau et l'enfant ("The Bird and the Child"). She dedicated the win to McCracken’s parents.

I know that the German surrender in 1945 was a pretty big deal, but I think that the pirouette just pushes 1977 over the line as THE BEST EVER YEAR FOR MAY 7!

[Thanks to British Columbia's finest Benjamin Madison, for pointing out the grave oversight in the 1977 entry, it has since been amended.]

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

This will hurt me...

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