On this day in 1782, the US Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States, using a design that is fairly dripping with occult significance. Read all about it.
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On this day in 1793, inventor Eli Whitney applies for a patent on his cotton gin, but regulators prove reluctant when they find out you can't drink it. Not without getting cottonmouth, anyway.
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On this day in 1837, Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne, thus kicking off the Victorian Era.
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On this day in 1840, inventor Samuel Morse receives the patent for his telegraph machine. Therefore, Di-di-di-dit Di-dah Di-dah-dah-dit Di-dah-dah-dit Dah-di-dah-dah, Dah-di-di-dit Di-dit Di-dah-dit Dah Di-di-di-dit Dah-di-dit Di-dah Dah-di-dah-dah Dah-di-dah-di-dah-dah!
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On this day in 1945, the United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of great big Nazi Wernher von Braun and his team of great big Nazi rocket scientists to America, where they all lived happily ever after.
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On this day in 1963, leaders from the United States and the Soviet Union agree to set up a telephone "Hot Line" to guarantee instant communication at all times, in case of a nuclear emergency. Less than one year later, Stanley Kubrick would have a fictional President Merkin Muffley hilariously inform a drunken Premiere Kissoff that one of his generals… "well, he went a little funny… funny in the head. And he did a silly thing." The film is Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and the President was played by the legendary Peter Sellers, in the absolute funniest one-sided telephone conversation ever caught on film. If you haven't seen this movie yet, what are you waiting for? You think art isn't important? Now more than ever, folks… now more than ever.
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On this day in 1972, an 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.
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On this day in 2003, the WikiMedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida. Its most popular website, Wikipedia, always ranks in the Top Ten most visited websites worldwide, and has become a legitimate source of information.
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On this day in 2009, during protests of the Iranian election, a lady named Neda Agha-Soltan is shot and killed by a pro-government Basij militia member. Her death was captured on video and it spread virally on the Internet, making it one of the most widely witnessed deaths in all of human history. The Iranian government's behavior in the wake of Neda's death is perhaps the best evidence the world has that said nation is run by some of the nastiest assholes around.
HappyJUNETEENTH, everybody!On this day in 1862, US Congress prohibits
slavery in United States, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford. News of the
Emancipation Proclamation only reached slaves in Galveston, Texas, three years
later to the day, on this day in 1865. The anniversary of this day is still
officially celebrated in Texas and 13 other states as Juneteenth!
"No man can put a
chain around the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end
fastened about his own neck."-Frederick
Douglass
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On this day in the year 240 BC, some old Greek dude by the name of Eratosthenes correctly estimates the circumference of the Earth to within a few dozen miles. Pretty impressive!
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On this day in 1934, the Communications Act establishes the Federal Communications Commission, still widely reviled as the FCC. On YouTube, you will find a little ditty from Monty Python’s Eric Idle that expresses many people’s feelings towards that particular institution…
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On this day in 1953, husband and wife communist spy team Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are both executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York, for giving the Soviets technical information about how to make a nuclear bomb that accelerated their efforts in that regard by roughly one full year, according to one Congressional study.
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On this day in 1954, the Taz the Tasmanian Devil makes his debut in the Warner Bros. cartoon: Devil May Hare! Today, millions of steroid-shooting, raisin-ball’d goons have adopted the whirling freak as an avatar of sorts, stamping his likeness on everything from muscle-shirts to vehicle mud-flaps. Anyone whose favorite Warner Bros. cartoon character is "Taz" is a person that you should try to avoid.
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The first ever Garfield comic strip is published on this day in 1971. It still holds the Guinness World Record for the world's most widely syndicated comic strip.
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On this day in 1982, the body of God's Banker, Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. The story of his downfall involves the Mafia, the Vatican, the CIA and the Freemasons. Folks, things simply do NOT get any more conspiratorial than this story.
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On this day in 1991, the USSR ends its occupation of Hungary. Some really top-notch pornography ensues.
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On this day in 1981, the heaviest known orange in the history of the world – weighing in at an impressive five pounds – is exhibited in Nelspruit, South Africa. Meanwhile, on that same day in India, the APPLE communications satellite is launched into orbit. Apples and oranges! A coincidence? Yeah, right…
On this day in 1178, five Canterbury monks see what is possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed when they spot a huge explosion taking place on the surface of the Moon. Here's how they described what they saw:
“From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance.”
I don’t know about you guys, but that would have freaked the hell OUT of me if I'd seen that.
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On this day in 1812, the US Congress declares war on the United Kingdom. Chaos ensues.
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On this day in 1945, English-speaking pro-German propaganda broadcaster William Joyce - more infamously known as Lord Haw-Haw - is charged with treason. When you go back and listen to his broadcasts, they're actually no more seditious or objectionable than what you can hear on AM talk radio 24 hours a day from the likes of Michael "the Savage" Wiener, panic-mongering pants-wetting phony Glenn Beck, and right-wing radio's deceased clown prince, Rush Limbaugh.
