Quiz: In what film were three lovable rogues named Comrades Iranoff, Buljanoff and Kopalski?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In music composition, what is meant by con fuoco?
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History for 7/7/2009
Birthdays: Gustav Mahler, Satchel Page, Ringo Starr is 69, Doc Sevrinsen, Robert Heinlein, William Kuntsler, Gian Carlo Menotti, Ken Harris, Shelley Duval is 59, Ted Cassidy-Lurch in the Adams Family, Michelle Kwan, David McCullough, Pierre Cardin, and according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this is the birthday of Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. John Watson
Happy Birth-dayyyyy...

750 BC- 391AD This was the Roman Feast of Quirinus, then day when Romulus the founder of Rome was taken up to heaven and assumed his place beside the Gods as the deified Quirinus.

1569- Sir Francis Drake boldly sailed into the harbor of Cartagena ( in modern Columbia), the largest port on the Spanish Main, and looted a treasure galleon.

1607- The English anthem God Save the King first sung in honor of King James Ist.

1666- King Charles II and his court quit London in the wake of the Great Plague.

1754- The Kings Royal College of New York founded. After the American Revolution, the name was changed to Columbia University.

1821- The Latin American liberation army of Jose San Martin captured Lima Peru.

1839-The First European Railroad link opens between Vienna and Prague, thanks to the entrepreneurial investment of Meyer Rothschild, the Austrian branch of the House of Rothschild. Even though the English invented the locomotive years earlier European development moved much slower than in America where vast distances needed to be linked up fast. There was medical concern about people being moved at such high speeds as 35 miles an hour! A Viennese doctor wrote that at if the human body moved faster than 15 mph, blood would squirt out of your eyes and ears. Men would go mad and women sex-crazed.

1865- Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators were all hanged Lewis Payne, George Atzenrodt and David Herold. Even weeping old Mary Surrat, who's involvement is still debatable. She may have known of some kind of plot but all they could prove was she the landlady of the boardinghouse where the plotters met. Everyone expected that a last minute amnesty would come from President Johnson but the President stayed silent and she was hanged with the others. Mary Surrat was the first woman executed in the U.S. Large Lewis Payne’s neck didn’t break at first and he kicked and danced in the air for five minutes before he choked. General Dan Sickles said afterwards "We do not want to know their names anymore." The large gallows was then broken up and the splinters sold off as souvenirs to tourists.

1894-The Pullman Strike-U.S. troops battle 5,000 Chicago area railroad workers and their families in the streets. Dozens are killed. Troops were called for after marshals and detectives refused to shoot at unarmed working people. Other unions go out in sympathy with the Pullman workers and make the strike nationwide. Union president Eugene Debs is arrested for sedition and treason but acquitted by three grand juries. He later runs for president on the socialist ticket in 1912. President Cleveland before crushing the strike with regular army troops had just set the date for the first Labor Day.

1895-THE FIRST SUNDAY COMICS - The first modern comic strip Hogan’s Alley featuring "The Yellow Kid" by Richard Felton Outcault, debuts in the Sunday edition of Pulitzer's New York World. The strip was so popular it gave the name "Yellow Journalism" to the sensationalist tabloid press. Comic strips at this time became the mass media of the day. For people who couldn’t afford a theater ticket and couldn’t yet speak English, the little characters in the penny papers were extremely popular and made celebrities out of cartoonists like Outcault, Bud Selig George McManus and Winsor McCay. Richard Outcault later inventing the backend deal when he asked for a percentage of all sales from his new comic strip "Buster Brown and his dog Tige".

courtesy of humboldt.edu

1898-Congress votes to annex the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1900- Warren Earp, the youngest brother of Wyatt Earp, was killed in a gunfight. He had gotten into an argument in a saloon in Wilcox Arizona. Warren Earp was not at the OK Corral in 1881, but he did help his brothers hunt down the killers of Morgan Earp.

1911- THE AGADIR INCIDENT or "The Panther's Leap' In the tense international climate just before the Great War Germany sparked a major international incident by making moves to take southern Morocco from France. They sent the battle cruiser Panther to Agadir Harbor to "protect endangered German citizens", There were no Europeans in that part of Morocco so the German ministry cabled a Herr Weiland to rush overland by train to meet the warship. He was nicknamed "The Endangered German". After a lot of diplomatic bluffs and threats between Paris, Berlin, London and St. Petersburg, Germany eventually backed down. One Berlin newspaper said:" To think we almost went to war with Britain & France over a country that can only provide sand for our canary cages!" An angry German minister said:" The incident had the same effect as viewing a dead squid. First shock, then amusement, then revulsion."

