Category: Practice

Pick one to tell someone else. No cheating. One only. Which will it be? Why will it be that one?
480 BC The Battle of Salamis in which the Athenians defeated the Persians. Themistocles’s proclamation is on display in Athens. Saw it in 2007.

1863 Georges Bizet’s ‘Les pêcheurs de perles’ (The Pearl Fishers) opened in Paris and has not closed since. Been to that Opera House.

1903 The land of Prussia required licenses for automobile drivers. Got one myself, but not from Prussia most of which is now in Russia and Poland. The Kaiser went on a picnic.

1982 The Tylenol murders in Chicago which remains a cold case, and which led to the tamperproof packaging of medicines in blister packs and more. The first six victims.

1997 The link was established between mad cows and people in England.

Come and get it. The day’s history lesson.
1542 Portuguese Juan Cabrillo became the first European to see California when he sailed into San Diego Bay on a mission for the Spanish crown. He claimed it all for his patron.

1904 A woman was arrested for smoking in New York City. She was a passenger in an automobile minding her own business, when….

1922 Benito Mussolini led the March on Rome.

1941 Ted Williams finished the season at .406, the last major league baseball player to achieve that potent consistency.

1959 NASA’s Explorer VI took the first video of the earth from space. There is video on You Tube but the files are too large to load on this blog.

1066 William the Conqueror left Normandy for Hastings on D for departure day.

1540 Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuits swearing an oath of personal loyalty to the Pope. Hence known as the Pope’s army.

1825 George Stephenson inaugurated the Stockton and Darlington Railway to haul coal from Newcastle.

1905 Albert Einstein published a paper that included the incantation.

1962 Rachel Carson published ‘The Silent Spring.’ She is pictured testifying before Congress in the days when facts and science were considered important in Washington D.C.

Sometimes what does not happen is even more important than what does happen. Read to the end to see why.
1580 Francis Drake returned from three-year circumnavigation. And without GPS.

1829 Scotland Yard founded to investigate crimes. The property had belonged to a Scot.

1913 Panama Canals locks began raising ships.

1960 First televised presidential debate in Chicago. Cool Jack versus intense Dick.

1983 Stanislav Petrov took time to think and then did not act. The bells rang, the buzzers buzzed, the lights flashed, the countdown voice droned minutes to impact, the computers calculated the death toll, and two hundred subordinates looked to Colonel Petrov to act. Details on Wikipedia.

Time to take your daily dose of history.
1513 Spaniard Vasco de Balboa saw the Pacific Ocean, having crossed Panama. The first European to see the vast Pacific. No relation to Rocky.

1926 Henry Ford introduced in his Michigan plant the forty-hour week with five days of eight hours of work. The arrangement was conditional on performance and completely at the company’s discretion. Ford wanted the best workers. It took unions to extend the practice and legislate it.

1942 United States War Labor Board urged employers to offer equal pay for women for equal work in war industries. Mouthed in D.C. and ignored far and wide. No surprise to Rosie. Although why the Labor Board did so is a mystery. Was this Eleanor Roosevelt’s influence. I’d like to think so.

1996 Ireland’s last Magdalene laundry closed. These establishments started to rehabilitate fallen women, became punishment sentences, and finally slave labor. Estimates say at least 10,000 women toiled in these sweat houses along with their girl children. They figure in some of Benjamin Black’s Quirke novels, some of which are reviewed elsewhere on this blog.

2005 In Northern Ireland, the IRA laid down its arms. Amen.

1529 Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent began the siege of Vienna.

1664 The Dutch surrendered Manhattan to the British.

1908 The first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line.

1959 Republican President Dwight Eisenhower ordered the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, which held at Bastogne, to protect school children in Little Rock Arkansas from Bible thumping gorgons baying for blood.
1979 Compuserve offered online services to consumers.

1642 Harvard College graduated its first class. No witches. None there the semester I was there either.

1806 Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke returned after three years in the wilderness without GPS but with Sacagawea. Part of the trip was along the River Platte.

1846 Berlin Observatory observes Neptune, right where it was supposed to be. Famous for its storms now as shown below.

1884 Herman Hollerith patented a tabulating machine. The start of the pocket calculator.

1932 Saudi Arabia became Saudi Arabia. [Witticism needed.]

Which one would you tell your nearest and dearest? Why that one?
1499 The German, Italian, French and Romansh Confederation Helvetia declared itself to be the nation of Switzerland, leaving the Holy Roman Empire.

1656 In Maryland an all woman jury heard the case of Judith Catchpole (no relation to Eric) on the charge of infanticide. Her defence was that she had never had a child. The jury concurred.

1735 British Prime Minister Robert Walpole moved into a house at 10 Downing Street.

1862 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

1947 A Douglas C-54 flew the Atlantic on automatic pilot.

The usual rules apply.
1521 The mad monk published a New Testament, i.e., Martin Luther.

1792 Revolutionary France abolished its monarchy. Failed. Kings returned, twice over.

1893 Frank Duryea drove a gas-powered vehicle with an internal combustion engine. So do we still.

1937 ‘The Hobbitt’ was published, and it is still in print.

1949 Mao declared the People’s Republic of China to exist in a performative utterance.

Choose one item to tell others. Which shall it be? Why that one?
1951 67% of Swiss voters reject women’s suffrage. Those voters were all men.
If women vote, they will neglect their children. Tweet logic.
1954 FORTRAN runs on a computer for the first time. It is short for Formula Translation. Ugh, well do I remember using in grad school and not once since then. Whereas the French I preferred as served me far better.

1963 Lake Burly Griffin is completed after fifty years.

1979 Lee Iacocca became CEO of Chrysler and performed miracles. In retirement he became an advocate of bicycles.

1990 The Germanies ratified unification.