WikiMeme

Stole this one from my brother (with a twist)

Type in your birthday (minus the year) in the search bar at wikipedia.

List three interesting facts, two births, and one death that happened on your birthday and provide a quote for each.

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3 Facts:

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1) 660 BC Emperor Jimmu founds Japan

The Establishment of the Monarchy

The Emperor made an order, saying,

"During the six years that our expedition against the East has lasted, owing to my reliance on the Majesty of Imperial Heaven, the wicked bands have met death. It is true that the frontier lands are still unpurified, and that a remnant of evil is still rebellious. But in the region of the Central Land there is no more wind and dust. Truly we should make a vast and spacious capital, and plan it great and strong.

"At present things are in a crude and obscure condition, and the people's minds are unsophisticated. They roost in nests or dwell in caves. Their manners are simply what is customary. Now if a great man were to establish laws, justice could not fail to flourish. And even if some gain should accrue to the people, in what way would this interfere with the Sage's action? 29 Moreover, it will be well to open up and clear the mountains and forests, and to construct a palace. Then I may reverently assume the Precious Dignity, and so give peace to my good subjects. Above, I should then respond to the kindness of the Heavenly Powers in granting me the Kingdom, and below, I should extend the line of the Imperial descendants and foster rightmindedness. Thereafter the capital may be extended so as to embrace all the six cardinal points, and the eight cords may be covered so as to form a roof. 30 Will this not be well?

When I observe the Kashiha-hara 31 plain, which lies southwest of Mount Unebi, it seems to be the Center of the Land. I must set it in order."

Accordingly he in this month commanded officers to set about the construction of an Imperial Residence. . . .

Year Kanoto Tori (5th), Spring, 1st month, 1st day.

The Emperor assumed the Imperial Dignity in the Palace of Kashiha-hara. This year is considered the first year of his reign.

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2) 1905 AD Vehementer nos encyclical published

"That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise."

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3) 1953 Eisenhower refuses clemency for the Rosenbergs

"As to any intervention based on considerations of America's reputation or standing in the world, you have given the case for one side. What you did not suggest was the need for considering this kind of argument over and against the known convictions of Communist leaders that free governments -- and especially the American government -- are notoriously weak and fearful and that consequently subversive and other kind of activity can be conducted against them with no real fear of dire punishment on the part of the perpetrator. It is, of course, important to the Communists to have this contention sustained and justified. In the present case they have even stooped to dragging in young and innocent children in order to serve their own purpose.

The action of these people has exposed to greater danger of death literally millions of our citizens. The very real question becomes how far can this be permitted by a government that, regardless of every consideration of mercy and compassion, is also required to be a just government in serving the interests of all its citizens. That their crime is a very real one and that its potential results are as definite as I have just stated, are facts that seem to me to be above contention."

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Two Births

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1) 1833 - Melville Fuller ~ U.S. Chief Justice

From Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust (finding income tax unconstitutional)

"The men who framed and adopted that instrument had just emerged from the struggle for independence whose rallying cry had been that 'taxation and representation go together.'

The mother country had taught the colonists, in the contests waged to establish that taxes could not be imposed by the sovereign except as they were granted by the representatives of the realm, that self-taxation constituted the main security against oppression. As Burke declared, in his speech on conciliation with America, the defenders of the excellence of the English constitution 'took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that, in all monarchies, the people must, in effect, themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty could subsist.' The principle was that the consent of those who were expected to pay it was essential to the validity of any tax.

The states were about, for all national purposes embraced in the constitution, to become one, united under the same sovereign authority, and governed by the same laws. But as they still retained their jurisdiction over all persons and things within their territorial limits, except where surrendered to the general government or restrained by the constitution, they were careful to see to it that taxation and representation should go together, so that the sovereignty reserved should not be impaired, and that when congress, and especially the house of representatives, where it was specifically provided that all revenue bills must originate, voted a tax upon property, it should be with the consciousness, and under the responsibility, that in so doing the tax so voted would proportionately fall upon the immediate constituents of those who imposed it."

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2) 1909 - Max Baer ~ Boxer

"In June 1933, in the best fight of his career, Baer defeated the German, Max Schmeling, in front of 60,000 spectators at Yankee Stadium. During this match, Baer wore the Star of David on his shorts, in a demonstration of pride for the Jewish people at a time when Nazi persecution of German Jews was just beginning."

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One Death

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1650 - René Descartes ~ Philosopher & Mathematician

Supposing Deceit by Evil (to prove cogito ergo sum)

"12. I will suppose, then, not that Deity, who is sovereignly good and the fountain of truth, but that some malignant demon, who is at once exceedingly potent and deceitful, has employed all his artifice to deceive me; I will suppose that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things, are nothing better than the illusions of dreams, by means of which this being has laid snares for my credulity; I will consider myself as without hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and as falsely believing that I am possessed of these; I will continue resolutely fixed in this belief, and if indeed by this means it be not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of truth, I shall at least do what is in my power, viz, [ suspend my judgment ], and guard with settled purpose against giving my assent to what is false, and being imposed upon by this deceiver, whatever be his power and artifice. But this undertaking is arduous, and a certain indolence insensibly leads me back to my ordinary course of life; and just as the captive, who, perchance, was enjoying in his dreams an imaginary liberty, when he begins to suspect that it is but a vision, dreads awakening, and conspires with the agreeable illusions that the deception may be prolonged; so I, of my own accord, fall back into the train of my former beliefs, and fear to arouse myself from my slumber, lest the time of laborious wakefulness that would succeed this quiet rest, in place of bringing any light of day, should prove inadequate to dispel the darkness that will arise from the difficulties that have now been raised."