Giovanni Antonio Grassi (10 September 1775 – 12 December 1849) was an Italian Jesuit who led many academic and religious institutions in the United States and Europe. Born in Lombardy, he studied at the Jesuit College in Polotsk, where he began his academic career. He was soon ordered to China as a missionary, but after traveling across Europe for two years attempting to secure passage, his orders were rescinded and he instead began teaching at Stonyhurst College in England. In 1810, Grassi was sent to the United States, where he became known as the "second founder" of Georgetown College for greatly improving its quality and reputation. Grassi returned to Italy in 1817 as Archbishop Leonard Neale's representative before the Propaganda Fide in Rome. He then spent time as a provincial superior in Turin, rector of the Turin College of Nobles, and confessor to monarchs of the House of Savoy. In 1840, he became the rector of the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide in Rome.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Antonio_Grassi
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1897:
A sheriff's posse fired on a peaceful labor demonstration mostly comprising Polish- and Slovak-American anthracite coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, killing 19 people and wounding many others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre
1946:
While riding a train to Darjeeling, India, Sister Teresa Bojaxhiu, later Mother Teresa, experienced what she later described as the "call within the call", directing her to "leave the convent and help the poor while living among them". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa
1961:
At the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, German driver Wolfgang von Trips's car collided with another, causing it to become airborne and crash into a side barrier, killing him and 15 spectators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_von_Trips
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
manacle: 1. A shackle for the wrist, usually consisting of a pair of joined rings; a handcuff; (by extension) a similar device put around an ankle to restrict free movement. 2. (figuratively) A fetter, a restriction. 3. (transitive, intransitive) To confine with manacles. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/manacle
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
We live in an essential and unresolvable tension between our unity with nature and our dangerous uniqueness. Systems that attempt to place and make sense of us by focusing exclusively either on the uniqueness or the unity are doomed to failure. But we must not stop asking and questing because the answers are complex and ambiguous. --Stephen Jay Gould https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould