PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 31

On this day in 30 BC, the Battle of Alexandria takes place, during which Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide (he was under the mistaken impression that his lover, Cleopatra, had already done herself in). Or was it an Egyptian priest in Octavian's pay who murdered him? We will never know. In any case, after her capture by the Roman general, Cleopatra was allowed to give Marc Antony full burial rites.

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On this day in 1790, the very first United States patent is granted to Samuel Hopkins, for his miraculous potash processing technique. I don't even know what potash is but am duly impressed, nonetheless!

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On this day in 1922, some dude by the name of Ralph Samuelson becomes the first person to ride on water skis. The weird thing is, he doesn't do it in Florida, where you might expect that kind of thing to happen. Trail-blazing Samuelson strapped those planks to his tootsies in the great state of Minnesota, on one of her many scenic (and ice-cold) lakes.

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On this day in 1932, the NSDAP (better known as the Nazi Party) wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections. It is their greatest showing at the polls.

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On this day in 1941, under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question." The birth of the Holocaust.

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Starting just before midnight on this day in the year 1966, chronic headache-sufferer Charles Whitman goes totally fucking ape-shit. After killing his mother and wife, he grabs a rifle and climbs to the observation deck of the University of Texas clock tower and proceeds to rain hot leaden death upon the cowering students below. Ninety minutes and sixteen corpses later, a police officer is finally able to introduce Mister Whitman to his maker. Later, an autopsy would reveal a golf ball-sized tumor in Whitman's brain. The concept of S.W.A.T. policing basically came about because of Whitman's rampage.

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On this day in 2006, revolutionary Cuban dictator Fidel Castro hands over power to brother Raúl Castro like it was some kind of car dealership or something.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 30

On this day in 762, Baghdad is founded by caliph Al-Mansur.

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On this day in 1619, colonial Virginia's House of Burgesses is established. The first popularly elected legislature in the New World, the House of Burgesses meant Americans had a 157-year head start on democracy once they declared full independence from England in 1776, assuring a relatively smooth transition towards self-rule. Of course this "democracy" applied only to land-owning white dudes. But hey, you know... baby steps, people!

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On this day in 1733, the first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States (aka Grapes Tavern) is constituted in Massachusetts.

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On this day in 1839, a bloody revolt takes place on the slave ship La Amistad, thereby laying the groundwork for yet another "message" movie by Steven Spielberg.

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On this day in 1945, Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen during World War II.

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On this day in 1962, the Trans-Canada Highway, the largest national highway in the world, is officially opened.

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On this day in 1965, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

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On this day in 1975, union boss Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again, and will be declared legally dead on this date in 1982.

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On this day in 1991, publicists for MTV announce that the groundbreaking cable music video channel would soon be splitting into three separate channels. Marketers call the move "expansion and diversification," while music lovers describe it as "metastasization."

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 29

On this day in 1836, the very beautiful Arc de Triomphe is inaugurated in Paris, France. It remains one of that nation's most cherished and beloved landmarks.

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On this day in 1848, the Irish nationalist Tipperary Revolt against British rule takes place during the Irish Potato Famine. It is unsuccessful. 

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On this day in 1900, King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci.

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On this day in 1907, the Brownsea Island Scout camp is set up by Sir Robert Baden-Powell in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp ran until August 9, 1907, and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.

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On this day in 1921, after first joining the organization as a government infiltrator/spy, Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, later known as the Nazi Party.

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On this day in 1976, in New York city, David Berkowitz (aka the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.

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On this day in the year 1981, England's Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer, and they lived happily ever after.

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On this day in 1987, hippy ice cream entrepreneurs Ben & Jerry team up with Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia to create a popular new flavor: Cherry Garcia. Subsequent partnerships with other musicians, resulting in such flavors as Grape Slick, Strawberry Pearl Jam, and M&Eminem&M, were nowhere near as successful.

