THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

BIRTHDAYS:

1725 George Mason, American Founding Father, Virginia planter, and statesman best known for authoring the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776, a foundational document that articulated principles of individual liberty and government by consent, directly influencing the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

1791 David Brewster, Scottish physicist and inventor best known for his foundational contributions to the field of optics, including the invention of the kaleidoscope and the discovery of the angle of polarization by reflection, subsequently termed Brewster’s law.

1803 Hector Berlioz, French Romantic composer, conductor, and music critic whose innovative approach to orchestration and programmatic music revolutionized 19th-century composition. Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath (9:48)

1843 Robert Koch, pioneering German physician and microbiologist whose groundbreaking research established the field of bacteriology and demonstrated the bacterial causes of several major infectious diseases.

1863 Annie Jump Cannon, deaf American astronomer renowned for her systematic classification of stellar spectra at the Harvard College Observatory.

1889 Walter Knott, American entrepreneur and farmer who commercialized the boysenberry through propagation and cultivation, founded Knott’s Berry Farm as a berry operation that evolved into a pioneering theme park, and championed free enterprise amid Depression-era hardships.

1918 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer, soldier, and dissident whose works exposed the Soviet regime’s system of political repression and forced labor camps.

MISCELLANEOUS:

ATTENTION STAR GAZERS. Night sky tonight: Catch a stellar lizard crossing the Milky Way on Dec. 11

REMINDER:

In the future, before locking things down again (including free speech and the freedom to assemble), the authorities might want to reacquaint themselves with the following:

Nuremberg Code

Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza

Great Barrington declaration