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August 4, 2018
August 4th, 2018

Quiz: In American history, what was The No-Nothing Party?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In political systems, what is a junta?
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History for 8/4/2018
Birthdays: Percy Shelley, Hans Christian Andersen, Nicholas Conte' 1777-inventor of the modern pencil and the conte'-crayon, Louis Armstrong, William Pater, Dr Alexander Schure, Richard Belzer, Franco Corelli, Elizabeth-England's late Queen Mum, Roger Clemens, runner Mary Decker-Slaney, Billy-Bob Thornton is 64, President Barack Obama is 57

1181- A supernova was observed by Arab astronomers in the constellation Cassiopia.

1265- Battle of Evesham –Young Prince Edward Longshanks defeated the rebellious barons holding his father King Henry III of England captive. The leader of the rebel barons, Simon de Monfort had forced the King to acknowledge his creation of a House of Commons in Parliament. For that act old DeMonfort was so hated by the King's men that even after he was slain in battle they continued to chop his body to bits in a blind rage. But it was too late. Nothing could end the institution of a parliament of common men, curbing the capricious power of kings.

1578- Battle of Alcazar El Kebhir- King Sebastien of Portugal’s attempt to restart the long defunct Crusades, this time in Morocco, ended when he was defeated and killed.

1693 “ Come quickly Martin, I am tasting stars!”monk Dom Perignon invented champagne.

1735- N.Y. newspaper editor John Peter Zenger had been writing articles criticizing the Royal Governor for corruption. Past governors of New York, Maryland and North Carolina colonies were known fences for Caribbean pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard. This day German born Zenger's newspaper was shut down, and he was arrested for 'Seditious Libel". His trial and acquittal was seen as the first great victory in America for Freedom of the Press.

1753- George Washington became a Master Mason in the Freemason Lodge #4 of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The first Masonic lodge in America was founded in 1730 by Benjamin Franklin. Some think Freemasons akin to Fred Flintstones Waterbuffalo Lodge, but in the 1700’s Freemasonry had strong political anti-clerical ramifications. Most European intellectuals –Voltaire, Mozart, Casanova, Lafayette and Goethe were masons. Most U.S. Presidents were freemasons.

1776- The nice printed up Declaration of Independence we all recognize was officially signed. The declaration approved on July 2nd and published on July 4th was the rough draft. This day John Hancock signed that big flowing signature "So old King George won't need his spectacles". Today a nickname for a signature is a John Hancock. It was a gutsy thing to do, the signatures would be their death warrants if the rebellion was crushed.
During the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington D.C. the Declaration was hidden under a doorstep in Baltimore. For 30 years the Declaration hung in a window of the government patents office so people on the street could admire it. After few decades, the sun bleached the words almost to invisibility. Today millions are being spent on restoration efforts, like encasing it in pure helium.

1782- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber, the aunt of composer Karl Maria Von Weber. Mozart had first proposed to Constanze's sister but she chose another.

1789- The French Revolutionary Assembly abolished forever all rights of the nobility in France. The French aristocracy made up less than 1% of the population yet were given over 20% of the nation’s budget to play with and paid no taxes on their chateaus or lands. The Revolutionaries also abolished the system of High-Law and Low-Law.- In other words if some randy old Duke took a fancy to your wife or sister, you could do nothing but smile and hope he gave her some money for her trouble. These things more than the “Let Them Eat Cake” quote made people dance around the guillotine.

1792- The FRENCH REVOLUTION HEATS UP. Since the fall of the Bastille two years earlier France and King Louis XVI had tried to work as a constitutional monarchy guided by the Marquis de Lafayette. But Louis only played for time while negotiating with his royal relatives in Germany and Austria to send armies to help him put his peasants in their place.

By now the French nation had enough. Mobs stirred to anger by radicals like Danton and Marat marched on the Tuileries Palace demanding justice. The King Louis XVI's Swiss bodyguard opened fire on them . The enraged peasants tore the guards to pieces and looted the palace, sticking soldier's ears on the kings desk. The king and queen tried to escape out the back door but were grabbed by the mob. A flag was made from a Swiss red uniform coats- the very first Red Flag of Revolution. Lafayette later fled into exile and was imprisoned.

Standing in the street watching all this was a young unemployed lieutenant named Napoleon Bonaparte. He later wrote that if King Louis had the nerve to appear on a horse at the head of his supporters he could have still triumphed. Napoleons conclusion: " Quelle con!”- “What an Asshole!"

1821- 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post -published until 1969.

