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10/10/10 Sunday
October 10th, 2010

Quiz: Which was the first nation to adopt the Metric System?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Where is the Hyrcanian Forest?
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History for 10/10/2010
Birthdays: Martin Luther, Giuseppe Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson the Little Mermaid, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 51, Sharon Osbourne is 56.

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost broke out into open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all. The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising is put down and the Church responds with a period of forced baptisms.

1842- King Frederich Wilhelm IV issued a new style of headgear to the Prussian Army, a pressed leather and metal helmet with a distinctive spike on top. The spiked helmet became famous and was called the Pickelhaube, or Pickle Sticker. It lasted until World War One in 1918.

1845- The US Naval Academy at Annapolis opened.

1846- Neptune’s moon Triton discovered by William Lassell.

1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1911- Ten-Ten National Day- Chinese demanding a republic seize the city of Wuhan and begin to march to Beijing. Their leader Dr. Sun Yat Sen was at this time in Denver soliciting funds for their cause. The Wuhan Uprising is the beginning of the final overthrow of the Manchu Emperors. One of the revolutionaries first recruits was a young Hunan man named Mao Tse Tung,.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.

1957- President Eisenhower had to apologize to Komla Gbdemah, a diplomat from Ghana, after he was refused service at a segregated restaurant in Dover, Delaware.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1968- Jane Fonda does her zero-gravity striptease, as the film Barbarella premiered.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country, not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc. Lyndon Johnson had said of Jerry Ford: "Jerry's a good senator but sometimes I think he played too much football with his helmet off."

1979-The Panama Canal Zone returned to Panamanian sovereignty.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taayy !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- Intimidated into believing Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons, the U.S. Congress voted to grant overwhelming war-making powers to President George W. Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq began the following March.
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Yesterday’s Question: Where is the Hyrcanian Forest?

Answer: The Hyrcanian Forrest is the name scientists use for the original prehistoric antediluvian forest that covered Europe at the end of the last Ice Age. After centuries of logging, all that remains of the original old growth trees are in Yerevan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and a state park in southeast Poland, which was once a Royal game preserve.


October 9th, 2010 sat.
October 9th, 2010

Quiz: Where is the Hyrcanian Forrest?

Quiz: What does it mean to “ set your imprimatur” on something?
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History for 10/9/2009
Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, E. Howard Hunt, Scott Bakula, Tony Schaloub, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren-the inventor of the Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 46, John Lennon would have been 70.

Today is the Feast of St. Denis. If you've ever been to Paris you'll notice the Basilica of St. Denis is way out of town in a northern suburb.
In 270 a.d. Saint Denis and several followers were sent to preach in Lutetia (home of a Gaulish tribe called the Parisi ). The local Roman authorities had them rounded up and beheaded on a small hill north of town. The hill is today called the Hill of Martyrs, or Montmartre. The legend goes Saint Denis was so indignant at this lack of hospitality of having one's head cut off that he picked up his head and walked out of town. Where he reached the city limits and dropped down lifeless is where basilica designed by the Abbey Suger in 1122 today stands.

1000 AD- VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA. Viking Leif Ericsson lands his dragonships in Labrador, Canada. He calls it Vinland. There are several theories why: one was because of an abundance of grapevines he discovered. Another is that the old Norse crossed with Latin, Vinland could also be described as Land of Pastures. The Vikings settled a colony in America but it didn't take, and was withdrawn for unknown reasons.

1192- Richard the Lionheart left the Holyland. End of the Third Crusade. He planned to return in 1196 and take Jerusalem but never did.

1609- Invalid Captain John Smith is put on a ship back to England. Smith had earlier gotten stung by a stingray and almost died. This time a powder horn exploded on his hip and blew out part of his side. While Smith was leader of the Jamestown Colony he had many enemies among the jealous gentry and some don't think he had an accident. Opinions also differ as to why the Jamestown settlers put Smith through a two month Atlantic crossing that could kill even healthy men. Some say they were hoping he wouldn't make it. He survived but never returned to America. Nobody told Pocahontas he had left and when she visited camp the men told her he was dead and forget about him. She would meet him ten years later in England when she was a wife and mother of the children of settler John Rolfe.

1635- Pilgrim Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts colony for saying the government should not be involved in determining someone’s religion.

