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On this day in 630, Muhammad leads an army of 10,000 to conquer Mecca.
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A repository of links that should be of interest to any and all observant followers of global developments pertaining to the world of parapolitics.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 11
On this day in 630, Muhammad leads an army of 10,000 to conquer Mecca.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 10
On this day in 1988, a massive earthquake of Biblical proportions rips the Armenian city of Spitak and surrounding areas asunder, snuffing out 100,000 souls by the time it had run its course. Tiny, isolated Armenia had just over three million citizens to begin with. So to put those casualties in their proper, "per capita" perspective, you have to imagine some monstrous natural disaster - an asteroid collision, perhaps, or a massive tsunami - claiming TEN MILLION American lives. Kinda boggles the fricken' mind, don't it?
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Monday, December 9, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 9
On this day in 730, the Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami, at the Battle of Marj Ardabil.
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On this day in 1793, New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
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On this day in 1851, the first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
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On this day in 1872, in Louisiana, P.B.S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a US state.
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On this day in 1935, Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
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On this day in 1946, the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" begin with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation. Mengele, unfortunately, the infamous Doctor Death, isn't there. He's hiding out in South America, where he will remain for decades, undetected.
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On this day in 1950, Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who both fry for their efforts.
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On this day in 1953, General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
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On this day in 1958, the virulently right-wing John Birch Society is founded in the United States.
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On this day in 1960, the first episode of the world's longest-running television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
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On this day in 1963, three amateur kidnappers snatch 19-year-old Frank Sinatra Jr. from a motel room in Lake Tahoe. Frank Jr. is held hostage for four days, until Frank Sr. pays the kidnappers' ransom demand of $240,000. The kidnappers were apprehended almost immediately. After serving his time, the "brains" behind the kidnapping - Barry Keenan, a close friend of Jr's sister Nancy - went on to make a fortune in real-estate speculation.
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On this day in 1979, the eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
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On this day in 1981, porno superstar John Holmes is charged with taking part in the brutal iron-bar torture/murders of four underworld figures in California's Laurel Canyon. He is found guilty and spends a few years in jail, where his experience in gay porn comes in real handy.
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On this day in 1992, the would-be King of England and his fairytale bride send British Prime Minister John Major out to officially inform their pudding-slurping, East Enders-watching subjects that their loveless charade of a marriage was finally coming to a legal and incontrovertible end. Once they had rid themselves of each other's company, Charles and Diana were free to explore life-options that had heretofore been closed off to them. And so it was that the Prince began to work on a revolutionary line of sentient horse tampons, while his former bride Diana fucked her way through an innumerable assortment of Egyptians, footballers, and well-hung veterans of the Falklands Conflict.
Sunday, December 8, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 8
On this day in 1660, a woman - either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall - appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare's play Othello.
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On this day in 1792, one Henry Laurens - the details of his life lost to history's blind spots - becomes the first person ever to be cremated in the New World of America. Until then, we'd either been burying our dearly departed in graveyards, or devouring their remains to stave off starvation in quiet, desperate shame.
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On this day in 1854, in his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of "Immaculate Conception", which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
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On this day in 1927, the Brookings Institution, one of the United States' oldest think tanks (I prefer to call them "brain brothels", where one can hire the dubious charms of various "thought-stitutes"), is founded through the merger of three organizations that had been created by philanthropist Robert S. Brookings.
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On this day in 1941, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. and the Republic of China declare war against Japan.
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On this day in 1976, the General Assembly re-elects Kurt Waldheim for a second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations, and it's easy to see why. Waldheim had a truly kick-ass résumé at the time. Especially for a frickin' NAZI*!
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On this day in 1980, former Beatle John Lennon is gunned down by pathetic loser Mark David Chapman in front of the Dakota, the Manhattan apartment building where Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby was shot.
[*Pssst!
The CIA only exposed Waldheim's Nazi affiliations after he stopped being a Nazi!
It's true! Pass it on! - Jerky]
Saturday, December 7, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 7
On this day in 1869, American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery in Gallatin, Missouri.
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On this day in 1891, the United States' fifty-second Congress holds their first session. This Congress is significant, as they are the first Congress to have over $1 BILLION dollars to play with. And, you know, a billion dollars was a lot of money back then!
