Quiz: Why is Easter called Easter? Why not Jesus Resurrection Day..?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What was jus primae noctis?
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History for 4/11/2009
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, Frederick the Warlike of Saxony-1370, Ethel Kennedy, Joel Grey, Louise Lasser, Mason Reese, Oleg Cassini, Cameron Mitchell. Norman McClaren, Bill Irwin, John Milius, Jennifer Esposito

1506- Pope Julius II laid the corner stone for the new Saint Peter’s Basilica. It was completed in 1626.

1512-BATTLE OF RAVENNA -The first battle decided by artillery. The armies of Pope Julius II and his Spanish allies are defeated by Duke Alfonso D'Este of Ferrara and his French allies. The D'Este' family were patrons of Leonardo daVinci but this Duke was an artillery buff. For his birthday friends gave him cannons. In true Renaissance fashion during the battle the Duke pulled his guns to the side of the battlefield where he could fire on both sides at once. When someone explained he would be firing on his friends as well the Duke answered:" Well, they'll probably be enemies tomorrow!" Despite this curious strategem, he won anyway.

1713 - FIRST TREATY OF UTRECHT- Ending the War of Spanish Succession. George Frederich Handel premiered the Royal Fireworks Music in celebration. France yields to England the eastern coastal provinces of Canada. When the French speaking inhabitants of Arcadia refuse to swear allegiance to the English King they are driven out of their homes at bayonet point. Scottish colonists are brought in who rename the island Nova Scotia -New Scotland. The French exiles migrate to Louisiana and settle in the swampy bayous. They call themselves Arcadians, which slurs to A'cajun or Cajun.

1854- Depressed by his go-no-where career and drinking heavily, Captain Ulysses Grant resigned from the US Army.

1861-In the dark night outside Fort Sumter in rebel held Charleston Bay, Confederate commissioners call on Major Robert Anderson to lower Old Glory and surrender the fort. The Kentucky born major said he would surrender if after three days he received no food resupply. (a stalling tactic) The Confederates had sighted an approaching Union rescue fleet and knew this answer meant they would have to fire on the fort. Anderson knew it too, for as he said goodbye to the commissioners he added: " And if we don't meet again in this life, I'm sure we'll meet again in the next."...

1890- In England John Merrick, who was known as the Elephant Man, died.

1906- Albert Einstein published his Theory of Relativity.

1907-Baseball N.Y. Giant's Roger Bresnahan becomes the first catcher to wear a mask and shin guards. He had the mask built based on a sword fencers' mask.

1914- George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion premiered at the Haymarket in London.

1931- Dorothy Parker resigned her job as drama critic for the New Yorker Magazine. Mrs Parker was known for her witty but caustic reviews like “Her performance ran the gamut from A to B.” She married an actor named Cambell and moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. While on her honeymoon the magazine bugged her for some more fixes on an article. She sent a telegram from Paris:” Don’t bother me. F*cking busy. And visa-versa. “

1933- the Bauhaus directed by Mies Van Der Rohe was closed down by the Nazis.

1945-Concentration camp at Buchenwald liberated. The Nazi guards had already fled and an inmate answered the phone when the Gestapo called. They ordered the camp blown up and the remaining inmates killed. The inmate answered not to worry, that they were already doing that. Then he went out to welcome the American tanks. Among the survivors was Nobel Laureate Ei Weisel, Simon Weisenthal and future leader of Communist East Germany Eric Hoehnegger.

1950- First day filming on the movie All About Eve. As Bette Davis said “Fasten your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy night.”

1951- When President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea a firestorm of protest erupted in Congress. Several leading senators called for the Presidents Impeachment! One California senator stood up and said he was for censure but was against impeachment. His name was Senator Richard M. Nixon.

1955- WABD in New York and KTLA in Los Angeles began running pre-1948 Warner Bros cartoon shorts in a half hour format, introducing the baby boomer generation to the world of Bugs, Daffy and Porky.

1957-Poet Pablo Neruda was arrested by authorities in Buenos Aires.

1968- After the Vietnamese Tet Offensive and President Lyndon Johnson’s announcement that he would not run for another term, Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford announced the US would send no additional ground troops to Vietnam. Even with 450,000 there already the generals wanted an additional 200,000. Congress threatened to cut off funding. The US government began to talk of de-escalation and disengagement, but it took another 5 years to do it.

