History of the Day: 11/27

On this day in 1095, Pope Urban II declared the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He promised the knights:

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.

One of the knights responded:

I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God.

Oh, wait, no, that was Osama Bin Laden. But that's OK, because the knight of the crusades put Muslim terrorists to shame, massacring and stealing from Jews and Orthodox Christians. It was on this day, over a thousand years later (in 2004) that Pope John Paul II finally returned the relics of St. John Chrysostom (who, himself, had some seriously anti-Semitic words) to the Orthodox from whom they were stolen.

The American Statistical Association was founded on this day in 1839. 92.7% of people could care less.

The first partial human face transplant was completed on this day in 2005. It's like a faceplant, but with less humorous results. Only slightly.

Happy birthday to Bruce Lee, born on this day in 1940. He died at 33 (the age I am now), but packed more awesomeness into his life than I could hope to in a bajillion years. Here he is playing ping pong with (are you ready) nunchucks! And kicking butt!

Horace, the Bruce Lee of ancient Roman poets, died on this day in 8 BC. I mostly appreciate him for his Ode 47, concerning "butt dust."

Pulvis et umbra sumus. / We are but dust and shadow.

The composer Guillaume Dufay died on this day in 1474. He composed beautiful polyphonic works such as Se la face ay pale and the magnificent Ave Maris Stella. He also wrote a requiem mass which is now lost. Perhaps it could have been sung at the funeral of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians, who was assassinated by a former supervisor on this day in 1978. The unfortunate name of his killer prompted this disturbing headline. Milk is a hero to many homosexual Americans, even prompting the creation of this icon.

Finally, today is Thanksgiving! Despite the hoopla about friendly settlers and tribal benefactors, it is telling that the proclamation calls them "heathen natives." Later, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would call for national celebrations of Thanksgiving (although both were Deists, not Christians). Our current date was set by FDR for, and I'm not joking, the express purpose of extending the Christmas season so people would buy more stuff. I suppose we were thankful for the immense public works program known as WWII that put our economy back on track. However, Roosevelt initially caught flack for his changing of the date. It was called "Franksgiving," and the debate between Republicans and Democrats over the date was parodied in Looney Toons cartoon short Holiday Highlights. Skip ahead to 5:40 and you can see competing dates, one titled "Republican" and one titled "Democrat."