683 – During the Siege of Mecca, the Kaaba catches fire and is burned down. This time it needs to disappear under a mushroom cloud. Let ’em bang their heads on the ground towards where their shrine USED to be.

1517 – Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This move would result in the deaths of thousands on both sides of the discussion.

1846 – Donner party, unable to cross the Donner Pass, construct a winter camp. “What’s for lunch?”

1861 – American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army. Getting his ass handed to him at the First Battle of Manassas (known by Yankees as ‘Bull Run’, for a popular activity at the end of the day) might have weighed in on the decision. His plan to strangle the South with blockades, however, eventually worked.

1917 – World War I: Battle of Beersheba – “last successful cavalry charge in history” done by the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade. Or maybe not. See “1942? below.

1923 – The first of 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees at Marble Bar, Australia. Curse that Global Warming!

1941 – World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.

1942 – Colonel Alessandro Bettoni (led) three mounted squadrons of Italians forward at a gallop into the Soviet lines… In the victorious charge the Italians lost 40 cavalrymen (including the commander of the 4th Squadron, Captain Abba) with another 79 wounded and almost 100 precious horses but they inflicted over 150 casualties on the Soviets and captured some 900 unfortunate Siberians along with a collection of sixty mortars, artillery pieces and machine guns.

1944 – Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, is awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognise extreme battlefield bravery, after losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy. Bravery has no borders.

1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal. You know you’re waaaaay down the food chain when you get bombed by France…

1968 – Vietnam War October surprise: Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of “all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam” effective November 1. There’s nothing quite like a dimmocrat president “managing” a war. LBJ’s perception of “progress” was as finely developed as his morals, and the war went on until the mid-70’s, and tens of thousands more American soldiers died while the war was “managed” instead of won by Johnson and Nixon.

2002 – A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer. I work with some former Enron employees. The name is a nasty word.

2017 – A truck drives in a crowd of people in Lower Manhattan, killing eight people. A member of a radical sect of Presbyterians, no doubt.