Quiz: What does it mean to be “engaging in hyperbole”?

Yesterday’s answer below: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?
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History for 8/7/2009
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantius II, Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, Mata Hari, Rassan Rolling Kirk, Dr. Ralphe Bunche, Nicholas Ray, Dr. Richard Leakie, Grandma Moses, Alan Page, The Amazing Randi, David Duchovny is 49, Billy Burke aka Glenda the Good Witch " Come out, come out. wherever you are..." Garrison Keillor is 67, animation voice actor and radio star Stan Freeberg is 83, Animator Rudy Ising, Charlize Theron is 34

1674-The Bagel is invented in Vienna. Some say the hole is a tribute to the stirrup of Polish King Jan III Sobieski, more likely the hole was just so a street peddler could stack them on a stick.

1882- The legendary hillbilly Feud in Kentucky between the Hatfields and the McCoys began, supposedly over a prize hog. Ellison Hatfield was stabbed 26 times and shot in the back by Tolbert McCoy. The Hatfields then rounded up three McCoys and shot them execution style. Over the next forty years over 100 men women and children from both families would be killed in the argument.

1912 –After serving out murdered President William McKinley’s term Teddy Roosevelt pledged he would only serve one full term of his own, then his successor Taft became President. TR regretted this and ran again anyway, even though the GOP stayed with Taft. This day the Progressive Bull Moose Party nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. TR’s splitting the presidential ticket not only enabled democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the White House, but the Bull Moose movement drew off the progressive left wing of the Republican Party, causing the Party of Lincoln to drift to the right.

1919- the First Actor’s Equity Strike.

1928- The US Treasury issued a smaller leaner dollar bill. Before this dollars were two times larger and wider than the ones we now use.

1931 - Leon Bismarck "Bix" Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter died at 29 of drink and drugs. Bix along with his idol Louis Armstrong was considered one of the first jazz musicians to popularize the solo-riff, where in the body of a song the soloist would depart from the arrangement and improvise like a cadenza in classical music. His family in Davenport Iowa were horrified that their son dropped out of school to associate with black people and become a musician. Even after Bix was famous he returned proudly home only to discover his parents had stacked up every record he sent them in a box under the stairs. They never listened to a single one.

1933-The first "Alley-Oop" comic strip.

1942- GUADALCANAL BEGINS-10,000 Marines land on the Japanese held island in the first U.S. offensive of World War Two. Americans at home had to learn names like Tulagi, Savo, Gaivutu-Tanonbogo, Chesty Puller and Washing Machine Charlie as their loved ones slugged it out for six months in one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific War. The evenly matched Japanese and Americans went at each other with everything from bayonets to battleships. So many ships were sunk in the island’s lagoon that they nicknamed it "Ironbottom Sound". Marines not only had to battle crack Japanese soldiers and malaria in the steaming jungles, some of the local natives were cannibals and would drag off the wounded of both sides for supper.

1942-The first days aerial dogfights over Guadalcanal, Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai won fame for shooting down his 58th, 59th and 60th American planes. Then his Zero was badly shot up by Gruman F-4 Wildcats. Sakai was paralyzed on his left side and had one eye shattered by a bullet. Yet even in this state he managed to fly his smoking plane 500 miles to home base safely. In the air for 8 1/2 hours, he later said he would occasionally thrust a thumb into his eye wound to give himself a shot of pain to keep awake. Saboru Sakai survived, fought at Iwo Jima in 1944, volunteered for Kamikaze duty, but flew back with honor when he could find no suitable targets. He survived the war and wrote a famous memoir- Zero Pilot.

1963- Pres. John F. Kennedy and Jacky Kennedy tried to have one more baby, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, but he was born with a breathing disorder and died two days later.

1964-THE TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION-After the Tonkin Gulf Incident, President Johnson asked for permission to act in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution 93-2 in the Senate and 410-0 in the House to accelerate the U.S. combat troops role in Vietnam. President Johnson used the hotline to the Kremlin for the first time, to assure Premier Khruschev that the US did not plan to expand their role in IndoChina- (?) The American commitment went from 30,000 to 450,000, trillions of dollars and eventually decimated Cambodia and Laos as well. Congressman Mark Hatfield- "I can’t get over the feeling we’re making a big mistake."

1970 - Christine Perfect McVie joins the band Fleetwood Mac.

