Question: When Charlie Chaplin first came to America from Britain with a touring company, what other future Hollywood star was with him..?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What state produced the most U.S. Presidents?
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history for 9/8/2012
Birthdays: Richard the LionHearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar is 90, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Ewell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette is 41, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas, Pink is 33, Martin Freeman is 41

1381-Battle Of Kulikovo- Prince Dmitri Donskoi of Novgorod defeated the Tartars of the Golden Horde.

1504- Michelangelo unveiled his completed statue of David. The project had humble origins. The Florentine Republic had commissioned a statue from another artist who gave up after gouging a large hole in a huge block of Carrarra marble. Stuck with the block, magistrates asked Michelangelo if he could do anything with it. Michelangelo carved the David positioning the hole where the legs stand spread.

1565-Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent lifted the Siege of Malta. The Knights of St. John Hospitaller were granted ownership of Malta in perpetuity. They become the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, the Maltese Cross, is four barbed arrowheads forming a cross.

1565- The first permanent European settlement in North America- San Augustin or Saint Augustine Florida was founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. He had sighted land on Saint Augustine’s day.

1636- Massachusetts established the first college of higher learning in North America in Cambridge. First called New Towne College, it was given money and 400 books from clergyman John Harvard. In 1639 the school was renamed for him- Harvard.

1642- Pilgrim governor William Bradford noted in his diary this day the Pilgrims executed a 16 year-old named Thomas Granger for buggery. Young Master Granger confessed to buggering a mare, two cows, six sheep, two goats and a turkeybird. I guess the Pilgrims felt it was hard to enjoy thanksgiving when someone has had connubial relations with the main course.

1760- Montreal, the last French stronghold in Canada and seat of the French Governor, fell to British troops. Governor Vaudreuil-Cavagnal surrendered all of New France.

1771- Mission San Gabriel founded by Fra Junipero Serra.

1812- The day after the terrible battle of Borodino, the Russians began the evacuation of Moscow from Napoleons’ invading army.

1892- Writer Francis Bellamy published "The Pledge of Allegiance" in the Youth's Companion magazine as a vehicle to instill a sense of Patriotism in America's youth. Bellamy was a socialist.

1900- THE GREAT GALVESTON HURRICANE- At this time no one could chart or forewarn hurricanes beyond trying to read signs in the sky’s color. Despite hurricanes being common, no one in Galveston Texas was seriously prepared. There had been talk of building a breakwater in the harbor but nothing had been done. This day a huge hurricane that had ravaged Cuba came over and surprised Galveston Texas. It's eye later passed over Houston. No accurate count could be made of the dead but 4,000 bodies were recovered. One friend said his grandmother remembered a huge oak tree getting out of the ground and dancing a jig around the yard before it flew off. Afterwards authorities raised the town of Galveston 25 feet and built a sea wall to prevent future floods. Luxurious 3 story mansions were filled in and built on top of.

1919-The Boston Police Dept. goes on strike. Forbidden to actually picket, they took off their uniforms and walked home. "Gangs roam the streets unchecked. Women are attacked, are Lenin & Trotsky on the way ?!"-(The Wall Street Journal)

1920 - US Air Mail service begins (NYC to SF)

1921 - 1st Miss America crowned -Margaret Gorman of Washington DC.

1926- Screen actress Greta Garbo skipped her own wedding and left John Gilbert alone at the altar. They still stayed lovers and lived together.

1930 - NYC public schools begin teaching Hebrew

1930 - Richard Drew creates Scotch tape.

1932-The emirates of Hejaz and Nuir are combined into the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the House of Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud had conducted a masterful military and diplomatic campaign to get the Hejaz lands away from Faisal, the old ally of Lawrence of Arabia. Before the oil wealth began Ibn Saud drove around his desert kingdom visiting Bedouin camps in an old Rolls Royce, with the nation's treasury in a trunk strapped to the roof.

1935- HUEY LONG, the "Kingfish" Louisiana governor and colorful 3rd party candidate for President is assassinated at the statehouse in Baton Rouge. His assassin, a quiet doctor named Karl Weiss, was riddled with bullets by Long's bodyguards before anyone found out why he did it. So many bullets flew some scholars wonder if Weiss' shot was even the one that killed Long.

1935-A vocal group called "4 Joes from Hoboken" get their first break on Major Bo's radio show. One of the singers is a young man named Frank Sinatra.

1935- Top Hollywood musical director Buzby Berkeley (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) got drunk at a party in Malibu and drove his Cadillac head on into oncoming traffic on Pacific Coast Highway near where Gladestones Fish Restaurant is today. He piled into three other cars. Berkeley was unhurt but three people died and four were injured. After three trials for 2nd degree murder Berkeley was found innocent. The reason star defense attorney Jerry Geisler gave was “cancerous tires”. Later it was revealed that all the tire experts who testified in the defense were on the Warner Bros. payroll.

1939 - FDR declares "limited national emergency" due to war breaking out in Europe.

1939- British Alfred Hitchcock began shooting his first Hollywood picture- Rebecca, for David Selznick.

1944- Italy declared Benito Mussolini deposed, and announced it's intention to surrender to the Allies. The Germans occupy the country and free Mussolini later.

1946 - SF 49ers play their1st AAFC game, losing to the NY Yankees 21-7.

1954- Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

1960- Penquin Books was charged with obscenity for the first large public paperback printing of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady's Chatterley's Lover'.