1943-BANZAI- Climax of the Battle of Saipan- 4,300 Japanese troops stream out of the jungle in a massed Banzai charge on U.S. Marine positions. Fighting devolved into insane hand to hand combat with Samurai swords and rifle-bayonets, more reminiscent of the Civil War than World War Two. One of the Marines wounded in the attack was future movie star Lee Marvin, nicknamed Captain Marvel by his buddies for his gung-ho attitude.

Almost all the Japanese were killed. Later in a cave the Marines found the bodies of General Saito and Admiral Nagumo, the fleet commander at the Pearl Harbor attack. They had committed hari kari when the attack had failed. This event also caused Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's government to fall, since Tojo had pledged the U.S. could not take Saipan, an island which placed Japan within range of US long range bombers.

1947- THE ROSSWELL INCIDENT- An official news report from the U.S. Airforce 509th bomber command -the same unit that dropped the Hiroshima bomb- stated they had recovered the wreckage of a UFO in the New Mexico desert near Rosswell and were examining it. The next day the commanding general of the 8th Air Force flew to Rosswell and stated to the press that the earlier report was in error and it was only a downed weather balloon. The wreckage was removed under heavy-armed guard. Complete secrecy was then imposed, and maintained to this day.

The communications officer Major Jesse Marcey, who posed for an official photo showing him with the balloon wreckage later told his son it was faked. Marcey, who died in 1967 and his adjutant Lt. Haut still stick to the original version of their story. Lt. Haut also claimed the base commander Col. William Blanchard thought it was UFO debris. This report coming only two weeks after the first modern sighting of "flying saucers" over Mt. Reynier in Oregon sparked the Flying Saucer craze that gripped America throughout the 1950’s.

After the Cold War ended, the Pentagon tried to explain the incident by saying at Rosswell and the base Area 51 they were experimenting with high altitude balloons carrying sniffer devices to detect Russian nuclear tests. The rumored alien bodies recovered were in reality test dummies.

But then the military added to the mystery when they still refused any access to the mysterious Area 51. When asked what is done there, the Army spokesman said: "Uh, Secret Stuff...."

1949-"I’m Friday"- The program Dragnet first debuted on radio. Jack Webb conceived, wrote, directed and starred in the show. His hardest job was urging actors "not to act" but to speak the lines normally like the average person does.

1960- First demonstration of a practical laser beam. In Russia it had been theorized since 1951. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or LASER.

1967- Vivien Leigh, the actress who played Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, died in a mental institution at age 53.

1967 - Beatles' "All You Need is Love" is released. In 2002 for her Jubilee Queen Elizabeth II requested it because it was one of her favorite songs.

1967 – The Doors' "Light My Fire" hits #1.

1981- Judge Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1982- A drunken lunatic named Michael Fagin with a bleeding left hand broke into Buckingham Palace, got past all the security and startled Queen Elizabeth in her bed. Her personal bodyguard was out walking the royal dogs. The Queen kept the man engaged in conversation at the foot of her bed until guards dragged him away.

2005-THE 7-7 ATTACK- Four Al Qaeda terrorist bombs exploded in the London subway Tube and a doubledecker bus, killing 50 and injuring one thousand..
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Yesterday’s Quiz: : In music composition, what is meant by con fuoco?

Answer: It means you should play the music “with fire or fury” .

Quiz: In music composition, what is meant by con fuoco?

Yesterday’s questions answered below: Who were these men? Caesar Rodney, William Rutledge, Button Gwinnett, Rev John Witherspoon?
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History for 7/6/2009
Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Czar Nicholas Ist, Frida Kahlo, Della Reese, Bill Haley, Nancy Reagan,, Sylvester Stallone is 63, Merv Griffin, Janet Leigh, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sebastian Cabot, James Bordrero, The Dalai Lama is 74, LaVerne Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Geoffrey Rush, Ned Beatty is 72, Former President George W. Bush is 63, 50 Cent is 34

83 B.C. Sulla the Dictator stormed Rome and defeated the supporters of Marius. This first civil war amongst powerful Roman factions is known as the" Wars of Marius & Sulla" or “the Social Wars”. No one had ever dared take soldiers into Rome itself, and it spelled the death of the democratic Republic. Sulla published lists of hundreds of political enemies called the Proscribed. If you were on that list anybody could kill you without trial or appeal. Even a slave could kill his master and get the reward. Sulla had on his staff a kid who recently changed sides. His name was Gaius Julius Caesar.

