Tonight is the Witches Sabbath (Walpurgisnacht)

 

Today (or tonight) is Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht or Eve of Hexennacht or the Witches Sabbath). The best way to think about Walpurgis Night is that is the Spring version of Halloween, and it is actually exactly 6 months before Halloween. The festival is named after Saint Walpurga who lived 1300 years ago. While Saint Walpurga was known to repel the effects of witchcraft, over time the festival came to be known as a time when witches meet on Brocken mountain under the presidency of Satan, who, on such occasions, generally takes the form of a black he-goat. 

"According to the popular German superstition, a great witch festival was always held on the Brocken on the eve of St. Walpurga. Hence the name, Walpurgis Night. This superstition is supposed to have originated in the idolatrous rites of the Pagans, which, when they were forcibly converted to Christianity, they conducted secretly in remote places. These idolatrous rites were magnified into supernatural orgies." E.W. Mellor

In the literature of old, Lilith, (Adam's first wife according to mythology), figures prominently in this festival. As the festival has strong Spring associations, it is deeply intertwined with ancient pagan Scandinavian & Germanic cults. Speaking of Germany...April 30 1945 is the day that Hitler committed suicide.

The Church of Satan was founded on Sankt Walpurgisnacht in 1966. Founder Anton LaVey stated that besides one's own birthday, Walpurgisnacht ranks as an important Satanic holiday, noting the Eve of May has been memorialized as "symbolizing the fruition of the spring equinox", and chose the date well aware of the date's traditional association with witchcraft.

Walpurgis Night is featured in Bram Stoker's short story, Dracula's Guest.

It is said that on Walpurgis Night that cats should be avoided as it may be a witch.

Ancient Origins of Modern Holidays

See also 200 Books on DVDROM about Satan the Devil & Witchcraft - For a list of all of my disks and digital books click here

Fraudster Bernie Madoff On this Day in History

 

This Day in History: American businessman and financier Bernie Madoff was born on this day in 1938. Bernie Madoff also ran the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion, for which he was arrested on December 11, 2008. A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.

Ponzi schemes are not new. It got its name in the 1920's after Charles Ponzi, but long before that Charles Dickens wrote about such schemes in his 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit and his 1857 novel Little Dorrit. The Mormon Kirtland Safety Society in the 1830's had some of the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme. 

Some of the most notorious participants in this type of crime were women. In the 1860's, Nancy Clem ran such a scheme, as described in the book, "The Notorious Mrs. Clem: Murder and Money in the Gilded Age." In Munich, Germany, Adele Spitzeder founded the "Spitzedersche Privatbank" in 1869, promising an interest rate of 10 percent per month. By the time the scheme collapsed in 1872 it had become the largest case of fraud in 19th-century Bavaria. Sarah Howe opened a savings bank called Ladies' Deposit Company in 1878 meant to target unmarried women. She claimed that the bank worked with a Quaker charity that wanted to help less privileged women. She promised high interest rates of eight percent per month. There was in fact no such charity. Howe was able to gain over 1,200 clients and $500,000 in deposits before she was outed as a fraud in 1880. After Sarah Howe was released from prison she become a fortune teller until her death in 1892.

There were some famous victims of Bernie Madoff's Ponzo scheme, including Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick, who lost millions. John Malkovich also lost millions, and Larry King lost 700k.

Fascist Leader Benito Mussolini on This Day in History

 

Buy this book: The Folly of Socialism (40 Chapters) for 99 cents on Amazon

This Day in History: Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini and his mistress are killed on this day in 1945. Fascism is a term that gets thrown about liberally, but few actually know what it means. Another word for Fascism is Corporatism, and for many, it is the economic system of most Western countries, including the United States. Mussolini was a Socialist who believed that businesses should be closely tied to the State.

"No aspect of life is untouched by government intervention, and often it takes forms we do not readily see. All of healthcare is regulated, but so is every bit of our food, transportation, clothing, household products, and even private relationships. Mussolini himself put his principle this way: 'All within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.' I submit to you that this is the prevailing ideology in the United States today." Lew Rockwell

Ben O’Neill in his “The Vampire Economy and the Market" described Fascism as “attempts to secure economic growth and prosperity by fusing a ‘partnership’ between business and the State, absorbing business into the State in this process.” While communism '[when] faced with existing institutions that threaten the power of the state – be they corporations, churches, the family, tradition – the Communist impulse is by and large to abolish them, while the fascist impulse is by and large to absorb them.' Essentially, 'fascism is a form of hyper-interventionism amounting to socialism.'”

