Marked This Day

On this day in 1992, Don Kellner jumped out of a plane for the 18,000th time. That’s a lot of times to jump out of anything, much less a plane. In fact, that’s 18,000 more times than I have jumped out of a plane. And of course Don didn’t just stop there. He’s kept jumping out of planes. He got married jumping out of a plane. He conceived his first son while jumping out of a plane. Okay, no he didn’t. That’s going a bit too far, and I’m not even sure it’s physically possible. Patrick Swayze might have been able to accomplish it while filming Point Break as the incomparable Bodhi, but Patrick Swayze was also Dalton in Road House . Not talking about a mere mortal here. But Kellner currently has skydived (skydove?) over 42,000 times. Obsessed much? It could be the fact that he runs a skydiving school, but I mean he could delegate a bit more. Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t be all too impressed. He’d say that any man who jumps out of plane that many times is mentally unstable and should be sen...

On this day in 1894, Daniel M. Cooper received a patent for his time clock which was the first to use a card to accurately record the time a worker punched in and out. Now I realize that America was founded on the hardworking ideals of millions of immigrants who came to the New Country searching for opportunity and freedom. But America also has a rich tradition of scam artists and confidence men, and quite a bit of lazy bastards who wished to abuse that freedom. So while many appreciated Cooper’s advancement, especially the bookkeepers who had tabulate hours and paychecks, I’m sure there were quite a few people who were a tad ticked off. Roger, the functioning alcoholic, who always snuck into work an hour late. Benji, the grifter, who would tell the bossman he worked overtime despite the fact he was actually visiting underground casinos. Cooper’s Rochester Recorder made all that a little more difficult. But again, much of this country is and was a bunch of hardworking Joes, and this ...

On this day in 1945, Gimbel’s Department Store in New York City 1st sold the Reynold’s Rocket, a ballpoint pen developed by Milton Reynolds. The pen was widely popular at first and sold more than $100,000 worth on that first day. However, this wasn’t just a simple case of Reynold’s developing a very usable tool that satisfied consumer-demand. In fact, the tale of the ballpoint pen reads a bit more like a Bond flick than you would ever think. The first patent was filed way back in the 1880’s, by John Loud, but his pen had some snags leaving production quiet. Then the Biros, some brothers from Argentina, improved upon it before selling the rights to the Eversharp Company. Still the pen had flaws. Then homeboy Reynolds was vacationing in Argentina, saw the pen those Biro dudes made, and was like I got this, not really caring about the patents or the kinks because some of the patents had expired and he didn’t have time for all the legal nonsense or kinks anyway. He manufactured the pen and...

(Seriously, tell me this guy isn't more annoying than Nickleback.) On this day in 1919, the Volstead Act became law after Congress overruled President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. The Volstead Act, if you need a quick refresher because you were drunk in your high school history classes, was basically the law that regulated the Eighteenth Amendment also known as the “people-in-the-early-1900s-drank-way-too-much-so-lets-prohibit-fun-sauce-altogether” amendment. I believe Wilson came up with that term. Now, I’ve discussed Prohibition multiple times (June 9th, June 13th, and July 24th) and enumerated some long-term effects (organized crime, the rise of root beer), but I’ve left the Volstead Act untouched. Mainly because it’s an extremely convoluted document with numerous provisions. Because you could still drink in your home or a home in which you were a guest. But there were rules. Rules which a lot of people ignored. Because how do you ban booze? As I have previously noted (with beer) booz...

On this day in 1992, Tipper Gore admitted that she placed a piece of black electrical tape over the blinking clock on her VCR because she couldn’t figure out how to set it. A few things come to mind about that little tidbit of news. First is that October 27th of 1992 must have been quite slow on the news. But I guess there weren’t people with Ebola fevers running willy-nilly around the country, or ruthless Middle Eastern insurgents who were very strategic with their flag placement, and there certainly weren’t 10 24hr news channels to report on Tipper’s lack of VCR literacy in 4 person panels for hours on end. 'Twas a simpler time. Except when it came to recording shows or sporting events or that time Aunt Tina made the news for her Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. Because, VCRs were a pain to figure out. So many variables you had to consider. You needed the time and date to match up exactly with the show you were planning on taping. You had to commit to exactly how much time you wanted...