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On this day in 2005, astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 28

On this day in 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre loses his head to one of the many guillotines he, himself, helped to erect across France during his "Reign of Terror."

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On this day in 1945, a B-25 US Army bomber crashes into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. 14 people die in the resulting explosion.

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On this day in 2061, Halley's Comet will make its 31st recorded pass through our solar system. Most of us will be dead, buried and dissolved by then. Have a nice day!

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 27

On this day in 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh brings the first ever shipment of tobacco from the New World (Virginia) to England, where the addiction takes firm hold and begins to spread - much like cancerous polyps - across Europe. Eventually, the sweeter leaf makes its way down through the Muslim lands and around Asia until basically, the entire planet is hooked and puffing. Combined with the arrival from the opposite direction of coffee - and caffeine - a mere thirty years later, is it any wonder that the ensuing century would be so productive when compared to, say, the previous ten?

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On this day in 1794, French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 "enemies of the Revolution".

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On this day in 1837, the United States Mint opens in Charlotte, North Carolina. Exactly seven years later to the day - in 1844 - it burns to the ground in a fire. Kinda makes you wonder why they bothered building it in the FIRST place!

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On this day in 1890, painter Vincent van Gogh shoots himself and dies two days later.

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On this day in 1919, the Chicago Race Riot erupts after a racial incident occurred on a South Side beach, leading to 38 fatalities and 537 injuries over a five-day period.

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On this day in 1940, the animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny.

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On this day in 1981, 6 year old Adam Walsh, son of America's Most Wanted host John Walsh, is kidnapped in Hollywood, Florida and is found murdered two weeks later.

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On this day in 1996, in Atlanta, USA, a pipe bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics. One woman, Alice Hawthorne, is killed, and a cameraman suffers a heart attack fleeing the scene. 111 are injured. Early on, heroic-yet-tubby security guard Richard Jewell is considered a suspect, but eventually the far more handsome right-wing anti-abortion crusader and lone nut survivalist Eric Rudolph is identified as the true culprit.

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On this day in 2002, at a Ukraine airshow, a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter crashes in Lviv, killing 85 and injuring more than 100 others, the largest air show disaster in history.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 26

On this day in 1533, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, Atahualpa, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. His death marks the end of 300 years of Inca civilization.

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On this day in 1775, Hellfire Club charter member Benjamin Franklin becomes America's first Postmaster General.

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On this day in 1847, Liberia declares independence... and they all lived happily ever after.

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On this day in 1887, publication of the Unua Libro, founding the Esperanto movement.

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On this day in the year 1928, cinematic sorceror-king Stanley Kubrick enters the world kicking and screaming. During the time-span between the release of Dr. Strangelove in 1964, through the five years it took to film 2001: A Space Odyssey, continuing up until the premiere of Clockwork Orange in 1971, no popular artist had as firm a grasp on the zeitgeist of the West as did Stanley Kubrick. Two-hundred years from now, if human beings are still around to watch and discuss film, Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieces will continue to be watched, revered and fiercely debated, while 99.999% of the tepid dreck that currently pollutes our movie screens will be blissfully forgotten.

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On this day in 1936, the Axis powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, thus giving macho liberals, socialists and other assorted left-wingers - like Ernest Hemmingway - a chance to earn their battle scars and gain some macho street cred, years before World War II really got rolling.

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On this day in 1941, in response to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States. This does not sit well with them.

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On this day in 1944, the first German V2 rocket hits the United Kingdom. Seeing as they were supersonic, you never heard the one that hit you.

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On this day in 1947, US President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act into law, thus creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, the US Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the United States National Security Council. One year later, on this day in 1948, Truman signed Executive Order 9981, thereby desegregating the US military.

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On this day in 1956, following the World Bank's refusal to fund building the Aswan Dam, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, sparking international condemnation.

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On this day in 1977, the National Assembly of Quebec mandates the use of French as the official language of the provincial (and perhaps, one day, national) government.

