August 09, 2009 Sun
August 9th, 2009

Quiz: There was an old Scottish song titled “ Roaming in the Gloaming”. What is gloaming?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?
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History for 8/10/2009
Birthdays: Alexander Glauzunov, Billie Holiday, Eddie Fisher, Leo Fender, Herbert Hoover, Polish King Jan III Sobieski, Norma Shearer, Rhonda Fleming, Jimmy Dean, Justin Theroux, Rosanna Arquette is 49, Antonio Banderas is 48

70 A.D.- JERUSALEM DESTROYED BY THE ROMANS- After a prolonged siege, the Roman legions of Vespasian break into the city and crush the Jewish revolt with great slaughter and destruction. The cedar panels and muslin curtains of the Great Temple of Herod catch fire and the entire temple is destroyed but for an outer building retaining wall, known thereafter as the Wailing Wall. One interesting detail is most adherents of the new sect called Christians had fled the city early, believing this cataclysm to be the first sign of the fulfillment of prophesies of the Second Coming of Christ.

70AD-One mystery about the destruction of Jerusalem is the disappearance of the ARK OF THE CONVENANT which was taken from the Great Temple of Herod by the Romans and kept as a treasure in Rome. Some say it was carried off by the Goths when Rome fell four hundred years later and buried with their king Alaric. Another legend said a Christian Roman General named Valerian returned the Ark to Jerusalem but the Moslems sacked the monastery it was hidden in. Still another said it is supposedly in Ethiopia guardian by a family of Orthodox monks who keep it in a temple hewn out of rock with one door and one key, guarded for life. So who knows?

256 AD- St. Lawrence's day. He was the Saint who's emblem is the grill he was roasted on. Supposedly he showed his contempt for his torturers efforts by saying:" I think I'm done on this side." The Perseid Meteor Shower occurs around this time. It has been called the Burning Tears of Saint Lawrence.

1415- King Henry V of England and his army embarked from Dover to cross the Channel and kick some serious French butt!

1492- Cardinal Roderigo Borgia elected Pope, despite openly keeping his children Caesar and Lucretia Borgia. He promised so many heavy bribes to the other Cardinals to win that humorists make jokes comparing him to Christ giving his worldly riches to the poor. When asked what his Papal name would be he replied “by the name of the Invincible Alexander” ,who was not even a Christian. So Pope Alexander VI it was.

1536- CANADA GETS ITS NAME-French explorer Cartier discovered a great river on St. Lawrence's Day, which he calls the St. Lawrence River. Cartier asks the Huron people "what people lived upstream?". They replied people who work with red copper, in their language" Caignetdaze". Cartier recorded in his log, the land "Chemyn de Canada".

1628- The King of Sweden Gustavus builds a huge battleship called the Vasa. In front of the whole court he launches it into a fjord and it immediately sinks straight to the bottom.

1629- Spanish painter Diego Velasquez traveled to Italy to study the Renaissance Masters on the advice of his buddy painter Peter Paul Rubens.

1675 - King Charles II lays foundation stone of Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

1680- THE GREAT PUEBLO INDIAN REVOLT. In Spanish New Mexico the Pueblo, Zuni, Hopi, Acoma and eastern Apache had had enough of Spanish colonists and their Christianity. A Pueblo leader named Pope' coordinated a simultaneous mass revolt timed by giving each chief a rope with the days marked off with knots. Today the last knot was untied and the Indians attacked the Spaniards from all sides. 500 out of 2,000 Europeans were killed and the churches and town of Santa Fe burned. The Madonna brought from Valencia Spain called La Conquistadora was riddled with arrows, the marks of which you can still see today. The Spaniards retreated to Old Mexico but returned in force 13 years later .

1787- Mozart completes his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik -A Little Nightmusic.

1788- Mozart’s on a roll! This day he completed his Jupiter Symphony #41. It was his last symphony. He never heard it performed in his lifetime.

1867- Rather than put up with his pushy Secretary of War any longer, President Andrew Johnson asks for Edwin Stanton's resignation. Stanton (who formed the first American Secret Service and as a lawyer invented the "temporary insanity" plea) not only refused, he barricaded himself in his office and his partisans in the former Lincoln cabinet began impeachment proceedings against President Johnson.

1889 - Dan Rylands patents the screw -on cap.

1897 -German chemists working for the Bayer Company invent Aspirin, the first mass market over the counter drug. A powdered tree root that was known to the Native Americans for years. The Romans ground Willow root and dissolved it in water.

