What an awesome day

As promised, I will not go into minute details of my personal life in this blog. I will not even go into some of the bigger details. But this post will reveal a little piece of information about me. I'm sure you're quivering with anticipation.

I really like the idea of focusing on "Today In History". So I think I'll keep that up. Of course, I won't make these too long in order to leave ample material for future years. Today in history was not a pretty one.

455 AD, the Vandals entered Rome and plundered the city for two weeks. They also left some very rude graffiti all over the place ("Vandals rule!" "Valentinian III sucks!" "Petronius Maximus sucks!" "Avitus sucks!" "Anybody who has a name that ends in -us sucks!"). There were 3 separate emperors in 455 AD, so it is understandable that the Vandals didn't like any of them.

1692, Bridget Bishop is the first person to stand trial in Salem...yes, the infamous witch trials begin. She is found guilty and hanged on June 10. 290 years later, I was born on the same day she was hanged. What a lovely thing to remember.

How did it take them 8 days to hang her? I thought angry witch-burning mobs acted a little faster. Or perhaps the trial lasted that long?

Possible trial transcript:
Prosecution: She's a witch! Burn her!
Defense: Your honor, I motion for a recess. My client has some business to attend to.
Judge: Recess granted until tomorrow.

The next day...
New prosecution attorney: Your honor, seeing as the last attorney in my position was mysteriously turned into a toad, I would like to scrap the motion to burn the witch.
Defense: We concur with said motion.
Judge: Very well, what would the prosecution like to do with the witch instead?
New prosecution (looking nervously at Bridget who is making toad noises and brandishing a wand): Um, well, maybe...hang her?

Needless to say the prosecution kept losing attorneys until the first one got better and was able to do more on the witness stand than declare, "Ribbit". She was found guilty and sentenced to be burned. However, her defense attorney was incredibly good and managed to get her off with a mere hanging.

Either way, my birthday is now tainted forever. Once upon a time I did some research to see if anybody famous shared my birthday. Yeah, there's a bunch of names, but only one or two that I actually recognize. So now instead of getting to write cool blogs about how my birthday is the same day as George Clooney's, I'm stuck with the dread of writing about the beginning of the Salem Witch trials.

Oh well. Stay tuned and in a little over a week you'll get to see my positive spin on the events history offered for the 10th of June.

Pictures:
Roman graffiti
Bridget Bishop