1565 – Oldest city in the US, St Augustine Florida, established. Immediately overrun by snowbirds…

1830 – The Tom Thumb presages the first railway service in the United States by racing a horse-drawn car. When a belt slipped off, killing the blower to the boiler, the horse won! Besides, all it takes to make a horse is two horses. It took an industrial revolution to make a locomotive.

1837 – Pharmacists John Lea & William Perrins manufacture Worcester Sauce. Life is good!

1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run Battle of Second Manassas.  The Confederacy won, but General Longstreet’s disobedience here made the victory smaller, and Longstreet later would cost us the Battle of Gettysburg.

1898 – Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink “Pepsi-Cola“.

1962 – 22 inches (55.9 cm) rainfall at Hackberry, Louisiana (state record). Hackberry is about fifteen miles south of me.

1963 – Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech at Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of 200,000. Poor, poor deluded man. Who’s gonna believe that “they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” nonsense?

1981 – The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi’s Sarcoma in gay men. Soon, these will be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS. At that point the spread can be prevented by sitting on your butt and keeping your mouth shut…