Quiz: This time of year is called Yuletide. What does that mean?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive….”
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¬History for 12/15/2019
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Nero, Roman Emperor Lucius Verus who was known for little else but his really swell haircut, Gustav Eiffel, J. Paul Getty, Jeff Chandler, Alan Freed, Ernie Pintoff, Tim Conway is 86, Helen Slater, Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, Don Johnson is 70, Julie Taymor is 67

214BC, Hieronymous, the Greek tyrant of Syracuse was assassinated in the street.

1790- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart held a farewell dinner for Franz Josef Haydn, who was going to London for two years. Amadeus said:" Farewell Papa, I think we shall not see each other again in life. " Mozart was 34 and Haydn was 67, so he probably assumed Haydn would go first. Mozart died a year later at 35, and old Haydn lived another fifteen years, dying in his 80s.

1791-The BILL OF RIGHTS was ratified and added to the U.S. CONSTITUTION- It was the brainchild of James Madison, who felt the Constitution was a bit vague on basic civil rights. Even so, Patrick Henry thought it was still too weak.

1792- FOUNDING FATHERS SEX SCANDAL- In the dead of night George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (that guy on your ten-dollar bill) was visited by a delegation sent by his political enemy, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (that guy on your nickel). They included future president James Monroe and First Speaker of the House Felix Muhlenberg.
They accuse Hamilton of having an extramarital affair with a Mrs. Reynolds, and that he had her husband sent to prison to get him out of the way! Hamilton admitted it all, but said he was being blackmailed by the Reynolds. The accusers took pity and by “Gentleman's Agreement" for four years the scandal was hushed up.

When at last it was made pubic in 1797 by a tabloid newspaper, it helped drive Hamilton from government office and discredit the Federalist Party, who lost the White House to Jefferson's democrats. Alexander Hamilton was so furious that his secret was out that he challenged James Monroe to a duel. The duel was solved peacefully by an arbiter, Aaron Burr, who himself would kill Hamilton in a duel eight years later. Aaron Burr later became Vice President, and Burr even enjoyed a night with Mrs. Reynolds too!

1815- Giacomo Rossini received the commission to write a new opera based on Beaumarchais’ play the Marriage of Figaro- The Barber of Seville.

1840- Napoleon's remains were removed from his grave on Saint Helena and brought home to France where it was re-interred in the Invalides in Paris. He had wished to have his ashes sprinkled on the Seine but instead his body is sealed in a tomb of red marble donated by the Czar of Russia. The French Bourbon King Louis Phillipe had to quietly endure this massive outpouring of Bonapartist nostalgia.

1859- For those of you who speak Esperanto, Happy Zampenhoff Day!

1864- Battle of Nashville. The Yankee army of Gen. George Thomas destroyed the Confederate force of John Bell Hood so completely that Confederate military operations in the West of the Blue Ridge effectively cease. Thomas was being so tardy and cautious in ordering the attack, that General Grant had already dispatched another general to replace him.

1874- Hawaiian King David IV Kalakaou visited the White House and was received by President Grant.
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1890- SITTING BULL KILLED by government employed Indian agents. They had come to arrest him when they learned he planned to join the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance was a spiritual revival movement but the authorities overreacted in fear of a true-armed uprising. As Sitting Bull was led out of his cabin other Sioux tried to stop the Indian police and in the scuffle they shot Bull dead. In a macabre twist Bull's pony, who was a gift from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, reared up and started doing circus tricks when he heard the shots.

1893-Czech composer Anton Dvorak premiered a symphony he wrote while living in the Minnesota. The New World Symphony.

1899-Battle of Colenso-More Boer War. Britain had had so many early reverses in South Africa that Kaiser Wilhelm annoyed Prince Edward by saying:" You English are renown for your sense of good sportsmanship. Why don't you admit you're beaten and make the best of it? Rather like last year when the Australians beat you at cricket." Comments like this didn’t help Anglo-German relations. The British won the Boer War in 1901.

1911- King George V of England moved the capitol of India from Calcutta to Delhi and laid the foundation stones for a new Imperial City, New Delhi.

1939- The gala premiere of Gone with The Wind at the Loews Grand Theater in Atlanta Georgia. Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh flew out from Hollywood and the Governor of Georgia declared it a state holiday. Clark Gable called Margaret Mitchell “ The most fascinating woman I ever met.” Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Oscar for her portrayal, was not invited to the premiere.

1941- The American Federation of Labor announced there would be no strikes or other labor actions for the duration of World War II.

1941- Lena Horne recorded her signature tune “Stormy Weather.”

1943- In Harlem jazz great Fats Waller died of alcoholism and heart failure. He was 39.

1950- President Harry Truman declared a State of National Emergency over the deteriorating situation in the Korean War. When Congress asked what it meant and why not ask Congress first instead of unilaterally declaring it, Truman lost his temper. “We must remember that we are the Leader of the Free World, and as such have an obligation to meet!”

1952- British Fashion photographer George Jorgenson has the first sex change operation in Denmark and becomes Christine Jorgenson.

