Quiz: On Aug 2, 1972 in Munich, Uganda’s John Akii-Bua ( (1949 –1997) following his record breaking win in the 400-meter hurdles, did something that became an Olympic tradition. What did he do? ( Thanks Lennie!)

Yesterday’s Question: Months alternate having 30 and 31 days each, but July and August each have 31. Why is that?
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History for 8/2/2012
Birthdays: Perre L’Enfant the designer of Washington DC, Jack Warner, Myrna Loy, Sir Arthur Bliss, James Baldwin, Carrol O'Connor, Joanna Cassidy is 52, Pete Sampras, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster ), Bill Scott the voice of Bullwinkle, Bob Beamon, Wes Craven, Edward Furlong, Kevin Smith is 42, Peter O'Toole is 80, Marie Louise Parker is 48

47BC- Battle of Zela. Pharnaces the King of Pontus- a land today in the middle of Turkey, decided he could take advantage of the Roman civil war by rising in revolt. He called for all the eastern provinces throw off the Roman yoke. This day Julius Caesar took time off from Cleopatra, and hurried up to Pontus, where he destroyed Pharnaces army in one large battle. Caesar then sent his famous three word report to the Senate: “ VENI VIDI VICI- I came, I saw, I conquered.”

1100- King William II Rufus (the Red), son of William the Conqueror, was shot with an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His son Henry I became king. Truth be told, nobody liked Rufus very much, so it was probably not an accident.

1589- French King Henri III de Valois is stabbed in the guts by a demented Dominican, Brother Jacques Clement. He thought the King wasn't doing enough to stamp out Heresy. The kings last words were: "That little bastard has killed me. Kill him!"
Henry IV de Bourbon became one of Frances most beloved rulers. The children's song "Frere' Jacques" is about this assassin "Brother Jacques, Why are you sleeping?" another bad King needs stabbing, in other words.

1803- The British in India declare the Second Maharratta War against Skindia and Bousla, pro-French Rajahs in the Deccan penninsula.

1815- After Waterloo, a pro-royalist mob lynched a veteran general named Brune. Brune was a radical even before Napoleon promoted him. He still had Death to Tyrants tattooed on his chest from his days as a revolutionary. As the rope went around his neck Brune called out:" To stand on a hundred battlefields and die like this!"

1858 –As a result of the Sepoy Rebellion, the Government of India was transferred from the Honorable East India Company to direct Crown control.

1858- The first public mailboxes installed on Boston & NYC streets.

1865- The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah, after sinking a dozen U.S whaling ships in the Bering Sea off Alaska, is told by a passing British merchantman that the American Civil War had ended over 3 months ago......doh! They refused to believe it until shown some newspapers.

1873- The first San Francisco cable car began service. Inventor Arthur Halliday had conceived the idea in 1869 after seeing a horse drawn tram fail to get up a steep hill.

1876- In Deadwood South Dakota at Nuttall & Manns No.10 Saloon gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back and killed while playing cards. He was 48 years old. He was holding the "Deadman's Hand" aces & eights all black, and a jack of hearts. His assailant 'Crooked Nose" Jack McCall was found hiding in a butchers shop and hanged for the murder. An eyewitness said:" It was very sad. Bill had won the hand too."

1877- The San Francisco Public Library dedicated.

1909- The US issues the first Lincoln head pennies.

1914- THE GUNS OF AUGUST-General mobilization began throughout Europe for World War One. Large armies moved towards their frontiers amid hysterical street demonstrations of patriotism, Jubilant mobs shouting "A Berlin!" "Nach Paris!" ring out as Europe prepared to destroy itself. In Russia, Czar Nicholas II in a solemn religious ceremony takes the oath his ancestor Alexander Ist had taken to drive out Napoleon. In Berlin a torchlight parade stopped under the Japanese Embassy to salute their friends. They were unaware that Japan had already decided to join the other side. The terrified diplomats thought the crowd was there to lynch them. From the Reichchancellory window German foreign minister Von Bethman-Holveig mumbled: "How did this all happen? If only I knew..."

In London Lord Grey watched the lamplighters on the street and reflected-" The Lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

1914- Holland and Switzerland declared their neutrality in the coming Great War, closed their borders and mobilized their forces.

