Question: Who was The Black Prince?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does the slang term mean “ To be cutting a rug “…?
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History for 5/20/2013
Birthdays: Honore Balzac, Jimmy Stewart, Leon Schlesinger, William Fargo of Wells Fargo, Moshe Dayan, Henri Rousseau, Dave Thomas, Ted Bessell (Donald to Marlo Thomas’ “That Girl”), Japanese baseball great Sadaharu Oh, Antony Zerbe, Bronson Pichot, Joe Cocker, Cher is 67, Busta Rhymes

1347- Cola di Rienzi became the “tribune” or leader of the city of Rome. The Pope was a prisoner in Avignon so the Eternal City was in chaos. Rienzi tried to bring about reforms and restore infrastructure but like Mussolini he eventually got too arrogant and overplayed his hand. A mob slaughtered him and danced with his corpse.

1520- A violent young Spanish mercenary soldier named Ignacio was hit by a cannonball. When he recovered he underwent a spiritual conversion and became St. Ignatius Loyola. Loyola founded a religious order called the Society of Jesus or Jesuits. Instead of acting like monks the Jesuits were organized on military discipline. Their leader is not called an abbot but the Secretary General. He is nicknamed “the Black Pope”.

1520- Hernando Cortez had not only to fight the entire Aztec Empire with just 391 troops, he also had the Spanish Governor of Cuba out to get him! This day Cortez surprised attacked the troop of Spaniards sent to arrest him. After a short battle he defeated the Governor’s force, and invited the survivors to join him.

1609- Shakespeare’s sonnets first published.

1621- The Sack of Magdeburg-During the Thirty Years War Catholic armies captured this Protestant German city. They cut down the surrendering Dutch commander Dietrich Von Falkenberg, and committed horrible atrocities on the population. The medieval cry "Cria Havoc!" was the signal for the pent up soldiers to run amuck. According to the rules of war they have the right to rape, and pillage for three days before discipline is restored.
But at Magdeburg they burned the city down and for 14 days the victors dumped the bodies of the innocent in the Elbe River. The army’s commander Johan Tserclas von Tilly explained: “ The soldier must get something for his toil and trouble.” The incident galvanized Protestant resistance. Ironically a lot of the troops in the Catholic army were protestant mercenaries who figured the religious questions were for kings to worry about, they just thought the catholic side had better benefits.

1690- The English Parliament passed the Act of Grace, giving pardon to all who had supported the deposed Stuart king James II.

1756- Battle of Minorca or Port Mahon- French Admiral the Marquis de Galissioniere defeated a British fleet led by Admiral of the Blue Sir John Byng, allowing the French to conquer the isle of Minorca. Byng was such a stickler for regulations he actually directed the battle while reading from an open copy of the Naval Rules of Engagement manual. The British admiralty was so incensed by Byng’s incompetence they recalled him to London, had him courts martialed and shot by firing squad on the deck of his own flagship.

1830 - D Hyde patented the fountain pen, replacing the goose quill .


1862-Congress passed the Homestead Act. 250 million acres of Free Land to all families who move west and build a home. Of course nobody told the Indians about this plan…

1873- Mr. Levi Strauss of San Francisco patents Jacob Davis’ process of riveted blue jeans. One alteration he made was to remove a rivet that was at the base of a cowboys crotch. It seems when they squatted around the campfire that rivet got red hot and caused much whoopin’ an a’ dancin’.

1887- In Russia a young man named Alexander Ulyanov was hanged by the police for plotting to assassinate the Tsar with a bomb hidden in a dictionary. His baby brother Vladimir watched him die and was deeply affected. He took up his brother’s revolutionary cause, and to protect his family changed his name to N. Lenin. The N is sometimes called Nikolai, but in Lenin's words it meant 'Nietzsto- Nothing."

1891- Thomas Edison demonstrated an early prototype of kinetoscope- a motion picture machine- to his wife's friends at a party. The footage was of engineer W.K.L. Dickson and his associates dancing. That night Edison wrote a letter about his movie machine to photographer Edweard Muybridge: " I doubt it will ever have any commercial value.."

1892- J.P. Morgan created the General Electric Company.

1892 - George Sampson patents the electric clothes dryer.

1902- US military occupation of Cuba after the Spanish American War ended.

1916- Polar Explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set off in 1914 to cross the continent of Antartica. No one had heard from his party for two years and everyone assumed he was dead like Scott of the Antarctic 4 years before. This day Shackleton and two survivors reached a Norwegian Whaling Station on South Georgia Island ahead of the rest of his party. Sir Ernest asked about the Great War in Europe and assumed that by now the war was probably over. “Who won that war?” he asked. He was told: “It is still going on. Europe has gone mad. The World has Gone Mad.”

1916- Artist Norman Rockwell sold his first painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.

1926 - Thomas Edison says Americans prefer silent movies over talking pictures. He also thought the flat record disc could never replace the cylinder.

