Monday, August 31, 2020

Jack the Ripper on This Day in History


This Day In History: Mary Ann Nichols was murdered on this day in 1888. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims. There have been many theories as to who the Jack the Ripper might be, including Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll, Prince Albert Victor, son of Edward VII and grandson of Queen Victoria, British artist Walter Sickert, a German sailor named Carl Feigenbaum who was executed for murdering a New York woman in 1894, and Whitechapel mortuary attendant Robert Mann. Others, like Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed it might have been a woman, a Jill the Ripper, possible a midwife.

Jack the Ripper is featured in hundreds of works of fiction and works which straddle the boundaries between fact and fiction, including the Ripper letters and a hoax diary: The Diary of Jack the Ripper. The Ripper appears in novels, short stories, poems, comic books, games, songs, plays, operas, television programmes, and films. More than 100 non-fiction works deal exclusively with the Jack the Ripper murders, making it one of the most written-about true-crime subjects. The term "Ripperology" was coined by Colin Wilson in the 1970s to describe the study of the case by professionals and amateurs.

See also: On Jack the Ripper by John E. Watkins 1919
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/on-jack-ripper-by-john-e-watkins-1919.html

Jack the Ripper Identified
Unmasking Jack the Ripper more than 130 years after he vanished.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/jack-the-ripper-identified

Your's Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
http://www.unz.org/Pub/WeirdTales-1943jul-00083

PORTRAIT of a KILLER-JACK THE RIPPER-CASE CLOSED by PATRICIA CORNWELL
http://bit.ly/2v4CvJL


Sunday, August 30, 2020

Warren Buffett On This Day in History


This Day In History: The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, was born on this day in 1930. Buffet is an American investor, business tycoon, and philanthropist, who is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The Berkshire Hathaway stock is the most expensive in the world (presently at 328,000.00). I actually bought fractional shares’s into every stock that Warren  Buffet owns so I guess in a way I created my own mini Berkshire Hathaway fund. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net worth of $78.9 billion, making him the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, behind Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault.

Buffet is the most mentioned person in financial circles, and when he buys and sells, everyone takes notice. His recent gold acquisition marked to the world a public lack of confidence in the American dollar.

On Bitcoin he stated, "In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending."

Buffet bought his first stock when he was 11 years old, and made $53,000 by the age of 16. He also eats like Trump, preferring Cokes and McDonalds.

He reads a stack of books every day, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest.”

Saturday, August 29, 2020

John Locke on This Day in History


This Day In History: English philosopher and physician John Locke was born on this day in 1632. Locke was a real “Renaissance Man” who found time to be an expert in, not only medicine, but also metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of education, economics, the Bible and theology (moving from Calvinist trinitarianism to Socinianism and Arianism, though he is still referred to as a Protestant Scholastic). He would go on to inspire David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Imanuel Kant and the founding fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson.

Locke was the Father of Classical Liberalism (Libertarianism). He stated that each person has a property in himself, and property precedes government. Unlike Descartes, Locke thought the mind was a blank slate (tabula rasa). The earth is given to humans in common. Locke’s doctrine that governments need the consent of the governed is central to the Declaration of Independence. He advocated separation of powers and believed that revolution was not only a right but an obligation at times.

John Locke wrote his major works in his 60's, and never really found time for a wife or romance. He did have an interesting feud with Isaac Newton. Newton would send strange, paranoid letters accusing Locke of trying to “entangle [him] with women.”

See also John Locke on Reading
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/12/john-locke-on-reading.html

See also Over 320 Books on DVDrom on Thinkers and Philosophy

Friday, August 28, 2020

Pizza Bomber/Hostage Brian Wells on This Day in History


This Day In History: The death of Brian Wells happened on this day in 2003 in what came to be known as the Pizza Bomber case and the incident was shown live on TV. Wells was a pizza delivery man who was killed during an intricate plot involving a bank robbery, scavenger hunt, and homemade explosive device near Erie, Pennsylvania. If this sounds familiar to you, it is because it is also the basis of a Netflix series called "Evil Genius."

Wells' corpse was found with pages of lengthy, hand-written instructions addressed to "Bomb Hostage" telling him to rob the bank. The instructions also included a treasure hunt, listing a series of strictly timed tasks of collecting keys that would delay detonation and eventually defuse the bomb. It also warned that Wells would be under constant surveillance and any attempts to contact authorities would result in the bomb's detonation. "ACT NOW, THINK LATER OR YOU WILL DIE!" was scrawled at the bottom of the instructions.

