Question: When you call something a “ real doozie” where did that come from?

Yesterday’s Question: Sometimes the followers of a famous person are called Myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?
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History for 6/21/2009
Birthdays: Martha Washington, Alexander Pope, Berke Breathed, Al Hirschfeld, Jean-Paul Sartre, Judy Holliday, Benazir Bhutto, Jane Russell, Mariette Hartley, Bernie Koppel, Rick Sutcliffe, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Flagherty, Juliet Lewis, Prince William the Duke of York is 27. He will be King William V some day.

Happy Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. The sun, at dawn, aligns perfectly with the entrance to Stonehenge and in Persia the Zoroastrians would light ceremonial fires on altars on their roofs to the sungod Ahura Mazda.

1527- Political theorist Niccolo' Machiavelli died. - His last words were:
"I hope I shall go to Hell, for there I shall meet kings, popes and princes.
In Heaven one can only meet beggars, monks and apostles."

1582- Japanese warlord Nobunaga Oda assassinated. He was the most pro-western of Japan's feudal lords and in western Japan, a folk hero, sort of a samurai Robin Hood. Under his protection the Catholic missionaries flourished, and Oda liked to parade around in his Spanish suit of armor. His enemy Tokugawa Ieyasu later became Shogun and banned all contact with the outside world.

1789- RATIFICATION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION- New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify the new document giving the majority of two thirds of the states. This despite angry anti-federalist sentiment from critics like Patrick Henry and John Hancock. They felt the new system was too centralized and could be tyrannical. Copies of the constitution were burned by mobs in Albany and Williamsburg. But eventually everyone got behind the system. Statesman Benjamin Rush noted: "We are now a Nation."

1791- THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES- After the fall of the Bastille in 1789, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette tried to work things out as constitutional monarchs but moderates like Mirabeau and Lafayette were losing control of the vengeful people, kept in medieval poverty for so long. So the royals decided to sneak away and escape across the border. The escape plot was organized by Count Axel Fersen, a lover of Queen Marie Antoinette. They slipped away in the dead of night and traveled 150 miles to the Belgian border before they were stopped. At Varennes they were recognized and brought back to Paris by the city's fishwives led by Jean-Baptiste Drouet the postmaster of Ste. Menehould. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were eventually both guillotined and their son Louis XVII died rotting in prison. Ironically, a troop of loyalist cavalry, who were to meet them on the road and escort them across the border got lost only a quarter mile away.

1791- The first Ledger entry.

1813- Battle of Vittoria- Wellington defeats the French in Spain and ends the Peninsular War and Beethoven writes a really silly overture to celebrate it. The Overture to Wellington's Victory has musical scoring for cannons and musket volleys. It was commissioned by a mechanical calliope inventor named Wilhelm Deitzel. It actually made Beethoven more money than anything else he ever wrote.

1854 -During service in the Baltic in the Crimean War –Ships Mate C D Lucas, Royal Navy, HMS Hercla, received the first of a new decoration called the Victoria Cross, or VC.

1864- FATHER ABRAHAM- President Abraham Lincoln visited General Grant’s Union army attacking Lee in Petersburg, Virginia. One highlight of the tour was when Lincoln was shown the 18th corps, a unit of black soldiers. General Grant complimented their excellent discipline and courage under fire. The black troops broke ranks and cheered wildly for Lincoln, their liberator. Hundreds strained just to touch his coat. One said: Now I know I shall go to Heaven, for I have seen Father Abraham, he that hath struck off my chains, and the Day of Jubilee is nigh!” For Lincoln it was a cathartic moment. Whatever his real motives for freeing the slaves, political expediency or moral obligation, he was deeply moved by the demonstration. Tears flowed freely down his face and for once he was speechless.

1866- First recorded train robbery by Jesse James.

1879 - F W Woolworth opens his 1st five and ten cent store.

