Though by name she had nothing to fear
Not for long was this ship without peer
And the race to build more
Howled what was in store
On a path from which no one could veer

Event: Launch of the HMS Dreadnought
Year: 1906
Learn more: Dreadnought

. . . and that’s it, folks! One history-themed limerick for every day of the year! Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 7 years now. It’s been a lot of fun, but it’s also gotten harder to keep up with one every week as time has gone by and I’ve gotten busier with other things, and I’ve known for a while now that #366 would be a stopping point. Hopefully at some point in the future I’ll come back to the project, maybe revisit some earlier entries whose poems have questionable meter, or whose events have questionable actually-happened-on-that-dayness. But for now, we’re giving it a rest.

‘Neath a storm-riven Iowa sky
Bid farewell, Miss American Pie
It’s not easy to say
That that would be the day
When the music would suddenly die

Event: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and pilot Roger Peterson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa
Year: 1959
Learn more: The Day the Music Died

From Kuwait west to Lisbon in all
North from Aswan to Hadrian’s Wall
This was Trajan’s domain
As he’d good emp’ror reign
O’er a Rome at its very least small

Event: Trajan becomes Emperor of Rome. Under his rule, the Roman Empire would reach the largest extent in its history, covering nearly 2 million square miles and including roughly a third of the population of Earth.
Year: 98
Learn more: Trajan
List of largest empires

Hundreds thousands of miles he’d flown
Just to always as second be known
But by wafer receiving
And bladder relieving
He scored a few firsts of his own

Event: Birth of Buzz (yes, Buzz is now his legal name) Aldrin, the first person to eat, drink, and pee on the moon
Year: 1930
Learn more: Buzz Aldrin

Pagliacci beyond opera’s halls
E. Caruso unbounded by walls
Waves were sent out to sea
And to Bridgeport, CT
Maybe someday to Niagara Falls

Event: Lee de Forest conducts the first ever public radio broadcast, transmitting a performance of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci from the New York Metropolitan Opera House
Year: 1910
Learn more: Birth of public radio broadcasting

When it comes to enriching kids’ brains
Montessori says give them the reins
Though the theory is sound
Proof has not yet been found
It produces significant gains

Event: Maria Montessori opens her first school, the Casa dei Bambini, in Rome
Year: 1907
Learn more: Montessori education

First they bought up what France still possessed
From the Brits they secured the Northwest
Took from Mexico, too
But they weren’t yet quite through
Jimmy Gadsden took care of the rest

Event: The United States signs a treaty to acquire land from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase, the last significant acquisition of territory in the continental U.S.
Year: 1853
Learn more: Gadsden Purchase

On the rooftop, a thunderous clatter
Kerchiefed Ma knew the thrust of the matter
“It’s St. Nich’las agin!
Raisin’ all o’ that din
He’s just lucky we don’t own a ladder!”

Event: “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (aka “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) is published in the Troy, NY Sentinel
Year: 1823
Learn more: A Visit from St. Nicholas

Did he set out to let freedom ring?
Or’d he just want to kill the old king?
While he Commonwealth brought
In the Lands Ire and Scot
Not too many in praise of him sing

Event: Oliver Cromwell is named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, which, if you ask Oliver Cromwell, is totally not the same thing as being king
Year: 1653
Learn more: Oliver Cromwell
English Civil War

Ones and zeroes are all the comps need
But to poor human brains they’re not keyed
And all coders should know
It’s to Hopper they owe
For she taught the computer to read

Event: Birth of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, inventor of the first compiler and instrumental in the development early high-level programming languages
Year: 1906
Learn more: Grace Hopper
Compiler
High-level programming language