In Christian history
■ In 1734, medical magician Franz Anton Mesmer was born. He believed that “an invisible magnetic fluid” controlled both mental and physical health, and he often popped his patients into a hot bath full of iron filings and waved a magnet over them! Soon he decided that sheer “animal magnetism” was enough, and with the help of his staring eyes and wizard-like clothes he effected many genuine cures on hysterics, neurotics, and hypochondriacs. The medical profession was outraged by his strange behavior, and he was forced to retire to Switzerland, where he died in obscurity. No one – not even Mesmer himself – realized that he was in fact the first pioneer of hypnotherapy! And it’s after him that the word “mesmerize” was coined.
■ In 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were killed in an ambush near Gibland, Louisiana. They were just 23 and 25 years old and had spent most of their four years together on an indiscriminate spree of robbery and murder. A posse of six had lain in wait for them, and as their car came over a rise the lawmen opened fire – and kept right on shooting as the car careened off the road and crashed to a halt. Bonnie sustained 50 gunshot wounds, Clyde, 27. Far away in the Indiana State Penitentiary, fellow gunman John Dillinger was pleased at the news – he thought Bonnie and Clyde were “giving bank robbery a bad name.”
— from Today’s the ■ In 1955, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States announced that it will permit the ordination of female clergy. In the Philippines
■ In 1578, Governor Francisco de Sande, who had taken possession of Borneo for Spain, sent off an officer, Esteban Rodriguez de Figueroa, to subdue the Sulu Islands, instructing him to convert (as gently as he can) the pirates of that place into peaceful farmers, paying tribute to the Spanish Crown. De Sande was the third governor of the Philippines who ruled from August 1575 to April 1580. — www.kahimyang.info
In Cebu
■ In1565, the Cebuanos continue to harass the camp the Spaniards had set up in Cebu shortly after their arrival on April 27. It was only on June 4 that a peace pact was concluded by Spaniards and Cebuanos.
A hobby is an activity that one does for relief and relaxation from the tedium of everyday life; it is not an excuse for indolence.
— Have a Hobby
The Freeman Lifestyle, February 22, 2014