Paracultural Calendar for June 16

[Mark Thibodeau]

 <http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/televox/photo/beausejour-large.jpg>

On this day in the year *1755*, the Loyalist *Colonel Moncton* and his army
attack and defeat the Acadian enclave of*Fort Beausejour* on Canada's east
coast. After that, it all turns nasty for yer old pal *Jerky*'s ancestors.
Within weeks, the Brits are burning down Acadian homes and crops,
slaughtering and stealing livestock, and otherwise making a real mess of
the place. Towards the end of that long, hot summer, the Brits decide
they'd rather not have any French-speaking neighbors. So they round them
up, load them onto rickety boats, steal their few remaining possessions,
and ship over three-quarters of the Acadian population madly off in all
directions. "Anywhere but here" was their motto. Most of the deportees
ended up in Louisiana, where they invented Cajun cooking and taught
themselves to talk funny for tourists.

***

On this day in *1816*, leading Romantic movement figure *Lord Byron* issues
a challenge to his four house guests at the Villa Diodati. His proposal,
that he, *Percy Shelley*, *Mary Shelley*, *Claire Clairmont*, and *John
Polidori* each write a tale to terrify the others, culminates in Mary
Shelley writing the novel *Frankenstein*, Polidori writing the short story *The
Vampyre*, and Byron writing the poem *Darkness*.

***

On this day in *1883*, at the Victoria Hall theatre in Sunderland, England,
the audience at a *Fay Family Children’s Variety Show* were told that there
would be door prizes for children who held tickets bearing a particular
number. In the ensuing mad dash for free goodies, an incredible 183
children had the life squeezed out of them as they were crushed against a
heavy iron door bolted in such a manner as to only allow one child through
at a time.

***

This day in *1904* is the day on which all the fictional events in *James
Joyce*'s ground-breaking novel *Ulysses*supposedly take place. Literary
wanks call this day *Bloomsday*, while the Irish call it... Wednesday.

***

On this day in *1911*, the *Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company* is
founded in the city of Endicott, New York. The company would switch to the
much more memorable *International Business Machines*, or *IBM*, in 1924.

***

In the history of the US Open golf tournament, only 21 holes-in-one have
ever been sunk. Four of them happened on this day in *1989* when *Weaver*,
*Wiebe*, *Pate* and *Price* all sink the sixth hole on a single shot.

***

On this day in *2010*, the South Asian nation of *Bhutan* becomes the first
country in the world to institute a total ban on the cultivation,
harvesting, production, and sale tobacco.
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