1146 – European leaders outlaw crossbows, intending to ending war for all time. Except for longbows, lances, pikes, battle flails, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

1836 – The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen. “Houston” was a lot snappier-sounding than “mosquito-ridden, festering bayou”.

1918 – Fanni Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. This, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror. It’s a little internecine tiff among Communists, but the ensuing Red Terror casts a wide net, snaring anybody a Leninist might not like.

“To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.”“Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.”

And that’s how a handful of radicals gain control of a nation.

1939 – Isoroku Yamamoto appointed supreme commander of Japanese fleet. A couple of years later, he attacks Pearl Harbor. A couple of years after that his butt is dead in the jungle in the South Pacific.

1956 – Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens. Longest continuous over-water bridge in the world. Unfortunately, one end is in New Orleans, making it roughly equivalent to a concrete enema pipe…

1979 – President Jimmy “I never met a despot I didn’t like” Carter attacked by a rabbit on a canoe trip in Plains Ga. This says a lot about the quality of this man’s presidency. I wholly expected Obama to be assaulted gerbils. “Armageddon!”