Everybody's a player

Politicians of a certain age had to consider whether or not they would admit that they may have done drugs during their college years. It now seems that it is all the rage to admit to any and all sexual peccadilloes you may have engaged in - soon one will have to admit to eating too much red meat.

Here's your Today in History -

Mar 18 1314 -
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake during the final purge of the Templars in France. Among the things de Molay admitted to the Inquisitor panel (though possibly coerced) were the obligation of Templars to deny Christ when they joined, and a sacrament that involved spitting on a crucifix.




Mar 18 1584 -
Ivan IV of Russia died. He is better known by his nickname: Ivan the Terrible. He was the first king of Russia to call himself a Caesar, probably in the hopes that Shakespeare would write a play about him. He couldn't pronounce Caesar, however, so he simply called himself "zar," and subsequent arguments over whether that should be spelled czar, tsar, zar, or tzar became so heated that they eventually resulted in Russian History.




Mar 18 1965 -
The Rolling Stones are fined 5 UKP for urinating on a Stratford garage wall at the ABC, Romford.




Mar 18 1970 -
Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) is convicted on obscenity charges after he asks for an F, a U, a C, and one other letter at a concert in Massachusetts.




Mar 18 1980 -
A significant percentage of the Soviet space program's scientists are killed when a Vostok rocket explodes on the launch pad. Fifty people die at the Plesetsk Space Center.




And so it goes.