1685- THE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR AND THE BLOODY ASSIZES.-The Illegitimate son of King Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, tried to overthrow his Catholic uncle King James II with the help of many Protestant Englishmen, angry that the Catholic monarch was planning to subvert the liberties won by Cromwell in the English Civil War. This day Monmouth hightailed it for the hills while his army was cut to pieces in battle.
After the battle the punishment of the rebels under Judge Jefferies was so brutal it was nicknamed the Bloody Assizes. An assize was another name for circuit court. Hundreds were beheaded, tongues cut out, limbs branded with hot irons then transported as slaves to the Bahamas and Barbados to cut sugar cane. White sugar was a new delicacy sweeping the nation. To this day many white skinned Bahamians can claim descendant from these condemned rebels. In the 1890s Rafael Sabatini wrote a novel about one slave who escaped to become a pirate named Captain Blood, later made into an Errol Flynn movie.

180-? THE IMMORTAL BELOVED LETTERS.- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven never married but not for want of trying. The bad tempered loner loved several women but never had a serious relationship. After his death several love letters were found. The letters written this day were of a supremely passionate nature where he begged some unknown woman to keep an appointment with him at some unstated rendezvous in Hungary. “Though still in bed my thoughts go out to you, My Immortal Beloved…” The letters were never sent and have no addresses or names. Who is this Immortal Beloved Beethoven yearns for?


1853- In Ripon, Wisconsin Free-Soil Whigs and other lefty radicals form the new Republican Party. They were called the Anti-Nebraska Men, then Black-Republicans for awhile because of their strong anti-slavery stance.

1885- Louis Pasteur gave the first inoculation to cure rabies.

1886 - Horlick's of Wisconsin offers the1st malted milk to public. It began as an attempt to create a new type of baby formula.

1895- A businessman named William Sydney Porter returned from Honduras where he had fled after being indicted for embezzlement. He had returned because he had learned of the illness of his wife. Porter was sent to prison and while there began writing little stories which he later published under the name O. Henry.

1906- THE GREAT FUNERAL OF JOHN PAUL JONES- The heroic sea captain of the American Revolution died a bitter old man in Paris in 1792. Ill and forgotten, he had no friends. Writer Thomas Carlyle said Jones “resembled an empty wineskin.” The few mourners at the little Paris cemetery were all admiring Frenchmen, and some children he had given coins to on the street during his walks through the Luxembourg Gardens. The American ambassador skipped his funeral because of a dinner party he didn’t want to miss. A Frenchman named Simonot had embalmed Jones in brandy in a lead sealed coffin. He figured the American government wanted to take him home. He was amazed when they were too cheap to pay the transport fees. Jones’ sword and medals were pawned to pay for the funeral. A century later America had become a great power. Scientists set about to look for John Paul Jones remains. They discovered the lead casket in Paris’ Old Protestant Cemetery. The brandy embalming kept him so well preserved they could do an autopsy on the body. Jones had died of bronchial pneumonia and kidney failure at age 45. President Teddy Roosevelt shared Jone’s dream of a powerful US Navy and used the occasion to stage a grand re-internment in Annapolis Naval Academy.
So, on his birthday, rows of battleships booming salutes and mile-long processions of US Marine and French honor guards gave John Paul Jones the grand funeral he always wanted, just 113 years too late.

1917 – As Lowell Thomas’ news reel cameras rolled, Lawrence of Arabia and Bedouin Sheik Ouda Abu-Tai captures the Red Sea Port of Aqaba from Turkish troops. The battle was dramatized in the 1962 David Lean epic Lawrence of Arabia.

1928- The film "The Lights of New York" premiered at the Strand theater on Broadway. 1927's the Jazz Singer popularized sound movies while still being half silent. This film was the first with an all dialogue track.

1944- A fire broke out in the main tent of Ringling Bros Circus during a children’s matinee in Hartford Connecticut. The big top had been waterproofed with a paraffin solution thinned with gasoline and now that mixture engulfed the tent in flames. 168 died and 682 more were injured, mostly children. In 1950 a deranged arsonist named Robert Segee admitted setting the Hartford Circus Fire.

1957-Chuck Jones short "What’s Opera, Doc?" debuts. “Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..."

1957-16 year old John Lennon first met 15 year old Paul McCartney at a church picnic near Woolton, England. Lennon invited McCartney to join his first band called the Quarrymen, but McCartney missed their first engagement because of a boy scout trip.