1927- Charles Lindbergh took off for France in his little plane The Spirit of Saint Louis. The day before two pilots died when their plane failed to clear some power lines. Lindbergh barely cleared them himself. By attempting the trip alone it meant he would have to stay awake and alert for 33 1/2 hours with no company but a Felix the Cat doll for good luck.

1932- Amelia Earhart landed in Londonerry, Northern Ireland , completing the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic Ocean. Since Lindbergh, five aviators had died trying to recreate the feat, until Earhart did it.

1937-The Cinema Editor's Guild started.

1937- Bob Clampett promoted to director at Leon Schlesinger’s Looney Tunes Studio. Clampett, whose mother hand sewed the first Mickey Mouse dolls for Walt Disney. After leaving Looney Tunes Clampett created the Beany & Cecil Show for early television.

1939- Pan Am establishes "Yankee Clipper"" flying boat passenger service across the Atlantic. From Long Island New York to Lisbon Portugal in 22 hours. For awhile it was thought flying boats would be the future of civilian aviation because they land in water so save land for airports and runways. Also safer because if there was any kind of engine trouble they could just put down in water and bob around until help arrived.

1942- Nazi parachutists capture Crete. One of the paratroopers was Max Schmelling, who boxed Joe Louis for the heavyweight title. The Germans casualty rate was so high the Germans abandoned all future parachute assaults.

1943- Admiral Yamamoto shot down and killed in transit by American pursuit squadron tipped off by the broken Japanese code. Ironically the mastermind of Pearl Harbor was against the war with America and predicted: " If I can knock out the American fleet early I can raise hell in the Pacific for two years. If you don't negotiate after that we will eventually lose."
I recently read a theory of one historian who said that right around this time Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's government had fallen over the conduct of the war and Yamamoto, as Japan’s most popular soldier, could have been the next Prime Minister. In which case he would have opened peace talks as early as 1943, long before Okinawa, Iwo Jima and Hiroshima ! It’s a stretch, but one of the intriguing “what if’s” of history.

1948- A tornado touched down on a commercial airport in Tinker Oklahoma. What made this episode special was two air force meteorologists named Miller and Forbush just happened to present studying tornado weather patterns when the twister showed up as if on cue. The result was the invention of the first serious tornado warning systems.

1969- The Battle of Hamburger Hill ended- U.S.101st Airborne took the summit of Hill 937 from North Vietnamese regulars after nine days of incurring grievous losses. The hill was abandoned shortly afterwards.

1970-THE HARD HAT PARADE- In a response to the anti-war demonstrations convulsing US colleges and cities, several thousand people marched in downtown New York in support of President Nixon’s Vietnam policies. The so-called Hard Hat Parade was made up of union construction workers and middle aged veterans. Conservatives made a lot of this event, but the fact is this was a one time anomaly in the face of hundreds of thousands marching nationwide against the unpopular war.

1975- In a small warehouse in Van Nuys California, George Lucas assembled an effects crew to create the film Star Wars. It is the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, or ILM.

1979- The last Saturday Night Live show done by the original cast. Many of them had their 5 year contracts up and wanted to do something else. Plus producer Lorne Michaels was feuding with NBC chairman Fred Silverman and wanted to leave. So goodbye Lorne Michaels, Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman, Garret Morris, Bill Murray and Al Franken, Hello Jean Doumainian and Joe Piscopo! Lorne Michaels came back to the show a few years later and has produced it ever since.

1984- Hanna Barbera’s “The Smurfic Games”.

1993 - Max Klein, the inventor of Paint by Numbers sets, died at 77. President Eisenhower once passed out paint-by-numbers sets to his senior cabinet so their paintings could adorn the West Wing offices. Imagine seeing on your wall an original artwork by Richard Nixon or Curtis LeMay!

1994- Walt Disney released Aladdin II, the Return of Jaffar. Done overseas at ¼ the budget of the original, it’s nevertheless success spawned the industry of Disney direct-to-video sequels, called “cheapquels” by some animators.

2003- In 1977, when Walt Disney's the Rescuers was being completed, the artists for a joke added a Playboy picture into a pan shot. Going by at 1/24th a second, they were confident nobody would ever spot it. Later in the 1990s, when Rescuers went to VHS video, they edited out the controversial frame. But when it was time in 2003 to rerelease on DVD, the Studio apparatchniks went back to the original 1977 negative, without ever bothering to consult any of us artists. We could have warned them. but no. So on May 20, 2003, nine million copies of the Rescuers DVD hit the stores, with the ensuing out cry, firestorm, and embarrassed apologies you can imagine.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does the slang term mean “ To be cutting a rug “…?

Answer: In the 1920s it meant to be dancing.

Question: What does the slang term mean “ To be cutting a rug “…?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What popular children’s book was written in 1957 in hopes of replacing books like the Dick and Jane elementary school primers?
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History for 5/19/2013
Birthdays: Malcolm X- real name Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- real name Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mayhew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Jimmy Hoffa Jr, Polly Walker, and Tom Sito, aka me, your author.

