Last bare-knuckle championship bout, 1889
In 1881, the Massachusetts boxer John L. Sullivan insulted Richard Kyle Fox, proprietor of the weekly sports and theatre journal entitled the National Police Gazette, when he refused to visit…
Paris celebrated la Fête de la Fédération, 1790
In June 1790, the French National Assembly approved the Paris Commune’s proposition that a celebration be held to mark the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The centrepiece of…
Hollywood sign dedicated, 1923
In 1923 the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Harry Chandler, the banker and railroad owner, General M. H. Sherman, and developer Sidney H. Woodruff formed a real estate syndicate…
On this day in history: First Cuban world boxing champion, 1931
On July 15th 1931, Eligio Sardiñas Montalvo – better known as Kid Chocolate or the Cuban Bon Bon – knocked out Benny Bass in the seventh round of their Junior…
King George V changed his family name, 1917
Three years into the Great War, anti-German feeling was running high in Britain. To appeal to nationalist sentiment King George V decided to change the name of the British royal…
First European banknotes, 1661
In November 1656, King Karl X Gustav of Sweden signed two charters creating two private banks under the directorship of Johan Palmstruch, a trade commissioner born in Riga. Palmstruch modeled…
Intel founded, 1968
In the late ’60s, the chemist and physicist, Dr. Gordon E. Moore, and the co-inventor of the integrated circuit, Robert N. Noyce departed Fairchild Semiconductor to set up their own…
Quote of the Day?
Drudge has a question mark by this quote, and rightfully so. In Art Buchwald’s latest column in the Washington Post, there is a remark, attributed to Dan Rather, on whether…
Our Friends in Beijing (and Moscow)
Less than 48 hours after the North Korean missile launches, our erstwhile freinds in Beijing and Moscow are (predictably) being less-than-helpful on the issue. When the U.N. Security Council took…
The Limits of Technology
From today’s Financial Times, a dose of reality concerning Tuesday’s North Korean missile test. As the the paper reminds us, Pyongyang has a long way to go in mastering ICBM…