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Today is, of course, the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It was an unsuccessful attempt by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby to overthrow the government of King James VI who was seen as intolerant. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday 5 November 1605,^[a] as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James’s nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the new head of state.

Catesby is suspected by historians to have embarked on the scheme after hopes of greater religious tolerance under James had faded. A former soldier, Guy Fawkes, was given charge of the explosives. On 26 October 1605 an anonymous letter of warning was sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, a Catholic member of Parliament, who immediately showed it to the authorities. During a search of the House of Lords on the evening of 4 November, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested.

The conspirators were either killed or captured. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the surviving conspirators, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

The event destroyed all hope for tolerance of the Catholics in England. In the summer of 1606, laws against recusancy were strengthened; the Popish Recusants Act returned England to the Elizabethan system of fines and restrictions, introduced a sacramental test, and an Oath of Allegiance, requiring Catholics to abjure as a “heresy” the doctrine that “princes excommunicated by the Pope could be deposed or assassinated”. Catholic emancipation took another 200 years.

The Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (c. 1823), by Henry Perronet Briggs

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visualize this…

BADA BING!

Space alien: Take me to your leader. Earthling: You’ve sort of come at a bad time.

MAGA: Yay, Trump’s cutting off freeloaders!! ALSO MAGA: Hey why is my food stamp card not working!?

I’m trying to see things from your perspective, but I just can’t make myself that dumb.

I bought a second hand time machine next Sunday. They don’t make them like they’re going to anymore.

Had an elderly boss who got scammed out of $5000 in a “your mac is infected” call. I told her it was a scam and reported it to Chase credit. That night, she called the scammer, angry. “I’m sorry”. he said. “I’ll refund you! What’s your debit card info?” Guess what she did…

Coffee mug saying… I am a ray of fucking sunshine.

I was gonna start dieting, but Halloween is coming up, then Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Before you know it, it’s BBQ season again and I’m not about to turn down a cheeseburger.

My Girlfriend yelled at me, “Stop it with all your corny jokes!” I said, “What are you gonna do, call the crops?”

Tim decided to tie the knot with his long-time girlfriend. One evening, after the honeymoon, he was out in the garage organizing his golfing equipment. His wife came to the door and after a long period of silence, she said, “Tim, I’ve been thinking, now that we’re married, maybe it’s time you quit golfing. You spend so much time on the course. I’m sure you could probably get a good price for your clubs.” Tim got a horrified look on his face. His wife said, “Darling, what’s wrong?” Tim shook his head and said, “For a minute there, you started to sound like my ex-wife.” “Ex-wife!” she screamed, “I didn’t know you were married before!” He gave her a pointed look and said, “I wasn’t.”

A man and wife were sitting in their easy chairs… she was watching TV and he was reading…. she said, “Sam, if I died, do you think you would get married again?” He didn’t drop his paper and replied, “Oh, I don’t know… maybe, I guess…” She was taken aback. “What? You’d actually marry another woman after me?!” “I guess — I don’t know…” “Well, would you give her my golf clubs, too?” “No, she’s left-handed.”

When do flowers get their workouts in? Spring training.

What time does everyone love to drink? Wine o’clock.

What did police have to do when 500 hares got loose downtown? They had to comb the area.

Why do cows go to New York City? To see the moo-sicals.

A bear that got wet from a light rain is called what? A drizzly bear.

Where do dads store their dad jokes? In the dad-a-base.

What do you call Dracula with hay fever? The pollen Count.

Where do sports teams go to buy new uniforms? New Jersey.

What do you call an enlisted man who loves to cook? A grill sergeant.

A dog will love you more than any person.  But they’ll also steal your sandwich.

I’m collecting my thoughts. I almost have a full set.

Facebook has taught me a couple of things. First, there are some incredibly brilliant people in the world. Second, they are vastly outnumbered.

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Halloween. I guess they don’t appreciate random people coming up to their door.

Running is a great way to meet new people. Today, I met two EMTs, three nurses, and a cardiologist.

My fondest childhood memory is thinking $100 was a lot of money.

My body isn’t a temple. It’s a haunted house. It needs a lot of work, makes mysterious creaking sounds, and contains the spirit of a creepy old man that’s always mad about something.

I think my house is haunted by the ghost of a chicken. It’s a poultrygeist. A fowl spirit. I’m going to call an eggsorcist, to help it cross to the other side.

I might wake up early and go for a jog. I may also win the lottery. Odds are about the same.

