Like History? Good. You're akin to 98% of the population that slept through history class and only turns on the History Channel if "The History of Sex" is on late at night. But whether you admit it or not, history can be pretty amusing and freakin' cool. I'm going to prove that to you, or at least give you some fun facts you can use to impress your friends.
Oh March, how you must come to an end. Following short February you are but a long reminder that spring doesn't officially begin in New England until mid-April. You come in like a lion and, around here, you go out like a lion that just ate that tasty little lamb. It's dreary, wet and windy. Depressing almost. But wait! there is one glimmer of hope at the end of this month, at least for me anyway. See, March 31st is my birthday and I can't think of any better way to celebrate the end of the month other than a whole day committed to me, me ME. Just kidding (kinda?) Birthday's aren't that big of a deal to me (right?) and I hardly expect anyone to waste time on me (do I?)
Yes, I totally do.
Er, anyway in honor of my birthday I'm bringing you a couple little dinosar shaped historical chicken nuggets, not just one. Both of which are kind of exciting for me because A. I'm a loser and B. both happened on March 31st.
FIRST:
The Eiffel Tower officially opened for business. Not that the people of Paris did see it being built for like, ever. The story itself is kind of cool. It was built in honor of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Personally I think Eiffel, the steelworker and designer, did a great job on it, but I think it would have been a nice touch to have a giant iron severed head of Marie Antoinette on the top there. I mean, would have looked a little more bad ass.
I mean the French are known for being a little brutal..
The Eiffel tower also served as the opening gates for the 1898 French World's Fair. This is where the story gets awesome. So it was the most impressive steel structure in the world at the time, right. So the American's were all like "Ok France, anything you can do we can do better, you're on." And then in 1892 we put on the Chicago World's Fair, which was even more awesome than the French one. We also debuted the world's first Ferris wheel, a massive steel structure that was taller, and far more impressive then the Eiffel Tower. "Suck my escgargot, France" was apparently muttered by Chicago workers (kidding).
Also on March 31st Oklahoma! opened on Broadway. Ok, so what, right? NO. OKLAHOMA! CHANGED EVERYTHING. On Broadway anway. It was the first modern-day musical combining dance, song, story and dress. Rogers and Hammerstein hit the big time with that one. So in honor of that (and just so I can hear it) here's a little Oklahoma! for you guys.
I'm not much of a sports person, when it comes to television viewing. Football's too complicated and takes FOREVER, baseball's too boring and takes FOREVER, Basketball doesn't take forever but is still kinda boring to watch unless its the last five minutes. There is one sport that I love to watch though, and that's hockey. It's the perfect sport: low scoring, violent and timely. Games are always over in 2 hours max, unlike baseball which you could watch for about 8 hours before it ends (assuming you didn't die of boredom first).
Gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon...please.
What does any of this have to do with history? Well this week happens to mark the 117th anniversary of the first Stanely Cup championship, played on March 22nd 1894. For those of you who don't know what the Stanley Cup is, it is only the most bad ass trophy in all of sports. There's only one, not like other sports which make about 23234 copies of a trophy which only ends up on Pawn Stars 30 years later.
Suck it, Heisman trophy
Lord Stanley's Cup, as it is referred to (mostly by Canadians) was orgiinally crafted by Lord Stanley of Preston himself who, by the sound of it, was a rich little hockey fan who, not needing a real job, decided to dedicate a silver punch bowl the the NHL. Little did he know that it would become the most treasured trophy in the sport, and a symbols of sportsmanship and honor. Each year, the winning team of the NHL championship has the names of all its players and staff inscribed on the cup, like, forever. By now the trophy stands almost 3 feet tall. Pretty sick if you ask me.
In addition to getting their names inscribed on the cup, each player gets to spend a little alone time with the cup over the course of the next year. If you read up on some of the stories you wouldn't be too shocked to hear most of them involve drunk hockey players. I'm sure if that thing could talk it would have a lot of stories to tell, most of them you probably wouldn't want to hear.
Throw up in my mouth. Bad, Hayden Panettiere, BAD.
There are a few famous stories though, of players letting their dogs eat out of the cup, drinking expensive wine out of the cup and even baptizing their kids in it. Unfortunately though, I'm a Boston fan and anyone following the Bruins knows that we aren't anywhere close to winnning the Stanley Cup anytime soon. It's kinda sad and I would kill to see them win it and be at the game. Guess unitl then I'll just have to do something crazy and like, cheer for the Red Sox or something. Ew.
I don't know where to begin this week. It's midterm time here at the ol' Skidmore so of course that means everyone is freaking out about EVERYTHING. It doesn't help that it's the beginning of March, so everyone's super sluggish and ready for a well deserved break. I'm in the same basket as everyone else. I've got two exams and two papers this week to do and I've gotta get cracking (later?). The sad thing is that doesn't leave much time for researching stuff for you guys and of course, this is the one week where a lot of pretty cool stuff happened.
LIKE the telephone being patented! Woo! Yep on March 7th 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented the world's first telephone. Yeah, yeah, it's kinda boring compared to NASCAR, but I mean, half of you are probably reading this blog on your iphones, all thanks to Mr. Bell.
Well..
One thing that's kinda interesting about this story is that while Bell was inventing the telephone, Elisha Gray was inventing something extremely similar. Bell beat out Gray's in issuing a patent by two hours. Which OBV made Gray pretty pissed. So pissed that he started to work for Thomas Edison to invent a better telephone. Bell promptly sued their asses though, which is why he is credited as the first and only inventor of the telephone. Suck it Edison, you get enough credit for you so called 'lightbulb', stop being such a goddamn attention whore (and elephant electrocution-er).
Anyway, since this is a pretty boring post, I'll leave you with a smidgen of Family Guy to cleanse the palate.
Happy Spring Break!