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On this day in 1930, W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcasts video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also includes the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for IJ Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show.
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On this day in 1941, at 7:53 in the morning, three-hundred-and-fifty-three Japanese bombers engage in a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In their wake, the bastards leave 2,403 dead soldiers and civilians, 188 destroyed planes, and a crippled Pacific battleship fleet. By attacking American forces, however, the Japanese bit off more than they could chew. As Churchill wrote in his memoirs: "Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death... Hitler's fate was sealed.Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder." And so it was... for a time.
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On this day in 1975, Indonesia invades East Timor.
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On this day in 1982, in Texas, Charles Brooks Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.
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On this day in 1993, Long Island Railroad passenger Colin Ferguson murders six people and injures 19 others on the LIRR in Nassau County, New York.
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On this day in 1995, the Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
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On this day in 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada is officially recognized after the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
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On this day in 2000, magnificently belligerent gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writes the following:
"There was one exact moment, in fact, when I knew for sure that Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the experts were saying - and that was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore winning Florida... Losing was out of the question. Here was the whole bloody Family laughing and hooting and sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV. The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth."
Friday, December 6, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 6
On this day in 1648, colonel Thomas Pride of the New Model Army purges the Long Parliament of MPs sympathetic to King Charles I of England, in order for the King's trial to go ahead; came to be known as "Pride's Purge".
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On this day in 1768, the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.
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On this day in 1884, the Washington (Freemason) Monument in Washington D.C. is completed.
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On this day in 1917, the most destructive man-made explosion of the pre-atomic age occurs when the French munitions ship Mont Blanc - bound for Europe, where World War I was raging - collides with the Norwegian vessel Imo in Canada's Halifax Harbor, setting off 35 tons of benzol, 300 tons of ammunition, 10 tons of gun cotton, 2,300 tons of picric acid, and 400,000 pounds of TNT. Over 2,000 people were evaporated. Another 9,000 were wounded. The city's north end was utterly destroyed. 1,600 homes were reduced to kindling. The barrel of one of Mont Blanc's cannons was found weeks later, three and a half miles from the explosion site. Windows 50 miles away were shattered in their frames, and people three hundred miles away heard the terrifying roar. An official Canadian inquiry into the disaster eventually ruled, and I quote: "it was just a plain bad luck stupid accident." Those gosh-darned Canucks... always so polite and forgiving!
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On this day in 1928, the government of Colombia sends military forces to suppress a month-long strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in an unknown number of deaths.
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On this day in 1953, Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita.
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On this day in 1969, a black man named Meredith Hunter is killed by the Hells Angels during a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California after allegedly pulling out a pistol during the show and aiming it at Mick Jagger, who was performing "Sympathy for the Devil" on stage.
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On this day in 1989, just after 5 PM, Mark Lepine strolled into the University of Montréal's engineering building with a .223 calibre semi-automatic rifle. A man after hate-radio superstar Rush Limbaugh's shriveled, shit-encrusted heart, Lepine shouted "You're all a bunch of feminists!" as he blasted bullets into the female students he lined up against the wall, after ordering all the men to leave the classroom. By the end of his spree, Lepine had murdered fourteen women and injured thirteen more.
Thursday, December 5, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 5
At a certain point, however, things got ugly. The 'protesters' chased and assaulted a vote-counter - knocking a few innocent bystanders on their asses in the process - after one of them claimed he saw that person "stealing a ballot" (it turned out to be a sample ballot used by all vote-counters).
"Hey," you might be saying to yourself at this point, "I can grok that. People take their politics very seriously. Tempers flare." And you'd be right, of course, but just in case you're laboring under the impression that those protesters were every-day, pissed-off citizens venting their anger at a process they believed to somehow be unfair... think again. They were paid Republican flunkies, flown in from all over the country by the Bush campaign... and it's time to name names.
1. Tom Pyle, policy analyst, office of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).
2. Garry Malphrus, majority chief counsel and staff director, House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice.
