1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church’s foundations down to bedrock. This is pretty much the same even-handed treatment that Christianity receives anywhere fundamental Islam gets the upper hand, even today.

1767 – Mason-Dixon line, survey separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed. That’s where it REALLY is. In effect, though, as the term is commonly used, it’s further south than that. Ask many Cajuns, and they’ll tell you that everyone north of US Highway 190 is a “yankee”.

1776 – In a NY bar decorated with bird tails, customer orders “cock tail”. Good thing it wasn’t decorated with a bell, or today we’d be ordering “dingalings”.

1867 – United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day. In Russia it is noted as “Dumba** Day”.

1892 – First commercial long-distance phone line opens (Chicago-NY). Can you hear me now?

1925 – The Grand Ole Opry opens in Nashville, Tennessee. Yee-haw!

1944 – Adolf Hitler orders the public funeral procession of Nazi Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, former commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps. Since Hitler had forced Rommel to commit suicide for plots against the fuhrer, the funeral was a political move, sort of like Bill Clinton’s tears at the funeral of Ron Brown or ANYTHING obama does…

1944 – World War II: Soviet Union begins the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazi Germany. They stayed ‘liberated’ until the Soviet Union came apart. Now they’re the Czech Republic and Slovakia, freed of foreign oppression until they ‘absorb’ enough Muslims to lose control of the country.

1945 – The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the USA’s plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Surely you didn’t think they came up with that on their own, did you?

1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio. It was sold under the “Regency” name and cost fifty bucks, like about $350 dollars today. Dad bought my much older sister (PBUH) one in 1956. He’d regularly take it to work with him to clandestinely listen to football games on the evening shift at the refinery. Sis was listening to it while taking a bath one evening and knocked it into the bathtub, drowning it. It was a huge tragedy.