On this day in 1836, Alonzo Dwight Phillips became the first American to receive a patent for a phosphorus friction match. Apparently, he just ripped off Dr. Charles Sauria, a Frenchman from St. Lothair, although Phillips’ match was described as an “improvement.” But Suaria probably just ripped off somebody before him, who had ripped off somebody before him, dating all the way back to when the first caveman struck the first match. Or, you know, got extremely bored making shadow puppets in the sunlight and hunting for food and starting rubbing two sticks together. I’m just extremely thankful people figured out the whole fire thing. More specifically that Phillips or Sauria or the guy before him or the guy before him figured out the whole how-to-make-fire-easy thing. Because rubbing sticks together seems like a pain in the ass. It probably wouldn’t be for Thomas Jefferson, so undoubtedly he would not be very impressed by Phillips or Sauria or the guy before that or the guy before that. B...

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...

So you’re the best hockey player in the world playing for the team in the largest city in America. Your incredibly attractive wife is sitting rink side to cheer you on. Life could be worse. But then a hard check occurred resulting in a large piece of plexi-glass falling on your incredibly attractive wife, cutting her lip and concussing her brain. There are six minutes left in the game. Your team is down by 1 goal. What do you do? I’m not just throwing hypotheticals at you, here. This exact scenario snuck up on Wayne Gretzky, on this day in 1997 when the New York Rangers were playing Chicago Blackhawks. So what did The Great One do? He played the concerned husband. He went to Janet’s side and stayed there for several minutes, before returning to the bench as team doctors attended to her before taking her to the hospital. Gretzky then went back in the game and finished the final six minutes and eighteen seconds. I can feel your judgement. But hey, his nickname didn’t refer to how great o...

On this day in 1989, rescue workers found Buck Helm alive inside his car four days after an earthquake caused a freeway to collapse in San Francisco. Helm survived there for 90 hours after a beam that had fallen kept his car from being utterly demolished. When the workers found him he had a skull fracture, three broken ribs, nerve damage and was severely dehydrated. He also had the will to survive. To not give up. It’s an important trait to have. Where would Sly Stallone be if he had given up on his career? Probably a footnote for the adult-entertainment video industry. But instead he made Rocky . And Rocky II . And Rocky III . Hell, Rocky IV ended the Cold War. Did he give up after Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! Nope. (And FYI, any movie with not one but two exclamation points in the title will not be good). And did he give up when they told him he was too old to be an action hero? Nope. Which is why he’ll be making The Expendables until he overdoses on HGH and dies in his 80’s. The ...

On this day in 1979, Bob Dylan was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live with guest host was Eric Idle of Monty Python. Now, it’s not like this was a great day in our nation’s history or anything, but Dylan is perhaps the greatest singer/songwriter that has ever walked the planet, and the fact that he became such despite sounding as if a chicken-bone was permanently lodged in his wind-pipe at some point during his childhood is pretty remarkable. And SNL is one of the most famous TV programs in broadcast history, so the day does deserve a little commemoration. On top of that one of the songs Dylan sang was “Gotta Serve Somebody,” which I have always greatly enjoyed. It’s a factual statement for the vast majority of people. As the songs describes, some people have to serve more than others. For instance, a pretty-boy criminal who wound up doing hard time after accidentally shooting someone, but really has the survival skills of new-born puppy; he might be doing a lot of serving, whi...

On this day in 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States, having fled the persecution of Nazi Germany. Einstein had been banned from working in all universities of his homeland and had seen his books publicly burned because of his Jewish background. I think that may be dumber than Hitler deciding to invade Russia. You should never invade Russia. It is very cold. But here you have the smartest man in the world, probably of the 20th Century, and quite possibly top five all time and Angry Adolf's insane ideas and prejudices force him out of the country. You'd think that Hitler would be bragging that the man who won the Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity was a German. A genius is not a commodity one comes by every day. Instead he put a bounty on Einstein’s head. Chalk it up as one of the reasons that megalomaniacs who promote bigotry and racism will be struck down. The megalomania has a little to do with it. But so does the myopicness that comes with having rigid be...

On this day in 1846, Dr. William T. G. Morton, a dental surgeon, became the first to publicly demonstrate the use of ether as surgical anesthesia. Dr. Morton administered the drug to a patient so Dr. John Collins Warren could remove a tumor from his neck. Then Morton got all Tricky-Dicky and said that the drug was called “letheon” and worked to obtain a patent so he could profit from its use. However, there were some issues concerning whether he had indeed been the one to come up with ether’s applied usage, and his attempts to profit off the popularity of the drug’s usage dried up like a month-old Bundt cake. So he never really gained the recognition he was hoping for from his peers, although he did gain some notoriety when he was a star defense witness in a highly publicized trial. His nemesis was the star witness for the prosecution, his former mentor, who also claimed to have developed and discovered the uses of ether. Two guys just couldn't see eye to eye. Morton did get a movi...

