Mike Malloy Writer debuted on this date one year ago, clearly the most significant development of 2020. Our staff would like to celebrate by taking a look back at other important moments in history that happened on July 12.
2019: During a tense meeting, President Donald Trump says to Jared Kushner, “Oh, you don’t think I can make a perfect phone call? OK, tough guy, here we go…”
2017: Steve Bannon fired from his post at the White House, refocuses on passion project: building a laser that destroys all joy.
2012: Honey Boo Boo’s mother ends run for Georgia senate seat.
2010: “Jersey Shore” premieres on MTV, further disproving the myth of white supremacy.
2009: President Barack Obama. We don’t know what he did that day, we just like saying it while wistfully looking out the window.
2006: Four years after he died, baseball legend Ted Williams’ body is unfrozen at a cryogenics lab in Arizona. Later that day he goes 3-for-4 against Detroit.
2003: During a briefing on the Middle East, President George W Bush asks Vice-President Dick Cheney, “Which one of them countries has that Ayatollah fella?”
2002: Afghan defense minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi exclaims, “Why the fuck do superpowers keep invading us?”
1999: President Bill Clinton clarifies, “Oh, you meant sexual relations with that woman.”
1994: Jokes related to escaping in a White Bronco reach worldwide high of 36.4 per minute.
1992: Researchers at Cal-Tech type in the first internet search: “Gillian Anderson nude”.
1989: Jerry Falwell Sr. declares Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video blasphemous, kinda hot.
1986: Last batch of New Coke buried in a mine shaft in Tunisia along with its creator.
1984: Sen. Walter Mondale proclaims, “Pretty sure Reagan’s got no chance in November.”
1982: Bobby McClain of Evansville, Ind. becomes the first, though far from the last, kid to ask, “Mommy, why do the ghosts hate Pac-Man so much?”
1977: Chrysler introduces car too big to fit into any garage.
1975: “A Clockwork Orange” debuts, scaring off more teens from sex than any abstinence program in history.
1974: Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” is declared a war crime by the United Nations.
1971: Chocolate brown and yellow is deemed an acceptable color combination for sweaters, dresses.
1970: During a White House meeting, HR Haldeman tells President Richard Nixon, “I know a guy who sells reel-to-reel tape in bulk.”
1969: Tucker Carlson is spawned at a John Birch Society séance.
1965: A record-high 14 percent of Americans can now find Vietnam on a map.
1963: Martin Luther King Jr. begins writing “I Have a Dream Speech” unaware that decades later that white people would appropriate his words to condemn critical race theory.
1960: The Family Circus begins a six-decade run of humor-free comics.
1957: En masse, white Americans suddenly feel the need to live further from where they work.
1951: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin does not order a murder, ending his still-standing streak at 473 straight days.
1949: North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung strips citizens of all rights, except for the right to party.
1948: Nation of Israel created, ending once-and-for-all a longstanding conflict.
1945: President Harry Truman screams at general, “You idiot, I said DON’T drop it on a major city!”
1941: FDR did what with his cousin?
1939: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tells advisor, “That doesn’t sound like the Hitler I know.”
1935: Seriously, FDR did what with his cousin?
1933: In an interview with the New York Times, Fay Wray says of her “King Kong” co-star, “KK – that’s what we called him on set – was always cracking me up with his Charlie Chaplin impersonation.”
1932: In a Des Moines Register poll, 85 percent of Iowans wish President Herbert Hoover were born elsewhere. “If only he’d been born in another country, like Kenya, we could get rid of him,” said Earl Trump of Des Moines, “We searched and searched but the idea proved too good to be true.”
1930: Months after the stock market collapse, Joe Sullivan of Newark continues taunting his family, saying, “You still think keeping money under the mattress is a dumb idea?”
1924: Henry Ford fires engineer who outfitted Model Ts with crotch belts.
1921: In the first NFL game ever played, the Chicago Staleys beat the Canton Bulldogs eight concussions to five.
1919: Babe Ruth leads American League in home runs, chlamydia.
1914: Willie Nelson begins first tour.
1903: Panamanian engineers scrap ship-sized slingshot, draw up plans for canal instead.
1902: Boer War ends in South Africa but since America wasn’t involved nobody remembers who won.
1889: Nikola Tesla builds the first successful time machine; transports to Plymouth Rock in 1492 and breathlessly tells the people he finds, “Don’t let the Europeans…” and then collapses. Sadly, the first nation members mistook his message as “Don’t let the Europeans leave without inviting them to stay for dinner.”
1865: Robert E Lee forced to write “It really wasn’t about states rights” 100 times on a blackboard.
1845: Texas joins the United States spawning years of regret.
1215: King John of England signs the Magna Carta at Runnymede after original booking at the Wembley Stadium falls through because of soccer riot.
0: Fourth wise man dies of embarrassment after also bringing myrrh.
1755 BC: Babylonian scribe says to colleague, “Is Hammurabi’s Code the one that goes dash-dot-dash-dash…Oh, that’s right, I always get those two mixed up.”
Happy birthday, MMW!