1964 - Beatles' film "Hard Day's Night" premieres in London. The bands iconoclastic, antics portrayed by Richard Lester's surreal free style direction set the style for the music videos of the future.

1965- TV sitcom F-Troop premiered. Shortly after the series began production it was learned that lead actress Melody Patterson (Wrangler Jane) was actually underage- 16 years old. She kept her part, but the writers had to tone down any sexual innuendo in the scripts.


1974- The first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keilor’s ode to small town life in Minnesota. Brought to you by Powdermilk Biscuits.

1998- French workers at Disney’s Paris theme park went on strike for better pay and not having to smile all the time like Americans do.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were these men? Caesar Rodney, William Rutledge, Button Gwinnett, Rev John Witherspoon.

Answer: Some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Quiz: Who were these men? Caesar Rodney, William Rutledge, Button Gwinnett, Rev John Witherspoon.

Quiz: Which medal is older- The Congressional Medal of Honor, The Purple Heart or the Victoria Cross?
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History for 7/5/2009
Birthdays: P.T. Barnum, Beatrix Potter, The XVIII Century English actress Mrs. Sarah Siddons, Jean Cocteau, Admiral David Farragut, Len Lye, George Pompidou, Shirley Knight, Huey Lewis, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Milburn Stone (Doc on Gunsmoke), Goose Gossage, Warren Oates, Henry Cabot Lodge IV, Edie Falco is 46

1820- THE TRIAL OF QUEEN CAROLINE- Forget Charles & Di, this was the greatest marital scandal ever to hit the British Monarchy. George the Prince Regent had been estranged from his wife Caroline since 1796 and she had been living a wild life in Italy while George chased skirts at court. When his elderly mad father George III finally died and 'Princee' became King George IV, nobody expected Caroline to suddenly show up in England and still want to be Queen. On this day George forced a bill into the House of Lords to grant him a divorce so he could be free to marry his mistress Lady Cunningham nicknamed 'the Vice-Queen'. The evidence in the trial were juicy anecdotes of the Queen's own sexual shenanigans with a number of Italians. The whole sordid affair was terribly embarrassing and split the nation into factions. Some loyal to the King, others the Queen's defender's of Women's Rights and the Family. The King's public appearances were greeted with cries of 'Nero!" the Duke of Wellington was hissed and had rocks thrown at him and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool was so upset he could not address Parliament without a dose of ether first. Eventually the divorce bill was dropped and the King crowned with the Queen shut out of the cathedral. A popular doggerel in Punch made a joke of Christ's advice to the Adulteress-
" Most Gracious Queen we thee implore, to Go Away and Sin No More...
But if that effort Be too Great, Just Go Away at Any Rate.."

1839- THE FLORA HASTINGS AFFAIR- The first great scandal of Queen Victoria's reign. After the sexual escapades of her predecessors the new 20 year old queen dwelt in a closed moral atmosphere. One day she noticed one of her ladies-in-waiting, a Lady Flora Hastings, had an enlarged belly, like she was pregnant. The idea that this unmarried grande dame may have been pregnant was made worse by the idea that the father may have been the detested lover of Victoria's mother, Sir John Conroy. The tittering eventually accelerated into a full fledged political scandal involving the Prime Minister and the entire government. The slandered Lady Hastings had to submit to a humiliating doctor's examination to prove she was still a virgin and even that didn't silence the gossip. Finally it came out that her belly swelling was caused by a large tumor on her liver, and had she paid more strict attention to it instead of the gossip she might have lived. This day she died and everyone blamed the young queen of persecuting and slandering Lady Hastings. Victoria was hissed in the streets for the remainder of the year.

1865- William Booth formed the Salvation Army in London .

1865- After two days of torrential rain at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee began withdrawing his Confederate army south to Virginia. He had enough ammunition for one more day's battle, and he was hoping the Yankees would destroy themselves assaulting his strong defensive works. But the Yankees, much to Lincoln's annoyance, remained quiet in camp.

1892- THE HOMESTEAD MASSACRE- Jacob Frick, the attorney of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, decided to solve the problem of uppity unions by surrounding his Homestead plant with barbed wire and guns then announcing to the astonished employees that they were getting a 20% pay cut. 3,000 workers fought with police and non-union replacements, 7 killed, the union leaders arrested for incitement to riot. Some apologists claim that Andrew Carnegie’s disillusionment with business and his desire to dedicate the remainder of his life to philanthropy stemmed from his horror of the violence done in his name at Homestead. Carnegie was on vacation and when told replied: "Ah yes, Florence is beautiful this time of year". Jacob Frick built himself an art museum in New York.

