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Thursday, April 28, 2016

We're Gonna Party Like It's 2011!

Hey, everyone!

By now, I'm sure that you've noticed that this blog is looking slightly different.

I've changed the font of the main body - which I believe looks fantastic, and I've also changed the font of the titles...which is exactly the same font that I used for this blog when I debuted it five years ago.

This is not merely a coincidence...it is planned.

I won't have much time to do much more than that for now, but I just wanted to drop a line and state that for the fifth anniversary of this blog in May 2016, I'm going to be planning a month long celebration in which we're going to party like it's 2011!

Seriously.  With the exception of the Tuesday Timeline posts and the Jem Reviewed series, every single post that I will make this month (and yes, I'll be making one post each day in the month of May) will have something to do with the year 2011 - the year this party began!

So, download Angry Birds onto your iPhone 4S, challenge your pals to a game of Words With Friends, and post your planking videos onto YouTube because this coming month, everything five years old becomes new once more!

You're seeing a taste of what to expect...on May 1, I reveal the blog's new look...or, should I say...OLD look?



You'll just have to wait to find out...

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

April 26, 1986

It's time for the final Tuesday Timeline in April, and I have to say that coming up in the next week, I'll be starting a celebration for the fifth anniversary of this blog.  I can't reveal too much about what I will be doing right now, but it will legitimately be a throwback to the past - right down to the look of this blog itself!  Stay tuned for more.  I'll make the changes the end of April.

For now, it's the 26th of April, and we've got quite a bit to talk about.  But as always we'll talk about the historical events of the day that didn't quite warrant a full discussion.

1564 - William Shakespeare is baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

1721 - Tabriz, Iran is completely destroyed by an earthquake

1777 - Sixteen-year-old Sibyl Ludington rides 40 miles to warn American colonial forces of the approach of the British

1803 - Thousands of meteor shards fall from the skies over France, convincing European scientists that meteors exist

1865 - John Wilkes Booth is shot and killed by Union cavalry troopers

1923 - The Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon get married at Westminister Abbey

1933 - The Gestapo is established in Nazi Germany

1943 - The Easter Riots commence in Uppsala, Sweden

1954 - The Geneva Conference begins

1962 - NASA's Ranger 4 crashes into the face of the Moon

1965 - Rioting causes a Rolling Stones concert in Toronto to be shut down after just fifteen minutes!

1981 - Dr. Michael R. Harrison becomes the first doctor to perform a human open fetal surgery in the world

1989 - Comedy legend Lucille Ball dies at the age of 77

1991 - "General Hospital" actress Emily McLaughlin passes away, aged 62

1994 - China Airlines Flight 140 crashes at a Japanese airport - only seven passengers survive

1999 - British journalist Jill Dando is gunned down outside of her home in London - Dando was just thirty-seven at the time of her death

2013 - Country legend George Jones passes away at the age of 81

2015 - Actress Jayne Meadows dies at the age of 95

And birthday wishes go out to the following famous faces - I.M. Pei, Mac Martin, Carol Burnett, Duane Eddy, Giorgio Moroder, Claudine Clark, Bobby Rydell, Gary Wright, Nancy Lenahan, Koo Stark, Giancarlo Esposito, John Corabi, Roger Taylor, Joan Chen, Michael Damian, Debra Wilson, Jet Li, Susannah Harker, Kevin James, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Curtis Jones, Kate Hardie, Melania Trump, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Jay DeMarcus, Geoff Blum, Ivana Milicevic, Tom Welling, Avant, Stana KaticJason Earles, Tyler Labine, Jordana Brewster, Channing Tatum, Marnette Patterson, Jon Lee, and Jessica Lynch.

Certainly a long list of celebrity birthdays, huh?

Okay, so I've kept you waiting long enough.  Let's take this Tuesday Timeline back in time to the year that Peter Gabriel released "Sledgehammer", Sigourney Weaver battled aliens once more, and a quartet of "Designing Women" spread their Southern charm to CBS viewers.



We're going back thirty years to April 26, 1986.  And for several people in the vicinity of the Soviet Union at that time, it is a date that they will never forget as long as they live.

You see, on this date was an event that was so shocking and so devastating that it killed hundreds of people, displaced thousands more, rendered an entire portion of the world uninhabitable, and put fear into the hearts of many people who questioned the safety of using nuclear power.



Can you believe that it has been thirty years since the Chernobyl Disaster?  I can hardly believe it myself.  I mean, I was just a few weeks shy of my fifth birthday, so I wasn't able to process just how devastating this was.  The only clue as to how it might have gone down may have been similar to a music video released by the band Ultravox in 1984.

Okay, so the Chernobyl reactor didn't completely melt down.  But something happened within the walls of the power plant, located within the city of Pripyat which at the time was part of the Soviet Union - it is now considered a part of the Ukraine since the Soviet Union folded in 1991.

The events of Saturday, April 26, 1986 began quite normally.  A systems test had been scheduled for that morning just after one o'clock at the power plant's #4 reactor and it was slated to be just like all of the others that had been performed since the power plant became operational in 1977.  There was one incident that occurred in September 1982 when a partial core meltdown occurred in Reactor #1, but the reactor was fixed and fully operational by 1983.  However, only those who worked at the plant that day knew what had happened, as the 1982 incident was never made public until years later.  I can only imagine that had more people known, perhaps the incident in April 1986 might never have happened.

When the test was set to begin, everything in Reactor #4 was business as usual - at least, that is until something unexpected happened.  Too much electrical power was being used and that energy caused a massive power surge.  Recognizing the dangers of a power surge, engineers at the power plant tried everything they could to reduce the amount of power that was being used, even triggering an emergency shutdown of the whole reactor.  Unfortunately, that shutdown made the problem much worse, and the power surge intensified.

The resulting power surges caused a series of steam explosions, and ruptured the reactor vessel which caused the reactor to ignite into flames.  The fire shot out clouds of smoke that were filled with highly toxic radioactive particles, and the clouds covered much of the Soviet Union area, with some clouds drifting over as far as Scandinavia!

The hardest hit areas of the disaster were Russia, the Ukraine, and especially Belarus - where it is estimated that 60% of the nuclear fallout landed there.

At least thirty-one people died instantly at the Chernobyl plant.  It's unclear as to what the official death toll is from the incident, as that number continues to climb, but the facts are quite sobering.

Between 1986 and 2001, it was estimated that close to 350,000 people in the Chernobyl area were forced to relocate to areas that were not highly contaminated from the radiation.  Further statistics indicate that since 1986, the rate of cancer has increased among citizens of Europe with the 2006 TORCH report stating that a prediction of up to 60,000 people will lose their lives prematurely as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster.

Now certainly the world has done its best to try and help those who were the most affected by the disaster.  I know that since the late 1980s, my town has hosted a "Children of Chernobyl" exchange program where kids from the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were hosted by a local family so that they could have the chance to experience life that was free of radiation.  I have no idea if the program is still a go, but I can tell you that so many children had positive experiences during the years the program went on.

And interestingly enough, even though the land around the reactor is uninhabitable by humans, there have been some instances in which tourists have been allowed to visit the area - provided that they don't come too close to certain areas that are still covered in radiation.  And over the last thirty years, while the human population has decreased in that area, the animal population has increased and seems to be thriving. 

But don't take that news lightly.  The 1986 Chernobyl Disaster made the land unsafe for humans to stay for a significant period of time.  It's said that the radiation won't dissipate until at least fifty years from the time of the accident.  And in some areas, it may never fully disappear.  It's certainly a monument to the worst case scenario for sure.



Perhaps no place best describes that feeling than the once prosperous city of Pripyat.  Once home to fifty thousand people, the population is now zero.  The city left abandoned for thirty years.  In some ways, it serves as a time capsule to what life was like back in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, as children's toys, books, medical equipment, and Soviet propaganda still decorates the walls of the now decaying schools, hospitals, businesses, and residences within.  A ferris wheel sits rusting having never been used - the Pripyat Amusement Park was set to open in May 1986 - but as we all know, that grand opening never came, as every citizen of Pripyat had to evacuate the city by the 27th of April.

I can only imagine the frustration, fear, and horror the people of Pripyat had to face that day.  

Friday, April 22, 2016

Jem Reviewed: Episode 5 - The Battle of the Bands

Previously on Jem Reviewed, we saw Ashley attempt to be just like the Misfits, but when Jem was about to be framed for a crime she did not commit, Ashley - with help from Stormer - had a change of heart, pissing off Pizzazz and Roxy in the process.  Oh, and Synergy might be dead. 



This is the end of a very long five part episode.  It's time for Episode 5 - The Battle of the Bands!

But, wait.  If Jem only exists because of Synergy...and Synergy exploded...then how can Jem compete in the Battle of the Bands?  That Malone guy smashed Synergy up with a chair!  By all accounts, this episode and the series should be over!  But somehow, Synergy issues a warning to Jerrica through the JemStar earrings and Aja does a really wicked U-turn to try and get to Synergy - even though she's already exploded.



Oh, look!  How nice of Blanche, Rose, Sophia, and Dorothy to make a cameo appearance from "The Golden Girls"!  I love it when stars support each other's shows!  But why is Betty White wearing JemStar earrings?

Oh, wait!  That's just Jerrica, Kimber, Shana, and Aja using a hologram to keep Malone from spotting them.  But, wait...if Synergy has been destroyed, how can Jem's earrings continue to work?  I'd think they'd be deader than a Tamagotchi owned by a careless thirteen year old girl!



Whatever the case, Malone is not finished with the investigation yet.  He goes to the Bureau of Records, and demands to know who the owner of the Starlight Drive-In is so he can report back to Eric his findings.  Uh-oh...that reminds me.  He took a picture of Synergy before he destroyed her.  That can't be good for anybody!



And as Malone shows Eric the photo of Synergy before Malone smashed her up, Eric is intrigued it...especially when he hears that Emmett Benton - Jerrica and Kimber's father - is listed as the owner of the movie theatre.  Although Synergy is now circuit boards, wires, and broken glass (cue the Limp Lizards record), they must investigate it to figure out how Emmett managed to build such a thing and what it is used for.



At the same time, Jerrica and the others run through the holographic wall at the movie theatre and are shocked to see Synergy in pieces.  I could swear that Kimber probably thought it was anything but outrageous.  But before they have time to mourn, Synergy announces that she projected a hologram and that she is still safe and sound, restoring herself back to normal!



Uh...WHAT?  Okay, so if the Synergy that Malone destroyed was a hologram, shouldn't the chair that Malone swung have GONE THROUGH IT WITHOUT DESTROYING ANYTHING?  And if Malone took a picture of the hologram of Synergy, would it...oh...I don't know...NOT SHOW UP IN A PHOTOGRAPH?  At least, they didn't back in 1985 anyway...

...this show makes my brain hurt.  But with Eric fast approaching, the Drive-In Theatre is now a dangerous place.  The girls decide to take Synergy and stash her somewhere else where nobody else will find her.  Great plan, except that Synergy is not an iPad.  She's a computer that probably weighs 7,000 pounds.  I'd like to see how they even plan on getting her out of there with just the four of them.

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  It's a cartoon.  When cartoon characters are threatened, they have superhuman strength.



The girls load Synergy up in a truck as Eric and Zipper arrive at the drive-in with Malone.  How embarrassing for Malone when he takes Eric and Zipper inside and there's no broken computer.  Foiled again, it seems.

The girls decide to rebuild Synergy in one of the many rooms inside the new Starlight Mansion - which is to be honest a really stupid idea given that the house technically isn't theirs thanks to Howard Sands lacking any cojones whatsoever.  And then the girls realize that they know nothing about computers, and don't even know if they put together Synergy correctly.  But Aja seems to be in charge of the rebuilding and she seems to be the Hologram that has the most common sense, so how bad could it be?

Oh, look!  Synergy lives!  And now it's time for another happy song from Jem and the Holograms!



You know, Synergy may have the power, power, she may have the power...but this song is more of a brownout.  Not the greatest song at all, although it is marginally better than "Deception".



Back at the Misfits hideout, Ashley decides that after Pizzazz and Roxy tried to throw Jem in jail, she doesn't want to be a Misfit anymore, and she goes to return the thirty dollars that Pizzazz and Roxy extorted from Stormer.  Naturally, the Misfits grab the money and Pizzazz and Roxy insult Ashley some more.  But what Ashley doesn't realize is that she may have walked into a trap.

You see, Eric just happens to also be in the room at the time, and he orders the Misfits to grab Ashley and lock her up somewhere.  His plan is that if he kidnaps one of the Starlight Girls and holds her for ransom, then Jem and the Holograms will be forced to drop out of the Battle of the Bands, making the Misfits win by default.  Or at the very least, he'll send them on a wild goose chase so they miss the concert.  That is really low - but surprisingly I've heard that Eric can go even lower than this.



In fact, in a split screen conversation between Eric and Jerrica, he threatens exactly that!  And, naturally Jerrica is determined to rescue her...mainly because if she doesn't, child protective services will throw her ass in jail.  But they never really mention that.



Of course, if you think Ashley is going to sit and be a hostage like a good little girl, you'd be mistaken.  Ashley does her best to hide from Pizzazz and Roxy, and almost succeeds in getting away, but in the end, she can't escape from either of them and they lock her in a box.



Stormer, by this point, is quite upset, and when Pizzazz and Roxy temporarily leave, it's Stormer who tries to comfort Ashley.  For a moment, I almost think Stormer will release her.

But before Stormer can even have the chance to do anything, Pizzazz and Roxy come back and shame Stormer for going soft.  It's a heartbreaking moment as Stormer gives into peer pressure and leaves Ashley behind in the trunk.  I wonder if as the show progresses, we'll understand more clearly why Stormer went with Pizzazz and Roxy.  I certainly hope so, because you could tell that Stormer's loyalties were very conflicted. 

Now, as for where the trunk is going?  I'm assuming that it'll go to the concert venue where the Battle of the Bands is being held.  It most certainly won't be at the Starlight Drive-In, where Jem and the others are going to be.



But let's hold off on Jem and the others.  It's time for the Misfits to perform at the Battle of the Bands.



I have to admit, I've been a general fan of the Misfits music moreso than Jem, but I'm not feeling the song "Takin' It All".  In fact, as of right now, I'd say this episode has the weakest songs so far.  I definitely don't think the Misfits would win with this song, but since Jem hasn't shown up yet, they may win by default.  Of course, Rio demands to Howard Sands that they wait for Jem to show up, but Mr. Stickler for Rules Sands states that if Jem doesn't show up, he'll have no choice but to award the prizes to the Misfits.



It's too bad that Jem and the others are at Starlight Drive-In instead of the Battle of the Bands because once they've arrived they're immediately ambushed by Eric, Zipper, and a couple of other goons who were responsible for the robbery in Las Vegas last episode.  If this doesn't say "We fooled you", I don't know what else they'd have to do.



Of course, Jem tries a valiant attempt to escape by suckerpunching Eric (right on!) and she attempts to flee before getting caught by one of Eric's goons on a motorcycle.  The only thing that Jem can do is take off one of her earrings and throw it on the ground, leaving a frantic Synergy wondering where Jerrica is.  Wait a minute...I thought robot computers couldn't share emotions.  Oh, wait.  It's a cartoon.  Never mind.



Back at the Battle of the Bands, Rio is getting even more concerned by Jem's lateness, and he correctly suspects that Eric is involved.  And Eric strolls into the venue after making sure that Zipper and his goons are babysitting the Holograms, where Rio grabs him and threatens to kill him if he doesn't reveal where Jem is.  Howard Sands and Danielle DuVoisin break up the fight, but soon all four of them hear a strange noise.



It's the trunk where Ashley is being kept hostage in!  And it's about to be sent into a machine that likes to eat wooden boxes for snack!  Fortunately, Rio manages to rescue Ashley after someone calls out a warning that she's trapped in there.  We don't see who alerted Rio, but it sounded an awful lot like Stormer.  So, as far as I'm concerned, Stormer has redeemed herself.  A bit.

But you know who HASN'T redeemed themselves in my eyes?  Howard Sands.  Despite the fact that Eric more or less had Ashley kidnapped and almost murdered, and despite the fact that Stormer more or less gave away the whole crooked plan, Howard Sands refuses to change the contest rules even though the Misfits have broken every single one.

Guys...say it with me...

GROW SOME BALLS, HOWARD SANDS!!!

You know what?  Ashley's safe, and Rio decides to leave the Countess and the Dopey Mr. Sands to rescue Jem and the others from Zipper and his goons.  But if Rio is thinking that Jem is a fragile little flower, he's sorely mistaken.



You see, Jem tossing her earring outside was actually a very intelligent thing.  Because now she can project holograms from outside and inside the movie theatre.  And she uses this gift to really mess with the minds of Zipper and his cronies by summoning a pack of wild lions to try and scare the creeps away.



She also manages to create several different exits to make Zipper and his pals crash into walls over and over again providing them with even more brain damage than they had before. 



But as the girls really do try to make their escape, Zipper manages to grab a hold of Kimber, and pulls her back.  And since Jem and the others decided that Kimber was an important part of the band two episodes ago after she had a meltdown, they can't very well abandon her now.  So Jem's next plan is to create a hologram of Eric Raymond, ordering Zipper to let Kimber go.



And when that doesn't work, she summons Eric again and again until there's enough Eric Raymonds to fill a haunted house.  That's a scary thought.  And speaking of scary thoughts...

Wanna know how Eric Raymond got his name?  In this edition of "Jem" Trivia, I'll tell you.  Turns out that Christy Marx - the showrunner of "Jem" named the character after her brother!  Kind of makes you wonder if Eric Raymond Marx (or whatever his last name is) was as much a jerk as this one!

Anyway, the multiple Erics cause Zipper to lose his mind.  He shoves Kimber to the side to escape, and runs outside with the goons to see a bunch of police cars pulling up.  Naturally after all of the weirdness that they just experienced, they expect this to be a mirage too.  It's only when Zipper gets handcuffed that he realizes - I'm goin' to jail!  I wonder if we'll see him again...

Rio arrives after all of the commotion has happened, and for a moment there I almost think he's pissed off that he didn't get to play the role of hero because Jem and the others based on his tone of voice.  But that's Rio for you.  It's time for Jem and the Holograms to get to the Battle of the Bands...but to waste even more time, Jem - despite the fact that she is clearly wearing both earrings in the above screenshot - retrieves her lost earring that really isn't lost.

I hate this episode.  I sure hope Jem's last song is worth all of this.  Apparently it's a song called "Music is Magic".  But given the track record of the songs so far, I'm...



...OH.  MY.  GOD.  This song is AWESOME!  I particularly want to make note of that high note that Britta Phillips sings at the very end.  It is phenomenal.  Seriously, I think this is one case where they saved the best song for last, and I think it'll be hard to top "Music is Magic" as the best Jem song.

Of course, I still have 60 more episodes to review.  My opinion could change.



To nobody's surprise, Howard Sands officially declares Jem the winners of the contest - and even the fireworks display seems to spell out the Jem logo!  OUTRAGEOUS!!!



So Starlight Mansion officially becomes Starlight Mansion, meaning that Ashley and the rest of the girls will always have a place to live.  They also get a movie contract.  And with Eric presumably going to jail, Jerrica wins back full control of Starlight Music!  Seriously, this has been the greatest day of the Holograms' lives.



Not so much for the Misfits though.  In fact, Pizzazz now makes it her mission to take down Jem and the Holograms every chance she gets.  The rivalry between Jem and Pizzazz is on, bitches!



Of course, there's one last bit of housecleaning, and Rio accompanies Jerrica to Starlight Music to take over Eric's old office.  Because with Eric being charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and...



...WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING THERE? 

Jerrica is stunned that he is even there in the first place, but Eric explains his lawyers worked miracles and that he's there to collect his personal possessions - including the snapshots of Synergy that by all accounts probably shouldn't even exist, but it's a cartoon.



Eric then bids Jerrica farewell with a bitchslap across her face!  Seriously.  This really does happen!  How dare he?  You want to add assault to your charges?  I dare him to do that to Pizzazz!  But do you really think that Rio will let Eric do that to his woman?



I'm guessing this delightful screenshot will tell us no.  It took me several times to get this shot too.  Well worth it.



So after Eric regains consciousness and leaves Starlight Music, Jerrica wonders if her father would be proud of her.  Rio admits that he's already proud of her, and they kiss as a refrain of "Music is Magic" closes off the show.


Coming up next week, six months have passed, and the girls are ready to shoot their movie.  What could possibly go wrong?

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Purple Rain



For as long as I can remember - in fact, I would reckon the first fourteen years of my existence on this planet - my ears would be filled with the sounds of Prince.

I'm not going to lie.  Prince was a huge part of my formative years, and I have to admit that most of his music catalogue still holds up years later.  I can't believe it's been thirty-four years since he released "Little Red Corvette"!

I have to say that I don't really know what the first Prince song that I remember hearing was.  For some reason, I want to say that it was "Raspberry Beret".  It certainly makes sense.  I was four years old when that song came out, and my mother loved (and still loves) that song.  I do admit that it's a fantastic piece of pop music, but there are other songs that I remember liking just a little bit more.



"Little Red Corvette" was a classic tune.  "1999" certainly made you look towards the future - even though my own experiences of the year 1999 were kind of meh.  And, the colour purple was forever synonymous with Prince, as one of the biggest hits of his whole career was "Purple Rain".

I guess that's why I decided to do this blog post entirely in purple today - as a little bit of a tribute to a man many loved, but few really understood.

It still shocks me to type out the words - that Prince Rogers Nelson has died at the age of 57.  It's just the latest in a long line of music legends who have passed away in 2016.  It certainly has not been a kind year for music, that's for sure.

But Prince's death shocked me.  The last time I was shocked by a musician's death was David Bowie back in January.  And the reason why it shocked me was because none of us knew that he was even sick...and really, that's the way he wanted it.

Perhaps the same thing happened with Prince.  As of this writing, we've no idea what happened, and at this point, it's hard to say if we will ever find out.

It's just so hard to think that a man who had so much influence in the music industry is now gone. 



Certainly anybody who ever worked with Prince knew just what kind of a man he was.  He was a longtime collaborator with Sheena Easton, and they even recorded a duet together in 1987 called "U Got The Look".  By the way, do check that song out.  It's quite fantastic.  And if it's unreleased songs that you're into with Prince duets, check out the collaboration he did with Madonna called "Love Song".  It appears on her 1989 album "Like a Prayer", and it's also quite good.



Oh, and remember doing the "Batdance" right around that same time?  Yep, Prince was responsible!



The one thing I liked about Prince was that he was never afraid of controversy.  Certainly his flamboyant sense of style had tongues wagging, but really, was it any different from any of the other artists that were huge in the 1980s?



And yes, there was that brief moment in time where he changed his name into that funky looking symbol that nobody ever really knew how to pronounce.  But I have to say, the fact that he had a custom made guitar in the shape of said symbol - that was the pinnacle of coolness.  And besides, it was during this time that he released two of my all time favourite Prince songs - "7" and "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World". 

Now, by the time I entered high school, Prince was seldom heard on the radio - well, unless you listened to Backtrax USA or some retro 1980s station.  And I always found that really sad, as Prince recorded dozens of albums during the 1990s and 2000s, and they were more than deserving of getting airplay.  But I think that with the legacy he left behind, I don't think he'll ever be forgotten.

Rest in peace, Prince.  I certainly hope there's lots of diamonds and pearls where you are now...

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

April 19, 1995

This edition of the Tuesday Timeline is not the most pleasant memory out there.  In fact, the subject is quite a devastating one.  But, it is an event that anybody over the age of 30 would remember, and although it may not be a happy moment of our past, it did shape how we feel about civil and national security.

Before we get to that event, we should take a look at what else happened on this date in history.

1770 - On the same day that Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding, Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of the continent that would come to be known as Australia

1775 - The American Revolutionary War begins with the Americans winning the battles of Lexington and Concord

1782 - John Adams secures the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government

1839 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom, guaranteeing the nation's neutrality

1865 - The funeral services for Abraham Lincoln take place

1882 - Charles Darwin passes away at the age of 73

1892 - Charles Duryea claims to have been the first person in the world to drive an automobile

1903 - Prohibition agent Eliot Ness (d. 1957) is born in Chicago, Illinois

1919 - The first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump is made by Leslie Irvin

1927 - Following her appearance in a play called "Sex", actress Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail on charges of obscenity

1928 - The final fascicle of The Oxford English Dictionary is published

1930 - Actor Dick Sargent (d. 1994) is born in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

1933 - Actress/model Jayne Mansfield (d. 1967) is born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

1935 - Actor Dudley Moore (d. 2002) is born in Hammersmith, London, England

1943 - Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time as part of an experiment

1956 - Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco

1971 - Vietnam Veterans Against The War begin "Operation Dewey Canyon III" on the same day Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969

1987 - The Simpsons make their television debut as one of the sketches featured in "The Tracey Ullman Show"

1989 - 47 sailors lose their lives following the explosion of a gun turret aboard the USS Iowa

1993 - The FBI siege of David Koresh's Branch Division outside Waco, Texas comes to a tragic end as 81 people, including Koresh, die in a fire

1997 - Grand Forks, North Dakota is devastated by the Red River flood

2011 - Fidel Castro resigns from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title for four and a half decades

2015 - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnev is gunned down by police in a shootout; his brother Dzhokhar is apprehended shortly after

And for celebrity birthdays, we have the following famous people turning another year older;  Hugh O'Brian, Larry Peerce, Dickie Bird, Elinor Donahue, Stanley Fish, Alan Price, Tim Curry, Mark Volman, Stuart McLean, Tony Plana, Ruby Wax, Tony Martin, Steve Antin, Stevie B., Robert Tyler, Suge Knight, Ashley Judd, Jesse James, Jennifer Taylor, Michael Bacall, James Franco, Kate Hudson, Alexis Thorpe, Hayden Christensen, Kasie Head, Ignacio Serricchio, Kristen O'Connor, and Sebastian de Souza.

Now it's time to revisit a date in history that will forever be imprinted on 20th Century history books forever.



April 19, 1995.

You know, when it comes to the 1990s, I have to say that 1995 wasn't one of my favourites.  Sure, when it came to pop culture events such as movies, music, and television, it was actually not a bad year.  But when it came to personal events, it was a rough one.  It was the year both my mom and sister were hospitalized, which lead to my 14th birthday being one of my least favourite birthdays ever.  It was the year I graduated from my tumultuous elementary school and entered an even more tumultuous high school.  And all in all, I just remember 1995 being a very weird year with O.J. Simpson getting acquitted of murder and an earthquake flattening parts of Japan.

But I think one moment that I will never forget happened on this date twenty-one years ago today...and it's a date that changed the face of Oklahoma City forever.

As I recall, April 19, 1995 was a fairly decent day.  I went to school as normal where I more than likely learned how to conjugate the verb "faire" in French class, learned how to tell the difference between an equilateral and scalene triangle in math class, and played a few songs on the baritone during band practice.  But when I went home for lunch that day, and turned on the television set to watch Bob Barker give away a brand new car on "The Price Is Right", I was instead alerted to this frightening image.



This was all that was left of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Just after nine o'clock on the morning of April 19, 1995 - right around the time that my math class was on the verge of wrapping up - a gigantic bomb that was stashed inside of a Ryder truck parked outside of the building exploded, causing massive damage to the front of the building, and causing parts of the building to pancake on top of each other, crushing those who were unlucky enough to be in the path of the bomb.

By the time the dust settled, the death toll was staggering.  One hundred and sixty-eight people lost their lives in the explosion.  To make the situation even more tragic, at least nineteen children were confirmed casualties inside of the building - fifteen of the children alone were in the daycare area of the building that was completely demolished in the blast.

It would be the worst terrorist attack on American soil at that time - at least that was until the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.  And within 90 minutes of the explosion, one of the people who was responsible for the bombing was stopped by police.

Shortly after 10:30am that morning, officers pulled over a 1977 Mercury Marquis driven by Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh.  McVeigh was arrested for driving without a license plate and for possession of illegal weapons, as he had a concealed weapon on his person.  While McVeigh was processed for jail, his car was searched and police found a business card inside of McVeigh's car with a message scrawled on the back of the card.

The message read "TNT at $5 a stick - Need More."

Further investigation revealed that McVeigh was the one who rented the Ryder truck that was used in the bombing - a detail later confirmed by the man who worked at the rental place where he provided a near perfect sketch matching McVeigh's description.  Some time passed before McVeigh's co-conspirators, Terry and James Nichols were also arrested and charged with the criminal act.

Both McVeigh and Terry Nichols were convicted of several counts of murder and conspiracy.  McVeigh was sentenced to death and was executed in prison on June 11, 2001.  As for Nichols, he was given 161 consecutive life sentences without any possibility of parole.  James Nichols was also arrested but released from custody after a little over a month in jail due to lack of evidence against him, and several other people who had inside knowledge of the crime

So, the question that remained is...why would McVeigh and Nichols do something so horrendous?  Why did 168 people - nineteen of which were children no older than six - have to lose their lives?

Well, for conspiracy theorists such as McVeigh and Nichols, it was their way of making a stand against the government - in particular, the federal government.  You see, the reason why the date of April 19 was chosen for a specific reason.  And if you take a look at some of the events I posted that took place on April 19, you'll see that it was on the same day as the Lexington/Concord Battle during the Revolutionary War, as well as the day that the Branch Division fell - an event that McVeigh cited as being one of the greatest failures of the federal government, and felt that this would be the way to make them pay.  After all, the Alfred P. Murrah Building was the home of several government agencies, each of whom had a significant number of people working the morning of April 19, 1995.

But even if a person despises their government, it does NOT give them the right to take the lives of innocent people, especially a bunch of children who did nothing wrong to deserve this.

The building is no more.  The remains of the building were knocked down in May 1995, and in its place lies a memorial of the 168 people who lost their lives that day - and for what purpose?

Let's not forget those who died that day...