1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

1774 – Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen. Before this, people just breathed any old thing that blew in…

1914 – Oil discovered in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.

1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (which comes into force on August 14). It’s a pretty good Constitution, too. For example, Germans are entitled to free expression of opinion in word, writing, print, image, etc. This right cannot be obstructed by job contract, nor can exercise of this right create a disadvantage. Censorship is prohibited. And we all know how this turned out when people started following a charismatic, smooth-talking leader with radical ideas.

1941 – Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” This is a lesson in incrementalism, among other things.

1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy. 1945 in Tokyo Bay, HMS King George V had rum. The US Navy had ice cream. The Brits wanted ice cream. Dad helped make the exchange possible with the landing craft he ran as a taxi around the bay.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

1981 – 42-day strike of Major League Baseball ends in the United States. Yawwwnnnnn!

1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.

1866 – New Orleans’s Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. Republicans in New Orleans today wouldn’t fare much better.

1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, NJ was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materials from being used by the Allies in World War I. Today we have the anti-American Left happy to thwart war efforts on our enemies’ behalf.

1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen. Sharks play a major role, as recounted in Jaws.

1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto. Then in 1965 US President Lyndon B. (Lyin’ B*stard) Johnson says, “Why fret over all that “god” stuff? We’re the government and WE’LL take care of you”, and he signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, giving us a taste of how well the government can handle health care.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission – David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon, adding tire tracks to the American footprints.

1974 – Six Royal Canadian Army Cadets killed and fifty-four injured in an accidental grenade blast at CFB Valcartier Cadet Camp. Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is NOT your friend.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again. I looked inside Chrissy’s purse. His body could be in there and nobody’d ever know…

2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line. Ferdinand Porsche’s pre-WW II design was quite successful. I owned a couple myself.

1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: Battle of Gravelines – English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeat the “invincible” Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.

1836 – Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Gives the Germans something to march under when they conquer the country…

1901 – The Socialist Party of America founded. Its positions have since been co-opted by the dimmocrat party.

1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp ran from August 1-9, 1907, and is regarded as the founding of the Scouting movement.

1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established, providing yet another featherbed for international bureaucrats at the UN.

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And it’s eleven years to the moon.

1965 – Vietnam War: the first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. Dimmocrat L.B. (Lyin’ B*stard) Johnson is in the White House.

1540 – Thomas Cromwell is beheaded at the order of Henry VIII of England on charges of treason. Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, on the same day. There are some obvious “head” jokes that decorum prevents me from making.

1896 – The city of Miami, Florida is incorporated with a population of 300.

1942 – World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately executed. “The shootings will continue until morale improves.”

1965 – Vietnam War: Dimmocrat U.S. President Lyndon B. “Lyin B*stard” Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. Nothing like an inept, crooked dimmocrat playing with a real army…

1586 – Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia.

1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre is arrested after encouraging the execution of more than 17,000 “enemies of the Revolution.” Guess who’s got the next ride on “Mr. Guillotine”.

1866 – The Atlantic Cable is successfully completed, allowing transatlantic telegraph communication for the first time. It only lasts a couple of months before failing, but it cut communication from Europe to North America from a couple of weeks to seconds. You could ask a question and get an answer the same day!

1940 – The animated short A Wild Hare is released, introducing the character of Bugs Bunny. Mickey Mouse is a wimp!

1944 – First British jet fighter used in combat (Gloster Meteor). It isn’t allowed over German-held territory because of secrecy. Of course, the Germans had beat the Brits into jet combat with the Me-262 already.

1945 – US Communist Party forms. In 2009, with the inauguration of Barack HUSSEIN Obama, they are rendered superfluous.

1949 – Initial flight of the de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner.

1953 – Korean War ends: The United States, People’s Republic of China, and North Korea, sign an armistice agreement. Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, refuses to sign but pledges to observe the armistice. To this day, that’s all we have with North Korea: an armistice. Like they honor any written agreement anyway… I spent a year on that DMZ or just south of it myself: 1969-70

1964 – Vietnam War: 5,000 more American military advisers are sent to South Vietnam bringing the total number of United States forces in Vietnam to 21,000. Curse those war-mongering Republican presidents. Wait! What? That was Lyndon Baines “Lyin’ my ass off!” Johnson, a DIMMOCRAT?!?!?! Ain’t nothing like a dimmocrat getting all fiesty.