This day in history: Edmund Ironside, King of England, was stabbed while sitting on the toilet, by an assassin hiding underneath on this day in 1016.
Sitting on the toilet leaves one vulnerable, so it makes sense that in the past, some have used this private time to kill the inhabitants of "the throne." One of the first of such assassinations is recorded in the Bible at Judges chapter 3 when Ehud kills King Eglon while he was sitting on the chamber.*
On November 4 1035, Jaromír, Duke of Bohemia, was stabbed with a spear from under a toilet seat while defecating.
Godfrey the Hunchback, Duke of Lower Lorraine (an area roughly coinciding with the Netherlands and Belgium) was murdered in 1069 when staying in the Dutch city of Vlaardingen. Supposedly, the assassin made sure which of the latrines, which were built and drained on the outer side of the wall, according to medieval building style, belonged to the duke's sleeping room, and took a position underneath. Some sources say that a sword was used for the assassination; others mention a sharp iron weapon, which could have been a sword but also a spear or a dagger, but a spear seems to be the most practical choice. After being stabbed in the bottom it took him several days to die. The assassination was ordered by Dirk V Count of Holland and his ally Robrecht the Frisian, Count of Flanders.
Godfrey IV, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was assassinated by a spear in Vlaardingen (Netherlands) while "answering the call of nature" in 1076.
On August 4, 1306, Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, was murdered with a spear while sitting in the garderobe (castle toilet). His assassin was never identified.
Japanese ruler Uesugi Kenshin was allegedly assassinated while using a toilet in 1578.
Historian Ioan P. Culianu was shot dead while on the toilet in the third-floor men's room of Swift Hall on the campus of the University of Chicago on 21 May 1991, in a possibly politically-motivated assassination. His killer has never been caught.
*The Hebrew for the location of the private meeting is ba-aliyat ha-meqerah, translated as cooling roof chamber, which was likely a bathroom given that the servants believed Eglon was relieving himself (v24). Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you", drew his sword, and stabbed the king in his abdomen. The Hebrew word for abdomen (beten), is the same word that is used for the womb of a woman. After Ehud stabbed the king, the end of Judges 3:22 reads in Hebrew wa-yese ha-paršedonah usually translated as “and the dirt came out,” a phrase of uncertain meaning as it is only used once in the Hebrew Bible. “Dirt” could be translated as feces.
Today in history: C.S. Lewis was born on this day in 1898.
David V. Urban writes:
Most of us are familiar with C. S. Lewis and his enduringly popular Chronicles of Narnia, his Space Trilogy, his various works of Christian apologetics such as Mere Christianity, and his natural law classic, The Abolition of Man. But only a small fraction of Lewis' readers are aware that Lewis, for all his personal distaste for politics, fits soundly within the classical liberal and libertarian tradition of limited government and individual freedom. Lewis' libertarian views spring from his distrust in human nature.
Thankfully, in the past decade, several scholars have produced works that highlight Lewis' libertarian views. Two of the most helpful discussions of Lewis' libertarianism are offered by David J. Theroux, C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism and Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson's C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law. My own discussion draws significantly from both these sources. Distrust of Human Nature First, we must recognize that Lewis' libertarian views spring from his distrust in human nature, a distrust grounded firmly in Lewis' Christian belief system. This is specifically true regarding the doctrine of humanity's fall and enduring sinfulness. Lewis begins his Spectator essay Equalityby pronouncing, "I am a Democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man."He specifically contrasts his philosophical motivations for democracy (as opposed to monarchy) with "people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government." Rather, Lewis argues, "The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters." Lewis believed that since humanity was corrupted by sin, it was a grave mistake to consolidate too much power into one person.
Significantly, Lewis explicitly includes himself among the unworthy would-be rulers. He writes, "I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-house, much less a nation." Lewis also believed that fallen human nature could undermine democracy. In Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Lewis specifically cautions against democracy's tendency to foster envy and punish individual achievement. Lewis Compared to Madison and Bastiat Lewis believed that because humanity was corrupted by sin, it was a grave mistake to consolidate too much power into one person or a small group. In this sense, Lewis' concerns resemble those which motivated James Madison in Federalist 51 to argue for the separation of governments and powers. Because of "human nature," writes Madison, men are not "angels," and therefore "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Similarly, Lewis' understanding of how corrupted human nature necessarily corrupts government leaders resembles that of Frédéric Bastiat, who writes in The Law:
If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
The Natural Law Tradition Lewis' firm belief in human moral imperfection was a central aspect of his overall adherence to the natural law tradition, which holds that human conduct should be based on a set of unchanging moral principles. Lewis' own writings display a belief in limited government and a distrust of government-enforced morality.
