Today In History returns

I know, I know, this has been anticipated for quite a while. I've been waiting because I wanted to make the column that ushered back in the era of "Today In History" really, REALLY fantastic. Today in history is probably one of the most important days ever. Not for the vast numbers of events that took place. Today in history is so huge because of one single event.

On this day, July 24, in 1948, Marvin the Martian made his first appearance to the world.

If there are any readers out there who are unfamiliar with Marvin the Martian, I want you to go stick your hands in boiling tar as punishment. Educate yourselves! It's Marvin!

Ok, take your hands out of the boiling tar and scroll down with your elbows, here are the essentials you should know about Marvin:

Looney Tunes character.
He's from Mars (duh).
His outfit is, well, there's a picture, look for yourself.
One catchphrase: "Where is the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
He's been trying to destroy the Earth for a VERY long time because it obstructs his view of Venus.
His Earth-destroying attempts are always foiled.
He has a martian pistol that fires energy beams and bubbles.
In 2011, we should expect to see a live-action/computer animated film about him.

I know what you're thinking: "Holy cow boiling tar hurts!" I'm sure it does. But you really need to focus on this upcoming movie, because this is a very important issue. Is Marvin going to be part of the live-action half of the movie? Or will he be computer animated?

Personally, I think he should be live-action. And I know just the perfect actor to play him:

Bill Milner.

I know what you're thinking: "My hands still feel like they've been submerged in boiling tar!" That's because they were. But you have a really short attention span. I doubt any of you have heard of Bill Milner. That's ok, don't run, I won't ask you to tar-boil your hands again. You should however, watch the preview for "Son of Rambow". Bill Milner plays the character Will Proudfoot (the kid pretending to be the son of Rambow). Don't you think he'd make a great Marvin? Well, I suppose if you didn't know Marvin, you wouldn't really know who could portray him well. And really it's just a matter of size, because his face is really just a pair of eyes. Although for those of you who thought that since we were just looking for somebody small and they should have a lot of acting experience, I just don't think Gary Coleman would cut it.

By the way, on the subject of actors, if anybody sees Michael Richards today (more popularly known as Kramer, less popularly known as Stanley Spedowski, the Janitor in UHF), wish him a happy birthday from me. The guy just hit 60 years old today. And I might as well mention that Gallagher (the watermelon comedian guy) turned 63 today, and Amelia Earhart turned 112. And if you run into her and wish her a happy birthday, I hope your stay in the Bermuda Triangle is pleasant and goes on without a hitch.

Back to Gary Coleman for a moment (because really, all good conversations get back to him at some point). A lot of you may know that he has a life littered with criminal charges. In 1998 he was charged with assault after he punched a woman. But most people don't know the setting of that story. Let me quote this sentence from Wikipedia directly:

"Coleman had been working as a security guard, and bus driver Tracy Fields requested his autograph while he was shopping for a bulletproof vest in a California mall."

Is that not one of the best sentences you've ever read?

How did Coleman get a job as a security guard? He's 4 feet, 8 inches tall. What security guard company hires regardless of height? I mean, I'm all for equal opportunity, but some people just aren't cut out for certain occupations! And it wouldn't even be a dinky security company where they never see any action because he was allegedly shopping for a BULLETPROOF VEST!!! Can you even find those in your average mall? Are there new, high-tech versions of them hanging on the racks in Brookstone, right next to their massage chairs?

By the way, Gary Coleman ran for governor of California in 2003. He turned up in 8th place with over 14 thousand votes.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

Gary Coleman's YouTube highlights:
The good ol' days
Divorce Court
The Church Ball trailer (one of Gary's latest films)

Pictures:
Marvin the Martian
Bill Milner
Gary Coleman
Brookstone Shopper Enjoying Massage Chair

Misc.

For those of you who are more recent to this blog, I'd like to reiterate its purpose. I would love to take over where Dave Barry left off, a few years ago. I'd love to be a humor columnist. So I'm following his style as closely as I deem appropriate without crossing any of those silly little plagiarism lines.

