1763 – Touro shul of Newport, Rhode Island dedicated, becoming the first and oldest existing US synagogue.

1804 – At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor of the French, the first French Emperor in a thousand years. So much for that “revolution” crap… It’s been twelve years since the last French monarch in what passed for the French Revolution. Apparently, in French, “revolution” translates to “bloodbath”.

1823 – Monroe Doctrine: US President James Monroe delivers a speech establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts. Today the idea is pretty much dead..

1845 – Manifest Destiny: US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.

1851 – Newly-elected French President Charles Louis Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic. A year later in 1852 he names himself Napoleon III and becomes Emperor of the Second French Empire. This lasted until a galloping case of the dumb-a** caused him to declare war on Germany which started the tradition of German soldiers sitting in the cafes of Paris. He also managed to have part of the French Army beaten soundly by Mexico, resulting in the Cinco de Mayo celebration. Gotta love the French…

1908 – Pu-yi becomes Emperor of China at the age of two. He’s about as aware of what he’s doing as Joe Biden.

1927 – First Model A Fords sold, for $385. This ends the nineteen-year run for the previous “Model T”. Adjusted for inflation that’s $6,807.66. You can’t buy an new car in the US for that amount now, but the Model A lacked GPS, stereo, A/C, air bags, seat belts, padded dash, multi-media touchscreen…

1930 – Great Depression: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Herbert Hoover proposes a $150 million (equivalent to $2,150,000,000 in 2016) public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy. That means the people who work on government projects can earn wages. Now we just write ’em a check and let ’em lay around procreating more dimmocrat voters.

1942 – Manhattan Project: A team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. A little under three years later, they sustained the hell out of a couple in Japan…

1961 – In a nationally-broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism. But they sure did get rid of that corrupt Batista government. Cuba becomes a beacon of fairness and prosperity in the Caribbean. Thousands flee the hostile environs of Florida, braving ninety miles of ocean to begin new lives in Cuba. Right?

2001 – Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Many of my co-workers are members of a former Enron subsidiary. The mention of the name provokes hard words.

2015 – San Bernardino attack: Militant Episcopalians Muslims Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik kill 14 people and wound 22 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.

1420 – Henry V of England enters Paris. Big deal! Everybody with a dozen wineheads on the payroll with weapons has entered Paris. Paris is like the “Elizabeth Taylor” of European capitals: A facade of classiness until you analyze who all she’s been with… Hell! Charles freakin’ De Gaulle ‘entered’ Paris. Of course, he had the entire Allied armed forces behind his pompous, self-important a**…

1824 – United States presidential election, 1824: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Several thousand missing ballots are immediately found in swing states, all voting for Kamala.

1885 – First serving of the soft drink Dr Pepper at a drug store in Waco, Texas. Every now and again, it’s a craving for me.

1913 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line. “My daddy is a front left lugnut specialist at the Ford factory.”

1913 – Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece. The islands denizens are “Cretans”, not to be confused with “Cretins”, i.e., the leadership of the establishment republican party.

1934 – In the Soviet Union, Politburo member Sergei Kirov is shot dead at the Communist Party headquarters in Leningrad by Leonid Nikolayev. Party politics among our socialist friends. This is known as the “Hillary Clinton Method of Political discourse”. Somewhere between 950,000 to 1.2 million eggs are broken to make the perfect omelet. (this time – there have been and will be many others)

1941 – World War II: Emperor Hirohito of Japan gives the final approval to initiate war against the United States. In the polite language of international diplomacy this is called “letting your alligator mouth write a check your mosquito ass can’t cash.”

1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery. This is known as a “peckerectomy”. The reverse, converting a deluded woman into a pseudo-man, is an “addadictomy”.

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Brave Rosa… And to see how her bravery is abused.

1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 92 children and three nuns. They are immediately registered to vote and have been voting dimmocratic ever since.

1958 – The Central African Republic attains self-rule within the French Union. Named “republic” in Africa with a French colonial background? You just KNOW they’re on the road to becoming a beacon of prosperity and justice.

1971 – Cambodian Civil War: Khmer Rouge rebels intensify assaults on Cambodian government positions, forcing their retreat from Kompong Thmar and nearby Ba Ray. While we’re “imagining” and ‘giving peace a chance’ the Khmer Rouge kills two MILLION of its citizens over the next few years.

1981 – The AIDS virus is officially recognized. That makes today “World AIDS Day”. Sit on your ass and keep your mouth shut in celebration.

1998 – Exxon announces a $73.7 billion deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world’s largest company.

2001 – Captain Bill Compton brings Trans World Airlines Flight 220, an MD-83, into St. Louis International Airport bringing to an end 76 years of TWA operations following TWA’s purchase by American Airlines.

1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris (1783) — In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles recognizing American independence. (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).

1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1886 – First commercially successful AC electric power plant opens, Buffalo, New York.

1934 – The LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman becomes the first steam locomotive to be authenticated as reaching 100 mph.

1939 – Winter War: Soviet forces cross the Finnish border in several places and bomb Helsinki and several other Finnish cities, starting the war. Stalin’s slaughtered most of his general staff, the toadies he has left have their collective asses handed to them by the plucky Finns. That’s the ‘up’ side. The ‘down’ side is that Stalin’s army starts finding generals who can fight, people that turn out to be handy in a couple of years against Germany.

1941 – Japanese Emperor Hirohito consults with admirals Shimada & Nagano and rubberstamps the Pearl Harbor attack plan.