1970 – The first computer chess tournament.

1974- French daredevil Phillipe Petit strung a tightrope between the two 110 story towers of NY’s World Trade Center and walked across it. As New Yorkers watched in amazement, Petit kept his concentration by carrying on a conversation with the buildings.(?) Michael Sporn made a wonderful film about the event- the Man Between Two Towers.

1979- THE RUNAWAY WARS.-Hollywood Cartoonist’s Union strike against studios sending animation work overseas.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?

Answer: One of the scruffy drinking buddies of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare’s plays Henry IV Parts I & II and Henry V.

Quiz: Who was the character named Ancient Pistol?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a spelunker?
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History for 8/6/2009
Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Daniel O'Connell "the Liberator", Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer), Louella Parsons, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Andy Warhol, Hoot Gibson, William B. Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Sir Freddy Laker, M. Night Shyamalan, Melissa George, Andy Messersmith, Soliel Moon-Frye aka Punky Brewster

1504 Birth of Matthew Parker, English cleric who became Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I and was responsible for formulating the 39 Articles - an apocryphal story is that his long nose and inquisitive nature gave rise to the term "Nosy Parker ".

1571-During the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Cypus this day the second largest city Famagusta fell after a one year siege. The Turkish pasha was so enraged at all the time and soldiers killed to capture the city, that he ordered the Venetian commander General MarcAntonio Bradenigo skinned alive and his hide nailed to the poop deck of his flagship. The Bradenigo Family later negotiated with Sublime Porte and regained possession of the skin, folded him up nicely and placed behind glass in his monument in the Church of San Giovanni et Paulo. When you enter the church today look to the right up high and you’ll see a bust with a glass plate with something that looks like a brown table napkin. That’s General Bradenigo.

1840- NAPOLEON III'S ABORTIVE COUP. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of the first Napoleon and one day he decided since his uncle was a genius he must be also. So he resolved to leave exile in Britain and overthrow the French government. His uncle in 1814 just had to show up on the beach in Cannes for the people to go wild and carry him to the palace on their shoulders. So Louis Napoleon appeared on the beach in Boulogne waving his sword and flag. Instead of cheering crowds a local constable tried to arrest him for carrying a unlicensed firearm. When the gun went off and hurt the constable a mob chased Mr.Bonaparte back to his boat booing and laughing. While trying to row away the boat capsized and Napoleon III was picked up by a fishing boat while clinging to a lifebuoy. A gov't minister in Paris said of the affair: "That blockhead! Everything would be easier if he would just drown himself!" Louis Napoleon later became France's second emperor in 1852.

1890- FIRST MAN ELECTROCUTED- Prison officials wanted a more humane way to execute badguys than hanging, after a 300 pound killer named Mad Jack Ketcham made everybody sick when the noose ripped his head off. So they turned to the miracle of the age, electricity. A spirited competition began between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse whether AC or DC current was more lethal. Lots of dogs and cats around their laboratories disappeared for test subjects. Edison wanted to call his device an "Automort" or "Electramort". When Edison knew he was going to lose the contract he suggested the inventor give his name to it." Joe will be Westinghoused at Midnight !"-etc. Finally it was simply the Chair or the Hot Seat. The first man in it, an axe murderer named William Kemmler, took several 17 second jolts to be sent off, his hair and jacket caught fire and his shoes melted and stuck to the floor.

1926- Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel.

1926- Warner Brothers Studio premiered it’s motion picture sound on disk system. The film was Don Juan with John Barrymore the Great Profile. It didn’t really have much impact until they made the "Jazz Singer"with Al Jolson two years later.

1930- Judge Crater disappeared. The New York Supreme Court Justice had given no indication of any trouble but he had accrued huge gambling debts. The good judge had dinner with some friends at the Stork Club and told them he would join them later at the theater. He got into a taxi at 43rd street and vanished forever. It was the media story of the year.

1932- Top Broadway singer Libby Hollman "Statue of Libby" had married quiet millionaire Smith Reynolds and moved to his North Carolina estate. But life on the farm was boring so Libby brought her Broadway friends down to party. After one party she was missing for several hours and had grass stains on her knees. The couple quarreled and Smith Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head. No one was ever charged .

