Born on this day
Monday, January 6, 1412. : Tradition suggests that Christian martyr Joan of Arc was born.
Whilst the exact date of Joan of Arc’s birth is not known, traditionally she is regarded to have been born on 6 January 1412, in Domrémy, France. As a teenager, Joan of Arc received visions urging her to organise French resistance against English domination. In 1429, she led the charge that attacked the English and forced them to retreat from Orléans.
Several months after her victory against the English, Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English. Her claims of receiving visions and divine inspiration resulted in her being accused of heresy and witchcraft. During her trial she retracted her claims of visions and was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, she recanted on her retraction, and as a heretic, was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431 in Rouen.
Born on this day
Thursday, January 6, 1955. : English comedian Rowan Atkinson is born.
Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January 1955, in Consett, County Durham, England. After being educated at Durham Choristers School, followed by St Bees School, he studied electrical engineering at Newcastle University. He continued with an MSc at The Queen’s College, Oxford, first achieving notice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1976. At Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society, the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club.
Atkinson’s film career began in 1983 with a supporting part in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again and a leading role in Dead on Time with Nigel Hawthorne, after which he earned roles in several more films. His TV career launched with the show, “Not the Nine o’clock News”. This led to his starring in the relatively successful medieval sitcom The Black Adder. However, Atkinson’s real fame came with his role as Mr. Bean, first appearing on New Year’s Day in 1990. Sometimes compared to a modern-day Charlie Chaplin, Mr Bean still continues to captivate audiences around the world as he has become caught in a variety of unusual, difficult or compromising circumstances.
Australian History
Saturday, January 6, 1912. : Australia’s first aircraft crash occurs.
Australia’s earliest recorded attempts at powered flight took place in December 1909. Within a year, numerous aircraft were being imported into Australia, while some aeroplanes were being constructed locally. As trials were conducted on the new flying machines, some proved less successful than others, with mild accidents on take-off occurring in several cases. It was inevitable that Australia would see its first official aeroplane crash.
William Ewart “Billy” Hart was a Parramatta dentist who learnt to fly in 1911 and became the first man to hold an Australia aviator’s licence. His No. 1 Certificate of the newly-created Aerial League of Australia, was granted on 5 December 1911. Hart imported a British aircraft for 1300 pounds, equivalent to around $140,000 today, maintaining it in a tent at Penrith. Shortly after its purchase, strong winds overturned the tent and the plane, reducing the aircraft to a wreck. Hart salvaged what he could and built a biplane from the parts.
On 6 January 1912, Hart was demonstrating his aircraft, navigating by the train line between Mt Druitt and Rooty Hill. Aboard was military officer Major Rosenthal as a passenger. At a height of 600 feet, or about 180m, Hart hit turbulent winds and began to lose altitude. As it dropped, the biplane hit a signal post, then came to rest upside down beside the railway line in what is recorded as Australia’s first aeroplane crash. Although both Hart and his passenger were unhurt, Hart was inclined to blame the Major’s weight for the crash. His words were reported in the Nepean Times as follows: “It really was a trial run and when I say that Major Rosenthal weighed 17 stone (about 107kg) the test my machine was put to will be understood.”
World History
Saturday, January 6, 0001. : Today is Epiphany, a Christian feast celebrating the visit of the Wise Men to Jesus in Bethlehem.
Epiphany means a manifestation, usually of divine power. 6 January is celebrated as Epiphany in Christianity because it is traditionally regarded as the day the three Wise men, or Magi, visited Jesus in Bethlehem, bearing the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is called Epiphany because it was the revelation of God to mankind in human form; also, in the visit of the Wise Men, Jesus was manifested as king to the Gentiles, not just to the Jews.
According to tradition, the three Wise Men were Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, but there is no evidence to prove this, or to prove that there were even three men – the number could have been more. It has always been considered there were three of them, because of the three gifts they bore. According to the Bible, on the night when Christ was born, these three kings saw a bright star and followed it to Bethlehem where they found the Christ child. However, by the time they found the child, he was a toddler, possibly between eighteen months and two years old, and he was found in a house, as he was no longer a newborn babe in a manger.
It is uncertain when January 6 was actually set as Epiphany. It is believed to have been sometime after the fourth century, after December 25 was adopted by the Western Christian Church as the date for celebrating Christ’s birth. Epiphany then became the culmination of the celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
World History
Saturday, January 6, 1066. : Harold is crowned King of England after the death of Edward the Confessor.
Harold Godwinson, or Harold II of England, was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Born in 1022, his father was Godwin, the Earl of Wessex. When Godwin died in 1053, Harold succeeded him as Earl of Wessex, which at that time was a province covering the southernmost third of England. This made Harold the second most powerful figure in England after the king.
In 1058 Harold also became Earl of Hereford, and he was fiercely opposed to the growing Norman influence in England under the restored Saxon monarchy (1042 – 1066) of Edward the Confessor, who had spent more than a quarter of a century in exile in Normandy. Upon Edward the Confessor’s death on 5 January 1066, Harold claimed that Edward the Confessor, his brother-in-law, had promised him the crown on his deathbed. The Witenagemot – the assembly of the kingdom’s leading notables – approved him for coronation, which took place the following day, 6 January 1066, the first coronation in Westminster Abbey. Harold ruled from 5 January 1066 to 14 October 1066, when he was killed at the Battle of Hastings.
World History
Sunday, January 6, 1850. : Charles Spurgeon is converted to Christianity, later becoming a renowned preacher.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, more commonly known as C.H. Spurgeon, was England’s best-known and most-loved preacher for most of the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was born in Kelvedon, Essex, on 19 June 1834. On 6 January 1850, at the age of fifteen, he converted to Christianity. His conversion came when a snowstorm diverted him from his usual route, and he was forced to take shelter in a Methodist chapel one Sunday morning. The snow prevented the usual minister from attending, but a lower-class tradesman preached instead on the assigned text which was ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.’ The simplicity of the words struck Spurgeon, and he embraced Christianity then and there.
Spurgeon preached his first sermon a year later: even then, his style, depth of thought and delivery were seen as being far above average. His audiences usually numbered between five and seven thousand, and his preaching endures through his published sermons which are still highly regarded today.