1910- Writer O.Henry died of cirrhosis and tuberculosis at 47. His last words were "Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark." He became a writer while serving a jail term for embezzlement.

1933-The Germans began building the Autobahn, a system of highways that became the envy of the world. The Bauhaus designers of the Autobahn invented the ideas we take for granted today- the Cloverleaf Exit, Blending Lanes and the central meridian.

1934- THE SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL STRIKE- A longshoreman strike had brought harbor traffic along the West Coast to a standstill. California Governor Frank Merriam decided to send in the National Guard. When the longshoremen picketline was rushed by armored trucks full of scab replacements they rioted and the troops opened fire. Hundreds were hurt and two killed. Blood flowed on the Embarcadero. One policeman who killed a demonstrator later said: "The man was a Communist so my only regret was that I did not kill more !" Flowers, candles and memorials to the slain men were kicked over by the S.F. police. As a spontaneous unorganized reaction to the violence 100,000 San Franciscans refused to go to work for 4 days. The third largest city in the U.S. was completely paralyzed. Governor Merriam declared martial law but the tanks in the street were helpless. To a nation struggling in the Depression there was widespread fear that this incident was the beginning of a Bolshevik style revolution. After all the Russian Revolution had started with general strikes. Then, on the 5th day San Francisco went back to work.

1935- The Wagner Act passed congress, decreeing all American workers have the right to collective bargaining and to form unions.

1943- Betty Grable married bandleader Harry James.

1945- The First British General Election held in ten years. Winston Churchill and his Tories were turned out for Labor candidate Clement Atlee. When his aides accused the British voters of ingratitude, Churchill said they had been through a lot and wanted to move on. But Churchill called Clement Atlee "a Sheep in Sheep’s clothing."

1952- London Transport scrapped the last of their electric streetcars in favor of diesel polluting double-decker buses.

1954- Elvis Presley recorded "That’s All Right" at Sun Records in Memphis. Some call it the first true Rock & Roll song, but that is disputed by Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock, Ike Turners Delta 88 and many other R&B hits. “That’s All Right” was written by black bluesman Arthur Big-Boy Crudup, who never profited from the song’s success and died living in a shack.

1954- Tomoyuki Tanaka announced the beginning of production on the movie Godzilla.

1989- White House aide Lt. Colonel Oliver North sentenced for his role in the Iran Contra Scandal. The conviction was later overturned by a conservative judge on a technicality. Colonel North appeared in court in his Marine uniform while being interrogated by Hawaii Senator Dan Inouye, a real combat war hero who lost an arm fighting in World War Two. Pundits enjoyed the irony of one who could say "I bled for my Country," while the other cried "I Shred for My Country!" North is today a conservative talk show host.

2002- International Professional Women’s Tennis had become dominated by two amazing American sisters, Venus and Serena Williams. This day Serena defeated Venus to win Wimbledon, last year saw the same outcome and a month earlier Serena had defeated Venus for the French Open. This was the tenth time they dueled for the top slot. Serena had won seven out of ten. Venus won the 2005 Wimbledon. 2008- Venus and Serena play the finals at Wimbledon again. This time Venus won. 2009- ditto- this time Surena won.
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Quiz: Which medal is older- The Congressional Medal of Honor, The Purple Heart or the Victoria Cross?

Answer: The Purple Heart, established by order of General George Washington in 1782.
The Medal of Honor was established in 1861, The Victoria Cross in 1856.

Michael Sporn's blog has a nice overview today about the people who composed the music for animated films, from Frank Churchill to Randy Newman. http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/

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Quiz: Which medal is older- The Congressional Medal of Honor, The Purple Heart or the Victoria Cross?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who is Mrs. Malaprop?
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History for 7/4/2009 U.S. Independence Day

Birthdays: Jean Pierre Blanchard the balloonist-1753, George M. Cohan, Stephen Foster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Calvin Coolidge, Rube Goldberg, Louis Armstrong*, Edward Walker the inventor of the Lava Lamp, Mayer Lansky, Tokyo Rose, Louis B. Mayer, George Murphy, Emerson Boozer, Neil Simon, Mitch Miller, Eve Marie Saint is 86, Gina Lollabrigida is 83, Al Davis, George Steinbrenner, Ann Landers, Ron Kovic, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril, Pam Shriver, Rene Laloux, Gloria Stuart is 99

•Louis Armstrong always claimed his birthday was July 4th 1900, although records show his birth was August 4th 1901.