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On this day in 1873, infamous rabble-rousing suffragette Susan B. Anthony is fined 100 dollars for attempting to vote during the previous year's Presidential elections.
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On this day in 1928, aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air. But don't let too excited, ladies... it was as a passenger this time.
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On this day in 2006, Kazakhstan launches their first ever satellite into orbit. That's right, you read right... Kazakhstan, of Central Asian dictatorship infamy, has access to space-faring technology. I mean, it's not as bad as if it had been Turkmenistan, but still!
On this day in 1631, Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her grief-stricken husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, a little building you and I know as… the Taj Mahal.
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On this day in 1856, the Republican Party opens its first national convention in Philadelphia. Chaos ensues.
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On this day in 1885, sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s colossal neoclassical statue, the Statue of Liberty, arrives in New York Harbor in pieces aboard the French steamer ship Isere, a gift to the American people from the nation of France.
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On this day in 1939, the final public execution in France takes place when convicted murderer Eugen Weidmann is guillotined before an unruly crowd of gawkers in Versailles, France, just outside the Saint-Pierre prison. The execution was surreptitiously filmed from an apartment adjacent to the prison. That fact, combined with the crowd’s unruly behavior, caused French President Albert Lebrun to pass legislation stipulating that all future executions were to take place behind closed doors. The guillotine would continue chopping off heads until September of 1977, when it was used to dispatch Tunisian immigrant Hamida Djandoubi, who had been convicted of torturing, then murdering, his girlfriend.
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Happy Birthday to the plucky, eccentric island nation of ICELAND, which declared its independence from Denmark on this day in 1944!
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Also celebrating a birthday today is the WAR ON (some) DRUGS, which was launched by President Richard Nixon on this day in 1971!
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On this day in 1994, the world watches on CNN as OJ Simpson leads the LAPD on the most infamous police chase in history. Yes, that's right... this is the 31st anniversary of Bloody Orenthal's abortive "excape" attempt! Can you believe it?! Quothe Uncle John's Band: "Where does the time go?"
On this day in the year 1755, the Loyalist Colonel Moncton and his army attack and defeat the Acadian enclave of Fort Beausejour on Canada's east coast. After that, it all turns nasty for yer old pal Jerky's ancestors. Within weeks, the Brits are burning down Acadian homes and crops, slaughtering and stealing livestock, and otherwise making a real mess of the place. Towards the end of that long, hot summer, the Brits decide they'd rather not have any French-speaking neighbors. So they round them up, load them onto rickety boats, steal their few remaining possessions, and ship over three-quarters of the Acadian population madly off in all directions. "Anywhere but here" was their motto. Most of the deportees ended up in Louisiana, where they invented Cajun cooking and taught themselves to talk funny for tourists.
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On this day in 1816, leading Romantic movement figure Lord Byron issues a challenge to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati. His proposal, that he, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori each write a tale to terrify the others, culminates in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, Polidori writing the short story The Vampyre, and Byron writing the poem Darkness.
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On this day in 1883, at the Victoria Hall theatre in Sunderland, England, the audience at a Fay Family Children’s Variety Show were told that there would be door prizes for children who held tickets bearing a particular number. In the ensuing mad dash for free goodies, an incredible 183 children had the life squeezed out of them as they were crushed against a heavy iron door bolted in such a manner as to only allow one child through at a time.
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This day in 1904 is the day on which all the fictional events in James Joyce's ground-breaking novel Ulysses supposedly take place. Literary wanks call this day Bloomsday, while the Irish call it... Wednesday.
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On this day in 1911, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company is founded in the city of Endicott, New York. The company would switch to the much more memorable International Business Machines, or IBM, in 1924.
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In the history of the US Open golf tournament, only 21 holes-in-one have ever been sunk. Four of them happened on this day in 1989 when Weaver, Wiebe, Pate and Price all sink the sixth hole on a single shot.
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On this day in 2010, the South Asian nation of Bhutan becomes the first country in the world to institute a total ban on the cultivation, harvesting, production, and sale of tobacco.
On this day in 763 BC, Assyrian astronomers record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of all Mesopotamian - and many other peoples' - ancient history.
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On this day in 1667, the first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr Jean-Baptiste Denys. I can't help but imagine that the process hurts like the dickens.
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On this day in 1752, American living legend Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is made out of electricity. Shazam!
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On this day in the year 1896, Japanese followers of the Shinto religion pick a really, really bad time to hold a beach party. As they pray and chant and do whatever it is Shinto believers do, a giant tidal wave rises up and crashes into the beach, killing over twenty-seven thousand people and injuring nine thousand more. I don’t know about you folks, but if yer old pal Jerky had survived such an event, he’d be giving some serious consideration to switching religions.