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Today is the birthday, in 1956, of British musician Helen O’Hara. She was a member and violinist of Dexys Midnight Runners from 1982 to 1987. They are best known in the UK for their songs ‘Geno’ and ‘Come On Eileen’, both of which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, and achieved six other top-20 singles. ‘Come On Eileen’ also topped the US Billboard Hot 100. After leaving Dexys, O’Hara worked with Graham Parker, Tanita Tikaram (with whom she recorded ‘Good Tradition’ and toured from 1988 to 1990) and Mary Coughlan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BODDyZRF6A

On this day in 1793, Olympe de Gouges was executed by guillotine. She is best known for her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen and other writings on women’s rights and abolitionism.

A passionate advocate of human rights, she was one of France’s earliest public opponents of slavery. Her plays and pamphlets spanned a wide variety of issues including divorce and marriage, children’s rights, unemployment and social security. in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, de Gouges published her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, in which she challenged the practice of male authority and advocated for equal rights for women.

A passionate advocate of human rights, de Gouges greeted the outbreak of the Revolution with hope and joy, but soon became disenchanted when égalité (equal rights) was not extended to women. In 1791, influenced and inspired by John Locke’s treatises on natural rights, de Gouges became part of the Society of the Friends of Truth, also known as the “Social Club,” which was an association whose goals included establishing equal political and legal rights for women. In her pamphlet on the Rights of Women she expressed, for the first time, her famous statement: A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker’s platform.

She became more and more disillusioned with the Revolution and more and more vehement in her writing. her poster Les Trois urnes, led to her arrest. Olympe decreed in this publication that “Now is the time to establish a decent government whose energy comes from the strength of its laws; now is the time to put a stop to assassinations and the suffering they cause, for merely holding opposing views. Let everyone examine their consciences; let them see the incalculable harm caused by such a long-lasting division…and then everyone can pronounce freely on the government of their choice.”

Marie-Olympe de Gouges was arrested on 20 July 1793. She spent three months in jail without an attorney as the presiding judge had denied de Gouges her legal right to a lawyer on the grounds that she was more than capable of representing herself. On 3 November 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced her to death, and she was executed for seditious behavior and attempting to reinstate the monarchy.

De Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen had been widely reproduced and influenced the writings of women’s advocates in the Atlantic world. One year after its publication, in 1792, the keen observer of the French Revolution Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Writings on women and their lack of rights became widely available. The experience of French women during the revolution entered the collective consciousness. Revolutionary novels were published that put women at the center of violent struggle, such as the narratives written by Helen Maria Williams and Leonora Sansay. At the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, the rhetorical style of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen was employed to paraphrase the United States Declaration of Independence into the Declaration of Sentiments, which demanded women’s right to vote.

The execution of Olympe de Gouges

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Pets like Halloween (sort of)

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Street name…

On this day in 1990, 25 years after their version was recorded, The Righteous Brothers went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with Unchained Melody. The track had been featured in the Patrick Swayze film Ghost. Written by Alex North and Hy Zaret, ‘Unchained Melody is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOnYY9Mw2Fg

Today is, of course, Halloween, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day.n popular culture, Halloween has become a celebration of horror and is associated with the macabre and the supernatural. With that in mind, I want to tell you about Peter Stumpp, who was executed on this day in 1589, accused of werewolfery, witchcraft, and cannibalism. He was known as “the Werewolf of Bedburg”.

Stumpp was born near Bedburg, Germany around 1530. Stump, who likely was a Protestant, was a wealthy farmer in his rural community. During the 1580s, he seems to have been a widower with two children: a daughter called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been older than 15 years, and a son of unknown age.

During 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials in history. He confessed to having practiced black magic since he was 12 years old. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical belt or girdle, which enabled him to metamorphose into “the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” Removing the belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form.

Being threatened with torture, he confessed to killing and eating 14 children and 2 pregnant women, whose fetuses he ripped from their wombs and “ate their hearts panting hot and raw,” which he later described as “dainty morsels.” Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him, and of having coupled with a distant relative, which was also considered to be incest according to the law. In addition to this, he confessed to having had sexual intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil.

The execution of Stumpp, on 31 October 1589, alongside his daughter Beele (Sybil) and mistress, Katherine, is one of the most brutal on record; I will spare you the details. As a warning against similar behaviour, local authorities erected a pole with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it, and at the very top, they placed Peter Stumpp’s severed head.

This woodcut shows the ‘breaking wheel’ as it was used in Germany in the Middle Ages. The exact date is unknown, as is the creator, but it depicts the execution of Peter Stumpp in 1589.

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Serving children at the wedding???

I know several who seem suspicious…

Happy Halloween! Two songs for today!!

