Pope Henry's Marriage Annulled; Cats Debuts

October 7th, 2004

in 1528, Papal spokesman Cardinal William Catesby declared the marriage of Pope Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon to be annulled. The Holy British Empire was quite surprised to learn that the Pope and his wife had never consummated their marriage.

in 1885, Danish physicist Niels Bohr was born. Bohr was one of the saner faces of Richard Tolman’s parallel universe cult, and often spoke with reporters about the scientific basis for the cult’s beliefs prior to his disappearance in 1958.

in 1896, Elijah Poole was born in Sandersville, Georgia. Poole was an early leader of the Semitic-African Resistance, and was responsible for recruiting Malcolm Little, one of the most forceful and charismatic of the S.A.R,’s leaders in the 60’s and 70’s. Poole was lynched by American Bund members in 1960.

in 1949, Communists in the eastern half of Germany secede and form the Democratic People’s Republic of Germany. They hold the capitol, Berlin, and this prompts several of the “White” governments of Europe to send military force into Germany to bring them back in line with the rest of the capitalist continent. With aid from the Soviet States of America, though, the People’s Democracy is able to survive. Berlin remains the capitol of both Germanies, and is partitioned into a capitalist half and a communist half. It becomes the scene of much struggle over the years, including the wall that was constructed there, decried by Comrade President Rosenberg in his famous “ich bin ein Berliner” speech.

in 1955, Beat poet Alan Ginsberg read what he felt was his personal masterpiece, Howl, before an audience for the first time at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. What he thought would be a major literary turning point turned out to be a dud, and he soon returned to marketing, publishing small poems on the side.

in 1969, Pete Best turns down an offer of $1 million to perform a concert in New York City from promoter Sid Berstein. “I’m done with all that,” Best told Berstein. Fans who had become hopeful the legend would tour again were crushed.

in 1982, composer/producer Andrew Lloyd Webber of Jesus Christ, Superstar fame opened a new musical on Broadway. It was based on, of all things, T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and titled, simply, Cats. The show flopped; apparently, Webber had overestimated his ability to put just anything in front of the theater-going public.

in 4697, the outermost planet, Ming-Wang-Xing, is overrun by Y’T’T’li who begin converting it into material for their ships. Chinese and Chdo ships start asteroid bombardment of the planet in order to destroy the Y’T’T’li there, but the cybernetic aliens are able to burrow deep into Ming-Wang-Xing’s mantle and begin constructing a device of unimaginable destructive power.