Question: Many European monarchies have barons, princes, counts and dukes, but only England had Earls. What is an Earl?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who a higher rank, a Baron or a Duke?
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History for 6/15/2017
Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Roger Chiasson, Michael Barrier, Ice Cube is 48, Neil Patrick Harris is 44, Courtenay Cox is 53, Helen Hunt is 54

Happy St. Vitus Day! "If St. Vitus Day be rainy weather, shall rain for thirty days together. "St. Vitus was the patron of epilepsy, and some extreme forms of spasmic seizure (chorea) was called "St. Vitus Dance".

1215- The MAGNA CARTA or the Great Charter SIGNED. On the field of Runymede. The rebellious English barons force King John Lackland ( also called John Soft Sword, John the Total Loser, etc. ) to sign a document granting basic individual rights such as trial by a jury of peers, Habeas Corpus, etc. It basically said for the first time that even a King was not above the law of the land.

After King John agreed he crossed the Channel where he paid off the Pope to absolve him of his oath and then he returned with an army of mercenaries to put down his barons. Even though he hired rogues like Victor the Villain and Mauger the Murderer, King John still lost. Magna Carta became the basis of English Law.

John wasn’t a totally terrible king. He built the first British navy yards at Portsmouth and Southhampton and unlike his older brother Richard Lionheart, John actually preferred speaking English over Norman French.

1300- Poet Dante Alighieri got a job as one of the governing priors of Florence, sort of a city council. We don’t know if it says something about his abilities at municipal governing, but he was run out of town in 1302.

1762 – The Austrian Empire becomes the first to issue paper currency.

1775 - The Continental Congress appointed Mr. George Washington, Esq. of Virginia to be commanding general of the new colonial army forming around Boston. John Adams urged Congress to pick a southerner to command the mostly New Englander farmers in the interest of colonial unity. The fact that he was one of the richest men in America didn't hurt either. Plus the 6’ 2 plantation owner dropped hints he was interested in the job, like being the only delegate to attend congress squeezed into his 20 year old militia uniform. They afterwards bought him dinner at Peg Mullen's Beefsteak House. During the meal he turned to Patrick Henry and said with the appropriate 18th Century modesty: " From the date I enter into command of America's Armies, I date the fall and ruin of my reputation!"

1776- William Franklin, the pro-British governor of New Jersey, was arrested by the Yankee rebels and thrown into a dungeon. He was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin and his cook Deborah Regan, whom Franklin had married out of sympathy for the boy. William had assisted his dad with his flying kite experiment years ago. The New Jersey delegates told Dr. Franklin while the Independence Declaration was being debated and he was 'unmoved'.
Truth be told the two men couldn't stand one another. They said they reconciled after the Revolution but that may have been more for public record than reality. When he died Ben Franklin did not leave his son a penny in his will, bitterly stating it's only what William would have left him had the positions been reversed.

1800- US Congress ordered the disbanding of the US Army as a waste of money.

1815- THE WATERLOO BALL- In Brussels Belgium, the Duchess of Richmond hosts a ball for the officers of Wellington’s army before they go to stop Napoleon. Many of the dancers will be dead at Waterloo three days later. The event is dramatized in "Vanity Fair" and" Becky Sharp." While this ball is taking place Napoleon crossed his army into Belgium and placed it in between the British and Prussians (Germans) on the road to Brussels. Napoleon correctly guessed it would take some time for the enemy nations like Russia and Austria to mobilize armies (their target date was July 17) so instead of waiting for the inevitable invasion of France he would attack first, win a big victory then hopefully negotiate a peace from strength.

1836- Arkansas becomes a state.

1844- Mr. Charles Goodyear invents the vulcanization process, that keeps rubber from getting sticky in warm weather and brittle in the cold.

1846- The Oregon Treaty. The United States and Great Britain settle a dispute over exactly where the northwest border was between the U.S. and Canada. Despite President Polk’s belligerent campaign slogan “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!” a peaceful compromise was reached on the 49th parallel.

1849-Three months after leaving office President James K. Polk died. The President who fought the War with Mexico to get California and the southwest was a lifelong teetotaler and died of cholera from drinking bad water. Sam Houston, who was one of the great alcoholics of American history, reacted “That’s the natural end of all Water-Drinkers!"

1888 -Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes leader of Germany after the death of his father Frederich III, who died of throat cancer after reigning only 100 days. Kaiser Frederich was mild, liberal and had an English wife. He hated German powermongers and abhorred the cruel reputation Germany was getting for militarism. He was determined to alter these policies. The modern world would have been amazingly different had Frederich lived to see 1914 as Kaiser instead of his emotionally disturbed son " Willy ".

The first thing Wilhelm did was have troops break into his mother's office and seize some confidential papers in her desk. He and his mother were hardly on speaking terms and he referred to her as "That English Princess who is my mother.." Once when Wilhelm had a nosebleed he refused to stop it because" Now maybe all the English blood will drain out of me!"

