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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Illjwamh

This Day In History

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4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Being willing to do that takes a certain kind of mental dysfunction. But not one that will always stand out in a crowd. I bet if you tested a population for a wide variety of propensities, inhibitions and such, without prejudging, and then observed which folks committed these acts, you'd find correlations.

You do, but not ones necessarily linked to what is medically considered mental illness. Only three percent of violent crime are committed by the mentally ill. Typically the mentally ill are far more likely to be victims of crimes than the perpetrators.

I am not stating that the mentally ill are saints, only that in the majority of cases the conditions of mental illness do not really promote violent behavior but do make the sufferer an easier victim of it -- or alternately, happens as a direct or indirect consequence of violence. PTSD springs to mind. And far more importantly, those who call a shooter 'insane' do so happily with no medical expertise involved at all and paint with a broad brush that include all nonviolent sufferers. As an example, it is common for both left wingers and right wingers to label one another 'crazy'. I doubt either side could prove it by use of the DSM-5.

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A big problem here lies with the tendency people have to conflate "mental illness" with mental disorders, like sociopathy and psychopathy. To use a physical analogy, it's the difference between having chronic bronchitis and being born without a lung.

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21 hours ago, ijuin said:

Also, a lot of people would like to believe that a sane/rational person would not try to kill people unprovoked, therefore anybody who would must not be a sane/rational person.

I would say there's at least some truth to the belief you cite, but A ==> B does not mean B==> A. "All dogs are mammals" does not mean "All mammals are dogs".

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On August 17 in History:
 
986 - The Bulgarian army annihilates the Byzantines at the Battle of the Gates of Trajan, and emperor Basil II barely escapes with his life. Shockingly, his reign enters a bit of a downturn from this point.
 
1498 - Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, resigns as a Cardinal. This has never been done before by anyone. Is he mad? In unrelated news, later in the day, Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, is made Duke of Valentinois by Louis XII of France.
 
1560 - "Catholics GTFO." ~Scotland
 
1585 - A group of English colonists arrive to establish a colony on Roanoke Island. Thus begins a glorious new English empire in the New World!
 
1717 - Eugene of Savoy captures Belgrade from the Ottoman Empire. Now it belongs to Austria forever more!
 
1807 - Robert Fulton begins a novel new business venture on the Hudson River. He can move his boat upstream and against the winds simply by lighting a bonfire under the deck.
 
1863 - Union ships and batteries bombard Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Oh, you assholes have had this coming.
 
1896 - Bridget Driscoll is the first pedestrian killed in the UK by a collision with a motor vehicle. Wait, how is this even possible? Their top speed is like, what, 5 miles per hour?
 
1914 - Birth Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.. Wait for it...
 
1916 - Romania secretly signs up with the Entente. They will come to regret this, but also not?
 
1943 - Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King hosts fellow allied leaders FDR and Winston Churchill in the First Québec Conference. Not invited to the discussions: Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
 
1945 - Indonesia, newly liberated from Japan, informs the Netherlands they won't be coming back.
 
1988 - Death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.. Um, happy birthday?
 
1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton publicly owns up to getting a BJ from his intern, and admits he "misled people" about the nature of the relationship. Well I mean if that's not grounds for impeachment, what is, am I right Senator Lindsey Graham?
 
2008 - Michael Phelps wins his 8th gold medals at a single Olympic Games, thereby removing the right of anyone else to brag about anything at all for at least a month or two.
 

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2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

2008 - Michael Phelps wins his 8th gold medals at a single Olympic Games, thereby removing the right of anyone else to brag about anything at all for at least a month or two.

Well, you can say this for Mr. Phelps. That was practically a Mission Impossible.

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On August 18 in History:
 
1227 - Death of Genghis Khan. Or so they say; no one's ever found the body...
 
1587 - Virginia Dare is the first English child born in the New World. Roanoke thrives!
 
1590 - Roanoke governor John White returns from England with supplies to find the colony abandoned. Mixed in with his confusion and horror is relief that he now doesn't have to explain why he'd forgotten to bring his granddaughter Virginia a birthday present.
 
