PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JUNE 4

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.

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On this day in 1970, "four dead in Ohio."

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On this day in 1986, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard (born August 7, 1954 in Galveston, TX) 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 was released from prison on November 20, 2015.

On November 20, 2020, his parole expired and all restrictions were eliminated. 

On December 30, 2020, Pollard and his second wife relocated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. 

Since relocating to Israel, Pollard has endorsed Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (an Israeli lawyer and politician who since 2019 has led the far-right party Jewish Power.) and advocated a population transfer to relocate Gaza's Palestinians to... Ireland? Faith and fucking begorrah!

 

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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.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 16

On this day in 1918, the United States Congress passes the Sedition Act, which extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light, or interfered with the sale of government bonds. Basically, these laws made criticism of the American government an offense punishable by hefty fines and/or incarceration. The Espionage Act (an umbrella law that covered the later Sedition Act) was repealed by Congress in December of 1920. Democrat Woodrow Wilson was President during both enactment and repeal.

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On this day in 1943, after 28 days of bloody fighting, armed resistance by Jews in the Warsaw ghetto comes to an end as Nazi soldiers overwhelm the area.

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On this day in 1988, a report issued by United States' Surgeon General C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine. To be perfectly honest... he's very wrong about that.

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On this day in 1991, Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to ever address the United States Congress. She spends most of the speech congratulating President George Herbert "Poppy" Walker Bush on his magnificent handling of the Gulf War in Iraq.

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On this day in 2005, Newsweek magazine retracts a story in which it was claimed that investigators had found evidence the Quran was desecrated by interrogators at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The story had sparked deadly protests in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Of course, despite the retraction, it's clear that the desecration did take place - that, and far, far worse - and that Newsweek cracked under pressure by The Powers That Be.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 11

On this day in 1310, 54 members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics in France. However, the 23rd and final "official" Grand Master of the Templars - Jacques DeMolay - survives nearly four more years before ultimately meeting a similar fiery fate on March 13, 1314.

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On this day in 1812, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. He is the first, and so far only, British Prime Minister to be assassinated while serving. Historian Andro Linklater's latest tome is controversially titled Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die, painting a not-so-likable portrait of the doomed PM, whereas this Telegraph UK editorial claims he deserves to be remembered for more than just being assassinated.

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On this day in 1916, after nearly a year spent re-working some of the mathematics involved, renowned theoretical physicist and "world's smartest man" Albert Einstein presents his Theory of General Relativity to his peers. Basically, Einstein's conception of relativity is a geometric theory of gravitation, and it remains the current description of gravitation in modern physics. According to Wikipedia: "General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or space-time. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations." Simple, no? Of course, there are quite a few people who believe the whole thing is just a bunch of high quackery, and they opened a web forum to air alternative views.

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On this day in 1927, showbiz pioneer Louis B Mayer forms the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, without which we would have had no idea that The English Patient, Titanic and Shakespeare in Love were some of the finest films ever made, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

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On this day in 1949, the freshly-minted nation of Israel joins the United Nations. Eleven years later, on this day in 1960, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi technocrat Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem". Eichmann had been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the alias: Ricardo Klement. There is no way in Hell he was the only high-ranking Nazi to escape Europe in this way, as future posts here at the Useless Eater Blog will hopefully prove to you, beyond any reasonable factor of doubt.

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On this day in 1997, IBM's chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Russian chess champ Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format. After SkyNet takes over the world, this will probably be declared an official "Robot Holiday" or something. You just know those shiny metal bastards are going to relish rubbing our noses in it.

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On this day in 1981, Jamaican music pioneer and Rastafarian prophet/saint Bob Marley dies of cancer at the age of 36... or does he?!

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On this day in 1988, British spy Kim Philby dies in Moscow, where he "retired" after being sniffed out as a communist double-agent for the Soviet Union. His life story, at the provided link, is damn fascinating. The Rooskies even gave him a postage stamp! Check it out!

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 1

The first day in the month of May is celebrated as May Day – also known as International Workers’ Day – almost everywhere in the world, with the most glaring exception being the nation whose citizens’ blood fertilized the soil of its inception: the United States of America.

First suggested at the first congress of the world socialist Second International in 1889, May Day was meant to commemorate Chicago’s infamous Haymarket Massacre of three years prior, in which dozens of labor demonstrators were gunned down by police after one of them allegedly threw a dynamite bomb.

The holiday was formally recognized as an annual event at the International's second congress in 1891. Three years later, following a particularly nasty Wall Street panic, the May Day Riots took place in Cleveland, OH. Ten years later, in 1904, the International Socialist Conference meeting in Amsterdam called on "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."

Considering its origins and history, it shouldn't be too surprising that The Powers That Be have never had much love for May Day. Right-wing governments, invariably favoring Capital over Labor, have historically downplayed the holiday’s significance, often celebrating “Labour/Labor Day” on another day – for instance, as in the USA and Canada, on the first Monday of September.

