Question: What country‘s fighting men did The March of Ten Thousand?

Yesterdays Quiz: When we say something is really big, we call it Jumbo. Who first coined that term?
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History for 8/22/2012
Birthdays: George Herriman the creator of Krazy Kat, Dorothy Parker, Claude DeBussy, Johnny Lee Hooker, Denis Papin 1647 inventor of the Pressure Cooker, Leni Reifenstahl, General Stormin’Norman Schwarzkopf, Paul Molitor, Bill Parcells, Max Vilander, Carl “Big Yaz”Yazstremski, Dyanna Nyad is 63, Deng Xiao Ping, Henry Cartier Bresson, Valerie Harper, Cindy Williams, Ray Bradbury, Khristen Wiig is 39

In Britain it is National Slacker Day: Stand Up for your Right to Sit Back Down!

565AD - St Columba reported seeing a sea monster in Loch Ness.

1485-"A Horse! A Horse! My Kingdom for a Horse!!" Battle of Bosworth Field. Welsh prince Henry Tudor defeats and kills King Richard III and becomes King Henry VII, first of the Tudor Dynasty. Shakespeare made Richard out to be a hunchback usurper and child murderer, but couldn’t hide the fact that he died well. Whatever the truth he went down sword in hand, fighting like a true descendant of Richard Lionheart.

1558- When Antonio Carafa became Pope Paul IV he blamed the loss of half of Europe to Protestantism to the corruption of the Catholic Church. He attacked the dry rot with zeal. He started with a warning to all monks away from their monasteries without permission to return at once. This day he ordered the gates of Rome closed. All deadbeat monks still remaining be rounded up and sentenced to be galley slaves. He’s the Pope who ordered pants painted on Michelangelo’s nude of Christ in the Last Judgement.

1572-Admiral Gaspar Coligny, was leader of the French Huguenots –Protestants and was one of the most powerful men in France. This night he was recovering from an earlier assassination attempt, when agents of the Duke du Guise rushed into his room and stabbed him repeatedly. They hurled his body out a window to smash on the pavement stones at the Dukes feet. When it was pointed out to the king that the French Protestants may not like this, the emotionally unstable King Charles IX shouted:" Then slay them all, so none shall remain to accuse me !" The Great Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre was the result.

1611- Galileo made a group of Venetian senators and noblemen climb to the top of Saint Marks Basilica in Venice to demonstrate to them new invention, the telescope.

1715 – Handel’s "Watermusic" premiered on the Thames River to mark celebrations of the Peace ending the War of Spanish Succession.

1776- The Long Island Campaign began. British General Lord Howe and his brother Admiral Richard, called “Black Dick” , commanded the largest invasion force ever sent by England. Today they began ferrying their army from loyalist Staten Island across the Straights of Verrazano for the march on the village of Breuklyn.-Brooklyn. Their Hessian mercenaries, to show off their discipline, stood at rigid attention as the flatboats bobbed in the choppy water. Now that the British fleet were anchored in New York Harbor, Gen. George Washington agreed with other military strategists that New York City was as good as lost. He contemplated burning the town to keep it from being used by the British as a base. But Congress couldn't let him give up America’s largest port without a fight.

1791-THE NIGHT OF FIRE- Haitian slaves, after decades of oppression were organized by a voodoo priest named Boumann. This night they set fire to plantations, crops and and massacred 300 white settlers. This began the great Haitian Revolution which will rage until 1811 and make Haiti the second republic in the New World.

1806- elderly French painter Jean Fragonard died of a cerebral seizure after eating a large fruit ice on a hot day.

1849-The first aerial bomb attack. Austrian General Von Wintzingerode was at a loss at how to get at the besieged Italian city of Venice. The Venetian lagoon was too deep to wade across but was too shallow for battleships. Finally a Swiss mercenary suggested filling hot air balloons with troops and flying them over the city to drop explosives. Those little round black bombs with lit fuses you see in cartoons. A dozen balloons filled with grenadiers were launched aloft, but before they could do anything a stiff breeze blew them all to Yugoslavia. Doh! The real first aerial bombing would be in 1912.

1851- The schooner America defeated the British yacht Aurora to win the trophy called the Hundred Guinea Cup that would in time be called the America's Cup. It was the first win for the US in an international sports competition. American yachts continued to win it for the next 150 years until Australia II took it in 1984.

1860- Italian nationalist leader Giusseppi Garabaldi with his 'redshirts' crossed the Straights of Messina from Sicily and invaded the boot of Italy.

1882- American showman P.T. Barnum bought the largest elephant in the London Zoo. He created a new name for the beast- he called it a JUMBO. It was the highlight of his circus for years After Jumbo was hit by a freight train and killed, PT Barnum had it’s bones bleached and charged people admission to come look at it’s skeleton.

1901-The Cadillac Automobile Company formed. Named for the French explorer who founded Detroit, William De La Mothe-Cadillac.

1902- Teddy Roosevelt became the first president to ride in an automobile.

1906 - 1st Victor Victrola manufactured, using Emile Berliners flat record turntable system. The Victrola was so cheap and easy to use it became standard in many homes and finished off any competition from Thomas Edison’s rival talking cylinder system.