1970-Apollo 13 blasts off for the moon. Halfway there an explosion will force it to return.

1979- Ugandan dictator Dr. Idi Amin-Dada driven out of power by a Tanzanian invasion. During his reign the mad dictator titled himself "Conqueror of the British Empire" and passed the time trying to wrestle crocodiles, rehearse mock invasions of Israel (a geographic impossibility ) and played drums in his own rock band.

1981- Valerie Bertinelli married rocker Eddie Van Halen.

1983- At that year’s Academy Awards the winner for Best Animated Short was Polish artist Zybigniew Rybcyzinski for his film Tango. During the ceremony he stepped outside for a smoke. When Security guards refused to let him re-enter he became combative, shouting the only English he knew:” I Have Oscar!”. He wound up in jail for assault and his Oscar wound up in the bushes.

2006 Italian police captured the capo-de-capo of the Sicilian Mafia, Salvatore Provenzano near the town of Corleone, the birthplace of Mario Puzo’s fictional Godfather. Don Provenzano had been hiding out for 43 years.
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Yesterday’s question: What was jus primae noctis?

Answer: Right of the First Night. Supposedly Medieval lords could claim the right to spend the first night of your wedding having sex with your bride. It is doubtful how wide spread this idea was, or even if it was ever done at all. It was talked about a lot during the French Revolution, as one more reason to hate the aristocrats.

History: What is the right of Just Primae Noctis?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a Pentathelete?
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History for 4/10/2009
Birthdays: Josef Pulitzer, Lew Wallace, George Arliss, Omar Sharif, Harry Morgan, Max Von Sydow, Ken Griffey Sr, Claire Booth Luce, Chuck Connors, John Madden, “Dandy”Don Meredith, Paul Theroux, David Halberstram, Steven Segal is 57, Orlando Jones, Mandy Moore is 25, Haley Joel Osment is 21

Today is Good Friday to Christians.

1741- Battle of Mollwitz- King Frederick the Great's first victory. His big battalions of Prussian-disciplined infantry defeated the Austrians even after his cavalry had been driven off the field, the King Frederick swept along in the rout. He thought he had lost. He was drinking his sorrows away in a pub, when he got the news of his victory.
The international fame of Frederick’s Army created an unexpected side industry. A Coburg toy maker named Andreas Hipert began selling mass market sets of toy soldiers modeled on his men. Flats made of lead and brightly painted, they were a big hit. Toy soldiers go back at least as far as the Romans. Medieval princes owned little replicas of knights. But Hipert created toys for average people.



1836- THE HELEN JEWETT MURDER- Helen Jewett was a beautiful, well-bred woman. But bad luck had brought her down to prostitution on the mean streets of New York. This night at a brothel at 41 Thomas St, she was murdered with an axe. Her partner shop clerk Richard Robinson was charged with the murder, but there was not enough evidence for a conviction. The Helen Jewett Case was the first Media-Sensation Crime in the US. The emerging mass media held the public spellbound for weeks with salacious details and lurid descriptions of the sad end of this Soiled Dove.



1849- Walter Hunt invented the safety pin. Hunt sold the pattern for $100 bucks.

1865- The day after Lee surrendered his army to Grant ending the Civil War many of Lee’s officers started going through the lines to visit old friends on the other side. Men who only the day before had been trying to kill each other today laughed and partied hardy. One of the visitors to Grant headquarters was Lee’s second in command General James Longstreet. Before the war Old Pete Longstreet was best man to Ulysses Grants wedding.

1866-The ASPCA founded.

1877- Honoring a political deal that helped win his election, President Rutherford Hayes began withdrawing occupying troops from the Southern States of the former Confederacy. This ends the period known as the Reconstruction. The South was once the wealthiest part of the U.S., by then it was the poorest. And all the civil and voting rights for black Americans that Lincoln had planned for postwar America were nullified.

