Quiz: Who were William S. Hart, Norma Talmadge, Lillian Gish and Wilma Banky?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: England has had Welsh Prime Ministers like Lloyd George, and Scots like Ramsay MacDonald. Has an Irishman ever been British Prime Minister?
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History for 4/15/2009
Birthdays: Leonardo DaVinci, composer Domenico Gabrieli, Nanak Ist – the Guru of the Sikhs 1469, Charles Wilson Peale, Theodore Rousseau, Henry James, Bessie Smith Queen of the Blues, Heinrich Klee, Kim Il Sung, Claudia Cardinale is 71, Roy Clark, Emma Thompson is 50, Olympic runner Evelyn Ashford, Alice Braga is 26, Seth Rogen is 27



Happy U.S. income tax day- celebrating the Internal Revenue Service who take their motto from the Roman Emperor Caligula : " Let them hate me, so long as they fear me..."

Fordicidia-Ancient Roman Festival where 31 pregnant cows are sacrificed in honor of Tellus, the Earth-Mother.

69A.D. Battle of Bedriacum. Otho the praetorian praefect and old orgy buddy of Nero's, lost his bid to stay Emperor of Rome to Vitellius and the Legions of Germany. Otho had knocked off the man who overthrew Nero, General Servius Galba. Galba was stabbed by a troop of cavalry while he was buying fruit in a market. After Otho was defeated in this battle he committed suicide. Vitellius was defeated by the end of the year by Vespasian and his Eastern legions. All these events transpired in one year which is why the Romans refered to A.D. 69 as" The Long Year".

1632- Battle of the Lech River. round one of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus vs. Catholic Imperial Duke Albrecht Wallenstein in the Thirty Years War.

1729- The Saint Matthew’s Passion oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach was first sung at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

1738-The Bottle Opener invented.

1755- Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language first published. Dr. Johnson first created the system of listing a word’s phonetic pronunciation, ancient roots and how to use the word in a sentence. The excellence of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary made him the virtual dictator of English writing in his time. Dr. Johnson allowed a bit of personal pique into his lexicographical prima non pares. He was annoyed that Lord Chesterfield pledged to finance his effort, but only sent a check for a measly ten pounds. When the book was a success his lordship claimed credit as Johnson’s benefactor. Dr. Johnson defined the word “Patron”- One who contributes Indolence, and pays in Flattery.”

1797-The Great Spithead Mutiney- Never mind the Bounty, here the whole blinking British Fleet mutinied against harsh conditions like flogging, press gangs and having to say “Arr-Mateys”in a silly voice whenever appropriate. Flogging was never officially prohibited in the British Navy, it just died out in the 1870's.

1822- The Captain Henry Expedition set off. Andrew Henry got together a team of mountain men including Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger and went off in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark to the source of the Missouri River 2500 miles into Montana. They tried to drag a small ship on wheels along with them but wound up abandoning it. The story was dramatized in the 1970’s Richard Harris film” Man in the Wilderness”.

1839- Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg are betrothed to be married. Actually it was Victoria who proposed to Albert, it was unseemly to speak to a queen otherwise. Victoria and Albert had been intended by political arrangement since they were 13, but they fell in love, which was considered quite unusual.

1850- The townships of Yerba Buena- Good Herbs, incorporated as the City of San Francisco.

1861- LINCOLN’S EDICT- In reaction to the attack by Confederate rebels on Fort Sumter President Lincoln declares the ten southern states in an open state of rebellion and calls for troops. Legally the Constitution did allow for the Southern States to secede and Lincoln couldn't get a declaration of war from a half empty Congress, so he found an obscure 1792 law that allowed the President to call up state militias without requiring a declaration of war. He enlists 175,000 men. Many regular army lieutenants and captains resigned from the national service so they could become generals and colonels in the militia. Even poor drunks like Ulysses Grant could get a captain's job from his local Ohio regiment. Frontier states were emptied of regular army men.