1701- Yale University chartered.

1744- Peace of Kleinschellendorf- Frederick II the Great makes peace with Maria Theresa of Austria ending Prussian participation in the War of Austrian Succession.

1779- THE LUDDITE RIOTS- A movement of English peasants and tradesmen started by a man named Ned Lud who felt that all this newfangled machinery was going to cost them their jobs. The Luddites roamed the countryside smashing any looms, pistons, flywheels or other such devices they encountered. A similar movement in France. French peasants would remove their wooden clogs, called sabots, and throw them into a machine's gears to jam them, and coined the term Saboteurs.

1781- George Washington and the Comte du Rochambeau commenced the bombardment of English positions opening the Battle of Yorktown. Not much credit is given that although Rochambeau considered himself the more experienced tactician he diplomatically deferred to Washington as the commander of the allied army. Privately Rocheambeau didn’t think the American rebels had much of a chance, still, when the Yankee payrolls dried up he paid the US troops out of is own pocket. Hmph, so what have the French ever done for us, eh?

1809- The first Royal Jubilee celebrated in England. The monarchy had taken a number of hits lately. King George III was a blind, insane shut in and the Prince and Princess of Wales couldn't stand each other and were sleeping around. So an old widow named Mrs Biggs came up with the idea of a celebration of King George's 50th anniversary of his reign as a way to boost morale. It worked and it's been a custom ever since.

1888- The Washington Monument finally opened to the public. Construction on it was begun in 1840 and discontinued for a decade during the Civil War. Work was also held up when Protestant workmen refused to use marble blocks donated by Pope Pius IX.

1905- The World Series resumes after a one year haggle between the owners of the American and National leagues. A best of seven contest between the N.Y. Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics. It would continue undisturbed until 1994 with the players strike.

1938 Eugene O'Neill's play 'The Iceman Cometh' opened.

1951- RKO Pictures asked Marilyn Monroe to please wear panties while working, She was distracting the film crew.

1983- Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt forced to resign. Watt was a former oil industry lawyer who galvanized popular anger over his views on ecology, such as what's wrong with a few MacDonalds hamburger stands at the base of the Grand Canyon? Yet he refused to allow the Beach Boys to perform at a public 4th of July concert in DC because he felt they attracted: ”An unsavory element”. The thing that did Watt in was a comment he made about a government panel he had just convened. Quote Mr Watt:” We have all bases covered. We have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple!”

1986- The Fox Network's first program-the Joan River's Show, premiered. That show didn't last, but future hits like The Simpson's, Married With Children and the X-Files made Fox a major network in ten years.

1989- First edition of Penthouse Magazine in Hebrew. Oy Vey!

2009- US President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean to “ set your imprimatur” on something?

Answer: from the Medieval Church Latin imprimere- to print. To give permission to publish or give official sanction to proceed, usually by setting your seal, signet ring down on a wax seal .


October 8th, 2010 friday
October 8th, 2010

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Quiz: What does it mean to “ set your imprimateur” on something?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does it mean to be “entering the lists”…?
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History for 10/8/2010
Birthdays: Eddie Rickenbacker, Rev Jesse Jackson, Juan Peron, David Carradine, Art Babbitt -the creator of Goofy, Chevy Chase, Paul Hogan, Rona Barrett, Reuben Mamoulian, Edward Zwick, Johnny Ramone, Sigourney Weaver is 61, Matt Damon is 40

1777- British General Clinton tried to get a message through to Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne and his army trapped at Saratoga. He sent a Tory-Loyalist scout with a message rolled up and hidden in a solid silver capsule. When he was intercepted by the Americans, the loyalist swallowed the capsule before he was searched. He was given a heavy emetic "whereupon he soon produced the capsule, which he proceeded to grab and swallow again. Another emetic was administered and he produced the capsule again." The message was opened and read, then the man hanged as a spy."

1846- Battle of Old Woman's Gun. In 1846 as part of the Mexican War, United States forces had taken the pueblo of Los Angeles. But after a few weeks, the first Yankee mayor, a Lt. Gillespie, was such as a-hole that the Mexican citizens drove them out of town. On this day the US forces came up from their fleet anchored in San Pedro Harbor and tried to re-take the city. Mexican forces led by a rancher named Carillo routed the Yankees with an old 4 pounder signal cannon that an old lady had buried in her front yard. She had hid the old gun when Gillespie ordered the population disarmed. The Californios had no gun carriage so they lashed the old gun to a wagon. Six months later, the US forces finally overcame LA resistance, and the town stayed in Yankee control.

