July 30

I am fairly certain that most people enjoy going out to dinner, particularly if you are someone’s guest. Having a good dinner at a nice restaurant with someone else picking up the tab is an opportunity that no one would pass up. There are times however where you might want to turn down the invitation. On the 30th in 1975, Anthony Provenzano and Anthony Giacalone invited James Hoffa to have dinner with them at a restaurant in Michigan. Shortly after dinner, Hoffa disappeared and unless he really is buried in the end zone at Giant’s Stadium, we’ll never see him again. What should have given Jimmy Hoffa a clue was that Mr. Provenzano referred to himself Tony Pro. Never, never go to dinner with someone who has a nickname even similar to that one. Tony Jack for instance. Maybe you should just consider not going out to eat with anyone named Anthony; no good can come from it.
Sometimes, the things you worry the most about just seem to disappear and end up not being the threat you thought they would be. Mr. Provenzano (pictured below) had been indicted in 1975 and charged with conspiracy to shake down the Teamsters Union’s pension fund. In January of 1976, the case was ready to go to trial. Amazingly, on the eve of the trial the chief witness against Tony Pro, Herman Goldfarb, began to suffer from a serious heart ailment and the trial had to be adjourned. How very lucky Mr. Provenzano was!
Hoffa’s (pictured below) formal education ended in the 9th grade when he dropped out of school following the Stock Market Collapse o 1929.

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July 29

John Graves Simcoe was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada. As such, he had a certain amount of power. A man in his position had a lot of leeway in what he could and couldn’t do. I mean, seriously, who would be foolish enough as to object to any of his plans? On the 29th in 1793, he took it into his head to build a fort and a settlement. Ultimately, the damn thing would become one of the most pleasant places on the planet – Toronto, Ontario, Canada. By planet, I mean earth, as I can’t speak about the other ones because I haven’t been to them yet, though I’m working on it.
Toronto was not Simcoe’s first choice for the location of the fort. He would have preferred to put it at London, Ontario, but was over-ruled. However, if he had done that, the CBC would have had to move all of its facilities out of Toronto, so I guess this time second choice worked out just fine all around.
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July 28

On the 28th in 1958, George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe made his maiden speech in Great Britain’s House of Lords concerning the British problems in Iraq. In the speech, he told those in attendance that “…like all your Lordships, I felt, and feel, a deep sense of shock, indeed revulsion, at the brutal butchery…”
Jellicoe seems to have had a rather refreshing character for a politician. As a rule, not to say that politicians follow many rules, groups of politicians tend to adopt a stoicism that borders on pathological. Jellicoe, according to someone who knew him, on the other hand, tends to “wear his weaknesses on his sleeve. He is too frank. I suppose though, that is no bad thing. He was not flamboyant but he was a hedonist. He is the sort of non-pompous person who does not try to hide his weaknesses”

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July 27

Jeanne Baré was born on the 27th in 1740. Disguised as a man, she was a member of of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition on the ships La Boudeuse and Étoile, which made a circumnavigation of the planet. This voyage made Baré the most likely candidate for being the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation.
Jeanne had begun dressing as a man after losing a lawsuit which left her with very little money. In order to get a job, she dressed as a man. On this voyage, her true gender remained unknown to the captain and the crew until the expedition put in at Tahiti for supplies at which point the natives outted Jeanne, and she was hurried back to the ship. I can’t find any source indicating what happened there and I can only guess why she had to be ‘hurried’ back but the implication is clear.
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