1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

1774 – Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen. Before this, people just breathed any old thing that blew in…

1914 – Oil discovered in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela. 2015 – Oil money isn’t enough to keep the socialist government afloat any more.

1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (which comes into force on August 14). It’s a pretty good Constitution, too. For example, Germans are entitled to free expression of opinion in word, writing, print, image, etc. This right cannot be obstructed by job contract, nor can exercise of this right create a disadvantage. Censorship is prohibited. And we all know how this turned out when people started following a charismatic, smooth-talking leader with radical ideas.

1941 – Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.” This is a lesson in incrementalism, among other things.

1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy. 1945 in Tokyo Bay, HMS King George V had rum. The US Navy had ice cream. The Brits wanted ice cream. Dad helped make the exchange possible with the landing craft he ran as a taxi around the bay.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

1981 – 42-day strike of Major League Baseball ends in the United States. Yawwwnnnnn!