Question: What is the story of The Prodigal Son?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: The Battle of Blenheim was one of the great British victories, like Waterloo. Where exactly is Blenheim?
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History for May 19, 2023
Birthdays: Malcolm X- born Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- born Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mahew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Andre the Giant, Polly Walker, James Baxter, Tom Sito, aka me, your author.

639, Turkic nobleman Ashina Jieshesuai led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Chinese Emperor. This led to a campaign to resettle Turkic people north of the great wall and south of the Gobi desert. It was intended as a buffer from the northern threat of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

988- Today is the Feast of Saint Dunstan, who pulled the Devil’s nose with hot tongs.

1535- Explorer Jacques Cartier sails from France for the New World.

1536- Anne Boleyn-King Henry VIII's second queen, was beheaded not by axe but by a French swordsman with a sort of golf-swing. The king was playing tennis at Hampton Court. He had a relay signal of cannons fired from the Tower of London so he would know the minute he was single again.

1586- Fleeing her rebellious nobles, Mary Queen of Scots crossed the border into England and threw herself upon the mercy of Queen Elizabeth, who promptly locked her up.

1635- Cardinal Richelieu confuses the religious nature of the Thirty Years War by putting Catholic France on the Protestant side. His eminence the Cardinal didn’t care a fig about religious issues, he just wanted to break the power of Catholic Spain.

1643- The separate Anglo-American colonies of Plymouth, Connecticut, New Harbor and Massachusetts Bay form an association called New England.

1649- Oliver Cromwell’s victorious Puritan Parliament declared the British Monarchy extinct. England was to be a Commonwealth. They also ordered that all families who had been for the King in the just-completed Civil War would now be taxed, assessed to one-half the value of their property, no matter how much real money they earned or lost that year. This tax drove many cash poor noble families to America -The Washingtons, Lees, Randolphs, Livingstons and Madisons. Most settled in Virginia and the Carolinas, because New England had too many Puritans.
In the US Civil War many southerners called themselves the descendants of the cavaliers, and the Yankees of New England the heirs of the Puritan roundheads.

1652- An English fleet led by Blake attacked the Dutch under Admiral Van Tromp- The First Anglo-Dutch War began.

1749- King George II chartered the Ohio Company to explore the territories west of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This act would bring English settlers into direct conflict with French settlers moving down from Canada and help bring on the French & Indian, or the Seven Years War.

1780- In New England the sky turned to total darkness at noon. No explanation.

1798- Napoleon set off to invade Egypt, trying to cut off England's easy access to India and if possible conquering his way across Turkey and Persia to join forces with Tippoo Sahib, the Indian Sultan fighting against British rule.

1804- Napoleon designates 14 of his top generals MARSHALS of the EMPIRE. King Louis XVI had a rule that no one could become an officer in the Royal French Army without first proving nobility of birth going back at least four generations. In the British army it was perfectly natural to buy your officer commissions until the World Wars. The French Revolution changed all that. Napoleon's army functioned on the radical new principle of promoting people on merit instead of noble birth or connections. A slogan in the French army was "every drummer boy carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack."

1812- The USA declared War on Great Britain, the War of 1812- The U.S. government tired of having it's shipping harassed by the British and having ambitions of conquering Canada sent off a declaration of war.
Two weeks after their declaration of war sailed away to London, a Royal Navy vessel landed in Baltimore with concessions to most U.S. demands. D’oh! John Jacob Astor, the fur exporter, warned all his Canadian subcontractors that we were about to invade them. His message got there before the American general’s orders to march.
Napoleon, retreating from Moscow when he received the news, calculated that because the American Navy had had success against the British Navy during their Revolution, they were the perfect ones to ferry his army across the Channel so he could get at England!
He didn't know that after the Revolution most of the American Navy was scrapped, and the Yankees weren't that thrilled with him anyway.

1857 -William Francis Channing & Moses G Farmer patents electric fire alarm.

1859- Sir John Franklin led a British Navy expedition to find the sea route across the top of Canada, the NorthWest Passage. Not only didn't he make it, but the National Geographic Society is still thawing out his sailors today. The route they looked for was not achieved until a Canadian ice cutter did it in 1958. And now thanks to Global Warming, the passage is easy.

1864- The Cherry Creek Flood- wipes out what there is of a little boomtown in silver mining country called Denver.

1864- President Abe Lincoln wrote that the widows and orphans of black union soldiers should get the same death benefits that white soldiers got.

1884 - Ringling Brothers circus premiered.

1886- First performance of Camille Saint Saen's Organ Symphony #3. Saint Saen's had actually written 6 such works but hated them all but three. He liked the third symphony so much he never wrote another. Composer Charles Gounod heard the symphony and exclaimed:" There is now a French Beethoven!"

1891- Rice University founded.

1892 - Charles Brady King invented the pneumatic jackhammer- sleeping city dwellers rejoice.

1895- Patriot leader Jose Martin killed fighting for Cuban independence.

1897- Writer Oscar Wilde was released from prison after doing two years of hard labor. The experience broke his health and he never completely recovered. He did use his experiences to write his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898.

1898 - Post Office authorizes the use of postcards.

1900- The British Empire annexed the islands of Tonga- once called the Cannibal Isles. The King of Tonga realized the futility of trying to resist the European Imperialists, so he mailed his war club as a symbol of submission to Queen Victoria.

