Martin Luther (and his Potty Mouth) on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Martin Luther became a doctor of theology on this day in 1512. Martin Luther was an important figure in world history as he ushered in the Protestant Reformation by railing against the sale of indulgences and other practices of the Catholic Church in his famous Ninety-Five Theses. At the same time, Luther was a foul-mouthed tyrannical racist drunk, and more so as he got older.

“If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may lay the miseries which Germany has brought upon the world—not, perhaps a very scientific way of writing history—I am more and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country is not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther.” ~Dean Inge

According to Luther, some of the Pope's teachings were "farts out of his stinking belly.” He could describe certain Roman Catholic institutions and practices with which he heartily disagreed as "an illusion and an evil odour, stinking worse than the devil’s excrement.” 

"I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away.”

Just before he died, Luther told his wife, “I’m like a ripe stool, and the world’s like a gigantic anus, and so we’re about to let go of each other.” 

The English Catholic, Thomas More (1478-1535) was not amused and called Luther a “buffoon . . . [who will] carry nothing in his mouth other than cesspools, sewers, latrines, poop and dung . . . .” except he didn't use the word POOP.

Other Germans of old were known to use profanity as well, men such as Mozart and Gutenberg. A study was done that showed that in 371 of Luther's letters, 39% had some sort of scatological (poopy) reference, including buttocks or defecation (45 letters), poop [except, again, he didn't use the word POOP] (21) and arse (19), among others.

"From a standpoint of morality, Luther's teachings and practical advice and example in conversation were infinitely below the moral standard hitherto held by the very Church he reviled and constantly below even the standard now generally accepted by the Protestants themselves. His claims, therefore, to 'reforming' the Church are pathetically weak. Instead of teaching a purer morality, he taught a lower. There is nothing in his teaching, by either pen or word of mouth, that is calculated to increase the love of purity, or of even conjugal fidelity, which in the Catholic Church has developed the fairest blossoms of maidenly chastity and conjugal love. A man or woman who is sexually weak will look to him in vain for advice wherewith to increase his or her strength in resisting the great passion -- rather they will find in his word the opposite. This is no time to mince words. Therefore, I say deliberately that from his own words Martin Luther must be held responsible for bringing into the world the lowest standard of morality ever advocated by a leader amongst Christians - so low that I defy a Protestant to read him, though I would advice no Protestant woman to do so if she be not ready to read with moral safety. Both will feel considerably befouled by the reading." From The Facts About Luther

See also - German Hercules: The Impact of Scatology on the Image of Martin Luther as a Man, 1483-1546

See also: Martin Luther - Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor by Peter F. Wiener

Mysterious Alaska, on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million (about two cents an acre) on this day in 1867. "Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as 'Seward’s Folly,' 'Seward’s icebox,' and President Andrew Johnson’s 'polar bear garden.'" Source

Here are some interesting facts about Alaska:

John Carpenter’s 1982 horror classic "The Thing", although set in Antarctica, was filmed in Alaska. Many films and television shows set in Alaska are not filmed there; for example, Northern Exposure, set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, was filmed in Roslyn, Washington. The 2007 horror feature 30 Days of Night is set in Barrow, Alaska, but was filmed in New Zealand.

The Alaska Triangle (the area that connects Anchorage, Juneau and Barrow), much like its counterpart, the Bermuda Triangle, is one of the most enigmatic places on Earth. Since 1988, over 16,000 people have mysteriously gone missing across its landscape, and over the years this region has played host to some of the strangest phenomena ever recorded. 

There is supposedly an underground alien base in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Alaska has more coastline than the other 49 states combined.

The coldest temperature recorded there was -80 F, and Alaska actually reached 100 F in 1915.

Alaska has some weird moose-specific laws. You are not allowed to push a moose from a plane, view a moose from a plane, or give a moose a beer. It is illegal to whisper in someone’s ear while they are moose hunting in Alaska.

Seventeen of the 20 highest mountain peaks in the U.S. are in Alaska.

Alaska has more than 100 volcanoes.

Alaska has no state income tax.

Alaska has the most serial killers.

Alaska’s capital city, Juneau, is the only U.S. capital that is not accessible by road. It can only be reached by plane or boat.

