Quiz: When you describe someone describing staging as “proscenium” what does that mean?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: On a motion picture location shoot, what are the Honey Wagons?
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History for 9/25/2022
Birthdays: William Faulkner, Jean Phillipe Rameau, Mark Rothko, Dmitri Shoshtakovich, Sergei Bondarchuk, Phil Rizzutto the Scooter, Bob MacAdoo, Christopher Reeve, Glen Gould, Barbera Walters, Red Smith, Aldo Ray, Heather Locklear is 60, Will Smith is 5, Michael Douglas 78 & Catherine Zeta-Jones-54, Mark Hamill is 71

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

1066- Battle of Stamford Bridge -the last great Viking raid. The king of the Northmen Harald the Dragon landed an army at the old Roman city of Eboracum, now called in Norse, Yoorvik or York. There he was met by the Anglo-Saxon army of King Harold Goodwinson. "Give us land." The Vikings said." We'll give you as much land as needed to cover your bones!" said Harold, then defeated the Vikings in a huge battle. Harald the Dragon went down fighting as did his English ally Earl Tostig.
Almost as soon as the fight was over, the Saxons learned a new invasion force had landed in the south near Dover. They were the Normans under William of Normandy. King Harold having to fight in north England, then rush by forced marches down to the south to fight another big battle, was a factor in his final defeat at Hastings.

1218- Simon De Monfort, leader of the Crusade against the Albigensian heretics of southern France, was hit in the face by a catapult stone whilst besieging Toulouse. Legend says the lucky catapult shot that nailed Simon was fired by the women & children of Toulouse, who knew they could expect no pity from him.

1493- Christopher Columbus sailed from Cadiz for the New World on his second trip, this time with seventeen ships. He had been named Governor General of the Indies and Admiral of the Ocean Seas.

1513- Vasco Nunez de Balboa emerged from the Panamanian rainforest to view the great expanse of the western ocean. He called it "Pacific" the "Peaceful Ocean."

1525- THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG- German Emperor Charles V wanted his rebellious people to knock off all this Protestant Reformation stuff and stay Catholic like him. But they fought him all over Germany in the Schmalkalden Wars. Even his own sister joined the new faith. Finally Charles made a peace. All could have religious toleration- well, not really. It just said whatever your local prince said was the official religion. This was the first official state acknowledgment that more than one version of the Christian faith now existed.

1690- The first American newspaper published in Boston; " Publick Occurances Both Foreign and Domestick, Issue Number One" There was no number two because the Royal Governor of Massachusetts colony promptly closed it down.

1775- American patriot leader Ethan Allen was captured by the British while attempting an assault on Montreal. He was sent to England for prison, but exchanged two years later.

1777- British Lord Howe after pushing aside Washington's little army CAPTURED THE AMERICAN CAPITOL OF PHILADELPHIA. The rebel congress had picked up their Declaration of Independence and hightailed it for Harrisburg.
It was the American's luck that at this time the colonies were so loosely knit and decentralized that losing the capitol wasn't very important to anyone except Philadelphians. Local Loyalists had a field day routing out rebel sympathizers. Because the Quakers espoused non-violence everyone thought they were on the other side, so they were singled out for especially rough treatment- pelted with stones, tar & feathers, etc.
Lord Howe complained to London that by now he had defeated the American army several times and captured it's capitol, yet the Rebellion showed no signs of dying out. America only had four major cities, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston and they all had been captured by His Majesties forces at one time or another. Except for little pirate John Paul Jones and a ship or two, they had sunk most of the American Navy. But the Yankees still wouldn’t give up. Obviously a military solution to the American problem was not the answer." I can only pacify the colonies if I had two soldiers for every colonist." London responded by replacing Lord Howe.

1789- James Madison proposed a series of ten amendments be added to the new Constitution guaranteeing basic personal freedoms, the BILL OF RIGHTS. This day it was approved by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

1828- The September Conspiracy. Simon Bolivar the Liberator was confronted by assassins sent by his own vice president to kill him. He escaped death thanks in part to his mistress, Manuela Saenz.

1840- By order of the Mexican Government, slavery was outlawed in California- except.....Indian children were bought and sold for another ten years.

1887- The first Sears Catalog published.

1888- The beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles.

1890- Spurred on by the writings of John Muir and John Wesley Powell, Congress created Yosemite National Park in California.

1911- Groundbreaking in Boston for Fenway Park.

1917- After the Red Baron, Germanys greatest WWI air ace was Werner Voss. He shot down 48 enemy planes. This day Werner Voss died in one of the most spectacular dogfights in aviation history. Alone in his baby-blue Fokker Triplane, Voss took on 8 British planes, all aces like himself, and fought them all in a wild, whirling melee in the sky. Shortly before Voss went down, the British saw his propellor stop turning. Did he run out of fuel? Or was his so badly wounded he could no longer control his plane? No one is sure. He was 20.

1918- Brazil declared war on Austria. This was seen as purely ceremonial, the Great War was just about over.

1928- Walt Disney wrote to his brother Roy and lead animator Ub Iwerks, “ Carl’s (Stalling) idea of a Skeleton Dance as a musical novelty has been growing on me…”

1933- Young writer John Huston was driving drunk on Sunset Blvd when he struck and killed a pedestrian. His father Walter Huston was a top movie star, so to avoid scandal, MGM head Louis B. Mayer paid $46,000 to cover it up. John Huston went on to become a great Hollywood director and screenwriter.

