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Born in 1952 – Bill Walton, American basketball player and sportscaster.

“ When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven and the age of the Romantics.”

Today in the port city of Hodeidah in western Yemen: 26 civilians were killed in airstrikes by a coalition led by U.S. backed Saudi Arabia.

Yemen is currently experiencing one of the worst cholera outbreaks in history.

“When the U.S. fuels and arms the Saudis and their allies, this is what our government is enabling in Yemen. These are all violations of international law, and by helping to make them possible the U.S. knowingly makes itself complicit in the commission of war crimes. That must end if there is to be any hope of halting the war in the near future.”

In 1517 Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Above: “Sale of Indulgences”, a 1524 Woodcut by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Born in 1932 – Louis Malle, French director, producer, and screenwriter.

Above: Still from Malle’s 1981 film My Dinner With Andre.

“But, Wally, don’t you see that comfort can be dangerous? I mean, you like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable too, but comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility.”

Born in

1466 – Erasmus, Dutch philosopher and reformer.

“A constant element of enjoyment must be mingled with our studies, so that we think of learning as a game rather than a form of drudgery, for no activity can be continued for long if it does not to some extent afford pleasure to the participant.”

Above: 1523 portrait of Desiderius Erasmus, by Hans Holbein.

The Aberfan disaster. In 1966

the catastrophic collapse of a National Coal Board colliery spoil tip in the Welsh village of Aberfan killed 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed the local junior school and other buildings in the town.

Below: A memorial to the deceased.