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>
Show replies by date