Thursday, February 10, 2011

Should we start the 'Free Lindsay' campaign now?

In case you haven't had time to catch up with Coco.



Two of the funniest men on TV


Today in History
February 10, 60CE -
St. Paul is believed to have been shipwrecked near Malta while enroute to Rome for trial for practicing Catholicism. (It shouldn't have been a shock to the Romans that St. Paul was practicing Catholicism when his first name was St.)



The story is told in the Bible’s New Testament Acts of the Apostles, chapter 27. Since the shipwreck involves the lead-cup drinking, orgy-mongering Romans (who obviously were otherwise occupied when it came to accurately recording dates in history,) the Maltese commemorate the event every February 10.


February 10, 1840 -

Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, (whose first language was German, was taught English and French, and became virtually trilingual, though her mastery of English grammar remained incomplete), marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (her first cousin).



She arranged marriages for her nine children (mostly to their first cousins) and forty-two grandchildren (mostly to their own first cousins - they needed charts and grafts to make sure they didn't marry their own brothers and sisters) across the continent, tying Europe together; this earned her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe".



Oh those wacky inbred royals.


February 10, 1855 -
US citizenship laws were amended to include all children of US parents born abroad.



While there is no truth to the rumor that Senator McCain's parents actually pushed for this at the time, it was a lucky thing for him when he was born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. Birthers take note.


February 10, 1863 -
Midgets Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren married in a ceremony at New York's Grace Episcopal Church. P. T. Barnum footed the bill for the wedding, and generated tremendous publicity (and revenue - reception tickets $75, adjusted for inflation, $1250 in today's dollars) in the weeks prior to and following the nuptials.

Commodore Nutt and Lavinia's shorter and younger sister Minnie acted as attendants. The Thumbs afterwards honeymooned in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. In Washington they were invited by President Lincoln to be the guests of honor at a special White House reception.


February 10, 1920 -
Jozef Haller de Hallenburg, Polish general and politician, performs a symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.

Happy anniversary (no comment.)

February 10, 1967 -
The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified on this date.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which doesn't explicitly state whether the Vice President becomes the President if the President died, resigned, was removed from office or was unable to discharge the Presidential powers.

Not that Joe Biden wishes anything bad should happen.


February 10, 1940 -
Puss Gets the Boot, the cartoon short is released by MGM. It's the first appearance of Tom and Jerry.



Yeah, yeah, I know that the cat is called Jasper in this cartoon. But dammit, it's Tom, none the less.


February 10, 1945 -
The no. 1 song in America, on this date, was Rum & Coca Cola by Andrews Sisters.



It's nice to think back in the more 'innocent' era of America, songs about mother and daughter prostitute rings in the Caribbean were all the rage.



And so it goes

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