Quiz: Who were Murray the K and Cousin Brucie?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: : I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels ?
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History for 4/22/2008
Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael , Alexander Kerensky, Arron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page, Marylin Chambers, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters, Jack Nicholson is 72

Happy Earth Day (since 1970)

753 B.C.-Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. The Romans counted time from this foundation date. So A.D. 1 to them was 754 AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae- from the "Founding of the City". So this year 2006 is 2,760 AUC.

1370-Beginning of construction on the castle/prison in Paris called La Bastille.

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1769- Madame DuBarry officially presented at the French Court. King Louis XV’s earlier mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were women of breeding and culture. But DuBarry was a saucy little trollop who had already schtupped most of the men of the court. When the Duc d’ Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this vulgar new toy, His Majesty replied:" She makes me forget that I shall soon be sixty."

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate. Lord Byron was on board and called Lord Elgin, the supervisor of this act, "The Spoiler". Today the marbles are still at the British Museum and the Greeks are still mad about it.

1876- Composer Peter Tschaikowsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1889-At noon on the signal of a cannon shot The Great Oklahoma Land Rush began. The town of Oklahoma City was set up in one day-population 10,000. The settlers who slipped in early were nicknamed Sooners and Oklahoma became known as the Sooner State. This eats up the remains of the land of the Cherokee Nation, who once owned all of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. The Cherokee kept their land in common, which to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was their downfall: "The Cherokee possess many attributes except Greed, which we all know is the basis for Civilization."

1898- Teddy Roosevelt formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry, called the Rough Riders. It was a curious mix of Teddys' personal tastes- Harvard bluebloods and polo champions mixed with rough western cowboys and rodeo stars.

1906- In earthquake destroyed San Francisco, one day after the last of the fires were declared officially out, the Market Street cable car began running once more.

1915- Second Battle of Ypres- First use of poison gas on Western front battlefields. German Jewish Dr. Fritz Hauber and friend of Albert Einstein, was convinced his experiments to create poison gas would win wars. He ran from battlefield to battlefield ensuring it was being used correctly. At this time his wife committed suicide. The Chlorine clouds did cause a huge panic in the British ranks, that opened the way to Paris, but the German generals were too cautious to follow up their surprise and the Canadians fought fiercely to close the gap. Although they had no gas masks, a quick thinking Canadian doctor ordered his men to urinate into their own handkerchiefs, then tie it around their faces. Although exceedingly gross, the ammonia counteracted the gas enabling them to fight on.

1916- THE IRISH EASTER SUNDAY UPRISING -Patrick Pearse, Richard Connolly, Michael Collins, Eamon De Valera and followers seize the O'Connell Street post office in downtown Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic. After furious gunbattles with British troops diverted from the World War I battlefields the rebellion is put down. All the ringleaders were executed, Connolly was so badly wounded that they had to prop up his stretcher before the firing squad and pinch his cheeks so he'd be awake for his death. Future Irish President Eamon De Valera pleaded his U.S. citizenship to escape execution. The Irish people in the majority hadn't wholly supported the futile rising, but ironically the fierce police crackdown had the effect of arousing sympathy for their cause and sparked the major IRA campaigns in the 20's and eventual liberty. One young boy running errands aiding the British Black & tans would eventually grow up to be Lord Haw-Haw, the British traitor voice of Nazi radio

1934- In Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in Wisconsin Public Enemy No.1 John Dillinger shot his way out of a FBI ambush. The FBI not only failed to stop Dillinger, they shot an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

1940- Writer Ernest Hemingway cabled his editor Max Perkins from Havana about a new novel he was writing.-" Title is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from passage John Donne Oxford Book of English bottom page seventy one STOP Please register immediately."

1945- While the Red Army was attacking the outskirts of Berlin, Adolph Hitler sent away to the south his personal belongings and files in a final Luftwaffe flight of ten planes. One plane was shot down carried some of his most private possessions. Hitler called it a catastrophe. What was in that plane that he valued so much? See April 24th about the infamous Hitler Diary 1983 hoax. It’s a mystery to this day.

