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July 05th, 2010 mon
July 5th, 2010

Quiz: What is a Gotterdamerung?

Quiz: Who was the musician known simply as Bird?
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History for 7/5/2010
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 47

Feast of St. Anthony Zaccharia

1779- TRYON’S NEW HAVEN RAID- During the American Revolution, Royalist Governor Tryon of New York thought a way to bring the American rebels back to their allegiance was to launch a punitive raid across Long Island Sound to rebel strongholds in Connecticut the day after their Independence Day celebrations.

Forty boat loads of redcoats landed at New Haven and wantonly looted, burned and brutalized the inhabitants. After he urged his students to fight back, the elderly Dean of Yale University was beaten to death with rifle butts. Civilian homes were ransacked and women raped. The redcoats then burned Norwalk and Scranton before returning back across the water to occupied New York.

British policy was that the majority of Americans are good subjects but just deluded by bad leaders. Tryon was frustrated with the endless guerilla fighting. So he lashed out with a brutality that accomplished more harm than good.

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.."

1830- The last Bey of Algiers was driven into exile by the invading French Army. This was the end of the Barbary Corsairs, active since 1517. Algeria would be a French colony until 1962. Part of the invading force was a new unit made up of Paris street riff-raff and foreign exiles called the French Legion Etrangere or Foreign Legion.

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 smash 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 Soviet style revolution. 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."

1945- OPERATIONS OVERCAST and PAPERCLIP- The U.S. Army intelligence arranged for top Nazi rocket Scientists to be brought to the U.S. for our future space program. Pres. Truman had passed a law forbidding visas for anyone with a Nazi past. But the War Dept Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency chief Bosquet Wev declared:" We’re not going to beat a dead Nazi Horse!" Experts doctored the dossiers on these scientists and changed descriptions like: "Fanatical Unrepentant Nazi" to "Politically Neutral".
Head of the unit Dr. Werner Von Braun was the inventor of the clustered liquid fuel engine rockets which Hitler had named the Vengence-2 and fired at London. Dr. Arthur Rudolphe the designer of the Saturn-5 moon rocket was deported in 1984 when a British documentary exposed his running a slave labor camp in 1943. Dr. Herman Becker-Freysing, the man who built John Glenn's space suit, got his knowledge about the effects of atmospheric pressure and oxygen loss on humans from experiments he did on the inmates of Dachau.

1951- Dr Shockley announced the invention of the Transistor, making the miniaturizing of complex electronics possible. One documentary noted that if you tried to make a digital telephone with the earlier technology of vacuum tubes, it would have to be the size of an office building.

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 in a shack.

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

1963- The Vatican finally says it’s okay for Catholics to be cremated, since the world is running out of land to make into cemeteries.

1968- In Vietnam, after months of brutal fighting in a battle the press equated with Iwo Jima and Gettysburg, the US Marines were ordered to abandon their firebase at Que Sanh. Many Marines were enraged that they had to give up a place they had lost so many brothers over. But the Pentagon felt it was too vulnerable to enemy artillery. In Marine annals Que Sanh is still counted as a victory. Any blame for the withdrawal put on General Westmoreland, who had just been replaced as overall commander in Vietnam. This frustrating misuse of soldier’s sacrifice typified the Vietnam experience.

1989- White House aide Lt. Colonel Oliver North sentenced for his role in the Iran Contra Scandal. North spent his last evenings before testifying shredding incriminating documents.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 II. Pundits enjoyed the irony of one who could say "I bled for my Country," while the other "I Shred for My Country!" His conviction was later overturned by a conservative judge on a technicality. Oliver 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. Of the last 11 Wimbeldon Women’s singles, the Williams sisters won 9 of them.
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Quiz: Who was the musician known simply as Bird?

Answer: Jazz great Charlie Parker. He was nicknamed Yardbird at first, but it soon shortened to simply Bird.


Quiz: Who was the musician known simply as Bird?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What was The Great White Hope?
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History for 7/4/2010 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 84, Al Davis, George Steinbrenner, Ann Landers, Ron Kovic, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril, Pam Shriver, Rene Laloux,


Gloria Stuart , the woman who played the 100 year old woman in the movie Titanic, really is 100 today!!

