PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR AUGUST 6

On this day in 1890, at Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

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On this day in 1930, Judge Joseph Force Crater steps into a taxi in New York and disappears never to be seen again. This unsolved mystery earns Crater the sobriquet: "Missingest Man in New York".

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At 8:15 A.M., on this day in the year 1945, with a blinding flash and a deafening roar, a single bomb turns the thriving city of Hiroshima into a twisted, smoldering, radioactive tableau of death and ruin. Nearly all people and buildings within a two-kilometer radius of the drop point were obliterated. An incredible one hundred and forty thousand people were killed by a single bomb... nearly half the city's population. This brief, horrific moment in time still stands as quite possibly the most significant turning point in the history of our doomed and damned species.

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On this day in 1964, in the American state of Nevada, a bristlecone pine by the name of Prometheus – at somewhere close to five thousand years old, the world's most ancient living tree – is chopped down by a graduate student trying to figure out exactly how old it really is. The freaking idiot.

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On this day in 1991, a brilliant fellow by the name of Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. Chaos ensues.

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On this day in 1996, NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. After that, they fall suspiciously silent... Meanwhile, six years later, on this day in 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars. Coincidence? You be the judge!

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On this day in 2001, after only seven months in office, Preznit Dubya begins a month-long vacation at the Crawford "ranch" he purchased as a photo-op backdrop in 1999. He wouldn't spend another night in the White House until after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - the ones he'd been warned about again and again and again - were safely over and done with. The same cannot be said of Dubya's dad, President Poppy, however. Turns out the old man spent the final night of the pre-September 11th era... in the White House. This, of course, raises all kinds of spooky questions.