Alaska is the largest state in the union (1/5 of the entire USA and twice the size of Texas).

The Northern Lights can be seen in Fairbanks 243 days a year.

In Alaska, there is approximately 1 bear to every 21 people.

Alaska's laws do not prohibit anyone 21 or older who may legally possess a firearm from carrying it concealed or open. A firearms permit is not required.

A couple of the Aleutian Islands cross the 180th meridian making Alaska the most western state AND the most eastern state.

Anchorage, the state’s biggest city, is home to the world’s largest and busiest seaplane hub.

Lake Iliamna in Alaska has its own legendary monster.

There are legends of mythical shape-shifting creatures called the Kushtaka in Alaska. It is said the Kushtaka will imitate the cries of a baby or the screams of a woman to lure victims to the river. Once there, the Kushtaka either kills the person and tears them to shreds or will turn them into another Kushtaka. You can protest yourself from the Kushtaka with copper, dogs, fire, and oddly enough...urine.

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The Afterlife of Frederic Chopin on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Frédéric Chopin died on this day in 1849 at the age of 39. Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. Chopin was so fearful of being buried alive that he asked that his heart be cut out of his chest and preserved elsewhere. His body was buried in Paris, but his heart was laid to rest inside Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. (It was removed by the Germans in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising, and later returned.) His heart had been preserved in a jar of cognac for 170 years. When it was examined in 2014, it was determined that Chopin died of tuberculosis. 

In history, the body parts of celebrated individuals have had an interesting and lively afterlife. Noted philosopher Rene Descartes' skull traveled Europe posthumously. His remains were exhumed 16 years after his death with the purpose of returning them to his native France. Before the body could be moved one of the guards supervising the exhumation removed Descartes’ skull as a memento and so during the next 150 years, the head made its way throughout the continent, bought and sold like a commodity. 

Albert Einstein's brain was stolen by the doctor conducting his autopsy. John Kennedy's brain was also stolen, and some claim it was stolen by his brother Bobby. Beethoven's ear bones were removed during an autopsy and later stolen by an orderly who allegedly sold them. Galileo's middle finger was snapped off 95 years after his death and was passed around for a few hundred years. Rasputin's penis made it to Paris in the 1920's, and Napoleon's penis made its travels as well, until it was sold to a US doctor in the 70's.

......................................

There is a chateau 20 miles north of Paris that is said to be haunted by the ghost of Frederic Chopin. The chateau doubled as a recording studio and David Bowie refused to sleep in one of the bedrooms because of this ghost. 

See also: The Science & Appreciation of Classical Music - 175 Books on DVDROM

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The Cardiff Giant on This Day in History

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This Day in History: The Cardiff Giant, one of the most famous American hoaxes, was "discovered" on this day in 1869. The Cardiff Giant was a 10-foot tall, 3000 pound “petrified giant” that was discovered on the farm of William Newell in Cardiff, New York, just south of Syracuse by some men hired to dig a well on the farm. Newell covered the giant with a tent and charged people 50 cents to view it. The giant drew national attention...and critics. Archaeological scholars pronounced the giant a fake, and some geologists noticed that there was no good reason to try to dig a well in the exact spot the giant had been found.

P. T. Barnum offered $50,000 for the giant, but when he was refused he paid someone to build another Cardiff Giant for him, essentially making a fake of a fake.

The Cardiff Giant is considered one of the greatest hoaxes of all time...though there were many others. One of them was the Taughannock Giant, a petrified giant "discovered" in Ithaca, New York, in 1879, a copycat hoax inspired by the Cardiff Giant.

1835 had the Great Moon Hoax, which refers to a series of articles published in the The Sun (New York). The articles described animals on the Moon, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal tail-less beavers and bat-like winged humanoids ("Vespertilio-homo") who built temples. There were trees, oceans and beaches. These discoveries were supposedly made with "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle". 

In 1995 many of us watched the Alien Autopsy with rapt attention. This is a hoax that many still believe in.

In 1912, Piltdown Man (an evolutionary missing link between man and apes) was "discovered" by Charles Dawson. It took over 4 decades for this to be declared a hoax for there was such a willingness to believe in it. It was even used as evidence for evolution in the Scopes Monkey Trial.  