1963-THE BOSTON STRANGLER- The killing of young Evelyn Corbin by the Boston Strangler. A married maintenance worker named Albert De Salvo terrorized the Beantown area by the rape-strangulation of 13 women over several years. Police were so baffled at one point they resorted to asking a Dutch Psychic for help. DeSalvo was finally caught and just missed execution as Massachusetts ban on capitol punishment had gone into effect months before. He was murdered in prison on 1973.

1965 - Dorothy Danridge, beautiful black actress (Island in the Sun), dies at 41 in
Hollywood of sleeping pills overdose.

1966- T.V.'s STAR TREK debuts. That season it ranked 52nd in the Neilsen ratings, behind #1 "Iron Horse" starring Rory Calhoun and "Mr. Terrific". It was canceled after two seasons but a letter writing campaign won it a third season. Star Trek then found a new life in syndication.
The cult fan base called Trekkies kept the memory of the show alive for ten years until Paramount felt compelled to revive to cash in on the Star Wars craze. First as an animated series and then from 1979 a series of feature films, then spin-offs. Frank Sinatra once said: "The only good thing to come out of the Nineteen Sixties was Star Trek."

1966 - "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell premieres on ABC-TV

1967 - Surveyor 5 launched; makes soft landing on Moon Sept 10

1968 - "Funny Girl" premiered, starring a young singer named Barbra Striesand.

1971- Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center opened. It was planned in the early sixties by John and Jackie Kennedy, although then unaware that their name would be on it. The performance featured the debut of Leonard Bernstein’s choral work “Mass”.

1974- Daredevil Evil Kneival in his most famous stunt, jumped the Snake River Gorge in a rocket powered motorcycle.

1974- Replacement President Gerald Ford surprised America by pardoning resigned President Richard Nixon for whatever he may have done in the Watergate Scandal, but not saying he really did anything..... Ford sez: " Our great national nightmare is over.."
America later surprises Ford by electing Jimmy Carter in his place.

1979- Jean Seberg, actress (Breathless, Airport), commits suicide at 40. She had been in love with a member of the radical Black Panther Party and was under continual harassment by the FBI and other Federal authorities.

1986- The Chicago based television talk show the Oprah Winfrey Show went national and became one of the most successful talk shows ever.

2008- The Rachael Maddow Show premiered on TV.

2009- A pair of Queen Victoria’s old underwear was recovered from a private collector and returned to the Royal Collection. Her waist size? 56 inches.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What state produced the most U.S. Presidents?

Answer: Virginia. About 8. Ohio is second with 7. There is some discrepancy because William Henry Harrison was born in Virginia and moved to Ohio.

Quiz: What state produced the most U.S. Presidents?

Yesterday’s question answered below: U.S Presidents have been born in Virginia, Ohio, Mass and New York. Only one president was born in Connecticut. Who it was it?
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History for 9/7/2012
Birthdays: Grandma Moses, Dame Edith Sitwell, Elia Kazan, Richard Roundtree, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Quayle. Peter Lawford, Senator Daniel Inouye, Susan Blakely, Shannon Elizabeth, Sonny Rawlins, Julie Kavner the voice of Marge Simpson.
Disney animator Fred Moore

605 B.C. Nebuchanesser II crowned king of Babylon. In 597 he destroyed Israel and began the Baylonian Captivity of the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic writings, but he also build the famed hanging Gardens of Baylon for his wife Amrytis.

1191-KING RICHARD VS. SALADIN-The Battle of Arsuf, the only major set battle between King Richard's Crusaders and Saladin Saracens. Saladin's men were driven back by the charging armored knights, but no final victory was achieved. Richard galloped about chopping people so fiercely, that the Saracen warriors rode around him and avoided contact. After such hot work in the desert Saladin sent his enemy Richard a cup of snow with rose water called Sherbat, which is the forerunner of modern Iced Sherbet .

1303- ATTACK ON THE POPE- Pope Boniface VIII considered his throne higher than all Royal crowns. He even had a big triple tiara crown made bigger than all royal crowns to prove it. He got into a fight over sovereignty with French King Phillip the Fair, excommunicating him and all France. Then Phillip had a French clerical assembly accuse Boniface of being a “murderer, false monk, sorcerer, embezzler, adulterer, sodomite, idolater and infidel”. But King Phillip could fight with more than words.

This day he sent a hit squad of 2000 knights to attack the pope at his summer residence in Anagni. As the knights slew the Vatican guards and burst into the palace Boniface knew his hour had come. He put on his full pontifical robes and mounted his throne to await his end. The knights William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna marched up to the old man, held a dagger over his head and paused.” That is the message from my master, King Philip” Then they left. The 70 year old Pope was rescued by the Orsini family three days later, but Boniface died mentally broken from his ordeal.

1776 -The FIRST SUBMARINE ATTACK-Yankee Ezra Lee pilots inventor David Bushnell's barrel shaped submersible "The Turtle" over to the British warship HMS Eagle. His attack consisted of an attempt to drill holes in her hull. But the ship was copper bottomed. Doh!