1826 - Major Gordon Laing is the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu. A new byword for "mysterious place out beyond the boonies" will need to be devised.
 
1868 - French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium. It takes him several tries to make the announcement as everyone keeps laughing at his voice.
 
1920 - The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, extending the vote to women. It's now only a matter of time before we get a woman president. Progress!
 
1938 - The Thousand Islands Bridge is dedicated by FDR. Connecting New York State with the province of Ontario across the St. Lawrence River, it's actually series of five bridges connecting just four islands to the mainland on either side, but that's a lot less impressive sounding and far more cumbersome to say.
 
1958 - Vladimir Nabokov publishes a book about a professor who has a sexual relationship with a twelve year old girl. It is lauded as the pinnacle of twentieth century literature. That's not the joke; that's what happened.
 
1971 - Australia and New Zealand re: Vietnam War: "Screw you guys; we're goin' home."
 
2003 - Zachary Turner, a one year-old in Newfoundland, is murdered by his mother, who had legal custody of him and who is also facing trial for murdering Zachary's father. No one could have seen this coming.
 
2008 - Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf: "You can't fire me; I quit!"

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34 minutes ago, Illjwamh said:

1587 - Virginia Dare is the first English child born in the New World. Roanoke thrives!

How dare she!

35 minutes ago, Illjwamh said:

1826 - Major Gordon Laing is the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu. A new byword for "mysterious place out beyond the boonies" will need to be devised.

I've heard 'Cleveland' suggested.

 

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On August 19 in History:
 
43 BCE - Octavian to the Roman Senate: "Make me consul." The Senate: "We're not sure that's a good idea." Octavian: "Do it." Senate: "Well, okay, when you put it like that..."
 
14 - Death of Augustus (that guy from above). Fortunately, he has left in place a new system which will lead Rome with a firm, guiding hand for at least, oh, three or four generations.
 
1561 - At 18, Mary, Queen of Scots actually returns to Scotland, after spending all but the first five years of her life in France. The theory is that being present within a country makes it easier to rule. Crazy, right?
 
1612 - Three women in Samlesbury, Lancashire go on trial for being witches after being accused by a 14 year old girl named, I shit you not, Grace Sowerbutts.
 
1692 - One woman and four men are executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. Talk about your sour butts.
 
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart says he should be king of Scotland and starts a rebellion. For some reason, the king of England disagrees.
 
1944 - Paris is once more free to be rude to anyone who visits.
 
1953 - MI6 and the CIA instigate a coup against the legitimate and democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and reinstate the Shah. They will come to regret this.
 
1977 - Groucho Marx dies attempting to live forever.
 
2010 - The last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq. Nothing bad will ever happen there again.

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2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1944 - Paris is once more free to be rude to anyone who visits.

I definitely prefer 'free to be rude' to 'jackbooted into arresting and imprisoning/executing/sending to labour or extermination camps for Voicing The Wrong Opinion or an accident of birth'.

2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1977 - Groucho Marx dies attempting to live forever.

Well, either that or his watch stopped.

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On August 21 in History:
 
1192 - Minamoto no Yoritomo gains the title of Shōgun, basically a field marshal. If a field marshal ran the government and could even tell the emperor what to do.
 
1680 - Pueblo forces capture Santa Fe, essentially completing the expulsion of Spanish presence from New Mexico. Now, as long as they don't extend the "get rid of anything Spanish" policy to things like food crops, livestock, and useful technology, this should go well for them.
 
1770 - James Cook names eastern Australia "New South Wales", because never have two places looked more alike, and also because fuck North Wales.
 
1772 - Gustav III of Sweden completes a coup of his own government with a new constitution, snatching back a bunch of power from parliamentary hands. It's all right, though; he's enlightened.
 
1791 - A Vodou ceremony turns into a slave revolt, which will turn into the Haitian revolution. Well that escalated quickly.
 
1858 - Well-known and popular Illinois senator Stephen Douglas debates some lanky new guy named Lincoln from that laughable new party.
 
1911 - Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee at the Louvre, steals the Mona Lisa with the plan of returning it to Italy where it "belongs". This has the interesting side effect of making the painting one of the most famous in the world, which made no difference to his friend who sold copies of it, I'm sure.
 
