This Month in History:
2006 AD: Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, plans to spend $4 million to build a museum dedicated to his underpants, but later decides to build a museum about everything Robert Mugabe instead.
2000 AD: After months of research, a successful formula is developed, allowing Wow™ detergent to leave colours 20% brighter.
1971 AD: The first video game, Immobile Square, is released to mixed reviews.
1944 AD: Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are disappointed to discover that radiation exposure causes only crippling illness, ending the US Army’s Super-Soldier project.
1904 AD: Albert Einstein devises a clever way of moving up from 3rd Class patent clerk to 2nd Class patent clerk, thus getting a modest increase in salary.
1809 AD: Washtub technology is advanced by Hubert Smyles of Tennessee, who attaches a primitive splash guard to his tub.
1798 AD: Carthage, NY founded by Hannibal Johnson.
1783 AD: Captain Cook discovers the aptly-named June 3rd Island.
1353 AD: Noted Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta publishes what is regarded as a prototype for this very column, The Allah is Great Prism of Past Events.
1010 AD: Never one to be upstaged by Canute, King Edfald of Mercia orders his archers to shoot up at the Moon for a while.
814 AD: In a dispute over iconoclasm Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicates Emperor Leo V the Armenian. Leo responds by smashing an icon of Saint Basil the Great over Nicephorus’ head.
708 AD: Duke Drogo of Champagne dies after being knocked unconscious in one of the region’s first attempts at carbonating its famous wine. Innovation in this area is stifled for another 800 years as a result.
538 AD: Justinian issues the Edict of Sardinia, declaring that the Empire should slowly collapse over the next thousand years.
14 AD: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Caesar Augustus to his friends, realizes during a severe bout of diarrhea that he should probably have his grandson Agrippa murdered.
100 BC: Due to an accidental mistranslation, the author of 1 and 2 Maccabees unknowingly ascribes the exploits of the extremely lost Celtic clan MacCabe to a local Judean family.
456 BC: Athenian student Daramenaxos suggests adding a new element: Mud. Others explain that mud is just a combination of the known elements Earth and Water.
600 BC: An insane traveler from Africa arrives in Greece mumbling fantastic stories about talking animals doing nasty things to each other. Aesop writes them down and cleans them up a bit.
1258 BC: An accidental confluence of sea turtles in the Caribbean, if viewed from the air, spells out the first three items on the menu of McClatchy’s Fried House in Plenary, AL.
1958 AD. If viewed from the shore it spells nothing.
2944 BC: Yup, the Chinese record another comet appearing in the sky.
6000 BC: New Guinean highlander Rut discovers an exciting new recipe for taro dip. Later at the dinner party everyone is wowed.
8122 BC: The forebears of Jericho figure out how to make fake rocks and then stack them to create leaky homes and a wall. The latter falls down at a rather inopportune time about 2500 years later.
11,001 BC: Humans arrive in what will become Argentina, but are too tired to leave.
16,000 BC: Thanks to the warming of the Earth and the end of the most recent Ice Age, Liffdon is pleased to find his hovel is now a hundred paces closer to the water supply.
853, 000 BC: Nugar and Fipo discover that badger tastes much better than aardvark.