1862-THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE- Union forces defeat General Baxton Bragg's Confederates and prevent Kentucky from joining the Confederacy. Abe Lincoln said: " I hope I have God on my side but I Must have Kentucky." The Confederates had actually pushed the Yankees off the field and were at the edge of victory, but Bragg overestimated the enemies strength the next day and ordered a general retreat, wasting everything they gained. His second in command General Kirby Smith resigned in disgust. The commander of the Union Army Gen. Don Carlos Buell, was so distracted with other business that he was hardly aware that his men had fought a battle. He was soon replaced.

1871- THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE- Legend said in a shed behind 137 DeKoven St, Old Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocks over a lantern and starts a fire that burns down 17,500 buildings and kills 300 including the Mayor. The fire jumped the Chicago River and people rode their carriages into Lake Michigan and even jumped into open graves to escape. Eventually the firemen’s pumpers ran out of water and the Northside kept burning past Fullerton until it burned itself out when it hit open prairie. 300,000 were left homeless. One of the only downtown buildings to survive the inferno was Chicago’s beloved old water tower. The slaughter houses and grain elevators also survived so business could go on. Ironically the O'Leary house stayed intact, just the barn burned. Two journalists later admitted inventing the O’Leary cow story to sell newspapers.

1871-THE GREAT PESHTIGO FIRE- The most deadly fire in North American history occurred on the exact same day as the Chicago Fire, but this one was in Peshtigo Wisconsin. A forest fire started by loggers burning debris built into a firestorm (actually a flaming tornado) and destroyed a wooden town killing 1,200 in a town of 1,750, five times as many as the Chicago Fire. The tornado caught dozens of people during church services. Three hundred died trying to escape across a wooden bridge that caught fire and burned from both ends. Survivors saw "people and cows stagger a few feet and go down burning brightly, like so many pieces of pitch pine." A heavy rain fell the next day. One day late.

1906- In Paris Swiss inventor Ludwig Pressler demonstrated the first electric 'permanent -wave' hair curler.

1907- Charles Frederick Dow, one of the founders of the Wall Street Journal, started his system of charting the average performance of industrial stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

1915- The Battle of Loos. British troops release poison gas at the German lines. The wind shifts and blows it back on their own men. Doh!

1918- SERGANT YORK- simple Tennessee hillbilly Alvin York was drafted into the U.S. Army where his crack shot talents enabled him this day to shoot up an entire German regiment. He captured 300 prisoners alone with only his single shot Springfield rifle. He got the Medal of Honor and a tickertape parade. Then went back to the Ozarks where he resumed his life of making moonshine, hog calling and other rustic pursuits.

1929- British Imperial Airways shows the first in-flight movie.

1933- HOLLYWOOD ACTOR'S FIRST MASS PROTEST- When Franklin Roosevelt created the NRA to fix wages and prices to try and solve the Depression, he even went as far as to try to regulate Motion Picture rates and fees. The catch was the rates were drafted with the advice of friends of the studio heads in Washington. The actors went ballistic when they saw new rules such as a ceiling cap on actors salaries of $100,000 a year (the producers had no such cap), restriction of actors independant agents, and terms of an old salary contract would stay in effect even after the contract expired until it was renegotiated.
This night at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd. hundreds of moviestars met to draft a petition calling for rewriting of the codes. The activists included Paul Muni, Frederic March, Jeanette MacDonald, Groucho Marx and Boris Karloff. SAG president Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) was considered politically too far left to face Roosevelt, so he stepped down in favor of comedian Eddie Cantor, who had helped Vaudeville acts unionize. In previous meetings at the El Capitan the earth tremors from the Great Long Beach Earthquake the previous March made actors reconvene in the Grauman's Chinese parking lot across the street. Cantor went to the president's retreat at Warm Springs Georgia with the petition and had the hated articles taken out of the code.

1935- Ozzie Nelson married Harriet.

1957- Walter O'Malley announced the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

1957- Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his hit Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire.