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On this day in 1924, the nation's native Americans are officially proclaimed citizens of the United States of America. And so we take a moment to wish a very happy Bitter Irony Day to all our native friends!
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On this day in 1944, in the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, is elected and forms the first socialist government in North America. To this day, Douglas always scores high on lists of Canada's "Favorite Canadians in History."
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On this day in 1969, CBS replaces the popular Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour - which they cancelled for taking a stand against the Vietnam war - with Hee Haw, featuring the hillbilly charms of Roy Clark and Buck Owens. The nation's collective IQ drops a total of five points before the first season is through.
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On this day in 1978, Jordan's King Hussein marries American hottie Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor.
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On this day in 2005, human political prop Terri Schiavo's autopsy results come in. After opening her up and having a look around, doctors discovered that 1) her cause of death was acute dehydration, 13 days after having her feeding tube removed; 2) there was no evidence whatsoever that her husband was abusing her, as some of the freakier Jesus Freaks in this debacle had alleged; and 3) Terri had indeed lost more than 50% brain volume during her fifteen years in a persistent vegetative state.
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On this day in 2008, Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, triggering the 2008 financial crisis.
On this day in 1642, America's first ever compulsory education law is passed in Massachusetts, effectively forcing kids to attend school for a mandated minimum amount of instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. Now, with hindsight, we can see that the passing of this law was nothing less than the rhetorical fat kid arriving at the metaphorical top of the allegorical slippery slope of the socialistic/communistic nanny state, which has led us inexorably to our current society-wide crisis. And who but those Godforsaken liberals - or maybe a Kennedy (spit) - can deny that we are being overrun by atheistic gun-toting homosexual grade-school terrorists on crack!?
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On this day in 1777, America's Continental Congress chooses the Stars n' Stripes to replace the Grand Union flag. It's a good thing they didn't go with their first choice for a replacement: a cartoonish portrait of King George III sucking Ben Franklin's cock, with the words "Mmmm... Daddy LIKES!" scrawled across the bottom. I mean, it makes a point, but it probably wouldn't have stood the test of time.
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On this day in 1822, a British scientist by the name of Charles Babbage proposes a "difference engine" in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". It is the beginning of the end of all mankind, as the ROBOTALYPSE could never have happened without this terrible first step.
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On this day in 1947, a UFO crash-lands near Roswell, New Mexico. Or not. Depends on who you ask.
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On this day in 1951, the supercomputer known as UNIVAC I is handed over to the US Census Bureau where it begins tabulating who will live and who will die in the coming ROBOTALYPSE (see above).
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On this day in the year 1954 - in the wake of a new American religiosity which sprouted, fungus-like, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud - President Eisenhower signs a Congressional resolution adding the words "under God" to the heretofore secular Pledge of Allegiance. Previously, the last phrase read: "...one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Yer old pal Jerky much prefers the original, non-superstitious version.
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On this day, in the year 1986, acclaimed Argentinian fantasist Jorge Luis Borges shuffles off into the labyrinth in search of stories that will forever remain untold.
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On this day in 2002, Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. A close shave, indeed.
On this day in 1373, the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance between England and Portugal is founded. It remains the oldest alliance in the world that is still in force to this day.
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On this day in 1525, rogue German cleric Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns. This perhaps helps explain his “Protestantism” to a certain degree.
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On this day in 1886, one day after being deposed, Bavaria’s “Mad” King Ludwig II is found dead in Lake Starnberg, in waist-deep water, along with his personal physician. Both have unexplained wounds to their head and shoulders.
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On this day in 1934, German fuhrer Adolf Hitler and Italian generalissimo Benito Mussolini meet in Venice, Italy. Mussolini later describes the German dictator as "a silly little monkey".
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On this day in 1966, the US Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them, much to their extreme displeasure.
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On this day in 1971, the New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers. Pretty heavy stuff.
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On this day in the year 1981, television host Tom Snyder interviews Charles Manson on his late-night program, Tomorrow. Viewers have a hard time deciding which wildly gesticulating loon looks more deranged.
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On this day in the year 1983, America’s Pioneer 10 space probe reaches the outermost boundaries of our Solar System and slips into the inky black nothingness of interstellar space. Yer old pal Jerky finds it strangely comforting that -- even after the last, toxin-riddled member of our suicidal species gurgles its final, pain-wracked breath -- these hunks of metal we’ve sent hurtling through the cosmos will still be carving a path through the void, blinking eternally, intergalactic proof that, yes, WE ONCE WERE!
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On this day in 2005, a California jury finds faded pop phenom Michael Jackson "not guilty" of ten charges stemming from allegations that he molested a 13-year-old cancer patient two years before. When asked how he was going to celebrate, a jubilant Jacko squealed: "I'm going to Disneyland! And then, after picking up a vanload of hot dates, I'm going to Neverland!"
