…and 1098 and 1191 and 1281 and 1299 and 1308 (being immortal has his problems.
1308 was the worst year for apples. Blech! Mealy and tasteless, the whole lot of them.
In 1308 Albert I of Germany, AKA the Duke of Austria, was murdered by his nephew Duke John in a dispute over a game of Parcheesi (at the time known as Indian Cross and Circle). The board game had been introduced to Germany in 1281 and beginning in 1299 there had been Parcheesi tournaments held annually on the shores of the Reuss River (an area best known today for its superior apples). This was the first murder associated with Parcheesi in Europe, but sadly it would not be the last.
The world-wide murder rate for Dukes continued right up until John Wayne died in 1976, when it dropped drastically.
John Wayne had an illegitimate child. Born Simon Dujour Octavian Reese, we know him as David Bowie, musician, actor and inventor of the Internet.
Earl Fatblack of Austria once invited Bowie to his castle in Vienna thinking the musician was Duke Thinwhite.
Vienna Sausages were the world’s first totally synthetic food, made of a precursor to Nylon.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s fourth child, Nylon, has been raised entirely on Vienna Sausages as part of a world-wide PETA movement against Heinz Beanie Weenies, which contain .0003% marmoset meat.
Innsbruck Sausages are considered the finest of all canned Austrian sausages. Often retailing for 10 euro or more a tin, these delicacies are favored by discerning gourmands worldwide for their nutty pungent yet quasi-marmoset-like flavor.
The German name for Austria is Österreich, which means “Eastern Reach.” The Germans originally applied this to Australia, as that was as far east as you could reach before reaching WEST. The Australians threatened war if Germany didn’t knock it off.
Germs come from Germany, hence the name. They spread to the rest of the world after Germany began exporting to Österreich and other areas of the globe.
Germs come from Germany with the exception of the measle germ, which originated in the tiny province of Rubella (now part of Romania). Measles wiped out all red-headed Romani people in 1842 except for Natalie Rosalie Birch, a ginger-haired beauty who moved to London to become a stripper before the epidemic broke out.
Natalie Rosalie Birch was a great aunt of Spiro Agnew, who is thought by the Vice Presidential Genetics Institute at Wesleyan University to have inherited his luminously red hair from her.
Spiro Agnew was known as Nixon’s “hatchet man” because he ran around the White House with a toy tomahawk, playing cowboys and Indians with Pat Buchanan whenever Nixon took a nap.
When I start having dreams of Spiro Agnew, I’m coming after YOU with a tomahawk, EH. XD
Cheiro’s Dream Book indicates that dreams about Spiro Agnew indicate a repressed horror of conservativism, and should be countered by voting Democratic at the earliest election.
Pyrotechiaphobia, the fear of fireworks, often results from a repressed horror associated with an early childhood experience at a 4th of July display. Parents of young children are encouraged by psychologists not to take infants to such shows without ear plugs and to also carry a paper sack to put over the youngster’s head should the need arise.
As seasoned parents have discovered, a paper sack over a youngster’s head is an easy-to-make Halloween costume for children under five (“You’re a suntanned ghost, honey”) and for teen-agers (“You have to wear something that passes for a costume or you’re not leaving the house.”)
Benjamin Franklin invented trick or treating in 1768.
The first child injured by a Hallowe’en costume was Thomas Smythe of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1769. He sliced his tongue on a plastic Ben Franklin half-mask trying to say, “Trickes or Treates.”
That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.
Ben Franklin signed not only the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, but also the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the U.N. Charter and Duke Ellington’s first musical-performance contract at the Cotton Club.