1910- Despite a pledge after the Russo-Japanese War that they would bestow “complete freedom” on the Korean people this day Japan’s military occupied Korea and annexed it to the Japanese Empire.

1914- The Battle of Mons. British forces stop the German advance towards Paris and in so doing allow the main French army to win at the Marne. In a proclamation to his generals Kaiser Wilhelm stated “Roll over this contemptible little British Army!” The term appealed to the Tommies, and they nicknamed themselves “The Old Contemptibles”

Also the German field general was General Von Kluck, who’s name rhymed with the Britain's favorite expletive. As the marched through Belgian streets they sang “We don’t give a F*CK about old Von Kluck an iz all F*CKING ARMY!”

1922- After World War One, Lawrence of Arabia wrote home from Baghdad about the Postwar British occupation of Iraq:” The Public had been led into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad comunique’s have been belated, insincere and incomplete. Things have been far worse here than we have been told.”

1927- 200,000 people protest in Hyde Park London and around the world for clemency for convicted Italian immigrants Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vancetti. They were socialists who were convicted of murdering a store clerk in Massachusetts and became a radical cause-celebre. Letters demanding mercy came in from George Bernard Shaw, Helen Keller, Picasso, the Pope and more. Woody Guthrie wrote folk songs in praise of Sacco & Vancetti. The next day the State of Massachusetts electrocuted them anyway.

1935- Father Charles Coughlin, “the Radio Priest” addressed ten thousand in Madison Square Gardens. At the height of his popularity almost one third the American public tuned into his weekly radio address. But as his influence waned after the 1936 presidential elections. He turned increasingly to racist hate mongering and eventually faded away.

1939- The first aerosol spray can.

1942- Tex Avery's first cartoon for MGM, Blitz Wolf.

1942- Brazil declared war on the Axis powers. She was the only Latin American country to send troops to Europe to fight in World War Two.

1945- This was the date Stalin scheduled for the Soviet invasion of Hokaido, in North Japan. The American invasion, in the event the atomic bombs didn't work, was not scheduled until November 1st. With all of the remaining Japanese army on the southern beaches awaiting the American attack, if the Soviet invasion had come off as scheduled they would have been able to overrun Northern Japan quite easily. The U.S. would have to settle for a divided Japan resembling Korea. History however, turned out differently.

1953-The French government closed the Devil's Island prison colony.

1976- The protest at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in New Hampshire. The birth of the U.S. anti-nuclear movement.

1984 – The Last Volkswagen Rabbit produced.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When we say something is really big, we call it Jumbo. Who first coined that term?

Answer: P.T.Barnum. See above, 1882.

Quiz: When we say something is really big, we call it Jumbo. Who first coined that term?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: There always seems to be a lot of things named Linden: Linden Blvd, Unter Den Linden, Lindenhof Palace, Who or what was Linden?
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History for 8/21/2012
Birthdays: Christopher Robin Milne-1920, King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie*, Wilt (Wilt the Stilt) Chamberlain, Friz Freleng, Kenny Rogers, Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Vance Gerry, Peter Weir is 68, Kim Catrall is 56, Carrie Anne Moss is 45

*Count Basie's first name was William. When working in a swing band he'd often get to work late. This would make the band's director ask “Where is that no-account Basie? “ which in his colloquial slang came out: "Where dat no'count Basie!?" Hence the nickname.

Consualia- Roman Festival of the first Harvest

1560 –Danish scientist Tycho Brahe becomes interested in astronomy.

1561- Queen Catherine de Medici attempts to solve the bitter wrangling over Protestants and Catholics dividing France by convening a grand Estates General at Fontainbleau. Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspar Coligny presented the Petition of the Huguenots. By then 20% of the population were Protestant.(Huguenots). They declared loyalty to the crown while asking that all men be allowed to worship as they pleased. It didn’t work. Soon Catholics and Huguenots were killing each other in the streets. Coligny was murdered in the Great Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.


1810- After the Swedish Royal family, the Vasas, dies out, the Swedish Diet, with major arm twisting by Napoleon, voted to have French General Bernadotte, married to the daughter of one of Nappy's old girlfriends Desiree' Clary, become the new King and Queen. Napoleon saw this move as adding Sweden to his continental empire but Bernadotte later changed sides and gave Napoleon the shaft. At the end of the Napoleonic wars Bernadotte hoped the Tsar would reward him with the throne of France but he let him keep Norway to add to his kingdom. His descendants still rule Sweden today.

1820- After Argentina and Chile had been liberated from Spain, the army of Jose San Martin embarked from Valparaiso to invade Peru.

1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the election but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House Douglas was his strong supporter.

1863-THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisan Jayhawkers. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding raiders flying black flags into town. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like Jesse James and Cole Younger.

As the wild horsemen galloped up Massachusetts Avenue shooting and burning, Quantrill stood up in his saddle and shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill all the n*gg*r-loving Yankees!” There was no regular army there. They murdered 200 civilians, mostly defenseless old men and boys. A guerrilla named Rev Larkin Skaggs tore down the Stars & Stripes and dragged it behind his horse in the dirt to the laughter of the troops. There were some regular Confederate officers present who were appalled at the carnage. They later showed their unfired weapons to survivors to witness that they did not take part in the crimes.

