[You see, kids... Once upon a time there was an American president who cared about peace in the Middle East. I know, I know, you think I'm shitting you, but it's really true! Look - here's a picture to prove it.]
1026 - Pope John XIX crowned Conrad II - first King of the Salian Dynasty - as Holy Roman Emperor.
1130 - Norway's King Sigurd I died without a legitimate male heir, precipitating a civil war that persisted until 1240; in the meantime he was succeeded by his illegitimate son Magnus IV and his half-brother Harald IV.
1212 - Portugal's King Sancho I died, at which time he was succeeded by his eldest son, who reigned as Afonso II.
1552 - Guru Amar Das became the third of eleven Sikh Gurus, following in the footsteps of Guru Angad Dev.
1636 - Holland's Utrecht University was founded.
1812 - An earthquake destroyed Caracas in the midst of the Venezuelan War of Independence.
1839 - The Henley Royal Regatta was first proposed by Captain Edmund Gardiner.
1958 - The US Army launched Explorer 3 to explore the Van Allen radiation belt.
1969 - American novelist John Kennedy Toole - best remembered today for his epic work A Confederacy of Dunces, for which he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 - committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning near Biloxi, Mississippi.
1971 - East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan to form the People's Republic of Bangladesh, inciting the Bangladesh Liberation War.
1975 - The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force.
1976 - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II sent out the first royal email - from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment - apparently.
1979 - Following the Camp David Accords Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, DC.
1982 - The groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held on Washington, DC's National Mall.
1990 - American fashion designer Halston - an icon of the 1970s - died in San Francisco of AIDS-related complications following a lifetime of legendary debauchery.
1997 - Thirty-nine bodies were found in a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California, belonging to members of the Heaven's Gate cult; the followers of Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles had been brainwashed into believing that a spaceship following the Comet Hale-Bopp would take their souls with them. Whatever you believe, they were definitely taken for a ride...
1998 - During Algeria's Oued Bouaicha massacre 52 people were killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.
1999 - The so-called Melissa worm infected Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world, but not those of Apple. Suckers...
2005 - The Taiwanese government called on 1 million of its citizens to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China; between 200,000 and 300,000 actually attended the walk.
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Why can't an earthquake strike Hugo Chavez?
ReplyDeleteThey still can't find a suitable buyer for the Heaven's Gate house.
Chavez: As much as Nature abhors a vacuum, so does History. For years it was Castro who was the devil of the US, only he didn't have oil, just the Soviet Union. Now that age and Raul have subdued Castro, Chavez is filling the void. Oh wait, can a void fill a void? It's times like this I wish I was Einstein.
ReplyDeleteHeaven's Gate: I understand realtors are obliged to reveal if people have died in a house; that must be part of why they can't sell that barn. Also, the house Sharon Tate was murdered in may have to be torn down, as there aren't any buyers for it.