1954-“Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter” starring Fess Parker was featured on the Walt Disney TV show for the first time. The show created a mania for little kids, all wanting coonskin caps. “ Born on a mountaintop in Tenn- Ah- See..”

1964- Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag. It did not completely replace the Dominion Flag until 1979.

1966- Walt Disney died at age 65. He was alone in the room at Saint Joseph's when he died. His brother Roy had been in earlier rubbing his legs. On his desk, scribbled on a piece of paper the name- Kurt Russell. A heavy cigarette smoker- his favorites were Malboro and French Gitanes- he suffered from lung cancer and respiratory failure. Contrary to the legend that he's cryogenically frozen in a room in the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn.

1967- Beverly Hills police chief C.H. Anderson assured the public that there are "No Hippie Pads in Beverly Hills". Chief Andersen said many oddball types arrested on the Sunset Strip and West L.A. are sent to Beverly Hills municipal courts for trial, but inhabitants need not fear an outbreak of longhaired, hopped up, psychedelic speed freaks.

1973- The American Psychiatric Association reverses its earlier position and announced the homosexuality was not a form of mental illness. Before that, being gay meant your family could legally have you institutionalized, lobotomized or electro-shocked.

1974- Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein opened.

1978- Superman the Movie opened in theaters. Richard Donner directed, and it made a star of Christopher Reeve.

1984- Gangster Paul Castellano had taken over the largest Mafia family in New York after the Godfather Carlo Gambino died. But he was having problems with his unruly lieutenant John Gotti. This day he was getting out his limo on a midtown Manhattan street to go to Sparks Steakhouse when he was shot dead by hitmen sent by Gotti. Instead of the dead of night on a lone wharf, it was done out in broad daylight and the killers just melted into the countless masses of lunch hour foot traffic on 5th Avenue. John Gotti took control of the Gambino family and ruled as the Dapper Don, until sent up the river for life in 1992.

1985- Sylvester Stallone married model Birgit Neilsson. This was after he divorced his first wife Sasha who had shared his years of privation up to stardom. She worked as an usher at the Crown movie theater in NY to support Sly while he went to acting school.

1989- Colombian drug cartel leader Gonzalo Rodriquez Gacha “El Mexicano” was shot down in a furious gun battle with police. He had waged a war of terror with the Colombian authorities, bombing an Avianca airliner and blowing up the police headquarters in Bogota.

2008- Outgoing President George W. Bush made a farewell tour of Iraq, ostensibly to receive the thanks of the Iraqi people for freeing them. During a speech in Baghdad, Iraqi journalist Muntather Zaidi rose up and threw his shoes at the presidents’ head, shouting “Here’s your thanks, you dog!” He made Bush duck twice. NY Yankees owner Glen Steinbrenner commented” His first throw was low and inside, the second a bit high, but both were pretty good.”
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Yesterday’s question: Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Answer: It is from an 1808 poem Marmion by Sir Walter Scott.

Question: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive….”

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: In 1997 Britain gave Hong Kong back to China. But around that time another European country gave China back another piece of their country. What was that?
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History for 12/14/2019
Birthdays: 1553-King Henry IV of Navarre*, Tycho Brahe, Nostradamus -Michel de Notre Dame-1503, English King George VI- 1895, Spike Jones the bandleader, Morey Amsterdam, Charlie Rich, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Lee Remick, Patty Duke, Adult film star Ginger Lynn, Clark Terry- trumpeter. Cecil Pay, Saxophonist, Jane Birkin "Je t'aime moi non plus" is 72.

*Henry of Navarre 1555-1610 was one of Frances most beloved kings. When he was born his father Duke Antoine du Bourbon rubbed garlic on his lips and gave him wine to be strong. One of Frances horniest kings, even as an infant, his suckling dried up 8 wet nurses!

Welcome to the first day of what is referred to as the HALCYON DAYS. ( Hal-see-on). The seven days prior to and after the Winter Solstice, a time of tranquility and peace. Supposedly, no storms happen. In 1867 Walt Whitman wrote a poem about the Halycon Days in "Leaves of Grass", using it as a metaphor for the time in the winter of one's life, when contentment replaces the "turbulent passions" of younger years.

1575- The Parliament of the Polish Commonwealth had a strange system of electing foreign princes to be their king. This day they invited Transylvanian Duke Stefan Bathory to come be king. Bathory turned out to be an okay king. He defeated Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible’ armies in battle, frustrating his efforts to gain an outlet to Western trade. But his niece Elizabeth Bathory was a bit strange. Called The Blood Countess.

1776- After chasing George Washington's miserable little rebel army from New York to Philadelphia, British General Lord William Howe announced the customary Christmas truce, and beds his army down for the winter. His subordinate Lord Percy wrote home:” It’s just about over with those people. We shall be home shortly.” Back in occupied New York City, Lord Howe took as a mistress the wife of his Boston superintendent of prisons a Mr. Loring, who grew rich enough on army contracts to not mind. A rebel poem of the time said: "Sir William He, snug as a Flea, lay in his bed a Snorring. Nor thought of Harm, as he lay Warm, in bed with Mrs......"