1855 - John Bartlett publishes his first book of "Familiar Quotations"

1874- Methodist clergyman John Vincent and Ohio businessman Lewis Miller began the Chautauqua Assembly in Northwestern New York. Under large summer tents lectures and training were given to Sunday school teachers and other church workers. The Chautauqua Movement grew into a national movement for religious revival and became a conservative rural force in turn of the century national politics.

1892-" Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when he saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.", etc. In Fall River Mass, Andrew and Abbie Borden were found brutally murdered and their daughter Elisabeth was accused. Ms. Borden pleaded innocence and cited a long history of abuse from her parents. She was acquitted but the murderer was never found. When Lizzie died peacefully in 1927 she left $30,000 to the ASPCA.

1914- WWI- grey clad spiked helmeted armies begin crossing into Belgian territory to deliver their knockout blow against France-aka the Schefflein Plan. This strategy violated the neutrality of Belgium which had been agreed to by treaty since 1839. When this was protested, German minister Bethman-Holveig bragged "we shall not be held by a scrap of paper!" This outrage brought England into the war against Germany and made handsome young King Albert of the Belgians into a international celebrity. Ironically, professional diplomat Betthman-Holveig had worked tirelessly for the last three weeks to try and prevent the war, but by now he was reduced to a mere a mouthpiece for the army.

1918- Young corporal Adolf Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class for bravery. He was quite proud of it and wore it on his uniform for the rest of his life. The German officer who recommended Hitler, and pinned his medal on him, Captain Hugo Gutmann, was a Jew.

1921 The Motion Picture Fund created.

1922- In honor of the passing of Alexander Graham Bell, all 13 million telephones in the United States observed three minutes of silence.

1925- Conrad Hilton opened the first Hilton Hotel in Dallas Texas.

1940- The Mayor of Montreal was arrested for telling French-Canadian citizens to resist the military draft to fight for Britain in World War II.

1942- The Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire-Marjorie Reynolds film the Holiday Inn released. The film featured Irving Berlin hit songs like White Christmas and Easter Parade but is hardly ever shown anymore because the Lincoln’s Birthday skit featured the cast in embarrassing minstrel blackface, singing “bout Massa Lincoln”.

1944- British pilot T.D. Dean uses his Spitfire to bump the wing of a German V-1 Flying rocket Bomb, causing it to flip over off course.

1944-Acting on a tip from a neighbor, the Gestapo discovered and arrested 16 year old Anne Frank and her family in their hiding place in an Amsterdam warehouse. All were sent to Auschwitz. Only her father Otto survived.

1955 –President Eisenhower authorizes $46 million for construction of CIA
headquarters in Langley Virginia.

1956- Elvis Presley released his version of the Big Mama Mabel Thornton song " You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog".

1964- The TONKIN GULF INCIDENT. North Vietnamese gunboats attacked the U.S.N. Maddox and the Turner Joy patrolling off their coast. The US claimed they were in international waters but the Pentagon Papers revealed that the Maddox was deliberately sent close in to the shore to provoke the Vietnamese to attack. The Maddox's captain testified he was 30 miles offshore when in reality he was 3 miles. For months the CIA had been conducting hit and run naval raids on the Vietnamese coast, but that was all still top secret. Although the U.S. already had advisers in the Vietnam for years this incident provided the legal pretext President Lyndon Johnson needed to escalate U.S. involvement up to 450,000 combat troops and trillions of dollars. Johnson had told his press attache' Bill Moyers:" Bill, if this Vietnam thing comes off I'll go down as one of the great presidents of this century, if not I'll be the goat.".....

1964- Rand Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg’s first day working at the Pentagon. Ellsberg would be the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

1984- Actor Johnny Depp opened his own club on the Sunset Strip called the Viper Room. The original club on that site had once been owned by mobster Bugsy Siegel.

1993- Japan admitted that during World War II they forced 200,000 Korean and Chinese women to become “comfort women”- i.e. prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers. The army organized this policy after in 1937 the massed rapes of Chinese women in Nanking made them look bad in the world press.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In political systems, what is a junta?

Answer: A junta is a small group governing, or wielding power over people in secret.