As Dyer and Watson observe and as Lewis' English Literature of the Sixteenth Century demonstrates, one great natural law influence of Lewis was the Anglican clergyman Richard Hooker. But Dyer and Watson also stress Lewis' indebtedness to John Locke, whose classical liberalism stood in contrast to Thomas Hobbes' "statist solution" for resolving civil strife. Dyer and Watson wrote that "Locke's project was to limit government to the protection of individual natural rights." They note that "Locke explicitly tied" this belief to Hooker's natural law teachings even as they observe that Locke, unlike many in the classical natural law tradition, deemphasized "government's perfecting role." Against Theocracy and Technocracy Reflecting Locke's influence, Lewis' own writings display a belief in limited government and a distrust of government-enforced morality, a distrust again grounded in Lewis’ convictions regarding fallen humanity. In particular, Lewis was distrustful of theocracy and its abuses wrought by sanctimonious self-justifications. In his posthumously discovered "A Reply to Professor Haldane," Lewis writes:
I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence, theocracy is the worst of all governments . . . the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voices of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.
But Lewis' fear of theocracy was exceeded by his fear of a moralistic scientific technocracy, a system Lewis believed a much greater threat to his day and age. In his 1959 letter to Chicago newspaperman Dan Tucker, Lewis writes:
I dread government in the name of science. That is how most tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They "cash in." It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science.
In both these pieces, Lewis makes clear his concerns that a ruling elite will try to exert power over the populace as a whole by using the pretense of superior knowledge and moral, supernatural, and/or scientific authority.
Not surprisingly, Lewis also articulates such apprehensions in his writings published during World War II, a period that saw significant expansion of government power throughout Europe and America. In The Abolition of Man, Lewis highlights his concerns about the machinations of seemingly benevolent but ultimately totalitarian scientific bureaucracy that would seek to make obsolete church, family, and virtuous self-government. And in the final book of his Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, Lewis depicts a group of intellectual elites who attempt to use science to supplant the natural order. Lewis' larger concern was to decry state intrusion upon matters of personal morality. State-Enforced Morality Buckley and Watson also highlight how Lewis' beliefs regarding state enforcement of morality resemble the classical liberal convictions of John Stuart Mill and his harm principle, articulated in On Liberty, that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." For Lewis, the harm principle manifests itself specifically regarding the controversial topics of divorce and homosexuality. For, despite Lewis' beliefs regarding both matters, he did not think the state should render either divorce or homosexual practice illegal. Rather, Lewis' larger concern was to decry state intrusion upon matters of personal morality. In a 1958 letter, Lewis writes:
No sin, simply as such should be made a crime. Who the deuce are our rulers to enforce their opinion of sin on us? . . . Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place." In an earlier letter addressing homosexuality--which was not decriminalized in the UK until 1967--Lewis writes that criminalizing homosexual practice helps "nothing" and "only creates a blackmailer's paradise. Anyway, what business is it of the State's?
Addressing Great Britain's then-severe restrictions against divorce, Lewis in MereChristianity warns Christian voters and members of Parliament against trying "to force their views on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws." Quite simply, Lewis writes, people who are not Christians "cannot be expected to live Christian lives." Addressing marriage in the same paragraph, Lewis advocated for an explicit distinction between church and state. He writes:There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not. In light of Lewis' statements on these matters, certain scholars have speculated that Lewis would stand on the contemporary matter of same-sex marriage. Norman Horn suggests that Lewis would propose an approach to same-sex marriage that would emphasize freedom of association and would reflect the distinction between church and state that he made in Mere Christianity. With this distinction in mind, we may suggest that Lewis' objections regarding same-sex marriage would be more directed toward the practices of Christian churches than state legalization. At the same time, in light of Dyer and Watson's observation that, for Lewis, "The first purpose of limited government is to safeguard the sanctity of the Church," we may also surmise that Lewis would oppose any government mandate that would penalize churches or individual Christians that would refuse to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies. For Lewis, any such mandate would be another manifestation of the state tyrannically enforcing morality and violating its appropriate limits.