1896- GERMANY BUILDS A NAVY. Kaiser Wilhelm approved the plan of Admiral Von Tirpitz to create a huge battleship fleet. This act is seen as a direct threat to British seapower and for the first time Von Tirpitz implicitly named England as an enemy. Germany and England until then had never fought a war and were usually allies. Queen Victoria spoke fluent German and her grandson the Kaiser was fluent in English. The Kaiser’s desk in his office was made from the wood of Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory. But building a navy meant Germany was directly challenging England for domination of the High Seas.

1916- The Boy Scouts of America founded.

1932-The Bonus Marchers, twenty thousands of Depression-unemployed veterans, encamp around Capitol Hill and begin a silent barefoot protest march around Congress. Unlike the army and Government of the time they vote to abolish Jim Crow and completely integrate their ranks.

1938-Tha Fair Labor Standards Act passed.

1945- Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli. Lisa Minnelli was one result.

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce married a stripper named Honey Stuart.

1955- DUCK & COVER. The US Government held Operation OPAL, the first nationwide Civil Defense alert drills. Not only did millions of school children have to jump under their desks to avoid imaginary Russian nukes, but plans were made for commandos to grab the President, Congressional leaders, Supreme Court and even grab the Declaration of Independence and other valuable documents and whisk them out to underground bunkers in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Russian spies said they learned a great deal about US intentions from observing these silly drills. President Eisenhower got a good laugh when the motorcade speeding him through the Virginia countryside was blocked by a heard of pigs. “Well, I guess that means we’re all dead boys!” The president joked.

1969- The country music comedy TV show Hee-Haw premiered as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Hour. Hee Haw ran for two years with high ratings but CBS cancelled the show anyway. This was because CBS chief Bill Paley disliked country music. CBS had so many shows like Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw, that insiders joked that CBS stood for the Country Broadcasting System. Hee Haw had the last laugh, going on to a successful syndication run until 1997.

1977- Everybody Disco! KC and the Sunshine band release “I’m your Boogie Man”.

1992- The US Supreme Court ruled that it was okay for American law agencies to kidnap suspects being given asylum in foreign countries and bring them to the US for trial, just no one better try kidnapping anybody outta da Good Old U-S of A!

1994- Walt Disney’s The Lion King opened.

1999- In San Diego, Nicholas Vitalich was arrested for slapping his wife with a large tuna.

2001- Disney’s Atlantis premiered.

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who a higher rank, a Baron or a Duke?

Answer: A duke. Baron is the lowest rank of nobility, but still above commoner.

Question: Who is the higher rank, a Baron or a Duke?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase “ To Kick the Bucket”?
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History for 6/14/2017
Birthdays: Tomaso Albinioni, Fighting Bob LaFollette, Margaret Bourke-White, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sam Wanamaker, Cliff Edwards the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Dorothy McGuire, Burl Ives, Gene Barry, Jerzy Kosinski, Diablo Cody is 39,
Pres. Donald Trump is 71.

451 A.D. Battle of Orleans- Attila the Hun was defeated by the combined armies of Theodoric the Visigoth and the Roman general Aetius. Attila was told by his shamans that a great king would die that day. But even though Attila lost, it was Theodoric who was killed. Attila was not killed in battle but died on his wedding night years later with wife #20. He was 45, she was 16. He was dead by morning.

1497- Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI and brother to Caesar and Lucretzia Borgia, had dinner with his family then disappeared on his way home. Next day his body was found in the Tiber River with nine knife wounds in it. No one ever found the murderer. Suspects included everyone from scholar Pico Della Mirandola to his own brother Cesare Borgia. Heart-broken, dad Pope Alexander told his cardinals "This is God’s punishment for our sins, I hereby promise to renounce Nepotism and Simony, and I shall reform the Church." But Alex quickly got over it, and resumed his corrupt ways.

1645- Battle of Naseby- Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army defeated King Charles I army in the decisive battle of the English Civil War. After this, the King never again could field a large army. Charles I had as one of his generals his German nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Rupert rode into battle with a white poodle under his arm named Bobbie. He made insensitive declarations like: "We will strew the field with English dead !" Considering it was a civil war, that fact was undoubted.

1658- Battle of the Dunes- Oliver Cromwell's Ironside cavalry help the French fight the Spaniards in Belgium. Cromwell was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth when Spain was England's chief enemy, but by this time his generals were much more worried about Louis XIV's France. They felt they were helping the wrong side, but the Old Lord Protector (Cromwell) overruled them.

1718- The later years of Czar Peter the Great’s rule were clouded by a feud with his son and heir Alexis. While Peter was dragging Russia forcibly out of medieval backwardness his son was educated by priests to hate his fathers new ideas. Alexis pledged to undo all his father’s reforms when he became Czar. At one point Alexis fled to Italy to escape his father’s anger but returned when promised amnesty. This day Peter went back on his pledge and had Alexis arrested. In the dungeon below Saint Peter & Paul fortress d Alexis was beaten to death with whips. Papa himself administered the first blows.