1928- Calvin Coolidge dedicated the cornerstone of the monument at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. The last time a President of the United States rode a horse to deliver a speech.

1945- After Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings a third atomic pile was delivered to Tinian island air base to be assembled into one more A-bomb. But it's dropping was canceled by President Truman. He told his aide Dean Acheson: "Another 100,000 people...I can't see killing any more kids."

1945- Even after two atomic bomb attacks and their navy and airforce destroyed, the Japanese cabinet is still divided 3 - 3 on whether to surrender. Defense minister Anami is worried about a mutiny of the army and Prime minister Suzuki still thinks he can get Russia to negotiate separately -Stalin had just declared war and sent troops to invade Manchuria and the Kurile islands. Anami said the National Honor demanded a final battle on the home soil:" Wouldn't it be wonderful to see all of Japan destroyed...like a beautiful flower !"
The impasse was broken by Emperor Hirohito who breaks tradition and personally intervened "The time has come to bear the unbearable". Next morning a note requesting negotiations based on Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration is sent to the Swiss and Swedish Consulates in Tokyo .

1948 – The Birth of Reality TV.- Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" on ABC.

1964- Near Ely, Nevada the U.S. Forrest Service cuts down a Bristlecone Pine that scientists thought to be "The oldest living thing"- 4900 years old.

1966- Murderer James French was sent to the electric chair by the state of Oklahoma. He joked :How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? FRENCH FRIES!

1969- The night after Charles Manson’s cultists murdered actress Sharon Tate, they attacked another Los Angeles home at random. They murdered attorney Leo and Rosemary LaBianca on Waverly Drive in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.

1973 –San Francisco’s first BART train travels through the transbay tube to Montgomery St Station.

1978- Ford announces a recall of it's Pinto series car after tests prove when bumped from behind the auto’s gas tank explodes into flames.

1983- Discovery of the Vega Galaxy. This was the first physical proof of a planetary system outside our Milky Way.

1987 - Clara Peller, the elderly actress who gained last minute advertising fame by saying Where's the Beef?, died at 86 The director and writer of the spots was the father of J.J. Sedelmier, who created the Ambiguously Gay Duo and other TV Funhouse animations for SNL.
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Quiz: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?

Answer: Josef Pujol, known as LePetomane, was a famous XIX Century French performer who could fart musical tunes out of his arse.


August 09, 2009 sun.
August 9th, 2009

Quiz: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944
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History for 8/9/2009
Birthdays: King Henry V of England, John Dryden, Sir Issac Walton-author of the Compleat Angler, Melanie Griffith, Whitney Houston, David Steinberg, Bob Cousy, Jill St. John, Robert Shaw, Robert Aldrich, Sam Elliot is 65, Gillian Anderson is 41, Pamela Lyndon Travers –the creator of Mary Poppins, Eric Bana is 41, Audrey Tautou is 31

378A.D. HADRIANOPLE- The Emperor Valens and his legions were wiped out by a horde of Goths led by Fritigern the Visigoth. This battle is considered the last battle of the ancient world and the beginning of the Medieval superiority of armored horsemen -which was the way the Goths fought. Valens co-emperor Valentinian gave him the Empire of the East because it was the easier of the two theaters and Valentinian was confident even a dummy like Valens couldn't mess it up. The migration of Germanic peoples into western Europe we call the Barbarian Invasions, they called more poetically "Die Volkvanderung-the Wandering of the People".

1588- Queen Elizabeth I visited the camp at Tilbury to inspect the troops that would defend England from a landing by the Spanish Armada. The Armada had been driven off ten days ago but they were still somewhere in English waters so it still seemed like a good idea to visit. She thrilled the men by delivering the most famous speech of her career: “ I know that I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, Aye, and of a King of England too!”

1854- Henry David Thoreau published “Walden”, the first great work about nature conservation.

