On this day in 1397, Geoffrey Chaucer begins telling his Canterbury Tales for the first time at the court of Richard II. Chaucer scholars have also identified this date (in 1387) as the start of the book's pilgrimage to Canterbury.
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On this day in 1897, the Aurora, Texas, UFO incident allegedly takes place. It's pretty freaking interesting, to tell you the truth.
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On this day in 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrenders to Germany during World War II. And yet we don’t make any “surrender-monkey” jokes about Yugoslavians the way we do about the French. Why is that, do you think?
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On this day in 1961, in a massive covert operation that remains, at best, poorly understood, one thousand four hundred CIA-funded Cuban exiles (most likely trained by Bush Crime Family capo di tuti capi George Herbert "Poppy" Walker Bush) land in the Bay of Pigs, ostensibly in an abortive attempt to overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Depending on which version of reality you believe - the officially approved version or one of the myriad competing alternative versions - this failed coup either led directly to JFK's assassination by Castro supporter Lee Harvey Oswald, or it led indirectly to his assassination by the CIA as revenge for JFK's refusal to be forced into providing air support for a military action the Executive branch had no part in planning. Personally, yer old pal Jerky considers Bay of Pigs to be a veritable Rosetta Stone for parapolitical theorists.
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On this day in 1969, Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan is found guilty of assassinating presidential candidate Robert Francis Kennedy. Just as in the assassination of his brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, serious doubts and troubling questions remain.
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On this day in 1975, the Khmer Rouge captures the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh and government forces surrender, ending that nation’s civil war, and kicking off one of the century’s bloodiest genocides.
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On this day in 1986, IBM announces it will commence the manufacture of the first ever computers using the megabit memory chip, which is capable of storing more than one million bits of electronic data, thereby bringing us out of the age of ascii nudes, which led directly to the era of masturbation-worthy computer porn.
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On this day in 2013, an incredibly powerful explosion occurs at a fertilizer plant in the city of West, Texas, killing 15 and injuring 160, thus proving once and for all the old adage "Everything is KABOOM-er in Texas."
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