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Illjwamh

This Day In History

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06 December

1790 – The U.S. Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.
We're goin' hoppin', we're goin' hoppin' today
Where things are poppin' the Philadelphia way
We're gonna drop in on all the music they play
On the bandstand (bandstand)

1884 – The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.  When the city was being planned, there was supposed to be an equestrian statue of George Washington due south of the Executive Mansion and due east of the Capitol.  How this became an Egyptian obelisk that took a century to complete is a tribute to the power of petty partisanship.

1897 – London becomes the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs.  What?  Why would anyone want transportation regulated?  Isn't having a vehicle all you need to take passengers for hire?

1904 – Theodore Roosevelt articulated his "Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. would intervene in the Western Hemisphere should Latin American governments prove incapable or unstable.  It's a good thing Teddy cleared this up.  With only James Monroe's original Doctrine, some one might have thought we expected Latin America to take care of itself.

1912 – The Nefertiti Bust is discovered.  Just a reminder, whenever you pose for a portrait, make sure the results are as accurate and attractive as possible.  You never know which of your portraits will survive over three thousand years into the future.

1957 – Project Vanguard: A launchpad explosion of Vanguard TV3 thwarts the first United States attempt to launch a satellite into Earth orbit.  A chemical rocket launch is a series of controlled explosions.  Apparently, the "Controlled" part is more critical than first estimated.

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Also November 6th

1917- The largest man made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons devastates most of Halifax, Nova Scotia, after the French munitions ship "Mont Blanc" collides with the Norwegian merchant ship "Imo". 2000 killed, 9000 injured, 25000 without shelter.

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On 12/1/2018 at 8:54 AM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

01 December

1887 – "Study in Scarlet", the first story featuring Sherlock Holmes appears in print.  Did Watson ever find out what school Holmes attended?

He's obviously a Ravenclaw.  :-)

Quote

1982 "Thriller", 6th studio album by Michael Jackson is released (Grammy Award Album of the Year 1984, best-selling album of all time, Billboard Album of the Year 1983) and musical immortality for Vincent Price.

Vincent Price's rap is definitely the best part of that song.

On 12/2/2018 at 4:00 AM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

02 December

1697 – The current St Paul's Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, is consecrated in London after the Old St Paul's was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.  This is, perhaps, the fifth large Christian Church to stand on the site.  And it may have been preceded by any number of ancient pagan structures including, according to some antiquarians, a Roman Temple to Diana.  And thanks to Disney, it is best know as place to feed the birds.

Except for Doctor Who fans, who are more likely to look for rows of Cybermen marching down the steps!

Quote

1867 – At Tremont Temple in Boston, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading of his second, and final, speaking tour in the United States.  By the end of the tour, he was living on Champaign and eggs blended in sherry.  He left America barely escaping a Federal Tax Lien against the proceeds of his lecture tour.

So he was that era's equivalent of a rock band in tour, drinking and trashing hotel rooms and almost getting arrested?

Oh, and why on Earth would he end his tour living in east central Illinois?  ;-)

Quote

1942 – World War II: During the Manhattan Project, at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.  This takes place under the football stadium.  The university would not field another football team until 1969.

Quote

1954 – Cold War: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to censure Joseph McCarthy for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute".  Mr McCarthy, are you now or have you ever been a member of the United States Senate?

Oh, for the days when the Senate cared about coming into dishonour or disrepute!

On 12/2/2018 at 11:06 AM, ChronosCat said:

Ironically, records are making a bit of a comeback these days.

Maybe among high-end audiophiles, but among college frosh?

On 12/3/2018 at 1:27 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

03 December

1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. While many in the audience go ape for Roddy McDowall's performance as Mordred, the role is never truly perfected until a certain displaced Pharaoh makes the part his own in a rural Michigan community theatre production.

Adding checking out your performance to my list of where and when I'd go if I came into possession of a working TARDIS....

Quote

1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.  And the ability to spell becomes irrelevant.

Is it really a lack of spelling, or is it a different dialect?  Like LOLcats, which has a distinct grammar and vocabulary and can definitelybe done wrong.

Quote

1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.  THEY won't tell you the real reason is because of global warning and the melting of Earth's polar ice caps, Santa Clause was forced to relocate to the North Pole of Mars.  To preserve his privacy, the NASA probe was shot down by a Surface-to-Air Reindeer.