I even offer $50 to the person who can arrange for Dave Barry and I to meet. I'd love to take him to lunch and discuss how I could fill in the shoes he left behind. I'd also like to ask him how he's been getting on these past few years without any shoes.

Ok, back to business. I've been mostly doing "Today In History" sketches, analyzing the historical events that occurred on each day in...um...history. But I'm finding more and more days are quite devoid of good material to work with. It's hard to turn the opening of some concentration camp into humor. So I may still throw in a "Today In History" every now and then, but I'm also planning on straying out to other topics. Like today for instance. We'll be discussing:

Mecha robots

Basically, these are fictitious robots that are gigantic. They usually have some resemblance to humans (in shape, not size or function) which allows them to act like humans. Often they do battle, so they act like humans by doing martial arts, sword fighting, and I'm sure they could make obscene gestures at their opponents. Sometimes though, when they're not protecting Japan from radioactive experiments gone horribly awry, they like to lounge around the house watching television, just like humans.

Fun idea, right? Putting the "fiction" back into "science fiction" right? Not anymore. Carlos Owens decided to build one in his own backyard.

It's 18 feet tall and weighs about a ton. This thing is steel, cables, and hydraulics. He imagines these being used in war ultimately, so naturally he programmed his robot to raise its arms, bend its knees, and do a sit-up. So the mecha should be able to at least pass basic training.

The thing that kills me is that it only cost this guy $25,000 to make. It's like Carlos just built a new car for himself. I sure hope he rides his mecha to work. That'd be sweet. He could get any parking spot he wanted. Actually, he'd probably need most of them.

I'm not sure if Carlos' mecha can transform into a boombox or anything, but I still think this is pretty sweet.

Of course, Carlos wasn't the first one to make something like this. His is the most similar in design to the Power Rangers' one, but there were a few predecessors:

Landwalker (Japanese)
A hexapod walking tractor (built by Timberjack)
T-52 Enryu (again, Japanese)

The best part of those videos is the guy remotely operating the T-52. He's twenty feet away with his arm movements controlling the robot remotely. And he's got a hard hat on, just in case the tent he's in collapses.

I must say, I still prefer Carlos' model. Even if he has put the mecha robots on hold for right now because he's working on something else that he describes as "perdy frikken kewl!!!" I am not exaggerating, those are his exact words. There were even three exclamation marks. I don't know what could be "kewl"er than these mechas! I mean, this guy did anti-ballistic testing on the carrier chassis for the augmentation suit with promising results! I really don't know what that means, but it definitely sounds worthy of governmental funding.

So I was searching around on YouTube for reasonably awesome videos having to do with mechas, and I came across this:

Japanese Spider-Man show (with a mecha Spider-man robot for some reason)

I was also reminded of Robot Chicken's interpretation of Voltron. I'd recommend jumping this video to 35 seconds in. Voltron (a mecha) is forced to compete in a dance-off against one of its enemies. Voltron gets "served". Not the best video quality, but it's the thought that counts.

Pictures:
Fake Mecha
Real Mecha

My trip

So a few eons ago, roughly in the dirt age, I said I wouldn't be putting personal stuff on this blog. I wanted to make it funny, not a my-life-cumentary. I'm going to break that rule today though. I think you'll still find it more amusing than informative. My rule of thumb is going to be this: If, by the time you have finished reading this, you have laughed at least thrice, I have succeeded. However, once you have read this, if you can tell me what color my toothbrush is, I'll know I crossed the line.

I have to give you a little background, so bear with me. My wife and I flew to Boston with her family, stayed for a couple nights, then started a cruise that went around the New England area and ended in Montreal. My wife's family then flew back home but my wife and I stayed a couple days in Montreal. Let me see if I can paint a more colorful picture for you:

In Boston we all stayed at a wonderful hotel right on the waterfront. We were on the 12th floor. Each room had roughly four dozen plug systems in the wall, so that you could simultaneously recharge phones, work on the laptop, listen to your iPod, and, for the more adventuresome traveller, bring your own washer and dryer from home and do your laundry. The flatscreen televisions in all the rooms got so many channels that I think they made it to the four and five digits. I started randomly pressing numbers to see what I might chance upon and I'm pretty sure I got shots from the Hubble on one channel and, on the next, a thermal imaging satellite display of the current position of enemy troops in Afghanistan. The cleaning staff were all highly-trained ninjas. They didn't knock. You never saw them. Things just appeared clean within fourteen seconds of being out-of-place or dirty.

