Wikipedia is funny. It’s got tons of information on tons of different things, so it’s usually a good place to go to find some information. Every Thursday I search the day and look at some of the things that happened on that day in history. I pick something interesting, or look for patterns of several related interesting things. On a slow day, I have to scroll down to the holidays, and on an even slower day, I scroll through the births and deaths to look for a well known name, hoping to write about an interesting person’s life (or death).
On this day in history in 2014, I searched “September 4” on wikipedia, and found a wealth of interesting things. A couple of deposings (a Roman Emperor―the end of the Western Roman Empire, Napoleon III―the end of the Second Empire of Napoleon), treaties signed, the beginning of the electrical age, disastrous plane crashes, important wartime occurrences, and the birthdays of several different important things, such as Google, Kodak, and the city of Los Angeles.
Also, in 1995, WCW Monday Nitro made its debut on TNT.
If it’s important to somebody, it’s probably on wikipedia. And just because it’s important to some people, doesn’t mean it’s going to be important to everyone. Every day is historically significant in its own way to different people. To some, today will be remembered as the day that Arkansas’ governor summoned the National Guard to stop nine students from enrolling in high school. And others will be celebrating the television debut of “professional” “wrestling.” Although I may be able to easily see which of those two events is more historically significant, I don’t have any information on how many lives may have been changed for the better by Monday Nitro.
Wikipedia is funny. It’s full of information about things that are important (historically or otherwise) and it’s a great place to start researching pretty much anything. Though when you do, you should remember that while it may have the accurate information you need on the 2010 New Zealand earthquake, it’s also got plenty of other stuff. And it will put all of that stuff on a list with other things that continue to have an impact on the world’s population, even if they happened centuries ago.
So let’s all remember September 4th, the day when empires fell, monarchs rose, and brave soldiers fought and for the future of their countries and the world. Oh, and when Ted Turner brought a new show featuring shouting and big muscles to TNT to rival the one on USA Network. That should go without saying.
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