Elias Ashmole was an antiquarian, collector, politician, and student of astrology and alchemy. He supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artifacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant, and most he donated to Oxford University to create the Ashmolean Museum. He also donated his library and priceless manuscript collection to Oxford. Apart from his collecting activities, Ashmole illustrates the passing of the pre-scientific world view in the seventeenth century: while he immersed himself in alchemical, magical and astrological studies and was consulted on astrological questions by Charles II and his court, these studies were essentially backward-looking. Although he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, a key institution in the development of experimental science, he never participated actively.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1615: Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu took Osaka Castle in Japan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle)

1792: Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound for Great Britain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound)

1920: The Kingdom of Hungary was split into five countries with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon in Paris. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon)

1942: The Battle of Midway began with a massive Imperial Japanese strike on Midway Atoll. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway)

1989: The People's Liberation Army cracks down on the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul." -- Victor Hugo in Les Misérables (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo)