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  3. April
  4. 17
  5. Kerry Wendell Thornley

Births on April 17

Kerry Wendell Thornley
1938Apr, 17

Kerry Wendell Thornley

Kerry Wendell Thornley, American theorist and author (d. 1988)
Kerry Wendell Thornley (April 17, 1938 – November 28, 1998) was an American author. He is known as the co-founder (along with childhood friend Greg Hill) of Discordianism, in which context he is usually known as Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst or simply Lord Omar. He and Hill authored the religion's text Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess, And What I Did To Her When I Found Her. Thornley was also known for his 1962 manuscript, The Idle Warriors, which was based on the activities of his acquaintance, Lee Harvey Oswald, prior to the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.Thornley was highly active in the countercultural publishing scene, writing for a number of underground magazines and newspapers, and self-publishing many one-page (or broadsheet) newsletters of his own. One such newsletter called Zenarchy was published in the 1960s under the pen name Ho Chi Zen. Zenarchy is described in the introduction of the collected volume as "the social order which springs from meditation", and "A noncombative, nonparticipatory, no-politics approach to anarchy intended to get the serious student thinking."

Raised Mormon, in adulthood Kerry shifted his ideological focus frequently, in rivalry with any serious countercultural figure of the 1960s. Among the subjects he closely scrutinized throughout his life were atheism, anarchism, Objectivism, autarchism (he attended Robert LeFevre's Freedom School), neo-paganism, Kerista, Buddhism, and the memetic inheritor of Discordianism, the Church of the SubGenius.

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Events on 1938

  • 18Feb

    Nanking Massacre

    Second Sino-Japanese War: During the Nanking Massacre the Nanking Safety Zone International Committee is renamed "Nanking International Rescue Committee" and the safety zone in place for refugees falls apart.
  • 12Mar

    Austria

    Anschluss: German troops occupy and absorb Austria.
  • 23Sep

    Munich Agreement

    Mobilization of the Czechoslovak army in response to the Munich Agreement.
  • 30Sep

    Munich Agreement

    Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
  • 30Oct

    The War of the Worlds (radio drama)

    Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.

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