David V. Urban is Professor of English at Calvin College. His earlier article on Shakespeare's problematic Henry V appears in Liberty Matters. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
This Day in History: Greg Austin Gingrich fell to his death in the Grand Canyon on this day in 1992. 38-year-old Gingrich was vacationing at the Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona, with his teenage daughter, when he began to play-act losing his balance to frighten her. Gingrich leaped atop a guard wall and began wind-milling his arms in an exaggerated manner, then "comically" fell from the wall on the canyon side onto a short slope where he assumed he would land safely. His daughter, unimpressed with his antics, walked on. Gingrich, however, missed his footing and fell approximately 400 feet into the canyon to his death.
"The Grand Canyon averages 12 deaths each year; Colburn’s death is the park’s 18th so far in 2021. The most common causes of death are from airplane crashes, falls, and dangerous environmental conditions such as overheating or drowning. In total, around 275 people have died from airplane crashes over the Canyon, but 128 of those deaths come from a single tragedy in 1956. Two planes collided midair, which became the deadliest aerial crash in the United States at that time." Source
People often die falling in the Grand Canyon while taking selfies or horsing around or while urinating into the canyon or simply being drunk. Some people fall due to dizziness.
There have been about 91 suicides in the Grand Canyon. Most of these are people jumping off the ledge, but 13 of these suicides happen when someone drives their vehicle off the ledge. "Three of these occurred in one year, 1993. This came on the heels of the film Thelma & Louis...In the movie’s final scene, the two protagonists drive their vehicle off the ledge of the canyon. We know that at least one of the women who died watched that movie over 50 times and was determined to recreate the event. Her name was Patricia Astolfo, and she drove her suburban off the ledge. However, it got high centered on a rock, preventing her from falling into the canyon. So she got out of her vehicle, walked to the ledge, and jumped. Only she landed on another ledge 15 feet below. Injured, she crawled to another ledge and jumped. Only she landed on another ledge 25 feet below. Still determined, she crawled to another ledge and fell, this time falling a fatal 75 feet." Source
One man actually leaped out of a helicopter while on an aerial tour of the canyon. He fell 4000 feet to his death.
This day in history: Alexander 'Sasha' Chechik sent his friend a photo of a grenade with a pin pulled out while chatting on the Russian social media service VK on this day in 2017. He died shortly after sending the photo as the grenade in his hand exploded. Police ruled the incident as an accident instead of a suicide.
Also, "two Russian soldiers in the Urals region west of Siberia were posing for a selfie with a live grenade. The handheld explosive detonated unexpectedly and, going off in their faces. Only the phone with the photo survived. Russia in particular has seen an alarming number of selfie-related deaths, becoming such a problem that the government launched a safety campaign, urging people to use caution while taking selfies." Source
A 2018 study of news reports showed that there were 259 selfie deaths in 137 incidents reported globally between October 2011 and November 2017, with the highest occurrences in India, followed by Russia, United States, and Pakistan. The mean age was 23 years old, with male deaths outnumbering female about three to one.
One such incident happened in North Carolina in April 2014 when a 32-year-old woman from North Carolina was driving and veered her vehicle across the center median. Her vehicle collided with a recycling truck, left the road, hit a tree, and burst into flames – moments after posting selfies online when she heard Pharrell Williams' song "Happy".
On January 21 2015, a man in Kalama, Washington, stepped out onto a railroad track to take a selfie with himself and a woman with a passing train in the background. The man misjudged which track the oncoming train was on and was struck and died at the scene.
On March 2015, Seven youths drowned while taking selfies on Mangrul Lake near Kuhi, about 12 miles from Nagpur, India. Their boat had tipped over as they were standing up to pose.
In 2015, a man was fatally struck by lightning at Brecon Beacons (UK) supposedly due to the selfie stick he had attracting the bolt.
On August 9, 2015, a man was gored to death in the annual bull-running festival in the town of Villaseca de la Sagra while trying to take a selfie with a bull.
On January 8, 2018, in Zagreb, Croatia, a 14-year-old boy climbed onto the roof of a train cargo wagon where he wanted to take a selfie. He was electrocuted and his body "burned like a torch." Firefighters were unable to take action until the train's power was turned off.
