Quiz: When asked “ Why do you rob banks?”, who replied:” Because that’s where the money is..”..?

Yesterday’s question answered below: President Obama is being called by his critics a Nazi-Socialist-Stalinist-Socialist–type guy. So, was there a difference between Hitler’s Socialist Germany and Stalin’s Socialist Russia?
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History for 8/12/2009
Birthdays: King George IV, Cecil B. DeMille, The alien Alf- 1757, Cantinflas, Buck Owens, George Hamilton, Edith Hamilton, Diamond Jim Brady, screenwriter William Goldman, Mtsislav Rostropovitch, Xenia Sharpe (educator who invented the childrens reader Dick and Jane, See Dick Run...etc.) Kathy Lee Bates-the author of the song America the Beautiful, Klara Schickelgruber- Hitlers mom, Dominique Swain, Pete Samprass, John Casale-I'm not Fredo! Casey Affleck is 34.

The Golden 12th. In England this is the beginning of Grouse hunting season.

1530- The Medici family had ruled the Republic Florence previously as merchant politicians. Now they turned the city-state into the hereditary Duchy of Tuscany. This day the Republic ended when the city was stormed by a Medici-Papal army. The city fell, despite the fortifications being designed by Michelangelo. They didn't stop the enemy, but they must have looked GREAT!

1658-Happy Birthday NYPD! The first city police force in America was set up in New Amsterdam ( I wonder if they said-"Booeck'eym²)

1799- Napoleon spent the night meditating at the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

1805- Meriwhether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame climbed a mountain peak in the Bitterroot Range of Rocky Mountains near the present day Montana -Idaho border. He had traveled this far on the theory of Thomas Jefferson’s that the Missouri River and Columbia River were the same river so one should be able to travel by water from New Orleans to the Pacific Ocean undisturbed. When Lewis climbed this mountain he expected to see on the other side gentle rolling plains to the Pacific. Instead he saw even higher Snowcapped Mountains and more mountains behind them, the Great Continental Divide. It dawns on Lewis that this is one big mother of a continent and that river theory was all wrong.

1812 Austrian Dr Joseph Lister is the first surgeon to use disinfectant during surgery. It took a long time for Lister’s hygienic practices to catch on. During the American Civil War surgeons would sharpen their scalpel on the sole of their boot before commencing the incision.

1813- British commander the Duke of Wellington liberated Madrid, Spain, forcing out the French under Napoleons brother, Joseph Bonaparte.

1821- Stephen Austin entered Texas with the first group of Anglo colonists invited by the Mexicans to bolster their sparse population. It brought a land rush of poor families from the U.S. They would write on their doors before they left G.T.T. or Gone To Texas.

1822-Vicount Lord Castelreagh, chief British diplomat and statesman during the Napoleonic wars, goes mad after eating hot buttered toast and kills himself with a butter knife. He had been warned by his doctor Lord Graydon against eating hot buttered toast. Shortly afterwards his doctor Lord Graydon also committed suicide, but he didn't have any hot buttered toast. A satirical epitaph was penned by Lord Byron:
The human race will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this;
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh...
Stop, Traveller, and piss.

1851- Mr Issac Singer received a patent on his new sewing machine. Elias Howe, who had invented the sewing machine first, immediately sued him. But Singers improved design was so much superior to Howes that he quickly recouped al the penalties paid and eventually bought out Howe. The Singer Sewing Machine Company is still around today.

1869- San Francisco lunatic Joshua Norton, who called himself Norton Ist, Emperor of the United States, today published an Imperial Edict outlawing the Democratic and Republican Parties. Hmmm… he may be on to something!

1877-THE BIRTH OF RECORDED SOUND. Thomas Edison announced his sound recording invention and demonstrates it by recording "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on a tin cylinder. Edison never quite understood the possibilities of a music industry and was convinced that the recorded sound was going to be a used primarily for people to listen to the voices of deceased family, sort of like a voice from the grave. That idea was so popular that it translated to the Logo of the RCA Company with the familiar image of the dog listening to "His master's voice". The original image of that dog listening to his master's voice, had the dog sitting on a coffin. A few years later Emile Berliner from Georgia invented the flat record disc. Edison thought the disc was clumsy and too fragile. In the future he declared, everyone would use recording cylinders.

