Today in history

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry made his famous "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech.

Also on this date:

In 1806, exactly 200 years ago, explorers Lewis and Clark, having reached the Pacific coast - began their journey back east. They were last seen in a Checkered cab, driven by San Francisco transplant Hamid Ali Bommbaya Falaffa, taking the long route.

In 1919, Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. Today, it is known as HBO's "The Soprano's".

In 1933, the German Reichstag passed the "Enabling Act", which effectively granted Adolph Hitler dictatorial powers. Translation: It ENABLED him to do whatever he could or wanted to do until the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union could get in there and stop him 12 years later.

In 1956, Pakistan became and independent republic of the British Commonwealth. Today, Pakistan is known as the place where Osama probably does his laundry on the corner of Jihad and Main streets. Nice little place...Mahmed's coin-op "with front loading washers".

In 1983, President Reagan first proposed developing technology which would then become known as "Star Wars". Follow on Presidents would develop, "Star Wars -the next generation", Star Wars - the prequil", and of course "The Matrix - WMD's have never looked so lame", staring Keanau Reeves as a bus riding LA cop-turned-nuclear-physicist-turned-greenpeace-activist. What?

In 1996, Taiwan held it's first direct Presidential elections, paving the way for the now famous "throw your shoe at your elected official" policy.

5 years ago on this date, the Mir space station fell out of the sky and crashed into Detroit. This ended the 15 year odyssey for the space craft. No one in Detroit noticed the firery destruction.

1 year ago today, a federal appeals court refused to reinsert Sean Hannity's feeding tube. Unfortunately, he survived and is now a transexual Aruban newspaper reporter still combing the beach to locate Joran Vandersloot's missing penny loafers.

Yeah...yeah...I know some of these references are really off-the-wall. Get over it.