Keeping with the dead Presidents on Mt. Rushmore theme, on this day in 1860, 11 year-old Grace Bedell wrote Republican Presidential Nominee Mr. Abraham Lincoln to politely inform him that his super thin face would benefit greatly from some “whiskers.” I hope that Lincoln didn’t frequently turn to juveniles for advice, but everybody has a little wisdom to depart if you have a discerning ear. The guy living under the overpass panhandling for money could tell you that mixing Purple Drank and crystal meth is not very conducive to a successful life. That’s a feather for your cap if I’ve ever heard one. But people can give bad advice too. “Yes, the pretty lady with bitchy-resting face totally wants you to go talk to her,” comes to mind. “Just take another shot”-- usually not a good idea. “Listen to everything David Koresh says. He’ll never steer you wrong.” Winner. Winner. I just hope Honest Abe was never given this little tidbit: “Abe, you need to relax. You should take a load off and take ...

Do you think yourself a tough person? Toughness is manifested in different ways and often has nothing to do with physical strength or the endurance to withstand physical pain. For instance standing up to that bully in middle school who wanted throw pepperoni at Stevie Whitcomb during lunch because Stevie Whitcomb was unfortunate enough to develop a severe case of acne in 7th grade--that’s toughness. But toughness also has to do with the physical. On this day in 1912, Bull Moose Presidential Candidate Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated this while campaigning in Milwaukee. Most of you know that Teddy was tough. Rough Riders. Walk softly, carry a big stick and all that. But on this day President Badass got shot in the chest at close range by John Schrank who was angry President Badass was seeking a third term. Now Roosevelt had some padding. A thick coat. A glasses case. And the manuscript of the speech he was giving. The bullet had to pass through all that. And it did. But it was slowed down e...

On this day in 1993, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks won their first NHL game 4-3, beating the Edmonton Oilers. Not bad for only their third game. They wound up being quite respectable on the ice that first year finishing 33-46-5--record-breaking for a franchise team. I’m more concerned about the fact that the teams was named after a kids movie. An admittedly fantastic kids movie. Emilio Estevez as Gordon Bombay? Martin Sheen had to be proud. Probably beats his own work in Apocalypse Now . Pacey from Dawson’s Creek as Charlie Conway? Goldberg. Adam Banks. Wise-old Hans. Not to mention the plot was top-notch. Who among us has not altered the course of his/her life because of messing up in pee-wee sports? If Michael Jordan would have missed the game winning free-throw when he was 10 years old under the watch of a tyrannical pee-wee coach, he totally would have quit basketball to become a high-powered attorney who only cared about winning cases. Although, I must admit, as much as I despised Coac...

On this day in 1976, 98 year-old Dimitrion Yordanidis ran the Marathon marathon (actually the Athens Marathon) in 7 hours and 33 minutes to become the oldest man to finish a marathon. First off, you have to give props right off the bat because A. Dimitrion was Greek, and 2. he ran the Marathon marathon. You know the same 26 miles that Pheidippides ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Greeks had beaten the Persians before he dropped dead. People often fail to mention that he had run 150 miles over the previous two days. But Yordanidis kept it real. Stayed to true to his roots. Damn old roots. Dude was born in the 70’s. The 1870’s. That’s wild. Thomas Jefferson would have to be impressed, right? Probably not. He would be all, “98 years old and you’re running a marathon? Old Ben Franklin was chasing after women well into his 80’s, and would have continued to do so if he had lived into his 90’s. Women and politics, Dimi. The only areas of life where endurance real...

On this day in 1973, Elvis and Priscilla Presley finalized their divorce after six years of marriage. While six years isn’t going to win any longevity records, it’s fairly long by Hollywood standards. I’m sure Britney Spears is actually a bit envious. And while I doubt that Elvis was the best of husbands and the marriage had been rocky more than stable with affairs, rumors of affairs, drugs, rumors of drugs, and rumors of drug affairs, you have to give the King a little credit. Priscilla was the only one with whom he walked down the aisle. He did the whole marriage thing, had Lisa Marie (I wonder what he thought about that really strange time in the world when Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson were married?) and must have come to the decision that wedded bliss was not for him. Then again maybe he just didn’t get married again because his body started failing faster than M. Night Shyamalan's career after The Sixth Sense . I mean Unbreakable and Signs were okay. But what in the twiste...