1054- A supernova in the constellation Taurus created a star visible in the sky for 23 days. The residue of the blast is visible today as the Crab Nebula.

1187- BATTLE OF THE HORNS OF HATTIN- Sultan Saladin lured the Christian Crusader army out into the desert, far away from water. The Saracens started a brush fire to confuse the Crusader formations with choking smoke. Old Duke Raymond of Tripoli realized what was happening but was helpless to stop it. When he saw his knights stopping to fight, he cried out:" We're lost! We are already dead men!" In one big battle the entire hierarchy of Crusader Palestine or Outremer as they called it in French, was dead or taken. Saladin also captured Christian holy relics like the wood of the True Cross, and sent them to the Caliph in Baghdad. Saladin's sister had been captured while on the pilgrimage to Mecca and raped by a crusader named Peter de Courtenay. De Courtenay bragged that he planned next to march on Mecca and “piss on the grave of that lying old mule trader Mohammed!” Saladin had Peter taken alive, he then spent that evening slowly torturing him to death. Hattin was The battle that decided that the Holy Land would not be an outpost of Christian Europe.

1744- Representatives of the Crown Colony of Pennsylvania negotiate a peace accord with the Iroquois Confederacy of the 5 Nations. The great Onondaga chief Canastego lectured the whitemen : " Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the five tribes, it has made us formidable. We are a powerful confederacy and by following the same methods you too can acquire great powers." A secretary named Benjamin Franklin took his advice to heart. Their symbol, five arrows tied together is still held in the claws of the eagle in the Great Seal of the United States.

1776- U.S. INDEPENDENCE DAY- The actual vote for independence was on July 2nd, two days were required for rewrites, but the 4th was the day of the vote to approve the amended Declaration and the official announcement. After 46 revisions and deletions Tom Jefferson showed the finished document to Ben Franklin, he smiled :”Now we may proceed.” The 56 men who signed the document knew that this was their death warrant as they were committing high treason. Many had their personal fortunes ruined as a result.

1776- It took two months for the news to cross the Atlantic. In London King George III wrote in his diary for July 4th, 1776:" Nothing important happened today..."

1802-The Hudson River fortress of West Point is inaugurated as a military academy.

1804- Already pledged to fight a duel to the death in a week, Vice President Aaron Burr and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton have to sit next to each other at an Independence Day dinner in New York City.

1826- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams last words were: "Jefferson...Jefferson still lives...” . Jefferson breathed his last at 1:30PM at Monticello Virginia, Adams at 6:00PM at his home in Quincy Massachusetts. Adams left holdings amounting to $100,000, Jefferson left debts amounting to $100,000. Jefferson freed only six out of 200 slaves, all of the Hemmings Family but not Sally Hemmings his mistress for 38 years. Jefferson’s youngest daughter clandestinely freed her with a pension for her old age.

1831- former President James Monroe, veteran of Washington’s Army and called the Last Founding Father, also died on the 4th of July.

1848- The Communist Manifesto published by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.

1850- President Zachary Taylor "Old Rough and Ready" gets sick from eating too many raw cherries and raw milk at a ceremony laying the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. He died 5 days later. Modern historians wondered if he was poisoned, being a Southern statesman who openly opposed slavery, but an examination of his exhumed remains in 1993 proved natural causes.

1855- Henry Davis Thoreau moves to Walden Pond. He was the first U.S. writer to espouse nature as a thing of beauty instead of an enemy to be conquered. This date is considered the birth of the American Conservation Movement.

1855- Walt Whitman published his quarto of poems The Leaves of Grass. Many people were shocked at it’s frank description of sexual desire. Whitman’s mother said :”Walt is a good boy, but strange.”

1862- Oxford mathematics professor Charles Dodgson rowed ten year old Alice Liddell and her sister up the Thames in a small punt. The little girls begged him for a story, so Dodgson made up fantastic tales of March Hares, Mad Hatters and the Queen of Hearts.
Dodgson later wrote them down and published them in 1865 as Alice in Wonderland. He used the penname Lewis Carroll, which was a joke on the fact that Renaissance scholars adopted big stuffy Latin names like Ludovicus Carolus Magnus.

