Monday, March 18, 2024

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MARCH 18



On this day in 37 AD, the Roman Senate annulled Tiberius's will and proclaimed Caligula emperor.

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On this day in 1314, Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake.

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On this day in 1834, six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England were sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.

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On this day in 1850, American Express was founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.

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On this day in 1892, former Governor General Lord Stanley pledged to donate a silver challenge cup, later named after him, as an award for the best hockey team in Canada; originally presented to amateur champions, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to the top pro team since 1910, and since 1926, only to National Hockey League teams.

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On this day in 1922, in India, Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience. He served only 2 years.

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On this day in 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs Hawaii into existence as a member state, in full and equal standing, of the United States of America. All of the other states - excluding Alabama - subsequently experience a short-lived collective obsession with all things Polynesian. Today, you can still find evidence of this fad in small New England towns where people go to Chinese restaurants to get drunk. Deceptively powerful cocktails served in ceramic volcanoes, topless hula dolls gyrating seductively over pu-pu platters piled high with sweet-glazed meat, half-naked Samoans twirling fiery batons while making "ooga-booga" faces; this kitsch ephemera remains, scattered and tenacious like the radioactive residue from a dirty bomb, in the half-life death-grip of immutable plastic eternity... Man. This is some good weed.

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On this day in 1965, cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, leaving his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes, became the first person to walk in space.

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On this day in 1968, the U.S. Congress repealed the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.

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On this day in 1974, most OPEC nations ended a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan.

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On this day in 1989, in Egypt, a 4,400-year-old mummy was found near the Pyramid of Cheops.

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On this day in 1995, sports/entertainment/footwear titan/mogul Michael Fucking Jordan announces his return to the NBA after a 17 month "retirement" during which time he played a little minor league baseball. Whether or not this has anything to do with his father being murdered in cold blood, or his monster gambling habit, who can say?

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On this day in 1996, an unnamed comatose woman gives birth to the son of John Horace, the man who brutally beat and raped her nine months earlier. 365 days later, on this day in 1997, she mercifully passes away.

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