1812- BATTLE OF BORODINO, or La Moskova. Napoleon's French army and the Russians pound each other to bits before Moscow in the great battle immortalized by Tolstoy in 'War and Peace'. As the French army marched to the attack, Russian Prince Bagration sat on horseback in front of his troops. Before opening fire he pulled out a silver flask and toasted his enemy:"Gentlemen of France, Bravo! C'est Superb!". He was killed later.
The French capture all the strategic points and force General Kutusov to abandon Moscow, but while the Russians could make good their losses La Grande Armee' was exhausted and thousands of miles from supplies and reinforcements. Napoleon was listless from a bad cold and hesitated sending in his Imperial Guard at a key moment to finish off the Russian army. Bad tempered Marshal Ney was enraged: ”Have we come so far merely to possess another battlefield? What is he doing so far back? He is no longer a general, he is an Emperor. Let him sit home in the palace and leave the fighting to us!”
1822- Brazil declared independence from Portugal.

1831- NICHOLAS Ist, the "Iron Tsar" crushed the POLISH NOVEMBER UPRISING. Throughout the 1800's every young generation of Poles started a new uprising that the Russians, Germans and Austrians would have to stomp down. They went as far as to outlaw the Polish language,the Catholic religion and in the German controled parts the Slavic suffix "-ski". Which is probably when Lech Waleski became Walesa and Sito was ..er.. always Sito. (?) In Jacksonian America the plight of the heroic Poles battling overwhelming odds was terribly inspiring to American Romantics like Longfellow, Hawthorne and Morse.

1857- THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE- In 1857 President James Buchanan declared the Mormon community in Utah territory in a state of rebellion and sent an army to the Great Salt Lake. The Mormons were worked up by their memories of persecutions in Illinois and Missouri that had taken the life of their founder Joseph Smith. Leader Brigham Young had given orders that no U.S. troops or settlers were to be sold food or water.

When a California bound wagon train from Arkansas tried to cross Utah territory it was attacked by Mormon allied Indians. Local Mormon leader John D. Lee told the embattled settlers that if they surrendered to him he would lead them to safety. They put down their weapons and he marched them to a meadow. On a given signal the Mormons opened fire on the settlers, mostly women and children, killing 120 and leaving their bones to rot in the weeds without burial. The surviving infants were taken to be raised by Mormon families.

The Mormon colony was horrified by the massacre and gave up peacefully to U.S. authorities. Apologist historians even today say Brigham Young never gave orders for the massacre, but admitted he protected John D. Lee for 20 years. In 1877 Lee was finally convicted for the mass-murder and executed at the massacre site. He died declaring he was the sacrificial scapegoat for the entire commune.

1876- THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID-One old Hollywood myth is of the Western town cowering in fear while desperadoes shoot up the street whoopin’ and a’hollering. When the Jesse James & Cole Younger gang rode out of Missouri and tried to rob the Bank of Northfield, they found a town full of old Civil War veterans, who hauled out their rifles and shot them to pieces from every window and doorway. Frank and Jesse are about the only ones who escaped. They laid low in Tennessee for three years until resuming their outlaw ways. Cole Younger was captured and did 25 years in prison. In 1903 Cole and Frank James went on tour with their own Wild West Show.

1880 - George Ligowsky patents device to throw clay pigeons for trapshooters

1888 - Edith Eleanor McLean is 1st baby placed in an incubator.

1892 -Gentleman Jim Corbett finally KOs John L. Sullivan after 21 rounds for heavyweight boxing title. Corbett was an advocate of the new Marquis of Queensbery rules and preferred using boxing gloves to bare knuckle fighting.

1907 - Sutro's ornate Cliff House in SF destroyed by fire.

1911- French avant-garde poet Guilliame Appollinaire was the man who coined the term “surrealism’. He was such an elitist, outspoken radical guy that Parisian authorities felt he must be up to something. So when the Mona Lisa was stolen out of the Louvre Appollinaire was arrested. There was no evidence and he was released shortly after. The real thief was a disgruntled waiter who once worked as a security guard at the museum.

1916 - Workmen's Compensation Act passed by Congress

1923 - Interpol was formed in Vienna

1936 - Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation.

1940- Nazis bombers change their strategy of bombing RAF bases in southern England and instead concentrate on destroying London for psychological value. For the next 57 straight days London suffered under a rain of high explosives.

1956- US test pilot Ivan Kinchilo flew his experimental Bell-X plane to the edge of the Stratosphere. While modern passenger planes fly at 37,000 feet, Kinchilo was 126,000 feet up, almost 26 miles. He could see the curve of the earth, the blue of the atmosphere turning ultramarine and the stars at the edge of space. He was weightless for a few seconds. Called the First Spaceman, had Kinchilo not died in 1958 in an accident he would have been an important figure in Nasa’s Space program.

1957- Actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini separate.

1963- Mushi productions cartoon series."Tetsuan Atomo" debuts in the U.S as AstroBoy.

1978 - Keith Moon, rock drummer of the Who, died of a drug overdose at 31. He actually overdosed the drug he was perscribed to treat his alcohol and drug abuse. In one night he took 22 tabs of choloromethiazole edysilate. He was staying in the very same London apartment #123 Curzon Place, was the one that Mama Cass Elliot died in four years earlier.
1984-The Walt Disney Board formally fired Walt’s son-in-law CEO Ron Miller.

1986- Archbishop Desmond Tutu was installed as the first Black leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa. His appointment signaled the beginning of the final campaign to overthrow the racist apartheid system. After Apartheid was overthrown and Nelson Mandela made President of South Africa Tutu and Mandela began a curious argument over men’s wear. Bishop Tutu criticized the President for his taste in loud print shirts as undignified. Mandela responded” I won’t be criticized by a man who wears a dress!”