1958- Swedish Arne Laarsen received the first artificial implanted heart pacemaker. Over the years he had 17 operations and a dozen more pacemakers put in him as the designs improved. Without the pacemaker he would have died at age 40, instead he died in 2000 at age 86 of skin cancer. Arne Laarsen outlived all his original doctors.

1967- In Bolivia guerrilla leader Ernesto Che' Guevara was taken and shot. Che' started as an Argentine doctor and was wracked with asthma most of his life. He had gone to Bolivia after quarreling with Fidel Castro about whether it was more important to export Cuban revolution the rest of Latin America or concentrate on building Cuba's economy. Thirty years later in 1997 his remains were identified and returned to Cuba for burial. Even today his legend remains powerful among poorer parts of the Spanish speaking world. It’s not uncommon to be walking the streets of Lima, Cartagena or even Madrid and see the familiar grafitti on a wall- " El Che’Vive ! "

1970- Dissident Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsin was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Soviet State kept him in internal exile and refused to let him travel to accept his prize. He was exiled to America in 1974 and returned to Russia after the fall of communism.

1971- John Lennon first released the song Imagine.

2004- Home decorating guru Martha Stewart began serving her 5 month prison term for perjury and insider trading.

2005- A massive earthquake in Pakistan killed 73,000.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be “entering the lists”…?

Answer: in the Middle Ages, lists were the long rail fences separating jousting knights. So to be entering the lists means to enter a place to battle or compete against others.


Oct. 7th, 2010 thurs
October 7th, 2010

Question: What does it mean to be “entering the lists”…?

Quiz: What is Morris Dancing?
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History for 10/7/2010
Birthdays: Hans Holbein, Heinrich Himmler, Caesar Rodney, Joe Hill, Andy Devine, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Henry Wallace, June Allyson, Oliver North, Al Martino, Neils Bohr, Ameil Buraka, Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, Toni Braxton, Yo Yo Ma

312 BC-THE SUCCESSORS- Seleucus Nicator – (pronounced Se-le-u-kos)- conquered Babylon and set up his Syrian-Greek kingdom. One of the generals of the recently dead Alexander the Great, he divided up Alexander's Empire along with fellow generals like Ptolomey, who became Pharoah of Egypt, Perdiccas, Antigonus One-Eye, who controlled mainland Greece and Demetrius Poliocretes-Destroyer of Cities.

Called the Successors, they and their descendants warred and conspired with each other until the Roman Empire rose up and knocked them all off. Seleucus and his heirs figure prominently in the last parts of the Old Testament. The Israelites did well under the Persians and Alexander but the later Greeks attempted to force pagan worship on them and tried to put statues of Zeus in the Holy of Holies. King Antiochus Theos Epiphanes –Antiochus the God Made Manifest, plundered Solomon’s Temple and ordered Jews to eat pork and worship Zeus on pain of death. Many Jews were martyred until an uprising led by Judas Maccabeus restored the Hebrew Kingdom.

1337- King Edward III of England decides he's not only King of England but King of France as well- the HUNDRED YEARS WAR begins. It was actually 111 years, until 1446. Ironically it was around this time that the English language began to emerge as the common mother tongue of Britain, melding the Norman French of the nobility with the Anglo Saxon of the common folks.

1571- BATTLE OF LEPANTO- Great naval engagement in which the ships of Venice, Spain, Genoa and the Papacy defeat the Grand Turks navy led by Ali Pasha. The last battle fought with war galleys rowed by teams of rowers. The admiral in charge was the bastard brother of Phillip II, Don John of Austria, a military hero who would have later led the Spanish Armada against England had he not succumbed to an early fever. Had he lived Shakespeare might have had to learn to write in Spanish. The Sultan at the time was Mustapha the Sot, so named because his immoderate love of wine caused the Commander of the Faithful to die by drunkenly slipping on the tile floor of his bathroom. The battle raged from ship to ship until Don Johns ship overran Ali Pasha’s flagship and hoisted his severed head to the top of their mainmast. Among the common sailors in the battle were future writers like Lope De Vega and Miguel de Cervantes, who lost his right hand:" For the greater glory of my left" he joked.

