the 16th was a busy day

Jerome David Salinger is a writer. He is perhaps more widely known as J. D. Salinger. Salinger has neither made a public appearance nor published any work since 1965. Apparently The Catcher in the Rye was enough for him. It was published on the 16th in 1951.

another July 16

Being politically active carries inherent risks. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I’ll restrain myself and not continue that particular observation by saying most time you choose between the two, for the simple reason that I don’t really like that particular song. On the 16th in 1918, Bolsheviks executed Czar Nicholas II of Russia, as well as his entire family.

July 16

Canada is generally perceived as being progressive in many areas. In the 1860s however, it did not allow women to practice medicine. As a consequence of this prohibition Emily Howard Stowe, a Canadian national, went to the United States to attend the New York Medical College for Women. However, because of the exchange rate, Stowe only learned 76% of the diseases. In 1867 Stowe obtained her medical degree from that institution and returned home to Toronto. Stowe cajoled her way in to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ontario. On the 16th in 1880 the school granted Stowe a license to practice medicine, making her the second woman to be licensed to practice medicine in Canada. The first woman to be licensed to practice medecine in Canada was Jenny Kidd Trout, Stowe’s classmate at the school.

July 15

Many people today seem gripped by a strong sense of malaise. We, as a people appear to be uncertain and unwilling to take a role in our national affairs. Jimmy Carter pointed this out as early as 1979. Taking a stand in the political life of one’s country carries both moral and temporal responsibilities as well as risks. Consider John Ball. He took a very proactive role in the affairs of England in the 14th century. I mean he was British after all so this seems quite appropriate, right? On the 15th in 1381 as the British monarch, King John II, looked on Ball was hanged, then drawn and quartered, which is a particularly nasty way to die. It seems that good King Richard did not seriously consider the option of simply giving him a time out.

July 14

On the 14th in 1789 a bunch of possibly irritated, but certainly irritating, French people stormed the Bastille in Paris. The nominal reason for this action was the desire to free those inside who, it was felt, were improperly imprisoned in its massive bulk. In reality, their reasons were somewhat more pragmatic. They wanted to seize the 30,000 pounds of gunpowder stored there. For all the uproar it caused I was rather disappointed to discover that the only prisoners being held in the Bastille at the time were four forgers, two lunatics and one ‘deviant’ aristocrat, Comte de Solages.

I suppose that I could take a stab at finding out what rendered de Solages a deviate, but I am just not that interested. Had he been able to secure the services of competent counsel I am reasonably certain that he would have been able to plead to reduced charges and, once the ankle monitor was affixed, he would go on his merry way, glumly destined to have to attend a seemingly unending series of simply fabulous dinner parties. Certainly, he would have to update his wardrobe because he now had a criminal record and he couldn’t run the risk of being pulled over by the Fashion Police.

July 13

When people refer to the 60s, they generally think of the 1960s with its anti-war protests, tempers flaring all over the place and invariably landing on the new carpet and widespread anti-government activism. They were all of that and much more. The 1960s pale, however when you turn your gaze back a century. On July 13, 1863, New York City, indeed much of the northeast, was embroiled in a series of anti-draft riots which make the 1960s look like a cakewalk; the most dramatic of these riots engulfed the entire City of New York for three days. In the 1960s about the only things that lasted three days were the hangovers.

July 11

The fashion of wearing of gloves seems to have largely fallen out of favor, unlike its cousin – the wearing of absurdly huge sunglasses. If you are considering bank robbery as a career choice, you might want to seriously think about wearing them (the gloves, not the sunglasses). On the 11th in 1987, a group of people broke in to the Knightsbridge Security Deposit Center in London (England not Canada) and stole £63.6 million, making that robbery second, after the robbery of the Central Bank of Iraq on March 18, 2003, in the ranking of the world’s most lucrative bank robberies. Forensic specialists found precisely one fingerprint at the Knightsbridge facility, which led them to Valerio Viccei, and he was arrested for the crime.