1727- George II of England told by Sir Robert Walpole that his august father George Ist had died and he was now king. At first George thought it was one of his dad's cruel jokes, and said" Dat izt von big lie!"( they had German accents remember). He always resented his dad’s cruel treatment of his mom, like having her lover murdered while he himself kept a regular mistress. George I didn’t trust his English subjects and was always homesick for his birthplace in Hanover Germany. He was always visiting. So when he died and was buried over there, truth be said nobody in England really missed him. While his grandson King George III’s death was cause for national mourning, George I’s death was only casually mentioned in the society newspapers.

Happy Flag Day -in 1777 The Continental Congress orders the Stars & Stripes flag to be the official U.S. flag. It replaced the Cambridge Flag (The Tree and Stripes) and the Snake and Stripes, and all those other things silly things and stripes.

1789- Capt. Bligh reached East Timor after floating 4,000 miles in an open boat. He and his followers were cast adrift by the Bounty Mutineers.

1800- Battle of Marengo- Napoleon defeated the Austrian army and conquers most of Italy. At first he was losing and his men were fighting so furiously against high odds that some could be seen urinating into their rifle barrels to cool them off. Just when things seemed lost, his regimental commander General Desaix, arrived in the nick of time, won the battle, and was conveniently killed in action so Napoleon didn’t have to share any of the credit. This led Napoleon to observe "The difference between victory and defeat can be 15 minutes."

1801- Old Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold died in London of dropsy. He was living on a major generals half pay, but was shunned by polite British society, as he was despised by Americans. Tradition has it that in his last days he had his wife Peggy help him back into his old Colonial uniform:" My country’s uniform! Woe to me that I ever put on another!" After his death, The London Post observed: Poor General Arnold departed this life, unmourned and without notice. A sorry reflection for other turncoats."

1807- Battle of Friedland -Napoleon does it again, this time to a Russian army.

1816- Writers Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking, Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all failed except for 19 year old Mary, who invented a story of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein.

1822- Charles Babbage presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in London proposing to build a "Difference Engine" a machine that could calculate equations and print the results-i.e. a computer. His early machine required 8,000 moving parts. After ten years and a small fortune it never quite comes off, but today it is considered the ancestor of the computer.

1832- A large French invasion force landed in Algiers. The Barbary Corsairs were so annoyed they took the French ambassador and fired him out of a large mortar. It was tough being a diplomat in those days. The French colonized Algeria until 1962.

1834- Isaac Fischer Jr. of Vermont invented sandpaper.

1846-THE GREAT BEAR REBELLION- U.S. citizens living in Spanish California led by a school teacher named William Ide and Ezekiel Merritt declared themselves an independent country, not knowing that back east the U.S. government had already declared war on Mexico and annexed California to the U.S. Remember information took months to get back East across Indian territory and burning deserts. The Anglo-Californians seized a Sonoma military post and arrested the owner of the largest hacienda in the area, a retired Mexican General named Mariano Vallejo. Ironically Senor Vallejo himself desired AltaCalifornia to have independence from Mexico City.
They chose as their flag for the new republic the grizzly bear and the polar star, which is now the state flag. It wasn’t well drawn and a Mexican noblewoman watching the events thought the flag looked “like a large towel with a pig painted on it.” US Col. John Freemont took over the Great Bear settlers and raised the US flag over the Presidio in San Francisco July 1st.

1865- A group of Englishmen climb the Materhorn Mountain in Switzerland, inventing the sport of mountain climbing. Why? Because it is there.

1934- Hitler meets Mussolini for the first time for a conference in the city of Padua. They didn't trust any interpreters and neither could speak the others language, so it wasn't much of a meeting. Il Duce's first impression of the German Chancellor wasn't impressive. He called Adolf " A comical little monkey."

1940- The German Army goose-stepped down the Champs Elysees into Paris. The Nazi propaganda that night broadcast from radio Berlin declared" The decadent, democratic Paris of Jews and Negroes is gone never to rise again!!" Not quite, Adolf.

1941- President Roosevelt ordered all German and Italian assets in the U.S. frozen.

1942- A secret coded message sent by Moscow's intelligence service to all their agents in Germany, England and the U.S.A. showed that Russia was aware of these countries attempts to build an atomic bomb, and that Soviet agents should use all means to secure information about these programs.

1951- Univac I, built by Dr John W, Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert Jr. of the Remington Rand Company to be the first U.S. commercial built electronic computer, went on line for the census bureau in Philadelphia.

1954- The Eisenhower Administration ordered the adding of the words "Under God" to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

1957- Nelson Mandela married Winnie Mandela.

1959- Three new rides are debuted at Disneyland in Anaheim. The first monorail the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System, Matterhorn Mountain and the Submarine Voyage, today called the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Back then the submarines were named and painted to be the US navy nuclear submarines Nautilus, Triton, Skipjack, Skate, Patrick Henry, Sea Wolf, George Washington and Ethan Allen. The ride took visitors for an adventure under the North Pole, an achievement which the real USN Nautilus had just accomplished the previous year. The subs were repainted the more pacific yellow color after the Vietnam era.

1962- The Boston Strangler killed his first victim.