August 3, 2018
August 3rd, 2018

Quiz: In political systems, what is a junta?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What is the only profession protected in the U.S. Constitution?
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History for 8/3/2018
Birthdays: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Elisha Otis inventor of the elevator, John T. Scopes- the teacher accused in the Monkey Trial, Habib Bourghiba, Ernie Pyle, Gene Kelly, Lenny Bruce, Tony Bennett is 92, John Landis, Jay North, Dolores Del Rio, Leon Uris, Ann Klein, Martha Stewart, Martin Sheen is 78, John C. McGinley is 59

Happy National Mustard Day

216 B.C. THE BATTLE OF CANNAE. Hannibal's defeat of a much larger Roman army is one of the great pieces of strategy still studied today. He had crossed the Alps to attack Italy with 30 war elephants but only 3 or 4 survived the crossing. This victory annihilated the top generals of Rome and left nothing between him and the Eternal city. Yet Hannibal uncharacteristically hesitated. His cavalry commander Mago snarled:" You know how to win battles, but not a war." The Romans recovered, eventually drawing him off to Africa to protect his home city Carthage, where he was defeated by Scipio Africanis at Zama.

48 B.C.-Battle of Pharsalia- Julius Caesar decisively defeated his rival Pompey Magnus in northern Greece to become undisputed leader of Rome.

1305- Scots warrior William Wallace was betrayed to the English and captured while visiting the Glasgow house of a man named Robert Roe.

1347- THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS- When King Edward III attacked France to press his claim for it’s throne, the first city he attacked was the port of Calais. After a long vicious siege the leaders of Calais agreed to surrender. England kept Calais for 250 years. The king wanted to hang the burghers (city leaders) because of their stubborn resistance, but they were spared after pleas of mercy from Edward’s Queen. August Rodin created a beautiful statuary group the Burghers of Calais. The six men loaded down with chains and ropes around their necks, defiance still radiating in their faces, are a symbol of resistance for all oppressed peoples.

1460- Scottish King James II “Fire Face” had a thing for cannon. He imported a number of the newfangled technology from Flanders to blow holes in his enemies castles. This day he was besieging the castle of Roxburgh, when a cannon he was firing blew up in his face and killed him. Ouch!

1492- One half hour before dawn, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. This was the first of four voyages in search of the Indies. He took a linguist fluent in Turkish, Sanskrit and Hebrew to speak to any natives they might encounter.

1529- The Ladies Peace of Cambrai- The King of France Francis I and Spanish-German Emperor Charles V has fought a series of costly wars over who controlled Italy. Their hatred was so extreme that they even considered a personal duel. Nothing seemed to solve this feud and Europe was being wrecked. Finally Francis mother Anne of Savoy and Charles’ aunt Margaret of Austria, met without their permission and concluded a peace treaty without them.

1553- Mary Tudor the eldest daughter of the late King Henry VIII entered London in triumph. The schemes and corruption of the Duke of Somerset regency had been such a mess that even Protestant London was glad to have a real queen, even if she was Catholic. People brought out tables of food, danced and celebrated all night.

1610 - Englishman Henry Hudson with the Dutch fleet discovered a great bay on the Northeast coast of Canada and named it for himself- Hudson’s Bay.

1745- Bonnie Prince Charlie stepped on the soil of Scotland- at Arisca in the Hebrides. When a frightened Scottish lord asked him to go home, Charles Stuart replied:” But I am home.” The English Parliament offered a reward of 30,000 pounds for his arrest. So began the Great Highland Uprising, the last great campaign on British Soil.

1769- Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola made the first-ever recorded mention of the Rancho La Brea "tar pits" in Los Angeles: "The 3rd, we proceeded for three hours on a good road; to the right of it were extensive swamps of bitumen which is called chapapote. We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes.”

1807- Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested for treason. President Jefferson accused him of plotting to make himself dictator of a republic in newly acquired Louisiana and conquering Texas for himself.

1823-English Poet Lord Byron arrived in Greece, burning with a desire to help the Greeks attain independence.

1852- The first Harvard-Yale boat race.

1858- British explorer John Speeckes discovered Lake Victoria Nyanza, the source of the Nile River. The question of the Nile's origins had become a cause celebre among British explorers and debate raged fiercely. Speeckes was traveling with famed Orientalist Richard Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights stories, but Burton absented himself from the last leg of the journey because of malaria. He regretted this decision for the rest of his life and grew to hate Speeckes. Speeckes and Burton began a feud that may or may not have contributed to Speeckes accidental suicide in 1864.

1882- Congress passed the first Immigration Act, trying to restrict what had been an open door policy since the Pilgrims. But the act had a heavy European bias. Chinese immigrants were banned for ten years.

1916- Sir Roger Casement was executed for treason in London. Casement was an Anglo-Irish patriot who worked with Germany to smuggle weapons to Dublin for the Irish Easter Sunday Uprising. He also exposed human rites violations done by the Belgians in the Congo and against Indians in Peru. He has been called the “Father of Twentieth Century Human Rights Investigators.” After his conviction, many leading English intellectuals like Arthur Conan-Doyle and George Bernard Shaw urged for mercy for Casement. But the government produced his “black diaries” taken from his home that proved he was homosexual. All the bad publicity silenced the mercy movement, and Sir Roger was hanged.