•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.

1653-THE BAREBONES PARLIAMENT- Puritan General Oliver Cromwell had beheaded King Charles Ist and dispensed with Parliament. This day he tried a semblance of legality by naming a new parliament but with no royalists, Catholics or Presbyterians, in fact they were all his handpicked Puritan followers. It was nicknamed the Barebones Parliament because one it’s leaders was an itinerant preacher named PraiseGod Barebones. After a few months Cromwell dispensed with even this rubber stamp Parliament and ruled as a dictator.

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.

1845- Henry David Thoreau moved into a cottage on Waldon Pond.

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.

1863- The day after the Battle of Gettysburg both armies sat motionless while a torrential rains pour down. Lee had no more reserves and was practically out of cannonballs, U.S. General Meade still had a third of his army untouched and ready to go. But Meade infuriated Lincoln because he refused to finish Lee off.

1863-VICKSBURG- The Confederate fortress-city of Vicksburg surrenders to Union General Grant. Pennsylvania-born rebel general James Pemberton led 29,000 men into captivity. He said: " In know the Northerners. We can get better terms if we give up on the 4th of July than any other day." Grant was so confident he would win that while the battle was still going on he telegraphed the town's main hotel and booked a room reservation for July 4th. This completed the Yankee control of the Mississippi from the north down through Memphis to New Orleans. It severed the jugular of the Confederacy for it cut her in half. Lincoln in his announcement said: "The Father of the Waters flows unvexed to the Sea." The citizens of Vicksburg would not celebrate the Fourth of July for eighty years, during World War Two.


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.

1898- The US flag first raised over Wake Island in the Pacific.

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.

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.

1917- The US First Division paraded through Paris in advance of the main American armies still to come. General Blackjack Pershing laid a wreath on the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette and proclaimed:” Lafayette- nous voisci! Lafayette, we are here!” Jake Strauss the owner of Macy’s Department Store changed it to “Gallerie Lafayette, we are here!”

1933- In San Francisco Bay, the work began on the Oakland Bay Bridge. 1943- Nazis panzer divisions began the Battle of KURSK-OREL. Thousands of tanks swirled around in the flat dusty Ukrainian steppeland and blew each other to pieces. The Soviets considered Kursk the real turning point of World War Two because they defeated a full on Nazi blitzkrieg without the Russian Winter to help. For the first time the Nazis began a full retreat in the summer.

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. The case was the inspiration for the Fugitive television series and movie. 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.

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: What was The Great White Hope?

Answer: July 4th 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 "win it back for the White Man". He was billed in the press as the Great White Hope. But this day Johnson easily TKO'd Jeffries and kept the championship. The victory sparked racial violence throughout the country, even in Capetown and Bombay. Johnson kept his title until 1915 and died in a sports car crash in 1946.


July 3rd, 2010 Saturday.
July 3rd, 2010

Quiz: What was The Great White Hope?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Many towns are named Clovis. So who was Clovis?
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History for 7/3/2010
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 48

Today is the Feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle, “Doubting-Thomas,” the patron saint of architects.

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 Lewis "Lo" Armistead put his hat on his sword point and shouted "Who will follow me?" Armistead’s uncle 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 shot) were personal friends and the last time they were together was for dinner in a little western town called Los Angeles. 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.
After the Civil War, George Pickett were ostracized by Southern society for daring to criticize Lee’s decision to attack. Pickett bitterly said:" That old man destroyed my division." Pickett was family friends with the Lincolns. When Picketts’ son was born, Yankee generals sent baby gifts with a white flag through the lines.

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.

1866-Battle of Sadowa-Koniggratz- climax of the Seven Weeks War, also called the "BrudersKrieg" or "Brother's War" because in it Prussia fought the other German speaking nations Austria and Bavaria to see who would be the dominant power. It was the debut of Krupps breech loading steel cannons beating older muzzle loading brass cannon. A young lad named Paul von Hindenburg saw his first battle and had an Austrian bullet go right through his spiked helmet, almost killing him. Hindenburg would be the top German General in World War One and President of the Weimar Republic until his death in 1936. As a result of Koniggratz, Berlin and not Vienna would be the capitol of a united Germany.

