W B Yeats - Irish Poet

William  Butler Yeats, was an Irish Poet, Dramatist, Senator, and co-founder of Ireland's First National Theater.  He was influenced by his father who was a painter.  W B  Yeats was a good friend of Indian Poet Rabindranath Tagore and he was instrumental in translating "Gitanjali", a poem by Tagore into English.  Tagore, who penned the Indian and Bangladeshi National Anthems, won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1913 while Yeats himself went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1923.  He was the first Irish man to win the Nobel Prize.

On 11th June 2015, for his 150th birth anniversary, Ireland Post (An Post) has issued stamps and FDC.  I am very thankful to Mr. Stuart of Ireland who gifted me the below FDC.

8th May: World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day.

May 8^th is World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day. Red Cross is an International humanitarian Movement founded to protect human life and health. It is celebrated on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the founder of the Red Cross movement Mr.Henry Dunant.  Did you know that the very first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the year 1901 to Henry Dunant and Frederic Passy? Since then, Red Cross has won the Nobel Prize in the years 1917, 1944 and in 1963.

The First Red Cross day was celebrated on 8^th May 1949.

The above stamp was issued by Hong Kong in the year 2013 to mark the 150th anniversary of the ICRC.  Perforations in the shape of a cross are used for the first time by Hong Kong Post to highlight the emblem of the ICRC.

The above First Day Cover was issued by Mauritius Post for the 150th Anniversary of the Red Cross.  You can see Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross on the left top corner of the emblem.

  

7th May: Rabindranath Tagore's Birth Anniversary

Man without Boundaries:

Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta on May 7^th 1861.  Rabindranath was the 13^th child of an art-loving Brahmin Tagore family. It is said that he hated classrooms and never been to proper schooling in his childhood. He started writing poems at the age of eight. Even though he is largely known for his rhythmic poems, he also penned several short stories, essays, novels, dramas, and travelogues.  He scored music for his songs too. It was only at the age of sixty that he spent more of his time working on drawings.

A little known fact about Tagore is his contributions to the National Anthems of three countries.  He wrote the National anthem of India (Jana Gana Mana) and Bangladesh (Amar Shonar Bangla). And finally, the National anthem of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka Matha) was originally written and tuned by Tagore and later it was translated and composed by Anana Samarakoon in 1940.

He is the first non-European to win Nobel Prize for Literature in the year 1913. He also Knighted by the British Government in 1915, but he resigned the honor as a protest against  Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919.

In his lifetime he traveled to more than thirty countries on five continents.  Most of his works were translated into English and other languages even during his lifetime.  This made him popular in Western countries.  Many countries issued stamps of Rabindranath Tagore.  Below is the stamp issued by India in 2011 on the occasion of the 150^th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.