World Meditation day

World Meditation day takes place on 21 May Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Scholars have found meditation difficult to define, as practices vary both between traditions and within them.

Meditation has been practiced since 1500 BCE antiquity in numerous religious traditions, often as part of the path towards enlightenment and self realization. The earliest records of meditation (Dhyana), come from the Hindu traditions of Vedantism. Since the 19th century, Asian meditative techniques have spread to other cultures where they have also found application in non-spiritual contexts, such as business and health. Meditation may be used with the aim of reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and pain, and increasing peace, perception, self-concept, and well-being. Meditation may also have other possible health (psychological, neurological, and cardiovascular) benefits.

• American Red Cross Founder’s Day 
• National Memo Day
• Strawberries and Cream Day
• National Waitstaff Day
• World Day for Cultural Diversity, for Dialogue and Development 
• Sister Maria Hummel Day
• Culture Freedom Day
• I Need a Patch for That Day
• National Learn to Swim Day
• Preakness Stakes
• Rapture Party Day
• World Whisky Day

Henri Rousseau

French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was born May 21, 1844 He was also known as Le Douanier (the customs officer), a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector.Ridiculed during his lifetime, he came to be recognized as a self-taught genius whose works are of high artistic quality. Henri Rousseau was born in Laval, France in 1844 into the family of a plumber; he was forced to work there as a small boy.He attended Laval High School as a day student and then as a boarder, after his father became a debtor and his parents had to leave the town upon the seizure of their house. He was mediocre in some subjects at the high school but won prizes for drawing and music. He worked for a lawyer and studied law, but “attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army,”serving for four years, starting in 1863. With his father’s death, Rousseau moved to Paris in 1868 to support his widowed mother as a government employee. In 1868, he married Clémence Boitard, his landlord’s 15 year-old daughter, with whom he had six children (only one survived). In 1871, he was appointed as a collector of the octroi of Paris, collecting taxes on goods entering Paris. His wife died in 1888 and he married Josephine Noury in 1898. He started painting seriously in his early forties, and by age 49 he retired from his job to work on his art full-time.

His best known paintings depict jungle scenes, even though he never left France or saw a jungle. Stories spread by admirers that his army service included the French expeditionary force to Mexico are unfounded. His inspiration came from illustrated books and the botanical gardens in Paris, as well as tableaux of taxidermied wild animals. He had also met soldiers during his term of service who had survived the French expedition to Mexico, and he listened to their stories of the subtropical country they had encountered. To the critic Arsène Alexandre, he described his frequent visits to the Jardin des Plantes: “When I go into the glass houses and I see the strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream.”Along with his exotic scenes there was a concurrent output of smaller topographical images of the city and its suburbs. He claimed to have invented a new genre of portrait landscape, which he achieved by starting a painting with a view such as a favourite part of the city, and then depicting a person in the foreground.

In 1905, Rousseau’s large jungle scene The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope (above) was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants near works by younger leading avant-garde artists such as Henri Matisse in what is now seen as the first showing of The Fauves. Rousseau’s painting may even have influenced the naming of the Fauves. When Pablo Picasso happened upon a painting by Rousseau being sold on the street as a canvas to be painted over, the younger artist instantly recognised Rousseau’s genius and went to meet him. In 1908 Picasso held a half serious, half burlesque banquet in his studio in Le Bateau-Lavoir in Rousseau’s honour. Following Rousseau’s retirement in 1893, he supplemented his small pension with part-time jobs and work such as playing a violin in the streets. He also worked briefly at Le petit journal, where he produced a number of its covers.The Dream (1910), Rousseau exhibited his final painting, The Dream, at the 1910 Salon des Independantsa few months before his death on 2 September 1910 in the Hospital Necker in Paris.At his funeral, seven friends stood at his grave in the Cimetière de Bagneux: the painters Paul Signac and Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, the artist couple Robert Delaunay and Sonia Terk, the sculptor Brâncuşi, Rousseau’s landlord Armand Queval and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Geoffrey de Havilland OM CBE AFC RDAI FRAeS

British aviation pioneer and aircraft engineer Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, OM, CBE, AFC, RDI, FRAeS, sadly died aged 82, of a cerebral haemorrhage, on 21 May 1965 at Watford Peace Memorial Hospital, Hertfordshire. He was born 27 July 1882 at Magdala House, Terriers, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, And was educated at Nuneaton Grammar School, St Edward’s School, Oxford and the Crystal Palace School of Engineering (from 1900 to 1903).