1952- The first nuclear bomb test shown on network TV -Tommy Turtle says duck and cover!

1954- THE ARMY–McCARTHY HEARINGS began. Conservative Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee chasing communists in the government had finally bit off more than it could chew when it took on the U.S. Army. Sparked by the drafting of Private G. David Shine, a young crony (and possibly lover ) of chief counsel Roy Cohn, a hearing was held to investigate Senator’s McCarthy’s charges that the Secretary of the Army and several other top Pentagon officers were in reality Russian spies. After a short time the hearing evolved from an indictment of the army into a probe of Senator McCarthy’s red baiting tactics. It lasted for three months and spellbound the nation on live t.v. At one point Senator McCarthy submitted a note that the television cameras be turned off for a minute so he could wipe his nose. After one heated session Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy had to be separated or they would’ve come to blows. Finally under the withering voice of Joseph Walsh "Senator, have you no shred of decency?!" McCarthy was finished as a political force.

1954- The U.S. Congress added the phrase "In God We Trust" on to US currency

1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a Teach-In to bring attention to environmental issues.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born.

1996- Christopher Robin Milne dies at age 75. The young boy who’s fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

2000- The estranged wife of Mr Juan Gonzales of Cuba had grabbed their son Elian and tried to escape by boat to the United States. The wife and her lover drowned in the attempt but little 6 year old Elian survived and became a cause–celebre of the Cuban exile community in Miami. But Mr. Gonzales had come from Havanna to get his son back. Back in Havana Fidel Castro had a ball making political hay out of the Yankee Imperialistas stealing children from their parents. Finally after months of media circus US marshals under orders of Attorney General Janet Reno raid forcibly grabbed Elian Gonzales from his uncles home and gave him back to his father. His father pledged:" I want no one to ever stick a camera in my son’s face again!"

2004- Pat Tillman was a football star who gave up a lucrative future in the NFL to fight for his country. This day was killed in battle in Afghanistan. The Pentagon played up his heroism while lying to his grieving family and burning his diary. Turns out he was accidentally shot by his own men.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: : I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels?

Answer: There were four- Col. James Monroe, Col. John Tyler, Col. William McKinley, and Col. Teddy Roosevelt.

Quiz: I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried??
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History for 4/21/2009
Birthdays: Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Iggy Pop, Charles Grodin, Anna Mangnani. Andie MacDowell, Tony Danza, Elaine May, Queen Elizabeth II is 83

1526-The First Battle of Panipat. Mogul Emperor Babur defeated the Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi and took Delhi. This established the Moghul Empire in India. Babur’s army fought with Mongol bows, elephants and he introduced cannon to India.

1847- The 4th rescue team removed the last survivors of the Donner Party wagon train from their snowed in camp on Lake Truckee in the Sierras down to the settlement on the Sacramento River. A furious winter trapped the Donners in the mountains last Oct 31st with almost no food and all their oxen dead. Of 86 pioneers 41 died and the others ate the dead to survive. Louis Keyesburg, the only settler who spoke openly of eating human flesh and was called a ghoul, moved to Sacramento and opened a restaurant. Don’t ask what’s in those home fries!

1865- UNCLE BILLY’S POLITICAL LESSON. In North Carolina, General William T. Sherman had offered Confederate Joe Johnston’s army the same terms for surrender that Grant had given Robert E Lee. But Johnston handed Sherman new terms rewritten by crafty Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It asked for political and property amnesty for all Confederate leaders; that the US Government would leave all Southern state officials at their posts. This went much further than one army surrendering to another, it was in effect a treaty that no one would be punished for the Civil War. But Billy Sherman didn’t seem to see the fine print. He thought that’s what old Abe Lincoln had wanted before he was killed. So he signed it and passed it on to Washington. When President Andrew Johnson read the terms they were thunderstruck. He ordered Sherman to tear that treaty up and offer nothing but unconditional surrender. Hotheaded Secretary of War Stanton denounced Sherman in the newspapers as a traitor. Sherman the Hero of Atlanta was furious at being made a fool of. He resolved the rest of his life to have nothing more to do with politics, which is why we never had a President William T. Sherman.

1865- President Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington DC for the long trip back to Springfield Ill.

1911- LENIN WANTS A LIBRARY CARD. Russian communist revolutionary Nikolai Lenin was living in exile in London. In a letter dated this day he applied to the British Museum Library collection to study it's documents. His letter was in perfect English and he signed his name under the pseudonym Jacob Richter.

1910- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. He once wrote: " When arriving in Heaven feel free to ask all the questions you want of Saint Peter. You may ask for his autograph however don’t take any Kodak photos or bring your dog. Admittance to Heaven is based on favor, not merit, else the dog would be allowed to go in and you kept out."

1915- THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES- The Ottoman Turkish Empire had always been a amalgamation of ethnic peoples held together by force. As the Empire aged and became the 'Sick Man of Europe', one by one these subject peoples-Greeks, Serbs, Egyptians asserted their independence and broke away. So when the Armenians also demanded autonomy the Sultan Abdul Hamid IV came up with a bloodthirsty solution. On this day the first 200 Armenian elders of a village were shot, signaling a general nationwide pogrom that would eventually kill one million people. The first person first brought the massacre story to the world was a German doctor on the scene who complained to the Kaiser. In the 1930s when someone had the courage to warn Adolph Hitler that his plans for the Jews would bring down upon them the wrath of the world, Hitler replied:" And who remembers the Armenians?"

1915- THE FIRST GALLIPOLI LANDINGS- This was young First Sea Lord Winston Churchill's idea to knock Turkey out of World War One. A British-Anzac force amphibiously landed on the beaches south of Constantinople to capture the enemy capitol. It turned into one of the biggest British fiascos of the war and knocked Churchill into resignation. The army of Gen. Ian Hamilton did surprise the Turks but then they sat on the beaches for weeks while reinforcements were brought up by a dynamic young Turkish General named Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, who would later become President of Turkey.

1918-THE RED BARON SHOT DOWN- In the wild duels in the air above the World War One trenches Baron Manfred Von Richtofen was the best of the best. The Red Knight had shot down more planes than anyone -80 confirmed. When other squadrons were disguising their planes with the new camouflage paints ("cubism gone to war"-Picasso), Richtofen had his men paint their planes bright colors to show their contempt of the enemy, hence the name-"the Flying Circus". On this day over Vaux Sur Somme, Richtofen got onto the tail of one plane and was about to add #81, when Canadian Roy Brown got behind him and filled the back of his plane with machinegun bullets. Mortally wounded, The baron still managed to land his red fokker triplane before slumping over dead. His last words over heard was " Kaput!"





Baron von Richtofen was 26. The plane was later torn to pieces by Australian soldiers seeking souvenirs. Recent scholarship argues he was killed by Australian ground fire, but Brown got the credit.. Roy Brown couldn't handle his celebrity status and committed suicide after the war. For the remainder of the war, Baron von Richtofen's staffel (squadron) was led by a young pilot named Herman Goring.

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1933- The Nazis ban kosher meat processing in Germany.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1961- Two groups of British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1969- Beat Generation author of On the Road- Jacques Kerouac died of alcoholism, bitter about how his call for youth rebellion had been reinterpreted by the 60's generation as hippies and flower power. When he came upon a gathering of kids at an anti-war rally distributing American flags to burn Kerouac collected them all and folded them neatly.

1989- George W. Bush became part of a ownership consortium that bought the last place baseball team the Texas Rangers." As soon as I knew they were for sale I went after them like a pit bull on a pants leg….It doesn’t get much better than this…"

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral. The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.

2000- Scientists discovered the fossilized heart of a dinosaur in South Dakota. It had four chambers and an aorta like a mammal. This all but proved that dinosaurs were not reptiles but warm blooded. Later it was proven that all they found was an oddly shaped rock.
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Yesterday’s Question: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried?

Answer: He was buried in France. Richard lies near to his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine at the abbey of Fontrevault in the Loire Valley, close to the castle of Chinon. His Lions heart was removed and buried in the Cathedral of Rouen.

Quiz: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: - Of 44 American Presidents, seven had been generals- Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield and Eisenhower. How many British Prime Ministers were generals?
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History for 4/20/2009
Birthdays: Harold Lloyd, Juan Miro', Adolph Hitler, Tito Puente, Nina Foch, Gregroy Ratoff, Ryan O'Neal, Daniel Day Lewis, Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Don Matingly, Rosalyn Summers, Keys Verwey, Crispin Glover, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, George Takei, Carmen Electra is 37, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Andy Serkis the Gollum, Bob Kurtz

1605- King James I granted charters to the Virginia Company to found colonies in the New World. Jamestown and Plymouth are the result.

1653- After the English Civil War beheaded King Charles Ist, General Oliver Cromwell sat listening to the English Barebones Parliament arguing over trivial issues. He had already arrested everyone who disagreed with him and those who were left were too afraid to discuss anything but trivia. Finally, Oliver rose and exploded in rage:” Drunkards! Whoremasters! You are no Parliament! “He ordered his troops to run them all out. England would remain under Cromwell’s military dictatorship until his death in 1659. A note was tacked onto the locked doors of the House of Commons-“ This House to Let, Unfurnished.”

1759- Composer George Friedrich Handel died after collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the Messiah. He was 74, blind and suffering from a number of illnesses.

1814- Napoleon sent to Elba, a little island off the coast of France. He quoted the famous palindrome "Able was I ere I saw Elba." he had been learning English.

1859- " It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times..." Charles Dicken's novel "A Tale of Two Cities" began to be published in magazine form.

1902- Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium.

1903- THE KISHNIEV POGROM- The word Russian Jews feared most was Pogrom. It meant the Czars police agreed to stand back and do nothing while mobs of Anti-Semites were encouraged to murder and violate the homes of Jews. This day in the city of Kishniev, mobs killed 43 Jews and mutilated their bodies, and several hundred Jewish women were raped. There were protests around the world about the Kishniev massacre but nothing official was ever done. When Jewish leaders went to the Czar to protest, they were rebuffed and answered with another pogrom in Gomel. Czar Nicholas II would refer to his Jewish subjects with the word Zhijdt- the equivalent of N*gg*r. Back in America Mark Twain donated money to groups advocating the Czars overthrow. Twain said:” If it takes dynamite to overthrow that regime well then thank God for Dynamite!”

1909- Mary Pickford, the first Movie Star, goes in front of a camera for the first time.

1914- Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs opened. Commuters on the “El” could see how their cubbies were doing by looking for the W or L flag flying.

1914- THE LUDLOW MASSACRE- In Colorado a violent strike was being waged between coal miners and the Stnadard Oil Company of John D. Rockefeller. This night militia, Pinkerton detectives and strikebreakers attacked a tent camp of striking miners and their families in the dead of night. They poured kerosene on their tents while they were sleeping, set them alight and shot down all those who ran out for safety. 20 died, half were women and children. As in most labor murders, no one was ever tried or convicted despite public outrage. President Woodrow Wilson sent federal troops to occupy Colorado and restore order. Even then Rockefeller refused to mediation until the strike was broken.

1916-Mauser Day- A German U-Boat surfaces off the coast of Ireland and lands two IRA leaders, Sir Roger Casement and Patrick Pearse, and a ton of rifles and ammunition.
Casement was picked arrested by authorities while still on the beach but the rifles are used to start the Easter Sunday Rebellion.

1925-The Warner Bros. Moving Picture company merged with Vitagraph and begin experimenting with fixing sound on to film.

1931- LA MAFIA- Charles “Lucky” Lucciano became a top crime figure in New York after he murdered Joey the Boss Masseria. Lucciano and Masseria were having dinner in Coney Island when Lucciano excused himself to go to the lavatory. Once gone four gunmen burst in and filled Masseria with bullets. Lucciano re-entered the room after the gunnmen had left. Lucciano later hit the other top capo of New York, Salvatore Maranzano. Maranzano and Masseria were the last of the “Mustache Petes” the old guard Sicilian immigrants still pursuing feuds brought over from the old country. After this the Mafia became more American than Sicilian and Luciano organized his gangs along a corporate model. Lucky’s young gunmen- Joey Adonis, Al Anastasia, Vito Genovese and Bugsy Seigel, all became important gang bosses in the years to come.

1935- Radio program “Your Hit Parade” premiered.

1938- On Hitler’s birthday was the Berlin premiere of Leni Reifenstahl’s film Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1939- RCA president David Sarnoff dedicates RCA pavilion at World's Fair.
First U.S. news event filmed on television (the Nazis televised the Berlin Olympics in 1936) Sarnoff predicted that one day everyone would have a television in their home!

1940- RCA labs demonstrated the first Electron Microscope.

1942- The' Bataan Death March' ends and the prison camps at Butan and Palayu. Half the captive 16,000 Phillipino and 10,000 American troops died.( there was two animators there who I later worked with at Filmation- Don Schloat and Len Rogers..)

1968- Pierre Elliot Trudeau sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada. Trudeau became one of Canada’s more colorful leaders with his flower-child wife Margaret.

1970- San Rafael California started a tradition of smoking marijuana en masse at 4:20, supposedly the police code for a drug bust. The Greatful Dead took up the tradition and now everyone lights up at 4:20

1974 - Paul McCartney and Wings releases "Band on the Run"

1976 - George Harrison sang the Lumberjack Song with the Monty Python comedy troop.

1977- Woody Allen & Diane Keaton starred in his award winning film “Annie Hall”.

1980-the Mariel Boat Lift. Fidel Castro made a mockery of President Jimmy Carter's policy of admitting seaborne political refugees from Cuba by opening his prisons and creating a flood of boat people including many hardened criminals.

1999-COLUMBINE- Two teenagers Ryan Harris and Dylan Kleibold enter their Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado and shoot their classmates with machine guns. 15 died including the two gunmen and 26 were hurt. Despite making videotapes in which they bragged about their intentions, and leaving shotguns and ammunition around their rooms, their parents never thought anything was unusual.
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Yesterday’s Question: - Of 44 American Presidents, seven had been generals- Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield and Eisenhower. How many British Prime Ministers were generals?

Answer: One. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was Prime Minister in 1828.

Quiz- Of 44 American Presidents, seven had been generals- Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield and Eisenhower. How many British Prime Ministers were generals?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: what political party called themselves the National Socialists?
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History for 4/19/2009
Birthdays: Paulo Verronese, Elliot Ness, Jayne Mansfield, Dudley Moore, Paloma Picasso, Ashley Judd is 41, James Franco is 31, Kate Hudson is 30, Tim Curry is 63, Anna Porchicova is 22

Cerealia-an ancient Roman agricultural festival. Ceres the mother of Porsephone, was the Happy Goddess of Growing and Planting. To say “Fit for Ceres” was the ancient Roman way of saying “Awesome”.

1775- LEXINGTON AND CONCORD- The American Revolution begins.
For years after the French and Indian War the British government tried to save money by getting the North American colonies to defend themselves. The local committees that organized the American colony's militia had slowly been taken over by radical political groups like the "Sons of Liberty". To the British, these Minutemen seemed to be training to fight them instead of Indians.
In 1774 a General, Sir Thomas "Old Tom" Gage was appointed Royal Governor of Massachusetts to show the colonists that Mother England was not going to tolerate any more foolishness. Gage pulled his troops out of frontier patrols and concentrated them in Boston harbor. This annoyed citizens further, thinking the only reason they pay taxes now is to have troops watching them instead of protecting them. In early 1775 Gage warned London that the situation was deteriorating fast. Ironically Gage liked America and had a good friend named George Washington. Finally Gage received permission to send out a force to seize a stockpile of illegal weapons and arrest some ringleaders. After awakened by Paul Revere, some 70 farmers spent all night at Buckman's Tavern drinking and trying to decide whether to fight or run away. By 4:00 a.m. John Hancock talked them into staying to fight. Then Hancock ran away. The redcoat column was met on Lexington green by the minutemen. "Stand aside, ye dammed Rebels!" Captain Pitcairn shouted. Pitcarin was later killed at Bunker Hill. " Stand fast boys, if they want a war, let it start here!" was Captain Parker's reply.