1893- The FERRIS WHEEL -George Washington Ferris, Jr. decided that the Columbia Exhibition, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery, needed to surpass the French Eiffel Tower (introduced during the centennial celebration of the French Revolution). So he created his wheel so each compartment could hold 12 people plus a butler in a parlor-like atmosphere and rotate them 250 feet in the air. People were afraid they would gasp for oxygen up so high but it was a big hit anyway.

1907 - E W Scripps founded United Press Agency.

1919- In Scapa Flow, Scotland, German Imperial Admiral Von Reuter scuttled 21 of his interned battleships rather than turn them over to the victorious Allies. On shore, vacationing Scottish schoolchildren cheered, thinking it was a fireworks display for their benefit.

1939- Eugene O’Neill’s wife Carlotta wrote in her diary- Gene kept me up all night talking about his outline for a new play about his family- The Long Days Journey into Night. It took him two years to write and it almost killed him.

1940- In a theatrical act of revenge Adolph Hitler forced France to sign her surrender in the same railroad car in Compiegne that the Germans surrendered in 1918. They broke into a museum to pry loose the exact same Wagon-Lit train car so it could be moved to the exact spot. The treaty meant half of France was occupied by Germany while the other half was French governed from the mineral water spa town of Vichy by a puppet government led by old Marshal Petain.

1948- At the University of Manchester, John McCauley created and early computer, the Manchester Mark I, that could store a program in it’s memory and reopen it.

1948- The last Japanese holdout defenders surrender on Okinawa, unaware that the war had been over for three years.

1948- Columbia Records introduced the 33 1/3-rpm long playing record, the LP. Inventor Peter Goldmark was annoyed that he had to change his 78 rpm records several times to hear just one Brahms Symphony. He decided to invent a way to fit all of a symphony on one side of a record. His immediate supervisors told him to stop it because people would not throw away all their 78 rpm records to replace them with his. So Goldmark went over their heads to CBS chief William Paley and Paley loved the idea. RCA and David Sarnoff tried to compete with the 45-rpm record, but all it was good for was singles. The 33 1/3 dominated recording until replaced by the Compact Disc in the 1980’s.

1978 - Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice's musical "Evita," premieres in London.

1998- Paleontologists in Canada announced the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus turd yet found. The search intensified for a T-Rex with a relaxed look on his face.

2004- The first flight in the privatization of Space, Bert Routans’ company financed by Microsoft head, Paul Allen, sent SpaceShip 1 up to the edge of the atmosphere. Test pilot Mike Nelvil was the first civilian astronaut.
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Yesterday’s Question: Sometimes the followers of a famous person are called Myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?

Answer: According to the Illiad of Homer, the hero Achilles was King of the Myrmidons. His followers were famous for their loyalty and dedication to him.

Question: Sometimes the followers of a famous person are called Myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?

Yesterdays Question answered below: Question: XVIII Century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, and XX century English composer Gustav Holst had something in common, besides being composers. What was it?
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History for 6/20/2009
Birthdays: Wolf Tone, Jacques Offenbach, Lillian Hellman, Errol Flynn, Audie Murphy,
Andre Watts, Cyndee Lauper, Bob Vila, Chet Atkins, Stephen Frears, Brian Wilson, Robert Rodriquez, John Goodman, John Mahoney is 69, Nicole Kidman is 42

1218- Simon De Monfort, Leader of the Crusade against the Albigensian heretics of southern France, was squished by a catapult stone whilst besieging Toulouse. Legend says the lucky catapult shot that nailed Simon was fired by the women & children of Toulouse who knew they could expect no mercy from him. In his brutal crusade in Albi, for the first time, the order heard about how to tell Heretics from True-Believer,“ Slay them All and God will know His own.” By contrast, his son, also a Simon de Monfort, emigrated to England and fought the King for individual civil rights and establishment of the House of Commons.

1605-The False Dmitri invades Russia. A defrocked Lithuanian priest named Grishka declared himself the dead infant son of Czar Ivan the Terrible grown up and convinced a powerful Polish noble family, The Mniszechs, to back him. Historians wrongly call this a Polish-Russian War but actually it was a privately run freelance invasion. I hope they paid 401k benefits and dental. Dmitri succeeded in toppling Czar Boris Gudunov and occupying Moscow. When the Polish Army went home the Russians killed him, burned his body, mixed the ashes with gunpowder, stuffed it in a cannon and fired it back in the direction of Poland.

