Colin Robert Chase (February 5, 1935 – October 13, 1984) was an American academic. An associate professor of English at the University of Toronto, he was known for his contributions to the studies of Old English and Anglo-Latin literature. His father was a newspaper executive and his mother, Mary Chase, was a playwright who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His best-known work, The Dating of Beowulf, challenged the accepted consensus as to when the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf (page pictured) was created; it left behind what was described in A Beowulf Handbook as "a cautious and necessary incertitude". Chase was also known for writing Two Alcuin Letter-Books, a scholarly collection of 24 letters by the 8th-century scholar Alcuin. He also contributed to the Dictionary of the Middle Ages and wrote the Beowulf section of "This Year's Work in Old English Studies" for the Old English Newsletter for nearly a decade.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Robert_Chase

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1818:

Charles XIV John succeeded to the thrones of Sweden and Norway as the first monarch of the House of Bernadotte. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XIV_John

1861:

In a speech before the U.S. Congress, Representative John Edward Bouligny refused to join his fellow Louisiana congressmen in heeding the state's secession convention and resigning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Edward_Bouligny

1913:

Greek military aviators Michael Moutoussis and Aristeidis Moraitinis performed the first naval air mission in history, with a Farman MF.7 hydroplane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristeidis_Moraitinis_%28aviator%29

2004:

At least 21 cockle-gatherers were drowned by an incoming tide in Morecambe Bay, England, prompting the establishment of the British government's Gangmasters Licensing Authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morecambe_Bay_cockling_disaster

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

Lantern Festival: 1. A festival marking the end of the Chinese New Year period, celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the Chinese calendar when the first full moon of the year is seen (in February or early March). 2. ยี่เป็ง (Yi Peng), a festival celebrated chiefly in northern Thailand on the day of the full moon in the second month of the northern Thai lunar calendar (equivalent to the twelfth month of the lunar calendar used in the rest of Thailand, generally in November). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.   --Adlai Stevenson II https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson_II