Sunday Open Thread: August 19 is World Humanitarian Day

and it is also Sweetmorn, Bureaucracy 12, 3184 YOLD (for you Discordians out there)

World History this day

1612 - The "Samlesbury witches" were put on trial. This was part of a onging flurry of witchcraft trials that were really just a continuation of the Anglican v Catholic blood feud in disguise. It is somewhat unique in that they got off, and did so because the Judge discovered and disclosed that the key witness was "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest" after she broke down and confessed that it was all bullshit.

1919 - Afghanistan gained independence from the UK

1934 - The German referendum of 1934 approved Hitler's appointment as head of state with the title of Fuhrer.

1945 - The Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh took control of Hanoi.

1953 - The CIA and MI6 overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and installed the authoritarian dictator Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. This was the CIA's first regime change and established its bona fides as the Sekret US department of clandestine warfare, subversion, sabotage, murder and other criminal behavior.

2010 - The illegal US war against Iraq finally ended with the withdrawal of last of the United States brigade combat teams. Neither the international community nor the US government took any steps to punish the war criminals responsible for starting and conducting it.

US History this day

1692 - Five convicted witches were "executed" in Salem. Like all the other victims of the New England witch trials, they were victims of religious fanaticism, though modern apologists like to drag out the term "mass hysteria". Ignoring the origins of the diagnosis and the name "hysteria", the term is simply one of avoidance, trucked out when people would rather not discuss the causes of seeming group derangements. The simple fact is that the vast majority are the result of religious fanatacism and the side effects of various religious dogma and practices.

1812 - The US frigate USS Constitution defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia,

1848 - The New York Herald published the news of the California gold rush to the eastern US.

1854 - Based on a false claim that a Minneconjou warrior who had joined Lakota chief Matho Wayuhi's encampment had stolen a cow from a passing Mormon wagon train, the army at Fort Laramie sent 30 soldiers, two cannons and one drunk interpreter out to arrest the perpetrator and obtain reparations. After a long and fruitless discussion, the parlay was discontinued and a soldier murdered chief Matho Wayuhi by shooting him in the back as he walked away while another soldier shot and wounded an unnamed warrior. The Lakota counter attacked and killed the entire attacking party. This was called the "Grattan Massacre" and was a principle cause of the First Souix War.

Science & Technology this day

1940 - First flight of the US B-25 "Mitchell" bomber

1964 - The world's first geostationary communication satellite,Syncom 3, was launched by NASA.

The Arts this day

Misc. this day

2017 - Tens of thousands of farmed non-native Atlantic salmon were released into the wild in Washington State waters in the 2017 Cypress Island Atlantic salmon pen break. Though technically an "accident" there was pretty much a certainty that such an event would eventually happen, regardless of assorted putative "studies" assurances and the like which existed only to provide political cover for those approving the ecological disaster in the making.

Birthdays of Note this day

1631 - John Dryden, poet, playwright and critic

1646 - John Flamsteed, astronomer 1689 - Samuel Richardson, author

1902 - Ogden Nash, poet

1906 - Philo Farnsworth, inventor, TV pioneer and inventor of the fusor

1918 - Jimmy Rowles, singer, songwriter, and pianist

1921 - Gene Roddenberry, screenwriter and producer

1934 - Renee Richards, tennis player and opthalmologist. She won a major victory for transgender rights in Richards v US Tennis Assn.

1939 - Ginger Baker, drummer and songwriter

1940 - Roger Cook, songwriter, singer, and producer

1940 - Johnny Nash, singer and songwriter

1943 - Billy J. Kramer, singer

1945 - Ian Gillan, singer and songwriter

1946 - Bill Clinton, DLC politician, first admitted "New" Democrat, who advocated and implemented de-regulation, downsizing and outsourcing government, austerity, "welfare reform", more cops, more prisons, more federal crimes, longer sentences and all like that.

1948 - Elliot Lurie, singer and guitarist

1951 - John Deacon, bass guitarist and songwriter

Deaths of Note this day

1662 - Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher

1936 - Federico Garcia Lorca, poet, playwright, and director

1968 - George Gamow, physicist, cosmologist and author

1994 - Linus Pauling, chemist and biologist

2013 - Donna Hightower, singer and songwriter

So now some music

The Samlesbury Witches

x YouTube Video

Salem Witchcraft Trials