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March 27th, 2009 fri.
March 27th, 2009

Quiz: What language did Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife speak?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What does it mean when you call someone a Cassandra?
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History for 3/27/2009
Birthdays: French Prince Louis XVII –the boy during the Revolution who died in prison while his Royal parents were guillotined, Patty Smith Hill- 1868- The composer of the song Happy Birthday to You, Edward Steichen, Gloria Swanson, Sarah Vaughn, Maria Schneider, Mies Van der Rohe, Snooky Lanson, Wilhelm Ronthgen the discoverer of X-Rays, Nathaniel Currier of Currier & Ives, cellist Mtisislav Rostropovich, Michael York is 67, Quentin Tarantino is 46, Mariah Carey is 39

The Ancient Romans called today Washing Day, the origin of our concept of Spring Cleaning.

1513- Juan Ponce De Leon sighted the coastline of Florida and claimed it for His Most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain. For years Spanish maps called all of North America- Las Floridas. Alabama was known as Western Florida until 1819.

1536- Swiss Cantons sign the First Helvetic Confession, declaring their common support of the Protestant religion.

1599- Queen Elizabeth Ist appointed her toyboy courtier the Earl of Essex to be Governor General of Ireland. In his 6 months there he was ordered to put down the rebels under Earl Tyrone of O’Neill, which he couldn’t; not to make any peace treaties without consulting London, which he did; and not to leave Ireland without permission, which he left. Eventually Essex thought he could handle the Queen. He lost his head instead.

1790- The invention of modern shoelaces!

1814- THE BATTLE OF HORSESHOE BEND-The last great Indian battle in the American South. The War of 1812 coincided with Seneca prophet Tecumseh's called for all indians regardless of tribe to unite and fight the white man. Chief Red Eagle and the Creek Nation tried to fight Gen. Andrew Jackson and his volunteer army of frontiersmen down in the Alabama territory. Jackson's army included Davey Crockett, Sam Houston and future Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Jackson (Indians named him "Sharp Knife") destroyed the Creeks in one huge battle. In a switch on Hollywood images in this battle the Indians fought from inside a wooden walled fort and the whites charged around it. After the carnage Jackson ordered his men to cut off the dead brave's noses so he could make an accurate count. Andy Jackson became a national hero and carried a lead bullet around in his shoulder for the rest of his life, Sam Houston got shot in the groin which may have caused his marriage to a Cherokee woman to break up and Chief Red Eagle put on a suit and tie and changed his name to William Weatherford.

1855- Abraham Gesner patented Kerosene.

1865-The City Point Conference. Lincoln, Grant and Sherman confer on the steamboat River Queen about how to finish off Robert E.Lee and end the Civil War. Lincoln stressed that after the war the South should be treated mildly, no mass treason trials, hangings or reparations.” Let’s let ‘em up easy..” It's the last time Grant and Sherman would ever see Lincoln alive.

1866- Andrew Rankin received the first patent for the upright porcelain urinal.

1886- GERONIMO ! After a whirlwind campaign across Arizona being chased by three U.S. armies, Geronimo and his Chiracuha Apaches surrender. For weeks with only 32 braves with their families Geronimo held off 5,000 troops. The Apaches nicknamed their pursuing enemy General George Crook "General Day-After-Tomorrow" for his inability to keep up with them. Finally they were cornered and forced to give up. Geronimo and the Chiracua were shipped off to a Florida swamp for ten years before being allowed to return to their homelands. Many White Mountain Apaches who hated Geronimo acted as scouts for the army. Afterwards they were rewarded by being shipped off as well.

1908- Bud Fisher's comic strip Mutt & Jeff born.

1912- Washington DC received it’s famous cherry trees, 3,020 in number, a gift from the Japanese government.

1940- “Rebecca,” the first American movie by Alfred Hitchcock opened.

