This Day in History, April 16th

Apollo Sixteen launched. To get material from the highlands of the moon and find the keys dropped by a previous astronaut. It was the next to last American mission to the moon and they decided it was time to take sample from the moon’s highlands, despite the possibility of finding Scotsmen living there. To prepare for the mission, the astronauts were trained to be expert geologists. This took an entire afternoon.

The Pulitzer Prize for fiction was not given out this day in 2012. Swamplandia, The Pale King and Train Dreams all received the same number of votes. The writers of each of these three novels are still writing today and living in their parent’s basements…

Albert Hofmann, in his quest to develop headache medication, accidentally took LSD on this day in 1943. He accidentally took it again three days later and again the year before. At 102 years old, his only regret was that most countries had outlawed the “sacred drug” and that his arms kept melting off.

Charlie Chaplin was born on this day in 1889, Later, it turned out that he was a communist and he was banned from entering the United States because it is well-known that Americans look to retired silent film stars before deciding upon their preferred economic system…

Roman emperor Otho died on April sixteenth, 69 A.D.E. He’d ruled Rome wisely, compassionately and briefly, for three months. He attained the throne via a revolt and before news of the new emperor reached the outer edges of the empire, a second revolt occurred. He committed suicide because he couldn’t live in a world where he was about to be executed.

April 16^th is World Voice Day, dedicated to exploring the importance of voice. This day of observance downplays the bad uses of voice such as verbal abuse and singer Jack White.