1945- HIROSHIMA.- At around 11:00 A.M. Capt. Tibbetts and his B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped one bomb and sent us into the Atomic Age. The uranium device was called the "Cosmic Bomb" by the scientists and "Little Boy" by the crew. Navy Secretary Admiral Leahy had said:" It's the biggest damn fool thing we've ever done. It'll never go off!" When it did go off one crewmember shouted:"Wow! Lookit that sonofabitch go! This war is over!!" The navigator wrote in his journal" My God! What have we done ?" The target city of Hiroshima was selected because it was undamaged up until then, and the surrounding hills would concentrate it’s effect. The A-bomb killed around 130,000 people and continued to kill survivors with radiation and cancer. 50,000 people were vaporized outright leaving only shadows burned into the pavement.

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's main designer, had built it primarily to stop Hitler -both the Nazis and Japanese had their own unsuccessful atomic bomb programs. He was still horrified by the results. He became a lifelong pacifist and was later persecuted as a commie for refusing any more help in developing nuclear weapons.

1962- Jamaica gained independence from Britain.

1970- THE HIPPIES ATTACK DISNEYLAND- A nationwide call for civil disobedience at the famous American-establishment tourist spot was called for August 6th. Called "Yippie Day" Yippies were considered more militant than Hippies. 750 long haired, denim clad moppets filtered into park. Once in they quickly massed, then invaded the Wilderness Fort in Frontierland. There they raised the Vietcong flag, passed marijuana cigarettes to tourists and chanted "Stop the War! Free Charlie Manson!" They were finally expelled with great difficulty by park security and the Anaheim police. In the 1980’s Disney was almost invaded by Nazi skinheads but this time they were ready.

1973- Stevie Wonder involved in car crash, goes into a 4 day coma but eventually recovered.

1984- Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track & field at the Olympic Games in LA.

1998- A chubby White House student intern from LA named Monica Lewinsky testified to a Federal Grand Jury that she had sex with President Bill Clinton in a small room down the hall from the Oval Office. Hey, watch where ya put that cigar!

2001- One month before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a study that increased terrorist chatter meant some kind of attack was likely. The report was entitled OSAMA BEN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN CONTINENTAL US. That the terrorists may use hijacked civilian airliners. President Bush thanked them:” Okay, you’ve covered your ass...” then resumed clearing brush on his ranch. CIA chief George Tenant didn’t think it important enough to even show up.
Later in 2003 after the 9-11 attack National Security advisor Dr. Condoleeza Rice was quoted in the press " No one could predict terrorists would hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Tenant later got the Medal of Freedom.
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Yesterdays Quiz: What is a spelunker?

Answer: Someone whose sport is exploring caves.

Quiz: What is a spelunker?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Enemies of President Obama hope the health care issue would be his Waterloo. What does that mean?
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History for 8/5/2009
Birthdays: Guy de Maupassant, Amboise Thomas, William- first black child born in British America, Neil Armstrong is 79, John Huston, Robert Taylor, Conrad Aiken, Roman Gabriel, Selma Diamond, Patrick Ewing, John Merrick the Elephant Man, Loni Anderson, Bill Scott -the voice of Bullwinkle Moose, John Saxon, Jonathan Silverman

1667- Moliere’s famous comedy “Tartuffe” first played for the public. The next day the Parliament of Paris ordered the theater closed and it’s posters ripped down. The Archbishop of Paris threatened excommunication of anyone who saw it or performed it. It seemed the local religious community didn’t like all the jokes about a charlatan who steals everything from a family by pretending to be a man of the cloth. But the Sun King Louis XIV thought it was funny. He overruled the prelates and ordered the play resumed.

1769- Marching up the California coast Gaspar de Portola discovered the San Fernando Valley.( Oh ma Gaawd!) He came down out of the Sepulveda pass, made a left at Ventura Blvd. and went over to the Chumash village by a spring in Encino (now Encino park near Balboa Blvd.). There was an inversion (smog) layer even at this time. The original Indian word for this valley was “Valley of Smoke”.

1775- 1st Spanish ship, the San Carlos, entered San Francisco Bay.

1847 -Author Herman Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne. They went for a hike together in the Berkshires.

1864-“ DAMN THE TORPEDOES!” Admiral David Farragut at Mobile Bay. The Union Navy captured one of last Southern deep water ports. As the US warships in a line ran the heavy cannon of the rebel forts, a lead ship exploded from a floating mine called a torpedo. This stacked up the ship traffic under the enemy guns like a shooting gallery . Admiral Farragut shouted “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead ! “ he pushed his flagship the USS Hartford to the lead and gambled the remaining booby traps would be duds. They were.

