Daily history

Good morning,




Quote of the day:

“A recent poll showed that 14% of all men have received oral sex while driving. Strangely, 14% of all men have an inordinate fear of speed bumps.”

Conan O’Brien



Recently one of my friends asked if I knew where the ritual of engagement and wedding rings came from. I did not know so I looked it up.

It seems that the ritual of rings with a special meaning goes back to about 2,500BC, perhaps further back than that but there is no written language earlier than that explaining the meaning of rings in spite of corpses from previous eras wearing rings. The first ring with a written confirmation of its meaning came from the finger of a mummy that is about 4,000 years old. The ring was made of plant fibers and was a complete circle. A poem on the wall in the mausoleum in hieroglyphics said something on the order that the fibers are made from the earth and in a never ending circle as our lives were intertwined. Evidently the Egyptians were a romantic bunch. This is not the case with the Romans. The Romans put a ring on the fingers of those beings they felt they owned. This included all their slaves, gladiators and wives. The Romans were a pragmatic bunch. I read a story about Hannibal Barca, the famous Carthaginian warrior, where he defeated five Roman legions in three battles and gathered the gold rings off the dead Roman soldiers and took them back to Carthage as a prize of war. All Roman soldiers wore gold rings as a show of being owned by the empire of Rome. According to the number of soldiers killed, Hannibal collected about 350 pounds of gold. Then with the Greeks the ring was simply a token of friendship. It was after the ritual of the rings reached Western Europe (Germans, Spanish, French, English, Scandinavians, etc.) that the rings had a meaning associated with matrimony. It is believed that the ritual was reinforced by the Catholic Church and other religious organizations to discourage polygamy, but that is just a supposition.



Down in the fancy-schmantzy resort of Kiawah Island, South Carolina it is illegal to walk a dog on the beach without a leash. One particular man was caught walking his dog on the beach without a leash three times. He was ticketed three times and the judge got fed up and on the third offense he fined this hardhead $3,600. The man raised so much hell that the fine was eventually reduced to $500. The man still refused to pay saying that he had been walking his dog unfettered on the beach in the off-season before with no penalty. An ordinance was passed last year that all dogs on the beach must be leashed. This was after two people were bitten last year and no mention was made of a “season”. This horse’s ass is suing the Island Authority for discrimination. Going by that logic, it would be a crime carrying a penalty of death for an Amish person to live in Maryland, after all, that is the the way the law used to be in the 17th Century.



A 36 year old mother here in Greenville made a deal with a drug dealer that if the dealer gave her an injection of heroin in the neck, he could have sex with her 16 year old daughter. She is in the joint along with the dealer with no way out in sight; the daughter is staying at DSS. The deal should have been that she gets a shot of “horse” in the neck and has to take on all the Pittsburgh Steelers in a span of 8 hours.



Up in Charlotte a man with heart trouble collapsed after watching his horse being attacked by the same pair of pit bulls for the third time in a week. The man’s son found him passed out and called EMS. The man is alive but no further mention was made of the dogs. If I was the son, I guarantee you those dogs would have crossed the river Styx by now.



This date in history February 7




1968    On this date in Bromley, England Bernie Josephs comes home to find his wife Claire under her bed with her throat cut all the way to the spine with a serrated knife. The police could find no clues. They did not find the knife and the doors showed no sign of forced entry. There were two cups of half finished coffee on the kitchen table indicating that Claire knew who her attacker was. The police started with all of the Joseph’s friend and family and began an investigation of them all. One of them was a recent acquaintance named Roger Payne that had a past record of attacking women. The police zeroed in on Payne. They found scratches on the backs of his hands but Payne said it was from a fight with his wife. The police inspected all of his clothing and on one pair of pants, in spite of they having been dry cleaned, the police found about sixty cerise fibers in the seams and cuffs that matched the dress that Claire was wearing on the day she was killed. The police then went over Payne’s car with a fine tooth comb and found some minute blood spots that matched Claire along with more matching fibers. In spite of never finding the knife, Roger Payne was tried and convicted of the murder of Clair Josephs on forensic evidence alone. This did not happen often in those days. It happens more often now since the advent of DNA evidence Roger Payne was given life in prison. In spite of England’s past history of torturing, beheading, the gallows and drawn and quartering, they do not issue the death penalty at all anymore. What a shame.