1903- King Alexander Obrenovic of Serbia had become increasingly autocratic. His suspending the liberal constitution of 1889, installing press censorship and revoking secret balloting had made him very unpopular. This night a group of Serbian army officers broke into the Kings bedroom and murdered King Alexander and his Queen Draga. They hurled their naked bodies out of a window to smash onto the cobblestone courtyard below where more army officers proceeded to hack up the remains with their sabers. Peter Karageorgevic’ was elected new king. Mainstream world media was shocked by the brutality of the killings but the Head of the Serbian Church held a Thanksgiving Mass and there was a festive mood in Belgrade the rest of the week. One of the officers in the coup would later bankroll the Serbian terrorist group that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War One.

1906- O'Henry's story " The Gift of the Magi " first published.

1912- The White Star oceanliner RMS Titanic sailed from Southhampton on her maiden voyage. The loading ramp supposedly was crowned with a banner which read "The Ship that God could not Sink!" but that is a legend. Other hints of sinister premonition was the fact that for some reason the Titanic was launched but never christened. Whitestar was the shipping line millionaire J.P. Morgan set up to compete with British Cunard and be tied into his railroad monopolies. He wanted you to go from San Francisco to London or Bremen all on his transportation. Although White Star had other large ships that had excellent sailing records like the Olympic, the Titanic disaster and subsequent public hearings caused the White Star Company to eventually fail.

1919- Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata assassinated. Zapata went to see a colonel Jesus Guajardo who said he was willing to change over to his side. The colonel ordered his men to raise their rifles as if to fire a salute, but on a given signal lowered them and blasted Zapata away. Guajardo got 52,000 pesos and a promotion to general. Today’s Indian guerrillas in Chiapas call themselves Zapatistas.

1923- Peeps invented. The sweet Easter marshmallow confection that is shaped like a yellow baby chick and can stick to most surfaces.

1925- F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" published by Scribners.

1941- First Battle of Tobruk. When Rommel's Afrika Korps pushed the British army across the Libyan desert, the port of Tobruk held out for three months in an epic siege.

1942-THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH- not one of the highpoints in U.S.-Japanese relations. The Japanese code Bushido stated warriors should prefer death to capture. So a soldier who surrenders is beneath contempt. When twenty thousand trapped American and Philipino troops surrendered to the Japanese, they were sent back through the steaming jungles of Bataan on a forced march without food or water, the guards shooting and bayoneting those who dropped from exhaustion. These men were already starving when captured, their conquerors gave them food after nine days. Only half survived the ordeal, 12,000 died.

1947- THE FBI PAY A VISIT to Screen Actor’s Guild president Ronald Reagan and actress-wife Jane Wyman. They accuse them of belonging to Communist Party front organizations. Ronnie agrees to become an informer on his own guild, and just about everyone else in Hollywood. Jane Wyman later divorced him.

1951- GENERAL MacARTHUR FIRED BY PRESIDENT TRUMAN- Douglas MacArthur had been used to being his own boss in the Far East and he found the politics of global nuclear brinksmanship puzzling. He thought you fought wars to win them, not to maintain a stalemate. Truman was trying to limit the carnage of the Korean War from spreading into World War III. MacArthur had been ordered by Truman last December 4th not to make public statements about the Korean war without going through Washington first. So when against direct orders MacArthur issued his own ultimatum threatening the Communist Chinese with a nuclear firestorm on their cities and independently conferring with Chiang Kai Shek about his getting Nationalist Chinese armies into the war Truman had had enough. Truman ordered MacArthur home and replaced with General Matthew Ridgeway. Generals Eisenhower, George C. Marshall and Omar Bradley supported the president’s policy that the military must be subject to civilian authority. MacArthur didn’t get the news until he heard it on the radio. The public outrage at the humiliation of America’s legendary soldier was enormous but in time subsided. 60% of the Korean War’s battle casualties occurred in the two years after MacArthur’s dismissal. In 1964 the dying MacArthur sent a final message to President Lyndon Johnson begging him not to go into Vietnam.