This crime would go on to inspire other shows as well, such as the 2011 American comedy film 30 Minutes or Less which depicts a pizza delivery man being forced to wear a bomb vest and rob a bank, and a "Black Mirror" episode called “Shut Up and Dance" about a teenage pedophile who is blackmailed by hackers who know of his true nature into committing various crimes. Just like Wells’ ordeal Kenny is sent on a scavenger hunt across the suburbs of England carrying out a series of increasingly-violent and dangerous tasks on his tormentors’ behalf, including robbing a bank at gunpoint and later fighting to the death with another man, all in the span of a single day in a futile and hopeless attempt to keep his secrets from being leaked to the public.

In 2006 NBC had an episode in "Heist" where Zac Efron plays a teenage pizza delivery worker who is forced to commit a robbery with a bomb on his chest.


See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my digital books on disk and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Thursday, August 27, 2020

American Murderer & Body Snatcher Ed Gein on This Day in History


This Day In History: American murderer and body snatcher Ed Gein was born on this day in 1906. Also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, Ed Gein exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. His crimes were so remarkable that he inspired some of the most iconic horror movies of all time: Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Did you know that there are more than 222,000 unsolved murders since 1980. In 1965, the U.S. homicide clearance rate was 91 percent. By 2017, it had dropped to 61.6 percent, one of the lowest rates in the Western world. That means about 40 percent of the time, murderers get away with murder. On the bright side, the prevalence of serial killers have dropped 85 percent in the past 40 years.

Interesting fact: There is a legal Murder Zone in Yellowstone National Park. "There is a stretch of 50 miles within Yellowstone that crosses parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. If someone were to commit murder on this piece of land, the crime would take place in the state of Idaho, but under Wyoming's discretion. This portion of Yellowstone is unpopulated, with no potential jury members living in the area. Therefore, no jury trial can take place." ~Jessika M. Thomas 

See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my digital books on disk and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Today is National Dog Day


This Day In History: Today is National Dog Day. One of the most insightful quotes about dogs comes from Henry C. Merwin in 1918: "The dog's life is short at the best, and every moment of it will be needed for his development. It is wonderful how, year by year, the household pet grows in intelligence, how many words he learns the meaning of, how quick he becomes in interpreting the look, the tone of voice, the mood of the person whom he loves. He is old at ten or eleven, and seldom lives beyond thirteen or fourteen. If he lived to be fifty, he would know so much that we should be uneasy, perhaps terrified, in his presence."

My favorite poems about dogs is The Power of the Dog by Rudyard Kipling:

"THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way 
From men and women to fill our day; 
And when we are certain of sorrow in store, 
Why do we always arrange for more? 
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware        
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear." Read the rest at https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-power-of-dog-by-rudyard-kipling.html

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Philosopher David Hume on This Day in History


Visit my Economics blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

See also The Philosophy of Hume, Voltaire and Priestley - Over 170 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

This Day In History: Scottish Philosopher David Hume died on this day in 1776. One puzzle that Hume posed is especially pertinent today in the era of mass lockdowns. In his First Principles of Government, Hume wrote, "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers."

200 years prior to Hume, Étienne de La Boétie wrote his "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" wherein he wonders, "how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him. Surely a striking situation!"

It was however the great H.L. Mencken that figured out how this was done: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

David Hume: How Easily the Masses are Manipulated by the Few
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/02/david-hume-how-easily-masses-are.html


Monday, August 24, 2020

Windows 95 On This Day in History


This day in history: Microsoft Windows 95 was released to the public in North America on this day in 1995. Win95 was the first operating system I used, and it was so expensive I had to take out a bank loan to buy one. Microsoft's spent $200 million advertising Windows 95, and this included using the the RollingStones song "Start Me Up". The Empire State Building was lit to match the colors of the Windows logo, and a 100 m (330 ft) banner was hung down the side of the CN Tower in Toronto. A 30-minute promotional video, labeled a "cyber sitcom," featuring Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, was also released to showcase the features of Windows 95. In short time Windows 95 became the most used OS in the world.  

