On this day:
3114 BCAccording to the Lounsbury correlation, the start of the Maya calendar.
1521
Tenochtitlán (present day Mexico City) falls to conquistador Hernán Cortés.
1792
King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, and declared an enemy of the people.
1831
Nat Turner sees a solar eclipse, which he believes is a sign from God. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves kill approximately 55 whites in Southampton County, Virginia.
1868
A massive earthquake near Arica, Peru, causes an estimated 25,000 casualties, and the subsequent tsunami causes considerable damage as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand.
1937
The Battle of Shanghai begins.
1942
Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the “Development of Substitute Materials” project, better known as the Manhattan Project.
1962
Representatives from the Russian Orthodox Church and the Holy See meet in Metz, France, and come to an agreement wherein the Russian church would send observers to the Second Vatican Council and in exchange, the Roman Catholic Church would refuse to condemn Communism.
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Quotes from Mamdani’s top aide, Cea Weaver: ‘If you don't believe in the government's sacred right to seize property, it's over’, and ‘Impoverish the White middle class’.
Thinking is, apparently, harder than governing.
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The Pittsburgh airport plans to replace two people movers with additional seating in the concourses.
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A TikToker and Instagram user (whose account is now unavailable) claims that "On August 12, 2026, the world will lose gravity for 7 seconds. NASA knows. They're preparing but won't tell us why." The video has had almost 62,000 likes and has been shared 268,000 times on Instagram alone and is now creeping into feeds. Why this nonsense is preferred in the huge reservoir of internet nonsense is unknown.
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Longtime NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is leaving NASA months after he lost the ability to speak for roughly 20 minutes aboard the International Space Station, an incident that forced a premature end to his and three crewmates' journey.
Fincke’s last day at the space agency is Wednesday, NASA said in a news release.
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Forbes fired its top editor after discovering that he had accepted a seven-figure payment from a businessman whose company had a lucrative relationship with the magazine.
Randall Lane, Forbes’ chief content officer, received roughly $6 million from RJ Shook, the founder of Shook Research, a company that has worked with Forbes on the magazine’s rankings of the top financial advisers for a decade, according to a New York Times report.
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The Pittsburgh airport plans to replace two people movers with additional seating in the concourses.
***
A TikToker and Instagram user (whose account is now unavailable) claims that "On August 12, 2026, the world will lose gravity for 7 seconds. NASA knows. They're preparing but won't tell us why." The video has had almost 62,000 likes and has been shared 268,000 times on Instagram alone and is now creeping into feeds. Why this nonsense is preferred in the huge reservoir of internet nonsense is unknown.
***
Longtime NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is leaving NASA months after he lost the ability to speak for roughly 20 minutes aboard the International Space Station, an incident that forced a premature end to his and three crewmates' journey.
Fincke’s last day at the space agency is Wednesday, NASA said in a news release.
***
Forbes fired its top editor after discovering that he had accepted a seven-figure payment from a businessman whose company had a lucrative relationship with the magazine.
Randall Lane, Forbes’ chief content officer, received roughly $6 million from RJ Shook, the founder of Shook Research, a company that has worked with Forbes on the magazine’s rankings of the top financial advisers for a decade, according to a New York Times report.
***
A Decline of More Than Numbers
Humanity has never lived in a time of long-term secular population decline. There have been sudden demographic shocks, like the Black Death, but those were short-lived and came at times when the human population as a whole was much younger on average. To a degree we probably cannot even fathom, human civilization and human psychology are built upon notions of growth, youth, renewal, and hope. What would it mean to live in a shrinking world, where most people will have no direct connection to future generations? Where innovation and creativity, disproportionately supplied by younger people, are not only increasingly scarce but perhaps even seen as increasingly undesirable? Where the very notion of sacrificing for the future becomes obsolete? Unlike the economic consequences of demographic decline, these are some of the harder-to-quantify aspects of the problem that society, by and large, has not even begun to reckon with. But they might prove far more important, especially if it turns out that the techno-optimists are right about the role technology can play in the economy of the future. In short, we are on the precipice of arguably the most fundamental shift humanity has ever experienced. And right now, for the most part, we are going into that shift blind.--Jeremy Friedman
This might be the largest of the Left's many blind spots. Struggle is a condition of man. It has always been with us. But achievement has not. What Friedman is writing about here is not production or the financial balance of entitlement demands. It is even possible that AI will be able to meet those demands. What this population trend heralds is the gradual loss of struggle, the human fight to achieve and provide. The threat of scarcity and its liberating human efforts to overcome and succeed. Achievement.
This might be the largest of the Left's many blind spots. Struggle is a condition of man. It has always been with us. But achievement has not. What Friedman is writing about here is not production or the financial balance of entitlement demands. It is even possible that AI will be able to meet those demands. What this population trend heralds is the gradual loss of struggle, the human fight to achieve and provide. The threat of scarcity and its liberating human efforts to overcome and succeed. Achievement.
Shrinking effort and success. Narrowing dreams. And a disconnection of us from the future. It sounds like we'll be better fed and less sick, but it also sounds like a return to the emotional Dark Ages.
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