Quiz: What famous historical figure’s dying words were “ Kiss me, Hardy.”

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who famously once cried out “ Oh, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?!”
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History for 6/10/2017
Birthdays: Charles James Stuart the Old Pretender, Yamaoka Tesshu (1832- Japanese swordsman), Saul Bellow, Judy Garland, Hattie McDaniel, Frederick Loew (of Lerner & Loew), Howlin’ Wolf, Maurice Sendak, Gina Gershon is 55, Leilee Sobieski is 34, Jean Triplehorn is 54, Jurgen Prochnow, Elizabeth Hurley is 52, Britain’s Prince Phillip is 96!
1190- Emperor Frederick III Barbarossa (red-beard) died. Barbarossa (not to be confused with the Algerian-Barbary pirate Nur Al Din of the same name in the 1700's) was the great Hohenstaufen German Emperor who decided to go on Crusade at the same time as Richard Lionheart and Phillip Augustus of France. Frederick was very old but insisted he make the trip. This day while crossing a stream in Turkey, Frederick Barbarossa had a fatal heart attack and fell into the water. His men, never being that thrilled about the whole thing and taking their king's death as the clincher, turned around and went home.

1682- English colonists in Connecticut observed a unique weather phenomenon, a dark windstorm taking the form of a funnel. The first recorded Tornado in America.

1688- THE BABY IN THE WARMING PAN- King James II of England has a son born named Charles James Stuart. The anger of English society that their King and head of the reformed Anglican Church, namely James, was a Catholic, was pushed past the point of endurance by his having a son who would become in all probability be another Catholic king. The lords of England began to openly plot to bring James' protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange over to overthrow the King. A rumor created to support this effort was that James' child was born dead and switched with a baby smuggled in a warming pan.
1720 - Mrs Clements of England markets the 1st paste-style mustard.

1750- Francois Voltaire accepted the invitation of King Frederick the Great of Prussia to come live at his court. French King Louis XV laughed: “ Now there will be one less nut in Versailles and one more nut in Berlin.” The friendship between Frederick and Voltaire is fascinating- night after night over dinner, the enlightened gay despot matched wits with the commoner who was the greatest philosophical mind of his time. When Voltaire argued that the world would be better off with no religion or belief in God, King Frederick retorted:” But my dear Voltaire, if you did away with God, then common people would raise statues to you and pray to them.” At times Voltaire’s arguments would get Frederick so angry that the Frenchman would flee fearing for his life. Frederick ordered the borders closed and sent a troop of cavalry to drag him back, so they could finish their argument.
1752- BEN FRANKLIN FLIES HIS KITE- The wizard of Philadelphia was not the actual discoverer of electricity, Leyden Jars and Volta's experiments predate him. He did make the connection between lightning and electric currents and created the lightning rod and the first electric battery. He didn't tell anyone about the kite experiment until 15 years later for fear people would think him a silly fellow. There’s a famous painting of Ben with his kite being assisted by his young child William. In actuality William was about thirty at the time. During the American Revolution, William became a royalist and couldn’t stand his old man.

1776- The great English actor David Garrick went on stage for the last time, playing in a benefit for the Decayed Actor’s Fund. Hmm, I wonder if we could start a Decayed Animator’s Fund….

1776- The Continental Congress appointed a committee of Ben Franklin, John Adams ,William Rutledge and Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. Most of the hard work devolved upon Jefferson. Franklin glibly noted:` It has been my practice to avoid being the author of any paper which would be reviewed by a public body. Tom Jefferson borrowed much from enlightened European writers like Burke and Montesqiou. There were 46 revisions before the final draft was voted on, including taking out any references to outlawing the slave trade. Yet Jefferson’s great prose put it perfectly “All Men are Created Equal, endowed by their Creator with certain Inalienable Rights, among them Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Ever since these words were thrown at tyrants and inspired leaders as diverse as Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro.

1782- John Adams negotiated a huge loan from Holland to get the rebellious American colonies out of bankruptcy.
1801- The Barbary Pirates of Tripoli declared war on the little nation called the United States. These Mediterranean buccaneers would extort tribute money from countries whose ships passed through their waters. So long as Yankee shipping was protected by the British Navy this wasn't a problem, but America was on its own now and the Dey of Algiers demanded payment. One senator's famous cry was Millions for Defense, but not one cent for Tribute!

1847 –The Chicago Tribune begins publishing

1854- First graduating class at Annapolis Naval Academy. The first commandant of the Academy Captain Brown later joined the Confederacy and became the commander of the rebel ironclad Arkansas in the Civil War.
1860- The Comstock Lode- Near Virginia City Nevada Two grubstake miners, one named Old Pancake McGaughlin hit a vein of silver so big and pure that it will eventually yield $300 million dollars worth of ore and make millionaires of men like William Randolph Hearst's father.
1865- Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde premiered in Munich. To meet the demands of Wagner’s music the orchestra needed to be so much larger than usual that they had to take out the first two rows of seats to enlarge the orchestra pit. Conductor Franz Von Bulow, whose wife Cosima was busy schtupping Maestro Wagner at the time, committed a brilliant blunder when he announced within earshot of reporters:" Take out the seats! One or two extra schweinhunds won't matter!" Not the way to get good reviews..

1865- Surrendered Confederate leader Robert E. Lee was indicted for treason by the United States district court in Norfolk Virginia. Ulysses Grant was told and immediately sent a note threatening to resign from the army and start a public scandal if Lee’s indictment wasn't dropped. Once Grant had considered all rebels to be traitors, but he had promised Lee in his surrender terms at Appomattox that no one would be subject to further penalties from federal authorities. The indictment was put aside but never formally dropped, and Lee’s request for his restoration of full U.S. citizenship was never granted. In 1995 Senate leader Trent Lot tried unsuccessfully to get Robert E. Lee’s citizenship restored.
1892- Republican Benjamin Harrison nominated for President. When Harrison was in office the White House was wired for Electric Lights. However Harrison and the First Lady were so terrified of electrocution that if a butler neglected to shut them off at bedtime, the Harrisons would quiver in bed all night rather than touch the switch.

1902 - Patent for the window envelope granted to H F Callahan.

