On this day, in the year
1520, world explorer
Magellan first discovers the
Straits of Magellan, and his mind is, like, totally blown by the coincidence!
***
On this day in
1879, in his Menlo Park, New Jersey lab, half-mad inventor
Thomas Edison first shows off his new-fangled flameless illumination flask, soon to be known as the light-bulb.
***
On this day in
1921, President
Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting President against lynching in the Deep South. It doesn’t work.
***
On this day in
1921, director
George Melford's silent film
The Sheik, starring
Rudolph Valentino, premiers. Soaked panties ensue.
***
On this day in
1931, the
Sakurakai, a secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army, launches an abortive coup d'état attempt. Pretty lame secret society, there, guys…
***
On this day in
1940, the first edition of
Ernest Hemingway’s novel
For Whom the Bell Tolls is published. The ending of that novel still has the power to piss readers off.
***
On this day in
1944, the first kamikaze attack takes place when a Japanese plane carrying a 440 lb bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island as the Battle of Leyte Gulf begins.
***
On this day in
1945, women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
***
On this day in
1959, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring
Wernher von Braun and other German (and yes, NAZI) scientists from the United States Army to the “civilian” organization, NASA.
***
On this day in the year
1969, in the African nation of Somalia, the deeply corrupt government is overthrown in a bloodless coup. Since then, thanks mostly to the excellent marketing efforts of the world's shadiest international arms dealers, Somalia's subsequent coups have been a hell of a lot more bloody.
***
On this day in
1978, Australian civilian pilot
Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
***
On this day in
1995, President
William Jefferson Clinton signs a classified presidential order “directing the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury, the National Security Council, the CIA, and other intelligence agencies to increase and integrate their efforts against international money laundering by terrorists and criminals.” It was the first serious effort by the US to track bin Laden’s businesses. All in all, it wasn't exactly a roaring success.
***
On this day in
2001, a
Washington Post article hints at the US government’s use of
rendition and torture. Among the alternative strategies reported to be under discussion were drugs, pressure tactics and extraditing the suspects to allied countries where security services employ threats to family members and resort to torture. Unbeknownst to the public at large, the CIA had already been renditioning suspects to countries known for practicing torture, and had made arrangements with NATO countries to increase the number of such renditions, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
***
On this day in
2003, images of the dwarf planet
Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery by the team of
Michael E. Brown,
Chad Trujillo, and
David L. Rabinowitz.
Njoy ur page! Surprised tho u didn't link the Edison "invention" with the Swan lawsuit and forced merger, with the 22 other inventors working on the light bulb project that went right along side the War of Currents of the late 1800's.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison#Electric_light
Thanks Carpe Diem! Sorry I didn't go into it, but I'm certainly glad YOU did! I learn something new every day, and you just supplied today's novelty! Thank you!
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