1763- THE ROYAL PROCLAMATION TO NORTH AMERICA- The British Colonial Ministry, trying to reward it's Indian allies in the French and Indian War and kill two birds with one stone, told the Americans that any further western colonization to the Mississippi was forbidden, but they were invited to go north and colonize Quebec. This would hopefully mean the outnumbering and eventual assimilation of the French Canadians. Neither happens and it only angered the Americans who were never asked about this idea. The British even toyed with making the Illinois and Michigan territories part of Canada. Could you imagine it:" How' bout dem Cubs,-eh?"

1777-SECOND BATTLE OF BEMIS HEIGHTS-British General Johnny Burgoyne trying to break out of a trap, smashed his army against the American defenses in a heavy rain. The defense works were engineered by Polish patriot Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Washington spelled his name 11 different ways in dispatches, the men just called him " Colonel Koz". Burgoyne had snubbed his superior officers since his arrival in America, saying he answered directly to the War office in London. Now surrounded in the forest by overwhelming odds he snuck out a message to General Guy Carleton in Canada "I await your Lordship's orders." Carelton recognized this weenie attempt to shift blame and ignored him. The hero of this battle was Benedict Arnold. Arnold was everywhere, rallying minutemen brigades and crashing them into the enemy without waiting for his commanders orders. The U.S. commander Horatio Gates spent most of the battle in the rear entertaining captured British officers and discussing the futility of the American cause. The battle ended when someone shot Arnold in the leg.

1780- BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN- In the later stages of the American Revolution the British Army command shifted from a strategy of using overwhelming conventional force in New England to going South and encouraging American Loyalists to fight a civil war. At Kings Mountain in North Carolina The “Over the Mountain Men”, an army of Scots-Irish frontiersmen under Issac Shelby defeated a Loyalist militia under the command of Col. Patrick Ferguson. Ferguson, who was killed in the fight, was an unconventional Scots Highlander who taught his men to fight American Indian style.

1783- The Virginia House of Burgesses votes to grant freedom to all slaves who fought in the continental army during the American Revolution.

1799- Napoleon returns from his Egyptian Campaign without his army but with a new appreciation for antiquities.

1851- THE OXFORD MOVEMENT.- Several top bishops of the Church of England stunned Victorian High Society by announcing their conversion to Roman Catholicism. Bishop John Newman was the first, followed today by the Archbishop Manning of Chichester. Manning eventually became the Catholic cardinal primate of England and was listed in Lytton Straychey’s book the Eminent Victorians. Pope Benedict made Newman a saint just last month.

1861- In the Indian Territory –near what will one day be Tulsa Oklahoma the councils of the Chickasaw, Cherokee and Choctaw Indian Nations sign an alliance with the Confederate States, smoke the war pipe and renounce any ties to the United States. The Commanche people announced they would stop raids on Texas. Pro-Northern Indians then broke with their tribal brothers and there were mini-Civil Wars among Indians. The pro-Northern Indians were forced to march with their families in winter snows to the protection of Pro-Northern Kansas. In 1865 the last Confederate General to lay down his arms was Cherokee Chief Stand Watie.

1870- Writer Edgar Allen Poe was found sprawled over a barrel in a Baltimore street, dressed in someone else's clothing. He was taken to a hospital where he died raving at the walls. It was thought he died from heavy alcohol abuse but recently scholars theorize he may have died from a brain tumor or diabetes impacted by alcohol sensitivity, which would explain the violent mood swings, and that he drank heavily to deaden the pain. Another scholar also theorized that the symptoms strongly point to rabies. Poe loved cats and as we all know there was no rabies shot or test at the time. How or why the cats changed his clothes, is another puzzle.

The most prevalent theory on Edgar Allan Poe's death has to do with voter fraud. People voted in taverns in those days. Poe was completely sober (he had given up alcohol years before) when he left two friends after a good dinner. He was scheduled to go to Philadelphia to meet the Mother-in-law of his late wife (also his aunt.) He bought the ticket; it was found on his person. Cooping was a type of voter fraud wherein people who could read were kidnapped and held in pens. They were forced an overabundance of alcohol to knock them out of their senses, then forced to vote under alias names they were given. All night they were pushed to vote again and again. They were made to change clothes (so they wouldn't be recognized) and out to vote again. So Poe may have died of died of alcohol poisoning. He was buried in a pauper's grave.