1952-ELIA THE FINK-Film director Elia Kazan ( On the Waterfront, East of Eden,etc.) saved his career but earned the lasting hatred of Hollywood by testifying to the House Un American Activities Committee. He named 8 of his friends as Communists, including famed writer Clifford Odets. Unlike others who were forced to testify Kazan never expressed any regret for the pain he caused. Many see the irony of 'On the Waterfront' that it's hero is a guy who does the right thing by turning informer. The film was written by Bud Schulberg, who also named names. In 1999 the Academy gave him an honorary Oscar and caused a new firestorm of protest, when Kazan stood next to visibly uncomfortable Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorcese. There an estimated 40% of the audience did not rise or applaud, although on television it seemed louder. That year the American Film Institute preferred to confer it’s lifetime achievement award on Roger Corman, director of Attack of the Giant Crab Monsters.

1953- The Vincent Price film The House of Wax in 3d premiered.

1961- Singer Joan Baez entered the Greenwich Village club called Folk City and was accosted by a funny young man with a nasaly twang ;”Joan Baez! Here, I wrote a song for you!” His name was Bob Dylan. Baez and Dylan became friends and together changed the image of folk music.

1962- DON'T TRY TO DOUBLECROSS JFK ! The U.S. Steel Corporation had made a deal with the Kennedy Administration that if the feds leaned on the steelworkers union for a favorable labor settlement U.S. Steel promised not to raise wholesale prices which would hurt the U.S. economy. On this day chairman Roger 'Ben' Blough told John Kennedy they were reneging on the deal and raising prices anyway. Kennedy exploded- " My father always warned me that all businessmen were sons of bitches but I never believed him until now!" The Kennedy administration made things so hot for U.S. Steel that they cancelled the price increase a month later.

1962- Stuart Sutcliffe was the bass guitarist of the Beatles until creative differences and a marriage made him drop out of the band in favor of George Harrison. This day Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage at age 21.

1962- The Los Angeles Dodgers play their first game at their new Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. They lost to the Cincinnati Reds 6-3.

1969- Radical students of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) protesting the Vietnam War storm the administration buildings of Harvard. It takes 400 riot police and 197 arrests to drive them out.

1971- Rob Reiner married Penny Marshall.

1985- A new singer named Madonna began her first tour, the Virgin Tour.

1992- Raunchy- comedian Sam Kinison was killed in a head on collision with a truck on the road to Las Vegas. Ironically, the comedian who had glorified the wild sex, drugs and rock& roll lifestyle was sober at the time, and the truck driver was drunk. Kinison was a former evangelical minister, who was banned from NBC in 1986 for making jokes about Jesus’ Crucifixion on Saturday Night Live. Paramedics at the crash site claim they heard Kinison shortly before his death having a conversation with an invisible presence.



Others believe Kinison’s last words were “Oh, OOh –AAAUUUUGGHHHH!!!”

1997- The Jerusalem Post announced the birth of a red heifer at a kibbutz near Haifa. The birth of a red heifer is supposed to be the prerequisite for the coming of the Messiah and the End of the World. In 2003 the cow became brisket.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a pentathelete?

Answer: A contestant in the Olympic competition Pentathlon. It means five events-
1. 80 meter hurdles / 100 meter hurdles (after 1976 Olympic Games)
2. Shot Put
3. High jump
4. Long jump
5. 200 meters / 800 meters (after 1976 Olympic Games)

There is an interesting entry on Michael Sporn's sblog this morning about a Poopdeck Pappy walk. It was done by Bill Nolan, an early animator who with Otto Mesmer was responsible for the standard peanut shape cartoon character body with three fingered hands. The conversation with Mike about Nolan is by Borge Ring, the great Academy Award winning Danish animator who at age 85 is still going strong.

Check it out

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog

Quiz: What is a Pentathelete?

Yesterdays quiz answered below: Who was the first president to travel out of the country while still in office?
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History for 4/9/2009
Birthdays: Tartar conquerer Timur the Lame called Tamurlane, Vladimir Ulyanov called Lenin, Paul Robeson, Jean Paul Belmondo, Dennis Quaid, Ward Bond, Seve Balesteros, Carl Perkins, Michael Learned, Tom Lehrer, Paula Poundstone, Cynthia Nixon, Hugh Hefner is 83, Elle Fanning is 11

999 AD.- Sylvester II made pope, the first Frenchman. He reformed the way Popes were selected by organizing the College of Cardinals. Before that Popes were selected out of infighting between several leading Roman families. Tradition also says Sylvester was a sorcerer because he experimented with the medicinal properties of herbs and is credited with inventing the pendulum clock.