1964- THE FIRST HIPPY BUS- Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, bought an old school bus, painted it psychedelic colors, took of troupe of 14 fellow free spirits called the Merry Pranksters and spent the next few months driving across the country taking LSD and staging Happenings in various cities and towns.
The Bus’s name was Further and its driver was Neil Cassidy, friend of Beatnik author Jack Kerouac. A book documenting the escapades of the "hippy bus" was "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test." Ken Kesey became interested in LSD when he volunteered for a college program to experiment with the drug, secretly funded by the CIA. The Merry Pranksters were invited in 1969 to be the security for the Woodstock Rock Festival.

1966- The Vatican officially abolished the Index of Forbidden Books.

1977- Skinny Carnaby Street fashion model Twiggy got married to Michael Whitney.

1983- The Pioneer 10 space probe left its orbit around Jupiter and headed off into deep space. NASA lost all contact in 1997. Pioneer 10 is expected to reach the solar system of the star Ross 246 in the Constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 AD.

1989- Elderly actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills policeman who was writing her a traffic ticket.

1995, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MP3. The researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits decided to use "mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987. By 1992 it was considered far ahead of its times. MP3 became the generally accepted acronym as the popular standard for digital music on the on the Internet.

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "D’OH!" into its august pages.

2002- An asteroid the size of a football field bypassed the Earth by just 75,000 miles, about one fifth the distance to our moon. If it had hit us, the cataclysm might have rivaled the one that eliminated the Dinosaurs. Little was said about it in the media because it came from the direction of the Sun and was undetectable until almost on top of us. So sleep well tonight, modern science is on guard! Nyaaahhhh!!
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Yesterdays Question: What is the origin of the phrase “ To Kick the Bucket”?

Answer: No one is quite sure. The earliest written record of the phrase was in 1785. One theory is that when you hang yourself, you stand on a bucket and then kick it away with your foot. Another is that the Old French word for the hook a butcher hangs a slaughtered animal on sounds like bucket. So the dying animal sometimes kicks at the hook mount.

Question: What is the origin of the phrase “ To Kick the Bucket”?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Quiz: In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit Hood, when Bugs as king is bashing the sheriff on the head and dubbing him a number of silly titles. ( “Arise! Sir Loin of Beef. Arise! Earl of Cloves,” etc.) One of these titles really happened. Which was it?
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History for 6/13/2017
Birthdays: Gnaeus Agricola- 40AD, Harriet Beecher Stowe, W.B. Yeats, Red Grange, Basil Rathbone would be 125, Dorothy Sayers, Ralph Edwards, Paul Lynde, Tim Allen, Darla Hood, Ally Sheedy, Simon Callow, Christo, Malcolm McDowell is 74, Stellan Skarsgard is 66, the Olsen Twins are 31.
313 A.D. Constantine, the Roman Emperor of the West, and Licinius the Emperor of the East publish a joint edict throughout the Roman Empire granting religious toleration : "All men to worship what Gods they will." This edict officially lifted the 250 year persecution of Christianity.
1381-THE ENGLISH PEASANT REVOLT OCCUPIES LONDON. -Wat the Tyner and his pissed-off peasants chase young King Richard II into the Tower of London and drag the Archbishop of Canterbury to Tyburn Hill to chop his head off. The Archbishop was in charge of economic policy and taxation for the young king, so he was the focus of the people's rage. They used a non-union executioner, so it took several chops to get the job done...

1777- British General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne began his invasion down from Canada into New York State to smash the American Revolution once and for all. The Great North River, called the Hudson, was considered the jugular of America, because it divided militant New England from the moderate Mid-Atlantic and Southern States. Before Burgoyne left London he had wagered politician Charles Fox 20 guineas that he would finish off the Yankees by Christmas.
Burgoyne immediately annoyed most of the senior British officers in America. He refused orders from Canadian Governor General Carleton or Lord Howe in New York. He declared that his was an independent command and so could not be ordered about by anyone but London.
By October, defeated, cut off, and surrounded by swarms of rebels at Saratoga, he got a letter out to Carleton “requesting You Lordships orders”. Carleton took this as a weenie attempt to shift the blame, so he ignored him. Burgoyne surrendered and was prisoner exchanged. He did get home by Christmas, just without his army...

1777- Count Casimir Pulaski goes to join the American Revolution. Pulaski was a hotheaded Polish patriot who had fought Russians, served in the French and Turkish armies, made love to Catherine the Great, and had been in a conspiracy to kidnap the pro-Russian King of Poland. The American ambassadors trying to recruit European military experts found Pulaski in a Marseilles prison for non-payment of bills. Pulaski thought the Americans had paid his debts as part of his enlistment, but the truth was the French forgave his debts because they were just glad to get rid of him.
Count Pulaski became the Father of the American Cavalry and the only person to ever hold the rank in the U.S. Army of Commander of Horse. He was killed in battle outside of Savannah Georgia at age 31.

1793-Captain Napoleon Bonaparte relocated his family from Corsica to mainland France.

