On this day in
624, a key battle between
Muhammad's army – the new followers of Islam and the
Quraish of Mecca. The Muslims won this battle, known as the turning point of Islam, which took place in the Hejaz region of western Arabia.
***
Cortez came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns, landing in Mexico on this day in
1519. On the shore lay
Montezuma, with his coca leaves and pearls. In his halls he'd often wander, with the secrets of the world. And his people gathered 'round him, like the leaves around a tree, in their clothes of many colors, for their angry Gods to see. Hate was just a legend. War was never known. The people worked together, and they lifted many stones. They carried them to the flatlands, and they died along the way, but they built up with their bare hands what we still can't do today. He came dancing across the water. Cortez, Cortez… what a killer.
***
On this day in
1781,
William Herschel discovers
Uranus. He couldn't miss it, thanks to the smell!
***
On this day in
1861, demonstrating a flair for wicked irony to rival that of fellow Southerner
Tennessee Williams, confederate preznit
Jefferson Davis signs a bill authorizing the use of negro slaves as soldiers in the confederate (i.e. traitor) army. Thus did slaves come to fight to preserve the peculiar institution of slavery.
***
On this day in
1930, the news of the discovery of
Pluto is telegraphed to the Harvard College Observatory.
***
On this day in
1943, German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
***
On this day in
1962,
Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a proposal, called
Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks upon Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, to Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara. The proposal is scrapped and President
John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position.
***
On this day in
1964, American
Kitty Genovese is murdered, reportedly in view of neighbors who did nothing to help her, prompting research into the bystander effect. It turns out nothing we thought we knew about this case is true.
***
On this day in
1969,
Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.
***
On this day in
1991, the United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
***
Pissed off because he'd been exposed as a pervert and turfed from his position as a scoutmaster, weirdo/sicko
Thomas Hamilton packed a bag full of guns and strolled over to his home town's grade school on this day in the year 1996. By the time he was through, a grand total of sixteen five-and-six-year-old children - and their teacher - lay lifeless in a sea of blood on the cold gymnasium floor. Shaken police describe the gym as "a medieval image of hell." Immediately after the slaughter, Hamilton did what he should have done decades ago and turned the gun on himself, blowing his own brains out. Visit
this website for a vivid reminder of what was lost.
***
On this day in
1997, India's Missionaries of Charity choose
Sister Nirmala to succeed
Mother Teresa as their new Mother Superior... and promptly fade into total obscurity. They should have done like
INXS and made their choice of a dynamic new "frontman" the subject of a thrilling "reality TV" show. They could have called it
Big Mother, or
Survivor: Calcutta.
***
On this day in
2003, the journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy.
***
On this day in 2013, Pope Francis is elected in the papal conclave to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, aka Ratz Benedict.
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