1309 – Pope Clement V imposes excommunication and interdiction on Venice, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse with Venice, which had seized on Ferrara, a papal fiefdom.

1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida. Couldn’t locate that “Fountain of Youth” thing, though… And to hell with a “Fountain of Youth” anyway. We need a “Fountain of Smart”.

1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates. “Let there be squids.”

1836 – Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – On the orders of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican army butchers 342 Texas POWs at Goliad, Texas.. Goliad is near one of my stations. Driving around there, you’re driving through history.

1884 – A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States attacks members of a jury which had returned a verdict of manslaughter in what was seen as a clear case of murder; over the next few days the mob would riot and burn down the courthouse, a proper responce to woke activist judges.

1942 – The Holocaust: As France moves from “surrender” to “Collaborate”, Nazi Germany and Vichy France begin the deportation of 65,000 Jews from Drancy internment camp to German extermination camps.

1945 – US 20th Army Corps captures Wiesbaden. I was stationed right across the Rhine from Wiesbaden in the mid-1970’s, spent a month in the hospital there, and it was a favorite place to visit.

1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways begins. By war’s end, the official ration for a Japanese subject was 1500 calories per day. What they gave prisoners of war is left to your imagination.

1964 – The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage. Effects were wide-ranging. Waves moved boats from their moorings in southwest Louisiana.

1975 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins. The fact that Cajun markets started shipping CARE packages from Acadiana to Alaska tells you where a large part of the workforce hailed from.

1977 – Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). 61 survived on the Pan Am flight.

1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212. Offshore drilling and energy production remains a dangerous field. So are many other tasks that keep civilization going, even in the beginning, when the horde leaving to collect a mammoth knew the risks.

1981 – The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours. The government notices. That’s the difference between real protests and the fake ones the Left throw up for us – our “Million-whatever” marches go un-noticed except by the Leftist media because they involve professional protestors and ‘Daddy’s trust fund’ layabouts who contribute nothing to the way the nation runs.

1990 – The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí, an anti-Castro propaganda network, to Cuba. How novel. Today we give them CNN and others that are as pro-Castro as anything Fidel himself ever dreamed of doing. And Cubans STILL risk ninety miles of water to get to horrible, racist, unfair, repressive AMERICA.

2000 – A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills one and injures 71. See the ‘1980’ entry above.

2002 – Passover Massacre: A Palestinian suicide bomber evangelist for the Religion of Peace™ kills 29 people partaking of the Passover meal in Netanya, Israel.

2009 – A suicide bomber kills at least 48 at a mosque in the Khyber Agency of Pakistan. All too often, this is a valid form of political expression in Muslim countries.

2016 – A suicide blast in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, Lahore claims over 70 lives and leaves almost 300 others injured. The target of the bombing are Christians celebrating Easter. The entire nation of Pakistan unites in solidarity with the minority Christian community in protest. Oh, they DIDN’T?!?

1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection. Today it’s standard procedure to shape a district as necessary to guarantee minority representation in Congress. You should see some of the ‘districts’ Louisiana has to use to keep a pair of black congressmen elected.Ours is being examined by the Supreme Court as we speak.

1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York. South Park has an episode that accurately explains its evolution.

1931 – Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union is founded in Vietnam to protest mass shootings.

1942 – World War II: In Poland, the first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz. That’s what REAL Nazis do. Kind of puts that “they won’t pay for my birth control” argument in perspective, doesn’t it?

1967 – Ten thousand people gather for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City, 4000 moonbat hippie chicks and six thousand guys who heard “hippie chicks are easy.”

1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C.

2017 – Russia-wide anti-corruption protests in 99 cities. The Levada Center survey showed that 38% of surveyed Russians supported protests and that 67 percent held Putin personally responsible for high-level corruption. The same number of Americans say the same about the Biden family.

1802 – The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a “Definitive Treaty of Peace” between France and the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. That makes you wonder about that whole “Waterloo” thing in 1815. Who was Britain fighting? The Belgians???

1811 – Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. Now you can enroll in a CATHOLIC university and create a national furor by demanding muzzy prayer space and demand that crucifixes be removed because that create a hostile environment for unbelievers and everybody’s okay with it. We’re just sooooo tolerant, right?

