PARAPOLITICAL CALENDAR FOR MAY 6

Been a long time since... that horrifying airship crash.

On this day in 1937, the Hindenburg zeppelin bursts into flames upon landing at a Lakehurst, New Jersey air-field, killing 36 of the 97 passengers on board. NBC Radio's Herbert Morrison witnesses the horrifying calamity and is overcome with emotion during a live, coast-to-coast radio broadcast during which he utters the infamous phrase: "Oh, the humanity!"  Controversy still surrounds many aspects of the Hindenburg disaster.


On this day in 1861, the city of Richmond, Virginia is declared the capital of the Confederate States of America, a mere 108 miles south of Washington DC. Nowadays, neo-Confederates would probably choose some city in Texas... pretty much anywhere but Austin, I suspect.

On this day in 1882, the United States Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act... a law which does exactly what its name implies, which is refreshingly candid when compared to the Orwellian New-speak nightmares of T.H.E.P.A.T.R.I.O.T.A.C.T. and No Child Left Behind. Originally intended to exclude Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years (under penalty of imprisonment and deportation), the law was not repealed until 1943... over 60 years later.

On this day in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris, France. At 1,050 feet, it was the tallest man-made structure in the world, surpassing the Washington Monument, which - at 555 feet - had only held the record for five years. In contrast, the Eiffel Tower would remain the tallest man-made structure on the planet for over 40 years, until the Chrysler Building surpassed it in 1930.

On this day in 1954, Roger Bannister becomes the first person to do what would eventually become a commonplace, but which physicians and scientists at the time had deemed impossible... he runs a mile in under four minutes' time.

On this day in 1994, after  Former Arkansas state worker / nude model / Country singer / late-night infomercial "psychic" Paula Jones files a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton alleging that he had "dropped trou" and showed her his pecker back in 1991 when he was still Governor of Arkansas. Of course, it didn't hurt any that ultra-right-wing proto-fascist newspaper publisher / billionaire / Clinton-hater / murderer (?) Richard Mellon Scaife's so-called Arkansas Project had essentially bribed her into launching her suit, and bankrolled the entire enterprise from its sketchy beginnings to its silly, sordid end.

On this day in 1996, The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he "disappeared". Quite a bit of background is necessary to begin to grasp the enigma that is the life and death of William Colby.

On this day in 2002, anti-Islam, anti-immigration, openly homosexual Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is gunned down by "animal rights activist" Volkert Van der Graff, who decided to assassinate Fortuyn to prevent him from "scapegoating the weaker members of society."

Celebrating parapolitical birthdays on this day are Maximilien Robespierre (1758), French Revolutionary and prime figure in The Terror; father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856) and multimedia wunderkind  and psychological warfare pioneer Orson Welles (1915).

ON THIS DAY IN PARAPOLITICAL HISTORY - MAY 2

May 2

On this day in 1536, England's Queen Anne Boleyn - consort to King Henry VIII (who destroyed the Catholic Church in England just to be with her), and mother of the woman who would go on to become the hugely influential Queen Elizabeth I (last of England's Tudor royals) - is arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. She would be found guilty of all charges and beheaded 19 days later. Ah... fickle fate!

On this day in 1670, King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America. That's right... a permanent charter. In fact, there's a whole whack of information about Hudson's Bay Co. that seems ripe for parapolitical exploration.

On this day in 1808, the people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation, prompting Goya to memorialize the event in his painting The Second of May 1808.

On this day in 1816, German/Belgian royal Léopold de Saxe-Coburg marries Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, thus initiating the "royal" Saxe-Coburg Gotha bloodline - name-changed to "Windsor" in England around the time of the Great War, due to anti-German sentiment - that has ruled much of the "free" world over the last century-and-a-half.

On this day in 1933, Adolf Hitler bans trade unions in Germany.

On this day, not one but two ultra-right-wing American lunatics kick the bucket. In 1957, Senator Joe McCarthy, of Red Scare II infamy, dies of multiple health problems exacerbated by alcohol and general mean-spiritedness. In 1972, J. Edgar Hoover - whose abuses of power make Joe McCarthy's seem almost adorable by comparison - dies when his own shriveled black heart finally realizes exactly the type of vile creature its beats had helped to sustain over the years before giving up in disgust. Oh, and by the way... from Little Rock to organized crime, he also pretty much sucked at his job.

On this day in 1998, the European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union's monetary policy. So far, it seems to be working out just fine.

On this day in 2000, President Bill Clinton announces that super-accurate GPS technology would no longer be restricted to the United States military, paving the way for some very interesting and useful consumer technology... as well as the allowing for the propagation of a technology that will eventually facilitate the more perfect tracking of pretty much every single citizen in our rapidly evolving Surveillance State.

And, finally, on this day in 2011, Americans celebrate “Mission Accomplished Day – Part II” when President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the evil genius mastermind behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, had been found, then killed, in full-throttle action-movie style by SEAL Team Six in Abbottabad, Pakistan! Of course, he couldn't show us Osama's corpse, because it was dumped at sea in an undisclosed location, in accordance with some kind of Muslim religious doctrine that nobody's ever heard of before. And of course, they couldn't show us any photographic evidence of his death, because that would have been disrespectful to one of the worst alleged mass-murderers in the history of mass-murder... right? I mean, it's not like there's anything fishy about all this... right? Right?!