1897-A group of Russian Jews, disgusted by the state sanctioned anti-Semitism of the Czar, formed the Jewish Socialist Bund. They broke with Theodore Herzel and the mainstream Zionist movement who wanted all Jews to go to Palestine. The Socialist Bund advocated political action to reform within Russia. Communist Leon Trotsky, himself a Jew, belittled the Bund, calling them “Zionists who are afraid of getting sea-sick”.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson reversed his position and announced he was now in favor of giving women the vote.

1918- The Polish army contingents of the crumbling Russian, Austrian and German empires band together in Warsaw and set up a native government, declaring themselves the Republic of Poland. The Polish State that had disappeared in 1799 was now reborn. World famous concert pianist Jan Paderewski as their first president..

1947 "Hey Stella !!" The Actor's Studio opened, teaching the Stanislavski Method, sometimes called Method Acting. The group later suffered a feud between it’s two top teachers-Lee Strassberg and Sandy Meisner. Ask any old actor if they were with Lee or Sandy, odds were they sided with one and hated the other.

1957-Dick Clark’s T.V. show American Bandstand debuts.

1959-MARIO LANZA.- Philadelphia born Italian–American Lanza was the pop icon opera singer long before there were three tenors in concert. With moviestar good looks and a velvety voice his records and movies sold millions. But he was temperamental and had angered most of the powers that be in Hollywood, climaxing with skipping a $250,000 promise to perform in Las Vegas. This day in Italy he was found dead of a heart attack at age 38. For years there were rumors that he was actually done in by the Mafia for offending Lucky Lucciano, but in the 1990s a forensic investigation by his son proved his brutal regimen of binge eating and furious dieting wore out his heart. He literally dieted himself to death.

1960- The movie Spartacus opened. Producer/star Kirk Douglas had been using blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo for the script , smuggling him in and out of the lot for story meetings. Finally Douglas got fed up and ordered Trumbo to be brought out in the open as the movie's true author. This was considered the official end of the Hollywood Blacklist era, which had lasted since 1947. After director Anthony Mann left the project Douglas hired Stanley Kubrick, who had such a hard time he afterwards left Hollywood never to return.

1964- ITS FUN TO PLAY AT THE Y-M-C-A! The only big sex scandal of the Lyndon Johnson administration. Walter Jenkins was a top LBJ aide and confidant. Johnson called Jenkins “My vice president of almost everything.” This day Walter Jenkins was busted for lewd behavior with a Turkish diplomat in a pay toilet at the YMCA just two blocks from the White House. Jenkins claimed he was just dehydrated.

1974- THE TIDAL BASIN BOMBSHELL- At 2:00 AM Washington DC police stopped a car driving near the White House with its lights off. Inside police discovered powerful Congressman Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, drunk as a skunk with an Argentine stripper named Fanne Fox. Mills broke away from the cops and he and Fanne began to cavort in the Tidal Basin pool near the Jefferson Memorial. They were fished out by police. Mills’ sexual escapades had been hushed up by politicos before but this was just too much. The subsequent publicity brought about hearings and Mills resignation.

1982- London musical 'Cats' opened on Broadway.

1985- Palestinian terrorists hijack the Italian Mediterranean cruise ship Achille Lauro. They murder an elderly Jewish American tourist named Leon Klinghoffer and dump his wheelchair and body into the sea. Composer John Adams wrote an opera about the incident called the Death of Klinghoffer.

1993- Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" earned $ 712 million dollars just in North American box office.

2001- U.S, British, Australian, Turkish and NATO allied forces began attacking Afghanistan in retaliation for the terror attack on New York and Washington on Sept. 11th. The war led to the temporary overthrow of the Taliban Regime ruling in Kabul and the suppressing of the Al Qaeda terrorist network led by rogue Saudi millionaire Osama ben Laden. And guess what? Osama is escaped, but we're still there fighting today.

2003- The state of California had an unpopular Democratic Governor named Grey Davis. A Republican congressman named Daryl Issa who made a fortune making annoying car alarms “step away from the car..” found an obscure codicil in the State constitution calling for a recall election. The recall election soon had 154 candidates including a porn star, former child star Gary Coleman, Porn publisher Larry Flynt, a woman who financed her campaign by selling autographed thongs, and Grey Davis’ own lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante who couldn’t stand him either. This night, after a comical election, the people elected Austrian-born body builder-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is Morris Dancing?

