On this day in 927, King Æthelstan of England secures a pledge from Constantine II of Scotland that the latter will not ally with the Vikings, beginning the process of unifying Great Britain. This is considered the closest thing that England has to a foundation date.
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On this day in 1543, England's King Henry VIII marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.
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On this day in 1580, the first ever Slavic language Bible - the Ostrog Bible - is published. Early editions had to be corrected, however, when it was discovered that some wise-acre monk switched the Last Supper menu from bread and wine to pierogies and vodka.
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On this day in 1859, tired of having to look into his wife's spotty, un-tweezed face while he's making love to her, yet unwilling to forego his nightly sampling of the fleshy entitlements that were his husbandly due,William Goodale of Massachusetts patents a machine that manufactures paper bags by the hundreds. Problem solved!
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On this day in 1892, a hidden lake bursts out of a glacier on the side of Mont Blanc, flooding the valley below and killing around 200 villagers and holidaymakers in Saint Gervais. I think Steely Dan may have written a song about this, but I can't be sure.
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On this day in 1960, the first Etch A Sketch goes on sale. Childhood frustration ensues.
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On this day in 1962, the Rolling Stones perform their first ever concert, at the Marquee Club in London, England, United Kingdom.
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On this day in 1963, the first victim in the Moors murders - 16-year-old Pauline Reade - disappears on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton, England, .
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On this day in 1971 the Australian Aboriginal Flag is flown for the first time. It's quite handsome. (See Above)
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On this day in the year 1979, America's growing hatred for that dreaded phenomena known as disco reaches its inevitable zenith with the Disco Demolition Riot at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Organized by disc jockey Steve Dahl of WLUP-FM, the derby degenerated into chaos during the second game of a double-header, with overenthusiastic disco-haters taking to the fields and lighting a bonfire behind the pitcher's mound… all in the name of despising disco!
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On this day in 1985, doctors discover a cancerous growth in President Ronald Reagan's lower intestine. After excising the tumor, doctors immerse it in a tub full of nutrient-rich spinal fluid and store it in a hermetically sealed hyperbaric chamber under intensely high pressure. When they crack open the chamber 666 days later, Dan Quayle steps out of there, his empty eyes glowing red with otherworldly evil. The rest, as they say, is history.
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On this day in 2002, the Superior Court of Ontario orders the Canadian province of Ontario to recognize same-sex marriages, at which point regular old different-sex marriages suddenly died a horrible, wheezing death. Thanks a lot, gaylords!
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On this day in 2007, US Army Apache helicopters perform airstrikes in Baghdad, Iraq. Highly disturbing footage from the cockpit is later leaked to the Internet. Here it is, but be warned... it is not very nice, especially if you have trouble accepting that Americans are frequently the Bad Guys...
On this day in 1850, the Persian prophet Báb is executed in Tabriz, Persia. As both self-declared Mahdi (Islamic Messiah) and as precursor to the intriguing new religious movement known as Bahai, the Bab is a very interesting character, indeed, and very much worthy of study.
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On this day in 1868, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
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On this day in 1887, paper napkins were used for the first time ever by stationary manufacturer John Dickinson. This brings up a whole host of uncomfortable questions about toilet paper, and its various historical precursors.
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On this day in 1944, during World War II, American forces take the island of Saipan from the Japanese. It has been an American protectorate ever since. In recent years, right-wingers in government tried to turn it into a kind of testing ground for a libertarian tax-free and regulation-free zone. Sweatshop operators and sexual predators - who also just happened to be big Republican donors - thought the results of that experiment were fine and dandy.
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On this day in 1955, the controversial, pacifist-inclined Russell–Einstein Manifesto is released by philosopher Bertrand Russell in London, England, during one of the high-water marks of the Cold War. Albert Einstein, one of the fathers of the bomb, co-signed his approval to the anti-nuclear weapon document before dying only a few days later.
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On this day in 1958, Alaska’s Lituya Bay is hit by a megatsunami. The wave is recorded at an incredible 524 meters (1700 feet) high, the largest in recorded history by far...twice as high as the Empire State Building! Unfortunately, there is no video of the event.
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On this day in 1979, a car bomb destroys an automobile owned by the famed Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA – the alleged post-war Nazi international remnant – claims responsibility.
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On this day in the year 1980, in Brazil, seven people are crushed to death as wave upon wave of idiots stampede into a huge outdoor stadium to catch a glimpse of that shimmering, spiritual pop-star: The Pope!
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On this day in 1981, the Nintendo video game Donkey Kong is released. The game marks the debut of Nintendo's future mascot, Mario.
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On this day in 1986, Attorney General Edwin Meese's "Commission on Pornography" is released. Meese was only one or two shades less of a psychopath than Dubya-era Witchfinder General John Ashcroft, and his report tried to establish a link between porn and sex crimes. Then, in the 1990's, something interesting happened. With the total proliferation of home video and the rise of the Internet, hard-core pornography became more widespread and readily available than ever… while violence and sex crime rates all dropped precipitously. Who'd have thunk it?