On this day in 1942, Dutch teenager Anne Frank receives a diary as a birthday present. Years later, she will have to posthumously endure every teen-age girl's worst nightmare as millions of people go over every word she wrote in it.
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On this day in 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith. Beckwith would evade justice until his third trial, in 1994.
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Two years after his arrest, anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa on this day in 1964. He would remain behind bars, occasionally in barbaric conditions, until being freed in 1990.
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On this day in 1967, the United States Supreme Court declares all US state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional in the well-named case of Loving versus Virginia.
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On this day in 1978, the "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings in New York City. To this day, he claims he was part of a network of “Satanic” murderers and that some of the Son of Sam killings were perpetrated by others who remain at large.
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On this day in 1979, a California cyclist named Bryan Allen flew a human-propelled aircraft by the name of Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel. It took him two hours and forty-nine minutes. Also on this very same day, Kevin St. Onge takes an ordinary, everyday playing card and flicks it an incredible one hundred and eighty-five feet… a world record that still stands to this day.
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On this day in 1987, US President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall during a speech given at the Brandenburg Gate.
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On this day in 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California. O.J. Simpson is later acquitted of the killings, but is held liable in wrongful death civil suit. Alternative theories have a serial killer or even OJ's son as the true culprit.
On this day in the year 1184 BC, the Greeks capture some unlucky bastard by the name of Troy.
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On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
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On this day in 1920, US Republican Party leaders gather in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the presidential election, leading the Associated Press to first coin the political phrase smoke-filled room.
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On this day in 1936, the International Surrealist Exhibition opens in London, England, leading to a blackface banana smoking mirror-melting penis-knife.
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On this day in 1955, eighty-three are killed and at least 100 more are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide during Le Mans. It remains, to this day, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.
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On this day in 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.
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Remember that Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in the streets of Saigon to protest the war in Vietnam? Actually, there were a bunch of them, but the first one, the one whose picture we all remember, was named Quang Duc. After training for years to ensure that he maintained control through the agony and didn't thrash, Quang Duc set himself alight to protest South Vietnamese treatment of the Buddhist himority, on this day in the year 1963. When his remains were burned a second time, for cremation, the flames refused to devour his sainted heart, which became a holy relic. The honorific Thic was bestowed upon Quang Duc in recognition of his status as a Bodhisattva. Look it up.
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On this day in 1964, World War II veteran Walter Seifert runs amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.
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On this day in 1979, "American icon" John Wayne dies of the cancer he by all the time he spent on the radioactive set of 1956’s Howard Hughes epic flop, The Conqueror.
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On this day in 2001, "American icon" Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
On this day in 323 BC, after conquering almost the entirety of the known world and leaving scores of cities re-named in his honor, Macedonian legend-king Alexander the Great passes away at the ripe old age of 33.
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On this day in the year 1692, a woman named Bridget Bishop becomes the first person to be hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. In all, 20 people have their lives cut short by their former friends and neighbors before somebody points out how fucking retarded it is to hang people for no good reason. Who says small town country living is safe?
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On this day in 1886, New Zealand’s Mount Tarawera erupts, killing 153 people and destroying the famous Pink and White Terraces, considered by many of those who were lucky enough to see them to be a strong contender for the Eighth Wonder of the Natural World. Wish I could have frolicked in them.
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On this day in 1977, James Earl Ray – the man who may or may not have assassinated Martin Luther King Jr – escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee, only to be captured three days later.
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On this day in 1985, French agents restore a sense of pride to the nation's much maligned military by blowing up the un-armed Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior. A photographer drowns when he tries to retrieve his equipment from the rapidly sinking ship.
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On this day in 1991, an 11-year-old girl named Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped by Phillip Craig Garrido and his wife, Nancy, in South Lake Tahoe, California. Dugard would remain missing for more than 18 years, during which time she would be held against her will in a secure area on Garrido’s property and forced to father two daughters by her captor and tormentor.
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On this day in 2002, the first “direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans” is carried out by the intensely creepy post-humanist pseudo-philosopher cum scientism evangelist Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom. Trust me, folks… when it comes to individuals whose hubris and massive blind spots could potentially wreak untold havoc on the entire planetary ecosphere, this guy is on the short list.
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Also on this day in 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft takes to the airwaves to announce the arrest of US citizen Abdullah al-Mujahir - a.k.a. Jose Padilla - allegedly over his being part of an al-Qaeda plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a US city. Padilla was held as an “enemy combatant” for over a year, and subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (a euphemism for torture) before the major charges against him were dropped for lack of merit, and he was tried for other transgressions in civilian court in 2007. Of particular note is the fact that authorities kept him strapped into a "sensory deprivation rig" whenever he was being transported from place to place, so he would never know whether his family (who were not allowed to meet with him) were there to support him. A nice, petty, Bush-era touch of malignant hubris.
