311 AD – The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ends.

In 303, the Emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding the legal rights of Christians and demanding that they comply with traditional Roman religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods.

Wait for it… No need to wait. It’s happening again in little steps…

1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States. See? See??!! That’s where the country went wrong! The first president was sworn in on WALL STREET!!!! {/moonbat}

1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.

1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.

1863 – A 65-man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fights a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico. The Legionaires take a butt-kicking in a brave and public fashion and the day is still celebrated by the Foreign Legion. This would be roughly equivalent to the Seventh Cavalry celebrating Little Big Horn Day.

1900 – Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.

1938 – The animated cartoon short Porky’s Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit, who would evolve into Bugs Bunny, my favorite of all animated characters.

1945 – World War II: Fuehrerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.

1975 – Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh. With the demise of the evil south Vietnamese government, Vietnam can get on with “Giving Peace a Chance”, refugees of which have provided a new ethnic enrichment to America. Thousands who couldn’t get out died in ‘re-education’ camps. Other thousands died by drowning as they tried to escape in overloaded boats.

1993 – The World Wide Web is born at CERN. Al Gore curiously absent.

1553 – Flemish woman introduces practice of starching linen into England.

1587 – Francis Drake leads a raid in the Bay of Cádiz, sinking at least 23 ships of the Spanish fleet. Today he’d be sitting onshore in “Merrie Olde England” sipping beer out of a plastic mug, his fleet sold for scrap, and hoping that the government could convince the UN to send a sternly worded letter…

1882 – The “Elektromote” – forerunner of the trolleybus – is tested by Ernst Werner von Siemens in Berlin. There’s that “S-word” that has caused me such heartache in recent years.

1945 – The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops. War! – What is it good for?

1965 – Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) successfully launches its seventh rocket in its Rehber series. Oddly enough, one of its design specifications is the ability land a payload in downtown New Delhi.

1992 – Los Angeles riots: Riots in Los Angeles, California, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed. Korean shopkeepers arm themselves to protect their own lives and property when the police fail to provide services.

2002 – The United States is re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat that it had held for 50 years. A commission on human rights at the UN carries about the same logic as a symposium on chastity at a whorehouse.

2004 – Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production. Now it’s Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn’s turn. 2011 – they’re history.

1789 – Mutiny on the Bounty, Captain William Bligh and 18 sailors are set adrift and the rebel crew returns to Tahiti briefly and then sets sail for Pitcairn Island.

1862 – American Civil War: Admiral David Farragut captures New Orleans, Louisiana. The Feds have been taking care of the place ever since…

1944 – World War II: Nine German E-boats attacked US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946.

1945 – Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are executed by a firing squad consisting of members of the Italian resistance movement who became exceedingly brave once the Allies were on the peninsula and the Germans were on the run.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. I’ve read and re-read this story. It’s a classic tale of men against the sea.

1952 – Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Commander of NATO. He’s headed for the Presidency of the United States.

1969 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as President of France. This is akin to a fish losing its bicycle as the general who single-handledly won France back from Germany takes his well-deserved retirement.

1996 – In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more, resulting in draconian Australian gun laws that disarm the law-abiding. Crazy people, however, remain crazy, and criminals remain criminals.

1521 – Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu. Magellan STILL gets credit for circumnavigating the world.

1749 – First performance of Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks in Green Park, London. Handel and fireworks? There’s only one thing better, this side of heaven.

1810 – Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise. Who “Elise” was is uncertain, but we forever associate her with a delightful bit of music.

1813 – War of 1812: United States troops capture the capital of Ontario, York (present day Toronto, Canada). We gave it back. Shoulda kept it and let the Brits have New Orleans.

1865 – The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons. More lives lost than the Titanic, but a boatload of millionaires is oh so much more photogenic than a boatload of smelly old soldiers.

1945 – World War II: Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier.

1965 – RC Duncan patents “Pampers” disposable diaper.

1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse. As one of my computer nut buddies tried to tell me, “That “mouse” thing and those little 3.5 disks are what makes the Macintosh a toy. REAL computers use DOS.” Today knowledge of a command line interface makes you either an ubergeek or a dinosaur (or both).

1987 – The U.S. Department of Justice bars Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II. Now the entire Arab bloc of the UN actively supports the immolation of every Jew in Israel and that’s perfectly fine.

1994 – South African general election, 1994: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote. The Interim Constitution comes into force. This will make South Africa’s slide into the toilet like Zimbabwe all the more acceptable.

1607 – English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia for the first British colony in North America.

1805 – That “shores of Tripoli” thing: United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon. A freakin’ FIRST LIEUTENANT! Today we’d have to let the State Department petition the UN to get permission for us to even THINK about using harsh words. Back then, a lieutenant of Marines just goes ahead and takes the city. And we call this “progress”.

1933 – The Department of Homeland Security Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.

1956 – SS Ideal X, the world’s first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas. She held 58 standard 33-foot containers. Now, 95% of the world’s non-bulk cargo goes in containers, and modern ships may carry 18,000 or more 20-foot containers.

1970 – The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization enters into force. The Red Chinese and Soviets ignore it.

1986 – A nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine), creating the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Comparing the Chernobyl reactors to the American version is like comparing apples to oranges, but every time you talk about nuclear power, the bunny-hugging left wants to bring up three-Mile Island (where the safeties worked) and Chernobyl, which didn’t have that same level of safety.

1507 – Geographer Martin Waldseemuller first used name “America”.

1792 – La Marseillaise is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. It’s kind of like the French national anthem except when they’re singing backup to “Deutschland Uber Alles”. The German anthem’s music was penned by Haydn:

1847 – The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness, with new recipes.

1901 – New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. “It’s moving! Tax it!”

1915 – World War I: The Battle of Gallipoli begins — The invasion of the Turkish Gallipoli Peninsula by Australian, British, French and New Zealand troops begins with landings at Anzac Cove and Cape Helles. It was a bloody blunder, rife with individual heroism overwritten by strategic stupidity.

1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe. They did have to poke the conning tower out long enough to off-load a sailor with appendicitis, but the sub never fully surfaced.

1961 – Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.

1975 – As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam. We’re getting ready to give peace a chance.

1990 – The Hubble Telescope is deployed into orbit from the Space Shuttle Discovery.