May 8th, sunny and beautiful day of birds chirping in the trees, is as good a time as any to to remind regular readers and educate new ones over the fact although much sarcasm and non-sensical speculations are displayed all through the historical tidbits presented here daily, all of them however start out as complete truth, however improbable they might seem. The fact that many of those “bites” concern Canadian history doesn’t demonstrate a fictitious nature, but merely the fact that yours truly is Canadian. Yes, the French kind, and No, I don’t feel bad about it. Shall we begin?
England’s Act of Supremacy is passed in 1559, making Queen Elizabeth I the “Supreme Governor” to the Church of England. Things are initially awkward though when people going to confession now had to begin by saying “Forgive me, Guv’nor, for I have sinned”.
Something or great interest to general population since we are in the appropriate season; today in 1974, at the heart of the French Revolution, was the public execution by decapitation of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier. The gentleman’s figure as father of modern chemistry, having demonstrated the roles of oxygen and hydrogen in chemical processes as well as given them names, wasn’t the reason behind the condemnation. The French people claimed his head for having also been a quite successful tax collector. Feel free to remind the IRS of these events…
In 1886 Dr John Pemberton convinces the owner of a Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, to sell his elixir to be used for general medical purposes; reducing fever, eliminating headaches, combating malnutrition and other such application were said to be possible with his potion. Few years later though, Pemberton felt he couldn’t really fool anyone and was about to loose everything after having tried for so long to market his miracle cure, and successfully managed to find someone gullible enough to pay 2,300$ for his secret fomula and exploitation rights associated. The elixir kept pretty much the same name over the years: Coca-Cola.
International mourning day in 1982, but even more so for speed aficionados and French Canadians. Formula one driver Gilles Villeneuve, considered a spiritual son by Enzo Ferrarri himself, suffers a fatal crash during the Belgian Grand Prix. His son Jacques, to honor the great racer’s memory, took up Formula One racing himself for a time and even won the 1997 Championship, then elected to be a third-rate Nascar driver instead, before finally settling for folk singer. His 2006 debut album, entitled Accepterais-tu, sold a whopping 200 copies. Most of them bought by his mom. Saddest fact of it all is that none of this is even a joke.
Judicial controversy also looms ahead for Canadians, when on this day in 1984 Army Corporal Denis Lortie goes off on a murdering spree, killing 3 and seriously wounding 13. The country’s greatest legal minds are caught in an age-defining debate: Does Temporary Insanity absolve for crimes that pretty much everyone secretly aspires to but never dares conspire? In other words, should we harshly judge the man for having such cojones? Lortie’s choice location for going berserk was the Provincial Parliament, where he sat on the speaker’s chair and sprayed bullets around while eating a sandwich. Probably interpreted as the entire nation’s state of mind, the gesture was followed by substantial decrease in gas and cigarette prices.
Still in 1984, Soviet Union officials announce their boycott of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. The refusal was maintained even after President Ronald Reagan himself assured them that it was Spock who died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, not Checkov.
And finally a slew of candles to blow on May 8th: Former U.S. President Harry Truman (1884), Emma Thompson’s om Phyllida Law (1932), Jaws author Peter Benchley (1940),70s Rocker Gary Glitter (1944), Little Laura Ingals AKA Melissa Gilbert (1964), and the death of a Burmese Politician named ( I kid you not) U Saw. Let me just repeat that: U Saw. Feel free to look it up…