8th of January

- 1297 -

Monaco gains its independence from France. No word yet on when they’re going to gain their independence from Bernie Ecclestone.

In a shameless effort to get more traffic here’s a close up picture of a Prince Albert

- 1835 -

US national debt hits zero for the last time. I’m not familiar with the causes of that development so I’ll have to assume that their national debt was as terrified of Andrew Jackson as everybody else was.

- 1918 -

President Woodrow Wilson delivers his famous “14 points” speech to a joint session of Congress. Wilson’s points (including the establishment of the League of Nations) were concerned with peace rather than revenge and were distributed behind German lines as propaganda.

The other allies (who didn’t have the luxury of only showing up for the tail-end of the war) were not inclined to be so lenient. The British had no intention of relinquishing dominance of the seas and the French were in desperate need of reparations after having their country blown up with gay abandon for the last several years. Wilson had to back down from almost all of his 14 points to push through his proposal for a League of Nations.

I’ll leave it to you folks to discuss amongst yourselves whether the League of Nations was more useful in preventing the Second World War than refraining from impoverishing Germany would have been.

- 1956 -

In Operation Auca five US Missionaries are killed by the Huaorani people of Ecuador. While some would ask what else one should expect for carrying out such a vile act of cultural imperialism it should be pointed out that their deaths were the direct result of one of the natives lying about their actions to save face.

Anthropologists have voiced concern over the loss of Huaorani culture. Since Huaorani culture had as one of its central tenants the understanding that anyone not related to them was an irredeemably wretched cannibal that can and should be brutally killed this is perhaps not as tragic a loss as they make out.

- 1964 -

LBJ begins the proud post-WW2 American tradition of declaring war on nouns, choosing poverty as his mark. One presumes this is, like the other anti-verb actions, a work in progress.

- 1989 -

47 people lose their lives in the Kegworth Air Disaster as British Midland Flight 92 crashes into the M1.

There were lots of births on this day as well but most of them are pretty obscure.

Nobody you’d have heard of.