Upon graduating from engineering training, de Havilland pursued a career in automotive engineering, building cars and motorcycles. He took an apprenticeship with engine manufacturers Willans & Robinson of Rugby, after which he worked as a draughtsman for The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company Limited in Birmingham, a job from which he resigned after a year. He then spent two years working in the design office of Motor Omnibus Construction Company Limited in Walthamstow. While there he designed his first aero engine and had the first prototype made by Iris Motor Company of Willesden. He married in 1909 and almost immediately embarked on the career of designing, building and flying aircraft to which he devoted the rest of his life.

Geoffrey de Havilland’s first aircraft took two years to build before he crashed it during its first very short flight at Seven Barrows near Litchfield, Hampshire in 1910. A memorial marks the event. Subsequent designs were more successful: in 1912 he established a new British altitude record of 10,500 feet (3.2 km) in an aircraft of his design, the B.E.2. De Havilland was the designer and his brother Hereward the test pilot. In December 1910, de Havilland joined HM Balloon Factory at Farnborough, which was to become the Royal Aircraft Factory. He sold his second aeroplane (which he had used to teach himself to fly) to his new employer for £400. It became the F.E.1, the first aircraft to bear an official Royal Aircraft Factory designation. For the next three years de Havilland designed, or participated in the design of, a number of experimental types at the “Factory”.In January 1914, de Havilland was appointed an inspector of aircraft in the Aeronautical Inspection Directorate. Unhappy at leaving design work, in May he was recruited to become the Chief Designer at Airco, in Hendon. He designed many aircraft for Airco, all designated by his initials, DH. Large numbers of de Havilland designed aircraft were used during the First World War, flown by the Royal Flying Corps and later the Royal Air Force.Airco was bought by the BSA Company, but BSA was only interested in using the company factories for car production.

After Raising £20,000, de Havilland bought the relevant assets he needed and in 1920 formed the de Havilland Aircraft Company at Stag Lane Aerodrome, Edgware, where he and his company designed and built a large number of aircraft, including the Moth family. In 1933 the company moved to Hatfield Aerodrome, in Hertfordshire. One of his roles was as test pilot for the company’s aircraft, in all of which he liked to fly. He was believed to have said “we could have had jets” in reference to the ignoring of jet engine possibilities prior to the start of the 1939-45 world war. The company’s aircraft, particularly the Mosquito, played a formidable role in the Second World War. Until it was bought by the Hawker Siddeley Company in 1960, de Havilland controlled the company.

De Havilland Mosquito

Geoffrey De Havilland also developed and built the The de Havilland DH 106 Comet which was the first production commercial Jetliner at its Hatfield, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom headquarters, the Comet 1 prototype first flew on 27 July 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wings, a pressurised fuselage, and large square windows. For the era, it offered a relatively quiet, comfortable passenger cabin and showed signs of being a commercial success at its 1952 debut. However a year after entering commercial service the Comets began suffering problems, with three of them breaking up during mid-flight in well-publicised accidents. This was later found to be due to dangerous stresses at the corners of the square windows and installation methodology plus catastrophic metal fatigue, not well understood at the time, in the airframes. The Comet was withdrawn from service and extensively tested to discover the cause; the first incident had been incorrectly blamed on adverse weather.