1920- Marcus Garvey addressed a rally of 25,000 African Americans at Madison Garden New York. He called upon Black Americans not to integrate with White Society but to work for economic self-sufficiency and an eventual return to Africa. Garvey told biographers he was never born, he had “combusted himself” on the corner of 125 & Lennox in Harlem.

1923- President Warren Harding died suddenly in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. He was touring the country to get away from the 'Tea Pot Dome'' bribery scandal in Wash. The official cause of death was listed as “ a stroke of apoplexy”. It was rumored he may have committed suicide or had eaten bad crab meat. A popular idea was that First Lady Florence “Flossie” Harding had poisoned him. Harding was a womanizer and Flossie was well aware of his indiscretions; She refused an autopsy and had him quickly embalmed. She controlled all media coverage. To the press she was the Duchess. Nan Britton, one of Warren Harding’s tootsies, immediately sued for $50,000 for the daughter she bore Harding. She lost but wrote a best selling book called the President’s Daughter in 1927. “Silent Cal” Coolidge became President.

1934- Elderly President of the German Republic Paul von Hindenburg died, leaving Chancellor Adolf Hitler alone in charge of Germany. Hitler had waited for the old man to croak before dispensing with the parliamentary niceties. Hindenburg’s death signaled the official end of the Weimar Republic. Hitler combined the offices of President and Chancellor and becomes Der Fuehrer- the Leader.

1939- Albert Einstein then living in New Jersey, wrote a famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the potential power of atomic energy. That the US must develop atomic bombs before the Nazis do. The Manhattan Project was the result. In later years Einstein described this letter as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

1940- King Gustav of Sweden sent a note to both Adolf Hitler and King George VI offering to be the go-between to start talks to end World War Two. All sides refused.

1961 - Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club.

1962- If you are a fan of the “Marilyn Monroe was done in by the Kennedy’s ” conspiracy theory, a recently unearthed CIA document dated this day mentioned that Marilyn’s bungalow was under electronic surveillance. Also that she kept a “red book” diary. The diary disappeared after her death, two nights from now.

1971- President Nixon acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was maintaining 30,000 irregular troops secretly fighting in Laos.

1979- Yankee baseball star catcher Thurmon Munson died when he crashed his private plane near Akron Ohio. He was 32.

1990 –After Kuwait refused to waive Iraq’s outstanding debts. 100,000 troops of Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Months alternate having 30 and 31 days each, but July and August each have 31. Why is that?

Answer: The Julian Calendar was a mix of alternating months- 30 days, then 31 days. The system got messed up when Augustus' relations hated that Julius Caesar's month July had 31 days but their August had only 30! So the Senate added a day onto August and took one from, February, which was named for a god of the underworld that nobody liked anyway, which went down to 28.

Question: Months alternate having 30 and 31 days each, but July and August each have 31. Why is that?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: An Olympic star was once offered $25,000 dollars by Gilette to shave his mustache in a commercial, but he refused. Who was he?
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History for 8/1/2012
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Claudius, Emperor Pertinax, Francis Scott Key, William Clark of Lewis & Clark, Herman Melville, Robert Todd Lincoln, Geoffrey Holder, Yves St. Laurent, Giancarlo Giannini is 70, Dom Deluise, Jerry Garcia, Coolio, Sam Mendes

31 B.C. Marc Anthony falls on his sword. It wasn't an accident, that’s how they did themselves in back then. Most people felt the final showdown between Marc Anthony and Augustus would be much bloodier than the war between Caesar and Pompey. But after the naval defeat of Actium, Anthony’s supporters melted away.

14 A.D. The Roman Senate decided to change the name of the Month Sextilus (number 6) to the Month of the Divine Augustus, or August.

1096- Peter the Hermit's Crusade, in reality an enormous horde of chanting, bloodthirsty peasants, arrived at Constantinople. Their nominal leaders were the monk Peter and Walter Sans Sou or Walter the Penniless. They had spent the march through Europe massacring Jewish enclaves in many cities and the Byzantine Emperor Alexius didn’t want them turning his city into a war zone. So he had them ferried them over to Asia without allowing them to enter his city. They were soon destroyed by the first large Saracen force they encountered. The real First Crusade army arrived months later.

1291- SWITZERLAND BORN- The rebellious peasants of three Helvetian cantons gather on Rutli meadow and pledge to unite in an Everlasting League against foreign oppression. Modern historians doubt that anything happened on Rutli meadow other than cows grazing, but it’s a good story anyway.