988-Today is the Feast of Saint Dunstan, who pulled the Devil’s nose with hot tongs.

1535- Explorer Jacques Cartier sails from France for the New World.

1536- Anne Boleyn-King Henry VIII's second queen, was beheaded not by axe but by a French swordsman with a sort of golf-swing. The king was playing tennis at Hampton Court. He had a relay signal of cannons fired from the Tower of London so he would know the minute he was single again.

1571- Spaniard Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi founded the city of Manila.

1586- Fleeing her rebellious nobles, Mary Queen of Scots crossed the border into England and threw herself upon the mercy of Queen Elizabeth, who promptly locked her up.

1635- Cardinal Richelieu confuses the religious nature of the Thirty Years War by putting Catholic France on the Protestant side. His eminence, the Cardinal, didn’t care a figgy about religious issues, he just wanted to break the power of Hapsburg Spain.

1643- The separate Anglo-American colonies of Plymouth, Connecticut, New Harbor and Massachusetts Bay form an association called New England.

1649- Oliver Cromwell’s victorious Puritan Parliament declared the British Monarchy extinct. England was to be a Commonwealth. They also stipulated that all nobles who had been for the King in the just-completed Civil Wars would be tax assessed to one-half the value of their properties.

This tax drove many cash poor noble families to emigrate to American where they set up homes in Virginia- The Washingtons, Lees, Randolphs, Livingstons and Madisons. In the US Civil War many southerners flattered themselves as being the descendents of the Cavaliers and the Yankees of New England the heirs of the Puritan Roundheads.

1652- An English fleet led by Blake attacked the Dutch under Admiral Van Tromp- The First Anglo-Dutch War began.

1749- King George II chartered the Ohio Company to explore the territories west of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This act would bring English settlers into direct conflict with French settlers moving down from Canada and help bring on the French & Indian or the Seven Years War.

1780- In New England the sky turned to total darkness at noon. No explanation.

1798- Napoleon embarks to invade Egypt, trying to thereby cut off England's easy access to India and if possible conquering his way across Turkey and Persia to join forces with Tippoo Sahib, the Indian Sultan fighting against British rule.

1804- Napoleon designates 14 of his top generals MARSHALS of the EMPIRE. King Louis XVI had a rule that no one could become an officer in the Royal French Army without first proving nobility of birth going back at least four generations. In the British army it was perfectly natural to buy your officer commissions until the World Wars. The French Revolution changed all that. Napoleon's army functioned on the radical new principle of promoting people on merit instead of noble birth or connections. A slogan in the French army was "every drummer boy carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack."

1812-U.S. declared War on Britain, the War of 1812- The U.S. government tired of having it's shipping harassed by the British and having ambitions of conquering Canada sent off a declaration of war. Two weeks later a Royal Navy vessel landed in Baltimore with concessions to most U.S. demands. Doh!

Napoleon, retreating from Moscow when he received the news, calculated that because the American Navy had had success against the British Navy during their Revolution they were the perfect ones to ferry his army across the Channel so he could get at England! He didn't know that after the Revolution most of the American Navy was scrapped and the Yankees weren't that thrilled with him anyway.

1857 -William Francis Channing & Moses G Farmer patents electric fire alarm

1859- Sir John Franklin led a British Navy expedition to find the sea route across the top of Canada, the NorthWest Passage. Not only didn't he make it but the National Geographic Society is still thawing out his sailors today. The route that sailors looked for since Sir Francis Drake was not achieved until a Canadian icecutter did it in 1958.

1864- The Cherry Creek Flood- wipes out what there is of a little boomtown in silver mining country called Denver.

1884 - Ringling Brothers circus premiered.

1886- First performance of Camille Saint Saen's Organ Symphony #3. Saint Saen's had actually written 6 such works but hated them all but three. He liked the third symphony so much he never wrote another. Composer Charles Gounod heard the symphony and exclaimed:" There is now a French Beethoven!"

1891- Rice University founded.

1892 - Charles Brady King invented the pneumatic jackhammer- sleeping city dwellers rejoice.

1895- Patriot leader Jose Martin killed fighting for Cuban independence.

1897- Writer Oscar Wilde was released from prison after doing two years of hard labor. The experience broke his health and he never completely recovered. He did use his experiences to write his last work The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898.

1898 - Post Office authorizes the use of postcards.

1900- The British Empire annexed the islands of Tonga- once called the Cannibal Isles. The King of Tonga realized the fruitlessness of trying to resist the Europeans so he mailed his war club as a symbol of authority to Queen Victoria.

1919- Harlem jazz bandleader James Europe had toured Europe while in uniform for World War One and had made the Old World wild for the new syncopated rhythms. Europe was doing a triumphal tour of America with his Harlem doughboy band when his career was tragically cut short. In Boston he argued with one hotheaded musician who stabbed him in the neck and he bled to death. Had he lived James Europe might have been as famous as Satchmo Armstrong or Duke Ellington.