1905- Japan and Russia accept the offer of peace talks to be mediated by American President Teddy Roosevelt. For helping end the Russo-Japanese War Roosevelt received the first Nobel Peace Prize.1910- The first Krazy Kat comic strip- Cartoonist George Herriman was doing a strip for Hearst called "The Family Upstairs". He was amused at the idea of a friendship between a cat and a mouse. So Herriman put them in the corner playing marbles while the family quarreled. First an office boy and later editor Arthur Brisbane suggested they have their own strip. The immortality of the denizens of Coconino County follows, loved by the likes of H.L. Mencken, e.e.cummings and Jacques Kerouac. Krazy herself explains:" It's wot's behind me that I am."

1921- Babe Ruth became top HR champ with #120 runs passing then champ Gavvy Cravath. But the Bambino was just getting started.

1924- Italian Socialist leader Giacomo Mateotti was kidnapped and murdered by Mussolini's fascists.

1926- Artist Antonio Gaudi was run over by a streetcar while crossing in front of his famous cathedral in Barcelona. Construction begun in 1886, The Cathedral Sacreda Familia is still scheduled for completion- in the year 2035.1935- A New York stockbroker and an Ohio physician, both recovered alcoholics, invent a twelve step recovery program called Alcoholic's Anonymous.

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character, by MGM, debuts

1940-With Hitler’s Blitz of France almost complete and English armies escaped across the channel to Dunkirk, Mussolini decided the time was right and declared war on England and France. Italian forces crossed the border and occupied Nice.

1942- LIDICE- In occupied Czechoslovakia the Czech underground scored a big victory when they assassinated the Nazis occupation Gauleiter or governor Richard Heydrich, a personal friend of Hitler. Hitler ordered in revenge a Czech village selected at random and destroyed. The SS surrounded the village of Lidice and shot the whole population of 1,300, then burned and tore down the buildings.

1944- A USO troop was entertaining soldiers in Normandy from the back of a truck but they lacked a piano player. They called out to the G.I. audience if anyone could play. A shy cattle rancher’s son from Modesto California came up and played. He did so well his colonel ordered him out of the line and told him to form his own G.I. band.
Dave Brubeck’s jazz career began.

1945- General Eisenhower was given a massive ticker tape parade down Broadway in New York City. Looking down on Ike from an office building 20 floors up, was a rumpled Navy Reserve Second Lieutenant named Richard Nixon.

1947- Sweden’s Saab motorcar company introduced its first model car. Saab in neutral Sweden had made planes and tanks for World War Two, but after the war was over they recognized that combat was not a growth industry and they switched to autos.

1948- THE JOHNSON CITY WINDMILL- Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson was trying to win a senate seat from Texas but he was lagging far behind a popular ex-governor named Coke Stevenson. So he hit upon a novel way of campaigning. He hired a helicopter and barnstormed the rural towns and districts of the Texas hill country. People came out just to see the newfangled flying machine land and take off, and this gave Johnson a captive audience. They nicknamed it the Johnson City Flying Windmill. Johnson also mounted a massive outlay of posters and pamphlets. He told his staff:” Ah don’t want a voter to wipe his ass with a piece of paper that ain’t got my face on it!” He pulled even to Stevenson and with a little extra ballot box skullduggery won the election.

1957- “Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog” cartoon debuts on the Captain Kangaroo show.1967-The Arab-Israeli Six Day War ends. Israel defeated five Arab countries at once and occupied all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Sinai, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

1980- Comedian Richard Pryor had been doing so much cocaine even his dealers were worried about him. This day, while trying to freebase he exploded, and ran screaming down his street on fire. Another version of the story said he tried to commit suicide by pouring tequila on himself and setting it alight. During his long recovery in the Sherman Oaks burn unit, his nurse once put on the news and he watched CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite report his death. `He thought to himself: "If Walter Cronkite said I died, it must be true! Ahhh!" He recovered, but developed Muscular Dystrophy in the late 1990s.

1995-110,000 people jam Central Park in New York to see Disney's Pocahontas, the largest audience ever to attend an animated movie premiere.

2014- A radical new Sunni Muslim group captured the key Iraqi city of Mosul and declared a new Caliphate. They called themselves ISIS, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They take advantage of the chaos of war torn Iraq and Syria to amass power and property and eclipse Al Qaeda as the West’s number one threat.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who famously once cried out “ Oh, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?!”

Answer: In 1170 English King Henry II was referring to Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, his onetime political ally, who had transformed into a champion of the Catholic Church opposing many of Henry’s edicts. The king’s frustration with his Archbishop let to him taking four of his knights aside and exclaiming “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry’s actual statement was probably somewhat more colloquial, but the meaning was the same. His knights heard it as it was intended, a veiled demand to kill Becket, which they did. Thomas Becket was made a saint and the King did a lot of penance.

Question: Who famously once cried out “ Oh, who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?!”

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: New York is named for the Duke of York, Pennsylvania for William Penn’s dad, Massachusetts and Connecticut are Indian names. What is New Jersey named for?
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History for 6/9/2017
Birthdays: Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cole Porter, John Bartlett of Bartletts Familiar Quotations, Boy George O’Dowd, Les Paul, Burl Ives, Lash LaRue, Happy Rockefeller, Robert MacNamara, Major Bowes, Carl Neilsen, Jerzy Kosinski, Pierre Salinger, Steffy Graff, Marvin Kalb, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, physicist who formulated Coulomb's Law, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, Michael J. Fox is 56, Johnny Depp is 54, Natalie Portman is 36

Today is the Roman festival Vestalia, when the Vestal Virgins made a special cake.

53BC- Battle of Caarhae- Roman consul Marcus Licinius Crassus was defeated in Persia by the Parthian leader the Grand Surena. Crassus was an extremely rich man, and legend has it the Parthian King killed him by having his jaws held open, and having molten gold poured down his throat.

Today is the Feast Day of St Columba, and St. Maximian of Syracuse.

68 AD- Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide. Nero saw the jig was up when the Roman people welcomed the Spanish Legions of Servius Galba into the city, shouting "Death to the Incendiary! Death to RedBeard!” a nickname implying his fatherhood may not have been pure Roman. He took his life on the anniversary of the murder of his wife, whom he had kicked to death while she was pregnant. He had his servant Epaphroditus push a knife into his throat. Nero died saying "Oh, what an artist dies in me!” Nero was descended from Augustus on his father’s side, and on the other side from Marc Anthony. His death ended the direct bloodline of Julius Caesar's family. For the next few months four generals would turn their legions homeward to fight for power. The Roman called this period "The Long Year".

1358- The Massacre of Meaux. In a France already ravaged by the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, a violent peasant revolt broke out called the Jacquerie -Poor Jacques. On this day two top knights, one from the English side and one from the French- Gaston Phoebus and the Captal De Buch, took time out from their war to join forces and chop up rebellious peasants in the town of Meaux. Phoebus later became a character in Hugo's novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

1732- James Oglethorpe, a British MP, was granted a charter by King George II to found a new colony south of the Carolinas. He would call it Georgia in honor of the king. Oglethorpe lived into his 90s and saw the American Revolution. He lived long enough to congratulate John Adams and wish the new American nation well.

1798- Napoleon's fleet, on the way to Egypt, stops to attack the strategic island of Malta. The keepers of the Island fortress, the once valiant Knights of Malta, had become so stodgy and decrepit that the French easily burst in. When Napoleon inspected the massive defense works, capable of holding off attackers for months, he said: " This conquest is embarrassing." After the Napoleonic Wars, Britain took over Malta until the 1950's. The Knights went from an order of warrior-monks, to a jet-set club, with members like Prince Rainier and Sir Frank Sinatra and charity work like Saint John's Ambulance.

1817- A defective boiler destroyed the experimental riverboat Washington. Despite this unfortunate occurrence, the S.S. Washington was the prototype of Mississippi riverboats- a flat bottomed side wheeler with the engine machinery above the waterline instead of down in a deep hold like Robert Fulton’s model.

1834 – Brass helmet deep-sea diving suit was patented by African-American inventor Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Maine. The design remained unchanged for 100 years.

1834 - Sandpaper patented by Isaac Fischer Jr., Springfield, Vermont

1839 – The first Henley Regatta held

1847 - Robert von Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner.

1860- DIME NOVELS & PULP FICTION. Mr. Erastus Beadle (don’t you love 19th century names?) published the first dime novel, Maleska, Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Anna Stephens. Sometimes called the Penny Dreadfulls, pocket-sized stories printed on cheap pulp paper became popular reading. They fantasized the West, extolling two-gun chivalry and virtuous maidens, roaring desperadoes and wild savages. This early form of mass media made celebrities out of characters like Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Black Bart, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr.

1863- BRANDY STATION-The largest cavalry battle of the Civil War- Union cavalry caught Jeb Stuart's reb cavalry in camp. Stuart's horses and men were spent because they had spent the previous day holding a pageant showing off for the ladies. A huge confused swirl of horseflesh, sabers and guns ensued. The rebs eventually drove off the Yankees, but Stuart looked pretty dumb being surprised so badly. Yankee cavalry finally proved that under tough new leadership like Sheridan and Custer they could hold their own with the Southern gentlemen horsemen.

1902- Woodrow Wilson was named President of Princeton University. One of the Board of Trustees that selected the future US President, was the former US President, Grover Cleveland.

1918- Louella Parsons began her Hollywood Gossip column. Louella became one of the most powerful and widely read columnists in Hollywood’s golden age. Stories say Louella got as much pull as she did in the Hearst newspaper empire for helping cover up the killing of director Thomas Ince and also trying to stifle the release of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane.

1920- King George V dedicated the new Imperial War Museum, comprising artifacts from the recently concluded Great War. In 1936, the War museum moved to its present home in the former building of the infamous mental asylum, Bedlam.

1930- Chicago Tribune reporter Jack Lingle was shot and killed by Al Capone’s hoods. The hit was done right in broad daylight on Michigan Ave and Randolph St at the Illinois Central underpass at the height of rush hour. It was first thought that Lingle was going to do some kind of courageous crusading journalist expose, but Big Al had him rubbed out because he welched on a $100,000 gambling debt.

1934- Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Walt Disney's short cartoon "The Little Wise Hen".

1934- The film The Thin Man with William Powell. Myrna Loy and Asta the dog went into general release.

1938 - Chlorophyll isolated by Benjamin Grushkin

1938 - Dorothy Lathrop wins the 1st Caldecott Medal for outstanding children’s books.

1941- First day shooting on the film, the Maltese Falcon. It was John Huston’s first directorial effort. The studio budget was so low, Humphrey Bogart had to wear his own suits.

1942 - The1st bazooka- shoulder held rocket launcher, produced in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The name Bazooka was from a Fred Allen and Allen’s Alley radio show name for a home-made musical instrument made from a stove pipe. Bazookas became vital in the US infantry’s ability to stop tanks and other obstacles.

1942- LBJ in the USN- Young Texas Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson spent 1941 loudly declaring if war came, he’d be the first in the trenches. After Pearl Harbor, he joined the US Naval Reserve and was made a lieutenant-commander. He spent the next few months inspecting naval facilities in Hollywood and Squaw Valley, Idaho while partying hard. Friends warned he better go to the battlefront before too much talk hurt him politically.

Lyndon Johnson flew as an observer on one mission of B-26 bombers over the Japanese held island of Leii, New Guinea. To his credit, he reacted coolly as Japanese Zeroes attacked. The original plane he was supposed to be on, got shot down over shark-infested waters. After the mission, General MacArthur gave him a Silver Star, whose ribbon he wore proudly for the rest of his life. After 13 minutes in actual combat, the next day he was on a plane Stateside. By July 18th he had resigned his commission (by Presidential Order he added), and was back at his desk in Washington. Presidential aide Harry Hopkins quipped:” Lyndon Johnson is back from his politically expedient dip in the Pacific.”

1942 - Anne Frank began her diary.

1943- The Internal Revenue Service introduced the Pay-As-You-Go system of tax collection, or today we know it as tax withholding from your paycheck.