1898- Annexation Day in Hawaii. The U.S. formally takes over the Kingdom of Hawaii. The government of Queen Liliokalani had been overthrown a group of Yankee sugar plantation owners and handed over to the U.S.

1915 - "Of Human Bondage," by William Somerset Maugham, published.

1927- the William Wellman movie ³WINGS²opened with Howard Arliss and Buddy Rogers, the only silent film to win best picture at the Academy Awards- because the awards were only started the following year and by then sound was all the rage.

1932 Aldous Huxley's Brave New World first published. Before anyone ever heard of stem cells, Huxley had written a scholarly paper on the moral dangers inherent in controlled eugenics. Writer H.L. Mencken urged him to put his ideas in a fiction form to reach a wider audience. The title comes from Shakespeare's the Tempest " Oh Brave New World, that has such people in it!'

1944- JOE KENNEDY JR. The Allies were at a loss at how to stop the German V-1 and V-2 rockets being fired at London. They had wreaked more havoc than the great German bombing raids in the Battle of Britain four years earlier. Allied Bomber command came up with the idea of filling a B-26 with high explosive and after getting to the coast the pilots would bail out and the plane would complete it’s trip by remote control to destroy the rocket launching pads in Calais. The first pilot to volunteer for this dangerous mission was Joe Kennedy Jr., eldest son of the famous Kennedy clan.
After ten minutes in flight the plane exploded before Joe could bail out. Ironically the Germans had moved the V-2 base out of range anyway. Just before he left he telephoned a friend in London: I’m going into my act now. If I don’t make it back tell dad I love him.² The grief-stricken elder Kennedy transferred his plans for political power to his second son John F. Kennedy.

1951- Bob McKimson’s Warner Bros short Hillbilly Hair. The short includes the long routine animated by Emery Hawkins when Bugs Bunny takes over calling a square dance and uses it to torture the two twin brother Hillbillies who are after him.

1953- The Soviet Union exploded its first Hydrogen Bomb, nicknamed by the CIA "Joe-4" for Joe Stalin. The scientific team led by Andrei Sakharov called it the Layer Cake-alternating layers of hydrogen and uranium fuel wrapped around a conventional atomic bomb. Like Robert Oppenheimer in America, Andre Sakharov later became a leading critic of the nuclear arms race.

1961-Soviet and East German troops start building the Berlin Wall, which remained a symbol of Cold War tension until it was pulled down spontaneously by Berliners in 1989.

1981- IBM introduced its first PC- personal computer and PC-DOS I.. Unlike Apple, IBM shared the basic hardware design, so a myriad of cheaper competitor PC’s soon flooded the market.

1988- Martin Scorcese’ film The Last Temptation of Christ opened in theaters to howls of protests from religious groups. There had been more inflammatory interpretations of the Christ story on screens in the past like Pasolini¹s Gospel According to Saint Matthew and the Canadian film Hail Mary, but the church groups weren¹t that media savvy yet. Like all these protest efforts, all the controversy did was boost it's box office.

1999- In Yorkshire England Tish, the world’s oldest goldfish, died at age 43.

2000- In the waters off Norway the Russian submarine Kursk suffered an explosion and sank. No one is sure what happened, the theory is an old torpedo exploded in the bow. Out of pride Russian Naval authorities refused offers of international help to rescue the remaining sailors trapped on the sea bottom. By the time they relented and accepted help, all 116 men were dead.

2008- Entertainer and producer Merv Griffin died at age 81. The creator of games shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, his last statement on his website was " I was planning to go on vacation, but this is not the destination I intended."
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Yesterday’s Question. President Obama is being called by his critics a Nazi-Socialist-Stalinist-Socialist–type guy. So, was there a difference between Hitler’s National Socialist Germany and Stalin’s Socialist Russia?