1241-MONGOLS ! BATTLE OF LEIGNITZ- The son of Genghis Khan, Ogodai, had dispatched four armies –one to China, one to Korea and one to Europe, the fourth was pushing south through Baghdad, Egypt and Palestine. This would complete his father’s master plan for world conquest This day the Mongol horde of Subotai ,Vuldai and Paidar clashed with the cream of East European knighthood on a plain in Poland.


Since they had burned Baghdad and killed the Caliph at first the western kings thought the Mongols were the magical knights of Prester John come from Cathay to save Christendom, but after they had destroyed Moscow, Budapest and Kracow the alarm spread. The Kings of England, France and even Norway prepared for the attack. This was the first meeting of the Mongols and Western Knights. The Kings of Poland and Bohemia were there as well as the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the Holy Orders of the Teutonic Knights and Livonian Sword Brothers.

The Mongols slaughtered them all easily. Paidar sent back to his overlord Batu Khan nine sacks of left ears taken from the slain, and King Henry of Bohemia’s head on a spear.

The only reason the Horde didn’t continue on to Paris and London as planned, was back in Mongolia the Great Khan Ogodai died. Since the Mongol Empire was never more than an enlarged tribal system, all Mongol elders had to stop everything they were doing and return home to Karakorum for a council -the Grand Kurlutai Then the Mongols left Europe as mysteriously as they had arrived.

1747- Famed British actor David Garrick signed a contract to take over the management of London’s Drury Lane Theatre.

1778- In Paris the philosopher Voltaire is initiated into the Masonic Order of the Nine Sisters on the arm of his friend, Benjamin Franklin.

1780- George Washington wrote the American emissary in Paris Richard Lawrence about our chances of winning the American Revolution:” We here are at the end of our tether. If we do not receive help soon all will be lost.”

1812- THE SACK OF BADAJOZ-The Duke of Wellington’s English army storms into a Spanish city held by Napoleons French forces. The battle typified the ferocity of the war in Spain. The French and pro-French Spaniards dropped explosives and rocks on the heads of the attacking English and imbedded the tops of their walls with broken glass and knife blades. The loss of life was so ghastly that when the redcoats finally breached the cities defenses they went berserk- looting, raping, and killing the civilian population. This is when Wellington called his men scum. Wellington always went through a depressed state after a battle, even his victories. At one point grizzled old General Sir Thomas Picton noticed Wellington weeping.”My God Arthur, what the devil are you blubbering on about?” was his reaction.

1859- Mark Twain received his Mississippi riverboat pilot’s license.

1865- APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE, THE END OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. Robert E. Lee surrenders the remains of his Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses Grant ( just 11,000 men from an 1863 peak of 70,000). Grant had had a migraine headache all morning until he received the note from Lee requesting terms. Grant’s staff understood that Lee’s note meant the end of the greatest cataclysm in U.S. history. One staff officer called for three cheers, but the men could only manage one weak hurrah, then all broke down in tears. All realized that at last, the killing was truly over.



Robert E. Lee arrived wearing his best dress uniform, Grant rode in from the field wearing an old muddy private’s jacket. Grant recalled when they met during the Mexican War, but Lee didn’t remember him. Grant kept making small talk, until Lee brought them back to the business at hand. Grant’s secretary was a Seneca Indian named Captain Ely Parker. Lee paused to say ”I’m glad there’s at least one real American here.”

The house they met in was owned by a man named Wilbur McClean, who moved his family for Bull Run to Appomattox to get away from the fighting. He managed to keep his belongings safe for four years of war. Now, after Lee and Grant left the historic meeting, the officers looted his place for souvenirs, George Custer riding off with the little surrender table perched on his head.

1914- THE TAMPICO INCIDENT- In the port of Vera Cruz a shore party from the USN gunboat Tampico was arrested by Mexican authorities while getting supplies. They were soon released and the Mexican Government apologized. But the US Admiral Mayo then demanded the Mexicans give the Stars & Stripes a 21 gun salute. The Mexican army said they would if the USN did the same salute to the Mexican flag. Washington didn’t want to do this, because it would have meant the US recognized the dictatorship of General Huerta, who had overthrown the legally elected President Madero. So instead, the US attacked Vera Cruz on April 21st, 20 Americans and 200 Mexicans killed. A newspaper at the time commented:” I can’t believe we almost went to war over some points of diplomatic etiquette!”