1921- The first aerial crop dusting in Troy, Ohio to kill caterpillars.

1933- The first Mickey Mouse watches go on sale.

1943- In Sicily Gen. George S. Patton while touring a field hospital encountered a Pvt. Herman Kuhl. Private Kuhl wasn't physically wounded, but suffering from what is called today Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Patton angrily accused him of cowardice and slapped him down. Allied High Command ordered Patton to apologize to Kuhl and the entire army, then recalled him to England. He would have no part in military actions until after D-Day, to the amazement of the Nazi generals. Patton never could understand battle fatigue, I guess he never got tired of it.

1948- Now that Baseball was finally integrated Satchel Page, genius of the Negro Leagues, makes his belated Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians. A 45 year old rookie. Page once said:" Don't look back, something may be gaining on you."

1948- Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers publicly denounced a top Truman presidential aide Alger Hiss of being a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a protégé of both Franklin Roosevelt and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Hiss investigation eventually convicted Hiss of espionage based on the 'pumpkin papers', incriminating documents on microfilm Chambers said were found hidden in a pumpkin. The senate investigation shot to national prominence a new young congressman named Richard Nixon.

1949 -The National Basketball League is founded.

1958 – USN nuclear submarine Nautilus crossed the North Pole under the icecap.

1961- The first airline hijacked to Cuba.

1963 –Unemployed television producer Alan Sherman released an album of comedy songs at the request of his friends. Called “My Son the Folksinger” it contained the hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, Here I am at, Camp Granada” and became an overnight sensation.

1966- While celebrating his 39th birthday, Comedian Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose. The groundbreaking comedian who coined the term “T & A” was arrested in 1964 and charged with obscenity for using the "F" word in his act. President Johnson and his opponent Senator Barry Goldwater could swear enough to make a sailor blush, but comedians were only supposed to make mother-in-law jokes.
.Lenny Bruce did six months in jail, and left broken physically and financially. No club would dare hire him. Phil Spector said: “ Lenny died of an overdose of cops” Yet he is the model for all modern stand-up comedy. No one was ever arrested again for telling jokes. Whether he leapt to his death from his apartment window yelling “ I’m Super Jew! ” is a matter of legend.

1975- The Louisiana Superdome stadium is dedicated. Some football coaches like Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears were skeptical:” Football is meant to be played in snow and mud. Dome stadiums are for Roller Derby!”

1981- U.S. Air traffic controllers (PATCO) go on strike despite Pres. Reagan's warning they would be fired. Reagan was once president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Ironically the only U.S. President who has ever been a labor leader, was the most union-busting president of our time.

1996- The Macarena, by Los Del Rio, becomes the #1 hit worldwide.

2012- At the London Olympics, swimmer Michael Phelps won his final race. That made his total earning 21 Olympic medals, 17 of them gold.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the only profession protected in the U.S. Constitution?

Answer: Journalist. The rights of a free press.


Aug 2, 2018
August 2nd, 2018

Quiz: What is the only profession protected in the U.S. Consitution?

Yesterday’s Question: What character in a classic movie died whispering “ The horror…the…horror.”
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History for 8/2/2018
Birthdays: Pierre L’Enfant- the designer of Washington DC, Jack Warner, Myrna Loy, Sir Arthur Bliss, James Baldwin, Carrol O'Connor, Joanna Cassidy is 58, Pete Sampras, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster), Bill Scott the voice of Bullwinkle, Bob Beamon, Wes Craven, Edward Furlong, Kevin Smith is 48, Peter O'Toole, Marie Louise Parker is 54

National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.

47BC- Battle of Zela. Pharnaces the King of Pontus- a land today in the middle of Turkey, decided he could take advantage of the Roman civil war by rising in revolt. He called for all the eastern provinces throw off the Roman yoke. This day Julius Caesar took time off from Cleopatra, and hurried up to Pontus, where he defeated Pharnaces army in one large battle. Caesar then sent his famous three word report to the Senate: “ VENI VIDI VICI- I came, I saw, I conquered.”

1100- King William II Rufus (the Red), son of William the Conqueror, was shot with a poisoned arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His son Henry I became king. Truth be told, nobody liked Rufus very much, so it was probably not an accident.

