1687 – The first Huguenots set sail from France to the Cape of Good Hope. Does the name “du Toit” ring a bell?

1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax. Don’t give the ‘takers’ any ideas! California’s already considering a tax on text messaging, and the only people who HAVE windows are ‘rich’ people, right?

1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.

1805 – End of the French Republican calendar; France returns to Gregorian calendar like the rest of the civilized world. If you EVER want to see what happens when the Left takes control of government and implements all its “enlightened” ideals, study the French Revolution. Or Detroit.

1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879. My employer uses many two-stroke, natural gas fueled engines to compress gas in our pipeline system.

1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time. 2012 – Incandescent bulbs are essentially outlawed by ignorant legislation.

1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than $12 billion USD in foreign aid to rebuild Europe. Then we stayed there for the next thirty years making sure the commie hordes didn’t come take the place, and they still treat US like crap!

1968 – The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-144, the first civilian supersonic transport in the world, with all the financial impact of shit-flavored popcorn.

1983 – In Nigeria a coup d’état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari ends the Second Nigerian Republic. Just Africa being Africa.

1991 – All official Soviet Union institutions have ceased operations by this date five days after the Soviet Union is officially dissolved. See 1951, above.

1998– The European Exchange Rate Mechanism freezes the values of the legacy currencies in the Eurozone, and establishes the value of the euro currency. And right now, Europe is seriously reconsidering the wisdom of that move…

2007 – The Massive Big Dig construction project in Boston, Massachusetts ends as it starts filling itself in…

1066 – Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace spreading the gospel of the Religion of Peace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city. “Religion of Peace”, yeah… Never was before. Isn’t now.

1817 – First coffee planted in Kona, Hawaii. Hawaiian Kona is still a GREAT coffee. Visit Smith Farms if you want to try some REAL Kona, and don’t get fooled by ‘Kona Blend’ from anywhere.

1853 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest. 29,670 square miles for $10 million. Bought it fair and square. Bite that, Aztlan!

1854 – Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co., first oil company in the US is incorporated in NYC. “Rock Oil” = “petroleum”.

1906 – The All India Muslim League is founded in Dacca, East Bengal, British India Empire, which later laid down the foundations of Pakistan. Ambitious title, but “all India” didn’t want to be Muslim, not that such feelings have any bearing to radical Muslims…

1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed. That’s good for about seventy years… And the murders of several million of its own people.

1953 – The first ever NTSC color television sets go on sale for about USD at $1,175 each from RCA. “NTSC” stands of “Never The Same Color”. And $1175 was a year’s worth of minimum wage in 1953. Those old color TV’s were finicky and twiddly and a good living could be made servicing them.

1959 – USS George Washington, world’s first ballistic missile sub commissioned, resulting in numerous pants being shat in the Kremlin.

1980 – “Wonderful World of Disney,” last performance on NBC-TV , back when Disney was still VERY patriotic (you old f*rts remember “The Sons of Liberty”?) and very pro-science. Not like today when it’s very “let’s promote a few kiddie acts to the pre-pubescent girl crowd and make lots of money”.

1987 – Premier Mugabe elected president of Zimbabwe. He stepped down this year. Under his august leadership Zimbabwe is almost gone, just like America was doing under that Kenyan, Obama.

2006 – Saddam Hussein is executed by hanging. “Justice” would have had him fed into a shredder, feet first.

2009 – The last roll of Kodachrome film is developed by Dwayne’s Photo, the only remaining Kodachrome processor at the time, concluding the film’s 74-year run as a photography icon. “Camera film” goes the way of “Dialing a phone”… And people will have to do research to see what the words to that song mean…

2013 – More than 100 people are killed when anti-government forces attack key buildings in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Politics as usual in the Congo.

1170 – Thomas Becket: Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church. This is about separation of church and state. The ‘state’ had the ‘church’ murdered.

1786 – French Revolution: The Assembly of Notables is convened. that’s what the Federal Government thinks it is today. If they don’t change the results are likely to be equally unpleasant.

1812 – The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three-hour battle. She is now the only vessel on the Navy’s rolls to have sunk a major warship in combat.

1837 – Steam-powered threshing machine patented in Winthrop, Maine

1845 – Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state. 2035 – New US-Mexican border established at the Trinity River.

1851 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts. First clients include an Indian chief, a construction worker, a cop, and a cowboy.

1890 – United States soldiers clash with members of the Great Sioux Nation in the Wounded Knee Massacre. “Clash?” Soldiers killed perhaps 200 including women and children.

1934 – Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Once out from under these restrictions, Japan builds a great navy. America (mostly) and its allies sink most of it in WW II.