Unfortunately, simply shifting the holiday to a different spot on the calendar left folks with nothing to celebrate on the first day of May. The solution? How about the one-two punch of Law Day and Loyalty Day? Yes, that’s right, in the late 50’s, Republican President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower and his Republican-led Congress created these two (count’em!) brand spanking new holidays to take people’s minds off the central role labor has played in human progress over the years!

Of course, the above covers the “Red Root” (Labor) version of May Day. There exists another, “Green Root” (Pagan) version of the holiday, related to the sex-heavy Celtic festival of Beltane and the somewhat less sexy Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night (which is named after a Saint, after all). Some of the more hard-core versions of this European celebration were done away with after Christianization, but surviving traditions usually involve dancing around a Maypole – representative of either a Sacred Tree or a giant phallus, depending on who you ask – and other fertility-related activities, such as presenting gifts of flowers to loved ones. Beltane, specifically, involves ritual purification through fire, and if you've seen the The Wicker Man (1973), you already know how much fun that can be.

ALSO ON THIS DAY

On this day in 1776, a Jesuit-trained Bavarian philosopher by the name of Adam Weishaupt adopts the name Spartacus and establishes a secret society which he dubs the Order of Perfectibilists, more popularly known as the Illuminati. Both Weishaupt and his long-defunct organization remain as poorly understood today as they were by their contemporaries, a point underscored by the fact that Thomas Jefferson counted himself an unabashed admirer.

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On this day in 1863, the Confederate Congress passes a resolution declaring no Black Union soldiers may be taken prisoner. Instead, all Black soldiers are to be shot on sight. And yet, some people still try to make believe the Civil War was about "state's rights," and had nothing to do with the institution of slavery. Go figure!

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On this day in 1915, the RMS Lusitania departs from New York City for her 222nd – and final – crossing of the Atlantic. Six days later, a torpedo launched from a German submarine would sink her off the coast of Ireland, killing twelve hundred. 128 of the dead were Americans, which caused an about-face in the US population’s doggedly non-interventionist stance vis-à-vis the Great War. Within months, Americans would be dying in their thousands in the hideous, Satanic meat-grinder of trench warfare, ostensibly to avenge the deaths of those unlucky dozens.

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On this day in 1930, the Solar System’s ninth planet is saddled with the decidedly Hellish name Pluto, borrowed from the Greek Lord of the Underworld. Upon their discoveries, Pluto’s moons would be given the similarly Stygian monikers Charon, Nix and Hydra. Who makes these decisions?! Later, much to the public's dismay (and misunderstanding) the Planetary Union demote Pluto to planetoid, leaving Niburu (yet to be found, though calculations SUGGEST it is there) to become the 9th planet, eventually.

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On this day in 1945 a German newsreader announces that Adolf Hitler has "fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany.” 

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On this day in 1948, The "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" – a.k.a. North Korea – is established by “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung. Folks, you couldn't pack more irony into a single sentence if you tried. Today, 75 years and two generations of despotism later, North Korea retains its title as quite possibly the single most fucked up nation on a planet that is known for being home to some incredibly fucked up nations. The USA falls uncomfortably high on that same list now. Time for someone else to become well-hung as well.

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On this day in 1956, the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public. And we all lived happily ever after.

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On this day in 1960, a Lockheed U-2 spy-plane being piloted by American Francis Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union. Powers survives by ejecting, and his U-2 glides to a soft crash-landing that leaves it frustratingly intact, allowing the Soviets to learn everything about the plane's structure and abilities when they pick it apart. Powers is interrogated for months, then forced to confess to espionage. He was sentenced to 10 years hard labor at a Soviet work camp, but ended up serving less than 8 months before being sent back to the USA in a spy-swap. After a different kind of rough landing back home (he was interrogated by hostile officials from the CIA, Pentagon, a few Senate committees and even Lockheed!), Powers continued his aviation career until 1977, when he died while heroically ditching his helicopter rather than risk a crash-landing in a field where children were playing..

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On this day, in 1986, Russia finally tells the rest of the world about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl… five days after what was at that time the worst meltdown in the history of nuclear power. Much to the delight of the Ukrainian Tourism Bureau, “Fukushima” is poised to replace “Chernobyl” as short-hand for “FUBAR Nuclear No-Go-Zone”.

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And, finally, on this day in 2003, Americans celebrate "Mission Accomplished Day" when Preznit Dubya appears before a cheering crowd of soldiers on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in full padded-crotch regalia to declare that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” Sadly, nothing could have been further from the truth.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 28

On this day in 1192, two hashshashin ambush and stab to death the Frankish Crusader Conrad of Montferrat, who had just been elected King of Jerusalem three days prior. Although his murderers belong to the ostensibly Islamic Nizari Ismaili cult, historians believe that they were most likely in the employ of jealous rival Crusaders. It’s all rather complicated.