1903- In San Francisco’s exclusive University Club, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson overheard some gentlemen discussing how the new invention the automobile was just a passing fad, and only good for short distances. On the spot Jackson wagered $50 he could drive a motorcar across the entire USA to New York City in 90 days. He set out on May 23 and despite frequent breakdowns, made it to Manhattan in 63 days. For this he was hailed as The Great Automobilist.

1921- The U.S. Congress ended the system of unchecked immigration and sets up a quota system based on nationalities. The act was heavily influenced by experts in the pseudo-science of Eugenics, then very popular. Even today the system heavily favors Europeans.

1929 - General Feng Yu-Xiang, last of the great Chinese warlords, declared war on Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang Nationalist government. After the Manchu Empire collapsed in 1912, China broke up into small states run by generals with private armies, European protectorates and Communist guerrillas. The Nationalists under Chiang slowly reunified China piece by piece until the Japanese Invasion in 1937.

1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

1935- The National Football League adopts the college draft system.

1935- T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died of injuries after a high-speed motorcycle crash. The motorcycle was a gift from George Bernard Shaw. Some thought he crashed deliberately.

1940- In a closed meeting of the war cabinet, Winston Churchill said it looked like the French were losing the war to Hitler’s Nazis, so he would send no more RAF squadrons across the Channel to help. He said they needed to keep them home for the coming attacks on Britain.

1941- Battle of Amba Alagi. Britain defeated Fascist Italy in Abyssinia.

1945- Two weeks after the end of World War II in Europe, the German U-boat U-234 surfaced in the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They had been sent on a long-distance trip to Japan carrying military secrets, a disassembled jet fighter, and a store of fission quality uranium.
In the mid-Atlantic, the crew heard the announcement of Hitler’s death and Germany’s surrender. An argument broke out among the crew, the captain, and two Japanese liaison officers about what to do. Barring being able to reach Tokyo, the back up plan was to go to a friendly Latin American country. But the crew had enough. Their war was over.
Their final decision was to sail to the first American port and surrender.
When docked, it was discovered the two Japanese officers were missing.
The crew shrugged, “ uh…they decided to walk home".

1956- Cecil B. de Milles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

1956- The Disney film Pollyana debuted, making a star of Haley Mills.

1958- The film,” The Attack of the 50 Ft Woman” premiered. A drive-in favorite.

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

1962- Giant birthday party and rally held for President John F. Kennedy in New York's Madison Square Garden (his birthday was actually the following week). What made it memorable was Marilyn Monroe in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it, singing her sexy version of the Happy Birthday song. 'Happy (exhale) Burth- Day, Mister - Prezz- a -dent (sigh), Happy, etc. "

1967- US B-52’s bomb Hanoi for the first time.

1970- Al Gore married Tipper Gore.

1987- Charles Fleming got a patent for plans for a device that can keep a severed human head alive.

1990- Amy Fisher 16, the "Long Island Lolita" shot the wife of her lover, muffler salesman Joseph Buttafuco. Mary Jo Buttafuco survived the attack and Amy went to jail. This case titillates the sensationalist media of New York City for the next three years, to the amazement of the rest of the U.S.

1991- Willy T. Ribbs became the first African American racecar driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

1992- The completion bond company seized Richard Williams unfinished masterpiece Cobbler and the Thief. They had the film’s remaining sequences completed by another studio (Fred Calvert, and one sequence subcontracted to Don Bluth) and released as Arabian Nights.
A year later I asked Dick how he was doing? He replied, “Well, contrary to everyone’s best wishes, I am NOT suicidal.”

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker.

1999- George Lucas’ much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in over a decade. It was the first major film premiere to be projected digitally. Only two theaters in New York and two in Hollywood could do digital projection then. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying, that web sites like www. I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

2000- Walt Disney film Dinosaur opened.

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

2006- Dreamwork’s animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.
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Yesterday’s question: The Battle of Blenheim was one of the great British victories, like Waterloo. Where exactly is Blenheim?

Answer: In Bavaria in Germany.

Quiz: The Battle of Blenheim was one of the great British victories, like Waterloo. Where exactly is Blenheim?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the controversy about the Oxford comma?
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History for 5/18/2023
Birthdays: Pope St. John Paul II, Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Czar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Mad artist Don Martin, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 68, Tina Fey is 53

The ancient Greek festival of Pan.

331 B.C. ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIED IN BABYLON. By age 31 he had conquered most of the known world and was planning a campaign to Arabia and western Europe when he fell ill. When asked "To whom do you leave your empire? He replied- "Hoti to Kratisto- To the Strongest". Some historians speculate he actually meant: "Hoti to Kratero" to Craterus, one of his trusted companions, but the generals in the room had their own ideas and didn't want to hear that.
They carved up Alexanders empire into their own kingdoms-Ptolemy became Pharoah of Egypt, Seleucus king of Syria, and Antigonus One-Eye & Cassander divided up Greece. They started fighting with each other almost immediately. Alexander grimly joked: "There will be great games at my funeral". The Successor kings even fought over his corpse, carrying it around with the army in a huge rolling shrine, until Ptolemy brought it to Alexandria and embalmed it in a solid block of honey. Caesar and Marc Anthony were able to gaze upon Alexander’s face three hundred years later. (Imagine today, being able to look at the undecayed face of George Washington!) The final fate of the honey-pickled corpse is unknown.

323BC- Diogenes the Cynic died his 90s. He once met Alexander the Great. Alexander came up to him seated upon the ground, stood over him and said "I am Alexander the King of Macedon". Diogenes countered:" And I am Diogenes the Dog". Alexander said:" If there is anything in the world you desire of me, just ask!" Diogenes replied:" Yes. You’re blocking my light."

257AD.- Today is the Feast of Saint Venantius. Little is known of him except his endurance record for being martyred. His persecutors flogged him, burned him with torches, hanged him upside down over a fire, knocked his teeth out, broke his jaw, and threw him to the lions, who merely licked his feet. Then they threw him off a cliff, and finally cut his head off.

1291- The last crusader stronghold in Middle East, St. Jean D'Acre, fell to the Egyptian Mamelukes of Al Khalil. Considered the official end of the Crusades.

1512- IRON HAND- German knight Gotz von Berlichingen spent his 81 years fighting and raiding throughout Germany. When his hand was blown off by a cannonball he had a mechanical one built for him out of metal. This day Gotz and one legged Hans von Selbitz raided 55 Nuremburg merchants and carried off their gold. Goethe and other German writers made Gotz into a Robin Hood type folk hero.
In answering a challenge to personal combat, Iron Hand was credited with uttering the famous epithet "Er aber sag seinem Herren, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Go tell your master he can kiss my ass!"

1565- THE SIEGE OF MALTA BEGINS. Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent attacked the island stronghold of the Knights of St. John. The knights had formed in Jerusalem during the Crusades and ran a hospital when not chopping people, so they were called Hospitallers. Later after their victory they became the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, four barbed arrowheads forming a cross is called the Maltese Cross. Today they still run a medical service called St. John's Ambulance.

1642- Huron village of Hochelaga was rededicated as the city of Montreal.

1778-THE MESCHIANZA- Before the British Army evacuated the rebel capitol of Philadelphia they threw a grand farewell masque ball. American loyalist girls and young redcoat officers danced the night away under a spectacle of fireworks. There was a waterborne parade, medieval tournament and a huge dinner.
Nothing this lavish had ever been staged in the American Colonies. One of the belles was Peggy Shippen, who would marry General Benedict Arnold and turn him from the American patriot cause. That night her dance partner was Major John Andre’, who art directed and designed the event. He even designed Peggy’s costume. The men had costumes as Knights and the women as Turkish damsels, symbolizing the civilizing influence of Art on barbaric peoples.
The next day the British began their withdrawal to New York, and abandoning Philadelphia to Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Two years later George Washington hanged Major Andre as a spy.

1781- Inca resistance to the Spaniards didn't end when Pizarro left. They abandoned Cuzco and fled deeper into the Andes and continued to struggle for another 150 years. This day the last fighting Inca emperor, Tupu Amuru II, was executed by the Spanish conquistadors. They tried to pull him apart with horses, but he was too pliable so they cut him up.
The Inca believed the world periodically is overthrown and another takes its place, so the European invasion was seen as a part of this cycle. The Inca word for earthquake also means revolution. In the 1980s the rebels fighting the Peruvian government forces called themselves the Tupu-Amaru Liberation front.

1795- Col. Robert Rogers died in poverty in London. During the French and Indian War Rogers’ colonial militia called Roger’s Rangers was the most daring unit fighting for England. But by the American Revolution, George Washington didn’t trust his loyalty, especially after he ratted out Nathan Hale. He formed a Tory unit but it was undistinguished. Despite the obscurity of his death, Rogers wrote down a manual of his tactics that are considered the basis of all Special Ops -Move Fast, Hit Hard.

1804- French senate voted Napoleon the title of Emperor of the French. This act disappointed many European liberals like Beethoven who had seen Napoleon as the strong wind of reform blowing through the dusty corridors of Monarchy.

1832- CLIMAX OF THE MAY DAYS- The closest England ever came to a full French style working class Revolution. The Whig party under Lord John Russell and Lord Grey ( Earl Grey Tea ) had introduced three bills in Parliament asking for voting rights to be extended to the middle classes and parliamentary allocations reformed to better represent the large city populations like Manchester and Birmingham. This would forever break the tight hold on power possessed by the gentry. Naturally the conservatives like King William IV (Victoria's uncle) fought it tooth and nail. Every time the bill passed in the House of Commons it was defeated in the House of Lords. The Commons in retaliation refused to let the Tories form a government.
Starting with the bills third defeat on May 7th England was convulsed by rioting, looting, general strikes and boycotts. The King was hit in the face with a stone, the Horse Guards were called out and the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had so many rocks thrown at his house in Hyde Park he had steel shutters installed on the ground floor. On this day Lord Grey told the King if he didn't sign the reform act and create a dozen new liberal peers to the Lords, anarchy and revolution would result! Lord Lionel Rothschild reported the economy was at the point of collapse.

The king backed down, reform went through and real two-party voting resulted, although the working classes would have to wait 86 more years until they could vote. King William IV has come down to us called William the Reformer, although it sounds like a title he would have liked to do without....

1896- The US Supreme Court in the decision Plessy Vs Ferguson upheld the concept of Separate-But-Equal facilities and laws. This racial separation called Segregation or Jim Crow, was not reversed until the 1960’s, and many say are still trying to come back today.

1904- In Paris 12 nations sign an international agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. The United States did not sign.

1905- MORROCCAN CRISIS OF 1905- A Moroccan desert sherif, El Raisuli, kidnapped a small Greek-American businessman named George Pedicaris. He did this for ransom, and because he wanted someone new to play chess with. Pedicaris was ransomed, but not before the incident became a major international incident between with Germany, Britain, France and the U.S. Marines. The incident was romanticized in the John Milius film "The Wind and the Lion", with Raisuli played by Sean Connery and Pedicaris turned into the beautiful Candice Bergen.

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond their ninth symphony. On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1926- L.A. evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was the Billy Graham of her time. This day she shocked the nation when she mysteriously disappeared on a beach near Venice Cal. After an exhaustive search involving ships and planes, she turned up a month later with a lame story of being kidnapped. Truth, was she ran off with her boyfriend Kenneth Ormiston for a romantic week in Monterrey. Hallelujah!
1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. The first show was the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings. Ushers and doormen were dressed in imported Mandarin robes, and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1931- Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara attempted to be the first pilot to fly alone across the Pacific Ocean. But he crashed and was rescued by a passing ship.

1933- President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA created massive public works bringing electric power to much of the Appalachians and deep South.

1940- John Halas & Joy Batchelor founded Halas & Batchelor, for many years the preeminent animation studio in England.

1943- Battle of Monte Cassino. A ninth century mountaintop abbey filled with German troops held back the allied armies advancing up from Naples. In order to capture the fortress, the allies had to heavily bomb it from the air, destroying many priceless paintings by Piero della Francesca and Giotto. This day the monastery was finally captured by Polish troops attached to the British Army.

1944- Stalin's revenge- millions of Crimean Tartar people were herded up and shipped into exile in Central Asia because Stalin felt they collaborated with the Nazis. In the 1990s some were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland. But this is the reason when Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea back into Russia in 2014, a majority of the population were now ethnic Russians.

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rode out the storm cooking pasta, smoking pot and listening to recordings of La Boheme.

1980- Mt. St. Helens explodes in Washington State. The volcano was always thought to be safely extinct but Mother Nature had other plans. I was in Toronto thousands of miles away and noticed volcanic ash floating in Lake Ontario. The eruption and earthquake killed 57 people and destroyed 24 square miles around the mountain.
A lone eccentric named Harry Truman refused to be evacuated and stayed in his home. He was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other programs. After the explosion Truman disappeared and is assumed killed.

1995- Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of Bewitched, died of colon cancer at age 62.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the big comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!

2003 Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the controversy about the Oxford comma?

Answer: a comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’ (e.g. an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect ). Some people complain it makes the writing style too alliterative and stuffy.

Quiz: What is the controversy about the Oxford comma?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who were these people? David Oistrach, Yehudi Mehunin, Anna Sophie-Mutter, Yascha Heifitz, Ytshak Perleman?
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History for 5/17/2023
Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Howard Ashman, Craig Ferguson, Bill Paxton, Ralph Wright- the original voice of Eeyore, Alan Kay-inventor of the laptop computer, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 61- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1204- The Fourth Crusade captured the city of Constantinople (Istanbul). The Western Crusaders decided to blame the Byzantine Greeks for their failure to keep Jerusalem, so they sent a crusade just to get them. This Crusade was backed by the growing merchant naval powers like Venice, Genoa and Pisa who saw the Byzantines as a commercial competitor.
They stormed the unconquerable city and killed the Emperor Constantine VIII Paleologus called Mourzufle "Fuzzy", by hurling him off a high column.
The Republic of Venice plundered many treasures to adorn their Cathedral of San Marco back home, including the four bronze horses that had adorned the Hippodrome. In the weeks of destruction and pillage that followed many priceless works of art were lost, including only remaining copies of a dozen plays of Sophocles, leaving only the four we have now.
The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo had a horror of dying in bed. So, he was in the first wave to attack the city's walls even though he was 81 and blind. He survived the arrows, spears; catapult stones and boiling oil, and died in bed anyway.

1488- Vasco DeGama reached India from sailing around the horn of Africa.
This fulfilled the master plan of Prince Henry the Navigator to outflank the Muslim world, providing an alternative to the ancient Silk Road land route that connected the world’s trade. Ironically, legend has it that DeGama’s navigator was an Arab.
It was the beginning of the Age of Exploration and the rise of Western Europe. Both Columbus and Magellan learned their stuff studying in Prince Henry’s Portugal. A previous Portuguese navigator named Diaz had actually rounded the African continent before DeGama but his men were so freaked out that they mutinied and forced him to turn around go home, so he got no credit.

1673- French Explorers Father Marquette and Joliet set out from Green Bay, Wisconsin to explore the Mississippi. The missionary made only one baptism but he said that alone made the trip worthwhile.

1763- The Marquis de Sade was arrested on the first of many charges over his unusual recreational tastes. This time he was charged with “…outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ.” The Marquis de Sade would be in and out of prisons and insane asylums for most of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. He died in 1814.


1792- In New York, twenty-four investors met under a buttonwood tree on the street where the old city wall once stood and formed The New York Stock Exchange. Then they all went to the Merchant’s Coffee House for lunch.

1802- Meriwether Lewis went to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush to get advice for his Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the most famous doctor in America. Dr. Rush gave Lewis a list of questions he had about the West, such as asking the Plains Indians if they practiced the religion of the Hebrews? Were the Sioux or Cheyenne the Lost Tribes of Israel? If you think that’s silly Thomas Jefferson told Lewis to look for living Mastodons.
When Lewis asked what medical supplies were needed, Rush said unhesitatingly that he should lay in a good supply of Rush’s Purgative Pills, nicknamed ‘thunderclappers’ for the effect they had on your system.

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departed for England” in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

1845 - Rubber bands were patented by Stephen Perry of Mssrs Perry & Co, vulcanized rubber manufacturers of London.

1847- The American Medical Association- the AMA formed.

1860- At the second presidential convention of the Republican Party former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln is nominated on the second ballot, beating out William Seward and John Freemont, aka the Pathfinder.

1861- The California State Legislature passed a resolution declaring the states loyalty to the Union and against slavery and secession.

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

1881- Engineer John Roebling designed the Brooklyn Bridge. The largest and tallest suspension bridge in the world. After his death his son engineer Washington Roebling oversaw most of its construction. But it was his wife, engineer Emily Warren Roebling, who finished the job. Emily oversaw the completion of the bridge after Washington became too ill from caisson-sickness to continue. This day Emily became the first person to cross the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn. She crossed the bridge in a carriage with a rooster on her lap for good luck. The Brooklyn Bridge was opened to the public the following week.

1885- Geronimo went on the warpath for the second time. His Chiricahua Apache were the last independent Indian tribe still fighting the U.S. and Mexico.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic newspaper, published in London.

1905 - After having been given to Sweden by Denmark back in 1814, Norway finally regained its independence.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain bought Metro Pictures and combined them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studios to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Two years ago Amazon bought MGM for $8 billion.

1931- Broadway dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Howard Hawk’s film The Public Enemy opened in general release. “There you go with that wishing stuff! I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

1940- In World War I the German army tried for four years to reach Brussels. This day in World War 2 they captured the Belgian capitol in just 6 days.

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tried to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relented and signed a contract with the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1943- The B-17 bomber Memphis Belle flew it’s last of 25 successful missions over Germany. Today the Belle is in a museum, in Memphis, appropriately enough.

1954-" Brown vs. Board of Ed" Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal. Future justice Thurgood Marshal was the successful attorney.

1965- At a hotel in lower Manhattan, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shook hands and agreed to write a sci-fi movie, with an accompanying novel.
First called How the Solar System was Won, because How the West Was Won was a popular film then. Then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title finally became- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1967 – Bob Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as film "Don't Look Back"

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on reed boat Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical Godspell premiered off-Broadway.

1973 - Stevie Wonder released "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

1973- the Senate Watergate Committee convenes.

1974- The LAPD attacked the LA stronghold of the Symbionnese Liberation Army extremists, then holding heiress Patty Hearst. In a furious shootout most SLA members including their leader Donald DeFreeze were killed, but Miss Hearst remained missing for a few more weeks.

1977- In Israeli general elections, the right-wing Likud party under Menachem Begin won a majority. Labor lost power for the first time since independence in 1948. It also marked the religious conservative groups having a bigger say in Israeli politics over the earlier socialist-humanist reformists that built Israel. One-eyed Moshe Dayan startled his friends by changing parties and becoming foreign minister in the new government.

2004- Massachusetts became the first US State to legalize gay marriage.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were these people? David Oistrach, Yehudi Mehunin, Anna Sophie-Mutter, Yascha Heifitz, Ytshak Perleman?

Answer: They are all internationally famous classical violin virtuosos.

Quiz: Why do we say someone who resembles another is a “dead ringer”?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who was the last US President to have been in combat?
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History for 5/15/2023
Birthdays: Lyman Frank Baum, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Avedon, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, George Brett, Jasper Johns, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jean Renoir, Richard Daley Sr., Trini Lopez, Charles Lamont, director of Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, country singer Eddy Arnold, Chaz Palmintieri is 70, Lainie Kazan, Joe Grant

The Mercuralia, the Roman Festival of Mercury, God of business, profit, and professional sports. Businessmen and athletes would go to the sacred well of Mercury on the Aventine Hill, and sprinkle sacred water on themselves to ensure good luck.

392A.D.- Roman Emperor Valentinian got so angry at a bunch of barbarians that he burst a blood vessel and fell over dead. Accession of Theodosius I.

756- Abdel Rahman I became Moorish Emir of Cordoba, Spain.

1248- Bishop Otto Von Hochstaden laid the cornerstone for the great DOM Cathedral of Cologne (Koln)

1577- The Orgy of Chenonceaux. Wild party at the French Royal Palace gardens with nude ladies cavorting with cross dressing knights and all such goings on.
Historians like Barbara Tuchman speculated that queen mother Catherine de Medici threw this party for her son King Henry III because the monarch showed no interest in his Queen, but hung around with his male courtiers, his "mignons"-darlings. She figured by placing scores of scantily clad damsels around the palace grounds perhaps the King would see that girls were fun too, and he should try some and make some heirs to his throne.
If this was the reason for the party it didn't work. There were no royal princes at the time of the king's death. This allowed the Bourbon dynasty to succeed to the throne.

1602 - Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.

1648- Treaty of Muenster- After 125 years of conflict, Spain finally recognized the independence of Holland.

1703- Charles Perrault died. Perrault 1628-1703 was a retired minister to French King Louis XIV, who wrote stories for children under the pseudonym Mother Goose. He created Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Puss in Boots.

1776- The Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted that the American Colonies would refuse to obey any further orders from England and would from now govern themselves. Yet they still shrank from the obvious step of declaring full on independence.

1800-At a performance at London's Old Drury Lane Theatre, a lunatic named Hadfield rose from the audience and fired two pistols at King George III. They both miss and the assassin was dragged off. Old King George not only insisted that the show go on, but even dosed off during the second act.

1863- Edouard Manet first displayed his Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) at the Salon des Refuses in Paris. It was his modern interpretation of The Judgement of Paris by Renaissance master Marcantonio Raimondi. The painting is of two modern clothed men having a picnic with two nude women by a riverbank. The women aren’t portrayed as mythical goddesses or muses, but just bare, naked ladies. That shocked Paris society. Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugene called it “Immodest and obscene”. It heralded the rise of Impressionism and had been called the first masterpiece of modern art.

1903- While on a tour of Yosemite, President Teddy Roosevelt slipped away from his entourage to camp out alone under the stars with naturalist John Muir.

1905- From a public auction of railroad land, the town of Las Vegas Nevada founded.

1917- During World War I, this day Germany tried offering Russia an immediate peace so she could concentrate on the Western Front before the Americans could arrive in force. The Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky refused. This was a key moment for history. Part of the reason parliamentary democracy was overthrown by the Communists under Lenin was Kerensky’s refusal to stop the war, which was very unpopular with average Russians. If he had agreed, Russia might have been spared Lenin, Stalin. Purges and the Cold War. But World War I might have turned out differently.

1927- The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened for business. Named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt.

1928- Walt Disney held a private sneak preview screening of his completed cartoon Plane Crazy, featuring his new star Mickey Mouse, imitating hero Charles Lindbergh. But it was a silent cartoon, and Walt had recently been impressed by the new Talking Pictures. So, he decided to hold back the release of this cartoon and push ahead with his first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. After the wild success of Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy was refitted with a soundtrack and released as the 4th Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1929.

1930- Miss Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess on a flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne Wyoming. Originally called SkyGirls, stewardesses had to be registered nurses in case of any health emergencies.

1935- Japanese Prime Minister Inokai was assassinated in his official residence by several young army officers because he tried to cut the military budget. Several top Japanese statesmen who tried to stop the military taking over the government wound up lying in the street full of bullets. Inokai was replaced as Prime Minister by Admiral Hokoku Saito. The war party now silenced all political opposition in Japan.

1935- The Moscow Subway system opens.

1940- Nazis panzer tanks pierce the French Maginot line near Sedan with little trouble.

1940- Only 5 days into the German blitzkrieg in the West, French Premier Paul Reynaud telephoned Churchill that the war was already lost.

1940- The first Nylon stockings go on sale in the US.

1941- Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio had been in a dry spell hitting lately. This day he got a safe hit and began a hitting streak that ran for 56 straight games, an unparalleled feat. He became America’s most famous baseball player since Babe Ruth. He was variously nicknamed Joltin’Joe, the Yankee Clipper but his teammates called him affectionately the Big Dago.

1942- The U.S. initiated a program of wartime gas rationing. Slogans like “Is this Trip Really Necessary?” and a system of ratings vehicles with A, B & C cards pop up in a lot of gas stations for the duration. C meant a war-essential worker and you went to the head of the line to get gas. A cards was the lowest status.

1946- The first Tommy’s Burger stand opened in Los Angeles.

1947- Future President George Bush Sr. was initiated into the elite secret society at Yale University called Skull & Bones. It’s so named because initiates pledge to remain loyal until “I die and nothing remains but skull and bones.” His sponsor-Charles Whitehouse later became big in the CIA. So many Bonesmen went into the CIA that they nicknamed the agency, “ The Front Office.”

1948- The ISRAELI WAR OF INDEPENDENCE- The day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the Jewish State was attacked simultaneously by the armies of Iraq, Syria, TransJordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv, and destroyed what Israeli airforce there was, leaving two Piper cub planes. Many Jewish fighters were veterans of WWII who were given guns and rushed into battle almost as soon as they stepped off their immigrant boat. The UN Mandate also called for the creation of a Palestinian homeland state but that seemed to be forgotten in all the fighting. Jordan and Syria both felt the territory of Palestine should be part of their country.

1949- Hungary voted in a communist government. Since the country was overrun with the Russian Red Army and there was only one candidate to check on the ballot, the result was hardly surprising. The Communist regime lasted until 1991.

1953- Rocky Marciano defeated Jersey Joe Walcott for the Heavyweight Championship.

1955- The Cuban dictator Fulgensio Batista ordered a partial freeing of political prisoners. One of those freed from prison was a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. Castro goes into exile, but returned a year later with trained guerrillas to start an insurgency.

1963 - Peter, Paul & Mary won their first Grammy for, “If I Had a Hammer”.

1967- Paul McCartney first met his first wife Linda Eastman.

1968 - Paul McCartney & John Lennon appear on the Johnny Carson Show to promote
Apple records, Joe Garagiola is substitute host.

1970- As at Kent State two weeks earlier, National Guard units again fire into a crowd of anti-war protesters. This time at Jackson State, Mississippi, slaying two students.

1970 – A month after their breakup, The Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," is released in US.

1972- Alabama governor and rogue third party Presidential candidate George Wallace was shot five times by Arthur Bremer. Wallace survived but spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair in great pain.
An Ultra Conservative, Wallace always thought he’d be killed by some hippy black-panther liberal outraged by his extremist political views. But in the end he was shot by a lonely little loser who wanted his picture in the newspapers. Arthur Bremer had contemplated shooting President Nixon before he focused on Wallace. In all the excitement Bremer forgot to say the words he wanted to be quoted for on TV,” Penny for your Thoughts…”.
The Nixon Whitehouse in their unique way immediately focused upon how they could turn this tragedy to their own political use. There was a scheme to plant Democratic campaign material in Bremers’ apartment, but unfortunately for Tricky Dick’s people the FBI had already sealed it off.

1991- Socialist leader Edith Cresson became France’ first female Premier. She lasted only a year in office. For a nation renown for diplomacy, she said some pretty undiplomatic things- such as England was a nation of homosexuals, and when you negotiate with the Japanese, it is like ants crawling all over you.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was the last US President to have been in combat?

Answer: George H.W. Bush. He was a torpedo-bomber pilot in the Pacific during WWII. He was even shot down in combat and rescued by a submarine. Also Jimmy Carter served on board a nuclear submarine off the Chinese coast during the Korean War.

Quiz: Who was the last US President to have been in military combat?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Define when something is germane, what is it?
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History for 5/14/2023
Birthdays: Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Wedgewood, Francesca Annis, David Byrne, Jack Bruce, Bobby Darin, Mark Zuckerberg is 39, Tim Roth is 62, Robert Zemeckis is 72, Kate Blanchett is 54, George Lucas is 79

Happy Mothers Day (US) 1908. The holiday was inspiration of a West Virginia social activist named Anna Jarvis. She had 13 children herself, 4 of whom died of childhood diseases, and 5 died in the Civil War. Mrs Jarvis had spent her life mobilizing mothers to care for their children and she wanted mothers' work to be recognized. "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers' day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life." She began organizing Mother’s Day Clubs as early as 1858. After her death her daughter Anna Maria Jarvis took up the cause. She celebrated The First Mother's Day on the anniversary of her mothers passing in 1908; it became a national holiday in 1914. Mrs, Jarvis insisted the holiday idea not be commercially exploited. She hated the commercialization of Mothers Day so much that in 1943 she circulated a petition trying to get the holiday rescinded. In 1948 Anna Maria Jarvis died broke and surrounded by store-made Mother’s Day cards sent from well-wishers.

Roman festival of the Avral Brethren, a ceremony where straw puppets were thrown into the river to bless Father Tiber. (Perhaps it's an echo of a more primitive human sacrifice?)

1264- BATTLE OF LEWES Rebel earls of Sussex and Simon de Monfort defeated and captured King Henry III and the Prince of Wales -Edward Longshanks. These barons compelled extensions to liberties that began with Magna Carta and created the House of Commons. The prince eventually escaped and killed de Monfort and Sussex but could not stop the growth of representative house of commons.

1525 – The Great German Peasant Revolt of Thomas of Muntzer was crushed at The Battle of Bad Frankenhausen. Muntzer was a devotee of reformer Martin Luther and he became a folk hero for trying to extend Luther’s idea of spiritual freedom to real political freedom. Martin Luther himself was horrified by the violence of the revolt and denounced it.
Finally a powerful coalition of the Elector Dukes of Hesse, Saxony and Brunswick raised a big army of knights and went city by city suppressing the revolt with great massacre. Muntzers group was destroyed at Bad Frankenhausen. Thomas Muntzer was ordered broken on the wheel and beheaded by the vengeful German nobles. So many common people were being put to the sword, that the Imperial Diet at Augsburg warned that if the nobles killed all their peasants, who would be left to do the work and pay taxes?

1667- The sailors of the English Navy were only paid once a month. During the Dutch Wars, an incident happened when after several months of hard fighting the loyal sailors were told that their fun loving King Charles II didn't have any money left in his treasury to pay them. This made them so angry, scores of them deserted to the enemy. They guided Dutch Admiral De Ruyter's fleet right up the Thames where they burned the docks of Greenwich, within sight of King Charles' palace.

1787- Shortly before returning to America, the Marquis de Lafayette wrote his friend George Washington about his sponsorship of the famous quack Dr. Anton Mesmer, for whom Mesmerism is known. "Before leaving I shall obtain permission to tell Dr Mesmer’s great secrets on Animal Magnetism to you, for it is a great philosophical discovery."

1787- George Washington arrived in Philadelphia to chair the great convention to write the U.S. Constitution. Once there, he discovered that so far only three states had even bothered to show up, and that included host Pennsylvania. There was a fear that if enough states could not be made to cooperate, a federal constitution imposed by a minority would break up the United States. To Washington’s relief, by months end all the states except Rhode Island sent a delegation.

1796- English scientist Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination. This disease, which ravaged Europe for decades, was cured by the Chinese in the 600's B.C. Chinese doctors would ground up particles from a smallpox scab and blow it up your nose through a glass tube. After the pox decimated Native American tribes in the 1500's, by the 1770’s they did the same vaccination using a porcupine quill under the fingernail.
Small pox was the great killer of the age, Queen Elizabeth, George Washington and Robespierre almost died of the pox. The fashion of wigs and makeup became popular because it covered the facial scars and hair loss from the disease. Robespierre’s eyes were permanently weakened by the pox and he had to wear black painted spectacles. Made him look badass.

1800- The Sixth US Congress voted to adjourn for the last time in Philadelphia and meet again in November in the new capitol city, already being called Washington City.

1800- Napoleon’s army began crossing the Alps into Italy via the Great Saint Bernard Pass.

1804- Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis to find the Pacific. President Jefferson had told his aide Meriwether Lewis that there was a large river headed west from the Mississippi called the Missouri. Perhaps the large river that emptied into the Pacific in Oregon called the Columbia was the same river? So, maybe you could travel by boat from New Orleans to Seattle? And if there was a little neck of land between the two rivers, they were to measure the distance.
Later, 1,200 miles into the high Rockies, eating candles to stay alive, they determined that the distance was much greater than previously thought.
Pres. Jefferson had a fossil bone from a prehistoric sloth in his office. He told Lewis if he found a live one out there to send it back. Known as Paramylodon jeffersoni, remains of this animals have been found recently while digging the world's largest reservoir near Hemet, CA, and one specimen is known from the La Brea Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd in downtown L.A.

1811- Paraguay declared independence from Spain.

1842 - 1st edition of London Illustrated News.

1860- The first delegation of diplomats from Japan arrived in the U.S bringing greetings from the Shogun.

1878- Vaseline petroleum jelly patented.

1940- Holland surrendered to the Nazis after Hitler threatened to bomb Amsterdam to rubble the way they did to Rotterdam.

1935- Griffith Park Observatory above Hollywood first opened to the public. It is featured in the James Dean movie Rebel Without a Cause.

1942- Nazi Stuka dive bombers began the attack on Malta.

1942- Walt Disney composer Frank Churchill, who wrote "Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", Whistle While you Work”, shot himself at his piano at home. He was 40. He left a suicide note that said, “Dear Caroline: My nerves have completely left me. Please forgive this awful act. It seems the only way I can cure myself. Frank.”

1944- In the comic strip Dick Tracy, the longtime nemesis Flattop Jones was killed.

1945- US bombers firebombed Nagoya Castle, built in 1612 by Tokugawa Ieyasu the Japanese Shogun as a gift for his son. The castle was reconstructed to its original form 1959-1978.

1948- Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the older sister to John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, was killed in a plane crash. She was 28. She was married to the English Duke of Devonshire, and so was buried at their estate Chatsworth.

1948- THE STATE OF ISRAEL DECLARED- Since the Jewish Diaspora begun by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 162 AD, Jews have wished for their own country. In 1897 European Jews called Zionists began building a homeland by encouraging mass immigration to the loosely governed Turkish province called Palestine. By World War 2 there were two populations, Arab and Jewish, both claiming the same land. After years of sectarian fighting the British announced they would evacuate Palestine May 15th. The 5 surrounding Arab nations announced they would attack if a Jewish State was declared- 45 million against barely one million. US ally King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia declared:" Even if we lose ten million to destroy the Jews, it will be a small sacrifice."
The UN was considering a further three-month delay to debate the problem, when at 4:00PM Jewish Agency Premier David Ben Gurion walked into the crowd at the Tel Aviv Museum and declared the State of Israel. He did it at 4pm and the day before the mandate ran out, because it was Friday night, which is the Jewish Sabbath. During the Sabbath no Jews can sign anything or do any business, so he had to move it up.

1951 - Ernie Kovacs Show, debuted on NBC TV. Kovacs was a great pioneer in the video medium who created uniquely surreal images and pantomime blackout skits.

1955- Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park Cal, today’s Silicon Valley, was founded by peace activist Roy Kepler. Keplers’ books was a hangout for Stanford computer scientists, Hippies, and creators of the Whole Earth Catalog. The Grateful Dead and Joan Baez played there, Prof Douglas Englebart the inventor of the computer mouse, would pop in for coffee, and kids like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would ride their bikes over to check out the new computer books.

1973- Skylab, Americas first attempt at a space station, blasted off into orbit. In 1979 the remains of the 77 ton satellite re-entered the atmosphere, causing half the world to duck.

1974- The Maalot Massacre-On the anniversary of Israeli Independence Palestinian terrorists of the Al Fatah faction entered an Israeli school and shot 22 children.

1976- Keith Relf of the rock group the Yardbirds, was electrocuted while playing his guitar in his bathtub.

1968 - Beatles announce formation of Apple Records.

1989 – The funeral for a Communist Party reformer named Hu Yao Bang grew into massive Demonstrations for democratic reforms in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. For three weeks the attention of the world focused on the students demands for greater personal freedom. The movement was finally crushed by the Chinese Army in June.

1992 - Carlos “ Danny” Herrera, bartender inventor of the Margarita, died at age 90- The Margarita was supposedly invented in 1938 for Hollywood actress Margaret Sullivan who wanted to drink tequila with the guys, but couldn’t tolerate the strong taste. Herrera mixed the tequila and lime juice into an iced cocktail and put the salt along the rim. He mixed a batch whenever he heard the actress was in Tijuana, writing on the bottle- For Margaret- Por Margarita.

1998 - Last episode of sitcom Seinfeld on NBC. Elderly singer Frank Sinatra died shortly after watching it.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Define when something is germane, what is it?

Answer: It means to be relevant to the subject at hand. As opposed to a non-sequitur.