(Explicit Language) On this day in 1964, Gilroy Roberts retired from his position as the U.S. Chief Coin Designer and Engraver. On the surface that doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. Except for the fact that he was the first Chief Engraver to do so. His eight predecessors all died in office. I’m not one to believe in curses, and the eight previous engravers may have lived to ripe old ages before croaking in office, but the position would still give me pause. The Madden Curse is that if you’re on the cover you get injured or have a bad season. This was death. As in shuffling off this mortal coil. Kicking the bucket. Tangoing with the grim reaper. Going six feet under. To sleep; no more. Death. So you have to give ole Gilroy some props, for having the foresight to quit while he was alive. He also designed the Kennedy Half Dollar. Which is pretty cool. Even cooler is that he was able to enjoy it while he was alive. Not that he was mobbed in the streets because of the fruits of his labo...

This day in 1916 was the biggest blowout in college football history. Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College of Lebanon, Tennessee 222 - 0. That’s 222. To Zilch. Now Cumberland had actually discontinued their football program for the 1916 season, but Georgia Tech’s coach wasn’t having that. Coach John Heisman of trophy fame (though not at that point) also happened to be the Georgia Tech baseball coach. And Cumberland had beaten the tar off his boys the previous spring 22-0. Worse than the score though, Heisman suspected that Cumberland had used professional ringers, cheating their way to a lopsided score. So he wasn’t just going to let them off the hook because they no longer had a team. If they didn’t play, they were going to pay. 3Grand for the forfeit fee. So student manager George Allen hodge-podged a team of 14 together, mostly consisting of his fraternity brothers, to go down to Atlanta and play the Engineers. How bad could it be right? Really bad. The score was 126 - 0 at halftime...

This day in 1967 was the Death of the Hippie ceremony held after the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco. Despite the name, The Death of the Hippie was not some anti-hippie protest held by red-blooded conservative meat-eaters who wanted to set fire to patchouli oil and end free love. It was held to announce that the rest of the hippies should cease to come to Haight-Ashbury regardless of whether they were wearing flowers in their hair. So it was actually more of a notice that said “Hey guys, sorry you missed the Summer of Love here in San Fran, but it’s over now. You should just embrace our communal ideals of love and sharing coupled with our mind expanding attitudes towards drugs and sex in the places that you live and bring the hippie movement nationwide.” The whole movement proved to have some staying power, aided by bands like The Grateful Dead, Phish, and Widespread Panic. I get it. Psychedelic drugs and being one with nature and loving each other and al...

On this day in 1990, Charles Freeman, a record store owner in Ft. Lauderdale, was convicted of obscenity for selling 2 Live Crew’s Nasty as They Wanna Be and fined $1000. Freeman spoke out in defense of the First Amendment and appealed the ruling. I’d have to agree with his stance. If an adult wants to buy some hypersexualized rap album, well that’s his/her prerogative, just like it’s the right of the prophets on Bourbon Street to tell all the sinners to repent or burn in hell. It doesn’t make what is being said right, but the person does have a right to say it. Thomas Jefferson might have actually been impressed with Freeman. Probably not though. TJ would have supported his right to sell the music, but I doubt he would have been impressed with Freeman’s fight. “Seriously, Charles. The tyranny I fought against was a little greater than the prudes you are fighting,” he would have said. And he probably wouldn’t have been impressed with 2 Live Crew either. “While I support you freedom to...

On this day in 1984, Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov, and Oleg Atkov returned to earth after spending a then-record 237 days in space. I don't know much about these three Russians other than that Kizim was the mission commander and Atkov was a cardiologist and thus would prefer to be noted as Dr. Atkov. I also know it is almost impossible to say their names aloud without doing so in a Russian accent while imagining they are Bond villains. Other than that, they are just as anonymous as you, dear reader. And being that I’ve never talked to anyone who has been in outer space--I have seen Gravity, Apollo 13, and Armageddon--I’ve been left to imagine what 237 days in space would be like. And I think it would be like a relationship with that beautiful exotic person you’ve been chasing after for an indeterminate amount of time. At first you’re all like, Yes! Space is awesome. She’s so cool and exotic. She’s smart. Space has seen a lot of things. She seems independent, and you think this ...

On this day in 1864, John Summerfield Staples, a young man hailing from Stroudsburg, PA, met with President Abraham Lincoln, finalizing an agreement to serve in the Civil War in the President’s stead. Staples supposedly shook hands with Lincoln twice, was given a $500 re-enlistment bonus and 60 bucks of Honest Abe’s own money. Staples served for the next year until he was honorably discharged after contracting Typhoid Fever, the same disease for which he was discharged after his first go round in the war. Apparently all this was done in order to help build morale, revitalize army recruitment, and to appease some protests. Now, I’m not calling out President Lincoln here. I'm all about some Honest Abe. Love me some “four score” and what not. However, I fail to see exactly how this would pump anyone up. It would kind of just annoy me that he was able to have a war proxy. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure John S. Staples was quite honored to fight for President Lincoln, possibly mor...