An anti-Catholic screed entitled Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk was published in 1836. In the book it was claimed that nuns of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph of the Montreal convent of the Hôtel-Dieu, whom she called "the Black Nuns", were forced to have sex with the priests. The priests supposedly entered the convent through a secret tunnel. If the sexual union produced a baby, it was baptized and then strangled and dumped into a lime pit in the basement. Uncooperative nuns mysteriously disappeared.

In 1917, five photographs appeared of the Cottingley Fairies that fooled even Sherlock Holmes' author Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Hitler Diaries sold for 9.3 million Deutsche Marks (£2.33 million or US$3.7 million) in 1983. The Diaries were a series of 60 volumes of journals supposedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau between 1981 and 1983. 

In 1726, Mary Toft convinced doctors that she had given birth to rabbits. This caused quite a sensation at the time and the matter was even brought to the surgeon of the Royal Household of King George I.

There was also the Disappearing blonde gene hoax. This was apparently a scientific study that claimed that natural blonds would become extinct by 2202, and this was repeated in the mainstream media. 

Edgar Goodspeed in his book Strange New Gospels writes about Christian forgeries and hoaxes, including the Archko Volume or Archko Library that claims to be a series of reports from Jewish and pagan sources contemporary with Jesus that relate to the biblical texts describing his life. The author was convicted by an ecclesiastical court of falsehood and plagiarism and the Volume is regarded as fraudulent by all religious scholars.

Bible Hoaxes, Frauds and Forgeries - 40 Books on CDrom or to Download

 

Confederate Submarine Inventor H.L. Hunley on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Confederate inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, died on this day in 1863 while testing his invention, the first combat submarine. The submarine, the H. L. Hunley, often referred to as Hunley, CSS H. L. Hunley, or as CSS Hunley, was the first combat submarine to actually sink a warship. 

Horace L. Hunley was buried with full military honors at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8, 1863.

Hunley was not the first inventor to be killed by his own invention. One famous person to have done so was French physicist Marie Curie who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. On 4 July 1934, she died from aplastic anaemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation, some of which was from the devices she created.

Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and revolutionary who experimented with blood transfusion, attempting to achieve eternal youth or at least partial rejuvenation. He died after he took the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, who may have also been the wrong blood type.

Thomas Midgley, Jr. (1889–1944) was an American engineer and chemist who contracted polio at age 51, leaving him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. He became accidentally entangled in the ropes and died of strangulation.

Max Valier (1895–1930) invented liquid-fuelled rocket engines as a member of a 1920s German rocket society. On 17 May 1930, an alcohol-fuelled engine exploded on his test bench in Berlin, killing him instantly.

William Bullock (1813–1867) invented the web rotary printing press. His foot was crushed during the installation of his invention in Philadelphia. The crushed foot developed gangrene and Bullock died during the amputation.

William Nelson (c. 1879-1903), a General Electric employee, invented a new way to motorize bicycles. He then fell off his prototype bike during a test run and died as a result.

Francis Edgar Stanley (1849–1918) was killed while driving a Stanley Steamer automobile. He drove his car into a woodpile while attempting to avoid farm wagons travelling side by side on the road.

Fred Duesenberg (1876–1932) was killed in a high-speed road accident in a Duesenberg automobile.

Luis Jiménez was killed while creating the famous Colorado statue of a blue horse, the Blue Mustang, when a section of it fell on him and severed an artery in his leg.

16th-century Chinese official, Wan Hu, is said to have attempted to launch himself into outer space in a chair to which 47 rockets were attached. The rockets exploded, and it is said that neither he nor the chair were ever seen again.

Also, you can see the HL Hunley submarine on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina.

You may also be interested in 220 Books on the American Civil War on DVDrom 1861-1865

For a list of all of my disks, with links click here

The Amityville Horror on This Day in History

This Day in History: The Amityville murders trial began on this day in 1975. In the previous year, Ronald DeFeo Jr. walked into his home at 112 Ocean Avenue and shot his parents and four siblings while they were sleeping, which was a strange aspect of the case since the rifle DeFeo used didn’t have a silencer. There was no struggle, and neighbors didn’t hear any gunshots. DeFeo’s attorneys argued that he had been driven to murder by voices in the house telling him to do it. 

