Show of Hands

viagra ice cream?????

Well...you know the Italians but yes. I think it’s blue.

Licorice was almost always black in the USA when I was a kid. Today, in the USA, one of the last vestiges of black licorice is black jellybeans. The black ones are always licorice flavored.

William McKinley is born in 1843. "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York in 1845, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe. Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress. In 1856, Queen Victoria issues a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognize acts of valor by British military personnel during the Crimean War. Anton Chekhov is born in 1860. Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state in 1861. The Bear River Massacre occurs in 1863, when a detachment of California Volunteers led by Colonel Patrick Edward Connor engage the Shoshone at Bear River, Washington Territory, killing hundreds of Shoshone men,women and children. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. is born in 1874. Custer Battlefield National Monument established in Montana in 1879 (not really sure he deserves a monument but whatever).


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In 1886, Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile. In 1891, Liliuokalani is proclaimed the last monarch and only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The Coca-Cola Company is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia in 1892. Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, unsettled by the rising violence and protest, enacts reforms to improve the conditions of workers in 1905 (yeah....that didn’t help but thanks for trying, I guess). Charles Curtis of Kansas becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator in 1907. An armed uprising organized by the Bolsheviks in anticipation of the encroaching Red Army begins in 1918 at the Kiev Arsenal, which will be put down six days later. The ice cream cone rolling machine patented by Carl Taylor in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924. The British Liberal Party, in 1925, chooses David Lloyd George as its leader. Edward Abbey is born in 1927. The Seeing Eye Guide Dog Organization forms in USA in 1929.


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Three trains on the Nishinari Line; present Sakurajima Line, in Osaka, Japan, collide in 1940 and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi Station. One hundred and eighty-one people are killed (how does this happen? Honestly?!). In 1941, Alexandros Koryzis becomes Prime Minister of Greece upon the sudden death of his predecessor, dictator Ioannis Metaxas. German and Italian troops occupy Benghazi, Libya in 1942. The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, USS Chicago (CA-29) is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers in 1943. Approximately 38 people are killed and about a dozen injured when the Polish village of Koniuchy (present-day Kaniūkai, Lithuania) is attacked in 1944 by Soviet partisan units. Also in 1944, 285 German bombers attack London. Mass murderer, Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Carole Ann Fugate are captured in Wyoming in 1958, after a nationwide manhunt. “The Great Smog” hits London in 1959 and many die lung-related illnesses.


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The "ultimate high" of the hippie era, the Mantra-Rock Dance, takes place in in 1967 in San Francisco and features Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg. Allen Dulles dies in 1969 (man, that guy was evil). Paul Ryan is born in 1970. Freddie Prinz Sr., commits suicide in front of his manager in 1979 (OMG! That’s awful). Also in San Diego in 1979, 16 year old Brenda Spencer opens fire on the Grover Cleveland Elementary School, across from her house, killing the principal and custodian and wounding 8 children and a police officer, because, as she said ‘I don’t like Mondays” (she remains in prison to this day). US President Jimmy Carter, In 1979, commutes Patricia Hearst's 7 year sentence to 2 years (I guess money talks). In 1980, the Rubik's Cube makes its international debut at the Ideal Toy Corp. in Earl's Court, London. The largest NBA crowd ever gathered (61,968) watch the Detroit Pistons beat the Boston Celtics 125-108 at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1988.


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Also in 1989, Hungary establishes diplomatic relations with South Korea, making it the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so. Episcopal Church of the United States, In 1989, appoints Barbara Harris as its first female bishop. The Battle of Khafji, of 1991, the first major ground engagement of the Gulf War, as well as its deadliest, begins. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac announces a "definitive end" to French nuclear weapons testing. In 2001, thousands of student protesters in Indonesia storm parliament and demand that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals. In 2002, in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush describes "regimes that sponsor terror" as an Axis of evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

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Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich is removed from office in 2009, following his conviction of several corruption charges, including the alleged solicitation of personal benefit in exchange for an appointment to the United States Senate as a replacement for then-U.S. president-elect Barack Obama (oddly, one of the people caught in the FBI wiretaps was the current IL governor, JB Pritzker, which I was shocked to learn). In 2013, a hostage crisis, lasting almost seven days, begins in the Wiregrass Region near U.S. Highway 231 in Midland City, Alabama. Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old Vietnam War-era veteran, boarded a Dale County school bus, killed the driver, and took a five-year-old boy hostage. On the afternoon of February 4, law enforcement agents entered the bunker, killed Dykes, and rescued the child. Archaeologists discover the oldest Roman Temple (6th C BC) at Sant’Omobono in 2014.


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Bohuslav Sobotka becomes Prime Minister of the Czech Republic in 2014. Also in 2014, Cristiano Ronaldo becomes the first non-Spanish player to captain Real Madrid, making his 500th appearance for the club. Malaysia officially declares the disappearance of missing flight MH370 an accident (they actually no idea what happened it it). Alexandre Bissonnette opens fire at mosque in Sainte-Foy, Quebec in 2016, killing six and wounding 19 others in a shooting spree (again, let me say that I understand dead is dead, no matter where it happens but there is something so incredibly heinous about killing people in their house of worship, be it, a synagogue, church, temple or mosque). In 2018, F.B.I deputy director Andrew G. McCabe announced he was stepping down until his retirement in 6 weeks. He was then fired 2 days before he could collect his full pension benefits.


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