This entry should have appeared yesterday, September 16th:

Dating back to old Cyrus the Great
Many dozens had reigned to that date
But as Shah they miscast
He who would be the last
And in 40 years check, and then mate

Event: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, last monarch of Iran/Persia, takes (or, if you prefer, “is put on”) the throne
Year: 1941
Learn more: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
List of kings of Persia

Now of battle, there’s not much he’d know
Not compared to that General T’so
But that don’t make his chicken
No less finger-lickin’
As a fryer, the guy was a pro

Event: Birth of Harland Sanders (who was a real Colonel, but not in the military)
Year: 1890
Learn more: Colonel Sanders
Kentucky colonel

When diplomacy needs to be slick
Speaking softly’s just half of the trick
Let it widely be seen
That it’s business you mean
As you quietly hold a big stick

Event: Soon-to-be President Theodore Roosevelt describes the gist of his foreign policy as “Speak softly, and carry a big stick” in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair
Year: 1901
Learn more: Big Stick ideology
The Great Minnesota Get-Together

And here’s the second (this one’s actually August 26th):

Forty miles? Your eardrums would break
At five thousand, your ship would still shake
Global temperatures dropped
‘Neath a sky photoshopped
In the epic paroxysm’s wake

Event: Krakatoa begins its final, cataclysmic eruption
Year: 1883
Learn more: Krakatoa Eruption

Apologies for missing last week. I was on vacation. So we’ll have a bonus TWO entries today. Here’s the first, which should have been for August 19th:

She knew fashion impossibly well
How to look, what to wear, how to smell
The black dress’s mystique
Even tans became chic
Chalk it all up to Coco Chanel

Event: Birth of Coco Chanel
Year: 1883
Learn more: Coco Chanel

At the end, in Octavian’s grasp
She had nothing to which she could clasp
With her dynasty done
There was nowhere to run
Cleopatra then turned to the asp

Event: Cleopatra VII Philopator, last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, dies, according to popular belief, from the bite of an asp
Year: 30 BC
Learn more: Cleopatra

On the great Union sea blockade wheel
The last stop was the Bay of Mobile
Though Tecumseh got slammed
They let ‘pedoes be damned
And the southern Gulf Coast off did seal

Event: The Battle of Mobile Bay
Year: 1864
Learn more: The Battle of Mobile Bay

“We explorers are quite ill at ease
What’s the problem? We’ve run out of seas!”
“Well you folks are in luck
There’s a deal I’ve just struck
Wanna see if the moon’s made of cheese?”

Event: President Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA
Year: 1958
Learn more: NASA

When he came to where river meets lake
Cleaveland said, “Let’s a settlement make”
But the city he’d spurn
Not to ever return
Was it all just a giant mistake?

Event: Surveyors from the Connecticut Land Company lay out a plan for a city where the Cuyahoga River flows into Lake Erie. They decide to name it after their leader, Moses Cleaveland (yes, Cleaveland, not Cleveland).
Year: 1796
Learn more: Moses Cleaveland
Cleveland

When it seemed that things couldn’t get worse
Fate had one final trick to disburse
Xuanzong’d get clean away
But without Yang Guifei
Now his sorrow lives on in Bai’s verse

Event: While fleeing the capital, Emperor Xuanzong is forced to order the death of his beloved consort Yang Guifei in order to prevent his troops from mutinying. Later, their love affair is made the subject of the legendary work The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by the poet Bai Juyi.
Year: 756
Learn more: Yang Guifei
An Lushan Rebellion