Somewhere around here I have a copy of the comic book version by Nina Paley, but apparently my old history teacher, Chris Butler, has created a power point for his "History of the North Pole" lectures.  St. Nicholas's slave empire forcing the elves to work in his toy mines, the creation of Killer Penguins (instead of tasteful tuxedos, they wear streetgang-style leather jackets), the war reparations he's forces to supply every Christmas, looks like it's all there!

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10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Maybe among high-end audiophiles, but among college frosh?

I'm sure there would be some overlap there, but yeah probably not enough to count on an average freshman knowing about records.

(Of course, as I believe I mentioned the last time this came up, you don't need to know what a common phrase references to know what it means in context. I suspect the phrase "broken record" is still popular enough that even those who don't know what a record is are familiar with it. In a similar vein, many people who were born in the last ten to twenty years may not have encountered a VHS tape or audio cassette, and have no idea that the term "rewind" once referred to actual winding, but still use the term...)

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A date which will live in infamy.

On December 7 in History:

43 BCE - Marcus Tullius Cicero ("Tully") is assassinated. That's really going around.

574 - Emperor Justin II abdicates the throne in favor of one of his generals, Tiberius. Given that he suffers frequent bouts of insanity, and over the previous two years has lost vast swaths of land in Syria and Italy, nobody really minds.

1776 - Gilbert du Motier, also known as the Marquis de Lafayette, enters the fledgling American military as a major general. The Americans will never forget this, and the French will be grateful for it as well 141 years later.

1787 - Delaware is the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. This remains the only interesting thing anybody knows about Delaware.

1869 - Jesse James commits his first (confirmed) bank robbery. It is neither the beginning nor the end of America's weird penchant for making folk heroes out of its violent criminals.

1917 - Figuring that since they're already over there fighting Germany anyway, (you're welcome, Lafayette), the United States declares war on Austria-Hungary too.

1930 - America's first television commercial is broadcast in Boston, MA. The degradation of our culture has continued uninterrupted ever since.

1941 - In an attack meant to immediately follow a formal declaration of war (but actually preceding it by three hours), the Japanese Imperial Navy launches a surprise assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The intention is to preemptively knock the United States out of the Pacific War. Upon later reflection, the plan is considered by many to have been ill-conceived.

1949 - The government of the Republic of China moves to Taipei in Taiwan. To many westerners, China gets really small all of a sudden.

1965 - The Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch simultaneously un-excommunicate each other (and by extension their offices), retroactively freeing each others' predecessors from the pits of Hell where they'd all apparently been going since 1054. Nice of them.

1988 - Yasser Arafat recognizes Israel's right to exist. Everything in the region is sunshine and rainbows from this point on.

2017 - Australia decides same-sex marriages are fine. Everything is actual, non-sarcastic rainbows.

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08 December

877 – Louis the Stammerer (son of Charles the Bald) is crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom at Compiegne.  Eventually Europe would decide to simply add Roman Numerals to identify monarchs with the same name rather than rely on the comments of a elementary history class.

1912 – Leaders of the German Empire hold an Imperial War Council to discuss the possibility that war might break out.  Spoiler Alert:  War might break out.

1914 – World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.   War broke out.

1922 – Northern Ireland ceases to be part of the Irish Free State.  A vocal, and potentially violent faction, refuses to accept that the majority in Northern Ireland would rather remain associated with Britain instead of Ireland.  But this should straighten itself out before too long.

1941 – World War II: While attacking Pearl Harbor on December 07, on the other side of the International Date Line Japanese forces simultaneously invade Shanghai International Settlement, Malaya, Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Dutch East Indies.

     and

1941 – World War II: Again east of the International Date Line, Japan declares war against the United States and the British Empire.  This declaration would be reprinted in Japanese newspapers on the 8th of every month until the end of the war.

     and

1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be "a date which will live in infamy", after which the U.S. declares war on Japan. 

     later

Winston Churchill would question the wisdom of Japan when they decided to simultaneously declare war on both the British Empire and the United States.  A good answer to that question has yet to be found.

2013 – Metallica performs a show in Antarctica, making them the first band to perform on all 7 continents.  So which band will be the first to perform on all 8 planets of the Solar System?  And I do mean PLANETS.  Not asteroids.  Not Moons (the Europa and Enceladus concerts will NOT count).  Not Dwarf worlds (Pluto was always a Mickey Mouse planet anyway).

