Melford Stevenson (17 October 1902 – 26 December 1987) was an English High Court judge. He was Judge Advocate at the 1945 war crimes trial of submariners from the U-852 for the Peleus affair. In 1954 Stevenson represented the UK Government during Jomo Kenyatta's unsuccessful appeal against his conviction for his part in the Mau Mau Uprising. He represented the litigants in the Crichel Down affair, which led to changes in the law on compulsory purchase. In 1955 he defended Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK, and in 1957 took part in the unsuccessful prosecution of suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams. As a High Court judge he gave life sentences in 1969 to the Kray twins for murder, and in 1971 gave Jake Prescott of the Angry Brigade fifteen years for conspiracy to cause explosions. When another judge, Sir Robin Dunn, described him as "the worst judge since the war", Lord Roskill pointed out that Stevenson could be merciful to those he saw as victims. He retired in 1979, and died in 1987.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1558:

Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, was founded by order of King Sigismund II Augustus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_Poland

1604:

German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an exceptionally bright star, now known as Kepler's Supernova (remnant nebula pictured), which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_Supernova

1943:

The Empire of Japan completed the Burma Railway to support its forces in the Burma Campaign of World War II at the cost of approximately 100,000 lives of forced labourers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway

1989:

The 6.9 Mw Loma Prieta earthquake struck California's San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,757, and leaving at least 8,000 homeless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Loma_Prieta_earthquake

2001:

Israeli Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi became the first Israeli minister to be assassinated in a terrorist attack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehavam_Ze%27evi

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

chiromancer: One who practices chiromancy; a palm reader. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chiromancer

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Poetry, as nearly as I can understand it, is a statement in words about a human experience, whether the experience be real or hypothetical, major or minor; but it is a statement of a particular kind. Words are symbols for concepts, and the philosopher or scientist endeavors as far as may be to use them with reference to nothing save their conceptual content. Most words, however, connote feelings and perceptions, and the poet, like the writer of imaginative prose, endeavors to use them with reference not only to their denotations but to their connotations as well. Such writers endeavor to communicate not only concepts, arranged, presumably, either in rational order or in an order of apprehensible by the rational mind, but the feeling or emotion which the rational content ought properly to arouse.   --Yvor Winters https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yvor_Winters