1827 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight, makes it until 1987. Now it’s just a square on a Monopoly board.

1844 – A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1849 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbor. Due to the Panama Canal being some distance in the future, this trip goes all the way around the Horn.

1933 – Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire. Generate a crisis, then use it to pass laws that shut down your opponents. Worked then.

1935 – DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon. Billions of silkworms breathe a sigh of relief.

1942 – In the dark opening days of American participation in World War II, the heavy cruiser USS Houston is sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed, along with HMAS Perth which lost 375 men.

1954 – The first color television sets using the NTSC (Never Twice the Same Color) standard are offered for sale to the general public, for a mere $1,295, or $11,200 in today’s dollars.

1956 – Forrester issued a patent for computer core memory. And why did they call it ‘core’ memory? Because the data was stored as the magnetic state of tiny little ferrite donut ‘cores’, written and accessed by tiny little copper wires. Interesting stuff, that.

1993 – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raid the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff. Is your church approved by the BATFE?

2005 – A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraq kills 127. Energetic politics, that.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns as the pope of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pope to do so since Pope Gregory XII, in 1415. His replacement is a left-wing whackadoodle.

1616 – Galileo Galilei is formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching or defending the view that the earth orbits the sun. Universities today take note, silencing a lot of opinions they deem unsuitable.

1848 – The Second French Republic is proclaimed. The first one started with a bloodbath, went on to a dictatorship and finished as a monarchy. This one lasts until the French are again deluded by the name ‘Napoleon’, this one being Napoleon III and declare the Second Empire. The Germans realign their thinking in 1870. Since unification, the Germans are amazingly good for realigning French politics.

1863 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the National Currency Act into law. This put us solidly on the road to a paper currency backed by the whim of banks.

1914 – HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She lasts over TWO years before sinking to a German something or other (mine or torpedo) in an act of energetic diplomacy.

1917 – The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first ever jazz record for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York. “Victrola” used to be almost synonymous with “record player”.

1935 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe to be re-formed, violating the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Imagine that! A dictator with plans for increased domination ignores international treaty. I’m SOOOO glad that doesn’t happen today, because the Clintons fixed us up with North Korea and Obama secured our future with Iran and Biden’s bringing those levels of international discourse back.

1936 – Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche’s “Volkswagen”, the precursor to the the VW Type 111, or “Beetle”, a particularly delightful car. I have owned several.

1952 – United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announces that his nation has an atomic bomb.

1960 – A New York bound Alitalia airliner crashed into a cemetery at Shannon, Ireland, shortly after takeoff, killing 34 of the 52 persons on board. Irish rescue crews recover 347 bodies.

1970 – National Public Radio incorporates as a non-profit corporation, assuring the Left of a free forum for its ideas.

1971 – U.N. Secretary-General U Thant signs United Nations proclamation of the vernal equinox as Earth Day, which is effective as the UN itself.

1983 – Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album goes to #1 &stays #1 for 37 weeks, proving the popularity of prancing fop pedophiles.

1993 – World Trade Center bombing: In New York City, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center explodes, killing 6 and injuring over a thousand, but it’s only a law enforcement matter, according to the Clinton Administration.

2012 – Trayvon Martin was shot and killed at the age of 17 in Sanford, Florida, yet another in a long series of black thugs killed each year. Naturally he becomes a cause celebre by social justice warriors everywhere.

1797 – Colonel William Tate and his force of 1000–1500 soldiers surrender after the Last invasion of Britain. Tate, the ‘French’ commander, is Irish-American, and half his force is Irish.

1836 – Samuel Colt receives an American patent for the Colt revolver.

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.

1919 – Oregon places a 1 cent per U.S. gallon tax on gasoline, becoming the first U.S. state to levy a gasoline tax. This is known as ‘the camel’s nose under the tent’. Now, the government gets more per gallon of gas than anybody else in the supply chain.

1932 – Adolf Hitler obtains German citizenship by naturalization, which allows him to run in the 1932 election for Reichspräsident. See what happens when you screw around with immigration law?

1933 – The USS Ranger is launched. It is the first US Navy ship to be built solely as an aircraft carrier. Her first combat action is against the French in North Africa. In World War II, the French surrender to BOTH sides as well as themselves at different times.

1954 – Gamal Abdel Nasser is made premier of Egypt after having Israel kick his butt in 1948. He tries two rematches, 1956 and 1967, loses those, too.

1956 – In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounces the cult of personality of Joseph Stalin. What!??! There are consequences to a personality cult? Somebody tell the dimmocrats. Of course they DID push Biden for president and he has no discernible personality whatsoever.

1964 – Speaking of personality cults, North Korean Prime Minister Kim Il-sung calls for the removal of feudalistic land ownership aimed at turning all cooperative farms into state-run ones. This single brilliant move turns North Korea into a cornucopia of riches. South Koreans line up at the DMZ, clamoring to get in. Right?!?

1991 – The Warsaw Pact is declared disbanded. After all those years of me and a million other American soldiers waiting for those bastards to come streaming through the Fulda Gap… Today’s update: If they’re gonna do it now, they started rather further back.