1865-LINCOLN DIED- After being shot at Ford's theater Abraham Lincoln finally expired at 7:08 am during a rainstorm. He had lingered all night without ever regaining consciousness. Mary Lincoln went into hysterics and had to be dragged from the room. She never entered the White House again. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had the White House sealed up under guard for two months until Vice President Andrew Johnson got up enough nerve to move in.
In North Carolina General Sherman was putting the finishing touches on the surrender negotiations for the army of Joe Johnston, the largest remaining Confederate army in the field after Robert E. Lee's. When Sherman received the news of the murder he passed the telegram to Johnston, who grew pale. They both agreed to suppress the news from their armies for several days so vengeance fighting wouldn't break out.

1871- Wild Bill Hickok became sheriff of Abilene Kansas, then a wild boom town filled with drunk cowboys and yahoos.

1874- The first Paris show of Impressionist Painting.

1912- The S.S Carpathia finally reached the Titanic disaster site to rescue 705 survivors in the bobbing lifeboats. The Titanic death toll is now estimated at around 1,522 out of 2200.
In 1998 there were seven survivors still living. Early reports of the disaster mentioned that the Titianic had struck an iceberg but that all was well. This day's Wall Street Journal noted the incident "proved a triumph of modern technology !"

1924- Tne Rand McNally Company published the first automobile road atlas or North America.

1925- Ford introduced the first Model-T Pickup truck. Up to now farmers had cut the backs off cars and welded boxes on to make a light-load vehicle. There was also an earlier pickup truck called the International, but it had limited distribution.

1927- First Hollywood star's footprints in cement ceremony at Grauman's Chinese theater. Called Hollywood's most enduring publicity stunt. Norma Talmadge, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Sid Grauman himself are the first to leave their prints. Grauman also invented the classic Hollywood premiere with spotlights, red carpet runways and chauffered limousines.

1934- Chief of production Darryl Zanuck quit Warner Bros. over an argument about employee salary cuts to take over a struggling little movie studio called Twentieth Century Fox, which he turns into a giant.

1935-Kodachrome film developed. First as motion picture film, later for home photography.

1940- Franklin Roosevelt covertly gave permission for American volunteer pilots to join General Claire Chennault in fighting the Japanese invasion of China as part of a foreign corps serving in the Chinese air force. The Flying Tigers are born.

1945- Eva Braun left the comparative safety of Munich and traveled to Berlin to be with Hitler in his bunker. She told a friend. ”A Germany without Adolf Hitler would not be fit to live in.”

1947- Jackie Robinson takes the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers. First black player to join the Major Leagues. Up until then the Brooklyn Dodgers in their history had never won more than 2 pennants. After Robinson and Campanella and other Negro league players were added they won 6 in 7 years and a World Series.

1951- General MacArthur prepared to leave Japan after being sacked by President Truman. The Japanese adored their American Shogun who helped reform their society from postwar chaos. Even though he left his offices in the Daiichi Building for his plane at 6:00AM the crowds to see him off were already ten deep.

1952- The Franklin Savings Bank issued the first credit card in the U.S.

1953- Famed illustrator Charles R. Knight died peacefully in a Manhattan hospital. The man who inspired the lush look of such films as 1933 King Kong, his last words were to his daughter Lucy, “Don’t let anything happen to my drawings.”

1955- The First MacDonald's Restaurant franchise opens in Des Plains, Ill. Ray Kroc, a travelling milkshake machine salesman, buys into a franchise restaurant idea cooked up by two brothers named MacDonald from Santa Bernadino. He urged the brothers to go national with their pre-prepared food system but the brothers wanted to stay local. So he offered them 1 million bucks for their idea and name (would you go to" Kroc's?") and the rest is history. The oldest surviving MacDonald’s from 1953 in Downey California was recently destroyed despite the efforts of historians and replaced with a plastic plaque.