Then we got on the cruise ship. Each room here had fruit bowls where you could select which fruit you wanted to appear in there daily. All the meals were provided on board, of course, except somehow my usual diet of three square meals a day was transformed into 5 or 6 meals a day. And the effect they had on my mid-section was definitely not the shape of a square. There was so much dessert that they had an on-board dentist you were required to visit every other day to take care of the new cavities that had cropped up due to the sugar overload. The beds and pillows were plush and envelopped you in their arms of luxury every time you lay down.

Finally, we arrived at Montreal. On our own now, my wife and I had opted for a slightly cheaper hotel. In the E-mail correspondence I had with the hotel staff (confirming our reservation, etc.), they asked me if we would like, and I quote, "a double-bad room or a queen bad room." One typo I can forgive, but this clearly shows the intention was to write "bad". I can even be a little forgiving of those who don't speak English perfectly! Shoot, Montreal is a pretty multi-lingual town, I understand that! But "bad" is one of the first words you learn in another language. Here's the actual order:

The alphabet
Numbers 1-10
"Hello."
"How are you?"
"Good/Bad/So-so."
"Where is the bathroom?"
"Please don't shoot, I'll give you my wallet."

Of course, it depends on which country you're going to. Sometimes they teach you that last phrase before anything else.

Anyway, we arrive at the hotel. It's in a very different part of town than what we're used to. I'll just leave it at that and let you use your imagination. So already I'm feeling a little queasy about this hotel. Then I see that upon opening the front door, I'm faced with about 3000 steps. It looks like I've just entered an indoor ziggurat. I kept expecting to meet a Shaolin monk at the top who was going to teach me the forgotten martial art of Kao Tung. No such luck. Just the reception desk...er...window thingee.

So we get to our room and I'm thinking the place can't be all that bad. Sure, it has a few quirks, but every place does, right? The wall paint is cracked (on the walls that were painted), the phone doesn't work, the alarm clock is displaying what I presume are either Russian letters or Stargate symbols, the closet is...ok there isn't a closet, the bed feels like it's just a thin, dirty sheet thrown over slate rock, and the towels in the bathroom look like they were used to clean the bathroom floor and then hung back on the rack. That last hypothesis really wouldn't surprise me if I found out it were true because the person we had passed on our way to our room was not actually another tenant but the cleaning man. And for a cleaning guy, it looked like he didn't mind doing other people's rooms but had a strict personal rule against rendering his own chamber a little less...scary. Let's just say that if I worked for the CDC, I would have roped off the area immediately and taken an iodine shower.

He had been lying down on his bed watching TV in a wifebeater and boxer shorts, one cigarette in his mouth, another in his hand. In that same hand was a bottle of liquor (there was another half-full bottle of the same stuff by the TV). His hair seemed to have migrated south off his head and was now setting up camp all over his torso. He had given a partially-toothless smile and nod at us as we passed.

Awesome.

Needless to say, we spent very little of our sojourn in the hotel. However, the room was booked and we were only there for a few days, so we opted to stay. One evening as we came home there was a poor soul sitting at the top of the staircase. The gender was indecipherable from the bottom of the steps (and from the top for that matter), although I was fairly certain it was a human. It looked like he(?) had been captured in a giant net, beaten over the head, and robbed of most of his clothes. As I approached the last thousand steps I was able to see him more clearly and distinguish that my first assumption had been incorrect. He had chosen to dye his hair blood-red and the giant net actually WAS the primary clothing he was sporting.

So our accommodations throughout the trip juxtaposed quite nicely together (Mrs. Gafford, my twelfth grade English teacher would be so proud of me for using the word "juxtaposed" correctly in that sentence). From the height of fancy living right down to the depths of funkytown. To be fair, the owners/managers of that last hotel were quite nice once we successfully communicated through makeshift sign language. Which was mostly necessary because I was out of breath after climbing to an entirely different elevation.