The regular troops open fire and easily dispersed that group. But by the time the British reached Concord bridge, hordes of farmers were shooting at them from bushes and rooftops. Finally they were forced to withdraw to Boston. Lord Percy complained even 'American women were pointing muskets out of their kitchen windows and firing at us!"And most of the Yankee muskets were British government-issue. One 80 year old man shot down three redcoats from his front porch, before he was bayoneted. Still, the tough old coot lived 7 more years.
Americans call Lexington “The Shot Heard Around the World”, but the British Crown regarded this situation at first as little more than mob violence. It barely made the back pages of the London newspapers. But by Bunker Hill they realized they had a real trans-ocean war on their hands. As late as December elements in the Colonial Congress in Philadelphia kept asking London if we could still be friends and talk it over.

1863- GRIERSON'S RAID. Gen. Ulysses Grant, laying siege to the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, detaches a hard riding cavalry brigade to loot and burn their way through the deep south from Vicksburg through Baton Rouge to Union occupied New Orleans. Greirson himself was an Illinois music teacher who disliked horses and kept a jaw's-harp in his pocket he liked to play periodically. In the later Indian Wars it was said any unit he commanded invariably had the best band. John Ford’s movie “The Horse Soldiers” was based on this event.

1881- Former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli died. When asked if he would like a final visit from Queen Victoria, Disraeli answered:" No, not now, she'd only ask me to take a message to Albert." His political arch-enemy William Gladstone wrote him a moving eulogy, but he confided in his diary that it gave him diarrhea doing it.

1910- The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

1927- Mae West found guilty of indecent behavior in writing, producing and starring in a Broadway musical entitled “SEX”. She then wrote a new play about homosexuals called DRAG that was never producer. He said:" I'm in favor of censorship.I made a fortune on it!"

1951- General MacArthur had been fired from his Korean command by President Harry Truman. This day he did his famous speech to Congress” An Old Soldier never Dies, He just Fades Away, and like that old soldier I now close out my military career, and just fade away. An Old Soldier who tried to do his duty, as God showed him the light to do that duty, etc.” Republican Senator Robert Short shouted “We’ve just heard the Voice of God!” President Harry Truman watched the speech on T.V. and called it “The biggest bunch of bullshit I ever heard!”

1956-Movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

1961-The BAY OF PIGS INVASION DEFEATED The CIA sponsored landing of AntiCastro Cubans failed on the beach of Bahia De Los Cochinos. After sanctioning some initial US Air Force bombing attacks the first day, JFK relented and cut off any further help, including a refusal to evacuate them when trapped. This earned him the everlasting anger of the Miami Cuban community. 200 were killed and 1497 imprisoned. An aide said the day after the surrender, Kennedy went alone to a secluded D.C. golf course and spent hours hitting golf balls, moaning:” How could I have been so Stupid!” after each whack.

1970- XEROX PARC – The Xerox Company announced the set up of a research group in Palo Alto Cal. All but ignored by the main company for years this group pioneered the development of the personal computer. They invented the mouse, point and click windows, graphic interface and digital paint. Yet Xerox didn’t know what to do with them, they were in the copier business. They launched a personal workstation called the Alto that cost $16,500 each, but the idea bombed. One day in 1979 a group from Apple visited led by Steve Jobs. The group was inspired by their progress, and they went back to Apple and put what they learned into the development of the Mackintosh Computer.

1993- Branch Davidian cultists led by their messianic leader David Koresh immolate themselves in their compound at Waco, Texas during a furious shootout with the F.B.I.

1995-THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING- On the second anniversary of the Waco tragedy, emotionally disturbed Gulf War veterans named Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols wanted revenge against the U.S. Government. So they denoted a bomb at the Murrow Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Among the 156 dead were a dozen pre-school children in a daycare center on the first floor. McVeigh called the children “collateral damage “ He was executed in 2001 and Nichols got life in prison. Nichols brother was acquitted. Today he grows soy beans for tofu in organic restaurants.

2005- Habaemus Papam! We have a Pope. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany elected Pope Benedict XVI. The first German Pope since Hildebrandt in 1077 and the first pope to have been a soldier in the Nazi army. He was drafted in 1945 as a child. Italian writers call him the German Shepherd.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What political party called themselves the National Socialists?

Answer: The Nazi Party.

Congratulations to the Screen Actors Guild for finally making a deal on their contract. My advice is, even if you don't like the deal, to vote to ratify. The contract will be up in three years, and it will be a different economic situation then. Meanwhile, the suits will start greenlighting projects and we can all get back to work.

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Quiz: What political party called themselves the National Socialists?

Yesterday’s question answered below: When you listen to hysterical protesters shouting “ Socialism!”, is there a difference between Socialism and Communism?
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History for 4/18/2009
Birthdays: Lucretzia Borgia, Franz Von Suppe’, Haley Mills, Leopold Stokowski, Miklos Rosza, Herb Sorell, Wahoo Sam Crawford, Conan O’Brien, James Woods is 64, Eric Roberts, Rick Moranis is 57

1506- Pope Julius II lays the cornerstone for St. Peter's Basilica. He had pulled down the old St. Peters, which had stood for 1200 years. The new structure designed by Bramante with the Dome by Michelangelo and the interiors by Sangallo and later Bernini.

1775- PAUL REVERE'S RIDE- "One if by land and two if by sea, etc." Informers in Gen. Gage's office learn the British planned to send troops to seize an illegal arms cache in Lexington and arrest two radical leaders named John Hancock and Sam Adams. So silversmith Paul Revere, Thomas Dawes and a country doctor out on a date named Dr.Prescott were sent to warn them and raise the minutemen on the way, after getting the two lantern signal in the old North Church. Dr. Prescott actually completed the mission. Revere was arrested by a British patrol soon after warning Adams & Hancock and sent home without his horse. Longfellow's poem never mentioned Prescott or Dawes. Paul Revere never said "The British are Coming!" because he considered himself British like everyone else in America at the time. He would have said: "The Regulars are Coming! "meaning the regular army.

1778- THE WHITEHAVEN RAID- Former Scotsman John Paul Jones wanted to show the British public that the American Revolution wasn't just a distant war across the sea.
So he decided to raid the British Isles. An ulterior motive Jones had in attacking a town called Whitehaven was that Jones always suspected he was the illegitimate son of a Lord Selkirk, who resided there. It was his boyhood home and he knew it’s lanes and alleyways well. So through the dead of night, while the sailors of the U.S.S. Ranger were burning and plundering the harbor, John Paul Jones was out looking to kidnap his own father. By dawn they were gone. The British Navy regarded Jones as an irritant at best but the raid was a great morale booster in the States. Jones couldn't locate his deadbeat dad, so he had to content himself with stealing the silverware.

