Daily Chat 06/12/09

Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament in 1648, which is a good enough excuse to listen to this.  Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in 1849.  The Thirteeenth Amendement to the US Constitution, ending slavery, was ratified in 1865.  The Mont Blanc, a French cargo ship fully loaded with munitions, collided with the Norwegian ship, Ivo, in the harbour at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917.  The explosion devastated the city, killing around 2,000 people and injuring 9,000 -- 6,000 with serious injuries.

Born today:  Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987), Dave Brubeck (1920), Steven Wright (1955), Nick Park (1958) and Andrew Flintoff (1977).

It is Independence Day in Finland and Constitution Day in Spain.