De havilland Comet

Following these accidents the Comet was extensively redesigned with oval windows, structural reinforcement and other changes. Rival manufacturers meanwhile heeded the lessons learned from the Comet while developing their own aircraft. Although sales never fully recovered, the improved Comet 2 and the prototype Comet 3 culminated in the redesigned Comet 4 series which debuted in 1958 and had a productive career of over 30 years. The Comet was adapted for a variety of military roles such as VIP, medical and passenger transport, as well as surveillance; the most extensive modification resulted in a specialisedmaritime patrol aircraft variant, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod. Nimrod remained in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) until June 2011, over 60 years after the Comet’s first flight.

Geoffrey, de Havilland retired from active involvement in his company, in 1955, though remaining as president. He continued flying up to the age of 70. Throughout his life De Havilland garnered many awards. In 1918, de Havilland was made an OBE and CBE in 1934. He received the Air Force Cross in 1919, in recognition of his service in theFirst World War, and was knighted in 1944. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1962. He received numerous national and international gold and silver medals and honorary fellowships of learned and engineering societies.A statue of de Havilland was erected in July 1997 near the entrance to the College Lane campus of the University of Hertfordshire inHatfield. He was in effect a benefactor of the university, as in 1951 the de Havilland company had given land adjoining the A1 to Hertfordshire County Council for educational use in perpetuity; the Hatfield Technical College then founded was a precursor of today’s university. The statue was unveiled by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh.

Dame Barbara Cartland DBE CstJ

Prolific Best -selling Romantic Author Dame Barbara Cartland, DBE, CStJ sadly died 21 May 2000. she was born 9 July 1901 in Edgbaston, Birmingham and attended The Alice Ottley School, Malvern Girls’ College, and Abbey House, an educational institution in Hampshire, Cartland soon became successful as a society reporter and writer of romantic fiction. Cartland admitted she was inspired in her early work by the novels of Edwardian author Elinor Glyn, whom she idolized and eventually befriended.

She worked as a gossip columnist for the TheDaily Express before publishing her first novel, Jigsaw in 1922, a risqué society thriller that became a bestseller. She also began writing and producing somewhat racy plays, one of which, Blood Money (1926), was banned by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. In the 1920s and 1930s Cartland was a prominent young hostess in London society, noted for her beauty, energetic charm and daring parties. Her fashion sense also had a part and she was one of the first clients of designer Norman Hartnell, remaining a client until he died in 1979. He made her presentation and wedding dresses; the latter was made to her own design against Hartnell’s wishes and she admitted it was a failure.

In 1950, Cartland was accused of plagiarism by author Georgette Heyer, after a reader drew her attention to the apparent borrowing of Heyer’s character names, character traits, dialogue and plot points in Cartland’s early historical romances. In particular, A Hazard of Hearts (1949), which replicated characters (including names) from Heyer’s Friday’s Child and The Knave of Hearts (1950) which, Heyer alleged, “the conception, the principal characters, and many of the incidents, derive directly from an early book of my own, entitled These Old Shades, first published in 1926. For minor situations and other characters she has drawn upon four of my other novels.” Heyer completed a detailed analysis of the alleged plagiarisms for her solicitors, but the case never came to court.

Cartland saw herself as a self-appointed “expert” on romance however this drew some ridicule in her later years, when her social views became more conservative. Indeed, although her first novels were considered sensational, Cartland’s later titles were comparatively tame with virginal heroines and few, if any, suggestive situations. Almost all of Cartland’s later books were historical in theme. Despite their tame story lines, Barbara Cartland’s later novels were highly successful. By 1983 she rated the longest entry in the British Who’s Who (though most of that article was a list of her books), and was named the top-selling author in the world by the Guinness World Records. In the mid-1990s, by which time she had sold over a billion books, Vogue called her “the true Queen of Romance”. She became a mainstay of the popular media in her trademark pink dresses and plumed hats, discoursing on matters of love, marriage, politics, religion, health, and fashion. She was publicly opposed to the removal of prayer from state schools and spoke against infidelity and divorce, although she admitted to being acquainted with both of these moral failings.

