by Jacopo della Quercia

We the people of Man Cave Daily, in order to create a more epic workday, stir up some adrenaline, raise some pulses, provide some mutual enjoyment, turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, and grab boredom by the balls and kick it in the ass a couple of times, do ordain and establish this day, October 17, as…

Falling down…

A gigantic tornado hit London in 1091, destroying London Bridge.

“Now where are we going to stick our severed heads?”

London Bridge gets destroyed a lot in history; the real wonder is how it took until the mid-1600s to get a song about it.

Payback

Nine of the men who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England are hanged, drawn and quartered. Fortunately, London Bridge had been rebuilt by then, so there would be plenty of places to stick their heads.

And there was much rejoicing

Lucky 7s

Following his defeat at Saratoga on October 7, British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army to the United States on October 17, 1777. The victory spurs France’s entry into the American Revolution and would have probably gotten Benedict Arnold elected president had he not betrayed the nation three years later.

This face nearly appeared on US currency

Double play!

Four years after the British defeat at Saratoga, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders to George Washington at Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolution.

So, is October 17 cursed in England or something?

“Pretzels! Repeat, we need pretzels!”

The London Beer Flood of 1814 spills nearly 400,000 gallons of beer into the streets, killing seven people. To a town drunk, it was like being elected governor.

Of course, he was the only survivor left on the block

The tables have turned?

The British launch their first bombing raid against Germany during World War I. We can only imagine the relief in London when the bombers didn’t accidently blow themselves up on their way over.

The convenient thing about flying for the RAF was the plane doubled as a coffin

And now for something completely different

Al Capone is convicted of tax evasion in 1931. He subsequently dies in prison, deformed and crazy from untreated neurosyphilis.

He must have been part Welsh, or something

Not again…

The Burma Railway is completed in 1943 on the backs of force laborers. More than 6,000 British POWs died as a result.

Fortunately, it made a fantastic movie

Way to go. October 17. You gave the British Isles something to dread even more today than the weather. Lucky you.

History’s full of fire

Jacopo della Quercia is a man of many talents who somehow eluded death in 1438. He can regularly be found at Cracked and on Twitter @Jacopo_della_Q.

Check out Jacopo’s salute last week to the badass history of October 9.