Read the ramblings of Dr. Caligari. Hopefully you will find that Time does wound all heels.
You no longer need to be sad that nowadays there is so little useless information.
It's National Lollipop Day I couldn’t find out who started the holiday or when, or why, but there are many mentions of it online so I guess it’s true.
Yeah, that's how the great lie works. (I believe it could be a huge conspiracy perpetrated by a large Big Sugar Syndication.)
Today in History July 20, 1402 - At the battle of Angora, Tamerlane led his huge army of Taters against the Ottomans (or Ottomen). Tamerlane
captured the Sultan (Head Ottoman), and this is why we call some sweaters Angoras to this day.
(Angora, however, is now called Ankara.)
July 20, 1944 - In an attempt on Hitler's life, a timebomb explodes in the situation room of the Wolf's Lair, killing four Nazi
officers but only wounding the Fuhrer. After his close call, Hitler becomes even more paranoid. A massive purge
is to follow, resulting in the execution of thousands of officers.
Tom Cruise starred in a fair depiction of the events this past year. All in all, not the greatest way to celebrate a
hero.
July 20, 1951 - In Jerusalem at the al-Aqsa Mosque, King Abdullah of Jordan is shot three times in the head and chest by Mustapha Shukri Usho, a Palestinian opposed to peace with Israel.
Abdullah dies on the spot.
July 20, 1969 - On live television, the world watches as Neil Armstrong steps foot on the Moon. It was a brave thing to do.
That is, unless it was faked.
July 20, 1973 - In Hong Kong, martial artist Bruce Lee drops into a coma and dies of cerebral edema. He had been experiencing
brain problems beginning in May, which included sporadic loss of consciousness.
Lee's death transpires shortly before the release of Enter the Dragon, his most successful film.
July 20, 1994 - O.J. Simpson offers a $500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Real Killers.
To this day progress remains elusive, although Simpson's begun his search throughout the prison yards of Lovelock, Nevada.
Apparently, for the right price, he may never check out of the Eagles.
(Oops, an eagle-eyed reader noticed that I had Don's birthday wrong - sorry about that. I don't think Don minded the early birthday shout out.)
Happy Flitch Day Every year on this day, since about 1104, any married couple who could prove they had been faithful and loving to one another for one year was awarded half a pig, known as a flitch of bacon. However, very few couples would actually "bring home the bacon!"
July 19, 1692 - Five Salem witches are hanged for the crime of witchcraft, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched.
Eventually, the village executes a total of 20 witches.
July 19, 1870 - France attempted to declare war on Russia. Due to a typographical error, however, she inadvertently declared war on Prussia and caused the Franco-Prussian war. This eventually led to the creation of Germany, which led to World War I, World War II, and the volkswagen.
Moral: always proofread.
July 19, 1937 - The Nazis open "Entartete Kunst," the Degenerate Art show, in Munich. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject.
The German youth are not admitted, lest they become tainted.
July 19, 1952 - During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force is prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these are all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."
Keep watching the skies.
July 19, 1957 - Michael Landon stars in his first film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
He must have been so proud.
July 19 1966 - Frank Sinatra marries Mia Farrow in Las Vegas.
Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: "Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!"
Walter Cronkite died last night after a long battle with cerebral vascular disease.
He was often cited in viewer opinion polls as "the most trusted man in America" because of his professional experience and kindly demeanor.
It's Screamin' Jay Hawkins Birthday. Turn this on up really loud and dance around the room in your underwear
Don't ask, just do it.
Today in History July 18, 64 - Most of imperial Rome was burned to the ground because Emperor Nero had been playing the fiddle. This resulted in the persecution of Christians, many of whom were believed to have encouraged him.
You know how those early Christians love their city burning, fiddle playing, crazed Emperors.
July 18 1870 - At the end of Vatican I, Catholic popes are proclaimed infallible by chapter four of the papal bull Pastor Aeternus. His declarations on matters of faith are protected from error by the Holy Spirit. In a nutshell: whatever he says about the scripture, goes. This is an interesting doctrine, considering how often St. Peter is himself contradicted by the Gospels.
Jul 18 1925 - July 18 marks the 84nd anniversary of the 1925 publication of Adolf Hitler's best-selling political memoir, Mein Kampf (or, in English, "I'm Crazy and I'm Gonna Kill You"). The book remains extremely popular with genocidal sociopaths and is therefore experiencing a renaissance of sales.