1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, Ohio for Washington, D.C.

1911 – In New York City, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 garment workers.

1949 – The extensive deportation campaign known as March deportation is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to force collectivization by way of terror. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union. Wait until they start balancing out the flyover states to bring them into line with Washington. (Never mind. They’ll just distribute several thousand illegal immigrants, register them to vote – dimmocrat, natch – and POOF! Dimmocrat majority!)

1975 – Faisal of Saudi Arabia is shot and killed by a mentally ill nephew. This a perfectly normal method of succession in many Muslim countries.

1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

1996 – The European Union’s Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy). And I thought “Mad Cow Disease” was the Hillary (Haauuugghhhh! Spit!) Clinton campaign theme. I was wrong, though. It was actually the operative underpinning of the Michele Obama role as First ‘Lady’. Nope! It’s back as Hillary Clinton’s campaign theme! Now it’s Hillary Clinton’s sole reason for existence.

1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach dedicated six concertos to Christian Ludwig, margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now commonly called the Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051. Here’s one.. And another.

1765 – American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops. That’s covered in the Third Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Our new socialist overlords instead tax the living daylights out of us to quarter the lazy and indigent for successive generations. Hell, that’s not enough, so let’s bring in millions more from outside the US and pay for them, too.

1854 – Slavery is abolished in Venezuela. Today they’re absolutely free to go through garbage to find enough food to eat, courtesy of one of those wonderfully fair socialist governments.

1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of Stalag Luft III. Read the book and watch the movie. Both are good.

1945 – Operation Varsity: Largest one-day airborne drop, 600 transports & 1300 gliders send British, US & Canadian airborne troops east of the Rhine River in Germany.

1958 – Elvis Presley is officially inducted into the U.S.Army. A more sane time, when stars served their country instead of using stardom as a podium to preach its downfall.

1989 – Exxon Valdez oil spill: In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (42,000 m³) of petroleum after running aground. Yeah, evil ol’ Exxon INTENTIONALLY spilled a few million dollars worth of oil and damaged a ship because THEY HATED NATURE!

2003 – The Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British soldiers from Iraq. They’re worried that if we remove one autocratic despot in the Middle East, we might decide to do another.

2018 – Students across the United States stage the March for Our Lives demanding gun control in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Little skulls full of mush, shaped by liberal ‘educators’.

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his famous speech -”give me liberty or give me death” at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia. Today’s version: “Give me earmarks. Lots of earmarks, and I’ll vote to throw my own momma out of house and home and sell my daughter to Haitian ‘refugees’ along with a book of recipes…”

1903 – The Wright Brothers apply for a patent on their invention of one of the first successful airplanes.

1913 – As the effect of Global Warming grip the nation a tornado outbreak kills more than 240 people in the central United States, while an ongoing flood in the Ohio River watershed was killing 650 people.

1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement. Twenty-six years later Italy is in ruins and his bleeding body is hung upside down from a lamp-post in Milan.

1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany. He didn’t just walk in one day and say “Hi, I’m your new dictator.” No, he had a willing and complicit majority in the national legislature. Just like the Feeler and the Kneeler.

1956 – Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. This date is now celebrated as Republic Day in Pakistan.

1962 – NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, was launched as a showcase for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative. Back when America led the way for innovation instead of being rife with pants-shitting, hand-wringing enviro-whackos.

1965 – NASA launches Gemini 3, the United States’ first two-man space flight (crew: Gus Grissom and John Young).

1978 – The first UNIFIL troops arrived in Lebanon for peacekeeping mission along the Blue Line. The Israelis pay attention to the line. That horde of barbaric followers of a seventh-century pedophile don’t.

1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. His opposition call it ‘Star Wars’ and laugh. And today, we have technology that shoots down a lot of missiles. Maybe not ALL of them, but a lot more than if we listened to Reagan’s opponents.

1991 – The Revolutionary United Front, with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invades Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow Joseph Saidu Momoh, sparking a gruesome 11-year Sierra Leone Civil War. This is ‘politics as usual’ in Africa.