1945- Nazis fire the last V-2 rockets at London before the Allied armies overrun their launchpads. The last rockets hit Stepney and Kent. Chief scientist Dr. Werner Von Braun and his scientists started taking English lessons.

1952-U.P.A.’s cartoon “Rooty-Toot-Toot” premiered. It’s music score was by jazzman Phil Monroe, the first African American to receive a screen credit for scoring a movie.

1952- “Singing in the Rain” starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor premiered.

1957- California Reverend Robert Schuller opened the first Drive-In Church.

1958- Nikita Khruschev becomes Soviet Premier in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.

1964-THE ANCHORAGE,ALASKA EARTHQUAKE- The largest in the western hemisphere in the Twentieth Century..9.2 on the Richter Scale. It created a tsunami tidal wave that hit the coastlines of Alaska, British Columbia and Hawaii with a 100 foot wall of water. 164 people died.

1973- In one of the more celebrated stunts in Hollywood history, when Marlon Brando won an Oscar for his role in The Godfather he sent a buckskin clad model named Sashin Littlefeather to refuse the award and deliver a protest about treatment of Native Americans.

1974- Mariner 10 visited the Planet Mercury.

1977- In the largest aviation disaster in history a KLM 747 jumbo jet taking off crashed into a PanAm 747 jumbo landing at Tenerife Canary Islands. 582 people were killed.

1978- The first draft script of the film Norma Rae completed. The film dramatized the life of Christa Lee Jordan, a mill worker who was blackballed by the J.P. Stevens millworks for wanting a union.

1996- Fearful of MAD COW DISEASE- The European Community banned the export of beef from Britain for one year.
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Yesterday’s Question: : What does it mean when you call someone a Cassandra?

Answer: Cassandra was the priestess of Troy who warned her people about the Trojan Horse. Her warnings were ignored and Troy fell. So a Cassandra is someone who brings everyone down with warnings when they want to party.


March 26, 2009 thurs
March 26th, 2009

Question: What does it mean when you call someone a Cassandra?

Yesterday¹s Question answered below: Did Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo ever meet each other?
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History for 3/26/2009
B-Days: Harald von Braunhut 1926- the inventor of Sea Monkeys, Robert Frost, Chico Marx, Conde Nast, Tennessee Williams, Alfred Houseman, Joseph Cambell, General William Westmorland, Erica Jong,, Duncan Hines, Bob Woodward, Leonard Nimoy is 78, Alan Arkin, James Caan is 69, Diana Ross is 65, Former Justice Sandra Day-O¹Connor, Martin Short, Bob Elliot of Bob & Ray is 86, Michael Imperioli is 43, Keira Knightley is 24

1199- English King Richard Lionheart died of blood poisoning from an arrow scratch. He was 42. After returning from the Crusade and getting ransomed from prison in Austria Richard embarked on a campaign of regaining lands in central France he lost to the French while he was away. He received his fatal wound while attacking a small castle named Chalus in Limousin. Since he shunned the company of women and never made a son, his brother evil Prince John became king anyway.

1791- The French politician Mirabeau had guided the French Revolution from the Bastille towards creating a constitutional monarchy on the English model. But being now the most famous man in France he lived hard and played hard. This night he ³entertained² two female dancers from the Opera all night and woke up with violent intestinal cramps. He was dead by April 2nd. The Revolution spun out of control into the Reign of Terror then the dictatorship of Napoleon. It¹s interesting to think if things would have been different had Mirabeau lived.

1827- Ludwig van Beethoven died at age 56. Six people visited him while he was sick, 20,000 attended his funeral in Vienna. Romantic legend says he died at the violent peak of a thunderstorm raising his fists skyward in a last act of defiance to God and the elements, but in actual fact he died peacefully in his sleep. He lived in an abandoned monastery given him as public housing by the Austrian government along with a small pension. He constantly complained about his poverty so that the Philharmonic Society of London sent him 1,500 gold English pounds from a benefit concert. After his death they found around 20,000 gold pieces hidden in cupboards and pots.