The book's original title was Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.
Taking him at his word and assuming the little lance-corporal really had struggled against lies, stupidity, and cowardice for 54 months, one has to ask, in light of his later activities, if maybe lies, stupidity, and cowardice aren't so bad.
July 18 1939 - Hunter S. Thompson's birthday is today. He was once considered, armed, and dangerous. Now he is no more than soot on the window sills of his and his neighbors homes. Dr. Thompson founded the Gonzo school of journalism in the 1970s; graduates from that school can today be seen every night on cable news.
Dr. Thompson inspired the character "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip Doonesbury, by former Canadian Prime Minister Gary Trudeau.
("Uncle Duke" first appeared in Doonesbury on July 8, 1974.) Several movies have been made about Dr. Thompson's life and work and psychotic episodes. He is perhaps the only American journalist to have been played on-screen by both Bill Murray
and Johnny Depp.
July 18 1966 - In Los Angeles, the beaten corpse of Bobby Fuller is found sprawled across the front seat of his mother's Oldsmobile. Fuller, whose band The Bobby Fuller Four released the hit "I Fought The Law," is found to have died from "forced inhalation of gasoline."
Technically, Fuller died from huffing... although circumstances point to murder.
July 18 1969 - Driving home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy's car goes over the side of Dike Bridge and flips over into a pond. Kennedy manages to free himself from the automobile, but his passenger, one Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns.
For some reason, Kennedy tells no one about the accident for at least an hour, and waits until the following morning to notify local police.
July 18 1988 - Rock and Roll performer / heroin addict Nico wipes out on her bicycle on Ibiza and dies from a brain hemorrage - that combined with a lack of medical treatment.
Amy Winehouse's turbulent two-year marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil ended yesterday when the couple were officially granted a divorce at the High Court in London.
Better hurry and snap her up guys before she's dead.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Billie Holiday.
"The difficult I can do today. The impossible will take a little longer." Billie Holiday
July 17, 1943 - Originally released in B & W (something I did not know), Porky Pig's Feat premiered on this date (re-release as a color version in 1968 & 1990.) A rare appearance for Porky Pig, Daffy Duck & Bugs Bunny (his only appearance in a theatrical black and white film.)
This is the first time the Raymond Scott composition "Powerhouse" is used in a Warner Bros.
Here's your Today in History: July 17 1913 - On this date, audiences attending the silent film A Noise from the Deep observed Mabel Normand striking Fatty Arbuckle in the face with a pie. It was the first use of the pie-in-the-face routine in film history.
It may not seem that remarkable when you consider how much history there'd been in film prior to 1913, but it was an important milestone nonetheless.
The act of hitting someone in the face with a pie was itself nothing new. Hieroglyphics engraved on the sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian King Tuthenhorn, for example, depict that merry lord hurling pies of polished stone at his subjects with such force that they were frequently decapitated.
Thucydides and Herodotus both make mention of a great pie battle at Salamis, with the latter observing that "it was a moment of much hilarity until someone hit Xerxes."
Plutarch describes the wanton Messalina "grinding her pie in the face of a slave."
The merriment of the ancient world gradually succumbed to the joyless monotony of the middle-ages, however and pie facials were neglected for centuries. The mirth did not resume until 1518, when Martin Luther nailed Pope Leo X with a cream-covered blueberry pie—the first documented case of torte reform.
Roughly a century later, Shakespeare introduced the routine to Elizabethan audiences with memorable pie-in-the-face scenes in King Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. Scholars have recently unearthed a draft of what Shakespeare clearly intended to be his comedic masterwork, "Two Bakers of Venice."
After Shakespeare's pioneering work in the field, the pie-in-the-face became a staple of popular entertainment. Seen in this context, the celebrated Arbuckle pie facial was just one more step on a very long journey. Indeed, being struck in the face by baked goods is likely to remain the most hilarious thing in the world for centuries to come.
July 17, 1917 - Britain's King George V issues a royal proclamation changing his family's surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. Thus, everyone is fooled into believing that a bunch of inbred Germans are really English. Which is convenient, because England just so happens to be at war with the other side of the family, Germany.
