This Day, Forward and Backward

-- As nearly everyone online except my Mom and Dad have noted, today is the day that Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown arrived in their DeLorean time machine after leaving the year 1985 to come to "the future." The funniest thing I saw was a friend who posted a link to faux news item about Michael J. Fox being arrested for "insider sports betting."

-- In real events, today was the day that the USS Constitution was launched in 1797. Although currently drydocked undergoing a refit, Old Ironsides is a commissioned United States Navy warship and is the only active USN warship to have sunk an enemy vessel in combat. The vessel with which it shared that distinction, the guided missile frigate USS Simpson, was recently retired from service as the Navy builds a newer class of missile frigate. The Simpson sank the Iranian fast attack boat Joshan in 1988. This article at Popular Mechanics compares the two frigates and offers a picture of the Constitution next to a ship of Simpson's class.

-- Also in real events, today in 1805, 27 British ships under the command of Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson kicked the hindquarters of 33 French and Spanish ships under the command of two admirals not as good as Nelson was. At the end of the battle, the Royal Navy had lost Nelson but still had 27 ships; the enemy had 11. His flagship, HMS Victory, holds a ceremonial position like the Constitution and is still commissioned. It is the oldest commissioned warship still afloat, as it was launched 33 years before the American frigate in 1765.

-- In 1529, Pope Clement VII named King Henry VIII of England a Defender of the Faith for his 1521 publication defending the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic church against Martin Luther's contention that there were only two. The relationship between the throne of England and the Holy See...deteriorated after that.

-- On this day in 5,000,002,015 AD, the sun will become a red giant and swallow the earth.

Hey -- I've got a better shot at nailing that one than Zemeckis did with his flying cars.