1830- Vermonter Joseph Smith, 24, first published "The Book of Mormon."

1832- Artist George Catlin began his first trip to the West. He departed up the Missouri River on the American Fur Trading steamer the Yellowstone. Catlin¹s paintings of Plains Indians became famous.

1860- The tip of the Kowloon peninsula and Stonecutter¹s Island ceded by China to Great Britain. This would become the site of Hong Kong. A British Empire diplomat called it "The notch by which the tree will be eventually felled.." meaning that like India eventually all China would be a British colony.

1865- At City Point Virginia the Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens had a covert meeting with Abraham Lincoln to discuss possible peace terms to end the Civil War. But they couldn¹t agree on anything- Even at this late date Lincoln was offered a cash compensation of $4 million for the loss of slaves but Stephens said the deal breaker was Southerners would not admit they were wrong and ask for pardons and amnesties. Alexander Stephens went back to Richmond empty handed and the war went on.

1883-To inaugurate her opulent new 5th Ave. mansion Mrs. Cornelia Vanderbilt held one of the greatest costume balls in New York City history. She and Mrs. Astor had formed the Social Register, also called the Golden 400, the ranking of the top families in polite society first invented by the Venetian Republic. If you weren¹t on their list then darling, you simply weren¹t anybody. The mansion stood where Bergdorf Goodman¹s faces the Plaza Hotel today. The party set new standards for the conspicuous wealth and excess of the Gilded Age. Many guests dressed as Venetian nobility and Mrs. J.P. Morgan dressed as ³Electric Light: The Wonder of the Age.²

1900- The Happy Hooligan comic strip.

1909- The U.S. Board of Censorship created.

1920- This Side of Paradise, the first novel published by a young Minnesota writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a descendant of Francis Scott Key, writer of the Star Spangled Banner.

1937- A statue of Popeye the Sailor unveiled at the Crystal City Texas Spinach Festival.

1942- The first trainloads of Jewish people are sent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

1943- Just outside of Chicago gangster Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti took a walk down a railroad track, took a swig of bourbon, put a 32mm pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. He first waved to get the attention of some track workers so they could witness that he was taking his own life and was not the victim of another gangster. The successor to Al Capone was going to be indicted the next day on Federal charges of racketeering and he knew they had enough from stoolies to put him away for a long time.

1953-The Salk Vaccine for Polio announced.

1953- President Dwight Eisenhower increased US aid to the French fighting the Vietnamese in Indochina, but refused outright intervention.

1958- The Mau-Mau Rebellion in Kenya. It's debatable just how extensive or violent the Mau-Maus were, or even if there ever was such an organization, but the British colonial authorities used it as the excuse to jail the real nationalists like Njomo Kenyatta.

1975 - The Who¹s rock opera "Tommy" premiered in London

1977 - Elvis Costello releases his 1st record "Less Than Zero"

1979- Camp David Peace Accords signed between Israel and Egypt. Israel¹s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt¹s leader Anwar Sadat at one point were so uncooperative President Carter had to shuttle from cabin to cabin because they wouldn¹t meet in the same room. Menachem Begin liked to mess with people¹s minds. At one point to cut the tension Presidential advisor Zbignew Brezshinski invited Begin to play chess. As they sat Begin said softly² I haven¹t played chess in 40 years. Not since the day the Nazis kicked in my door and dragged me and my family off to Auschwitz.² While Brezshinski was humbled thinking about the enormity of that statement Mrs. Begin came in and said: ³Oh, I see you¹re playing chess, it¹s Menachem¹s favorite. He never stops playing!²

1997- Turner Animation's film 'Cat's Don't Dance" featuring the last film work of Gene Kelly. He was a consultant on the dance sequences.

2008- Arnold Schwarzenegger fired Clint Eastwood. No, its’ not a movie plot line. The former actor, turned Republican Governor, objected to a position of the actor/director and former Republican politician took on the California State Parks Commission. Watch for the sequel!