(Yes that's King George V and Tsar, Czar, Csar Nicholas II)
Russian Czar Nicholas II was murdered with his family and servants by the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg on this date in 1918. (It's too bad his cousin, George V was more concerned with changing his Germanic surname then saving his cousin.)
This included his daughter Anastasia, who may not actually have been killed with the rest of them but was almost certainly killed along with the rest of them despite persistent rumors to the contrary--even in the face of almost insurmountable evidence suggesting otherwise (except when interpreted differently). Even if she wasn't dead then, she's certainly dead now. This has been scientifically proven by scientists who ought to know.
July 17, 1936 - General Francisco Franco, low level Spanish Evil Bastard, seizes control of the Canary Islands (in the misguided belief that Spain could become a world power by controlling the supply of small yellow birdies), signaling the start of the three-year Spanish Civil War.
And he's still dead.
July 17, 1938 - On this date, Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field for a cross-country flight to the west coast in his nine-year-old, single-engine Curtiss Robin airplane.
Twenty-eight hours later he landed in Dublin, Ireland, thus earning himself the nickname "Wrong Way Corrigan" and becoming the patron saint of baggage handlers.
July 17, 1947 - Jackie Robinson was playing his historic first season with the Dodgers, the Yankees finally lost after 19 straight victories and Perry Como topped the Billboard charts with “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go to Sleep)” and Jack Kerouac began his “On the Road” trip, on this date. He left his mother’s apartment in Ozone Park and wound up on the West Side IRT local, passing Columbia, where he had dropped out, and got off the train at the 242 Street terminal. At 242 Street, (near Van Cortlandt Park) he boarded a trolley for Yonkers, transferred to another for as far as it would go, then hitchhiked farther up the Hudson. He wanted to take the “long red line called Route 6” that he had seen on a map, and the nearest place for him to join it was the Bear Mtn Bridge.
When he got there, he discovered that little traffic passed through that semi-wilderness, and while waiting futilely for a ride, he got drenched in a thunderstorm. Humiliated by his “stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America,” he ended up taking a bus back to NYC and another all the way to Chicago. He took a third bus to the Chicago suburbs and began hitchhiking to Denver, to see friends he had made in NYC, including Neal Cassady.
Such is the stuff of great literature - a subway ride that many of you loyal readers have made countless times, is transformed into the the opening trip of the classic novel of the Beat Generation, “On the Road.”
(Thanks to a very good friend for this tidbit.)
July 17, 1952 - It's David Hasselhoff's (noted 'actor', 'singer', talent judge, hamburger connoisseur and drunk) birthday!
Yay for David! Yay for Germany!
(David shares his birthday with Angela Merkel born two years later in 1954 - co-incidence, you be the judge.)
July 17, 1955 - Disneyland, the happiest place in the world, opens in Anaheim, California. In the words of Walt Disney, "That place is my baby, and I would prostitute myself for it."
I don't know about you but I shudder at the thought of Ole Walt, walking the street in stiletto, offering to 'go around the world' for 20 bucks.
July 17, 1968 - Premiere of the drug-induced, Big Blue Meanie-infested cartoon Beatle film Yellow Submarine, at the London Pavilion.
And remember Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is not a song about drugs, dammit.
On July 16, 1999, John F.Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
He was flying a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and his wife were traveling together to the wedding of his cousin Rory in Hyannis, Massachusetts, while Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard en route.
Today in History - July 16, 1054 - The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rival claims of universal pre-eminence. (In 1965, 911 years later, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I met to declare an end to the schism.)
Remember kids, there's no schism like a great schism.
Mary Baker Eddy was born on this date in 1821.
Ms. Eddy invented Christian Science, and was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995 for having been the only American woman to found a worldwide religion without exposing her breasts.
July 16, 1860 -
A decree from Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, dissolves the United States of America.
(More on the good Emperor next month.)
July 16, 1945 - "...If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One— I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds...."
First Atomic Bomb is exploded at Trinity, Alamagordo New Mexico. The explosion yields the equivalent 18,000 tons of TNT.
July 16, 1951 - 58 years ago today, The Catcher in the Rye was published. The book contained secret code words by means of which its author, J.D. Salinger, was able to communicate diabolical commands to his evil minions. (Exactly fourteen years later, the tunnel connecting France and Italy through Mont Blanc was opened to the public. Draw your own conclusions.)