Sunday, August 23, 2020

The Mysterious Angels of Mons on This Day in History


This day in history: The Battle of Mons happened on this day in 1914. There is an angelic legend attached to this battle. "The legend goes as follows. During the midst of battle in Belgium, the onslaught continued as the heavily outnumbered British troops tried to retreat as the invading German forces pursued them every step of the way, through both the fields and heavily wooded areas around the Mons Conde channel. Then just as all hope was lost for the British, something that could only be defined as divine intervention occurred, heavenly angels appeared over the bloody battlefield, encouraging what remained of the British forces to stand and fight for what they believed and defeat the Germans. Suddenly behind the defending British troops appeared the mythical bowmen of Agincourt, legendary soldiers who fought for England against the French during the hundred year war, or angelic warriors as depicted in other versions, this divine force was being led by none other than Saint George himself, inflicting massive casualties to the advancing German forces completely annihilating them, winning the battle for the British in the process." ~HistoryHub

See also The Angels of Mons by Hereward Carrington 1919
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-mysterious-angels-of-mons-by.html

See also 125 Books on ANGELS & Angelology on DVDrom

Saturday, August 22, 2020

The Cadillac on This Day in History


This Day In History: The Cadillac Motor Company was founded on this day in 1902. It was named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who founded Detroit, Michigan. In 1909, Cadillac was purchased by the General Motors. Al Capone had a bulletproof 1928 Cadillac that was impounded by the government and later used by President Roosevelt. Capone also owned one of the Cadillacs used in The Godfather and The Untouchables.

There is an interesting store behind Mary Kay's Pink Cadillac. Mary Kay Ash went to a Lincoln dealership in the late 1960s and asked them to create a custom car to help promote her Mary Kay Cosmetics. She was told "Little lady, go home and get your husband. And when you come back, we’ll get you into that Lincoln.” So, she went to a Cadillac dealer and the pink Cadillac was born, and she would reward her top sellers with these cars.

Friday, August 21, 2020

The Mona Lisa on This Day in History


This Day In History: The Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee, on this day 1911. It is easy to look at the Mona Lisa painting and wonder what all the fuss is about. One explanation is: "The subject’s softly sculptural face shows Leonardo’s skillful handling of sfumato, an artistic technique that uses subtle gradations of light and shadow to model form, and shows his understanding of the skull beneath the skin. The delicately painted veil, the finely wrought tresses, and the careful rendering of folded fabric reveal Leonardo’s studied observations and inexhaustible patience. And, although the sitter’s steady gaze and restrained smile were not regarded as mysterious until the 19th century, viewers today can appreciate her equivocal expression. Leonardo painted a complex figure that is very much like a complicated human."~Alicja Zelazko

Did you know that the Mona Lisa painting is also rather small, only 30 inches by 21 inches and weighs 18 pounds. This painting has also inspired a few deaths. "In 1852, an artist named Luc Maspero supposedly threw himself from the fourth floor of a Parisian hotel, leaving a suicide note that read: 'For years I have grappled desperately with her smile. I prefer to die.' In 1910, one enamored fan came before her solely to shoot himself as he looked upon her."~Kristy Puchko

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa has the highest ever insurance value for a painting. The Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on December 14, 1962. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$850 million in 2019. Some have suggested that she might even be worth 2.5 billion dollars.

Learn to Draw, Paint and Sketch - Over 100 Books on DVDrom

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Sort-of "Creationist" Fred Hoyle on This Day in History


This Day In History: English astronomer Fred Hoyle died on this day in 2001. Hoyle was an interesting enigma in science. He rejected the Big Bang Theory, though he would not consider himself a Christian nor a creationist. In his book, "The Intelligent Universe" he wrote: “A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.” (Similar arguments in this vein are the "Watchmaker analogy" or "Irreducible complexity")

He also added, "as biochemists discover more and more about the awesome complexity of life, it is apparent that its chances of originating by accident are so minute that they can be completely ruled out. Life cannot have arisen by chance."

With all this, and his rejection of Darwinism, an associate of Hoyle (Chandra Wickramasinghe) wrote in 2003: "In the highly polarized polemic between Darwinism and creationism, our position is unique. Although we do not align ourselves with either side, both sides treat us as opponents. Thus we are outsiders with an unusual perspective—and our suggestion for a way out of the crisis has not yet been considered."

See: 300 Books on Darwinism, Eugenics, Creation & Evolution on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/300-books-on-darwinism-eugenics.html

Read (or download) Fred Hoyle's "Frontiers Of Astronomy"


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Vilfredo Pareto and His Principle on This Day in History


This Day In History: Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto died on this day in 1923. VP gave us what has come to be called the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule. According to legend, one day he noticed that 20% of the pea plants in his garden generated 80% of the healthy pea pods. Observing this caused him to think about uneven distribution. He then discovered that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the population elsewhere. He investigated further and found that 80% of production typically came from just 20% of the companies. The generalization became: 80% of results will come from just 20% of the action. An extended analysis tells us that 20% of the sales reps generate 80% of total sales, 20% of customers account for 80% of total profits, 20% of the most reported software bugs cause 80% of software crashes, 20% of patients account for 80% of healthcare spending, 20% of criminals commit 80% of crimes, 20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents, 20% of the world's population controls about 80% of the world's income.

