On Jan 5th in Paracultural History

[Mark Thibodeau]

On this day in *1527*, *Felix Manz*, a leader of the Anabaptist
congregation in Zurich, Switzerland, is executed by drowning.

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On this day in *1757*, *King Louis XV* of France survives an assassination
attempt by *Robert-François Damiens*, the last person to be executed in
France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of
capital punishment used for regicides.

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On this day in *1895*, the Dreyfus affair: French army officer *Alfred
Dreyfus* is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on
Devil's Island.

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On this day in *1914*, the Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour
workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.

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On this day in *1919*, the German Workers' Party, which would become the *Nazi
Party*, is founded.

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On this day in *1933*, construction of the *Golden Gate Bridge* begins in
San Francisco Bay.

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On this day in *1940*, FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal
Communications Commission for the first time.

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On this day in *1957*, citing the "increased danger from International
Communism" in the region, president Eisenhower proposes a new doctrine that
will eventually transform the entire Middle East into a proxy Cold War
battlefield. Within the year, American troops were crunching sand in
Lebanon, and we all lived happily ever after.

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On this day in *1968*, *Alexander Dubček* comes to power and the "Prague
Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.

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Also on this day in *1971*, after winning an incredible 2,495 games in a
row, the *Harlem Globetrotters* finally lose to the *New Jersey Reds*, in a
game that ends in a 99-100 squeaker.

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On this day in *1972*, US President *Richard Nixon* orders the development
of a Space Shuttle program.

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On this day in *1974*, the warmest reliably measured temperature in
Antarctica of +59 °F (+15 °C) recorded at Vanda Station

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On this day in the year *1998*, Republican Congressman *Sonny Bono* skis
into a tree, killing himself.

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On this day in *2005*, Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the Solar
System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and
David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at
the Palomar Observatory.
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