On this day in 53 AD, Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia. Fifteen years later to the day, Nero commits suicide, thus ending the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and starting the civil year known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
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The first legal corporation in the Americas is established on this day in 1650 when the Harvard Corporation establishes its charter.
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On this day in 1946, Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends to the throne, where he still sits to this day, having survived military juntas and coups and revolutions and more. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch, with one of the most loyal group of subjects any reigning monarch could ever want to have... a fact which yer old pal Jerky found out the hard way a few years back..
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On this day in 1954, US Army special counsel Joseph Welch famously rebukes Red Scare-mongering Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the American military. Welch’s impassioned defense of a young subordinate whom McCarthy had smeared on live TV resonated across the nation: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” It was the beginning of the end for the vile thug Joe McCarthy.
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On this day in the year 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known to you and I as the Cult of Mormon, strikes down its long-standing policy of excluding black men from the priesthood, probably because they're running out of stupid white people to con into believing their sham mythology.
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On this day in 1980, legendary comedian Richard Pryor accidentally sets himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. Badly burned over 80% of his body, it was a tragic irony that during his months-long hospital stay, Pryor added a variety of pain-killers and powerful laxatives to the already lengthy list of substances to which he was addicted.
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On this day in 2001, FBI agent Robert Wright gives the FBI a mission statement he wrote that outlines his complaints against his agency. It reads, in part, “Knowing what I know, I can confidently say that until the investigative responsibilities for terrorism are removed from the FBI, I will not feel safe. The FBI has proven for the past decade it cannot identify and prevent acts of terrorism against the United States and its citizens at home and abroad. Even worse, there is virtually no effort on the part of the FBI’s International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected terrorists residing within the United States. Unfortunately, more terrorist attacks against American interests, coupled with the loss of American lives, will have to occur before those in power give this matter the urgent attention it deserves.” Three months later, almost to the day, the terrorist attacks of September 11 would take place.
On this day in 632 AD, the prophet and founder of Islam, Muhammad, dies in Medina. His rule is succeeded by Abu Bakr, who becomes the first Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.
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On this day in 793 AD, the Scandinavian invasion of England begins when Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. These raids would continue for over a hundred years, until the Vikings convert, en mass, to Christianity, and become relatively docile almost overnight.
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On this day in 1794, French Revolutionary figure Robespierre inaugurates France’s new state religion: the Cult of the Supreme Being! Despite coming complete with large organized festivals to be celebrated all across France, it fails to catch on.
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On this day in 1949, an FBI report names celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson as members of the American Communist Party. Meanwhile, in England, George Orwell's prophetic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four lands on the nation’s bookshelves and consciousness with the force of a rogue comet.
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On this day in the year 1959, the Navy submarine U.S.S. Barbero fires a guided missile carrying 3,000 letters at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. "Before man reaches the moon," one official opined at the time, "mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia, by guided missiles." And so it was, and so it always shall be. I mean, can you imagine a world without guided missile-delivered mail?!
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On this day in 1967, Israeli warplanes launch a savage attack on the USS Liberty, an American intelligence gathering ship, killing 34 of her crew and wounding another 171. Israel tried to claim it was a friendly fire incident… but it wasn’t.
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On this day in 1972, Associated Press photographer Nick Ut takes his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running down a road after being burned by napalm.
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On this day in 2004, Venus transits across the Sun for the first time in modern history. The previous transit took place over a hundred years previous, in 1882. Because these transits happen in pairs, separated by roughly 8 years, the 2012 transit was the last one of the 21st century. There won't be another for a long, long time.
On this day in 1099, the Siege of Jerusalem begins during the First Crusade.
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On this day in 1892, “colored” passenger Homer Plessy is arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train. He would lose the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.
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On this day in 1893, the Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, begins his first act of civil disobedience. I think it involves collecting salt or some such thing.
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On this day in 1929, with the ratification of the Lateran Treaty, the Vatican becomes its own independent nation.
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On this day in 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower becomes the first President ever to appear on color television.
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On this day in the year 1965, Sony introduces the first video cassette recorder - the peer-to-peer file-swapping scandal of its day - priced at a whopping $995. Sales are almost non-existent until the late 70's, when millions of North American men suddenly realize that this miraculous new device allows them to masturbate while watching complete strangers fuck, all in the comfort of their own living room! Technology… HUZZAH!!!
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In a decision that has a direct influence on yer old pal Jerky’s ability to report on the item directly above this one, the United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment… thank Fuck!
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On this day in 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera. For those of you still wondering why Saddam Hussein shot SCUD missiles towards Israel during the first Gulf War, wonder no more.