3. Rory Cooper, political division staff member at the National Republican Congressional Committee.
4. Kevin Smith, former House Republican conference analyst and more recently of Voter.com.
5. Steven Brophy, former aide to Sen. Fred D. Thompson (R-Tenn.), who went on to work at the consulting firm KPMG.
6. Matt Schlapp, former chief of staff for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), moved on to the Bush campaign staff in Austin.
7. Roger Morse, aide to Rep. Van Hilleary (R-Tenn.).
8. Duane Gibson, aide to Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) of the House Resources Committee.
9. Chuck Royal, legislative assistant to Rep. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).
10. Layna McConkey, former legislative assistant to former Rep. Jim Ross Lightfoot (R-Iowa), eventually got a job at Steelman Health Strategies.
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On this day in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany and leads to one of the most oppressive witch hunts in European history.
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Wednesday, December 4, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 4
On this day in 1829, in the face of fierce local opposition, British governor Lord William Bentinck issues a regulation declaring that all who abet suttee in India are guilty of culpable homicide.
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On this day in 1872, the crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found by the British brig Dei Gratia. The ship had been abandoned for nine days but was only slightly damaged.
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On this day in 1875, notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Cuba, then Spain.
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On this day in 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson sails for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.
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On this day in 1921, the first Virginia Rappe manslaughter trial against roly-poly movie comic actor Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle ends in a hung jury.
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On this day in 1954, the first Burger King is opened in Miami, Florida, United States
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On this day in 1956, the Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash) get together at Sun Studios for the first and last time.
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The FBI commits a de facto political assassination on this day in 1969 when Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are shot and killed in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers and federal officials.
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On this day in 1971, the Montreux Casino in Switzerland is set ablaze by someone wielding a flare gun during a Frank Zappa concert; the incident would be noted in the Deep Purple song "Smoke on the Water".
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On this day in 1980, English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbands, following the death of drummer John Bonham on September 25th.
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On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan signs a bill - Executive Order 12333 - which allows the CIA to legally engage in DOMESTIC counter-intelligence. Basically, this meant that America's intelligence forces were given carte blanche to "surveil" individuals and groups, even if they weren't breaking any laws or acting on behalf of any foreign power. Today, forty some years later…
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It was on this day in 1988 that actor Gary Busey became the poster-boy for helmet laws after losing control of his motorcycle, skidding over a hundred feet, and kissing the curb with his bare-naked forehead at thirty miles per hour. Shortly after his accident, Goofy-boy "found" the Lord. Sadly, Busey has yet to recover from either of those two unfortunate mishaps.
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On this day in 1991, journalist Terry A. Anderson is released after 7 years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut. He is the last and longest-held American hostage in Lebanon.
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On this day in 1992, President George H. W. Bush orders 28,000 US troops to Somalia in Northeast Africa. Later when the events chronicled in the film Blackhawk Down take place, it’s all blamed on Bill Clinton, who became President AFTER Bush ordered troops into that hell-zone.
Tuesday, December 3, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 3
On this day in 1854, in what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
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On this day in 1901, US President Theodore Roosevelt delivers a 20,000-word speech to the House of Representatives asking the Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".
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On this day in 1970, in Montreal, Quebec, kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released by the Front de libération du Québec terrorist group after being held hostage for 60 days. Police negotiate his release and in return the Canadian government grants five terrorists from the FLQ's Chenier Cell their request for safe passage to Cuba.
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On this day in 1976, an assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, but plays a concert two days later.
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On this day in 1979, eleven concertgoers are trampled to death during a Who concert in Cincinnati. This tragedy prompts the producers of the hit sitcom WKRP to do a very special episode dealing with the tragedy, and calling for an end to festival seating. Thank you, Johnny Fever! Meanwhile, in Persia, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.
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On this day in 1982, a soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin.
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On this day in the year 1984, the Creeping Death sent by God to kill every first-born Egyptian son back in the days of Moses swings by for an encore when a leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India creates a deadly cyanide fog that kills an estimated sixteen thousand of the world's poorest people. Meanwhile, down in Hell, Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
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On this day in 1989, in a meeting off the coast of Malta, US President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the cold war between NATO and The Soviet Union may be coming to an end.