1807- Former Vice President Aaron Burr was on trial for treason because of his plot to create a new kingdom for himself in Mexican Texas. As part of the defense, this day Chief Justice Marshall subpoenaed President Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson refused, citing the concept of Executive Privilege. That a President can’t be put under oath, for reasons of national security. So Justice Marshall acquitted Burr for lack of evidence.
Pres. Jefferson then considered arresting Chief Justice Marshall. 1877- The Russo-Turkish War begins. Russia attacks into the Balkans after a Turkish governor commits a massacre of Bulgarian peasants. When the Russian armies get down to Istanbul the British and Austria threatens war if Russia goes any further.

1878-The CONGRESS OF BERLIN OPENS- German Chancellor Bismarck offered to mediate the argument between Russia and Britain and Austria over the Russo-Turkish War. It is the first world conference where all the great powers and statesmen appear not to divide conquered spoils but actually prevent a larger war from happening. As Bismarck joked in English to retired U.S. President Ulysses Grant, then vacationing: "Russia has bitten off a bit too much Turkey, and we must make him give some back."
1905- The workers of the Russian city of Odessa go on strike and the Tsar's troops shoot them down on the Odessa steps. This causes the Battleship Potemkin's sailors to mutiny. Twenty years later Sergei Eisenstein to make a famous film of the same name.

1920-The US Government rules Americans cannot mail their children through the Parcel Post System.

1927- Wall St. tickertape parade for Lucky Lindy- Charles Lindbergh.

1941-The American Federation of Labor the AF of L called for a nationwide boycott of all Disney products and films. This was to support the Disney Cartoonists strike.

1942- President Roosevelt by executive order created the Office of Strategic Services or the OSS. Under director Wild Bill Donovan its job was to coordinate espionage and intelligence gathering against the Axis powers in cooperation with its British counterpart , the SOE. On the agencies personnel roster were experts from spymasters William Gates and William Casey to tourist book author Eugene Fodor and chef Julia Child. Child recalled the outfit was nicknamed “Oh So Secret!” and “Oh, So-Social” for all the New York society High Society types in it. After World War II, the OSS became the CIA.
1944- The first Vengence-1 (V-1) Buzz Bombs hit London. The first 21 launched missed most targets and one even spun around and landed close to Hitler. This is when the auto-destruct button was conceived. Of the ones that hit England the worst damage was to Bethnel Green tube station. Unlike bombers, these guided missiles were almost impossible to shoot down. By wars end 1,800 would hit London along with 5,000 V-2s, and drive a lot of the population into the countryside.

1958- Frank Zappa graduated Antelope Valley High School.
1962- Three convicts, Frank Lee Morris, and the brothers Anglin, escape from Alcatraz with a crude rowboat. They are the only prisoners to have successfully escaped from the Rock. Alcatraz was closed by attorney general Robert Kennedy later that year.

1967- President Lyndon Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshal to the Supreme Court. Marshal was the first African American to sit in the nations highest court, and as an attorney successfully pled the 1955 case Brown vs. Board of Education that struck down school segregation.
1971 -The day after Tricia Nixon's wedding the Washington Post and the New York Times began printing THE PENTAGON PAPERS. They were leaked by dissenting intelligence specialist Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg was on the staff of Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara when McNamara ordered a fact paper drawn up explaining step by step just how the U.S. managed to get in as big a mess as Vietnam. The papers revealed damaging secrets as the U.S. had secretly been fighting alongside the South Vietnamese much earlier than the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" of 1965, all the while claiming neutrality.

The U.S.S. Maddox, the ship that was fired on in the Tonkin Gulf, was ordered to violate Vietnamese waters and provoke a Communist attack; and that the opinion of the Pentagon Joint Chiefs was that they knew the war was unwinnable as early as 1965, yet we kept fighting anyway until 1973.
The publication was very damaging to the Nixon White House, even though it was all about events taking place in the previous Democratic administrations. Robert McNamara said he himself never got around to reading the Pentagon Papers but kept a copy in his garage.

1978- Ford fired Lee Iacocca from the Ford Corporation. The creator of the Ford Mustang would later move on to run Chrysler. When asked why, Henry Ford II said: “Sometimes you just don’t like somebody.”

1991- Boris Yeltsin became the first popularly elected leader of Russia.

2010- Pixar’s Toy Story III premiered.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Quiz: In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit Hood, when Bugs as king is bashing the sheriff on the head and dubbing him a number of silly titles. ( “Arise! Sir Loin of Beef. Arise! Earl of Cloves,” etc.) One of these titles really happened. Which was it? (thanks, NB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qtgm5g5Gyo

Answer: Baron Munchausen was a real person, who was the subject of a fantasy novel. But the real answer is Sir Loin of Beef! Apparently King Henry VIII once ennobled his roast beef dinner before eating it. Believe it, or Not!