1986 - Birth of Usain Bolt, one of the best contemporary examples of nominal determinism.
 
1991 - Latvia to the USSR: "We out, too."
 
2017 - A solar eclipse traverses the continental United States. Their stable genius president gazes directly into it on national television.

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2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1192 - Minamoto no Yoritomo gains the title of Shōgun, basically a field marshal. If a field marshal ran the government and could even tell the emperor what to do.

I remember being like twelve years old and seeing James Clavell's 'Shogun' among my mother's books. At the time, I thought it read 'Shotgun.'

2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1791 - A Vodou ceremony turns into a slave revolt, which will turn into the Haitian revolution. Well that escalated quickly.

All you do is brutally abduct them from their homes, pack them in layers in stinking ship holds with insufficient food and drinking water, sell them off on markets like slabs of meat and then put them to work under conditions that would make an early 1800s factory owner blench. And then they get all upset about it. People are so thin skinned.

 

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My vacation has - understandably, I feel - thrown off my schedule a bit. I have a little time today to catch up a little.
 
On August 26 in History:
 
1071 - The Byzantines are defeated by the Seljuqs at the Battle of Manzikert, and have their emperor taken captive as well. There goes the neighborhood. And by neighborhood, I mean Anatolia.
 
1278 - Bohemian king Ottokar II is defeated and killed in the all-cavalry affair of the Battle on the Marchfield against German king Rudolf I and his ally Ladislaus IV of Hungary. Bohemian territory is forever reduced to Bohemia itself and Moravia, while Rudolf, from a tiny little house called Habsburg, sets up a new base for himself in Austria. We'll see if he can hold on to it.
 
1346 - French knights are confident as they prepare to charge down a laughably inferior English force who barely even have any cavalry at all at the Battle of Crécy. Fortunately for the English, they do have a lot of arrows.
 
1813 - The Battle of the Katzbach, one of the largest of the Napoleonic Wars involving over 200,000 troops, takes place entirely by accident when a French army stumbles into a Prussian/Russian force after crossing river in a storm. Whoopsie.
 
1883 - Krakatoa, which has been teasing something for months, really starts losing its shit.
 
1920 - Women are officially allowed to vote in the U.S. now. And not a moment too soon! There's a womanizing cad running for president!
 
1930 - Death of Lon Chaney. The funeral will be delayed due to the time required to cast 1,000 death masks.
 
2018 - The curtain closes on the life of Neil Simon. Let us honor his life by continuing to adapt his work into cash-grabbing, chiché-ridden sitcoms.

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A bit more back-posting.
 
On August 27 in History:
 
410 - The Visigoths have sacked Rome so hard for three days that they're they're too tired to do it anymore. It's like when you force yourself to eat a ninth helping because it's Thanksgiving and then someone offers you a tenth, only with looting and pillaging.
 
1172 - Henry the Young King is crowned "Junior King" of England. That and a couple of farthings will get you a short black coffee at Ye Olde Bucking Star, but long may he reign, I guess.
 
1793 - The French city of Toulon revolts against the Revolution and invites English and Spanish ships into its port. I have a bad feeling about this.
 
1813 - Napoleon wins a stunning victory against a superior force of Austrians, Russians, and Prussians at the Battle of Dresden. This could end up bringing the war to a close. Too bad that embarrassing clusterfuck yesterday kind of cancels out the whole thing.
 
1828 - Brazil and Argentina concede that Uruguay exists.
 
1832 - Sauk chief Black Hawk surrenders to U.S. forces, ending a war he didn't start but will be named after him because guess who writes the history books?
 
1883 - Krakatoa explodes four times, destroying more than half the island it sits on. The largest explosion can be heard in Perth, Australia, over 3,000 miles away. The resulting ash and dust cloud will affect the climate for several years, not to mention the nearly 50m high tsunamis. The shockwave will travel around the globe at least 3 and a half times, causing larger than average waves as far away as the English Channel. This explosion is 4x that of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb ever detonated, or roughly equivalent to the fan reaction of Sony taking Spider-man out of the MCU.
 
