1755 – Charles Lawrence gives expulsion orders to remove the Acadians from Nova Scotia beginning the Great Upheaval (Le Grand Dérangement). Left France in the 1600?s. Thrown out of Canada. Bypassed New Orleans because it was too much of the French we left when we went to the New World. So here we are… Cajuns!

1896 – Harvey Hubbell patents electric light bulb socket with a pull chain. Today “Hubbell” is a big name in the American electrical market.

1898 – Spanish–American War: American troops enter the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Should’ve let Spain keep the place.

1909 – The Morse coded distress call “SOS” is first used by an American ship, Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, NC. Dididit Dahdahdah dididit.

1914 – France declares war on Austria-Hungary. In the precise language of international diplomacy, this is known as “biting off more than you can chew”. Had not Great Britain, and ultimately, the United States, come to France’s rescue, history would have been WAY different. Like with Germany taking France (again…) there would likely be no Adolf Hitler and no WW II.

1929 – Doped up with beer and hot dogs, Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career with a home run at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1960 – Chad declares independence, and like much of sub-Saharan Africa, if it weren’t for massive influx of foreign dollars and expertise, the place would be full of starving, diseased people. Wait! They’re GETTING the money and the help and they’re STILL starving and diseased. Their politicians, however, are in MUCH better shape with apartments in London and Switzerland.

1965 – Race riots (the Watts Riots) begin in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California.

1968 – The last steam hauled train runs on British railways. Steam was still being used in Germany in the Seventies. I rode into Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels and Baumholder to the sound of steam pistons, my tank loaded on a railcar behind me..

1972 – Vietnam War: the last United States ground combat unit departs South Vietnam. We’re giving peace a chance. Watch how many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Cambodians die from it, not to mention fifty-odd thousand Americans wasted on an ill-managed war.

1984 – “We begin bombing in five minutes” – United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, jokes while preparing to make his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio. That’s what we remember from Reagan going off-mike. From Obama we got ‘We’ll be more flexible after the election’. But Trump’s the one that colluding with the Russians, right?!?