1485 - Henry VII Tudor’s army invaded England to overthrow King Richard III.

1690- The besieged city of Londonderry was rescued by the army of William of Orange.

1714- George Louis/Ludwig, German Elector of Hanover, became George Ist King of Great Britain upon the death of Queen Anne, last of the Orange dynasty. He never trusted his English subjects, they had too many revolutions, too many confusing Parliamentary checks and balances and just 60 years earlier had beheaded their king. George spoke no English ”The English asked me to Rule them, not to Speak to them!”.

1716- The first sculling race, down the Thames from London to Chelsea. Stroke! Stroke!

1740- Thomas Arne's song "Rule Britannia" is performed for the first time.

1744- British chemist Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen, first calling it "dephlogisticated air" . Swedish chemist Carl Scheele isolated the gas in 1771-2 but didn't publish his results until after Priestley. Before this doctors knew how the heart, lungs and blood operated but no one was sure why. Some thought the heart was a little furnace that kept the blood warm, others thought it sifted blood as it passed through the ventricle walls like a cheesecloth.

1793 – Revolutionary France became the 1st country to use the metric system.

1797- According to C.S. Forrester, his British naval hero Horatio Hornblower received his captain's commission today.

1798- BATTLE OF ABU KIR or ABOUKIR BAY. Also called THE BATTLE OF THE NILE so it doesn’t confuse it with a land battle of Aboukir happening at the same time. The Nile itself is 20 miles away from Abukir Bay but it sounds better in dispatches. British Admiral Horatio Nelson caught Napoleon's fleet in an Egyptian harbor and destroyed it in a spectacular night battle.

Nelson bore down upon the French ships even though it was already past 4 p.m.. The furious cannonading lit up the evening sky and caused the windows to rattle in nearby Alexandria. The English ships each had four lanterns hung on their stern rails so they could tell each other apart in the dark. The French complained about the English sailors disconcerting habit of cheering like a football match whenever an enemy ship went down or was dismasted. The French Admiral Brousse', his legs blown off by a cannonball, was propped up in an armchair on his poopdeck and died directing the fight. Nelson was wounded in the head by flying splinters and was temporarily blinded by his own blood.

Fighting was over by dawn as the exhausted sailors dropped from their guns dead asleep. The victory ruined Napoleon's efforts to destroy the British Empire through Egypt and Turkey and link up with Indian Maharratta Tippoo Sahib in India. 1805- Aaron Burr has dinner with Gen. Andrew Jackson in Nashville. The former Vice President was wanted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton and was plotting a mercenary invasion of the northernmost territory of Spanish Mexico called Texas. After President Tom Jefferson had Burr arrested for treason Jackson denied this dinner ever happened. Twenty five years later when Andy Jackson was president the elderly Burr tried to greet him in public in New York. Jackson turned pale and “ recoiled as though he had been shot."

1861- The Empire of Brazil became one of the few nations to recognize the independence of the Confederate States of America.

1876- Colorado became a state. Because it happened in the year of the American centennial Colorado calls itself the Centennial State.

1881- Angel Island in San Francisco Bay was established as a US gov quarantine station. Soon it was converted into an immigration station to control the influx of newcomers from China and Japan. Angel Island became the Asian Ellis Island.

1893 - Henry Perky & William Ford patent Shredded Wheat cereal.

1914- Count Friedrich von Portales, the German ambassador to Russia, suffering from nervous exhaustion after a sleepless week of negotiations, appeared in the office of the Czar's foreign minister Nikolai Sazonov. He asked if Russia had reconsidered Germany's ultimatum that Russia demobilize. Sazonov said they did not. Whereupon Portales pulled a paper out his pocket and read the Declaration of War: "His Majesty the Emperor, my august sovereign, accepts the challenge in the name of the empire and now considers himself at war with Russia!"

Portales then burst into tears and was comforted by his old friend Sazonov. Late that night Czar Nicholas II was lowering himself into his bathtub with a glass of tea when a final telegram pleading for peace from Kaiser Wilhelm himself arrived. "Silly man! Hadn't he just declared war on me?" Nicholas remarked.
The Czar said he slept soundly that night.

1917- Frank Little, native-American union organizer for the I.W.W. (the Wobblies) is beaten by a mob and hanged from a railroad trestle. His murder had originally been offered to new young Pinkerton detective Dashell Hammett, who refused.

