Since federation on 1 January 1901 there have been 44 amendments proposed to the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia. Only 8 of these have been passed.
In many cases the stumbling block has been the constitutional requirement for a ‘double majority’. This means that the proposed amendment must be approved not only by a majority of voters in Australia, but also by a majority of voters in a majority of states i.e. four out of six.
Connecticut and Rhode Island were the only states to vote against ratification of the 18th amendment which prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcohol in the US. It was ratified on 16 Jan 1919. Then, 15 years later, South Carolina was the only state to vote against ratification of the 21st amendment which repealed the 18th amendment. It was ratified on 05 Dec 1933.
In Canada, prohibition was a patchwork of provincial and federal laws. As a result, even though it was illegal to ship liquor across provincial boundaries for consumption in Canada, it was legal in Canada to export liquor to the United States. (US officials took a dim view of this practice, of course.)
New Zealand abolished its provinces in 1876.
In 1876 the United States ordered all its Native Americans to move onto reservations.
1876 saw the birth of Walter Burley Griffin, the designer of Canberra.
Lake Burley Griffin is named in his honour.
Michel Trudeau, the youngest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, died in 1998 while skiiing in the mountains of British Columbia. He was caught in an avalanche and swept into Lake Kokanee. His body has never been found.
Lady (Sonia) McMahon, wife of the Prime Minister Sir William McMahon, was best known for the ‘scandalous’ dress she wore when she accompanied her husband to a dinner with President Nixon at the White House in 1971. It had long slits on both sides.
The actor Julian McMahon is their son.
Sir William McMahon didn’t marry until he was 57 years old, when he married Sonia Rachel Hopkins who was 32 years old at that time. 25 years younger than he.
*Maréchal *Marie Esme Patrice Maurice de MacMahon, Duc de Magenta, was the first president of the Third Republic of France. He was a descendant of Irish nobility that moved to France during the reign of King William III because of their support of the deposed King James II, making him what was in English slang a “Bog Frog”.
The ‘KJV Translation’ of the bible was sponsored by King James VI and I. ‘VI and I’, because he was King of Scotland as James VI from 1567, and he was also King of England and Ireland as James I from 1603 until his death in 1625.
The KJV bible translation was completed in 1611. It was the third translation into English to be approved by the English Church authorities. The first approved English translation was in 1535 and was called the Great Bible. It was commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII. The second was the Bishops’ Bible of 1568 that was produced under the authority of the established Church of England. It was substantially revised in 1572, and this revision was the base text of the 1611 KJV.
Psalm 23 in the KJV translation is still perhaps the best translation of all. Its modern English translations are not as beautiful as the KJV version:
*The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.*
A popular Mondegreen in the 23rd psalm is “Shirley, Good Misses Mercury shall follow me all the days of my life.”
And, as Leslie Nielsen once put it “Don’t call me Shirley.”
One of my favorite mondegreens was on a billboard along Highway 101 south of San Francisco that read:
KEY PURE ICE UNDER ODE
ETA: that’s all the billborad had, large black letters on a white background.
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, Room 101 is a torture chamber within the Ministry of Love where each prisoner is forced to confront his most deadly fear. For Winston Smith, this is rats.
In 1984, tennis great Martina Navratilova’s 54-match winning streak came to an end when she lost to Hana Mandlikova on 15 January in Oakland CA at the Fed Cup. This 54-match win streak was 2 short of tying Chris Evert’s record.
Navratilova then went on to set a 74-match win streak, from 20 January to 06 December 1984.
That record still stands today.
The feast day of St Martina is celebrated on 30 January.
St. Martina of Rome was a Roman martyr under emperor Alexander Severus. She is a patron saint of Rome. She was martyred in the third century.
The cathedral church of Rome is the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran - not Saint Peter’s Basilica, as is often thought.
A Cathedral is the “bishop’s church,” the principal church/seat of the Archbishop of a particular diocese. A Basilica is a place of worship of special distinction and displays two ornamental symbols signifying its status: the tintinnabulum (bell) and ombrellino (umbrella). A Cathedral can be named a Basilica by the Roman Catholic Pope, and it retains that designation forever.
The Tintinnabulum is an accessory/relic in Final Fantasy VI, which (when equipped) slowly restores health as you walk around the map. In later FF games, it’s alternatively named as the Tintinabar or Cat’s Bell, and sometimes provides a Luck boost instead of health regen.