William Archibald Spooner, English priest and scholar (d. 1930)
William Archibald Spooner (22 July 1844 – 29 August 1930) was a long-serving Oxford don. He was most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionally comic effect. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms, and are often used humorously. Many spoonerisms have been invented and attributed to Spooner.
1844Jul, 22
William Archibald Spooner
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Events on 1844
- 8Mar
Union between Sweden and Norway
King Oscar I ascends to the thrones of Sweden and Norway. - 23May
Bahá'í Faith
Declaration of the Báb the evening before the 23rd: A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would later be brutally crushed by the Persian government. He is considered to be a forerunner of the Bahá'í Faith; Bahá'ís celebrate the day as a holy day. - 24May
Old Supreme Court Chamber
Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. - 27Jun
Death of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are killed by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail. - 22Oct
Great Disappointment
The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.