Ronald DeFeo Jr. died earlier this year on March 12, 2021. He was 69 years old. There is no official cause of death at this time. 

Another family, the Lutzes, bought the house soon after but ended up abandoning the home and all their belongings one night after a month of alleged paranormal activity. The 1977 Jay Anson book The Amityville Horror was based on this time in the house, and with a blockbuster film to follow (There are a total of 21 Amityville Horror related movies). 

The book has led to controversy and lawsuits over its truthfulness. Defeo's attorney, William Weber eventually admitted that the entire haunting story was invented over several bottles of wine with the Lutzes so they can make money off the incident. Parapsychologist Dr. Stephen Kaplan was asked to investigate the house. Kaplan doubted the claims made, and his reading of The Amityville Horror confirmed his doubts. This led to his writing The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, co-authored by his wife, Roxanne.

Five years ago, the Amityville house went on the market for $850,000. If you check the address on google maps, the house is blurred out on street view. The original address for the Amityville house was 112 Ocean Avenue, but was changed to 108 to deter tourists.

Download: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

https://archive.org/details/jay-anson-the-amityville-horror

Art Bell on the Amityville Horror

Watch Amityville 3D with ads on Youtube

Buy : Halloween and the Strange in Story and History for 99 cents (50 Chapters) and Buy this Kindle book on Amazon on Vampires and Werewolves for only 1.99

See also Supernatural Horror in Fiction Literature - 350 Books on DVDrom (Lovecraft)

This Kindle book, 70 Forgotten Ghost Stories is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents and Edgar Allan Poe - An Exhumation is available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

The Legendary Knights Templars on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Hundreds of Knights Templars in France are arrested at dawn on Friday the 13th by King Phillip the Fair on this day in 1307. It’s sometimes said the Templars were the world’s first bankers, though they were more accurately the world’s first financial-services company. People who made pilgrimages to Jerusalem would deposit cash at the Temple Church in London, and withdraw it in Jerusalem. Instead of carrying money, he would carry a letter of credit. The Knights Templar were the Western Union of the crusades. This then made them wealthy, which then made them a target of King Phillip the Fair, a man desperate for money. 

"The High Middle Ages in France were brought to a dismal close by King Philip IV. 'Philip the Fair' centralized power by seizing control of the papacy, dramatically increased taxes, debased the French currency, expelled France’s Jewish population, massacred the international bankers known as the Knights Templar, destroyed the country’s independent trade fairs, and plunged France into a crisis with England that shortly after evolved into the disastrous Hundred Years War. The poverty engendered by this royal rampage contributed to the unsanitary urban conditions that were so hospitable to the Black Death that killed over a third of Europe. The towns that had been oases of prosperity had become death traps."~Dan Sanchez

However, the Templars also carried with them a dark reputation and a history filled with conspiracies.

An article in The American Catholic quarterly review 1891 stated: "these abominable beasts, endowed with human forms, these brothers—or rather enemies—armed with the sign of the cross, long ago devoted their souls to Satan in their reception into the Order, by a denial of Christ, by spitting on the cross, and by other things not to be mentioned for the sake of human shame." 

"Amongst the crimes that the Templars were accused of, some were more outrageous than others. Accusations of the usual heresy, homosexual activity and spitting and/or urinating on the cross were all quite typical, but the latter of these crimes—the spitting and urinating on the cross—were thought by some historians to have been conducted by the Templars to mentally prepare them for violations they might have been forced to commit should they have been captured. But interestingly, there exist accounts that spitting on the cross was also a ritual commanded by the cult of Baphomet and that this was seen as an initiation process within the Knights Templar. With this idea, the Templars, or at least a sect of them, were not Christians and were using the image of Christ as a disguise for much more sinister antics." Source

Because they occupied the Temple Mount in Jerusalem there has been speculation about what relics the Templars may have found there, such as the quest for the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.

It is believed that the Friday the 13 superstition started on that October dawn in 1307 when the Knights Templars were arrested, tortured and then put to death.

See also Freemasonry and Other Secret Societies - Over 120 Books on DVDrom or to Download