1996- Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur was shot to death gangland style in Las Vegas Nevada. He was standing up in the open roof of a BMW 750 sedan talking to some girls when a Cadillac pulled along side and opened fire. In 2002 the LA Times concluded and investigation that rapper Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G. hired and killer and provided the gun. Notorious B.I.G. was himself shot to death shortly after.

1998- Google started.

2000- Barely legal teen pop star Britney Spears shocked even the permissive MTV Music Video Awards crowd by singing her hit “Oops, I Did it Again” while stripping and grinding in a Las Vegas showgirl type sheer bikini.

2008- The Great Recession- Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the Federal National Mortgage Assoc., go into receivership after sinking under the weight of bad debt.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: U.S Presidents have been born in Virginia, Ohio, Mass and New York. Only one president was born in Connecticut. Who it was it?

Answer: George W. Bush

Quiz: U.S Presidents have been born in Virginia, Ohio, Mass and New York. Only one president was born in Connecticut. Who it was it?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below Who was the most famous person who was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica?
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History for 9/6/2012
Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette ,Joseph Kennedy Sr., Felix Salten- the author of Bambi, Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin, Sergio Aragones, Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin

338BC- Five days after Athens was conquered by Phillip of Macedon, the Greek philosopher Isocrates died. It was said the 98 year old was depressed by world events and old age. So he simply stopped eating. Isocrates created the first literary criticism essays.

1298- Battle of Curzola- One of the perennial battles between Venice and the Pisa only distinguished by the fact that Marco Polo was captured. The first thing the globe trotting merchant did upon getting home from China was get drafted. While a P.O.W. in a Pisan prison he wrote his accounts: " My Travels". He actually dictated them to another prisoner because he may have been illiterate or simply had weak eyes. Recently scholars challenged just how much of China he actually saw, because he makes no mention of The Great Wall or chopsticks.

1522- A ship reached Spain manned by only a dozen or more skeletal sailors. They were all that was left of Fernand de Magellans fleet of five ships and 260 men that set out one year ago to reach the Indies. Magellan was killed and eaten by cannibals in the Philippines, Magellan had beheaded three of his captains in Argentina and most of the crew was dead. The last leg of the trip the men sailed up the coast of Africa without stopping for food or water for fear of falling into the hands of their Portuguese enemies. But they had achieved the dream of the great Columbus, they reached the Indies by sailing west. In fact they had circumnavigated the globe, forever proved the world was round.

1566- Elderly Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent died while besieging the Hungarian castle of Szigetvar. His Vazirs worried that the news of his death would panic the troops and leave their lands open for invasion. So they kept it a secret and marched back to Istanbul with Sulieman’s body propped up and held down by wires on his throne in his rolling pavilion. Censers of perfumed incense were waved to cover the fact that the Sultan was starting to smell..

1642- The English Civil War just declared, Parliament issued a declaration that all Englishmen who weren't on their side would be declared 'delinquent' and subject to having their lands and properties seized. Unfortunately his edict had the reverse effect than intended because the threat of losing their fortunes pushed many fence-sitters over to the King's side for protection. King Charles could barely manage to raise one thousand sulky soldiers on Sept. Ist before the edict, afterwards his ranks swelled to the tens of thousands.

1696- William Kidd set sail from Portsmouth with a heavily armed ship named the Adventure Galley. Captain Kidd’s orders were to clear the Indian Ocean of pirates, but instead, he became a famous pirate himself.

1782- Patsy Jefferson, the wife of Thomas Jefferson died. Jefferson promised her on her deathbed that he would never marry again, and was so distraught he refused to leave their bedroom. He finally emerged after three weeks. They spent her last hours writing out their favorite passages from Tristram Shandy together. Jefferson kept the little folded up piece of paper on him the rest of his life.

1791- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La Celemenza de Tito premiered in Prague.

1812- At Borodino the Russian army prepared to fight Napoleon’s Army before the entrance to Holy Moscow. This night the Orthodox Metropolitan in procession carried through the camp the icon of the Black Virgin of Smolensk. Thousands of soldiers kneeled, crossed themselves and whispered Gospodi Pomilui- Lord Have Mercy. During the Napoleonic Wars Russian officers began the curious custom of making sure that they went into battle wearing clean underwear- no gentleman wanted to his body to be found with dirty undies!

1821- Jacob Fowler with 21 frontiersmen left Arkansas for Santa Fe New Mexico to see if the local government was more amenable to Americans now that Mexico had won their independence from Spain. They were welcomed and began to hunt and trap.

1847- After living in a shack on Walden Pond for two years, Henry David Thoreau moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord Mass.

1862- During the Civil War an incident occurred when Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate brigades moved through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. All civilians kept indoors and waved white flags from their homes. But elderly widow Barbara Fritchie flew a bigass American Stars & Stripes from her window and dared anyone to do anything about it. General Jackson just smiled and tipped his hat as he rode by. Years later a famous poem was written about the incident, The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie:” Shoot if You Must, This Old Grey Head, But Spare your Countries’ Flag, She Said!”