1589- French King Henri III de Valois is stabbed in the guts by a demented Dominican monk, Brother Jacques Clement. He thought the King wasn't doing enough to stamp out Heresy. The kings last words were: "That little bastard has killed me. Kill him!"
Henry IV de Bourbon became one of Frances most beloved rulers. The children's song "Frere' Jacques" is about this assassin "Brother Jacques, Why are you sleeping?" another bad ruler needs stabbing, in other words.

1803- The British in India declare the Second Maharratta War against Skindia and Bousla, pro-French Rajahs in the Deccan penninsula.

1815- After Waterloo, a pro-royalist mob lynched a veteran general named Brune. Brune was a radical even before Napoleon promoted him. He still had Death to Tyrants tattooed on his chest from his days as a revolutionary. As the rope went around his neck Brune called out:" To stand on a hundred battlefields and die like this!"

1858 –As a result of the Sepoy Rebellion, the Government of India was transferred from the Honorable East India Company to direct Crown control.

1858- The first public mailboxes installed on Boston & NYC streets.

1865- The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah, after sinking a dozen U.S whaling ships in the Bering Sea off Alaska, is told by a passing British merchantman that the American Civil War had been over since April. They refused to believe it until shown some newspapers. Yes indeed, its really over. Whoops! My bad…

1873- The first San Francisco cable car began service. Inventor Arthur Halliday had conceived the idea in 1869 after seeing a horse drawn tram fail to get up a steep hill.

1876- In Deadwood South Dakota at Nuttall & Manns No.10 Saloon gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back and killed while playing cards. He was 39 years old. He was holding the "Deadman's Hand" aces & eights all black, and a jack of hearts. His assailant 'Crooked Nose" Jack McCall was found hiding in a butchers shop. McCall had been cleaned out by Hickok in an earlier card game, yet after the murder he bragged about how much money he had. Which lead some to speculate he was paid to murder Hickok. Acquitted in an initial trial in Deadwood, he was retried in Yankton S.D. and hanged. An eyewitness said:" It was very sad. Bill had won the hand too."

1877- The San Francisco Public Library dedicated.

1909- The US issues the first Lincoln head pennies.

1914- THE GUNS OF AUGUST-General mobilization began throughout Europe for World War I. Large armies moved towards their frontiers amid hysterical street demonstrations of patriotism, Jubilant mobs shouting "A Berlin!" "Nach Paris!" ring out as Europe prepared to destroy itself. In Russia, Czar Nicholas II in a solemn religious ceremony takes the oath his ancestor Alexander I had taken to drive out Napoleon. In Berlin a torchlight parade stopped under the Japanese Embassy to salute their friends. They were unaware that Japan had already decided to join the other side. The terrified diplomats thought the crowd was there to lynch them.
Diplomats stood around stunned that all their efforts could not avoid the catastrophe.
In Berlin, German foreign minister Von Bethman-Holveig mumbled: "How did this all happen? If only I knew..." In London, Lord Grey watched the lamplighters on the street and reflected-" The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

1914- Holland and Switzerland declared their neutrality in the coming Great War, closed their borders and mobilized their forces.

1920- Marcus Garvey addressed a rally of 25,000 African Americans at Madison Garden New York. He called upon Black Americans not to integrate with White Society but to work for economic self-sufficiency and an eventual return to Africa. Garvey told biographers he was never born, he had “combusted himself” on the corner of 125 & Lennox in Harlem.

1923- President Warren Harding died suddenly in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. He was touring the country to get away from the 'Tea Pot Dome'' bribery scandal in Wash. The official cause of death was listed as “ a stroke of apoplexy”. It was rumored he may have committed suicide or had eaten bad crab meat. A popular idea was that First Lady Florence “Flossie” Harding had poisoned him. Harding was a womanizer and Flossie was well aware of his indiscretions; She refused an autopsy and had him quickly buried. She controlled all media coverage. To the press she was the Duchess. Nan Britton, one of Warren Harding’s tootsies, immediately sued for $50,000 for the daughter she bore Harding. She lost but wrote a best selling book called the President’s Daughter in 1927. “Silent Cal” Coolidge became President.

1934- Elderly President of the German Republic Paul von Hindenburg died, leaving Chancellor Adolf Hitler alone in charge of Germany. Hitler had waited for the old man to croak before dispensing with the parliamentary niceties. Hindenburg’s death signaled the official end of the Weimar Republic. Hitler combined the offices of President and Chancellor and becomes Der Fuehrer- the Leader.

1939- Albert Einstein then living in New Jersey, wrote a famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the potential power of atomic energy. That the US must develop atomic bombs before the Nazis do. The Manhattan Project was the result. In later years Einstein described this letter as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

1940- King Gustav of Sweden sent a note to both Adolf Hitler and King George VI offering to be the go-between to start talks to end World War Two. All sides refused.