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On this day in 1989, a federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris Jr for releasing the Morris Worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

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On this day in 1990, President George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush signs into law the Americans with Disabilities Act, thereby making it possible for his very own son, George "Dubya" Bush, to become the nation's first mentally retarded Preznit, only a decade later.

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On this day in 1991, a Florida police officer arrests Pee Wee Herman after watching him jerk off in a porno theater. Within hours, every last person on the planet - including people who had no idea who Pee Wee Herman was - are informed that Pee Wee Herman jerked off in a porno theater. For a while there, he was the designated Global Village Idiot.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 25

On this day in 1755, British governor Charles Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council order the deportation of the Acadians. Thousands are sent to the British Colonies in America, France and England. Some later move to Louisiana, while others resettle in New Brunswick. That's what my ancestors did, anyway.

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On this day in 1946, America's military scientists detonate the first ever underwater atomic bomb off the Bikini atoll. Meanwhile, in Paris, a new two-piece swimsuit makes its debut at a fancy-shmancy fashion show. It's name? The Bikini! Coincidence? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

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On this day in 1965, folk singer Bob Dylan "goes electric" as he plugs in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music. Some in the audience boo, but the world at large applauds. Figuratively speaking, of course.

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On this day in 1976, the Viking 1 probe takes the famous Face on Mars photo.

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On this day in 1978, the world's first "test tube baby", named Louise Brown, is born.

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On this day in 1984, Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk!

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On this day in 1990, US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie tells Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." Four days later, Iraq invades Kuwait. A few months later, the United States bombs Iraq. BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!! Suckers!

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On this day in 1999, a conflagration - half barbarian self-affirmation, half banal suburban vandalism - erupts belch-like from the belly of a lost generation. The children of the seventies and eighties - the children of greed, selfishness and solipsism - have their Woodstock, and brother, it ain't pretty. Better to call it Altamont '99, or Woodstockalypse Now. It's pointless to compare the hellish negativity of Woodstock 99 with the benign goofiness of the one that came thirty years before, so why bother? There was public nudity at both events, sure, but the nudity of Woodstock 99 was confrontational, vile and pathetic... it stank of the peep-show booth. Look at me! Touch me! It's all about my tits and cock! Conservatives, of course, see in Woodstock 99 a confirmation of their prejudices. "You see?! THIS is what happens when you allow a counterculture to thrive!" But most of these kids were either born or raised during the greatest surge of social conservatism this nation has ever known. These kids who were setting fire to everything that would burn, these kids who were overturning cars, trucks and ambulances for the rush of it, these kids who looted concessions and sent merchants running for their lives, these are the bastard offspring of the dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Brutal, narcissistic and numb. Woodstock is dead... long live Woodstock.

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On this day in 2010, WikiLeaks publishes classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in U.S. military history.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 24

On this day in 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier plants a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula and takes possession of the territory in the name of Francis I of France.

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On this day in 1847, after 17 months tramping through the American wilderness, Brigham Young and his merry band of Mormon pioneers finally settle down in the Salt Lake Valley region of what would one day become the state of Utah. California sure dodged a bullet!

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On this day in 1911, explorer Hiram Bingham III finds Machu Picchu, the legendary Lost City of the Incas. Bingham was the well-to-do son of a Protestant Hawaiian missionary who became a gentleman scholar, a prolific author, a profoundly vile racist, a governor of Connecticut, a Senator at the federal level, and, finally, the real-life inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones. They don't make 'em like Bingham anymore.

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On this day in 1915, the passenger ship S.S. Eastland capsizes while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew are killed in the largest loss of life disaster from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.

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On this day in 1922, the draft of the British Mandate of Palestine was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations; it came into effect on 26 September 1923.