When Mussolini's dead body was hung upside-down in a public square, his form of governance should have died with him. But the bad ideas of the past (socialism / communism /fascism) don't die as these ideologies provide the recipe for power too many so eagerly desire.

See also Over 300 PDF/Acrobat Books on Socialism, Communism and Economics and 300 Books on DVDrom for Libertarians, Objectivists and Voluntaryists

For a list of all of my books on disks and other ebooks click here

What is Fascism?

Pete Ham and the Tragedy of Badfinger on This Day in History

 

Badfinger - The Tragic Story

This Day in History: Welsh singer and songwriter Pete Ham from the group Badfinger was born on this day in 1947. Ham committed suicide in 1975 at the age of 27, and band-mate Tom Evans committed suicide in 1983. These two suicides were linked to their manager Stan Polley who defrauded Badfinger, and destroyed their finances. Pete wrote in his suicide note that he was taking Stan Polley's soul with him to hell.

Badfinger was the most successful band on the Beatles Apple record label and you may have heard their hits "Baby Blue", "No Matter What" and "Come and Get It."

Many bands at the time were getting screwed over by record companies and managers. Tommy James, David Bowie, The Who, the Stones, Queen, John Fogerty, Jimi Hendrix, and The Small Faces/Humble Pie all suffered through bad managers.

Les McKeown died recently. His band, the Bay City Rollers, sold 120 million records. Yet, the band members left the group penniless. They had to get regular, menial jobs afterwards.

Let's not forget Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker who took 50% of everything Elvis made, an outrageous amount. 

RIP Les McKeown

David Hume (and the Sheeple) on This Day in History

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This Day In History: Scottish Philosopher David Hume was born on this day in 1711 (old calendar). 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.”

What the above discovered is the Sheeple...herd behavior in a political context. 

Sheeple is a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people" and is a derogatory term that highlights the passive herd behavior of people easily controlled by a governing power which likens them to sheep, a herd animal that is "easily" led about. The term is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without any significant critical analysis or research, in large part due to the majority of a population having a similar mindset. Word Spy defines it as "people who are meek, easily persuaded, and tend to follow the crowd (sheep + people)". Merriam-Webster defines the term as "people who are docile, compliant, or easily influenced: people likened to sheep". The word is pluralia tantum, which means it does not have a singular form.

Sheeple are easily led thanks to poor education and a lack of critical thinking skills coupled with fear. Such people give in to Authority Bias, which is the tendency to attribute greater accuracy to the opinion of an authority figure and be more influenced by that opinion. An individual is more influenced by the opinion of this authority figure, believing their views to be more credible, and hence place greater emphasis on the authority figure’s viewpoint. This concept is considered one of the so-called social cognitive biases or collective cognitive biases. Humans generally have a deep-seated duty to authority and tend to comply when requested by an authority figure. Some scholars explain that individuals are motivated to view authority as deserving of their position and this legitimacy leads people to accept and obey the decisions that it makes.

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

Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier became the first person executed by guillotine on this day in 1792. A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed on horseback as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads. Such criminals operated until the mid or late 19th century. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men, especially in fiction. However, there was one Highwayman, Tom Rowland, that dressed as a woman. Rowland even rode side-saddle and managed to get away with his crimes for 18 years, until he was caught and hanged.

The first appearance of the word highwayman is from 1617, however, terms such as "knights of the road" and "gentlemen of the road" were sometimes used by people interested in romanticizing (like Robin Hood) what was often an especially violent form of stealing. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were sometimes known as road agents. In Australia, they were known as bushrangers.

Highwaymen were often romanticized in Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls, especially Dick Turpin. The 1906 poem "The Highwayman" is considered to be "the best ballad poem in existence for oral delivery".

It starts out as:

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, 

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, 

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor. 

