PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 14

On this day in 1607, the English colony of Jamestown, in the state of Virginia, is first settled. It was the first permanent English settlement in the New World, coming on the heels of some epic failures - like the Lost Colony of Roanoke - and would serve as capital of the colony for 83 years.

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On this day in 1643, Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII. The Bourbon royal, popularly referred to as the Sun King, was only 4 years old at the time, enabling him to eventually become Europe's longest-reigning monarch, ruling France and Navarre for 72 years and 110 days.

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On this day in 1796, medical researcher Edward Jenner administers the first ever smallpox vaccination. Just imagine how thick that dull the syringes must have been back then... Ugh.

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On this day in 1948, in the city of Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion declares: "We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel." Within hours, Israel is repelling military attacks from pretty much all of its neighbors.

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On this day in 1955, the nations of Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia sign a mutual defense treaty. They call themselves the Warsaw Pact.

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On this day in 1970, the Red Army Faction, or RAF, is established in Germany by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist "urban guerrilla" group engaged in armed resistance against what they deemed to be a fascist state. Their terrorist activities mostly consisted of attempts to free jailed members of their gang using violent means. They eventually hook up with the Socialist Patient's Collective, or SPK, a real bunch of nutters who believed that "illness as the protest against capitalism and considering illness the anticipation of the human species that does not yet exist but that should be created through illness." As such, they took a hard-line stance against capitalism... and doctors. I'm not kidding. In their own documents - some of which were co-written by respected French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre! - they proclaimed themselves to be staunchly "pro-illness." You couldn't make up this crap if you tried.

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On this day in 1984, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is born. That's right... the fucker ain't even 50 years old yet. How's that Mac'N'Cheese taste, amigo?

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On this day in 1995, the Dalai Lama proclaims 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima to be the eleventh reincarnation of Panchen Lama, thereby proving that, contrary to popular supposition, Tibetan Buddhism isn't any more enlightened than any other world religion.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 21

On this day in 753 BC, those bitch-tit-sucking twins Romulus and Remus found Rome. "Empire" ensues.

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On this day in 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés lands in Veracruz, on the east coast of Mexico, where he is greeted by the large native population. Things go about as well for those poor devils as yer old pal Jerky suspects it will go for us when the aliens – or extra-dimensional Archons, or whatever the fuck they really are – finally decide to stop pussyfooting around and initiate contact with someone other than gasoline-huffing NyQuil addicts from Squalor, East Virginia.

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On this day in 1863, in Persia, the founder of the Baha'i faith – Bahaullah – declares his mission as "He Whom God shall make Manifest". Baha'i is an interesting faith, with an interesting history. I'm not suggesting it was created by shadowy elites as a more progressive, rational alternative to the "religions of the book" that emerged from Antiquity. However, if a shadowy elite wanted to create a more progressive, rational alternative to the "religions of the book" in order to control the masses... that faith would most certainly look an awful lot like Baha'i.

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On this day in 1934, the "Surgeon's Photograph", the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, is published in the Daily Mail. In 1999, the photo is purportedly revealed to be a “fake” and a “hoax”. However, many serious questions remain about this supposed “debunking”. For instance, how would the hoaxers have known to make their “fake” monster look exactly like so many other photographs of lake monsters that would follow in their footsteps?

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On this day in 1966, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie visits Jamaica, an event now celebrated as "Grounation Day". Jamaica's Rasta believers considered Selassie - traditionally seen as a descendant of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon - to be the prophesied Second Coming of Christ... the Messiah. They still do. But during his first visit to Jamaica, over a hundred thousand Rasta descended on the airport, smoking "spliffs" and "chalices", creating both a cloud of marijuana smoke and a human crush so dense that Selassie refused to de-plane. Eventually Rasta representatives climbed aboard to meet with Selassie, then emerged and instructed the crowds to be respectful and move back, which they did. The rest of his visit went smoothly.

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On this day in the year 1986, intrepid sleuth Geraldo Rivera cracks open Al Capone's vault on national TV and finds ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, forever cementing the nation’s opinion of him as a first-class boob.

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On this day in 1994, astronomer Alexander Wolszczan announces the first ever discovery of extra-solar planets. As of early 2013, astronomers have catalogued over 800 such planets, including a few potentially earth-like ones.

PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR APRIL 16

On this day in the year 73 AD, the Jewish fortress of Masada falls to the Romans after several months of siege... or not. The only thing we really know for sure about this legendary siege and the site on which it is located is that the remains found there - which were given a state funeral with full military honors by the Israeli government in 1982 - mostly consisted of (ahem) pig bones.

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On this day in 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman accidentally ingests a small amount of the chemical byproduct known as LSD-25 while working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, thereby discovering its psychoactive properties. Since then, it's been a long strange trip through Nazi/CIA mind-control experiments, the offices of National Review Magazine, and really bad "jam" music.

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Despite the fact that George Orwell had used the term Cold War to describe the simmering tensions between Western and Soviet bloc nations on two previous occasions, popular convention has it that the financier, presidential advisor and One World Government proponent Bernard Baruch coined the term on this day in 1947, in a speech given in South Carolina. Google "The Baruch Plan" for some startling and revelatory reading.

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On this day in 2007, the deadliest killing spree in modern American history takes place at Virginia Tech, when an apocalyptically awkward South Korean student by the name of Seung-Hui Cho -- or was it someone else? -- guns down 32 and injures another 23 before turning the gun on himself. The fact that his sister works for McNeil/Veritas, a company with deep ties to the American intelligence apparatus, is of no interest whatsoever. And the fact that he went to high school with another "deranged lone nut-job" assassin is just one of those crazy coincidences that so often pop up in events of this nature.

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