1961 - Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club.

1962- If you are a fan of the “Marilyn Monroe was done in by the Kennedy’s ” conspiracy theory, a recently unearthed CIA document dated this day mentioned that Marilyn’s bungalow was under electronic surveillance. Also that she kept a “red book” diary. The diary disappeared after her death, two nights from now.

1971- President Nixon acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was maintaining 30,000 troops secretly fighting in Laos.

1979- Yankee baseball star catcher Thurmon Munson died when he crashed his private plane near Akron Ohio. He was 32.

1990 –After Kuwait refused to forgive Iraq’s outstanding debts. 100,000 troops of Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What character in a classic movie died whispering “ The horror…the…horror.”

Answer: Marlon Brando playing Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.


August 1, 2018
August 1st, 2018

Question: What character in a classic movie died whispering “ The horror…the…horror.”

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Only once in 90 years did the Academy Awards give out two best picture Oscars. When and what were they?

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History for 8/1/2018
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Claudius, Emperor Pertinax, Francis Scott Key, William Clark of Lewis & Clark, Herman Melville, Robert Todd Lincoln, Geoffrey Holder, Yves St. Laurent, Giancarlo Giannini, Dom Deluise, Jerry Garcia, Coolio, Sam Mendes
31 B.C. Marc Anthony fell on his sword. It wasn't an accident, that’s how they did themselves in back then. Most people felt the final showdown between Marc Anthony and Augustus would be much bloodier than the war between Caesar and Pompey. But after the naval defeat of Actium, Anthony’s supporters melted away and he was alone.
14 A.D. The Roman Senate voted to change the name of Sextilis Mensis (month number 6) sacred to Ceres (Demeter) to the Month of the deified Augustus, or August.
Except for February, the calendar system of Sosigenes alternated one month at 30 days with the next month at 31. But the family of the Emperor Augustus did not like that Julius Caesar's month had 31 days, while theirs had only 30. So they ordered the Senate to borrow a day from February, a month nobody liked anyway, which went to 28.

1096- Peter the Hermit's Crusade, in reality an enormous horde of chanting, bloodthirsty peasants, arrived at Constantinople. Their nominal leaders were the monk Peter and Walter Sans Sou or Walter the Penniless. They had spent the march through Europe massacring Jewish enclaves in many cities, and the Byzantine Emperor Alexius didn’t want them turning his city into a war zone. So he had them ferried them over to Asia without allowing them to enter his gates. They were soon destroyed by the first large Saracen force they encountered. The real First Crusade army arrived months later. 1291- SWITZERLAND BORN- The rebellious peasants of three Helvetian cantons gather on Rutli meadow and pledge to unite in an Everlasting League against foreign oppression. Modern historians doubt that anything happened on Rutli meadow other than cows grazing, but it’s a good story anyway.

1485 - Henry VII Tudor’s army invaded England to overthrow King Richard III.

1690- The besieged city of Londonderry was rescued by the army of William of Orange.

1714- George Louis/Ludwig, German Elector of Hanover, became George Ist King of Great Britain upon the death of Queen Anne, last of the Orange dynasty. He never trusted his English subjects, they had too many revolutions, too many confusing Parliamentary checks and balances and had once beheaded their king. George spoke no English ”The English asked me to Rule them, not to Speak to them!”.

1716- The first sculling race, down the Thames from London to Chelsea. Stroke! Stroke!

1740- Thomas Arne's song "Rule Britannia" is performed for the first time.

1744- British chemist Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen, first calling it "dephlogisticated air". Before this doctors knew how the heart, lungs and blood operated, but no one was really sure why. Sir William Harvey discovered the circulatory system, but thought it brought only nutrients from food. Some thought the heart was a little furnace that kept the blood warm, others thought it sifted blood as it passed through the ventricle walls like a cheesecloth. Leonardo da Vinci accurately drew the chambers of the heart, but he didn’t know either.

1793 – Revolutionary France became the 1st country to use the metric system.

1797- According to C.S. Forrester, his British naval hero Horatio Hornblower received his captain's commission today.

1798- BATTLE OF ABU KIR or ABOUKIR BAY. Also called THE BATTLE OF THE NILE so it doesn’t confuse it with a land battle of Aboukir happening at the same time. The Nile itself is 20 miles away from Abukir Bay but it sounds better in dispatches. British Admiral Horatio Nelson caught Napoleon's fleet in an Egyptian harbor and destroyed it in a spectacular night battle.

