The great Inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on this day in 1847. In his lifetime Edison secured almost 1,100 patents for his inventions and innovations, including the following patents in these areas:
Electric Light & Power (424)
Mining & Ore Milling (53)Miscellany (50)
Motion Pictures (9)Phonographs & Sound Recording (199)
Telegraphy & Telephony (186)
Amazing work for a man whose school teacher once called him “addled.”
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On this date in 1858 a French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes. She was 14 years old. By July 16th of that year, she had experienced 18 such visions. Lourdes eventually became one of the major sites for Catholic pilgrims to travel to from all over the world. As many as 6 million visit Lourdes annually, and 67 miracles have been attributed to the healing properties of the spring there.
“Nothing is anything more to me; everything is nothing to me, but Jesus: neither things nor persons, neither ideas nor emotions, neither honor nor sufferings. Jesus is for me honor, delight, heart and soul.” – Saint Bernadette Soubirous
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The Rev. Barbara C. Harris became the first woman consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church in a ceremony held in Boston on this date in 1989. This occurred just one year after the Church of England passed the first legislation to begin opening the Anglican priesthood to women.
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Rene Descartes, noted French philosopher and mathematician, died on this day in 1650 at the age of 53. His last words reportedly were: ‘My soul, thou hast long been held captive; the hour has now come for thee to quit thy prison…; suffer, then, this separation with joy and courage.’
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