And the highwayman came riding -- 

   Riding - riding- 

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door 

See also 70 Penny Dreadfuls & Dime Novels on DVDrom (+ Gothic Novels)

The Library of Congress on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Congress approved a bill establishing the Library of Congress on this day in 1800. The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution, and it serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world with over 164 million items in its inventory...though the British Library might argue with that statistic. By comparison, the New York Public Library has 55 million items. It has so many items that is is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington. The LOC has 21 reading rooms and 838 miles of bookshelves.

Most of the original collection was destroyed by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812, and the library sought to restore its collection in 1815. They bought Thomas Jefferson’s entire personal collection of 6,487 books. On Christmas Eve 1851, another fire destroyed two-thirds of the collection. Many of the works have since been replaced.

The library receives some 15,000 items each working day and adds approximately 12,000 items to the collections daily.

"The Library of Congress is home to an eclectic collection, with books ranging in size from a tiny copy of “Ole King Cole” to a 5-foot-by-7-foot photo book filled with color images of Bhutan. Some items, like a Gutenberg Bible and a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, feel right at home in the historic library. Others, like Rosa Parks’s peanut butter pancakes recipe, are a bit more unexpected. Additional noteworthy artifacts include Bob Hope’s joke collection, George Gershwin’s piano, and the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets the night he was shot."~Mental Floss

The Library of Congress used to collect EVERY Tweet that was posted, but will now only archive tweets “on a selective basis”.

William Shakespeare on this Day in History

 

This Day in History: English playwright William Shakespeare died on this day in 1616. Shakespeare is one of the most influential figures in English literature. "If you really think about it, he is probably one of the most well-known, enduring authors of all time.  He wrote plays and poetry that are, hands-down, the most discussed, debated, taught, read, analyzed, criticized, enacted, dramatized, spoofed, and quoted pieces of literature that exist today. From junior high to a doctorate's level, students study Shakespeare.  It is nearly impossible to not encounter something that has been influenced by Shakespeare's writing, even if it's as little as a quote ('To be or not to be, that is the question' is used ALL the time, even in commercials--'To eat a taco, or to not eat a taco, that is the question'), or as immersed as an entire course that extensively studies his plays."~Mrs Campbell

Did you know that there are about 80 different spellings of Shakespeare, ranging from "Shappere" to "Shaxberd." The Bard never spelled his own name "William Shakespeare," he instead used variations and abbreviations such as "Willm Shakp," "Willm Shakspere" and "William Shakspeare" instead. Other spellings are Shakespere, Shackspeare, Shakespear, Shaxspere, Shaxper, Shackespeare, Shackspere

Shackespere etc.

No one knows exactly how Shakespeare died, but it appears that his skull has been stolen from his grave. 

Also, there are thirteen explicit suicides in Shakespeare's plays. 

Shakespeare also lived through a pandemic in his own lifetime.

See also: Who Really Wrote Shakespeare's Plays? 50 Books on CDrom

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/who-really-wrote-shakespeares-plays-50.html

10 Things You Were Never Taught About the Bard

The Hifi Murders & Other Killings on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Hifi Murders occurred on this day in 1974 at a home audio store in Ogden, Utah. Three people were killed and others were injured using violent tactics which included kicking a pen into an ear, the brutal rape of a teenage girl who was later shot in the head and forcing the victims to drink Drano. The criminals who would eventually be executed for their crimes complained they were being executed because of their race.

April 22 also claims the largest mass-killing in North Dakota, when 7 members of the Jacob and Beata Wolf family were shot and/or killed with a hatchet in 1920.

April 22 also marks the date of the Pike County Massacre where eight people – all belonging to the Rhoden family – were shot and killed in four homes in Pike County, Ohio.

April 22 also marks the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, who started a system of Socialist governance that would lead to the deaths of tens of millions.

I'm telling you, April is a bad month for mass violent events.

See also The Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon Bombings and the Waco Massacre on This Day in History

The Amsterdam Train Collision on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Two trains collided head-on near Sloterdijk, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, injuring 116 people, on this day in 2012. There have actually been 33 such collisions since 1874. A train head-on collision occurs most often on a single line railway. This usually means that at least one of the trains has "passed a signal at danger," (much like running a red light) or that a signalman has made a major error. The last head-on collision on November 15, 2017 in Singapore was due to a software error.