1901-PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY ASSASSINATED- The President was visiting the Temple of Music at the World Exposition in Buffalo when anarchist Leon Czogolsz shot him with a pistol hidden in his bandaged hand. Czogolsz was such an emotionally unstable character that even other anarchists avoided him. He said he was inspired by the political speeches of Socialist Emma Goldman, which soured many mainstream Americans to radical Socialism.

McKinley lingered for two weeks while doctors were afraid to probe for the bullet. Ironically he had just inspected a new-fangled X-Ray machine at the science pavilion that could have saved his life but doctors said: " This is too serious a time for toys!" He died and Teddy Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt was a maverick Republican that McKinley reluctantly chose as his running mate because he was a hero in the recent Spanish-American War.

When Tammany boss Paul Crocker heard about Roosevelt being made V.P. he shouted;" Don't you realize that now there's only one heartbeat between that nut and the Presidency-?!" Republican Senate Majority Leader Marc Hanna was also annoyed: ” Oh, no! Now that crazy cowboy is President!”

1914- As the First World War raged all across Europe the country that started it all, Serbia, had a curious campaign. It was expected that the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire would quickly stomp this little country. But under the leadership of their resident military genius, Marshal Radomir Putnik, the Serbs drove out the invading Austrian army and this day even had the cheek to invade Austria! The Austrians pushed them out, tried another invasion, then forgot about them for the rest 1914 and all of 1915.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender ending World War Two FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sent a rather nasty memo to Attorney General Tom Clark complaining about General Donovan. Wild Bill Donovan had led the wartime espionage agency the OSS, now he proposed a continuation of intelligence gathering in the US as well as overseas. Hoover saw this as a direct challenge to his authority. Donovans’ wing was reborn as the CIA in 1947. And relations with the FBI have remained cool ever since. Before the 9-11 attack, the FBI and CIA could not directly e-mail one another.

1954- Groundbreaking for the first nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuts!

1966- Dr. Hendryk Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister most responsible for the institutionalizing of racial segregation called Apartheid, was assassinated by a demented aide.

1968- Many momentous events occurred in 1968: assassinations, riots, the Vietnamese Tet offensive, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Easy Rider, 2001 a Space Odyssey Sergeant Pepper. But that’s nothing compared to the television premiere of H.R. PUNFNSTUFF this day! Witchipoo, Orson and the Vroom Broom. Whether or not Sid and Marty Kroffts strange kiddie show was a code for drug use -HR meaning Hand-Rolled Puffing Stuff, is a matter for scholastic conjecture.

1969- DePatie-Freleng's the Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

1971-Happy Birthday Pampers! Scientists at Proctor & Gamble invent the disposable diaper.

1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono appeared on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon

1997- The great Funeral of Princess Diana of Wales brought England to a halt and was televised around the world. There was a last minute fuss over the fact that Buckingham Palace refused to lower the Royal Standard to half-mast, customary for a death in the Royal Family, because technically Diana was divorced and no longer part of that family. The tabloid press jumped on this as a way to divert public attention from the discussion that their hounding Diana was what caused the fatal car accident. As this day began the flag came down at the urging of the elderly Queen Mum.

2000- The United Nations called a Millennial Summit. 150 presidents, kings, princes and prime ministers convened in New York City, the largest international conference ever held. Nothing important was decided and New Yorkers grumbled about the traffic.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was the most famous person who was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica?

Answer: Napoleon Bonaparte. People said he spoke French with a slight Italian accent.

Sept. 5th, 1912. Frank Thomas would have been 100 today! Happy Birthday to one of the greatest animators who ever lived. Bambi, Baloo, Captain Hook. A man for whom the greatest achievement he cherished was to be called a Disney Animator. And to wish us that same success. All of us who knew him as a friend, knew that we were given a rare gift that we can all appreciate to this day. Happy Birthday Frank!

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Quiz Who was the most famous person who was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What do these people have in common? Gabrielle D’Estrees, Madame de Maintenon, Mistress Shore, Lilly Langtry, Madame La Pompadour, Lola Montez.
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History for 9/5/2012
Birthdays: Louis XIV The Sun King, Jesse James, Cardinal Richelieu, Johann Christian Bach, Jacopo Meyerbeer, John Cage, Quentin de la Tour, Darryl F. Zanuck, Jack Valenti, Bob Newhart is 83, George Lazenby, Raquel Welch is 72, Kathy Guisewhite, Dweezil Zappa, Werner Herzog is 72, Michael Keaton is 61, Rose McGowan is 39

1499- Former Columbus captain Alonso De Hojeda arrives in the New World on his own expedition. Along with him as pilot (Navigator) was a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made several more trips to the alien land and published a book about his adventures never mentioning Hojeda. His publishers spiced up his accounts with naked brown native women with lascivious morals throwing themselves on the Europeans. It was quite popular reading.

In 1538 when Columbus was dead and forgotten German mapmakers Martin Waldseemuller & Gerhardus Mercator published the first mass printed maps of the known world. They drew on Vespucci's books and called the new hemisphere "America". I guess that's better than the United States of Hojeda.

1536- Protestant Reformer John Calvin was put in charge of the religious life of the city of Geneva. His ideas were so err…Puritan, that within two years he was kicked out.

1654-FIRST JEWS IN AMERICA- The first boatload of Jewish families arrived in America at what would one day be New York City- then Nieu Amsterdaam. They were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that was being set up in Brazil. They had to auction their furniture to pay off their French pirate captain, Jean De La Monthe, but Asher Levy and his family where here to stay.

