#OnThisDayInHistory, the first recorded Viking attack in Europe happens when invaders raid England’s Lindisfarne monastery in 793. Apparently there were warnings of fiery dragons in the sky, which I guess the English ignored. DON'T IGNORE THE DRAGONS.
#OnThisDayInHIstory, King George VI becomes the first British monarch to visit the US in 1939. He seems a little overdressed.
#OnThisDayInHistory, Sir George Williams founds the YMCA in 1844. You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal, you can do whatever you feel.
#OnThisDayInHistory, George Bernard Shaw quits his day job at the Edison Telephone Company in 1880. But they say not to do that!!
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Transcontinental Express crosses the nation in a mere 83 hours in 1876, something unthinkable a generation before. Choo choo!
#OnThisDayInHistory, rock 'n' roll is banned in Santa Cruz in 1956. Because as Santa Cruz goes, so goes the nation, duh.
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Seattle Mariners draft a 17-year-old Ken Griffey Jr in 1987. Not the Marines, as I originally typed.
#OnThisDayInHistory, while trying to make "aqua vitae" (or "water of life"), Friar John Cor distills Scotland’s first whisky in 1494. Well, that's one way to do it.
#OnThisDayInHistory, Walt Whitman is born in 1819. "'Leaves of Grass' my ass!"
#OnThisDayInHistory, playwright Christopher Marlowe is killed in a bar brawl in 1593. Unless you believe the show "Upstart Crow." Which you probably shouldn't.
#OnThisDayInHistory, Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" premieres at the Theatre de Champs-Elysees in Paris in 1913. The music and unusual dancing provokes a riot. And you thought ballet was boring!
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Dionne quintuplets, the first quints known to survive infancy, are born in 1934. They are kept in a "baby zoo" for the first nine years of their lives. No word on if the public got to hand-feed them fish sticks, though.
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Chrysler Building is completed, briefly becoming the tallest building in the world, in 1930. And it looks just like Roger DeBris's dress!
#OnThisDayInHIstory, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" goes on sale in London in 1897, with the first 101 pages missing and the text edited to make the book seem less "real." Gary Oldman's hair is pretty unreal as it is.
#OnThisDayInHistory, Dan Goodwin free climbs all 110 floors of the outside of the Sears Tower in a custom-made Spider-Man suit in 1981. Come on! He stayed up all night dyeing his underwear!
#OnThisDayInHistory, Samuel Morse demonstrates the telegraph, sending the message "What hath God wrought?" in 1844. Well, technically, He didn't wrought the telegraph....
#OnThisDayInHistory, Colonial patriot James Otis, who predicted that he'd be taken into “eternity” by a flash of lightning, died on a friend's doorstep when he was, well, struck by lightning in 1783. How electrifying!
#OnThisDayInHistory, Johnny Carson ends his almost-30-year run on "The Tonight Show," drawing 50 million viewers, in 1992. One more for her baby.
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Flavr Savr tomato, the first genetically engineered food product approved for human consumption in the US (to last longer), appears on grocery store shelves in 1994. It is not square. But it would be hip to be.
#OnThisDayInHistory, the Chicago City Council bans the sale of spray paint and large markers within city limits to crack down on graffiti, calling them "weapons of terror," in 1992. Now you can go to "Sip and Spray" parties in the city. Progress!