1862    A few weeks before US General Ulysses Grant had captured Fort Henry on the Cumberland River opening the way to Nashville, Tennessee. CSA General Albert Sidney Johnston knew that Fort Donelson, also on the Cumberland, would be the next target and sent some 15,000 reinforcements. This was a serious misjudgment for Johnston because Grant did indeed attack Fort Donelson but he completely overwhelmed the Confederates and captured the entire Fort including the re-enforcements and the main objective of Nashville and its rail yards was achieved.



1812    After a series of small quakes and a large earthquake with an estimated strength of 8.8 struck the Arkansas/Missouri border on this date. The quakes began in December of 1811 and did not end with this one. There were several minor quakes after this big one. There were not as many casualties as there could have been because this area was still being explored and most people were sleeping in tents so they were not crushed by falling debris. The quake caused a fluvial tsunami on the Mississippi River, however. The river ran backwards for several hours and exposed many shoals that were normally underwater. After the river returned to its normal flow there were several waterfalls where they had been none before and many boats went over them and those aboard were drowned. Dolly Madison in Washington was a wakened by a bell that she kept by her bed began ringing. The present day Reelfoot Lake was a result of this earthquake. The earthquake was on what is known as the Madrid Fault and the fault is still with us. It is known that over 1,000 people were killed but the census of the Indians was in its infancy so the exact number killed is unknown.



1898    On this date writer Emile Zola is arrested because of an article he wrote in Paris newspaper editorial. The article was titled “I Accuse” and leans heavily upon the French military for the ill treatment of French officer Alfred Dreyfus. Earlier Dreyfus had been accused of espionage and convicted and sent to Devils Island. Later evidence proved that Dreyfus was not guilty but the French military would not back down and rather than admit a mistake they let Dreyfus rot. One of the main reasons that the French military would not back down was that Dreyfus was a Jew. The French military resented Jews and chose this occasion to make a statement. After Zola’s editorial, the French people began raising almighty hell so the French military had Zola arrested on various charges and sentenced to one year in prison. Zola fled France to avoid imprisonment and two years later Dreyfus was exonerated and re-joined the French military. Shortly after this Zola returned to France where he died in 1902. Like I have said in the past, everybody needs someone to hate.



1855    Charles Siringo is born in Matagorda County, Texas. Charlie Siringo is well known in western folk lore as a true cowboy. At the age of 18 he had his own registered cattle brand and had a good start on a cattle ranch by gathering up “mavericks” or unbranded cattle out on the open range. But Charlie made his mark by writing. At the age of thirty he published “A Texas Cowboy, Or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Back of a Spanish Cow Pony.” The book was an instant success primarily because he knew what he was talking about and it showed in his writings. Charlie was on several trail drives and he used these experiences for his books. He also wrote A Cowboy Detective. He wrote this book after he was hired by the Pinkerton agency to track down Butch and Sundance and the Wild Bunch. He chased that crowd all over the west covering approximately 25,000 miles. After Butch and Sundance went to South America, the Pinkertons called Charlie in and cancelled the chase. After this Charlie wrote a book about the illegal operations conducted by the Pinkerton Agency, also a best seller. Charlie retired in California and died at the age of 74. What a wonderful and exciting life. I am very envious.



Quotable quotes:



“It is good that war is so terrible or we would learn to love it”. CSA General Robert E. Lee….Battle of Fredericksburg.



“If you are killing time, are you damaging eternity?” Stephen Wright



“Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil” Jerry Garcia



“It is a sin to believe evil of others, but seldom a mistake.” H.L. Mencken



Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow