Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated

1823 – Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico. Clearly, Mexico would have benefited from tighter immigration controls.

1834 – The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City. This disturbs many Texans.

1919 – At the Paris Peace Conference, Emir Faisal of Iraq signs an agreement with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann on the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.

1921 – Turkey makes peace with Armenia after killing more than a million Armenians in something that has yet to be called a genocide. Turkey is Muslim. the Armenians were Christian. got any clues?

1924 – English explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt, providing fodder for a great Steve Martin bit.




1925 – Benito Mussolini announces he is taking dictatorial powers over Italy. Twenty years later they’ll be hanging his naked carcass from a lamp-post. This is a suitable finish for many politicians.

1957 – The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch. The extension cords turned out to be troublesome.

1959 – Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. State.

1961 – The SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, leaks radiation, killing three workers. These are the ONLY nuclear reactor fatalities in the US.

1977 – Apple Computer is incorporated. Two guys working out of a garage, neither of whom was a college graduate.

1492 – Reconquista: the emirate of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, surrenders.

1890 – Record 19′ 2″ alligator shot in Louisiana by E. A. McIlhenny. He’s the son of the McIlhenny that brought Tabasco pepper sauce to the world.

1905 – Russo-Japanese War: The Russian garrison surrenders at Port Arthur, China. The Japanese mis-read the reasons for this event and get cocky. In forty years their perspective will be corrected.

1974 – President Richard Nixon signs a bill lowering the maximum U.S. speed limit to 55 MPH in order to conserve gasoline during an OPEC embargo. It is used as a form of revenue enhancement nationwide and develops a nation full of scoff-laws.

1999 – A brutal snowstorm smashes into the Midwestern United States, causing 14 inches (359 mm) of snow in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 19 inches (487 mm) in Chicago, where temperatures plunge to -13°F (-25°C); 68 deaths are reported. Da*n global warming!

1773 – The hymn that became known as “Amazing Grace“, then titled “1 Chronicles 17:16–17″ is first used to accompany a sermon led by John Newton in the town of Olney, England.

1804 – French rule ends in Haiti. Haiti becomes the first black republic and second independent country in North America after the United States. Right now they’re so ‘independent’ that if outside aid stopped, they’d descend into disease, death and anarchy in a matter of months.

1880 – Ferdinand de Lesseps begins French construction of the Panama Canal. And like so many things in the 20th Century, some thing the French start, the Americans come behind and finish.

1908 – For the first time, a ball is dropped in New York, New York’s Times Square to signify the start of the New Year at midnight.

1934 – Nazi Germany passes the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring“. this didn’t make it into ObamaCare because it would deprive the Left of a major source of dimmocrat votes.

1959 – Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro’s forces during the Cuban Revolution. Cuba, freed of the oppression of Batista, goes on to become a beacon of fairness and opportunity in the Western Hemisphere.

1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet, Al Gore curiously absent.

1999 – The Euro currency is introduced in 11 countries – members of the European Union (with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden). I wonder how much longer it will last.