Rev. Skaggs was shot down by a Delaware Indian as he tried to ride out of town. The citizens dragged his scalped corpse up and down the main street shooting it and pelting it with stones. It was later tossed into a ravine for wild dogs to eat. Many people never recovered from the nightmare. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War, William Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets.

1878 - American Bar Association organizes at Sarasota, NY.

1887- Mighty (Dan) Casey struck out at his last at bat with the NY Giants. The poem was written many years later.

1888- William S. Burroughs of St Louis patented the first modern adding machine, not counting the abacus.

1911- Café waiter Vincenzo Perruggia walked into the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa. After trying to fence it for two years, he tried to ransom it back. In 1913 he was arrested and the painting recovered.

1912- Arthur Eldred of Oceanside New York became the first Eagle scout.

1922 - Curly Lambeau & Green Bay Football Club formed in 1919 was granted an NFL franchise. Foreigners have pondered the Great American Mystery: Why are the Packers the only US football team not situated near a major American City? That is because at a time when professional football was in it’s infancy a Green Bay meat packing company paid for the teams uniforms.

1929-Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo marry.

1930- Pardon Us, the first feature length film starring Laurel & Hardy. In 1926, Hal Roach director Leo McCarey noticed the Briton Stan Laurel and Georgia born singer Oliver Hardy looked funny together, and put them in a series of shorts. Laurel & Hardy became one of the greatest comedy teams in film history.

1935- Big band leader Benny Goodman was having a tough time. His band lost its radio gig when the show Let’s Dance was cancelled. So he and his musicians drove across the country in a small caravan of cars playing various venues on the road. They were told in small towns to stop playing that newfangled Swing music and stick to old standards. One manager in Denver told him:” Don’t you guys know any waltzes? ” By the time they arrived in Los Angeles this day they were thoroughly demoralized. But when they set up in the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood the crowd was immense! And these kids wanted to jitterbug to the new Swing music! So hit it, Jackson, Awl Reet, Awl Reet!

1941- Nazi forces cut off the supplies and began the 800 day Siege of Leningrad. A directive from Berlin announced “The Fuehrer has decided to have St. Petersburg wiped off the face of the earth.” The epic siege would earn Leningrad the title of Hero-City. Dmitri Shostakovitch wrote and debuted his Leningrad symphony (#7) even as the Nazi Stukas reigned bombs down from above. He would have to take periodic breaks from composing to serve in the city fire brigade. Leningrad’s stand probably saved Moscow because it tied down troops the Germans needed for the final drive on the Russian Capitol. After Communism’s fall in 1991 Leningrad regained its original name of St. Petersburg.

1944- Moviestar James Cagney, star of Yankee Doodle Dandy, cleared of charges of Communism. The accusations probably had less to do with Cagney's politics and more to do with his Actor’s union activism and his fighting in court the restrictive personal contracts studios put their stars under.

1959- Hawaii became the 50th state.

1961- The British colonial authorities release Kenyan nationalist leader Njomo Kenyatta from prison.

1967 –New York Mets second baseman Ken Harrelson became the first free agent.

1968- RUSSIAN TANKS CRUSH THE "PRAGUE SPRING' -Soviet forces destroy Alexander Dubchek's experiment of "Socialism with a Human Face." 650.000 Warsaw Pact troops moved into the small country from all sides. Some of the Red Army soldiers moving into Prague were from Asian Siberia and had never seen a western city before. Carlos Casteneda, who was there for a socialist progressive conference, recalled seeing a Soviet tank crash right through a department store glass window. The driver had never seen a glass window that large and didn't think anything was there. A Czech put a sign over the window frame : "NOTHING CAN STOP THE INVINCIBLE RED ARMY !"

1972 - Grace Slick was sprayed with mace by police after one of her band called the cops pigs.

1983- Benino Aquino, chief political opponent of Phillipine President Ferdinand Marcos, is promised no reprisals if he returns from exile in Hawaii. Stepping off the plane in Manila an assassin shoots him dead. His wife Cory Aquino took over and led the "people power" revolution that toppled Marcos.

1989- The Voyager II satellite spaceprobe flew by the planet Neptune. It was discovered Neptune had a faint ring like Saturn and rotated on it’s side- south-north instead of west to east. Scientists speculated the atmosphereic pressure to be so great that it could actually rain diamonds.

2003- A two week heatwave in Europe killed 17,000 in France. 13,000 people dead in Germany, Italy,12,000. Most were elderly people sitting in their locked apartments without air conditioning while their families went on their august holidays. It is probably the largest heat wave death in modern times, since it took place in only a few days. President Jacques Chirac was vacationing in the Canadian Rockies.

2011- Anti-Moammar Khaddafi rebels push into the Libyan capitol Tripoli.

2017 - Next total solar eclipse visible from North America.
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Yesterday’s Quiz; There always seems to be a lot of things named Linden: Linden Blvd, Unter Den Linden, Lindenhof Palace, Who or what was Linden?

Answer: A Linden is a type of tree, very numerous from Russia to America to Asia.

