Hello, Headliners. It’s the birthday of Hugh Hefner, who created a publishing empire and understands the importance of the Headlines Du Jour of yesteryear:
- 1413 – Henry V is crowned King of England.
- 1585 – The expedition organised by Sir Walter Raleigh departs England for Roanoke Island (now in North Carolina) to establish the Roanoke Colony.
- 1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.
- 1860 – On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the oldest known recording of an audible human voice.
- 1865 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.
- 1867 – Alaska Purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratifies a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.
- 1939 – Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution‘s Constitution Hall.
- 1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court‘s 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.
- 1959 – Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States’ first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the “Mercury Seven“.
- 1965 – Astrodome opens. First indoor baseball game is played.
- 1969 – The “Chicago Eight” plead not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
- 1992 – A U.S. Federal Court finds former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty of drug and racketeering charges. He is sentenced to 30 years in prison.
- 2003 – 2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad falls to American forces; Iraqis turn on symbols of their former leader Saddam Hussein, pulling down a grand statue of him and tearing it to pieces.
Let’s hop right to it:
THE “O” IN GOP STANDS FOR OUTRAGEOUS:
TEABAGGED ENOUGH ALREADY?
WAR IS HELL!
Watching the new Errol Morris documentary about my old boss,
Donald Rumsfeld, is a little like working for him: you feel nothing.
Donald Rumsfeld, is a little like working for him: you feel nothing.
TODAY IN RELIGION:
FREE THE WEED:
ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK:
CRACK MAYOR CORNER:
MSNBC IN THE NEWS AGAIN:
FOX “NEWS” IN THE NEWS AGAIN:
BOB BECKEL IN THE NEWS AGAIN:
IN OUTER SPACE:
VIDEO DU JOUR:
It’s also Tom Leher’s birthday!
Headlines Du Jour is a leisure-time activity of Not Now Silly, home of the
Steam-Powered Word-0-Matic, and your rest stop on the Information
Highway. Use our valuable bandwidth to post your news comments in
today’s open thread.