1950- After all appeals fail the first of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Philip Dunne, Alvah Bessie, Waldo Salt, Edward Dymtytrk, David Ogden Stewart, Ring Lardner and John Howard Lawson are sentenced to prison. In the L.A. Municipal Jail one felon greeted the leftist writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!”

1953 - Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

1972- Rapid City, South Dakota destroyed by a flash flood. 280 died.

1973- The thoroughbred horse Secretariat ridden by Ron Turcott won the Belmont Stakes, taking the first Triple Crown since Citation did it in 1948. He won it by an amazing 31 lengths! Secretariat was sired by Bold Ruler, the 1957 Preakness winner. The Triple Crown is three high stakes races. The Kentucky Derby is a mile and 1/4 (called by horseman "the classic distance"), the Preakness is slightly shorter at a mile and 3/16ths, and the Belmont, as reported, is a mile and 1/2. So the second race is actually shorter than the first. The big deal is that they all take place in only five weeks, which is asking a great deal of three-year-old colts.

1976 – Chuck Barris’ the" Gong Show" premiered. Where’s Jean-Jean the Dancing Machine?

1989 - Queen Elizabeth II knighted Ronald Reagan.

2002 –The Canadian Supreme Court lifted the ban on Gay marriages as unconstitutional; the first couple in Ontario was legally married.

2006- Pixar film Cars released.

2160 - Montgomery Edward Scott, called Scotty or Mr. Scott, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the engineer of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. “ Cap’n, Ah dunno know how much more the engines can take!”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: New York is named for the Duke of York, Pennsylvania for William Penn’s dad, Massachusetts and Connecticut are Indian names. What is New Jersey named for?

Answer: The channel isle of Jersey was the only part of England to stay loyal to King Charles II during the Cromwell period. So the first American colony planted after the Restoration and conquest of New Netherlands was in its honor. Charles rewarded others loyal to him like Baron Newark, and the Duke of Monmouth by naming settlements after them.

Quiz: New York is named for the Duke of York, Pennsylvania for William Penn’s dad, Massachusetts and Connecticut are Indian names. What is New Jersey named for?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Al Capone was not sent to jail by Elliott Ness, but by Mabel Walker Willebrandt. How?
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History for 6/8/2017
Birthdays: Robert Schumann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Barbara Bush, Admiral David Dixon Porter, Leroy Neiman, Emmanuel Ax, Alexis Smith, Nancy Sinatra, Boz Scaggs, Jerry Stiller is 89, Dana Wynter, British cricketeer Ray Illingsworth, Juliana Margulies, Joan Rivers, Keenan Ivory Wayans is 59, Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) is 59. Gary Trousdale is 57, Kanye West is 40

1154- Today is the Feast of Saint William of York

216AD- Elagabulus and the Eastern Legions overthrow Macrinus the Praetorian Prefect and becomes Emperor of Rome. There has always been an inconclusive debate as to whether there were any black Roman emperors the way there were Spaniards (Vespasian) Croatians (Diocletian), and Arabs (Phillipus). The Romans were not color-prejudiced; they equally discriminated against all races and faiths. Septimius Severus, St. Augustine and Percennius Niger ("Black Percennius") were from the African Provinces, but were they racially African, Semitic or Greek? No surviving likeness can prove either way. The huge migrations of Arabs that followed the Moslem conquests in the 600's AD altered the ethnic makeup of North Africa forever. But Macrinus was known to be a Moor and there is no such thing as a Caucasian Moor.

452AD- Attila the Hun invaded Italy.

632 A.D. The Prophet Mohammed died in Medina. His followers elected his uncle Abu Bakir as the first Caliph or defender of the faith. The position of Caliphate continued through the Middle Ages in Baghdad until the rising Ottoman Empire moved them to Constantinople and made the post a figurehead behind the Turkish Sultan. The office disappeared after 1918 when the secular Republic of Turkey was declared.

1786- A New York newspaper advertised that a Mr. Hall was currently selling the new Italian confection called Iced Cream. First reference to Ice Cream in the Americas.

1809- American Revolutionary writer Thomas Paine died. When his chubby doctor said: " Your belly diminishes." Paine smiled and replied: "And yours augments."

1824 – the Washing Machine patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec.

1845- Andrew Jackson died. His last words to his friends and servants was:” Goodbye, I hope to meet you all again in Heaven, both Black and White.” After, someone asked Jackson’s manservant” Do you think Jackson is in Heaven?” The man replied:” If General Jackson decides he wants to go to heaven, who can stop him?”

1867- Two years after the Civil War ended former Confederate General James Longstreet, the right hand of Robert E. Lee, published a newspaper article encouraging Southerners to give up their anger and work with the U.S. Government. He even declared his intention to join Abe Lincoln’s party, the Republicans! He saw his actions as the only practical course. But embittered rebels vilified him as a traitor. This letter was the reason the name Longstreet is not today as fondly remembered as Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee or Jeb Stuart, even though his record was their equal.

1869- Chicago native Mr. Ives McGaffey was given a patent for a “sweeping machine that utilizes the power of air suction” the Vacuum cleaner.

1871- 70-year-old Kiowa warchief Satanka was being transported in an army wagon, handcuffed, to prison. He said to some Indians along the road:" Go tell my people to come and get my body here, because I'm gonna go die now." As he spoke he slowly worked his hands out of the handcuffs, taking the flesh off in the process. He then sprang on the surprised soldiers and fought until they killed him. They dumped Satanka’s body on the roadside where the Kiowa found him later.

1874- Chiracauha Apache chief Cochise died, probably of stomach cancer. His tribe buried him in a crevasse in the Dragoon Mountains that is still a secret.

1886- IRISH HOME RULE BILL DEFEATED- It was the dream of Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone to cap his career by settling the age old "Irish Question". However, many in his Liberal party wouldn't go that liberal. Former radical minister Joseph Chamberlain resigned from the government and split the liberal party to unify with ultra-conservatives to defeat Irish autonomy. The Liberal party eventually disappeared from English politics to be replaced by the Labor party in the next century.
Josef Chamberlain went on to invent the game of Snooker.