1747- Persian King Nadir Shah had seized the throne and led armies across Central Asia in a march of conquest not seen since the days of Tamerlane. He conquered Iraq, Uzbekizatan, Afghanistan, Northern India and Yerevan. He forced the Indian Moguls to give him the fabulous Peacock Throne. But as he grew older he got increasingly paranoid, blinding his eldest son and executing hundreds. Finally, this day, his own bodyguards stabbed him and all Persia breathed a sigh of relief.

1756- THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA- Bengal Rajah Siraj ud Daula stuffed 146 captured British officers in a cell the size of Dilbert’s cubicle. Most died of asphyxiation by morning. 23 survived. It's a phenomenon discovered here as well as during the London Blitz of 1940 in crowded shelters that if you pass out in a perfectly upright position you may die because the blood literally drains out of your brain. Ick!

1789- THE TENNIS COURT OATH- French King Louis XVI got annoyed with his parliament or Estates General for constantly asking for permanent power and the right to rule by laws. So this day he tells them to disband. Of the Estates three divisions the First Estate- Nobility and the Second Estate – Clergy quietly obey and go home. But the Third Estate -the common folk- refused and when they were turned out of their meeting hall by the guards they reconvened in the Royal tennis court. There the members pledged not to disband until Liberty was established. "Go tell your master that here the People rule!"- Said Mirabeau to the royal herald.

1790- THE US CAPITOL CONCEIVED- In the then American capitol, New York City, Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, went over to have dinner with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Senator James Madison. There were no real American political parties yet, but Jefferson had been leading the opposition to Hamilton’s plan for the US Government to assume all the debt incurred by the individual states in the Revolution. This act would strengthen the central government at the expense of the states. Everyone knew Jefferson worked through Madison but he presented this dinner as his arbitrating a peace between Madison and Hamilton! No one recorded what was said at the meal but it is assumed Hamilton proposed a deal in exchange for the debt assumption- move the American capitol south. This night they agreed to move the planned US capitol to a new site on land suggested by President Washington near his Mount Vernon estate. It would become Washington, DC. It was also possibly the last time Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison ever agreed on anything ever again.

1815- NATHAN ROTHSCHILD'S BIG SCORE. -When The Battle of Waterloo happened in Belgium no one in England knew who had won for 72 anxious hours. The House of Rothschild Bank had a Dutch agent at the battlefield who galloped to Ostend then across the Channel to Nathan before the official news reached the London. This morning, Nathan Rothschild walked into the London Stock Exchange and took his usual stance by his favorite pillar. Everyone was sure Rothschild knew something. He said nothing himself but his agents started to sell off Government bonds. Day traders took this as a sign that the French were victorious, so the price of Government securities plummeted in panic sales. When the prices had fallen low enough Rothschild gave the signal to start buying. By the time the real news that Wellington had beaten Napoleon arrived, Nathan Rothschild had made a fortune. He later became the first of the Jewish faith to enter the House of Lords.

1819- The first steam powered ship successfully crossed the Atlantic. The SS Savannah made it to Liverpool after a trip of 27 days.

1837-QUEEN VICTORIA-Upon the death of her uncle King William IV, little, 19 year old Princess Victoria becomes Queen of the British Isles. She will rule until 1901 and give her name to the era, Victorian. She came to the throne when veterans of the American Revolution and Waterloo were still alive and she lived to use electric lights, telephones and was the first monarch to watch a movie. Before Victoria, the British Royals were never considered examples of morality. It was said her grandfather George III was insane, her Uncle George IV a bigamist, her other uncle, William IV, a glutton and her mother the Duchess of Kent was living openly with an Irish adventurer named James Conroy. If you wanted to meet the great men of the nation you had to look in the gambling houses or brothels.

