The glorious twelfth

Ask people what they know about the Glorious Twelfth and you may not get a consistent answer.

The Glorious Twelfth, otherwise known as Orangemen’s Day is July 12th and is a Protestant celebration of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and ultimately the victory of the Protestant King Billy (King William III) over the Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It is one of the main days of the Ulster marching season to this day. Whoever said that history is written by the victors had a point!

But that is not necessarily the answer most people will give and, as today is August 12th, they could be forgiven for thinking I was referring to that date and not July 12th. They would be right! Today is most often associated with the start of the grouse shooting season (lagopus lagopus scoticus) and the ptarmigan season (lagopus muta) as a result of legislation framed almost 180 years ago.

August 12th is the anniversary of the birthdays of Pete Sampras, tennis player, George IV, Cecil B de Mille and actress Dominique Swaine, famous for her role as the title character in the film of Nabokov’s Lolita.

It is also the anniversary of the death of Ian Fleming and Henry Fonda.

What may be less well known is that August 12th is also the anniversary of:

• The first sound recording made by Thomas Edison in 1887.
• The launch of Echo, the world’s first communications satellite in 1969.
• IBM’s introduction of its first Personal Computer in 1981.
• Susan Hutchison’s discovery in 1990 in a cliff face in South Dakota of three huge bones later identified as the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. The skeleton proved to be over 90% complete and has been dated to 65 million years old. Not entirely surprisingly it was nicknamed Sue!
• Norwich piloting a scheme in 2006, the first in the country, to provide free WiFi access; see my recent post about Civilisation starting in Norfolk!
  [Life but not as we know it – 15th July , 2010]

The best is often kept to last!

Exactly one year ago today, on 12th August 2009, Millnet posted its first piece on the Smart e-Discovery blog:  From the supreme to the ridiculous. I said at the outset that it was intended to be a partly serious and partly light hearted look at the world of e-Discovery and I hope you will agree that it has been true to its word!

We have all enjoyed writing it and hope you have enjoyed reading it.
Happy Birthday to us and here’s to the next 12 months.