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 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.

1969- On the same day, John and Yoko are almost killed in a car crash, along with
John's son Julian and Yoko's daughter Kyoko.

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: Many towns are named Clovis. So who was Clovis?

Answer: He was the Frankish barbarian chief who united the Franks in Gaul, and received baptism from the Pope. So he is counted the first king of France.


July 2nd, 2010 friday.
July 2nd, 2010

Quiz: Many towns are named Clovis. So who was Clovis?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What are franking priviledges?
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History for 7/2/2010
Birthdays: Bishop Thomas Cranmer (1429) , Christoph Witobald Gluck, Herman Hesse, Medgar Evers, Patrice Lamumba, Thurgood Marshall, Andrez Kertesz, Richard Petty, animator Abe Levitow, Ahmad Jamal, Cheryl Ladd, Jose Canseco, Jerry Hall, Imelda Marcos, Ron Silver, Brock Peters, Larry David is 63, Lindsay Lohan is 24

6BC.-Feast of the Visitation- When the Virgin Mary visited Saint Elizabeth and confided in her that she was pregnant with baby Jesus. The Magnificat is Mary's reply to the Angel of the Annunciation--"Magnicifcat anima mea Dominum..." "My spirit doth magnify the Lord" Many great composers like Vivaldi and Bach wrote choral brilliant choral masses called Magnificats for this occasion.

1650- The first daily newspaper is published in the city of Leipzig.

1723- Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale Magnificat first performed in Leipzig.

1775- George Washington arrived in the camp at Cambridge Massachusetts to take over command of the colonial army surrounding Boston. A Virginia slaveholder, one of his first orders was to turn away all free African-American volunteers. But the New Englanders convinced him they were an important part of the army, so he relented.
In the American Revolution one minuteman in eight was black.

1776- AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS VOTES FOR INDEPENDENCE- Deep into a hot rainy Philadelphia night the delegates finally voted the ultimate break with the mother country. At this time most Americans still referred to England as 'home'. No colony had ever broken away from their mother country and become an independent nation. And as far as the document Thomas Jefferson had written, called the Declaration of Independence, there were 46 separate revisions. The Southern states would not vote until the anti-slavery clauses were dropped. A clause stating New England Protestants objecting to the tolerance of Roman Catholics was dropped. One cancer-wracked delegate rode 80 miles just to be there to effect the vote. The final vote was 12 colonies yay, 0-nay and New York abstaining, "The Business is Done." John Adams said.
When the Declaration was voted and agreed on two days were given to cleanup the document and it would be announced on July 4th. The famous printed page with John Hancock's big signature was not done until August 2nd.
John Adams always thought the great national celebration should be July 2nd, not the 4th, because to him, that was the day the important vote actually happened.

1787- Commanding General of the U.S. Army James Wilkinson arrived in New Orleans for an inspection tour. In reality he was there to offer his services to the Viceroy of Spain as a double agent. He is the highest-ranking traitor in U.S. history, and he was never caught. It was said of Wilkinson 'He never won a battle, nor lost a court martial. '

1789- Two weeks before the French Revolutionaries storm the Bastille, prisoner the Marquis DeSade was transferred to another jail. This after he grabbed one old inmates ear trumpet and recited out the window some sexual anecdotes about the warden to the laughing crowd below.

1863-2nd Day Battle of Gettysburg. Yankees and Confederates fight each other all day with no result. Places like Little Round Top, Devils Den and The Peach Orchard become battlefields. This was the day Maine schoolteacher Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain successfully defended the Little Round Top, climaxing with a bayonet charge after his men had all but run out of ammunition. Gen.Dan Sickles had his leg blown off. He was carried from the field, cooly puffing a cigar. A wiley Tamany politician, Dan Sickles knew this wound meant votes back home. He was elected to Congress after the war. He donated his shattered leg to the Army Medical School and used to visit it in his old age.

