July 5

Have you ever wished that you had a bit of warning about what was going to happen in your life so that you could prepare yourself? I know that I have. At times, a heads up would have come in quite handy. Joan of England, also known as Joan of the Tower because she was born in the Tower of London got a huge heads up when she was born on the 5th in 1321. Being born in the Tower of London doesn’t suck quite as much as you might assume. At least it doesn’t when you are also the youngest daughter of King Edward II and Queen Isabella of France. Pursuant to the Treaty of Northampton, upon her birth she became engaged to marry David II of Scotland, which she did on July 17, 1328. Joan was married when she was 7 years old. My guess is that her mommy and daddy waited that long to see if she was going to survive infancy.

July 4

The signing of the American Declaration of Independence began on the 4th[i] in 1776. Only two people, Thomas Jefferson[ii], president of the Congress, and John Hancock, its secretary signed it on that day. Though the Declaration was largely written by Jefferson, Franklin and John Adams[iii] heavily edited it. It seems that editors just have to get their sticky fingers into everything. I guess Jefferson was a decent writer, but besides that whole, “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” thingy who has read anything else he wrote? What was he, some sort of one-trick pony? Come on, one paragraph and you are read over two hundred years later? Sheesh!
[i] Also on the 4th, in 1789, the Marquis de Sade was transferred out of the Bastille, where he had been imprisoned, and moved to another prison. Had he remained until the 14th he would have been freed, along with the other 6 people held there.
[ii] When he signed the Declaration Jefferson, and Washington, both owned over 200 slaves each. Jefferson must have liked the work of William Shakespeare a lot; when he visited the Bard’s house in Stratford-on-Avon, England, he got down on his knees and kissed the ground.
[iii] John Adams was in the practice of starting his day with a large mug of hard cider, a practice that he inculcated in his son John Quincy Adams when young John Quincy was 12 or 13 years old. Interestingly, Another of Adams’s sons, William, became an alcoholic. John Quincy appears to not have also gone that route.

July 3

Franz Kafka, you know, the guy that wrote a whole book about some clown who turns into a huge, creepy bug without his even having had to take anything the night before, was born on the 3rd in 1883. He was a very controversial literary figure who was widely thought to have a great deal in common with lunatics. However he was of the opinion that he had “hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.”
During his life, Kafka published only a couple of short stories. His novels were not published until after he was dead. Today, he only needs one name to be known, sort of like Cher or Madonna. Which only goes to prove that sometimes dying can be a good career move.

July 2

Delaware was the 12th of the 13 American colonies to approve the resolution before the Continental Congress that would authorize the colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain. Providing even more evidence that New Yorkers are never on the cutting edge, that colony abstained. There were five men in the Delaware contingent. Three were split two to one on the issue, two favoring independence. The two were decidedly against it. One of the delegates in favor, Caesar Rodney was not present because he was seeing his doctors. Delaware was deadlocked! Rodney was tall, very thin and he covered his face with a flamboyant silk scarf to hide the ravages of skin cancer (think 18th century Michael Jackson). Apparently seeing which way the wind was blowing and believing that Delaware should speak with one voice in such a grave undertaking, the two opposed to independence simply didn’t show up for the voting. Another tradition that has been handed down to us, though observed with less noble intentions today. The 2nd in 1776 was the close of voting on the issue. At 9 o’clock that evening, as the doors of Congress were being locked at the close of business, who should show up at Congress’s door? None other than Caesar. He had ridden 80 miles on horseback, changing horses several times, to get to Philadelphia to cast his vote. While only 12 of the 13 colonies approved the declaration of independence, with such a resounding approval everything was pretty much downhill from this point. It was a piece of cake. All that remained after the signing of the Declaration for the colonies’ independence to be secured was to sign the document, wage a world war and lose millions of dollars and thousands of lives. No biggy.

At the time of the passing of the resolution for a Declaration of Independence, more than 500,000 people, more than 20%, of all the people in the United States were slaves.

July 1

I’m pretty sure that this is one day that Hernan Cortes, boss of the gang ‘The Conquistadors’ thinks he should have just called in sick and simply taken the day off and gotten a break from all that conquering stuff he was into. On the 1st in 1520, much like the rumble between the Sharks and Jets in West Side Story or the Bloods and Crips in Forest Hills, Cortes and his homies got into a rumble with Cuitláhuac (pictured), who was the leader of the gang ‘The Aztecs’. In this battle, the underdogs would score a victory that almost, but not quite, wiped out Cortés’s Conquistadors. Today the event is known as La Noche Triste (Night of Terrors). I don’t known how the rest of the rumble went but I do know that today in Mexico pretty much everyone does speak Spanish.

June 30

Is it one of the requirements of the American Immigration and Naturalization Service that in order to obtain an entry visa French acrobats have to be completely out of their minds? On August 7, 1974, Philippe Pettite repeatedly walked back and forth between New York’s World Trade Center towers on a tightrope that had been strung between the roofs of the two buildings. On the 30th in 1859, acrobat Jean François Gravelet-Blondin, known as The Great Blondin, crossed Niagara Falls numerous times on a tightrope. He did it blindfolded in a sack, pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts, and carrying his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back. Doing all that he worked up quite an appetite so on one trip, he sat down midway to cook and eat an omelet.
When he was five years old Blondin was sent to the École de Gymnase to study acrobatics, and, after six months training as an acrobat, made his first public appearance as "The Little Wonder".

June 29

Thomas Henry Huxley was a scientist who kept it all in its proper perspective when he said, “the great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” He also gave the world a clear indication of the role that skepticism should play in the human experience when he noted, “Not far from the invention of fire … we must rank the invention of doubt.” He died on the 29th in 1895. Huxley was widely known to be Darwin’s bulldog.