1877- THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA. Explorer Henry Morton Stanley reaches the Atlantic Coast after a 999 day trek across the middle of African continent from Zanzibar. He proved there were no unscalable "Mountains of the Moon" barring the way.
Stanley (an illegitimate Welshman who fought in the American Civil War on both sides and who had found Dr. Livingston in 1871) had declared his expedition to be a charting of the Congo and Lualaba Rivers and to prove Specke's theory that the source of the Nile was Lake Victoria- Nyanza. In fact it was the starting pistol for the great European Colonial powers to begin dividing up Central Africa: England took Sudan, Nigeria and Uganda, France took Chad and Senegal, Italy to Ethiopia, Germany into Tanganyika and Belgium took the Congo. Up to this point African expeditions were small affairs of a missionary or scientist asking permission of a local chief with gifts. Stanley blasted his way across the jungle with a small army, being furiously attacked by 27 separate Bantu tribes whose territory he violated. His men mowed them down with repeating rifles and cannon. "The blacks do give us an immense amount of trouble"- he wrote. The Dinka people of Sudan call it "the Time when the World was Spoilt."

1929- Hollywood theater mogul Alexander Pantages was convicted of assaulting a young woman in a broom closet. The conviction was later overturned. It was the first successful defense case of attorney Jerry Geisler, who became famous for getting movie stars and other Hollywood hoi poloi out of trouble with the law. The word in the studios when a movie star was naughty was “Get Geisler!”

1930- Max Fleischer's cartoon "Dizzy Dishes" introduces Betty Boop. A singing star named Helen Kane sued Fleischer claiming that they stole her distinctive Boop-Ooop-a-Doop from her, but the case was thrown out when it was revealed Kane had stolen it herself from another singer. Betty was supposed to be a dog character to match her male couterpart Bimbo. But Animator Grim Natwick had done a lot of drawing of girls in Paris and New York and turned the character into a saucy little flapper.

1936- Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics. Host head of state Adolph Hitler refused to shake hands with him.

1941- One of the more legendary British air aces in the Battle of Britain was Wing Commander Douglas Bader. He was all the more novel because he was had no legs. This day Bader’s Spitfire was finally shot down by the Luftwaffe over Belgium. Bader bailed out and was captured. But the German pilots were so impressed with this handicapped ace that they treated him like a rock star, touring him around airfields where other pilots could wine and dine him. Bader’s tin legs were damaged when his plane went down so the RAF dropped a substitute pair over a German airfield for him. But later as a POW he tried so many times to escape the German commandant of his prison camp took away his legs. “I wish all my prisoners were so easily manageable.”

1942- Walt Disney's "Bambi" premiered.

1944- Antoine Du Saint-Exupery, the author of the Little Prince, died when he crashed his fighter plane. He was not shot down by the Germans, he was just a terrible pilot. The main protaganist of the little prince is an aviator who crashes his plane.

1945-NAGASAKI- the second Atomic Bomb "Fat Man" was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The B-29 bomber "Boxcar” was plagued by a violent thunderstorm and they wasted precious fuel searching for their target. When they made it back to base after the 14 hour flight two of their four engines had run out of gas. Nagasaki was the second choice target. The first Kokura, was so fogged in scientists couldn't study the bomb's effect. 63,000 people killed was one effect.

1945- At the same time President Harry Truman was reporting to Congress and the nation about his trip to Potsdam and plan for post war Germany. He said among other things that it was vital for democracy in Germany to break up the huge centralized corporations and foster the rights of workers to form unions. Hmmm…we could use a plan like that in the US today….

1947 -The British government in an attempt to bolster revenue for their shattered postwar economy, announced a 300% import tariff on Hollywood films. The Big Eight-Hollywood studios retaliate by stopping the export of movies to Britain. The British film industry has a heyday and Disney starts producing films locally in Britain like 'Rob Roy Highland Rogue' and such.

1960- Near Cuernavaca Mexico Harvard professor Timothy Leary took some magic mushrooms and experienced his first hallucinogenic trip. He called it “ a conversion.”

1963 - Britain's rock & roll TV show, Ready Steady Go, premieres.

1967- Joe Orton, English actor/playwright (Leaf, Murdered), died at age 34.

1969- FORTY YEARS AGO- HELTER SKELTER- Charles Manson's cultists murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate and several houseguests of her husband/director Roman Polanski. One other guest killed was socialite Jay Sebring, who made cocaine fashionable and invented the 1970's blow-dry hair style for men. A Polish tourist named Dominic Frykowski who had the misfortune to be visiting that night was shot twice, bludgeoned and stabbed 51 times. Kill the Pigs was scrawled on the wall in blood. Charles Manson had a messianic concept that he could lead the Apocalypse devolving out of a race war if his followers first killed celebrities to advertise their cause. Manson had a hit list that included Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Liz Taylor. The California spawned Hippy-Flower-Child culture lost it’s innocent fun after Manson.

