TODAY

February 09, 2021

NIELS’ MORNING GREETINGS

ON: FEBRUARY 9

New 2021 edition

TODAY’s PERSON:

I have chosen the Icelandic author HALLDÓR LAXNESS. He was born in 1902 and died on this day in 1998 – 95 years old. He is one of the most respected authors in the 20th century. He wrote novels, poetry, essays, plays, and travel descriptions. In 1955 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Personally he was most of his life searching for a religious or political attitude. He was an active catholic as a young man ( stayed for some time at a monastery in Clervaux in Luxembourg ), became a socialist, later a pacifist and a daoist and at the end an Icelandic nationalist.

Many of his books are translated into English – such as Salka Valka, Independent People, Iceland’s Bell, World Light, and Fish can Sing.

One of his quote is: Progress often arrives, when people in a certain situation reject to obey !

See his photo below.

TODAY’s LENGTH:

This day is in Belgium 1 hour and 45 minutes longer than December 21. Its length is: 9 hours and 43 minutes – from 08.06 to 17.478.

See more – also in English – about where you are on: www.dagenslaengde.dk

TODAY’s NAME:

This day is APOLLONIA’s DAY. She was an elderly Christian woman in Alexandria. When she refused to go against her Christian faith, she was put to prison by the Roman emperor Decius, tortured, had all her teeth pulled out and at the end burnt on the bond fire. She died around 250 AC.

Apollonia was later made the patron of dentists.

The name of the day here in Belgium is the same: SAINT APOLLINE’s DAY.

TODAY’s EVENT:

1947: Stalin gets 100 % of all votes in his election district in Moscow, and there are no other candidates.

TODAY’s QUESTION:

To throw down the gauntlet - where does that expression come from? And what does it mean?

It comes from the Medieval Ages. In the tournaments of the knights a knight would throw his gauntlet in front of another knight to challenge him in a duel.

Before that tradition a gauntlet (a glove) had for centuries been the symbol of a hand – which again was the symbol of a person.

Today the expression to throw down the gauntlet still means to challenge somebody. Not in a duel, but in a more peaceful way.

The expression is sometimes changed into: to throw the gauntlet into the ring. This is wrong. It should be to throw the towel into the ring. This means to surrender, to give up. So this in a way is the opposite of throwing down the gauntlet.

QUESTION FOR TOMORROW:

Cobbler stick to your last - what’s the origin of that? And what does it mean?

47 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT EUROPE:

EUROPE AT WORK www.europe-at-work.be

TODAY’s QUOTE & FAMOUS PEOPLE :

1. Yesterday’s quote:

A dictatorship is a state where where your life is in danger, if you keep a parrot.

This was once said by the American actor Jack Lemmon.

2. Today’s quote:

I think the best definition of man is: an ungrateful two-legged creature!

Who among today’s persons has said that?

3. Famous people born on this day: