Larry Klaes wrote:
> >> >
> >> > 1805-Robert Fulton invents the torpedo.
> >> >
> >> > 1807-Robert Fulton invents the steamship so he has
> >> > something to blow up
> >> > with his torpedo.
Actually John Morey invented the steamship ahead of Robert Fulton, which so enraged Fulton that he sank it with his torpedo, to give him enough time to finish his own steamship. The lake where the ship was sunk was named after Morey, Lake Morey in Fairlee, VT.
> >> >
> >> > 1815-Post Office policy is established as Andrew
> >> > Jackson wins the Battle of
> >> > New Orleans a month after he should have received
> >> > the letter telling him
> >> > the War of 1812 is over.
We obviously inherited our early ideas of a postal system from the British, since their Home Office didn't notify the British forces until a month after that.
> >> >
> >> > 1840-William Henry Harrison is elected president in
> >> > a landslide, proving
> >> > that the campaign motto, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"
> >> > is so meaningless that
> >> > very
> >> > few can disagree with it.
> >> >
> >> > 1850-Henry Clay announces, "I'd rather be right than
> >> > president," which gets
> >> > quite a laugh, coming from a guy who has run for
> >> > president five times
> >> > without winning.
I'm surprised Pat Buchanan hasn't adopted that motto.
> >> >
> >> > 1859- Charles Darwin writes "Origin of the Species".
> >> > It has the same
> >> > general plot as "Planet of the Apes", but fails to
> >> > gross as much money.
Yeah, but its animation and special effects sucked too.
> >> >
> >> > 1894-Thomas Edison displays the first motion
> >> > picture, and everybody likes
> >> > it except the movie critics.
Since the movie critics were those who couldn't even make it as book reviewers, and literary critics are renowed for their inability to read, its obvious that the movie critics couldn't read a roadmap or the schedule for the pneumatic subway to get to the theater in time to see anything but the last five minutes..
> >> >
> >> > 1903- The opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway
> >> > enables passengers from
> >> > Moscow to reach Vladivostok in eight days, which is
> >> > a lot sooner than
> >> > most of them want to get there.
Especially since they just sold off the Alaska Territory to those stupid gullible Americans.
> >> >
> >> > 1910- The founding of the Boy Scouts of America
> >> > comes as bad news to old
> >> > ladies who would rather cross the street by
> >> > themselves.
Which is why they all took up driving. Even a boy scout can't help granny see above the dashboard.
> >> >
> >> > 1911-Roald Amundsen discovers the South Pole and
> >> > confirms what he's
> >> > suspected all along: It looks a helluva lot like the
> >> > North Pole!
Yeah, but the product placement opportunities aren't as good.
> >> >
> >> > 1912-People with reservations for the voyage of the
> >> > Titanic get their money
> >> > back.
And promptly make reservations for the Lusitania.
> >> >
> >> > 1920-The 18th Amendment to the Constitution makes
> >> > drinking illegal in
> >> > the U.S. so everyone stops. Except for the 40
> >> > million who don't stop.
But of course the real problem is the lack of adequate gun control laws.
> >> >
> >> > 1924-Hitler is released from prison four years
> >> > early, after convincing the
> >> > parole board that he is a changed man who won't
> >> > cause any more trouble.
Thats right, don't shoot communists in the streets until AFTER you are in charge of the government.
> >> >
> >> > 1928- Herbert Hoover promises "a chicken in every
> >> > pot and a car in every
> >> > garage," but he neglects to add that most Americans
> >> > will soon be without
> >> > pots and garages.
Reminds me of my SEA when I arrived at Cannon AFB, NM (on the high plains),"Boy, theyah is a guhl behin' evrah tree, so iffn you kin fin' a tree, you gottit made."
> >> >
> >> > 1930- Pluto is discovered. Not the dog, stupid; the
> >> > planet. The dog was discovered a lot earlier. {N.B.
> >> > And the guy who
> >> > discovered the planet was from Burdett, KS; there's
> >> > a historical marker
> >> > there which notes the fact.}
To which we are indebted to for a source of innumerable boring SF short stories on helium II based life forms...
> >> >
> >> > 1933- German housewives begin to realize why that
> >> > crazy wallpaper hanger
> >> > with the mustache never came back to finish his
> >> > work.
he discovered that human skin makes excellent vellum wallpaper.
> >> >
> >> > 1933-Hitler establishes the Third Reich, and
> >> > announces that it will last
> >> > for a thousand years. As matters develop, he is only
> >> > 988 years off.
Well, if you take the number of people he killed off, and compare that with the typical annual mortality rate, you will see he squeezed that thousand years in by compressing time.
> >> >
> >> > 1934-John Dillinger is gunned down by police as he
> >> > leaves a Chicago movie
> >> > theater. And just to make the evening a complete
> >> > washout, he didn't
> >> > enjoy the movie either.
Do you think he would have gotten laid that night if his girlfreind haddn't betrayed him?
> >> >
> >> > 1934-As if the Great Depression weren't giving
> >> > businessmen enough
> >> > headaches, Ralph Nader is born.
Thus reversing the class system of respect for the legal profession.
> >> >
> >> > 1938-Great Britain and Germany sign a peace treaty,
> >> > thereby averting all
> >> > possibility of WWII.
And outlawing war for all time too. That was the same year Hitler updated his Reichsgeletsblatt for the final time, to confiscate all guns not in the hands of Nazi Party members or members of the armed forces, making Germany "the safest country in history."
> >> >
> >> > 1944-Hitler's promise of Volkswagens for all Germans
> >> > as soon as they've won
> >> > the war doesn't prove to be as strong an incentive
> >> > as he had hoped.
of course not, who wants to drive a car that is shoddily built by a bunch of repressed minorities? Unsafe at any speed.
> >> >
> >> > 1945-1999 Very boring....US invades Grenada, Panama,
> >> > Iraq, Kosovo,
> >> > ....Microsoft, Monica, Diet Coke, Hula Hoop,
> >> > International House of
> >> > Pancakes, Moonies. Moon Landing, Moon Pies, War on
> >> > Drugs and Sex, Nixon,
> >> > Carter, Johnson, Gerald Somebody, Clinton, Disney
> >> > World, Y2K, then year
> >> > 2000 the world ends, or The Force will save the
> >> > whales.
> >> >
> >> > Question?
> >> > Why is it that all of the instruments seeking
> >> > intelligent life in the universe
> >> > are pointed away from earth?
because all of the other intelligent races who have hominid physiologies, using sound to communicate locally, visible light to see, and use electromagnetic radiation to communicate long distance on their earthlike worlds circling G class yellow dwarf stars have been told by their most intelligent and prominent scholars that the odds are that any other intelligent species will likely be very different from them.
Mike Lorrey