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09 December

480 – Odoacer, first King of Italy, occupies Dalmatia.  The Western Roman Empire has gone to the dogs.

1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.  On a hill that was the site of a shrine to a much loved Aztec mother goddess who was venerated each year on the winter solstice...  Does this seem a bit familiar?

1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.  Feel pity for any editor who lets a spelling error make it to press.

1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.  The founding members include a police officer, a construction worker, and an Indian

1935 – Student protests in Beiping (now Beijing)'s Tiananmen Square, dispersed by government.  Seems harsh for a simple student protest.  I'm sure nothing like this will happen again.

1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg trials" begin with the "Doctors' trial", prosecuting physicians and officers alleged to be involved in Nazi human experimentation and mass murder under the guise of euthanasia.  But they had a prescription...

1950 – Cold War: Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.  Eventually he would be paroled 1965.  If you want small offenders to turn against big offenders, you normally need to offer them something more than half off a thirty year sentence.

1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.  Because a worker's opinion about politics or the state's role in economic planning and social welfare matters far more than their ability as an engineer or technician.

1960 – The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.  Still not as entertaining as the real life soap opera in Britain punctuated by actual Coronations.

1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.  Do we need to rake this forest as well?

1965 – Kecksburg UFO incident: A fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh.  Official word from NASA is that it was a Soviet satellite that burned up while reentering the atmosphere at an odd angle, and the other NASA documents related to this were "lost".  There is speculation that NASA never had those documents in the first place because the civilian NASA investigators at the time may have been military investigators in plain clothes presenting themselves as NASA.

1965 – A Charlie Brown Christmas, first in a series of Peanuts television specials, debuts on CBS.  A simply animated special lamenting the commercialization of Christmas becomes simply the most commercially successful animated Christmas special ever.

1968 – Douglas Engelbart gave what became known as "The Mother of All Demos", publicly debuting the computer mouse, hypertext, and the bit-mapped graphical user interface using the oN-Line System (NLS).  And he didn't even need to show a funny cat video.

1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.  A vocal, and potentially violent, faction refuses to accept that the majority in Northern Ireland would rather remain associated with Britain instead of Ireland.  But this should straighten itself out before too long.

1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (rinderpest in 2011 being the other).  Of all the species humans have driven to extinction, only two have been diseases?  We weren't even trying to eliminate the Passenger Pigeon.  Thylacine was gone before we realized it was disappearing.  And we can't do the same thing to Escherichia coli?

2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for crimes including attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.  And we thought this kind of politics had ended in Illinois with the death of the Capone era.

Also, 09 December is Anna's Day.  The day to start the preparation process of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve, as well as a Swedish name day, celebrating all people named Anna. (Sweden and Finland).  Just in case there are any health concerns, The Wisconsin Employees' Right to Know Law specifically exempts lutefisk in defining "toxic substances".  It may seem fishy, but you can't lye about this kind of tradition.

Edited by Pharaoh RutinTutin
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13 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

2013 – Metallica performs a show in Antarctica, making them the first band to perform on all 7 continents.  So which band will be the first to perform on all 8 planets of the Solar System?  And I do mean PLANETS.  Not asteroids.  Not Moons (the Europa and Enceladus concerts will NOT count).  Not Dwarf worlds (Pluto was always a Mickey Mouse planet anyway).

That might be difficult, considering that the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt metal, and the gas giants don't have surfaces to speak of, and their gravity would be enough to flatten a person.

5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (rinderpest in 2011 being the other).  Of all the species humans have driven to extinction, only two have been diseases?  We weren't even trying to eliminate the Passenger Pigeon.  Thylacine was gone before we realized it was disappearing.  And we can't do the same thing to Escherichia coli?

It's easier to kill something you can see.

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16 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

09 December

1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first of only two diseases that have been driven to extinction (rinderpest in 2011 being the other).  Of all the species humans have driven to extinction, only two have been diseases?  We weren't even trying to eliminate the Passenger Pigeon.  Thylacine was gone before we realized it was disappearing.  And we can't do the same thing to Escherichia coli?

To be fair, E. coli almost made me extinct.

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On December 10 in History:

220 - The Han dynasty finally comes to an end after more than 400 years with the abdication of Emperor Xian. But does it really? The Chinese people, writing system, ethnicity, and national identity still take their names from it. Lol, imagine if we still called ourselves Romans and named stuff in Latin.