1961- 48 hours before the Bay of Pigs Invasion Fidel Castro told the world his Cuban Revolution was Communist and he asked the Soviet Union and Red China for aid. He also ordered the arrest of 20,000 enemies of his regime. Since taking power in 1959 Castro had been cagey about the nature of his politics, but he used hatred of the Yankee Imperialistas as a strong national unifier. When he visited the US for the opening of the United Nations he was snubbed by most of the State Department except a 20 minute meeting with Vice President Nixon. Still, he tried to stay non-aligned until he knew the CIA was readying a coup against him. Fidel aka “The Beard” has since stayed in the Communist camp and outlasted nine US presidents.

1962-AUNTIE EM, AUNTIE EM! actress Clara Blandick, 80, the Auntie Em of the Wizard of Oz, took an overdose of sleeping pills and tied a plastic bag around her head. She left out on a table her resume and press clippings so the newspapers would get her obituary right.

1974- A surveillance camera picks up Heiress Patricia Hearst , now called Tanya, robbing a San Francisco bank with other members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the group that kidnapped her.

1983- Tokyo Disneyland opens.

1989- Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yao Bang died. His funeral gathered mass rallies of pro-democracy students and workers that culminated in the Tien ah Mehn Square Movement.

1990- Kennan Ivory Wayans comedy show In Living Color premiered on FOX TV. The show made stars of Marlon Wayans, Damon Wayans, Jamie Fox, Jim Carrey and Fly-Girl Rosie Perez.

1994- English ice skater John Curry who created the concept of Ice Dancing, died of HIV/AIDS at 44.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: England has had Welsh Prime Ministers like Lloyd George, and Scots like Ramsay MacDonald. Has an Irishman ever been British Prime Minister?

Answer: The Duke of Wellington, Victor of Waterloo, Prime Minister 1828-1834, was born in Dublin of Anglo-Protestant ancestry. When someone mentioned his being Irish, he said:” Just because one was born in a stable, does not necessarily make one a horse.” Despite comments like this, Dubliners raised a monument to him anyway.

Quiz: England has had Welsh Prime Ministers like Lloyd George, and Scots like Ramsay MacDonald. Has an Irishman ever been British Prime Minister?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a Catch 22?
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History for 4/14/2009
Birthdays: Sir John Gielgud, Papa Doc Duvalier- Haitian dictator 1907, Robert Doisneau, Rod Steiger, Loretta Lynn, Morton Sobotnick, Frank Serpico, Pete Rose, Julie Christie, Anthony Michael Hall, Steve Martin is 59, Sarah Michelle Geller is 32, Adrien Brody is 36.

73-A.D. MASADA- After the great Jewish revolt against Rome was crushed by Titus and Jerusalem destroyed, two legions remained behind to do mopping up of guerrillas. A group of zealots, Essene rabbis and their families held out in a mountaintop stronghold for two years in an epic siege. The night before the Zealots realized the Roman siege engines were about to breach the walls. They resolved to not be taken alive. This day soldiers of the Tenth Legion Felix broke into the quiet works. They found 960 corpses. The zealots had preferred mass suicide to slavery. Contrary to modern sensibilities the Romans were not horrified by the ghastly scene, Greco-Roman ethics considered suicide a rational way out of a bad situation, it’s what the Romans would have done in similar circumstances. They expressed grudging admiration of their Jewish foes. The fortress was rediscovered in 1947.

1543- Explorer Bartolomeo Ferrelo returned to Spain with news of a big new harbor he discovered on the Pacific coast of California that he named for his patron Saint Francis- San Francisco Bay.

1828- The first edition of Noah Webster’s Dictionary published. In the 70.000 entries Webster made it a point to separate American English from the King’s English. This is when “Colour” became “Color” Theatre became Theater and Checque became Check.

