Aug 22 1770 - Cook Claims Useless Land For Britain

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

After two years of sailing, Captain James Cook has landed in Australia, in a place he has named Botany Bay where he has stuck a flag in the soil and claimed it for Britain.
What the natives, who Cook described as 'very dark or black colour' thought as they watched some strange white man babbling away in a foreign language is anyone guess but i can imagine what King George III is thinking 'great, what we gonna do with a country half a world and 2 years away'?
In my mind when explorers discover new lands, they bring back riches and useful things like tobacco and potatoes, Cook has claimed a land halfway around the globe where the most outstanding feature is a bunch of very dark people.
All the religious people went off to set up colonies in New World so we can't send all them over there so thanks to Captain Cook we are lumbered with another piece of worthless land thousands of miles away that most travellers will die of scurvy getting to.
Cheers Jim.

Aug 21 1940 - Russian Revolution Takes Another Twist

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day and ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Revolutions are hardly ever neat and clean and the Russian one a little over 20 years ago continues to serve up twists as turns as another of the key figures, Leon Trotsky, has been found dead, the victim of an ice pick to the head.
Second only to Vladimir Lenin in the early stages of Soviet communist rule, the former head of the Red Army's star waned dramatically on the death of Lenin when he lost the power struggle with Stalin over who was to become Lenin's successor and was exiled and sentenced to death for treason.
He found himself in Mexico where he continued to criticise Stalin and the direction that he was taking Communism in the Soviet Union.
Stalin, never one to take criticism lightly, ordered his death and the inevitable conclusion happened in Trotsky's Office after he had survived a previous gun attack on his family home.
Now that the two intellectuals of the Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky, have left the scene, the death bell has been sounded for the Lenin/Trotsky idea of 'Permanent Revolution' that would see Communism expanded to include other countries, the Stalinist 'Socialism in one country' idea now holds sway under the totalitarian stewardship of Uncle Jo and the revolution takes another lurch away from the very ideals that it was based upon.

Aug 20 1961 - East Germany Erecting Wall

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Regardless of your ideology, when you have to build a 5 meter high wall to keep people from escaping, you are on shaky ground which is exactly what the German Democratic Republic have announced they are going to do in Berlin.
Calling it an 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart', the East German authorities argue that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified but really it has more to do with them seeing 3.5 million East Germans, 20% of the entire East German population, defecting from the East into West Berlin since 1945.
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht has announced that during the construction of the Wall, soldiers will stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempts to defect.
Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles are to be installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany and a huge no man's land will be cleared to provide a clear line of fire at any escapees.
The GDP has called any attempts to leave the GDR an 'act of political and moral backwardness and depravity' but building a huge wall to stop your own people escaping does sound like they are on the wrong side of it.

Aug 19 1977 - Groucho Marx Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

I am not much of a fan of the old scratchy black and white comedies, never really saw the attraction of Charlie Chaplin and the likes of Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges and Abbot and Costello were too slapstick for my tastes but i always find time to watch a Marx Brothers film.
The only silver lining with the news that Groucho Marx has died today aged 86 is that we may get to see a run of their classic films and some of the greatest one liners ever to appear on a cinema screen.
Groucho Marx was the most recognisable and well-known of the Marx Brothers and it would not be right to let him go without reliving some of his best one liners such as 'I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception' and 'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it' and don't forget 'He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot' and what about 'Remember men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did'.
Brilliant stuff.

Aug 18 1227 - Genghis Khan Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

It somehow feels like an anti-climax that someone so brutal and responsible for so many deaths should himself die by falling of his horse but whatever way he went, the death of Genghis Khan can only be seen as a good thing.
Ordering the wholesale massacre of civilians of captured cities and then building pyramids with their heads and executing enemy generals by pouring molten silver into their ears and eyes, he was a particular ruthless brute as we saw at Urgench when Mongol soldiers were ordered to execute the entire 1.2 million population.
Genghis Khan leaves behind an empire that stretches from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Japan and is succeeded by his third son, Ögedei Khan who we can only hope did not inherit his fathers blood lust.