1886- King Ludwig II, ruler of the second largest independent German State, Bavaria, was declared legally insane by his cabinet and put under arrest. Ludwig the Mad bankrupted his treasury building wild anachronistic castles like Neuschwanstein and the Blue Grotto, as well as Richard Wagner’s concert hall at Bayreuth. Ironically, today, these buildings are among the main tourist attractions in Germany.

1889 –The Red Car cable car began service in LA.

1889 - Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure "Boscombe Valley Mystery"

1892- Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James ten years earlier, was running a saloon in the Colorado silver mining country. A man named Ed Kelly came up behind him and said: "Oh, Bob?" As Ford turned around, Kelly let loose with both barrels of his shotgun.
Ford had just come from a Church where he donated money to bury a local saloon girl. He had written on his donation " Charity Covereth Up a Multitude of Sins..."

1900 - Start of Sherlock Holmes story the "Adventure of 6 Napoleons"

1912- Carl Laemmle formed Universal Pictures Studio.

1941- During the early part of World War II, Israeli Palmach partisans were hired by the British as scouts to fight the Vichy French in Syria. The British worried that the Nazis would use Syria to launch an offensive in the rear of the Eighth Army fighting Rommel in Egypt. This night, at a Syrian border village called Iskanderun, a young Jewish officer was lying on a rooftop looking through his binoculars when a bullet came through the eyepiece and shattered his right eye. The bone of his eye socket was too damaged to support a glass eye, so he wore a black eye patch for the rest of his life. Moshe Dayan with his distinctive black eye patch, became one of the most famous Israeli soldiers.

1942 - Bing Crosby records "Silent Night".

1942- In a private meeting at the White House, President Franklin Roosevelt asked movie mogul Jack Warner to make a movie showing our new ally the Soviet Union to the American people in a positive light. The movie “MISSION TO MOSCOW” starring Walter Huston put a rosy spin on Stalin’s regime and even made excuses for his genocidal political purges. After the war and FDR’s death, angry conservative politicians conducting the House un-American Activities Committee went after Warner Bros over MISSION TO MOSCOW. Everyone who worked on the film got in trouble with HUAC and had to apologize.

1945- In Tokyo, at a meeting of the cabinet attended by Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese decide that despite the defeat of allies Germany and Italy, they would prosecute the war to the bitter end.

1946- Bob Clampett's cartoon 'Kitty Kornered', the first Sylvester the Cat cartoon debuted.

1948 - "Milton Berle Show" Uncle Miltie- premiered on NBC TV.

1949- During the Hollywood Blacklist, today an FBI report named actors Paul Muni, Frederick March, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Robeson and Dorothy Parker as reds. They had no proof, mostly anonymous accusers. Robinson was blacklisted, but never called upon to testify before the committee to clear his name. He said “ It’s like I was accused of being a rabbit. I am not a rabbit, but how do we know if you cannot prove you’re not a rabbit?”

1950- Universal pictures released 'Winchester '73', the first film in which the star James Stewart negotiated for a backend percentage of the profits. Stewart's agent was Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA and mentor of Steven Spielberg.

1954- During the Army-McCarthy Anti-Communist hearings, in front of a live television audience, attorney Joseph Walsh takes apart Senator Joseph McCarthy for stooping to accuse a junior law partner in Walsh’s office for once belonging to a socialist organization. Walsh’s dramatic cry gained national prominence “ Finally Senator, have you no shred of decency?” McCarthy was censured by Congress, stripped of his chairmanships, and was politically finished.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox fired Marilyn Monroe for her erratic, druggy behavior on the set of “Something’s Got to Give”, and cancelled the picture. Monroe went into a tailspin that would lead to her suicide four weeks later. Even after her death, Fox sued her estate for $80,000.

1966- The American football leagues NFL and AFL announce their merger.

1968 - Rolling Stones release "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

1968- James Earl Ray, the man accused of assassinating Martin Luther King the past April, was arrested in London, England.

1969 "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," last airs. The show was canceled by CBS, not for bad ratings, but because its format highlighted liberal and anti-Vietnam War performers like Buffy Saint-Marie, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. Producer Tommy Smothers was constantly battling nervous network executives to let Seeger sing songs like “Big Muddy”, a direct criticism of U.S. war policy. Finally when former President Lyndon Johnson personally called CBS chief Bill Paley to complain, the show was yanked. When writer/singer Mason Williams learned the Smothers Brothers Show was canceled, he planned to make an enormous pie to throw at the eye logo on the CBS building, but they threatened to sue him for trespassing if he actually staged the stunt...

1969 - Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor replaces Brian Jones.

1981- Former UN General Secretary Dr Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria despite revelations about his once being an officer in the Nazi army.

1982-Legendary Negro League Pitcher Satchel Paige dies at 79. I once talked to a Disney security guard named Mitchel Carter who saw Paige pitch a game in the Detroit Negro league. Mitch said Satchel was so hot he loaded the bases, then ordered the fielders into the dugout because he felt like striking out the whole side, which he proceeded to do. When the Major League color barrier was broken in 1947 Paige started his new career at 42. He pitched a World Series game for Cleveland 1948 and in 1965 was stilling pitching shutout innings in major league games at age 59!

1983- The films "Trading Places," & "Gremlins," premiered.

1984- Ivan Reitmans’ film "Ghostbusters" premiered.

1984- Donald Duck officially became a member of the Screen Actors Guild- SAG.

1986- NBC was bought by General Electric. David Letterman joked about now having to interview toaster ovens on his show.

1998- the President of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, died during a Viagra reinforced assignation with three women.

1999- The nation of Columbia announced it would now factor in its drug exports when calculating the nations GNP or Gross National Product.

2002- Forest Service ranger Terri Barton was trying to burn a letter from her estranged husband. The blaze she started became the Hayman Fire, the worst forest fire in Colorado history. The fire destroyed 103,000 acres and almost burned down the city of Denver.
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Yesterday’s question: Al Capone was not sent to jail by Elliott Ness, but by Mabel Walker Willebrandt. How?

Answer: She was an investigative agent for the Treasury Dept. She reasoned gangsters don’t get prosecuted for their crimes because of alibis and intimidation of witnesses. But none of them seem to pay taxes. So she got Scarface convicted of federal income tax invasion.