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On this day in 1982, Priscilla Presley opens Graceland to the public. Sadly, the bathroom where Elvis died five years earlier is kept off-limits.
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On this day in 1998, a mentally retarded man named James Byrd, Jr. is killed when white supremacists drag him behind a pickup truck along an asphalt road until he comes apart at the seams.
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On this day in 2006, an alleged Al Qaeda leader in Iraq named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – they say he was directly responsible for beheading American hostages Nick Berg and Eugene Armstrong – is himself killed in an air-strike... although there are certain discrepancies and doubts.
On this day in 1884, ten inches of snow falls in New England. This was the "year without a summer," thanks to all the crap thrown into the atmosphere by the massive explosion of the island of Krakatoa, near Indonesia. Don't bother looking for it on a map... it blew up real good, and it ain't there no more.
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On this day in 1933, the first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey, thus creating a market for films of a certain quality, not to mention behavior the likes of which nostalgic dreams are made of.
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On this day in 1934, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission… for all the good it’s done us.
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On this day in 1984, one of the most addictive and best-selling video games of all time is unleashed on an unsuspecting public by sinister Soviet conspirators: TETRIS! Yes, that’s right, TETRIS was a global communist conspiracy designed to waste hour after hour of bourgeois capitalist time stacking imaginary blocks in an imaginary hole… and it WORKED!
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On this day in 1985, the grave of Wolfgang Gerhard – who drowned while swimming in 1979 – is exhumed in Embu, Brazil. These remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death".
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On this day in 1988, President George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush promises to provide reparations and an official apology to the thousands of Americans of Japanese descent who were held in work camps for the duration of World War II. In May of 1989, Ol' Blurry Lips breaks his promise.
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On this day in 2002, in a successful attempt to steal media coverage from FBI agent Coleen Rowley’s testimony and concurrent media blitz, the Bush administration counters with a public relations event of its own. The same day that Rowley testifies, President Bush announces the proposed creation of the new, Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security - an agency proposed by Democrats and, up till then, one that Bush has vehemently opposed, preferring instead to make any such agency a subsidiary office within the White House. It will be the largest reorganization of the government since the implementation of the 1947 National Security Act, when the Defense Department, National Security Council, and CIA were created. To ensure that Rowley’s testimony would not dominate the headlines, Bush also gives an evening speech on prime-time television, again announcing the new department. In that speech, Bush calls the DHS the latest effort in the US’s “titanic struggle against terror.”
On this day in 8239 BC, the Universe is imagined into existence by a couple of void-dwelling Gods, according to the Mayan "long-count" calendar. FYI, this is the same calendar that lists December 21st, 2012 A.D. as the day that the Universe was supposed to come to an end... so take that with a grain of salt.
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On this day in 1933, Congress enacts a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold, thereby effectively abrogating the United States' use of the gold standard.
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On this day in 1947, US Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe during a speech at Harvard University. This is the unofficial start of the Marshall Plan, an unprecedented reconstruction effort that laid the foundations for the post-war world.
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On this day in 1963, British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns over a sex scandal known as the Profumo Affair, which involved him getting all shagadelic with a call girl who was also regularly banging a Soviet official in London at the time.
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On this day in 1967, the Israeli air force launches simultaneous preemptive attacks on the air forces of Egypt and Syria, thus igniting the Six-Day War.
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On this day, in 1968, at 12:16 am Pacific Standard Time, Sirhan Sirhan shoots Bobby Kennedy -- or not, depending on who you ask. RFK succumbs to his wounds the next day. So, let's see... JFK, RFK, MLK, John Lennon... Hey! How come these whack-job lone gunmen only succeed when they go after liberals? Right-wingers have better aim, I guess. And don't give me any of that crap about Oswald being a commie, either. Anyway, watch this video to be educated about the mysteries surrounding the SECOND Kennedy assassination conspiracy.
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On this day in 1981, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
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On this day in 1995, a new state of matter is created in a laboratory. Dubbed the Bose-Einstein Condensate, it can be used to literally reduce the speed of light, slowing it down to the speed of the average bicycle.
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On this day in 2004, American actor and politician Ronald Reagan -- 40th President of the United States – passes away. Read my musings from that time if you're interested in learning how "conservative movementarians" used Reagan's death as cover for their crimes and as a means of concretizing their manufactured legendarium as historical truth.
On this day in 1783, in the skies over Annonay, France, the Montgolfier brothers become the first human beings since the Antediluvian Era to achieve manned flight when they publicly demonstrate their latest invention: the hot air balloon!
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On this day in 1798, legendary Italian adventurer and occult philosopher Giacomo Casanova passes away. His name is still used as a form of shorthand to describe men who are skilled in the art of getting into a woman’s underpants.
