In 1399, in a little land called England a gent by the name Henry became King Henry IV, Lord of England, Ireland and King of France! The King of France part was less than accurate, and more of a holdover from previous tradition, nonetheless the constant reference to being King of France irritated the hell out of Charles VI, the actual King of France at the time (whose surname was the Beloved and the Mad). Henry was quite the fellow, managing to not just become King but also to have become King after previously having taken part in a rebellion that saw most of his friends executed...plus he got promoted by the very fellow who he rebelled against, King Richard II. Henry was the beginning of the Lancaster line of kings, all from the House of Lancaster...which sadly for them would only last three Kings. Naturally because he wasn't a Plantagenet (previous line of rulers) there was always talk of the old family still lurking, which meant constant assassination attempts, a handful of rebellions...leading to the War of the Roses, which I refuse to get into here...now.
1791, in Austria, land of Austrians, and chocolates...and latent Germanosity, Mozarts last Opera is performed. This Opera being The Magic Flute, conducted by Mozart himself. Mind you he died in December...that same year, so this is rather sad in the long run. If you really care I suppose you'll read a book or some biography of the great composer, however if you are lazy and don't care you can watch the extremely entertaining 'Amadeus', followed immediately by 'The Last Action Hero' wherein F. Murray Abrams plays a villain, and jokes about him in 'Amadeus' are referenced. Go watch, it will be funny.
1791, Dear God have mercy on the French! The National Constituant Assembly is dismantled in favor of leadership in the form of the incorruptible Maximilien Robespierre! From here it is really down hill for the newly created France...downhill with a vengeance. I'll let Kate Beaton explain...
Is it wrong of me to reference this comic repeatedly? No that's damn right it's not, now go to her actual website! Dang it! www.harkavagrant.com/
1888, Jack the Ripper kills his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Proving once and for all that hooking in Whitechapel in 1888 is dangerous business. Now however in this modern age I can safely say that Whitechapel had a number of tasty Indian restaurants, PROGRESS!
1903, this is a fun one, the new Gresham School is opened by one Field Marshall Sir Evelyn Wood VC. The school is simply one of those traditional English boarding schools, the real important thing here is that it was Mr. Wood who made it happen. Evelyn was a hero of the British army, from the Crimea to India and back again. The most fascinating thing about the gentleman however was how good he was at surviving things, and his proclivity for serious injury and illness. He has been repeatedly shot, stabbed, fallen ill to malaria, regular fevers, been knocked off horses, clamped fingers repeatedly in lawn chairs (true story, in Africa nontheless), all manner of terrors. Yet somehow he survived, heck he even lived through Florence Nightingales hellhole, where he nearly died at her nurses hands. Plus he lived to 81, he was a veritable pillar of fortitude, so lets raise a toast to Field Marshall Sir Evelyn Wood recipient of the Victoria's Cross!
In 1938, at two in the morning, Britain, France and Germany all sit down and say it's okay for Hitler to have the Sudatenland. I mean seriously, look at that mustache, and those dang old symbols, the guy screams movie villain! You want to know what Indiana Jones was doing at that moment? He was in a race to get the Holy Grail away from these jerks. This means that in 1936 he already knew that they were scumbags and was busily stealing the Ark of the covenant out from under their noses. God, Britain and France were dumb.
1941, in the Ukraine the Babi Yar massacre takes place. Outside of Kiev a guerrilla war was being waged by the local Jewish population against the invading Nazi's. The natural next step for the SS was to kill 33,000+ individuals, because, well...like I said before Nazi's are the bad guys...like the worst guys...like seriously, it's hard to sympathize with anyone who sat around and pretended that things were okay in Germany right now.
1954, the first nuclear submarine is commissioned, the USS Nautilus. Admittedly this is not nearly as cool as I would have hoped.
1955, James Dean dies in a car accident, at 24...take that James Dean, I have successfully outlived you, me and Marlon Brando.
2004, in related news the first image of a giant squid is taken of the coast of Kimura, Japan. My response is to be extremely excited, then remorseful that I wasn't responsible for it.
2005, remember that whole drawing of Mohammad thing that got that Danish paper and cartoonist into trouble. That was today. you know what I could do...I could do my own picture of Mohammad, and let the chips fall where they will...see if maybe I could get Syria or someone really pissed off at me, but I'm about to move so I don't really feel like it.