Nelson bore down upon the French ships even though it was already past 4 p.m.. The furious cannonading lit up the evening sky and caused the windows to rattle in nearby Alexandria. The English ships each had four lanterns hung on their stern rails so they could tell each other apart in the dark. The French complained about the English sailors disconcerting habit of cheering like a football match whenever an enemy ship went down or was dismasted. The French Admiral Brousse', his legs blown off by a cannonball, was propped up in an armchair on his poopdeck and died directing the fight. Nelson was wounded in the head by flying splinters and was temporarily blinded by his own blood.

Fighting was over by dawn as the exhausted sailors dropped from their guns dead asleep. The victory ruined Napoleon's efforts to destroy the British Empire through Egypt and Turkey and link up with Indian Maharratta Tippoo Sahib in India. 1805- Aaron Burr has dinner with Gen. Andrew Jackson in Nashville. The former Vice President was wanted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton and was plotting a mercenary invasion of the northernmost territory of Spanish Mexico called Texas. After President Jefferson had Burr arrested for treason Jackson denied this dinner ever happened. Twenty-five years later, when Andy Jackson was president the elderly Burr tried to greet him in public in New York. Jackson turned pale and “ he recoiled as though he had been shot."

1861- The Empire of Brazil became one of the few nations to recognize the independence of the Confederate States of America.

1876- Colorado became a state. Because it happened in the year of the American centennial, Colorado calls itself the Centennial State.

1881- Angel Island in San Francisco Bay was established as a US gov quarantine station. Soon it was converted into an immigration station to control the influx of newcomers from China and Japan. Angel Island became the Pacific version of Ellis Island.

1893 - Henry Perky & William Ford patent Shredded Wheat cereal. 1914- Count Friedrich von Portales, the German ambassador to Russia, suffering from nervous exhaustion after a sleepless week of negotiations, appeared in the office of the Czar's foreign minister Nikolai Sazonov. He asked if Russia had reconsidered Germany's ultimatum that Russia demobilize. Sazonov said they did not. Whereupon Portales pulled a paper out his pocket and read the Declaration of War: "His Majesty the Emperor, my august sovereign, accepts the challenge in the name of the empire and now considers himself at war with Russia!"
Portales then burst into tears and was comforted by his old friend Sazonov. Late that night Czar Nicholas II was lowering himself into his bathtub with a glass of tea when a final telegram pleading for peace came from Kaiser Wilhelm. "Silly man! Hadn't he just declared war on me?" Nicholas remarked. He wrote he slept soundly that night. 1917- Frank Little, native-American union organizer for the I.W.W. (the Wobblies) is beaten by a mob and hanged from a railroad trestle. His murder had originally been offered to new young Pinkerton detective Dashell Hammett, who refused.

1919- In the postwar chaos of the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bela Kun seized power in Budapest and tried to set up a Soviet regime like Lenin in Russia. This day he was deposed and Admiral Horty began a purge of all leftists. The violence in Hungary inspired young scientist Dr Edward Teller to be a livelong opponent of Communism. Teller developed the Hydrogen Bomb. Bela Kun fled to Moscow where Josef Stalin had him shot in the Great Purges of 1936.

1924- Six months after his death Russian Leader Nikolai Lenin’s mummified body is unveiled in his great tomb in Red Square. After the USSR fell there were many calls to finally bury the Commie-Under-Glass, but in 2001 the decision was made to leave him as is.

1933- The WPA Arts Project set up to employ starving artists on large public works projects like murals for libraries and bridges, etc. Artists like Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, Dorothea Lang, Orson Welles and Bernice Abbott got commissions.

1936- The opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Berlin. The first Olympic torch lighting ceremony. United States was the only nation to refuse to dip their flag in salute to the host head of state- Adolf Hitler. Filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was given unlimited access to document the Games. She pioneered the use of slow motion, tracking shots and closeups to revolutionized the way sports was filmed.

1940- Hitler released War Directive #17, calling for increased air and sea operations against the British Isles. Operations were to commence August 5th which der Fuehrer called “The Day of the Eagle”. We call it the Battle of Britain. 1943- Late at night off the coast of Borneo the little torpedo boat P.T. 109 rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amaqiri. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy and his crew swam to an uncharted island. They will be rescued when a native in a canoe delivers a message from Kennedy scrawled on a coconut. “Naru Is. Native knows it. 11 alive need small boat.” When President, Kennedy had the native man to the White House and kept the coconut on his desk in the Oval Office. In June 2002 Dr Robert Ballard, who had discovered the Titanic, found the wreckage of the PT 109 on the ocean bottom. 1946- Congress authorized all the leftover World War II army surplus to be sold off and the money given out as educational scholarships. The Fullbright Scholarships.