Question: Al Capone was not sent to jail by Elliott Ness, but by Mabel Walker Willebrandt. How?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: On a CB radio, why do we say, “ …..roger, wilco…”?
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History for 6/7/2017
Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Watergate congressman Peter Rodino, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Prince, Liam Neeson is 65

Today is the feast day of the Fifth century Saint Meriodoc of Ploughganou. Among his relics was a magical bell that when you placed it over the head of people with migraines and the hard of hearing made them well.

1099- After three years of marching and fighting, and more marching, the massed armies of the First Crusade finally sight the Holy City of Jerusalem.

1191- Richard the Lionheart arrived in the Holy Land for the Third Crusade, he went by ship via Sicily and Cyprus- the easy way. The Crusaders met him on the beach with an old song that today is "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

1520-THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD- A Renaissance international summit organized by Cardinal Woolsey. King Henry VIII of England, King Francois Le Bel of France and Emperor Karl of Germany, all pitched their expensive gold cloth tents together, and held feasts, revels and tournaments while discussing politics.

1523- After a century of being united with Denmark in the Union of Clamar, Sweden broke away and established a new monarchy. Their rebellious noblemen gathered in a new Riksraad- Parliament, and declared their king a young blonde-bearded noble named Gustavus Ericksson Vasa. At times he was an outlaw like Robin Hood. Now Gustavus established his Vasa dynasty, and made Sweden a major power in Europe.

1594- All during Queen Elizabeth Ist reign there were plots and attempts on her life. This day the Queens Spanish-Jewish doctor Rodrigo Lopez was executed on suspicion of his attempting to poison the Queen. The evidence was circumstantial and Elizabeth took several weeks to decide to sign the death warrant. When the news got out, there was a wave of Anti-Semitic feeling among the English populace, even though most Jews had been outlawed from England since 1388. This is seen as the time when William Shakespeare got the inspiration to create Shylock the moneylender in his play the Merchant of Venice.

1654- French Louis XIV "the Sun King" was crowned.

1692- After Tortuga was cleaned out of pirates by the Spanish Navy, the Jamaican town of Port Royal became the unofficial pirate capitol. At its height, with a harbor that could shelter 150 ships, Port Royal boasted more citizens than Boston and more money per capita than London. Trade was so extensive that among the treasures, divers found was a Japanese samurai sword. Today Port Royal was destroyed by a huge earthquake.

1769- Though they seem quaint hills today, but in Colonial times the Allegheny Mountains presented an insurmountable barrier preventing further movement west from the colonies of the Atlantic coast. This day f rontiersman Daniel Boone reached Kentucky by charting a way through the Cumberland Gap. Boone’s achievement was the first penetration of this wall. Daniel Boone was once asked if he ever got lost. “ Nope” he said: “But I was bewildered once.”

1776- In the Continental Congress representative Richard Henry Lee stands up and proposes a resolution calling for American Independence. " Be it Resolved that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." This began the key debate that lasted until July 2nd. John Adams calculated that at this time only one third of the American public was for full independence, one third was for reconciliation with Britain and one third was fence sitting.

1810- THE TREATY of TILSIT- Another international summit. While dozens of conquered and allied princes stood in the rain, Napoleon conferred with Czar Alexander I of Russia on a raft moored in the middle of the Neiman River. It was the height of the little corporal's power. Napoleon said of the young Czar:" He is so beautiful ! If he was a woman I would fall madly in love with him !" And he later said of Queen Marie Louise of Prussia: " She is so strong, she is the only real man in Germany." Obviously Napoleon was having issues with gender association.

1860- Workmen in San Francisco began laying track on Market Street for a light rail system, the famous Cable Cars.

1863- A French army sent by Emperor Napoleon III entered Mexico City to set up Austrian Archduke Maximillian & Carlotta as rulers of Mexico. Napoleon III was the first to refer to Spanish and Portuguese speaking states in South America as Latin America.

1864- Abraham Lincoln was nominated for a second term as President. At this time even he didn't think he would win. His opponent George MacClellen was a popular general who ran on a platform of an immediate negotiated peace with the South.

1882- The electric iron was invented by Henry Seely of New York City. This event was pretty far sighted because not many homes were equipped with electricity yet.

1893- Young Indian lawyer Mohandas K. Gandhi was practicing in South Africa. This day he committed his first ever act of Civil Disobedience by refusing to comply with the racial segregation laws on a train out of Pietermaritzburg, Gandhi would win equality for so-called “coloreds “, meaning Indian and Asian citizens. Later Ghandi moved to India to become the Mahatma, or the Great Soul.

1916- In the Presidential nominating convention of the Progressive, Bull Moose Party, former President Teddy Roosevelt refused their nomination, effectually killing off the third party he started in 1912.

1917- In an army reorganization in preparation for entering World War I, the U.S. army merged four regiments with artillery to create the U.S. First Division. Later in the trenches a doughboy took a piece of red felt from a German uniform and made a shoulder insignia from it. It was the first sewn shoulder patch. The First Division became famous as the Big Red One.

1924- This day marked the last known contact with the George Mallory Expedition. He was the first mountain climber to attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They disappeared shortly after. Mallory’s bones were finally discovered in 1999. We all know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenjin Norgai conquered Everest in 1953, but Mallory reach the top first? Unlike Scott of the Antarctic he left no diary or logbook so we may never know.

1927- A daredevil named Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly climbed on top of a flagpole on top of a bank in Newark, New Jersey, and sat there for eight days straight. This stunt was covered by the media almost as much as Lindbergh’s flight. It made the 1930s craze for flagpole-sitting.

1932- During the Great Depression about one third of the independent banks in the U.S. failed. On this day Hollywood was affected because the First Bank of Beverly Hills went under, erasing the assets of many important Hollywood figures.
Greta Garbo lost one million dollars overnight. Louis B. Mayer, ever one to capitalize on a situation, offered her an advance if she would sign an exclusive 7 year contract with MGM. Garbo's back was to the wall, so she signed. But she got her revenge in her own way- she immediately went on a 6 month vacation to Europe and took a lesbian lover named Mercedes DeAcosta whom she tongue-kissed in front of cameras.