1994 – At an election rally in Tijuana, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio is assassinated by Mario Aburto Martínez. Even Hillary Clinton isn’t this open – she sent Bernie Sanders the keys to a new mansion and a note of worry about his impending suicide.

2005 – Texas City Refinery explosion: During a test on a distillation tower liquid waste builds up and flows out of a blowout tower. Waste fumes ignite and explode killing 15 workers.

2010 – The Affordable Care Act becomes law in the United States. It’s not affordable and th government doesn’t care.

1413 – Henry V becomes King of England. His minor claim to fame is that he’s one of a thundering herd of people who kicked French butt.

1556 – On the day of his execution in Oxford, former archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer deviates from the scripted sermon by renouncing the recantations he has made and adds, “And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine.” When you go against the established government and its preferred religion, this is the result.

1788 – A fire in New Orleans leaves most of the town in ruins. FEMA slow to respond. Bush widely blamed. Today much of New Orleans is in ruins because of the tender and enlightened care of decades of dimmocratic governance. “Gummint grant?!? Half a million for me. Half a million for you. And enough to build a couple of basketball courts in the Ninth Ward.”

1919 – The Hungarian Soviet Republic is established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. Basically a puppet government of the Kremlin, it lasts six months. That’s okay, though. the Soviet Army put one in place in 1945 that would last until the Soviet Union came apart. Communism – such a great idea that it must be enforced by guns.

1939 – Nazi Germany demands Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland. So much for “peace for our time” and negotiating with appeasing murderous dictators.

1943 – Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion. All that ‘Kneepads’ Harris had to do was be less obnoxious and wait for Biden to use the stairs. And she failed.

1947 – President Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have allegiance to the United States. Today half the freakin’ congress and nost of the federal bureaucracy doesn’t have allegiance to the United States.

1963 – Alcatraz, the legendary federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.

1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Mayor of San Francisco Joseph Alioto. California. Figures.

1980– US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. That’ll show ‘em, Jimmuh!

1986 – In a blatant example of cultural appropriation Debi Thomas became the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championships

1994 – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change enters into force. China and India have their fingers crossed.

1997 – In a Tel Aviv, Israel coffee shop, a suicide bomber kills 3 and injures 49. Terribly brave, those mooslime ‘splodey-dopes!

1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon. Following this success, today streams of graceful, ecologically smart passenger balloons daily circle the globe.

235 – Maximinus Thrax is proclaimed emperor. He is the first foreigner to hold the Roman throne. Big deal. Our Kenyan got elected to a second term.

1815 – After escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule. This leads to yet another opportunity for France to get its collective butt kicked, this time in such a fashion as to found a new term for butt-kicking, “Waterloo”. France, after disastrous tries at democracy (the French Revolution) and dictatorship (Napoleon, TWICE!) gives up (how French!) and installs Louis XVIII, brother of the guy they beheaded in 1793. You’d think they’d learn. You’d be wrong.

1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published. It is a poorly-disguised work of propaganda that establishes stereotypes active to this day. Like “Uncle Tom”. And Dreams of My Father.

1854 – The Republican Party was founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, by politicians opposing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery in the United States.

1896 – US Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens. Today we’d have to get permission from the UN to send a sternly worded letter. The previous pREsident couldn’t locate Nicaragua on a map.

1914 – In New Haven, Connecticut, the first international figure skating championship takes place, providing a venue for gay men and gracefully athletic women.

1916 – Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity.

1942 – Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik, Iceland, headed to Russia with 20 ships. The German Navy sinks six of them.

1942 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: “I came out of Bataan and I shall return”. Meanwhile, American forces stayed behind, fighting:

“We’re the battling bastards of Bataan”
“No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
And nobody gives a damn”

1991 – Michael Jackson signs $65M deal with Sony records for six albums, receives an entire Cub Scout troop as a signing bonus.

2006 – Over 150 Chadian soldiers are killed in eastern Chad by members of the rebel UFDC. The rebel movement sought to overthrow Chadian president Idriss Déby. This is politics as usual in Africa.

2010 – Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland begins eruptions that would last for three months, heavily disrupting air travel in Europe.