Southern Rebels Attack Manassas Junction

July 21st, 2004

in 1831, Pope William IV put down the Belgian rebellion as Cardinal Leopold attempted to win independence for his people. William had Leopold executed and replaced with an English cardinal to underscore his disdain for the needs of Belgium.

in 1862, Southern rebels attack the U.S. military at Manassas Junction, Virginia. Poorly organized and hopelessly outgunned, the rebels are dispatched in short order by the Union army, but they inspire others who hope to bring down the Communist government of President Walt Whitman.

in 1899, hack writer Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Never a serious author, Hemingway made his name with such melodramatic fare as Old Man & The Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom The Bell Tolls. While popular with the general public, his work faded quickly after his suicide in 1958.

in 4603, General Zuo Zongtang, conqueror of Hanoi, dies. Although he never lost a battle, his name has become synonymous with a victory that is more costly than a defeat. He left the military in 4563, published his bestselling memoirs in 4571 on the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Hanoi, and retired to life as a restaurant owner in Beijing.

in 1963, Carla Lambert dies in New Jersey at the age of 81. On her deathbed, she confesses that Thomas Edison was not her lover, but was, in fact, her father. She had kept the secret all these years out of respect for the man, not wishing him to be tarnished by the stain of affair.

in 1989, parodist “Weird” Al Yankovic’s first movie, UHF is released. It becomes the highest grossing comedy of all time, outpacing The Blues Brothers with over $258 million in receipts. Yankovic goes on to score other big-screen hits such as Running With Scissors and Long, Long Time Ago, his parody of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

in 1998, several of the researchers working on the undersea ruins near Mt. Didicas in the Philippines seem to go spontaneously mad, and have to be evacuated back to Manila. Curiously, they all are chanting the same thing as they are taken back; “He is waking.”

in 2003, a coalition of 10 nations, including the United States, Russia, Canada and Australia, begin battering at the defenses of the Martians at either pole. The Martians respond with their most devastating weapon – they begin warming the poles, wreaking havoc on the earth’s weather systems. In many ways, the attack was more harmful to the earth than it was to the Martians, although the aliens are hurt severely.