TODAY - March 16

 

NIELS’ MORNING GREETINGS

ON: MARCH 16

New 2021 edition

TODAY’s LENGTH:

Today is here in Belgium 3 hours and 56 minutes longer than December 21.  Its length is 11 hours and 53 minutes – from 06.54 to 18.48.

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

TODAY’s NAME:

This day is called GUDMUND’s DAY.  Gudmund was an Icelandic catholic bishop, who lived in the years 1161-1237. His full name was: Gudmund Arason.  As he was born outside marriage he needed the pope’s permission to become priest. He was in particular in his preaches insisting on the beauty of poverty. He thought that the church was wrong in looking for wealth. Due to this attitude he is often compared to Thomas Beckett.

 

In Belgium the day is called SAINT HÉRIBERT’s DAY.  He was a German archbishop of Cologne. He lived in the years 970-1021.  He was also chancellor for emperor Otto III. And one of the big fortresses near Liège is named from him.

 

TODAY’s EVENT:

1946: On this day the last Soviet troops left the Danish island of Bornholm after ten months of occupation.

TODAY’s QUESTION:

To go to Canossa  - what is the history behind that expression?

The background is the German emperor Heinrich IV’s fight with pope Gregor 7. Heinrich governed in the years 1056-1106. When the emperor at the Diet of Worms in 1076 fired the pope it started a very serious conflict. The pope excommunicated the emperor. A year later Heinrich decided to make an end to the fight by walking barefooted all the way to the pope’s castle in Canossa south of Parma in northern Italy. Here he had to wait for 3 days in winterly weather in the courtyard of the castle, before the pope forgived him.

The expression to go to Canossa became very much known much later, when the German chancellor Bismarck started a serious fight with the Catholic church in the 1870ies. We will never go to Canossa, Bismarck stated at several occasions.  But through negotiations the conflict was brought to an end. And many asked themselves afterwards, if Bismarck in reality went to Canossa to finalise the conflict.

Today the term to go to Canossa means that you give totally in in a conflict.

 

QUESTION FOR TOMORROW:

The Gold Horns – what is the history behind them?

47 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT EUROPE:

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

 

TODAY’s QUOTE & FAMOUS PEOPLE :

1.  Yesterday’s quote:

I love treason – but I hate traitors!

This was once said by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar.

2.  Today’s quote:

Peace is for the country what health is for the body.

Who among today’s persons has said that?

3.  Famous people born on this day:

1751:  James Madison  ( died 1836 )

 

1789:  Georg Simon Ohm  ( died 1854 )

 

1911:  Josef Mengele  ( died 1979 )

 

1920:  Jørgen Nash  ( died 2004 )

 

1926:  Jerry Lewis   ( died 2017 )

 

1959:  Jens Stoltenberg

 

4.  Famous people died on this day:

37:      Tiberius  ( 79 years )

 

1698:  Leonora Christina Ulfeldt  ( 76 years )

 

1940:  Selma Lagerlöf  ( 82 years )

 

1987:  Johan Otto von Spreckelsen  ( 58 years )  -  see photo of his Grande Arche in Paris from 1989.

 

 

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen

niels4europe@gmail.com  

www.simplesite.com/kimbrer   +  EUROPE AT WORK    www.europe-at-work.be



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