1883- Buffalo Bill staged his first Wild West Show in North Platte Nebraska. Bill and his partners took the show all over the US and played for the crowned heads of Europe until 1916. In an interesting case of life imitating art until the Wild West Shows not many gunfighters carried their six shooters in a holster slung low on their hip. Wild Bill Hickock for instance carried his in a sash around his waist. But cowboys went to the Wild West Show and saw a hip holster was the only proper way to carry your shootin iron. Likewise, before the Wild West Shows cowboys wore any kind of hat: sombreros, derbys, old cavalry kepis. But soon the wide brimmed Stetson was the only proper attire for any self respecting cow puncher.

1905- Los Angeles developer Abbott Kinney had broke with his partners over the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier. He moved down the coast to some marshy wetlands and built a new community with canals, lagoons and gondolas. VENICE California opened this day. In 1925 the City of LA got rid of most of the canals and gondolas. Venice went on to be a seaside mecca for Beatniks, Hippies and weightlifters like young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1912-THE GREAT WHITE HOPE- Jack Johnson had become the first black heavyweight boxing champ in 1908 and had defended his title against all comers. His flaunting of Jim Crow, extravagant lifestyle and romancing white women drove racists crazy. Finally boxing champ Jim Jeffries agreed to come out of retirement and challenge Johnson. He was billed in the press as the Great White Hope. But this day Johnson defeated Jeffries and kept the championship. The victory sparked racial violence throughout the country and even in Capetown and Bombay. Johnson kept his title until 1915 and died in a sports car crash in 1946.


1911- The first rollercoaster on the Pacific Coast opened on Santa Monica Pier.

1914- First day of filming on D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of an Nation.”

1915- Heavyweight Champion Jess Willard who had taken the championship from Jack Johnson was himself beaten by a new kid named Jack Dempsey, the Manassas Mauler. Dempsey chewed pine tar to make his jaw hard and washed his face in ocean brine to toughen his skin against cuts. He became a popular media figure by appearing with many Hollywood Movie stars. After he retired he opened a bar-restaurant called Dempseys in Times Square, the first sports-bar.

1926- Hungarian film director Mihaly Kertesz arrived in Hollywood. He changed his name to the more manageable Michael Curtiz and directed great classic films like Captain Blood and Casablanca. His brother Andre Kertesz lived in New York and became a famous photographer.

1946- The Independence of the Philippines is declared.

1947- THE WILD ONES- 400 motorcyclists converge on a small California town called Hollister to party hard. The local police arrest 49 and call for State reinforcements. The national media sensationalized the wild bikers terrorizing a small town, calling them "Hell's Angels" three years before the first chapter was formed. Truth be told many residents remember the incident fondly and said it livened things up. Many of the bikers weren’t teenage delinquents but World War Two veterans who used motorcycles to recapture the thrill and camaraderie of action. The Life Magazine that dramatized the Hollister incident had a cover photo showing a depraved biker swilling beer. The shot was staged and the man in the photo was actually a Hollister local who never went near a Harley. The Marlon Brando film 'The Wild One" was based on the Hollister incident.

1954- Dr Sam Shepard returned to his suburban Cleveland home to find his wife beaten to death and a man fleeing the scene. Dr. Shepard himself was convicted of his wife’s murder in a controversial trial. People still argue today whether he was guilty or not.In 1998 Dr. Shepards son got DNA evidence to prove there was another man at the scene the night of the murder, but in 2000 the court threw out his wrongful imprisonment suit. The TV show and film The Fugitive was based on Dr. Shepard.

1966- President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act.

1969-“ Give Peace a Chance.” released by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.

1976-What’s Love Got to Do With It? Singer Tina Turner left Ike Turner.

1976- The first true Punk Band, The Ramones, arrived in England for a tour. They greatly inspired future bands like the Clash and the Sex Pistols. When playing at the Palladium the Sex Pistols said they couldn’t get tickets to get in so the Ramones pulled them in through the men’s room window. Hey, Ho, Lets Go!

1982- Jimmy Connors defeated John McEnroe for his last Wimbledon Championship.

1982- Ozzie Ozbourne married Sharon Ozbourne.

1984- First Lady Nancy Reagan began the campaign to combat drugs among kids by saying “Just Say No”. Two of her Secret Service bodyguards were cocaine snorters.

1987- Martina Navratilova defeated Steffie Graf for her 6th straight Wimbledon championship.

1990- 2 Live Crew released the song Banned in the USA.

1997- NASA landed Pathfinder on Mars and deployed Sojourner, the first ever autonomous robotic rover. Expected to function for only two months, the rover collected data on the Red Planet for the next ten years.