1317 - King Birger of Sweden invites his brothers, dukes Valdemar and Eric, to a Christmas banquet. It is meant as reconciliation for the brothers' coup attempt several years prior. The dukes' retinues are put up in the nearby town of Nyköping due to space concerns. This allows the king to easily arrest his brothers and throw them in a dungeon where they will later starve, then easily round up their men. The more you learn about history, the more you start to think George R.R. Martin is just lazy.

1508 - The Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the kings of France and Aragon team up to curb the influence of Venice. The Pope will later decide he hates the king of France more, and will team up with Venice to fight him. Seven years of fighting will result in everything going back to the way it was. Fun!

1541 - Two men, Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dareham, are executed by Henry VIII of England. Culpeper for allegedly having an affair with the queen, Catherine Howard, and Dareham for *definitely* having an affair with her, but before she was queen. This is wife number 5 we're talking about; Henry is through fucking around, if you'll pardon the pun.

1768 - The Encyclopedia Britannica is first published. A collection of general knowledge from around the world, it spans three whole volumes! Imagine!

1799 - France adopts the meter - excuse me, the metre - as its official unit of length. If you're wondering why Britain won't for the next 150 years or so, this is why.

1830 - Emily Dickinson is born. She dislikes the experience so much that she never goes outside again.

1868 - The world's first traffic light is installed outside the Palace of Westminster. Using semaphore arms and illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps, it is perhaps most impressive in that the first car will not exist for another 17 years.

1884 - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published. More even than being a literary masterpiece, its most important achievement will be forcing future generations to confront the uncomfortable realities of racism and slavery in the American south. Seriously, watch someone try to read this aloud in a diverse academic setting. It's hilarious. As long as it's not you.

1936 - Edward VIII officially signs away his claim to the British throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson. The power of boners is strong.

1963 - Zanzibar becomes a constitutional monarchy after the UK terminates its protectorate status. This new government is strong and will surely last for slightly more than a month.

1983 - The military junta ends in Argentina with the inauguration of Raúl Alfonsín as president. This means Argentinian democracy is younger than I am; I know I'd be wary trusting national government to a 35 year-0ld.

1984 - The United Nations agree that torture is bad, and we should not do it.

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11 December

861 – Assassination of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil by the Turkish guard, who raise al-Muntasir to the throne. Start of the "Anarchy at Samarra".  Killed by your own guards.  A quite common cause of death among monarchs and other politicians throughout history.

969 – Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas is assassinated by his wife Theophano and her lover, the later Emperor John I Tzimiskes.  Killed by your relatives and "loved ones".  Practically a requirement for this to show up in every ruling dynasty at least once.

1282 – Battle of Orewin Bridge: Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed at Cilmeri, near Builth Wells, in mid-Wales.  Killed in battle.  It lacks the personal touch found in some other methods of regicide.  But if your side wins despite your death, it practically guarantees you an equestrian statue.

1792 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France is put on trial for treason by the National Convention.  Monsieur Capet, it does not mater how you plead, what kind of deal you may offer, what evidence you may present, or how you may argue your case.  You will soon demonstrate yet another unpleasant way for a king to lose his crown.  (In your case, by losing a place to wear it.)

1931 – HEY YOU GUYS!!!  It's Rita Moreno's Birthday.

1931 – Statute of Westminster 1931: The British Parliament establishes legislative equality between the UK and the Dominions of the Commonwealth—Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland.  Does this mean that the Dominions are now independent and sovereign states or is this a symbolic shift that maintains London's control over the Colonies in a slightly less direct manner?  Yes.  One point that bears stating is that the various Dominions must now agree on matters of royal succession. But how often would that question arise?

1936 – Abdication Crisis: Edward VIII's abdication as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, and Emperor of India, becomes effective.  This required signing fifteen separate abdication notices the previous day.  Introduced as "Prince Edward", the former King delivers an address to the people on BBC, then leaves the country.  So it is at least possible for a King to no longer be King, and still remain alive.

1941 – World War II: Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, following the Americans' declaration of war on the Empire of Japan in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States, in turn, declares war on them.  I would ask what Hitler and Mussolini were thinking when they did that, but I really don't want to think like them.

1964 – Che Guevara speaks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.  Someone who has never been identified fires a mortar shell at the UN building while he is speaking.  Apparently firing mortar shells is common enough in the Big Apple that no one notices who shoots them.

