There was a nice article in the NY Times about my CLick & Clack Show. Thanks to Michael Sporn for pointing it out on his blog.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/click-and-clack-take-manhattan/index.html

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Quiz: Who invented concrete?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: We’ve had the 80’s, the 90’s.
Does this decade have a name?
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History for 4/20/2008
Birthdays: Harold Lloyd, Juan Miro', Adolph Hitler, Tito Puente, Nina Foch, Gregroy Ratoff, Ryan O'Neal, Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Crispin Glover, George Takei, Carmen Electra is 36, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Andy Serkis the Gollum, Bob Kurtz

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.”

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.

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.

1925-The Warner Bros. Moving Picture company merge 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.

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!

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.

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 didn’t think anything was unusual.
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Yesterday’s Question: We’ve had the 80’s, the 90’s. Does this decade have a name?

Answer: It’s the eighth year of the decade and we still don’t have an acceptable name for it. It’s been known as the Zeds, the Noughts,the Oughts,and the Uh-Ohs. It will probably be called by historians the Millennial Decade, or Turn of the Millennium.

Congratulations to Sue Kroyer for receiving Women in Animation's Award of Inspiration!


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Quiz- We’ve had the 80’s, the 90’s. Does this decade have a name?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Hey Man! How old is the use of the term Man as a slang interjection?
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History for 4/19/2008
Birthdays: Paulo Verronese, Elliot Ness, Jayne Mansfield, Dudley Moore, Paloma Picasso, Ashley Judd, James Franco, Kate Hudson is 29, Tim Curry is 62, Anna Porchicova is 21

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. " Stand fast boys, if they want a war, let it start here!" was Captain Parker's reply. The regular troops opened 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 until they were forced to withdraw to Boston. Lord Percy complained that even 'American women were pointing muskets out of their kitchen windows and firing at us!" One 80 year old man shot down three Englishmen down from his front porch before he was bayoneted. He lived 7 more years. And most of the Yankee muskets were British government-issue Brown Besses.
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.

1782- Holland became the first nation to officially recognize the United States of America. Ambassador John Adams hung a Stars & Stripes out his hotel room window, calling it the first official American Embassy in Europe.

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”.

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 labeled 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 multi-tasking . 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: Hey Man! How old is the use of the term Man as a slang interjection?

Answer: The use of the word Man as a sentence interjection goes back from Hippy and Beatnik slang, through black jazz slang of the early XXth Century, to the plantation culture of the XIXth Century. In Spain the term for man Hombre! had been around for centuries. In an account of General Sherman’s March through Georgia in 1864, at one point the General interrogated a runaway slave from a nearby farm. The man told Sherman :” When you Yankees came, man! You shoulda seen my master run!” (Sherman's March, by Jeffrey Wert page..)

Quiz: Hey Man! How old is the use of the term Man as a slang interjection?

Yesterday’s question answered below: When talking of George Washington and the Founding Fathers, you¹ll hear mention of a Cincinattus. What does that mean? Someone from Cincinatti?
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History for 4/18/2008
Birthdays: Lucretzia Borgia, Franz Von Suppe’, Haley Mills, Leopold Stokowski, Miklos Rosza, Herb Sorell, Wahoo Sam Crawford, Conan O’Brien, James Woods is 63, Eric Roberts, Rick Moranis is 56

185AD- Today is the Feast Day of the Roman martyr Saint Apollonnius.

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.
With true Renaissance modesty Julius originally wanted his tomb in the center under the altar, borne aloft by giants carved by Michelangelo. I guess nobody mentioned the grave of St. Peter, overtop which this Basilica was being built. Eventually Julius scaled down his plans and when he died die his enemies put him in another church altogether.(San Pietro Vincoli). Saint Peters was completed a little over schedule, in 1626.

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. At one point they threatened Revere with their pistols if he didn’t give them directions. Any of you who’ve ever gotten lost in the suburbs of Boston can well understand their frustration. At daybreak Paul Revere walked over to Lexington green in time to watch the Revolutionary War begin. 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 family silverware.

1857-MR PRESIDENT, ARE YOU GAY? Former Vice President Rufus King died of tuberculosis. President James Buchanan was totally distraught. There has been speculation that James Buchanan might have been our first Gay President. He was a lifelong bachelor, his niece Harriet Lane filled in for the social duties of First Lady. Only once in his life did Buchanan have an affair with a lady, which he broke off abruptly without explanation. The young girl was so upset she committed suicide and her parents blamed him thereafter. When James Buchanan and William Rufus King were colleagues in the Senate they roomed together and were inseparable. Old Hickory Andy Jackson liked to refer to Senators Rufus King and Buchanan " Little Miss Nancy and Mrs Buchanan".

1861-Mr. LINCOLN'S LOUSY DAY PART I- America’s top soldier Robert E. Lee declined Lincoln's offer to command the U.S. Army and instead sided with the Confederacy. In his letter doing so he confesses: "I forsee the Country will go through a terrible ordeal, a necessary expiation for our national sins."

1861-Mr. LINCOLN'S LOUSY DAY PART II- As if that news wasn't bad enough, on the same day Lincoln got a telegram from the pro-Southern Governor of Maryland saying not only would he refuse to cooperate in fighting the rebels, but he was cutting the telegraph wires and railroads into and out of Washington D.C.! Until the main union armies reached the capitol on the 24th, Washington was deserted, surrounded by a hostile slave state, with only a few Massachusetts volunteers to defend them. Maryland was only prevented from joining the Confederacy by Col. Ben Butler's initiative of sending troops into the state legislature to point their guns at the members as they voted. They voted to stay loyal.

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 Gianini, 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 gutter to serve free drinks to calm nerves. San Franciscans dusted themselves off and rebuilt. By 1913 they were 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 ?"

1914-. The full feature length movie premiered in Turin, Italy. "Cabiria" directed by Giovane Patrone. It was believed to be the first full length movie ever until the discovery of a 1912 version of Quo Vadis. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 classic the Birth of a Nation popularized the120 minute format for feature films.

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

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.

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.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When talking of George Washington and the Founding Fathers, you¹ll hear mention of a Cinncinatus. What does that mean? Someone from Cincinatti?

Answer: In Livy’s History of Rome, Cinncinatus was a Roman General who was called out his retirement to save the Roman state from calamity. He assumed Dictatorial Powers, defeated all their enemies, settled all their problems. Then he walked way from power and went back to his farm with no regrets. The image of Cinncinatus at the Plough became the symbol of disinterested service to country. When George Washington left office after two terms as President, the European monarchs like George III and Catherine the Great were amazed. They said the Great Generalissimo of the Americas had given up power like some legendary Roman. Cinncinatus, to be exact.

Quiz: When talking of George Washington and the Founding Fathers, you’ll hear mention of a Cincinattus. What does that mean? Someone from Cincinatti?

Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the slang term Dude? Dude, here’s a hint, it was before the Big Lebowski.
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History for 4/17/2008
Birthdays: artist Tobias Stummer-1539, Duke Maximillian Ist of Bavaria- leader of the Catholic League 1579, Nikita Khruschev, Thorton Wilder, Clarence Darrow, Arthur Schnabel, Olivia Hussey is 58, Gregor Piatigorsky, Don Kirschner, William Holden, Harry Reasoner, Boomer Eiseason, Jennifer Garner is 37

1492- After 8 years of interviews, waiting in antechambers and being laughed at and called crazy, King Ferdinand of Spain finally signed a commission for Christopher Columbus to outfit a fleet and sail west across the Atlantic to find Asia. Ferdinand gave him a diplomatic letter for the Great Khan of Cathay- now called China. The legend of Queen Isabella pawning her jewels to give him money didn’t happen. She suggested doing so only to embarrass her financial minister to accelerate funding.

1524- A French expedition led by Italian navigator Giuseppe De Verrasano sailed into New York Harbor. Verrasano claimed the lands for France but upon returning home found the French King too busy with his wars in Germany and Italy to bother with discoveries in the distant New World. Verrasano was later eaten by cannibals in the Caribbean. The big harbor was forgotten until Henry Hudson with the Dutch came upon it 80 years later. This is probably good in the long run because then New York Harbor would have been called the Bay of Anghouleme, and Manhattan the Isle deValois. The Verrasano Narrows Bridge now spans the waters named for him.

1792- British Captain Vancouver explores Puget Sound. He founds a settlement and names it for then Prime Minister Granville. In 1886 Granville (sometimes called Gastown after Gassy-Jack the saloon keeper) was renamed Vancouver.

1869- The first professional baseball game ever played sees the Cincinnati Reds defeat the rival Cincinnati Amateurs, 24-15

1875- The billiard game Snooker was invented by Sir Joseph Chamberlain, the uncle of the future British Prime Minister.

1929- Baseball great Babe Ruth married Ziegfeld Follies dancer Marge Colson in a morning ceremony. Then he drove to Yankee Stadium and hit a home run.

1937 "Porky's Duck Hunt" The birth of Daffy Duck. One legendary story is that newly hired voice actor Mel Blanc in part designed Daffys distinctive lisp to be an impression of the Looney Tunes boss Leon Schlensinger. When they screened this cartoon all the artists stood in dread of how Leon would take the joke. Leon never made the connection that the Ducks voice was an imitation of him:"Gee Fellers, dat Duck iz pretty Ffffunny!"

1960- Cleveland Indians traded Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers.

1961-THE BAY OF PIGS INVASION-.The US landed 1,400 anti-Castro Cuban fighters in La Bahia de los Cochinos. When John Kennedy became president he was shown a CIA plan that had been developed to land anti-Castro guerrillas in Cuba. Once there they would start a popular uprising to overthrow the bearded cigar smoking commie. Kennedy went along with the plan, it failed and he looked stupid to the rest of the world.

1964-The Ford Mustang introduced by Lee Iacocca.

1971- The song "Joy to the World"by Three Dog Night tops the pop charts and becomes the most popular song of the year.

1987- Comedian Dick Shawn –the Hippy-Hitler in the original Mel Brooks film the Producers- was doing his one-man show The Second Funniest Man in the World at UC San Diego. After one particularly funny punch line he fell over dead from a heart attack. The audience roared for several more minutes at him lying there face down because they thought it was part of the act.
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Yesterday’s Question: Yo, Dude! What is the origin of the slang term Dude? Dude, here’s a hint, it was before the Big Lebowski.

Answer: Dude, the word Dude has a curiously winding pedigree. It began with the Irish word Dud, pronounced Dood, a silly person. Irish immigrants brought it to the American West where Dude became slang for an out of place city-slicker. From the Old West the word moved into Black urban areas of St Louis and Kansas City, from there into slang of the Jazz Age meaning a well-dressed dandy. Then it was taken up by 1960s California Surfer culture among other terms as white pop Rock & Roll adopted a lot of R&B trappings.
It became a universal term by hit films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), which featured the surfer character, Jeff Spicoli. So Dude, that the lowdown.

Quiz: Yo, Dude! What is the origin of the slang term Dude? Dude, here’s a hint, it was before the Big Lebowski.

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Has there ever been an American President not born on US soil?
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History for 4/16/2008
birthdays: King John II “The good” of France (1319), Elisabeth Vignee-Lebrun, Wilbur Wright, Charlie Chaplin, John Pierpoint Morgan, Kingsley Amis, Anatole France, Henry Mancini, Peter Ustinov, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bobby Vinton, Spike Milligan, John Halas, Edie Adams, John Millington Synge, Ellen Barkin, Hans Sloane*, Martin Lawrence is 43, Pope Benedict XVI is 81.

*Sir Hans Sloane was the chemist to Queen Anne of England circa 1700. He pioneered pharmacy, left his artifact collection to be the basis of the British Museum and produced an early recipe for milk chocolate. Sloane Square in London was named for him. The British name for Yuppies was Sloane Rangers, not for Sloane himself but for all the chic shops on Sloane Square.

1260- Chartres Cathedral completed.

1746- BATTLE OF CULLODEN- The last pitched battle fought on British soil. British armies under the Duke of Cumberland crushed the Scottish Highlanders raised by Prince Charles Stuart. It is considered the last gasp of Scottish independence although “Bonnie” Prince Charlie’s goal was not an independent Scotland but recapturing the English throne for his deposed family. Historians harp on what a forlorn hope it was to conquer the mighty British Empire but truth be told the Highland Army got pretty far pretty easy, down into England as far as Derby before falling back into Scotland. With the majority of the British army running around North America, Gibraltar and India there were fewer than 15,000 redcoats to defend the homeland. But the initial surprise was lost as most of the Highland Chieftains spent most of the time arguing and paid their troops with Oatmeal.
Bonnie Prince Charlie made a daring escape across the moors and fens that has been much romanticized, truth was he was a depressed wife beating alcoholic who got soused soon after the battle. He was staying at the house of a fence-sitting Scottish laird when they could hear the tromp of pursuing English cavalry in the courtyard below. The Laird had to pry the wine bowl from Charlie’s fingers to get him to leave. In Edinburgh Castle today you can see the bowl on display, with two chipped pieces where the prince’s thumbs were holding the bowl as it was yanked away. The vengeful British banned for a time the clan system, tartans, bagpipes and the Gaelic language for decades.