On July 25, 2017, a 30-year-old man sneaked into the Bannerghatta Biological Park near Bangalore, India, with friends to take selfies with an elephant that later trampled him to death.
On June 29, 2016, a 51-year-old German tourist visiting Machu Picchu in Peru, fell 130 feet to his death after he lost his footing while leaping into the air for a "flying selfie".
In 2016, a Chinese businessman, at a local wildlife park in the city of Rongcheng, Shandong province, was drowned by a walrus after taking several selfies and videos with the animal. A zookeeper was also drowned in the same incident after attempting to save the man.
This day in history: Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3000 years on this day in 1922. This incident had received worldwide press coverage. With over 5,000 artifacts, it sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's mask, now in the Egyptian Museum, remains a popular symbol. He has, since the discovery of his intact tomb, been referred to colloquially as "King Tut".
It is claimed that many have died following this discovery in what many believe is the "Curse of the Pharaohs." The curse of the pharaohs or the mummy's curse is a curse alleged to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, is claimed to cause bad luck, illness, or death.
For instance, Lord Carnarvon, who financed the excavation of King Tut's tomb was the first to succumb to the Mummy's curse. Lord Carnarvon accidentally tore open a mosquito bite while shaving and ended up dying of blood poisoning shortly thereafter.
Lord Carnarvon's half-brother Aubrey Herbert died of sepsis a few months after Carnarvon did.
A friend of Carnarvon, American Egyptologist Aaron Ember, died when his house in Baltimore burned down in 1926. Ember could have survived, but he went to fetch a manuscript he was working on: The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Howard Carter gave his friend (Sir Bruce Ingham) a mummified hand as a gift. Ingham's house burned down, and the house was also hit with a flood when he tried to rebuild it.
American financier George Jay Gould visited the tomb and fell sick afterward. He died of a pneumonia a few months later.
British archaeologist Hugh Evelyn-White who may have helped on the dig committed suicide, but not before writing, "I have succumbed to a curse which forces me to disappear"...IN HIS OWN BLOOD.
Lord Carnarvon's secretary Richard Bethel was found smothered in his room at an elite London gentlemen's club in 1929.
Radiologist Sir Archibald D. Reid x-rayed King Tut, but fell sick almost immediately and died three days later.
A member of Howard Carter's team, Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, died after a subsequent trip to Egypt in 1935. His canary had been eaten by a cobra on the earlier trip, which was believed to be an omen.
Skeptics have pointed out that many others who visited the tomb or helped to discover it lived long and healthy lives.
Today in History: The original man of steel, Andrew Carnegie, was born on this day in 1835. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He did this, not by gouging and screwing his customers, but by making his product more easily accessible. For instance, Carnegie almost single-handedly reduced the price of steel rails from $160 per ton in 1875 to $17 per ton nearly a quarter century later.
Andrew Carnegie had an interesting philosophy when it came to wealth. "Carnegie spoke of the millionaire’s duty to live a 'modest' lifestyle, shunning extravagant living and administering his wealth for the benefit of the community. To do otherwise, he warned, would encourage an age of envy and invite socialistic legislation attacking the rich through progressive taxation and other onerous anti-business regulations. Carnegie practiced what he preached, giving away over $350 million in his lifetime. One of his first acts after U.S. Steel went public was to put $5 million into a pension and benefit plan for his workers...he spent millions building 2,811 public libraries, donating 7,689 organs to churches, and establishing Carnegie Hall in New York and the Carnegie Institution in Washington. He financed technical training at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and established a pension fund for teachers through the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching." Mark Skousen
Carnegie's dictum was (1) To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can. (2) To spend the next third making all the money one can. (3) To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes.
According to therichest.com, Andrew Carnegie's wealth, when adjusted to today's dollars, was the equivalent of $372 billion. This would make him richer than Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates combined.
This day in history: Charles Darwin's controversial classic On the Origin of the Species was published, after much hesitation, on this day in 1859.
While Origin of the Species is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology, it is not the first work to dabble in this area. Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology.
Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin outlined a hypothesis of transmutation of species in the 1790s, and French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck published a more developed theory in 1809. Both envisaged that spontaneous generation produced simple forms of life that progressively developed greater complexity, adapting to the environment by inheriting changes in adults caused by use or disuse. This process was later called Lamarckism.