Also, 20% of farmers produce 80% of the world's agriculture, 20% of your phone apps get 80% usage, 20% of shareholders own 80% of a corporation's stock, 20% of professional athletes cause 80% of ticket sales, 20% of bar liquor is consumed 80% of the time, 20% of your knowledge is used 80% of the time, etc.

If everyone started with an equal amount of money and then started to transact, 80% of the wealth would end in the hands of the 20%.

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

Visit my Econ blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

The Pendle Witches on This Day in History


This Day In History: The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, began on this day in 1612. This trial led to the hanging of ten people, and the Lancashire area held a large 400th anniversary event to commemorate this event in 2012. This anniversary also set a record for the largest amount of people dressed as witches in one place.

Interestingly, there are still Witch laws on the books. There is an obscure law in Canada that makes it illegal to pretend to be a witch. Romania has a Witch Tax that goes after witches, fortunetellers, and astrologers. Saudi Arabia has a Magical Police Unit that goes after people who practice the dark arts. In one town in Delaware, you can't perform witchcraft. You can't even pretend to perform it. You also can’t cast magic spells; tell fortunes; read palms, leaves or crystal balls; practice divination or phrenology; or “deal with spirits” or you could be fined up to $100 and jailed for up to 30 days.

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See also Witches, Witchcraft and Demonology - 120 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and Ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here


Monday, August 17, 2020

Orwell's Animal Farm on This Day in History


This day in history: The novella "Animal Farm" by George Orwell was first published on this day in 1945. Animal Farm is considered one of the top-most dystopian books on practically every list, alongside Orwell's 1945, Yevgeny Zamyatin's "WE", Huxley's "Brave New World", Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and John Wyndham's "The Chrysalids."  

Time magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005); it also featured at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels, and number 46 on the BBC's The Big Read poll. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is included in the Great Books of the Western World selection.





Great audio, I listened to this years ago and I never forgot it. Christopher Hitchens talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about George Orwell. Drawing on his book Why Orwell Matters, Hitchens talks about Orwell's opposition to imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism, his moral courage, and his devotion to language. Along the way, Hitchens makes the case for why Orwell matters.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/hitchens_on_orw.html

Listen to the entire audiobook of Orwell's 1984, something I recommend everyone read, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scqLliarGpM

Read or download 1984 at https://archive.org/details/Orwell1984preywo

Watch Christopher Hitchens on Why Orwell Matters at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY5Ste5xRAA

Read: 1984 The Book That Killed George Orwell By Robert McCrum

Eric Arthur Blair aka George Orwell by Jeff Riggenbach (1903–1950) Audio at https://mises.org/library/eric-arthur-blair-aka-george-orwell-1903%E2%80%931950
(George Orwell presents us with yet another case of a writer who was not himself a libertarian as we understand the term today, but whose last two novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four, have earned him a place in the libertarian tradition.)

Orwell’s Big Brother: Merely Fiction? by Murray N. Rothbard

What was Ayn Rand’s stance on George Orwell’s famous novel 1984? by Leonard Peikoff (podcast)

My hero: George Orwell by John Carey
Orwell was a truth-teller whose courage and sense of social justice made him a secular saint By John Carey 

The Connection Between George Orwell and Friedrich Hayek-A tale of two anti-authoritarians by Sheldon Richman 

Orwell's 1984 Still Matters, Though Not in the Way You Might Think
A Washington, D.C., readathon reminds us that the left once hated this anti-totalitarian classic. by Charles Paul Freund

From Spencer's 1884 to Orwell's 1984 by Henry Hazlitt

John Stossel: Orwell's Animal Farm & The Political Class

5 Ways George Orwell's 1984 Has Come True Since It Was Published 67 Years Ago by Tyler Durden

From 1944 to Nineteen Eighty-Four by Sheldon Richman

From ‘1984’ to ‘Atlas Shrugged’: When the News Boosts Book Sales By Emily Temple

Ayn Rand and "1984"

Discussion: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell with Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio

The genius of George Orwell by Jeremy Paxman 


Sunday, August 16, 2020

Elvis Presley on This Day in History


The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, died on this day in 1977. I still remember where I was when I heard of his death. I was building a fireplace in the Thorhild, Alberta area with my dad. 

Elvis has sold over one billion records worldwide and has had over 150 different albums and singles certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum. Elvis still holds the record for Most Top 40 hits at 114 total. He had 53 Top 40 albums on the Billboard Top 200 chart.

Elvis Presley is the only music artist to be honored with two U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamps (1993 & 2015). The 1993 stamp is still the most popular U.S. commemorative stamp of all time.

