In 1572 – Mob violence against thousands of Protestant Huguenots in Paris results in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre.

Above: One morning at the gates of the Louvre, 19th-century painting by Édouard Debat-Ponsan.

Born in 1908 – Henri Cartier-Bresson, French photographer.

Above: China 1948-49

Previously: Ray Bradbury

Total Eclipse: McMinnville, OR.

It’s the feast day of Bernard of Clairvaux.

“Believe me, you will find more lessons in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you cannot learn from masters.“

thenumeral5:

Born in 1932: Richard Claxton “Dick” Gregory, the American comedian, writer, and social critic. 

In 1839, the French government announced that Louis Daguerre’s photographic process would be a gift “free to the world”.

Above: Still life with plaster casts, made by Daguerre in 1837, the earliest reliably dated daguerreotype.

Born in 1969 – Christian Slater, American actor and producer.

Above: Slater in the 1988 film, Heathers.

Born in 1943 – Robert De Niro, American actor and producer.

Born in 1928 – Nicolas Roeg, English director and cinematographer.

Above: Still from Roeg’s 1971 film Walkabout.

Born in 1875 – Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Russian-Lithuanian-American painter and illustrator.

Above: Dobuzhinsky’s Portrait of Konstantin Sunnerberg, 1905.