By the way, my toothbrush is blue.

Pictures:
Boston Hotel
Cruise Ship
Mugger
Ziggurat
Toothbrush

Last One For A While

Alright kiddos, I'm leaving tomorrow, so start preparing yourselves now for my absence.

Here are some great tidbits of history, taken from a smattering of the days I'm going to be gone (so you don't miss the good stuff):

Soapy Smith was shot on July 8, 1898, releasing Skagway, Alaska from his iron grip. Soapy was a con man and a gangster back in the day. I know, I know, "Soapy" is not the most intimidating nickname. Apparently for 20 years he would sell bars of soap. The crowd thought there was money inside the wrapping of some of the bars. His gang of fiendish soapy accomplices would be in the crowd, buy a bar or two of soap, and then loudly proclaim to have won something. Of course, they had produced whatever they "won". Twenty years folks. This guy ran the first infomercial for twenty years.

Wait, it gets better. In Skagway he set up a telegraph office in 1897. Telegraph lines didn't even reach Skagway until 1901. You do the math.

Also on July 8, but in 1932, the Dow Jones hit the lowest level of the Great Depression, bottoming out at 41.22. Good thing we've come a long way since that relative level of crappy economics.

On Jul 10, 988 AD, the city of Dublin is founded. Within 12 minutes Guinness was invented for the celebration.

On July 12, any year, not too much happened. It has a record low number of events recorded as taking place on that day in history (21). I'm used to 70+ events for a given day. So when July 12 rolls around, do something big and important, knowing that you just made it a more striking day than most people ever, anywhere, at any point in history.

Nevermind, do that on July 13th. They only had a whopping 16 events. However, one of those 16 was the completion of the Hollywoodland sign in Los Angeles, in 1923. The last four letters were dropped in 1949 when it was renovated. They were then sold to Joseph Shmoe, for $82.50. Joe promptly erected them in his backyard, just under giant letters reading "UFOs" and over giant letters reading "HERE". Oddly enough, he has not been heard from since...

Holy cow! Only 23 events on July 14th! Apparently if you do something big and important in July, you're most likely outdoing history. What a boring month! It's a good thing I'm taking off on vacation, because I obviously wouldn't have enough material on a daily basis if I stuck around!

That's it. I'm stopping this madness. No point in looking over another dozen events for the days I'll be gone. Instead, how about I give you some good things to do during the time that you normally would have reserved for my blog? Similar to the post from a few days ago, when I gave you a few websites that I found intriguing/funny, only better...

YouTube Greats:
Pachelbel Rant (careful, the last fifteen seconds or so he launches into some pg-13 language)
PES Fireworks (I have no idea what PES is, but this is short and neat)
Evian Roller Babies (I knew this one was gold after 5 seconds)
Amazing Japanese...um...Something (I did this exact same thing as a kid, only without the Japanese interludes, which roughly translated mean "This product was not made in Taiwan")
Cats (Not the musical. I'm usually against those thousands of cat and dog videos, but when I saw the cat hanging on for dear life to a ceiling fan IN MOTION, well, this video won me over)
Fun prank, but it's WAY too complex for me to ever actually do
Funny kid with stage fright...he looks like he's about to hurl...
Wow. I just don't know what to say. I will say this though, after about a minute or so, there are some crude references and a big bad swear word drops out of nowhere toward the end. Consider yourself forewarned. But the first minute is good clean fun and you'll probably laugh harder than you ever have before...
One of those contagiously funny moments The sad thing is that I don't think this was staged. Some foreign talk show about a very serious subject (no idea what the subject was, my language skills are not that finely tuned) and the host can't stop laughing at this one guy's voice.
The most outdoorsy guy ever I think actually, that if I were stuck on a deserted island with this guy, I'd vote myself off.
Charlie the Unicorn (no explanation needed)
The best fight scene ever, hands-down. Imagine a protagonist that is a combination of the following: Cheech Marin's looks, The Simpsons Abu, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, and Richard Simmons. Oh, and don't forget Awesome. Mix some Awesome in there too.