Around this time Georges Cuvier published his findings on the differences between living elephants and those found in the fossil record.
From 1830 to 1833, geologist Charles Lyell published his multi-volume work Principles of Geology, where he looked at evolution from the perspective of geology.
Alfred Russel Wallace famously conceived of his idea of natural selection at the same time as Darwin. Charles Lyell knew about Wallace's work and urged Darwin to publish his work on the subject to establish priority.
Darwin's book still remains one of the most influential books of all time. Spectator.org puts The Origin of the Species at number 3, behind the Bible and the Koran.
This book, and many others on the topic are freely available online:
Download/read: Michael Dowd's Thank God For Evolution! How The Marriage Of Science And Religion Will Transform Your Life And Our World https://tinyurl.com/u8pdagg
Today in History: Today is Fibonacci Day. A Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where a number is the sum of the two numbers before it. For example: 1, 1, 2, 3...is a Fibonacci sequence. Here, 2 is the sum of the two numbers before it (1+1). Similarly, 3 is the sum of the two numbers before it (1+2). November 23 is celebrated as Fibonacci day because when the date is written in the mm/dd format (11/23), the digits in the date form a Fibonacci sequence: 1,1,2,3. https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/fun/fibonacci-day
Fibonacci, also known as Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Bigollo Pisano ('Leonardo the Traveller from Pisa'), was an Italian mathematician from the Republic of Pisa, considered to be "the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages".
Fibonacci popularized the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in the Western world primarily through his composition in 1202 of Liber Abaci (Book of Calculation).He also introduced Europe to the sequence of Fibonacci numbers, which he used as an example in Liber Abaci. Liber Abaci posed and solved a problem involving the growth of a population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions. The solution, generation by generation, was a sequence of numbers later known as Fibonacci numbers.
The Fibonacci sequence pops up in everything from nature to music to computer science to the stock market.
Mozart used the Fibonacci in his Sonata 279. In fact, he wrote the mathematical equations in the margins in the sheet music.
You can also use the Fibonacci numbers to do conversion. "Fibonacci numbers can be used to approximately convert from miles to kilometers and back. Here is how. Take two consecutive Fibonacci numbers, for example 5 and 8. And you're done converting. No kidding – there are 8 kilometers in 5 miles. To convert back just read the result from the other end – there are 5 miles in 8 km! Another example. Let's take two consecutive Fibonacci numbers 21 and 34. What this tells us is that there are approximately 34 km in 21 miles and vice versa." Source
I came across this interesting comment on Youtube:
- I was noticing a while back that 144 is the 12th # in the sequence...
- 12 is also its root
- &if you take 144's mirror-441, it's root is 21, the mirror of 12 who's square is 144
- same thing with 13 (13x13=169 31x31=961)
(I haven't bothered to check how many more numbers might do that but I notice that not all do, so that' is kind of interesting but I don't know if its profound or significant) or if I should see it as pointing toward something else.
Also, this could be meaningless or just coincidence... but I was also recalling how I read that the Mayan's use 144,000 (144,000 days in a Baktun) and also 144,000 is used in the Christian Bible too. Maybe someone has some thoughts on this too.
Also, the divine number is neat in the way in which if you square 1.618 [Golden Ratio] it will be roughly the same as if you added 1.0 to it. Kind of weird."
This Day in History: Toy Story was released on this day in 1995 as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
Toy Story had a large impact on the film industry with its innovative computer animation. After the film's debut, various industries were interested in the technology used for the film. Graphics chip makers desired to compute imagery similar to the film's animation for personal computers; game developers wanted to learn how to replicate the animation for video games; and robotics researchers were interested in building artificial intelligence into their machines that compared to the film's lifelike characters. Various authors have also compared the film to an interpretation of Don Quixote as well as humanism. In addition, Toy Story left an impact with its catchphrase "To Infinity and Beyond", sequels, and software, among others. In 2005 (10 years after its theatrical release), the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress, one of only six films to be selected in its first year of eligibility.
Back in 2008 Empire Magazine compiled their list of the Greatest Movie Characters ever. Buzz Lightyear, and WALL•E were two of only three animated characters in the list (the other being Jessica Rabbit). The new Empire Magazine list no longer has Buzz, Wall-e nor Jessica Rabbit on the list. However, Woody is now on the list at number 82. Edna Mode from The Incredibles is on the list at number 100. The Minions are at number 96.