2228 - According to Star Fleet records- James T. Kirk, captain of Federation Star Ship Enterprise (Star Trek) was born.
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Quiz: Did Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo ever meet each other?

Answer: Yes. Even though Leonardo was old enough to be Big Mike’s father, they once competed for the contract to create a fresco in a Florentine public building. Legend has it that when Leonardo won the competition, he made a crack about Michelangelo’s drawing, so Michelangelo punched him.


March 25th, 2009 weds
March 25th, 2009

Quiz: Did Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo ever meet each other?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In motion picture filmmaking slang, what are appleboxes?
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History for 3/25/2009
B-Days: English King Henry II Plantagenet, Joachim Murat, Gudson Borglum, David Lean, Gloria Steinhem, Mary Flannery-O’Connor, Arturo Toscanini, Aretha Franklin, Bela Bartok', Howard Cosell, Bonnie Bedelia, Anita Bryant, Simone Signoret, Sarah Jessica Parker is 44.

In the medieval calendar this was Lady Day, when street lights no longer had to be lit after dark.

1330- Battle of Zebras de Acholes- Scottish king Robert the Bruce on his deathbed asked Earl Douglas the Red Argyle to take his heart to the Holyland. The earl went on Crusade with the Bruce's heart embalmed in lead hanging from a silver chain around his neck. In Spain the Earl was ambushed by a large force of Moors. When the Red Douglas realized his hour had come, legend has it he hurled the box containing the Bruce's heart into the thickest of the foe and plowed after it, long sword in hand, to go down fighting.

1521-FIRST MAN CIRCUMNAVIGATES THE GLOBE- No, it was not Magellan. It was Magellan's slave, Enrique. Enrique was taken from his native Philippines by traders to Sumatra, then Madagascar where Fernan de Magellanes while serving with the Portuguese purchased him and brought him by sea around Africa to Lisbon then to Spain. Later Magellan took him with his fleet west to South America and around the Cape into the Pacific and eventually back to the Philippine Islands. On this day Enrique found on the Isle of Cebu he could converse with the natives. Magellan knew he had done it and reached the Indies by sailing West. After Magellan’s death Enrique jumped overboard and swam home.

1524- Explorer Guisseppi Verrazzano with a French fleet going up the coast of North America drop anchor off Cape Hatterras in North Carolina. Verrazzano could not see the Carolina coastline beyond the thin isthmus of Diamond Shoals so he decides the American Continent must become really thin in the middle before widening out to Canada. His men strain their eyes for signs of China beyond what he thinks is the" Pacific". For a century European maps reflect this silly mistake and Verrasano is later eaten by cannibals..

1634-The good ships Dove and Ark drop anchor in America bringing 128 English Catholics. The Colony of Maryland founded by Caelius Calvert Lord Baltimore under former Virginia Gov. De La Ware (Delaware). For the first time in English America a Catholic Mass was held.

1911- THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FIRE- 145 seamstresses, mostly teenage Jewish immigrant girls, burn to death in a terrible office building fire. They could not escape the flames because their employer padlocked them into their sweatshop so they wouldn't take so many breaks. The pavement was littered with girls who jumped ten stories to their death rather than burn while a helpless crowd looked on in horror. They would hold hands and leap to their deaths together.


The factory owners were never charged with any crime. The owners soon opened another clothes factory, that was also cited for fire safety violations. The tragedy was a major cause of the formation of the ILGWU now called UNITE,and first job safety regulations. One of the eyewitnesses to the tragedy, Frances Perkins, later became Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor. The last survivor of the fire died in 2001 at age 107.

1916 - Ishi, the last survivor of his Yaqui Indian tribe, died.

1931- The Scotsboro Boys. In Alabama nine young black men were accused of raping two white women in a freight car. Although convicted the case was appealed and retired four times, and only the spotlight of national attention prevented any from being lynched.