1865- ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSASSINATED-Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot the President in the back of the head as he watched the play "Our American Cousin". Lincoln had seen the play several times and knew most of the lines by heart. Booth lept onto the stage and shouting something. It may have been” Sic Semper Tyrannus-And thus with Tyrants” the motto of the State of Virginia, or “The South is Avenged”. No one is sure. That same night Booths accomplice Lewis Paine, stabbed Secretary of State William Seward in his bed. When Seward’s son tried to stop him Paine broke his skull and ran out into the street shouting "I am Mad!" Another man named George Atzenrodt was supposed to kill the Vice President but he lost his nerve and did nothing.
In the box with the Lincolns were a Major Henry Rathbone and his fiance' Miss Clara Harris. Lincoln had asked General & Mrs. Grant to join them at first but the Grant's declined. Nellie Grant didn’t like Mary Lincoln. Anyhow, to Clara Harris this was a pretty lousy first date, watching the president get a bullet in the brain, her dress splattered with Major Rathbone's blood from being slashed by Booth and seeing Mrs. Lincoln go insane, but she married Rathbone anyway. Rathbone was never the same man. Ten years later while living as ambassador to the German city of Hanover Rathbone murdered Clara and was confined in an asylum for the criminally insane.

1871- Canada set it’s currency in dollars, cents and mills.

1883- Leopold Delibes’ opera Lakme premiered in Paris.

1906- The Azusa Street Church opened. Rev William Seymour began the first Pentacostal-Charismatic Church, a movement that spread around the world.

1912-RMS TITANIC SINKS- At 11:40PM The unsinkable luxury liner going too fast and 14 miles off course strikes an iceberg and goes down, taking millionaires and immigrants alike. As the stricken liner sank, the cruiser SS Californian watched a short distance away. They could have saved more people but their radio man had gone to bed and they thought the emergency flares lighting up the night sky were party skyrockets. No one was saved until the SS Carpathia arrived on the scene at dawn.
John Jacob Astor IV upon being told only women and children were allowed in the lifeboats went back and dressed in his smoking jacket and had some more champagne. Izadore Strauss, the creator of Macy's Dept. Store success, ordered his wife onto the lifeboat. She said "Izzy, I've not followed you everywhere for 40 years to separate now!" . She put her fur coat on the shoulders of her maid and they went down to their cabin. The heroism of the wealthy was admirable but it was still the Age of Privilege- the poor immigrant passengers were kept from the upper decks by locked gates. 1,500 drowned while half empty boats were lowered.
A strange fact is in 1898 a writer named Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called Futility, in which an 880 ft luxury liner sank on her maiden voyage in the month of April. The fictitious ship was named the Titan.

1914-At a baseball game in Washington William Howard Taft becomes the first President to throw out the season's first ball.

1925- WGN broadcasts its first regular season baseball game. Quinn Ryan behind the mike as Grover Cleveland Alexander and the Cubs defeated the Pirates on Opening Day, 8-2.

1927- The first Volvo automobile rolled off the assembly line in Goteborg Sweden.

1930- Russian poet Vladimir Mayakowsky shot himself. This was convenient for Stalin because Mayakowsky had grown disillusioned with the Soviet regime. Stalin made a great public spectacle of his funeral.

1935- THE DUST BOWL - The drought conditions and over farming in the plains states had been building for years but this storm climaxed the decade long event. On this day a big dust storm struck Cimmarron County Oklahoma. It blacked out the sun over five states. Cattle choked, calves and children disappeared in the drifts. Not even weeds would grow in it. The dust got through cracks in houses and when you awoke in the morning the only clean spot on your pillow was where your head lay. After this storm the migration of farmers rose until the estimate was 40% of the populations of the drought stricken areas. People from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas and Missouri piled their worldly goods onto their jalopies and got on Route 66 West to California. They were nicknamed 'the Oakies, and their plight was dramatized in the songs of Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1956- In Redwood City, Cal. Charles Ginsburg, Ray Dolby and Charles Anderson demonstrate the first videotape recording machine. They were going then for a mere $75,000 each.

1960- The musical Bye Bye Birdie opened on Broadway.

1962- Bob Dylan recorded “Blowing in the Wind”.

1963- Beatle George Harrison was impressed by an unsigned rock band he just heard called the Rolling Stones.

1999-Former Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson stunned the male population of the world by announcing she had her breasts implants removed. She soon had them put back.

2005- Baseball returned to Washington D.C 34 years after the Washington Senators left to Texas, the Washington Nationals played their first game.

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Yesterday’s Question: What is a Catch 22?