Cartland also took an interest in the early gliding movement. Although aerotowing for launching gliders first occurred in Germany, she thought of long-distance tows in 1931 and did a 200-mile (360 km) tow in a two-seater glider. The idea led to troop-carrying gliders. In 1984, she was awarded the Bishop Wright Air Industry Award for this contribution. She regularly attended Brooklands aerodrome and motor-racing circuit during the 1920s and ’30s, and the Brooklands Museum has preserved a sitting-room from that era and named it after her.

In 1983 Cartland wrote 23 novels, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most novels written in a single year and In 1978 Cartland released An Album of Love Songs through State Records. The album featured Cartland performing a series of popular standards with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, including “I’ll Follow My Secret Heart” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Her 723 novels have been translated into 36 different languages, and she continues to be referenced in the Guinness World Records for the most novels published in a single year in 1976. As Barbara Cartland she is known for her numerous romantic novels, but she also wrote under her married name of Barbara McCorquodale. She wrote more than 700 books, as well as plays, music, verse, drama, magazine articles and operetta she reportedly sold more than 750 million copies. Other sources estimate her book sales at more than 2 billion copies. She specialised in 19th-century Victorian era pure romance. Her novels all featured portrait style artwork, particularly the cover art. As head of Cartland Promotions she also became one of London’s most prominent society figures and one of Britain’s most popular media personalities.

Kevin Shields (My bloody valentine)

Irish musician, singer-songwriter and producer Kevin Shields was born 21 May 1965 in Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York City, United States. Shields’ parents had emigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1950s, when the couple were teenagers. Shields attended Christ the King, a Roman Catholic primary school. They lived in Flushing, a neighbourhood in north-central Queens, relocating to Commack, Long Island, when Shields was four, where he lived until the age of ten.

In 1973, Shields returned to Dublin, Ireland, And was raised in Cabinteely, a south-eastern Dublin suburb. He has described the experience of moving to Ireland as a culture shock, going from, the modern world to some distant past. According to Shields, the main difference between the US and Ireland that affected him was the attitude towards music culture: in the US there was no Top of the Pops, there was nothing like that, there was no MTV; and over in Ireland, everything was completely catered to for teenagers and the change was “what got him into music in a really big was. Shields received his first electric guitar, a Hondo SG, as a Christmas present from his parents in 1979 Shields befriended drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig in south Dublin during the summer of 1978, and together they answered an advertisement placed by a 12-year-old musician to form punk rock band The Complex. Ó Cíosóig’s schoolfriend Liam Ó Maonlaí from Coláiste Eoin in Booterstown was recruited as lead vocalist, and they played covers of songs by Sex Pistols and Ramones. The Complex disbanded when Ó Maonlaí left to form Hothouse Flowers, and Shields and Ó Cíosóig began rehearsing with another bassist. In 1981, the trio formed A Life in the Day, a band which focused on a more post-punk sound influenced by Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division

A Life in the Day disbanded in 1981, and Shields and Ó Cíosóig went on to form My Bloody Valentine in early 1983 with lead vocalist David Conway. On Shields’ suggestion, Conway contacted Gavin Friday, lead vocalist of the Dublin post-punk band the Virgin Prunes, who helped get them a gig in Tilburg, Netherlands, and the band relocated to the Netherlands. The band then moved to West Berlin, Germany, in 1984 and recorded their debut mini album, This Is Your Bloody Valentine before settling in London in 1985. The band recruited bassist Debbie Googe and released their debut extended play Geek! in December 1985. The band then released, The New Record by My Bloody Valentine and “Sunny Sundae Smile”. In 1987, David Conway left the band due to his gastric illness, disillusionment with music and ambitions to become a writer and was replaced by vocalist and guitarist Bilinda Butcher. My Bloody Valentine then released the three-track single “Strawberry Wine” the mini album Ecstasy, the EP You Made Me Realise (1988) and the debut studio album Isn’t Anything.