1881-PRESIDENTIAL ASSASINATION. President James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a demented gov't worker who expected a job when Garfield was elected. He said he believed in "Bible-Communism" and that he worked for "Jesus & Company". When nobody took notice of him Guiteau decided to kill the President, then ask the Vice President Arthur for a job. On a platform at Washington's Union Station Charles Guiteau shot the President in the back, dropped his gun and announced:" I am the last Stalwart. Arthur is now President !" Garfield lingered three months in great pain before he died. Chester Allen Arthur was a political hack who's only job before being president was collector of tolls for the Port of New York. Woodrow Wilson called him" a nothing with whiskers". In fairness to Arthur he did help create civil-service qualifications and eliminate the corruptible spoils system. Standing next to Garfield when he was shot was Secretary of War Robert Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln. Convinced he was bad luck, Robert Lincoln never went near the White House again.

1890- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed. This law forbids business monopolies. J.P. Morgan said:"Trying to break up trusts is like trying to unscramble eggs!" It was invoked to break up Standard Oil (Exxon), Hollywood Studios in 1948, the ATT/Bell Telephone System and in 2000 against Bill Gates and Microsoft.

1900- THE FIRST MAN POWERED FLIGHT- No, not the Airplane, the Zeppelin. Count Von Zeppelin’s creation the LZ-1 made it’s first flight. The LZ-1 carries gently several passengers and mechanics 30 miles from Frederichshaven on Lake Constance to Immenstadt, making perfect time. By the time of the Hindenberg disaster there was a regular zeppelin service between Europe and Buenos Aires for years and it considered much safer than airplanes. But after the Hindenburg and the United States embargo of strategic helium, Herman Goring scraped what was left of the Zeppelin fleet in 1939.

1901- The last train holdup in America by Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their Hole in the Wall Gang.

1912- The Democratic Presidential Convention in Baltimore had been deadlocked for over a week. Finally after 46 separate ballots New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson was nominated to run against Republican President Howard Taft and Progressive Teddy Roosevelt.

1912- The First Automat restaurant.

1914- THE GERMAN KAISER HAS LUNCH with the Austrian ambassador. Kaiser Wilhelm pledged to fully support Austria's move to strike Serbia over the assassination at Sarajevo, knowing it would probably annoy his cousins Nikky the Tsar of Russia and Georgie the King of England. Casually he pledged the lives and fortunes of his 30 million German subjects and the destruction of his family over poached eggs and champagne. He then went on a vacation cruise for the next three weeks and was unavailable during the frantic diplomatic negotiations to avoid world catastrophe.

1927- The film Flesh and the Devil established a new star named Greta Garbo.

1934- Twentieth Century Fox signed a movie contract with child star Shirley Temple.

1937-AMELIA EARHART DISSAPPEARED. Over the Pacific near Howland Island the Coast Guard cutter Ithaca received the last radio signals from aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. …."One half-hour fuel and no landfall in sight. We are in position….." Then nothing. They disappeared never to be found. There were all sorts of rumors, even that she was doing espionage for Washington and had been executed by the Japanese. In 1992 a scientist claims to have found 1930's era plane wreckage on a small waterless island near Java but the mystery is still considered unsolved.

1941- JAPAN OCCUPIED VIETNAM-When Germany defeated France in Europe, the French colony of Tonkin-Indochine stood alone in confusion. Should they take orders from Vichy or the Free-French exile government? Ignoring the protests of Britain and the United States the Japanese Army invaded and occupied Indochina. Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was a leader of the peace party with Prince Konoye trying to prevent the coming conflict. When he was told what the army had done without consulting the opposition parties, he just shrugged. He knew this would provoke America past the point of no return so he must start planning for a war with America.

1942- The beginning of the Battle of El Alamein. Rommel the Desert Fox and his Afrika Corps had pushed he British 8th Army across the western desert and into Egypt. Their goal was the cut the Suez Canal, occupy the Holy Land and link up with other Nazi units moving down from the Russian Caucasus into French Vichy controlled Syria. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haij Amin al Husseini promised a Palestinian Arab uprising to coincide with the Nazi’s arrival. But the British 8th Army dug in at this obscure Egyptian railroad station and finally stopped Rommel’s advance short of the Canal.

