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March 8 Saints of the Day – Theophylactus of Nicomedia and John of God
On this day in 1978, the first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was transmitted on BBC Radio 4. Nobody had any idea the impact the show would eventually have on towel sales. The...
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April 15 Saints of the Day – Suchias of Georgia and Joseph de Veuster
On this date in 1924, Rand McNally published its first road atlas. Early sales were sluggish because customers wanted something harder to re-fold. Our eastern saints today are the martyr Suchias and...
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April 22 Saints of the Day – Vitalis of Gaza and Theodore of Sykeon
NB: I’m going to stop saying eastern saint/western saint. Please take it as read from this point on that the first saint mentioned is from the Orthodox calendar, and the second from the Latin Rite...
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April 29 Saints of the Day – Endelienta of Cornwall and Catherine of Siena
On this date in 1770, James Cook arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia. He wanted to call it “Zoology Bay,” but just knew people would mispronounce it. Endelienta (5th or 6th century) lived as a...
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June 14 Saints of the Day – Elisha the Prophet and Methodius of Constantinople
On this date in 1947, an unidentified flying object (supposedly) crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico. Nobody knows what the (supposed) aliens looked like, but that sure hasn’t stopped the manufacturers...
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August 16 Saints of the Day – The Image Not Made by Hands and Roch of...
On this day in 1974, punk rock pioneers the Ramones played their first show in New York’s CBGB. The next day they learned how to tune their guitars. The Image Not Made by Hands came about in this wise....
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August 23 Saints of the Day – Eutychius and Florentius and Philip Benizi
On this day in 1904, the automobile tire chain was patented. The subdued rejoicing at the patent office is the first known example of a controlled chain reaction. Eutychius and Florentius (d. 540, 547,...
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November 3 Saints of the Day – Snandulia of Persia and Alpaïs of Cudot
On this day in 1952, Clarence Birdseye first marketed frozen peas as a handy ice pack for bruises and black eyes. Later people realized they could open the package and eat the peas. Snandulia of Persia...
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November 14 Saints of the Day – Theodora and Dyfrig
On this day in 1732, the first professional librarian in the United States, Louis Timothee, was hired. It was long overdue. The Empress Theodora (500 – 548) was an actress back when the scandals in...
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December 30 Saints of the Day – Zoticus, Feeder of Orphans, and Egwin of...
On this day in 1853, a dinner party was held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London. The menu consisted entirely of...
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