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 1938, while researching drugs to improve blood circulation and prevent geriatric disorders, chemist Albert Hoffman first manufactures LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) for Sandoz Labs in Switzerland. It will be five years before he accidentally ingests any of the wonderstuff, himself, after which he will write: "Last Friday, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away." Cue the sitar music and turn on the lava lamps! Here are some other people's trip stories.
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On this day in 1932, ten weeks after his abduction and following one of the most torturous and multiply-botched criminal investigations in legal history, Charles Junior, the infant son of aviation pioneer and avid Nazi-supporter Charles Lindbergh, is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, a few miles from the Lindbergh home.
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On this day in 2002, former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro. He was allowed to address the Cuban public uncensored on national television and radio with a speech that he wrote and presented in Spanish. In the speech, he called on the US to end "an ineffective 43-year-old economic embargo" and on Castro to hold free elections, improve human rights, and allow greater civil liberties. From a parapolitical perspective, it would have been supremely interesting to hear what these two had to say to each other during their private conversation.
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On this day in 2008, an earthquake measuring around 8.0 magnitude shook China's Sichuan region to bits, killing over 69,000 people... and you probably don't even remember, considering the accelerated rate at which feces are colliding with propeller on every conceivable level these days.
On this day in 1938, while researching drugs to improve blood circulation and prevent geriatric disorders, chemist Albert Hoffman first manufactures LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) for Sandoz Labs in Switzerland. It will be five years before he accidentally ingests any of the wonderstuff, himself, after which he will write: "Last Friday, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed, I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away." Cue the sitar music and turn on the lava lamps! Here are some other people's trip stories.
On this day in 1932, ten weeks after his abduction and following one of the most torturous and multiply-botched criminal investigations in legal history, Charles Junior, the infant son of aviation pioneer and avid Nazi-supporter Charles Lindbergh, is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, a few miles from the Lindbergh home.
On this day in 2002, former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5-day visit with Fidel Castro. He was allowed to address the Cuban public uncensored on national television and radio with a speech that he wrote and presented in Spanish. In the speech, he called on the US to end "an ineffective 43-year-old economic embargo" and on Castro to hold free elections, improve human rights, and allow greater civil liberties. From a parapolitical perspective, it would have been supremely interesting to hear what these two had to say to each other during their private conversation.
On this day in 2008, an earthquake measuring around 8.0 magnitude shook China's Sichuan region to bits, killing over 69,000 people... and you probably don't even remember, considering the accelerated rate at which feces are colliding with propeller on every conceivable level these days.
Might this article from 2006 - in which University of Alberta geologist Patrick Wu says the loss of polar ice volume will lead to increased global earthquake activity - qualify as a secular prophecy of sorts? Did Wu foretell, in a roundabout way, the disastrous, deadly, monstrous quakes that have hit Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and Japan? These four major quakes have all hit in the last 2 years - an unprecedented "close clustering" for events of this magnitude.
In the article, Wu is quoted as saying:
"What happens is the weight of this thick ice puts a lot of stress on the earth. The weight sort of suppresses the earthquakes, but when you melt the ice the earthquakes get triggered."
Now, I am fully aware that there is a robust and thriving skeptic community working hard to deny the prevailing wisdom / scientific consensus about Global Warming - especially as concerns the issue of "Anthropogenic Global Warming", the idea that human behaviors are to blame. Some in the parapolitical and conspiracy communities suspect that "AGW" is nothing more than an elaborate hoax perpetrated by genocidal elites, that it is nothing more or less than the laying of groundwork for the future implementation of horrific depopulation schemes to weed out the riffraff, the great unwashed, we "useless eaters".
As the name of this blog implies, I am certainly not prepared to dismiss out of hand the idea that there are very powerful forces working behind the scenes that would dearly love to dump a bunch of herbicide all over the Great Human Garden. This does not mean, however, that I - or anyone else - should automatically subscribe to any theory that fits into the gestalt of that particular suspicion. That would simply be a variation on the age-old logical fallacy known as "confirmation bias", and any serious student of parapolitics needs to be ever-vigilant not to fall prey to its powerful lure.
In short, we should always, all of us, seek out the very best information possible. And currently, as far as my research has shown me, the Global Warming Skeptics community just isn't cutting the mustard. The majority of them are brain-whores (thought-stitutes?) whose work on the subject - mostly op-eds, hardly ever peer-reviewed - is bought and paid for by the very industry lobbies and corporations that either a) are major contributers to the problem, or b) depend on continued government inaction to maintain their profitability.
And so, until someone comes along and convincingly debunks this excellent and thorough debunking of the Global Warming "debunkers", I'm going to stick with the eggheads on this one.
