1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf, a huge trebuchet.
When the Scots saw it under construction, they tried to surrender, but Edward refused to accept it. After all, he’d gone though all the rouble to have it built and he wanted to see it work.

1712 – The Riot Act takes effect in Great Britain. An official could read specific parts of the act to assemblies of twelve or more people, requiring them to disperse, hence our expression, “reading the Riot Act”.

1933 – Germany: Two-hundred Jewish merchants are arrested in Nuremberg and paraded through the streets. And the world said, “well, if this is the WORST they do…” It wasn’t.

1940 – Denmark leaves the League of Nations. The League has become an assembly of pompous bureaucrats enamored of their own self-importance, just like the UN today.

1941 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the Department of Homeland Security NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief. At least Stalin didn’t call him the “Security Czar”.

1944 – World War II: Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1960 – The Polaris missile is successfully launched from a submarine, the USS George Washington, for the first time. Trousers in the Kremlin change colors.

1960 – Belgium defends its intervention in the Congo to the United Nations Security Council while the government of the Congo appeals to the Soviet Union to send troops to push back the Belgians. The governments of the United States and France and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn the Soviets to stay out of the dispute. Oh, hell! Let’s just everybody leave and let them settle it themselves. They’ll achieve paradise on earth, right?

1968 – Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-gadda-da-vida” becomes 1st heavy metal song to hit charts, it comes in at #117. I had the LP.

1969 – Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands the first man on the Moon. The only human footprints off this planet belong to an American. And today we’re reduced to buying rides from the people we BEAT in the space race.

1984 – Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Lynn Williams to quit after Penthouse published nude photos of her. Ah, yes! The famous “Lesbian Duck Call” pose.

1994 – OJ Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife’s killer, looks in a mirror and writes himself a check.

1997 – The fully restored USS Constitution (a.k.a. Old Ironsides) celebrates its 200th birthday by setting sail for the first time in 116 years.