1931- Shortly after the invention of automobiles, there were automobile races. This day in the dry lake beds of Muroc California saw the first race car speed trials sanctioned by the American Automobile Assoc. It was the beginnings of NASCAR. Muroc was later named Edwards Air Force Base.

1932- Motion Picture Academy President William deMille, brother of Cecil B., started a 'Squawk Forum", inviting film industry workers to air their grievances with their studio heads. (and this way they won't ask for their own union ). The first boss on the hot seat was MGM's Louis B. Mayer. He was greeted with boos, insults and catcalls, mostly from writers. In a short time the forum devolved into a shouting free for all. Mayer furiously stormed out and proceeded to fire and cut the pay of all those Metro employees he could remember were there. The Squawk Forum idea was abandoned.

1933- Nazis Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels offers famed director Fritz Lang a job. Fritz said he’d think about it, then immediately packed his bag for Hollywood.

1944- During World War Two a British pilot bailed out of burning plane and when his chute failed to open he fell 18,000 feet. In a freak ocurance he hit a wet beach that broke his fall. He but suffered only a broken ankle. English film director Michael Powell made the strange incident the basis of a fantasy film with David Niven called "A Matter of Life and Death", released in the US as "The Big Staircase"

1945- The 322rd fighter group escorted a large contingent of bombers from Italy to Berlin and back. During the dogfights over Germany the unit’s P-51 fighter planes shot down three German Messerschmidt ME-262 Schwalbe jet fighters. No bombers were lost and the 322rd was awarded a special unite citation for bravery. The 322rd Fighter Group were the famed Tuskeegee Airmen, the all black pilots. Their commander Benjamin Davis became the first African American to become a US General.

1953- NUMBER 10 RILLINGTON PLACE.-A new tenant to this modest flat in London made an awful discovery- behind the walls were the bodies of 4 women with one more buried under the pea patch. The previous tenant Jack Christie confessed to the murders and was executed. Christie became the most infamous British serial killer since Jack the Ripper.

1954- Legend has it Walt Disney never liked the 1950's UPA design style of cartoons. He was away while the short TOOT,WHISTLE,PLUCK AND BOOM" was being completed. He first saw it without titles and didn't know it was his. Supposedly he turned to Ward Kimball and said:" Aren't you glad we don't make crap like that?" Today TOOT,WHISTLE,PLUCK & BOOM won the Oscar for best animated short.



1954- RCA began mass production and marketing of color television sets. At the time the set cost as much as an automobile -$1,000, 12 inch screen and there was very little programming in color.

1955- US Customs seize a shipment of 258 copies Alan Ginsburg’s poem Howl printed in the UK on the grounds it was obscene." I saw some of the finest minds of my generation destroyed by madness." Next year when Lawrence Ferlinghetti of San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore printed the poem he was arrested.

1957-The Rome Treaty establishing the European Economic Community.

1960- Thirty five years after it was written and published in Europe an American judge rules that D.H. Lawrence's novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover" was not pornography and could finally be sold in the U.S.. Not porn ? Whaddaya think of that, John-Thomas ?

1960- The Moulin Rouge Agreement. After a lot of agitation and arm twisting from Frank Sinatra the owners of the Las Vegas casinos agree to integrate. It was so named for the Moulin Rouge Casino, which up to then had been the only casino that allowed black and white patrons to mix freely.

1967 -The Who & Cream make their US debut at Murray the K's Easter Show.

1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their week-long "love-in" for peace in the bed of Room 902 of the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam.

1990- The Happy Land Social Club fire. A Cuban immigrant man broke up with his girlfriend over drinks in a crowded Latino bar in New York City. The bouncers threw him out when he got abusive. He left the club then returned and splashed gasoline around the one entrance and set it on fire. 87 people died, some so fast that their remains still had their drinks in their hands. It was the worst fire in New York since the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, ironically on this same date.
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Yesterday’s Question: In motion picture filmmaking slang, what are appleboxes?