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On this day in 1959, then vice-president Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev engage in their infamous "kitchen debate" while standing in the middle of a model kitchen at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. Eventually, the two men reach a compromise, deciding to go with Krushchev's choice of enamel tile instead of the formica Nixon wanted, but in the sky-blue color pattern favored by Tricky Dick, rather than the deep red tones favored by Nikita.

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On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." On this day in 1969... mission accomplished.

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On this day in 1967, during an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: "Vive le Québec libre!" The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.

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On this day in 1998, Russell Eugene Weston, Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.

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On this day in 2001, real estate mogul Larry Silverstein signs a $3.2 billion, 99 year lease on the World Trade Center. It includes an insurance policy which specifically covers acts of terrorism, which was extremely fortuitous, because in 7 weeks the terrorist attacks of 9/11 would take place.

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On this day in 2001, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.

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On this day in 2009, the MV Arctic Sea, supposedly carrying a cargo of timber but rumored to be carrying far more disturbing cargo, is allegedly hijacked in the North Sea by pirates - which hardly EVER happens - so much speculation remains as to the actual cargo and events.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 23

On this day in 1967, in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It will leave 43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned.

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On this day in 1968, in Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins and lasts for five days.

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On this day in 1973, occultist/philosopher Robert Anton Wilson either achieves contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius or starts a long-term period of having wild hallucinations, depending on which way you want to look at it.

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On this day in 1974, the military dictatorship controlling Greece collapses. Taziki-dripping chaos ensues.

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On this day in 1982, during the filming of the John Landis segment of the Steven Spielberg production of Twilight Zone: The Movie, actor Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese child actors are torn apart when a crippled helicopter falls right on top of them. Their grisly (though mercifully instantaneous) deaths are captured on film, from a half-dozen angles, for all the world to see, over and over again, on Fox's latest TV special: When Helicopters Attack Beloved Character Actors and the Vietnamese Child Actors They're Holding in Their Arms: Part One!

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On this day in 1984, the first ever Black woman to be crowned Miss America - the truly gorgeous Vanessa Williams - is forced to step down when Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione reveals photographs showing her taking part in a softcore lesbian romp. Because of the resulting press and exposure, Vanessa went on to have the most lucrative career of any so-called "winner" in the history of the pageant. That's a fine kind of justice, all things considered.

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On this day in 1986, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson at Westminster Abbey, in London. They eventually divorce, but it could have been worse. At least Queen Elizabeth didn't have Fergie killed for shaming the Royal Family, like she did with Lady Di. Then again, maybe that's because Fergie was smart enough not to run around fucking Egyptian billionaires.

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Speaking of Egypt, it was on this day in 2005 that 88 people were killed in a terrorist bombing at the Naama Bay tourist area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 22

On this day in 1946, the Zionist underground terrorist organisation known as Irgun bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandate Palestine. 91 people, mostly British diplomats and their wives and children, are killed. It remains the worst act of terrorist bombing in the modern history of Palestine/Israel.

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This day is a bad day for bad guys. It was on this day in 1934 that John Dillinger was gunned down by FBI agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre. Also on this day, in 1991, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested after police found the remains of eleven men and boys in his Milwaukee apartment. And, finally, this day in 2003 saw Uday and Qusay Hussein's last stand. Saddam's boys had held off the 101st Infantry and Special Forces for days, holed up in a fortified compound, before planes were called in to bomb the hell out of the place and give Preznit Dubya a necrophiliac photo-op and another chance to claim, ridiculously, that America had "turned a corner" in Iraq.

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This day was also a bad day for a not so bad guy in 2005, when London police chased Jean Charles de Menezes into a subway car and gunned him down in cold blood after allegedly mistaking him for one of the London Bombers, much to the delight of mentally ill FOX News on air "personality" (sic) John Gibson.

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On this day in 2005, the last Buick LeSabre rolls off the assembly line. Over the last twenty years, yer old pal Jerky has owned two of these road-tanks, and loved them both.