1974- “KNEEL WITH ME, HENRY.” Richard Nixon, aka Tricky Dick, resigned and left the Presidency of the United States in disgrace. New President Gerald Ford of whom Lyndon Johnson once said "Sometimes I think Jerry played football once too often with his helmet off" assumed office.

1975- Hurricane Belle destroyed the gulf coast. It was the worst thing to hit the area until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

1993- Heidi Fleiss, The” Hollywood Madam” arraigned for prostitution. The film community shuddered when she threatened to reveal the names of her clients in her “black book”. Most were suppressed except actors Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn who admitted as much early on. Fleiss wrote a memoir called “Pandering” and still thinks prostitution is an honorable profession. “I ran an 85% cash business.”

1995- THE HIGH TECH BUBBLE- Netscape first appeared on the stock market. The 15 month old company started by a Silicon Graphics exec and a 22 year old college senior immediately shot up to $1.07 billion dollars in value. This IPO signaled the beginning of the gold rush in high tech stocks which five years later came crashing down as violently. Stocks like Lucent Technology which sold at $84 dollars a share in 1998 dropping to 39 cents a share in 2001.

1999- The US Government tax people closed Nevada’s Mustang Ranch, the most famous legal house of prostitution in the US.
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Quiz: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944

Answer: The Americans did not liberate Auschwitz. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. The Americans liberated Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.


August 8th, 2009 Sat
August 8th, 2009

Quiz: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Quiz: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?
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History for 8/8/2009
Birthdays: Emiliano Zapata. Esther Williams, Gene Deitch, Dino DeLaurentis, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Keith Carradine is 59, Rory Calhoun, Mel Tillis, Dustin Hoffman is 72, Martin Brest, Peter Weir, Patricia Arquette, Mamoru Oshii is 58.

Today is the Feast of St. Dominic- Dominic was a Spanish zealot who wanted to preach to pagan's but the Pope sent him to south France to try and re-convert heretics, who were all former Catholics. After ten years of fasting, begging and praying, his legendary summary of his efforts was:" Someone should take a stick to those people!" The Holy Office of the Inquisition was later administered by Dominicans. Saint Dominic is also reputed to have said “Nothing Cleans like Fire.”

1143- Byzantine Emperor John III Comnenus was killed in a hunting accident, when a poisoned arrow sitting in his own quiver scratched his leg. I don't know who hunts with poisoned arrows, but that's Byzantine politics for you.

1588- THE GREAT PROTESTANT WIND- The bulk of the Spanish Armada was not destroyed by the English Navy but by a huge North Sea Typhoon that hit them off the coast of Northern Ireland. This is why if you want to view relics of the great Spanish galleons don't go to Cadiz, go to the Museum of Belfast. Supposedly the thousands of Spanish and Italian sailors marooned on the Irish coast intermarrying with the Irish population, who weren't crazy about the English either. They created the racial strain Black Irish, or Celts with milk white skin and black hair and eyes. 1662- We all have heard of how England captured New Amsterdam and named it New York, well on this date Dutch Admiral Van Tromp came back with a bigger Dutch fleet and took it back. He renamed New York "New Orange". But it didn't stick and after the peace treaty of Utrecht was signed, New York went back to the English. New Yorkers didn't really much care so long as it didn't affect business.

1709 - 1st known ascent in hot-air balloon indoors by Bartolomeu de Gusmao.

1811- THE IRON CROSS- Before medals common soldiers were rewarded for bravery with a few gold coins. Washington and Napoleon made medals things soldiers competed of. General Gerhard von Gneisenau urged the King of Prussia to create a medal like the French Legion d'Honneur to reward all ranks in the German Army. At first the sulky King was against anything that led soldiers to believe they were better than the common schweinhundts he felt they were, but he finally was made to give in. The new medal was based on the heraldic symbol of the Crusader order of the Teutonic Knights, a black cross formed by four arrowheads. The "Iron Cross" medal was created. Goths, Surfers and Hells Angels rejoiced.

1876 - Thomas Edison patented the mimeograph, a forerunner of the Xerox process.

1920- The German National Socialist -NSDP or Nazi Party formed.

1925- The National Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan staged a massive march in Washington D.C. Twenty thousand white hooded members of the Invisible Nation marched down Pennsylvania Ave. in broad daylight. It was the height of Klan influence in American politics. Soon scandal, corruption and public revulsion of their violent methods would help break them down. It was said the FBI had half the Klan informing on the other half. In 1944 they re-formed themselves from a national organization to regional cells.

