Israel the Grammarian (c. 895 – c. 965) was one of the leading European scholars of the mid-tenth century. Most likely a Breton, he wrote theological and grammatical tracts, and commentaries on the works of other philosophers and theologians. When Alfred the Great became King of Wessex in 871, learning was at a low level in southern England, and there were no Latin scholars. The king embarked on a programme of revival, bringing in scholars from Continental Europe, Wales and Mercia. His grandson Æthelstan, king from 924 to 939, carried on the work, inviting foreign scholars such as Israel to his court, and appointing Continental clerics as bishops. After Æthelstan's death, Israel successfully sought the patronage of Archbishop Rotbert of Trier and became tutor to Bruno, later the Archbishop of Cologne. In the late 940s Israel is recorded as a bishop, and at the end of his life he was a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Saint-Maximin in Trier. He was an accomplished poet, a disciple of the ninth-century Irish philosopher John Scottus Eriugena, and one of the few scholars of his time who understood Greek.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1729:

Natchez Indians suddenly revolted against French colonists near modern-day Natchez, Mississippi, US, killing over 240 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natchez_revolt

1847:

Oregon missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman along with about a dozen others were killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Native American tribes, sparking the Cayuse War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman_massacre

1854:

The Eureka Flag was flown for the first time, during the Eureka Stockade rebellion in Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Flag

1947:

The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine by separating the territory into Jewish and Arab states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

1987:

Korean Air Flight 858 exploded over the Andaman Sea after two North Korean agents left a time bomb in an overhead compartment, killing all 115 people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Flight_858

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

hectad: (biology, cartography) A unit of land area, ten by ten (that is, a hundred) square kilometres, often used for assessing how widely distributed particular animals or plants are. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hectad

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination; it's their own world, the world of their daily life, and it's our loss that so many of us grow out of it.   --Madeleine L'Engle https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Madeleine_L%27Engle