Elvis only performed in three cities outside the U.S., all in Canada: Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto.

He also had bad eating habits, which may explain a lot in his later years:

"Elvis is famously associated with a sandwich made with peanut butter, bacon, and banana, then pan-fried in butter like an even fattier grilled cheese. It wasn’t his only extreme dietary indulgence, though: 'The King' also enjoyed deep-fried pickles and is said to have once flown from Memphis to Denver just for a massive Fool's Gold Loaf sandwich, which involves stuffing a pound of bacon, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly inside a buttery loaf of hollowed-out French bread." (Mental Floss)

Saturday, August 15, 2020

North Korea on This Day in History


This Day In History: North Korea moved its clock back half an hour to introduce Pyongyang Time on this day in 2015. However, this came to be a pain, especially in their interactions with South Korea so they changed it back 3 years later.

Some other interesting facts about the NORKS: North Korea ranks 51st in population, but has one of the largest standing militaries.

Roller-blading and drug use is rampant in North Korea.

The May Day Stadium in Pyongyang is the largest stadium in the world, it can seat 150,000 people.

NK has only three TV channels, and the power is cut every night.

N. Korea also has a three-generation punishment rule. If one person commits a crime, his entire bloodline, including the grandparents, parents and children, are sent to prison.

North Koreans are only allowed to browse 28 websites on the internet, and computers are very expensive and you need permission from the government to buy one.

Since blue jeans are seen as a symbol of US imperialism, North Korea has banned jeans in the country.

Korean men can choose from a list of 28 hairstyles. Any haircut apart from the government approved hairstyles can lead to an arrest.

North Korea still holds public executions.

Friday, August 14, 2020

Sarah Brightman on This Day in History


This Day In History: English soprano Sarah Brightman was born on this day in 1960, and she has been my favorite singer since the 1990's. In 1985, Brightman recorded "Pie Jesu" which was a strong commercial success, despite the lyrics being in Latin. She gained fame starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" and her pinnacle role as Christine Daaé in "The Phantom of the Opera." After parting ways with Andrew Lloyd Webber, she established herself as a classical crossover artist, and would go on to sell 30 million records and 2 million DVDs, making her the world's best-selling soprano of all time. Sarah Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest selling single of all time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for 14 consecutive weeks and sold over 3 million copies. It subsequently became an international success selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. Sarah Brightman has over 180 gold and platinum sales awards in 38 different countries. In 2010 she was named by Billboard as the 5th most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000's decade in the US and has sold 6.5 million albums there. Brightman is the world's richest female classical performer with a fortune of £36m (about US$56m).


Thursday, August 13, 2020

Sinister Lefthanders on This Day in History


This Day In History: Today is International Lefthanders Day. The day was first observed in 1976, there are approximately 708 million left-handed people in the world. Men are more likely to be left handed than women, and I am lefthanded myself. Another word for lefthandedness is sinistrality, which comes from the word sinister. In fact, if you look at the etymology of the word "left" in many languages you will discover many negative connotations, and it doesn't end there. The expression "to have two left feet" refers to clumsiness. The English expression "to get up on the wrong side of the bed" is in other languages translated as "to get up with the left foot" which means to have a bad day and do everything wrong.

In many religions, including Christianity, the right hand of God is the favored hand. For example, Jesus sits at God's right side. Those who fall from favor with God are sent to left, as described in Matthew 25: 32–33, in which sheep represent the righteous and goats represent the fallen: "And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left." In 19th-century Europe, homosexuals were referred to as "left-handed". In Protestant-majority parts of the United Kingdom, Catholics were called "left-footers", and vice versa in Catholic-majority parts of Ireland and Irish America. During the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church would condemn and occasionally execute those who used their left hand. During the time of the Salem Witch Trials, use of the left hand could lead to one’s burning at the stake. Black magic is sometimes referred to as the "left-hand path", which is strongly associated with Satanism.


Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Mythologist Edith Hamilton on This Day in History


This day in history: Renowned classicist Edith Hamilton was born in Germany on this day in 1867. She is best know for her classic book "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes." I've always had a copy on my shelf and this book is still used widely.

Once you learn mythology you learn the basis of many stories and religions and the battles between good and evil. The power of mythology lies in its symbolism which helped shape the origins of modern story-telling and modern popular culture. For example, the Star Wars movies owe so much of their inspiration from mythology that it could not have existed without these ancient myths. Mythology is woven into a lot of great literature and art, so reading it enhances your appreciation of those things.

