The first episode of South Park aired on Comedy Central on this date in 1997. It remains the only episode created entirely with paper cut-outs.

Despite its high ratings (a 1.3 at 10:00 p.m. on a basic cable channel that was less than 10 years old in 1997 was quite a solid performance and amounted to almost one million television sets tuned in), the episode did not win its creators a long-term contract for the show. Within a month, however, the program had doubled its viewership, by the end of the season it had quintupled its viewer numbers, and a hit was born.
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“Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, I do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby decree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than 10, nor less than five, years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree.”—Emperor Norton I, an Imperial Decree, dated August 12, 1869, and published in the San Francisco Herald the next day

Emperor Norton I (above) outlawed the Democratic Party and Republican National Committee on this date in 1869. Emperor?

Joshua Norton was a San Franciscan who lost his fortune in a wild investment speculation in the 1850s and then began suing any party he could think of—including America—to void the contract that had ruined him. Frustrated, and possibly driven insane by the effort, he proclaimed himself Emperor, or, officially, “Norton 1, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.”
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