Today's featured article – Alexander IV
Alexander the Great was an act that was hard to follow. His empire stretched from Greece to India and as far south as Egypt. For his only male heir — Alexander IV of Macedonia — it would prove impossible to follow. Hence his sobriquet Alexander the Not So Great.
Alexander IV was a weak echo of his father, like Caesarion the son of Julius Caesar, Napoleon II heir of Napoleon I, and various Kennedys, Bushes, and Clintons of United States politics.
Alexander IV arrived in this world a few months after the death of his father in 323 BC. His mother was the fiery Roxane from Bactria on the Persian frontier, a wild land of two-humped camels and savage inter-tribal wars. Roxane was a warrior princess who was disgusted that her father had her married off to some swarthy, Greek-speaking foreigner. So much did she loathe her spouse that she tried to murder him on their wedding night — at least according to Oliver Stone's film about the Macedonian bleached-blond beach bum. After that bumpy start, the couple managed to avoid killing each other, at least until they produced a male heir. (more...)
Previously featured article – Arthur Currie
General Sir Arthur William Currie, GCMB, KCB, KGB, was a Canadian Senior officer during World War I. A prolific commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Currie is among the finest Western front commanders in the war and one of the greatest Canadian officers. However, he is more internationally renowned for his world-class embezzlement; also for his hyper-sensitivity regarding his public image. (more...)
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Did you know...
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- ...that Santa has somehow delivered presents to all the people in the world every christmas, even though the laws of physics dictate that he would be an incinerated and crushed pile of ashes by now, along with all his reindeer?
- ...that Santa, when his name is scrambled, is Satan?
- ...even though he's a magical and kindhearted person?
- ...and that the elves are revolting against Santa?
- ...that Santa doesn't care about you? In fact, nobody cares?
- ...and that Santa does care about and love everyone else in the world?
- ...that reindeer are never magical?
- ...that even though he has a whole bunch of elves working for him, Santa does shopping for presents all the time?
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In the news
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- Santa has gone crazy. Even more than before. (Pictured)
- Grandma gets run over by a reindeer.
- Mandatory elf gathering goes horribly wrong
- While making presents, Santa falls in the wrapping machinery
- The reindeer veer off track while deivering presents
- Santa fails to remember getting the flying powder before entering the sleigh
- Santa's elves lose some of the presents they made; expect delays
- Santa's present-making machinery malfunctions and goes haywire; many elves die
- Easter comes on Christmas; millions confused
- Santa revealed to be ordinary person with immortality potion
- Elves revealed to be robots; noone knows what to think anymore
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On this day...
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July 24: Pioneer Day (Utah), Polygamy Week begins (also Utah)
- 967 - As I was going to St. Ives, I meet a man with seven wives. Each wife has seven cats, each cat has seven kits. I get the worst case of Cat-scratch disease you could imagine after trying to huff them all.
- 1132 - The Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily takes place in Italy. Ranulf's fettucine narrowly bests Roger's linguine, and Italy adopts fettucine as the National Stereotypical Food.
- 1487 - Citizens of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, unsatisfied with watered-down domestics, rebel against a ban on foreign beer.
- 1762 - New Yorkers are frightened when something long and green is seen moving through the streets of the city. Upon finding it is a St. Patrick's Day parade still marching after four months, they become even more frightened.
- 1828 - Patrick Bell invents the reaping machine. The Grim Reaper is an early adopter but has trouble getting it to work efficiently until the 1860s.
- 1884 - Hiram Maxim invents the Maxim gun, the basis for the modern machine gun. Not realizing it was a weapon of war, it was bought by the thousands by organ grinders with tragic results.
- 1947 - Brigham Young and all his merry wives arrive in Utah to establish Mormonism, and in doing so guaranteed that even the ugliest son of a bitch (pictured) can have multiple mates.
- 1970 - The pocket calculator is invented, enabling easy identification of nerds.
- 1983 - Hacker Richard M. Stallman launches the GNU project, an effort to protect the endangered buffalo-like animal from extinction, using mainly open-source code. Gnus would insist that the project be written entirely in BASIC.
- 2000 - While on the Presidential campaign trail, George W. Bush reads a guide to living life that helps him on his way to the Oval Office. Dick Cheney helps him with the bigger words.
- 2008 - The Dark Knight is released, becoming an instant box-office smash hit, and reaching the all-time pinnacle for film for all history. However, Monty Python fans expecting a story about the Black Knight are deeply disappointed.
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| Colonization of the Week
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For the glory of her majesty
Help us clear the ivy of crap,
and plant the seeds of humour.
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