Answer: To all but our present generation, Nazis and Soviets were considered the polar opposites of the political spectrum. The Soviet Government took over all businesses and private property ( Dictatorship of the Proletariat.), while the extreme right wing Nazis had large corporations like Bayer, Krupp and Daimler-Benz as enthusiastic partners. Hitler gave medals to friendly businessmen like Henry Ford. After the war, these Nazi corporate leaders were left in control of their companies, because the Americans considered them anti-socialist enemies of the Communists. So, make up your mind, you can’t be called a Nazi and a Communist at the same time.

Quiz: I know this is silly, but there is so much dimwit history out there on American political shows. President Obama is being called by his critics a Nazi-Socialist-Stalinist-Soviet -Socialist– type guy. So, was there a difference between Hitler’s Socialist Germany and Stalin’s Socialist Russia?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: There was an old Scottish song titled “ Roaming in the Gloaming”. What is gloaming?
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History for 8/11/2009
Birthdays: Antonio Salieri, Frederick Ludwig Jahn 1778- founder of the Gymnastics Movement, Alex Haley, Jack Haley, Rev Jerry Falwell, Hulk Hogan- real name Terry Bollier- he’s 58, Dick Browne the creator of Hagar the Horrible, Steve Wozniak the co-founder of Apple Computers, Raymond Leppard, Lloyd Nolan, Mike Douglas, Patti Duke Astin

Today is the Feast day of Saint Claire of Assisi, who followed Saint Francis into renouncing the world and formed the sisterhood of nuns called the Poor Claires. Their rule of poverty was so harsh that the Vatican criticized them for making everyone else in the Church look bad.

1297-French king Louis IX canonized a saint. While St. Louis was running around the Middle East being Saintly, his mother Blanche of Castile was ruling France with an iron hand. She crushed revolts, beat back invasions and created one of the most enlightened courts since Eleanor of Aquitaine. But since the Medieval mind couldn't accept that a woman could do anything like that, not much was written about her.

1896 - Harvey Hubbell patents electric light bulb socket with a pull chain

1909-The first S.O.S.-'Save Our Ship' Morse signal sent by the liner S.S.Arapahoe off Cape Hatteras North Carolina.

1932- Rin Tin Tin died. The German shepherd was the first animal movie star and for awhile was the mainstay of struggling little Warner Bros studio. Jack Warner called him “our little rent check.”

1949- Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind" was hit by a taxicab and died 5 days later.

1954- Formal peace treaties signed between French Colonial forces and Communist VietMinh ending 7 1/2 years of war.

1956- Abstract Artist Jackson Pollack, known as Jack the Dripper, died when he drunkenly drove his car into a tree near East Hampton.

1957- The Toyota Car Company of Japan introduces itself to the United States with a car called the Toyopet. It's first years sales are so bad they almost gave up on the U.S.

1962- actor Sir Lawrence Olivier founded the National Theatre in London.

1965- BURN, BABY, BURN- THE WATTS RIOTS- 6 days of urban warfare began when an angry crowd attacked some LAPD apprehending a drunken black motorist named Marquette Frye. 34 deaths, 1000 injured. This was the first of similar riots, which erupted in a number of U.S. cities that year including Detroit, Newark and Washington D.C.

1972- San Antonio Texas holds it’s first Cheech & Chong Day.

1984- COLD WAR CHUCKLES- President Ronald Reagan was asked to do some sound checks for a nationwide radio address. He said into the mike: "Today we have passed legislation that will ban Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes..."
The joke got out to the press and didn't do much to calm new cold war tensions.

1997- LA police wrestle down and arrest actor Christian Slater. They encountered him in a cocaine delirium shouting “The Germans are coming to kill us all!”

2001-First day shooting on the film Hero, directed by Zyiang Yi Mou.

2002- The Parliament of the Republic of Turkmenestahn passed a bill renaming the months of the year for their President Saparmurat Niyazov the Turkmenbashi- Father of all the Turkmen. He was made president for life in 1999. Mr Niyazov had ruled the country since he was appointed Communist Party chief in 1985 when it was still part of the Soviet Union. He quickly developed a cult of personality, suppressing legitimate political opposition. Much of the cash for grandiose palaces and statues is thought to stem from deals involving Turkmenistan's rich oil and gas reserves. He has also issued a decree officially extending adolescence until the age of 25 and postponing old age officially until age 85. Saparmurat Niyazov died in 2006.
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Yesterdays Quiz: There was an old Scottish song titled “ Roaming in the Gloaming”. What is gloaming?

