Today in History:
On September 18, 1793, President George Washington laid the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol. According to numerous sources, President Washington "laid the stone in a Masonic ceremony... preceded by a parade and followed by celebration and feasting."
(I am troubled by such deviant sexual behavior on the part of our founding father. I am surprised by our young nation's apparent celebration of his bizarre geological fetish. I therefore endorse a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting federal representatives from engaging in sexual relations with rocks.)
The 1792 competition for the design of the Capitol had been won by an amateur architect, and the building was therefore burned by the British before it could be completed. Congress had moved into the building on November 22, 1800, but managed to escape the fire.
On September 18, 1830, the first locomotive ever built in the U.S., the "Tom Thumb," lost a nine-mile race to a horse.
September 18, 1932 -
24-year-old starlet Peg Entwhistle dives head first from the letter "H" of the HOLLYWOODLAND sign in Los Angeles. She is the first person to commit suicide at the landmark.
Her body was discovered in the brush at the base of the hill two days later, and pronounced dead. When police examined her belongings, in her purse they found a note that read:
"I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E."
Two days later, in an ironic twist, Entwistle's uncle opened a letter addressed to her from the Beverly Hills Playhouse; it was mailed the day before she jumped. In it was an offer for her to play the lead role in a stage production—in which her character would commit suicide in the final act.
September 18, 1970 -
A sleeping Jimi Hendrix dies in London from of a barbituate overdose when chunks of vomited tuna sandwich wind up in his lungs, causing him to choke. He was 27 years old.
Kids, if you plan on taking barbituates before bedtime, NO late night snacks.
And remember Mama Cass did not choke to death on a ham sandwich. It is an urban myth born out of a quickly discarded speculation by the coroner, who noted a part eaten ham sandwich and figured she may have choked to death. In fact, she died of heart failure. So cut it out.
September 18, 1979 -
NBC television premieres The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spinoff of BJ and the Bear. Claude Akins stars as Elroy P. Lobo, the slightly corrupt sheriff of Orly County, who faces his first misadventure in "The Day That Shark Ate Lobo." Don't you wish you were at that pitch meeting.
September 18, 1992 -
Two weeks after being outed in the New York weekly QW, attorney John Schlafly admits in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner that he is homosexual. This causes a certain amount of consternation for his mother, archconservative gay rights opponent Phyllis Schlafly.
The Schlafly family have yet to fulfill their obligation as good Christians to present their rebellious son to the town elders and have him stoned to death as instructed in Deut. 21:18.
September 18, 1994 -
Vitas Gerulaitis is killed in his sleep in the guest cottage of a friend's Long Island estate. The professional tennis player dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, caused by a faulty propane swimming-pool heater. How many more people must die from killer swimming pools?
And so it goes
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