They also defeated the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, who’s captain Franklin Buchanan had commanded the Merrimac two years earlier. Even though Farragut had closed the port to Confederate ships the North wouldn’t spare troops to capture the city. So Mobile Alabama didn’t surrender until four days after Lee surrendered to Grant in 1865.

1882- On little Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, on top of a old War of 1812 fort, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty set. The statue had arrived in pieces from France-some assembly required. Donations for the statue’s construction were collected by a national fundraiser organized by newspaper tycoon Josef Pulitzer.

1891- the American Express Company introduces Travelers Checks.

1910- The first Traffic Light set up on Euclid and 105th st. in Cleveland.

1921-KDKA Pittsburgh does the 1st radio baseball broadcast Pirates-8, Phillies-0.

1924 Arf, Arf ! the first Little Orphan Annie comic strip drawn by Harold Gray.


1926 Magician Harry Houdini stays in a coffin under water for one hour.

1927 Victrola Record producer Ralph Peer realized there might be a market for “Hillbilly Music”. So he set up a makeshift recording studio above a furniture store in Bristol Tennessee and put an ad in the local papers for talent. In one day he recorded future stars Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, The Carter Family, The Tennessee Mountaineers and Ernest Pop Stoneman. This session has been called the “ Big Bang of Country Music.”

1945- At Tinian airbase The atomic uranium bomb “Little Boy” is loaded onto the B-29 bomber Enola Gay after traveling by ship from Hawaii. The crew will take off at 5:00 am next morning.

1945-THE INDIANAPOLIS The ship that carried the Atomic bombs, the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-168 on the way back from Tinian. Because the Indianapolis was under top secrecy it took five days for the Navy to realize that she was even missing. By the time rescue planes reached the site most of her sailors had drowned or had been eaten by sharks. Out of 900 sailors in the water only 300 were rescued. Survivors recalled how they could feel the sharks noses bumping into the soles of their feet then another comrade would disappear under water. This day the plane that discovered them did so by accident. He had spotted the oil slick and assumed it was a submerged Japanese submarine and was closing in to drop a bomb when he saw the men’s heads bobbing in the water.

1953- The film “From Here to Eternity” opened , starring Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. But the big story was Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning performance as Maggio that signaled the turnaround in his slumping career.

1955- The Screen Actor’s Guild strikes Hollywood for television residuals. Their president was Walter Pidgeon who had played Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.

1957- American Bandstand featuring the eternally teenage Dick Clark debuts on television.

1962- GOODBYE, NORMA JEAN. Marilyn Monroe found nude in bed, dead of barbiturate overdose. She was 36. Whether you think the starlet overdosed by accident, suicide, or was done in by the Mafia, the Kennedys, a Svengali like personal physician, lesbian physical therapist or space aliens is still a mystery. She made a call to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s office in Washington several hours earlier but was rebuffed. Her last call was to her hairdresser Mr. Guilaroff. She left the bulk of her belongings to her drama teacher Lee Strassberg and her funeral was organized by ex-husband Joe Dimaggio. Her Westwood cottage suite had a tile over the doorway which read :"All my troubles end Here."

1963- The US, Britain and USSR sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

1964 - Actress Anne Bancroft & Comedian Mel Brooks wed.

1966- Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino first opened to the public. This was the first of the super-resort casinos, with a total theme park design and three times the space and accommodations of anything yet seen on the Vegas Strip. It’s success ushered in an accelerated era of building for Las Vegas casinos.

1966 –It a moment of youthful indiscretion Beatle John Lennon says his band the Beatles are now more popular than Jesus. This flippant comment provoked a firestorm of nationwide protest among conservative elements in the US and Beatles albums were publicaly burned in the streets. Lennon apologized, then suggested that he was being crucified over the comment. Paul McCartney rush up to the mike to insist that wasn't the choice of words they preferred.

1967- Bobby Gentry released “Ode to Billy Jo”.

1980- The Osmond Brothers break up.

1984- Welsh actor Richard Burton died of cerebral hemorrhage at 64. With a tumultuous career and sometime marriages to Elizabeth Taylor the hard drinking Burton was the most famous English-speaking thespian of his day. But unlike Olivier and Gielgud, he was never knighted. As I recall, the royals objected to their portrayal, when Burton starred in a miniseries on Winston Churchill. Burton was buried with a copy of Dylan Thomas’ poems in his coffin.