Salinger was a one-hit wonder. (He did write several other books, but these are of interest only to insomniacs and those with wobbly furniture.) The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, and Salinger subsequently hid himself away in the hills of Vermont, emerging from this self-imposed cloister only once, briefly, to serve as Prime Minister of Canada. For nearly half a century, The Catcher in the Rye has captured the imagination of the American teenager like no other book without pictures.
Holden Caulfield, the hero and narrator of Salinger's slim classic, may be the finest portrait of twentieth-century American teenage angst bequeathed to posterity. Either him or Archie, it's hard to say.
July 16, 1969 - The Apollo 11 mission was launched on this date.
It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.
July 16, 1973 - In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin Committee on Watergate), former presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield disclosed that President Richard Nixon had tape recorded all of his conversations in the White House and Executive Office Building.
Bad, Nixon, bad.
July 16, 1999 - Stanley Kubrick final film, Eyes Wide Shut, is released on this date.
The film was a difficult shoot, taking over 400 days (The Guinness Book of World Records notes it as "The Longest Constant Movie Shoot".) The movie spent almost a year in post-production.Though often referred to as Stanley Kubrick's "unfinished masterpiece", the final edit of the film was actually presented to Warner Bros. (by Kubrick) a full four days before his death.
July 15, 1606 - Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden, Holland, on this date.
His father was a miller and his mother was a stay-at-home mom.
He is best known for his mastery of chiaroscuro and impasto, but his calamari was nothing to sneeze at.
Happy Birthday Linda -
Here's your Today in History:
July 15, 1799 - The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text. The text is made up of three translations of a single passage, written in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic), and in classical Greek.
It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the Napoleonic expeditionary forces in 1799 at Rashid (a harbour on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt which the French referred to Rosetta) and contributed greatly to the decipherment of the principles of hieroglyphic writing in 1822 by the British polymath Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion.
July 15, 1857 - During an uprising, the group of British women and children being held by rebels in Chawnpore, India are cut to pieces with knives and hatchets. Then their remains are tossed into a well.
When British forces finally retake Chawnpore, the captured rebels are taken back to the house where the slaughter took place. Then they are forced to lick the floors clean, after which they are hanged.
I hate to think what the penalty was for removing principle from a mutual fund before retirement age.
July 15 1864 - A train containing hundreds of Confederate prisoners through Shohola, PA crashes head on with a coal train.
The trains were off schedule because of an escape attempt. 74 people, mostly prisoners, died.
July 15 1869 - During war with Prussia, French ruler Napoleon III commissions Hippolye Mege Mouries to find a butter substitute. A patent for margarine is issued, it being based on beef fat instead of milk fat.
He called it margarine because the French word for pearl was margarite and he apparently had difficulty distinguishing butter from pearls—a handicap that goes a long way toward explaining his many divorces.
But even with the tactically superior spread, the war is still lost.
July 15 1956 - Every man its prisoner... every woman its slave! Although not in the same league as 'Plan 9 from Outer Space', It Conquered the World was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.
"Beluah", affectionately dubbed by its creator, is usually referred to as a being a "cucumber" or another vegetable by fans, it is actually supposed to be a fungus.
Either Sonia Sotomayor is a sober and thoughtful judge or the more prejudiced woman alive today.
Hmmm.
Today in History Joyeux Quatorze Juillet !
July 14 1789 - Paris was not a happy city in 1789. Paris has never been an especially happy city, especially for those who don't speak French, but in that fateful year it was especially grouchy. And it wasn't just the city, but the whole country. All of France was being cranky and irritable, and all the other countries were like, "What?"
Finally the queen said they should eat cake and the nation snapped. The people rose up in protest and, it being time for the French Revolution, they stormed the Bastille ("Bastille") on July 14, 1789.
A mob of 20,000 people storms Bastille Prison in Paris, killing its personnel and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, the Marquis de Sade (yes that guy), and an insane Irishman. The warden is decapitated and his head carried around on a pike. So begins the French Revolution.
It quickly became clear that the peasants were revolting. (Not that anyone ever thought they were all that attractive.) The storming of the Bastille gave way to a Rain of Terror, a meteorological cataclysm in its own right, which eventually caused Napoleon and led to both Waterloo and Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba, all of which have been covered in previous postings and can therefore be ignored for the time being. Eventually the French (who had always been winers) immersed themselves in Bourbon.