See also Over 250 Books on DVDrom on Mythology, Gods and Legends

Download Mythology Here

See also Greek And Roman Mythology Compared, By Francis W. Kelsey

Shakespeare and Mythology

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Marilyn vos Savant on This Day in History


This Day In History: Marilyn vos Savant was born on this day in 1946. She is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the highest IQ (228). I have several of her books that make for great bathroom books as they are in short question and answer format...and the answers are often entertaining. "Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying."

MVS also gave the best explanation of wealth inequality there is:
Question: Why has the income disparity grown so much in developed countries?
Answer: I think the disparity is a normal result of overall economic growth. The bottom incomes (zero) can’t go lower, but the top incomes can go up and up. And so they do, of course.

See also: The Smartest People in History - 300 PDF Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-smartest-people-in-history-300-pdf.html

The Ultimate IQ Test Book
https://archive.org/details/TheUltimateIQTestBook


Monday, August 10, 2020

Herbert Hoover on This Day in History



See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

"That man (Herbert Hoover) has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad," Calvin Coolidge

This day in history: The 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, was born on this day in 1874. The general narrative we hear about the Great Depression is that Herbert Hoover was a laissez-faire president who did nothing to help American crawl out of the depression which made it even worse, and we must learn from this today and enact federal stimulus programs to boost life into the economy.

The problem with this all is that this is a lie. Hoover actually intervened in the economy more than any prior president. Keep this in mind when you consider that there was a Depression in 1920, the government did nothing, and the economy bounced back within 12 to 18 months. As Hoover himself proclaimed during his presidential campaign of 1932:

. . . we might have done nothing. That would have been utter ruin. Instead we met the situation with proposals to private business and to Congress of the most gigantic program of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. We put it into action. . . . No government in Washington has hitherto considered that it held so broad a responsibility for leadership in such times. . . . For the first time in the history of depressions, dividends, profits and the cost of living, have been reduced before wages have suffered. . . . They were maintained until the cost of living had decreased and the profits had practically vanished. They are now the highest real wages in the world.

Creating new jobs and giving to the whole system a new breath of life; nothing has ever been devised in our history which has done more for . . . “the common run of men and women.” Some of the reactionary economists urged that we should allow the liquidation to take its course until we had found bottom. . . . We determined that we would not follow the advice of the bitterend liquidationists and see the whole body of debtors of the United States brought to bankruptcy and the savings of our people brought to destruction.

Hoover doubled federal spending and one of his first acts as president was to prohibit business leaders from cutting wages. He also launched huge public works projects such as the San Francisco Bay Bridge, Los Angeles Aqueduct, and the Hoover Dam. Hoover signed into law the damaging Smoot-Hawley tariff in June 1930 which raised taxes on over 20,000 imported goods (to the highest levels in American history) which made it more difficult for other countries to export goods to US, so now their economies suffered, and they thus imported less American goods. Hoover ended up creating a worldwide trade war. Also, because there were less foreign imports, government revenues from tariffs actually declined, the opposite to what the government intended.

Hoover eventually raised the top income tax rate from 23 percent to 65 percent (the rich must pay their fair share after all) and the lowest income tax rate from 1.1 percent to 4 percent in 1932.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt eventually criticized Herbert Hoover of presiding over “the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history.” Roosevelt criticized Hoover for spending and taxing too much, boosting the national debt, choking off trade, and putting millions of people on the dole. Roosevelt's running mate, John Nance Garner, charged that Hoover was "leading the country down the path of socialism."

Hoover definitely did not favor laissez-faire policies. In fact, Hoover even self-identified as a progressive and denounced laissez-faire himself:

"Individualism cannot be maintained as the foundation of a society if it looks to only legalistic justice based upon contracts, property, and political equality. Such legalistic safeguards are themselves not enough. In our individualism we have long since abandoned the laissez faire of the 18th Century-the notion that it is 'everyman for himself and the devil take the hindmost.'"

Besides an aggressive expansion of all state public works programs, Hoover also instituted farm subsidies and price supports and enacted rules to discourage commodity speculators. He then set out to weaken bankruptcy laws so as to prevent them, resulting in many companies being propped up artificially. He imposed limits on immigration and deported illegal aliens and fought tirelessly to keep wage rates propped up.

So the image of Hoover as an Adam Smith Physiocrat is competely inaccurate. As William Leuchtenburg, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal states: "Almost every historian now recognizes that the image of Hoover as a 'do-nothing' president is inaccurate."

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Sunday, August 9, 2020

Singapore on This Day in History


This day in history: Singapore separates from the Federation of Malaysia and gains its independence on this day in 1965. However, the real story is that Singapore was expelled from Malaysia and became the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly. It all worked out though as the Singapore economy is now known as one of the freest, most innovative, most competitive, most dynamic and the most business-friendly.