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On this day in 1999, NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
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On this day in the year 2000, O.J. Simpson once again loses his cool and yanks a pair of glasses off the face of one Jeffrey Pattison, who had just made the mistake of flicking his high-beams at the Juice to catch his attention after he'd run a stop sign. The really weird thing about this case is the fact that cops only figured out it was O.J. they were looking for after they found one broken lens on the floor of Pattison's car, and the other lens right outside Simpson's Florida estate-in-exile! When confronted with the evidence, Orenthal reportedly shouted: "I wouldn't wear them ugly-ass glasses!" then started whining about how this was one of the worst frame jobs he'd ever seen. Get it? Frame job? Glasses? Ahhh... screw you, that's funny stuff right there!
Monday, December 2, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 2
On this day in 1763, the Touro Synagogue is dedicated in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the first synagogue in what will become the United States.
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On this day in 1823, during a State of the Union message, US President James Monroe proclaims American neutrality in future European conflicts, and warns European powers not to interfere in the Americas. This is what will come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine.
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On this day in 1845, in a State of the Union message, US President James K. Polk proposes that the United States should aggressively expand into the West. This is what will come to be known as Manifest Destiny.
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On this day in 1851, French President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic. One year later, he becomes Emperor of the French as Napoleon III. It is from Karl Marx’s excellent essay, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, written one year later, that we get the phrase: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
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On this day in 1859, militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
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On this day in 1867, at Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.
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On this day in 1942, during the Manhattan Project, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
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On this day, in 1952, a Colorado television station runs the first ever publicly televised footage of a woman giving birth. Couch potatoes all over the state are shocked to learn that the so-called "miracle of life" is actually a bloody, grotesque spasm of screaming agony, gushing fluids and cunt-splitting horror.
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On this day in 1968, President Nixon appoints Henry Kissinger to the post of Security Advisor. Chaos ensues.
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On this day in 1980, 4 US nuns and churchwomen, Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, and Dorothy Kazel, are murdered by a right-wing, CIA-backed military death squad.
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On this day in 1982, at the University of Utah, Barney Clark becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart.
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On this day in 1983, at the Comdex electronics trade show in Las Vegas, the so-called Windows War begins in earnest as over a dozen software companies - including VisiCorp, Apple and Microsoft - demonstrate some kind of mouse-based, window-centered user/computer interface technology. Despite taking longest and achieving the least impressive results, Admiral Gates and his Microsoft army ultimately win the Windows War by using "war of attrition" tactics.
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On this day in 1993, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.
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On this day in 2001, the assholes behind that Dubya-backing “Big Money” Texas energy conglomerate Enron file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection... the swine.
Sunday, December 1, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER 1
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On this day in 1862, in his State of the Union Address, President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation. Three years later, on this day in 1865, Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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On this day in 1885, the soft drink Dr Pepper is served for the first time ever at a drug store in Waco, Texas.
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On this day in the year 1929, a man named Edwin S. Lowe helps to make "games of chance" acceptable in the eyes of God - according to the Catholic Church, anyway - by inventing the game of BINGO!
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On this day in 1952, the New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sexual reassignment surgery.
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On this day in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
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On this day in 1969, the first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
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On this day in 1984, NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data to help improve survivability of crashes.
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On this day in the year 2000, somebody finds something really gross in their Chicken McNuggets. Hey, at least it wasn't a dick!
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On this day in 2013 - China launches Yutu or Jade Rabbit, its first lunar rover, as part of the Chang'e 3 lunar exploration mission.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 30
A shitload of funny people were born on this day, including Jonathan Swift (1667) who wrote Gulliver's Travels and suggested the wealthy should eat poor babies in his black satirical masterpiece, A Modest Proposal, Samuel Clemens (1835) who, as Mark Twain, was even better as a political muckraker than he was as a novelist; Sir Winston Churchill (1874), whose rapier wit left his verbal adversaries twitching like bugs in the dust; and, finally, G. Gordon Liddy (1930), the fascistic Watergate felon whose syndicated radio show used to provide more laughs-per-hour than any episode of Saturday Night Live, notwithstanding the fact that he isn't joking.
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From this day in 3340 BC, we have the first ever confirmed historical recording of a solar eclipse.
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On this day in 1554, "Bloody" Mary Tudor becomes Queen of England and re-instates Roman Catholicism as the state religion. Once installed, Mary promptly gives orders for over three hundred Protestant leaders to be burned at the stake.
