4th September

As cool things go (I understand from my students that this is archaic young-person speak meaning 'impressive', 'to be admired') West German Mathias Rust has to take the biscuit (which is late Medieval speak for 'win the race' 'achieve the utmost') when he flew through Russian airspace on this day in 1987 and landed his light aircraft in Red Square. Just think what he could have done if he'd had the Luftwaffe with him!

In other news ...
'How can you bear to go further?' asked Lin Ze-Xu, the Chinese Imperial Commissioner in a letter to Queen Victoria today in 1839. 'Selling products injurious to others in order to fulfill your insatiable desire?'

It's not generally known that 'Vic the Kraut' as the Underworld knew her was a hopelessly depraved junkie and ran a Prostitute and Bootleg racket that made Al Capone look like Mother Theresa.

12th June

Today in 1931, Alfonso Capone, the son of a Neapolitan barber, was charged with 5000 offences under America's Prohibition Laws. This man had orchestrated the St Valentine's Day Massacre, made an estimated $100 million from bootlegging, racketeering and prostitution and once beat a man to death with a baseball bat. How mad has the world become when all they could actually get him on was tax evasion (the 1930s equivalent of parking on a double yellow line). I can't help thinking a bullet in the head would have been more appropriate, cheaper and final.

In other news ...
Vic Damone, the American singer who had a smash hit with On the Street Where You Live from My Fair Lady was born today in 1928. I only mention him because until I was sixteen I was convinced his name was Victor Moan and I couldn't help thinking that that was a rather risky handle for a vocalist. Mr Damone is happily still with us, I believe, and so a very happy 84th birthday to him, for today.

14th February

Don't you just love saints' days? There are so many of them that nobody worked at all during the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution happened first in Britain because we didn't have any at all. Except St Valentine's Day. Now this is all rather odd because there are two possible Valentines after whom the day is named. one was an early Christian priest put to death in the reign of Claudius the Goth (you couldn't miss him - black hair, purple makeup, didn't like sunlight). The other one was the Bishop of Turin, executed in Rome in a similar clampdown against what was, after all, a heretical sect. neither of these men had anything to do with Love, Hearts, Cupid or nauseatingly schmaltzy greetings cards, so work it out for yourselves. It may be that the 14th of February was seen as the start of the mating season, but this is a Family Blog so we won't pursue that.

All we can be sure of is that in Chicago in 1929 the day was celebrated by Al Capone shooting seven of 'Bugs' Moran's heavies in a garage on the North Side. Three of the five executioners wore police uniforms, though whether they were real cops or just Capone's people in fancy dress was open to doubt. Since half of Chicago's  finest were under investigation for corruption at the time, you just couldn't be sure.

In other news ...
Richard II died today in 1400. I've always felt rather sorry for this guy. He was high-handed, didn't like the Irish and popularized the use of a) forks b) handkerchiefs and c) riding sidesaddle - for ladies of course; nothing 'funny' about Richard II. He also had a cool heraldic badge - the White Hart (that's a deer to you, Seven Emm Eff) now famous as a pub sign throughout the civilized world. He was almost certainly murdered in Pontefract Castle (or Pomfret, as Shakespeare called it, thereby proving that England's greatest playwright was also dyslexic) on the orders of Henry IV (who later, as you'd expect, denied it).

25th January

Exactly thirty one years ago, the 'Gang of Four' came into being. No, not the Chinese counter-revolutionaries of the same name, but a rather more benign quartet - David Owen, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers. They broke away from the Labour Party and formed the Social Democrats, which to those of us with an historical bent sounded like something out of the German Weimar Republic back in the Twenties. They spent most of their time deciding exactly what their party should be called so that today we have that august and impressive body known as the Lib-Dems.
Well done, guys!

In other news ...
Al Capone died today in 1947. As mobsters go he was right up there with Paul Muni, Robert de Niro, Neville Brand, Jimmy Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, George Raft, Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp. At the height of his power he ran a vast bootlegging empire based in Chicago and is reckoned to have earned $105 million in 1927 alone (more or less my annual teacher's salary). By the time of his death, he had nothing and had done eleven years in prison for tax evasion.
So crime doesn't pay, then. Unless you're a taxman.