Quiz: In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Sherwood Bugs, when Bugs as king is bashing the sheriff on the head and dubbing him a number of silly titles. ( “Arise! Sir Loin of Beef. Arise! Earl of Cloves,” etc.) One of these titles really happened. Which was it? ( thanks, NB) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qtgm5g5Gyo

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does T.W.I.Z.M. stand for, and where did it originate?
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History for 6/12/2017
Birthdays: Egon Scheile, John Roebling the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, Uta Hagen, Chick Corea, Sir Anthony Eden, Jim Nabors, Vic Damone, David Rockefeller, Irwin Allen, Marv Albert, Arthur Fellig-better known as Weegee, Sherry Stringfield, Former President George Herbert Walker Bush is 93, if Anne Frank had survived she would be 88 today, Clyde Geronimi, Richard Sherman of the Sherman Bros is 89

1192- After battling across Palestine for over a year, King Richard Lionheart stood on a hilltop overlooking the Holy City of Jerusalem. The other Crusader leaders had gone home, leaving him with too weak a force to capture the city. He covered his eyes with his shield and refused to look, saying he could not bear to see the Holy City in chains. Saladin was having problems of his own with unruly vassals and lukewarm support for his Jihad. But when he got the news that the Christians were withdrawing to the coast, he knew The Third Crusade had spent itself, and Saladin had won.

1616- Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, landed in England with her husband and son Thomas.

1733- Prussian King Frederick William I had his son Crown Prince Frederick married to Princess Elizabeth Christine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Despite being gay, Frederick the Great did his royal duty and married, but he and his wife kept separate households. Later as King, when asked if he ever spoke with the Queen, King Frederick replied:" You see, the problem is, my wife has the intelligence of a duck."

1815- Napoleon left Paris for Waterloo.

1862- Dashing Confederate cavalry leader Jeb Stuart makes headlines by riding his horsemen completely around the back end of the 105,000 man Union army. Among the pursuing Yankees he made look stupid was his own father-in-law, Gen. Phillip Saint-George Cooke.

1876- Newsman George Kellogg is invited by General Custer to accompany him on his next campaign against the hostile Indians. Kellogg would be the only correspondent embedded with the 7th Cavalry as they rode to the Little Big Horn.

1898- Nationalist leader Emilio Aquinaldo declared the Independence of the Philippines after 300 years of Spanish rule. Too bad the United States didn’t see it that way. During the war with Spain the U.S. gave lip service to Philippine nationalism but after the war annexed the Philippines and fought these same nationalists.

1936- Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame dedicated on the supposed 100th anniversary of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball. We now know that date to be fiction but it was a good party anyway. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson were the first inductees. Doubleday was a Civil War general and the composer of the bugle call "Taps", first called General Doubleday’s Lullaby.

1937- Soviet leader Josef Stalin had eight of his top generals shot. Even Marshal Tuchashevsky, whose strategy had won the Russian Civil War. At his state funeral Stalin publicly praised Tuchashevsky’s talents as a leader even as he was having his mother sent to a Siberian prison camp. When General Rokossovsky was interrogated, a secret policeman broke out his front teeth with a hammer. He wore steel dentures thereafter and would help win the key Battle of Stalingrad. By 1941 Stalin’s paranoid purges would kill 25,000 officers, 90% of the Red Army's general staff, just when they were about to be invaded by Hitler’s army.

1940- As German panzer tanks rolled towards Paris, French commander General Weygand ordered the military governor of Paris declare it an open city- meaning the French army would voluntarily evacuate it if no fighting or destruction would happen in it’s precincts. French General Weygand later said everything was Britain’s fault.

1942- On her birthday, Anne Frank was given a diary.

1949- The first LA parking ticket.

1952- Chief auto designer for Chevrolet Maurice Olley completed work on a sports car originally code-named the Opel, but later released as the Corvette.

1962- Edward M. Gilbert, the "Boy Wizard of Wall Street," loses $23 million for his firm E.L. Bruce Flooring, then embezzles $2 million more and escaped to Brazil.

1962- In Modesto California, a teenage film student named George Lucas was almost killed in a car accident.

1963- Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was shot and killed by a high powered sniper rifle in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi. His killer, Klansman Bryan del la Beckwith was not convicted until 1994.

1963- Twentieth Century Fox premiered the Elizabeth Taylor -Richard Burton epic CLEOPATRA. Costing $44 million, $400 million in modern money, four times more than the average film, it remains in comparable dollars the costliest disaster in movie history. The cast was put up at the swankiest hotels in Rome for months of shooting, and Liz Taylor had to have her chili from Chasens restaurant in Beverly Hills flown in. Director Joe Mankewicz said "Cleopatra was the toughest three pictures I ever made!" When Liz Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up.
Fox had to cut 2,000 jobs and almost went bankrupt. The area of LA known as Century City with its huge shopping mall used to be the Fox backlot before Cleopatra. On the plus side, Andy Warhol said Cleopatra was the most influential movie of the 1960s because suddenly every woman had to have heavy black eyeliner, light lipstick and Egyptian style straight bobbed hair and bangs.

1964- South African anti-Apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy and sabotage. He served 27 years and was released in 1990 to lead his country out of white minority rule.

1967- In the ruling Loving vs. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme court strikes down all remaining state laws barring interracial marriages. The Lovings were a married couple who were both jailed by the State of Virginia, because they were of different race.