Puritan Dutch Governor Peter Stuyversant immediately complained to the Hague that Jews not be allowed to settle in New Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company told him to mind his own business and apologize. He was reminded he was running a business, not a religious colony. Anyone who wanted to work and raise a family was welcome.

1698 - Russia's Peter the Great was determined to drag his kingdom into the modern world. Since the fashion in Europe at this time was clean-shaven, he imposed a tax on beards. When Czar Peter spotted a boyar at his court who refused to comply, he personally jumped the old man with a pair of shears.

1725- King Louis XV of France married Marie Leszcynska, daughter of the last King of Poland. Their grandson Louis XVI was the one guillotined in the Revolution.

1774- The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia to come up with a group response to the worsening political climate with mother England. It is the first time all the American colonies had ever gathered together. British held Florida and Nova Scotia were invited but refused to attend. Ben Franklin was in London at the time and frankly doubted New Englanders, Southerners, city folk and frontiersmen could ever be persuaded to act together. Peyton Randolph was elected first president of Congress.

1781- BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES- Arguably the real battle that won the American Revolution. French Admiral DeGrasse' navy drives off the English fleet attempting to save Lord Cornwallis's army trapped inside the port of Yorktown by Washington and Rocheambeau. For command of the vital mission the British admiralty had passed over a more aggressive fighting admiral named Rodney in favor of a semi-retired fossil named Graves.

Graves caught the French fleet dispersed unloading troops and supplies, but instead of attacking, he waited for three hours while the enemy formed in line. He then raised confusing signals – flags for “Attack” and “Maintain Position” being raised simultaneously. The inability of the British navy to rescue Cornwallis sealed his defeat. If the British had won this battle, scholars agree the French were tired of propping up the bankrupt American raggedy-ass rebels.

1812- The vanguard of Napoleon’s Grand Army came up upon a little hill outside the town of Borodino. They strained to see if they had reached Moscow. But instead they saw something else- the main Russian army preparing to stand and fight. Napoleons plan was to invade a country, destroy their army, occupy their capitol, then sign a peace treaty. But these Russians weren't playing by the rules. For months after retreating across thousands of miles of Russian soil, Napoleon would finally get the big battle he desired.

1836- Sam Houston was elected President of the Republic of Texas.

1867- After the Civil War the US experienced a beef shortage. This was answered by herding Texas longhorn cattle up to where they could be put on trains to Chicago and eastern meat markets. This day the first herd of Longhorns made it up the Chisholm Trail to the train depot of Abilene Kansas. A rancher who bought a thousand head of cattle at $4 a head could sell them here for $40 a head. One cattle drive could net up to $100,000, well worth fighting Indians, rustlers and floods. This created cattlebarons and a new kind of hero in the public's mind, the Cowboy.

1870-Now that Napoleon III had been defeated and deposed and German Chancellor Bismarck had achieved all his political goals. So he proposed immediate peace talks to end the Franco Prussian War with a minimum of fuss. He had knocked off Austria the same way in the Seven Week's War of 1866. But this time Bismarck was overruled by his master King William I and the German generals, who wanted to march to Paris. Bismarck warned that humiliating the French would accomplish nothing, except creating a desire for revenge. He was overruled and the revenge happened in 1914-18 and 1939-45.

1882- The first Labor Day parade occurred when 10,000 union workers marched in Union Square New York.

1885 - 1st gasoline pump is delivered to a gasoline dealer (Ft Wayne, Ind)

1917- The U.S. Government made nationwide police raids to close down the offices of the IWW (The International Workers of the World- or The Wobblies). They were a folk-song-singing radical labor union who came out against U.S. participation in World War One, ."The Master Class has always declared the wars, the Working Class must fight the battles"- Eugene Debs. Their apologists point out that while the Great War cost 166,000 U.S. casualties it made 200 new millionaires and if you had stock in petrochemicals like Dupont you made 400% profit.

1929- Wall Street stocks soared to unprecedented heights throughout 1929. Starting today they began to taper off and slide. Economist Roger Babson, the Sage of Wellesley , warned of an impending Stock Market crash but people laughed him off. They called his warnings "Babson-Mindedness". The market would continue to move downwards for the next several weeks climaxing Black Tuesday, the great crash of October 29th and the Depression.

1921: THE WILD PARTY. After completing three feature films simultaneously, comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rented three rooms in San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel for a big party. One attendee, Actress Virginia Rappe, died of peritonitis a few days afterward. Maude Delmont, a professional blackmailer who also attended, spread the story that Arbuckle had raped the actress. She never testified in court.

The Hearst Press took up the story and sensationalized it as an example of Hollywood depravity. Fatty Arbuckle was found innocent after three sensational trials (the last jury actually apologized to him). The Motion Picture Production Code was formed as a direct result. Its first action was to ban Arbuckle from the screen. Fatty Arbuckle directed comedy for ten years under the pseudonym Will B. Good, and appeared in a successful series of short sound films in 1932, but died the same day that Warner Brothers signed him for a feature.

1932- Paul Bern, the studio executive husband of sexy starlet Jean Harlow, was found lying naked on his bathroom floor with a bullet in his head. He committed suicide and left a note apologizing to Harlow for not being able to satisfy her. Harlow called the studio and her agent before calling the police. All jumped to hush up the scandal. Jean Harlow loved to flirt with men in front of her husband. Once at a USC football game she saw a hunky fullback and said to Bern:” Daddy, please buy me that!”