The famous song, 'You've Got a Friend In Me', which is heard again in later films, only took song writer Randy Newman a day to write.
"Tim Allen has said in many interviews that Pixar originally wanted Jim Carrey to voice Buzz Lightyear and Paul Newman to voice Woody, but they couldn’t due to the low budget they were given for the film. Those casting choices were meant to represent how new Hollywood was taking over old Hollywood, Newman representing old Hollywood, Carrey representing new Hollywood." Source
Bo Peep in the movie was a reference to the fairy tale “The Shepherdess and The Sweep” (1849) Hans Christian Andersen. His story was also about toys coming to life when no one is looking.
This Day in History: On this day (November 21) in 2016, a sudden powerful wind in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the death of 10 asthmatic people who succumbed to respiratory failure. This was due to a stark 37 mph wind that distributed ryegrass pollen into the moist air, rupturing them into very fine specks, particles small enough to enter people's lungs.
This anomaly may not be the strangest weather event in history. Like something straight out of Charles Fort's "Book of the Damned" there have been throughout history instances of raining fish and frogs. In the first century AD, Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder documented storms of frogs and fish. In 1794, French soldiers saw toads fall from the sky during heavy rain at Lalain, near the French city of Lille. Rural inhabitants in Yoro, Honduras claim 'fish rain' happens there every summer, a phenomenon they call Lluvia de Peces.
On March 3, 1876, a meat shower occurred in Bath County, Kentucky, where what appeared to be chunks of red meat measuring approximately 2 by 2 inches fell from the sky.
In June 1874, an estimated 12 trillion locusts devasted the American Great Plains. Laura Ingalls-Wilder (Little House on the Prairie) wrote of the aftermath: “The whole prairie was changed. The grasses did not wave; they had fallen in ridges. The rising sun made all the prairie rough with shadows where the tall grasses had sunk against each other. The willow trees were bare. In the plum thickets, only a few plumpits hung to the leafless branches. The nipping, clicking, gnawing sound of the grasshoppers’ eating was still going on.”
In 1815, Indonesia went without a summer, thanks to the eruption of Mount Tambora. This also affected Europe, and the dark summer had a role in inspiring Mary Shelley’s famous horror classic, Frankenstein.
On January 6, 1839, a massive winter storm descended on Ireland and devasted Dublin. "A quarter of Dublin's buildings were damaged, and it was described as a "sacked city." Fires spread across County Longford, with winds picking up fires and dropping them from the sky over the rest of the countryside. Fields were stripped, and hundreds of thousands of trees fell. Tales say that water and fish were picked up and hurled miles across the countryside, that salt from the ocean doused fields in the center of the country." Source
On Black Monday in 1360 (Easter Monday) during the Hundred Years' War (1337–60), a freak hail storm struck and killed an estimated 1,000 English soldiers. The storm was so devastating that it caused more English casualties than any of the previous battles of the war.
On June 15, 1960, in what came to be called "Satan's Storm," a surge of heat encompassed parts of central Texas and temperatures rose to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Parents at the time wrapped their children in wet towels and bed sheets, and many there thought this was the end of the world.
In the late summer of 2001, southern India experienced rain that was blood red in color.
On January 2017 it snowed...in the Sahara Desert.
Then there is the case of Roy Sullivan, a man who holds the Guinness World Record for surviving seven different lightning strikes. He was struck on April 1942, July 1969, July 1970, spring 1972, August 1972, June 1976 and June 1977. Sullivan was a United States park ranger in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.
Today in History: Arthur Conan Doyle first Sherlock Holmes's story "A Study in Scarlet" was accepted by a publisher (Ward and Lock) on this day in 1886. The name comes from Holmes' words: "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."
The story did come under attack because of its portrayal or Mormons (Latter Day Saints). According to a Salt Lake City newspaper article, when Conan Doyle was asked about his depiction of the Latter-day Saints' organization as being steeped in kidnapping, murder and enslavement, he said: 'all I said about the Danite Band and the murders is historical so I cannot withdraw that, though it is likely that in a work of fiction it is stated more luridly than in a work of history. It's best to let the matter rest'. Conan Doyle's daughter has stated: 'You know, father would be the first to admit that his first Sherlock Holmes novel was full of errors about the Mormons.' Historians speculate that Conan Doyle, a voracious reader, would have access to books by Fannie Stenhouse, William A. Hickman, William Jarman, John Hyde and Ann Eliza Young, among others,' in explaining the author's early perspective on Mormonism.