1987- President Ronald Reagan did his famous Cold War speech in Berlin “ Mr. Gorbachov, tear down this wall!”

1991- In the Philippines the volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted for the first time in 600 years.

1994- Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, pizza delivery guy Ron Brown, were savagely murdered in her home with a knife. Brown was returning Mrs. Simpson’s glasses from her dinner at Brentwood restaurant Mezzaluna. The only suspect seems to remain her estranged husband O.J. Simpson, actor, and Heisman Trophy winning NFL star. O.J. was acquitted in his murder trial, but convicted in a wrongful death suit brought by Nicole’s family. Another suspect has never been found.

1999- Disney’s Tarzan premiered.

2016- The Orlando Massacre. A lunatic opened fire with a military machine gun in a crowded Orlando gay bar named Pulse. 49 dead and another 53 wounded before he was killed by police.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does T.W.I.Z.M. stand for, and where did it originate?

Answer: In the Brian DePalma movie Scarface, gangster Tony Montana decorated the foyer of his mansion with a statue with the inscription TWIZM on it. It stands for The World Is Mine. Some gangsta rappers and NBA stars like Shaquille O’Neal thought that was cool and tattooed TWIZM on their skin.

Quiz: What does T.W.I.Z.M. stand for, and where did it originate?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What famous historical figure’s dying words were “ Kiss me, Hardy.”
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History for 6/11/2017
Birthdays: Ben Johnson, Richard Strauss, Jacques Cousteau, Nelson Mandela, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Joe Montana, John Constable, Gustav Courbet, Vince Lombardi, Adrienne Barbeau, William Styron, Chad Everett, race car driver Jackie Stewart, Gene Wilder, Hugh Laurie is 58, Shia LeBoeuf is 31, Peter Dinklage is 48.

The ancient Roman festival of Mater Matuta- The goddess Mother of the Dawn.

1174- Crusader king of Jerusalem Amalric IV dies, he is succeeded by his son Baldwin IV the "Leper King of Jerusalem". That this disease afflicted Baldwin did not stop him from marrying (unconsummated) and fighting battles -no one would get close enough to fight with him. Ed Norton played him in the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven.

1258-The "Mad Parliament"- In English history before Parliament sat on a regular basis, an eventful parliament was given a nickname:" The Rump, the Hochtide, etc." In this Parliament the barons of England fed up with King Henry III's arbitrary and spendthrift rule force him to submit his power to veto of a council of peers. These so-called "Provisions of Oxford" are the next great step after Magna Charter to creating a representative democratic government. But because historical chronicles are written at the King’s pleasure, this Parliament is known by the sobriquet Mad.

1644 -A Florentine scientist described the invention of a barometer.

1663- THE FOUR DAYS BATTLE- in the Channel the British Navy of 80 ships tangled with the Dutch Navy of 100 ships to see who would be masters of the seas. After amazing slaughter, Dutch Admiral De Ruyter claimed victory. He had brooms tied to his mainmasts symbolizing he intended to sweep the English from the seas, but by August England was back with another fleet. De Ruyter was a naval genius who bedeviled the British for years. A French admirer said, "De Ruyter had the plain simplicity of a Biblical patriarch. Just four days after fighting this great sea battle, he was back home sweeping his own floor, and feeding his chickens."

1685- MONMOUTH'S REBELLION- The Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of English King Charles II felt he should be king instead of his prissy Roman Catholic Uncle King James II. Being illegitimate was to him a mere technicality. This day The Duke of Monmouth landed in the U.K. and raised the banner of revolt. He got some of Oliver Cromwell’s old roundheads to join him but they were soon crushed by the regular army. Monmouth was executed and many of his men shipped off to be slaves on the sugar plantations of Bermuda and the Bahamas by the infamous Judge Jeffries during the Bloody Assizes. The novel Captain Blood is about one such slave-survivor of Monmouth’s Rebellion.

1727- Coronation of King George II of England. Not much is remembered about this ceremony but that the English public began to see that Mr. Georg Fredrich Handel fellow could really write some good music! This included Zadok the Priest, now customarily played at all coronations.

1742 - Benjamin Franklin invents his iron Franklin stove.

1775- 33 year old Virginia planter Thomas Jefferson leaves Monticello to ride to Philadelphia where the representatives of all the colonies were gathering to decide how to respond to the violence lately broken out between colonists and British troops around Boston.

1790- In Hawaii this is King Kamehameha day in honor of the king who united all the Hawaiian Islands under one rule.

1809- The Pope excommunicated Napoleon. "Good," he said, "This will bring me even more followers."

1878- At a small track at the Palo Alto Stock Farm, English photographer Edweard Muybridge did the first of his Animal Motion Studies. He lined up 25 cameras and filmed California Governor Leyland Stanford’s favorite mare Sallie Gardner at a full gallop. He invited the press, so none could accuse him of doctoring the photos later. They proved that when a horse was in full gallop, all four hooves leave the ground.

1913- Turkish Grand Vizier Shevket Pasha was assassinated by revolutionaries. The Young Turk officers had the conspirators rounded up and hanged.