1944 - Smokey the Bear, named after NYC fireman Smokey Joe Martin born .

1960 – Brian Hyland’s song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" hits #1.

1963 – THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY- In Buckinghamshire England a small group of masked men stopped the London to Glasgow express and stole 2.6 million pound sterling about $7.3 million U.S.. English police netted most of the gang, but the ringleader Ronald Biggs escaped. Biggs lived well in Rio de Janiero for thirty eight years and gave frequent interviews to British media. Old and sick, he finally returned to England and jail in 2001. “I just want one more pint in a pub” he sighed.

1963 – The Kingsmen release the song "Louie, Louie,". Many labeled it obscene, although no one is quite sure just what the song lyrics mean. In the 1980s Northwestern University staged Louie-Louie Marathons- 44 straight hours of Louie-Louie, played by punk bands, polka bands, marching bands, folk trios, and singing water glasses.

1964 - Rolling Stones 1st Dutch concert.

1973-Vice President Spiro Agnew vows not to resign. He resigned shortly afterwards.

1974 - Richard Nixon decided to resign the U.S. Presidency after Republican Senator Howard Baker informed him his last supporting congressmen on the Senate Judicial Committee intended to change their vote to yes for impeachment. Insiders say his last call before making up his mind was to Dixiecrat George Wallace, who told the President he could no longer count on the support of Southern white conservatives.

1978- The character of Odie the dog first met Garfield in Jim Davis’ comic strip.

2008- Russia invaded Georgia. Part of the opening attack was a Russian Cyber-Attack, crashing all the websites and web communications in Georgia. Russian bombers also targeted cell phone towers. Estonia offered to keep the Georgian gov’t ministry channels open.

2008- The Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony. Movie director Zhiang Zsi Miou choreographed a spectacle using 20,000 extras. When the press asked why he used so many, Zhiang replied:" Hey, we got the people..."
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?

Answer: A deliberately false exaggeration used for effect. Like “ I could eat a million of these.” Or calling any politician you don’t like another Adolf Hitler.


August 7th, 2009 Friday
August 7th, 2009

Quiz: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?

Yesterday’s answer below: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?
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History for 8/7/2009
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantius II, Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, Mata Hari, Rassan Rolling Kirk, Dr. Ralphe Bunche, Nicholas Ray, Dr. Richard Leakie, Grandma Moses, Alan Page, The Amazing Randi, David Duchovny is 49, Billy Burke aka Glenda the Good Witch " Come out, come out. wherever you are..." Garrison Keillor is 67, animation voice actor and radio star Stan Freeberg is 83, Animator Rudy Ising, Charlize Theron is 34

1674-The Bagel is invented in Vienna. Some say the hole is a tribute to the stirrup of Polish King Jan III Sobieski, more likely the hole was just so a street peddler could stack them on a stick.

1882- The legendary hillbilly Feud in Kentucky between the Hatfields and the McCoys began, supposedly over a prize hog. Ellison Hatfield was stabbed 26 times and shot in the back by Tolbert McCoy. The Hatfields then rounded up three McCoys and shot them execution style. Over the next forty years over 100 men women and children from both families would be killed in the argument.

1912 –After serving out murdered President William McKinley’s term Teddy Roosevelt pledged he would only serve one full term of his own, then his successor Taft became President. TR regretted this and ran again anyway, even though the GOP stayed with Taft. This day the Progressive Bull Moose Party nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. TR’s splitting the presidential ticket not only enabled democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the White House, but the Bull Moose movement drew off the progressive left wing of the Republican Party, causing the Party of Lincoln to drift to the right.

1919- the First Actor’s Equity Strike.

1928- The US Treasury issued a smaller leaner dollar bill. Before this dollars were two times larger and wider than the ones we now use.

1931 - Leon Bismarck "Bix" Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter died at 29 of drink and drugs. Bix along with his idol Louis Armstrong was considered one of the first jazz musicians to popularize the solo-riff, where in the body of a song the soloist would depart from the arrangement and improvise like a cadenza in classical music. His family in Davenport Iowa were horrified that their son dropped out of school to associate with black people and become a musician. Even after Bix was famous he returned proudly home only to discover his parents had stacked up every record he sent them in a box under the stairs. They never listened to a single one.

1933-The first "Alley-Oop" comic strip.

