April 26

Born in 1880, George Baker was an ambitious man. Like many others when he hit his thirties, he apparently hit his stride; changing his name to Reverend General Jealous Divine and claimed to be God. Not a god, but God, with the capital G. In light-hearted, less formal moments, he referred to himself as The Messenger. When he felt the urge to be slightly more casual he would call himself Father Divine. Apparently, to prove that God was really just one of the boys, on the 26th in 1946, in Brooklyn, New York, Baker married Edna Rose Ritchings. This was truly a merging of two hearts and souls. The fact that Baker was 65 years old and Ritchings was only 21 had absolutely nothing to do with Baker’s, how shall I put it, more earthly motivations.
Ritchie was from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and I am certain that it is merely a coincidence that she married Divine shortly before her visa was scheduled to expire and she would have to return to Canada.

April 25

The French Revolution at the end of the 18th century gave the world a lot of things, chief among them, the plot of a lavish, over-done Broadway play. In a significant technological leap in penal reform however, it also gave us the guillotine. On the 25th in 1789, highwayman Nicholas J. Pelletier became the first person to be executed using a guillotine.
The last public execution by guillotine was of Eugène Weidmann, on June 17, 1939. The last guillotining of anyone in France was that of Hamida Djandoubi, on September 10, 1977.

April 24

On the 24th in 1800, President John Adams signed into law legislation authorizing establishment of the Library of Congress with the appropriation of $4900 for "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, John Adams represented the British soldiers when criminal charges were brought against them. The captain, Thomas Preston, was acquitted but two of his men, Hugh Montgomery and Mathew Kilroy, were found guilty of manslaughter. Their sentence was to be branded on the thumb with a hot iron. Ouch! Man that has to hurt.
The original collection consisted of 740 books and 3 maps. today, the Library of Congress receives almost 22,000 items every day.

April 23

My condolences go out to those of you who have not had the good fortune to experience the cold, sweet beverage that is called the Orange Julius. A summer is just not summer if one hasn’t eaten a Nathan’s hot dog (though only when you get it at the Nathan’s in Coney Island) and drunk an Orange Julius. The drink is named after banker and pigeon racing enthusiast Julius Freed who died on the 23rd in 1952.

April 22

James Hargreaves (pictured) died on the 22nd in 1778. In the textile industry, Hargreaves is credited with inventing the spinning jenny. In my never-ending efforts to correct the grievous errors in the historical record I checked all over and was shocked to discover that the spinning jenny was not invented until June of 1957; the inventor being Richard Penniman (Little Richard) who then used the spinning jenny in his hit song Jenny, Jenny which reached number 10 on the US charts and number 2 on the US R&B charts.

April 21

If your behavior at times raises the question of whether or not you were raised by wolves then the 21st is your day because that is the day in 753 b.c.e that is traditionally given for the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus.

April 20

If you are a fan of the Charles Schulz comic Peanuts you might want to give some thought to throwing a party for Snoopy on the 20th because it was on that date in 1918 that the Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen) shot down his final victims (the 79th and 80th). Richthofen would die of a gunshot wound the next day in an engagement with a Sopwith Camel piloted by Canadian pilot Wilfrid May. The fatal shot came from the ground however, not from his adversary.