Answer: It comes from a 1961 novel by Joseph Heller ostensibly about bomber crews in World War Two, but in reality about the illogic of bureaucracy. For instance the novel’s hero Yousarian doesn't want to fly sorties through flak infested skies, but that proves he's sane, and the only way to get out of the assignment is to be crazy. In another situation the Captain of the squadron accepts money from the Germans to bomb his own airfield, because they don’t have enough planes, and if the German threat seems over, they might get reassigned somewhere else.

The phrase Catch-22 has come to mean a logical impossibility in a no-win situation.

Alan Arkin in the movie version of Catch -22

Question: What is a Catch 22?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why an Easter Rabbit? Why not an Easter mule? Easter sea-sponge?
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History for 4/13/2009
Birthdays: St. Thomas Becket, Thomas Jefferson*, Frederick Lord North, Samuel Beckett, Dame Eudora Welty, Al Green, Jack Cassidy, Butch Cassidy, Franklin W. Woolworth, Howard Keel, Don Adams, Ricky Schroeder, Peabo Bryson, Ron Perleman, Stanley Donen, Alfred Butts the inventor of Scrabble, Disney animator Glen Keane is 55

* For many years in the early American republic Jefferson's birthday was a holiday.

1387- A party of 29 English pilgrims assemble to travel to the shrine of Canterbury. The trip was immortalized by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales.

1598- King Henry IV of France tried to end the religious strife tearing his country apart by publishing the Edict of Nantes- granting freedom of worship to all. At this time the Edict of Nantes shocked Pope Clement VIII. He cried:" Every man with freedom of conscience? What can be worse than that?!"

1775- British Prime Minister Lord North had placed rebellious Massachusetts colony under an act called the Restraining Act. It declared that the New Englanders were not allowed to do business with any other nation but Britain. This day Lord North extended the act to cover the other colonies of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Carolinas. He inadvertently gave the widely separated crown colonies in North America even more reason to work together, like they were an independent nation.

1829- THE CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION BILL PASSED IN ENGLAND. The previous June Irish orator Daniel O'Connell had successfully run for Parliament but was denied his seat because he was a Catholic. The old Duke of Wellington, now Prime minister of a Tory Government, believed the only way to keep his birthplace Ireland from collapsing into chaos and open rebellion was sweep away these outdated bans on the Roman Catholic religion, kept since the days of Henry VIII and the Reformation. To pass this bill he had to convince the radicals, Whigs, Ultras, Tories of his own party, the reluctant King and even fight a duel. It was his biggest fight since Waterloo. But the bill passed and was considered the crowning achievement of his government. It probably kept Ireland under English rule for another generation.

1843- Chang and Eng Bunker, the original Siamese Twins, were married to two women in a double ceremony. The must have coordinated times for connubial privacy, for they produced 21 children.

1865-After the surrender to Grant, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, now a private citizen, leaves his last army camp to ride back to a rented house in war destroyed Richmond. Along the road he dismissed the Yankee guards accompanying him for protection." I am in my own country now among my own people. I wish to be no further bother to you." The commander of thousands of troops now was alone on his white warhorse Traveller with two blanket covered wagons, one with a sick friend in it. On the road he met a group of rebel soldiers walking home and gave them road directions using one of his 8 foot long military maps drawn by Stonewall Jackson. He told rebels who wanted to keep fighting" As you have been model soldiers, go home now and be loyal American citizens."

1870- New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.

1902- J.C. Penny opened his first store in Kemmerer Wyoming.

1919-At the Golden Temple at Amritsar British troops opened fire on Sikh's peacefully demonstrating for independence. 379 killed. Their commander was given a stern reprimand. Queen Elizabeth II apologized to India in 1997.