1942- GUADALCANAL BEGINS-10,000 Marines land on the Japanese held island in the first U.S. offensive of World War Two. Americans at home had to learn names like Tulagi, Savo, Gaivutu-Tanonbogo, Chesty Puller and Washing Machine Charlie as their loved ones slugged it out for six months in one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific War. The evenly matched Japanese and Americans went at each other with everything from bayonets to battleships. So many ships were sunk in the island’s lagoon that they nicknamed it "Ironbottom Sound". Marines not only had to battle crack Japanese soldiers and malaria in the steaming jungles, some of the local natives were cannibals and would drag off the wounded of both sides for supper.

1942-The first days aerial dogfights over Guadalcanal, Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai won fame for shooting down his 58th, 59th and 60th American planes. Then his Zero was badly shot up by Gruman F-4 Wildcats. Sakai was paralyzed on his left side and had one eye shattered by a bullet. Yet even in this state he managed to fly his smoking plane 500 miles to home base safely. In the air for 8 1/2 hours, he later said he would occasionally thrust a thumb into his eye wound to give himself a shot of pain to keep awake. Saboru Sakai survived, fought at Iwo Jima in 1944, volunteered for Kamikaze duty, but flew back with honor when he could find no suitable targets. He survived the war and wrote a famous memoir- Zero Pilot.

1963- Pres. John F. Kennedy and Jacky Kennedy tried to have one more baby, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, but he was born with a breathing disorder and died two days later.

1964-THE TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION-After the Tonkin Gulf Incident, President Johnson asked for permission to act in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution 93-2 in the Senate and 410-0 in the House to accelerate the U.S. combat troops role in Vietnam. President Johnson used the hotline to the Kremlin for the first time, to assure Premier Khruschev that the US did not plan to expand their role in IndoChina- (?) The American commitment went from 30,000 to 450,000, trillions of dollars and eventually decimated Cambodia and Laos as well. Congressman Mark Hatfield- "I can’t get over the feeling we’re making a big mistake."

1970 - Christine Perfect McVie joins the band Fleetwood Mac.

1970 – The first computer chess tournament.

1974- French daredevil Phillipe Petit strung a tightrope between the two 110 story towers of NY’s World Trade Center and walked across it. As New Yorkers watched in amazement, Petit kept his concentration by carrying on a conversation with the buildings.(?) Michael Sporn made a wonderful film about the event- the Man Between Two Towers.

1979- THE RUNAWAY WARS.-Hollywood Cartoonist’s Union strike against studios sending animation work overseas.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?

Answer: One of the scruffy drinking buddies of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare’s plays Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V.


August 6th, 2009 thurs
August 6th, 2009

Quiz: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a spelunker?
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History for 8/6/2009
Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Daniel O'Connell "the Liberator", Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer), Louella Parsons, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Andy Warhol, Hoot Gibson, William B. Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Sir Freddy Laker, M. Night Shyamalan, Melissa George, Andy Messersmith, Soliel Moon-Frye aka Punky Brewster

1504 Birth of Matthew Parker, English cleric who became Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I and was responsible for formulating the 39 Articles - an apocryphal story is that his long nose and inquisitive nature gave rise to the term "Nosy Parker ".

1571-During the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Cypus this day the second largest city Famagusta fell after a one year siege. The Turkish pasha was so enraged at all the time and soldiers killed to capture the city, that he ordered the Venetian commander General MarcAntonio Bradenigo skinned alive and his hide nailed to the poop deck of his flagship. The Bradenigo Family later negotiated with Sublime Porte and regained possession of the skin, folded him up nicely and placed behind glass in his monument in the Church of San Giovanni et Paulo. When you enter the church today look to the right up high and you’ll see a bust with a glass plate with something that looks like a brown table napkin. That’s General Bradenigo.

1840- NAPOLEON III'S ABORTIVE COUP. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of the first Napoleon and one day he decided since his uncle was a genius he must be also. So he resolved to leave exile in Britain and overthrow the French government. His uncle in 1814 just had to show up on the beach in Cannes for the people to go wild and carry him to the palace on their shoulders. So Louis Napoleon appeared on the beach in Boulogne waving his sword and flag. Instead of cheering crowds a local constable tried to arrest him for carrying a unlicensed firearm. When the gun went off and hurt the constable a mob chased Mr.Bonaparte back to his boat booing and laughing. While trying to row away the boat capsized and Napoleon III was picked up by a fishing boat while clinging to a lifebuoy. A gov't minister in Paris said of the affair: "That blockhead! Everything would be easier if he would just drown himself!" Louis Napoleon later became France's second emperor in 1852.