1984- Joan Benoit won the first Women’s Olympic Marathon.

1986 - It's revealed painter Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings &
paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf, in Chadds Ford, Pa

1994- JUDGE KENNETH STARR appointed by Congress to be special prosecutor to investigate wrongdoing by President Clinton in his Whitewater financial dealings. When the Whitewater affair proved a cold lead he came upon the Travelgate, Paula Jones and the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Yet Starr never garnered much public support because his probe was perceived as a political vendetta. Rather than seem to be impartial Judge Starr was an declared enemy of Bill Clinton’s politics. And his blunt tactics brought up disturbing memories of McCarthyism- like his ordering the arrest of a D.C. bookshop owner who refused to hand over his receipts and berating jurors who deadlocked over two counts against Clinton’s law partners. After $54 million spent, Congress voted impeachment of the President for his sexual peccadilloes and lying under oath. But that effort was defeated and Clinton served out his term. Judge Starr became president of Pepperdine College in liberal Malibu, Ca.

2001- In a throwback to the long dead Communist era, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il visited Moscow to meet with Russian leaders. Flanked by goose stepping soldiers he laid a wreath at the tomb of Lenin. Russian President Putin let him sleep in a Kremlin suite his father Kim Il Sung slept in 50 years earlier, as a guest of Stalin. Terrified of flying, Kim made the 6000 mile trip from Pyongyang by train, pausing to visit a tank factory. The only reaction was annoyance from Moscow workers. Kim’s private train had jammed up their morning commute.
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Yesterdays’ Quiz: Enemies of President Obama hope the health care issue would be his Waterloo. What does that mean?

Answer: Waterloo was the battle where Napoleon was defeated decisively by Wellington. After 25 years of success, Nappy could blame the Retreat of Moscow on the weather, and Spain on the guerrillas, but Waterloo was his being beaten at what he does best, a single big battle. After Waterloo Napoleon was not only defeated, but he considered himself beaten. He lost his famous self confidence.

Quiz: Enemies of President Obama hope the health care issue would be his Waterloo. What does that mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Of all the Apollo Program spacecraft that went to the moon and back, only one is still traveling in space, 40 years later. Good Grief! Which is it?
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History for 8/4/2009
Birthdays: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nicholas Conte' 1777-inventor of the modern pencil and the conte'-crayon, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, William Pater, Richard Belzer, Franco Corelli, Elizabeth-England's late Queen Mum, opera tenor, Roger Clemens, runner Mary Decker-Slaney, Billy-Bob Thornton is 54, President Barack Obama is 48

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

1693 – “ Come quickly Martin, I am tasting stars!”monk Dom Perignon invented the Method Champagnoise to create champagne.

1735- N.Y. newspaper editor John Peter Zenger had been writing articles criticizing the Royal Governor for corruption. Past governors of New York, Maryland and North Carolina colonies were known fences for Caribbean pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard and pocketing monetary bonds set up for colonial defense. This day German born Zenger's newspaper was shut down, and he was arrested for 'Seditious Libel". His later trial and acquittal was seen as the first great victory in America for Freedom of the Press. Today the Governor would just call his corporate employer, who would fire him.

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


1776-The nice printed up Declaration of Independence we all recognize was officially signed. The declaration approved on July 2nd and published on July 4th was the rough draft. Today John Hancock signed that big flowing signature "So old King George won't need his spectacles". Today a nickname for a signature is a John Hancock. It was a gutsy thing to do, the signatures would be their death warrants if the rebellion was crushed. Ironically if you asked Hancock for a pinch of snuff his snuffbox was an engraved gift from King George III he received during a visit to London ten years earlier.
During the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington D.C. the Declaration was hidden under a doorstep in Baltimore. It later hung in a sunlit window for 30 years which bleached it’s print almost to invisibility. Today millions are being spent on restoration efforts like encasing it in pure helium.