Answer: Gloaming is the term for the period in between daylight and night, the last warm golden light of the day.

Quiz: There was an old Scottish song titled “ Roaming in the Gloaming”. What is gloaming?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?
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History for 8/10/2009
Birthdays: Alexander Glauzunov, Billie Holiday, Eddie Fisher, Leo Fender, Herbert Hoover, Polish King Jan III Sobieski, Norma Shearer, Rhonda Fleming, Jimmy Dean, Justin Theroux, Rosanna Arquette is 49, Antonio Banderas is 48

70 A.D.- JERUSALEM DESTROYED BY THE ROMANS- After a prolonged siege, the Roman legions of Vespasian break into the city and crush the Jewish revolt with great slaughter and destruction. The cedar panels and muslin curtains of the Great Temple of Herod catch fire and the entire temple is destroyed but for an outer building retaining wall, known thereafter as the Wailing Wall. One interesting detail is most adherents of the new sect called Christians had fled the city early, believing this cataclysm to be the first sign of the fulfillment of prophesies of the Second Coming of Christ.

70AD-One mystery about the destruction of Jerusalem is the disappearance of the ARK OF THE CONVENANT which was taken from the Great Temple of Herod by the Romans and kept as a treasure in Rome. Some say it was carried off by the Goths when Rome fell four hundred years later and buried with their king Alaric. Another legend said a Christian Roman General named Valerian returned the Ark to Jerusalem but the Moslems sacked the monastery it was hidden in. Still another said it is supposedly in Ethiopia guardian by a family of Orthodox monks who keep it in a temple hewn out of rock with one door and one key, guarded for life. So who knows?

256 AD- St. Lawrence's day. He was the Saint who's emblem is the grill he was roasted on. Supposedly he showed his contempt for his torturers efforts by saying:" I think I'm done on this side." The Perseid Meteor Shower occurs around this time. It has been called the Burning Tears of Saint Lawrence.

1415- King Henry V of England and his army embarked from Dover to cross the Channel and kick some serious French butt!

1492- Cardinal Roderigo Borgia elected Pope, despite openly keeping his children Caesar and Lucretia Borgia. He promised so many heavy bribes to the other Cardinals to win that humorists make jokes comparing him to Christ giving his worldly riches to the poor. When asked what his Papal name would be he replied “by the name of the Invincible Alexander” ,who was not even a Christian. So Pope Alexander VI it was.

1536- CANADA GETS ITS NAME-French explorer Cartier discovered a great river on St. Lawrence's Day, which he calls the St. Lawrence River. Cartier asks the Huron people "what people lived upstream?". They replied people who work with red copper, in their language" Caignetdaze". Cartier recorded in his log, the land "Chemyn de Canada".

1628- The King of Sweden Gustavus builds a huge battleship called the Vasa. In front of the whole court he launches it into a fjord and it immediately sinks straight to the bottom.

1629- Spanish painter Diego Velasquez traveled to Italy to study the Renaissance Masters on the advice of his buddy painter Peter Paul Rubens.

1675 - King Charles II lays foundation stone of Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

1680- THE GREAT PUEBLO INDIAN REVOLT. In Spanish New Mexico the Pueblo, Zuni, Hopi, Acoma and eastern Apache had had enough of Spanish colonists and their Christianity. A Pueblo leader named Pope' coordinated a simultaneous mass revolt timed by giving each chief a rope with the days marked off with knots. Today the last knot was untied and the Indians attacked the Spaniards from all sides. 500 out of 2,000 Europeans were killed and the churches and town of Santa Fe burned. The Madonna brought from Valencia Spain called La Conquistadora was riddled with arrows, the marks of which you can still see today. The Spaniards retreated to Old Mexico but returned in force 13 years later .