In 1989 My Bloody Valentine began recording their second album which Creation Records over-optimistically believed could be recorded in five days, however, being a perfectionist, Shields took control of the musical and technical aspects of the sessions and relocated to a total of 19 other studios and hired a number of engineers, including Alan Moulder, Anjali Dutt and Guy Fixsen. As the recording was taking so long, Shields and Creation agreed to release two interim EPs, Glider (1990) and Tremolo (1991). The Loveless album was eventually released in November 1991, and was rumoured to have cost over £250,000 and to have bankrupted Creation so Creation Records founder Alan McGee dropped My Bloody Valentine from the label soon after the release of Loveless, due to the album’s excessive recording time and interpersonal problems with Shields. In 1992, My Bloody Valentine signed to Island Records however a number of technical problems sent the band into “semi-meltdown”. Shields suffered writers block then Googe and Ó Cíosóig left the band in 1995, whilst Shields and Butcher attempted to record a third studio album due 1998, however My Bloody Valentine disbanded in 1997.

After leaving My Bloody Valentine, Shields embarked on a number of collaborations with other artists, both as a guest musician and producing, engineering, mixing and Remixing other acts. He contributed guitar loops to two Experimental Audio Research albums: Beyond the Pale and The Köner Experiment and collaborated with indie rock band Dinosaur Jr, appearing on and producing Hand It Over and Ear-Bleeding Country: The Best of Dinosaur Jr. as well as J Mascis’ More Light and The John Peel Sessions. Shields has also been a guest musician for Russell Mills & Undark, DJ Spooky, Curve, Manic Street Preachers, Le Volume Courbe, Gemma Hayes and Paul Weller and has performed with the Canadian contemporary dance company La La La Human Steps (contributing the song “2” Gemma Hayes, The Charlatans and Spacemen 3. He also worked on The Impossible’s 1991 single “How Do You Do It?”; and “Tunnel”, a track from GOD’s remix album Appeal to Human Greed. He produced Dot Allison’s Afterglow, Joy Zipper’s American Whip and The Beat Up’s Blackrays Defence and has also mixed and remixed material by The Pastels, Yo La Tengo, Damian O’Neill, Mogwai, Hurricane #1, The Go! Team, Bow Wow Wow and Wounded Knees. He is also a frequent collaborator and semi-permanent touring member of Primal Scream. He contributed guitar, produced and mixed tracks on two of the band’s studio albums: XTRMNTR and Evil Heat. Shields has remained close to the band following his departure in 2006, remastering Primal Scream’s third studio album Screamadelica (1991) in 2010 and contributing guitar to “2013”, the lead single from More Light.

In 2003, Shields contributed four original compositions to the soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s 2003 film, Lost in Translation after being contacted by the film’s music co-ordinator Brian Reitzell. Reitzell and Shields then began impromptu jam sessions in London resulting in the single “City Girl”. Sheilds also composed three other ambient pieces u for the film: “Goodbye”, “Ikebana” and “Are You Awake? These earned Shields nominations for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Best Film Music, an Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) award for Best Music in a Film, and an Online Film Critics Society award for Best Original Score.

In 2008, Shields collaborated with Patti Smith on the live album The Coral Sea. The double album features two performances at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, wherein Smith reads the book of the name same (which she wrote in tribute to her friend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe) over Shields’ instrumental accompaniment. My Bloody Valentine reuntited for the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, United States. In 2008, My Bloody Valentine played two live rehearsals at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, their first public performances in 16 years. They began an extensive worldwide tour in summer 2008 (their first since their 1992 tour in support of Loveless) including appearances at Øyafestivalen in Oslo, Norway, Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Ireland, and the Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata, Japan.

In 2011, Shields launched the independent record label Pickpocket together with Le Volume Courbe frontwoman Charlotte Marionneau. In 2012 remastered versions of Isn’t Anything and Loveless were released as well as the EP’s 1988–1991 collection, which featured the band’s Shields-remastered Creation Records extended plays, singles and unreleased tracks. My Bloody Valentine’s third album “m b v” was eventually released through the band’s official website In 2013, and the band began a worldwide tour. Shields also intends to release remastered analogue cuts of My Bloody Valentine’s back catalogue and a My Bloody Valentine EP “of all-new material”, followed by a fourth studio album.