Quiz: There always seems to be a lot of things named Linden: Linden Blvd, Unter Den Linden, Lindenhof Palace, Who or what was Linden?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.
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History for 8/20/2012
Birthdays: President Benjamin Harrison, Sukenoba Nishikawa, Bernardo O’Higgins, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, H.P. Lovecraft, Art Tatum, Issac Hayes, Connie Chung, Jacqueline Susanne, Rajiv Ghandi, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin- who co-wrote Stairway to Heaven, Joan Allen is 56, Fred Durst, Alan Reed -the original voice of Fred Flintstone, Slobodan Milosovic’, Amy Adams is 38

Feast day of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

480 B.C. -THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS- When Persian King Xerxes invaded Greece the King of Sparta Leonidas decided the best place to try and stop him was in the narrow pass of Thermopylae. But the Spartan senate and other allied Greek states refused to send troops until they completed the Olympic religious festival. It was forbidden for Greeks to wage war during the Games. So Leonidas went with the 300 Spartans of his bodyguard, and a thousand more allied troops, to try and stall ten times their number. After repulsing several attacks a traitor showed Xerxes a goat path around the Spartan position. Leonidas could still have retreated but he, his three hundred and some other Greek allies decided to stand and fight to the last man. They were wiped out, but they bought enough time for the Greeks eventual victory.

Later a monument was erected over their bones: O xein angellin Lakdaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi- which means "Go Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that True to their Command, Here We Lie."

636 A.D. Battle of Yarmuk- The armies of Islam led by Caliph Omar defeat the Byzantine Greeks and captured Palestine and Jerusalem. The Caliph Omar received the defeated and captured Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes with a cup of fruit flavored ice called Sherbat or sorbet. Omar was a very devout Moslem and spurned the vanity of a white charger, preferring to travel by donkey, as the Prophet Mohammed had done. The custom was for high born prisoners like an emperor to be ransomed back. But the Byzantine court was so annoyed, they refused to pay for big loser Romanus.

1191- At Acre, Richard Lionheart had his crusaders slaughter 3,000 Arabs and their families in front of Saladin to piss him off. Also to see if they had swallowed their gold. In olden days when you were captured it was wise to swallow your gold. Gold never tarnishes and err... well...lets just say, you'll get it back three days later.

1619- A Dutch ship anchors at the English colony at Jamestown Virginia and landed the first African slaves. Twenty people. By the American Revolution three million African people had been forcibly brought to America to serve as slaves. There was white slavery as well in the form of indentured servitude, but that had mostly died out by the formation of the American Republic.

1648- Battle of Lens, the last battle of the Thirty Years War. Archduke Leopold defeated somebody or other. The Thirty Years war went on so long that all those who started the war in 1618 had died and by 1648 nobody remembered how the whole damn mess got started in the first place.

1672- Jan DeWitt had governed the Netherlands as Grand Pensioner of the Republic for four terms but by now the Dutch hated him and his weak handling of a French invasion. They wanted the more resolute leadership of young William III of Orange. Jan deWitt resigned his offices and when his brother Cornelius was imprisoned Jan went to his aid. A mob broke into the jail and as unsympathetic guards looked on they beat Jan and Cornelius to death and hung their bodies from a lamp post. The Dutch Republic ended and William became their Prince.

1741-VITUS BERRING DISCOVERED ALASKA and helps colonize California. Well, he didn't actually help but for 200 years Spain had ignored it's Southwest colonies because there were no gold sodden Inca empires there. But when Berring opened the Pacific coast to Russian colonization the King of Spain freaked and ordered towns and missions built up the California coast. Britain also rushed it's claims to Washington State and British Columbia. This is why Juan DeCabrillo explored the California coast in 1542 but cities like L.A. and San Francisco weren't founded until 1770's.

Berring was a reluctant explorer. The Dane had heard Tsar Peter the Great was giving cushy salaries to skilled European sailors. But when Berring arrived in Russia the Tsar ordered him to travel 3700 miles to Siberia, build a fleet and explore the arctic because the Tsar had always wondered if America and Russia are connected. He went off and fooled around in the Arctic Sea for awhile then went back and said it wasn't. The Tsars scientists said that wasn't good enough, go back and do it again! Finally he discovered his Berring straights but died of scurvy in the Aleutians before he ever saw any money.

1794- Napoleon Bonaparte was released from prison at Caps d’Antibe. He was arrested with the leading Jacobins when Robespierre was overthrown. Nappy was friends with Robespierre’s brother.

1862-SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN or MANASSAS. Robert E. Lee maneuvered the larger Union army of General George Pope back onto the old Bull Run battlefield and smashed it, sending thousands of bluecoats running back to Washington, -again. Pope considered himself a man of action and bragged "From now on my headquarters are in the saddle !" To which one wag wrote :"It's not the first time that a general had his Headquarters where his Hindquarters should be !' Confederate General James Longstreet was nursing a foot wound so he directed the decisive attack wearing bedroom slippers instead of boots.

After three spectacular Yankee defeats in just two months, the Confederate cause was looking pretty good. In London Prime Minister Palmerston wrote Lord Liverpool the foreign secretary that Washington or Baltimore would soon fall into rebel hands and a special steamboat was kept waiting at the navy docks to rush President Lincoln and his cabinet to safety should the capitol fall. The time may have arrived for England to offer her mediation to negotiate a ceasefire. Emperor Napoleon III of France was also offering Paris as the site of an international peace conference to oversee the final separation of North and South.

1866- One year after the Civil War ended President Andrew Johnson declared the great insurrection officially over and rescinded all remaining wartime regulations and edicts, reinstating Habeas Corpus, etc.

1882 -Peter Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" premiered in Moscow. The composer said of all his works the two pieces he liked the least were the 1812 Overture and the Nutcracker Suite. Overture 1812 was Richard Nixon’s favorite classical piece.

1896 – The Dial telephone patented. It was nicknamed the Gravediggers Dial because it was invented by funeral director Almon Strowger. It was the world standard until replaced by the touchtone button system in the 1980s. Even though the dial phone is a memory the words remain when we speak of "dialing up a number" or "dialing up someone’s website."

1913- The first successful parachute jump. French balloonists experimented with parachutes in the 1790's but this is the first practical one.

1940- In Mexico City exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky was assassinated. While writing at his desk he hacked in the neck with a mountainclimbers pick. His murderer Ramon Mercador- alias Jules Antoine, alias Jackson, was paid by Stalin's agents. He got into Trotsky's household by dating one of the maids. It was rumored that part of the Stalinist cell in Mexico was famed painter David Siquieros. Trotsky was having an affair with famed painter Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky predicted Stalin would try to get him while the world's attention was distracted by the Hitler War. When Mercador was released from a Mexican prison Stalin presented him with the Order of Lenin.

1940- In a radio speech Winston Churchill praised the efforts of the Royal Air Force in fighting Hitler's bombers-"Never have so Many, owed so Much, to so Few.'

1953- The Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in Women first published. Alfred & Clara Kinsey’s study proved to the conservative American public that 50% of women had premarital sex, liked sex for more than just procreation and 25% had an extramarital affair. This document following his 1948 report on sexual behavior of men revolutionized social attitudes towards sex and feminism.

1954- President Eisenhowers intelligence chief Allan Foster Dulles presented a paper on Far East Policy in which he urged that the US support be given to the post colonial government of South Vietnam in opposition to communist Ho Chi Minh.

1971- THE ENEMIES LIST. FBI documents prove this day the Nixon White House began to covertly investigate journalist Daniel Schorr because of his anti-war editorials. President Richard Nixon kept an enemies list of people he imagined to be opponents to his administration. It began with obvious liberals like George McGovern and Ted Kennedy, then expanded as far as June Foray the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

1972- Star Hollywood directors Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and William Freidkin announced a partnership in a new production company called "The Director's Company" Young punks Martin Scorcese, George Lucas and Steven Speilberg were also involved. The partnership lasted two years then collapsed.

1977- NASA launched the Voyager One probe towards the outer planets of our solar system. Among the things Voyager discovered was that Jupiter had many more moons than previously thought and had a ring like Saturn. Part of NASA's program was an explanatory simulation film done totally on computer by Jim Blinn. The animation was so smooth and the graphics so breathtaking it expanded the use of the CGI medium and inspired a new generation of digital artists.

1982- Ralph Bakshi's film Hey Good Lookin'.

1982- President Reagan sent the Marines into civil war torn Beirut Lebanon.

1985- Israel shipped 96 American-made TOW shoulder held missiles to the Ayatollahs in Iran. This was part of the Iran-Contra scheme. When Congress had forbidden the Ronald Reagan White House to send them any money to Anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan’s West Wing cooked up this scheme to trade arms for secret funds. Irans’ cash payment for the missiles went to the Nicaraguan Contra-Rebels.

1989- George and Joy Adamson, the naturalists who inspired the book Born Free, were murdered by Somali poachers with machetes in Kampi Ya Simba, Africa.

1998- THE WAG THE DOG ATTACKS- After the Al Qaeda terrorist organization bombed US embassies in Africa the Bill Clinton administration looked for an opportunity to hit back. This day the CIA got word that senior Al Qaeda leaders including Osama Ben Laden were gathering in a remote Afghan camp for a meeting. President Clinton ordered a spread of cruise missiles launched to kill them. The missiles hit their target, but Ben Laden got away.

In Washington the hostile Neo-Con media had a field day accusing the Clinton of making the strikes only to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky Sex Scandal. It alluded to a popular movie out at the time called Wag the Dog, where a scandal ridden president rigs a fake crisis to distract attention. Bill Clinton was stymied in any further efforts, and Osama Ben Laden lived on to plan 9-11.

1999- Planet Hollywood, the theme restaurant started by movie stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore filed for bankruptcy.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.

Answer: d) Mountainclimbers axe, see above, 1940.

Quiz: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?
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History for 8/19/2012
B-Days: Orville Wright, Ring Lardner, Ogden Nash, Alfred Lunt, George Enesco, jockey Willie Shoemaker, Malcom Forbes, Tipper Gore, Gene Roddenberry, Colleen Moore the It Girl, Jill St. John, Ginger Baker of Grand Funk Railroad, Dawn Steel, John Stamos, Peter Gallagher is 57, Kyra Sedgwick is 47, Matthew Perry is 43, former President Bill Clinton is 66

480 B.C. THERMOPYLAE- The Spartan King Leonidas had gone on ahead of other Greek allies to try and slow down the gigantic Persian invasion force of Xerxes. He chose to stop them at a narrow mountain pass in Thessaly called Thermopylae or Hot Gates. He had only 300 Spartans of his royal guard and 7000 other Greek allies to fight off 200,000 Persians.

After repulsing several attacks, this night spies told Leonidas a Greek traitor named Ephialtes had shown Xerxes a way behind his position. If he did not retreat he would be surrounded. Their seer Meistias saw in the sacrificial entrails nothing but death.
But Leonidas decided the best way to gain time, and create an example for Greece to rally, was to stay and fight to the last man. He allowed his allies to withdraw, but 1500 warriors including his 300 Spartans stayed with him. Meistias sent away his only son to be saved, but he stayed to fight.

This night before the last battle the Spartans spent most of their time combing and oiling their hair and beards, for they did not want to enter the next world looking shabby. One Spartan warrior named Dieneces, was told when the Persian multitudes fire their arrows they black out the sun. Dieneces replied: “Good, then we can fight them in the shade.”

14 A.D.- Elderly Emperor Augustus died after ruling the Roman Empire for 44 years. The Empress Livia had ordered the imperial villa surrounded with troops so no one but her saw his end. She said his last words were:" Have I played my part well in this great comedy called life?" But the historian Tacitus suspected Livia might have aided his shuffling off this mortal coil before he had second thoughts about leaving the empire to her son Tiberius, He may have said something more like: " Honey, I don't feel so good. What did you put in these figs?"

1274- King Edward Ist Longshanks and his Queen Eleanor of Castile crowned at Westminster Abbey. Edward was called Long-Legs because he was over 6 foot, and his constant wars and blood conquest earned him nicknames like The Hammer of the Scots, the Great Plantagenet, and Big Baddass In-Your-Face Mofo King.

1399 - King Richard II of England surrendered his throne to his cousin Henry Bollingbroke, who became King Henry IV. Richard II is not remembered for much else but inventing the pocket-handkerchief.

1561 - Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Leith Scotland to assume her throne after spending 13 years in France. She was raised at the extremely Catholic court of Queen Catherine de Medici and had little in common with her increasingly Presbyterian Scots subjects.

1599- Spanish conquistadors capture Acoma pueblo in New Mexico, east of modern Albuquerque. The Indian village on the sheer tabletop mountain reminded the Spaniards of attacking castles back in Europe. After their victory they enslaved the population and burned the Indian chief at the stake as a heretic. As the chief was roasting the monk Diego Las Casas started to feel guilty, so he urged the chief at his last moments to accept baptism. The chief called out through the flames:" No thank you, because then I would go to the Christian Heaven and meet even MORE of you people!"

1692- Salem Mass, The pilgrims executed four women as witches. One was an elderly senile woman who just looked scary like a witch and another was a Caribbean servant named Tituba who liked to tell children ghost stories.

1745- THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS- At Glenfinnin in the Scottish Highlands, to the thunder of drums and the skirl of massed bagpipes, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner of revolt and called all Scottish clans to rally to him. Many clans stayed aloof but Clan MacDonald and Cameron wholeheartedly swelled his ranks, as did his family clan the Stuarts. His men were paid in oatmeal.

1781- George Washington started his Continental army marching from Yonkers, New York to attack Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown Virginia. At Dobbs Ferry he started ferrying his troops across the Great Northern River as the Hudson was known then. He was amazed that the British army only twenty miles away in New York City never stirred to attack him. Washington’s minutemen at this time were so broke that the French General the Comte du Rocheambeau donated some of his own money to pay them some wages.

1787 – British astronomer W. Herschel discovers Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Herschel also discovered Uranus and other celestial bodies.

1812-OLD IRONSIDES- During the war of 1812 The USS Constitution pounded it out with the frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British captain complained his cannonballs bounced harmlessly off the Constitutions heavy New Hampshire oak hull as though it was made of iron. The nickname stuck and today Old Ironsides is the oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy. In 2012, the same Constitution was taken out for a spin around Boston Harbor.

1814-THE ASSAULT ON WASHINGTON BEGAN. A huge British battle fleet of 14 Ships of the Line landed an invasion force of veteran redcoat troops at the town of Benedict on the Pautuxent River in Virginia. Admiral Cockburn’s intent was to march on Washington D.C., and “give the Americans a Good Drubbing!”

The defenses of the American capitol were some militia and a few Marines from the two armed schooners hiding in the shallows of the Cheasapeake. U.S. Secretary of War Armstrong was convinced they were faking, and the real target of the British was Baltimore. President James Madison sent contradicting orders to Armstrong and the field generals. Secretary of State James Monroe personally galloped about alone under British fire bringing the only reliable scouting reports.

1848- The New York Herald published a story that President Polk confirmed that gold had indeed been discovered in California.

1886- Joseph Conrad got his British citizenship. The author of Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and Lord Jim was born in Poland as Jozef Konrad Korzenieowski, but he went into exile when his patriot father was arrested by the Czars police and sent to Siberia.

1891 - William Huggins described the astronomical application of the spectrum.

1909- The Brickyard is born. The first Indianapolis 500 autorace.

1929 the Amos and Andy show premiered on de radio.

1942- The Dieppe Raid- Allied commanders were under pressure from Stalin to prove that they were doing something to open a second front in the west to take the pressure off Russia. So they sent a Canadian division in what amounted to the largest commando operation of World War Two. These Canadians had to attack a large U-Boat base on the channel and ram a destroyer full of explosives into the dry docks. The Germans were waiting and it became a suicide mission. The Canadians suffered almost 60% casualties.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender, Ho Chi Minh seized power in French Indochina and declared the Republic of Vietnam. Uncle Ho had been supported by the CIA’s forerunner the OSS in his struggle against the Japanese. This day Ho ordered a reading aloud of his declaration heavily borrowed from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Even though FDR's personal representative Avriel Harriman advised that the U.S. recognize Ho's government, we decided to support the French and British in trying to keep their colonial empires. The British fly in French paratroops and the stage is set for the Vietnam wars of the next 30 years.

1953- Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown and the Shah assumed absolute power. All with the blessing and cooperation of the American CIA. The popular Mossadegh was trying to steer Iran into a nonaligned status between the cold war superpowers and had nationalized the Iranian oil industry. So to Washington he was a threat. Eisenhower advisor Allen Foster Dulles considered Mossadegh a dangerous lunatic for not wanting American support. The Shah Reza Pahlevi II ruled for the next 25 years until overthrown by the Moslem fundamentalists under the Ayatollah Khomeni.

1953- The Israeli Knesset voted to create a huge memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust called Yad Vashem.

1955 - WINS radio, announces it will not play "copy" white cover versions of black R&B . DJs must play Fats Domino's "Ain't It A Shame," not Pat Boone's. In 1957 Little Richards “Tuttie-Fruitie” never got higher than 17th in the Billboard Charts while Pat Boones version, by his own admission awful, went to number one.

1957- The NY Giants baseball team voted to move to San Francisco.

1960- The Russians launched a Sputnik capsule into space with two dogs- Belka and Strelka, 2 rats and 40 mice. They recovered this orbiting zoo the next day. The first sending of life into space and returning them safely.

1973 - Kris Kristofferson wed Rita Coolidge.

1977- Groucho Marx, the last surviving Marx Brother, died at age 86. In his final years Groucho had rewrote his will in favor of his young personal secretary Erin Fleming. This spawned a furious legal battle between Fleming and the Marx family.

1988- The Iran-Iraq war ended after 8 bloody years.

1989- The Polish Communist regime resigned and turned over power to the Solidarity trade union movement. Poland is the first Warsaw Pact government to collapse.

1991-THE AUGUST COUP. Communist hardliners in a final attempt to stop the fall of the Soviet Union, try to overthrow leader Mikhail Gorbachov. They try to do it the way they did it to Nikita Khruschev in 1964, arresting Gorbachov while he was at his vacation dacha or cottage. The coup failed several days later when Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin climbed on top of a tank and called for a "people-power" style rising to support the democratic elements of the government.

2000- Scientists report water at the North Pole for the first time in 50 million years.

2335 – According to Star Trek the Next Generation, this is the birthday of William T Riker, in Valdez Alaska, first officer of the Enterprise.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?

Answer: In the days of the wooden fighting ships, if a cannon came loose from
it's moorings on the firing line, especially during a battle, it could
roll all over a heaving deck, causing injury to the ship and crew. A
"loose cannon" has come to mean a person who cannot control their
volatile personality. ( Thanks Mr.G)

Quiz: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Italian and Spanish are Latin rooted languages, Dutch and German are Germanic rooted, Polish and Russian are Slavic. What family root is Basque?
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HISTORY FOR 8/18/2012
Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis ,Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak Shelly Winters, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski is 79, Patrick Swayze, Madeleine Stowe, Christian Slater, Edward Norton is 42, Martin Mull, Denis Leary is 55, Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, is 76

325-a.d. Today is the Feast of Saint Helena. A Roman innkeeper's daughter in Eboracum- modern York England. There she happened to catch the roving eye of General Constantius Chlorus. They married and their son Constantine later made himself Caesar and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman World. It's debatable exactly when she was baptized, but she undoubtedly had a great influence on her son's decision. She was also instrumental in researching and defining the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. She started the Christian fascination with holy relics.

1503-Pope Alexander VI the Borgia died. Some say he died of malaria, others that he poisoned himself accidentally, while trying to poison someone else. The Borgia's enemies then take over the Vatican drive out Caesar & Lucretzia Borgia. The Pope had seven children and at the time was sleeping with 16 year old Giulia Farnese whom he had painted as the Virgin Mary. People said the Alexander had sold his soul to the devil, because at his death an ape appeared on his windowsill and water boiled in his mouth. Hmmm- proof enough for me. His 300 lb. corpse was so swollen with corruption that it had to be pounded into a coffin with big wood wine-corking mallets.

1573- In a vain attempt to cement a peace between French Catholics and Protestants, old Queen Mother Catherine De Medici married her youngest daughter Margot to the Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre. Paris filled with Protestants and Catholics for the wedding. Street fighting and massacre broke out soon after. Henry survived and eventually became King Henry IV. Surprisingly, although Margot was dazzlingly beautiful and Henry was one of the horniest princes in Christendom, they weren’t attracted to one another. They kept separate courts and lovers, stayed friends and divorced amicably in 1605.

1587- Virginia Dare, the first English child in America, is born. She was in the Roanoke Colony, the fabled "Lost Colony" who all disappeared a year later.

1840 - Organization of American Society of Dental Surgeons founded (NY).

1850- Honore' Balzac died after drinking too much coffee. He was overweight, seldom bathed and picked his nose in public, but women still found him irresistible.

1856- Mr. Gale Borden patented condensed milk. It became popular during the Civil War when it was used by the army, then it spawned the process food industry. When Borden died he left instructions that his tombstone be shaped like a milk can.

1862- THE GREAT SANTEE SIOUX UPRISING- Minnesota Sioux tribes called Dakota-Allies, had agreed to sell their land and settle on reservations and learn farming. Once removed from their land they starved waiting for food and money held up by government agents corruption. When Chief Little Crow -Taoyateduta demanded food he knew was being stockpiled in warehouses Indian Agent Andrew J. Myrick responded “Let your people eat grass!” This day the Sioux exploded across the prairie from New Ulm to Fort Snelling (Minneapolis)- 200 whites were killed, including Indian Agent Myrick, who was found with a tuft of grass stuffed in his mouth.

1872 - 1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward.

1896- 200 outlaws gather at Hole-In-The-Wall to form the "Wild Bunch".
They never went all at the same time to a heist, it was more like a gunfighters guild.

1919- Tennessee becomes the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. The legislature was deadlocked but the tie was broken by one state senator who changed his mind. He wanted to please his mother.

1937- The Toyota Automobile Company was established as an offshoot of the Toyoda Motorized Loom Works. They changed the name Toyoda to Toyota because a Shinto priest told them the name would be luckier.

1939- The movie the Wizard of Oz released and made a star of Judy Garland. Frank Morgan, the actor playing the Wizard, needed to wear a shabby old coat so a studio costume designer went through some L.A. thrift stores until she found the good candidate. When Morgan looked in the lining he discovered the coat was previously owned by L.Frank Baum, writer of the Oz stories. Morgan was first president of the Screen Actor's Guild, but stepped down when he was considered 'too left'y to work with the Roosevelt administration. Lyricist Yip Harburg ( Somewhere over the Rainbow ) was later blacklisted as a communist. "And yer little dog ,too!!"

1947- Hewlett-Packard file papers to incorporate their electronics company. They began doing business in 1937.

1950- Battle of the Bowling Alley- The US and South Korean Armies pushed up against the Pusan Perimeter score their first victory against North Korean regulars. It got it’s name because the North Korean tanks bottled up into narrow defiles by the land made excellent targets for waiting anti-tank artillery, bazooka and aircraft. Eyewitnesses said it looked like a “Bowling Alley in Hell.”

1953- The first MacDonalds franchise restaurant opened in Downey California.

1956- Actress Vivien Leigh suffered a mental breakdown after a miscarriage.

1958 - "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published. The novel was rejected by four publishers before Putnams picked it up. It became a best seller and allowed Nabokov to quit teaching and focus on writing.

1958 – The TV Game Show Scandal investigation starts. Allegations that popular quiz shows like 21 were rigged turned out to be true.

1962 - Peter, Paul & Mary release their famous folk song "If I Had a Hammer".

1966- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLURPEE! The Ice Slurpee was invented by two Dallas engineers for a failing Oklahoma ice cream store.

1974- The Xerox Company decided not to seriously market the Alto, the first personal computer that had a graphic window interface, ethernet and mouse, long before anyone else. Xerox decided to stick with copying machines and let go of many of their Palo Alto development team Xerox PARC. Most of their breakthroughs wound up in other computers like the Macintosh and the IBM PC.

1977- The rock band the Police make their debut in a Birmingham nightclub. The lead singer Gordon Sumner started to get the nickname Sting, from the black & yellow striped shirt he habitually wore.

1986 - John Tesh's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight.

1989- Publishing Tycoon Malcolm Forbes flies 800 guests to Tangiers to celebrate his birthday. His birthday party cost $2 million. The soiree' comes to symbolize 1980's wealthy excess.

1999- TV psychic Kriswell predicted TODAY would be the End of the World.
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Yesterday’s Question: Italian and Spanish are Latin rooted languages, Dutch and German are Germanic rooted, Polish and Russian are Slavic. What family root is Basque?

Answer: Nobody is sure where the Basques came from. They have been in the Pyrenees since Hannibal passed by. Basque is one of the only languages that can't be traced to the Indo European Family of Languages. So one theory is that they are the remnants of the people who were in Europe pre-Ice Age, when the Indo Europeans migrated in from Northern India. The name Basque comes from Vascos in Spanish. They call themselves euskotarrak.