Answer: They are the ubiquitous little black wooden boxes the film crew sets things on them to raise them up. They are used for film equipment, set props and quite often to make an actor appear taller, like when Humphrey Bogart had to be taller than Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. They were originally real apple boxes brought in from neighboring orchards.


March 24th,2009 tuesday.
March 24th, 2009

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Quiz: In motion picture filmmaking slang, what are appleboxes?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What song began with the lyrics:” Up in Harlem, at a table for two, there we were, the four of us. Me, your big feet and you…”
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History for 3/24/2009
Birthdays: Steve McQueen, Lawrence Ferlingetti, Ub Iwerks (the first Disney animator), John Wesley Powell, Harry Houdini aka Eric Weiss, Edward Weston, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Clyde Barrow of Bonnie & Clyde, Bob Mackie, Robert Carradine, Jesus Alou, Laura Flynn-Boyle is 39, Alyson Hannigan, Joe Barbera, Sir Elton John is 62

To the ancient Romans this was the Day of Blood- when the priests of the Goddess Cybele would end a nine day fast by walking through the streets practicing self-flagellation with whips, atoning for sins with blood. Some scholars theorized that the Christians used this idea as the basis for Good Friday, which ends the fast of Lent.

1603- Queen Elizabeth Ist of England dies of a gum inflammation, James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I Stewart of the United Kingdom. Elizabeth was 69 and had ruled England since she was 25. She was famous for being frugal but she loved extravagant clothing. At her death she left 2,000 dresses. When an Anglican bishop in a sermon tried to criticize her for vanity, the Queen warned him to hold his tongue, ”ere ye may attain Heaven before your time”.

1843- THE BATTLE OF HYDERABAD- Sir Charles Napier and the British Army of India defeated the Balouki tribesmen and conquered the region of the Indus Valley called the Sind. One problem generals always have after a big battle is coming up with a good name. The battle was fought near a village called Dabaa but in Hindi that means Greasy Animal Skins. Napier didn’t want to be known as the Victor of Greasy Animal Skins so he sent an officer to ride around until he found a town with a more suitable name. Finally they chose the town of Hyderabad. Back in London Napier was hailed as the Conquerer of Sind. Punch magazine made a pun that his report consisted of one word-PECCAVI- Latin for “ I have Sinned.- get it? “ Victorian chuckles!

1882 -In Berlin German scientist Robert Koch announced the discovery of the bacillus that caused Tuberculosis, enabling a vaccine to at last be created. T.B. or consumption, was the AIDS of the 1800's- killing everyone from Frederic Chopin to Doc Holliday to Aubrey Beardsley. Today there is a new strain of Super-TB spreading from underdeveloped countries. In Franz Schubert's time it was a strange turn-on for young men to date girls they knew were dying of consumption. Apparently the disease made one especially beautiful just before the end, like a candle flaring up before it goes out.

1912- Sir Arthur Conan-Doyles adventure novel The Lost World, first published in magazine installments. It was the first of the Land-of-the-Dinosaurs type stories.

1934-The Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour debuted on radio. It became a national craze to see who could be a future star. Frank Sinatra was among their finds. The show eventually moved to television and later spawned the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, Chuck Barris the Gong Show, Star Search and American Idol.

1939- The film the Hound of the Baskervilles premiered with actors Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson . They became the most famous interpreters of the characters and went on to make a dozen more films.



1943 - The first Japanese anime’ feature "Momotaro's Sea Eagles" premiered.

1944- THE GREAT ESCAPE- 60 Allied POWs dug a tunnel and escaped from an elite prison in Poland. All but 5 were recaptured, and Hitler had 40 shot.

1954- The Nash-Kelvinator Company and the Hudson Car Company merge to form American Motors Corporation or AMC automobiles.

1955- Tennessee William's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" debuts at Broadway's Marosco Theater. Barbera Bel-Geddes was the first Cat and Burl Ives was " Big Daddy".