1968 – The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, featuring the Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, the Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Dirty Mac with Yoko Ono, is filmed in Wembley, London.  A shame they couldn't book any big names for the gig.

1972 – Apollo 17 officially becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.  The Secret missions to the moon continue with the next

1978 – The Lufthansa heist is committed by a group led by Lucchese family associate Jimmy Burke. It was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil, at that time.  $5 Million in cash, $875,000 in jewelry.  The driver of a van used in the heist leaves it parked in a "No Parking" zone where it is discovered by police.  This leads to the identification, arrest, or deaths of most of the major players.  The problem with being a criminal mastermind is that you must rely on other criminals who are not masterminds.

Also, in 2003, the UN General Assembly declared 11 December to be International Mountain Day.  So give mountains to all your friends and relatives.

Edited by Pharaoh RutinTutin
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Also on December 11, four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States of America. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini also declared war on the USA the same day.

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This one's vintage. Made it five years ago.

 

On December 11 in History:

220 - The Three Kingdoms period begins in China. Westerners will only learn of this centuries later via video games.

361 - Julian enters Constantinople as the sole emperor of Rome. "Oh by the way, that whole Christian thing? Yeah, we're not doing that anymore."

630 - Muhammad conquers Mecca with an army of 10,000. Total casualties (on both sides) amount to 14 dead. There is nothing funny I can say that will make that sound any more insane than it already does.

1241 - The death of Ögedei Khan and the need to return to Karakorum to choose a successor is the only reason all Europeans aren't speaking Mongolian.

1282 - The last native Prince of Wales, the appropriately titled Llywelyn the Last, is killed. Welsh heralds will later decide in hindsight they should have gone with their other idea, Llywelyn the Prolifically-Reproducing English-Killer.

1688 - James II of England, while fleeing to France from the Glorious Revolution, throws his Great Seal of the Realm into the Thames, apparently under the assumption that government could not function without it. William and Mary counter his diabolically clever scheme through the ingenious and expedient measure of making a new one.

1792 - French King Louis XVI is put on trial for treason. Despite several attempts to pardon himself, no one is buying it.

1830 - Birth of Kamehameha V of Hawaii, the king whose fame as a ki-based fighting technique will long outlive his accomplishments as a ruler.

1868 - The Battle of Avay in the Paraguayan War leads to Paraguayan defeat at the hands of Brazilian forces. High school students around the world remain astonished to this day upon learning the Paraguayan War was a thing.

1872 - Death of Kamehameha V. Too bad he didn't make his birthday wish on the Dragonballs.

1917 - British General Edmund Allenby enters Jerusalem and declares martial law, because it just wouldn't be a global war without someone invading Jerusalem.

1931 - The Statute of Westminster establishes legislative equality between Great Britain and the autonomous dominions of the Commonwealth. "Wot wot, let them do as they like, as long as we don't start seeing flags with bloody leaves on them or some such nonsense."

1936 - King Edward VIII abdicates in order to keep boning some American chick, paving the way for his brother George VI's coronation three days later. Several Academy Award statuettes are prepared in advance.

1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States, increasing the scope of World War II. For both countries, this is their second-dumbest move of the conflict. For Germany, it is only beaten by Operation Barbarossa, and for Italy, it is trumped only by the decision to be in the war in the first place.

1941 again - Poland declares war on Japan. Then or now, no one considers this relevant.

1972 - The astronauts of Apollo 17 are the last humans to set foot on the moon. Apparently the infinite possibilities of exploring worlds beyond our own just got boring, or something.

2008 - Bernie Madoff is arrested on charges of running a $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme. When polled regarding whether white collar crimes should be punished as severely as violent crimes, over 50 million Americans are quoted as saying, "Fuck that guy."

 

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On December 12 in History:

627 - A Byzantine victory over the Sassanid Persians at the Battle of Nineveh re-tilts the regional balance of power toward Constantinople. Nothing short of an emerging new religion sweeping through the region and conquering everything in its path will unseat them now, but what are the odds of that happening?

1098 - In the First Crusade, the Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan comes to an end, and the invading crusaders murder approximately 20,000 of the city's Muslim inhabitants, and then eat them. For Jesus!

1298 - Duke Albert II of Austria is born.

1418 - ARCHduke Albert IV of Austria is born. Haha, suck it!

