History Warp (12/05-12/11): Frats, Flynt beats Falwell & InFormation

Posted: December 5th, 2011 | Filed under: History Warp | No Comments »

The nation was a neophyte back in 1776. That said, college kids are college kids, no matter the era.

Football weekends. Sit ins at the administration building. Bad food at the Coop.

Back then there weren’t a lot of colleges, but there was William & Mary. And some dudes there needed a place to party, a basement with a big screen TV and a permanent keg on tap, rooms to sleep in on mattresses where one set of sheets lasted the semester. (Unless they changed them for the if come once they scored a hang out with that gal down in row in History of Western Civ.)

Thus, on December 5, 1776, the first social fraternity in the U.S. of A. was formed.

Toga. TOGA. TOGA! TOOOOOOOOOOGGGAAAAAAAA!!!!

The frat, truth be told, was Phi Beta Kappa. Which moved on from simply social shenanigans and double secret probation to become the foremost scholastic honorary society at American universities.

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Everybody out there in the cybergalaxy who remembers Encarta raise your hands.

That’s what I thought, a few golden agers and a computer historian who lives in Ashtabula, but nobody else. It was Microsoft’s digital encyclopedia which, slain by Wikipedia, met its demise a couple of years back after a short run.

Given that paltry response, I daresay there will be even fewer readers who recall the days when Encyclopedia Britannica was THE standard for general research on just about any topic. In fact, there’s still a britannica.com, but it costs.

So, I guess this one’s for the old farts. The first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica was published in Scotland on December 6, 1768.

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When it comes to sordid it’s hard to top Larry Flynt. You don’t hear about him much anymore, but the publisher of Hustler was a loathsome fellow. Ah, but also he was a guy who pushed the envelope of free speech.

Somewhere along the way, he printed some satirical, rather salacious photos of right wing religious zealot Jerry Falwell. Jerry, as you can well imagine, was pissed at Larry. He sued for libel.

On December 8, 1984, a jury in Roanoke, Virginia found Flynt’s action not to be libelous, but did award a few hundred Gs for emotional distress. In a confirmation that justice is sometimes served, that damage award was later tossed by the Supreme Court.

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