1946- Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act. It nationalized atomic energy research but created a civilian commission to review peacetime uses of atomic energy. 1946-The first drive-in bank teller opens in Chicago. 1953- The Alan Ladd movie Shane released.

1960 - Chubby Checker releases "The Twist" and starts a world wide dance craze.

1960 –A young Baptist preachers daughter who had sung nothing but gospel went into a recording booth to try her hand at R & B. Aretha Franklin’s career began.
1966- TEXAS TOWER WHITMAN-Lunatic Charles Whitman barricaded himself into the steeple of Texas University and shot 44 people at random during a day long gunbattle with police. The tragedy reached comic proportions when Texas recreational gun owners hauled out their pieces and blazed away alongside the police. Whitman's Marine training was cited for his excellent marksmanship and his eccentric behavior, like constantly polishing his shoes during the day long battle.

1970- The first San Diego Comicon. Shel Dorf’s idea of a mega comic & fantasy fan convention has run continually ever since, and had brought in the Hollywood studios. There have always been other comicons in other cities, but San Diego’s has become the premiere event, averaging hundreds of thousands of attendees. 1971- The Rock Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison. The first charity-fund raising rock-concert.

1971- The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour debuted.

1971- PBS started a new television series called Masterpiece Theater hosted by Alastair Cooke. It’s first presentation was a the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The high quality BBC and Thames Television programs became so popular in the USA, that people said PBS stood for Preferably British Shows.

1972- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s first articles in The Washington Post exposing the depths of the conspiracy in the Watergate Scandal. The two journalists claimed they were fed information by someone very high in the Nixon White House who would only give his name as Deep Throat. In 2005 his identity was at last revealed as W. Mark Felt, the assistant head of the FBI. Their story was dramatized in the film All The Presidents Men.

1972- 187th Tactom Flight Group of the Air Texas National Guard suspended the flight privileges of Lieutenant George W. Bush for failing to take a drug test. The future US president went AWOL (away without leave) from May 1972-to May 1973 to work on his dads’ congressional campaign. It was well known then that the National Guard was an easy way for rich kids to avoid being sent to real combat in Vietnam. His unit was called the Champagne Unit.

1973- With the tag line “Where were you in ’62?” the film American Graffiti opened in theaters. The hit made skinny young director George Lucas a player in Hollywood, and made stars of kids like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus and Susanne Somers.

1975- Billy Martin became manager of the New York Yankees. The hard-drinking, bad tempered Martin became one of the more colorful managers to lead the pinstripe crew.

1976- Elizabeth Taylor had married Richard Burton a second time. Today she divorced Richard Burton a second time. This was her 6th marriage.

1976- The expansion team The Seattle Seahawks play their first NFL game. They lost their preseason opener to the SF 49ers 27-20. 1981-I WANT MY MTV! MTV goes on the air, rock videos 24 hours a day. The idea was funded by a consortium of investors including Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, then on the board of 3M Paper company. If you put on the TV this day you saw a slide of an astronaut for several hours, then finally a voice said :”Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Rock & Roll.” The first rock video played was by a British New-Wave Band called the Buggles entitled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” followed by a Pat Benatar single.

1986- Howard the Duck premiered. George Lucas first major flop.

1991- elderly movie queen Heddy Lamarr was busted in Tampa Florida for shoplifting.

1994- NASDAQ stock trading on Wall Street was halted for 35 minutes because a squirrel gnawed through a main fiber optic cable at the organization’s computer center in Connecticut.

2007- THE MINNEAPOLIS BRIDGE COLLAPSE. The I-35 Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi through the center of Minneapolis, collapsed during the afternoon rush hour, plunging 113 cars into the river. It killed 13 people and injured 145. The tragedy was a wake up call to America’s neglected infrastructure. Most American bridges were 40-70 years old and built only intended to last 75 years. In Los Angeles in 2014, a ninety-year old water pipe burst spilling 12 million gallons, this during a drought. Chunks of the Brooklyn Bridge keep falling off into the East River.
In 1958 the U.S. spent 12% of the Federal Budget on infrastructure, in 2007, 2%.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Only once in 90 years did the Academy Awards give out two best picture Oscars. When and what were they?

Answer: In 1929 they awarded the first Best Picture to the war epic Wings, but gave a special Oscar for Murnau’s film Sunrise. The later decided this system is too confusing, so they cut it back to one Best Picture.


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