1941 – The Holocaust: The SS-Einsatzgruppen round up 11,000 Jews from the Riga Ghetto and kill them in the Rumbula massacre. Who do they think they are? HAMAS?!?

1988 – UN General Assembly (151-2) censures US for refusing PLO’s Arafat visa. At this time we should have given then a two-week notice to vacate the premises.

1993 – U.S. President Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (the Brady Bill – named after the Left’s favorite vegetable)) into law. Thousands of chastised criminals immediately turn in their handguns. Wait… They didn’t? You’re kidding, right?!?!?

1729 – Natchez Indians massacre 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.

1847 – Whitman massacre: Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians, causing the Cayuse War.

1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time. A reasonably well equipped machine shop could reproduce one. What does it take to reproduce an iPad?

1910 – The first US patent for inventing the traffic lights system is issued to Ernest Sirrine. City council immediately sets a fine for running one.

1929 – U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole.

1944 – Johns Hopkins hospital performs first open heart surgery. Today it’s almost a yawner.

1947 – UN General Assembly partitions Palestine between Arabs & Jews, leading to the legal formation of the nation of Israel, restoring a nation that was torn apart by the Romans in 70 AD. But skip forward to 1978…

1952 – Korean War: U.S. President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower fulfills a campaign promise by traveling to Korea to find out what can be done to end the conflict. Nuking Red China to a cinder would’ve worked…

1963 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to cover up the tracks investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This is like Al Capone investigating crime in Chicago…

1978 – UN observes “international day of solidarity with Palestinian people,” boycotted by US & about 20 other countries. The UN has been dead useless for twenty years when this happens.

1972 – Nolan Bushnell (co-founder of Atari) releases Pong (the first commercially successful video game) in Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. And with this shot, a revolution begins. Ten years later I was making very good money on the side, working on arcade games.

2009 – Maurice Clemmons shoots and kills four police officers inside a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington. If Obama had a son…

1520 – After navigating through the South American strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific around South America. And THAT’S why it’s called the “Straits of Magellan”. The other route is around Cape Horn through an unpleasant stretch of the Southern Ocean.

1582 – In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 (equivalent to £14,557 in 2023) bond in lieu of posting wedding banns, which enables them to marry immediately.

1811 – Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, was premiered at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig without a lightshow and hoochie dancers.

1814 – The Times in London is for the first time printed by automatic, steam powered presses built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, signaling the beginning of the availability of newspapers to a mass audience. Today, newspapers are sucking sludge trying to keep in business. Our local paper dropped the Sunday edition, the comics(!) and home delivery is by mail. I don’t think they’ll make 2026.

1907 – In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealer Louis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater. He’s one of the “M’s” in MGM… A scrap metal dealer. Mean ol’ America, holding folks down and all that…

1925 – The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the WSM Barn Dance. Yee-haw, y’all!

1942 – In Boston, Massachusetts, a fire in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub kills 491 people. The exact number of dead varies in different reports, but it’s a lot.

1958 – Chad, the Republic of the Congo, and Gabon become autonomous republics within the French Community. Nothing starts a nation onto the path to become standards of fairness, security and prosperity quite like being a French colony. Could be worse, though. They could’ve been a Belgian colony.

1966 – Michel Micombero overthrows the monarchy of Burundi and makes himself the first president. Politics as usual in sub-Saharan Africa.

1994 – In Portage, Wisconsin, convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by an inmate in the Columbia Correctional Institution gymnasium. Justice is served and for a brief moment harmony is found in the universe.

2002 – Suicide bombers blow up an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya; their colleagues fail in their attempt to bring down Arkia Israel Airlines Flight 582 with surface-to-air missiles. Wanna play “Guess the religion?”

2014 – Gunmen set off three bombs at the central mosque in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria, killing at least 120 people. Nothing to see here, folks. It’s a simple doctrinal disagreement among adherents of the Religion of Peace.

602 AD – Emperor Maurice is forced to watch his five sons be executed before being beheaded himself; their bodies are thrown into the sea and their heads are exhibited in Constantinople. How did this come about? He disrespected the army and they revolted.

1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

1826 – John Walker invents the friction match in England.

1835 – James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England. Executed? Hell, it’s taught in schools now. In another twenty years it’ll be mandatory.

1839 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded. “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, da*n lies, and statistics.”

1868 – Indian Wars: Battle of Washita River – United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on Cheyenne living on reservation land.

1895 – At the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies. He didn’t envision it becoming a propaganda tool, but parts of it have become just that.

1924 – In New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held. They used animals from the zoo in the first couple of parades. In 1927, the first big balloon, Felix the Cat, made its debut.

1942 – World War II: At Toulon, the French navy scuttles its ships and submarines to keep them out of Nazi hands. It’s their greatest naval victory of the 20th Century until they sink the Rainbow Warrior in 1985. And THAT wasn’t done by the French Navy.

1967 – Gold pool nations pledge support of $35 per ounce gold price. It’s at $1400 in 2010, and around $2000 right now.

1978 – In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White in a major mascara dispute. The twink community treats this as if the guy was John F. Kennedy. He was also planning to shoot Willie Brown, Kamala Harris’s first step on her path to the White House.

2009 – Nevsky Express bombing: A bomb explodes on the Nevsky Express train between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, derailing it and causing 28 deaths and 96 injuries. Anndddd… It’s Muslims.

2020 – Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is assassinated near Tehran. Few tears are shed outside of Iran.