1942- Japanese troops storm the beaches at Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians Islands, Alaska, the first foreign soldiers on U.S. soil since the British redcoats in 1814.

1954- Scientist Alan Turing helped break the WWII German Enigma Code, and was considered one of the fathers of the computer. Early computers were called Turing Machines. He predicted one day computers would be able to think like humans, and one day we would play games on our computers. But when Turing was revealed to be gay, was sentenced to a mental institution to undergo chemical castration. He was convicted with the same law used to jail Oscar Wilde in 1895. Alan Turing was a fan of the Disney film Snow White. This day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.

1955- The TV quiz show The $64,000 Question premiered.

1959- Boss of the Chicago Mafia Sam Momo Giancana testified to the Senate McClellan Committee on racketeering in the U.S. . While he was being grilled by chief prosecutor Robert Kennedy Giancana had a strange grin on his face. Bobby Kennedy lashed out:” Why are you giggling Mr. Giancana? Don’t only little girls giggle?”
What Bobby didn’t know was Giancana was being courted by his own father Joe Kennedy Sr to help with money and support in the upcoming Presidential Election of his brother Jack.
Giancana’s support of the Kennedy’s and later disappointment when there was no let up in the rackets probes after the election is a main feeder to the conspiracy theory that John F. Kennedy was killed by the mob. In 1975 the day before he was to testify to the Frank Church Senate Committee on Assassinations, Sam Giancana was murdered.

1975- This day Sony announced the first home videotape playing system, the Betamax. They were about $25,000 each, but we were promised as they became more popular the price would come down.

1993- Rockstar Prince celebrated his birthday by changing his name to that funny symbol no keyboard can reproduce and no one can say. He did it because of a dispute with Warner Records who said because of his contract he could not issue recordings under his own name. In 2000 he switched back to Prince.

2002 –Kim Possible premiered on TV.
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Yesterday’s question: On a CB radio, why do we say, “ …..roger, wilco…”?

Answer: In early shortwave radio transmissions, the sound quality was so bad, you said easily understandable words to stand in for letters. So VC, became Victor-Charlie, AB Abel-Baker, and so on. Roger meant R for Received, and Wilco for Will Comply.

Quiz: On a CB radio, why do we say, “ …..roger, wilco…”?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In the Godfather, what is the name of the character who says “ Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.” …?
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History for 6/6/2017
Birthdays: Diego Velasquez, Pierre Corneille. Alexandre Pushkin, Nathan Hale, John Trumbull, Thomas Mann, The Dalai Lama, Klaus Tennestedt, Bjorn Borg, Richard Crane, Dr. Karl Braun, Walter Chrysler, Isaiah Berlin, Aram Kharachaturian, Jason Issacs, Sandra Bernhard is 62, Paul Giamatti is 50, Aaron Sorkin is 56

1438- THE ACT OF UNION. Emperor John III Paleologus was desperate.
His Byzantine Empire had been reduced to just the suburbs of Constantinople, and the armies of the Turkish Sultan were massing for their final assault. He needed help from his fellow Christians in the West.
But since the Crusades, the knights of the Europe had tired of long distance adventures. The courts of Italy wined and dined John, and made many pretty frescos of him, but gave him no troops. Greek scholars like George Lascaris lingered on and resettled in Italy, where their reintroduction of ancient literature helped spark the Italian Renaissance.
The Act of Union supposedly reconciled the differences between Latin and Greek Churches, but John went home empty handed and the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453. Other Orthodox Churches like the Russian Church renounced their allegiance to the Patriarch of Constantinople, over his making a deal with the Pope in Rome.

1536- The Spanish Inquisition sets up shop in Mexico.

1654- Queen Christina of Sweden, daughter of the Protestant war hero King Gustavus Adolphus, abdicated her throne to turn Catholic and live at the Vatican. She could ride and shoot like a man and was learned enough in philosophy to debate some of the great minds of Europe. In the 1930’s Greta Garbo made a movie of her life. My favorite comment of hers was when one scientist declared that the Human Body was a machine, she countered:" If that is so, then why can’t my clock give birth to little baby watches?"

1660-The Peace of Copenhagen signed.

1683- The world’s first public museum , the Ashmolean, was opened. English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University for the students to study. A building was commissioned from Christopher Wren and the museum opened to the public this day.

1727- BATTLE OF THE DIVAS- In Old London at this time the rage was for Italian Operas. Many international musicians made lucrative livings singing for Britons. Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni was the reigning star but a rival arrived in town named Faustina Bodoni. This night at His Majesty’s Theatre Covent Garden with the Princess of Wales in attendance, as Bodoni tried to sing Astianatte, Cuzzoni fans booed, hissed and shouted so much a fight broke out. Soon the two rival singers were up on stage tearing each others hair out, fistfights in the pit and scenery being pulled down. Composer George Frederich Handel laughingly accompanied the mayhem with an impromptu solo on kettledrums.

1740- Prussian King Frederick the Great instituted a new medal. Originally called the Order of Generosity, Frederick called the little blue Maltese cross Order Pour Le Merite fur Offizeren. Frederick liked to say things in French. The medal became famous as the Blue Max, coveted by World War I flying aces.

1797- The Lake Poets meet. In the Coxwolds region of England Samuel Taylor Colderidge walked across a field and visited William Wordsworth in his cottage. This began one of the great collaborations in literature. Coleridge had just finished the Rubiyat of Omar Khayam. The married Mr Colderidge even had a platonic affair with Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy, and later Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Susan Hutchinson.

1833- President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.

1844 –George Williams formed the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London, for lonely young men working in the new urban factories to have an alternative to pubs and dance halls.

1857- THE SIEGE & MASSACRE OF KANPUR- The most infamous episode of the Indian Sepoy Rebellion against the British. The Hindu Maharrata of India and the Moslem Moghul Emperor Bajadur had thrown their support behind the Sepoys, the rebellious Indian troops attacking British posts throughout India. At Kanpur the rebels surrounded a garrison of British troops with their wives and children in a little hospital compound.