1906- THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE . 3,500 deaths and the city destroyed in the most frightening earthquake in U.S. History. Enrico Caruso was in town with the Metropolitan Opera on tour. When he went up to a policeman on the street corner asking for help the cop didn't believe who he was until he sang some Pagiacci. He later sat on his suitcase in front of the ruined Palace Hotel and said- "Helluva Place! Ah’ma ’never coming back!"
Drew Barrymores grandfather the great actor John Barrymore was in a San Francisco hotel room when the quake struck. He ran into the bathroom and sat shivering in the bath until it was over. Afterward the National Guard put him to work clearing rubble looking for bodies. When they read his telegram, the other Barrymores refused to believe the story. Old John Drew, a patriarch of the acting family, felt otherwise. "It took an Act of God to get John out of bed and into a bathtub, and the National Guard to get him to go to work. I believe every word." Amadeo Gianinni, founder of the Bank of America, then called the Bank of Italy, gathered up his bank's papers and stocks and buried them in his garden under the begonias until his new office could be set up. He soon set up for business again on a pier. City government was set up in the undamaged St. Francis Hotel on Powell Street and a large mahogany bar was moved out to the street to serve free drinks to calm nerves. San Franciscans dusted themselves off and rebuilt. By 1913 they were doing well enough to host the World’s Fair. A little ditty of the time said:
"They say God spanked the town, for being rather frisky.
Then why'd He knocked the churches down, yet leave up
Hotaling's Whiskey?"

1923- Yankee Stadium dedicated. Yankees win the opener against Boston, 4-1 in front of over 72,000 fans, Babe Ruth hit the park's first home run. The new $2.5 million ballpark is the first to feature three decks. Yankee Stadium played it’s last game last year.

1934- The first automatic Laundromat opened in Ft. Worth Texas.

1938- Switzerland closed its’ borders to all Jews and asked the Nazi government to cooperate with them. The Swiss government never admitted this act until 1995.

1942- The DOOLITTLE RAID. Gen. Jimmie Doolittle led 16 B-25s to fly long distance and drop bombs on Tokyo. It was a desperate mission. They did it knowing they didn't have enough fuel to return to the carrier USS Hornet, so they continued on to China and took their chances where they landed. Some of the men shot down and captured were hanged or beheaded by irate Japanese. The raid was had no strategic value and did little damage, but after weeks of unbroken Japanese success the American public needed a morale booster. General Doolittle survived the war and lived to be 97, dying in 1993.

1945- The German army surrounded in the Ruhr Pocket surrendered. 350,000 went into prison camps. Conscious that it was probably their last battle in Europe, the Americans called it Operation Kaput.

1945- Famed journalist Ernie Pyle is killed by Japanese machine gun fire during the fighting at Okinawa.

1955- Scientist Albert Einstein died in New Jersey at 75. As he fell in and out of a coma his last words were in German. Since no one around his bed could understand German we don't know what his last words were.

1958- At the Los Angeles Coliseum in front of a crowd of 78,672, the Dodgers play their first game in the City of Angels defeating the new San Francisco Giants, 6-5.

1980- The white minority dominated African nation of Rhodesia transitioned into the black majority nation named Zimbabwe and elected rebel leader Robert Mugabe as it’s first and so far only president.

2000- Earlier that spring some of the worlds biggest internet companies –e-Bay, Amazon and CNN were paralyzed by a virus spreading hacker. Today the FBI made an arrest. The culprit was a Canadian High School student who went by the domain name of Mafia Boy. He received probation and a promise to only use his computer for school work for two years.

2008- Pope Benedict XVI visited the U.S.. When he gave an address at the White House, President George W. Bush went up to him and said:” Your Holiness, that speech was AWESOME!”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When you listen to hysterical protesters shouting “ Socialism!”, is there a difference between Socialism and Communism?

Answer: They are two separate theories open to much partisan debate. It is impossible to settle the argument to everyone’s satisfaction. Suffice it to say that around 1900 the difference was very sharp. America then had some socialist governors and Congressmen. Gov’ts routinely resort to central controls on business that can be considered socialist, like bailing out banks and large corporations and providing a social safety net for citizens. Ralph Nader’s father told him : ”Capitalism will always survive, because socialism will be there to save it. “ While socialism is about economic solutions, communism is about political control of the private sector. In communism the state owns everything in the name of the people, but in reality in the hands of a small clique in power. Communist governments co-opted much of the public slogans and sentiments of Socialism to mask their intent. Karl Marx’s opinion was that socialism was but a stepping stone towards Communism. The closest Lenin ever came to being assassinated was by a Socialist.