1890- FIRST MAN ELECTROCUTED- Prison officials wanted a more humane way to execute badguys than hanging, after a 300 pound killer named Mad Jack Ketcham made everybody sick when the noose ripped his head off. So they turned to the miracle of the age, electricity. A spirited competition began between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse whether AC or DC current was more lethal. Lots of dogs and cats around their laboratories disappeared for test subjects. Edison wanted to call his device an "Automort" or "Electramort". When Edison knew he was going to lose the contract he suggested the inventor give his name to it." Joe will be Westinghoused at Midnight !"-etc. Finally it was simply the Chair or the Hot Seat. The first man in it, an axe murderer named William Kemmler, took several 17 second jolts to be sent off, his hair and jacket caught fire and his shoes melted and stuck to the floor.

1926- Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel.

1926- Warner Brothers Studio premiered it’s motion picture sound on disk system. The film was Don Juan with John Barrymore the Great Profile. It didn’t really have much impact until they made the "Jazz Singer"with Al Jolson two years later.

1930- Judge Crater disappeared. The New York Supreme Court Justice had given no indication of any trouble but he had accrued huge gambling debts. The good judge had dinner with some friends at the Stork Club and told them he would join them later at the theater. He got into a taxi at 43rd street and vanished forever. It was the media story of the year.

1932- Top Broadway singer Libby Hollman "Statue of Libby" had married quiet millionaire Smith Reynolds and moved to his North Carolina estate. But life on the farm was boring so Libby brought her Broadway friends down to party. After one party she was missing for several hours and had grass stains on her knees. The couple quarreled and Smith Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head. No one was ever charged .

1945- HIROSHIMA.- At around 11:00 A.M. Capt. Tibbetts and his B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped one bomb and sent us into the Atomic Age. The uranium device was called the "Cosmic Bomb" by the scientists and "Little Boy" by the crew. Navy Secretary Admiral Leahy had said:" It's the biggest damn fool thing we've ever done. It'll never go off!" When it did go off one crewmember shouted:"Wow! Lookit that sonofabitch go! This war is over!!" The navigator wrote in his journal" My God! What have we done ?" The target city of Hiroshima was selected because it was undamaged up until then, and the surrounding hills would concentrate it’s effect. The A-bomb killed around 130,000 people and continued to kill survivors with radiation and cancer. 50,000 people were vaporized outright leaving only shadows burned into the pavement.

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's main designer, had built it primarily to stop Hitler -both the Nazis and Japanese had their own unsuccessful atomic bomb programs. He was still horrified by the results. He became a lifelong pacifist and was later persecuted as a commie for refusing any more help in developing nuclear weapons.

1962- Jamaica gained independence from Britain.

1970- THE HIPPIES ATTACK DISNEYLAND- A nationwide call for civil disobedience at the famous American-establishment tourist spot was called for August 6th. Called "Yippie Day" Yippies were considered more militant than Hippies. 750 long haired, denim clad moppets filtered into park. Once in they quickly massed, then invaded the Wilderness Fort in Frontierland. There they raised the Vietcong flag, passed marijuana cigarettes to tourists and chanted "Stop the War! Free Charlie Manson!" They were finally expelled with great difficulty by park security and the Anaheim police. In the 1980’s Disney was almost invaded by Nazi skinheads but this time they were ready.

1973- Stevie Wonder involved in car crash, goes into a 4 day coma but eventually recovered.

1984- Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track & field at the Olympic Games in LA.

1998- A chubby White House student intern from LA named Monica Lewinsky testified to a Federal Grand Jury that she had sex with President Bill Clinton in a small room down the hall from the Oval Office. Hey, watch where ya put that cigar!

2001- One month before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a study that increased terrorist chatter meant some kind of attack was likely. The report was entitled OSAMA BEN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN CONTINENTAL US. That the terrorists may use hijacked civilian airliners. President Bush thanked them:” Okay, you’ve covered your ass...” then resumed clearing brush on his ranch. CIA chief George Tenant didn’t think it important enough to even show up.
Later in 2003 after the 9-11 attack National Security advisor Dr. Condoleeza Rice was quoted in the press " No one could predict terrorists would hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Tenant later got the Medal of Freedom.
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Yesterdays Quiz: What is a spelunker?

Answer: Someone whose sport is exploring caves.


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