On this day in history...

[Arneb]

злого even seems too civil. A minute long stream of unprintable Russian expletives seems reasonable.

[Richard A]

And he and his mates are doubling down. Well before February 2022, Putin gave a speech in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Various people said at the time that that was quite saying something when you consider the competition. But the speaker of the lower house of the Duma clarified this the other day, taking a swipe at not only Gorbachev but also Khrushchev.

Announcing that a 1956 agreement which allowed British fishing boats to to fish for cod in the Barents Sea would be ended in response to the UK putting sanctions on the senior officers of the penal colony where Navalny had died, he first said, "With Gorbachev, we lost our country; with Putin, we got it back." But then, "When Nikita Khrushchev accepted this deal in 1956, it is difficult to say what guided him but it was definitely not the national interest." So basically, "the Soviet Union had two liberal leaders in its history and both sold us down the river."

[Arneb]

31 years ago today, the first attack on the World Trade Center happened - a car bomb below the North tower, killing six and injuring many hundred. I haard the nws while en-route to NY for a month-long internship at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre. This stay would have been my shot at visiting the WTC's rooftop, but no joy there.

[Arneb]

20 years ago today, the Atocha bombings in Madrid ripped several local and regional trains to pieces in and around Madrid's largest trains station, killing 193 people and injuring more than 1800. Spaniards call it their 9-11, "Onze-M". It marked a break in Spnish politics, as the then conservative government was trying to pin the attacks to the bask Terror organization, ETA, when it was really an Islamist attack perpetrated in revenge for Spain's support of the Iraq war. The gouvernment was ousted in the election that followed three days later.

[Heid the Ba]

March 14, 1945: The R.A.F. drop the Grand Slam bomb in action for the first time, on a railway viaduct near Bielefeld, Germany. Or rather near a viaduct in the middle of nowhere.

[Heid the Ba]

March 17th 1400 – Turko-Mongol emperor Timur the Lame was not far from Damascus and put it to the sword. Because fuck them.

[Arneb]

34 years ago today, the only free, equal and secret general elections in the history of the GDR took place. The Christian Democratic Union, in close alliance with Helmut Kohl's gouverning eponymous party in the FRG, won handily on a "re-unification now" platform, and that was exactly what the new gouvernment (a broad coalition under the new Prime Minister, Lothar de Maizière) delivered in October of that year.

[Richard A]

It gave rise to the one of the cleverest election posters in world history: "Wer Blockflöte in der SED-Regierung gespielt hat, darf nicht jetzt erste Geige spielen." But as Arneb points out, he did, albeit only for a short time.

[Arneb]

50 years ago today, the Bundestag lowered the age of maturity from 22 to 18 yearsfor West Germany. Hundresds of thousands of young people born between 1953-56 suddenly weren't minors anymore, to the chagrin of the conserrvative press who saw droves of hapless young people stumbling into marriages with criminals, writing cheques for expensive high-end stero gear and trips "to the Orient" and generally ruining their lives at an age too young to know anything but old enough to wreak havoc. Quite unexpectedly, the birth years after 1953 and the country have largely managed to survive in one piece. So far.

[Lianachan]

Robert the Bruce was crowned Robert I, King of Scots, on this day in 1306.

[Richard A]

71 years ago, Jonas Salk announced that a test of a polio vaccine had been successful. Wild polio has since been eradicated in all but 2 countries worldwide.

[Arneb]

The first democratic German constitution was passed 175 years ago today. Yes, that long ago. It was discussed and passed in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main as a result of the 1848 revolution. It died when the then Prussian King refused to take the crown out of the hands of the people instead of, well you guessed it, God.

[Arneb]

Fifty years ago today, the first VW Golf rolled off the production line in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. With the eighth generation fresh into production (it will be the last that runs on a carbon-based internal combustion engine), I think we can call the type a moderate success.

[Lianachan]

April 4th 1406 - King Robert III died at Rothesay Castle. Born John Stewart and known as the Earl of Carrick, he became king in 1390, around the age of 50. He changed his regal name to Robert to evoke the legacy of Robert I.

[Lianachan]

April 8th 2013 - Margaret Thatcher goes back to Hell.

[Lianachan]

April 21st 2016 - untimely death of the most talented pop musician who ever lived.