Helena, Montana was founded as a gold camp during the Montana gold rush, and established on this day in 1864. Due to the gold rush, Helena became a wealthy city, with approximately 50 millionaires inhabiting the area by 1888. The concentration of wealth contributed to the city’s prominent, elaborate Victorian architecture.

Gold strikes in Idaho Territory in the early 1860s attracted many migrants who initiated major gold rushes at Grasshopper Creek (Bannack) and Alder Gulch (Virginia City) in 1862 and 1863 respectively. So many people came that the federal government created a new territory called Montana, carved out of Idaho Territory, in May 1864.

On July 14, 1864, the discovery of gold by a prospecting party known as the “Four Georgians” in a gulch off the Prickly Pear Creek led to the founding of a mining camp along a small creek in the area they called “Last Chance Gulch”. In 1876, Thomas Cruse, a prospector of Irish descent, discovered a massive gold deposit in the mountains, northwest of Helena. He soon filed a mining patent on 20.25 acres and opened the famous Drumlummon Mine which produced a rich bounty of gold and silver.

By fall of 1864, the population had grown to over 200, and some thought the name “Last Chance” was too crass. On October 30, 1864, a group of at least seven self-appointed men met to name the town, authorize the layout of the streets, and elect commissioners. The first suggestion was “Tomah”, a word the committee thought had connections to the local Indian people. Other nominations included Pumpkinville and Squashtown^[26] (as the meeting was held the day before Halloween). Finally, a Scotsman, John Summerville, proposed Helena, which he pronounced /həˈliːnə/ hə-LEE-nə, in honor of Helena Township, Scott County, Minnesota. This immediately caused an uproar from the former Confederates in the room, who insisted upon the pronunciation /ˈhɛlɪnə/ HEL-i-nə, after Helena, Arkansas, a town on the Mississippi River.

It is estimated about $3.6 billion in today’s money was extracted from Helena during this period of time. The Last Chance Placer is one of the most famous placer deposits in the western United States. Most of the production occurred before 1868. Much of the placer is now under Helena’s streets and buildings.

Helena has been the capital of Montana Territory since 1875 and the state of Montana since 1889. Referendums were held in 1892 and 1894 to determine the state’s capital; the result was to keep the capitol in Helena. At the 2020 census Helena’s population was 32,091, making it the 5th least populous state capital in the United States and the 6th most populous city in Montana.

Montana’s Original Governor’s Mansion

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Uh oh…

Today is the birthday, in 1969, of American singer-songwriter Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, Starship. She was a prominent figure in San Francisco’s psychedelic music scene during the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, with Slick providing vocals on several iconic songs, including ‘Somebody to Love’, ‘White Rabbit’, ‘We Built This City’ and ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’. Between 1985 and 1999, Slick was the oldest female vocalist on a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping single. ‘We Built This City’ reached No.1 on November 16, 1985, shortly after her 46th birthday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0

On this day in 1969, the first bits of data flowed between an SDS Sigma 7 computer at UCLA and an SDS 940 computer at the Stanford Research Institute as the initial test of the concept of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a project of the United States Department of Defense. ARPANET was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the current Internet that we all love and hate.

The first computers were connected in 1969 and the Network Control Protocol was implemented in 1970, development of which was led by Steve Crocker at UCLA and other graduate students, including Jon Postel. The network was declared operational in 1971. Further software development enabled remote login and file transfer, which was used to provide an early form of email.

Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In the early 1980s, the NSF funded the establishment of national supercomputing centers at several universities and provided network access and network interconnectivity with the NSFNET project in 1986. The ARPANET was formally decommissioned in 1990, after partnerships with the telecommunication and computer industry had assured private sector expansion and commercialization of an expanded worldwide network, known as the Internet.

First ARPANET log: the first message ever sent via the ARPANET, 10:30 pm PST on 29 October 1969 (6:30 UTC on 30 October 1969). This IMP Log excerpt, kept at UCLA, describes setting up a message transmission from the UCLA SDS Sigma 7 Host computer to the SRI SDS 940 Host computer

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Today is the birthday, in 1946, of Rob Van Leeuwen, from the Dutch rock band Shocking Blue, who formed in The Hague in 1967. They had the 1970 US No.1 & UK No.8 single ‘Venus’ which topped the charts in nine countries and was the first song by a Dutch band to reach No. 1 on the US chart. Worldwide, the single has sold over 5 million copies. Bananarama covered ‘Venus’ in 1986, hitting No.1 in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and reaching No.8 in the UK. American rock band Nirvana recorded a cover version of the Shocking Blue song ‘Love Buzz’ for its 1988 debut single, released on Sub Pop in the USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPEhQugz-Ew