This has been some week

Bunkies, you'd be forgiven if you complained that you've been through the mill this week. Given all that has gone on, it's seems like an after thought that it's Friday the 13th.

In most large cities in the United States, many building don't have 13th floors. In Japan, they don't have 4th floors, because the word for four sounds similar to the word for DEATH! Some say that the modern basis for Friday the 13th phobia dates back to Friday, October 13, 1307.



On that date, the Pope Clement in conjunction with the King Philip of France secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France. The Templars were terminated with extreme prejudice (burned to a crisp) for apostasy, idolatry, heresy, "obscene rituals" and homosexuality, corruption and fraud, and secrecy, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long.



Those wacky Knights were such party animals.

Another unlucky Friday the 13th, October 13, 1066, King Harold II was not having a really good day. William of Normandy (who was so important as not to need a last name, just an address) gave him the opportunity to relinquish his crown, and therefore England. Harold refused, which was not a good choice for him. The next day William took it by force at the Battle of Hastings, causing Harold’s demise.



Somehow this also led to today being unlucky for everyone else, who is not a monarch of an island nation.


It's Ken Day. Ken Day celebrates the Ken doll, whose full name is Kenneth Carson. There is some discrepancy as to if the Ken doll debuted on Saturday, March 11, 1961, or Monday, March 13, 1961.



Mattel, the maker of Barbie, claims it to have been March 11, but most other sites claim it was March 13, and that is why Ken Day is celebrated when it is. Ken debuted at the American International Toy Fair in New York City. Barbie had debuted two years earlier at the same fair.

But I'm sure you don't give a rat's ass.


In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

Spring is less than a week!


March 13, 1949 -
Donald Fauntleroy Duck's birthday is officially recognized as June 9, 1934, the day his debut film was released, but in The Three Caballeros, his birthday is given as simply Friday the 13th. In Donald's Happy Birthday, the cartoon gives his birthday as March 13.  (The best guess is this would be Donald's 105th birthday.)



Things that make you go hmmmm - Donald doesn’t wear pants but when he comes out of the shower, covers himself with a towel.


March 13, 1954 -
It's Rocky's third appearance in a Bugs Bunny cartoon (and the funniest) - Bugs and Thugs, premiered on this date.



Near the end of the film, Bugs' office has a sign that says - "Member- Detective Guild, Local 839". Local 839 of the IATSE was the Animation Guild, whose members made the cartoon.


March 13, 1956 -
One of John Ford's greatest westerns, The Searchers, starring John Wayne (giving his finest performance) premiered on this date.





Reportedly this film was seen in a theater in Texas by Buddy Holly and his friends in the summer of 1956. They were so impressed with Ethan's (John Wayne) repeated use of the phrase "That'll be the day" that they used it as the title for their now standard rock song, which they composed soon after.


March 13, 1968 -
The Beatles release the single Lady Madonna in the UK on this date.



The Beatles recorded Lady Madonna at the same time they were recording its promotional film. In the video for this song, The Beatles are actually singing Hey Bulldog (for the most part). They went in to shoot Lady Madonna and John changed it at the last minute to Hey Bulldog. If you watch the video montage for Madonna closely, there's even footage from the Get Back sessions thrown in.


After a week like this, we all need it to be 5 PM


Today in History:
March 13, 1781 -
Scottish astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus (which he named 'Georgium Sidus,' in honor of George III,) on this date, which he first mistook for a comet



It is the first planet discovered with the aid of a telescope.

(Twice in one week, I've mentioned Uranus, feel free to guffaw like a small child.)


March 13, 1881 -
An anarchist Nikolai Rysakov, from the radical group People's Will threw a bomb which disrupts Czar Alexander II's motorcade. Startled but unharmed, Alexander thanked God for his deliverance, another anarchist Ignacy Hryniewiecki, yelled "It is too early to thank God" and throws a second bomb, causing severe injuries from which Alexander bled to death several hours later.



(Nicholas II, Alexander grandson, was one of the unfortunate witnesses to Czar's gruesome death.)


March 13, 1877 –
The first US Patent (#188,292) for earmuffs was issued to teen-aged Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine on this date.

Think about this as you venture out today.


March 13, 1911 -
Today is the birthday of L. Ron Hubbard (the "L" is for Lafayette.) Mr. Hubbard invented Dianetics, which eventually led to Scientology, causing Scientologists and Personality Tests.

Scientologists are easily distinguished from Jehovah's Witnesses in that they don't ask you subscribe to The Watchtower and they can often be seen in major motion pictures.


March 13, 1917 -
Today on Oh That Wacky Russian Revolution:
The imperial guard, acting on the orders of the dissolved Duma, which had not been dissolved, took the Tsarina and her children (who had measles) into custody. A day later, England and France acknowledged the Executive Committee of the Duma as the official government of Russia.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II had taken a train to Pskov. He knew the revolutionaries would be unlikely to pursue him somewhere so difficult to pronounce.

That evening in St. Petersburg, the Executive Committee of the Duma met with the Petrograd Soviet and agreed that the Russian Cabinet should be dissolved, and also the Tsar.

They established a joint government, with Prince Grigori Lvov at its head, nicely countering the Czar's difficult pronunciation ploy. They put the Russian Cabinet in prison, next to the Russian Credenza.


March 13, 1964 -
A young woman, Kitty Genovese was murdered in front of multiple witnesses, all of whom fail to help her, in an incident which shocks the world and prompts investigation into the bystander effect. (This story have been proven a lie; many of her neighbors in fact did attempt to help.  Only two people, who actually witnessed the attack did nothing.)



Winston Moseley was found guilty of Genovese’s murder. He was initially sentenced to death, but that was commuted several years later and changed to life in prison, where he died in 2016. At the time of his death, Moseley has spent more time in the New York prison system than any other prisoner.


Pope Francis has been on the job for seven years now.

So far, the Pope is still giving them a run for their money at the Vatican.



And so it goes.



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