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On this day in 1913, a suffragette named Emily Davison runs onto a racetrack in front of King George V's horse at the Epsom Derby and is promptly trampled. She never regains consciousness and dies a few days later. Meanwhile, six years later to the day, US Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing suffrage (the vote) to women, on this day in 1919.
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On this day in 1928, one of the most convoluted political assassination plots in the history of Modern statecraft takes place when Zhang Zuolin, Warlord of Manchuria and President of the Republic of China, is killed by a bomb planted by Japanese agents, just a few weeks after being defeated by the Chinese Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek. This, despite the fact that Zhang was “Japan’s Man in China” at the time, having seized control of Peking only two years previous, in April of 1926.
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On this day in 1939, the MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida after already being turned away from Cuba. It would later also be turned away from Canada. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers would later die in Nazi concentration camps.
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On this day in 1950, not so current Coast to Coast AM host George Noory was born.
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On this day in 1961, the first 13 Freedom Riders begin their bus trip through the American South, in an effort to end segregation of the public transportation system. After training in non-violent civil disobedience techniques, black and white volunteers sit next to each other as they travel by bus through the Deep South. In Anniston, Alabama, one bus is destroyed, and riders on another are attacked by men armed with clubs, bricks, iron pipes and knives. In response to these acts of violence, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sends DOJ official John Seigenthaler to accompany the Freedom Riders. In Birmingham, the passengers are greeted by the Ku Klux Klan, and further acts of violence. At Montgomery, the state capital, a white mob beats the riders with chains and ax handles. When local authorities make it clear that they will make no effort to protect the Riders, President John F. Kennedy sends federal marshals from the North to do the job. Despite the escalating violence,over a thousand volunteers take part in Freedom Rides during the ensuing months.
On this day in 1986, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel. Pretty much everybody knows about this case, and Israel has been lobbying hard for Pollard to be freed. However, fewer people realize that Pollard also sold secrets to South Africa, Pakistan and China. Pollard will be eligible for parole in 2015.
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On this day in 2003, multimedia superstar Martha Stewart is indicted on nine counts of securities fraud and obstruction of justice after she sold all her shares in ImClone upon learning through back-channels that an adverse FDA ruling was about to wipe out the stock. A quick review of the evidence against her, however, could easily lead an impartial observer to conclude that the two biggest mistakes Martha Stewart ever made were 1) being born without a penis, and 2) making donations to the wrong political party.
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On this day in 2004, mechanic/entrepreneur Marvin John Heemeyer goes on a rampage with a souped-up "Killdozer" -- a bulldozer outfitted with layers of steel and concrete -- in protest over the outcome of a zoning dispute in Granby, Colorado. Heemeyer demolishes the town hall, the mayor's house, and a bunch of other buildings before his bulldozer gets hung up in the basement of a building that he’d just destroyed, at which point Heemeyer shot himself with a handgun.
On this day in 1943, U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths In Los Angeles, California, in a confrontation that the news media of the day would soon christen the Zoot Suit Riots.
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After being arrested on suspicion of having broken into a Florida poolroom, Charles Gideon was put on trial and immediately found guilty, thanks mostly to the fact that he couldn't afford a lawyer. In Florida at the time, that meant he had to defend himself. It also pretty much guaranteed that he was jail-bound. Afterwards, while in jail, Gideon made multiple appeals on the grounds that he had a constitutional right to be represented in court by a professional lawyer. Eventually, his case made its way to the Supreme Court, which declared: "a fair trial cannot be realized if the poor man charged with the crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him." And that's how, on this day in 1960, the ceaseless whining of one petty criminal permanently changed the way the USA’s legal system works... for the better! A rare thing, indeed.
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On this day in 1968, a notoriously unstable radical feminist by the name of Valerie Solanas tries to assassinate leading New York “scene” artist Andy Warhol, shooting him three times at near point-blank range. Warhol survived the attack, but sales of Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto went through the roof. “SCUM” is an acronym for “Society for Cutting Up Men”, and most editions feature an image of a box-cutter on the cover. Nice.
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On this day in 1989, armed troops kill hundreds of pro-democracy student demonstrators in the streets of Beijing. Within months, President George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush grants China "most-favored nation" trading status. Understanding the Bush Crime Family’s long-standing entanglements in the region helps explain why he did so.
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Also on this day in 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini -- the intellectual father and popular/populist spearhead of Iran's fascinatingly paradoxicalIslamic Revolution in 1979 -- dies of internal bleeding at the age of 86.
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On this day in 2011, after spending over 8 years behind bars for helping a terminally ill man end his life on camera for an episode of 60 Minutes, doctor, author and death-with-dignity activist Jack Kevorkian passes away due to kidney failure at the age of 83.