1935- At a giant Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg Adolph Hitler told the world “We want Peace. Germany has no interest in harming her European neighbors .” uh-huh..

1935- Tumbling Tumbleweeds premiered, the film that made a star out of Gene Autrey, the Singing Cowboy.

1939- The British Empire had restructured in 1867 as a commonwealth of dominions which some it's larger colonies had self rule. But to the outside world it still looked like everything from Hong Kong to Ottawa to Capetown was run on orders from London. Three days after British Prime Minister Chamberlain declared war on Nazi Germany, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull telephoned Ottawa to ask if that meant Canada was going to fight too?

1943- Young British cartoonist Ronald Searle is captured by the Japanese in Burma. He spent his time as a P.O.W. working on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai and making sketches of the nightmarish conditions of his fellow prisoners.

1957- Jacques Kerouac’s ode to the beat life ON THE ROAD, first published. Kerouac wrote it in a white heat using one large roll of white paper stuffed into his typewriter instead of individual sheets. When the editor got the novel it had no paragraph breaks of chapter breaks. Another young writer of the time, Truman Capote, was unimpressed. “That’s not writing, it’s typing.”

1958 The novel DR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak published in US. It was banned in Russia until the collapse of Communism.

1964- Buffalo NY cook Angela Bellissima took some chicken wings, threw them into a deep fryer with spices and invented Buffalo Wings.

1965- CBS television network headquarters are moved into a sleek building on 6th Ave. in Manhattan. Because of it's black granite and smoke tinted window's it's nicknamed "Black Rock". NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center are called "30 Rock". ABC's, owing to their status as the third network, called their headquarters "Little Rock".

1972- Palestinian Black September terrorists attack Munich's Olympic Village during the Summer Games. There they murder 11 Israeli athletes of their national team.

1975 –Manson Family cult member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. She was released from jail in 2009.

1980 - World's longest auto tunnel, St Gotthard in Swiss Alps, opened.

1989- President George Bush Sr, does a major speech highlighting his war on drugs. He brandishes a bag of crack-cocaine. He declares it was purchased across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Later the truth came out that no crack cocaine is sold in Lafayette Park, the DEA agents had to talk a crack dealer into coming to the park. They even had to give him directions, because he never visited the White House area before.

1994-Patrick McDonnell started drawing the comic strip MUTTS.
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Yesterday’s Quiz What do these people have in common? Gabrielle D’Estrees, Madame de Maintenon, Mistress Shore, Lilly Langtry, Madame La Pompadour, Lola Montez.

Answer: They were all the mistresses of kings.

Quiz: What do these people have in common? Gabrielle D’Estrees, Madame de Maintenon, Mistress Shore, Lilly Langtry, Madame La Pompadour, Lola Montez.

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who were Rosencranz and Guildenstern?
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History for 9/4/2012
Birthdays: Marcus Whitman the missionary who led US settlement of Oregon, Howard Morris, Darius Mihlaud, Anton Bruckner, Chateaubriand, Craig Claiborne, Dick York, Richard Wright, Mary Renault, Mitzi Gaynor, Computer AI pioneer John McCarthy, Damon Wayans is 52, Paul Harvey, Beyonce’ Knowles is 31

218BC- Hannibal’s army with elephants reached the summit of the Alps.

Today is the feast of St. Rosalia who lived in a cave at Mount Pelligrino in Sicily. Five centuries after her death, her bones miraculously saved Palermo from the plague.

1698- THE MASSACRE OF THE STRELTZY- Czar Peter the Great returned to Moscow after traveling Europe for the last 18 months. And boy, was he pissed off! It seems he had to cut his travels short because he heard that back home his bodyguards- the Streltzy, plotted a coup and conspired with Peters older step-sister Sophia. Peter was so mad he had dozens of Streltzy leaders tortured and 1,100 executed. Peter swung an axe and beheaded five himself. After wiping them out, Czar Peter laid the foundation for a new Russian Army based on the modern western model.

1781- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOS ANGELES. Royal Governor of New Spain Gaspar de Portola and Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra with twelve soldiers, some free black families and Indians, about 44 in all, dedicated a new town, one days ride from of San Gabriel. The 63 year old Serra had been stung by a scorpion but ignored it, so he hobbled around dragging his swollen leg. Fra Serra named the town after St. Francis of Assisi's first church in Italy- St. Mary of the Angels, Ciudad de la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles sobra la Porziuncola de Asís. Like awesome, dude!

1781- Benedict Arnold, the American Colonial general turned traitor, led a force of British redcoats to burn his own birthplace of New London, Connecticut.

1821- Russian Czar Nicolas I issued an Imperial Ukase- edict restating Russia's claim to all of the North American Pacific coastline from Alaska to Northern California. The United States rejected this claim and threatened war, which is interesting considering they didn't own any of it at the time. Ya see, they had plans.

1833 –The New York Sun hired young boys to sell their papers on street corners. The first newsboy was ten-year old Barney Flaugherty. Now go peddle your papers, kid.

1839- The Opium Wars began between Britain and China. U.S. Ambassador John Quincy Adams called it "the Kow-Tow Wars" because he felt the real issue was the British Consul refused to lie prostrate on his face before the Chinese Emperor as was the local custom. The Chinese had never smoked Opium until it was introduced by Britain from Pakistan.