On July 14, 1867, Alfred Nobel first demonstrated his newest invention: dynamite. Mr Nobel spent the rest of his life blowing things up in the interests of world peace.
Sadly, world peace was not achieved in his lifetime. Upon his death he therefore endowed a foundation with billions of dollars to give prizes to men and women of future generations who brought the world closer to peace by blowing things up.
At the rate things have been blowing up lately, world peace is obviously just around the corner.
French revolutionary writer Jean Paul Marat is stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.
After the heavy blade fell, an executioner's assistant named Francois le Gros (Fat Frank) picked up the severed head by the hair and brimming with Revolutionary fervor slapped Corday's cheek. Several eyewitnesses saw her face flush red with anger, not just one cheek but both cheeks. Some though they perceived disgust curl her lips.
July 13, 1946 - Horace Greeley advises his readers to 'Go west young man' .
I'm not sure but I don't think this is what Mr. Greeley had in mind.
July 13, 1946 - It's Cheech Marin's birthday.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
July 13, 1977 - NYC experiences 25 hr black-out .
The 1977 blackout, unlike the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson.
July 13, 1985 - President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon.
The polyp, named Larry, is living comfortable at the Reagan ranch keeping Nancy company. George H.W. Bush got a free taste for the Presidency for a day and got hooked.
July 13, 1994 - Jeff Gillooly, Tonya Harding's ex-husband, is sentenced totwo years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.
He serves six months.
On July 13, 1994, Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on German troops fighting outside the country.
(On July 14, 1994, France's Constitutional Court ended their ban on running like hell.)
July 12, 100 BCE - Julius Caesar was born on this date. He is famous for fighting the Garlic Wars and dying of the unkindest cut. His death so shocked the people of Rome that they buried him instead of praising him, although this may have been because he was a Proud Man.
Interesting to note that in between, fighting across most of Europe, Julie baby was quoted as saying, "Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. For patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind."
July 12 1843- Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy.
The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.
July 12, 1908 Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's golden age.
That's all well and good but the real reason you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.
Berle was notorious within show business for the rumored size of his penis. Phil Silvers once told a story about standing next to Berle at a urinal, glancing down, and quipping, "You'd better feed that thing, or it's liable to turn on you!" Saturday Night Live writer Alan Zweibel, who had written many Friars Club jokes about Berle's penis for other comedians, described being treated to a private showing: "He just takes out this-- this anaconda. He lays it on the table and I'm looking into this thing, right? I'm looking into the head of Milton Berle's dick. It was enormous. It was like a pepperoni. And he goes, 'What do you think of the boy?' And I'm looking right at it and I go, 'Oh, it's really, really nice.'" At a memorial service for Berle at the New York Friars Club, Freddie Roman solemnly announced, "On May 1st and May 2nd, his penis will be buried." Now try getting that out of your mind's eye.
July 12 1979 - Bonanno boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", is whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn. Galante dies with a cigar still in his mouth.
Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno, and Santo Trafficante.
July 12 1979 - It is "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brings along a disco record for the bonfire.
During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs fly onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Oscar G. Mayer, retired chairman of the Wisconsin-based meat processing company that bears his name, has died at the age of 95.
I wonder with all of the nitrates this guys must have consumed throughout his life, if they have to embalm him at all.
July 11, 1942 - A classic 40's Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid was released on this date.
This is the first appearance of Beaky Buzzard.
July 11, 1942 - Another great George Pal animated short, Tubby the Tuba, was released on this date.
(sorry it cuts off at the end.)
Beach Blanket Bingo opened today in 1965:
Movies are our best form of entertainment!
Here's your Today in History: July 11, 1533 - The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore important.
Henry VIII assumed the English throne in 1509, an energetic young man of seventeen. He immediately decided to have a male heir. This became the enduring theme of his reign and he consequently came to be known as The Son King (or, to his detractors, The Heir Head).
Henry such a devout Catholic that he earned the title "Defender of the Faith" without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he'd married before taking the throne, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname "Catherine of Aragon." Catherine was an excellent queen until she didn't have a son, at which point things changed.