From 1896 to the 1930s crashing trains was a great American pastime. The man who pioneered this sport, a railroad equipment salesman named A.L. Streeter, was known as The Man Who Wrecked 146 Locomotives.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue on This Day in History

 

Edgar Allan Poe - An Exhumation is available on

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This Day in History: What many consider the first detective story, Edgar Allen Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, was published on this day in 1841. Poe's detective, C. Auguste Dupin, was french and all of Poe's detective fiction was set in France. Poe marinated himself in french literature, and his detective works may have been influenced by Zadig, a story by the philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire's Zadig was a philosopher in ancient Babylonia who had brilliant powers of deduction. Auguste Dupin would later go on to partly inspire Arthur Conan Doyle with his Sherlock Holmes.

There is a Golden Age of detective fiction, but that era excludes both Holmes and Dupin. That Golden Age was in the 1920's and 1930's, with authors such as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Edmund Crispin, Dorothy L. Sayers, Georges Simenon (Maigret), and Monsignor Ronald A. Knox who also translated a version of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate and the Septuagint.

See also: Zadig, the First Detective Story...and it was written by Voltaire

Forerunners of Sherlock Holmes

See also The 300 Oldest Murder Mystery and Crime Books & Stories on DVDrom

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The Oklahoma City and Boston Marathon Bombings and the Waco Massacre on This Day in History

 

What is it about mass violent events and the month of April? Take note:

April 19, 1993: Waco Massacre: An FBI assault lead to the burning down of the compound of a sect named Branch Davidians, killing 76 men, women and children.

April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City bombing – 168 people killed.

April 20, 1999: Columbine High School Massacre – 13 people murdered, 21 injured.

April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech Massacre – 32 killed; 17 injured.

April 16, 2013: Boston Marathon Explosions – 3 killed; 107 injured.

April 18, 2013: Fertilizer plant explosion, Texas – 5-15 killed

April 16, 1947: A ship loaded with ammonium nitrate docked at the Port of Texas City and erupted in flames, causing a massive explosion that killed about 576 people).

April 18, 1983: A suicide bomber drove a car bomb into the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people.

April 9, 2014: Franklin Regional High School mass stabbing

April 18, 19 2020: Nova Scotia Attacks - 22 killed, 3 injured

Going further back, the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War both started in the month of April. Lincoln was killed in April. Hitler was born in April and he died in April. The Titanic sank in April 1912.

The 2020 Nova Scotia Attacks on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Today marks the one year anniversary of the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks. Gabriel Wortman went on a shooting rampage and set fires at 16 locations in Nova Scotia, Canada, killing 22 people and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the RCMP. For part of the thirteen-hour crime spree, Wortman impersonated a police officer by driving a replica police car and wearing a police uniform.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded by banning 1,500 makes and models of guns, even though the guns used in this crime were all already illegally owned. As one RCMP officer noted: “He had no intention of following the law, so banning firearms, banning semi automatic rifles and handguns would not have stopped him...There are strict storage and transportation regulations that go along with those firearms. So there’s a lot of boxes and regulations in place already that this individual did not check.”

Bad people simply ignore laws. Many however believe that laws become spells that forces reality to bend.

The attacks are the deadliest shooting in Canadian history, exceeding the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, where fourteen women were killed in 1989.  

German Band Leader James Last on This Day in History

 

Games That Lovers Play

This Day in History: German composer and big band leader James Last was born on this day in 1929. You may not have heard of him, but you may have heard his music. Last sold 200 million albums worldwide in his lifetime, and he was the most commercially successful bandleader of the second half of the 20th century. 

His trademark "happy music" made his numerous albums best-sellers in Germany and the United Kingdom, with 65 of his albums reaching the charts in the UK alone. His composition "Happy Heart" became an international success in interpretations by Andy Williams and Petula Clark.

His song "Games That Lovers Play" has been covered over a hundred times, and he played at the  Royal Albert Hall 90 times, more than any other performer besides Eric Clapton.