1946-The Peace Treaty of Beverly Hills- SAG president Ronald Reagan brokered a labor settlement between the two rival Hollywood Unions, IATSE vs. CSU., temporarily ending a violent Hollywood strike. At this time Reagan went to work every day with a 32 cal. Smith & Wesson under his coat.

1955-The Lawrence Welk T.V. Show debuts. Wannaful,wannafull !

1961-In the foyer of his home in Ketchum Idaho, Nobel Prize winning writer Ernest Hemingway put a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. He blew most of his head off just leaving his lower jaw and some cheek. Papa Hemingway was always haunted by the suicide of his father and he was receiving electro-shock treatments at the Mayo Clinic for depression and alcoholism. He lived for awhile in Cuba and his office in Cuba is still kept by Fidel Castro the way he left it, even protecting the hordes of cats sired by Hemingway's original pair. In 1996 his granddaughter supermodel Margaux Hemingway committed suicide almost to the day.

1992- THE GREAT FLYING LAWNCHAIR- San Pedro resident Larry Walters flew 16,000 feet in the air in his lawnchair. He strapped 45 helium weather balloons to his chair and took along a sixpack of beer, a sandwich and a pellet gun. After his two hour flight he got entangled in some power lines. He was later fined by the FAA for violating LAX commercial airport airspace.

1994- During the World Cup Columbian soccer star Andres Escobar accidentally scored a goal for the opposing team causing Columbia’s elimination. They take their soccer pretty seriously in Columbia. This day Escobar was shot 12 times by an enraged fan.

1997- "KILL THIS STORY! DRIVE A STEAK THROUGH IT’S HEART AND BURY IT !" was the reaction of a top CNN news executive to the uproar caused by two journalists who broadcast a story that during the Vietnam War the U.S. military experimented with bombing enemy villages with chemical weapons. Among the villages targeted with Nerve Gas was one they knew harbored American deserters. The operation was code-named Tailwind. CNN was immediately attacked by Veteran’s groups, Henry Kissinger and Gen. Colin Powell. So this day CNN retracted the story as being bad journalism and fired the reporters and producer of the show. Top CNN Gulf War correspondent Peter Arnett came out in support of the story and left CNN. The journalists refused to recant their story and say the then commander of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Sumner vouched for it’s validity. Others said Sumner was senile.

1997- The Russian Justice Minister Valentin Kovalyov resigned his job after a scandal newspaper Soversherno Sokretno published photos of him romping with a group of nude ladies in a nightclub sauna.

1998- In Paris, Mexican World Cup soccer fan Rodrigo Rafael Ortega was arrested for drunkenly urinating on the eternal flame in honor of Frances Great War dead. The eternal flame had burned continuously since 1921, even the Nazis left it burning. Ortega was the first to ever put it out. Once again international soccer proves its abilities to bring peoples together.
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Yesterdays’ Quiz: what are franking priviledges?

Answer: It's sending mail using the U.S. Postal System for free.


July 1st, 2010 thur
July 1st, 2010

Quiz: What are franking privileges?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What do these people have in common? Al Capone, Billy the Kid, George Gershwin and me, your author.
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History for 7/1/2010
Birthdays: Louis Bleriot, Tommy Dorsey, George Sand, Charles Laughton, James Cagney, Princess Diana, Twyla Tharp, Carl Lewis, Jamie Farr, Sidney Pollack, Wally "Famous"Amos, Olivia DeHavilland is 94, Estee Lauder, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Genevieve Bujold, Karen Black, Dan Ackroyd. Andre Crouch, Pamela Anderson is 43, Liv Tyler is 33

Welcome to July named for Julius Caesar. Before that the Romans called it month number five- "Quintilicus". They had a ten month calendar and ran out of names after Juno (June). So thank Julius Caesar that you don't have to celebrate the Fourth of Quintilicus.

330BC- Alexander the Great comes upon the body of his enemy Darius IV, the Great King of Persia. Darius was assassinated by several noblemen who thought it would make Alexander stop pursuing them. Alexander caught the assassins and had them executed. Their leader Bessus the Satrap of Bactria had his nose and ears cut off, then was tied by the arms to two bent trees that when released pulled his body apart.

987 A.D. Hugh Capet becomes King of France, replacing the last of the family of Charlemagne.

1097-Battle of Dorylaeum. Crusaders defeat the Saracens.