Singapore is also one of only three surviving city-states in the world. The other two are Monaco and Vatican City. Singapore has four official languages: English, Chinese, Tamil, and Malay. Buildings in Singapore cannot be higher than 280 metres. Singapore has taken extreme measures to reduce vehicle usage. A Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is required, costing more than S$80,000 to successful bidders. This permits ownership of the vehicle for a period of 10 years after which the vehicle must be scrapped or another COE paid for allowing an additional 5 or 10 years of usage. Certain roads and expressways in Singapore are subject to the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system. COEs and the ERP system are intended to encourage people to use public transport such as the Mass Rapid Transit and public buses instead of driving.

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Cats on This Day in History


This Day in History: Today is International Cat Day. I have had many cats over the years, but only one good one. The difference between cats and dogs is excellently summarized by the late Christopher Hitchens, “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that THEY are gods.”

Studies have shown that cats hear you, and cats do recognize your voice, they just don't care to respond. Many cats hate cuddling (which is the only reason to own one). When a cat rubs up against you he is establishing his territory. Don't read more than that into it. A cats cry is usually meant to manipulate you. If you die alone with your cat, it won’t hesitate to eat you. You probably heard that humans are the only species that kill for fun. That's not true. Cats do it too. A cat cleans itself because they think you stink...it is ridding itself of your scent.

Friday, August 7, 2020

Iron Maiden on This Day in History


This Day in History: English singer-songwriter Bruce Dickinson was born on this day in 1958. He is best known for his work as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden since 1981. The band's name comes from a medieval torture device. Bruce Dickinson is also an accomplished swordsman, an activity I expect every heavy metal frontman to be engaged in. The band has their own beer, and their own video games. They are also one of the few bands that had a generation of kids quoting Scripture in their song "The Number of the Beast", even if it's only Revelation 13:18: "Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred and sixty and six"...and they even had Vincent Price recite it.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

The Damned Charles Fort on This Day in History


This Day in History: Charles Fort was born on this day in 1874. He is best known for his "Book of the Damned." Fort was a skeptic of science, and his book produced numerous instances of occurrences that science just could not explain, or were just ignored by science. Such instances were falling frogs, fishes, and inorganic materials, spontaneous human combustion, ball lightning (a term explicitly used by Fort), poltergeist events, unaccountable noises and explosions, levitation, unidentified flying objects, unexplained disappearances, giant wheels of light in the oceans, and animals found outside their normal ranges. He offered many reports of out-of-place artifacts (OOPArts), strange items found in unlikely locations. He was often criticized but he also had a large following.

The Fortean Times magazine is still being published.

See also: The Supernatural & Paranormal, 400 PDF Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-supernatural-paranormal-400-pdf.html

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

The Income Tax on This Day in History


This Day in History: The United States government levied the first income tax on this day in 1861 to pay for the war effort. This tax was 3% of all incomes over $800; and it was rescinded in 1872. "This adherence to a terminal date is worth noting; it is a left-handed admission that the taxation of incomes was generally held to be obnoxious, perhaps unconstitutional, and was tolerated only as a temporary necessity."~Frank Chodorov

A more permanent income tax would come 50 years later under Woodrow Wilson in 1913, a man who also gave us World War I, the League of Nations, and Conscription (the draft). The income tax is bureaucratic slavery, after all, we work for months to pay, not ourselves, but someone else. Prior to the passage of the 16th Amendment (income tax) in 1913, the United States government funded its operations mainly through excise taxes, tariffs, customs duties and public land sales. 

Some have gone to great extremes to prove that the income tax was illegal and unconstitutional, notably Irwin Schiff who died in an American prison as a political prisoner.

Dickens Knew Taxes Started the French Revolution
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/06/dickens-knew-taxes-started-french.html

How They Viewed an Income Tax Over 100 Years Ago
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-they-viewed-income-tax-over-100.html

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

Visit my Econ blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Dom Perignon's Champagne on This Day in History


This Day In History: Today is the traditional date of Dom Perignon's (a Benedictine monk) invention of Champagne in 1693. Champagne is a French sparkling wine. Many people use the term Champagne as a generic term for sparkling wine, but in the EU and some countries, it is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it came from the Champagne wine region of France and is produced under the rules of that region [appellation]. Monks for centuries have been at the forefront of beer, wine and brandy inventions. They had vast tracts of land for planting grapes or barley, and at the time it was safer to drink beer than water for sanitary reasons. "The process of making beer purified all the ingredients." [Fabrice Bordon] Arnold of Soissons [the patron saint of hop-pickers and Belgian brewers] during an epidemic, deterred people from drinking water and had them consume his brews. Because of this, many people in his church survived the plague.