Aug 17 1946 - George Orwell Publishes Animal Farm

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Of all the political ideologies bandied around, it's Socialism that sounds the most attractive. Everyone equal and 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need' as Karl Marx put it. 
The problem is with any ideology, it can become corrupted by having a power crazy megalomaniac at the top and George Orwell has come up with an amazing book that warns how even the best ideology can become corrupted and he has surprisingly used the setting of a farm.
Based on the Russian revolution and following through to the modern day Stalin era, he cleverly uses the farm animals and the farm itself as the staging for the uprising against Farmer Jones and the pigs' rise to pre-eminence which mirrors the rise of Stalin.
If you know the story of the Bolsheviks and the overthrow of the monarchy, the idea that 'all animals are equal' which slowly becomes corrupted into 'all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others' parallelling the perverting of the Marxist theory which the revolution was based upon.
Powerful writing and undoubtedly it will not see light of day in the Soviet Union but Orwell beautifully weaves real life events into a fantasy setting and warns in large letters that any ideology, even one as appealing as Socialism where everyone is supposedly equal, can be twisted and corrupted in the wrong hands.  

Aug 16 1936 - Berlin Olympic Games Closes

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

It may have began in a controversial manner with calls for America to be banned as it's racial discrimination was a violation of Olympic rules and the Germans banning jews and blacks which was later repealed, but once it got underway the 11th Olympics in Berlin turned out to be quite a eye-opener but especially for the Nazis.
It began with a nice touch from the organisers, coming up with the idea of the torch being run from ancient Olympia to the host city which will hopefully be kept for future Olympics.
The Spanish and Soviets boycotted the event but they were not missed as the largest number of teams from around the world participated in these Games, 49 nations in all.
Germany topped the medal table with United States second and Great Britain finishing up in 10th place with four golds.
Especially pleasing was Jesse Owens 4 golds which must have gone down like a lead balloon with the watching Hitler who never wanted any blacks there at all, considering them inferior.
Doubtful that anything will change the mind of someone like Adolf Hitler but hopefully this may have opened  just slightly the minds that consider anyone inferior to anyone else because of the colour of their skin or their religion and that goes for all sides.

Aug 15 1620 - Mayflower Sets Sail

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

The East Midlands is a little less holy today as 102 of Nottingham's finest bible carriers have climbed aboard the Mayflower and set sail for the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean  to start up a new country.
One can only wonder that if they survive the trip and don't end up as shark food, what sort of country would a bunch of religion fans led by a postman possibly come up with?
Amongst the passengers is William Mullins and his family who didn't bother taking food or the means to catch food but packed with him 126 pairs of shoes which will come in handy if God has not made the New World smooth and sandy.
One thing is for sure, if they survive the trip and the natives don't scalp them within seconds of them stepping ashore or they avoid being eaten by bears on the first night, they will still be English and one thing the English cannot do without is tea so we will have a ready make market to sell out tea to which will come in handy for our coffers.
As the sister ship of the Mayflower, Speedwell, sprung a leak before it was hardly out of Southampton waters resulting in both ships limping back to Dartmouth in Devon, it isn't looking good for the holy rollers but armed with a mass of bibles and William Mullins many shoes, when the ship sinks mid-Atlantic, they can at least make a raft and use the shoes as paddles.

Aug 14 1925 - Big Headed Presidents

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

In America they do things big and if the project gains Congressional approval, the massive heads of four former Presidents will soon be looking down from the south face of Mount Rushmore.
The anticipated project announced today is to carve the 60ft heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln into the granite of the mountain in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'big forehead'. Honk honk!!

Aug 13 1946 - H. G. Wells Dies

A post taking real life incidents from this day in history and my view of them as if they were happening today and what my honest view would have been then on that day ignoring hindsight or knowledge of how it ended.

Britain has been blessed with some excellent story tellers down the years and today one of our finest has died with news that HG Wells has died of a heart attack aged 79.
While many will agree 'War of The Worlds' to be his magnum opus, i found 'The Time Machine' to be my favourite story from his pen, the concept of travelling through time an epic piece of science fiction writing.
He may have been a philanderer leaving broken marriage's and fatherless children in his wake but as a writer he must rank as one of this countries finest.
His imaginative and excellently written stories will remain even if he won't and as time passes, historians will settle less on his numerous affairs or what he called 'loving several people very deeply at the same time' and concentrate on his books which deserve to put him alongside the likes of Jules Verne as making an outstanding contribution to literature.