1251- After a contentious election at the Grand Kurlutai (conference) of Karakorum, the Mongols elect Mangu as the next Great Khan. Despite the immense size of their empire -from Vietnam and Korea across Eurasia and India to Poland and Syria, the Mongols were still an overextended tribal system, where the council elders anoint the next prince. Mangu pledged to renew his grandfather Genghis Khan's plan of World Conquest. Fortunately for the world, he died shortly thereafter.

1776- During a hot, humid day in Philadelphia the Continental Congress held the final crucial debate over whether to declare American Independence. The conservative lawyer John Dickinson argued that the colonies indeed had grievances with England, but to declare independence was rash, "we would be embarking upon an ocean of storms in a skiff made of paper!" John Adams waited until he was finished, and then gave the greatest speech of his life. There is no record of what he said, because the debates were secret and Adams didn’t work from notes. Jefferson said his passion swept the room. Yet despite it all, four colonies still were not sure they could vote for a final break with the Mother England. So Adams got a delay of one day, to await the New Jersey and South Carolina delegations to get their instructions.

1851-Painter James MacNeil Whistler applied to West Point Military Academy. After failing entrance exams he washes out and concentrates on becoming one of the most celebrated artists of the century. He later joked:" If silicon was a gas, I’d be a major general by now!"

1858- Charles Darwin does a public reading of his theories on Evolution to the Linean Club in London.

1863- GETTYSBURG- the most famous battle ever fought on U.S. soil.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided to invade north into Pennsylvania and hopefully by threatening Philadelphia and Washington force peace talks. Union General Meade shadowed his movements. With all their cavalry away chasing each other the two large armies groped around blindly through the backwoods of Lancaster County. Rebel General Henry Heath stopped in the little crossroads town of Gettysburg to get shoes for his men. While there he ran into some blue uniforms up the street. "Go on boys, that's jes some Pennsylvania militia." Heath said. Actually it turned out to be the Yankee's elite "Iron Brigade". A nasty firefight brewed up and both armies started to boil into each other like a slow motion trainwreck. Union General Winfield Scott Hancock drew up his cannon in a hilltop cemetery for defense. The battle would last three days and Lee's defeat would be the turning point of the Civil War.
Through the screams and gunsmoke one could read a little sign on the Gettysburg Cemetery gate: " The Carrying or Discharge of Firearms on these Premises are strictly Prohibited".

1867-HAPPY CANADA DAY- By treaty Her Majesties North American Colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, Maritimes, Prince Rupert Land and diverse other holdings are incorporated as the Autonomous Dominion of Canada. This master plan to consolidate the British Empire's colonial administration was invented by Lord Caernarvon, who Queen Victoria nicknamed "Twitters."

1898- THE CHARGE UP SAN JUAN HILL. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders take the Spanish fortifications on the two hilltops above the harbor of Cuba's second city, Santiago. His main attack was actually up Kettle Hill and the Rough Riders were on foot, and Teddy was not in charge, but it made great hardcopy. Roosevelt"s superior was elderly former Confederate General Fightin' Joe Wheeler, who occasionally mixed up calling the Spaniards-"Yankees". Teddy was so excited about being under fire that at one point he stopped before a trooper dying of a terrible abdominal wound, shook his hand and said: " Isn't this just a splendid day ?!" Equally engaged in the fighting was the U.S. Ninth Cavalry, the famed Buffalo Soldiers led by Lt. John Pershing, who because of his affinity for his black troops was already referred to as Blackjack Pershing. Artist Frederick Remington was there as a news correspondent as was author Stephen Crane and William Randolph Hearst. On the Spanish side was a young soldier named Pablo Castro, who’s son would be Fidel Castro.