1896 - The entirety of the Anglo-Zanzibar war takes place. Beginning with the first shots at 9:02 AM and concluding a scant 38 minutes later, it remains the shortest war in recorded history. Don't feel bad, Sultan Khalid, it happens to everyone occasionally.
 
1908 - Future U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, a.k.a. El BJ, is born. On this same day he begins his well-known tactic of making people watch him poop.
 
1916 - Romania stops being coy and declares war officially on Austria-Hungary, because why not?
 
1939 - First flight of the first jet aircraft, the Heinkel He 178. Now, if Germany plays its cards right and builds a nice big stockpile of these before declaring war on anybody, they'll have the whole thing in the bag.
 
1964 - Nguyễn Khánh, a South Vietnamese junta leader, joins a triumvirate with two former rival generals, Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, both of whom had been involved in plots against him. Good thing there's no historical precedent or anything that could point to this being a bad idea.
 
1975 - Death of Haile Selassie, penultimate Ethiopian emperor and most recent person to have a religion built up around him. Unless you count the guys from BTS.
 
1991 - The earlier declarations of independence from the USSR of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are recognized by the European community. Moldova decides it wants some of that, too.
 
 

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Since I've already done today, it's a chance to make up some lost ground.
 
On August 28 in History:
 
388 - Death of Magnus Maxiumus, who had the manliest name of all Roman emperors - but only because Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus was only ever a dictator, never an emperor.
 
489 - King Odoacer of Italy, the successor state to the Western Roman Empire, is attacked and defeated by Theodoric the Great of the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Isonzo. Looks like Italy will be changing hands again soon. Get used to it; this will probably happen a lot.
 
632 - Death of Fatimah, daughter of You-Know-Who (peace be upon him). Maybe? This is a matter of some contention.
 
683 - Death of Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal, also known as Pakal the Great, king of Bàakʼ (Palenque). He ruled for 68 years. Take that, Liz. In fact, take that everybody. His record won't be beaten until Louis XIV over a thousand years later. Aside from said Sun King, only Thailand's Rama IX (recently deceased) and Liechtenstein's Johan II can claim longer. Not too shabby.
 
867 - Death of Louis the German, a Frankish king. Of Germany. Which is called East Frankia. It makes sense in context.
 
1521 - The oncoming Ottoman wave swallows Belgrade. There's just no stopping them, I tell you. Better start studying Turkish.
 
1524 - The Kaqchikel Maya, erstwhile allies of the Spanish in their conquest of Guatemala, have a change of heart. A priest foretells that their gods will destroy the Spanish, so they abandon their city to hide in the forest and await the cataclysm. Guess what happens.
 
1565 - Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founds St. Augustine. In what will become the continental United States, Europeans are now officially here to stay.
 
1609 - Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay. "Shall we name it after you, Captain?" "No, I think I'm going to hold off on that. I've got a feeling..."
 
1749 - Birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Everyone who reads this will pronounce his name differently in their head.
 
1789 - William Herschel discovers a new moon of Saturn. His son John will later use it as an opportunity to show off just how much mythology he knows by naming it Enceladus.
 
1862 - The Second Battle of Bull Run takes place. The first one drew such a crowd, you just knew there had to be a sequel.
 
1867 - The United States takes possession of a small atoll in the middle of the Pacific, simply called "Midway". Why bother? It's not like anything important is ever going to happen way out here.
 
1898 - In perhaps one of the most well-advised branding decisions of all time, Caleb Bradham renames his new beverage product from "Brad's Drink" to "Pepsi-Cola".
 
1916 - Germany declares war on Romania in response to their declaration on Austria-Hungary yesterday, while Italy declares war on Germany, presumably for the lulz.
 
1955 - Black teenager Emmet Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi. For some reason, THIS time sparks national outrage, and the civil rights movement really starts to take off. Better late than never?
 
1957 - U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond hates black people so much that he begins speaking and does not shut up for over 24 hours in an attempt to forestall them getting civil rights.
 