1921- The U.S. Congress ends the system of unchecked immigration and sets up a quota system based on nationalities (even today the system heavily favors European countries)

1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. Ushers and doorman were dressed in imported Mandarin silk robes and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1929 - General Feng Yu-Xiang, last of the great Chinese warlords, declared war on Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang Nationalist government. After the Manchu Empire collapsed in 1912 China broke up into small states run by generals with private armies, European protectorates and Mao and his Communist guerrillas. The Nationalists under Chiang slowly reunified China piece by piece until the Japanese Invasion in 1937.

1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

1935- The National Football League adopts the college draft system.

1935- T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died of injuries after a high speed motorcycle crash. The motorcycle was a gift from George Bernard Shaw.

1941- Battle of Amba Alagi. Britain defeated Fascist Italy in Abyssinia.

1945- The U-boat U-232 surfaced and surrendered in the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire eleven days after the official surrender of Nazi Germany. Just before the fall of Berlin, they had been sent on a long-distance trip to Tokyo carrying military secrets, a disassembled jet fighter and a store of fission quality uranium. In the mid-Atlantic, the crew got the radio news of Hitler’s death and Germany’s surrender. An argument broke out between the crew, officers and two Japanese liaison officers about what to do The decision was made to sail to the first American harbor and surrender.
When in port it was discovered the two Japanese officers were missing. The crew said “ they decided to walk home".

1956- Cecil B. de Milles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

1962- Giant birthday party and rally held for President John F. Kennedy in New York's Madison Square Garden -his birthday was actually the following week. What made it memorable was Marilyn Monroe in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it, singing her sexy version of the Happy Birthday song. 'Haapie (exhale) Burth- Day, Mister - Prezz- a -dent (sigh), Happy, etc. "

1967- US B-52’s bomb Hanoi for the first time.

1970- Al Gore married Tipper Gore.

1987- Charles Fleming got a patent for plans for a device that can keep a severed human head alive.

1990-Amy Fisher 16,the "Long Island Lolita" shot the wife of her lover, muffler salesman Joseph Buttafuco. Mary Jo Buttafuco survived the attack and Amy went to jail. This case titillates the sensationalist media of New York City for the next three years, to the amazement of the rest of the U.S.

1991- Willy T. Ribbs became the first African American racecar driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker.

1998- George Lucas much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in 20 years. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying that web sites like www.I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.Com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

2006- Dreamworks animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.
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Yesterday’s question: What popular children’s book was written in 1957 in hopes of replacing books like the Dick and Jane elementary school primers?

Answer: Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.

QUIZ: What popular children’s book was written in 1957 in hopes of replacing the Dick and Jane elementary school primers?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: The Anglo-Saxons became the English, and the Franks became the French. Who were the Alemani…?

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History for 5/18/2013
Birthdays: Pope John Paul II, Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Tsar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 58, Tina Fey is 43

331 B.C. -ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIES IN BABYLON. By age 31 he had conquered most of the known world and was planning a campaign to Arabia and western Europe when he fell ill. When asked "To whom do you leave your empire? He replied- "Hoti to Kratisto- To the Strongest". Some historians speculate he actually meant :"Hoti to Kratero" to Craterus, one of his trusted companions, but the generals in the room had their own ideas and didn't want to hear that.

They carved up his Empire into their own kingdoms-Ptolemey became Pharoah of Egypt, Seleucus king of Syria and Antigonus One-Eye & Cassander divided up Greece. They started fighting with each other almost immediately. Alexander grimly joked: "There will be great games at my funeral". The Successor kings even fought over his corpse, carrying it around with the army in a huge rolling shrine, until Ptolomey brought it to Alexandria and embalmed it in a solid block of honey. Caesar and Marc Anthony were able to gaze upon Alexander’s face three hundred years later.(imagine today being able to look at the undecayed face of George Washington! )The final fate of the honey-pickled corpse is unknown.

323BC- Diogenes the Cynic philosopher died his 90s. He once met Alexander the Great. Alexander came up to him seated upon the ground, stood over him and said "I am Alexander the King of Macedon". Diogenes countered:" And I am Diogenes the Dog". Alexander said:" If there is anything in the world you desire of me, just ask and I shall do it!" Diogenes replied:" yes, you’re blocking my sunlight."

257 a.d.- Today is the Feast of Saint Venantius. Little is known of him except his endurance record for being martyred. His persecutors flogged him, burned him with torches, hanged him upside down over a fire, knocked his teeth out, broke his jaw, and threw him to the lions, who merely licked his feet. Then they threw him off a cliff, and finally cut his head off.

1291- The Last Christian stronghold in Middle East, St. Jean D'Acre fell to the Mamelukes under Al Khalil. The official end of the Crusades.

1512- IRON HAND- German knight Gotz von Berlichingen spent his 81 years fighting and raiding throughout Germany. When his hand was blown off by a cannonball he had a mechanical one built for him out of metal. This day Gotz and one legged Hans von Selbitz raided 55 Nuremburg merchants and carried off their gold. Goethe and other German writers made Gotz into a Robin Hood type folk hero.