1916- THE SOMME- During World War One while the French and Germans were stalemated at Verdun the British began the "Big Push" also known as the First Battle of the Somme. The British high command were so confident this attack would break open the stalemate and get them out of the trenches that they began training their men in open country tactics. But after four months of hell and one million casualties all they managed to do was move their trench line up just 5 miles. Twenty thousand men fell in just one day. The descendant of one veteran of the battle recalled his grandfather reached the German trenches and saw a dead Hun machine gunner knee deep in spent bullet cartridges.
Young Captain Robert Graves was sent back to England for an operation on his deviated septum. He missed the attack while his unit suffered 60% casualties. Graves survived to write books like " I Claudius". At one point he was in hospital with poet Wilfred Owen and A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh). Another lieutenant there named J.R.R.Tolkein was jotting down notes about old Norse-Celtic warriors and wizards for a future book. The Somme became to the British psyche a symbol of pointless gallantry much as Vietnam became to Americans or Verdun to the French. Historian John Keegan said in retrospect the English sense of naïve optimism from the Victorian Era turned cynical after the Somme.

1916- Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower married.

1925- THE KRUPP COMPANY PLANS FOR THE FUTURE- In Postwar Berlin a small industrial design office is set up with a few designers and drafting tables. The company called itself Koch und Kinsell but the real owner was Krupp Armaments Company. While the main Krupp steelworks produced bottle openers and trash bins, in secret violation of the Versailles Treaty these men designed the weapons of mass destruction that would wreak havoc in World War Two: Panzer Tanks (code named "tractors"), 88mm guns, more lethal U-boats, bombs and torpedoes. At a time when no one had ever heard of Adolph Hitler, the Krupp engineers were drawing up blueprints with notes like :" Keep gage widths of tanks within the dimensions of French railroad rolling stock for rapid movements inside France and Belgium.”

1933- Scarface Al Capone got his start in the crime from New York mobster Frankie Yale. But when Yale started to get inconvenient for Big Al, he didn’t have any problem with having him killed this day.

1941- Animation director Tex Avery stormed out of the Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, A Wild Hare. Boss Leon Schlesinger put him on a four week suspension without pay, but Avery had already lined up a gig at MGM.

1941- THE FIRST TV COMMERICAL -During the live coverage of a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies baseball game the first FCC sanctioned television commercial aired. It was for the Bulova Watch Company.

1945- Bill Mauldin's wartime comic strip "Willie and Joe' ends it's run along with the European front line edition of Stars and Stripes magazine. Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame said no one could draw mud like Bill Maudlin. Mauldin was once chewed out by General Blood & Guts Patton for making his GIs so slovenly and cynical. He felt it was a negative image of the American Fighting Man. Seesh...everybody’s a critic!

1945- NY Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the Sunday comics section over the radio because of a newspaper strike.

1946- The first peacetime A-Bomb detonated in the Bikini Islands. The army wanted to study the effects of the bomb so they parked old German warships, buildings and dummys around it, as well as chained down animals. They soldiers nicknamed the bomb 'Gilda' after the Rita Hayworth movie. When Ms. Hayworth heard her name was being used to incinerate 1,500 innocent sheep, horses and elephants she collapsed in shock. The inhabitants of the island were removed and to this day the islands are uninhabitable. A cloud of radiation also killed the crew of a Japanese fishing boat in the area. But the island's name gave a neat idea to French designer Jacques Clauzel what to call his daring new ladies’ two-piece swimsuit.

1958- Does She or Doesn’t She?- Clairol hair dye introduced.

1963-U.S. POST OFFICE introduced Zip Codes.

1966- The US Medicare Program began. The first Medicare card was given by LBJ to elderly former President Truman. At the time it was felt there was no need to include prescription drugs in the program since their cost was so low. Since then while general inflation rate has been nil to 1% prescription drugs average inflation rate is 400%.

1970- Hanna & Barbera’s attempt at a primetime animated series "Where’s Huddles?"

1972- Ms. Magazine started publication.

1981- The Wonderland Murders. Over-endowed porn star Johnny Holmes was implicated in a gang murder. In a Los Angeles home known to be involved in drug dealing. four people were found beaten to death with a steel pipe. Holmes was picked up and tried as an accomplice but was acquitted. Hung jury. -I’m sorry, I just had to say it!

1996- the movie Dinosaur Valley Girls premiered.

1998- Barbara Streisand married James Brolin.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do these people have in common? Al Capone, Billy the Kid, George Gershwin and me, your author.

Answer: We were all born in Brooklyn.


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