1787 - Pennsylvania ratifies the U.S. Constitution. Their delegate excitedly delivers a message with just one word: "First!" He is embarrassed to find Delaware has already come and gone.

1863 - Edvard Munch is born screaming.

1915 - The first president of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai, decides he would rather be emperor. Nobody saw this coming.

1941 - Britain declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania declare war on the U.S., India declares war on Japan, and Hitler declares that all Jews will soon die. Was there something in the water?

1963 - Kenya becomes independent from the UK. Wait for it...

1964 - Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta becomes Kenya's first president. And you thought our elections took forever.

2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court decides that counting once is enough. It's like my dad always taught me: "Measure twice cut once, unless the first measurement was what you wanted and you don't want to risk it changing."

2015 - The Paris Agreement on climate change is adopted. Every nation on Earth is involved, even North Korea. They are all required to come up with their own rules for what they think they should do, and enforcement is based on the honor system. Not even a narcissistic idiot could find that too constricting.

2017 - Doug Jones of Alabama defeats a pedophile in a special election for senator, and this is treated as a major accomplishment.

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On 12/11/2018 at 9:10 PM, Illjwamh said:

On December 11 in History:

220 - The Three Kingdoms period begins in China. Westerners will only learn of this centuries later via video games.

Or by reading (or trying to read - it's quite long) the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Don't let the title fool you, it isn't a romance. In fact everyone of importance in the first sixth of the book is dead by the end.

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The modern understanding of the word "romance" is fairly recent. It used to mean something different, much closer to the modern meanings of epic or adventure.

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13 December

902 – Battle of the Holme: Anglo-Saxon forces are defeated by Danish Vikings under Æthelwold (a son of Æthelred of Wessex) who is killed in battle.  Are we to be disappointed in the Anglo-Saxons because they were defeated by a dead Viking?  Or should we be impressed that a dead Viking could defeat the Anglo-Saxons?

1294 – Saint Celestine V resigns the papacy after only five months to return to his previous life as an ascetic hermit.  This plan is ruined when his successor, Boniface VIII, subsequently imprisons him in the castle of Fumone in the Campagna region, in order to prevent his potential installation as antipope.  The next pope to resign of his own accord was Pope Benedict XVI in 2013, 719 years later.  Apparently the Vatican never established a budget for Papal pensions.

1545 – Pope Paul III begins the Council of Trent.  Bishops assemble to decide once and for all for the nineteenth time what it is to be Christian.

1577 – Sir Francis Drake sets sail from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.  You know Captain Drake had his ducks in a row.

1636 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the National Guard of the United States.  Minutemen, Rainbow Division, and Weekend Warriors of all eras fall in formation.

1642 – Abel Tasman is the first recorded European to sight New Zealand.  Initially he calls it Staten Landt and changes it a year later to Nieuw Zeeland.  His initial estimates that this land connected to South America, or at least occupied most of the space between Australia and South America, proved to be somewhat incorrect.

1862 – American Civil War: At the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats Union Major General Ambrose Burnside.  Despite the loss, General Burnside still had the best facial hair of any officer in that war.

1895 First complete execution of Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony.  Wouldn't an "incomplete" execution actually be a wounding of the Symphony?

1903 Italo Marciony (or Marcioni), patents the earliest version of the ice cream cone mound in New Jersey.  Never before have headaches tasted so good.

1925 – Birth of Dick Van Dyke, American actor, singer, dancer, and last man to fall to the Ottoman Empire.

1928 – George Gershwin's "An American In Paris" premieres at Carnegie Hall (NYC).  It sounds like a good show, but I get so self conscious at fancy events.  I'm never sure I'm dressed appropriately.  If only there was some way to make the formal aspects of menswear easier to use...

1928 – Clip-on tie designed.  Thank you.

1929 – Birth of Christopher Plummer, Canadian actor and producer.  Apparently a 13 December birthday is helpful towards being cast as Julie Andrews' co-star.

1948 – Happy Birthday to the Rock and Roll Republican.  Ted Nugent is now 70.

1960 – While Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visits Brazil, his Imperial Bodyguard seizes the capital and proclaims him deposed and his son, Crown Prince Asfa Wossen, Emperor.  Nothing quite like getting fired while you're on vacation.

2003 – Iraq War: Operation Red Dawn: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is captured near his home town of Tikrit.  Hiding in a basement for months without shaving and living off Mars bars?  Why does that sound both disgusting and appealing?