Save those for special occasions, string it out, make 'em last. 'Cuz this is all you get for about two weeks.

Pictures:
Soapy Smith
Ireland's "Health" Drink

Whoa...freaky...

Today must be the luckiest day of the year. Here's why:

I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. Take a guess, let's see if you can come close. You're absolutely right, it was seven. I opted not to write that out, just in case you saw it and therefore tossed out all possibility of you thinking of anything OTHER than seven. I know, I'm quite scientific.

Anyway, the number seven is lucky for the vast majority of people. Who knows why? It's really quite weird in my opinion. People tend to like the number 7. There's no explanation.

And what is today? A day full of sevens. July 7 (7/7), leaving 177 days remaining in the year. And on this day in 1807, the Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia, and Russia (3 countries) ends the Fourth Coalition. 3+4=7.

But does it stop there? Oh no. July 7, 1865, four conspirators in the assassination of President Lincoln are hanged. So let's review those numbers: 1, 8, 6, 5, 4. 8-1=7, 6+5-4=7.

And finally on this day in 1946, Howard Hughes is nearly killed when his XF-11 spy plane prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood. And what's the Beverly Hills zip code we all know and love? 90210. So, follow me on this with all the numbers in this paragraph (1, 9, 4, 6, 11, 9, 2, 1, zeros never do anything, so I'm dropping them):
1+9+4=14
14 x 6=84
84/11=7.63636363...
2+1=3, so wipe out all those 3s after the decimal in the last result, which leaves you with
7.6666666...
9-3=6, so wipe out all those 6s after the same decimal, and what do you get? 7.

Wow, with my amazing math powers, I could start a religion. Or at least a cult. Give me some random biblical prophecy and away I go!

What else is today in history famous for?

The first military draft in the U.S. (1863). Payment of $100 could land you an exemption though. Payment of $20 only got you the National Guard apparently. And by the way, yes, I do realize that this was during the Civil War, so National Guard duty probably wouldn't have kept you out of the line of fire much.

Sliced bread being sold for the first time (1928). It was described as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since wrapped bread."

Mother Frances Cabrini becomes the first American to be canonized (1946). Of course, she had only become an American officially 8 years before she died... She's the patron saint of immigrants apparently. I managed to secure a picture of the shrine to Mother Cabrini in Manhattan. Have fun with this picture. I think you'll find Waldo before you can distinguish any sort of shrine.

And finally, just one year to the day after Mother Cabrini's canonization, Roswell gets its UFO incident. That's right, the whole Roswell UFO thing happened on 7/7/1947 (1+9+4-7=7)...

And there are 7 letters in the town name of Roswell...

And New Mexico was the 47th state to join the Union...

And cue the X-Files theme music...

Pictures:
Seven
Sliced Bread
Cabrini Shrine?

Another trip this week

Sorry, folks, but this Thursday I'm leaving again on vacation. It's what summer is all about, isn't it? I'll be gone for a while, but don't worry, I'll still do what I can to keep you occupied...

Today in history marked something about a charter issued by a Pope. The important thing to remember about this is not the event or even the subject of the solemn decree. It is the term for these documents coming from a Pope. Are you ready for this? Papal bull. Sounds to me like it got that name from some atheists who were trying to express what they thought the Pope's words REALLY were.

July 6 also marks the day that Saint Thomas More was beheaded. In 1535 he refused to sign the Act of Supremacy that declared Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the Church of England. See, Henry the VIII felt that everything the Pope said was papal bull. Saint Thomas More disagreed. The interesting thing to note is that good ol' Tommy More was a lawyer and a politician. And they made him a SAINT.

Moving on to sports news in history, today marks the first ever Major League Baseball All-Star game. Maybe what I'm about to say will make sense to some of you, but not being a die-hard sports fanatic, it's really confusing to me. The people that play in this game are the all-stars from the National League and American League. That's like having a National Anthem (which we do) and an American Anthem (which we don't).

I had to research this more fully to make some sense of it. I discovered that the primary difference between the American League (AL) and the National League (NL) is that the AL allows a designated hitter (DH). That's the big whopping difference that necessitated an entirely different league. So now I'm sure the burning question on your minds is whether or not a DH is allowed in the All-Star game. It actually depends on WHERE they play. If they're in an AL stadium, then both teams can have designated hitters. If in an NL stadium, neither team can have a DH.