James Last still has millions of views on Youtube, including his rendition of the Orange Blossom Special

Tax Freedom Day on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: April 16 has been generally accepted as Tax Freedom Day. Tax Freedom Day is the date after which we no longer work to pay taxes, and from here on in you work for yourself for the remainder of the year. I personally believe Tax Freedom Day is probably much later, as it is difficult to really calculate how much taxes we really pay as taxes are hidden and embedded into so many things. However, even if I accept April 16 as Tax Freedom Day, it is interesting to note in the early 1900s, Tax Freedom Day was January 20. It stayed there until 1917, when it was Jan. 22. With World War I, Tax Freedom Day was Feb. 6 in 1918, then Feb. 20 in 1921. After Roosevelt's New Deal in 1940, Tax Freedom Day was March 3, and after World War II, Tax Freedom Day was March 31.

Tax Freedom Day in Canada is June 14. In the UK it is June 12. In Austria it is August 5.

There is also a Tax Freedom Clock

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/

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W.T. Stead, the Man Who Foresaw His Own Death on This Day in History

 

My Kindle book is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only $1.99
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This Day in History: British newspaper editor William Thomas Stead died on this day in 1912. Stead always maintained that he would either die by drowning or lynching, and that his death would be sudden and he would die with his boots on. In 1886, he published an article entitled "How the Mail Steamer went down in Mid Atlantic by a Survivor", which has a steamer colliding with another ship, resulting in a high loss of life due to an insufficient ratio of lifeboats to passengers.  In 1892, Stead published a story called "From the Old World to the New", in which a vessel, the Majestic, rescues survivors of another ship that collided with an iceberg. Stead also wrote a chapter in the book "Real Ghost Stories" that was entitled "Warnings Of Peril And Death" where he recorded instances of people who had premonitions of their own death.

W.T. Stead died on the Titanic.

Warnings Of Peril And Death by William Thomas Stead 1921

The Lincoln-Kennedy Coincidences on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot on this day in 1865. In 1964 mathematician Martin Gardner published a list of coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy, a list of coincidences that are still making the rounds today. While there are skeptics about this list, I still find it remarkable. The list goes something like this:

"Lincoln" and "Kennedy" each have seven letters.

Both presidents were elected to Congress in '46 and later to the presidency in '60.

Both married women in their 20s while themselves in their 30s.

Both lost a son while living in the White House.

Both were shot in the presence of their wives.

Both assassins, were known by their three names, composed of fifteen letters.

Both presidents were runners-up for the party's nomination for vice-president in '56.

Both successors were Southern Democrats with the last name of Johnson; both were born in '08 and their first names contained six letters.

    

The assassins were both Southerners.

Both presidents were particularly concerned with civil rights.

Both presidents were shot in the head on a Friday and died at nearby locations (Lincoln at the Petersen House across the street and Kennedy at Parkland Memorial Hospital down the road).

    

Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater. Kennedy was shot in a Ford car: a Lincoln limousine.

Kennedy had a secretary named Evelyn Lincoln (whose husband Harold's nickname was Abe), and she warned him not to go to Dallas.

    

Both Oswald and Booth were assassinated before they could be put on trial.

One part that is usually added to the list (Booth ran from Ford's Theatre and was caught in a warehouse; Oswald ran from the Dealey Plaza warehouse and was caught in a theater) is not entirely true because Booth was caught in a barn, not a warehouse.

Buddy Starcher had a top 40 hit in 1966 called "History Repeats Itself" detailing these coincidences. 

Thomas Jefferson (and the Sally Hemings Myth) on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born on this day in 1743. I think one of the most pernicious things done to the memory of Thomas Jefferson was to besmirch his name with the accusation of him impregnating one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings. Wikipedia shamelessly has posted: "According to DNA evidence from surviving descendants and oral history, Jefferson probably fathered at least six children with Hemings, including four that survived to adulthood."

What happened was, back in 1998, during Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal, the propaganda machine needed to throw light off Clinton and they targeted Jefferson. A team of geneticists tested Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Thomas Jefferson’s uncle and descendants of Sally Hemings’ children. The result of the study was that a male Jefferson at the time fathered one of Sally Hemings' children. However, in addition to Thomas Jefferson, there were about 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and several of them are known to have visited TJ's home in Monticello.