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14 December

557 – Constantinople is severely damaged by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake.  This is clearly divine retribution towards humans daring to inhabit a geologically unstable planet.

835 – Sweet Dew Incident: Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspires to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot is foiled.  Why do you want to kill the eunuchs?  Haven't they given enough already?  These men are truly cut out for their jobs.

1542 – Princess Mary Stuart becomes Queen of Scots at the age of only one week on the death of her father, James V of Scotland.  Would a six day old girl truly be any worse than {Insert any world leader}?

1782 – A good day to be French.  The Montgolfier brothers first test fly an unmanned hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly 2 km (1.2 mi).

1812 – A not-so-good day to be French.  The French invasion of Russia comes to an end as the remnants of the Grande Armée are expelled from Russia.

1836 – The Toledo War unofficially ends.  The causes date back to some badly drawn maps from the period just after the Revolutionary War.  Michigan was forced to accept losing Toledo to Ohio and was given the Upper Peninsula as a conciliation prize.  Today, Michigan is grateful to be rid of Toledo (Detroit alone is bad enough) and enjoys the wildlife, timber, and mineral resources of the Upper Peninsula.

1896 – The Glasgow Underground Railway is opened.  This has nothing to do with the American Abolitionist Movement or the US Civil War.  This Underground Railway is the Glasgow District Subway Company.  And no Five Dollar Footlongs either.  Well, maybe if you want the haggis...

1900 – Quantum mechanics: Max Planck presents a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.  Herr Doktor Planck, why did you chose that adjective to name this natural law?  Any humorous comment I might make will sound needlessly racist.

1911 – Roald Amundsen's team, comprising himself, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting, becomes the first to reach the South Pole.  Considering that this team started in Norway, they effectively gave everyone else attempting to reach the South Pole a head start of thousands of miles.  And they still got there first.

1918 – The 1918 United Kingdom general election occurred, the first where women were permitted to vote.  It turns out that women and men are equally capable of choosing the wrong candidates.

1920 – Death of George Gipp, American football player (b. 1895).  "I've got to go, Rock. It's all right. I'm not afraid. Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock. But I'll know about it, and I'll be happy."  To be performed by Ronald Reagan in the 1940 film, Knute Rockne, All American.

1939 – Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.  And there are still people who wonder why a country like Finland would actively ally itself with Nazi Germany.

1940 – Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.  I suppose that isn't the strangest thing with which anyone has experimented in Berkeley.

1941 – World War II: Japan signs a treaty of alliance with Thailand.  Japan is already controlling significant portions of China.  The British Empire is trying to defend Australia and keep India from exploding in revolution while simultaneously clinging for life in Europe.  And the Americans have just lost most of their Pacific Fleet and are only now reluctantly entering the war.  What was Thailand really supposed to do when the Japanese were already in Bangkok?

1948 – Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann are granted a patent for their cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game.  It was never manufactured or marketed, so it had no effect on the future video game industry. The device is not generally considered a candidate for the title of the first video game, as while it had an electronic display it did not run on a computing device.  Despite all that, it was still relevant to the early history of video games.  Didn't they realize how close they were to a fully electronic version of Battleship?  

1958 – The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition becomes the first to reach the southern pole of inaccessibility.  But if they reached it, doesn't that mean that it is actually accessible?

1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.  This begins a long series of fly-bys, orbiters, and landers from every spacefaring nation on Earth.  Nothing sparks scientific competition like some good old Freudian Venus Envy.

2017 – The Walt Disney Company announces that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion.
Who's the leader of the club that now owns you and me?
M-I-C- -K-E-Y- -M-O-U-S-E!

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5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

1939 – Winter War: The Soviet Union is expelled from the League of Nations for invading Finland.  And there are still people who wonder why a country like Finland would actively ally itself with Nazi Germany.

According to what I read, the Finnish government's response to Germany's proposal of an alliance was a quiet suggestion that Germany engage in an anatomically-impossible act of self-gratification. To which Hitler responded by publicly announcing the alliance - after which everybody who was already at war with Germany declared war on Finland.

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On December 15 in History:

37 - Agrippina the Younger gives birth to future emperor Nero. She will come to regret this.

1025 - After 63 years as co-emperor to his father, his step-father, his uncle, and finally his older brother, Constantine VIII becomes sole Byzantine Emperor. His most defining characteristic is not giving a shit. He's getting on in years, so he hasn't got much time left to completely tank Byzantium's economic, diplomatic, and military standing.

