This Day in History with a poem by: James Joyce

Birthday's:
1882: Irish novelist and poet James Joyce
1895: American NFL coach and american football pioneer George "Papa Bear" Halas.
1927: Jazz saxophonist Stan Getz.

1653: New Amsterdam (New York City) was incorporated as a city.
1848: The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
1876: The National League, the oldest existing major-league professional baseball organization in the United States, began play as the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs.
1912: Frederick Rodman Law performed what was considered the first motion-picture stunt, parachuting from the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
1943: The Battle of Stalingrad in World War II ended with the surrender of German troops to the Soviets.
1971:  Idi Amin declared himself president of Uganda and for the next eight years headed a regime that was noted for its brutality.
1979: Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, early proponents of British punk rock, died of a drug overdose in New York City.
1990: South African President F.W. de Klerk lifted the 30-year ban on the African National Congress, resulting in the release from prison of Nelson Mandela and marking the beginning of the end of apartheid.
2014: American Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who fully inhabited the characters he played and was renowned for his scene-stealing work in supporting roles, died of a heroin overdose in New York City.


Alone

By: James Joyce

(From the Poetry Foundation – poetryfoundation.org)

The moon’s soft golden meshes make
All night a veil;
The shore-lamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper in the night
A name-her name,
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.


Sources:
Encyclopedia Brittanica
Poetry Foundation
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