1787- Mozart completes his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik -A Little Nightmusic.

1788- Mozart’s on a roll! This day he completed his Jupiter Symphony #41. It was his last symphony. He never heard it performed in his lifetime.

1867- Rather than put up with his pushy Secretary of War any longer, President Andrew Johnson asks for Edwin Stanton's resignation. Stanton (who formed the first American Secret Service and as a lawyer invented the "temporary insanity" plea) not only refused, he barricaded himself in his office and his partisans in the former Lincoln cabinet began impeachment proceedings against President Johnson.

1889 - Dan Rylands patents the screw -on cap.

1897 -German chemists working for the Bayer Company invent Aspirin, the first mass market over the counter drug. A powdered tree root that was known to the Native Americans for years. The Romans ground Willow root and dissolved it in water.

1928- Calvin Coolidge dedicated the cornerstone of the monument at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. The last time a President of the United States rode a horse to deliver a speech.

1945- After Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings a third atomic pile was delivered to Tinian island air base to be assembled into one more A-bomb. But it's dropping was canceled by President Truman. He told his aide Dean Acheson: "Another 100,000 people...I can't see killing any more kids."

1945- Even after two atomic bomb attacks and their navy and airforce destroyed, the Japanese cabinet is still divided 3 - 3 on whether to surrender. Defense minister Anami is worried about a mutiny of the army and Prime minister Suzuki still thinks he can get Russia to negotiate separately -Stalin had just declared war and sent troops to invade Manchuria and the Kurile islands. Anami said the National Honor demanded a final battle on the home soil:" Wouldn't it be wonderful to see all of Japan destroyed...like a beautiful flower !"
The impasse was broken by Emperor Hirohito who breaks tradition and personally intervened "The time has come to bear the unbearable". Next morning a note requesting negotiations based on Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration is sent to the Swiss and Swedish Consulates in Tokyo .

1948 – The Birth of Reality TV.- Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" on ABC.

1964- Near Ely, Nevada the U.S. Forrest Service cuts down a Bristlecone Pine that scientists thought to be "The oldest living thing"- 4900 years old.

1966- Murderer James French was sent to the electric chair by the state of Oklahoma. He joked :How about this for a headline for tomorrow's paper? FRENCH FRIES!

1969- The night after Charles Manson’s cultists murdered actress Sharon Tate, they attacked another Los Angeles home at random. They murdered attorney Leo and Rosemary LaBianca on Waverly Drive in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.

1973 –San Francisco’s first BART train travels through the transbay tube to Montgomery St Station.

1978- Ford announces a recall of it's Pinto series car after tests prove when bumped from behind the auto’s gas tank explodes into flames.

1983- Discovery of the Vega Galaxy. This was the first physical proof of a planetary system outside our Milky Way.

1987 - Clara Peller, the elderly actress who gained last minute advertising fame by saying Where's the Beef?, died at 86 The director and writer of the spots was the father of J.J. Sedelmier, who created the Ambiguously Gay Duo and other TV Funhouse animations for SNL.
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Quiz: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?

Answer: Josef Pujol, known as LePetomane, was a famous XIX Century French performer who could fart musical tunes out of his arse.

Quiz: In Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles ( 1974), Mel Brooks does a cameo as Territorial Governor LePetomane. Who is he named in honor of?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944
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History for 8/9/2009
Birthdays: King Henry V of England, John Dryden, Sir Issac Walton-author of the Compleat Angler, Melanie Griffith, Whitney Houston, David Steinberg, Bob Cousy, Jill St. John, Robert Shaw, Robert Aldrich, Sam Elliot is 65, Gillian Anderson is 41, Pamela Lyndon Travers –the creator of Mary Poppins, Eric Bana is 41, Audrey Tautou is 31

378A.D. HADRIANOPLE- The Emperor Valens and his legions were wiped out by a horde of Goths led by Fritigern the Visigoth. This battle is considered the last battle of the ancient world and the beginning of the Medieval superiority of armored horsemen -which was the way the Goths fought. Valens co-emperor Valentinian gave him the Empire of the East because it was the easier of the two theaters and Valentinian was confident even a dummy like Valens couldn't mess it up. The migration of Germanic peoples into western Europe we call the Barbarian Invasions, they called more poetically "Die Volkvanderung-the Wandering of the People".

