During This Month in History…

• 2001 AD: Arizona state senator Arnold Schumaker (L) sends polaroids of expensive toys to underprivileged children in his district.
• 1986 AD: A live-action manger scene burns down in Czechoslovakia, killing all participants.
• 1983 AD: The first successful artificial appendix is inserted into Gary Clarkson.
• 1969 AD: While exploring the surface of the Moon, astronaut Alan Bean finds a rock that resembles his primary school teacher Mrs. Belcher.
• 1964 AD: Italy changes government.
• 1943 AD: Airman Eric Jones paints a picture of a pretty dame on the nose of a B-17 Flying Fortress.
• 1832 AD: Future president Martin Van Buren, after celebrating his birthday, vomits in a spittoon.
• 1793AD: Marie Antoinette, in the few seconds of life afforded her head after its separation from the body, wonders if heaven will have delicious cakes.
• 1653 AD: A group of Spanish settlers decide to play a game of pins using Olmec head statues and some old canoes.
• 1588 AD: Pedro the Navigator informs his captain that the seas ahead appear stormy. Captain Menendez assures him that God will protect the Armada from storms. Later both their corpses wash up near Brighton.
• 1402 AD: Kim Il-Sung, after inventing a time machine, arrives and promptly invents water skiing.
• 1301 AD: Geoffe the Slopper of Stuttgart looks up and sees a comet.
• 1282 AD: Friar Marcus makes a mistake while illuminating a manuscript, suggesting to future generations that he liked rutabagas very much.
• 1202 AD: While sacking Constantinople, Martin of Tours finds a vase that he thinks his wife might like.
• 738 AD: The Nanzhao kingdom sets up a strict code of state-mandated, individually-unique hair styles for its citizens.
• 605 AD: Chinese Emperor Yang-ti orders the construction of a massive canal to link major rivers with the capital of Luoyang. Later that night he sneezes five times in a row, beating his previous record of three consecutive sneezes.
• 439 AD: Axum resident Derdana asks if maybe they can’t have a few less stele around as they block out the fine Ethiopian sunshine. An unhappy neighbour later mixes goat dung in with Derdana’s stew.
• 423 AD: A young Attila, later known as The Hun, gives his brother Bleda one of the first known wedgies after Bleda, in an amazing turn of cultural precocity tries wearing underpants.
• 135 AD: Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan arrive at Simon Bar Kokhba’s hideout near the Dead Sea. They describe the situation as “totally un-station.”
• 21 AD: Sauren the Parthian uses several captured Roman helmets to impress some girls. That night he sires Artabana.
• 74 BC: Trandovix the Gaul wanders to present-day Gibraltar in search of a good tankard.
• 712 BC: Numa Pompilius notices a member of his court has slipped an association of drinkers into his proposal for the creation of guilds in Rome.
• 905 BC: Otonga and his friend eat a pig.
• 1003 BC: The Olmecs create giant stone heads in mockery of disgraced citizens for use in playing a Meso-American version of pins.
• 3281 BC: Adresh of Chaldea trades seventy loaves, two goats and an Abyssinian slave man to Ushot of Uruk for seven ounces of silver and two mares.
• 6.701 BC: Erath the Scout finds a village where they teach him the secret of pottery.
• 32.801 BC: After spending seven months in the freezing cold, Uguski and his clan begin to regret following that mammoth herd across what would one day be called the Bering Land Bridge.
• 91,002 BC: While examining the community’s Large Bone with Notches in It, Ogoff laments that things were better back in the old days.