1927- Charles Lindbergh Day. After his historic flight, the young aviator was welcomed home to America by President Coolidge and huge throngs of well-wishers at Washington’s Navy Yard. Battleships boomed, bands blared and two dirigibles floated overhead. The radio announcer covering the event did one of the very first coast-to-coast broadcasts. He reached thirty million people.

1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "The Case Of Jonathan Drew," is released

1934- the first Mandrake the Magician comic strip.

1936- Shy, quiet, 30 year old Texas writer Robert E. Howard had created the powerful warriors Conan the Barbarian, Kull and single handedly defined the genre we now call Sword & Sorcery. This day after he learned his mother was dying and would never regain consciousness, he went into his garage and blew his brains out. Some say he had an Oedipal fixation, others that he always intended to end his life and was waiting to spare his mother the pain. On his typewriter he left a short message: "All fled, all done, so lift me upon the pyre. The feast is over and let the lamps expire."

1937 –" Getta’ yu tutsie-frutsie Ice-a Creem!" the Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races" premiered.

1939 – President Franklin Roosevelt hosted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House. There the rulers of the British Empire ate Hot Dogs for the first time. Whether they in turn gave FDR some Marmite is an open question.

1941- Bir Hakim surrendered. Free French & Foreign Legion forces under Col. Koenig held out in an epic siege against Rommels’ Afrika Corps. After weeks of terrible bombing today they surrendered, buying critical time for the British Eighth Army.

1944- The Allied forces who landed at D-Day at five separate beaches and several drop zones link up their forces into one continuous front.

1948- Col. Eddie Marcus was a career US Army officer who spent World War II on General Eisenhower’s staff planning the major campaigns in Europe. Eddie Marcus was also a Jew. When the new state of Israel needed military experience, Marcus volunteered and was made the commanding General of the Jerusalem Front. He was given the name Mickey Stone as a code name. After furious fighting against Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi forces, the UN ceasefire went into effect.
This night when Eddie Marcus stepped out of his tent during a curfew to relieve himself, he was accidentally shot by a young Israeli sentry. The boy only spoke Hebrew, and Marcus only spoke English. He was also wrapped in his bedsheet, and the boy thought it was Arab dress. Eddie Marcus’ body was flown back to America and interred at West Point. The incident was made into a film with Kirk Douglas called "Cast a Giant Shadow."

1955- The deadliest day at Le Mans. During this running of the famous 24 hour car race a Mercedes crashed into an Austin Healy at high speed and the cars disintegrated, spewing flaming metal debris into the crowd of spectators. 85 died and 100 more were hurt.

1959 – The US Postmaster General banned D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover as pornography. He was overruled by US Court of Appeals in March 1960.

1963- Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and refused to allow two black students to integrate Alabama University. He eventually stood aside before federal troops but his stand made him a national figure. Ironically Wallace was originally a liberal judge but after being defeated for Governor in 1958 changed his tone to conservative racism.

1964 - Chicago police break up a Rolling Stones press conference.

1964 - Manfred Mann recorded Do Wah Diddy Diddy.

1966 - "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones peaks at #1

1966 - Janis Joplin played her 1st gig in San Francisco.

1968- After the carnage of the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Que Sanh, General William Westmoreland stepped down as commander of all US forces in Vietnam. Unlike Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, General Westmoreland remained unrepentant for the rest of his life. He blamed his failures in Vietnam on the media, hippies and the racial mixture of his army.

1972- THE MOST PROFITABLE FILM IN HISTORY. The film Deep Throat premiered. The first full length blockbuster porn film. The film was shot in just three days, by an ex-hairdresser turned director. It cost $22,500 to make and grossed $600 million. Most of that money disappeared into the coffers of the Mafia. It became a counterculture cause celebre. Jacky Kennedy saw it. Frank Sinatra screened a print for Vice President Spiro Agnew. Star Linda Lovelace later disavowed her career and claimed she did the sex scenes under duress from her husband Chuck Trainor. She died in a car accident in the 1982. Today the term Linda Syndrome denotes former porn actresses who deny their past.

1977 - Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disneyland.

1979- John Wayne died after a long struggle with cancer. Many believed his condition began as a result of filming the movie "The Conqueror" near the Nevada Atomic Test site. Half the crew of that film including all the stars and director died of cancer. When Wayne made a final appearance at the Academy Awards two months earlier he had purchased a small size tuxedo to hide his emaciated frame, but he was still too thin even then so he filled it out by wearing a scuba wetsuit underneath. He was 73.

1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying a majority of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly as Roy Disney had planned.

1987- Margaret Thatcher was re-elected to a third term as Britain’s Prime Minister.

1987- Britain noted the first outbreak of Mad Cow Disease.

1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with clay and beeswax. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for future special effects.

2002- Fox TV’s show American Idol premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: What famous historical figure’s dying words were “ Kiss me, Hardy.”

Answer: Admiral Lord Nelson won the great naval battle of Trafalgar, but was fatally wounded. As he lay below dying, when his flagship Capt. Hardy said “ The day is ours.” Nelson replied “ Kiss me Hardy”, then died.