Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.

I have bought my plane ticket! I will be leaving on the morning of the 24th of August--Here's a short list of great happenings since the 17th century which have happened on this illustrious day:

# 1814 - British troops invade Washington, D.C. and burn down the White House and several other buildings.
# 1816 - The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri.
# 1821 - The Treaty of Córdoba is signed in Córdoba, now in Veracruz, Mexico, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.
# 1831 - Charles Darwin is asked to travel on HMS Beagle.
# 1847 - Charlotte Brontë finishes Jane Eyre.
# 1853 - Potato chips are first prepared.
# 1857 - The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history.
# 1858 - In Richmond, Virginia, 90 blacks are arrested for learning.
# 1870 - The Wolseley Expedition reaches Manitoba, and it ends the Red River Rebellion.
# 1875 - Captain Matthew Webb became first person to swim English Channel
# 1891 - Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
# 1909 - Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
# 1912 - Alaska becomes a United States territory.
# 1914 - World War I: German troops capture Namur.
# 1929 - Riots in Palestine of 1929: 18 Jews in Safed, 67 in Hebron, and 22 in Jerusalem killed by Arab Palestinians.
# 1932 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).
# 1936 - The Australian Antarctic Territory is created.
# 1939 - The Nazi-Soviet Pact is signed between Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
# 1944 - World War II: Allied troops start the attack on Paris.
# 1949 - The treaty creating NATO goes into effect.
# 1950 - Edith Sampson becomes the first black U.S. delegate to the UN.
# 1954 - The Communist Control Act goes into effect. The American Communist Party is outlawed.
# 1960 - A temperature of −88°C (−127°F) is measured in Vostok, Antarctica — a world-record low.
# 1963 - The 200-metre freestyle is swum in less than 2 minutes for the first time by Don Schollander (1:58).
# 1967 - Led by Abbie Hoffman, a group of hippies temporarily disrupt trading at the NYSE by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing a cease in trading as the brokers scramble to grab them up.
# 1989 - Colombian drug barons declare "total war" on the Colombian government.
# 1989 - Voyager 2 passes Neptune.
# 1990 - A judge rules that Judas Priest are not responsible for the deaths of two youths who committed suicide after listening to the band's music.
# 1991 - Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
# 1992 - Diplomatic relations are established between the People's Republic of China and South Korea.
# 1992 - Hurricane Andrew hits South Florida as a Category 5 Hurricane.
# 1995 - Windows 95, a computer operating system by Microsoft, is released with much fanfare.



And last, but possibly most tragic (although the release of Windows 95 is a very close contender):
# 2006 - The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term "planet" such that Pluto is no longer considered a planet.

(I guess I have to give wikipedia credit for the origin of this list--although I culled it down)

So, as you can clearly see, August the 24th is a day meant for glory and greatness! It is with this grand and noble history (and an extremely pompous and cliché tone of voice) that I set off into the unknown, my journey a mere footnote 'neath the accomplishments of the champions of the past. Oh, and by the way, the titles of my blogs so far have been palindromes that I was particularly fond of.