Seems a bit ridiculous, doesn't it?

And moving along, to the more recent history, on this day in 2003, we sent out five METIs. A METI is Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. So these 5 METIs that were sent in 2003 went to five different stars, presumably to give us better odds of running into sentient beings from outer space. The first one is due to arrive in 2036, at which point we'll probably be able to send METIs from our cell phones.

2036 METI example:
To: Aliens
From: Dave
Wanna B BFF? If u get this, I'll ROFL! RUMOF? CULA! Beam me up soon!

Unfortunately, even by 2036, there won't be a suitable texting abbreviation for "Beam me up soon".

Pictures:
Pope
Sweet baseball catch
Alien response to our 2036 METIs from cell phones

A Superstore Across The River Styx

Today in history is a sad one indeed. I hope you're sitting down.

The very first Walmart opened for business on July 2, in Rogers, Arkansas.

And the world has never been the same since.

I've got to say, I don't have a personal vendetta against Walmart. I really don't. I think crushing all the opposition and pursuing greater wealth and domination is what football is all about. I mean, America. It's what America is all about.

Ask anybody what the American dream is and they'll tell you it's success and wealth untold, from nothing to something, from rags to riches. I think Walmart personifies that dream, having gone from their humble Arkansas roots to the world's largest public corporation by revenue (and what other factors really matter?).

For those of you who do feel that Walmart is the devil though, and that their HQ is firmly founded in Hades, make sure you're well aware of Walmart's grasp on humanity:

Walmart owns Sam's Club.
In other countries, Walmart goes by the following aliases: Walmex, Asda, Seiyu.
Walmart may be a shareholder on your soul.

For those of you who feel it is morally acceptable to shop at Walmart, let me make it easier for you to sleep at night:

In October of 2005, Walmart announced they would be starting a lot of environmental initiatives to increase energy efficiency. One of the main goals was spending $500 million per year to increase fuel efficiency in Walmart's truck fleet. The idea is to increase their efficiency by 25% within 3 years, and then have it doubled by 2015.

Wow. Alternatively, they could buy at least 20,000 Americans a new Prius each year. That would be kind of neat. They could start with their employees, which would probably solve ALL of their problems with lawsuits, accusations of being discriminatory/racist/sexist/whatever-ist.

I don't know which plan would be more environmentally-friendly, but I'm considering applying for a job there, just in case they go the Prius route.

Now, do you recall about five minutes ago when I mentioned Rogers, Arkansas, where Walmart got jump-started? Well Rogers lays claim to another awesome American chain. The HQ of Daisy Outdoor Products is located in Rogers.

What's that? You don't know Daisy Outdoor Products? Let's see if I can jog your memory with a couple movie quotes. They'll get progressively easier and you'll soon see the relevance of Daisy Outdoor Products:

"Aunt Clara had for years labored under the delusion that I was not only perpetually 4 years old, but also a girl."

"Some men are Baptists, others Catholics; my father was an Oldsmobile man."

"With as much dignity as he could muster, the Old Man gathered up the sad remains of his shattered major award. Later that night, alone in the backyard, he buried it next to the garage. Now I could never be sure, but I thought that I heard the sound of "Taps" being played, gently."

"Mothers know nothing about creeping marauders burrowing through the snow toward the kitchen where only you and you alone stand between your tiny, huddled family and insensate evil."

"Mommy's little piggie!"

"I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"

To that last one, Santa Claus, his teacher, and just about every character in the movie (with the exception of his little brother Randy) tells him that he'll shoot his eye out.

And who makes the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle? Daisy Outdoor Products.

I think that's got to be a part of the American dream too. Come to America with nothing, and end up with a superstore and a gun. At least you'll be able to protect your family as they huddle and cower in the kitchen, the one room in the house that all evil-doers attack first.