1467 - At the Battle of Baia, which will end in his defeat and the end of his attempts to subdue Moldavia, Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus is shot in the back by not one, not two, but three arrows. His knights manage to carry him away before the battle becomes a full-on slapstick routine.

1791 - The U.S. Bill of Rights becomes law upon being ratified by the state of Virginia. They were so in a hurry to pass these first ten amendments that they were not overly careful or specific about the wording. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine.

1890 - Lakota leader Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, also known as Sitting Bull, is killed during a botched arrest for the terrible crime of maybe, possibly, considering joining a new religious movement, we think.

1917 - Russia, re: The Great War: "We're out."

1960 - Richard Pavlick is arrested for plotting to assassinate presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Wow, dodged a bullet there! Can you imagine, Kennedy assassinated?

1966 - Death of Walt Disney. OR SO THEY SAY.

1973 - Being gay is no longer considered a psychiatric disorder, according to American psychiatrists. In other news, having freckles is no longer considered a skin condition.

1978 - Thanks to Jimmy Carter, "China" gets a lot bigger all of a sudden.

2001 - The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after $27,000,000 had been spent over 11 years to stabilize it. They must have eventually just given up, because it's still leaning.

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Just now, Illjwamh said:

37 - Agrippina the Younger gives birth to future emperor Nero. She will come to regret this.

Ok, complete tangent, but there's that CD-DVD burning software called Nero Burning Rom, and it just occurred to me that it's an e short of Nero Burning Rome, and it's embarrassing that I never made the connection before....

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16 December

1431 – Hundred Years' War: Henry VI of England is crowned King of France at Notre Dame in Paris.  Henry is an 11 year old boy who inherited the crown of both countries when he was less than one year old.  England is dominated by minor nobles on the brink of civil war.  France is tired of these Brits using their country as a proxy war and revenue source.  But having a big ceremony for the kid is sure to make everything better.

1653 – English Interregnum: The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.  See?  England is just fine without a King.

1689 – Convention Parliament: The Declaration of Right is embodied in the Bill of Rights.  Ok, England really wants a King.  But this time we are setting some limits.

1770 – Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven.  At age 21, he would go to Joseph Haydn in Vienna to learn composing.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qeazGmme1Y

1773 – American Revolution: Boston Tea Party: Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.  The rebellious colonists were completely uncivilized.  Not one of them would keep his pinky finger extended while throwing the tea overboard.

1811 – The first two in a series of four severe earthquakes occur in the vicinity of New Madrid, Missouri.  To the natural philosophers of the early Enlightenment era, earthquakes were phenomena associated with oceanic coastlines and the largest of mountains.  The American Midwest is notably lacking in both.  Darn it.  This means we will actually need to examine what happened and not just talk about it over brandy and cigars.

1843 – The discovery of octonions by John T. Graves, who denoted them with a boldface O, was announced to his mathematician friend William Hamilton, discoverer of quaternions, in a letter on this date.  The Octonions are a hypercomplex number system.  Not an onion  with eight legs.  Darn it.

1901 – Beatrix Potter privately publishes The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It goes on to sell over 45 million copies worldwide.  English literature approaches its zenith.

1907 – The American Great White Fleet begins its circumnavigation of the world.  "White" is not just the color of the ships.  This attempt to demonstrate American Naval power instead highlights the American Navy's logistical limitations.  And by the time the fleet returned to the US, it was obsolete.

1921 – Camille Saint-Saëns, French pianist and conductor begins decomposing.

1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from the American federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.  According to prison officials, they died.  According to popular legend, they escaped.  Of course what really happened was Alien Abduction.  Who would be a better target than an escaped prisoner?

1944 – World War II: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.  Even though the war would be over in less than a year, the Battle of the Bulge would continue to be fought, and generally lost, by the aging population around the world.

1947 – William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain build the first practical point-contact transistor.  Now millions of people who can't understand the most basic aspects of Quantum Mechanics are able to carry portable electronics that rely on QM.

1971 – Don McLean's 8+ minute version of "American Pie" released.  In case you were unaware, if you ever hear this version of the song on the radio it means the DJ had to take a restroom break.

1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.  Oh Cleveland.  Whenever the jokes about Detroit grow tired and thin, we always have you.

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