“You gotta do the weekend right. You gotta get yourself kicked out of a bar.”
~The Constitution
As the weekend draws to a close, and snow blankets the parts of America that people pay attention to (shut it, California), we all take part in our favorite pastimes- getting ripped before we go to the bars, because goddamn it’s cold and it’s better to just feel something other than the cold. The dark, haunting cold.
Woah there, that got weird. You know how we do.
Today’s Date in American History
1777- Vermont declares its independence. It used to be known as “New Connecticut” but now it’s just known as “the state that makes New Hampshire nervous.” If your response to that joke was to scream “PLAGIARISM!” then congrats, you were still watching The Drew Carey Show about a year after it jumped the shark.
1815- In the war of 1812, some Brits take over an American ship. Move along, nothing to see here, just keep going.
1844- University of Notre Dame receives its charter, spends the majority of its time insisting it’s an athletic powerhouse long after its prime. Oh wait that last part was for this year.
1870- A political cartoon is responsible for the Democratic Party using a donkey as it’s symbol, which makes us think you’re doing it wrong if the think you use to make fun of something ends up becoming it’s motto.
1889- The Coca-Cola company is incorporated in Atlanta. Now we introduce the first official “AFFotD reader joke poll” where you, the reader, choose what direction we take this joke. Do you want it to be A- about how Coca-Cola used to be just lousy with cocaine B- a generic joke about the south or C- a dig at Pepsi. Text your answer to 1-800-Fake-Number and tune in next week to see if yours won!
1892- James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball. We know he’s a Canadian, but come on, this is an American sport dammit.
1919- The Boston Molasses Disaster occurred, as chronicled by these outstanding writers.
1943- The Pentagon is dedicated. Hey, did you know that The Pentagon is the world’s largest office building? What? You don’t care? Okay, moving on then.
1973- We don’t mean to brag, but the Vietnam War basically ended on this day.
2001- Wikipedia goes online, a fact that we learned by looking at the Wikipedia article for “events that occurred on January 15th”. Did we just blow your mind? Yeah we did. We totally did.
2012- AFFotD still totally almost put “2011” there.
America Fun Fact of the Day 