On this Day in History: 24th August

[Anarcho-Socialist]

1995: (Referenda, Canada) Prince Edward Island vote narrowly against independence from Canada (50.1% versus 49.9%). Militant Prince Edward Island sovereigntists immediately reject the result.

1983: (International relations, Southern Ocean) Antarctica proclaims itself a Marxist republic. The Reagan administration responds invading the Caribbean island of Grenada.

1978: (Monarchy, Britain) President of Uganda Idi Amin proclaims himself King of Scotland and lands in Aberdeenshire keen to raise an army to take the throne.

1951: (Fashion, Soviet Union) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin wins the Annual Soviet Most Bushiest Moustache for a record 30 continuous occasions. For all 30 years of competition, Stalin ran unopposed.

1914: (War & pillage, Falkland Islands) Germany launches a surprise Zeppelin attack on Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands.

1900: (Important persons, Germany) Albert Einstein gives up his job as a stripper in a Berlin nightclub and takes up theoretical physics.

1871: (War & pillage, France) Prussian soldiers sack Paris.

1789: (Literary works, U.S.A.) Benjamin Franklin publishes his seminal autobiographical work ‘The Erotic Adventures of Benjamin Franklin’. It is from this work that the word “booby” first entered the English language.

409: (War & pillage, Italy) The Alemanii tribe sack Rome.

[non sociopath skin]

1. Re: Stalin's Tash, let us not forget that Hitler had himself awarded ....

... the Reichsminimalisttache Award from 1933-1945 despite Heinrich Himmler, Josef Goebbels and Admiral Doenitz challenging with moustaches so minimalist that they are only visible with a magnifying lens on photographs.

It is, of course, rumoured that they were part of the Mustachischekunstkampfwehren Conspiracy against the Fuhrer but Hugh Trevor-Roper's theories on this have gained little currency in historical circles.

Das Skein

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. Kaiser Bill never got a look in

The bushier varieties of moustache were "verboten" by the Weimar Republic's military facial dress reforms of 1924 (known as the Weimar Republik-Schnurrbartverbesserungen .

The minimalist 'tache of the later Nazi regime were known as Der Skrotumrattebeutel and became military standard in 1934.

[non sociopath skin]

3. In his twilight years, of course, Kaiser Wilhelm II could console himself

.. with his 1903 Victoria Moustache Cup award, given annually by the manufacturers of Potts's Patent Dreadnought Moustache Oil to the member of Her Late Majesty's extended family with the most impressive facial hair.

It will be remembered that His Imperial Highness won in the face of fierce competition from that year's favourite, the Grand Dowager Prinzessin Marie-Gertrud of Teck.

The Skin

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. The Grand Dowager was quite the hairy one

The Victoria Moustache Cup was a major achievement in its time.

[non sociopath skin]

5. Indeed. How many of the present degenerate royals could do likewise?

I can think of only Princess Anne and Brabazon (the third corgi on the right) who would be worthy to unloosen the latchet of the Grand Dowager's shoes. (Or, in her case, orthopaedic boots.)

The Skin

[Kipling]

6. Purportedly, von Bismarck was frequently mistaken for a walrus.