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On this day in 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress are shot dead by Italian partisans. Their bloating, fly-blown corpses were left hanging upside-down from the rafters of a gas station for days. The old ladies of Milan were all impressed by the fact that Il Duce's corpse remained suspended even after that of his mistress had fallen, succumbing to a gruesome combination of gravity and decay. By comparison, the old ladies agreed that Mussolini was, finally, very well hung, indeed.

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On this day in 1947, explorer/scientist/adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, along with five crew mates, sets out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki – a ship made using only “prehistoric technology” – to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. Interestingly, the latest theories backed up by DNA testing seem to back Heyerdahl’s thesis only a little bit, and contradict him in other spots.

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On this day in 1994, former CIA counter-intelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later, Russia. His betrayals led to the exposure (and often the liquidation) of more agents working behind the Iron Curtain than those of any other spy in US history, with possible exception of Robert Hanssen.

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On this day in 1996, Australian Martin Bryant goes on a shooting rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more. Giving rise to a number of conspiracy theories about “gun grabbers” by many right wing commentators, the Port Arthur Massacre was Australia’s Sandy Hook, just as Sandy Hook was America’s Dunblane, and Dunblane was Scotland’s… um… Port Arthur Massacre? Yeah, I guess that works. And so it’s all come full circle. It’s the Circle of Death!

ON THIS DAY IN PARA-CULTURE, JUNE 4

On this day in 1760, British Loyalists from New England arrive in Nova Scotia, claiming the land as their own, despite the fact that said land had already been occupied by the French-speaking Acadians for over two hundred years. Yeah, my ancestors also got screwed by the British. A lot of that going around, it seems.

On this day in 1783, France's Montgolfier brothers launch the first-ever hot-air balloon.


On this day in 1913, suffragette Emily Davison runs out 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. Six years later to the day, the U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the American Constitution, guaranteeing suffrage (i.e., the vote) to American women.

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. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers would later die in Nazi concentration camps.


On this day in 1984, American singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen releases the most mis-understood song in the history of rock: Born in the USA.

On this day in 1986, spy Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel. He is currently serving a life sentence. Check out his Wikipedia page for a hilarious account of the Israeli reaction to Pollard's treatment. Un-fucking-believable.

On this day in 1989, the Ayatalloh Ruhullah Khomeini of Iran dies of internal bleeding at the age of 86. That same day, Iran's Assembly of Experts choose Ali Khamenei to be the new Supreme Leader of Islamic republic of Iran.

On this day in 1998, Tim McVeigh's bomb-buddy Terry Nichols is sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing that claimed 168 lives (including 19 children). He is currently serving his time in ADX SuperMax in Florence, Colorado, on "Bomber's Row" with Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski and Ramzi "Bojinka" Yousef.

ON THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICS, MAY 11

On this day in 1310, 54 members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake as heretics in France. However, the 23rd and final "official" Grand Master of the Templars - Jacques DeMolay - survives nearly four more years before ultimately meeting a similar fiery fate on March 13, 1314.


On this day in 1812, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. He is the first, and so far only, British Prime Minister to be assassinated while serving. Historian Andro Linklater's latest tome is controversially titled Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die, painting a not-so-likable portrait of the doomed PM, whereas this Telegraph UK editorial claims he deserves to be remembered for more than just being assassinated.


On this day in 1916, after nearly a year spent re-working some of the mathematics involved, renowned theoretical physicist and "world's smartest man" Albert Einstein presents his Theory of General Relativity to his peers. Basically, Einstein's conception of relativity is a geometric theory of gravitation, and it remains the current description of gravitation in modern physics. According to Wikipedia: "General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or space-time. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations." Simple, no? Of course, there are quite a few people who believe the whole thing is just a bunch of high quackery, and they opened a web forum to air alternative views.

On this day in 1927, showbiz pioneer Louis B Mayer forms the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, without which we would have had no idea that The English Patient, Titanic and Shakespeare in Love were all actually very good movies, despite all evidence to the contrary.

On this day in 1949, the freshly-minted nation of Israel joins the United Nations. Eleven years later, on this day in 1960, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi technocrat Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem". Eichmann had been living in Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the alias: Ricardo Klement. There is no way in Hell he was the only high-ranking Nazi to escape Europe in this way, as future posts here at the Useless Eater Blog will hopefully prove to you, beyond any reasonable factor of doubt. 

On this day in 1997, IBM's chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue defeats Russian chess champ Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format. After SkyNet takes over the world, this will probably be declared an official "Robot Holiday" or something. You just know those shiny metal bastards are going to relish rubbing our noses in it.

On this day in 1981, Jamaican music pioneer and Rastafarian prophet/saint Bob Marley dies of cancer at the age of 36... or does he?! 

On this day in 1988, British spy Kim Philby dies in Moscow, where he "retired" after being sniffed out as a communist double-agent for the Soviet Union. His life story, at the provided link, is damn fascinating. The Rooskies even gave him a postage stamp! Check it out!