Arthur Blackburn (1892–1960) was an Australian soldier, lawyer, politician, and recipient of the Victoria Cross. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914, he fought with his unit for most of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, during which he was commissioned. On 23 July 1916, during the Battle of Pozières in France, he led four sorties to drive Germans from a strong point using hand grenades and captured 370 yards (340 m) of trench. He fought in the Battle of Mouquet Farm in August, then was evacuated to Australia due to illness. He served as a member of the South Australian parliament in 1918–1921. After the outbreak of World War II, Blackburn led the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion during the Syria–Lebanon campaign in 1941, personally accepting the surrender of Damascus. In early 1942, his battalion was deployed to Java in the Dutch East Indies. Captured by the Japanese, Blackburn spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. After the war, he served on the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1860:

The trial of the Eastbourne manslaughter, which later became an important legal precedent in the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools, began in Lewes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastbourne_manslaughter

1921:

The first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened in a house in Shanghai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party

1984:

Vanessa Williams, the first African-American Miss America, was forced to resign after the magazine Penthouse published nude photos of her without consent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Williams_and_Miss_America

2001:

Megawati Sukarnoputri became the first female president of Indonesia after her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid was removed from office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megawati_Sukarnoputri

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

churchical: 1. (Christianity, informal) Pertaining to or characteristic of church; ecclesiastical. 2. (chiefly Jamaican, music) Belonging to a style of Reggae music that reflects a spiritual sensibility. 3. (chiefly Jamaican, Rastafari) Pertaining to the strain of Rastafarian culture that emphasizes a traditional theocracy. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/churchical

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I am a writer, and there comes a time when that which I write has to belong to me, has to be written alone and in silence, with no one looking over my shoulder, no one telling me a better way to write it. It doesn't have to be great writing, it doesn't even have to be terribly good. It just has to be mine.   --Raymond Chandler https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler