Question: What is the origin of the term- A White Elephant?

Yesterday’s Trivia Question answered below: In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window, one of the people James Stewart spies on is in animation. Who is it?
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History for 12/7/2006
Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Tom Waits, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Eli Wallach, Harry Chapin,
Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck

43 B.C.- Marcus Tullius Cicero executed. The great orator/writer was a declared enemy of Julius Caesar, yet Caesar preferred to ignore him. After Caesar’ murder at the Ides of March Marc Anthony and Augustus were not tso forgiving, They drew up lists of all those to be aced and the old philosopher's name was at the top. He tried to flee by sea but got so seasick he went back to his estate. The death squad caught him trying to flee again and when he saw it was no use he bared his neck to the soldiers. Gaius Pompilius Linus, the centurion who slew him had been successfully defended by Cicero in the law courts. He brought Cicero’s head and hands to Mark Anthony who happily nailed them to the speakers rostrum in the Forum. Many years later When Augustus was an old man he caught his grandson reading Cicero’s writings. Augustus paused to read some verses, sighed and said:”A learned man, and a patriot.”

185AD- Emperor LoYang wrote of seeing a bright star that was probably a supernova.

1671- In London two scientists- Nehemiah Grew and Italian Marcello Malpighi presented their findings on plants that established the Science of Botany. That plants derive nutrients from the soil and grow from increased exposure to light and water and not because they are urged to grow by a “Vegetable Soul”. That they cannot grow in a vacuum. That stamens, pistils and pollen are sexual organs and the veins of a leaf function much like the veins and arteries of humans. Malpighi later went on to human anatomy and discovered the capillaries and the human tastebuds.

1775- A lieutenants’ commission in the new U.S. Navy was granted to a young Scotsman named Paul Jones, who sometimes called himself John Paul and we know as John Paul Jones. When Abigail Adams met him she was surprised at his small stature :” I could wrap him in wool and carry him in my pocket.” She said. He had been a prospering merchant captain until he stabbed a rowdy shipmate in Tobago and fled his ship. He wandered about looking for employment for 20 months until the American Revolution gave him a new identity. No one is sure why he adopted the surname Jones. Despite John Paul Jones’ successes against the British Navy the closed clique of New England Yankee privateers never quite trusted little Scotsman with the high voice, bad temper and big ego.

1869- The Davis County Savings Bank in Gallatin Missouri was robbed by some Clay County boys who began to get a reputation – Jesse James and Frank James. The bank manager Capt. Sheely was shot dead by another gang member Ed Anderson. Anderson had mistook him for a Yankee who had killed his brother Bloody Bill Anderson during the Civil War. While attempting to escape Anderson's horse bucked and dragged him 40 feet by a stirrup until he got loose.

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1925- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150 meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5th seconds. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1934- Aviator Wiley Post discovered the upper atmosphere air current called the Jet Stream.

1941-THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR- At dawn on a quiet Sunday morning 360 Japanese planes surprise attack and sink most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, causing 4,000 casualties. Simultaneous attacks are made on British and Dutch military posts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The White House butler recalled a general telling President Franklin Roosevelt-“They got the whole G*ddamn navy!”
Japan had begun her previous foreign wars with surprise attacks: against China in 1891 and Russia in 1905. It had it's philosophical roots in the Emai school of Samurai, that of dealing a death stroke with one decisive blow. Americans were enraged by the "Day of Infamy" sneak attack, the US government was bracing for some kind of attack since July when FDR embargoed Japan’s steel and oil imports, but they couldn’t be sure where. Most experts expected a strike at Manila. Lt. William Higgins was awakened by the radar post on Diamond Head reporting hundreds of unknown planes headed towards them. His famous reply:" Well.....don't worry about it.."
The plan was masterminded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Harvard class of 1926. He was anti-war and knew a war with America was a long shot. When he heard that the surprise was complete but delivered before the war declaration in Washington he said:" All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve." The fact that Japan had sent a special envoy to Washington named Kurusu to negotiate the crisis even while preparing this attack was even more maddening to Americans.
That evening President Franklin Roosevelt held an emergency cabinet meeting. Tearful crowds pressed against the fences of the White House and sang God Bless America and My Country Tis of Thee in the cold night air.

1945- The microwave oven patented.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkely the national reputation of the the nations most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

1995- The Galileo space probe reached an orbit around Jupiter.
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Today’s Trivia Question: In Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window, one of the people James Stewart spies on is an animator. Who is it?

Answer- In the apartment on the right of Jimmy Stewart is the man at the piano called the songwriter. He is Ross Bagdassarian, aka David Seville, who created Alvin and the Chipmunks

Today’s Trivia Question: In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window, one of the people James Stewart spies on was in animation. Who is it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Which nation is older- Germany, Italy or the United States?
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History for 12/6/2007
Birthdays: King Henry VI of England-1422, English Puritan General George Monck-1608,, John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US- Eberhard Faber, John Singleton-Mosby the Grey Ghost, Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck is 86, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce, Wally Cox, Lynn Fontaine, Janine Turner, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Nick Park

Today if the FEAST of SAINT NICHOLAS, the patron saint of sailors and children. In the 350 AD Bishop Nicholas heard of a man so poor that he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Nicholas climbed into the man’s house and gold coins in the socks drying by the fireplace. The beginning of the custom.
In some cities during the Middle Ages the custom this day to elect a Boy Bishop who would reign in an honorary style until the Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28th.

1240- The Mongol hordes of BatuKhan destroy the city of Kiev. This ended the great kingdom of Kievan Russ.

1825- President John Quincy Adams in his first message to Congress called for increased funding for scientific research, the founding of a national university and a national observatory. His ideas are ridiculed as idiotic and his political credibility was damaged by this speech. He also installed the first indoor toilets in the White House. People started calling the new commodes a Quincy.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTS THE ROTOSCOPE TECHNIQUE- This system enables you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge Woolsey decides James Joyce's "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been in Europe since 1922.

1941- Admiral Nagumo turns his carriers into the wind and begins to prepare to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor. Colonel William Bratton of army intelligence in Washington decoded a message from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy telling them after their final message to destroy their cyphers and top secret documents. He ran all over D.C. trying to get someone to listen but it was a lazy weekend like any other.
Saturday morning Mrs. Dorothy Edgers of the Navy cryptographic division translated long decoded instructions to the Japanese Consul Kita in Honolulu to provide up to date intelligence on Pearl Harbor's ship movements and armaments. When she pointed this out to her immediate supervisor, he told her "Ummm..We'll get back to this on Monday."

1941- NY City Council decided to build a second municipal airport- Idylwild Airport, later renamed John F. Kennedy Airport.

1942- The movie the Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1957- First US attempt to launch a satellite into space failed- the Vanguard I rocket blew up.

1960- Baseball’s American League granted an expansion franchise team to old cowboy singer Gene Autrey, the California Angels.

1964- The first concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

1964- Rankin Bass' t.v. special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.

1969- The Rolling Stones do the last big rock festival of the 60s in Altamont California. The festival turned ugly when Hells Angels motorcyclists hired to guard the stage started fighting with fans and one man was killed.

1980- Reverend Jim Baker of the PTL ministry had sex in a motel room with Church volunteer Jessica Hahn. His reasoning to her was “when you help the shepherd you help the flock”. But later he paid her hush money. This indiscretion would help pull down his career. Baker’s ministry included a lavish lifestyle, air conditioned doghouse for his pets and a Christian theme park called Heritage USA. Comedian and ex-evangelist Sam Kinison joked: I can imagine up in heaven, Jesus is thumbing through the New Testament, saying” Hey, where did I ever say anything thing about a water slide?”
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Yesterday’s Question: Which nation is older- Germany, Italy or the United States?

Answer: The United States. Of course, the German and Italian people go back for centuries. But in 1776 when the USA was born, Italy was the Papal States, the Kingdom of Two Sicilys, The Duchy of Tuscany, Parma and the Venetian Republic, Milan was part of Austria. Germany was the Kingdoms of Brandenburg-Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, The Rhenish Palatinate and the independent Electorships of Baden, Hanover, Hesse and a myriad of little princedoms. Italy as a nation would not exist until 1859, Germany not until 1870.

Quiz: Which nation is older? Italy, Germany or the United States?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Massachusetts and Maine are Indian names. New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York are British names. What does Vermont mean?
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History for 12/5/2007
Birthdays: Pope Julius II, Martin Van Buren, Walt Disney, Fritz Lang, Eugene Debs, George Armstrong Custer, Little Richard Penniman, Strom Thurmond, Otto Preminger, Lin Piao, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Jim Plunkett, Jose Carreras, Margaret Cho is 40

HAPPY HANNUKAH ! - Tonight begins the Hebrew Festival of Lights commemorating the victories in 164 b.c.e. of the priest-general Judas Maccabeus ( Maccabeus means the Hammer ) against the Syrian Greeks when the re-lit lamp in the purified Temple of Solomon burned for nine days on one day’s oil. Hannukah of Chaunnakah means ReDedication. The ancient state of Israel had been conquered by Babylon then Persia and finally by Alexander the Great. After Alexander's death his Greek generals divided up his empire and Israel found itself on the border between the Kingdom of Seleucus and Ptolomey's Egypt. This power struggle enabled the Jewish state to reassert it's independence by playing one side against the other until the Romans kicked everyone's butt. The Greek descendant of Seleucus, Antiochus IV Theos Epiphanes- “God Made Manifest” thought this one-God stuff weird and Jews should be praying to Hercules and Apollo like every other self respecting ancient citizen. He plundered the Temple of Solomon for gold and even tried to command Jews to eat pork on pain of death. The Jews reasserted their faith with such vigor that even when they fell under Roman rule Julius Caesar left specific instructions that Jewish customs and Sabbath be protected. So spin a dradle, light the candle, have some Hannukah Gelt and enjoy!

1484- Pope Innocent VIII raises the practice of Witchcraft from a minor sin to a major heresy. Included in the definition of witchcraft is any remaining vestiges of local animist customs, herbalism or treating illnesses with home grown medicines. He ordered the Holy Office of the Inquisition to look into all cases. From 1484 to 1750 maybe 200,000 people died in Europe and America. As late as 1784 a woman in Belgium was executed for bewitching a child.

1502- Columbus last voyage was hit by a hurricane. For twelve days his ships were battered by wind and waves. At one point Columbus saw a waterspout in the ocean near them. He read a Rite of Exorcism at it and made the sign of the Cross with his sword. Tradition says it then went away.

1766- London auction house Christies held it’s first auction.

1791-MOZART DIED- The 35 year old composer was slaving away on a commission for a Requiem Mass when he died of scarlet fever and kidney failure complicated by exhaustion and alcoholism ( and he didn't work in animation ) Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave and when his wife came to mourn him a few days later nobody could recall where he was buried. But the financial woes of his wife Constanze are exaggerated. Within a few years she was loaning money to relations. Constanze, the aunt of composer Carl Maria Von Weber and Mozart’s pupil Sussmeyer finished the Requiem. The theories about Antonio Salieri poisoning him out of jealousy or the FreeMasons doing him in began only a few years later. Schiller wrote a play in 1817 called Mozart & Salieri where he has Salieri doing the dastardly deed. In 1827 one of Beethoven's pupils wrote the Maestro about going up to the sanitarium to visit the ancient composer: "Salieri is in one of his fits again, shouting “I killed Mozart! Mozart forgive me!”"

1791- First Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton presented his Report on Manufactures to Congress. This was considered a revolutionary document because here was this illegitimate snob from Martinique telling his half wild nation of farmers and trappers with dead raccoons on their heads that their future lay in developing heavy industry closely regulated by a strong centralized government. Thomas Jefferson among many others thought it was a big mistake, but modern scholars declare The Report on Manufactures as the true beginning of the US economy.

1837- Hector Berlioz chorale Requiem premiered.

1854- Aaron Allen of Boston patented the theater chair that folded up so you could exit.

1912- New York Hat directed by D.W. Griffith premiered. The first movie script written by Anita Loos, then 19. She became one of the finest Hollywood screenwriters ,who penned films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

1941- Admiral Halsey moved his carrier fleet- USS Lexington & Enterprise out of Pearl Harbor to go on maneuvers. They would not be there for the Japanese attack on Pearl. This is why Admiral Yamamoto was disappointed with the battle’s final results.

1945- Flight 19, a routine training patrol of 5 Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale at 2:00PM and flew into the Bermuda Triangle. Two hours later the commander radioed that his compass and backup compass had failed and his position was unknown. The 14 men and their planes were never seen again. In the next few months hundreds of planes and ships searched the waters for some signs of wreckage but nothing was ever found.

1952- The Abbott and Costello Television Show premiered. Where’s Hilary, Mr Fields and Stinky? “ Niagara Falls! Slooowwlly I turn! Step by Step! Step by Step!”

1953- Josef Stalin died. He was in a coma after a stroke but his doctors were too terrified to treat him. Before he died he was preparing a new purge aimed at doctors. Nikita Khruschev recalled those last days:”The secret police would knock on your door and drag you off in the dead of night. When you said goodbye to your family you didn’t know if it was to go to be shot or that Comrade Stalin just wanted someone to watch an old movie with him. You know, one does not do one’s best work under such conditions..”

1974- The Seattle Seahawks football team formed.

1974- The BBC aired the last Monty Python show.
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Yesterday’s Question: Massachusetts and Maine are Indian names. New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York are British names. What does Vermont mean?

ANSWER: Green Mountains in French- Les Mont Vert or Ver-Mont. Patriot Ethan Allen and his men were called the Green Mountain Boys. Vermont was the first territory to become a state after the original 13 colonies.

Quiz: Massachusetts and Mississippi are Indian names. New Hampshire, and New Jersey are British names.
What does Vermont mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz: What do these people have in common? Gregory La Cava, Frank Tashlin, David Swift, Tim Burton, Jerry Reese, Simon Wells, John Bruno, Rob Minkoff and Kevin Lima.
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History for 12/4/2007
Birthdays: Chief Crazy Horse, Samuel Butler*, Thomas Carlyle, Lillian Russell, Vasilly Kandinsky, Buck Jones, Wink Martindale, Max Baer Jr., Robert Vesco, Charles Keating, Deanna Durbin, Pappy Boyington, Horst Bucholtz, Former South Korean Prime Minister Noh Tae Yoo, Rainer Maria Rilke,, Jeff Bridges, Marisa Tomei is 43, Tyrah Banks is 34, Johnny Lyon- 1948 of the band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

*"Life is one long process of getting tired."- Samuel Butler

963AD- Pope John XII was beaten to death by the husband of a woman he was sleeping with. In Nominae Patrie- OUCH!..Et Filiae..OUCH!…Et Spitritu Sanctam..OUCH!

1657-Painter Rembrandt van Rijn was evicted from his home. His kept out of debtor’s prison when his daughter and son-in-law auctioned most of his possessions to pay off his creditors.

1674- HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHICAGO! French missionary Jacques Marquette dedicated a mission house and trading post that will eventually become Fort Dearborn, then the Windy City. But who invented deep-dish pizza and kielbasa on a bun?

1783- WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL- The American Revolution now ended, George Washington bid farewell to his officers at a dinner at Fraunces Tavern in New York. Creole cook Samuel Fraunces "Black Sam' was later invited by Washington to become the first presidential chef. The tavern is still there serving dinner on the corner of Water and Pearl Streets.

1791- The London Observer, called the oldest continually published newspaper in the world, first published. True, the Times was begun in 1788 but t had a spotty release it’s first few years while it’s publisher would be thrown in prison for libel.

1829- The British in India abolished the custom of suttee- that a widow throw herself on her husbands funeral pyre and die also.

1875- William Marcy “Boss Tweed” escaped Ludlow Street jail and fled to Cuba. He had been the corrupt boss of New York City politics throughout the 1860s and 70s. He was rearrested in Spain by a Spanish policeman who spoke no English. When asked by American diplomats the Spaniard said he saw a newspaper cartoon by Thomas Nast of Tweed in prison garb with his hands on two young boys so he thought he was a kidnapper! Tweed was brought to justice by the one crime he probably never did.



1881- First issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1909- The first Canadian Football League championship the Grey Cup, U of Toronto defeated Toronto Parkdale 26-6

1915- HENRY FORD'S PEACE SHIP-The great industrialist was a livelong pacifist and was horrified by the carnage of the Great War. On this day he equipped a large yacht with neutral diplomats and other famous personages like Thomas Edison and sailed to Europe. Pundits had fun mocking his homespun naiveté' and local lunatics like Urban Ledoux, aka Mr. Zero, jumped into New York Harbor and swarm alongside the ship "to ward off hostile torpedoes." Ford docked in Oslo harbor hoping to use his influence to get the Kaiser, Czar and the other crowned heads to a bargaining table like some kind of board of directors negotiation. Nobody would meet with him. Young N.Y. politician Fiorello LaGuardia noted: "The only boy he managed to save from the trenches was his own son!"