1803 – The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.

1868 – The first parade to have floats is staged at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have never been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and have no desire to go. However, I do note that standing on the side of the road waiting for mystical creatures to give you stuff for free has a particular character that fits New Orleans well.

1917 – World War I: The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom is given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if that country declares war on the United States. Seeing that Germany is happily pursuing attacks on the United States by means of a surrogate, Mexico, helps make us decide to enter the war.

1920 – The Nazi Party (NSDAP) was founded by Adolf Hitler in the Hofbräuhaus beer hall in Munich, Germany. That’s National SOCIALIST German Workers’ Party.

1976 – Cuba: National Constitution is proclaimed. Article I: Fidel is always right. Article II: If Fidel is wrong, refer to Article I.

1968 – Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive is halted; South Vietnam recaptures Hué. You’d never know from news reports and conventional histories that EVERYWHERE the communists attacked, we (and the South Vietnamese) beat the ever-loving crap out of them. After this, the Viet Cong ceased to be a viable combat force and the North Vietnamese Army was shattered until American politicians chose to let South Viet Nam die.

1983 – In a spirited burst of 20/20 hindsight, a special commission of the United States Congress condemns the Japanese American internment during World War II.

1989 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie. And Mr. Khomeini is a member of WHAT religion? Radical baptist?

1991 – Gulf War: Ground troops cross the Saudi Arabian border and enter Iraq, thus beginning the ground phase of the war. After the media build up of the capabilities of Saddam’s “Republican Guard”, the Republican Guard gets to play against a varsity team. And flop in a spectacular fashion.

2008 – Fidel Castro retires as the President of Cuba after nearly fifty years. He passed control to his brother, like he was a freakin’ Kennedy or Clinton or something…

1455 – Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type. Printed in Mainz, Germany, where I was stationed 1974-77. They have the Gutenberg Museum, with an original Gutenberg bible as one of many interesting displays. I spent three great years in Mainz.

1778 – American Revolution: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army. This is regarded as the birth of the drill sergeant.

1836 – The Battle of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas. Sometimes you have to fight, knowing that you might lose…

1847 – Mexican-American War: Battle of Buena Vista – In Mexico, American troops under General Zachary Taylor defeat Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna. If we’d have hanged him after we captured him following the Battle of San Jacinto, we could have saved a lot of trouble. The guy was a psychotic, murderous thug.

1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”. I’m surprised that obama didn’t give it back.

1934 – Leopold III becomes King of Belgium. Nobody cares. Belgium is the doormat that the German Army wipes its feet on before it enters France. Now they’re the seat of the European Union.

1945 – World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten U.S. Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag.

1945 – World War II: Capitulation of German garrison in Pozna. The city is ‘liberated’ by Soviet and Polish forces, where ‘liberated’ means rule by ONE murderous dictatorial regime is replaced by rule by another murderous dictatorial regime for the next forty-odd years.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh. Polio was the big “scare” disease when I was a kid. You seldom hear of it today. Two years after this date I and my brother and sisters stood in LINE to get the vaccine. Now you never hear of it.

1988 – Saddam Hussein begins the Anfal genocide against Kurds and Assyrians in northern Iraq. He uses chemical weapons against civilian tagets – some of those ‘weapons of mass destruction’ the Left now says he didn’t have.

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published. Science (the earth revolves around the Sun) conflicts with politics (the Sun and planets revolve around the earth) and Galileo wins a trip to the Inquisition. You’d have thought he was a global warming denier or something…

1797 – Last Invasion of Britain: 1797 The Last Invasion of Britain by the French, begins near Fishguard, Wales. Ends three days later with a French surrender. Quelle surprise!

1819 – By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.

1847 – Mexican-American War: The Battle of Buena Vista – 5,000 American troops drive off 15,000 Mexicans. Two presidents participated: Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis. This was back when presidents were expected to protect American interests. Today, after Obama, that’s an alien idea. Now, with *Biden, there is no idea at all.

1848 – The French Revolution of 1848, which would lead to the establishment of the French Second Republic, begins. It lasts three years and ends with the re-establishment of the monarchy. The Germans help them end the monarchy, so they get a Third Republic. The Germans help them end the Third Republic, too. They’re on Republic #5 now. #6 will probably be under sharia law.

1879 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores. Oh, to be a little boy with a whole dollar on the Woolworth’s toy aisle in 1959…

1942 – World War II: President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapses. FDR pulled McArthur because he couldn’t win. Truman fired him ten years later for WANTING to win.

1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany. That’s how REAL Nazis treat student protestors.

1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic. It’s not particularly united and damned sure not a republic. Lasts three years, because they hated each other almost as much as they hated Israel.

1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3, in what is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history. This was in the day when professional athletes were forbidden to play in Olympic events. The American team was mostly collegiate athletes. The Soviets were as close to full-time pros as one could imagine, with the added incentive that poor performance could land a participant and his family in Siberia.