Victoria changed all that. She and her husband Prince Albert made the pursuit of Morality and family the highest standard of polite society. My favorite Victoria story was this: it had to be explained to her exactly what a lesbian was, after which she dismissed the concept saying: "Women do not do that sort of thing." Another Queen Victoria story undercuts her prudish reputation just a bit: Apparently, there was an admiral whose passion was restoring old ships. He was boring Victoria to death with a long story about his latest project in drydock. To change the subject, Her Majesty inquired as to the health of his wife. The admiral, who was hard of hearing, replied, "Well, Mam, next we are going to turn her over and scrape her bottom." Reportedly, Victoria laughed ‘til tears rolled down her face.

1863-Several Virginia counties whose people opposed the Confederacy and slavery re-enter the Union as the new state of West Virginia.

1900- THE BOXER REBELLION- In Beijing, the Chinese Boxer Rebellion traps the foreign diplomatic corps in their compound in the Forbidden City. The Chinese mobs were led by martial arts societies like the I Ho Chu Huan- The Righteous and Harmonius Fists. Their goal was to drive out the hated foreigners who were ruining China the way they had carved up Africa and India. The German ambassador Baron Von Kettler was shot down in the street and the Japanese ambassador was pulled out of his sedan chair and beheaded. Women in western clothing were doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The Chinese Manchu Empress Zhou Zsi permitted the regular Chinese Army to support the Boxers. At first the besieged delegations didn't get along well, the British and Japanese didn't trust the Russians, the Germans were cut off from their big new brewery in Tsing-Tao, yeah, the same. And nobody liked the Americans with their constant preaching that they weren't out to annex new colonies while their gunboats and Marines prowled the Yangtze. But under the leader ship of British attache , Sir Archibald MacDonald, the diplomats soon learned to work together. They held out until an international force rescued them- the "55 days in Peking".

1910- Longtime President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, unsuccessfully tried to stop the Revolution breaking out by declaring martial law and arresting hundreds.

1940- Artist Alberto Vargas signs a contract with Esquire Magazine to paint the ‘Vargas Girls’ pin ups that made the magazine famous. He replaced artist Richard Petty who was demanding $1500 a week. Vargas was paid $75 a week. Today an original Vargas goes for $200,000.



1941- Two days before Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Richard Zorga, a Russian spy in the German Embassy in Tokyo, sent home to Moscow microfilm with complete information on the attack. He even revealed it’s codename- Operation Barbarossa. A Russian agent in Hungary, code-named “Lucy”, and the Chinese agents of Mao Tse Tung confirmed the information. Yet despite this warning Soviet leader Josef Stalin refused to believe it. On June 22 He and the Red Army were taken completely by surprise.

1941-Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Police actually have to close part of Hollywood Blvd. out of concern for what the rampaging animators might do. Future UPA producer Steve Bosustow drove up in a limo and picketed in tuxedo and top hat. His chauffeur was Maurice Noble, the designer of the RoadRunner cartoons. Ironically the movie was part documentary about how wonderful life was working at the Disney studio.

1947- Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, the mobster creator of Las Vegas, was murdered while reading his evening paper in his Beverly Hills home. He had bought the mansion from opera singer George London for his girlfriend actress Virginia Hill. The order to whack Bugsy was probably given by his old friend Mayer Lansky. The Mafia syndicate back east was fed up with Bugsy’s Las Vegas’ cost overruns. The second owner of his Flamingo casino Moe Greenberg had his throat cut with a butcher knife. Still, the Flamingo Hotel & Casino and the Las Vegas Strip went on to become a great success.

1948- The Ed Sullivan Show "Toast of the Town" later to be “the Ed Sullivan Show” premiered. Sullivan's show was the showcase that brought new acts like Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones into the average American living room. Prior to this, Mr. Sullivan was a columnist and radio show personality who co-authored "Red Channels", a book accusing dozens of his compatriots as Communists. His “really, really Big Shewww” may have been given to Sullivan to make him lay off.


