NEW Improved Monday Open Thread: August 6 is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

August 6 is the 218th day of the year; as well as Pungenday, Confusion 72, 3184 YOLD to discordians.

Six, the product of two primes and who cares. Regular 6 sided figures, hexagons, will tile a plane. That means you can arrange them so as to cover the surface with no blank spaces, like a honeycomb. A rhomboid hexagonally tiled surface measuring 11 "hexes" on a side is used to play the game of "hex". Each player tries to connect their pair of opposite sides by placing tokens on the hexagonal grid to form an unbroken connecting chain. Only one player can win, and one player must win. At ny moment, there are a finite number of possible moves remaining before there is a token on every tile. The first player can always win.

It there were a winning strategy for the second player, the first player could simply make a random opening move and thereafter follow the proper strategy for the second player. As a bonus, if by chance the next correct move for them corresponds to the random move they already made, then they effectively gain a turn, being able to make the move that should follow that one. Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift, look out kid, ...

On this day in:

1506 – The Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Crimean Khanate in the Battle of Kletsk. That's right folks, the Crimean Khanate, a subject worthy of a little history research if you are unfamiliar with Crimean history.

1787 – Sixty proof sheets of the US Constitution were delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philly.

1825 – Bolivia gained independence from Spain.

1890 – William Kemmler became the first person executed in the electric chair. He was zapped with 1,000 volts AC for 17 seconds, but was found to still be breathing. They then hit him with 2,000 volts which ruptured blood vessels beneath the skin, singed skin and hair around the electrodes and generated "a powerful stench".

1901 – Kiowa reservation land in Oklahoma was opened for white settlement, because why let them have it? It's not like it was ever relly theirs.

1926 – Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.

1930 – Judge Joseph Force Crater stepped into a taxi and disappeared never to be seen again. As with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, many suspect that this was the "Rapture" long fortold, and that no others qualified to be taken.

1945 – The US B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. This resulted in complete destruction of about 70% of the buildings and infrastructure and the immediate deaths of around 70,000 to 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injuries and radiation had killed another 20,000 to 96,000 people. Additional great numbers were maimed or injured. Suffering and deaths from the effects of the bomb continued for many decades.

1962 – Jamaica became independent from the UK.

1965 – LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Born this day in:

1619 – Barbara Strozzi, singer, composer and songwriter

1809 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet

1881 – Leo Carrillo aka Pancho, actor and conservationist

1902 – Dutch Schultz, business man and surrealist poet "A boy has never wept...nor dashed a thousand kim." 1

1906 – Vic Dickenson, trombonist

1910 – Adoniran Barbosa, musician, singer, composer, humorist, and actor

1928 – Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol

1929 – Mike Elliott, saxophonist

1930 – Abbey Lincoln, singer, songwriter and actor

1934 – Piers Anthony, author

1937 – Baden Powell de Aquino, guitarist and composer.

1937 – Charlie Haden, bassist and composer.

1942 – Byard Lancaster, flautist and saxophonist

1946 – Allan Holdsworth, guitarist, songwriter and producer

1969 – Elliott Smith, pop singer, songwriter, guitarist and Ginger Spice

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Died this day in:

1637 – Ben Jonson, poet and playwright

1660 – Diego Velazquez, painter 1931 – Bix Beiderbecke, cornet player

1973 – Fulgencio Batista, US backed Cuban dictator

2004 – Rick James, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalilst and producer.

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days and such:

Bolivian Independence Day

Jamaican Independence Day

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony (Hiroshima, Japan)

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William Kemmler

Leo Carillo

Ernesto Lecuona

Vic Dickenson

Adoniran Barbosa

Abby Lincoln

Baden Powell de Aquino

Charlie Haden

Bix

Rick James

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picture: Hiroshima, 11/27/1945

It's an open thread, so do your thing

Crossposted from http://caucus99percent.com

Edit: fixed the software’s one repeat concatenation and a typo.