In answering a challenge to personal combat, Iron Hand was credited with uttering the famous epithet "Er aber sag seinem Herren, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Go tell your master he can kiss my ass!"

1565- THE SIEGE OF MALTA BEGINS. Turkish Sultan Suleimann the Magnificent attacked the island stronghold of the Knights of St.John. The knights had formed in Jerusalem during the Crusades and ran a hospital when not chopping people, so they were called Hospitalers. Later after their victory they became the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, four barbed arrowheads forming a cross is called the Maltese Cross. Today they still run a medical service called St. John's Ambulance.

1642- Huron village of Hochelaga was rededicated as the city of Montreal.

1778-THE MESCHIANZA- Before the British Army evacuated the rebel capitol of Philadelphia they threw a grand farewell ball. Beautiful American loyalist girls and dashing young redcoat officers danced the night away under a spectacle of fireworks. There was a waterborne parade, medieval tournament and a huge dinner.

Nothing this lavish had ever been staged in the American Colonies. One of the belles was Peggy Shippen, who would marry General Benedict Arnold and turn him from the American patriot cause. That night her dance partner was Major John Andre’, who art directed and designed the event. He even designed Peggy’s costume. The men had costumes as Knights and the women as Turkish damsels, symbolizing the civilizing influence of art on barbaric peoples.

The next day the British began their withdrawal to New York and abandoning Philadelphia to Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Two years later Major Andre hanged by George Washington as a spy.

1781- The last fighting king of the Inca, TUPU AMARU II was executed by the Spanish conquistadors. They tried to tear him apart with horses, but he was too pliable so they cut him up. Inca resistance to the Spaniards didn't end when Pizzarro left. They abandoned Cuzco and fled deeper into the Andes and continued to struggle for another 150 years.

The Inca believed the world periodically is overthrown and another takes it's place, so the European invasion was seen as a part of this cycle. The Inca word for earthquake also means revolution. In the 1980s the rebels fighting the Peruvian government forces called themselves the Tupu-Amaru Liberation front.

1795- Col. Robert Rogers died in poverty in London. During the French and Indian War Rogers’ colonial militia called Roger’s Rangers was the most daring unit fighting for England. But by the American Revolution George Washington didn’t trust his loyalty and refused him a command. He formed a Tory unit but it was undistinguished except for ratting out Nathan Hale. Despite the obscurity of his death, Rogers wrote down a manual of his tactics that are considered the basis of all special ops -Move Fast, Hit Hard.

1804- French senate votes Napoleon the title of Emperor of the French. This act disappointed many European liberals like Beethoven who had seen Napoleon as the strong wind of reform blowing through the dusty corridors of Monarchy. Sometimes you may see the word "parvenu" in a story. The term was coined during this time to mean brand new synthetic royalty instead of ancient noble families.

1832-CLIMAX OF THE MAY DAYS- The closest England ever came to a full French style working class Revolution. The Whig party under Lord John Russell and Lord Grey ( Earl Grey Tea ) had introduced three bills in Parliament asking for voting rights to be extended to the middle classes and parliamentary allocations reformed to better represent the large city populations like Manchester and Birmingham. This would forever shatter the tight hold on power possessed by the gentry and peers. Naturally the conservatives like King William IV (Victoria's uncle) fought it tooth and nail. Every time the bill passed in the House of Commons it was defeated in the House of Lords. The Commons in retaliation refused to let the Tories form a government.

Starting with the bills third defeat on May 7th England was convulsed by rioting, looting, general strikes and boycotts . The King was hit in the face with a stone, the Horse Guards were called out and the elderly Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had so many rocks thrown at his house in Hyde Park he had steel shutters installed on the ground floor. On this day Lord Grey told the King if he didn't sign the reform act and create a dozen new liberal peers to the Lords, anarchy and revolution would result ! Lord Lionel Rothschild reported the economy was at the point of collapse.

The king backed down, reform went through and real two party voting resulted, although the working classes would have to wait 86 more years until they could vote. King William IV has come down to us called William the Reformer, although it sounds like a title he would have liked to do without....

1896- The US Supreme Court in the decision Plessy Vs Ferguson upheld the concept of Separate-But-Equal facilities and laws. This racial separation called Segregation or Jim Crow, was not reversed until the 1950’s.

1904- In Paris 12 nations sign an international agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. The United States did not sign.

1905- MORROCCAN CRISIS OF 1905- A Moroccan desert sherif, El Raisuli, kidnapped a small Greek-American businessman named George Pedicaris. He did this for ransom, and because he wanted someone new to play chess with. Pedicaris was ransomed, but not before the incident became a major international showdown between with Germany, Britain, France and the U.S.. The incident was romanticized in the John Milius film "The Wind and the Lion", with Raisuli played by Sean Connery and Pedicaris turned into the beautiful Candice Bergen.