1953- Alfred Hitchcock wrapped filming on his only 3D film, Dial M for Murder.

1957- President Eisenhower sent the bayonet wielding 101st Airborne to enforce the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, after the governor refused to use the National Guard. Three days earlier the Guard stood by doing nothing when a mob almost lynched a 15 year old girl trying to enter the school. She was saved by a sympathetic white friend. Eisenhower was not exactly colorblind himself, but the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation, and to the old general, orders were orders. Escorted by troops, nine black students entered the school through hordes of jeering whites. One girl was spit on so many times she had to wring her dress out in a sink afterward.

1961- Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color debuted on NBC TV today. Moved over from ABC. This episode introduced the character of Ludwig von Drake.

1965- The Beatles animated cartoon show premiered.

1975- The Rocky Horror Picture Show opened. The movie version of the successful cult stage musical. Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.

1980- John Bonham of Led Zeppelin was found dead of alcohol poisoning.

1984- THE RUBBERHEADS STRIKE- Disneyland workers including the actors who stroll the park in big Mickey and Goofy heads went on strike.

1988 – Former President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy died. Billy Carter was one of the more embarrassing presidential relatives- he used his influence as a paid lobbyist for Khaddafi’s Libya, and produced BillyBeer, undoubtedly the worst beer I ever tasted.

1992- Michael Mann’s epic film, “The Last of the Mohicans” premiered. “I will find you!”
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Yesterday Quiz: On a motion picture location shoot, what are the Honey Wagons?


Answer: They are a row of small, mobile dressing rooms, for actors who are not the stars. So named because in the 1930s they were for the pretty girls dancing in the chorus.

Happy 16th Anniversary to the Trivia Question.
Question: On a motion picture location shoot, what are the honey wagons?

Yesterdays Quiz: When King Charles III referred to the boarding school in Scotland his father made him go to, he described it as “Colditz in kilts”. What does that mean?
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History for 9/24/2022
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vitellius, Duke Albrecht Wallenstein, Chief Justice John Marshall, Francis Scott Key, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Raft, Chief Joseph, Sheila MacCrae, Anthony Newley. Phil Hartman, Mean Joe Greene, Billy Bletcher the voice of Pegleg Pete, Pedro Almodovar is 72, Jim Henson.

768 A.D. The two sons of Pepin the Short, Carloman and Charles, inherited the kingdom of the Franks, or France. Carloman then conveniently died, so Charles goes on to become Charlemagne- Charles the Great. The Franks had the strange custom of inheritance. Instead of primogeniture- eldest son inheriting all, they divided all their lands among all their male siblings evenly, who would immediately start fighting one another. Carloman supposedly died of food poisoning, but getting rid of rivals with poison was common in those days.

1561- Mary Queen of Scots first met Presbyterian reformer John Knox. The beautiful young monarch, reared in Catholic France, attempted to win the sour old preacher to her side. Unfortunately, Knox was not impressed by Mary’s personal charm and howled against her entire reign. He thought women as rulers were “an abomination in the sight of God.” When she was deposed and imprisoned in England he wrote Queen Elizabeth I constantly urging Mary be beheaded. John Knox also called Queen Elizabeth a beast and a whore.

1688- King Louis XIV of France declared war on Germany and moved his armies towards the Rhine. This had the unexpected consequence of deciding who became King of England. Dutch Prince William of Orange was waiting for the opportunity to invade and overthrow his father-in-law King James II Stuart, who many English despised for being a Catholic. But William would never have dared such a move if Louis and his large French Navy, who were allies of James, were watching him. Once Louis turned his attention eastward, William crossed the Channel with no trouble. William overthrew James in short order and became King William III of England.

1789- Congress passes the First Judiciary Act, which calls for an Attorney General and a Supreme Court. John Jay was first Chief Justice. When President George Washington formed the first cabinet, Thomas Jefferson asked if he could be Attorney General as well as Secretary of State, because representing a little country with no foreign policy was boring and had nothing to do.

1805- LE GRANDE ARMEE- Napoleon’s army had been cooling its heels for weeks on the beach at Boulogne waiting to invade England. This was not likely since the British Navy kept sinking the French Navy. While waiting in camp, Napoleon took the time to drill his troops to an efficiency far superior to any other army of the period. England meanwhile had subsidized Russia and Austria into declaring war on France.
This day Napoleons Grand Army turned around and began an epic march in 5 separate columns across Europe from the Normandy coast, to suddenly appear in Czechoslovakia. No one had ever moved troops so fast. Napoleon left Paris that evening with his Imperial Guard. There was a rainstorm and his famous felt hat got waterlogged and drooped around his ears like a black sombrero. Napoleon moved his Guard veterans like motorized infantry of the future by piling them into farm wagons.

1806- The North German Kingdom of Prussia gave Napoleon’s France an ultimatum to get out of southern Germany or else! Prussia at the time was considered the most superior military power in the world, but the army of Frederick the Great was now a ghost of its former self, ruled by a timid king. Napoleon destroyed it and overran Prussia in 6 weeks. Prussia later became the kingdom German unified around in 1870.

