Remembering the Most Boring Day in History

A ticket from a "Colonel" Tom Parker package tour with Bill Haley & the Comets, Elvis Presley and Hank Snow. Deutsch: Ein Ticket einer Package-Tour von "Colonel" Tom Parker mit Bill Haley & the Comets, Elvis Presley und Hank Snow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From time to time I happen upon something on the internet that strikes me as particularly interesting.  I often print a copy and toss it on a pile of other interesting articles.  Occasionally I look through the pile and reread some of them.  Some end up in the proverbial “file 13.”

This morning as I was preparing to discuss post-World War II intellectual and cultural history, I found one of those interesting articles.  It is a short piece posted on December 6, 2010 by Daniel McGroarty titled, “April 11, 1954:  A date that will live in monotony.”  “How interesting,” I thought, “that I should pick up this particular page on April 11, 2012.”

Mr. McGroarty was commenting on a study conducted by a group of “computer geniuses” at the University of Cambridge in England.  I picture them as something like Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Rajesh on the television sitcom, “The Big Bang Theory.  The team of computer geeks wanted to identify the “Most Boring Day” in history.   If the study was conducted in America rather than the United Kingdom, the team might well have been funded by a grant from the Department of Defense or some other government agency.

Three-hundred million “digital snippets of world events” were fed into a computer program called True Knowledge.  Out came April 11, 1954 as the most boring day in history.

It seems that nothing really noteworthy happened on that date.  Well, that is not entirely true.  President Eisenhower was putting golf balls around in the Oval Office.  Otherwise, people were dying and being born, widgets were being made and sold, etc., like every other day.  Put another way, what was happening was important only for those personally involved.

If we move on to April 12, 1954, we find that a really important event occurred.  Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock.”  Bill Haley and Elvis Presley are credited with birthing the golden age of Rock’n’Roll.  Not many people today remember who Bill Haley was, much less his contribution to American popular culture.

Everyone on planet earth knows who Elvis Presley was, even those living in Afghanistan.  In April, 1954, Elvis was dating his high school sweetheart, Dixie Locke, whom he met at the First Assembly of God church.  It’s not until June that things began to come together for Elvis.

I doubt that April 11, 1954 will ever be surpassed as the most boring day.   The fact is that many important things are happening every day, and with the internet and the social networking it accommodates, even the most insignificant can become significant instantly.

There will always be a blogger somewhere who will make something out of nothing, even April 11, 1954, the most boring day in history.

Until next time, be kind to all of God’s creatures and always walk under the mercy.