A lawyer, William G. Hyland Jr., author of ‘In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal’ claims that it was Thomas's brother Randolph, “a ne’er-do-well,” who had a history of consorting with his brother’s slaves. Additionally, at the time this was all supposed to happen, Thomas Jefferson was 64, and his letters from that period are full of complaints about migraine headaches, arthritis, and intestinal infections. Jefferson was a man in poor health, and he was also not known to be sexual. Prior to this, Jefferson lost his wife Martha and he was devastated by the loss. 

See also American History & Mysteries, Over 200 PDF Books on DVDrom

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

The Zimbabwe Dollar on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Zimbabwe officially abandoned the Zimbabwean dollar as its official currency. The reason for this is hyperinflation. As the currency loses value the authorities respond by issuing more of it, thereby ensuring that it will lose even more value which then leads to the printing of even more money and so on. A year before this, a newspaper in Zimbabwe went from $200,000 to $25 billion in the space of one month. A beer was $150 billion. "The chaos spreads through everything. ATMs and computers cannot handle all the additional zeros. Suitcases full of paper are needed to buy things – what few things are available. The inflation is so rapid that wages cannot keep pace. A worker might find that his bus fare today is more than his weekly wage. Life becomes intolerable for almost everyone."~Bill Trench

In place of their own dollar Zimbabwe uses other currencies, such as the American dollar. However, the US is also doing what Zimbabwe did. Endless stimulus programs means more money printing. This then leads to inflation,

Current inflation levels:

Average Food Index 25%

Wheat 28%

Steel 145%

Lumber 188%

Oil 76%

Soybeans 71%

Corn 67%

Copper 48%

Silver 40%

Cotton 35%

40% of all dollars in circulation were "printed" in the last 12 months.

All paper money is doomed to fail. However, we live in a strange time right now when all dominant economies are engaged in inflating their money supply (Quantitative Easing).

Quantitative Easing Explained

Buy: The Folly of Socialism (40 Chapters) for 99 cents on Amazon

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

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

See also Over 300 PDF/Acrobat Books on Socialism, Communism and Economics and 300 Books on DVDrom for Libertarians, Objectivists and Voluntaryists

 

Today is International Louie Louie Day

 

Motorhead - Louie Louie

This Day in History: Today is International Louie Louie Day. April 11 was picked as International Louie Louie Day because the man who wrote the song, Matthew Barry was born on this day in 1935. There was an annual Louie Louie Parade in Philadelphia from 1985 to 1989; there was also a LouieFest in Tacoma from 2003 to 2012; there is an ongoing annual Louie Louie Street Party in Peoria; and there was an unsuccessful attempt in 1985 to make it the state song of Washington.

"By 1978, when John Belushi belted it out in Animal House, the song had been recorded in over 800 versions and translated into 20 different languages. In 1983, Rhino Records released The Best of Louie Louie, a whole record dedicated to one song (Volume 2 followed five years later). By 2000, the song had thoroughly inundated every aspect of pop culture, appearing in major motion pictures, TV shows, cartoons and commercials, in novels and nonfiction (rock critic Dave Marsh wrote an entire book about the song), and even in the work of one modern painter. There are several Louie Louie bars, cafes and restaurants around the world, as well as a mixed drink that bears the name."~Mental Floss

In 1964, an outraged parent wrote to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, alleging that the lyrics of "Louie Louie" were obscene, and saying that "The lyrics are so filthy that I can-not enclose them in this letter." The FBI investigated the complaint, but after 31 months of investigation, they concluded that it could not be interpreted, that the song was "unintelligible at any speed," and therefore the Bureau could not find that the recording was obscene.

The Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100 and almost made it to number one had it not been for the Singing Nun. Yup, it was a different time.

Today is World Homeopathy Day

 

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This Day in History: Today is World Homeopathy Day. If I had to explain Homeopathy it would be to say that the more you dilute something, the more potent (or stronger) it becomes. To my mind, this makes no sense. Apparently I'm not the only one as Homeopathy is generally regarded as a pseudoscience. Several years ago Walmart was sued for selling and marketing homeopathic medicines, but it looks like that lawsuit was dismissed.

