Friday, November 12, 2010

The Holidays are soon upon us

Here's an early suggestion for the kid in your life (that you don't really like.)

A box of latex gloves would go great with this.


Happy Birthday Neil Percival Young !!!






November 12, 1955 -
Today was one of the most event-filled dates in Hill Valley, CA history:

George McFly and Lorraine Baines kiss for the first time at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance. One week earlier, George had been struck by a car driven by Lorraine's father, Sam Baines, and Lorraine looked after him during his recovery. Lorraine accepted George's invitation to go the dance. Marvin Berry & the Starlighters play popular music during the entire dance, such as Night Train and Earth Angel.



During the famous Hill Valley Thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning strikes the Clock Tower at precisely 10:04 p.m., and it hasn't rung since.


Today in History -
King Cnut of England, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden died on this date in 1035. (Cnut is better known to most Americans as King Canute, which offers fewer typographical hazards.)

Cnut was the son of Svein Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth, son of Gorm. In 1013 Cnut's father conquered all of England from the Saxon King Aethelred but died anyway. This allowed Aethelred to take England back, which made it necessary for Cnut himself to reconquer England in 1016. He enjoyed this so much that he went on to conquer Scotland, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden, all of which came to be known collectively as Cnutland, perhaps explaining the region's subsequent popularity among European dyslexics.


November 12, 1912 -
The bodies of Captain Robert Scott and his men found on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, frozen solid in one huge block of ice.



So he had literally become Scott of the Antartic.


November 12, 1933 -
Hugh Gray of the British Aluminium Company took five pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, the first known photos. Four the the five exposures were blank, and the remaining photo was later proven to be a hoax.

The brand of whiskey, Mr. Grey consumed has been lost in the ethers of time.


Early on the morning of November 12, 1942, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, mob informer, then in protective custody, fell to his death from a hotel window. It is not known whether he was thrown or pushed out the window, or if he was trying to escape. The angle of trajectory suggests that he was in fact defenestrated (my favorite word.)

Because of his mob status as a stool pigeon and the circumstances surrounding his death, Reles gained another moniker after his passing. In addition to "Kid Twist," Reles became known as "the canary who sang, but couldn't fly."


It was on this date in 1948 that former Japanese Prime Minister Hikedi Tojo and seven others were sentenced to hang.

(This was back in the quaint old days, when the world considered it legal not only to have enemies, but to kill them after they tried to kill you.)



And so it goes

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