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond nine symphonies. On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1926- L.A. evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson shocked the nation when she mysteriously disappeared on a beach near Venice Cal. After an exhaustive search she turned up a month later with a lame story of being kidnapped. Truth was she ran off with a boyfriend to party in Monterrey. Haleileiuyah!

1931- Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara attempted to be the first pilot to fly alone across the Pacific Ocean. But he crashed and was rescued by a passing ship.

1933- President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA created massive public works bringing electric power to much of the Appalachians and deep South.

1943- Battle of Monte Cassino. A Ninth Century mountaintop abbey filled with German troops held back the allied armies advancing up from Naples. In order to capture the fortress the allies had to heavily bomb it from the air, destroying many priceless paintings by Piero della Francesca and Giotto.

1944- Stalin's revenge- a million Crimean Tartar people are herded up and sent into exile in Central Asia because Stalin felt they collaborated with the Nazis. In the 1990s they were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland.

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppolla's Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rides out the storm cooking pasta, smoking pot and listening to records of La Boheme.

1980-Mt. St. Helens explodes in Washington State. The volcano was always thought to be safely extinct but Mother Nature had other plans. I was in Toronto thousands of miles away and noticed volcanic ash floating in Lake Ontario. The eruption and earthquake killed 57 people and destroyed 24 square miles around the mountain. A lone eccentric named Harry Truman refused to be evacuated and stayed in his home. He was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other programs. After the explosion Truman disappeared and is assumed killed.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the obese comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!

2003 Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: The Anglo-Saxons became the English, and the Franks became the French. Who were the Alemani…?

Answer: They became the Suebian peoples of the upper Rhine of Germany.

Quiz: The Anglo-Saxons became the English, and the Franks became the French. Who were the Alemani…?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What do these people have in common? Dorothy Parker, Hector Berlioz and Francois Truffault.
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History for 5/17/2013
Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Howard Ashman, Craig Ferguson is 51, Bill Paxton is 58, Ralph Wright- the original voice of Eeyore, Alan Kay-inventor of the laptop computer, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 52- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1204- The Fourth Crusade captured the city of Constantinople (Istanbul). The Crusaders decided to blame the Greeks for their failure to keep Jerusalem so they sent a crusade just to get them. This Crusade was backed by the growing merchant naval powers like Venice, Genoa and Pisa who saw the Byzantines as a commercial competitor.
They stormed the unconquerable city and killed the Emperor Constantine VIII Paleologus called Mourzufle "Fuzzy", by hurling him off a high column.

The Republic of Venice plundered many treasures to adorn their Cathedral of San Marco back home, including the four bronze horses that had adorned the Hippodrome. In the weeks of destruction and pillage that followed many priceless works of art were lost, including only remaining copies of a dozen plays of Sophocles, leaving only the four we have now.

The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo had a horror of dying in bed. So he was in the first assault boat to attack the city's walls even though he was 81 and blind. He survived the arrows, spears; catapult stones and boiling oil, and died in bed anyway.

1488- Vasco DeGama reached India from sailing around the horn of Africa.
This fulfilled the master plan of Prince Henry the Navigator to outflank the Moslem world, providing an alternative to the ancient Silk Road land route caravans that connected the world’s trade.

It was the beginning of the Age of Exploration and the rise of Western Europe to world domination. Both Columbus and Magellan learned their stuff studying in Prince Henry’s Portugal. Ironically legend has it that DeGama’s navigator was an Arab. A previous Portuguese navigator named Diaz had actually rounded the African continent before DeGama but his men were so freaked out that they mutinied and made him go home, so he got no credit.

1673- French Explorers Father Marquette and Joliet set out from Green Bay, Wisconsin to explore the Mississippi. The missionary made only one baptism but he said that alone made the trip worthwhile.

1792- In New York twenty-four investors meet under a buttonwood tree on the street where the old city wall once stood and formed the first New York Stock Exchange. Then they all went to the Merchant’s Coffee House for lunch.

1802- Meriwether Lewis went to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush to get advice for his Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the most famous doctor in America. Dr. Rush gave Lewis a list of questions he had about the West, such as asking the Plains Indians if they practiced the religion of the Hebrews ? Were the Sioux or Cheyenne the Lost Tribes of Israel? If you think that’s silly Thomas Jefferson told Lewis to look for living Mastodons.

When Lewis asked what medical supplies were needed Rush said unhesitatingly that he should lay in a good supply of Rush’s Purgative Pills, nicknamed ‘thunderclappers’ for the effect they had on your system.

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departs for England ”in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

1845 - Rubber bands invented.

1847- The American Medical Association- the AMA formed.

1860- At the second presidential convention of the Republican Party former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln is nominated on the second ballot, beating out William Seward and John Freemont, aka the Pathfinder.

1861- The California State Legislature passed a resolution declaring the states loyalty to the Union and against slavery and secession.

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

1885- Geronimo went on the warpath for the second time. His Chiracaua Apache was the last independent Indian tribe still fighting the U.S. and Mexico.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic newspaper, published in London.