1870-After the news of the spectacular defeat and capture of the Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan reached Paris, street rioting breaks out. Empress Eugenie fled taking the Bonaparte family into exile in England. The French Assembly National declared Napoleon III deposed and proclaimed the Third republic.

1877-Crazy Horse, the "Napoleon of the Plains" was murdered. He had surrendered his weapons on a promise of fair treatment , then was suddenly arrested and bayoneted in the back while resisting attempts to push him into a jail cell. His dying words to his tribe were "Tell the people it is no use to depend on me anymore." Indians enjoy a legend today that Crazy Horse's secret burial place is on the top of Mt. Rushmore.

1884-Thomas Edison proves he could replace gas streetlights with electricity by illuminating one square New York City block (around Pearl st.) with his new dynamo. J.P. Morgan's bank on the corner of Wall and Broad streets is the first private business to be lit solely by electricity.

1888-George Eastman patents the roll film camera. The word "Kodak" is supposedly the sound the shutter made. Another story on the origin of the word was that George wanted a word pronounced the same in all known dialects. So after some research (Rochester lore has it that he did all of this himself) he concluded that only k and x qualified as sounds uttered the same way in all languages. Thus Eastman Kodak.

1893- Writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter sent a letter to a sick child: " I don't know what to write you, so I shall tell you the story of four little rabbits. Their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." The Peter Cottontail stories born.

1904 – The Dali Lama signed the first treaty allowing British commerce in Tibet. Tibet had been a closed society forbidding any contact with the outside world.
1914-The Miracle of the Marne- In World War One the main German advance smashed down into France and after 5 weeks were approaching Paris. But Von Kluck's grey clad soldiers were stopped at the river Marne. It was the first battle where telephones played an important role and at one point General Gallieni rushed French reserves up to the front in Parisian taxicabs. The commander of the defense of Paris was Albert Dreyfus, the Jewish officer of the famous scandal of the 1890's now fully exonerated.

1934- Young filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was contracted by the German Propaganda Ministry to film the 1934 Nazis Party Congress to be held in Nuremburg. While they were expecting a routine documentary, Reifenstahl instead created the film The Triumph of the Will, who’s darkly hypnotic images made film history.

1940- The Columbia Broadcast Service or CBS network started up their first television station.

1949- THE PEEKSKILL RIOTS. Singer Paul Robeson was a renaissance man who embraced controversy. An athlete, opera singer and actor he was also a passionate Black Civil Rights champion who expressed open admiration for the Soviet Union and Maoist China. This did not win him any friends in the segregated, paranoid America of the post war era.

This day when Robeson and fellow activist folksinger Pete Seeger gave a concert in Peekskill New York their cars were pelted with stones by screaming white rioters, all with the blessing of the local police. Robeson’s person was shielded by a bodyguard of union men. Fifty years later the town of Peekskill officially apologized to Paul Robeson Jr. Pete Seeger saved some of the stones for his chimney.
1957-Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, named for Henry Ford's son. Touted as "the dream car of the decade". Ford spent more to promote it than any other car in history up to that time. Only 200,000 were sold and after complaints like the steering and brakes failing and dashboards unexpectedly bursting into flame. The model was discontinued after Ford lost $250 million. Edsel became a synonym for corporate failure.

1957- Defying direct orders from the Federal Government, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent any black students from attending classes at Little Rock High School. President Eisenhower took over direct control of the Guard and sent in the bayonet wielding 101st Airborne to ensure his orders were followed.

1972- American swimmer Mark Spitz won his 7th gold medal in Olympic competition in Munich. He also spawned a cottage industry selling the poster of him wearing his medals, tiny Speedos and that’s about it. This image and the swimsuit poster of Farrah Fawcett, were two of the more famous images of the 1970’s. Spitz held the record until Michael Phelps in 2008.

1976- College party boy George W. Bush was busted for drunk-driving close to his family home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He later applied for a brand new Texas State driver’s license, which came with a clean record with no report of the arrest. As President delivering the commencement at Harvard in 2002, he joked:” In the motorcade, seeing all those police cars behind me with their lights flashing… kinda brings me back to my college days…”

1985- Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch became a U.S. citizen so he could build the Fox television and movie networks. US regulations forbade foreign ownership of broadcasting stations so Rupert didn’t fuss about what country he was a citizen of.

1993- Herb Villechaise, the little person who began the show Fantasy Island with the announcement: ”Da PLANE! Da PLANE!’ committed suicide with a shotgun.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were Rosencranz and Guildenstern?

Answer: Two characters from Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

They are childhood friends for Hamlet's who have become, rather
unwittingly, spies for Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius. Claudius sends
them, with Hamlet, to England, with a letter instructing that Hamlet
be executed by the English King. (The contents of the letter are
probably not known by the two.) Eventually, Hamlet sees through the
treachery and, turning the tables, arranges for the duo to be killed
instead. This...
1) shows that Hamlet is now becoming more cynical and duplicitous
himself in setting up his old friends' deaths, and
2) actually sets up the showdown between Hamlet and Claudius, for once
the king hears of the deaths of the two dupes, he'll know that Hamlet
is wise to him.

The absurdity of their characters and their misunderstanding of what
is going on around them is the basis of Tom Stoppard's now famous
modern play, Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead."
…”