Mother Teresa, the Albanian nun who became a global figure when her charity work in Calcutta developed into advocating for humanitarian causes worldwide, died today in 1997. Initially known for working with the poor, hungry and dying in Calcutta, she came to prominence partly due to a BBC documentary, Something Beautiful for God, which was broadcast in 1969. Teresa (seen above importuning President Reagan in 1985) was canonized in 2016 and is now known as St Teresa of Calcutta.
‘I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience. Nowadays we have found medicine for leprosy and lepers can be cured. There’s medicine for TB and consumptives can be cured. For all kinds of disaeses there are medicines and cures. But for being unwanted, except there are willing hands to serve and there’s a loving heart to love, I don’t think this terrible disease can ever be cured.’ Mother Teresa, Something Beautiful for God, 1971
Early this morning in 1972, eight members of the Black September group, a Palestinian terrorist organization, broke into the Olympic Village of the Munich Games and took nine hostages from the Israeli team, after initially killing two Israeli athletes. The savage attack, which stunned the world, was claimed by the group to be in reprisal for the razing of two Palestinian Christian villages after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Early the next morning, all the hostages were killed in a gun battle between the terrorists and West German police.
Canterbury Cathedral suffered a devastating fire today in 1174, when sparks from burning cottages entered its roof space and began a blaze. The fire happened just four years after Archbishop Thomas Becket had been murdered in the cathedral, and one year after he had been declared a saint, and it has been claimed the fire was started deliberately so that an elaborate shrine for Becket could be built, drawing pilgrims and cash to the cathedral and monastery. This in fact happened, when the French architect William of Sens repaired the quire and constructed a new chapel for Becket’s relics. Sens introduced Gothic architecture to England for the first time, with pointed arches and flying buttresses.
Meanwhile, today in 1666, another fire, the Great Fire of London, began to burn itself out, having consumed 13,500 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral, and many other public buildings.
The greatest religious festival of ancient Rome, the Ludi Magni or ‘Great Games’, dedicated to the god Jupiter, opened on this day each year, continuing for two weeks. The games included boxing, wrestling, chariot racing and gladiators, plus dancing and Greek-style theatre. The middle day of the month, the Ides of September, included a feast offered to Jupiter, in which the statues of the gods were placed on pulvinaria (soft pillows) around a high table, and served luxurious food – which was actually scoffed by the people arranging it all.
Image: National Archives Catalog