1905 - After having been given to Sweden by Denmark back in 1814, Norway finally regained independence.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain buys Metro Pictures and combines them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studio to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

1931- Vaudeville dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Howard Hawk’s film Public Enemy debuted. “I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

1940- In World War I the German army tried for four years to reach Brussels. Here in World War II they captured the Belgian capitol in just 6 days.

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tries to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relents and recognizes the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1943- The B-17 bomber Memphis Belle flew it’s last of 25 successful missions over Germany. Today the Belle is in a museum in Memphis, appropriately enough.

1954-" Brown vs. Board of Ed" Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal. Future justice Thurgood Marshal was the successful attorney.

1965- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shake hands and agree to write a sci-fi movie, with accompanying novel. First called How the Solar System was Won, then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title was finally- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1967 – Bob Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as film "Don't Look Back"

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on reed boat Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical "Godspell," premiered off-Broadway.

1973 - Stevie Wonder releases "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

1973- the Senate Watergate Committee convenes.

1974- The LAPD attacked the LA stronghold of the Symbionnese Liberation Army extremists, then holding heiress Patty Hearst .In a furious shootout most SLA members including leader Donald DeFreeze were killed, but Miss Hearst remained missing for a few more weeks.

1977- In Israeli general elections, the right wing Likud party under Menachem Begin won a majority. Labor lost power for the first time since independence in 1948. It also marked the religious conservative groups having a bigger say in Israeli politics over the earlier socialist-humanist reformists that built Israel. One-eyed Moshe Dayan startled his friends by changing parties and becoming foreign minister in the new government.

1978- Sony and Phillips Electronics introduce the Compact Disc, where the music is played by a laser instead of a needle.

2004- Massachusetts became the first US State to legalize gay marriage.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do these people have in common? Dorothy Parker, Hector Berlioz and Francois Truffault.

Answer: They all were once critics who wrote popular columns.

Quiz: What do these people have in common? Dorothy Parker, Hector Berlioz and Francois Truffault.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: “Into the breach once more, my friends!” Who said that and what breach?.
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History for 5/16/2013
Birthdays: Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable underage Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 58, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Pierce Brosnan is 60.

218 A.D.- Elagabulus hailed Roman Emperor by the Eastern Legions. During the long succession of Roman emperors many usurpers and mercenaries would try and prove a tenuous family link to Julius Caesar or Augustus for legitimacy. Elagabulus was the son of an Egyptian prostitute and had no idea who his father was. So he declared himself divinely conceived by the Sun god, Helios -hence Helio-gabulus.

1571- By his own calculations, Astronomer Johannes Kepler was conceived at 4:37 AM.

1648- Battle of Zolty Wody (sweet water) The Cossack rebel army of Ukrainian leader Bogdhan Chmeilnitski defeated the royal Polish army of King Jan II Kazmiersz.

1717- A Lettre du Cachet was issued to arrest young writer Voltaire. They locked him up in the Bastille for writing satires critical of the King’s government. He was not allowed to take anything but his clothes, and his mistress Suzanne De Livry consoled herself by promptly jumping into bed with his best friend. Philosopher Voltaire was philosophical: ” We must put up with these bagatelles.”

1763- James Boswell was drinking tea in Samuel Davis’ London bookshop when he first met Dr. Samuel Johnson. The two great men of letters became lifelong friends and Boswell’s biography of Dr Johnson became a literary classic.

1770- Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette marry. Louis was 15 and Marie was 14. Louis was just Duc' du Berry and never expected to become king until both his father and older brother died before grandpa King Louis XV. Louis was unable to consummate their marriage because of an obstruction in his foreskin. It took seven years and a painful operation before they could create any children. During that time the vivacious but undoubtedly frustrated Marie-Antoinette would put her dull husband to bed early and party all night with others.

1777- Button Gwinnett died from wounds incurred in a duel. Button Gwinnett has the fame of being the most obscure signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1861- The State of Kentucky declared its’ neutrality in the Civil War. For that it became a battle ground for armies for most of the following year.

1863- THE LONG CHANCE- In Richmond at a meeting of the Confederate Cabinet plans are discussed for helping relieve the fortress city of Vicksburg. If Yankee General Grant captured the city he would cut the Confederacy in half and choke off the Mississippi. Gen. Pierre Beauregard proposed drawing regiments from west and east to launch a grand assault into Ohio and Indiana. This would force Grant away from Vicksburg to defend the Yankee heartland.

But Gen. Robert E. Lee countered with his idea for the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee proposed an invasion north through Pennsylvania to menace Philadelphia and descend upon Baltimore and Washington, in effect, gambling everything that he could knock out the U.S. Army with one giant blow. Some strategists agreed with Beauregard's plan but President Jefferson Davis disliked Beauregard personally and just couldn't say no to the invincible Bobby Lee. Of all the Confederate cabinet only postmaster general John Reagan had the nerve to disagree. He was outvoted. 15-1. Lee was defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell to Grant.

1866- Congress authorized the creation of a new 5 cent coin, which because of it’s metal content people called the Nickel.