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On this day in 1936, London's Crystal Palace is destroyed by fire. Who knew crystal could burn?!
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Despite the fact that The Beatles had only just split up a few months earlier, George Harrison somehow managed to throw together a triple album of all-new material which was released on this day in 1970. Entitled All Things Must Pass, the record spawned the hit single "My Sweet Lord", which spawned a lawsuit over the similarities between that tune and "He's So Fine (Do Lang Do Lang Do Lang)". Ah, George Harrison... Now, more than ever, "the quiet one."
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On this day in 1982, the biggest selling record in history is unleashed upon an unsuspecting world: Michael Jackson's second solo album, Thriller, produced by Quincy Jones.
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Operation Desert Storm officially ends on this day in 1995.
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On this day in 1999, in Seattle, Washington, The Powers That Be suffer a rude awakening when protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters prove to be so intense and forceful that the elite, anti-democratic event's opening ceremonies have to be cancelled. HA-ha! Ever since that game-changing day in Seattle, however, TPTB have ratcheted up the police state tactics and strong-arm rhetoric. Not so HA-ha, that...
Friday, November 29, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 29
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On this day in 1781, the crew of the British slave ship Zong murders 133 Africans by dumping them into the sea to in one of the most black-hearted insurance scams in history.
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On this day in 1929, U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.
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On this day in 1947, French troops massacre hundreds of Vietnamese, including 170 women and 157 children, in the village of My Trach, during the First Indochina War. Jeez, what is it about this day in history that leads to so much evil and death?!
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40 years of non-stop LIES began on this day in 1963 when president Lyndon Johnson set up the Warren Commission to "investigate" the assassination of JFK. Today, things are so bad that we have to rely on information sources such as High Times to give us a brief glimpse of truth.
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On this day in 1972, Japanese entertainment conglomerate Atari announces the release of "Pong", the first commercially successful video game.
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On this day in 1981, actress Natalie Wood takes the Big Swim about twenty years too late to become a James Dean-level Hollywood legend. Now she's just a Rock Hudson-level Hollywood legend... and Christopher Walken's first murder victim. I kid, of course.
Thursday, November 28, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 28
On this day in 1520, after navigating through a strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
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On this day in 1582, in Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond for their marriage licence.
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On this day in 1895, America's first ever auto race takes place. Six cars participate in the race, which covers a 55 mile course. The winner averages a white-knuckle speed of 7 miles per hour. No foolin!
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On this day in 1905, Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland.
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On this day in 1907, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater.
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On this day in 1909, Sergei Rachmaninoff makes the debut performance of his Piano Concerto No. 3, considered to be one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire.
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On this day in 1925, the Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee as "WSM Barn Dance".
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On this day in 1942, in Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people.
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On this day in 1966, Michel Micombero overthrows the monarchy of Burundi and makes himself the first president.
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On this day in 1994, cannibal murderer Jeffrey Dahmer is bludgeoned to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver, who also kills the third man on their work detail. This incident goes a long way towards discrediting the cherished notion that cannibals-are-indestructable-genius-psychopaths-who-can't-be-stopped-by-mere-mortals myth that the movies try to propagate.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 27
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On this day in 602, Emperor Maurice is forced to watch his five sons be executed before being beheaded himself. Their bodies are thrown into the sea and their heads are exhibited in Constantinople.
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On this day in 1835, James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England.
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On this day in 1895, at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies.
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On this day in 1924, in New York City, the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.
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On this day in 1971, the Soviet space program's Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.
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On this day in 1973, the United States Senate votes 92 to 3 to confirm the 25th Amendment, declaring Gerald Ford Vice President of the United States. The House confirms it 387 to 35 on December 6 of the same year.
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On this day in 1975, the Provisional IRA assassinates Ross McWhirter, after a press conference in which he'd announced a reward for the capture of those responsible for multiple bombings and shootings across England.
