1725, British Gen. Robert Clive was born. Clive secured India for the British and became inordinately wealthy in the process. As a schoolchild, Clive tried his hand at racketeering, threatening to vandalize merchants’ shops if they didn’t pay him. As an officer in the East India Company’s army, he conquered modern-day Bangladesh and began collecting taxes from 20 million people. (Yes, that’s right. The East India Company had an army and collected taxes.) Clive sent the share price of the EIC through the roof. He sent his own wealth back to England in the form of diamonds and had roughly £300,000 in 1760, which is about $54 billion in today’s dollars. (Yes, I actually did that math, thanks to a 2005 document on historic inflation rates from the House of Commons library.) Clive was made a baron and eventually retired to England, where he was accused of corruption. The next guy in charge of India was also charged with corruption, but the guy after that, Lord Cornwallis of Yorktown surrender fame, fared much better. He died of a fever.
1907, the cornerstone of Washington National Cathedral was laid. Congress had passed a charter in 1893 that allowed the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation to begin construction; and, keeping church and state mostly separate, the foundation built the cathedral, but Teddy Roosevelt was there when the cornerstone was laid. It took 93 years to build the neo-Gothic cathedral and, in brilliant parallelism, George H. W. Bush was there at its completion. The cathedral boasts stained glass windows depicting the lives of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Another stained-glass window is dedicated to steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Further, as a result of a children’s design contest, there’s a Darth Vader gargoyle — technically, it’s a grotesque — on the exterior of the building. Evidently, these colorful stained-glass windows and imperial gargoyle aren’t enough; decorative work on the building continues. And, because the Aug. 23 Virginia earthquake damaged the building, expensive repair work is also underway. So, like every good church, the National Cathedral will still be able to pass the collection plates for the building fund.
1911, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire. This wasn’t the start of World War I; it was the start of a military conflict I didn’t know existed — the Italo-Turkish War. Italy fought the Ottoman Empire for Libya. Essentially, Italy was trying to keep up with the Joneses and get African colonies like the rest of Europe. They saw Tripoli was ripe for the picking, so they went picking. Future fascist Benito Mussolini took a very public anti-war stance, but the war raged despite him. The Italo-Turkish War foreshadowed World War I in many ways. Italian troops deployed airplanes in war time and dropped the first, but certainly not the last, aerial bomb on Libya. Further, Italian victory showed the Balkans how weak the Ottomans really were. Three Balkan conflicts followed, the third of which began World War I. Italy controlled Libya until World War II, but still trades a lot with them. Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, whose birthday is also today, was close to Qaddafi until this year. They’ve since had a falling out.
1962, NASA launched Canada’s first satellite, “Alouette 1.” Like all good things, this satellite was named for a French Canadian folk song, and Canadians are proud of it. “Alouette 1” was the first satellite not constructed by the United States or Soviet Union. But, as foresaid, they didn’t launch it themselves. NASA launched “Alouette” into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base up in Santa Barbara County. That launch was a great act of international cooperation. Just for one day, Canadians and Americans were able to put aside their historic dispute about Oregon’s northern border to do something constructive — study the ionosphere. And study the ionosphere little “Alouette” did. The satellite functioned for 10 years before it was switched off, but it’s still in orbit. In fact, it may be up there for some time. In 1966, Life magazine estimated that “Alouette 1” would remain in orbit for 1,000 years. That would make “Alouette 1” one piece of the space junk depicted in “WALL-E” and probably the only piece of Canadian litter anywhere — except, of course, “Alouette 2.”
1982, the Tylenol murders claimed their first victim in Chicago. As the lethal bottles came from different factories, investigators believe someone removed bottles of Tylenol from shelves of Chicago area stores, added cyanide to the capsules and replaced the bottles. The murders claimed seven lives, but no suspect has been charged. One man in New York wrote to Tylenol’s maker, Johnson & Johnson, and demanded $1 million to stop the murders. He was found to have no connection to the crimes, but served 13 years for extortion. Another man accused of the murders was cleared but had a nervous breakdown because of the media attention and ended up committing second-degree murder himself. In May, the FBI started investigating Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski for the Tylenol murders, but he maintained his innocence. Copycat killings aside, a few people did some good things in the wake of these murders. Johnson & Johnson performed deft crisis management, and pill manufacturers started making more tablets and tamper-resistant packaging. So, be thankful next time you struggle to open a new bottle of Tylenol.