1869- BLACK FRIDAY- A scheme by robber barons Big Jim Fisk and Jay Gould to corner the US gold market backfired into a major financial panic. The two tycoons had thought they had convinced the gullible President Ulysses Grant into halting sale of government bullion. The night before Gould tried to bribe Grants brother-in-law James Corbin with $100,000 to ensure the President wouldn’t change his mind.
But Grant smelled a rat and ordered millions in Federal gold put on the market to bring the prices down. Gold hoarders saw their investment shrink overnight. This day the value of gold dropped in three hours from $160 an ounce to $34. Up in the special part of the N.Y. Stock Exchange nicknamed the Gold Room, dozens speculators were ruined. One investor ran up and down shouting “Shoot Me! Someone Shoot Me!” “Let each man drag out his own corpse.”-Gould later testified.
Jay Gould recovered and died in 1892 worth $70 million. In 1872 Big Jim Fisk was shot dead in the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel by a jilted suitor of Fisk’s mistress actress Josie Mansfield. And Grant the war hero was labeled a financial simpleton by Washington insiders.

1890- Under pressure from the US Government before getting statehood for Utah, the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy.

1906- Teddy Roosevelt designated Devils Tower Wyoming as our first national monument. Teddy’s desire to preserve natural resources was blocked by Congressmen bribed by rich developers. So, he circumvented Congress and by Presidential Executive order declared the entire mountain a national monument.

1934- Stanford graduate Frank Thomas’s first day as a Walt Disney Animator.

1936- Babe Ruth's last appearance in a baseball game. Yankees lost to Boston 5-0.

1936- Noel Coward's play 'Private Lives' opened.

1938- Bob Clampett's cartoon "Porky in Wackyland" ( Foo!)

1938- Tennis champion Dan Budge won the US Open in Forrest Hills. Budge became the first person to win a Grand Slam, all four major tennis meets in one year- Wimbledon, French Open now called Roland Garros, Australian Open and Forrest Hills, now called the US Open.

1941- This day the Japanese Consul in Honolulu was instructed by the Imperial War Ministry in Tokyo to quietly begin gathering information about the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor.

1944- President Franklin Roosevelt had been criticized by Republicans for wasting money in needless wartime excesses. This day he defeated his critics with humor when they accused him of sending a Navy destroyer to the Aleutian Islands just to retrieve his pet Scottie dog Fala. He said in a speech” Now I am used to personal attacks, My family is used to personal attacks, but Fala isn’t. (laughter) He’s Scottish, you know….and, well, he hasn’t been the same dog since.” (laughter)

1953- US Army scientist Frank Olsen jumped out of a NY hotel window to his death after getting high on LSD given him as part of a CIA monitored program. Olsen’s widow sued twenty years later when she finally found out the circumstances of her husbands’ death. The case was only resolved recently.

1953-UPA's "Unicorn in the Garden" directed by Bill Hurtz, based on the cartoon style and story by James Thurber.

1953- The movie "The Robe" premiered, the first movie in CinemaScope. It's success was part of a wave of 'Sword & Sandal" epics and fostered many variations on wide screen processes- Superama,VistaVision, Dynarama, WarnerVision, TotalScope-etc. There had been earlier experiments with wide screen - Abel Gance's 1925 Napoleon, which used three 35mm images shown simultaneously, and The Big Trail 1930, which was a true wide screen 70mm film starring a very young John Wayne. It was superseded by 1967 by the more advanced Panavision lens. For many years in Hollywood we called a wide screen picture a "Scope" picture.

1955- President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while playing golf. While he recovered, Secretary of State Allen Foster Dulles and other White House staffers run things without bothering to tell anyone, even Vice President Nixon.

1960- the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise is launched.

1960- The "Howdy Doody Time" children's show ended after thirteen years. The show remains a pivotal memory in the minds of thousands of American baby-boomers who grew up in the fifties. As the last song and the last credits rolled by, just before the cameras switched off, Clarabell the mute clown goes up to the lens and in a haunting voice said; "Goodbye, Kids."

1968- T.V. show "60 Minutes" debuts. Mike Wallace was pared with Harry Reasoner. The show was originally aired Tuesday nights at 10PM and fared poorly in the ratings. When it was moved to Sundays at 7:00PM it became a weekly institution.

1977- The TV series “The Love Boat “debuted.

1988- The Godfather of Soul Music James Brown got a little crazy sometimes. This day he burst into his office complex in Georgia waving a pistol and shotgun and demanded everyone stop using his washroom! After locking the bathrooms, he led police on high speed chase through Georgia and South Carolina, only stopping when the cops shot out his tires. He rode the sparking rims till they collapsed. James Brown did 2 years for being under the influence of drugs. Hey!

2006- Tom Sito began adding a trivia question to his daily history e-mails.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When King Charles III referred to the boarding school in Scotland his father made him go to, he described it as “Colditz in kilts”. What does that mean?

Answer: Colditz was a maximum security Nazi prison camp where they sent all the Allied POW’s who kept trying to escape. Its name became a synonym for harsh incarceration.

Quiz: When King Charles III referred to the boarding school in Scotland his father made him go to, he described it as “Colditz in kilts”. What does that mean?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What or where is Elysium?
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History for 9/23/2022
Birthdays: Euripides-484BC, Victoria Woodhull, Walter Lippmann, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Mickey Rooney, Julio Inglesias, Walter Pidgeon, Louise Nevelson, Jason Alexander, Mary Kay Place, Harry Connick Jr, Bruce Springsteen is 73, William McGuffey*

*McGuffey was the educator and author of "the McGuffey Readers", a standard public school textbook so successful, that by 1860 the U.S. had an 80% literacy rate.