1588- Queen Elizabeth I visited the camp at Tilbury to inspect the troops that would defend England from a landing by the Spanish Armada. The Armada had been driven off ten days ago but they were still somewhere in English waters so it still seemed like a good idea to visit. She thrilled the men by delivering the most famous speech of her career: “ I know that I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, Aye, and of a King of England too!”

1854- Henry David Thoreau published “Walden”, the first great work about nature conservation.

1877- THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA. Explorer Henry Morton Stanley reaches the Atlantic Coast after a 999 day trek across the middle of African continent from Zanzibar. He proved there were no unscalable "Mountains of the Moon" barring the way.
Stanley (an illegitimate Welshman who fought in the American Civil War on both sides and who had found Dr. Livingston in 1871) had declared his expedition to be a charting of the Congo and Lualaba Rivers and to prove Specke's theory that the source of the Nile was Lake Victoria- Nyanza. In fact it was the starting pistol for the great European Colonial powers to begin dividing up Central Africa: England took Sudan, Nigeria and Uganda, France took Chad and Senegal, Italy to Ethiopia, Germany into Tanganyika and Belgium took the Congo. Up to this point African expeditions were small affairs of a missionary or scientist asking permission of a local chief with gifts. Stanley blasted his way across the jungle with a small army, being furiously attacked by 27 separate Bantu tribes whose territory he violated. His men mowed them down with repeating rifles and cannon. "The blacks do give us an immense amount of trouble"- he wrote. The Dinka people of Sudan call it "the Time when the World was Spoilt."

1929- Hollywood theater mogul Alexander Pantages was convicted of assaulting a young woman in a broom closet. The conviction was later overturned. It was the first successful defense case of attorney Jerry Geisler, who became famous for getting movie stars and other Hollywood hoi poloi out of trouble with the law. The word in the studios when a movie star was naughty was “Get Geisler!”

1930- Max Fleischer's cartoon "Dizzy Dishes" introduces Betty Boop. A singing star named Helen Kane sued Fleischer claiming that they stole her distinctive Boop-Ooop-a-Doop from her, but the case was thrown out when it was revealed Kane had stolen it herself from another singer. Betty was supposed to be a dog character to match her male couterpart Bimbo. But Animator Grim Natwick had done a lot of drawing of girls in Paris and New York and turned the character into a saucy little flapper.

1936- Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics. Host head of state Adolph Hitler refused to shake hands with him.

1941- One of the more legendary British air aces in the Battle of Britain was Wing Commander Douglas Bader. He was all the more novel because he was had no legs. This day Bader’s Spitfire was finally shot down by the Luftwaffe over Belgium. Bader bailed out and was captured. But the German pilots were so impressed with this handicapped ace that they treated him like a rock star, touring him around airfields where other pilots could wine and dine him. Bader’s tin legs were damaged when his plane went down so the RAF dropped a substitute pair over a German airfield for him. But later as a POW he tried so many times to escape the German commandant of his prison camp took away his legs. “I wish all my prisoners were so easily manageable.”

1942- Walt Disney's "Bambi" premiered.

1944- Antoine Du Saint-Exupery, the author of the Little Prince, died when he crashed his fighter plane. He was not shot down by the Germans, he was just a terrible pilot. The main protaganist of the little prince is an aviator who crashes his plane.

1945-NAGASAKI- the second Atomic Bomb "Fat Man" was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The B-29 bomber "Boxcar” was plagued by a violent thunderstorm and they wasted precious fuel searching for their target. When they made it back to base after the 14 hour flight two of their four engines had run out of gas. Nagasaki was the second choice target. The first Kokura, was so fogged in scientists couldn't study the bomb's effect. 63,000 people killed was one effect.

