And Happy 150th Birthday Macy's (It really was a part of my life - my sister, my wife and I used to work there a million years ago.)
Here's Your Today in History -
October 28, 4004 BC -
God creates Adam and Eve five days after the rest of the universe, according to Biblical calculations by Archbishop James Ussher
On October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated at Liberty Island, New York, by President Grover Cleveland. Lady Liberty, as she came to be called, quickly become a symbol of America, partly because she was such a striking visual symbol of our national reverence for liberty, partly because of the five-dollar hot dogs and ten-dollar plastic replicas sold at her feet.
The statue's inscription was written by poet Emma Lazarus, and attributes the following exhortation to Lady Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
(Cynics like to point out that construction of the golden door was never completed.)
Exactly thirty-three years later, in 1919, Congress passed a law prohibiting alcohol.
With alcohol outlawed, only outlaws had drinks and the atmosphere fosters Mafia encroachment into legitimate businesses. Strangely, the lesson here has yet to be learned. Fortunately there were an awful lot of them and they overturned the law as soon as they were sober enough to vote.
October 28, 1922 -
Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini seizes power in Italy, with the assistance of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XI declared "Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence." In return for this endorsement, the silly dictator signs the Lateran treaty, restoring papal sovereignty over the Vatican. But at least the trains run on time.
October 28, 1948 -
The Nobel committee announces that Swiss chemist Paul Mueller has won the 1948 chemistry prize. He discovered the unusual insecticidal properties of 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2- bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane. Thanks to Mueller, the world embraces the phenomenal bug-killer... until somebody discovers that the hydrocarbon, popularly known as DDT, also excels at causing cancer.
Oops
October 28, 1955 -
William Henry Gates III is born in Seattle. Due to the economic downturn, poor Bill has been reduced to clipping coupons as he was downgraded this year to only the second wealthiest person in the world.
How sad.
And so it goes
P.S. And on a personal note: Happy Birthday Olivia. Hey wait a minute what are you doing reading this - get off the computer,
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