Today is a good friend of mine’s birthday. So I thought,
other than sending her a gif from The Emperor’s New Groove what can I do to
make her birthday nice… because rather clearly, I have not got her a present
yet. Sorry dude.
So what I have decided is I am going to write a post about
some of the weird and wonderful and terrible things that have happened through the ages on
this, the 23rd of August.
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| Pierre-Jacques Volaire [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons |
In the year 79 Mount Vesuvius started to make it known that
he had a pretty bad belly ache. The next day he would erupt; destroying
Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis. Somewhere around 3000 people died
and the human race learned an important lesson about living in close proximity
to volcanoes.
In 1305 Braveheart was executed using methods that only the
civilized English could possible come up with. William Wallace was dragged
through London behind a horse, hung (but released while still alive),
eviscerated (then they burned his guts in front of him), castrated, beheaded
(his head was then preserved in tar and displayed on a spike on London Bridge),
his body was cut into four pieces and spread across England with his limbs
being displayed in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.
In 1989 something like 2million people made a human chain
that stretched across three Baltic states
(Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a peaceful political demonstration
for Independence.
In 2007 we finally found the missing Romanovs. The remains
of the rest of the family were found and partially identified in 1991, but two
children Alexei and one of the younger girls (always assumed to be Anastasia
were missing). The skeletal remains of the children were found a ways away from
where the others had been found, and interestingly there in no way of telling
which girls was missing. The physiology of the girl’s remain place her more
squarely in no-mans land when it comes to identification. DNA proved she is a
Romanov but she could be Anastasia of Maria.
Today is also Vulcanalia so go and set something on fire
(safely). Vulcan is the Roman god of Fire. Vulcan doesn’t do human sacrifice
(which I personally find strange), instead people would trow live fish or other
small animals onto bonfires as a sacrifice. After the great fire of Rome in AD
64, people stared sacrificing a bull and a boar as well (probably thinking that
Vulcan set the city on fire as punishment for too much fish and not enough red
meat).
I was trying to find nice things that happened but it seems
that the 23rd of August was always a pretty bad day in terms of noteworthy
things happening.
Anyways.
Happy Birthday.
Is it strange that I find it awesome that William Wallace was executed on my birthday? Not that I think it's great he died - but it's a fairly significant piece of history.
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No, I think it's a pretty cool claim to fame really. Good conversation starter, "so yeah, William Wallace was executed on my birthday, how was your week?".
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