Years after Conan Doyle's death, Levi Edgar Young, a descendant of Brigham Young and a Mormon general authority, claimed that Conan Doyle had privately apologized, saying that 'He [Conan Doyle] said he had been misled by writings of the time about the Church' and had 'written a scurrilous book about the Mormons.'
In August 2011, the Albemarle County, Virginia, School Board removed A Study in Scarlet from the district's sixth-grade required reading list following complaints from students and parents that the book was derogatory toward Mormons. It was moved to the reading lists for the tenth-graders, and remains in use in the school media centres for all grades. Wikipedia
Later in his career, Conan Doyle apologized to the Mormons for his depiction of their religion. During a 1923 tour of the United States, Doyle was invited to speak at the LDS Church's Salt Lake Tabernacle; while some individual Mormons remained deeply upset over the negative depiction, in general the Mormons present received him warmly.
Another Victorian novel that included the Latter Day Saints was Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) by Jules Verne. That book references a "Mormon Elder" who launches into a diatribe about his religion in a rail car where passenger Passepartout becomes a captive audience. Verne follows the 19th-century propensity to view polygamy as central to Mormonism, going so far as to call it, "the sole basis of the religion."
This day in history: The Ford Edsel was cancelled by Ford on this day in 1959. The Edsel, when it was first released almost three years earlier was an immediate ugly disappointment. The car was poorly put together. Many Edsels actually left the assembly lines unfinished. Uninstalled parts were placed in the trunks along with installation instructions for dealership mechanics, some of whom never installed the additional parts at all. Some dealers did not even receive all the parts.
The Edsel's unique "horsecollar" grille has been frequently ridiculed for resembling a toilet seat and female genitalia. Famous sarcastic descriptions of the Edsel and its famous grille include that it looked like "a Mercury pushing a toilet seat" or "an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon".
After 3 years the Edsel was discontinued and the company lost $350 million on them.
Ford had other disappointments as well, such as the Ford Pinto, the 1974–78 Ford Mustang II (which Edmunds.com ranked as the 2nd worst car of all time, describing it as "instantly appalling to Mustang lovers") and the 1990-92 Ford Escort MK V (European version).
According to Edmunds.com the Edsel is number 7 on the 100 worst cars of all time list. The other 9 worst cars in the top 10 list are:
(1) 2001 Pontiac Aztek - a car that killed Pontiac.
(2) 1974 Ford Mustang II
(3) 1955 BMW Isetta
(4) 1987 Yugo (Communist Car)
(5) 1971 Chevy Vega
(6) 2003 Saturn Ion
(8) 1982 Cadillac Cimarron
(9) 1957 Trabant (another Communist Car)
(10) 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Diesel
The Street has the 1989 Eagle Premier as the worst car of all time.
Today in History: In Jonestown, Guyana, the Reverend Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.
This made me wonder what kind of "Reverend" Jim Jones was. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline Jones admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." He had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" In one sermon, Jones said:
"You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"*
A Former Temple member quoted him as saying:
"What you need to believe in is what you can see.… If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.… If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
One woman exclaimed, “It’s been a pleasure walking with all of you in this revolutionary struggle. No other way I would rather go than to give my life for Socialism, Communism, and I thank Dad very, very much.”
Jones also began preached that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi, Father Divine, Jesus, Gautama Buddha, and Vladimir Lenin, and stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."
Over 40 years ago this could be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic. I can actually see many repeat that last statement today and fervently believe it.
Jonestown is another example of the myriads of failed Socialist experiments over the centuries. Socialism, whatever form it has taken, has never worked.
*[The Serpent in the Garden of Eden said, in effect, "You don’t have to wait; you can have it now! Be your own god, and write your own rules."]
