Sunday, May 29, 2011

History Selections for May 29th

363 - Roman Emperor Julian defeats the Sassanid army in the Battle of Ctesiphon, under the walls of the Sassanid capital, but is unable to take the city. The Roman Senate censures the Emperor for not finishing the fight against a bunch of people with unpronounceable names.

1176- The Lombard League defeats Emperor Frederick I in four games out of seven.

1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of Great Britain after Parliament promises not to go off half cocked again and start chopping off royal heads again.

1677 – Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Natives. The Treaty of Higher Plantation never really took off and the Treaty of the Lower Plantation, well, no one really cared.

1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state. The reason for the delay was no one in Congress wanted to admit that Rhode Island was really a state and not just another state park belonging Massachusetts.

1886 – Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, the ad appearing in the Atlanta Journal. The following week, the DEA raids the laboratory of Pemberton and 3 metric tons of Coke are confiscated. Pemberton is sent to Larryton State Penitentiary for 15 years.

1903 – May coup d'etat: Alexander Obrenovich, King of Serbia, and Queen Draga, are assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization. The Ecru Hand was put out because they felt that the Black Hand had stolen their idea and the MacTartan Clan Hand had lost some street cred for not taking their chance the previous week. All in all, the Black Hand, though successful, was not invited to the All Hands Christmas Ball for years.

1913 – Igor Stravinsky's ballet score The Rite of Spring receives its premiere performance in Paris, provoking a riot. Because there's nothing Parisians like better than a good riot over a ballet.

1919 - Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington's observation of a total solar eclipse in Principe and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, CearĂ¡, Brazil. Later, Einstein would be heard saying, "What does THAT have to do with anything?"

1919 – The Republic of Prekmurje founded. Yeah, go ahead. Try to find it.

1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles. Christmas, be it White or not, was never the same.

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. After about fifteen minutes, Tenzing turned to Edmund and asked, "Wait, you forgot the inner tube? How are we getting down from here?"

1964 – The Arab League meets in East Jerusalem to discuss the ""Palestinian question", leading to the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Of course, no one really figured out the answer because no one could nail down the actual question.

1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo takes office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule. Three days later, huge amounts of money were found in different accounts throughout Nigeria and they started offering it all to anonymous people throughout the world via email. Honest.

2001 – U.S. Supreme Court rules that disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments. In the same ruling, the Court denied Greg Lovenski the right to compete in the tournaments while on a pogo stick.

No comments:

Post a Comment