1782- British troops evacuate Charleston South Carolina, in preparation for the final peace treaty ending the American Revolution.

1798- David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a machine that made the new fangled inventions- metal screws, nuts and bolts.

1799- GEORGE WASHINGTON DIED. Washington had retired to Mount Vernon after his last presidential term in 1796. On Dec. 12th he went riding five hours during a sleet storm and caught the flu. Another theory was a viral infection of the epiglottis.
He might still have survived had it not been for modern medicine. Doctors bled him of four pints of blood, while applying leeches, mustard sulfur packs and laxatives to purge him of the ill humors. He developed pneumonia and died swiftly. Because coma was so little understood, people had a dread of premature burial. Washington left instructions that his body be left out several days to make sure he was dead before being sealed in a tomb. After assurances put his mind at ease his last words were:" Tis well." No priests or religious last rites were performed. Washington turned away a priest who offered. He was 67 years old, and always predicted he would not live very long.

The US government wanted to place his tomb at the center of the planned dome in the capitol building, but Washington’s wish was to be in a simple tomb in Mt. Vernon. He also freed all his 137 slaves and sent them each off with a pension.

1819- Alabama was separated out from Mississippi territory and made a new state. Under Spanish rule Alabama was known as West Florida.

1861- Albert the Prince Consort, husband of Queen Victoria, died at 42. Even though he died of typhoid fever, which was common in those times, Victoria blamed her son Bertie (Edward VII)'s sexual escapades as causing her beloved husband's heartbreak. One of Albert’s last acts was to tone down the diplomatic response to the Trent Affair, which avoided war with the United States.
Victoria wore mourning for the rest of her long life. She withdrew from formal politics for 12 years. She had Albert's rooms at Balmoral and Osborne kept like he was still there. Every single night for 40 years the servants would lay out his clothes and a basin of warm water like for some invisible user. She kept the cast of his hand on her night table at night so she could reach out to touch it for reassurance. When she died in 1901 after reigning 64 years her last words were "Albert..."

1863- Battle of Bean’s Station. Confederates in Tennessee defeated Yankees.

1871- Verdi's opera "Aida" debuts in Cairo.

1894- Socialist union leader Eugene Debs was sentenced to six months in jail for organizing sympathy actions for the railroad workers striking the Pullman company. Debs young lawyer handling his first case was Clarence Darrow.

1901- The first Ping-Pong tournament held in London.

1911- Norwegian explorer Roald Ammundsen and four others first reached the South Pole, winning the race against Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

1913- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying little daughter by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing, friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.

1924- Ottorino Respighi ‘s stirring rhapsody The Pines of Rome premiered.

1927- Charles Lindbergh does one last flight with his famous monoplane the Spirit of Saint Louis, from Washington to Mexico City. This is at the request of American Ambassador Dwight Murrow who wanted to improve Mexican-American relations. Lindbergh would not only improve relations but also marry Murrow's daughter Anne. To make the flight a challenge Lindbergh took off at night in a rainstorm to prove air travel was safe. The President of Mexico and 150,000 people greeted him in Mexico City.

When flying he noticed many Mexican towns had a sign named 'Caballeros' in their railroad stations. He reasoned Caballeros must be a popular name for a town.

1934- March of the Wooden Soldiers, the Hal Roach version of Babes in Toyland with Laurel & Hardy opened.

1944- Hollywood starlet Lupe Velez, the "Mexican Spitfire' committed suicide. She had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and laid herself out in a beautiful negligee of her own design to be found radiant in repose. But instead of dying immediately, the pills made her sick and she was found dead with her head in the toilet. In her prime she counted Gary Cooper, Anthony Quinn and Johnny Weissmuller among her lovers. When Weissmuller was filming 'Tarzan' the studio complained to her that their lovemaking was so...err.. athletic? exhuberant?....that she was leaving fingernail scratch marks all over his back. The makeup department complained of all the effort to cover them.

1944- The film National Velvet premiered, making a star out of 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.

1945- Nazis camp guard Josef Brodsky “The Beast of Belsen”, was hanged .

1947- The National Association of Stock Car Racing or NASCAR formed.

1953- Young pitcher Sandy Koufax was signed by the Dodgers. He became one of their most famous pitchers of all time.

1957- Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon "Ruff and Ready" premiered.

1962- Mariner II reached the planet Venus. The first manmade probe to reach another planet. Although it stopped working, it’s still up there in orbit between Venus and Mercury.

1967- Greek generals overthrow King Constantine II and rule by junta led by General George Papadapolos.
1970- George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord went gold.

1972- THE LAST MAN LEAVES THE MOON. Apollo 17 blasts off. We all remember the first man on the moon, but do you remember the last? Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt. President Nixon annoyed NASA by saying he doubted that men would return to the moon in the remainder of the Twentieth Century, but he was right.

1977- DISCO! The movie Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees make the Disco dancing scene a national craze.

1979- STUDIO 54 RAIDED- The Internal Revenue Service busted the worlds most famous disco club. Formerly the hangout of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and other “Beautiful People”, now the Feds were on to them. The IRS seized doctored account books, cocaine and undeclared cash, landing the owners in jail and bringing the celebrity playlands days to an end.