In Canada several years a boy with behavioral problems was given a homeopathic dose of rabid dog saliva because a naturopath decided that the boy’s problems were the result of having been bitten by a dog that had been vaccinated against rabies. [I'm as confused as you are this point] The homeopathic cure was a drop of saliva from the dog and adding a thousand drops of water, then taking one drop of this and adding another thousand drops of water and then repeating this again, eight more times. The final solution realistically does not contain any of the original dog saliva. This infinitely diluted solution is placed on a sugar tablet and ingested. Thus, we have a homeopathic remedy! Health Canada, a governmental body, approved this cure and granted it an identification number...which is all you need to know about Government and health.

See also Folk Medicine, Alternative Remedies & Herbal Cures - 100 Books on DVDrom

Alternative Medicine & Spiritual Healing - 175 Books on DVDrom

The Progressive Robert E. Lee on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, which ended the American Civil War on this day in 1865. While it is popular to portray Lee as a racist figure, a closer look him reveals someone quite different, perhaps even a progressive. 

Robert E. Lee had a distaste for slavery. "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race."

Lee freed his slaves early on. "In fact, it is a curious commentary on the motives connected with the war, that while Lee had set his slaves free, [Union General Ulysses S] Grant is said to have continued in the ownership of slaves until they were emancipated by the government of the United States" during the war. Lee was "in favor of freeing all the slaves in the South, giving to each owner a bond to be the first paid by the Confederacy when its independence should be secured." ~Thomas Nelson Page

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/08/robert-e-lees-views-on-slavery.html

Some, who believe that the war was fought over slavery will be confused by the above. The war was not initially fought to free the slaves. Many Northern soldiers were actually upset after the Emancipation Proclamation: “Plenty of soldiers believed that the proclamation had changed the purpose of the war...They professed to feel betrayed. They were willing to risk their lives for the Union, they said, but not for black freedom.” [James McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, p. 120.]

McPherson wrote of a “backlash of anti-emancipation sentiment” in the Federal army and quotes various officers as saying things like, “If emancipation is to be the policy of this war… I do not care how quick the country goes to pot.” A Massachusetts sergeant wrote in a letter that “if anyone thinks that this army is fighting to free the [black man]… they are terribly mistaken.” Another officer declared that “I don't want to fire another shot for the [black man] and I wish that all the abolitionists were in hell… I do not fight or want to fight for Lincoln's...proclamation one day longer.”

But, as is often the case, wrong ideas about the Civil War and the people who fought for it continue to persist which leads to misinformation about people like Robert E. Lee...so much so that a few years ago ESPN pulled an announcer from calling a University of Virginia football game because his name was Robert Lee. This Robert Lee was Asian.

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

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, ebooks (Amazon and PDF) click here

Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic" on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Aerosmith album "Toys in the Attic" was released on this day in 1975. The first time I really took notice of Aerosmith was when I heard "Last Child" on their 1976 album "Rocks." I thought their sound was fresh and unique and angry enough for this 14 year old boy. I remember a gathering outside my school in Alberta in 1976 when all the boys brought their favorite albums. The albums were all Heavy Metal, though we didn't call it that back then. The albums I remembered them bringing were Deep Purple, Nazareth, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Bachman Turner Overdrive and Alice Cooper. There weren't any Aerosmith albums at that gathering, they hadn't made it to the northern prairies at the time. Had the gathering been held two years later, Aerosmith albums would have been included, as Toys in the Attic and Rocks became party staples.

The Toys in the Attic album was ranked No. 229 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. [Do people still read Rolling Stone?] Every song on the album was a winner, and one, Big Ten Inch Record, was written in 1952 by Fred Weismantel and is considered one of the best double entendre songs of all time. If you've heard the song, you know what I'm talking about.

The biggest song on the album was "Walk this Way," a title that was inspired by a scene in Young Frankenstein. The song also helped revitalize their career in the 1980s when it was covered by hip hop group Run-D.M.C. 

Aerosmith is the best-selling American hard rock band of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide, including over 70 million records in the United States. With 25 gold, 18 platinum, and 12 multi-platinum albums, they hold the record for the most total certifications by an American group and are tied for the most multi-platinum albums by an American group.