1914- The first all color film” The World, The Flesh and the Devil” premiered in London.

1917- Shortly after declaring war on Germany President Woodrow Wilson was confronted by old former President Teddy Roosevelt, who volunteered to lead a new regiment of volunteer Rough Riders into the World War One trenches. Wilson said thanks but no thanks. At the same time he also declined an offer from Annie Oakley to lead a company of lady sharpshooters into combat “Oakley’s Amazons”.

1942- Black opera star Marian Anderson gives her concert at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to an audience of 75,000. She was snubbed from giving a recital at the Daughters of the American Revolution Hall which caused a furious Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from the DAR and arrange this concert.

1948- Variety columnist Ben Mortimer had been needling Frank Sinatra for his advocacy of liberal causes. He accused Old Blue Eyes of draft-dodging and hinted maybe he had pro-Communist sympathies. This day Sinatra responded by meeting Mortimer in front of Ciro's restaurant on Sunset Blvd and punched his lights out.

1951- The day before he fired General Douglas MacArthur- President Harry Truman secretly sent to Korea five unassembled atomic bombs. These were to be armed and used if only the situation looked totally hopeless. They were never used .

1953- The first issue of the T.V. Guide.

1959- NASA introduced the first seven astronauts to the public: Donald Slayton, Alan Shepard, Walter Schirra, Virgil Grissom, John Glenn, Leroy " Gordo" Cooper, and Malcolm Carpenter- all military test pilots instead of scientists.

1965- Mickey Mantle hits the first indoor home run as the Astrodome opens with an exhibition game with the Astros hosting the Yankees. President Lyndon Johnson was supposed to throw out the first pitch but arrived late. Phillie catcher Bob Boone commented about the Astrodome "This is a tough yard for a hitter when the air conditioning is blowing in.."

1966-actress Sophia Loren married producer Carlo Ponti, with whom she had been living with for a decade, but not allowed to marry, because Catholics did not allow divorce from their previous spouses.

1974- Ray Kroc the founder of MacDonalds Restaurants was the owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team. After yet another sorry performance, losing 8-0, Kroc stormed over to the broadcast booth, grabbed the mike and out loud apologized to San Diego fans for his teams lousy playing” You Guys Stink!” Despite this morale boost, the Padres eventually did win championship pennants and get to the World Series.

1975- As North Vietnamese armies approached the South Vietnamese capitol of Saigon, President Gerald Ford issued an advisory to all Americans to evacuate the country.

1991- The last Horn & Hardardt Automat was closed on 42nd St in Manhattan. Philadelphia restauranters Joseph Horn and William Hardart saw German experiments in mass market automated restaurants, and imported the equipment to start one in Philadelphia in 1902.

1999- NATO planes bombed the Serbian factory that made the economy car the Yugo. Car enthusiasts rejoiced.

2003- Baghdad fell to invading US and British armies.

2004- Archaeologists in Cyprus discover a 9,000 year old grave of a New Stone Age man. In his arms is the remains of a kitten. This is the oldest evidence of man domesticating cats. So rest in peace- Gronk and Fluffy.

2005- Prince Charles wed Lady Camilla Parker-Bowles, his mistress of thirty years. They were not allowed to marry in Saint George’s Chapel in Windsor, the Queen avoided the ceremony and his father didn’t feel like interrupting his trip to Germany; and because of a delay to respect Pope John Paul II’s funeral, all the commemorative cups and dishes have the wrong date on them. Among the thirty invited guests, were Mrs. Bowles divorced husband.

2008- Stuntman Rupert MacDonald built a full size Viking ship out of popsicle sticks. 15 million to be precise.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the first president to travel out of the country while still in office?

Answer: Teddy Roosevelt traveled down to inspect the Panama Canal dig in 1904. Woodrow Wilson traveled to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919.

Quiz: Who was the first president to travel out of the country while still in office?

