May 18-

1995 - Elizabeth Montgomery, actress (Bewitched), dies. Not widely known is the fact that Montgomery had an affair with both actors who played Darrin on Bewitched- Dick York and Dick Sargent. Both York and Sargent were cigar smokers, and in later years became friends through a mutual love of cigars. In a 1982 Playboy interview, Montgomery was asked which Dick she liked the best. Embarrassingly, Montgomery did not understand the question and gave a very shocking and lascivious reply.

1985 - The song "One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head hits #3 on the charts. Insert your own joke here about a guy named Head singing a song about Bangkok.

1980 – Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupts. The eruption column rose 80,000 feet, depositing ash in 11 states. Washington Governor Theo Huxtable quipped, “It’s like 10 million cigar smokers all ashed at the same time.” It was later determined that a 33 year old George W Bush was responsible for allowing the previously dormant volcano to erupt.

1860 - Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for president. Lincoln celebrates with a cigar, even though he normally despised smoke. After Lincoln’s nomination, leaders of the Democratic Party published letters of protest in local newspapers claiming that Lincoln was only popular because of biased coverage by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. This, as all historians know, led to The Civil War.

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France. By this time, cigar smoking was fashionable in France due to returning British and French veterans who picked up cigar smoking while serving in Spain. A tobacconist named Gauloises made a special cigar for Bonaparte to celebrate his monarchy. Napoleon found the cigar to be so strong, he said it was like smoking dynamite. Gauloises made a limited edition run of these cigars sold in his shop and called them ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. By 1806, individuals were re-selling the LE cigars on cigar forums at 3x MSRP.

January 24-

2011 - Lara Giddings becomes the first female Premier of the Australian state of Tasmania. At her inauguration celebration dinner, Giddings provided Cuban cigars for all the distinguished guests. After a night of raucous celebration, the intoxicated Premier initiated a wild orgy in the main ballroom. It is reported that during the debauchery, she demanded one man to burn her nipples with candles while the other gentlemen took turns having "backdoor" sex with her. This sexual act s now referenced in the Australian Urban Dictionary as a “Tasmanian Devil”.

1975 – ‘The Three Stooges’ actor Larry Fine, dies. Larry was an enthusiastic cigar smoker and enjoyed smoking 3-4 cigars a day. His cast mates on ‘Stooges’ frequently placed exploding cigars into Fine’s humidor as a practical joke. However, Fine grew tired of this joke and exacted his revenge during the taping of the 1936 short ‘Disorder in the Court’. Fine paid several teamsters $30 apiece to give Moe and Curly each a ‘Tasmanian Devil’.

1965 -Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, dies at 90. Churchill’s dying request was for one last cigar, as long as it was Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar of The Year. When told that such a magazine did not yet exist, Churchill replied, “I shall wait.”

1936 - Benny Goodman and his orchestra record "Stompin' at the Savoy" on Victor Records. Goodman was an avid cigar smoker, and a heavy gambler. After a bad week of losses, Goodman pleaded for a loan from fellow musician Frank Sinatra. Sinatra granted the loan, but when Goodman couldn’t repay his debt, Sinatra recorded his own song called “Stompin on Goodman’s Balls”. It never did fare well on the charts, but it was always one of Sinatra’s favorite songs.

1918 – Televangelist Oral Roberts is born. Roberts is best remembered for pioneering TV evangelism and faith healing. Roberts once led a campaign to abolish all smoking, but secretly smoked 2 cigars a day. Thankfully, this has been the only instance in American history that a televangelist or religious leader committed any acts of hypocrisy.

1913 - Mark Goodson, TV game-show producer and creator of such game shows as Family Feud, is born. Goodson and Family Feud host Richard Dawson smoked cigars on the set of ‘Feud’, which irked some of the TV executives who felt it set a bad example for the production crew. Oddly enough, Goodson’s original concept for Family Feud was to make a pornographic game show titled “Family Fuck”. There were still 100 people surveyed, but the questions were all sexually themed, and contestants who answered the questions incorrectly had to perform various sexual acts on members of the other family. ABC President Martin Howzer wanted to put the show on the air late at night, but network censors refused to let ABC broadcast the show. America was a much more conservative country in the 70’s. The show would be tame by today’s standards.