Quotes on Socialism:
"Socialism not only fails to work in reality, it is also malicious in its ethics and morality—even if most of its current adherents believe themselves humane and well-intentioned. At its core, socialism is a difficult and costly system of political economy that the specific conceptions of its moral values do not justify.” - James Otterson in "How Socialism Fails", University Press
“The problem with capitalism is capitalists. The problem with socialism is socialism.”—Willi Schlamm, Austrian ex-socialist
“A government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And [America’s Founding Fathers] knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.” -Ronald Reagan
"Someone once said that if an acquaintance says they believe in Astrology that their respect of that person is severely reduced. I feel the same way of someone who says they believe in Socialism." Heinz Schmitz
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." -Winston Churchill
"Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution." -Ben Shapiro
"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." -Thomas Sowell
"As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents." George Orwell
"I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature." – Sidney Hook
"The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can’t tolerate a libertarian community." – David D. Boaz
"War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results." – Joseph Sobran
"Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless." – Kenneth Baker
"It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses." – Winston Churchill
"All socialism involves slavery." – Herbert Spencer
"Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune." – Milton Friedman
"There seems to be an attitude that government ownership of land is good as long as you call it 'open space'" … All it is is socialism. – Douglas Bruce
"Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by production." – Ayn Rand
"The essential notion of a capitalist society … is voluntary cooperation, voluntary exchange. The essential notion of a socialist society is force." – Milton Friedman
"Government-to-government foreign aid promotes statism, centralized planning, socialism, dependence, pauperization, inefficiency, and waste. It prolongs the poverty it is designed to cure. Voluntary private investment in private enterprise, on the other hand, promotes capitalism, production, independence, and self-reliance." – Henry Hazlit
"A traffic jam is a collision between free enterprise and socialism. Free enterprise produces automobiles faster than socialism can build roads and road capacity." – Andrew Galambos
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." – Norman Thomas
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all." – Frederic Bastiat
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism — by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." – Ayn Rand
"Democracy is indispensable to Socialism." – V.I. Lenin
"Since we are socialists, we must necessarily also be antisemites because we want to fight against the very opposite: materialism and mammonism… How can you not be an antisemite, being a socialist!". Hitler
"The Nazis, who touted their socialism proudly and implemented socialist policies with great consistency, were now being referred to as capitalists for no reason other than they did not fit cleanly into the Soviet-Marxist worldview, and this false narrative survives today." -Chris Calton
"The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator." -John T. Flynn
"Democracy is the road to Socialism." – Karl Marx
“Socialism is workable only in heaven where it isn't needed, and in hell where they've got it” -Cecil Palmer quotes
"An inevitable consequence of socialism is the division of society into two groups: those who are consuming government “services” and those who are paying for them." – Lee Robinson
"Socialists like to tout their confiscation and redistribution schemes as noble and caring, but we should ask if theft is ever noble or caring." – Robert Hawes
"Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true." – Anonymous
"The fatal flaw in socialism is twofold: first, the conceit inherent in the desire to plan the lives of others; second, the force necessary to impose that plan on unwilling subjects. This is not a formula for freedom but for tyranny." – Jim Peron
"We cannot restore traditional American freedom unless we limit the government’s power to tax. No tinkering with this, that, or the other law will stop the trend toward socialism. We must repeal the Sixteenth Amendment." – Frank Chodorov
"Public schools are government-established, politician- and bureaucrat-controlled, fully politicized, taxpayer-supported, authoritarian socialist institutions. In fact, the public-school system is one of the purest examples of socialism existing in America." – Thomas L. Johnson
“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion” -Richard John Neuhaus
"Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word “justice” into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play." -Nietzsche
"But, as an universal condition of Society, as a panacea for present evils, as the hope of the proletariat, Socialism, in its complete conception, is an absolute and a hideous impossibility." http://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/05/socialism-absolute-and-hideous.html
“Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades” -Gary North
“Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English” -George Bernard Shaw
“For socialists, not just the wealth, but the guilt, must be redistributed” -Andrew Sandlin
“A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.” -David Lloyd George
“There can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state.” -Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! And with my inclination to practical action it seems obvious to me that we have to put a better, more just, more moral system in its place, one which, as it were, has arms and legs and better arms and legs than the present one!" by Nazi Gregor Strasser
Six Miracles of Socialism:
There is no unemployment, but no one works. No one works, but everyone gets paid. Everyone gets paid, but there is nothing to buy with the money. No one can buy anything, but everyone owns everything. Everyone owns everything, but no one is satisfied. No one is satisfied, but 99 percent of the people vote for the system. – Anonymous
