JULY 1st - Legends of the Fall of the Napoleons

On this day in 1810, Louis Bonaparte was forced to abdicate his throne and step down as the King of Holland. Guess who forced him? That’s right, his own freaking brother, that little turd Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon I of France, who incidentally wasn't actually that short. He was 5’6”, which was an inch over the average height for a French male. But I don't feel bad for him getting pegged with the Napoleon Complex, the dude kicked his brother off the Throne of Holland. Now I’m not exactly sure how great being king of the Netherlands was in the early 1800’s, but having your older brother just roll in and say, “Hey broski, you’re not king anymore. Sorry. But you called me short. And I’m not short. I just have tall bodyguards,” couldn’t have been a highlight. Not saying that’s how it went down exactly, but it could have been. Napoleon wasn’t quite done with the humiliation though. He gave the throne to Louis’ son, also named Louis. Of course Napoleon only let Napoleon Louis (why did they name all their kids the same thing?) have the throne for 8 days, before he annexed Holland to France, and was all “just gonna take this for myself, thank you.” I’m not here to cast aspersions on historical figures, but I’m not sure one can be more of a jerk as a brother. Well I take that back. Have you seen Legends of the Fall? The Ludlow brothers were kind of dicks to each other. Not Samuel, but he probably would have been a dick too if he wouldn’t have died so early on. Tristan and Alfred were not exactly chummy. I know Brad Pitt and his hair left to travel the world to overcome the horror of letting his younger brother die, but does that really give Aidan Quinn the right move in on Tristan’s girl who had been Samuel’s (the kid from ET) girl prior to Samuel’s untimely demise? Nope. Even if he loved her, and loved her still. And what was up with Anthony Hopkins makeup post-stroke in that movie? So anywho, here's to Louis Bonaparte, who was the King of Holland for four years (they called him Louis the Good) until his tiny, older brother--who wasn't really tiny--took it all away from him. Guess who wasn't upset when Napoleon tried to conquer Russia? By the way, this post was seriously close to devolving into my favorite quotes from Legends of the Fall.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more