On this day in 1857, French philosopher, founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism, Auguste Comte died in Paris at the age of 59 from stomach cancer. Born Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte in Montpellier, Hérault, in southern France on 19 January 1798. He was a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism. He is sometimes regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of the term. Strongly influenced by the utopian socialist Henri Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French Revolution, calling for a new social doctrine based on the sciences. Comte was a major influence on 19th-century thought. Comte’s social theories culminated in the “Religion of Humanity”, which influenced the development of religious humanist and secular humanist organizations in the 19th century. Comte coined the word altruisme (altruism).
The Final Footprint – Comte is interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery, surrounded by cenotaphs in memory of his mother, Rosalie Boyer, and of Clotilde de Vaux, his muse. Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Bizet, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Frédéric Chopin, Colette, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Eugène Delacroix, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.
On this day in 1877, Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota, Tasunke Witko (literally “His-Horse-Is-Crazy” or “His-Horse-Is-Spirited”), Crazy Horse, was fatally wounded, after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook, while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska (in the Pine Ridge region of northwest Nebraska). Born Cha-O-Ha (“In the Wilderness” or “Among the Trees”, meaning he was one with nature) sometime between 1840 and 1845 possibly somewhere on the South Cheyenne River. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party to victory over George Armstrong Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. Crazy Horse ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members and has been honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
Model of the planned statue with a the Memorial in the background
The Final Footprint – His body was taken to Camp Sheridan and placed on a scaffold. The following month when the Spotted Tail Agency was moved to the Missouri River, his parents had his body moved to an undisclosed location. There are at least four possible locations as noted on a state highway memorial near Wounded Knee, South Dakota. His final resting place remains unknown. Crazy Horse has been memorialized by the Crazy Horse Memorial, carved into the side of a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
On this day in 1988, actor (Goldfinger in the James Bond film Goldfinger, as Peachum in The Threepenny Opera, as Baron Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as Hotzenplotz in Der Räuber Hotzenplotz, General Dietrich von Choltitz in Is Paris Burning?, Colonel Manfred von Holstein in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines) Gert Fröbe died in Munich in September 1988 at age 75 from a heart attack.
The Final Footprint – Waldfriedhof cemetery in Icking, Bavaria, Germany.
On this day in 1997, Mother Teresa, known in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta died in Calcutta at the age of 87. Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on 26 August 1910 in Üsküp, Kosovo Vilayet, Ottoman Empire. After living in Macedonia for eighteen years she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
In 1950 Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation which had over 4,500 sisters and was active in 133 countries in 2012. The congregation manages homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis; soup kitchens; dispensaries and mobile clinics; children’s- and family-counselling programmes; orphanages, and schools. Members, who take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, also profess a fourth vow: to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor”.
Teresa received a number of honours, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonised (recognised by the church as a saint) on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day.
A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticised for her opposition to abortion, and criticised for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorised biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books. On September 6, 2017, Teresa was named co-patron of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta, alongside St. Francis Xavier.
The Final Footprint
Teresa lay in repose in St Thomas, Calcutta, for a week before her funeral. She received a state funeral from the Indian government in gratitude for her service to the poor of all religions in the country. Teresa’s death was mourned in the secular and religious communities. Her final resting place is the Motherhouse Convent in Calcutta.
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