1919- Bela Kun resigned as leader of the Bolshevik state of Hungary. In the postwar chaos of the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire Bela Kun seized power in Budapest and tried to set up a Soviet regime like Lenin in Russia. This day he was deposed and Admiral Horty began a purge of all leftists. The violence in Hungary inspired young scientist Dr Edward Teller to be a livelong opponent of Communism. Teller developed the Hydrogen Bomb. Bela Kun fled to Moscow where Josef Stalin had him shot in the Great Purges of 1936.

1924- Six months after his death Russian Leader Nikolai Lenin’s mummified body is unveiled in his great tomb in Red Square. After the USSR fell there were many calls to finally bury the Commie-Under-Glass but in 2001 the decision was made to leave him as is.

1933- The WPA Arts Project set up to employ starving artists on large public works projects like murals for libraries and bridges, etc. Artists like Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, Dorothea Lang , Orson Welles and Bernice Abbott got commissions.

1936- The opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Berlin. The first Olympic torch lighting ceremony. United States was the only nation to refuse to dip their flag in salute to the host head of state- Adolf Hitler. Filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was given unlimited access to document the Games. She pioneered the use of slow motion, tracking shots and closeups to revolutionize the way sports is filmed.

1940- Hitler released War Directive #17, calling for increased air and sea operations against the British Isles. Operations were to commence August 5th which der Fuehrer called “The Day of the Eagle”. We call it the Battle of Britain.

1943- Late at night off the coast of Borneo the little torpedo boat P.T. 109 rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amaqiri. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy and his crew swam to an uncharted island. They will be rescued when a native in a canoe delivers a message from Kennedy scrawled on a coconut. “Naru Is. Native knows it. 11 alive need small boat.” When President, Kennedy had the native man to the White House and kept the coconut on his desk in the Oval Office. In June 2002 Dr Robert Ballard, who had discovered the Titanic, found the wreckage of the PT 109 on the ocean bottom. 1946- Congress authorized all the left over World War Two army surplus to be sold off and the money given out as educational scholarships. The Fullbright Scholarships.

1946- Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act. It nationalized atomic energy research but created a civilian commission to review peacetime uses of atomic energy. 1946-The first drive-in bank teller opens in Chicago. 1950-Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit" the first animated cartoon show made for television.

1953- The Alan Ladd movie Shane released.

1960 - Chubby Checker releases "The Twist" and starts a world wide dance craze.

1960 –A young Baptist preachers daughter who had sung nothing but gospel went into a recording booth to try her hand at R & B. Aretha Franklin’s career began.

1966- TEXAS TOWER WHITMAN-Lunatic Charles Whitman barricaded himself into the steeple of Texas University and shot 15 people at random during a day long gunbattle with police. The tragedy reached comic proportions when Texas recreational gun owners hauled out their pieces and joined the fun alongside the police. Whitman's Marine training was cited for his excellent marksmanship and his eccentric behavior, like constantly polishing his shoes during the day long battle. 1971- The Rock Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison. The first charity-fund raising rock-concert.

1971- The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour debuted.

1971- PBS started a new television series called Masterpiece Theater hosted by Alastair Cooke. It’s first presentation was a the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The high quality BBC and Thames Television programs became so popular in the USA, that people said PBS stood for Preferably British Shows.

1972- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s first articles in The Washington Post exposing the depths of the conspiracy in the Watergate Scandal. The two journalists claimed they were fed information by someone very high in the Nixon White House who would only give his name as Deep Throat. In 2005 his identity was revealed as W. Mark Felt, the assistant head of the FBI. Their story was dramatized in the film All The Presidents Men.

1972- 187th Tactom Flight Group of the Air Texas National Guard suspended the flight privileges of Lieutenant George W. Bush for failing to take a drug test. The future US president went AWOL (away without leave) from May 1972-to May 1973 to work on his dads’ congressional campaign. It was well known then that the National Guard was an easy way for rich kids to avoid being sent to combat in Vietnam.

1973- With the tag line “Where were you in ’62?” the film American Graffiti opened in theaters. The hit made skinny young director George Lucas a player in Hollywood, and made stars of kids like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus and Susanne Somers.

1975- Billy Martin became manager of the New York Yankees. The hard-drinking, bad tempered Martin became one of the more colorful managers to lead the pinstripe crew.

1976- Elizabeth Taylor had married Richard Burton a second time. Today she divorced Richard Burton a second time. This was her 6th marriage.