On this day in 1978, angered over a political snub, homo-hating retired police officer Dan White strolls into San Francisco City Hall and empties his gun into Mayor George Moscone, then reloads and guns down City Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay men in America to hold political office. After being apprehended, former star athlete White blamed his murderous rampage on the fact that he had recently gorged on Coca-Cola and Twinkies snack cakes, a defense which managed to convince the rogue-cop-friendly jury that found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. Imagine if somebody murdered New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others, then got off with a seven year sentence, and you begin to comprehend the outrage this sparked among San Franciscans and others at the time. In 1986, White finally did the right thing, taking a long swim up a tailpipe and into the bright white light of the sweet oblivion he so richly deserved.
On this day in the year 2000 – on Day 20 of the Election 2000 fiasco – Al Gore's lawyers file three challenges objecting to Katherine Harris's premature certification of Dubya as the winner in Florida, while Dubya's lawyers continued to insist that hand-counting votes, even statewide, would somehow lead to pro-Gore shenanigans. Meanwhile, north of the border, in a move seemingly designed to embarrass and shame the USA, Canada holds their federal elections. Every single vote is counted by hand. Incumbent Prime Minister Jean Chretien is declared the winner on the very same day.
On this day in 2001, a hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extra-solar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extra-solar planet.
On this day in 2005, the first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.
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On this day in 1978, angered over a political snub, homo-hating retired police officer Dan White strolls into San Francisco City Hall and empties his gun into Mayor George Moscone, then reloads and guns down City Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay men in America to hold political office. After being apprehended, former star athlete White blamed his murderous rampage on the fact that he had recently gorged on Coca-Cola and Twinkies snack cakes, a defense which managed to convince the rogue-cop-friendly jury that found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than murder. Imagine if somebody murdered New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others, then got off with a seven year sentence, and you begin to comprehend the outrage this sparked among San Franciscans and others at the time. In 1986, White finally did the right thing, taking a long swim up a tailpipe and into the bright white light of the sweet oblivion he so richly deserved.
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On this day in the year 2000 – on Day 20 of the Election 2000 fiasco – Al Gore's lawyers file three challenges objecting to Katherine Harris's premature certification of Dubya as the winner in Florida, while Dubya's lawyers continued to insist that hand-counting votes, even statewide, would somehow lead to pro-Gore shenanigans. Meanwhile, north of the border, in a move seemingly designed to embarrass and shame the USA, Canada holds their federal elections. Every single vote is counted by hand. Incumbent Prime Minister Jean Chretien is declared the winner on the very same day.
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On this day in 2001, a hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extra-solar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extra-solar planet.
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On this day in 2005, the first partial human face transplant is completed in Amiens, France.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 26
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Monday, November 25, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 25
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On this day in 1947, the Hollywood Ten are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios over their supposed ties to communist and left-wing organizations. From Ring Lardner Jr. to Dalton Trumbo, this august group includes some of the finest writers and performers to ever work in the entertainment industry.
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Sunday, November 24, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 24
On this day in 1859, Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, starting an argument some folks still refuse to admit is over and done with.
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On this day in 1932, in Washington, DC, the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (better known as the FBI Crime Lab) officially opens.
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On this day in 1962, Kilroy was no longer "here," as James J Kilroy - the World War II tank inspector who allegedly started the inspirational war-zone grafitti craze - died in his home at age 60.
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On this day in 1966, a toxic smog creeps across New York City, killing over 400 people.
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On this day in 1971, during a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper – a.k.a. D. B. Cooper – parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.
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On this day in 1974, paleontologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discover the 40% complete Australopithecus Afarensis skeleton, nicknamed Lucy after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Depression.
Saturday, November 23, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 23
On this day in 534 BC, Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character onstage.
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On this day in 1174, Saladin enters Damascus, and adds it to his domain.
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On this day in 1876, corrupt Tammany Hall leader William Magear Tweed (better known as Boss Tweed) is delivered to authorities in New York City after being captured in Spain.
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On this day in 1889, the first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
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On this day in 1924, Edwin Hubble's scientific discovery that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula within our galaxy, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe, was first published in a newspaper. Wow.
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On this day in 1936, LIFE Magazine is reborn as a photo magazine and enjoys instant success.
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On this day in 1963, the BBC broadcasts the first episode of Doctor Who (starring William Hartnell), which is now the world's longest running science fiction drama.
