History of the Day: 10/29

On this day in 1886 the ticker-tape parade was invented when office workers spontaneously threw the material into the streets after the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. On the same day 43 years later, ticker-tape was replaced by despondent investors after the Crash of '29 or Black Tuesday which began the Great Depression.

Tomorrow is National Street-Sweeper's Day.

Happy birthday to the Internet, 39 years old today! (Al Gore was 21 at the time of its birth, that scoundrel!) They named it ARPANET. Here's the baby picture. Isn't it cuuuuuute!

Three men of varying influence on this nation died on this day. Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in 1618 for ... well ... it's hard to say. He had already been imprisoned for life and declared dead when he fell out of favor with Queen Elizabeth. His son, Walter, was conceived during this time. Then, he was released. Then, imprisoned again. Then, released again for an expedition to find El Dorado. During that expedition, they sacked a Spanish outpost (Walter Jr. was shot during the fight). The Spanish ambassador demanded that Sir Raleigh be put to death.

So, it is not surprising that, when presented with the axe that would be used to decapitate him, Raleigh quipped:

This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries.

He is remembered for establishing the lost colony at Roanoke, founding North Carolina, and supplying a secondary plot line in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Oh, and cigarettes. At least, that's what the Beatles remembered him for:

I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid git.

In 1877, Nathan Bedford Forrest died as well. Gen. Forrest served during the Civil War (aka. Wawah Against Nawthun Aggreshun) and seemed a reasonable man. At the end of hostilities, he told his soldiers:

You have been good soldiers, you can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the Government to which you have surrendered can afford to be, and will be, magnanimous.

He then became associated with the KKK. You might remember his distant kin, Mr. Gump, who said:

Now, when I was a baby, Momma named me after the great Civil War hero, General Nathan Bedford Forrest... She said we was related to him in some way. And, what he did was, he started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan. They'd all dress up in their robes and their bedsheets and act like a bunch of ghosts or spooks or something. They'd even put bedsheets on their horses and ride around. And anyway, that's how I got my name. Forrest Gump. Momma said that the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense.

Amen.

Joseph Pulitzer of the NY Times died in 1911. He seems like another reasonable guy, even having an award for achievement in journalism, literature or music named after him. However, his circulation war with Randolf Hearst spawned what is now known as yellow journalism which is defined as:

n. Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers.

This race to sell papers rather than speak truth is partially responsible for the Spanish-American War, and what's worse, Cable News Networks. Come to think of it, his award is yellow too. A contemporary humorist paper called Puck (the Onion or Daily Show of its day) summarized it nicely with this political cartoon.