1972- In the first reaction to the news of the Watergate Break in, Nixon Presidential spokesman Ron Zeigler dismissed it: “It is not for the White House to comment on the investigation of a third-rate burglary”. The Third-Rate Burglary drove Richard Nixon from office in 1974.

1972- THE SMOKING GUN- All through the Watergate scandal the big question was how involved was President Richard Nixon? A conversation in the Oval office was taped this day between Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman. Whatever was said on this tape it took two years of lawsuits and a Supreme Court ruling to get Nixon to surrender it. This tape for June 20th had 18 missing minutes. Experts say five separate manual erasures caused the gap. After a feeble attempt to blame it on the fumble fingers of Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, it’s generally believed, although never admitted ,that Nixon himself probably erased the incriminating parts of the tape. It was called the “smoking gun”. Three days after the tape was made public in 1974 President Nixon resigned. If Nixon had simply popped this tape into the White House incinerator, he may have completed his presidency with honor.
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Yesterdays’ Question: XVIII Century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, and XX century English composer Gustav Holst had something in common, besides being composers. What was it?

Answer: They both had day jobs teaching at all girl schools. They both composed music for all-girl orchestras.

Cartoonist Drew Friedman sent me this cool link of an interview with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges talking about his brother Curly. Looks like it was done in the early 1970's

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=93516803458&h=Z-i6S&u=Rstp8&ref=nf

Dan Phillips sent me this tragically sad but lovely story from yesterday's Orange County Register. It's about a very brave ten year old named Colby Curtin. She was diagnosed with a fatal cancer. She requested that before she die, if could she see the new PIXAR film UP. The studio heard about her case, and rushed someone to her bedside with a special DVD of the movie. He ran it for her in her hospital room. She enjoyed the film, said she was now ready, and died a few hours later.

Here's the full story:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/pixar-up-movie-2468059-home-show

This little girl had more guts in the face of a raw deal than most people I've ever known. Her story is a signal to all of us; that we all only have a short time here, and we should be grateful for every day we're given, and live every day to the fullest.

And Colby also has a special message to all of us who call cartooning and animation our careers. That beyond all the hassles about salaries, technique, contracts and freelance, you and I have been given a special gift. We have the ability to make a child smile, even a child faced with a more terrible situation than you or I could ever imagine. God ( Fate, Whoever) gave you that power for a reason. Be thankful for it, don't waste it, be sure you use it the way a Colby would've wanted you to.

Rest in Peace, dear child. My deepest condolences to your family. And my thanks to the folks at PIXAR, well done.

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Question: XVIII Century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, and XX century English composer Gustav Holst had something in common, besides being composers. What was it?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Quiz: Who is the current Prime Minister of Canada?
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History for 6/19/2009
Birthdays: Euclid, Blaise Pascal, King James Ist Stuart, Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor, Moe Howard, Kathleen Turner, Spanky McFarland, Lou Gehrig, Guy Lombardo, Gena Rowlands, Mildred Natwick, Charles Coburn, Louis Jourdan, Pauline Kael, Salman Rushdie, Dame Mae Whitty, Lucie Sloane, Ang Sung Soo Chi, Paula Abdul.

240 BC- Greek mathematician, Erastosthenes, measuring the cast shadows made by sticks placed in the ground, first calculated the total circumference of the Earth. He was off by only a few miles.

1588- The Spanish Armada sailed from Cadiz and Lisbon to invade England.

1619- THE OLD GLOBE THEATER FIRE. During a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, a prop cannon fired a salute that set afire the straw thatch on the roof. Soon the blaze consumed the old theater. Shakespeare, as a partner in the company that owned the Globe, paid to rebuild it. He soon retired home to Stratford. Fifty years later, during Cromwell’s Puritan rule, the Globe was pulled down because the Puritans frowned on theatrical entertainment as unGodly.

1803- Captain Meriwether Lewis sent a letter inviting Captain William Clark to come join him and explore the route from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. Lewis had a backup in mind in case Clark said no, a Lt. Moses Hook. But Clark said yes so today we remember Lewis & Clark, not Lewis & Hook.