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On this day in 1981, Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
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On this day in 1992, the first Smartphone IBM Simon was introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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On this day in 1993, Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.
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On this day in 1996, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 is hijacked, then crashes into the Indian Ocean off the coast of Comoros after running out of fuel, killing 125 and leading to some awesome heroic behavior.
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On this day in 2006, a series of bombing kills at least 215 people and injures 257 others in Sadr City, making it the second deadliest sectarian attack since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003.
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On this day in 2011, after 11 months of protests in Yemen, The Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh signs a deal to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity.
Friday, November 22, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 22
On this day in 1908, the Congress of Manastir establishes the Albanian alphabet. The strange thing is, it’s only got twelve letters! This, despite including the number “7” and having three different versions of the letter “Q”!
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On this day in 1928, the premier performance of Ravel's Boléro takes place in Paris.
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On this day in 1940, following the initial Italian invasion, Greek troops counterattack into Italian-occupied Albania and capture Korytsa.
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On this day in the year 1963, President John F. Kennedy is gunned down in cold blood while touring the city of Dallas, Texas. His killers were never apprehended. It's been fifty years, and we're still being drowned in a river of disinformation. Other notables who died on this day in 1963 were Christian children's fantasy author C.S. Lewis, and novelist/psychedelic stuntman Aldous Huxley, of Brave New World infamy. In the darkness of the shadow cast by the Kennedy assassination, the snuffing of these once-bright candles was essentially passed unnoticed.
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On this day in 1986, Mike Tyson defeats Trevor Berbick to become youngest Heavyweight champion in boxing history.
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On this day in 1987, two Chicago television stations are hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom.
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On this day in 1989, in West Beirut, a bomb explodes near the motorcade of Lebanese President René Moawad, killing him.
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On this day in 1995, Toy Story is released as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery. It's been all down-hill ever since.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 21
On this day in 164 BC, Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
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On this day in 1877, Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
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On this day in 1905, Albert Einstein's paper “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” is published in the journal "Annalen der Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc².
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On this day in 1927, striking coal miners in Columbine, Colorado, are attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes in what some people refer to as the FIRST Columbine Massacre.
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On this day in 1953, the world famous Piltdown Man fossil, which had allegedly been discovered in 1912, is exposed as a hoax. Naturally, a whole lot of stupid people took this to mean that evolution was a fraud, that science was suspect, that dinosaur bones were put on the Earth by God to test our faith, and that every time a bell rings, an angel gets it's wings. Now go to bed and shut yer cakehole, Captain Curious!
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On this day in 1963, a number of known assassins associated with the Mafia, Cuban exiles and Intelligence agencies stayed at a Dallas motel and other sites in and around the city. Meanwhile, across town at the home of Dallas millionaire Clint Murchison, vice-President LBJ, future President Richard Nixon and Jack Ruby's close friend H.L. Hunt all attend a party together. The guest of honor was the cross-dressing, Martin Luther King-hating head of the FBI: J. Edgar Hoover.
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On this day in 1969, the first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.
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On this day in 1973, a gap of 18-1/2 minutes is revealed in one of the Watergate tapes. Nixon's lawyers' claims that the gap wasn't important because it consisted mostly of "a really boring drum solo" didn't fly with prosecutors.
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On this day in 1974, the Birmingham Pub Bombings kill 21 people. The Birmingham Six are sentenced to life in prison for the crime but subsequently acquitted.
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On this day in 1980, a deadly fire breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Paradise, Nevada (now Bally's Las Vegas). 87 people are killed and more than 650 are injured in the worst disaster in Nevada history.
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On this day in 1985, US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations. He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison.
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On this day in 1986, National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall start to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the sale of weapons to Iran and channeling the proceeds to help fund the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Just one more sordid chapter in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 20
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On this day in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis ends when, in response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation.
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By this day in 1963, several high-ranking politicians implore President John F. Kennedy to cancel his trip to Dallas. Governor Connally even flies in to Washington to plead cancellation. Senator William J. Fulbright and Ambassador Adlai Stevenson plead with Kennedy to bypass the seething hotbed of racism and anti-Catholic bigotry. Congressman Hale Boggs tells Kennedy: "Mister President, you're going into quite a hornets nest." Texas National Committeeman Byron Skelton has a premonition of violence and sends frantic telegrams to administration officials pleading that Kennedy stay away from Dallas on his Texas tour. Unfortunately (in hindsight), Kennedy remains resolute. He believes that the President should not be afraid of visiting any part of the nation. He flatly refuses to bypass Dallas, and the trip goes ahead as scheduled.
