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Son of Sam / Cleopatra / Louvre / Electric Guitar
On This Day (August 10): Your quick daily trip back in time.
Fatih Taskiran
August 10, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
🌟 Editor's Note
Good morning! It's Sunday, Aug. 10, and in this weekend edition, we're discovering the Son of Sam's caougth, Cleopatra's end, birth of the Louvre and the Electric Guitar, and much more.
Oh, and the unexpected today's Strange Times story will blow your mind.
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🚀 Time Machine
-612 BC | The Babylonians and the Medes sacked Nineveh, destroying the Neo-Assyrian Empire and killing King Sinsharishkun. |
-30 BC | Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, commits suicide after losing to Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome. |
-610 | Laylat al-Qadr (Night of Power)is the traditional date Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad from heaven. |
-1497 | King Henry VII is informed about John Cabot's trip to Asia. |
-1675 | The Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, was founded by King Charles II and John Flamsteed. |
-1787 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart finishes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik". (Serenade No. 13) |
-1793 | The French revolutionary government opens the Louvre as a public museum in Paris after nearly two centuries as a royal palace. |
-1846 | The US Congress established the Smithsonian Institution, which is the world's largest museum and research complex. |
-1937 | The United States Patent Office awarded patent #2,089.171 to the electric guitar, the instrument that revolutionized jazz, blues, country music, and made the later rise of rock and roll possible. |
-1945 | One day after Nagasaki was bombed, Japan acquiesced to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender. |
-1947 | The United States Patent Office awarded patent #2,089.171 to the electric guitar, the instrument that revolutionized jazz, blues, country music, and made the later rise of rock and roll possible. |
-1977 | David Berkowitz, 24, has been arrested and charged with being the "Son of Sam," the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six people and injuring seven others. |
-1984 | Red Dawn, starring Patrick Swayze, is the first movie with a PG-13 rating to hit theaters. |
📷 Snapshot
During its reconstruction, this is what the White House looked like inside, 1940
💬 Final Words
🦄 Strange Times
The Man Who Was Executed After He Died
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell died on September 3, 1658—probably from an infection after a malarial fever and kidney troubles. He received a king-sized funeral and a burial in Westminster Abbey. Then the wind changed. Under his son Richard, the Protectorate collapsed; the monarchy was restored in 1660, and Charles II returned with receipts. In 1661, Cromwell's body (along with John Bradshaw's and Henry Ireton's) was dug up, 'tried' for treason, hanged at Tyburn, beheaded at sunset, and thrown in a common grave. The heads were spiked above Westminster Hall.
Cromwell's head then went on to have a grisly afterlife—a storm in 1685 ripped it apart, a soldier hid it in his chimney, and by 1710 it showed up in a freak show as "The Monster's Head." After passing through private collections for 250 years, the Wilkinson family donated it to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where it was quietly reburied in 1960.
Ironic footnote: Cromwell had allowed Charles I's head to be sewn back on so the family could pay respects—history has a dark sense of symmetry.
🏆 FlashQuiz
Did we make history today? |
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