On this day in
1642, America's first ever compulsory education law is passed in Massachusetts, effectively forcing kids to attend school for a mandated minimum amount of instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic. Now, with hindsight, we can see that the passing of this law was nothing less than the rhetorical
fat kid arriving at the metaphorical
top of the allegorical
slippery slope of the socialistic/communistic
nanny state, which has led us inexorably to our current society-wide crisis. And who but those Godforsaken liberals - or maybe a Kennedy
(spit) - can deny that we are being overrun by atheistic gun-toting homosexual grade-school terrorists on crack!?
***
On this day in
1777, America's Continental Congress chooses the
Stars n' Stripes to replace the Grand Union flag. It's a good thing they didn't go with their first choice for a replacement: a cartoonish portrait of
King George III sucking
Ben Franklin's cock, with the words "Mmmm... Daddy LIKES!" scrawled across the bottom. I mean, it makes a point, but it probably wouldn't have stood the test of time.
***
On this day in 1822, a British scientist by the name of Charles Babbage proposes a "difference engine" in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". It is the beginning of the end of all mankind, as the ROBOTALYPSE could never have happened without this terrible first step.
***
On this day in 1947, a UFO crash-lands near Roswell, New Mexico. Or not. Depends on who you ask.
***
On this day in
1951, the supercomputer known as
UNIVAC I is handed over to the US Census Bureau where it begins tabulating who will live and who will die in the coming
ROBOTALYPSE (see above).
***
On this day in the year
1954 - in the wake of a new American religiosity which sprouted, fungus-like, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud - President
Eisenhower signs a Congressional resolution adding the words "under God" to the heretofore secular
Pledge of Allegiance. Previously, the last phrase read: "...one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Yer old pal Jerky much prefers the original, non-superstitious version.
***
On this day, in the year
1986, acclaimed Argentinian fantasist
Jorge Luis Borges shuffles off into the
labyrinth in search of stories that will forever remain untold.
***
On this day in
2002, Near-Earth asteroid
2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. A close shave, indeed.
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