1828- Spanish artist Francisco Goya died at 82 in Bordeaux, France. Years later when his remains were moved to Madrid it was discovered Goya wasn't alone in his grave. His friend Martin Goesochea's remains were in with him. Maybe there was a two-for-one sale..

1874- AMERICA'S CANNIBAL- Gold prospector Albert Packer went up into the Colorado Rockies with several friends to look for gold. They were stranded by blizzard conditions and reduced to eating their moccasins for food. On this day Packer, the only survivor, came down to civilization and admitted under examination that he and his friends resorted to cannibalism to survive. Upon further questioning Packer admitted he didn't always wait for his friends to die, he'd hatchet them in the head as they slept then fricassee them.. Packer became the only American ever convicted of cannibalism and the University of Colorado Student Grill is named in his honor.

1905- Andrew Carnegie established the Carnegie Foundation to distribute his philanthropy. The former Scottish orphan coal miner Carnegie renounced his robber baron career and dedicate himself to donating the bulk of his fortune to building libraries and hospitals.
He claimed: “A man who dies rich dies disgraced!” Mark Twain wrote him satirical letters “To Saint Andrew from Saint Mark”

1935- Fibber McGee and Molly debut on radio.

1943- BICYCLE DAY-In Basil Switzerland chemist Dr. Albert Hoffman discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD. He had synthesized LSD some years in 1938 before but couldn't figure out what to do with it. However, when he made up the drug the second time, he probably inhaled enough from it to start hallucinating. Since he had already tried
mescaline, he had a pretty good idea of what was happening to him, so he closed up his lab, got on his bicycle and pedaled home to Binnigen, a suburb on the southern edge of Baselstadt, a trip of four or five miles, hallucinating all the way. The next day he went back to the lab and made up a dose of LSD the size of a reasonable dose of mescaline, without realizing that that amounted to a tenfold overdose of LSD. Twenty minutes later he said 'Oh oh,' got on his bike and pedaled back to Binnigen. A scientist reader to this site added this: I believe the first hope for LSD was that it would produce an 'experimental psychosis,' which would allow scientists to study schizophrenia in otherwise 'normal' patients or subjects. That hope proved illusory, but Hoffman was always interested in its 'mind- expanding' effects and was still studying them when I knew him. He had become very interested in the relationship between ergot (wheat rust)
and LSD, and had done a great deal of research about the Oracle at Delphi. Delphi was also the site of the Delphic games, like the Olympics, and the winner or winners were given as their prize a handful of grain and an audience with the Oracle. Hoffman was convinced that the grain was contaminated with ergot and the audience with the Oracle took place under hallucination.

1946-The Brothers Chevrolet- Louis and Arthur Chevrolet were Louisiana race car drivers at the beginning of the 20th Century who were invited by General Motors to design a line of high performance vehicles. But their business skills were never as good as their engineering abilities. After a number of bad deals, cheated opportunities and hard luck Louis died a common mechanic on his own Chevrolet assembly line. This day Arthur, broke and alone, committed suicide.

1947- The Zoom Lens patented.

1953-PORK CHOP HILL- In the Korean War, today marked the heaviest Red Chinese assaults to retake Hill 255, called because of its shape Pork Chop Hill. This hill had very little strategic value, but the Chinese and UN forces placed great symbolic meaning to it as a test of strength. Pork Chop Hill was battled over from June 1952 practically until the Peace Treaty of Panmunjom in mid 1953.

1962- Walter Cronkite took over the job of anchor at the CBS Evening News, building a reputation for journalistic integrity almost equaled to Edward R. Murrow. Nicknamed the Most Trusted Man in America, many credit Cronkite for breaking the news to middle America that the U.S. was not going to win the Vietnam War, the first war lost in our history. President Lyndon Johnson said: If I lost Cronkite then I’ve lost middle America.” When Cronkite retired, the redoubtable CBS News Division descent into tabloid stupidity and irrelevance began.

1983- Disney Channel debuted.
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Yesterday's Quiz: The Constitution stipulates the US President must be born in America. There is a controversy about whether John McCain can run, since he was born of US parents in the US Controled Panama Canal Zone. Has any American President not been born on American soil?

Answer: Not counting the first 7 who were born when America was still a colony, the answer is no. The rest of the 43 were all born in the US. The fathers passed such a law to keep Alexander Hamilton out, since he was born on the isle of Nevis in the Virgin Islands. In 1884 General Phil Sheridan made a big stink to try for the presidency. He was the most popular Civil War General after Grant and Sherman, but his Irish mother bore him at sea, coming over on the boat from the old country. So he was told he could not run.