1846-THE EARLIEST RECORDED BASEBALL GAME- The famous legend is that Abner Doubleday invented the game but that's been mostly disproved. No one is sure of the exact date the game was invented, but, on this day, a New York newspaper ran a notice of a "base-ball" game played by the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club and the New York Nines Cricket Club at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The cricketeers won 23-1. This was the first game played under Cartwright’s Rules. Alexander Cartwright created a finite system of three outs and nine innings. Baseball spread nationwide because of the Civil War. When men of all the states would spend leisure time in army camps they learned to play the "Boston-New York Game”. After the conflict, they went to their homes in the various states and took the game with them.

1863- In one of the most famous ship-to-ship duels of the American Civil War the USS Kearsarge fought and sunk the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama in the harbor of Cherbourg, France. Young Impressionist painter Claude Monet was in the area and made a painting of the event. Confederate raiders hunted US shipping around the sea-lanes of the world, which is why today you can find Confederate grave markers in Capetown, South Africa and Alaska.

1865- Happy Juneteenth- Abe Lincoln’s emissaries finally reached Texas with news of the Emancipation of the slaves. Black Texans celebrate this day thereafter as Juneteenth-Independence Day, although Texas refused to acknowledge the holiday until 1979.

1867-The Emperor of Mexico, Maximillian Hapsburg, shot by firing squad. Maximillian distributed bribes to the riflemen asking them not to aim for his head, but one hit him there anyway. Mexican President Benito Juarez felt this drastic gesture had to be taken to discourage any future European adventurers. And Maximillian routinely ordered the execution of any Juaristas who fell into his hands.


Austrian Archduke Maximillian was the younger brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, who Johann Strauss wrote so many pretty waltzes for. Max was talked into taking the throne of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III, who assured him the Mexican people would welcome him with loving arms. People in Europe nicknamed the gullible Maximillian the "Arch-dupe". Franz Josef remembered the loss by not helping France during her struggle with Prussia in 1870.

1867- The first Belmont Stakes horse race. The winner was Ruthless.

1889- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, the Man with the Twisted Lip.

1893 - Lizzie Bordon acquitted of the axe murders of her abusive parents. The murderers were never found. She lived alone peaceably and when she died she left all her money to the ASPCA.

1910 - Father's Day celebrated for 1st time. It was organized by the Spokane, Washington YMCA and Spokane Ministerial Assoc.

1917- Still in the depths of World War One, King George V ordered members of the British royal family to dispense with German titles & surnames. Before that the official name of Queen Victoria’s family was the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It now became the House of Windsor. Prince Louis Von Battenberg became Lord Louis Mountbatten.

1921- Distributer AmadeeVan Beuren announced production of a new series of "Aesop’s Fables" cartoons to be done by former Bray director Paul Terry. Terrytoons studio is born.

1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts.

1934-The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, created.

1941 - Cheerios Cereal invented.

1953- THE ROSENBERGS GO TO THE CHAIR- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, "The Atomic Spies", were electrocuted at Sing Sing for spying for the Soviet Union. When the Russians detonated their first nuclear weapon no one in America thought they could do it without spies giving them our secrets. We now know, in 1945, Manhattan project physicists Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall had given Stalin the plans to the Nagasaki bomb. According to KGB archives from 1989, Julius Rosenberg was on their payroll, but just what and how much he did is controversial. Dr. Fuchs gave away much more vital information yet he only got a moderate prison term. Ted Hall was never discovered until he wrote a book in 1997. Housewife Ethel Rosenberg probably didn’t do anything and died horribly, screaming when the current was turned on. It took three tries for two full minutes. Only hours before the execution, a young lawyer had found a clause in the law statutes that execution of spies could not take place except in time of war, but the judge who could have stopped it refused because he was Jewish and he feared an even greater anti-Semitic backlash if he saved them. To conservatives the Rosenbergs were dangerous traitors; to progressives they were innocent martyrs of the red hysteria of the times and of anti-Semitism, even though their prosecutor Roy Cohn was also Jewish. The executions were moved up a day so they would not be killed on a Friday, the Jewish Sabbath. The final record still is not clear. Roy Cohn became one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS.