By the 1530s Henry had realized he was married to a bad queen. He was now about forty years old and therefore decided to get a convertible coach and a new wife.
The convertible caused no problems, but the changing of wives required the official permission of the Pope, who, being Catholic himself, refused to grant a divorce.
Henry divorced her anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.
The Pope having withdrawn, Henry made himself the head of the Church of England. Because he was still the Defender of the Faith, he wrote the Act of Supremacy. This Act proved that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that King Henry VIII was better than any Pope, and that a Single White King was back in the market.
Sir Thomas More had been the Lord Chancellor of England, and knew Henry as well as any man alive. He therefore refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy, and on July 6, 1535, became Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.
At this point in his career, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a regular basis. The divorce process was expedited now that Papal authority was no longer a consideration. In fact, Henry turned the entire process into a game: his wives would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir. It came to be known as "Bluff King Hal," and several centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game, "Hungry Hungry Guillotine."
July 11 1804 -
Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton is shot in the liver and dies the next day.
Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory.
July 11, 1936 - The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic, on this date.
At some point in the past, a sign on the bridge informed travelers, "In event of attack, drive off bridge", New York Times columnist William Safire wrote in 2008.
July 11 1979 - The derelict space station Skylab finally returns to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That is, except for the ones which crash into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia.
Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephones the prime minister of that country to apologize for scattering NASA litter on his nation.
Oops.
July 11 1997 - Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman is arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.
I never realized that Steven liked huffing chloroform, he seemed more like a compressed air guy to me.
Here's your Today in History - July 10, 1958 - The first parking meter was installed in England on this date in 1958, along with the second through 625th. It took nearly two dozen years for the parking meter to travel across the Atlantic: the first American parking meter had been installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.
It was invented by Oklahoma City's Carl C. Magee, the head of that city's chamber of commerce, as part of an effort to free more parking spaces for daytime shoppers. Downtown parking spaces had typically been taken by office workers who left their cars parked on the street all day, making it difficult for shoppers to find open spaces and thereby causing incalculable pain and suffering. (Double-parking was not invented until 1963.)
I, personally, considers the parking meter one of the great instruments of totalitarian control, and cannot understand how conspiracy theorists who lose sleep over Roswell, the Masons, and black helicopters can walk blithely past dozens of parking meters every day.
Current estimates ("wild guesses") suggest there are now more than five million of these coercive devil machines deployed across the United States. They absorb millions of dollars in small change every day, and generate still more ill-gotten revenue by means of fines levied against persons who refuse to kneel before them.
I urge my readers to recall the words of Alexander Hamilton, who observed in the Federalist Papers that "no people are free who must pay for municipal parking."
The first concrete-paved street was built 112 years ago today in Bellefountaine, Ohio.
Paved streets are good. I have no problem with paved streets, unless they're lined with parking meters.
July 10, 1856 - Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla is born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia.
Remember, if we could only harness the free floating electricity, we could do away with the electric companies.
July 10, 1985 - Neil Tennant, musician, singer and songwriter and the other half of the electronic dance music duo Pet Shop Boys, was born on this date.
July 10, 1985 - Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is blown up by in Auckland Harbor, killing a photographer.
After the New Zealand government determines that French secret agents were responsible, the French Defense Minister resigns and the agents are jailed.
One again, Craig Ferguson is a good watch if you happen to be up late at night.
Here's your Today in History: On the Fourth of July in 1850, President Zachary Taylor snacked on cherries and milk while attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument. It was a hot day, and the heat made him sick.
He got sicker and sicker and died on July 9.
He remains the only U.S. president to have died from indigestion (with the posible exception of Warren G Harding, who may or may not have been poisoned by his wife - which could be considered death by extreme indigestion - but that's another story.)
His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."
I find it hard to believe he didn't regret eating the cherries-and-milk that caused his fatal indigestion, but I'm not going to quibble with a man's dying words.
July 9, 1952 - Musical genius and all-around renaissance man John Tesh is born in Garden City, New York.
July 9, 1956 - America's favorite actor, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on this date.
July 9, 1964 - Courtney Michelle Love rock musician and actress, was born on this date.
Let's hope she makes it to her next one.
July 9, 1982 - Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she is asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carry on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehends him.
Who knew that Queen could carry on a 12 minute conversation with one of her subjects?
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