2003- Pres. George W. Bush said to the Iraqi insurgents “ Bring it on!”. Insurgent attacks on American and coalition forces go up 300%.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who is Mrs. Malaprop?

Answer: She was a main character in the Richard Sheridan’s 1775 Restoration play The Rivals.”

Quiz: Who is Mrs. Malaprop?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What are the Seven Deadly Words, also called the Carlin Case??
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History for 7/3/2009
Birthdaze: King Louis XI of France "the Spider King"1423, Franz Kafka, Mr. Preserved Fish -New York Congressman-1819, Dave Barry, Leos Janacek, John Singleton Copley, Ken Russell, Tom Stoppard, George Saunders, Peter Fountain, Tom Cruise is 47

1754- During the French & Indian War, young Virginia militia Captain George Washington surrendered his post, Fort Necessity, to the French. Up till now his major ambition in life was to be an officer in the British Army. Now his first command was a defeat and to top it all off, because one of his allied Indians tomahawked a surrendered French officer, he was almost arrested for war crimes. When Washington signed the surrender document, a murder confession was slipped into the terms. It was in French, so he didn’t understand it.

1826- Elderly, dying Thomas Jefferson was drifting in and out of consciousness at his home in Monticello. He would be cognizant long enough to ask “ Is it the 4th of July yet?” The author of the Declaration of Independence was grimly hanging on, determined to see one more Independence Day.

1863-PICKET'S CHARGE-CLIMAX OF GETTYSBURG-Robert E. Lee launched his last fresh divisions in a grand frontal attack to win the war. 15,000 Virginians, South Carolinians and Floridians walk across one mile of open ground, while being shot at from the whole Yankee Army. Even against such long odds they almost break the Union center. The entire attack took thirty minutes, German, British and Austrian diplomat observers in full dress uniforms climbed a tree to watch.

Picket’s division suffered 50% casualties including all his leading generals. General Lothario Armistead put his hat on his sword point and shouted "Who will follow me?" Lo Armistead’s father had commanded Fort McHenry during the “Rockets Red Glare” British attack in 1814. Armistead reached the union artillery before he was killed. Ironically Armistead and the Yankee commander Winfield Hancock (who was also wounded) were personal friends. When one North Carolina flagbearer survived murderous gunfire from all sides and lived to reach the union wall, the men in blue instead of killing him, shook his hand. Finally the Southern assault spent itself and started to recede. Men retreated backwards because they didn’t want to be shot in the back. Lee rode out and told the survivors: “This is my fault. All of this..” That night he wrote his resignation to Richmond. But no fault would stick on their beloved old general.

1863- Santee Sioux chief Little Crow had led a large uprising against the whites in Minnesota. This day near the town of Hutchinson he was picking berries with his son when he was ambushed and killed by settlers seeking the $25 dollar bounty on Indian scalps. His body was thrown on an offal pile at a cattle slaughterhouse, and later put on exhibit by the Minnesota Historical Society. Eventually both bones and scalp were returned to the Sioux for proper burial.

1916-Hetty Green "the Witch of Wall Street" dies at 80. Her eccentric cheapness created the millionaire-bag lady myth. The richest woman in America, worth around $100 million, she lived in a dumpy apartment in Hoboken, refused to pay for a doctor when her son broke his leg, and stole bread off the tables at fashionable restaurants.

1931- The Cab Calloway Orchestra recorded 'The St. James Infirmary Blues."

1937- In California the Del Mar Racetrack opened. Part owner singer Bing Crosby personally welcomed the first customers to his track.

1946- Millionaire aviator Howard Hughes crashed an experimental airplane into four homes in Beverly Hills. Hughes had crashed planes before without much injury, but this crash left him near death. His slow recuperation addicted him to morphine and codine.

1969- Brian Jones, having been kicked out of the Rolling Stones just days before -- drowns in his swimming pool. His home was once the estate of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne. To this day, conspiracy theorists still insist foul play was involved. More likely, lots of drugs and depression.

1971- Rock singer Jim Morrison 28, found dead of a heart attack in his bathtub in Paris.

1971- First laser surgery performed in Sweden.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What are the Seven Deadly Words, also called the Carlin Case??

Answer: 1978- This day the Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s reprimand of N.Y. Pacifica radio station WBAI’s airing of a George Carlin comedy routine called the “7 Deadly Words”, reciting the main Anglo-Saxon expletives you cannot say on U.S. radio or television even today, and I can’t write here.