On the 21st in 1783, in Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d'Arlandes made the first ascent in an untethered hot air balloon. On June 15, 1785, de Rozier and Pierre Romain, his traveling partner, would die when their hot air balloon crashed while attempting to cross the English Channel. I guess he had decided that he had to get out of France even if it killed him, which is a feeling shared by many people who have had to go to there.
The art world is a highly competitive world and an artist must spend a great deal of time pursuing their craft to receive acknowledgment and praise. 30 year-old Sculptor Rachel Whiteread won two awards on the 23rd in 1993. This was truly a stunning feat for one so young. She won not only the Turner Prize for best British modern artist but also the K Foundation Prize for worst artist of the year. Can you guess which prize Ms. Whiteread probably doesn’t note on her resume?
Howard Carter, noted Egyptologist and hack archaeologist, discovered and opened the tomb of Tutankhamen, the Boy King on the 22nd in 1922. It is well known that King Tut put a curse on his tomb that promised certain death for all those who dared to disturb his resting place. It couldn’t have been much of a curse because Carter would not die until March 2, 1939 at the age of 65. So much for the swift and sure death, that Tut warned everyone about.
If you are ever tempted to complain about bad weather, try putting whatever it is you want to complain about in its proper perspective. Is it a bit of rain? Snow? Toads falling from the skies? Although lately the latter doesn’t happen as often as it used to, so that probably won’t come in to play. In any event, before you start frightening small children with your rants about the weather consider the fact that on Thanksgiving Day, the 25th, 1926, there was an outbreak of 27 tornadoes ranging in strength up to F4. So don’t start complaining about a couple of days of rain, o.k.?
On the 27th in 1703, the first Eddystone Light was destroyed by what came to be known as the Great Storm of 1703. Personally, I don’t see what was so darn great about it. I am not going to insert the lyrics to that song here, though I am sorely tempted to do so. Just to keep the record straight however, my father wasn’t the Keeper of the Eddystone Light. In addition, it is strictly rumor that he married a mermaid one fine night. Finally, there is absolutely no proof that from that union there came three, there was no porpoise, no porgy and the other certainly wasn’t me.
On the 28th in 1989, in response to the Velvet Revolution, a non-violent political movement, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia relinquished its monopoly of power in that country. Researchers have thus far been unable to establish a connection between the Velvet Revolution and Slash’s band Velvet Revolver and it appears to be unlikely that the revolution drew its name from the band.
I am adult enough, though just barely so, to recognize that love comes with a price tag attached to it. As Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sagely observed in Hang Fire: “Marrying money is a full-time job, I don’t need the aggravation I’m a lazy slob.” I wonder however what £40 was worth in 1582 because that is what William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway paid for a marriage license on the 28th in that year.
The campaign to make November 29 a federal holiday begins now! On the 29th in 1944, Drs. Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas performed the first surgery on a human to correct a condition known as blue baby syndrome. The patient was Eileen Saxon. Sadly, Eileen only survived for two months after the surgery. While working their way up to performing the surgery on humans, Blalock and Thomas also developed a means of correcting aortic coarctation. I think that was a really cool thing for them to have done. From what I have been told by qualified medical professionals, it appears that the aorta is a somewhat important piece of hardware and finding cardiac spare parts can often prove to be problematic. It’s a bit like having an MG and discovering one afternoon that you need a drive shaft for it. I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to have a decent parts supplier readily available. Oh, a hospital would be nice, though in a pinch I imagine that a clean table at an International House of Pancakes would probably be an adequate substitute for a sterile operating room, so try not to be too fussy, o.k.? Once you locate a good source for parts (are you listening Dr. Langan? he said in a stage whisper), always keep that person on your Chrismachanakwanzakah card list.
Getting, and staying, ahead of the curve can be a full-time job. Here is one guy who had both the time and the money to do just that. On the 30th in 1786, Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsbourg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, decreed a penal reform abolishing the death penalty. His was the first state to do so.
