Happy birthday, and keep your head down

Happy 199th birthday to General "Uncle John" Sedgwick. He was a fine officer, but is unfortunately best known today for his (presumed) last words:

"Don't worry, men. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist-".

Make of it what you will

So I notice today that both Tom Landry and Bear Bryant were born on this date. Perhaps we should call it "Football Day". I'd be all in favor of it, had a bunch of assholes not ruined the date forever.

Huh?

Okay, it's odd but here's one from the page I check. Don't ask for an explanation, because there is none.

Happy 27th birthday to Afro BO, greatest monkey.

A Pretty Bad Day

Well it's an interesting day if your name is Marc Antony. First off, in 44 BC, Cleopatra named her son as co-pharaoh. That would be her son Caesarion. Son of Guess Who. (I suppose Antony didn't mind a certain type of seconds).

At any rate, that was the high point of September 2 for Antony. On that very same day, to the northwest of Egypt in Rome; Cicero gave the first of his phillipics against Antony. Basically, telling everyone in Rome what a poopy-head Antony was. He gave a bunch more over the next few months.

And finally, lest you think THAT was a bad day, Antony had one more notable event on this date. In 31 BC, he and Cleo with their fleets met the fleet of Octavian at Actium, off the coast of Greece. As Antony and his ships were getting their asses kicked, Cleo decided that discretion was the ether part of valor, and took her fleet away. Back to Egypt they went, with Antony following as soon as he could. It didn't help- let's just say that his stay there wasn't long, before he lost his head. That would be literally, of course. And then Cleo got friendly with an asp, Caesarion got into trouble (if he wasn't already), and bob's your uncle, Octavian became Augustus.

And Augustus became "Not-Emperor", since an empire was bad. Nope, he was just the first citizen, who happened to control the senate, treasury, army, and bureaucracy.

So how was your day?


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A note to all runners

A quick post today, to make note that it was on this day in 490 B.C. that Pheidippides died. Whether or not he had really just completed a 26 mile run with the tidings of Athenian victory at Marathon or not, he apparently was a message runner for the City.

So go run a marathon in his memory, if you're so inclined. And hey- run one for me too!

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Spot the Error

So astronaut Neil Young died today. No comments yet from his Apollo 11 crewmates, Crosby, Stills and Nash.

Keep This Straight if You Can

On this date in 1456, Vladislav II, Voivode of Wallachia, was killed by Dracula.

In fairness, Vlad II had killed Voivode Dracul, so it was revenge. And there's nothing to suggest Vlad III drank the blood of Vlad II.

By the way, Dracul was also Vlad II. So Vlad II was killed by Vlad III in revenge for killing Vlad II.

Or put another way, Dracula killed Vlad for killing Dracul.

Dracul, by the way, means "dragon", and "Dracula" is the diminutive form, essentially meaning "son of the dragon".

And Dracul was the legitimate voivode until he was murdered and his throne usurped by Vlad II, aka non-Dracul. So Vlad III was also the legitimate voivode.

And at least Vlad II Non-Dracul was killed (apparently) in a fair fight, mano-a-mano by III.

Guess this helps explain why the Balkans are so screwed up, huh?

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