1945- At the same time President Harry Truman was reporting to Congress and the nation about his trip to Potsdam and plan for post war Germany. He said among other things that it was vital for democracy in Germany to break up the huge centralized corporations and foster the rights of workers to form unions. Hmmm…we could use a plan like that in the US today….

1947 -The British government in an attempt to bolster revenue for their shattered postwar economy, announced a 300% import tariff on Hollywood films. The Big Eight-Hollywood studios retaliate by stopping the export of movies to Britain. The British film industry has a heyday and Disney starts producing films locally in Britain like 'Rob Roy Highland Rogue' and such.

1960- Near Cuernavaca Mexico Harvard professor Timothy Leary took some magic mushrooms and experienced his first hallucinogenic trip. He called it “ a conversion.”

1963 - Britain's rock & roll TV show, Ready Steady Go, premieres.

1967- Joe Orton, English actor/playwright (Leaf, Murdered), died at age 34.

1969- FORTY YEARS AGO- HELTER SKELTER- Charles Manson's cultists murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate and several houseguests of her husband/director Roman Polanski. One other guest killed was socialite Jay Sebring, who made cocaine fashionable and invented the 1970's blow-dry hair style for men. A Polish tourist named Dominic Frykowski who had the misfortune to be visiting that night was shot twice, bludgeoned and stabbed 51 times. Kill the Pigs was scrawled on the wall in blood. Charles Manson had a messianic concept that he could lead the Apocalypse devolving out of a race war if his followers first killed celebrities to advertise their cause. Manson had a hit list that included Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Liz Taylor. The California spawned Hippy-Flower-Child culture lost it’s innocent fun after Manson.

1974- “KNEEL WITH ME, HENRY.” Richard Nixon, aka Tricky Dick, resigned and left the Presidency of the United States in disgrace. New President Gerald Ford of whom Lyndon Johnson once said "Sometimes I think Jerry played football once too often with his helmet off" assumed office.

1975- Hurricane Belle destroyed the gulf coast. It was the worst thing to hit the area until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

1993- Heidi Fleiss, The” Hollywood Madam” arraigned for prostitution. The film community shuddered when she threatened to reveal the names of her clients in her “black book”. Most were suppressed except actors Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn who admitted as much early on. Fleiss wrote a memoir called “Pandering” and still thinks prostitution is an honorable profession. “I ran an 85% cash business.”

1995- THE HIGH TECH BUBBLE- Netscape first appeared on the stock market. The 15 month old company started by a Silicon Graphics exec and a 22 year old college senior immediately shot up to $1.07 billion dollars in value. This IPO signaled the beginning of the gold rush in high tech stocks which five years later came crashing down as violently. Stocks like Lucent Technology which sold at $84 dollars a share in 1998 dropping to 39 cents a share in 2001.

1999- The US Government tax people closed Nevada’s Mustang Ranch, the most famous legal house of prostitution in the US.
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Quiz: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944

Answer: The Americans did not liberate Auschwitz. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians. The Americans liberated Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.

Quiz: When did the Americans liberate the Auschwitz death camp? A) May 1945, B) April 1945, C) March 1945, D) November, 1944

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Quiz: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?
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History for 8/8/2009
Birthdays: Emiliano Zapata. Esther Williams, Gene Deitch, Dino DeLaurentis, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Keith Carradine is 59, Rory Calhoun, Mel Tillis, Dustin Hoffman is 72, Martin Brest, Peter Weir, Patricia Arquette, Mamoru Oshii is 58.

Today is the Feast of St. Dominic- Dominic was a Spanish zealot who wanted to preach to pagan's but the Pope sent him to south France to try and re-convert heretics, who were all former Catholics. After ten years of fasting, begging and praying, his legendary summary of his efforts was:" Someone should take a stick to those people!" The Holy Office of the Inquisition was later administered by Dominicans. Saint Dominic is also reputed to have said “Nothing Cleans like Fire.”

1143- Byzantine Emperor John III Comnenus was killed in a hunting accident, when a poisoned arrow sitting in his own quiver scratched his leg. I don't know who hunts with poisoned arrows, but that's Byzantine politics for you.