480BC- THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS- Themistocles and the Athenian fleet defeated the giant armada of Xerxes the Great King of Persia and threw back his invasion. Xerxes was so angry he had his top Phoenician captains beheaded. This battle assured the Golden Age of Greek culture would flourish uninterrupted with democratic Athens at its’ center. The playwright Aeschylus fought in the ranks and Sophocles led the chorus of nude boys dancing and singing in the victory celebrations. Themistocles laid the foundation for Athenian power by insisting she build a large navy rather than an army and concentrate on trade rather than territorial conquest. But Themistocles liked to make money too, and used his offices to pad his fortune, which eventually got him exiled. But not before in another moment of originality he set himself up histories’ first known foreign bank account as a private slush fund.

480BC- Greek Chronicles tell us that also on this same day Glycon of Syracuse defeated the huge Carthaginian army of Hamilcar and saved Sicily for Greece. Hamilcar spent the battle burning up animal sacrifices to the Gods for good omens. When he saw he was losing Hamilcar threw himself on the fire. Not a bad solution, because the Carthage custom was to crucify generals who lost.

1326- Queen Isabella the "She-Wolf of France" and her lover Edmund Mortimer invade England to overthrow her openly out husband, King Edward II. Sounds like a soap opera, doesn't it?

1568- English merchantman John Hawkins and his 3 slave trading ship were blown by a hurricane into the harbor of San Juan de Ulua, the staging area for the treasure fleets that carry the gold of Peru to Spain. The Spanish and English worked out a temporary peace but on this day the Spanish Viceroy ordered his men to attack and kill the English heretics. Two ships got away, and one carried a young clergyman's son from Devon who from then on nursed a lifelong grudge - Francis Drake.

1642- The first commencement ceremony at Harvard College.

1779- "I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT !" Captain John Paul Jones on the U.S.S. BonHomme Richard defeated the larger British H.M.S. Serapis in an epic sea battle off of Cape Falmouth, England. The two ships grappled each other side by side, pounded away with heavy cannon and fought hand-to-hand. The ships were so close that men could jump through the gun portals from one ship to another. At one point Bonhomme Richard was burning from stem to stern, sinking and all her guns out of action. But John Paul Jones refused to give up. The American crew thought their pint-sized Scots captain had lost his mind. When gunnery Ensign Grubb attempted to haul down the Stars & Stripes, Jones knocked him down with a pistol butt. English Captain Pearson overheard Jones arguing with his officers, and called aloud "Sir, do you strike your colors, sir?" That is when John Paul Jones shouted his famous retort: "I have not yet begun to fight!"

To make matters worse, the other American ship in the area the USS Alliance was manned by a jealous captain named Launnay. He ordered a broadside fired into the Bonhomme Richard! Launnay hoped that by helping the English kill Jones, he could then finish them off and take all the credit for the victory. Jones personally ran over to a ten pounder cannon whose crew had been killed, loaded it and fired it himself, bringing down the Serapis’ mainmast.
Finally it was English Captain Pearson who gave up. The BonHomme was so shot to pieces it sank, so the victors had to ride home on the Serapis. The point of the battle for Jones was trying to raid a British merchant convoy, and the convoy got away, but the symbolic victory to Americans and French was significant. John Paul Jones became a legend on the English Channel. In 2002 the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard was discovered 7 miles off the English coast.

1780-"TREASON MOST FOUL !" General Benedict Arnold, fed up with being ignored for promotion by the American high command, planned to change sides by betraying West Point to the British. This was the huge American fortress that would give Britain control of the Hudson River and so split the rebellious colonies in half.
Major John Andre' of British intelligence had a meeting with Arnold and was passing back through the lines when he was apprehended by some Yankee militia. These rascals skulked between the armies robbing anyone who chanced their way but when they discovered incriminating documents in his boot, they turned Andre over to the authorities. This morning Benedict Arnold found out Andre had been arrested and the jig was up, just as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Lafayette were riding over for breakfast !
Arnold escaped to the warship HMS Vulture waiting down river while his wife Peggy stalled Gen. Washington’s party in their parlor. When Washington learned of Arnold's treason and freaked, Peggy feigned a fit of hysterics. Disheveled, with her baby at her breast, she shrieked at the horrified Washington :"They're putting hot irons in my Head! Hot irons in my Head!!". She was put to bed and later slipped away to safety. It wasn't known until 1930 when British Army Intelligence documents were made public that loyalist Peggy Arnold was not only deep in the scheme but had been the chief inspiration of Arnold's changing sides. Major Andre was hanged as a spy. When Peggy died in London of old age, a locket containing the picture of Major Andre was found around her neck..

1803- Battle of Assaye- The Maharatta Rajahs of the Deccan are defeated by a young British general named Arthur Wellesley who Napoleon would meet twelve years later as the Duke of Wellington at a place called Waterloo. Wellington in retirement said Assaye was still his toughest fight.

1845- After only six weeks of U.S. rule, angry Los Angeleanos attacked the American commanders home. The War with Mexico hadn't broken out yet but American and Mexican paramilitary expeditions (called Filibusters) angled for power in California due to the loose and confused control from Mexico City. Mexican-Californian rancheros themselves frequently defied the government authorities, giving rise to the Zorro stories.

1846- The planet Neptune discovered by Johann Gottleib Gala. We did not know it had rings like Saturn until the Voyager 2 spaceprobe visited in 1989.

1862- writer Leo Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs.

1862- Battle of Wood Lake- Minnesota militia put down the Great Santee Sioux Uprising led by Chief Little Crow. The Sioux had set up an ambush in the tall grass on either side of a road but the hungry Army troops steered their wagons right into the fields to look for left over potatoes. The Indians had to reveal their position and fire before they were trampled.

