August 20th: Today in 1938 Lou Gehrig hits his twenty-third Grand Slam against Buck Ross of the A’s. Gehrig’s twenty-three grand slams remains a record today and along with the consecutive games record give a good insight into what an awesome baseball player he must have been. He died only three years after his last [...]

August 19th: Today in 1895 John Wesley Hardin was gunned down playing dice in a Texas saloon. Reputed to be the meanest man alive, Hardin was supposed to have shot a man for snoring. Although he is supposed to have killed something like thirty people he was far from a romantic gunman and closer to [...]

August 18th: Today in 1590, three years after his Granddaughter becomes the first English child born in North America and three years after he left to look for supplies, Governor John White returns to the Roanoke Colony to find it deserted. The only clue was the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a post on the fort. [...]

August 17th: Today in 1962 Peter Fechter is shot while trying to cross the Berlin Wall and becomes the first to die trying to escape over the wall. After he was shot he fell back into the East German side of the wall and lay bleeding to death on the ground for over an hour [...]

August 16th: Today in 1780 the British under General Cornwallis decisively defeated the American Army under General Gates at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina. The battle was quick with the British quickly routing the American army and sending General Gates fleeing for days to the rear. The somewhat happy ending to this debacle [...]

Humans continue to fight back against our would be squirrel overlords. Here some squirrel allies are called to justice. Perhaps there is some hope for the human race after all.

August 15th: Today in 1843 Tivoli Gardens, one of the worlds oldest still operating amusement parks, opened in Copenhagen, Denmark. Started by Georg Carstensen who convinced the King that ‘when the people are amusing themselves, they do not think about politics’. Ahhh the power of bread and circuses…

I have a personal gripe with science that goes back many years. Don’t take me wrong, I respect science, I use science and I make sure my son studies science, but sometimes scientists just seem to go out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot. At one point every American boy knew three [...]

August 14th: Today in 1900 forces from all the major powers of Europe and the United States stormed the Chinese capital of Peking and relieved the siege of their Embassies. This is most famously remembered in the movie Fifty Five Days At Peking and at the time was held up as an example of the [...]

Fire Eater

Originally uploaded by Tancread.

This is a fire eater from the Renfaire performing at the Bowie Baysox game on August 12th, 2006. Click on the image to view it larger, I really like the look of the flames.