Answer: in the British Isles, once you strip away Scottish bagpipes, Irish reels, Riverdance, and Welsh bards, what you have is Morris Dancing. It’s English folk line dancing from the Cotswolds region. They wear costumes, hold handkerchiefs and are the butt of many jokes.


October 6th, 2010 weds
October 6th, 2010

Quiz: What is Morris Dancing?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below Who coined the term Art for Art’s Sake?
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History for 10/6/2010
Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jenny Lind the Swedish Nightingale, George Westinghouse, Janet Gaynor, Carol Lombard, Karol Szymanowski, Thor Heyderthal, wrestler Bruno Sammartino, Britt Eckland, Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Shue is 47, Sean William Scott, Jeremy Sisto

In Ireland this is Ivy Day, when Irish folk commemorate the death of the great statesman Charles Stuart Parnell with a sprig of ivy in their buttonholes.

1502- THE LAST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS -Rejecting the ideas of Amerigo Vespucci, Juan De La Cosa and the Portuguese that what he had discovered was in fact a new continent, Columbus makes one more attempt to reach China by sailing west.
He explores down the Central American coastline to Venezuela and Columbia. The Nicaraguans tell him that beyond their jungle is another Great Ocean. He surmises that it must be the Indian Ocean so these people must be the Vietnamese (Cochin-China).

1536- Near Brussels Englishman William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for committing a crime against the Church, that of translating the Bible into English. Years later Tyndale’s writing provided the base of the King James Bible.

1600- THE BIRTH OF OPERA. This day as part of the celebrations of the marriage of French King Henry IV to Marie de Medici composers Rinconcini and Caecini premiered a new kind of musical drama where soloists sang without the heavy polphony of madrigals but more directly in imitation of ancient dramas. It was “Eurydice” and it was the first true opera. The form was taken up by many composers including Claudio Monteverdi. But remember, it ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings.

1683-THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH- The first recorded German immigrants, Mennonite farmers from the Rhineland, arrived in America invited by Gov. William Penn of Pennsylvania. The reason many German immigrants in Pennsylvania were labeled Dutch was the backwoods American’s inability to distinguish when the German declared “Ich bin Deutsche” from “Dutch”.

1802- The Heiligenstadt Testament- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven left behind a note found among his papers after his death in 1827. Dated this day it was addressed to his brother Karl and another unspecified relative. It was more of a spiritual Last Will than anything else. In the note Beethoven poured out of his heart confessing his faults and his fears of going deaf. It is an amazing insight into the great man’s soul.

1847- Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre first published.

1863- The first Turkish Bath House is opened in Brooklyn.

1863- The BAXTER SPRINGS MASSACRE- Quantrill’s Raiders bushwhacked Union General Blount’s personal entourage on the road and killed 86. It’s called a massacre rather than a battle, because most of the slain were noncombatant office staff trying to surrender. The heartless guerrillas even shot the regimental band. One union soldier with five bullets in him recalled before he lost consciousness, a large horseman standing over him gloating:” When you meet God, tell him the last thing you saw on Earth was Ol’ Billy Quantrill!”

1864- SHERIDAN'S VALLEY CAMPAIGN- The Shenandoah Valley had been a pain in the neck to the U.S. Army throughout the Civil War. It 's pro Southern population hid famous guerrillas like John Mosby the"Grey Ghost" and Stonewall Jackson had humiliated three Yankee armies there. Towns like Winchester and Harper's Ferry changed hands 73 times!
So while Lee and Grant’s armies stood stalemated outside Richmond, feisty Irish-born cavalryman Phil Sheridan was given a large army and ordered to finally bring the ShenandoahValley to heel. After drubbing the Confederates in battle, he turned away from the rebel army and concentrated on the civilian population. His army burned towns and crops, and hanged men from the trees even remotely suspected of being guerrillas. Sheridan sat, feet up, in a slow moving open buggy and waved his cigar like an orchestra conductor's baton. "Go to it my boys! Have Fun!" Like Sherman’s terror campaign through Georgia, the brutality of Sheridan left a bitter memory to Southerners for generations to come.

1866-The first recorded train robbery.

1880- First classes at University of Southern California or USC.

