May 24 1610 -
Buggery is criminalized for the first time in North America, when the Virginia colony declares that "no man shall commit the horrible, and detestable sinnes of Sodomie upon pain of death." This was all probably due to the lack of proper lubricant.
May 24 1686 -
Gabriel Fahrenheit was born on the date. Mr Fahrenheit did pioneering work in the field of temperature. It was his dream to develop a more sophisticated temperature measurement system than the accepted worldwide standard of his era, which consisted of only seven gradations: brr!, cold, chilly, warm, hot, steamy, and ow!. Hard at work on the same problem was his colleague Gustav Celsius. Mr Fahrenheit eventually discovered the "degree." It took 32 of Mr Fahrenheit's degrees to freeze water and 212 of them to boil it. Mr Celsius, meanwhile, had discovered a different kind of "degree." It took only a hundred of his degrees to bring water to a boil, and, even more impressively, he discovered that water would freeze without any degrees at all.
By requiring fewer degrees to get things done, and less tick marks on thermometers, Mr Celsius's system was more compact and economical than Mr Fahrenheit's. This made it a natural for the crowded lands of Europe, where storage came at a premium. In the great unsettled expanse of the New World, however, space was not an issue and Mr Fahrenheit's system took hold.
May 24, 1819 -
Queen Victoria was born as Princess Alexandria Victoria at Kensington Palace, London. Through a series of accidents and bad planning on the part of her uncles, she became Queen. She reigned for sixty-four years, and lent her name to an era best remembered for its prudery and chastity. Remember, this was the time when one put skirts on piano legs for fear of arousing the passions of young men. The chastity of the era was probably the result of so many citizens having to stay home and care for their children, since Victoria's reign also saw the largest population explosion in British history.
May 24 1856 -
A small gang led by abolitionist John Brown murders five pro-slavery homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas, hacking them to pieces with swords. The event comes to be known as the Pottawatomie Massacre.
And his body still lies a mouldering in the grave.
May 24, 1844 -
Samuel Morse sent the world’s first telegraph message to his associate. The message was "What hath God wrought?" Mr. Morse’s associate didn’t know, and did not advance to the next round, although he did receive a year’s supply of Turtle Wax.
May 24, 1883 -
"I've got ninety thousand pounds in my pajamas,
I've got forty thousand French francs in my fridge,
I've got lots of lovely lira, Now the Deutschmark's getting dearer,
And my dollar bills would buy the Brooklyn Bridge..."
The Brooklyn Bridge (originally the New York and Brooklyn Bridge), one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet (1825 m) over the East River connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn opened for business today. On completion, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the first steel-wire suspension bridge. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of the New York Skyline and is still considered one of the Wonders of the Modern World.
The first person to jump from the bridge was Robert E. Odlum (and not Steve Brodie) on July 23, 1886. Robert, a swimming teacher, made the jump in a costume bearing his initials. He survived the pre-announced jump, but died shortly thereafter from internal injuries. Apparently, no one told him taking the high dive off the bridge would get him killed. This showed him.
May 24 1920 -
Senile French President Paul Deschanel falls off a train bound for Montbrison, and is later discovered wandering along the track in his pajamas. As I mentioned yesterday, The French, they are a strange race.
May 24 1964 -
All hell breaks loose in the closing minutes of a match between Peru and Argentina, after a referee disallows a goal. 318 people are killed and 500 injured in Lima, Peru, making it the worst soccer riot in history.
And so it goes.
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