1983- Disney Studio released the short film Frankenweenie, done by a weird young artist named Tim Burton.

2012- SANDY HOOK. Emotionally disturbed man Adam Lanza shot up a kindergarten school in Newtown Conn, killing 27 including his mother and 20 little children.

2015- Hollywood premiere for J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars the Force Awakens.

2017- Rupert Murdoch sold off much of the Twentieth Century Fox Studio to Walt Disney for $66 billion.
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Yesterday’s Question: In 1997 Britain gave Hong Kong back to China. But around that time another European country gave China back another piece of their country. What was that?

Answer: The region of Macau or Macao was given back to China by Portugal in 1997. They had held it since 1557.

Question: In 1997 Britain gave Hong Kong back to China. But around that time another European country gave China back another piece of their country. What was that?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does it mean when someone is called a Bohemian? They are from Prague?
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History for 12/13/2019
Birthdays: Heinrich Heine, Mary Todd Lincoln, Dick Van Dyke is 94, Mike Mosley, Darryl Zanuck Jr., George Schulz, Christopher Plummer is 90, Steve Buscemi is 63, Jamie Fox is 50, Lynn Holly Johnson, Wendy Malick, Taylor Swift is 30.

HAPPY FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH- A Friday, the day Adam died and Jesus was crucified, combined with the number thirteen- Judas Iscariot is called the Thirteenth Apostle, and the Vikings considered wicked Loki the Thirteenth God. So today is considered an unlucky combination. But you have a Lucky Day!

305AD -Today is the Feast of Saint Lucy, who was ordered by the Romans to be raped in a brothel, set on fire, stabbed to death, and to stop men saying how beautiful her eyes were, she ripped them out and handed them over on a plate. But they miraculously grew back. So St. Lucy is the patron saint of opticians.

863- Duke Baldwin Iron Arm married Lady Judith du Kales.

1250 -Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II "Stupor Mundi" the Wonder of the World, his spirit broken by endless quarrels with the Pope and rebellious Italian city states, expired at age 52. Frederick had tried to re-form back the old Roman Empire but only succeeded in making Italy and Germany more divided than ever. Meanwhile France, England and Spain were developing into centralized nation states. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation or the 1st Reich, was never as powerful again.

1264- THE HOUSE OF COMMONS- Victorious rebel English Earl Simon de Monfort called for a meeting in Westminster of a Parliament of all nobles, clergy and - common folk of the realm. It's probably the first time since the ancient Roman republic anybody had asked the common people their opinion about anything. King Henry III and Prince Edward Longshanks couldn't argue because Simon had them locked up in the Tower. To make sure Earl Simon had bishops pronounce the most fearful oaths of excommunication on anyone who dared undo his creation. So even after Longshanks escaped and had DeMonfort chopped into mincemeat, the House of Commons remained.

1543- THE COUNCIL OF TRENT convened- Officially called the XIX Ecumenical Council, this conference launched the Catholic Counter-Reformation against the Protestant reformation.

1642- Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the Pacific discovered a big island near Australia and named it for the Dutch province of Zeeland, so New Zealand. He also found another island and called it Van Deimans Land, but it was later named in his honor as Tasmania.

1672- Polish King Jan Cazimir died a monk in Paris. He was king during a period of terrible wars with Russia, the Cossacks of the Ukraine, Turkey and Sweden. But he was pacific by nature. One saying was “the only battles Jan Cazimir ever saw were woven in his Dutch carpets!”

1769- Dartmouth College founded.

1775- the U.S. National Guard formed.

1862- BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the men’s fashion-"sideburns") made his men attempt a frontal attack uphill on a Confederate position of concentrated fire that " a chicken couldn't live through."
The massed regiments of bluecoats were mowed down wave after wave in one of the worst disasters in U.S. Army history. The New York Fighting 69th, the all Irish brigade, fell dead in even rows shielding their eyes from the bullets as though they were rain. They shouted “Faugh au Ballagh !” Gaelic for “Clear the Way!” They left 53% of their men dead on the field. In all 13,000 Yankees died to a mere handful of confederates.
One rebel general, sickened by the stupidity of it all, said: "This ain't war, it's just plain murder." After the defeat, Burnside rode past some of his men, a kissass major tried shouting "Three cheers for the General!" and was met with stony silence.

1872- The town council of Abilene, Kansas fired Wild Bill Hickok as sheriff. They said he was more violent than most of the criminals he arrested.

1895- Gustav Mahlers 2nd Symphony “Resurrection” premiered.

1928- Leopold Damrosch conducted the premiere of George Gershwin's -"An American in Paris."

1936- At the urging of New Yorker editor Harold Ross to find a better line of work, actor Dave Chasen opened Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills, which catered to Hollywood stars for 60 years. It is the restaurant where Leopold Stokowski was introduced to Walt Disney and as a result they conceived "Fantasia". Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Lauren Bacall met upstairs to discuss the Blacklist of 1947. Elizabeth Taylor ordered Chasen’s chili flown out to Rome so she could eat it on the set of Cleopatra. The restaurant closed in 1995 because the Chasen family wanted to cash in on the choice real estate. Today it is a Bristol Farms supermarket.