Yesterday’s quiz answered below: What was Country Music called before it was Country Music? Say in the 20s and 1930s.
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History for 4/8/2009
Birthdays: Gautama Buddha –as commemorated by Japanese custom-Kambutsue, Ponce De Leon, King Albert of the Belgians, Mary Pickford, Yip Harburg, Betty Ford, Sonja Henje, Jim Catfish Hunter, Jacques Brel, Julian Lennon, Carmen McCrae, Shecky Green, Douglas Trumbull, Robin Wright-Penn, Patricia Arquette

Happy Passover.

64AD est.- An advertisement found on a wall in Roman Pompeii: “ TWENTY PAIRS OF GLADIATORS sponsored by Decimus Lucretius Satrius Valens, lifetime priest of Nero Caesar and TEN PAIRS OF GLADIATORS sponsored by Decimus Lucretius Valens Minor (his son) will fight on April 8th –12th, Their will also be a suitable WILD ANIMAL HUNT , THE AWNING will be opened. “ Ticketmaster, Visa, Mastercard accepted.

217AD.-The Roman Emperor Caracalla was stabbed in the back while taking a pee during the Moon God Festival. He got caught with his toga down. The assassin Martialis tired to gallop away, but was brought down by a well aimed javelin. The Praetorian Prefect Macrinus becomes Emperor. The question here is: Was Macrinus a Black Roman Emperor? The Romans didn't have the same color prejudice we have, they were equally prejudiced against everyone. There were emperors like Phillipus the Arab, Vespasian the Spaniard and Percennius Niger- Black Percennius. But Macrinus was said to be a Moor. There are no surviving likenesses of him so we may never know.

1476-In Florence Leonardo da Vinci is accused of sodomy with his 17 year old male model. He was acquitted in a preliminary hearing, but in his sketchbook he designed a lockbusting tool, just in case.

1520- on a beach somewhere in what would be Argentina, Fernan de Magellan has three of his captains beheaded for trying to mutiny and turn back home. Of the 200 men and five ships in his expedition, only one ship with 16 skeletal men will ever see Spain again.

1778- John Adams arrived in Paris to help Ben Franklin negotiate with the French Court. Their secretary Bancroft was a British double agent. The dour New Englander Adams was offended by Franklin’s superstar popularity among the French- Queen Marie Antoinette referred to him as Le Ambassadeur Electrique, as well as Dr Franklin's habit of napping in the nude with the windows open -his “air baths”.

1793- CITIZEN GENET ARRIVES IN THE U.S.- The ambassador from the French Revolutionary Republic presented a dilemma for the George Washington Administration. The France that helped America win her independence was royal France, but Edouard Genet represented a fellow democratic republic, so far the only other one in the world. Common people in Philadelphia and New York danced and sang in the streets when they heard of the storming of the Bastille. The French Convention displayed a Stars and Stripes in their hall. A fashion started in America of calling each other “Citizen’ and “Citizeness”. Secretary of State Jefferson was pro French, Adams and Hamilton were anti.. Pres.Washington was pro-French until the Revolution had driven his friend Lafayette into exile. Rich Americans were afraid of the class anger the French revolutionaires were stirring up. Citizen Genet didn't help matters by openly trying to bribe American officials and publishing a list of all the prominent men of Boston he felt deserved to be guillotined. Finally President Washington was asking for Genet's recall. Then Genet learned HE was next on Robespierre's list to be guillotined when he returned home! So Genet asked for asylum and became a good American citizen.

1810- Admiral Thomas Cochrane, MP for Westminster, entered the British House of Parliament with a keg of gunpowder under his arm. He was trying to make a point in debate about defending his political allies.

1856- The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Company renamed themselves the Western Union Telegraph Company. In twenty years it became the largest corporation in the United States. Western Union stopped the personal telegram service in 2006.