1952 - "I've Got A Secret" debuts on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host.

1956- The comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis announce their breakup.

1963- The Canadian Football Hall of Fame formed.

1964- THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. African Americans finally get the basic rights promised them by Abe Lincoln 100 years earlier. In the South blacks were routinely disqualified from voting and forced to take humiliating tests, like guessing how many bubbles were on a bar of wet soap. Several Civil Rights bills had been proposed since but they were all blocked by the Southern Caucus in Congress. Those who remember Lyndon Johnson only as the warmonger of Vietnam should also recall that his arm twisting was the main reason this act was approved. Chief Justice William Reinquist, Senator Strom Thurmond, Billy Graham and Claire Booth Luce the owner of Time Magazine begged LBJ not to sign it. The Civil Rights Act started the shift of Southern white conservatives from the Democratic Party to the Republicans. This ended the image of the Southern Dixiecrat.

1964- The Condor Club of San Francisco becomes the first to offer Topless Dancers. Carol Doda became the first topless waitress and a mainstay of San Francisco’s nightclub scene. She augmented her already ample bosom to 44 inches with silicon implants. She joked: "I dunno, I guess I just expand in the heat!"

1973 – Do not hurt her…Frank-Furter…The Rocky Horror Picture Show stage show opened in London. The film version became a midnight cult classic. Writer Richard O’Brien himself plays the bald doorman.


1975- Mobster Sam "Momo" Giancana was rubbed out while frying sausages. He was scheduled to testify the next day about what he knew of Pres. John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the Church Committee’s Senatorial Inquiry on Assassinations. The following year Jimmy Roselli, a Giancana hit man who always claimed he was the second gunman in Dallas, was found dismembered in an oil drum floating in Florida’s Biscayne Bay.

1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appears as a comic strip

1987 - Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia announce new Ice Cream flavor, Cherry Garcia.

1987 –David Geffen Records sign their 1st artist -Disco queen Donna Summer.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who is the current Prime Minister of Canada?

Answer: John Harper.

Quiz: Who is the current Prime Minister of Canada?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the Torah?
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History for 6/18/2009
Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser,William Lassell 1799- English astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton, Richard Boone, Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn, ,Sir Paul McCartney is 67

1178- According to the chronicler Gervase of Canterbury, on this evening five monks sitting near the town witnessed a "flaming torch" spring up from the moon - it has been theorized that this was a lunar meteor impact; explosion on moon. Or maybe an interplanetary visitor?

1682 – Quaker leader William Penn founded Philadelphia.

1778- The British army evacuated the American Capitol of Philadelphia. The reason General Clinton pulled back his redcoats was because of his learning of the French entry into the war. London didn’t want him to be stranded in the American interior should the French fleet attack the coast.

1815- WATERLOO- One of the battles that changed history. 145,000 men in brightly colored uniforms with 400 cannons blew each other to pieces for 9 hours at a road intersection about three miles square. Many factors affected Wellington's defeat of Napoleon: The previous nights rains delayed the battle until 11:00 A.M. Napoleon had a bout of stomach cramps (he had bleeding ulcers, cystitis, piles and hypertension) and while he rested his subordinates wasted troops in fruitless assaults. The Prussian army everyone thought was running to Berlin boiled into the French right just when it seemed that the French were winning. Wellington in private admitted, "It had been a very close run thing." Suffice to say the world would have been a much different place. Napoleon said: "If I lose England will dominate the world for the next 100 years." Individual stories abound.

