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.
***
On this day in
1775, Hellfire Club charter member
Benjamin Franklin becomes America's first Postmaster General.
***
On this day in
1847, Liberia declares independence... and they all lived
happily ever after.
***
On this day in
1887, publication of the
Unua Libro, founding the
Esperanto movement.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
***
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.