1937- THE RAPE OF NANKING- The Japanese army captured the Nationalist capitol of China. The Japanese generals let their soldiers run amok for three weeks, raping and murdering civilians by the thousands. Japanese who refused to kill the innocent were punished by their officers. Typical was two officers who held a contest to see who could behead more Chinese with their samurai swords. The winner killed 106 and the contest was reported in Tokyo newspapers on their sports pages.
When their commanding General Matsui returned from convalescent leave, he was horrified and ordered a stop. That got him recalled home in disgrace. The unprecedented brutality shocked the world, remember the further horrors of World War II were still years in the future.

1937-THE GOOD NAZI- During the Rape of Nanking, in an ironic twist, the women and children of the foreign delegations were protected from the rampaging Japanese soldiers by a German businessman Johann Rabe, who guarded the door in his Nazi party uniform and swastika armband. He took in desperate Chinese and saved thousands. Rabe had been born to a family of foreign merchants and lived his entire life in China, so when it was suggested to him, he joined the Nazi party not knowing anything about it. After Nanking, Rabe went home to Berlin and tried lodge a complaint with Adolf Hitler! The Gestapo threatened him with arrest if he didn’t shut up.

Then after World War II, Johan Rabe was arrested by Allied authorities for being a Nazi! By 1947 he and his family were reduced to eating soup made from nettles and grass to survive. Then a huge package was delivered of food and money. It was a subscription from the People of Nanking, to express their thanks for his humanity.

1939- Battle of the River Platte- The German pocket battleship Graff Spee battled with several British cruisers near the Argentine coastline. The German then put into the neutral port of Montevideo for repairs.
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1940- Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" .The character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

1942- In the rubble choked streets of Stalingrad, Soviet sniper Tanya Chernova was making her way to Nazi headquarters with instructions to assassinate their commander Field Marshal von Paulus. But on the way a comrade stepped on a mine and the explosion tore through her abdomen. She survived, but her participation in the war was over. An attractive blonde former ballerina, she began the war as a guerrilla in the Ukraine, and was trained by supersniper Vasily Zaistzev. She called the Germans she had killed “broken sticks”. By the time this explosion ended her military career, Tanya Chernova had 80 broken sticks to her record. She was 20 years old.

1951- One of the legendary Hollywood producers was Walter Wanger- starting in 1921 his films included The Sheik, Stagecoach, Queen Christina, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Silk Stockings and Cleopatra. His wife was beautiful starlet Joan Bennett, but at this time she had taken a lover. On this day Wanger surprised Hollywood by pulling out a gun and shooting his wife's lover in the nads right in the MCA studio parking lot. In true Hollywood fashion Wanger got off, sentenced to just a few months in an honor ranchero compound and was soon back to work. Contributors to pay his legal fees included the Jack Warner, Walt Disney and Sam Goldwyn. The boyfriend, Jennings Lang, recovered and later became an executive producer of comedies like House Calls. After all, who needs balls to be a producer?

1961- Jimmy Dean’s folk ballad Big Bad John went to #1 of the country charts. Later Dean had his own TV variety show featuring the Muppets, and started Jimmy Dean’s Pure Pork Sausage Company.

1969- Arlo Guthrie’s hit song Alice’s Restaurant released.

1971- Disney’s film Bedknobs and Broom Sticks opened.

1978- The US tried to introduce silver dollar coins. The first Susan B. Anthony dollars issued. They looked too much like quarters so they didn’t catch on.

1981- Communist Polish Gov't under General Jaruszelski declared martial law and outlaws Solidarity, the Polish Labor Organization. The secret police, the ZOMO's started arresting all the ringleaders. Jaruszelski later claimed the liberal political climate was getting so out of hand that he had to crack down or the Soviet Union would invade like they did to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956. People showed their quiet resistance by wearing a small transistor (i.e. resistor) on their lapel. Also popular was a button that from a distance looked like the graphic "Solidarity" Logo but up close spelled out: "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"

1996- In Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi apocalypse epic the Plague of the 12 Monkeys was unleashed today, a virus that killed 4/5ths of the world’s population and drove the remainder underground.

2002- Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in disgrace. The Primate of Boston, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States. Cardinal Law had spent years covering for priests who molested children. He even protected a priest who was registered in the Man-Boy Love Society. Cardinal Law was the highest ranking Catholic to step down from popular pressure. He was recalled to Rome to become prior of Santa Maria Maggiore.

2003-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hiding hole and captured by U.S. forces near his hometown of Tikrit.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when someone is called a Bohemian? They are from Prague?

Answer: To be a socially unconventional in an artistic way. To live a rootless lifestyle, like the old Beatniks in Greenwich Village. So named because During the Thirty Years War a liberal government in the Czech province of Bohemia was crushed by the Austrian emperor. Many of their intellectuals and artists fled into exile and settled in various European cities.