After a two weeks of fighting and starving in100 degree heat the British surrendered on a promise of safe conduct. After giving up their weapons the Indians murdered them all, using professional butchers to chop up the captive women and children and fill a dry well with their body parts. 600 died. The incident horrified Victorian society, which adopted a harder attitude towards their Indian subjects. Captured Sepoys were tied across the mouths of cannon and blown to bits.

1867- THE KA-KA COMPROMISE- The Austrian Empire quiets its nationalist Hungarian subjects by turning their country into a dual monarchy. Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elizabeth go to Budapest and are crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was called in German `Kaiserlich-Koniglich' or K.K. The regime's opponents called it KaKa, and they had understood the pun just as we do.

1884- Nikola Tesla arrived in the United States.

1918- BATTLE of the BELLEAU WOOD- In World War I when the first U.S. Marine units arrived in the Western Front, Marshal Foch threw them in front of a major German attack. They stopped the Germans only 37 miles from Paris. When the Yanks arrived in the trenches, the French commander announced the entire line was retreating. Marine Major Taylor replied: " Retreat? Hell, we just got here!" and they went into action.
Later in the fighting the same major was heard bellowing to his men:" Come on' you sons a' b-tches! Do you wanna live forever?!"

1925 - Walter Percy Chrysler founded Chrysler Corp.

1929- Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’ surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou ( The Andalusian Dog) at the Teatre des Ursulines in Paris. All the modernist artists were present like Picasso, Andre Breton and Cocteau. Bunuel filled his pockets with stones in case the crowd hated the film and he needed to defend himself, but it was warmly received.

1933-The first Drive In movie opens in Camden, New Jersey.

1934- President Roosevelt signed the Securities and Exchange Act, which set up a regulatory commission to rein in the under the table shenanigans of brokers and financiers that had caused the Great Depression. The chairman of the SEC was Joseph Kennedy Sr, the father of JFK.

1939- Playright Eugene O’Neill had hit a dry spell of no writing and dread of impending Parkinsons disease. This day he got the inspiration to sketch out outlines for two plays- The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night.

1941- Actor George Raft wrote a memo to studio head Jack Warner reminding him of his contractual commitment to send Raft only good quality scripts. The latest he got: " The Maltese Falcon" he thought was “a lousy substandard idea that has no chance." Humphrey Bogart did the film instead.

1942- Two days after the Battle of Midway the abandoned burning wreck of the carrier USS Yorktown was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-162. In 1997 the Yorktown was found on the bottom of the Pacific by Dr. Robert Ballard, the same scientist who found the Titanic. To give you an idea of the depth of the Pacific compared to the Atlantic, Ballard said it took 1 1/2 hours for his submersible to descend to the Titanic, but it took three full hours one way to visit the Yorktown.

1942 – Adeline Grey does the first nylon parachute jump in Hartford Conn.

1944- D-DAY, the NORMANDY INVASION- General Dwight Eisenhower launched 6,000 ships, 14,000 planes and 156,000 troops on the shores of Nazi occupied France with the order: "Okay. Let's go." In Moscow, where Stalin had been begging for a second front, there was wild celebrations, and Radio Moscow played "Yankee-Doodle" all day. Eisenhower planned for young green troops be used in the first wave. "If they knew what was waiting for them like the veterans know, they wouldn't go."
The German High command was taken completely by surprise. When the invasion happened many officers were coming home from a weekend seminar on how to defeat an invasion. Adolf Hitler had taken a sleeping pill and left orders not to be disturbed.

In the assault were voiceover actor Paul Frees, Disney key assistant Dale Oliver, Marvel cartoonist Jack Kirby, and Disney/Warner development artist Victor Haboush. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz was in the second wave to Utah Beach. Max Fleischer animator Willy Bowsky was killed in the hedgerows by tank fire. Sergeant Baumgarden drew on his jacket a large Star of David and wrote "Bronx, N.Y." under it to let Hitler know who was coming. Many of the infantry had rolled condoms onto the muzzles of their guns to keep sand and water out of them. On Omaha Beach, war photographer Robert Capa leaped into the surf before the landing barges reached shore and walking backwards with the whole Nazi army shooting at him to photograph the first G.I.s landing. His 22 rolls of film were later ruined by an inept lab developer. Only three photos remain.

1949-Comic strip character Joe Palooka gets married to Ann Howe.

1949-BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING- George Orwell's book about technological tyranny -1984 was first published. Orwell's working title was "The Last Free Man", but the publisher thought it too depressing to sell. So Orwell picked the date 1984, who's only significance was that it was the year he was writing 1948- reversed

1955 - Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1.

1972 - David Bowie released "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"

1976- The Glendale Galleria shopping mall in Glendale Cal. opened.

1978- Proposition 13 property tax cut approved by California voters.

1982- the Israeli army invaded Lebanon. Prime Minister Menachem Begin felt that the operation should take only one or two days. In 2000, after an 18 year occupation and fighting among a confusing mix of Syrian & Iranian backed guerrillas, US Marines and Christian Maronite militias, the Israeli troops were finally withdrawn. The war remains controversial in Israel to this day. Ariel Sharon, the defense minister who was nicknamed "the Butcher of Beirut" because he allowed Lebanese militias to massacre Palestinian refugees, was Prime Minister 2001 to 2006.

1984- Climaxing two years of fighting Sikh Nationalists, Indian forces are ordered by Prime Minister Indira Ghandi to storm the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. 1000 are killed. Later that year Mrs. Ghandi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards in revenge.

1984- In Moscow, 29 year old mathematics Professor Alexey Pajitnov invented the game Tetris.

1985- The body of Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele is located and exhumed near Sao Paolo, Brazil. Mengele was the Nazi Angel of Death, who conducted experiments on inmates of the concentration camps. The elderly nazi had a heart attack while swimming.

1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno would replace retiring Johnny Carson, winning out over David Letterman. Letterman moved to CBS.

2007- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim California, named for a Disney movie, win the Stanley Cup after defeating the Ottawa Senators. It is the first Stanley Cup won by a west coast team since 1925.

2015- American Pharaoh won the first Triple Crown horse race in 37 years.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In the Godfather, what is the name of the character who says “ Leave the gun. Take the canolli.” …?

Answer: Clemenza. Actor Richard Castellano ad-libbed the line.