1958- Elvis Presley inducted into the Army.- G.I. Blues!

1962- No one had been a more loyal supporter of President John F. Kennedy than Frank Sinatra. The singer got his Ratpack friends to stump for the candidate, and even got Mafia money to support a man who’s brother Bobby was busy busting the rackets in Congress. But the President was warned that association with such a known libertine would cost him family values votes one day. So when Kennedy next visited Palm Springs he not only refused an invitation to stay with Sinatra, but he stayed with more wholesome singer Bing Crosby, a Republican! Sinatra in a rage took a sledgehammer to the extra guest cottage he was preparing for JFK, and broke off his friendship with JFK’s brother-in-law actor Peter Lawford.

1973- In Buffalo, a drunk fan bit rock singer Lou Reed on the ass.

1989- A drunk captain of the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilt 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound Alaska. Insiders claim Exxon fabricated the drunk-captain story to excuse the inadequate detection and warning equipment. The route was well charted and easy to maneuver.

1999- The U.S. and Nato began to bomb Belgrade over Serbian attacks in Kossovo.

2005- A Colorado Rockies big league baseball game was called off on account a swarm of bees. The bees were attracted by the coconut oil in the starting pitchers hair gel.
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Yesterday’s Question: What song began with the lyrics: Up in Harlem, at a table for two, there we were, the four of us. Me, your big feet and you…”



Answer: Your Feets Too Big (1937), by Fats Waller.


March 23rd, 2008 Monday
March 23rd, 2009

Just a heads up to all Animation Fans. Tomorrow Tuesday Turner Classic Movie channel will do four hours of programming to honor animation legend Chuck Jones. They will also debut a documentary Chuck Jones: A Memory of Childhood, featuring some original animated sequences done by John Canemaker.



Check your local times.
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Question: What song began with the lyrics:” Up in Harlem, at a table for two, there we were, the four of us. Me, your big feet and you…”

Yesterdays’ question answered below: Quiz: What does it mean when you glean something?
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History for 3/23/2009
Birthdays: US Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Akira Kurosawa, Joan Crawford, Dr Werner Von Braun, Juan Gris, Chaka Khan, Paul Grimault, Sidney Hillman Jack Ruby, Joan Collins, Eric Fromm, Fanny Farmer, Lora Petty

1721- Johann Sebastian Bach sent the first copy of his Brandenburg Concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg. When the Margrave died and an inventory was made of his holdings in Berlin, the value placed on each concerto was six groschen, or about $5 each.

1775- During the debate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry
said the only way to deal with England was :"I KNOW NOT WHAT COURSE OTHERS MAY FOLLOW, BUT FOR ME -GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH !" Henry became Gov. of Virginia, but later he was forgotten in the formation of the new nation, especially after he declared publicly that the Constitution was a big mistake and Tom Jefferson was an incompetent coward.

1806-After exploring the Pacific coast around the mouth of the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark start back for home.

1857- Stewart's department store in New York installs the first of Mr. Otis's new invention, the elevator. There were earlier steam elevators, but the danger of falling frightened off customers. Mr. Otis’ system of brakes and cuttoffs in the event of a cable brake made elevators popular and the age of skyscrapers possible.

1894- Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan-Doyle was in Davo Switzerland helping his wife recover from tuberculosis at a spa in the Alps. While there, the Swiss introduced him to a new sport that he wrote to London about enthusiastically- Ski-Running, or Skiing. Conan-Doyle predicted in the Strand Magazine “Within a generation, thousands of English people will be coming to the Alps to ski.” Up until recently, there were no statues to Conan-Doyle in England, but there is one of him in Davo, Switzerland.

1918- In a last ditch attempt to break French morale during World War One, the Germans begin firing giant "Big Bertha" cannons at Paris. The monster shells fly 77 miles and took three minutes to reach their targets. The first shell hit Place De La Republique. A German gunner said the discharge of the cannon sounded like an "enormous vomiting dachshund'.



