On this day in 1991 Bartholomew I (b. 1940) ascended to the office of patriarch. Bartholomew I is the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world.
Today is the anniversary of the crowning of Haile Selassie (1892-1975), emperor of Ethiopia and a religious symbol for God incarnate among the Rastafarian movement, in 1930. The Rastafarian movement was born in Jamaica in the early 1930s, in which Selassie played no role himself whatsoever. Selassie kept himself aloof from the Rastafarian claims about his divinity, but this only helped to strengthen the beliefs of the Rastafarians, who held that Selassie was no false messiah who would usurp their beliefs.
Today is the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. On this day in 1917 the foreign secretary of the UK, Arthur James Balfour, sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild promising the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The declaration had set a condition that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of existing communities there. The Balfour Declaration is still remembered in Israel as a turning point in the history of the Israeli nation.
On this day in 1936 the British Broadcasting Corporation initiated the BBC Television Service, the world’s first regular, high-definition (then defined as at least 200 lines) service. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
On this day in 1950 Irish critic and Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw died at the age of 94. Although Shaw’s first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and during his career he authored more than 60 plays. He is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These were for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film “Pygmalion,” respectively.
Today is All Souls’ Day in the Roman Catholic Church. This day commemorates the souls of all the faithful departed who are believed to be in purgatory. The celebration is based on the doctrine that these souls are in purgatory because they died with the guilt of lesser sins on their souls, which may be helped by prayer and by the sacrifice of the Mass. The day is celebrated after All Saints’ Day, a feast in commemoration of all the members of the church who are believed to be in heaven.
Gregorian Calendar: 02 November 2009 C.E.
Hijri Calendar: 15 Dhul-Qadah 1430 A.H.
Hebrew Calendar: 15 Cheshvan 5770
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