Paracultural Calendar for August 6

[Mark Thibodeau]

 <http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LOzq7hvXGlU/maxresdefault.jpg>

On this day in *1890*, at Auburn Prison in New York, murderer *William
Kemmler* becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.

***

On this day in *1930*, Judge *Joseph Force Crater* steps into a taxi in New
York and disappears never to be seen again. This unsolved mystery earns
Crater the sobriquet: "Missingest Man in New York".

***

At 8:15 A.M., on this day in the year *1945*, with a blinding flash and a
deafening roar, a single bomb turns the thriving city of *Hiroshima* into a
twisted, smoldering, radioactive tableau of death and ruin. Nearly all
people and buildings within a two-kilometer radius of the drop point were
obliterated. An incredible *one hundred and forty thousand people*were
killed by a single bomb... nearly half the city's population. This brief,
horrific moment in time still stands as quite possibly the most significant
turning point in the history of our doomed and damned species.

***

On this day in *1964*, in the American state of Nevada, a bristlecone pine
by the name of *Prometheus* – at somewhere close to *five thousand years
old <http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/Martyr.html>*, the world's most
ancient living tree – is chopped down by a graduate student trying to
figure out exactly how old it really is. The freaking idiot.

***

On this day in *1991*, a brilliant fellow by the name of *Tim
Berners-Lee* releases
files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. Chaos ensues.

***

On this day in *1996*, NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought
to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. After
that, they fall suspiciously silent... Meanwhile, six years later, on this
day in *2012*, NASA's*Curiosity* rover lands on the surface of Mars.
Coincidence? You be the judge!

***

On this day in *2001*, after only seven months in office, *Preznit
Dubya* begins
a month-long vacation at the Crawford "ranch" he purchased as a photo-op
backdrop in 1999. He wouldn't spend another night in the White House until
after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 - the ones he'd been
warned about again and again and again - were safely over and done with.
The same cannot be said of Dubya's dad, *President Poppy*, however. Turns
out the old man spent the final night of the *pre-September 11th era*... in
the White House. This, of course, raises all kinds of *spooky questions
<http://killtown.911review.org/oddities/911.html#BushSr_WhiteHouse>*.
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