Question: What does it mean when someone is called a Bohemian? They are from Prague?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does Michael Phelps have in common with Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) and Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon)?
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History for 12/12/19
Birthdays: Frank Sinatra, Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, Edvard Munch, Gustav Flaubert, Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie, John Jay, Edward G. Robinson, Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt-the Black Knight of Germany, Ed Koch, Zack Mosley –the cartoonist of “Smilin' Jack", Connie Francis, Dionne Warwick, Cathy Rigby, Tracy Austin, Bill Nighy is 69, Tom Wilkerson is 71, Jennifer Connelly is 49

639 A.D. Moslem-Arab armies of the Caliph Omar invaded Egypt. Egypt at the time was a province of the Byzantine Empire and it's native church The Coptic Rite was persecuted by them as a heresy. So rather than put up with any more harassment, the Egyptians opened their gates to the advancing Arabs and the province was overrun in short order.

1524- Pope Clement VII the Medici Fox, steered a dangerous policy to keep the Germans and French from taking over Italy. The previous year he signed a secret treaty with Germany against France, today he signed a secret treaty with France against Germany. This policy blew up in his face. The German army of Charles V stormed Rome and locked up the Pope in 1527. Italy was ravaged by wars for the rest of the century.

1653- Puritan General Oliver Cromwell, having executed King Charles I, declared himself Lord Protector of England and ruled with a junta of generals as a military dictator. He had all the symbols of monarchy destroyed. This included the crown jewels and the ancient iron crown of Alfred the Great. This is why England's crown jewels date from the 1660’s, after Cromwell. Scotland's crown jewels were smuggled out of Edinburgh Castle ahead of Cromwell's troops in a berry basket.

1792- The Bank of the United States was set up in Philadelphia on the model of the Bank of England. President Andrew Jackson dismantled the Bank in 1832 and U.S. finances swung wildly in the hands of a few tycoons like Astor and Morgan until the Federal Reserve was set up in 1913.

1784- George Washington bid a final farewell to his friend the Marquis of Lafayette. The young little aristocrat and the tall somber Virginian had become so fond of one another they were like father and son. Lafayette left for France and they never saw each other again. When Lafayette returned to America in 1825, Washington was long dead.

1793- WASHINGTON THE SLAVEMASTER- The most concrete evidence we have that George Washington was troubled about owning slaves. This day George wrote a friend in England about his plan to carve up his Mt. Vernon estate into small lots and rent them out to immigrant English tenant farmers, so he could liberate his slaves. He asked his British correspondent to keep his plan a secret and destroy this note after reading it.
He never went ahead with his plan. After he and Martha were both dead, Washington’s will freed all 137 of his slaves and sent each off with a cash pension. Compare that to Thomas Jefferson, who freed 6 out of 300 when he died, and James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, who freed none.

1897-The Katzenjammer Kids comic strip by Rudolph Dirks appears in the Hearst’s New York Journal. The first comic where characters spoke in word balloons. The adventures of Hans & Fritz was so popular a rival newspaper started an imitation called the Captain & the Kids, leading to the first artistic plagiarism lawsuit.
In Paris, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas had a problem whenever they bought the American newspapers, because Picasso and Fernande Oliver would fight over who got to read the Katzenjammer Kids first.

1899- George Grant of Boston invented the Golf Tee.

1900- At a dinner party Charles Schwab proposed a steel trust company to corner the steel market, uniting the resources of Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and John "Bet a Million" Taylor. U.S. Steel is born.

1901-First transatlantic wireless signal sent by Guglielmo Marconi. This finally ended the frustrating hoopla over laying transatlantic telegraph cables and have them break down almost constantly since the 1850s. The pioneers of radio broadcasting like Armstrong, Lee Deforest and David Sarnoff got their start working for the Marconi Wireless Company. Recent scholarship puts forward that Nikola Tesla preceded Marconi with the concept.

1922- Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes that left him too sick to work. He ruled Soviet Russia for one more year as a figurehead while his true state of health was concealed from the public. Top Communist officials like Trotsky and Stalin now fought for power.

1925- The world’s first Motel opened. Arthur Heinman opened the Milestone Motel in San Luis Obispo California. Motel was a contraction of Motor-Hotel.

1925- Cossack officer Rezah Pahlavi deposed the last Qajar Shah and becomes Shah of Persia, which would shortly change its name to Iran.

1926- Polish Marshal Josef Pilsudski seized power in Warsaw. Sending troops to surround the Sejm- Parliament, he strode in and told the astounded politicians:” I sh*t on all of you! I am going to treat you like children because that is how you want to be treated.” He ruled as dictator until his death in 1935.

1936- After the abdication of Edward VIII, his stuttering younger brother Albert was proclaimed King George VI.

1937- During their war in China, Japanese dive bombers strafed and sank the neutral U.S. gunboat Panay in the Yangtse River. The Japanese Government apologized and paid $2.2 million in reparations.

1941- In the emergency after Pearl Harbor the U.S. Army ordered all peacetime airliners and pilots commandeered into military service. Federal customs authorities in the port of New York also seized the world’s largest luxury ocean liner, The French S.S Normandie, for “protective custody”. Remember at this time France was an occupied part of the Third Reich.

1947- The United Mine Workers under John L. Lewis pull out of the AF of L. The historic difference was the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was made up of skilled technical workers and artisans. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was made up of more unskilled assembly-line type folks.

1952- The first Screen Actors Guild Strike. President Walter Pidgeon -Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet- had the movie stars hit the bricks to win television and commercial residuals. The final deals were settled by then SAG president Ronald Reagan in 1960. Ronnie compromised with the studio heads (many who later backed his bid for the governorship of California) that only residuals for films released after 1955 would be paid.
Actors who made their big hits in the 30's and 40s like Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and The Little Rascals were left out. Mickey Rooney, who's Andy Hardy movies were the top box office of the mid-1940's put it mildly: "Reagan screwed me !!"

1955- the first hovercraft design patented. It wasn't built and launched until 1959.

1963- Kenya under Njomo Kenyatta declared independence from Britain.

1975- Sarah Jane Moore pleaded guilty to trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

1980- The song “Whip It” by Devo won a gold record.

1991- Actor Richard Gere married supermodel Cindy Crawford.

2000- THE SUPREME COURT PICKED THE PRESIDENT. In the tightest presidential election since 1877, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled George W. Bush won over Vice President Al Gore. They stated that although there may have been irregularities in the vote counting in the decisive state of Florida, it was too late and pointless to continue the recount, so they were suspending all further appeals. Al Gore and the Democrats caved in and squelched attempts by African-American congressmen to point out massive voter discrimination.

2015- Women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were finally given the right to vote.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does Michael Phelps have in common with Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) and Buster Crabbe ( Flash Gordon) ?

Answer: They were all Gold Medal winning Olympic swimmers.

Question: What does Michael Phelps have in common with Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) and Buster Crabbe ( Flash Gordon) ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Shakespeare set Romeo & Juliet in Verona, Taming of the Shrew in Padua, Macbeth in Scotland, Hamlet in Denmark. Did he ever write any plays set in London?
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History for 12/11/2019
Birthdays: Sir David Brewster 1781- inventor of the kaleidoscope, Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Koch the conqueror of tuberculosis, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Carlo Ponti, Gilbert Roland, Big Mama Mabel Thornton, Vampira, Jean Marais, Jean Louis Tritignant, Tom Hayden, Jermaine Jackson, McCoy Tyner- John Coltrane's pianist, Brenda Lee, John Buscema, Rita Moreno is 88, Teri Garr is 75, Mos Def is 46, Mo’nique is 52

493 AD. Today is the feast of Greek Saint Simon Stylites the greatest of all the religious hermits known as pillar-sitters. He died at the age of 85 after having sat on top of a solitary stone column for 35 years. He only descended twice, once to chastise the Byzantine Emperor. The Patriarch of Constantinople even had to be hoisted up by ropes and pulleys to ordain him a priest.

711AD- death of Byzantine Emperor Justinian II Rhino-Nose. Gotta love that nickname.

1668- Mademoiselle Du Parc was a beautiful actress who dumped Moliere and his comic company to become the mistress of the tragic playwright Racine, causing Moliere and Racine’s friendship to break. Plus, Racine didn’t like the way Moliere’s actors performed his plays. Three years later this day Mlle. Du Parc died under mysterious circumstances. Racine gave up his wild ways, got married and had a big family. In 1679 a notorious poisoner Madame Monvoisin claimed that Racine hired her to off his girlfriend! Was the French Shakespeare a Bluebeard or was La Voisin paid to slander him? The authorities considered arresting him, but King Louis XIV quashed the investigation because it would implicate the King’s own mistress, Madame de Montespan.

1718- After many wars Swedish King Charles XII the "Madman of the North" was shot and killed by a Danish sergeant while peeping over a trench parapet. He was a brilliant general but had a bad habit of getting too close to the action for a look. The day before his great battle at Poltava with Russian Czar Peter the Great, Charles was wounded, and had to direct the battle from a stretcher. He lost.

1785- French artist Jean Baptiste Greuze was well known for making popular paintings of simple scenes like Young Girl Weeping For Her Dead Bird. This day he went to the Paris police prefect and accused his wife Gabriele Babuti of “Persistently receiving lovers into his home over his protests, stealing large sums of his money, and trying to beat his head in with a chamber pot.” The couple was granted a legal separation.

1793- The previous July, when the French Revolutionary Convention heard of the assassination of their great radical leader Jean Paul Marat, one delegate called out “David ! We Need You!” This day Jacques Louis David unveiled his painting, The Death of Marat for the first time.

1816- Indiana admitted to the union.

1882- The Bijou Theater in Boston presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe in the first show completely illuminated by electric light bulbs.

1926- Josephine Baker first performed her banana dance in Amsterdam.

1927- THE LADY VANISHES- 35 year old mystery writer Agatha Christie caused a mystery herself when she disappeared, leaving her car abandoned by a local brook. The search for the body sensationalized the London press, even knocking the death of the last great impressionist master Eduard Monet off the front page. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle employed the first use of a police psychic. Finally after a week Mrs Christie turned up at a health spa in Yorkshire. She was depressed when she earned her husband Sir Archibald Christie of the Guards was having an affair with a younger lady. She ran off and registered in the hotel using her younger rivals name as her alias- Mrs Neal.

1929- Frenchman Charles Cros patented a searchlight he declared he would use to signal civilizations on Mars and Venus. Nobody's returned the call yet.

1936- In a dramatic speech broadcast on radio, British King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to be with "The Woman I Love" - to marry the American divorcee' Wallace Simpson. He had been king of the British Empire for less than a year. His brother George became George VI, the father of the present Elizabeth II. Edward and Wallace later became Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived outside of England for the rest of their lives.
The Nazis had planned after they had conquered England to put Edward back on the throne as a puppet. Edward Windsor never quite dismissed the rumors that he secretly sympathized with Nazi ideology. While governor of Bermuda they had many parties and dinners with socialites who were known Nazi agents.

1941- Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, honoring their Tripartite axis pact with Japan. Hermann Goering protested to Hitler that the Japanese had so far not been of any help to them, and they refused to declare war on Russia. Why invite another mighty foe? Hitler sniffed:’ The Americans will be our enemies eventually, why wait?”

1941- The hopelessly isolated little group of Marines on Wake Island repulsed a Japanese naval task force with heavy casualties. They played possum until the invasion fleet got in very close then hammered them with 16 inch naval shore batteries. To a U.S. still reeling from the shock of the Pearl Harbor attack, the nation was encouraged by the gutsy broadcast from tiny Wake: "Send us more Japs!"

1941- Gone With The Wind producer David Selznick pitched a movie version of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Ben Hecht. Mercifully for moviegoers, the idea was soon dropped.

1946- UNICEF formed.

1950- THE CHOISIN FEW- During the Korean War the last remnants of the US First Marine Division completed their terrible retreat from the Chosin Resevoir. In subzero conditions they fought their way out of 5 encircling Red Chinese armies and brought out all of their wounded. Col. Chesty Puller, a veteran of Guadalcanal, exhorted his men “Remember you are First Marines, and all the Commies in Hell can’t stop you!”

1951- Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.

1957- Rock and Roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis secretly married his 13 year old cousin Myra Gail Brown, while still married to his second wife, who he divorced when the press broke the story the following April. They divorced 13 years later. The incident ruined his career. Great Balls of Fire!

1961- The first contingent of U.S. military advisers arrived in Vietnam.

1962- SAVE THE VILLAGE! Robert Moses was the famous engineer who crisscrossed New York City with bridges and highways. But many felt the imperious city-planner destroyed whole neighborhoods with little compassion for the inhabitants. Finally he set his sites on a roadway cutting right across Manhattan at Hudson Street to the Holland Tunnel, which would destroy historic Greenwich Village-houses once inhabited by Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barret-Browning, Jacques Kerouac and Mark Twain. But Robert Moses plans were thwarted by an odd alliance of Beatniks, Little Italy Mafia dons, Chinatown merchants and various Village Bohemians lead by author Jane Jacobs. This day after successfully pleading their case the Mayor and the NY City Board of Estimate rejected Moses plan. The Village today remains a gloriously confused muddle of quaint streets.

1964- Soul music star Sam Cooke was shot to death in an argument with a lady who ran an L.A. motel he had brought his girlfriend to.

1967- The Concorde SST passenger plane is unveiled in Toulouse. It was a joint venture between England and France. The American SST project was scrapped as too expensive.

1970- Walt Disney's the 'Aristocats' premiered.

1978- THE LUFTHANSA HEIST. Some small time Brooklyn Mafiosi slipped into the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport and stole $8 million in unmarked bills and jewelry, most from European currency exchange booths. As the FBI moved in on the gang its members tended to wind up dead, thirteen bodies in all. The money was never recovered. The reputed mastermind, Jimmy the Gent Burke, died in prison on an unrelated murder charge in 1991. The feds were still chasing ringleaders as late as 2015. The incident was dramatized in the Martin Scorcese film “Goodfellas”.

1985- A Sacramento computer rental store owner named Hugh Scrutton became the first to get a mail bomb from the Unibomber. MIT advanced mathematics major Ted Kusczynski slowly became mentally unbalanced, and blamed rampant technology for ruining the world. His campaign of mailing explosives terrorized the academic world for a decade, until he was turned in by his own brother.

1997-150 nations sign the Kyoto Protocol, pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but not the United States or China, the worlds two largest polluters.

2008- Bernie Madoff was arrested for stock fraud. For years he was known as an A-list Wall St investor. In reality, he ran the largest Ponzi-scheme fraud in history. Madoff cheated clients out of $180 BILLION, more than the GNP of many nations. Hundreds of investors were burned, as diverse as Steven Spielberg, NY Governor Elliot Spitzer, Eli Weizel, The Shoah Foundation and his own synagogue. Madoff’s son Mark committed suicide and his family members have since changed their names.
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Yesterday’s Question: Shakespeare set Romeo & Juliet in Verona, Taming of the Shrew in Padua, Macbeth in Scotland, Hamlet in Denmark. Did he ever write any plays set in London?

Answer. His plays Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry VI and Henry VIII are all set in London.