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

1792- The FRENCH REVOLUTION HEATS UP. Since the fall of the Bastille two years earlier France and King Louis XVI had tried to work as a constitutional monarchy guided by the Marquis de Lafayette. But Louis only played the system for time while negotiating with his royal relatives in Germany and Austria to send armies to help him put his peasants in their place. By now the French nation had enough. Mobs stirred to anger by radicals like Danton and Marat marched on the Tuilieries Palace demanding justice. The King Louis XVI's Swiss bodyguard opened fire on them . The enraged peasants tore the guards to pieces and looted the palace, sticking soldier's ears on the kings desk. The king and queen tried to escape out the back door but were grabbed by the mob. A flag was made from a Swiss red uniform coats- the very first Red Flag of Revolution. Lafayette later fled into exile and was imprisoned. Standing in the street watching all this was a young unemployed lieutenant named Napoleon Bonaparte. He later wrote that if King Louis had the nerve to appear on a horse at the head of his supporters he could have still triumphed. Napoleon's murmured: " Quel con!”- “What an Asshole!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Of all the Apollo Program spacecraft that went to the moon and back, only one is still traveling in space, 40 years later. Good Grief! Which is it?



Answer: The LEM Lunar Module of Apollo X was called Snoopy and the command module Charlie Brown. After their orbit and docking mission were completed, Snoopy was launched towards the Sun into a heliocentric orbit. It’s been traveling ever since. Snoopy reported its’ position as recently as 2007.

Tomorrow we're all going to have our first look at the new Animation Guild Office in North Hollywood. It will also house the American Animation Institute. I hope there is a bigger open house reception planned soon.

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Quiz: Of all the Apollo Program spacecraft that went to the moon and back, only one is still traveling in space, 40 years later. Good Grief! Which is it?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?
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Quiz: Of all the Apollo Program spacecraft that went to the moon and back, only one is still traveling in space, 40 years later. Good Grief! Which is it?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?
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History for 8/3/2009
birthdays: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Elisha Otis inventor of the elevator, John T. Scopes- the teacher accused in the Monkey Trial, Habib Bourghiba, Ernie Pyle, Gene Kelly, Lenny Bruce, Tony Bennett is 83, John Landis, Jay North, Dolores Del Rio, Leon Uris, Ann Klein, Martha Stewart, Martin Sheen is 69, John C. McGinley is 50, Roland Burris is 71

Happy National Mustard Day

126 B.C. HANNIBAL DEFEATS THE ROMANS at CANNAE. Hannibal's defeat of a much larger Roman army is one of the great pieces of strategy still studied today. He had crossed the Alps to attack Italy with 30 war elephants but only 3 or 4 survived the crossing. The one-eyed Carthaginian was one of histories few conquerors with a sense of humor. When a nervous warrior named Gisgo remarked to him: "General, there must be a million Romans down there." Hannibal replied " Yes, and I’ll wager not one of them is named Gisgo". Hey, for a two thousand year old joke that's not bad ! This victory annihilated the top generals of Rome and left nothing between him and the city . Yet he uncharacteristically hesitated until the Romans recovered. His cavalry commander Mago snarled:" You know how to win battles, but not a war." The Romans recovered, eventually drawing him off to Africa to protect his home city Carthage, where he was defeated by Scipio Africanis at Zama. For years afterwards Roman mothers would scare their children at night, with the old cry Annibale ad Portas! Hannibal is at the Gates!

48 B.C.-Battle of Pharsalia- Julius Caesar defeated his rival Pompey Magnus in northern Greece. Pompey fled to Egypt where he was assassinated. Caesar came in hot pursuit where he met Cleopatra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1948- Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers publicly denounced a top Truman presidential aide Alger Hiss of being a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a protege of both Franklin Roosevelt and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Hiss investigation eventually convicted Hiss of espionage based on the 'pumpkin papers', incriminating documents on microfilm Chambers said were found hidden in a pumpkin. The senate investigation shot to national prominence a new young congressman named Richard Nixon. In 1991 Soviet KGB files revealed Hiss was never a spy.

1949 -The National Basketball League is founded.

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

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

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

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

1996- The Macarena, by Los Del Rio, becomes the #1 hit worldwide.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?

Answer: The Bible, like any other book, was subject to editing. From 200BC to 100AD all the extra Bible stories, Judith, Tobit, The Prayer of Manassah, was gathered up in a collection called Apocrypha, Greek for the Hidden Books. They were considered by many religions as probably authentic, but not enough to be considered sacred text.
Since then, the term apocryphal has come to mean probably mythical, but believed by many to be true.