- When a sharpshooter suggests to Wellington early in the battle that he thinks he can pick off Napoleon, Wellington snaps:"Certainly Not! Generals have better things to do than take pot shots at one another!"
-Towards the end of the battle the Earl of Uxbridge was struck by a cannonball while seated next to Wellington. The Earl noticed: "My God Sir, I do believe I’ve lost my leg." Wellington looked down, then replied: "My God Sir, I do believe you’re right." Uxbridge had eloped with Wellington's younger sister so he didn't like him that much anyway.
-My favorite anecdote is about General Cambronne, leader of the French elite' Old Guard. He formed up an infantry square to take a last stand to cover the French retreat. His small band is surrounded by the victorious Anglo-Dutch German army and called upon to surrender. Cambronne had time for a one word reply before all the guns go off-" MERDE!" This is a favorite French epithete meaning "sh*t!" The writer Chateaubriand later said that he cried"The Guard dies but never Surrenders!" But we all know what he really said. To this day in France if you’re too polite to use an expletive you can say: A' la mode de Cambronne!"
-Wellington didn't have any dinner until 11 p.m. He ate alone because his entire personal staff were dead or wounded.
- In later years writer Victor Hugo lived at Waterloo for awhile and was influential in making the old battlefield field a shrine. When I visited I saw across from Hugo's statue the "Victor Hugo's Private Men's Club" with "New Hostesses!"

1817- With the Iron Duke (Wellington), himself in attendance London opened a new bridge across the Thames, named the Waterloo Bridge. Later the guests sat down at the traditional Waterloo banquet and were served- you guessed it.....Beef Wellington. No crème napoleons for desert, through.

1879 - W H Richardson, an African American inventor, patents the baby buggy or perambulator.

1892 - Macademia nuts first planted in Hawaii

1898 - 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, NJ

1900- The Dowager Empress of China Zhou Zshi calls for the killing of all foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. She commits the Chinese government to the expulsion of all the European colonialist powers. Empress Zhou Chi was the first person westerners called the Dragon Lady, later used by Milt Caniff in his comic strip Terry & the Pirates.

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

1916- German Max Immelman, the first true fighter ace, died when the synchronizing mechanism that enabled his machine gun to fire through his propeller blades failed and he shot his own propeller off. Ach, Himmel! To take your plane in a large loop-de-loop around someone else is still called an Immelman Turn.

1923- The first Checker Cab was manufactured in Chicago. The big boxy durable Checkers were the most famous city taxicabs until dying out in the 1980s.

1927- The last radio transmission of the flying boat carrying famous arctic explorer Roald Ammundsen to the arctic circle. Norwegian Ammundsen had conquered the South Pole and flew over the North Pole. He was now called out of retirement to lead an international effort to save Italian Polar explorer General Nobile , who’s zeppelin had crashed on the arctic ice. Ironically Ammundsen disliked Nobile personally. Nobile and his men were rescued, but Ammundsen and his plane were never found.

1931- The Metropolitan Museum of NY had in it’s collection a little blue statue of a Hippo from the tomb of the Egyptian Steward Senbi from the Twelfth Dynasty. People nicknamed it Willie and this day an article about it with a color picture appeared in Punch Magazine. Soon museum craftsmen made little replicas of Willie that they gave as gifts to donors and eventually started selling to the public. The massive retail business in museum reproductions and merchandise began with little Willie the Hippo.


1959- Earl Long the Governor of Louisiana was ordered confined to a State Mental Hospital for his erratic behavior. Earl’s response was to arrange for the director of the hospital to be fired and replaced with another who declared him perfectly sane.

1967- At the Monterey Pop Rock festival Jimi Hendrix electrified the audience then finished his set by burning and smashing his guitar on stage. Until then musicians didn’t behave in such a way towards their instruments. Ravi Shankar was particularly shocked.

1980 –"We are on a mission from God." John Landis movie of" The Blues Brothers" with Dan Ackroyd & John Belushi premiered.


1983- Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in Space. Russian Valentina Tereshkova had gone up in 1963.

1989- John Wayne Bobbitt married Lorena Bobbitt.

2002- President George W. Bush said:” When we talk about war, we are really talking about peace.”
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the Torah?

Answer: Like the Pentateuch, it is the first five books of the Old Testament.