1963 - Martin Luther King Jr. tells his friends about this crazy dream he had last night. I'm assuming that's right; I'm just looking at headlines here.
 
1968 - The police at a protest rally in Chicago related to the Democratic National Convention get a little rowdy.
 
1990 - Iraq: "Kuwait is part of us now." Not consulted: Kuwait.
 
2014 - In the worst presidential scandal in American history, Barack Obama wears a tan suit. The repercussions are still being felt to this day.

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40 minutes ago, Illjwamh said:

1749 - Birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Everyone who reads this will pronounce his name differently in their head.

With the possible exception of Germans, who actually can speak their own language.

41 minutes ago, Illjwamh said:

2014 - In the worst presidential scandal in American history, Barack Obama wears a tan suit. The repercussions are still being felt to this day.

And it only got worse from there. Soon after JACKETGATE shook the White House to its foundations...

And it is not as if there were no warning signs. Even during his candidacy he committed the atrocity of not wearing a FLAG PIN.

No president has ever done anything worse.

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6 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

With the possible exception of Germans, who actually can speak their own language.

 

I originally posted this on Facebook, where I do have a German friend, but only one. So my prediction would still likely hold.

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6 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1955 - Black teenager Emmet Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi. For some reason, THIS time sparks national outrage, and the civil rights movement really starts to take off. Better late than never?

Not just the brutal murder, but also the bullshit trial.

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Back on schedule after this!
 
On August 29 in History:
 
1009 - The great new cathedral at Mainz is inaugurated. And also suffers severe damage from a fire. Whoopsie.
 
1475 - The Treaty of Picquigny between Louis XI of France and Edward VI of England ends the latter's brief invasion attempt to claim the French throne. "Yes, let's not start that up again."
 
1526 - The Battle of Mohács changes everything. The Magnificent Suleiman defeats the Hungarian army, killing their king in the process. His dynasty destroyed, all his claims in Hungary and Bohemia transfer to those pesky Habsburgs, who divide up Hungary with the Ottomans, leaving the "independent" principality of Transylvania with the parts they don't want. On the bright side, they get to be a proxy battlefield between the Turks and the Austrians for the next two hundred years or so. Yay!
 
1533 - Death of Atahualpa, the last true Inca Emperor. Dammit Spain, this is why we can't have nice things.
 
1541 - Just to grind the Hungarian's faces in the dirt a little more, the Ottomans capture Buda. Man, now you're just being mean.
 
1756 - Frederick the Great of Prussia attacks Saxony in a preemptive strike. A nice preview of World War One is about to play out over the next seven years.
 
1842 - The Treaty of Nanking ends the first Opium War. Britain and the Western powers may think they came out on top, but the thing you have to understand about China is that they play the long game.
 
1871 - Japanese emperor Meiji orders the end of the Han system (i.e. feudalism) in favor of prefectures under a central authority. And by "Emperor Meiji", I mean "The group of reformist oligarchs pulling the strings".
 
1898 - It's a Good Year to form a tire company.
 
1910 - Japan annexes Korea. It is predicted that Koreans will easily assimilate into Japanese imperial society.
 
1911 - Ishi, a native of the Yahi tribe in California who has been living in isolation in the wilderness, makes contact with modern Americans for the first time. His name isn't actually Ishi; we don't know what it is because in Yahi culture, one does not speak one's own name, but rather relies on others to make introductions. There are no more Yahi.
 
1915 - Birth of Ingrid Bergman. Wait for it...
 
1941 - The occupying Soviet forces in the Estonian capital of Tallinn are forced out by occupying Nazi forces. Yaaaay.
 
1943 - Occupied Denmark scuttles its own navy rather than let Germany have it. Resistance level: Master.
 
1982 - Death of Ingrid Bergman. Shouldn't have opened that birthday present from Hitchcock. Haha, no, I'm kidding, it was cancer.
 
1986 - Birth of Isayama Hajime, whose work, Shingeki no Kyoujin (Attack on Titan), will make George R.R. Martin look like a sissy who's too nice to his characters, is born. Hide your children.
 
1997 - A new company called Netflix creates a DVD-by-mail rental service. I suppose there might be a niche for that sort of thing. Don't sell your Blockbuster stock, though.
 
