James G. R. Cronin

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC

8 October 2018. Major climate report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the UN says the planet will warm 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) by 2040 with dire results.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The battle of Lepanto: when Ottoman forces clashed with Christians On 7 October 1571, Ottoman forces clashed with the Holy League's fleet in a huge naval battle in the Mediterranean. Writing for BBC World Histories in 2017, Jerry Brotton looks at both sides of an enc...

7 October 1571. Battle of Lepanto, where the Holy League, a coalition of Christian European states, decisively defeated the Ottoman navy in a major naval engagement off the coast of Greece.
www.historyextra.com/period/tudor...

6 October 2017. Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and for its efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of these weapons.

5 October 2018. Banksy work "Girl With Balloon" automatically shreds via a shredder hidden in its frame moments after being sold for 1 million pounds in London, renamed "Love is in the Bin.”

4 October 2023. Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Alexei Ekimov were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” These discoveries have led to their use in LED lights, TV screens, and medical applications.

Gandhi in 1930

2 October 1869. Mahatma Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, India. This date is celebrated annually in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. The United Nations also designated October 2nd as the International Day of Non-Violence in 2007.

The Enigma of Russia David Owen, Riddle, Mystery, and Enigma: Two Hundred Years of British–Russian Relations, Haus Publishing, 2021, 354 pages, £15.59/$29.95. ISBN 978-1913368395 Review by W. MARK HAMILTON This timely and...

1 October 1939. Sir Winston Churchill, in a BBC radio broadcast, referred to Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” The phrase captured the difficulty for the Western world in comprehending the intentions of Joseph Stalin at that time. winstonchurchill.org/publications...

30 September 420. St. Jerome, the Bible translator, dies near Bethlehem. Jerome is known mostly for his endeavour to translate most of the Bible into Latin from the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. St. Jerome is considered the patron saint of translators. #InternationalTranslationDay

St Raphael in the war memorial window at Nacton, Suffolk, 1920, probably by Clayton & Bell.

Today's the feast of St Michael, St Gabriel and St Raphael.

Happy Michaelmas … traditionally, marking the beginning of the university year.

The parable of Dives and Lazarus, today's gospel. In the background, Dives entertains his rich friends to a feast. In the foreground, Lazarus stands in the garb of a leper, bowl and clapper in hand, the dogs licking his sores. A Flemish roundel of c1530 now at Earsham, Norfolk.

PHOTO OF THE DAY. A Paris cinema in 1958. 📷 alamy images

Alexander Fleming Discovery and Development of Penicillin - Landmark - American Chemical Society American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life.

28 September 1928. Scottish medical researcher Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first broadly effective antibiotic.
www.acs.org/education/wh...

27 September 1962. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book exposing the harmful environmental impacts of pesticides. The book is credited with sparking the modern environmental movement.

The Great Plague Bubonic plague terrorised Europe for centuries. In 1665 a devastating epidemic struck this country killing thousands of people.

26 September 1665. Height of the Great Plague of London as 7,165 people die throughout the previous week. www.rmg.co.uk/stories/roya...

2025 is turning out to be a mast year for fruit and nuts.

U2 at 40: From teenage dreams in a kitchen jam to the top of rock's hierarchy Forty years on from their first jam in a Dublin kitchen, friends of U2 tell how the band rose to the top of the rock hierarchy.

25 September 1976. Larry Mullen Jr., a 14-year-old student and aspiring drummer, posted a note on his school's bulletin board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, looking for musicians to form a band, which became the nascent U2. www.bbc.com/news/world-e...

24 September 1827. Catherine McAuley opened the first House of Mercy on Baggot Street, Dublin, a date now celebrated annually as Mercy Day. This event marked the beginning of her work in caring for poor and homeless women and children, and it led to the eventual founding of the Sisters of Mercy.

In Pope Francis' Congress Speech, Praise For Dorothy Day And Thomas Merton Calling them "four representatives of the American people," Pope Francis lauded Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

24 September 2015. Pope Francis became the first pontiff to address the U.S. Congress, where he named Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton as exemplary Americans who embody the spirit of the nation. www.npr.org/sections/the...:

23 September 1949. Truman made headlines with an announcement that the Soviet Union had tested a nuclear device several weeks earlier. The White House did not explain how the United States had detected the test, which had occurred on 29 August 1949 at Semipalatinsk, in northeastern Kazakhstan.

22 September 1692. The last mass execution of the Salem Witch Trials took place, with eight people hanged at Gallows Hill in Salem, Massachusetts.

21 September 1973. Blue Poles (aka as Number 11, 1952), the iconic painting by abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, was acquired by the Australian government for A$1.4 million. This record-setting price for an artwork sparked a media sensation and controversy both in Australia and US.

First edition of Frankenstein sells for record breaking $1.17m An ‘exceptionally rare’ first edition of Mary Shelley’s gothic classic has broken the world auction record for a printed work by a woman

20 September 2021. A rare first edition of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, sold for $1.17 million at a Christie's auction in New York. It set a new world record for the highest price paid for a printed work by a woman. www.theguardian.com/books/2021/s...

Honoured to have been invited to open this retrospective exhibition by Cork artist John Adams for #culturenight2025

U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (left) and Mr. Ralph Bunche, Under-Secretary, having an informal talk while on their way to a meeting of the Assembly's 1st (Political) Committee. UN Photo/MB

18 September 1948. Ralph Bunche became the acting UN mediator in Palestine after the assassination of Folke Bernadotte. Bunche successfully mediated an armistice between four Arab states and Israel in 1949 and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.

17 September 1683. In his letter to the Royal Society, Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was the first to report the existence of bacteria, which he described as moving "little animalcules" observed in the plaque from his own teeth.

Today's the feast of St Cyprian, 3rd Century North African bishop and writer. He stands on the left by William Morris with Edward Burne-Jones's St Alban on the right, in glass of 1864 in Bradford Cathedral.

16 September 1620. The Mayflower departs Plymouth, England, with 102 Pilgrims and about 30 crew for the New World [O.S. Sep].

15 September 2024. Storm Boris triggered "catastrophic" flooding in central and eastern Europe between 13-16 September 2024, causing widespread damage, fatalities, and displacement across Poland, Lower Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.