1868-The IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT -President Andrew Johnson survived a Senate vote of Impeachment by one vote. The pro-union governor of rebel Tennessee was made Vice President, then became president because of Abe Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson was filling out Lincoln's term and was despised by Washington circles for being too quick to forgive the defeated Confederacy and restrict the new rights of the freed slaves. His campaign slogan was “This Nation was made for the White Man.”

He was continually at odds with the members of Lincoln's cabinet who wanted to control him, especially Secretary of War William Stanton. When Johnson tried to fire Stanton the bewhiskered secretary not only barricaded himself into his office but he instigated impeachment proceedings in Congress. He even accused President Johnson of treason and of complicity in the plot to kill Lincoln! Senate leader pro-tem Benjamin Wade was so sure he was going to be president he had already announced his cabinet.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for impeachment and the Senate was only one vote short of the 2/3 majority required. The one vote that kept Johnson in office was a Senator Edmund Ross. Ross deliberately voted no because he didn’t want to be famous as the man who impeached a President. Ross’ career was ruined- “He will die in the street!” thundered one-legged N.Y. Senator Dan Sickles. A century later John F. Kennedy included Ross's story in his book 'Profiles in Courage'.
Andrew Johnson for the rest of his life bitterly resented the questioning of his patriotism when he had sacrificed friends and family to stay loyal to the U.S. When he died he left instructions that his body be wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and a copy of the U.S. Constitution put under his head.

1879- Dvoraks’ Slavonic Dances premiered.

1900- MAFEKING- During the Boer War in South Africa the besieged city of Mafeking was rescued by the British Army. When the first combat units fought their way into the beleaguered post the first Englishman they saw was a droll gentleman seated on a porch sipping lemonade who calmly stated:" Ah, so there you are. We'd heard you chaps had been knocking about. " The public in London went wild with the news and a huge spontaneous street party breaks out, forever called a "Mafeking Night".

The British commander at Mafeking was Sir Anthony Baden-Powell "Good Old B.P." After the war he would form the Boy Scouts. The scout uniform with the ranger hat and neckerchief was based on his own uniform in the Boer war. The slogan 'Be Prepared' was an abbreviation of the more sanguine orders B.P. gave at the height of the Mafeking battle “ Be Prepared to Die for your Country! “

1913-President Woodrow Wilson held a crisis cabinet meeting over a potential war with Japan. The Japanese Government was shocked and insulted by the State Legislature of California passing a law forbidding Japanese immigrants the rights of citizenship or to own property. Wilson’s own policy advocated states rights but he didn’t want to needlessly offend Tokyo any further. The crisis was averted by January when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was sent to negotiate milder treaty language, not with the Japanese, but with the State of California!

1918- During World War One, President Woodrow Wilson created the Wartime Committee of Public Information- a propaganda board headed by journalist George Creel and psychologist Edmund Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud. After the war they would ply their skills in mass persuasion for the private sector- Bernay's advertising equating cigarette smoking with women's equality hooked millions of women. He labels cigarettes “freedom sticks” and even engineered a change in ladies fashion to a taste for green to help sagging sales of a cigarette in a green pack. He also engineered a campaign to make all Americans believe the only real American breakfast is bacon & eggs.

1922- The White Star Line’s ocean liner Majestic, a sister ship to the Titanic, made its maiden voyage with no problem at all.

1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel. The best picture winner was William Wellman’s “Wings”. The name Oscar for the award supposedly came from joking that it’s butt looked like Betty Davis’ husband Oscar’s. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. During the Depression in 1933 the Oscars was the place to announce across the board wage rollbacks and salary cuts. Must have made for a swell party.

1934- 35,000 Pacific longshoremen go on strike and paralyze ports from Seattle to San Diego.

1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.

1957- in a small town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just approved the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Al Capone’s Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.

1963- Gordo Cooper orbits the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.

1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's.

1975-Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to climb Mt. Everest.

1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK

1979- Shooting wraps on 1941, Steven Spielbergs first flop.

1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapses on stage with hepatitis.

1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed:” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.

1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.

1986 – the film "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered..

1990- Jim Henson died of viral pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He was 58.

1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On DALLAS Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season’s events had only been a bad dream.

2001-THE SECRET ENERGY SUMMIT- Traditionally the job of U.S. vice presidents is to attend state funerals and wait for the president to cough. Shortly after the inauguration, VP Dick Cheney convened a secret summit of top energy execs. This day their plan was announced- A heavily one-sided partisan document that emphasized increased drilling for oil and nuclear power, regardless of their environmental impact. Even today it is a top secret just who was invited to that summit and Cheney had all records and transcripts destroyed.

2009- The Sri Lankan military declared victory over the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels and killed their leader Vellilpurai Prahabkaran. The civil war had been raging since 1983.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: “Into the breach once more, my friends!” Who said that and what breach?.

Answer: In Shakespeare’s play Henry V ACT I, King Henry V, sword in hand, prepared to lead another attack into a breach in the walls of the French town of Harfleur:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.