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On this day in the year 1988, fearing that any advances they make will eventually find their way into dangerous hands, a group of 500 American research scientists pledge to boycott any and all biological weapons development proposals sent their way by the Reagan administration. I wonder if even these thoughtful, forward thinking gentlemen could envision a day when the wrong hands would be their own.

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On this day in 2011, psychopathic right-wing "Christian Identity" terrorist, wannabe Freemason, self-declared Templar, Islamophobic Cosplay enthusiast Anders Breivik sets off a bomb targeting government buildings in central Oslo, Norway, killing eight. He then makes his way to a youth camp taking place on the island of Utøya, where he kills an incredible 69 more people, the vast majority of whom are teenagers. The videos and manifestos subsequently put out by Breivik have left no doubt about the fact that Breivik is a pathetic narcissist with delusions of grandeur who deserves a hundred lifetimes of unremitting, round-the-clock torture. Too bad the maximum time he can serve in Norway's jails is... 21 years!??!

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 21

On this day in 356 BC, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is destroyed by arson. How does one burn down marble columns?!

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On this day in 365, a tsunami devastates the city of Alexandria, Egypt. The tsunami was caused by the Crete earthquake estimated to be 8.0 on the Richter Scale. 5,000 people perished in Alexandria, and 45,000 more died outside the city.

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On this day in 1865, the first-ever true-life old-timey "wild West showdown" takes place in Springfield, Missouri, when Wild Bill Hickok guns down Dave Tutt in the market square. Eight years later to the day, on this day in 1873, the James Younger Gang pulls off the first-ever true-life old-timey train robbery. Tupac and Biggie had nothing on those gansta honkies, I tell ya whut.

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On this day in 1880, twenty workers are killed during the construction of the Hudson River Rail Tunnel. The men had been able to dig beneath the river thanks to an air compressor that pumped 35 lbs of pressure into the void, thus preventing the river from collapsing down on top of them. But they were digging through soft silt, and when they came to within fifteen feet of the bottom, the whole thing blew out like a wad of herniated chewing gum.

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On this day in 1973, Mossad agents assassinate a waiter in Norway after mistaking him for one of the terrorists who took Israeli athletes hostage during 1972's Munich Olympics. D'Oh!!!

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On this day in 1984, our soon-to-be metallic overlords take the first tentative step in their plan to destroy the human race when a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan crushes a worker against a safety bar… history's first robot-related death!

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Also on this day in 1984, fitness guru Jim Fixx - the man who single-handedly launched the jogging craze of the late seventies - dies of a massive heart attack at the ripe old age of… 43! BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!

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On this day in 1990, legendary sour-puss Roger Waters and a cast of dozens perform the infamous prog-rock opera The Wall on the very site where the Berlin wall once stood. Paid attendance is around 200,000 people, but it is estimated that the real attendance figure was somewhere around 600,000. Every penny of the gate went to the War-Dead Fund.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 20

On this day in 1712, the Riot Act of euphemism fame takes effect in Great Britain, giving local authorities the power to declare any group of more than twelve people to be "unlawfully assembled", thus forcing them to disperse or face the consequences.

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On this day in 1903, the Ford Motor Company ships its first car. Today, some industry analysts are wondering how long it will be before the day they ship their last.

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On this day in 1932, in Washington, DC, police fire tear gas on World War I veterans who were marching on the White House to demand their long-promised and as-yet unpaid bonuses. Generals MacArthur and Patton, with Eisenhower tagging along, were sent in to quash this surly display. Hundreds of soldiers and their family members were injured, and several were killed. It was, as the kids say today, "a bad scene, maaan." Especially for President Herbert Hoover, who was voted out of the White House a few months later.

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On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 lands on the fucking Moon. It's been all downhill for our species ever since. And don't come back at me with Viking 1 landing on Mars exactly seven years later, to the day. That was one for the robots.