2005 - The popularity of the name Katrina takes a hard nose dive in the United States.
 
2016 - Gene Wilder passes on into a world of pure imagination.

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11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Not just the brutal murder, but also the bullshit trial.

Like Trayvon Martin's.

And that's assuming that there even is a trial. There was no trial of Mike Brown's murderer. And as far as I can tell, there wasn't even a grand jury convened after the brutal slaughter of Tamir Rice.

And one can't even speculate about all the brutal murders and attendant bullshit trials that took place before that.

4 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1842 - The Treaty of Nanking ends the first Opium War. Britain and the Western powers may think they came out on top, but the thing you have to understand about China is that they play the long game.

Oh come on! Trade wars are good and easy to win!

4 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1943 - Occupied Denmark scuttles its own navy rather than let Germany have it. Resistance level: Master.

Things were sort of getting frayed by then. The first years the Germans treated us more like allies than a defeated enemy. Of all the countries conquered by the Nazis, we got off most easy. Of course, that's kind of like being the least targeted child of an abusive parent.

But at this stage the Germans were doing stuff by taking respected citizens that spoke out against them hostages. Then they offered to free them in return for giving up Jews to them. Our PM replied, "The Danish Government sees no benefit in exchanging one group of Danes for another."

Shortly after the Germans shut them down and installed a puppet governor. Go figure.

4 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1986 - Birth of Isayama Hajime, whose work, Shingeki no Kyoujin (Attack on Titan), will make George R.R. Martin look like a sissy who's too nice to his characters, is born. Hide your children.

He is also a nationalist and a fascist. Fuck him and his revolting piece of shit work.

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Hey, this one is actually today!
 
On August 31 in History:
 
12 - Future emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus is born. Aww, look at him in his wee little boots!
 
161 - Commodus, the second most well-known crazy emperor after the above, is born. Talk about your creepy coincidences.
 
1314 - Haakon V moves the capital of Norway from Bergen to Oslo. This doesn't really affect anybody save perhaps the residents of Bergen and Oslo, but it happened so I'm telling you about it.
 
1422 - Henry V, perhaps England's most successful king since Henry II if not ever, having recently secured succession rights to the French throne after 80 years of war, dies of dysentery while on campaign, leaving his infant son to inherit both thrones. You had one job, dude.
 
1795 - The British seize Sri Lanka (it isn't called that yet) from the Dutch, because they don't want France to get it. Seems legit.
 
1888 - A woman named Mary Ann Nichols is murdered in the Whitechapel district of London's East End. Worry not; London's finest are on the case; they'll catch the blighter before you can say Bob's your uncle.
 
1895 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents a balloon you can steer, as if anyone would ever have use for such a thing. Can you imagine? Traipsing about in a balloon? Oh, the humanity!
 
1939 - The German Gleiwitz radio station is attacked by a group of soldiers singing, “We’re so Polish! You wouldn’t believe how Polish we are, oh boy!” Dang, guess we'll have to go to war with Poland now.
 
1957 - Malaya (haven't added the "si" yet) gains independence from the U.K. I've literally run out of jokes for this scenario.
 
1962 - Trinidad and Tobago gain independence from the U.K. too. Didn't you hear me? No more jokes! Bingo, shots, "beat the rush", I've done them all! There's nothing left! Nothing, I tell you! Just leave me in peace!
 
1991 - Kyrgyzstan declares independence from the Soviet Union. There's a lot of that going around this year.
 
1993 - Russia finishes its troop withdrawal from Lithuania. Better late than never.
 
1994 - Russia finishes its troop withdrawal from Estonia. Hey, what the hell?
 
1997 – The death of Diana of Wales brings public opinion of paparazzi to an all-time low. The public show their distaste by giving said paparazzi all of their money.
 
2006 - Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" is recovered by Norwegian police after being stolen almost exactly two years ago. Poor thing was so terrified it...well, you know.
 
2016 – Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is the world’s first female democratically elected head of state to be legally removed from office. Breakin’ that glass ceiling one crack at a time!

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