PARACULTURAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 23

On this day in 1498, friar, preacher, reformer, prophet and heretic Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy, on the orders of Pope Alexander VI.

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On this day in 1618, four Catholics are thrown out a window in Bohemia, and even though they survive - it was a third floor window and they landed in a pile of horse-shit - it still kicks off the Thirty Years' War. This odd event is referred to as the Second Defenestration of Prague... which means there was a first. Which is weird.

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On this day in 1734, Austrian hypnotist and all-around weirdo Franz Anton Mesmer is born. One of his secrets? Inducing orgasm in female "patients".

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On this day in 1934, American bank robbers-cum-folk heroes Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.

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On this day in 1945, one day after being arrested by British forces, Heinrich Himmler, the closest thing to a High Priest of the Nazi Party and the leader-for-life of the elite S.S. "Schutzstaffel" storm-troopers - commits suicide before he can be questioned.

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On this day in 1958, communist dictator Mao Zedong launches China's Great Leap Forward, trying to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society through the process of rapid industrialization and collectivization. The experiment ended in catastrophe, with an estimated death toll ranging from 18 million to 45 million, although some scholars question these numbers. Regardless, the failure led to Mao being criticized in party conferences, which led him to initiate the Cultural Revolution in 1966, with a whole new slew of fresh terrors being inflicted upon that particularly masochistic population.

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On this day in 1961, the Ford Motor Company puts the finishing touches on a specially modified Lincoln Continental convertible sedan for use by the President of the USA. The jet-black Lincoln, with swing-back suicide doors, is dubbed the SS-100-X. Two and a half years later, John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in that very car, making it perhaps the single most widely-seen automobile in history.

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On this day in 1992, Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than 2 months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.

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.