1916-RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK KILLED- Several Russian noblemen resolve to rid their country of this Siberian peasant mystic who held such power over the Tsar and his family that he could dismiss government ministers at will. He once had an entire army offensive redirected because he was negotiating to buy the real estate they planned to fight over. A first cousin of the Czar, cross dressing Prince Youssuppov invited Rasputin to a late night party. He had a record player with Yankee Doodle playing in another room to convince the monk that a party indeed was in progress. Youssuppov gave Rasputin a glass of cyanide laced vodka. Rasputin drank it and finished the bottle. Then the conspirators rushed out, emptied a revolver into him, beat him with chains and heavy silver candlesticks, rolled him up in a rug and stuffed him into the ice clogged Neva River.
The official coroner's report said he had drowned. Shortly before his death Rasputin wrote a prediction in a letter to the Czar saying that 'if the peasants, my brothers, kill me, then you, Czar of Russia, have nothing to fear. But if your relatives kill me, not you nor any one of
your family will remain alive longer than two years." Rasputin's prediction was off by about four months. Nicholas II and his 400 year old dynasty fell ten weeks later and the entire Imperial Family were murdered in July 1918.

1927- The Cotton Club opened as a speakeasy nightclub in Harlem. Owners were New York ganglords Owney “The Killer” Madden and George “Big Frenchy” DeMange. Duke Ellington’s orchestra highlighted the opening night. When other gangsters tried to open a rival The Plantation Club, Owney had his henchmen demolish the place. The Cotton Club was one of the great centers of the Harlem Renaissance, but African Americans were segregated from eating or drinking at the tables. Even W.C. Handy was turned away.

1931- James Whale’s macabre masterpiece film “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair theater in NY. English actor William Henry Pratt renamed Boris Karloff played the monster.

1932-“Good Evening Mr & Mrs North and South America and All the Ships at Sea! Let’s Go To Press!” Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his famous radio broadcasts on the NBC Blue Networks. Winchell became one of the most powerful voices in American society and politics for 23 years, later a strong voice of Anti-Communism and supporter of Joe McCarthy.



1941- As Admiral Nagumo's carrier fleet approached Pearl Harbor, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox assured news reporters : "No matter what happens, the US Navy will not be caught napping !"

1941- film "Mr. Bug Goes to Town"-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Disney and keep his studio alive. However the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and Paramount puts Max out of business.


1948- “Hey...Stella !! A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

1952- A killer smog sickens thousands in the London area. Around 8,000 people become ill. London bans the use of coal, peat and wood fires to heat homes. A deadly smog covered Los Angeles in 1956 and accelerated the demand for development of unleaded gasoline.

1955- French mime Marcel Marceau appeared on American TV for the first time.

1958- Cocoa Puffs cereal invented.

1961- Someone at the Museum of Modern Art in NY noticed that they had hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down. It had been that way for two months and until now nobody had noticed.

1963- The first Instant Replay camera used at a football game. It was an Army-Navy game.

1988- Actor Gary Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident on Olympic Blvd. In Los Angeles. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered massive head trauma. He later claimed to have an out-of-the-body experience at the scene.

1993- Rocker Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer at age 52.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What do these people have in common? Gregory La Cava, Frank Tashlin, David Swift, Tim Burton, Jerry Reese, Simon Wells, John Bruno, Rob Minkoff and Kevin Lima.

ANSWER: They were all animators who became live action directors.

Today’s Quiz: What do these people have in common? Gregory La Cava, Frank Tashlin, David Swift, Tim Burton, Jerry Reese, Rob Minkoff and Kevin Lima.

Yesterday’s Question below: What is the origin of the phrase” To be Turned Down Flat?”
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HISTORY FOR 12/3/2007
Birthdays: Gilbert Stuart, Sven Nykvist, Joseph Conrad real name Josef Korzeniowski, Jean Luc Godard is 77, Nino Rota, Jim Backus-the voice of Mr Magoo, Maria Callas, Larry Parks, Charles Pillsbury, Darryl Hannah is 47, Katerina Witt, Brendan Fraser is 39, Julianne Moore is 47


Happy Ozzy Day! Ozzie Ozbourne is 59-
”I never set out to be a businessman. I just wanted to have fun, f—k chicks and do drugs.”

749AD- This is the Feast of Saint John Damascene. He’s the saint who’s called the Father of Christian Art, because he theologically argued a way for artists to avoid the “Graven Images “ hitch in the Ten Commandments and make images of Jesus and the Saints.