Big Ten Inch Record by Bull Moose Jackson

Unitarian William Ellery Channing on This Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Leading Unitarian thinker William Ellery Channing was born on this day in 1780. Unitarians, if you ask some mainstream Christians, are "the modern revival of the ancient heresy of Arianism, which denied the full deity of Jesus Christ and rejected the Trinity doctrine." What many don't know is that Unitarianism left a great mark on the founding of America. William Ellery Channing for instance was a grandson of William Ellery (1727–1820), a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Unitarian Benjamin Rush also signed the Declaration of Independence. John Adams, the second President of the United States was a(n) Unitarian, as was John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, William Howard Taft and Millard Fillmore. American Revolutionary War patriot Ethan Allen was a(n) Unitarian, as well as Paul Revere.

I was surprised to learn that American abolitionist and libertarian anarchist Lysander Spooner also a(n) Unitarian. Interestingly, Unitarian and chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Lemuel Shaw, convicted another Unitarian, Abner Kneeland, of blasphemy.

See also: The Hypostatic Union - an Enormous Tax on Human Credulity By William Ellery Channing

The Doctrine of the Trinity Irrational and Unscriptural by William Ellery Channing

This book, "The Impersonality of the Holy Spirit by John Marsom" is available on Amazon for only 99 cents. See a local listing for it here; Buy The Absurdity of the Trinity on Amazon for only 99 cents by clicking here - see a local listing for this here

Buy: And the Word was a god: A New Book on the Most Disputed Text in the New Testament - John 1:1  and The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and both are only 99 cents

See also Unitarianism & Universalism - 100 Books on DVDrom and Over 200 PDF Books on the Christology & Deity of Christ on DVDrom

The Reorganized Latter Day Saints on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, later renamed Community of Christ, was organized by Joseph Smith III on this day in 1860. Joseph Smith III was the eldest son of the LDS founder and "Prophet" Joseph Smith. The RLDS is the second largest Mormon movement. There are actually quite a few Mormon offshoot groups, in fact, there have been over 100 Mormon splinter groups, despite the LDS Church's claims of "unity." The smallest Mormon group I could find were the Cutlerites, with 12 members. I suspect that there are a large number of Adventist groups as well. The Catholic Church presently has splinter groups as well, many who reject the liberalism of the modern church. Of course, when you think about it, the Catholic Church was the one sect with the most offshoots, thanks to the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity counts 45,000 denominations around the world, with an average of 2.4 new ones forming every day.

See also Over 300 Books on Mormons (Latter Day Saints) on DVDrom (Joseph Smith etc)

See also: The Sex-Determinant in Mormon Theology by Theodore Schroeder 1908

Tyrant-Maker Thomas Hobbes on This Day in History

This Day in History: English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born on this day in 1588. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. In this book he postulated that a world without a strong government would be one of chaos and violence, so people need to give up many of their freedoms in order to prop up a powerful State that would protect them. 

"Hobbes labeled the State as Leviathan, 'our mortal God.' Leviathan signifies a government whose power is unbounded, with a right to dictate almost anything and everything to the people under its sway. Hobbes declared that it was forever prohibited for subjects in 'any way to speak evil of their sovereign' regardless of how badly power was abused. Hobbes proclaimed that 'there can happen no breach of Covenant on the part of the Sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by any pretense of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection.' Hobbes championed absolute impunity for rulers: 'No man that hath sovereign power can justly be put to death, or otherwise in any manner by his subjects punished.' Hobbes offered what might be called suicide pact sovereignty: to recognize a government’s existence is to automatically concede the government’s right to destroy everything in its domain."~James Bovard

David Hume wrote that “Hobbes’s politics were fitted only to promote tyranny.” Voltaire condemned Hobbes for making “no distinction between kingship and tyranny … With him force is everything.” Jean Jacques Rousseau condemned Hobbes for viewing humans as “herds of cattle, each of which has a master, who looks after it in order to devour it.”

“The theory of Hobbes is a theory of unadulterated despotism, or it is nothing.”~Charles Tarlton. Tarlton also wrote: "Hobbes was fond of posing the stark alternatives of unlimited authority and the state of nature, to frighten us back into our chains. But if authority is necessarily as he described it, then maybe anarchy (and) disorganization ... are really no worse." ("The despotical doctrine of Hobbes", p. 89)

Leviathan, with its politics and its views on religion led to its being banned, and even burned at Oxford University.

See also: The History of the Social Contract by Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave 1899

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About That Social Contract I Never Signed....