1928 - THE MULHOLLAND "TRIAL" ENDS – William Mulholland, the genius engineer who created the great aqueducts that brings water down to Los Angeles was on trial for the St. Fransquito Dam Disaster. When a dam near Newhall burst sending a 30 foot wall of water careening down on sleeping suburbanites. 400 perished. On this day, the jurors of the Los Angeles County Coroner's inquest into the disaster emerged from their two weeks of deliberations. They named William Mulholland responsible, although innocent of criminal negligence. Deputy D.A. Asa Keyes trumped the ruling a "victory for the people", despite his earlier promise to have Mulholland convicted of manslaughter. He was free of jail, but Mullholland was a broken man. He had his chauffeur drive him aimlessly around the city he helped create. He became a shut in for the last seven years of his life. D.A. Keyes later went to jail himself for misappropriation of funds.

1939- The film Wuthering Heights starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon premiered. Sam Goldwyn was disgusted by the headaches to bring this Charlotte Bronte novel to the Hollywood Screen. When asked if he planned to adapt more 19th Century novels for film he replied: "Don’t bring me no more scripts by guys who write with feathers!"

1943- Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial at the Washington D.C. Mall.

1949- Lead character designer and story artist Joe Grant resigned from Disney Studios, not to return until 1989.

1962-The New York Mets (metropolitans) Baseball Club formed. They played at the old Giants park ,the Polo Grounds, until Shea Stadium was built in 1964 next to the Worlds Fair grounds. The team adopted the Blue and Orange logo colors of the Fair as their own. Blue and Orange were also the colors of the moved away Brooklyn Dodgers and NY Giants. The 62’ Mets were famous for their awful record, the cry was Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? Players like Marvelous Marv Throneberry became famous for their mediocre play. Manager Casey Stengel titled his memoirs "I Managed Good, but Boy, Did They Play Terrible !" In 1969 The Amazin’ Mets won their first World Series.

1964- Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor for the film Lilies of the Field. The first Oscar for any black actor or actress went to Hattie MacDaniel as Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind in 1939. Best actress was not won until Halle Berry in 2002.

1970-"Houston, we have a problem here.." An explosion of an oxygen tank disabled the Apollo XIII moon mission. For the next several days the world held it's breath as the spacecraft ricocheted itself around the moon and got back to Earth, the slightest miscalculation of trajectory meant a cold airless death for the three astronauts.

1987- Colorado Senator Gary Hart announced his intention to run for president. During the election Hart decried the media's obsession with scandal and openly challenged the press to try and dig something up on him. They did. In short order they turned up proof of his adulterous affair with beautiful model Donna Rice complete with naughty photos taken on board a yacht named the Monkey-Business. Hart's political career sank like a stone and today Ms. Rice lobbies Congress to ban pornography on the Internet.

1997- 21 year old golf phenomenon Tiger Woods won his first Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes.
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Yesterday’s question: Why an Easter Rabbit? Why not an Easter mule? Easter sea-sponge?

Answer: Easter is named for Oster or Aster, German goddess of the East Wind,. In 63AD. Baodicea, The British warrior queen who battled the Roman legions of Nero had on her flags the Great Moon-Hare, who was the servant of Oster. In 1680 a German writer named Georg Franck published a story of a fantastic rabbit who laid magic eggs and hid them for lucky children to find.

Question: Why an Easter Rabbit? Why not an Easter mule? Easter sea-sponge?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Why is Easter called Easter? Why not Jesus Resurrection Day..?
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History for 4/12/2009
Birthdays: Henry Clay, Lily Pons, Lionel Hampton, David Letterman-61, Herbie Hancock, Monserrat Caballe', Ann Miller, Tiny Tim, Shannon Dougherty, Andy Garcia, Claire Danes



HAPPY EASTER, Commemorating the time when Jesus Christ was crucified and after three days rose from the dead. For those of you who always wondered why Easter moves around so much when the other holidays stay put, the Medieval Church wanted the festival of Jesus moved from any connection with the Jewish Passover. So Church doctors decided the Easter feast would be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox-Spring. Makes sense to me..? The Resurrection story has roots in other cultures- Osiris in Egypt, Dionysius and Orpheus in Greece and Odin in Scandinavia all had death and resurrection myths about them. In the early Church a major heresy arose called Gnosticism or Arian Christians. A Bishop Arrius speculated “If Christ was God on Earth how could you kill God? He must have been only pretending to be dead” Orthodox Christians led by Bishop Athanasius argued that the central truth is Jesus suffered death and resurrection.

65AD.-SENECA DIED- The Roman philosopher Seneca committed suicide after his old pupil the Emperor Nero ordered him to. The poet Lucan was also forced to kill himself. When Caesar sent you an indictment for treason, you knew the verdict would be guilty already. So Romans had the option of avoiding the public trial and painful execution by committing suicide in the comfort of their own home. This also ensured your wealth would go to your family and not be confiscated by the state. Seneca had previously condemned by Emperors Caligula and Claudius as well but always managed to wiggle out of it. But now his luck ran out. While Nero's Praetorian guards waited the old man opened his veins, but his circulation was so bad that it was taking him forever. The soldiers patience finally exasperated, they took him in to his steam bath and suffocated him.

1606- The Union Jack adopted as the official flag of Great Britain. It showed the union of Scotland's cross of St. Andrew (white diagonal cross on blue background) with England's cross of St. George (red perpendicular cross on white background).

1633- GALILEO FACED THE INQUISITION- Galileo was forced to publicly recant the theories of Copernicus before the court of the Holy Inquisition. The argument of hot irons and thumbscrews outweighed his mathematical proof that the earth went around the sun.
Copernicus had shrewdly avoided this problem by publishing his theory on his deathbed.
The Catholic Church kept Galileo under house arrest for the rest of his life, and even Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin considered him a dangerous lunatic. His conviction was overturned in 1827 and the Holy See admitted he might have been right in 1989. When he heard of Galileo’s censure Frenchman Rene Descartes was intimidated enough to stop writing Le Monde, a book summing up his major philosophical and scientific conclusions. Supposedly as Galileo was leaving the courtroom he whispered to a friend " eppi si muove !" but it does move!.

1709- In London the first issue of the Tattler published. “All accounts of gallantry, pleasure, poetry, foreign and domestick news you will have from Saint James Coffeehouse.”

1796- George and Martha Washington sit for painter Gilbert Stuart. Washington had little patience for painters so it was an event to get him to sit still. Stuart noted that the General was a singularly uncooperative model. He tried small talk about his famous battles but that made GW even more annoyed. Washington much preferred a discussion on how to raise snap beans to reliving his military career. The likeness Stuart painted became the basis for many other paintings and prints. Today it is on the U.S. one dollar bill. Gilbert Stuart at one point moved to England because the only commissions he ever got were people wanting copies of his Washington portraits.

1843- A charter to sell Life Insurance is granted to the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, beginning the American insurance industry.

1861-THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BEGINS-For the previous twenty years Southerners and Northerners debated slavery and the right of a state to leave the American union. Guerilla violence had already been raging in border states like Missouri and Kansas when in response to Abraham Lincoln’s election 11 states announced the formation of a new country- The Confederate States of America. In the tense months after the Southern States declared independence a question arose. Who now owned U.S. Army bases and their property on Southern soil ? Fort Leavenworth & Fort Fisher gave up without a struggle. The one other obvious place was Fort Sumter, sitting out in the middle of Charleston Bay, South Carolina. U.S. Col. Robert Anderson would defend the flag even as he was surrounded by hostile batteries, commanded by his former West Point pupil Gen. Pierre Beauregard. In the wee hours of April 12th secessionist journalist Edmund Ruffin was allowed to fire the first shot at the fort.
After a five hour cannon duel the fort surrendered. Ironically the only fatality was when a soldier was killed by a ruptured cannon while firing a final salute to the lowering Stars & Stripes. This was the almost bloodless beginning to the bloodiest war in U.S. history. When the war was over Edmund Ruffin wrapped himself in a Confederate flag and shot himself, preferring death to "living in a universe populated by the vile Yankee race!"