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On this day in 1977, the Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing that it had engaged in Nazi-style mind control experiments, code-named MKUltra. See? They admitted it, and yet some people STILL don't believe it.

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On this day in 1984, the Miss America organization demands that Vanessa Lynn Williams - the first African American Miss America - hand in her tiara after Penthouse publishes a really hot naked lesbian photo-set in which she had participated when she was young and hungry… for vagina!

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Despite repeated post-9/11 claims that they had "no idea" that terrorists might hijack commercial jetliners and use them as weapons, at the 27th Annual G8 summit in Genoa, Italy - which started on this day in 2001 - the city was ringed with anti-aircraft guns precisely to prepare for this exact potential threat.

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On this day in 2003, the Director of BBC News reveals that WMD expert Dr. David Kelly was the source of claims that Downing Street had "sexed up" the infamous "Dodgy Dossier" that was a large part of the US and UK justifications for invading Iraq. Shortly thereafter, in an alleged fit of guilt, the good doctor wanders into the woods and commits suicide by slashing his own arms open with a knife. It's true, I tells ya! He killed himself! An inquest ruled it so! 

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On this day in 2012, during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman opens fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 58.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 19

On this day in the year 64 AD, Emperor Nero gently strums his lyre and sings a tune while watching the city of Rome go up in smoke. Of course, this historical example of a disastrous failure of leadership has absolutely no parallels with Preznit Dubya's reaction to the Katrina disaster, because… um… because fire is, like, the total opposite of water. A-and Rome didn't have any Black people in it. Or at least not as much as New Orleans does. I mean did.

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On this day in 1979, the Sandinista rebels overthrow the government of the Somoza family in Nicaragua, much to the delight of... well... UK punk rock group The Clash, for one.

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On this day in 2001, a writer named James Howard Hatfield - author of the highly critical and controversial Dubya biography Fortunate Son - is found dead in an Arkansas hotel room, victim of an apparent "suicide". Hatfield's most contentious claim was that Dubya had been arrested on cocaine dealing charges back in the early seventies, and that Poppy Bush had to pull some major strings to get the charges wiped.

Yer old pal Jerky was a spectator of the Hatfield saga from pre-release buzz for his book, to the post-release controversy of its claims, to the attempts to assassinate Hatfield's character (unlike the individual he investigated, Hatfield had no way to wipe his criminal record clean), to the unprecedented mass burning of the original run, to the second printing by the courageous folks at Soft Skull Press, to the claim that Karl Rove was a source for the cocaine story, and eventually to the author's convenient hotel-room suicide. Shades of Danny Casolaro. Shades of Steve Kangas.

But no matter what one thinks of the author as a man, Fortunate Son remains a book about which respected social critic Mark Crispin Miller said: "If there's any future for American democracy, the trashing of Fortunate Son and its author will eventually stand out as an important early episode in the history of the Bush reaction." Your humble blogging friend concurs with Miller's assessment. 

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 18

On this day in 1870, the First Vatican Council decrees the dogma of papal infallibility. That means the Pope can never be wrong. Imagine that.

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On this day in 1872, Britain introduces voting by secret ballot. Up until then, Brits had been using a complicated system that involved shaving candidates' names into stray dogs, then hurling the mutts into the Thames, where they were scooped up by raft-going hooligans who would call out the results while Freemasons in full apron'd regalia wandered the docksides recorded the tally. The hooligans would then kill, gut, cook and then eat the dogs, saving the penis for the Queen, of course.

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On this day in 1925, some Austrian dude by the name of Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto: Mein Kampf. It barely makes a dent on the Top 10 charts.

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After being denied a permit to fly solo across the Atlantic, aviator Douglas Corrigan changed his official flight plans, declaring his intent to fly across America from New York to California instead. But mere minutes after taking off, Corrigan - who claimed, with a wink and a smile, that his compass was "busted" - doubled back and flew his plane to Ireland, earning himself the nickname "Wrong Way." That's BALLS! He completed his solo trans-Atlantic flight on this day in 1938.