1861-LINCOLN'S MOVE- Ever since Lincoln's election and the southern states declaring themselves an independent Confederacy, the thorny issue was the status of U.S. military bases on Confederate soil. The rebels sent commissioners led by Ex-president John Tyler to Washington to negotiate the peaceful transfer but Lincoln refused to meet them. The commander of Fort Leavenworth surrendered his post to Texas and Fort Pickens to rebel Florida. Only Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor South Carolina defiantly flew the Stars and Stripes. By now the U.S. garrison was running out of food and surrounded on all sides by hostile guns. Everyone wondered who would fire the first shot.
On this day Lincoln informed Governor Pickens of South Carolina that the U.S. government was sending a relief force to re-supply the fort. Jeff Davis had to make the decision to fire on the fort before the relief fleet could get there, thereby starting the shooting war. Davis recognized that Lincoln had deliberately outmaneuvered him into this situation, so as not to look like the U.S. would fire first .

1865- LEE'S DECISION- The Army of Northern Virginia led by Robert E. Lee had to abandon the Confederate capitol Richmond, and was now being pursued by two huge Union armies. At a small intersection named Appomattox Courthouse they found the last open road blocked by a third Yankee army. Lee had 10,000 starving effectives to put against 150,000 bluecoats. This night Lee held a last council of war to decide what to do. The younger officers proposed dispersing the army with instructions to rally in the Blue Ridge Mountains and continue fighting hit and run as guerrillas. But Lee dismissed this: "I'm getting too old for that sort of thing.' I must act on the wishes of the government. " General Gordon snapped: "Oh, to Hell with the Government! You are the Confederacy now !" All that's left of it is here!" After one more dawn attempt to break out of the trap, Lee concluded with a sigh:" I guess all that is left now is to go see General Grant, and I'd rather die a thousand deaths."

1876- Amiliare Ponchielli’s opera La Gioconda debuted. The ballet portion is famous as the Dance of the Hours.

1879- Milk first sold in glass bottles.

1904-THE ENTENTE CORDIAL- Britain and France end centuries of open hostility and sign the first of a series of alliances. Germany was shocked. They had historic claims to English friendship- in every war since William the Conquerer Germany and Britain were allies against France. For the last three years British foreign minister Joseph Chamberlain had been trying to negotiate the same exact kind of alliance with the Kaiser.Wilhelm exclaimed ."What would Wellington and Old Blucher think?" -the allies at Waterloo who defeated Napoleon. This ends the British period called "Splendid Isolation", throughout the Victorian Era the policy of the British Empire was no formal alliances with any major European land power. When the French offered an alliance twenty years earlier The Marquis de Salisbury told them:" Nous sommes des poisson. " We are fish" i.e. sea living people.

1911-Vitagraph releases Winsor McCay's short cartoon "Little Nemo" theatrically.

1913- The 17th Amendment passed that called for U.S. senators to be elected by popular vote instead of named by state legislatures. And Norm Coleman began his lawsuit.

1933-The WPA- Works Progress Administration-later renamed the Works Projects Administration founded. It was the Franklin Roosevelt Administration’s massive jobs program to heal the Depression by putting unemployed people back to work. They built bridges, dams, roads, federal buildings. The WPA arts projects employed artists like Grant Wood, Berenice Abbott and Thomas Hart Benton and put on plays with Orson Welles and John Houseman. There was even a WPA Symphony Orchestra, employing out of work classical musicians, including two old Russian immigrants who knew Tschaikowsky.

1942- The US government ordered all remaining heavy industry convert to war production for the duration of World War Two. From now until 1946 no new automobiles were made, no tin toys, there were almost no labor strikes. sugar, rubber and gas was strictly rationed. But the unemployment and low output of the Depression finally disappeared.

1973- Famed artist Pablo Picasso died at 91. His last words were 'Drink to me'. On his night table was a comic book drawn by former Disney animator Vip Partch. Picasso along with Churchill are the Epicurean poster boys- symbols for those of us who want to eat, drink alcohol, smoke, make babies at 81 and die in your 90's.

1974- Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's home run record. Hammerin' Hank hits #715 off Dodger pitcher Al Dowling. Aaron had tied the Babe’s record at the end of the previous season and had to endure an entire winter of stress and racial threats before he could come up to bat again and break the record on opening day of the new season. He retired with a new record of 755. Al Dowling joked: "I never say 7:15 anymore. I now say, 'It's a quarter after seven'."

1986- Actor Clint Eastwood was elected mayor of the town of Carmel, California.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was Country Music called before it was Country Music? Say in the 20s and 1930s.?

Answer. Hillbilly Music or Old Timey Music.