1998 – Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed 2 million. They apologized. That makes it okay… They were “imagining” “giving peace a chance” anyway…

1814 – War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. Freed of the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson’s makeshift fleet allows the British to move efficiently forward to the epic butt-kicking of the Battle of New Orleans.

1825 – First public railroad using a steam locomotive completed in England.

1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou begins. A prelude to the Siege of Vicksburg, Outnumbered over two to one, the Confederacy delivers ten casualties for every one they suffer. The North has plenty of Yankees and plenty of factories and we know how the story ends.

1871 – World’s first cat show held at the Crystal Palace in London. “What’s that? A cat. And that? Another cat.” Actually, I’ve been to a few cat shows. Fascinating, but cats are not nearly as widely different in their breeds as dogs can be. Think of the difference between a shih-tzu and a Saint Bernard… Then think of the fun and games if you bred a playful housecat the size of, say, a Labrador Retriever…

1922 – Japanese aircraft carrier H?sh? becomes the first purpose built aircraft carrier to be commissioned in the world. Unlike MOST Japanese carriers, she survives WW II and is used to return Japanese troops to their homeland after the war.

1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class” in an effort to spread socialism to the countryside. That order results in the deaths of somewhere between five and fifteen million MILLION people. The number’s not important. It’s not like they’re gonna vote dimmocrat or something… Compared to Stalin, Hitler was bush-league.

1945 – The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations. Major functions include providing featherbeds for UN bureaucrats and funding third-World despots.

1972 – New North Korean constitution comes into effect. “Article 1: Kim is always right. Article 2: If Kim is wrong, see Article 1. Article 3: Succession: Next of Kim.”

1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of dictatorship. That’s nothing. America was becoming a dictatorship after two hundred and thirty years as a democracy. I think Trump might’ve fixed some of that.

1985 – Proselytizing for the Religion of Peace, Palestinian guerrillas kill eighteen people inside Rome and Vienna airports.

1989 – The Romanian Revolution concludes, as the last minor street confrontations and stray shootings abruptly end in the country’s capital, Bucharest right after the dictator and his accomplice wife are executed.

2007 – Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis. Yawn! In Africa anything short of two wildebeests procreating triggers a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis, and I wonder if George Soros financed these like he did for “Pro-Hillary” riots here.

274 AD – Roman Emperor Aurelian dedicates a temple to Sol Invictus on the supposed day of the winter solstice and day of rebirth of the Sun. The early Roman Catholic Church appropriated this holiday and made it into what we celebrate as Christmas today. A more likely date for the birth of Jesus would be earlier, certainly no later than the fall.

336 – First documentary sign of Christmas celebration in Rome. There’s already a celebration. We just as well make it OURS. The same thing is tried in 1966 with Kwanzaa. It didn’t catch on like Christmas.

1066 – Coronation of William the Conqueror as king of England, at Westminster Abbey, London. He was also known as “William the Bastard”. Sort of like our own “Barack the Pussy.”

1223 – St. Francis of Assisi assembles the first Nativity scene. ACLU gets the vapors.

1741 – Astronomer Anders Celsius introduces Centigrade temperature scale based on two easily reproducible natural standards, the freezing and boiling points of water.

1776 – George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River to attack the Kingdom of Great Britain’s Hessian mercenaries in Trenton, New Jersey. The moment is captured in a famous, although inaccurate, painting. Americans – We’ll cross a frozen river in the middle of the night on Christmas and kill you. It’s happened.

1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, second-oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, gives its first performance. The U.S. Marine Band (founded 1798) is the oldest. See 1896, below.

1818 – Handel’s Messiah makes its US premiere in Boston.

1896 – “Stars & Stripes Forever” written by John Philip Sousa.

1926 – Emperor Taisho of Japan dies. His son, Prince Hirohito succeeds him as Emperor Showa. Emperor Hirohito reigns until his death in 1989, seeing his country go from world power through WW II to an ashpile and then its resurrection as a world force again.

1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz arrives at Pearl Harbor to assume command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Coincidentally, two Japanese carriers from the fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor, the Akagi and Kaga arrive back in Japan. Six months later they’d be on the bottom of the Pacific near Midway Island.

1941 – Admiral Émile Muselier seizes the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which become the first part of France to be liberated by the Free French Forces. Mighty gutsy there, Gaston! These islands are off the coast of CANADA! France’s greatest military victories in WW II are against other French.

1989 – Romanian Revolution: Deposed President of Romania Nicolae Ceau?escu and his wife, Elena, are condemned to death and executed after a summary trial, thereby becoming GOOD communists.

1990 – The first successful trial run of the system which would become the World Wide Web. Algore curiously absent.

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as President of the Soviet Union (the union itself is dissolved the next day). Ukraine’s referendum is finalized and Ukraine officially leaves the Soviet Union. The whole stinking mess just fell apart.