28th November

The German physicist Max [no relation] Planck said it all today in 1934 when he wrote, 'A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die out and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.'

So, in reality, every word of the Bible is true; the earth is about 6,000 years old (and flat); Phlogiston occurs in every chemical experiment; Frank Sinatra had a good singing voice and babies are delivered by storks.

I knew it!

In other news ...
Horse racing was banned today in 1967 because of an epidemic of Foot and Mouth disease. Whenever such disasters occur, the government of the day leaps in with ludicrous, over-the-top measures. Foot and Mouth? Destroy all cattle. Salmonella in eggs? Destroy all chickens. Oil tanker spillages? Destroy all tankers. Global warming? Stop spraying your armpits.

Actually nature has been coping with all these issues for centuries, without the help of the British government or its biased, obsessive scientific think tanks.

And on a personal level, it would be not humanly possible to be in a room with up to twenty teenage boys without the addition of many gallons of Lynx. You may mock that most sledgehammer of deodorants, but without it ... I don't want you to even have to imagine it!

27th November

Women Policemen appeared on Britain's streets today in 1914 (I have been obliged to insert this piece on account of my good lady wife - Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell - having me in a half Nelson). The uniform was awful and it had three little buttons at the side of the mid-calf length skirt so that they could unbutton them to chase baddies. What could they do once they caught them? Nothing. This was only an experiment and they weren't given powers of arrest until 1922. Presumably they had to ask Chummy to stay put while they went in search of a real policeperson. Ouch - the Mem's half Nelson has now turned into a Full Nelson and I've lost the use of one arm and am blind in one eye.

In other news ...
A Bible printed in the 15th century was sold at Christie's auction house today in 1991. The Good Book? It had better be - it cost £1.1 million!

26th November

New York had its first streetcar (horsedrawn of course) today in 1832. It ran between 14th and Spring Street and was called Desire.

Of course.

In other news ...

One of the most spectacular finds in archaeology took place today in 1922 when Howard Carter and his backer, the Earl of Caernarvon, broke through to the uninvaded tomb chambers of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings.

Just think - without that we would never have had the Indiana Jones series ...

25th November

Yesterday I mentioned Charles Darwin. He was never quite able to include Man in his natural selection argument, but others did, especially Thomas Huxley who wiped the floor spectacularly with Bishop 'Soapy Sam' Wilberforce of the Church of England in Oxford in 1860. The question of the authority of the Bible was much talked about and today in 1864, the Conservative Party's 'hatchet man', Benjamin Disraeli, famously said, 'Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, am on the side of the angels.'

Except that William Gladstone, the Liberal Party and an awful lot of Conservatives, disagreed with that.

In other news ...
The KKK got back together again today in 1915 in Georgia. The original Klan targeted the newly-freed slaves after the Civil War but this one targeted:-

• Blacks
• Jews
• Catholics
• Immigrants
• Communists
• Pacifists
• Darwinians.

The Klan is in decline today because there is almost nobody who is considered fit to join.

24th November

The deeply unpleasant misogynist, John Knox, died today in 1572. Scottish Protestants think he was the best thing since sliced bread but then there were those who thought Adolf Hitler was a pretty good egg too.

In other news ...
Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species today in 1859. Two things to note about this -

1. Of three famous books published in the same year (Darwin's, Samuel Smiles's Self Help and Mrs Beeton's Household Management) only Mrs Beeton went on to make any money.
2. Some people today still regard Darwin's natural selection as a theory only. Didn't they watch Inherit the Wind? 

23rd November

You know my views on Crippen. Even before we realized that the body in the basement of his house at 63 Hilldrop Crescent couldn't have been Mrs Crippen (Belle Elmore) because it was make, I thought they should have given him a medal because she was so horrible. Everybody disagreed of course and they hanged him at Pentonville today in 1910.

The Tufnell Park One is innocent.

In other news ...
Bill Pratt was born today in 1887. Who he, I hear you ask. He became Boris Karloff in later life, legend of Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Body Snatcher. Other film stars who weren't going to make it with their own monikers include:-

• Laruska Skikne (Laurence Harvey)
• Issur Danielovitch (Kirk Douglas)
• Diana Fluck (Diana Dors)
• Frances Gumm (Judy Garland)
• George Crane (Randolph Scott)
• Bacteria Cuniculus (Bugs Bunny).

22nd November

We all remember where we were today in 1963. There was a nightmare on Elm Street, Dallas as somebody gunned down John F Kennedy, riding through the city in an open-topped Lincoln convertible with his wife, Jackie and the governor of Texas, John Connolly and his wife. Millions of words, umpteen documentaries, a handful of movies, official and unofficial enquiries and nearly half a century - and still we don't know who did it.

In other news ...
Richard Strauss unveiled his new opera today in Dresden. The year was 1901 and the opera was about a team of dedicated scientists beavering away to cure the common cold. It was called Feuersnot.