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On this day in 1968, Intel is founded in Santa Clara, California.

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Happy Chappaquiddick Day! It was on this day in 1969 that Senator Ted Kennedy gave the conservative movement a gift that keeps on giving when he flipped an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge, then swam ashore and spent the night in a hotel, leaving his passenger - campaign volunteer and Kennedy family friend Mary Jo Kopechne - to drown.

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On this day in 1984, sad sack loser-boy James Oliver Huberty walks into a San Ysidro McDonalds and starts shooting at the walls of heart-ache, bang, bang. By the time a police sniper's bullet ends his rampage, Huberty had snuffed out 21 lives.

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On this day in 2003, NBA star Kobe Bryant is charged with anally raping a 19-year old hotel employee, thus putting into motion a series of events that would ultimately lead to the revitalization of several small Central African nations' diamond industries.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JULY 17

On this day in 1917, England's King George V issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British Royal Family will bear the surname Windsor. This is done to remove the Teutonic stink from their "royal house", due to rising anti-German sentiment over the First (and eventually, the Second) World War(s).

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On this day in 1918, in Russia, the Bolshevik Party orders - and the Cheka carries out - the murders of emperor Nicholas II and his family. After the deed is done, the victims' bodies are dipped in acid, set on fire, then dumped down an abandoned mine shaft in an undisclosed location, to prevent loyalists from having bodies over which to grieve. Rumors soon began to spread, however, so the murderers retrieved the bodies with the intent of dumping them down a different mine shaft, far away. The vehicle in which they were transporting the bodies broke down along the way, however, and the conspirators had to settle on burying the bodies in a sealed pit 12 miles outside Yekaterinburg. In 1981 Nicholas and his family are canonized as saints by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. The bodies remained undiscovered until 1991, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, after a long, strange post-life - and, not so coincidentally, on the 80th anniversary of their murder - the Romanovs' remains are buried in St. Catherine Chapel on this day in 1998.

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On this day in 1945, the leaders of the three Allied nations, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin, meet in the German city of Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany.

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On this day in 1955, animation industry titan Walt Disney's ambitions for total world domination take a big step forward when he first opens Disneyland, his fully-realized, 160-acre model of the Utopian ideal to which he believes all of mankind should aspire. Today, on the American continent alone, Disney's combined Florida and California properties span an impressive 70 square miles, dwarfing the Vatican in both surface area and cultural influence. Can a request to the U.N. for recognition of statehood be far behind?

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On this day in the year 1967, planet Earth passes through some kind of radioactive space cloud that mangles the very fabric of space and time, causing everybody to go slightly bonkers. Milk goes sour in the bottle, toads rain down from the sky, and, perhaps worst of all, guitar legend Jimi Hendrix plays a concert where he's the opening act for… the fuckin' MONKEYS!!!

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On this day in 1985, the EUREKA Network for research and development of new technologies and financial markets is founded by former heads of state François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany). A cursory examination of the organization makes it seem relatively harmless - even somewhat inspiring - but I'm pretty sure there's a great potential for some James Bond level villainy behind the scenes, there.

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On this day in 1986, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan says imposing economic sanctions on the Apartheid government of South Africa wouldn't work because "American women" would never be willing to "give up all their jewelry". One year later, after being forced out of his job due to clashes with the First Lady, Regan would reveal to the world both Nancy Reagan's increasing influence on the President's decision-making process, as well as her frequent consultations with personal astrologer Joan Quigley for advice on national affairs.

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On this day in 1996, Paris-bound  TWA Flight 800 explodes in mid-air off the coast of Long Island, New York,  killing all 230 on board. The authorities urge everyone to "move along" because there is "nothing to see here." Of course, as usual, the authorities are (ahem) full of shit. Or are they? You be the judge, I suppose, in this, the grandaddy of all Internet Conspiracy Theories..