1864-THE FORT PILLOW MASSACRE-Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest overran a small Yankee post manned by black troops and pro-union Tennesseans. The Rebels shot down 300 of the garrison, many just because they were black. Forrest later claimed it was because they refused to surrender and kept fighting after the flag was pulled down, but that is disputed. Some say his action was to prove black solders would not fight. If so he miscalculated – thousands of free black men rushed to enlist, dropping on one knee to take an oath to avenge Fort Pillow. After the Civil War Forrest was the first Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He resigned when they became too violent even for him.
His reputation dogged him the rest of his life. At the 1868 Democratic Convention in New York a Quaker woman broke into his hotel while he was still asleep and demanded to know if he was the Butcher of Fort Pillow. Nathan Bedford Forrest rose from his bed and bellowed “YES! I HAD THE MEN AND WOMEN MURDERED SO MY MEN COULD HAVE A MEAL THEN I ATE THEIR BABIES FOR BREAKFAST! ARE YOU SATISFIED NOW, MADAME?”

1865- The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia lays down its arms in a field outside Appomattox Courthouse surrounded by massed union troops. Lee and Grant both were not present. Grant left specific instructions that no union soldiers were to publicly celebrate: ”Those people are no longer our enemies, they are our fellow Americans. We will not exult in their downfall.” General John Gordon led the ragged procession with the 250 surviving members of the Stonewall Brigade, who began the war as 4,500. Yankee Medal of Honor winner Joshua Chamberlain demonstrated the warriors ability to forgive by commanding his men to salute the Confederates, who snapped to attention and returned salute.

In North Carolina when a hard riding dispatch rider with the news reached the front of Sherman’s western army, one soldier greeted him: “ You’re the sonofabitch I’ve been waiting four years for !”

1911- Cartoonist Winsor McCay opened his vaudeville act with his "Little Nemo" animated short.

1912- A slightly built London theater manager and failed author named Bram Stoker died. His seven books and several plays made little money in his time. But a decade later one of his novels entitled Dracula made him world famous.

1945- PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT DIED. The government knew since 1943 that FDR's health was failing and he would probably die in office. Roosevelt was at his Warm Springs Georgia retreat in the company of an old flame, Lucy Mercer whom he had promised Eleanor never to see again. The assignation was arranged by their daughter Alice, who promised not to tell her mom. Mom found out. FDR’s last words” I have a splitting headache..”. The nation was shocked. In his Berlin bunker with the Red Army knocking on the door Adolf Hitler was jubilant because he felt this was an astrological omen of final Nazi victory.

The portrait FDR was sitting for when he died.

Vice President Harry Truman was enjoying one of his whiskey & poker parties with House Speaker Sam Rayburn when he got the phone call. "Jeezus Christ and General Jackson !!"-was his response. He was rushed to the White House while the staff went crazy looking for a Bible to swear him in -confirming the suspicions of many about FDR's religious attitude. Finally a Gideon guest bible turned up in a guest room drawer and the 33rd President was sworn in. Truman told Eleanor:" I'll pray for you." Eleanor replied: "No Harry. We'll pray for YOU."

1945- Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton toured a Nazi concentration camp and saw for themselves the horrors of the Holocaust. Eisenhower ordered the press to film everything, because as he said:” Someday some people might say this was exaggerated and never happened. Let them see for themselves” As he was leaving the camp Ike turned to a US Army guard and said:” Still need a reason to hate them ? I never thought I’d be ashamed to be German. ” Eisenhower’s ancestors emigrated from the Rhineland and settled in Kansas in the 1800’s.

1954- "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK' recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets- arguably the first true Rock & Roll hit.

1955- the Salk vaccine for Polio made available to the public.

1961-THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE- No, it was not John Glenn, you dupe of Capitalist Propaganda! It was Soviet Major Yuri Gargarin aboard Vostok 1.

1981- The first space shuttle Columbia took off. After 26 flawless missions in 2003 the Columbia disintegrated upon reentry killing all aboard.

1995- To celebrate David Letterman’s 49th birthday, actress Drew Barrymore climbed up on his desk and flashed her breasts at the bucktoothed talkshow host.


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

Answer: Easter is named for Oster or Aster, German goddess of the East Wind, the first warm wind of Spring, who’s sacrifice was painted eggs laid at her alter.

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.