PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR JUNE 22

On this day in 1633, the Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo Galilei to disavow his theory that the Earth orbits around the Sun, rather than vice-versa. Three hundred and sixty years later, in 1992, the Vatican admits it made a mistake, and that Galileo was right. Which leads yer old pal Jerky to wonder... how long do you think it will be before they finally admit to making up all that GOD crap in order to keep the rabble in line?

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On this day in 1783, a poisonous cloud created by the eruption of the Laki volcanic fissure system in Iceland reaches the French mainland. All told, six million people around the world would die due to Laki’s multiple eruptions over a two year period, making it the deadliest volcanic event in history.

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On this day in 1813, after learning of American plans for a surprise attack on Beaver Dams in Ontario, Canada, a plucky gal by the name of Laura Secord sets out on a 30 kilometer journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. Chocolate ensues.

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On this day in the year 1847, Captain Hanson Gregory took the top of a round tin pepper box and pressed it down into one of his mother's uncooked miniature fried cakes, creating the world's first doughnut! Today, doughnuts are considered a separate food group in Canada, and they make up roughly 35% of the average police officer's diet.

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On this day in 1941, in one of the worst missteps of World War II, Hitler’s Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Needless to say, things do NOT go Hitler’s way.

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On this day in 1954, in Christchurch, New Zealand, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme murder Pauline's mother by caving in her skull with a rock. This they do because they believe dear old mum is interfering in their “close” friendship. In 1994, Peter Jackson made a movie about it - Heavenly Creatures – which also introduced Kate Winslet to the world.

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On this day in 1956, playwright Arthur Miller defies the House Committee on Un-American Activities by refusing to "name names," as they used to call it.

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On this day in 1969, the incredibly polluted Cuyahoga River catches fire – yep, you read right, a RIVER caught fire – in northeast Ohio. It is one of those watershed moments (no pun intended) that called attention to ecological concerns and led to an increase in environmental awareness the world over.

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On this day in 1978, American astronomer James W. Christy discovers Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto. Creepy name for a creepy moon!

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 20

On this day in 1939, Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday is celebrated as a national holiday in Nazi Germany. Six years later, in 1945, Hitler makes his final trip to the surface of the Fuhrerbunker in order to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. After returning underground, he would never resurface alive.

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On this day in 1914, the Colorado National Guard and a goon squad hired by the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company march on a tent colony of striking miners and their families. Before the night was through, nineteen people – including eleven children – would be killed in an event that would come to be known as the Ludlow Massacre.

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On this day in 1939, jazz singer Billie Holiday records what many people consider to be the first Civil Rights song, Strange Fruit. Give it a listen; it’s real good.

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On this day in 1968, English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial “Rivers of Blood” speech, in which he takes a giant crap all over the UK’s surging non-White population. Give it a listen; it’s real bad.

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On this day in 1998, the left-wing German terrorist group Red Army Faction, also known as Baader-Meinhof, announces its dissolution after 28 years. Seeing as most of the terrorist attacks attributed to them (and many other left-wing European groups) were actually committed under the aegis of Gladio, a clandestine fascist remnant, they needn't really have bothered. This documentary is a good starting point if you want to understand the truth about the evolution of Western Civilization in the latter half of the 20th century.

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On this day in 1999, psycho-teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold live out the revenge fantasy dreams of Doom-playing teenage gun-nut Rammstein fans everywhere when they go on a record-breaking rampage at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. They left 13 dead and two dozen seriously wounded in their wake, before turning their guns on themselves. But they had even bigger plans. According to police reports at the time, Eric and Dylan wanted to – get this – hijack a couple jumbo jets, fly them to New York city, and crash them into skyscrapers. Perhaps if they had achieved their goal, 9/11 wouldn't have happened, seeing as no suicide-hijacker worth his salt wants to be thought of as a rip-off artist.

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On this day in 2010, British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that would last for six freaking months. Here is a rundown of all the conspiracy theories that have grown up around this generation-staining ecological holocaust.

ON THIS DAY IN PARA-CULTURE, JUNE 6

On this day in 1884, ten inches of snow falls in New England. This was the "year without a summer," thanks to all the crap thrown into the atmosphere by the massive explosion of the island of Krakatoa, near Indonesia. Don't bother looking for it on a map... it blew up real good, and it ain't there no more.

On this day in 1934, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act into law, establishing the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ever since then, subsequent Republican administrations have done their damnedest to file down the Act's fangs.

On this day in 1984, one of the best-selling video games of all-time is released: TETRIS! It remains, to this day, the single most popular cultural artifact ever to emerge from Soviet Russia.

On this day in 1988, President George Herbert "Poppy" Walker Bush promises to provide reparations and an official apology to the thousands of Americans of Japanese descent who were held in work camps for the duration of World War II. Neither the reparations nor the apology were ever tendered.

On this day in 2002, a near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb. This occurred during a time of great tension between nuclear rivals Pakistan and India, leading some to speculate about what might have happened if the detonation had occurred over one of those countries. Could it have been mistaken for a nuclear first-strike? Might it have lead to an accidental retaliation? Who knows? All I know is, now I'm hungry for some Butter Chicken!

ON THIS DAY IN PARA-CULTURE, MAY 27

Are you fucking shitting me?!

On this day in 1919, the Curtiss NC-4 "flying boat" aircraft arrives in Lisbon, Portugal, completing the first-ever transatlantic flight. It took 19 days, including time for numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Azores Islands. This accomplishment was unfortunately eclipsed in minds of the public by the first nonstop transatlantic flight, made by British Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, two weeks later.

On this day in 1930, the Chrysler Building opens its doors in New York City. At the time, it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth, and it remains one of the most symbolically potent. So, hey, why not build your own?

On this day in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaims an unlimited national emergency in response to Nazi Germany's threats of total global domination.


On this day in 1962, an out-of-control garbage dump incineration sets an abandoned coal mine ablaze beneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. That fire still burns, to this very day.