On this day in 455 AD, the Vandals enter the city of Rome and begin their “sacking” of it. The rape and plunder last for two weeks and mark the end of Roman supremacy on the European continent. Hello, Dark Ages!
On this day in 1566, plague-era physician and infamous prophet Nostradamus dies in Salon, France. In the weeks before dying, he has a silver plate engraved, and instructs his family to bury it with him when he dies. One hundred and thirty four years later, two amateur students of the occult decide to ring in the new century by digging up Nostradamus's grave and drinking wine from his noble skull. They dig for hours, slide the lid off his sarcophagus, and gaze upon his skeleton. Beneath the bony hands folded across the now empty ribcage is the aforementioned silver plate. The braver of the two reaches down and moves the hand, then brings his lantern down to read the inscription: "MDCC." Initials? No… Roman numerals. Seventeen hundred. As in 1700 AD. As in the year in which these two grave robbers then found themselves, hovering over Nostradamus's exhumated corpse. (caveat lector: I'm not 100 percent sure this is true, but I've heard it a lot from people I trust who are in a position to know such forbidden things - ed)
On this day in 1692, Bridget Bishop becomes the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. She is quickly found guilty, then hanged on June 10.
On this day in 1919, anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities. Surprisingly organized for a bunch of people dedicated to mass confusion, eh?
On this day in 1924, the US government does something brutally ironic when President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
On this day in 1953, Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth. This is the first major international event to be televised internationally.
On this day in 1966, Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.
On this day in 1997, in a Denver, Colorado court, Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
On this day in 2003, Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
On this day in 2004, the roarin' Mormon Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!
On this day in 2012, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
On this day in 1495, friar John Cor records the first known batch of Scotch whisky in – you guessed it – Scotland! Yummy!
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On this day in 1533, Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England. And she lives happily ever after
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On this day in 1779, Benedict Arnold, a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and a man whose name would go on to become synonymous with treason, is court-martialed for malfeasance.
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On this day in 1813, James Lawrence, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, gives his final order: "Don't give up the ship!" This is an early instance of "meme" spreading, as soon, word spreads and everybody knows what he said.
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On this day in 1855, American lawyer, journalist and "filibuster" William Walker conquers the nation of Nicaragua with an armed band of mercenaries and rules it for just over one year before being routed by Central American forces led by Costa Rica. Walker would be executed in 1860. In 1987, cult film director Alex Cox would make an insane film, Walker, about this incident. You can watch the whole thing right here.
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On this day in 1857, French poet Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal is published.
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On this day in 1916, Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.
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On this day in 1921, one of the most shameful pages in the Great American History Book is written when the Black Wall Street Riotstake place. A prosperous black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma is burned to the ground by a 5000-strong mob of armed white folk, who were enraged that a 100-strong mob of armed black men had convened on City Hall in order to prevent the lynching of a shoe-shine boy accused of "impugning the dignity" of a white female elevator operator. She later admitted making up the story. At one point, the city called in bi-planes to air-bomb the community with dynamite, leveling it. Officially, the body-count was 81 (21 whites, 60 blacks), but estimates have ranged as high as 3000. Many records were destroyed during and after the attack, and efforts are underway to examine abandoned mine-shafts in the area, long-believed to have been used as mass graves for hundreds of unaccounted-for blacks.
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On this day in 1958, Charles de Gaulle comes out of retirement to lead France by decree for six months.
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On this day in 1962, after being kidnapped by Mossad in South America, Nazi official Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.
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On this day in 1967, the Beatles release their magnum opus, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is released.
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On this day in 1974, the Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims is published in the journal Emergency Medicine.
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On this day in 1979, the first black-led government of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 90 years takes power. And they all live happily ever after.
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On this day in 1980, eccentric billionaire Ted Turner's Cable News Network -- better known as CNN -- begins broadcasting its particular blend of USA Today-style quasi-news-nuggets and obsessive-compulsive over-coverage of irrelevant bullshit... And it's been all down-hill from there.
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On this day in 2001, a Hamas suicide bomber kills 21 at the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel. Also on this day in 2001, Nepal's King Birendra -- the only Hindu king in the world -- has his reign cut shot by his useless, fat-faced son, the sullen Party Boy Prince Dippy, who went bonkers, unloading a couple clips of ammo into King Birendra and seven other royal family members, including the Queen and his own brothers and sisters, before turning the gun on himself. In a shocking twist, as he lay brain dead in hospital, Prince Dippy was crowned King of Nepal in accordance with the laws of the land. Sparing the nation the indignity of having a mass murderer as the head of its royal family, Prince Dippy graciously succumbed to his wounds later that same day, at which point Gyanendra, brother of the slain King, was crowned just in time to preside over the funerals of over a half-dozen of his family members..
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On this day in 2009, Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew are killed. Also on this day in 2009, General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
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On this day in 2013One World Trade Center opens in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