1588- THE GREAT PROTESTANT WIND- The bulk of the Spanish Armada was not destroyed by the English Navy but by a huge North Sea Typhoon that hit them off the coast of Northern Ireland. This is why if you want to view relics of the great Spanish galleons don't go to Cadiz, go to the Museum of Belfast. Supposedly the thousands of Spanish and Italian sailors marooned on the Irish coast intermarrying with the Irish population, who weren't crazy about the English either. They created the racial strain Black Irish, or Celts with milk white skin and black hair and eyes. 1662- We all have heard of how England captured New Amsterdam and named it New York, well on this date Dutch Admiral Van Tromp came back with a bigger Dutch fleet and took it back. He renamed New York "New Orange". But it didn't stick and after the peace treaty of Utrecht was signed, New York went back to the English. New Yorkers didn't really much care so long as it didn't affect business.

1709 - 1st known ascent in hot-air balloon indoors by Bartolomeu de Gusmao.

1811- THE IRON CROSS- Before medals common soldiers were rewarded for bravery with a few gold coins. Washington and Napoleon made medals things soldiers competed of. General Gerhard von Gneisenau urged the King of Prussia to create a medal like the French Legion d'Honneur to reward all ranks in the German Army. At first the sulky King was against anything that led soldiers to believe they were better than the common schweinhundts he felt they were, but he finally was made to give in. The new medal was based on the heraldic symbol of the Crusader order of the Teutonic Knights, a black cross formed by four arrowheads. The "Iron Cross" medal was created. Goths, Surfers and Hells Angels rejoiced.

1876 - Thomas Edison patented the mimeograph, a forerunner of the Xerox process.

1920- The German National Socialist -NSDP or Nazi Party formed.

1925- The National Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan staged a massive march in Washington D.C. Twenty thousand white hooded members of the Invisible Nation marched down Pennsylvania Ave. in broad daylight. It was the height of Klan influence in American politics. Soon scandal, corruption and public revulsion of their violent methods would help break them down. It was said the FBI had half the Klan informing on the other half. In 1944 they re-formed themselves from a national organization to regional cells.

1944 - Smokey the Bear, named after NYC fireman Smokey Joe Martin born .

1960 – Brian Hyland’s song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" hits #1.

1963 – THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY- In Buckinghamshire England a small group of masked men stopped the London to Glasgow express and stole 2.6 million pound sterling about $7.3 million U.S.. English police netted most of the gang, but the ringleader Ronald Biggs escaped. Biggs lived well in Rio de Janiero for thirty eight years and gave frequent interviews to British media. Old and sick, he finally returned to England and jail in 2001. “I just want one more pint in a pub” he sighed.

1963 – The Kingsmen release the song "Louie, Louie,". Many labeled it obscene, although no one is quite sure just what the song lyrics mean. In the 1980s Northwestern University staged Louie-Louie Marathons- 44 straight hours of Louie-Louie, played by punk bands, polka bands, marching bands, folk trios, and singing water glasses.

1964 - Rolling Stones 1st Dutch concert.

1973-Vice President Spiro Agnew vows not to resign. He resigned shortly afterwards.

1974 - Richard Nixon decided to resign the U.S. Presidency after Republican Senator Howard Baker informed him his last supporting congressmen on the Senate Judicial Committee intended to change their vote to yes for impeachment. Insiders say his last call before making up his mind was to Dixiecrat George Wallace, who told the President he could no longer count on the support of Southern white conservatives.

1978- The character of Odie the dog first met Garfield in Jim Davis’ comic strip.

2008- Russia invaded Georgia. Part of the opening attack was a Russian Cyber-Attack, crashing all the websites and web communications in Georgia. Russian bombers also targeted cell phone towers. Estonia offered to keep the Georgian gov’t ministry channels open.

2008- The Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony. Movie director Zhiang Zsi Miou choreographed a spectacle using 20,000 extras. When the press asked why he used so many, Zhiang replied:" Hey, we got the people..."
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?

Answer: A deliberately false exaggeration used for effect. Like “ I could eat a million of these.” Or calling any politician you don’t like another Adolf Hitler.