The Baljuna Covenant was an oath sworn in mid-1203 by Temüjin—the
future Genghis Khan (depicted)—and the Baljunatu, a small group of
companions. Temüjin, khan of the Mongols, had steadily risen in power
through the late 12th century in the service of Toghrul, the khan of the
Kereit tribe. However, Temüjin was betrayed by Toghrul in early 1203
and subsequently suffered a decisive defeat. He retreated to Baljuna, an
unidentified body of water in south-eastern Mongolia, and amidst
deprivations swore an oath of mutual fidelity with his companions. Not
only did the Covenant promote Temüjin's ideals of social equality, but
the oath-takers were themselves ethnically and culturally
diverse—among their number were Tengrists like Temüjin, Christians,
Muslims, and Buddhists. Three years later in 1206, Temüjin entitled
himself Genghis Khan at a kurultai and honoured the Baljunatu with the
highest distinctions of his new Mongol Empire.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baljuna_Covenant>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1766:
As part of wider food riots, citizens in Nottingham, England,
looted large quantities of cheese, with one man killed during attempts
to restore order.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nottingham_cheese_riot>
1879:
Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian
Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable that the Chinese government
refused to ratify the treaty.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Livadia>
1913:
The Shubert Theatre opened on Broadway with a production of
Hamlet.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shubert_Theatre_%28Broadway%29>
1967:
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African-American
justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
finial:
1. (architecture) Especially in Gothic architecture: an ornament, often
in the form of a bunch or knot of foliage, on the peak of the gable of a
roof, a pediment, a pinnacle, etc.
2. (by extension) Any decorative fitting on the corner, end, or top of
an object such as a canopy, a fencepost, a flagpole, or the newel post
of a staircase.
3. (figurative, also attributive) The completion or end of something.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finial>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to
perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought,
speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and
hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet
that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it. That
is why the world's praise fails to move me, indeed it very often stings
me. To conquer the subtle passions seems to me to be harder far than the
physical conquest of the world by the force of arms. Ever since my
return to India I have had experience of the dormant passions lying
hidden with in me. The knowledge of them has made me feel humiliated
though not defeated. The experiences and experiments have sustained me
and given me great joy. But I know that I have still before me a
difficult path to traverse. I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a
man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow
creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit
of humility.
--The Story of My Experiments with Truth
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Story_of_My_Experiments_with_Truth>
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