1889- Paris' naughty nightclub the Moulin Rouge opened.

1903-Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson, the Great Automobilist, first man to cross the United States by car, was given a speeding ticket in his home town of Burlington, Vermont. He was accused of going at reckless speeds of up to six miles an hour!

1911- The first transpacific telephone conversation, between Tokyo and San Francisco.

1918- From the wreckage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War One the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Bosnians formed themselves into a new country called the Kingdom of South Slavs or Yugoslavia.

1921- In London the society known as PPEN established, for Poets, Playwrights, Editors and Novelists.

1927-"THE JAZZ SINGER"with Al Jolson debuts. Okay, Okay, Somebody made a sound picture in 1924 and also something called "Footlights of New York" from 1926 but hey, you know what?- who cares! THIS was the movie that made "Talkies" a reality. The premiere was also the occasion for Sid Grauman to throw the first big Hollywood premiere at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater with limos and red carpets and spotlights.

1932-THE BIRTHDAY OF WONDER WOMAN. William Moulton Marston was an educational consultant in 1940 for Detective Comics, Inc.(now better known as DC Comics). Marston saw that the DC line, seeing it filled with images of super men such as Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, was left wondering why there was not a female hero. Max Gaines, then head of DC Comics, was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he could create a female comic book hero - a "Wonder Woman." Marston did that, using a pen name that combined his own middle name with the middle name of Gaines: Charles Moulton Marston's 'good and beautiful woman' made her debut in All Star Comics #8.

1959- “Pillow Talk”premiered, the first romantic comedy pairing Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Stanley Shapiro won a best screenplay Oscar for it. The film typified the wink-wink attitude about sex before the 1960’s Sexual Revolution and defined Doris Day’s reputation as the wholesome, girl-next-door archetype.

1966- California became the first state to officially declare LSD illegal. Hippies in San Francisco celebrate by rallying in Golden Gate Park in the thousands, and all taking a tab together.

1968- In Huntington Cal, Troy Perry and 12 others started the first Gay & Lesbian Church .

1971- William Freidkin’s gritty cop movie the FRENCH CONNECTION premiered. The film won best picture, director and actor Oscars, made a major star out of Gene Hackman. One unforeseen result was the movie stimulated interest in pursuing the investigation of the real French-Corsican Mafia heroin trafficking in the US. That mob was soon broken up. The two real life detectives the film was based on- Eddie Egan and Sonny Corso, booth retired from the NYPD and pursued careers in show biz.

1973- THE OCTOBER WAR or THE YOM KIPPUR WAR. Egypt and Syria surprised attacked Israel on the holiest religious holiday of the Jewish calendar. They also achieved surprise by attacking at 2:00 in the afternoon instead of dawn. The Sinai and Golan Heights saw some of the largest tank battles since World War Two. The Arab states received men and material support from the PLO, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Bangladesh and even Idi Amin the dictator of Uganda. America and Russia faced off by heavily re-supplying both sides. Both sides charged Russians and Americans were flying covert combat missions as well.

1991- University of Oklahoma Professor Anita Hill testified at the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She alleged that when she was his aide she was subject to constant sexual harassment. Her testimony was labeled by Judge Thomas a "symbolic lynching". Thomas' conservative backers countered with a furious media campaign. Despite her impeccable credentials as a Christian scholar, they portrayed Prof Hill as a paranoid slut. Those involved in the smear campaign admitted later most of it was fabricated. Clarence Thomas was confirmed, but the controversy made Sexual Harassment a national issue.

2002- Pope John Paul II canonized Fra Paulo Escriva, the mystic founder of the order Opus Dei. John Paul broke with the more liberal Jesuits in favor of Opus Dei, a super conservative group that critics say wants directed power over Catholic doctrine and still espoused flagellation.

2002- The Mayor of Paris Deloune was stabbed in the stomach at an all night rock concert.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who coined the term Art for Art’s Sake?

Answer: Art in throughout most of history was commercial art. Popes and Florentine bankers commissioned images of the Annunciation, Descent from the Cross and more. Pope Leo X had Raphael paint his Easter eggs. By the XIX century artists declared art needs no justification and serves no purpose to be art. The phrase is often attributed to James McNeill Whistler, but French intellectuals since Theophile Gautier (1835) had been using the term l’art pour l’art for many years.


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