1919-Benito Mussolini founds the Parti Fasci di Combatimento or Fascist Party in Italy. He started his career as a socialist union leader but swung to the other side later (better benefits?) . He named his ultra-right group after the wrapped bundle of sticks with an axe sticking out that was carried before ancient Roman consuls, the fasces, it symbolized Roman power. In a previous generation Garabaldi's men were called Red-Shirts so Mussolini adopted the Black-Shirts. Later Hitler made his storm troopers Brown-Shirts.

1936- Ollie Johnston promoted to be Fred Moore’s assistant at the Walt Disney Studio.

1945- THE FIRST JET FIGHTER ATTACK- In a last ditch attempt to stop the allied armies entering Germany, the Luftwaffe mounts an attack on two captured Rhine river bridges by fifty jet fighters. The Messerschmidt ME-262 Schwalbe (Swallows).
Half never get off the ground, others get lost and the rest don't accomplish anything. The Luftwaffe aces like Adolph Galland thought the jets were ideal for shooting down big B-17 bombers, but Hitler insisted they carried bomb loads, which slowed them down enough for propeller planes to hit them. The experimental jet fuel was so unstable that it had to be mixed by a chemist as it was being poured into the gas tank. If the mixing was done improperly the whole thing could explode on the runway.

1945- Later that day General George Patton led a group of journalists and photographers out to the center of the Rhine bridgehead. One journalist asked his thoughts now that he was breaching Hitler’s vaunted Seigfried Line and daring to go where no foreign soldier had stepped since Napoleon. As cameras clicked the General undid his fly and took a long healthy piss in the Rhine River. “I waited all morning to do that! Yessir, the pause that refreshes!” My father remembered signal corps photo lab assistants made a brisk business selling copies of the famous incident on left over scraps of enlargement paper. That photo was taken by Tech Sgt. Paul Dougherty of the 737 Tank Battallion.

1957- Art Clokey's "Gumby" Show.

1971- US Congress lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

1973-White House attorney John Dean tells President Nixon:" There's a cancer on the Presidency...."

1976- Panamanian middleweight Roberto Duran was being honored in Havana. Fidel Castro casually remarked to Duran “Hey, what do you think would happen if my fighter Teofilo Stevenson met Muhammad Ali?” Duran laughed ” Ali would kill him!” Duran was suddenly on a plane home that night.

1977- The first Nixon-Frost interview.

1983- STAR WARS- President Ronald Reagan announced in a nationwide speech the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed the Star Wars Program. He said US scientists were going to create a protective umbrella of laser satellites in orbit that would shoot down hostile nuclear missiles. This program would cost trillions and even if it worked it could never stop all the missiles launched in a Soviet first strike. Conservative apologists contend that the re-escalation of the arms race drove the Soviets crazy and their inability to keep up with arms spending sped their economic collapse. Star Wars wasted billions of U.S taxpayer dollars before it was stopped.
On the day of the 9-11 World Trade Center Attack Dr Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to make a major speech announcing the resuming of Star Wars spending.

1989-COLD FUSION Two physicists named Reynolds & Fleischman make incredible claims that they had discovered a way to make electric power from Cold Fusion. This would mean limitless cheap power that left little waste. It could use nuclear waste as a fuel. After a lot of excitement upon closer scrutiny the formula didn’t work.

1990- President George Bush Sr. banned broccoli from the White House. He joked; "Read My Lips ! I hate Broccoli !"

2003- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, Beating out Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet.

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Yesterday’s Question: Quiz: What does it mean when you glean something?

Answer: Today we say we gleaned information on something by searching many sources. Originally it was the process of going through a harvested field crop a second time and pulling out that which was still edible.Gleaning privileges were traditionally given to widows (it's in your Bible). They could take what the harvesters missed and not pay for it.


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