Pictures:
Frowny Face
Environmentally Friendly
Toyota Prius
Daisy Outdoor Products

P.S. I'll be out of town for a few days, so you're on your own. Mostly. You can check out these websites in your spare time (only one per day, you've got to pace yourself):

Best pranks of all time
An oddly addictive puzzle game
Random facts
Weird news

That should be enough to keep you tied up for a while.

This one's for you, Canada

Today in history has a whole lot of Canuck in it. I mean a lot. And by the way, I really wasn't sure if Canuck would be offensive to anybody. I'm sure we Americans offend Canadians all the time though, so they're probably used to it. Oh well, they're still part of North America, whether they like it or not. And there's not a whole lot they can do about it if they don't like it. Please refer to my very reliable map of North America on the right, which has mispelled Hawaii.

Seriously though, I like both Canada and Canadians. So I hope nothing here offends you. I figure Canuck is probably like calling me a Yankee (at which point I stick a feather in my hat and call it maccaroni). Shouldn't do too much damage.

So Wikipedia has 72 events marking this day in history. Obviously there's a lot more than that, but Wikipedia chooses only the most stellar events, or in other words, only things that have a Wikipedia article about them (which is probably why my birthday was ousted when I secretly tacked it on to the June 10 Wikipedia article). Out of those 72 epic occasions, guess how many involve my northern neighbors? 12. For those of you who are not mathematicians, that's over FORTY PERCENT! For those of you who ARE mathematicians, please don't tell the others that it's not over forty percent.

In truth it's only 17% (rounded up to the nearest integer...oh yes Mr. Dunston, I was listening in 9th grade math). But still, Canada doesn't occupy 17% of the world's, well, anything! So today, Canada, is your special day. We raise our hockey sticks, maple syrup, and grizzly bears, and we salute you.

Most of the Canadian events mentioned in Today in History are frankly dull and boring, as classified such by the American Committee for Dull and Boring Incidents. Since Canada's a part of North America, I believe there are even Canadians on that committee. However, O Canada officially became Canada's national anthem on this day in 1980. Neither dull, nor boring. In fact O Canada has an interested tangled past of intrigue and drama.

You see, since 1867, God Save The King and The Maple Leaf Forever had been competing as unofficial national anthems. Then O Canada came into the picture and blew 'em both out of the water so forcefully and obviously that the Canadian government scrambled to buy the rights to the lyrics and music. So badly did they want those rights that they pooled all their savings and spared no expense. And the lyrics and music to O Canada were purchased for ONE DOLLAR.

That's not even a good ol' steady greenback American dollar, either. That's a Canuck buck. It would have been worth about 85 American cents back in the day.

I must say though, it's not hard to see why The Maple Leaf Forever didn't win in the end. I kid you not, some of its lyrics include talking about enjoining in love the thistle, shamrock, rose, and maple leaf.

Here's another interesting trivia fact (sorry, I meant trivial fact) about O Canada. You know when you were in sixth grade and you took those aptitude tests trying to determine which math class you should attend? Ok, your personal experiences here may vary, but you'll soon recognize what I'm talking about (which today is pronounced "ah-boot"). Do you remember seeing something like this labeled as an alien language you had to translate, given that certain symbols meant certain words?

ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ! ᓇᖕᒥᓂ ᓄᓇᕗᑦ!
ᐱᖁᔭᑏ ᓇᓚᑦᑎᐊᖅᐸᕗᑦ.
ᐊᖏᒡᓕᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᑎ,
ᓴᙱᔪᓗᑎᓪᓗ.
ᓇᖏᖅᐳᒍ, ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ,
ᒥᐊᓂᕆᑉᓗᑎ.
ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ! ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊ!
ᓇᖏᖅᐳᒍ ᒥᐊᓂᕆᑉᓗᑎ,
ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ, ᓴᓚᒋᔭᐅᖁᓇ!

Well, in truth, those are the lyrics to O Canada. That there is the Inuktitut version of the lyrics. Inuktitut is the name of some of the Inuit languages, which is recognized as an official language in parts of Canada. The other parts want none of it (which today is pronounced "Nunavut").

So if you were put in the slow math class, blame Canada, eh.

Pictures:
Flawed North America map
The Maple Leaf Forever postcard
Stupid Math Calculator