1889- The Nintendo Company started in Kyoto, They began by making hand-painted playing cards, very popular with the Yakuza. In 1956 they transitioned to electronics, and invented Donkey-Kong, Gameboys, Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda.

1908- Giants batter Fred Merkle hit the winning run in a pennant game with the Chicago Cubs. But in running the bases he neglected to touch second base so his run was disallowed and the game was declared a tie. They replayed the game the following day and the Cubs won the pennant. Thereafter Merkle's nickname became Bonehead Merkle.

1912- "Cohen Collects a Debt" Max Sennett's first film comedy featuring the Keystone Kops.

1915- The German submarine U-9 shows the world the power of submarines by sinking three big British battle cruisers all in one day. HMS Hogue, Aboukir and Monmouth were torpedoed and sent to the bottom.

1921- The Band-Aid self-adhesive bandage introduced. A scientist at Johnson &Johnson, Earle Dickson, invented it for his wife who kept cutting herself in the kitchen. Supposedly the skin tone color, which never seemed to match anybody’s skin, was her skin coloring.

1923- A car accident in Chicago killed an elderly lady named Nancy Green. Born a slave, in 1890 she was hired by the Davis Milling Company to be the symbol of their new self-rising pancake flour. She adopted the name of a character in a popular minstrel song- Aunt Jemima. Nancy Green was a good storyteller and a good cook. Her demonstrations became so popular she was acclaimed “The Pancake Queen”. She was awarded a medal at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893. She was under lifetime contract to be the character Aunt Jemima.

1932- King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud combined several desert kingdoms including the Emir of the Hejaz and declared it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1933- At a dedication ceremony Adolf Hitler broke ground for the construction of Germany’s Autobahn system- 1,400 miles of modern freeway. One story says Hitler himself conceived the idea since he was a lifelong auto enthusiast. But that is untrue. German designers as early as 1913 were inventing the road features common to today’s motorists- the Blending Lane and Clover Leaf, Fast Lanes and meridian divided roads.

1937- Mickey Mouse cartoon The Brave Littler Tailor premiered.

1939- At the World’s Fair in New York a time capsule was buried not to be opened until the year 6939. It contains a Bible, a mail order catalog and newsreels of President Franklin Roosevelt. I hope they include a description of what film was, and how to use it.

1939- Sigmund Freud died at age 83. Suffering from inoperable cancer of the jaw, he had his doctor euthanize him with a lethal shot of cocaine.

1942- Erwin Rommel the Desert Fox left his Afrika Korps at El Alamein and flew home to Germany to be treated for acute diphtheria. He missed most of the battle, but returned when things were going badly.

1942- Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Grove start the "Manhattan Project", the building of a "cosmic-super bomb" (the A-Bomb). Hungarian Professor Leo Szilard had been pestering the U.S. government since 1938 to do something before the Hitler made one first. Finally the War Dept. gave the go ahead to collect the finest physicists in the free world to create a super bomb. Scientists like Richard Fenyman and Enrico Ferme would arrive for work at an office in downtown Santa Fe and be immediately whisked out the back in a sealed truck to the top secret lab complex at Los Alamos.
The project was so secret that they were warned if they breathed a word about it the government would make sure they "disappeared' for at least ten years! Vice President Truman had no idea of the project until he was told the night Franklin Roosevelt died. Leo Szilard was never asked to join the team because the F.B.I. considered him 'politically suspect', yet we now know at least two scientists there were Soviet spies, Dr. Karl Fuchs and Ted Hall.

1952- The "CHECKERS" SPEECH- Young Senator Richard Nixon saved his career as Eisenhower's running mate by going on nationwide T.V. and explaining away allegations of accepting improper gifts while a congressman. Included is a dog "checkers" for his kids. "He’s a good dog, and we’re gonna keep him." "My wife doesn't own a mink coat, she has a good Republican cloth-coat." Eisenhower was close to dumping the embattled senator from the ticket but the popular outcry of support after this speech but Nixon back on top. In effect he four-walled Ike into keeping him on the ticket.

1962- H& B's show The Jetsons premiered. It was the first ABC show to be presented in color. Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing! Jane!

1964- Marc Chagall painting on the ceiling of the Paris Opera House unveiled.

1969- the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" premiered. Written by William Goldman and directed by George Roy Hill. It made fortunes for stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who later started and independent film festival called Sundance.

1984- Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells met the Disney Animation Dept. and were pitched storyboards for the film Basil of Baker Street, later called the Great Mouse Detective. Up to now their thinking had been to close the animation department, and earn income from the licensing of the existing library. Roy Disney was instrumental in insisting the animation division remain. Eisner dictates memos to start the Disney television animation division, moribund for over a decade.

1990- Ken Burns landmark TV series The Civil War premiered. It redefined American documentary filmmaking for a generation.

1994- Quentin Tarentino’s film Pulp Fiction premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: What or where is Elysium?

Answer: The Elysian Fields were the Greco-Roman concept of paradise, or Valhalla, where the blessed would dwell happily after death.

Question: Today we have fictional characters named Morpheus, Morbius, Mobius. Who was the original Morpheus?

Question Answered below: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)
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History for 9/21/2022
Birthdays: Louis Joliet of the explorers Marquette & Joliet, Chuck Jones, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Jay Ward, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers, Leonard Cohen- not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, Jerry Bruckheimer, Nicole Richie is 42, Bill Murray is 72

454 A.D.- Flavius Aetius, a Romanized Vandal who as commander of the decaying Roman Empire's legions had stopped Attila the Hun, was assassinated by his boss Emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian couldn't think of a way to catch Aetius alone, so he just bade him approach his throne, and as he leaned in, Valentinian himself stabbed him in the neck right in front of the horrified court. Later, when Valentinian boasted that he had done well in disposing of Aetius, his counsellor Sidonius Apollinaris reacted, "Whether well or not, I do not know. But I know that you have cut off your right hand with your left.” Aetius's family got their revenge and assassinated Valentinian later. Aetius has been called The Last Roman.

1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despenser. In the Middle Ages, it was okay to be gay if you were a big, homicidal maniac like Richard Lionheart, but Edward lost battles and flaunted his male paramours out in the open. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella, the She-Wolf of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer. This day Edward II was murdered in Berkeley Castle. Historians debate how and whether Edward was indeed killed. The popular version is that the murderers held him down and shoved a red-hot spear up his rectum. Edwards only son, Edward III, later executed everyone involved except his mom.

1589- During the French Religious Wars, King Henry IV defeated a large Catholic League army at the castle of Arques. He wrote a friend later:” Go hang yourself my brave Creon, we were at Arques and you weren’t!”

1599- A Swiss tourist named Thomas Platter was visiting London and kept a diary of his trip. He wrote on this day he attended the play The Tragedie of Julius Caesar by Master William Shakespeare at the New Globe Theatre, and enjoyed it very much. This is the first written account of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar being performed, and Shakespeare himself was one of the actors.

1745- Battle of Prestonpans- Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Scots defeated the first small English force sent against him and returned to Edinburgh in triumph. The English in London were alarmed, but at this time a new patriotic song had been written for King George II, it was called GOD SAVE THE KING, the first true national anthem. 1769- MAYER ROTHSCHILD, a dealer in antique coins and furniture in the ghetto of Frankfurt, set up his first bank. He was soon managing the Elector of Hesse's income from selling his soldiers, the Hessians, to Britain to fight the American Revolution. Mayer and his sons built the Rothschild financial empire. Rothschild banks lent the British Empire the money to buy the Suez Canal project from the Khedive of Egypt, they built the first European railroads, and you all know the reputation of wines like Chateau Mouton Rothschild, named for the street Louis Rothschild's house was on, the Rue Mouton. A Rothschild was the first Jewish person in the English House of Lords, and even German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck set a kosher dinner table while courting a Rothschild bank loan. Every baby in the family is born worth $62 million dollars, then it's uphill from there.

1776- A fire broke out in war devastated New York City, now occupied by British troops. The fire started near Whitehall Street and burned down most of the city, including the spire of Trinity Church at the foot of Wall St.
1779- The Spanish governor of New Spain, the Marquis de Galves began his military campaign to help George Washington’s Revolutionaries by taking Baton Rouge and Natchez from the British. The town of Galveston, Texas is named in his honor.

1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC! If you didn't get it, you were guillotined.

1809- Two senior members of the British government, Whig leader Sir George Canning and Tory Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh got so mad at each other that they fought a duel with pistols on Putney Heath (southwest suburb of London near Wimbledon). Sir George received 'a fine wound in the thigh' and Castlereagh got one of his buttons shot off.

1846- Irish drygoods dealer Alexander T. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments. the first U.S. Department Store. He called it his Marble Palace, and gave it the first large glass display windows, which one newspaper labeled “A useless extravagance.”

1855- Queen Victoria met nurse Florence Nightingale for the first time. Miss Nightingale never had an official title or rank in the British Government but used her influence and wealth to force major reforms in the way the military treated the sick. 1862- King William of Prussia makes a minor junker (nobleman) Otto Von Bismarck premier-president and as well as chief foreign minister. Bismarck goes on to make him first Kaiser of a unified Germany (1871) and that Germany a world power. Bismarck's conservative, militaristic style of politics swung Germany away from development of middleclass representative government and set the stage for the totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century.
Bismarck also founded the centralized cradle-to-grave welfare state for the average citizen that the rest of the world envies today. At this time Germany was a loose coupling of 38 countries, some so small they made those Victor Herbert operettas so charming. A parliament of German nationalists had tried to form a plan for unifying Germany by meeting in Frankfurt and drafting a declaration. But Bismarck told the Prussian Reichstag that Germany will not be built by parliaments and papers, but by blood and iron!

1897- The famous column by Frank Church in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World first appeared with the answer to 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question: "...and yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."

1904- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce died of natural causes at 64 on a reservation in Washington State. Others say he died of a broken heart.

1915- The British archaeological treasure Stonehenge was sold at auction to a Mr Chubb, who promptly donated it to the British nation. 1917- The Gulf Between, the first film shot in Technicolor.

1920- The Kimberly Clark Company introduces Kotex ladies napkins in a hospital-blue box. Before that women had to wear something like a linen diaper that they washed and re-used.

1938- This day the Long Island Express- A force 3 Hurricane slammed into New England killing 600. The Boston area was hit with 120 mile an hour winds and downtown Providence was flooded under 13 feet of water.

1942- The first Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber flew in a test flight in Seattle. 1944- An internal FBI memo concludes "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood Guilds and unions and the only organization that could stop them was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals" a conservative publicity group that included Walt Disney, John Wayne and Gary Cooper.

1945- Disney short "Hockey Homicide" the first Sport-Goofy directed by Jack Kinney.

1948- the first Texaco Star Theater television show featuring a nightclub comedian named Milton Berle. Berle’s antics make him a major star and with Arthur Godfrey’s show help grow television from a scientific curiosity to the entertainment every household had to have. For ten years the U.S. public never missed Uncle Miltie on TV.

1950- General MacArthur’s UN Army fought their way into North Korean occupied Seoul. On a hilltop the First Marines Division raised a US flag on a loose drainpipe found near a local school. This caused one regular Army commander to complain: “Ever since Iwo Jima, the Marines never pass up an opportunity to be photographed raising a flag over something!”

1954- The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, was launched in Groton Conn.

1957- General Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, the KGB's top spy in the U.S. for ten years, was arrested in New York. Abel was a master at devising ingenious ways to conceal microfilm, using secret spaces in rusty bolts, shaving brushes and fountain pens. Abel served four years in prison but in 1962 was exchanged for downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.

1957- The Perry Mason TV show with Raymond Burr premiered.

1961- The Washington Senators baseball club played its last game before moving to Texas. They lost. The US capitol would not have a hometown team again until 2005. Pundits would say,” Washington! First in War. First in Peace. Last in the American League.”````

1970-first ABC Monday Night Football - Cleveland Browns defeated the NY Jets led
by Broadway Joe Namath, 24-21. Announcers- Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dandy Don Meredith.

1970- 20 year old Bill Murray was at O’Hare Airport waiting for a plane, when he joking told another passenger he had two bombs in his suitcase. An airline attendant overheard him and called the police. They didn’t find any bombs, but they did find ten pounds of marijuana. He was charged a misdemeanor. Dropped out of college, His older brother got him a tryout at Chicago’s Second City Improv comedy club.

1981- President Ronald Reagan appointed Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court.

1985- “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights hit #1 in the Billboard charts. Writer Mark Knopfler overheard a workman in an electronics store making fun of celebrities on MTV and wrote the conversation down. The CG animation done by London company Mainframe for the video was groundbreaking.

1989- General Colin Powell became the head of the Joint Chiefs. First African-American to head the Joint Chiefs.
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Yesterday’s Question: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)

Answer: John Philip Sousa’s The Liberty Bell March.

Question: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Spike Lee calls his film company 40 Acres and a Mule. Where did that come from?
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History for 9/20/2022
Birthdays: Alexander the Great -357 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Jay Ward, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy, Pia Lindstrom, Gary Cole, Fran Drescher, George R.R. Martin is 74, animator Nancy Beiman, Sophia Loren is 88

356 BC- The Great Temple of (Artemis) Diana of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of an arsonist from Halicarnassus named Herostratus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by King Croesus the Lydian, who had so much gold, the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use. It was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Why had the goddess allowed her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great to keep a watch on her own house.

188AD- Feast of St. Eustachius. Eustachius Placidius was a general under Trajan, who after profession his Christianity, was locked in a bronze bull and roasted to death.

450AD- Battle of Chalons-Attila the Hun is decisively defeated by Theodoric the Visigoth and Aetius, the general of what was left of the dying Roman Empires’ legions. Attila's shaman had predicted a great chief would die that day. Theodoric wound up being the one killed, even as his warriors were winning the battle.

1400- The Welsh under Owen Glendower revolt against English rule. Supposedly the fierce bowmen marched into battle to the sound of harps. Owen had captured English Prince Edwin Mortimer. He not only treated him well but he married Owens daughter creating the Tudor family of British monarchs.

1519- Fernand de Magellan sailed from Seville, Spain. His original mission from King Charles I was to seize the Moluccas from Portugal, now part of Indonesia. Instead his fleet was the first to sail around the world.

1670- English poet John Milton published his last works “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”. He was blind but dictated to a secretary who wrote down his poems. When he felt the inspiration he would call him by saying:” Come. I need to be milked.”

1714- George I of Hanover entered his new capital of London as King of England. The German George feared his new subjects as treacherous revolutionists who’d overthrown and executed their earlier kings. So he deliberately waited out the huge throngs lining the streets come to welcome him. He slipped into the city in the dead of night, after most had gone home to bed disappointed. George never bothered to learn English.” The English have asked me to rule them, not to speak to them!”

1746- Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped Scotland to France, the Highland Rebellion ended.

1777- No-Flint Grey- In the dead of night British troops surprise attack American colonial forces under Gen Mad Anthony Wayne asleep in their camp at Paoli Tavern. British Commander Charles Grey ordered his men not to waste time loading their muskets, but just go at them silently with the bayonet. To ensure his order was obeyed he collected their musket flints, for which he earned the nickname “No Flint Grey”. Paoli Tavern was called a massacre by the American press because the perception was 500 men were stabbed as they slept. Fact is, only 150 casualties were reported, and George Washington had used the same kind of surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton earlier that year.

1792-BATTLE OF VALMY- French revolutionaries (The Sans-cullottes, without breeches- aka rich people pants) mow down the Prussian army, the best soldiers in Europe, who were marching on Paris to suppress their revolution and rescue King Louis XVI. The cool, professional Prussian troops, used to the powdered bewigged, silk stockings type of soldier, had underestimated the passions unleashed by the enraged masses shouting "Aux Armes, Citoyen!"
Another problem the Germans had was an excess of diarrhea among the ranks from eating too many grapes in the Champagne region. The great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe was there as an adviser to his patron the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Although Goethe did not fight, he stood cool under fire. Watching the spectacle Goethe predicted: “From today and from this place begins a new epoch in the History of the World”.

1803- Irish patriot Robert Emmett was executed for leading an abortive uprising against British rule. His final words became famous: “ Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, Let my epitaph be written.”

1814- A week after the British Fleet sailed away, a new poem by Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was first published in the Baltimore Patriot. First called The Defense of Fort McHenry. Key’s brother-in-law Judge Nicholson suggested it might sound good sung to a pub tune,” To Anacreon in Heaven’. Soon, everyone was singing it as The Star Spangled Banner.

1830-The first National Convention of African-Americans convened.

1839- The SS British Queen first brought news of the invention of Photography and the Daguerreotype process to the U.S. Soon everyone is happily snapping away.

1853- Elisha Otis revolutionized tall building construction by demonstrating his elevator that didn’t fall when the cable was cut.

1863-THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAGUA- Bloody Civil War battle in Eastern Tennessee. Union General Rosecrans moved some troops to fill an imagined gap in his line and opened up a real gap that Confederate General Bragg exploited to rout the Yankees. The Union army was only saved by the rearguard defense of Gen. George H. Thomas, who earned the name "Rock of Chickamagua". The fighting was unusually vicious, when soldiers ran out of bullets they threw rocks, clubbed and strangled each other.

Lincoln's opinion of the losing commander, Rosecrans:" Old Rosy's acts stunned, like a duck that's been struck on the head." Rosecrans was a devout Catholic and had the habit of crossing himself frequently and sitting with his head in his hands. He had verbally insulted most of the top officers of the U.S. Army, yet despite this his troops loved him.

1870- The Italian Army captured Rome from the Papal guards and allied French troops and completed the unification of Italy. The city was under Napoleon III's protection until he was defeated and overthrown by the Germans in the Franco Prussian War. The status of the Pope in an Italian Rome remained ambiguous until 1927, when Mussolini signed the Concordat (Treaty) creating the Vatican City-state.

1918- Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab army enter Damascus. Lawrence had inspired Prince Faisal's Bedouin tribesmen that they were fighting for their own all-Arab nation. But the British and the French had no intention of honoring that pledge and that knowledge gnawed at Lawrence. Arabia was divided into British and French protectorates (a civil servant named Speeckes created Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia with a stick in the sand) and Lawrence returned to England a spiritually broken, albeit famous, man.

1942- SUPERSNIPER- This day during the terrible Battle of Stalingrad, a young shepherd boy from the Ural Mountains named Vassily Zaitsiev arrived to fight the Nazis. Zaistsiev turned out to be the deadliest marksman since Sgt. York. In ten days he shot forty Germans, mostly officers- one man, one bullet. The Germans got so upset they sent for a top marksman from Bavaria named Major Koenig.
For the next few weeks the two supersnipers waged a private duel in the ruins of the city Stalingrad. Germans called this urban fighting rattskellerkrieg- rat cellar war. In mid-October, Zaitsiev finally killed Koenig. Vassily Zaitsev survived the war and his rifle is lovingly preserved in the Volgograd Museum today. The duel was made into a movie called Enemy at the Gates with Jude Law.

1944- Now that the Pacific War was winding down martial law was lifted on the Hawaiian Islands. It had been imposed since Pearl Harbor. One tragic result for the servicemen was that the first thing the restored chief of Honolulu police did was shut down the busy brothels of Waikiki. The area known as Hotel Street was ringed with houses servicing servicemen. One sailor reminisced: I got stewed, screwed and tattooed, all in one night.” The quarters most famous hooker, Chicago-born Jean O’Hara said: “ I think I slept with the entire US Navy.”

1947- Tex Avery’s MGM cartoon Slap Happy Lion.

1952- CBS premiered the Jackie Gleason Show- The Honeymooners".

1952- Chuck Jones’ short Rabbit Seasoning, second of his Bugs-Daffy hunting trilogy.

1955- The Phil Silvers Show, originally entitled You’ll Never Get Rich” debuted on CBS. Silvers played con-man soldier Sgt. Bilko.

1973- Musician Jim Croce (30) died in a charter plane crash near Natchitoches Louisiana.

1977- During the premiere episode of the 5th season of the show Happy Days, Henry Winkler’s Fonzi character water-skis in his trademark black leather jacket and jumps a ramp over a live shark. This caused writer Jon Hein to coin the term Jumping the Shark. It has come to mean pinpointing the moment a quality program or person descends into banal silliness.

1979- The Central African Empire of Boukassa I was overthrown with the aid of 700 French paratroops. Jean Bedel Boukassa was known for repression, and spending one quarter of the gross national income of his nation just on his coronation. He had a golden throne made based on Napoleon Bonaparte’s, but changed it when he saw it wasn’t opulent enough. The Central African Republic was declared.

1984- The Cosby Show premiered.

1989- A Los Angeles court found Richard Ramirez guilty of the Night Stalker crimes- 43 counts including 13 murders, rape, burglary and sodomy. He would draw a Satanic pentagram in the victim’s blood at the scene.

2001- In his first address to congress since the 9-11 attack, President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” that would be war everlasting.

2001- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away released in the US. The first Japanese anime film to win an Oscar.
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Question: Spike Lee calls his film company 40 Acres and a Mule. Where did that come from?

Answer: When Sherman was marching through Georgia, he issued General Order #15, saying every freed slave would be given 40 acres of his own and a mule as reparations. New President Andrew Johnson was against this idea and during Reconstruction this idea was subverted, ignored and forgotten. For African-Americans the phrase is symbolic of all the false promises they had been given.