Daily History

Good morning,




Quote of the day:

“Sometimes people build walls around them not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

Jeanette Smitherson



The French Government has begun gathering up all the Gypsies and flying back to their home country of Romania. It seems that the Gypsies as a group have been abusing their children and promoting prostitution. The prostitution issue is not that serious in France as long as the participants see to their sexual health on a regular basis. The Gypsies do not do this. The strange part of all of this is that the French Government gives the Gypsies 300 Euros each to help them get on their feet once they arrive in Romania. The France/Romania border is virtually non-existent and the Gypsies just walk back into France, await arrest, collect the 300 Euros and fly back home. There have been cases of people doing this 8 times. It is a living for them.

Well it looks like one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball is going to the joint for lying to Congress. That’s right, y’all, it is Roger “The Rocket” Clemens. Roger testified before Congress saying that he had never used an illegal substance such as steroids in his baseball career. But his trainer said that he had and offered proof in the form of a hypodermic syringe with traces of Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Roger’s DNA on it. HGH is a no-no in the world of professional baseball.



Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has been arrested in Bangkok, Thailand and will be extradited to the United States for trial. This man is known worldwide as “The Merchant of Death.” He sold rifles, pistols, surface-to-air missiles, helicopter gunships, airplanes, tanks, submarines, grenade launchers, etc. to anyone that coughed up the cash, good or bad. Viktor is looking at life in prison. The Russian government is raising hell because Viktor worked closely with Russian intelligence. Not anymore.



Down south of Cleveland, Ohio there is a man who raises black bears in cages for two reasons. Occasionally a movie script will call for a bear and reason number two; this man will bring a bear to a county fair and charge people for the chance to wrestle one of his bears. I will repeat that. He charged people for a chance to wrestle a bear. Last Thursday a man paid the fee and attempted to wrestle a bear…the bear won by inflicting a fatal bite to his opponent’s neck. The bears don’t know that we are different than any other animal invading their space. Let them the hell alone.



By now I guess all of you know about the mother here in South Carolina that smothered her toddlers, strapped them into child seats in her car and rolled it into the Edisto River trying to cover up the murders. The mother confessed. The funeral for the kids was held in a small church near Orangeburg on Friday. Hundreds were in attendance. There is no use in me saying “Why didn’t she give them up for adoption?” I said the same thing about Susan Smith. It is too late now.



This date in history August 24



79AD    On this date the Roman elite in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples were just sitting down to lunch or a late breakfast. Most of the houses in these cities were vacation homes to the Roman rich. Then a stupendous explosion shakes the very ground on which they were sitting/standing. It was the eruption of the centuries old extinct volcano Mount Vesuvius. A cloud of white hot ash and rock shot 20,000 feet into the atmosphere and lava and mud slid down the side of the volcano in torrents. The people in the cities did not have a chance. The dust and rocks in the atmosphere began raining down burning people to death or mixed with the poison gasses that accompanied the mud and lava and asphyxiated them. The ash and rock mixed with the lava and mud forming a sort of concrete and buried thousands of them under 10 to 15 feet which cooled into a solidified mass. A Roman General name Pliny the Elder was in command of a Roman fleet that was on patrol in the Bay of Naples when this great event occurred. Pliny saw with disbelief swarms of people swimming out into the bay to escape the enormous heat but the raining ash was still hot enough to burn and people were screaming for death in their agony. Pliny ordered some of his ships to go and try to rescue them but they returned after a short while saying the ash was so hot that it was setting their ships on fire. Pliny just could not stand aside and watch so he ordered his boat into the maelstrom and went to the sides of the ash flow and tried to comfort those that had escaped. Pliny got a whiff of the toxic gasses and collapsed and died. His nephew Pliny the Younger, aged 17, was on the opposite side of the bay and chronicled what he saw and gave it to the Roman historian Tactius. The two cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were eventually forgotten until a farmer digging a grape vineyard and the ground collapsed into the courtyard of a buried mansion. From then on archaeologists and paleontologists descended on the area and nearly the entire towns have been excavated giving us a snapshot of what life was like in those ill-fated cities.



1572    The king of France was King Charles IX but the real control was in the hands of his mother Catherine de Medici. Catherine went down in history as one of the most manipulative and ruthless person who ever lived. She and he son Charles were supposed to be Catholic but she would persuade Charles to dance with whoever held sway at a given time be it the Pope or the French Huguenots which were protestant. In this particular point in time the leader of the Huguenots Admiral Garpard de Coligny held sway with King Charles and good old Catherine saw the Admiral as a threat and ordered his murder. On this day, Saint Bartholomew’s Day, the assassins found the Admiral and killed him. For some reason the Catholics got their bloodlust aroused and they began killing the Huguenots wholesale all across France in spite of King Charles ordering them to stop. They stopped alright, after killing over 70,000 of them. This event was known since and The Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Catherine may have felt more secure after this but France suffered because all the surviving Huguenots moved away taking their money with them.



1814    Earlier during the War of 1812 the British army under the command of General Robert Ross flanks and defeats the Patriot Militia at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland. This victory for the British left the road to Washington undefended. On this date the British army marches into Washington unopposed and begin burning everything in sight. The British were pissed off because the Patriot army had burned the British consulate in Canada for no apparent reason. During the Battle of Bladensburg president James Madison went to the battle site and took command of one of the artillery batteries. This is the only time that a sitting American president engaged in combat. Before he left he told his wife Dolly that she would have to evacuate soon and to take only those things that were important. She took the portrait of George Washington with which we are all familiar. I guess it was that important because later that night the British burned the White House to the ground. But the redcoats ran up against US General Andrew Jackson and company near Chalmette, Louisiana who sent them running away with their asses in hand. But the war was over before this fight but the communications were so slow that Jackson knew nothing about the British surrender.



Born today:



1884    US Writer James Earl Biggers. He said “When the jig is up, there no need for any further dancing.”



1894    Welsh writer Jean Rhys. She said “Reading make immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but most importantly, it finds homes for us everywhere.” It does that for me.



1898    US writer Malcolm Crowley. He said “They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you get older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it much.” Did you say something, Malcolm?



1929    PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He said “Choose your friends carefully, your enemies will choose you.” Especially ex-wives and girl friends.



1957    English writer Stephan Fry. He said “Once you have seen an infant do a backward summersault you will realize what clothing is for.” What a thought.



Died today:



1953    US writer Kate Wiggin. She said “Every child born into this world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility.” That is except those monstrous brats that scream and yell running down the aisles of a library or a restaurant. They are the spawn of the loins of Beelzebub.



1957    English writer Ronald Knox. He said “It is a shame that modern civilization has chosen not to believe in the devil, when he is the only explanation for it all.” You notice that Ronald put the devil as masculine. See the next paragraph.



2004    Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Ross. She said “Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and believe that everything in life has a purpose.” Hey Elisabeth, what about my third ex-wife?



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow