Question: Who are you quoting when you say “ -There’s the rub”?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a nosegay?
History for 4/2/2019
Birthdays: Frankish Emperor Charlemagne, Giacomo Casanova, Hans Christian Andersen, Marvin Gaye, Emile Zola, Max Ernst, Buddy Ebsen, Sir Alec Guinness, Frederick Bartholdi, Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Hunt, Isaiah Washington, Karl Castle.

304B.C. Alexander IV, the young child of Alexander the Great, began his reign under the regency of the Macedonian General Perdiccas.

430AD. Today is the feast day of Saint Mary the Egyptian, a former prostitute who repented by living naked and alone in the desert for 49 years, only appearing briefly at Easter time to take communion, and to get some more sunblock. 1459- Vlad II "Dracula" -Little Dragon, duke of Wallachia, shows why he got the nickname Vlad the Impaler by impaling the city council of Brasov high on stakes then eating lunch, laughing under their quivering bodies. Impaling was a torture where you had a huge sharpened stake hammered up into your body, then standing it up. A good executioner could keep the stake from piercing too many important organs, prolonging the agony of your death.
This was Vlad’s preferred method of getting rid of inconvenient people. No wonder in the 1890’s when British author Bram Stoker was collecting folk tales in the Transylvanian mountains to use as source material for a gothic vampire novel he chose Dracula for its title.

1502- King Henry VII Tudor’s primary heir Arthur of Britain died at age fifteen. King Henry had just married Arthur to the Catharine daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain a few weeks before. Now Henry didn’t want to lose the Spanish alliance, and he was too cheap to send back Catharine’s huge dowery. So he remarried her to his other son, Henry VIII. Catherine and Henry VIII’s marriage problems would lead to the English Church’s break with Rome. 1520- Somewhere off the coast of what will one day be Argentina, Magellan's captains, convinced this crazy Portuguese turncoat didn’t know where he was going, try to mutiny and go home to Spain.

1800- Beethoven's First Symphony premiered. Vienna's leading music critic called it - 'a vulgar, impertinent explosion, more expected from a military band than an orchestra!’

1801- BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN- The British Navy had a one day war with Denmark. The fleet was sent by London to intimidate the Danes into leaving Napoleon's anti-British blockade, but the Danes were more worried about a Russian-Swedish alliance forcing them to remain. So Admiral Nelson sailed his fleet into Copenhagen harbor and shot it out with the Danish Navy and shore batteries. Nelson’s ships sailed up and down the drydocks blasting the parked Danish battleships in for repairs. Despite fearful manpower losses the British don't lose one ship while sinking or capturing 17 Danish ships of the line.
The one-eyed, one armed Nelson gloried in battle. When a Danish cannon ball struck his mainmast showering him and his staff with hot burning splinters, he laughed and said: "Hot work, what?" At one point the action got so desperate, that Nelson's superior Admiral Hyde Parker raised the ensign flags to break off battle and retreat. Nelson ignored them. He jokingly raised his spyglass to his blind eye and said, "What ensign flags? I don't see any ensign flags!"
Denmark made peace the next day and all the surviving combatants had a lovely dinner together at the Copenhagen Palace, as though nothing had happened.

1814- Now that Paris was occupied by enemy armies, the French Senate led by Talleyrand declared the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte officially deposed.

1836- Charles Dickens married Elizabeth Howarth.
1865- The Confederate capitol Richmond fell to U.S. armies. More destruction to the city was done by looting Confederates and released prisoners than the enemy. Several large fires created the type of total urban destruction not to be seen again until the World Wars in the 20th Century.
Mrs. Robert E. Lee (a grandniece of George Washington) was at her town home in the city while her husband was still out with his army. General Phil Sheridan stationed a guard to protect her door, but she protested bitterly that he was a black soldier and thought it was meant to offend her. Which knowing Phil Sheridan, it probably was meant to be.

1865- Abe Lincoln awakened from a strange dream. He told Mary that he was wandering in an empty White House, and heard women weeping. When he asked a guard at the East Room what had happened, the guard said the president had been assassinated.
1877- First man shot out of a cannon.

1877- The first White House egg-rolling contest.

1916- Edinburgh and Leith Scotland were bombed by German zeppelins. They tried to bomb Edinburgh castle, but missed. The one o'clock signal gun was turned on them as a defense. The only damage they managed to cause was to destroy a warehouse packed with Innes & Grieve Whisky, which burned very brightly. This made the Scots very angry.
1917- Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin arrived by train at St. Petersburg's Finland Station to cheers and salutes. He was smuggled from Geneva to Russia by the German High Command in a sealed railroad car. the German secret service also paid for the printing presses for Pravda. He begins to organize the Communist plot to seize the Russian Government.

1917- President Woodrow Wilson called a special session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. ‘The World Must be made Safe for Democracy!” he said.

1943- Disney short 'Private Pluto' the first Chip & Dale cartoon.

1943- This day Harvard Dean Henry Chauncey supervised the distribution to 316,000 High School seniors of the Army-Navy College Qualifying Test, later re-titled the Scholastic Aptitude Tests or SAT. The SAT became a standardized test that manages every year to raise the stress level of seniors regardless of race, class or religion.
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1951- Author Jack Kerouac began writing his masterpiece On the Road, on one long roll of teletype paper. He tried to write in a marathon, reinforced by cigarettes, coffee and Benzedrine. The book was one long paragraph, with no page or chapter breaks.“ The only people for me are the mad ones…”

1974-While actor David Niven was speaking at the Academy Awards telecast a nude streaker named Bob Opel ran past him on nationwide television. Mr. Niven, completely unflustered, dryly commented: "The only laugh that man will ever get is by stripping off his clothes and showing off his shortcomings. "

1974- Later at that same Oscar telecast, Francis Ford Coppola presented the last award of the evening, the Best Picture to Cabaret. But he held up the show to launch into a speech that a Revolution was coming in Digital Technology “that will make the Industrial Revolution seem like a small town try-out!”
The audience was confused and annoyed at being delayed any longer to get to their parties. No one knew what he was talking about.
1978-The TV show "Dallas" debuts. 1982- THE FALKLANDS WAR-Britain declared war on Argentina over their takeover of the Falkland Islands.
1981- John Welsh made CEO of General Electric. After automating factories and firing one third of his employees, he earned the name "Neutron Jack" after the bomb that kills people but leaves buildings intact.

1993- Bullocks Wilshire department store with the famous Tea Room closed.

1996- Lech Walesa, who led the first great people’s movement to overthrow a Communist dictatorship and was president of Poland for two terms and a Nobel Prize winner, got his old job back repairing electric batteries at the Gydansk shipyard. The shipyard was later closed. Capitalism’s a bitch, ain’t it?

2004- Walt Disney Studio released Home on the Range.

2005-Polish Pope John Paul II died after reigning for 26 years.

Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a nosegay?

Answer: In the XVIII and XIX Century, it was the way for a genteel person to shield their nose from the noxious smells of the street.
By Victorian times it became a tiny fragrant bouquet worn on the lapel just under your nose. Some even had their own pewter stands to perch on your table while at home.

Question: What is a nosegay?


Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the difference between Homer’s Illiad and Homer’s Odyssey?
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History for 4/1/2019

Welcome to April,named for Aprilis, an Etruscan Goddess of Agriculture and planting, or it may even be a corruption of the name of the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The month was considered by Romans sacred to Venus- Venuralia.


To Ancient Egyptians it was the birthday of the God Het-Heth or Hathor.

Happy April Fool’s Day– The Ancient Romans considered today ALL FOOLS DAY-a day of comedy- For the end of the time sacred to Hilaria, goddess of laughter. They did things backwards, men and women swapped clothes and carried on.

Before the Gregorian reforms some Old Style Calendars had the year begin in late March instead of January. As the new modern calendar became more widely accepted, the people who stubbornly clung to the old practice were made fun of, and called April-Fools.



Birthdays: Big Jim Fisk , Edmund Rostand, Lon Chaney, Sir William Harvey, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ali McGraw, Toshiro Mifune, Debbie Reynolds, Phil Neikro, Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, Bo Schembechler, Annette O’Toole, Barry Sonnenfeld, Rachel Maddow is 44, Andreas Deja is 62.



1081- Alexius Comnenus Ist, captures Constantinople and establishes the Comnenoi dynasty. He took the city by bribing the Varangian Guards –English, Hun and Viking mercenaries, to open the gates and let his army in. Alexius I was the Byzantine Emperor when the Crusades began. His daughter Anna Comnena described the event in her journal :"Then one day all of Europe decided to get up and walk to our door..."


1488- Ludovico Buonarotti, after going through a lot of trouble to get his son in the wool and draper’s guild, gives up hope that the boy would ever be anything other than an artist. He reluctantly takes him to fresco painter Domenico Ghirlandaio to be his apprentice. Michelangelo's career begins.


1621- The first treaty between English and Indians signed in Massachusetts. Massacoit of the Wampanoags made peace with the newly arrived Pilgrims.



1747-Georg Frederich Handel premiered his oratorio Judas Maccabeus with the song "Hail, Conquering Hero!", frequently used at royal functions.


1789- The first session of the U.S. House of Representatives. Felix Muhlenburg was the first Speaker of the House.


1793- Unsen Volcano in Japan erupted, killing 53,000 people.


1808- Sir Arthur Wellesley landed with a small British Army to try and defend Portugal from Napoleon. The Peninsular Wars would go on until 1814 and drive the French from Portugal and Spain. For his success, Arthur was made the Duke of Wellington.


1810- Napoleon, having divorced Josephine because she could not provide a son for his dynasty, married Princess Marie-Louise of Austria. Josephine was nicknamed "Our Lady of Victories" and was more beloved by the army, but Marie Louise made up for it in spirit. She liked to smoke cigars and play billiards with Nappy’s officers. She was nearsighted but too vain to be seen in public wearing spectacles, so when she would dedicate art shows and public works like the Arch De Triomphes, she would smile regally and wave her hand, not knowing what she was looking at. Napoleon banned his kid sister Pauline Bonaparte from court for a time because he caught her in a mirror making faces behind Empress Marie Louise’s back.


1861- As the American Civil War was breaking out, Secretary of State Seward sent Lincoln a memo proposing that the way to keep the South united to the U.S. would be to declare war on Spain or France. Lincoln said thanks for the advice, but no thanks...


1862- Confederate General John Sibley declared the counties of western New Mexico to be the new independent Confederate State called Arizona. Sibley's rebs were driven out but Lincoln kept the idea, setting up Arizona in 1864.


1865- BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS- Grant's Yankee Army closed in on Robert E. Lee's Confederates, Grant's cavalry master Phil Sheridan cut off and destroyed one over extended division of Lee's army under George Pickett, taking 5,000 prisoners. Pickett had won fame as the leader of the famous charge at Gettysburg. But he blew it at Five Forks because while his men were fighting, he was away with some friends at a fish fry. No cell phones or text messages in those days.


1867- Opening of the Paris World Exhibition. This worlds fair was seen as the zenith of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Visitors marveled to exhibits as Dr Lister’s new disinfectant, a new metal alloy called Aluminum, a new butter substitute called margarine, and in the American exhibit, a novel bit of furniture called a Rocking Chair. The Art galleries of the exhibition were filled with Ingres, Courbets and Delacroix. But nothing from Cezanne, Manet, Pizarro or any of the other weirdoes who would one day be called Impressionists.

1918- The British Royal Flying Corps (RAF) formed.


1923- Developers S.H. Woodruff and Canadian William Whitley start advertising lots for sale in Hollywoodland, beneath their giant new Hollywoodland sign. The sign originally was covered with lightbulbs. It collapsed and was repaired in 1939, the 'land' part never restored. The Hollywood Sign was made over again in 1978.



1924- After the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Nazis party leader Adolph Hitler was sentenced by a German court to 5 years in prison. He serves only 8 months in a beautiful lodge in Bavaria named Castle Landsberg and uses the time to write Mein Kampf.



1932- The baby of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home.



1939- Generalissimo Francisco Franco announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, which had been raging since 1936.


1944- Tex Avery's "Screwball Squirrel" Only a few shorts were made. As animator Bob Givens reminisced:" Eventually, everyone found that squirrel just too annoying!"


1945- OKINAWA- The Marines land and the battle began. Because it was not a conquered territory but part of the home Japanese islands, Washington weighed it’s decision to use the atomic bomb by it’s observation of how tough Okinawa was, indicating how tough it would be to land on mainland Japan, only 360 miles away.


The fighting was brutal, hand to hand with bayonets and flame-throwers. Of the 125,000 man Japanese garrison only 7,500 didn’t fight to the death, and many civilians threw themselves off cliffs in mass suicide. A children's class trip visiting from Tokyo who were caught in the battle, were shown by soldiers how to cluster themselves around a single hand grenade, so as to save on the number needed. Today there is a shrine to their memory. The Cave of the Maidens is dedicated to a group of schoolgirls who hid in a cave and when the Americans heard Japanese voices inside and none would answer their calls to come our and surrender, filled the cave with flamethrower fire.


Almost every American soldier who was captured was executed. The U.S. Navy suffered the worst number of ships sunk and men killed since Pearl Harbor. There were 1,900 Kamikaze plane attacks. U.S. casualties were so high the government re-imposed a press blackout.

This battle has the rare distinction like the Plains of Abraham in 1759 where both opposing generals died. US General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who’s father had fought Ulysses Grant in the Civil War, was killed by an artillery round three days before the battles end. Japanese General Usijima committed hari-kiri almost at the same time.


1945- Adolph Hitler moved his headquarters from the Reich Chancellery to a bunker deep below it’s street level.


1949- Zsa Zsa Gabor married George Sanders.


1954- The U.S. Air Force Academy was established at Colorado Springs.


1961- Rev Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker get married.


1970- A symbol of the 70’s, AMC’s compact car the Gremlin introduced.


1972- In a gesture of turnabout-is-fair-play for women, Playgirl Magazine ran its first male nude centerfold- Burt Reynolds.



1976- Two college dropouts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a company named Apple Computers. A third partner small businessman Ron Wayne sold his shares to Jobs & Woz before they filed papers of incorporation. He didn’t want to get stuck with the bill when they failed. He sold his third for $800. In 2011 Apple surpassed Microsoft as the worlds richest company.



1983 – Largest British civilian protests to Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher’s plans to put nuclear cruise missiles at Greenham Common. The Thatcher government requested the missiles after the perceived weak response of Jimmy Carter to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The conservative British and German government felt that the US could not be trusted to risk nuclear war if the Soviet Union invaded with conventional forces- i.e. American would not risk Kansas City for Frankfurt, so they asked for the missiles.



1984- Motown star Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his own father in an argument over plans for the singer's 45th birthday party the next day.



1995- Chasen's restaurant closed. Former actor Frederick Chasen opened his exclusive Beverly Hills Restaurant in 1936. James Stewart and Mickey Rooney were regulars. During the filming of Cleopatra (1963) Elizabeth Taylor had Chasen's chili flown out to her in Rome. Walt Disney met Leopold Stokowski over dinner at Chasens and conceived the film Fantasia, Orson Welles and Joe Mankiewicz got into a fistfight over the script outline of Citizen Kane there, Bogart, Bacall and John Huston discussed how to fight the Hollywood Blacklist there. Today there is a booth from Chasens preserved in the Reagan Presidential Library.


1996- Animation World Network, Toontown’s virtual trade magazine, started up. www.AWN.com


1997- In Israel, honoring a deal made with a ultra right religious party to get into power, the right wing Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu passed a law that the only Jewish conversions that would be recognized under Israeli law would be conversions done by Orthodox rabbis. This law created such a firestorm of protest from Reform and Conservative Jews around the world that the government quickly backpedaled.


1998- Ukrainian serial killer Anatolyi Onoprienko was sentenced to death for the murder of 52 people.

2004- G-Mail invented.

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Yesterday’s Question: What is the difference between Homer’s Illiad and Homer’s Odyssey?

Answer: The Illiad was the story primarily focusing on the battles before the walls of Troy, Achilles, and his battle with Hector. The Odyssey was more about the journey of Odysseus or Ulysses, after the fall of Troy, trying to get home, battling Cyclops and Sirens. Some scholars today dispute if Homer actually wrote both works.

Question: What is the difference between Homer’s Iliad and Homer’s Odyssey?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: When was the Edwardian Era?
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History for 3/31/2019
Birthdays: Rene' Descartes, Franz Josef Haydn, Serge Diaghilev, Harald von Braunhut 1926- the inventor of Sea Monkeys and X-Ray Specs, Richard Chamberlain, Cesar Chavez, Herb Alpert, Gordie Howe, Liz Claiborne, Gabe Kaplan, Rhea Perlman, Shirley Jones is 85, Richard Kiley, Volker Schlondorf, William Daniels, Lucille Bliss the voice of Crusader Rabbit, Christopher Walken is 76, Colin Farrell is 41, Ewan McGregor is 48, Al Gore is 71, Ed Catmull is 74.

250AD- Roman general Constantius born. He was called Constantius Chlorus or the Pale. He was the most powerful general and virtual ruler of Northwestern Europe at the end of Diocletian’s rule. His son Constantine became Emperor of Rome in 312.

307AD. Roman Emperor Constantine married his wife Fausta. Mother of his children, he later had her suffocated in her bath for sleeping around with her slaves.

1146- St. Bernard preached the Holy Crusade at Vezalay, so King Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad of Germany declared the SECOND CRUSADE. After the ready-made pilgrim cross emblems ran out, Saint Bernard tore his own cloak to pieces for cross making material. Folks don't remember much about the Second Crusade because it was pretty much a non-event.
Conrad took the land route through the Balkans to the Holy Land and by the time he got to Jerusalem his army was down to about 5 guys. The French king’s army arrived intact but he was more of a tourist than a conqueror, after visiting the holy places and gathering some medieval tourist trinkets ( 'My folks went on Crusade and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt!") then he went home.
They wasted most of their time in an unprovoked attack on the Emir of Damascus, who at the time was one of the Crusaders only Muslim allies. The most memorable person on the voyage was the French Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who had an affair with a Saracen Prince, and legend has it inspired the troops by riding bare-breasted to Damascus. Later she would leave Louis and marry Henry Plantagenet of England and give birth to Richard Lionheart.

1796- Touissaint L’Ouverture named Lieutenant Governor of the island of Saint Dominique, now called Haiti.

1814- PARIS FALLS- Since his Retreat from Moscow, Napoleon seemed to be fighting all of Europe. Today the allied armies of Austria, Sweden, Prussia and Russia entered Paris despite a spirited defense in the suburbs of Montmartre by Marshals Moncey and Marmont. Moncey had reformed the municipal police and is considered the father of the Paris Gendarmerie. But now German army tents went up in the Bois Du Bolongne and Cossacks watered their steppe ponies in the Seine.
In the South, Wellington and his Anglo-Portuguese army moved down from the Pyrenees to take Toulouse. Napoleon was at Fountainbleau with the tatters of his little army. He tried to make the best of it. Saying that now that he was free of covering the capitol he could maneuver in the enemies rear, but everyone but him had had just about enough.

1824- The British Parliament declared that any ships they caught transporting slaves would be treated as pirates and punished accordingly. They tried to get the United States to agree to make it an international law, but the U.S. refused.

1836- Charles Dickens first work published "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club."

1840- Congress lowers the minimum workday for federal workers from 11.4 hours a day to 10 hours a day. At this time in mines and factories people worked an average 12-16 hour day. The 8 hour day wasn’t achieved until 1913, not until 1941 in Hollywood and it’s still a dream in most digital studios today.

1860- Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper refers to Harriet Lane, President James Buchanan's niece as "FIRST LADY of the Land". Buchanan was a bachelor and was probably gay, So Ms. Lane performed the duties of the White House hostess. Earlier in 1840 President Zachary Taylor eulogized Dolly Madison as First Lady, before that Martha Washington and Abigail Adams were referred to as Lady Washington and Lady Adams. But this is the first official use of the term First Lady for the President’s consort.

1889- The Eiffel Tower first opened to the public, to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution. Twice as tall as the Saint Peter's in Rome or the Great Pyramid of Giza. The Wizard of Iron Gustave Eiffel also designed the armature holding up the Statue of Liberty. Eiffel’s original deal with the French government called for the tower to only stay up for twenty years, then pulled down if no further use can found for it. Eiffel agonized about what to do as the deadline approached but fortunately by 1909 Wireless radio transmissions became important and the Eiffel Tower was a great broadcast antenna.

1905- The Tangiers Incident. Germany tries to provoke an incident with France by sending the Kaiser to Morocco, then a target of French colonial expansion. Kaiser Wilhelm rode around on a temperamental white Arabian stallion and spent the ceremony looking nervously at the welcoming crowd for Spanish anarchist assassins. He gave the Moroccan Sultan a gift of his own personal machine gun that the delighted boy liked to fire at his running courtiers. The whole thing looked silly but it scared the hell out of diplomats in Paris and London.

1905- THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brought back his famous sleuth in a new series of adventures. Conan Doyle had created Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in 1887 but by 1893 he had tired of the characters, he wanted to write more serious fiction like his novel The White Company. So he killed him off. Holmes fell to his doom fighting Prof. Moriarity at the Reichenbeck Falls. The reaction of the public was astonished outrage. It seemed whenever Conan Doyle went out inevitably someone would stop him and say "You Blackguard! How Could You ?!" Finally Conan-Doyle bowed to public pressure and resumed the career of the inhabitants of #221B Baker Street. He would later refer to Holmes success as “ his monstrosity.”

1918- The Battle of Ykaterinadar- Anti-Communist White Russian armies invaded the Kuban region of southern Russia to fight a battle that was considered so unnecessary that one officer said it was “ A march to Hell to collect bluebirds.” Although the Kuban and Don Cossacks were anti Bolshevik, the workers and peasants of the town were pro-Red and outnumbered them heavily.
So when the White commander General Kornilov ordered an attack his aristocratic second General Markov dryly joked “Better wear your clean underwear if you have any left gentlemen, because whether or not we take Ykaterinadar, we are all going to be killed!” But fate intervened. Before the attack could commence, a lucky artillery shell dropped right on top of their commander General Kornilov and blew him to bits. Breathing a sigh of relief, his army immediately turned around and went home.

1930- Floyd Gottfredson began drawing Disney’s Mickey Mouse comic strip after Ub Iwerks quit. He continued to do the strip uninterrupted for 45 years, until his retirement in 1975.

1930 -Reacting to charges that the movies had become too naughty, Hollywood producers accept the MOTION PICTURE CODE. It was regulated by Will Hays, former Republican Party Chairman. The regulation wouldn't really start to have strength until 1935-36 when pressure groups like the Catholic League of Decency went after Mae West and the Tarzan pictures.

The Hays Code forbade open sex and obscenity:
- twin beds only in a bedroom, nightclothes buttoned to the neck.
- if a couple were seated together on a bed they must have at least one foot touching the floor,
-"kisses with a duration of no longer than 3 seconds, parting with lips closed."
- One other little known clause was the forbidding of members of different races from kissing on camera. So Anna Mae Wong, the greatest Chinese actress of her time, could not play a Chinese heroine if her co-star was a Caucasian made up to look Asian.
Lots of jokes were spawned like: "Give him the bird!" "If the Hays Commission would let me, I'd give him the bird!"

1931- ITT transmits the first message by microwave, from Dover to Calais.

1932- Ford introduces the V-8 Engine.

1933- Max Fleischer's short cartoon "Snow White" (starring Betty Boop) premiered. Cab Calloway singing the "St. James Infirmary Blues" is a highlight.

1943- Rodger & Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" debuts. Despite the opinion of producer Mike Todd -"No legs, No Laughs, No Chance", the musical becomes one of the great hits of American musical Theater.

1950- Thor Heyderthal's book of his exploits Kon Tiki published. This was an account of his 4200 mile voyage which proved ancient mariners could have traveled from Peru to Polynesia on boats made from tied reeds.

1959- The Dalai Lama fled the Communist Chinese invasion of Tibet and began his long exile.

1962- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened on Wilshire Blvd. No, it didn’t display customized surfboards or the ideal tuna melt with sprouts, but an exhibit of paintings by Bonnard.

1967- In a small London nightclub, rising young rock & roller Jimmy Hendrix burned his guitar for the first time. Rock luminaries like Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Pete Townsend sat in the audience stunned at the technical brilliance of this unknown former paratrooper who played left handed. The pieces of his guitar were purchased by Microsoft chairman Paul Allen and today are in his Seattle Rock Museum.

1968- Depressed over Vietnam War, the strong primary surge of Sen. Eugene McCarthy and the challenge of his old enemy Bobby Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not run for re-election. Borrowing the words of General Sherman in 1884, he says: "If Nominated Ah will not Run, If elected Ah will not serve.." In retirement Johnson resumed cigarette smoking and neglected his health. He was dead in four years.

1973- Comic strip hero Smilin' Jack gets married, the strip concludes next day.

1991- Former child star Danny Bonaduce arrested for a fist fight with a transvestite prostitute.

1995- In Corpus Christy Texas legendary Tejana singer Selena Perez was shot and killed by an obsessed fan. The woman Yolanda Saldivar was president of the Selena Fan Club. “The gun just went off, I didn’t mean to shoot anybody.”

1999- The movie The Matrix opened in theaters.
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Yesterday’s Answer: When was the Edwardian Era?

Answer: The time of the reign of King Edward VII, who reigned from the death of his mother Queen Victoria in 1901, until after his own death, and the beginning of WWI in 1914.

Question: When was the Edwardian Era?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was a Pepper’s Ghost? (hint, old VFX)
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History for 3/30/2019
Birthdays: Maimonides- Moses Ben Maimon, Anna Sewell (the author of Black Beauty), Vincent Van Gogh, Francisco Goya, John Astin, Peter Marshall, Warren Beatty is 82, Eric Clapton is 74, Arthur Lee Harrington the designer of the first Jeep, Tracey Chapman, Robby Coltrane, Paul Reiser, Celine Dion, Nora Jones is 40, Disney animator Marc Davis

To the Romans this was the Festival of Salus, the God of Public Works.

1282- THE BIRTHDAY OF THE MAFIA- The Sicilian Vespers. Because of the strategic location of the Isle of Sicily her people were never allowed their own government. Sicilians were constantly being conquered by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Crusaders. So while they were under the harsh rule of French-Norman knights, they formed secret societies.

This night at the ringing of the evening vesper bells as a signal, they all ran out and cut up every Frenchman they saw. This was the first "hit". Later at the turn of the century Mafia families like "Il Mano Negro (The Black Hand) and La Cosa Nostra ( our way) brought their clan structure to the U.S., supplanting the earlier Anglo-Jewish-Irish gangsters.

No one is really sure just what the word Mafia means; "Morte Alla Francia Irredenta Arreghana", the Arab response “Ma Fi”- Don’t Ask Me…or some woman who’s daughter was raped by a French knight called out MaFilia!- My Daughter! Italian comic Pat Cooper said Mafia meant “the Mothers and Fathers Italian Association”.

1492-THE JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN- Shortly after conquering the last Moorish strongholds in Spain their Most Catholic Majesties Ferdinand & Isabella issue an edict giving all Jews three months to convert or leave the country. Jewish people had held exalted positions in the Moorish Emirates of Granada and Cadiz like the philosopher Maimonides, some even became Vezirs or prime ministers. Ferdinand & Isabella’s own personal physician Abraham Senior was Jewish.
Some Jews tried to flee to Portugal, but most went to Moslem countries like Turkey and Morocco where the persecution of the children of Issac was less fierce among the children of Ishmael. Many Jews who live in Bosnia and Kossovo speak Old Spanish- Ladino instead of Yiddish or Hebrew. The Inquisition made any Jewish practice a crime, even people who changed their sheets on a Friday or turned to the wall to die were accused of Jewish Heresy.

1534- The English Parliament passed the Act of Succession declaring King Henry VIII’s divorce from Catharine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn legal and any criticism of it to be treason. All Englishmen and women were required to take an oath of loyalty to ensure their agreement. This oath was what got Sir Thomas Moore and Bishop Fisher beheaded.

1788- The great French philosopher Francois Voltaire had been exiled to estate at Fernay away from court for decades because of his criticism of the Catholic Church. Now at age 84 and the most famous writer in the world, he returned to Paris to see his last play Irene debut, but in reality to die. This night his passage to the theater became a triumphant procession as his coach was mobbed by cheering people shouting Vive Voltaire! After the play he was too frail to take a bow so a bust of him was placed center stage and adorned with garlands and flowers.

1789- Father of the U.S. Navy John Paul Jones is accused in Russia of having sex with a ten year old minor. He later proved the girl was being pimped around by her mother, but Catherine the Great told him to leave her country anyway. After the American Revolution, Jones had turned mercenary and organized Catherine's Black Sea fleet. He retired to Paris, ill and exhausted. Thomas Carlyle said he looked “like an empty wine skin.” Abigail Adams said “ He was so small I could have wrapped him in wool and kept him in my pocket…”

1809- First Lady Dolly Madison began the tradition of regular White House receptions in the Drawing Room. Her husband James Madison despite being the writer of the Bill of Rights was a timid person and was not good in crowds and a poor speaker. But the vivacious Dolly dominated these soirees and accomplished more politicking than many of her male counterparts.

1822- FLORIDA ACQUIRED BY THE U.S. During the War of 1812 Spain allowed Britain to use Florida as a base for attacking the U.S. They also provided safe haven for the hostile Seminole Indians. This annoyed American politicians who wanted to have Florida anyway. General Andy Jackson concluded the First Seminole War by invading Florida and throwing the Spanish Governor out of Pensacola in 1818. What Jackson had started roughly, John Quincy Adams concluded diplomatically, with the Adams-Otis Treaty, buying Florida from Spain for $5 million.

1842- Dr. Crawford Long of Georgia uses Ether as an anesthetic in an operation. Before that surgeons had to have good biceps to hold down their patients while sawing on them. Surgery was actually less painful in ancient times because the patient was invited to chew an opium bulb “The Food of the Gods” before operating. In 1846 another doctor named W.T.G. Morton did a public demonstration of the Ether anesthesia process and tried to hog the glory of the invention, refusing to share any prizes with Dr. Long.

1858- The pencil eraser patented. The Eraser, or Rubber outside the U.S., was developed in 1770, but Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia first put it on the top of a pencil.

1856- Tsar Alexander II emancipates the Russian serfs. He's later blown up by terrorists.

1867- Seward’s Folly. Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the deal with Czarist Russia to buy Alaska for $7.2 million or two cents an acre.

1918- Thomas Edison sold his studio and got out of the movie business. He fired W.K.L. Dickson, inventor of the movie studio set, Edwin Porter the inventor of the narrative film, and J. Stuart Blackton the inventor of cartoon animation for annoying him too much about filmmaking. Edison was more interested then in finding a way to extract iron ore from rocks using magnets.

1968- In New York City’s Bowery district two children find the dead body of a homeless drug addict. The John Doe is later identified as Bobby Driscoll, 31, Walt Disney child star and the voice of Peter Pan.

1981- PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN SHOT. After only few weeks in office President Ronald Reagan is shot by lunatic John Hinckley. Hinckley was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster. Reagan recovers. Jodie Foster was unimpressed. John Hinckley was a Republican.
In a bit of bizarre theater during the confusion Presidential Security advisor General Alexander Haig went to the media and announced he was in control: “ I am minding the store.” This is in direct conflict with the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which states plainly the line of succession goes from the President to the Vice President the Speaker of the House to the Senate Leader Pro-Tem. Fortunately, no one took Haig seriously.

Presidential press secretary James Brady was shot in the head, which left him permanently brain damaged. He and his family later sponsored the Brady Handgun Bill, which was passed by President Clinton, but not renewed by Pres. George W. Bush.

Ironically, one of the reason Ronald Reagan’s life was saved was because Secret Service agents rushed him to the nearest emergency room, which was a Washington DC ghetto hospital with much too much experience with gunshot wounds. Reagan quipped to the doctors working on his collapsed lung- ”Hey, you guys aren’t Democrats, are you?”

2000- Dreamworks animated feature the Road to El Dorado premiered.

2007- Disney’s Meet the Robinsons.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was a Pepper’s Ghost? (hint, old VFX)

Answer: An Optical trick to make a ghost appear on stage next to an actor. A Sheet of glass is hung across the front of the stage so that the image of an actor standing in the orchestra pit appears to float on stage. First shown at Royal Polytechnic Institution in London by ‘Professor’ John Henry Pepper on Christmas Eve, 1862.

Quiz: What was the name Lady Gaga was born with? (hint: it wasn’t Baby Gaga)

Yesterdays Question answered below: What do these actors have in common? James Stewart, Gene Kelly, Zero Mostel, Paul Newman, and Orson Welles?
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History for 3/28/2019
Birthdays: Paul Whiteman, Pearl Bailey, Freddy Bartholomew, Dirk Bogarde,
Confederate Gen.Wade Hampton, pianist Rudolph Serkin, Swifty Lazar, Marlin Perkins, Diane Weist is 71, Reba McEntire, Vince Vaughn is 49, Julia Stiles is 38, Lady Gaga is 33

193A.D. THE DAY THE WORLD WAS AUCTIONED- The Roman Emperor Pertinax had just been slaughtered by his Guards and the Praetorian Prefect Marius Maximus wisely turned down the promotion- bad retirement opportunity. The men realized they cannot be Imperial Guards without an emperor to guard. They might even get sent back to the frontier! So they posted an announcement that "whoever wanted to be Emperor of the Known World" should come to the Praetorian camp that night and submit a bid. Several senators competed. The winner was Didius Julianus, with a winning bid of 15,000 silver pieces per man in the 1,500 man Guards. Almost none of the generals went along with this dippy solution to the succession to the throne of the Caesars. Julianus was soon bumped off in a violent civil war that eventually saw Septimius Severus the winner.

1456- Today is the feast of St. John Capistrano. The Saint of the Swallows of California was born in Italy and was a preacher, was married, fought the Turks in Hungary, and in later life after becoming a monk was put in charge of the Holy Inquisition in Central Europe. He burned Protestant reformers and ordered all Jews to wear yellow badges so as not to seduce good Christians. He was so hated, that a century after his death from plague the Calvinists dug up his grave and threw his bones down a well.
The Mission St. John Capistrano in California was named so by monk Fra Junipero Serra even though the Saint never visited the Golden State.

1778 -GEORGE WASHINGTON ANNOUNCED MAJOR GENERAL BARON VON STEUBEN, LATELY OF KING FREDERICK THE GREAT'S SERVICE, WOULD TRAIN THE AMERICAN ARMY. It turned out later Von Steuben was broke, barely a real Baron, may have never met the Great Frederick, and never rose higher than Captain. One British source claimed his medals were fakes purchased at a London theatrical costume shop. He did work on the Prussian General Staff.

But America was the land where if you want to be called Baron, you could be a baron. Von Steuben did an excellent job training the farmers and shopkeeps in modern warfare. He wrote: “ In Germany I order a soldier to do something and they do it. In America when I order a soldier to do something I must then explain WHY I want him to do it and WHY it is important!” The minutemen enjoyed watching him scream in a language they didn't understand, and at night around the campfire his big pet greyhound Azor howled along to the music.
Proof of his methods success was at the Battle of Monmouth, Lord Cornwallis groused: ” Hmpf! Damned rebels formed up well.”

1800- Congress voted to extend Franking privileges to Martha Washington. Franking meant she could mail letters without having to pay for postage.

1862- SIBLEY'S RAID. THE BATTLE OF APACHE PASS -The closest the Civil War ever came to California. Confederate Henry Hastings Sibley proposed to the Confederate High Command in Richmond that since most of the US Army was now back East fighting, there was no one to stop them riding from Texas to the gold fields of California! Richmond gave him a brigade of Texas Volunteers, and they quickly overran Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and won a skirmish at Valverde. Plans were made for the Confederate conquest of Colorado, Utah and set up a new rebel state in Arizona. Fighting got as far west as some Pima villages that one day would be Phoenix.
But what Richmond didn’t appreciate was the regional rivalry – As soon as Colorado and New Mexico men heard they were being invaded by Texans, they rushed to fight them. And Sibley turned out to be a bad leader- because of his drinking habits, his men called him a Walking Whiskey Barrel.

This day a pitched battle was fought outside of Tuscon in Glorieta or Apache Pass. The Confederates won the battle but during the confusion a Yankee captain named Chivington sneaked behind the lines and set fire to Sibley’s supply train. This proved decisive, since you can’t march armies in the Arizona desert without supplies and water. Sibley had to retreat to Texas, he,riding in a remaining wagon, drunk with officers wives, while his men marched with no water.

1870- THE ROCK OF CHICKAMAGUA KILLED BY A NEWSPAPER.- Gen. George H. Thomas, retired Union war hero had a heart attack in a St. Louis Hotel after reading an editorial saying all in all he wasn't that great a general and all his victories were mistakes. Survivor of shot and shell, they found Thomas in his room, clutching a written rebuttal to his chest.

1881- P.T. Barnum formed a partnership with his chief competitor James Bailey to create Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. He proclaimed it the Greatest Show on Earth!

1920- Silent film stars Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford married.

1928- Via radio broadcast, the public heard the voice of Charlie Chaplin for the first time.

1930- The name of the City of Constantinople was officially changed to Istanbul, Turkish for “The City”. Angora was renamed Ankara.

1935- Leni Reifenstahl’s hypnotic movie paean to Nazism- Triumph of the Will, premiered.

1941-Battle of Matapan- British Navy sank Mussolini's Navy off the coast of Ethiopia.

1941- English writer Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse in Sussex. Her body was never found.

1942- Albert Hurter, Swiss designer for Walt Disney's "Snow White' and 'Pinnochio", and called the first inspirational artist in animation, died of rheumatic heart disease. He was 59.

1953- Senator Joseph McCarthy, the grandstanding Commie chaser, held a news conference where he decried that European countries that were receiving US aid from the Marshall Plan were also trading with Communist countries. He announced he had received a pledge from a Greek shipping concern not to trade with Communist states in the future.
This speech elicited a storm of protest, under Secretary of State Symington accused the Wisconsin senator of conducting his own foreign policy. Yet the new Eisenhower administration stayed silent and did nothing, which encouraged McCarthy to grow bolder.

1958- The Killer Slide- US 1, The Pacific Coast Highway has always been at the mercy of wind and weather erosion effecting the unstable cliffs it was carved from. This day while repairing a large landslide construction workers were caught in an even bigger hillside collapse- Bulldozers rode on top of the avalanche but several people were killed.

1979- THREE MILE ISLAND- Partial Meltdown of the Pennsylvania reactor panicked the nation. Despite the official attempts to belittle the danger, Governor Richard Thornburg in Harrisburg moved his office underground to a bunker and Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia gave the entire county of Lancaster and Harrisburg a blanket unction (Last Rites). just in case.... The accident spawned the largest civilian protests since the Vietnam War and nuclear energy business has never quite recovered.

1999- Matt Groening’s cartoon series Futurama debuted.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do these actors have in common? James Stewart, Gene Kelly, Zero Mostel, Paul Newman, and Orson Welles?

Answer: Their last movie work was on an animated feature.