On this night in 1775, Paul Revere made his midnight
ride.
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
On this day in 1909, Joan of Arc was
beautified in Rome.
Oh wait. That's beatified. Totally different.
On this day in 1949, Ireland officially became a republic and exited the commonwealth.
I'm going to start wearing my hair like this.
On this day in 1958, a US Court ruled that poet Ezra Pound shouid be released from the Washington DC
insane asylum where he had spent the last 12 years. (His insanity plea was to prevent the possibility of his
execution for treason - Pound, an avid anti-Semite, had played a significant role in cultural and
propaganda activities in the Republic of Salo, Mussolini's last haven after southern Italy was over-run by
the Allies.) Following his release, Pound was asked his opinions on his home country. He famously quipped:
"America is a lunatic asylum."
Subsequently he returned to Italy, where he remained until his death in 1972.
On this day in 1983, 63 people were killed when
a suicide bomber destroyed the US Embassy in
Beirut.
It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic
mission up to that time. Hezbollah claimed
responsibility for the blast with a message
promising not to allow a single American
to remain on Lebanese soil.
Following the attack, the embassy was moved to a supposedly more
secure location in East Beirut. However, on September 20, 1984,
another car bomb exploded at this embassy annex, killing twenty
Lebanese and two American soldiers.
The use of suicide bombing increased following the incident. Car
bombings through the rest of 1983 included attacks against the
U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait, the invading Israeli Army's
headquarters in Tyre, and the extremely destructive attacks on
the U.S. Marine and French Paratrooper barracks in Beirut on
October 23, 1983.
Born This Day:
1480 - Lucrezia Borgia
http://youtu.be/WObK4Mo2Tt8
1904 - Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham
http://youtu.be/1DdEC0_7aZI
1924 - Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
http://youtu.be/v2Xrxqt3ovE
1946 - Skip Spence
http://youtu.be/QsJkJ3MeVMY
1963 - Conan O'Brien
Died This Day:
1955 - Albert Einstein