See also: The Alcoholic & Narcotic History of the World - 60 Books on CDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/alcoholic-narcotic-history-of-world-60.html 

Monday, August 3, 2020

The Wandering Jew on This Day in History


This Day In History: French novelist Eugene Sue died on this day in 1857. Famous for writing the serialized "Mysteries of Paris" he also popularized the legend of "The Wandering Jew." The Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 1200's. The original legend tells of a Jew who taunted Jesus before his death and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming. According to some sources, the legend stems from Jesus' words given in Matthew 16:28: "Yes. I tell you that there are some people standing here who will not experience death until they see the Son Man coming in his kingdom." (Jewish New Testament)

In the 1988 film The Seventh Sign the Wandering Jew appears as Father Lucci, and in the third episode of the first season of The Librarians, the character Jenkins mentions the Wandering Jew as an "immortal creature that can be injured, but never killed". The Wandering Jew even made it into video games. Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned presents The Wandering Jew as a childhood friend and, later, disciple of Jesus, who drank drops of his blood during the crucifixion and was thus cursed with immortality. The video game series Assassin's Creed features a group of individuals known as Sages, who share a number of supernatural abilities. In the game Assassin's Creed Unity, one of the sages is named the Wanderer and is linked to the Wandering Jew, described as "a Jewish Sage born in Judea. He was believed to have encountered Jesus Christ on his way to Golgotha".

See also: Jewish History and Mysteries - 220 PDF Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/11/jewish-history-and-mysteries-220-pdf.html

Sunday, August 2, 2020

President Warren G. Harding on This Day in History


This Day In History: President Warren Harding died on this day in 1923. Many call him the worst president, but he may be one of the best. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. Despite objections, he reduced government spending. He simply let the market revive on its own and as a result the 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923.

"For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to 'do something' when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to 'do something' in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent...history shows that the economy rebounded out of a worse unemployment situation in just two years under Harding, who simply let the market revive on its own, as it had done before, time and time again for more than a century."~Thomas Sowell

"With tax rates cut for all groups, Americans invented or expanded such businesses as air conditioning, talking movies, radios, refrigerators, telephones, and air travel. The Roaring ‘20s launched with Harding’s assumption that greater freedom and less government would increase prosperity for all groups. The 1920s would also become the last decade in US history to see annual budget surpluses every year. Almost one-third of the federal debt disappeared under Harding and Coolidge."~Burton Folsom

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

Saturday, August 1, 2020

White Cargo on This Day in History


This Day In History: The ship "Speedwell" started its journey from Europe to transport pilgrims to America on this day in 1620, along with the Mayflower. The New York Times' 1619 Project has a certain narrative about slavery, but few know that these ships were carrying white slaves.

Hundreds of thousands of White people in colonial America were owned outright by their masters and died as slaves. They had no control over their own lives and were auctioned on the block and examined like livestock exactly like Black slaves. White slaves “found themselves powerless as individuals, without honor or respect and driven into commodity production not by any inner sense of moral duty but by the outer stimulus of the whip.” (Hilary Beckles, White Servitude, p. 5).

At the time, White slaves were cheaper than Black slaves and therefore were often mistreated to a greater extent. Having paid a bigger price for Black slaves, “the planters treated the black better than they did their ‘Christian’ white servant. Even the [Blacks] recognized this and did not hesitate to show their con-tempt for those white men who, they could see, were worse off than themselves...” (Carl Bridenbaugh)

Critics often point out that the Whites were servants, not slaves, but even Daniel Defoe in his classic book, Moll Flanders, points out in one section, “'They were of two sorts, first such as were brought over by masters of ships to be sold as servants. Such as we call them my dear,’ says she, ‘but they are more properly called slaves.'”

“...white indentured servants were employed and treated, incidentally, exactly like slaves... “(Morley Ayearst, The British West Indies, p. 19).

“In the North American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries and subsequently in the United States, servant was the usual designation for a slave” (Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, p. 2,739)

See also: See also: They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America on Amazon

See also: When Blacks Owned Slaves, by Calvin Dill Wilson 1905
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/02/when-blacks-owned-slaves-by-calvin-dill.html

See also: A History of White Slavery by Charles Sumner 1853 and When the Irish were Slaves, article in The Month 1890

See also Bible Defense of Slavery and other Southern books on CDrom - Join my Facebook Group For a list of all of my digital books and books on disk click here

The Forgotten History of Britain's White Slaves in America