1591- The first fire insurance contract was written in Hamburg.

1775- The first official U.S. flag hoisted aboard the USS Alfred. It was thirteen stripes with a cross of Saint George and Saint Andrew in the corner.

1818- Illinois became a state with it’s first capitol at Kaskaskia.

1838- THE SECRET GUILD of the SACRED HUNTERS OF THE EAST. Another goofy attempt by the U.S. to conquer Canada. On this day a force of 500 disaffected Canadians, Yankee opportunists and Polish revolutionists cross over from Detroit and capture Windsor Ontario. (why do we always invade Canada in the winter? ) They are led by the uncle of writer Ambrose Bierce, Lucius Verus Bierce. They call themselves the Secret Guild of the Sacred Hunters of the East and their intention was no less than liberating Canada from the hated British yoke! ( although who hated it at the time is anybodys guess..) Well nobody supported them and while they were standing around trying to think of what to do next the British army quickly rounded them up. Those that weren’t hanged were shipped to New Zealand. Bierce escaped back across the Detroit River in a canoe where he was promptly arrested for violating U.S. neutrality laws. He later devoted his time and money to abolition and financed John Browns’ anti-slavery campaign in Kansas.

1919- Impressionist painter Pierre August Renoir died of old age. Suffering from arthritis that left him unable to paint with his hands, Renoir used a bit that held the brush in his teeth.

1925- GEORGE GERSHWIN PLAYS CARNEGIE HALL. Gershwin always wanted to be taken seriously as a composer and not just a Tin Pan Alley pop-song writer. While in Paris he met Maurice Ravel, but instead of giving him advice Ravel said: "You make HOW much from your songs? Maybe I should learn from you!" When he asked to be Arnold Schoenberg's pupil, Schoenburg told him :" Why do you want to be a bad Schoenburg when you're already such a good Gershwin?"

1931- Happy Birthday Alka Seltzer!

1934- Lee Blair, Disney artist and brother of Preston Blair, Disney artist, married Mary Browne Robinson, Disney artist. She became the most famous of them as Mary Blair.

1941- After clandestine diplomatic initiatives to raise the U.S. oil and steel embargoes fail, The Japanese High Command radios it's carrier fleet out in the Pacific: "Climb Mount Nitaka". This code meant go forward with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nagumo orders resumption of radio silence and turns his fleet South-SouthWest towards Hawaii.

1967- Dr. Christiaan Barnard of Capetown performed the first heart transplant.

1968- Elvis Presley opened in Las Vegas to rave reviews and packed houses. It marks the beginning of his comeback and his transition from thin, black leather-jacketed youth to fat, rhinestone jumpsuit, half tinted sunglasses, karate-swinging middle age.

1974-A 40 foot long inflated pig broke away from its’ teather at a Pink Floyd photo shoot and became a hazard to civil aviation. The AeroPork was lost to radar at 8,000 feet.

1991- Hulk Hogan defeated Undertaker to become WWF champ for the 4th time.

1997 – 56 year old Darlene Gillespie, an original member of the Mickey Mouse Club, was busted in LA for a securities fraud scheme. She later developed multiple schlerosis.

1997-Basketball star Latrell Sprewell lost his $32 million contract with the Golden State Warriors for trying to strangle his coach P.J. Carlesino. So he goes to the NY Knicks.

2004-The Ukranian Supreme Court ruled the recent presidential election invalid. Moscow and hardline Kiev Gov’t supported Victor Januscowicz followers committed widespread acts of voter fraud, then suppressed any news reports. The story was revealed to the world by a heroic sign language translator for the deaf. While the state approved news anchor reported the elections on the evening news the translator, Tania Dmitriovna, signed “EYERYTHING YOU HAVE JUST HEARD IS A LIE! YUSCHENKO IS OUR TRUE PRESIDENT! THIS IS PROBABLY THE LAST TIME YOU WILL EVER SEE ME..” The word spread spawned weeklong mass demonstrations and international pressure that compelled the government to redo the election.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the phrase” To be Turned Down Flat?”

Answer: In early America, when a gentleman desired to court a lady, he would leave his carte de visite [calling card] at her house. When he returned to call, if the card was upright on the mantle, then the lady in question desired to accept his courtship. But if she declined, he knew when he saw his card – turned down flat.