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On this day in 1969, the Cleveland Plain Dealer publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.
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On this day in 1980, Lake Peigneur drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. The resulting whirlpool sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet down to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.
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On this day in the year 1983, myself and 100 million other people hunker down in our living rooms to watch the ABC-TV movie of the week: The Day After. Many cultural theorists contend that this morbid nuclear war movie was vital in helping to shape the fractured, nihilistic nonchalance that defines the front-heavy first wave of Generation X. If you ever want to experience the pervasive dread that saturated American culture in the early 1980's - when many weren't convinced mankind would live to see another decade - rent this massive downer and re-live it for yourself.
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On this day in 1985, Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
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On this day in 1998, a court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
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On this day in 1998, the first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 19
Hmmm... let me figure this out. Okay, I got it. Ahem. Seven score and ten years ago, President Abraham Lincoln presented his Gettysburg Address, in which he made the following prediction: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here." Yer old pal Jerky understands that hindsight is 20/20, but come on! What was he thinking?! That speech was KILLER!!!
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On this day in 1881, a meteorite lands near the village of Grossliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
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On this day in 1942, Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
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On this day in 1943, Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lviv, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6,000 Jews after a failed uprising and mass escape attempt.
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On this day in 1949, Prince Rainier III is crowned reigning regent over the tiny, casino-dependent Eurotrash principality of Monaco. His coronation moves him a full five slots down the Top Ten list of Least-Given-a-Fuck-About Royal Families of the World.
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On this day in 1955, right-wing magazine National Review publishes its first issue. It sucks, and has continued to suck ever since.
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On this day in 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum (the "Ocean of Storms") and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.
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On this day in 1979, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
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On this day in 1988, Serbian communist representative and future Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic publicly declares that Serbia is under attack from Albanian separatists in Kosovo as well as internal treachery within Yugoslavia and a foreign conspiracy to destroy Serbia and Yugoslavia.
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On this day in 1990, pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
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On this day in 1998, the Congressional Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton for letting Monica Lewinsky suck his dick.
Monday, November 18, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 18
On this day in 1307, archer William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head, offering a chilling historical foreshadowing of the fatal head-shot of President John F. Kennedy, 656 years later. See today's third item for details.
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On this day in 1928, the animated short film Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the third appearances of cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse takes place. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday.
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(Guest Post by fellow blogger Albert Venczel)
On this day in 1963, a gaggle of un-indicted co-conspirators meet up in a smokey back room to plot the assassination of JFK by publicly shooting him in the head. At the same meeting, they decide to appoint Allen Dulles (whom JFK had personally fired from the CIA over the Bay of Pigs fiasco mere months before) to the Warren Commission - which is, in effect, a cover-up orchestrated by Dulles and "company". To this day, many suspect that future President George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush - a.k.a. "41" - was the Grassy Knoll trigger-man, bringing to mind the famous line by Argentinian metaphysical wordsmith Jorge Luis Borges: "If I kill you, do I become you?" Subsequently, a great many of JFK's associates die under mysterious circumstances, including Marilyn Monroe, who was allegedly done in because of JFK's pillow-talk about both a secret, unaccountable "shadow government" and UFOs, the existence of which he wished her to disclose to the public by slipping it into Hollywood movies in order to cause a global awakening, forcing The Powers That Be to stop her dead in her tracks with a drug overdose.
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Sunday, November 17, 2024
PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR NOVEMBER 17
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On this day in 1947, the Screen Actors Guild implements an anti-Communist loyalty oath.
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In order to break into the porn business, succulent starlet Traci Lords got a fake ID that said she was born on this day in 1962. Unfortunately for the motley assortment of sleazebags and mobsters who financed her career, she was actually born May 7, 1968, thus necessitating the total erasure of the most lucrative catalog of adult cinema in the history of the genre. Oops!
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