1976- The expansion team The Seattle Seahawks play their first NFL game. They lost their preseason opener to the SF 49ers 27-20.

1981-I WANT MY MTV! MTV goes on the air, rock videos 24 hours a day. The idea was funded by a consortium of investors including Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, now on the board of 3M Paper company. If you put on the TV this day you saw a slide of an astronaut for several hours, then finally a voice said :”Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Rock & Roll.” The first rock video played was by a British New-Wave Band called the Buggles entitled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” followed by a Pat Benatar single.

1991- elderly movie queen Heddy Lamarr was busted in Tampa Florida for shoplifting.

1994- NASDAQ stock trading on Wall Street was halted for 35 minutes because a squirrel gnawed through a main fiber optic cable at the organization’s computer center in Connecticut.

2007- THE MINNEAPOLIS BRIDGE COLLAPSE. The I-35 Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi through the center of Minneapolis, collapsed during the afternoon rush hour, plunging 113 cars into the river. It killed 110 people. The tragedy was a big wake up call to America’s neglected infrastructure. Most American bridges were 40-70 years old and built only intended to last 75 years. In 1958 the U.S. spent 12% of the Federal Budget on infrastructure, in 2007, - 2%.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: An Olympic star was once offered $25,000 dollars by Gilette to shave his mustache in a commercial, but he refused. Who was he?

Answer: 1972 Olympic swimming champion Mark Spitz, the Michael Phelps of the 70s.

Quiz: An Olympic star was once offered $25,000 dollars by Gilette to shave his mustache in a commercial, but he refused. Who was he?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: If the modern Olympics has been going since 1896, what stopped the ancient Olympics?
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History for 7/31/2012
Birthdays: Liberace, General George H. Thomas the "Rock of Chickamagua", Sebastian Sperling Kresge the founder of S.S.Kresge stores, Milton Friedman, Sherry Lansing, Geraldine Chaplin, Kurt Gowdy, Dean Cain, Leon “ Bull “Durham, Primo Levi, Ted Cassidy who played Lurch in the Adams Family, Wesley Snipes is 50, and according to J.K. Rowling, this is the birthday of Harry Potter

1358- The Mayor of Paris Etienne Marcel was killed trying to defend his city from the King of France’s army. Marcel tried to use the chaos of the English Hundred Years War to gain independence for Paris like the city-states of Italy. He governed the city with a bodyguard of Malletards, workmen who wielded huge two-handed sledgehammers. After Marcel fell, the king would never grant that much power to a Parisian again, Paris was governed by a royal appointee. There would be no Mayor of Paris until the Revolution in 1789. Today the Mayor of Paris is considered a direct step to the French Presidency.

1498- Christopher Columbus discovered Trinidad.

1620- The Pilgrims set sail for America. They were aiming for Virginia but washed up in Massachusetts instead. Comedian Eddie Izzard noted:” The Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth and landed in…. Plymouth…how convenient for them!”

1703- In London writer Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe) was made to stand in pillory for writing critical satires of the Her Majesties government and Church. The pamphlet was The Shortest Way with Dissenters.

1720- Height of the Great Plague of Marseilles- A bubonic plague of such ferocity hits the city that the regional parliament at Aix en Provence drew a line around the city and forbade anyone to enter or leave. Order within the city collapsed and the Bishop of Marseilles with his Jesuits took over the day by day functions. Everyday the Bishop, seated on a huge wagon of corpses pulled by convicts chanting the "Miserere' would lead a procession to church. Ahh, the good ole' days.. In later years people never forgot the heroism of the prelate. When the French Revolution ordered the despoiling of churches, the people of Marseilles refused to throw down the statue of their hero bishop.

1763- Battle of Bloody Bridge. British Captain Dalyell tried a surprise attack on Chief Pontiac’s camp to relieve the Indian siege of Fort Detroit. But Ponitac was forewarned. His warriors shot up Dalyell and his men. Pontiac slew the captain and ate his heart. yum!

1776- Francis Salvador, a South Carolina plantation owner was killed in a skirmish with British troops. He became the first of the Jewish faith to die for American Independence.

1790- The U.S. Patent Office opened.

1793- THE BIRTH OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM IN AMERICA- Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson informed President George Washington of his intention to resign. Jefferson was frustrated with his endless feuds with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Adams. Although he told Washington he wished to retire to Monticello, in reality he planned to direct the strategy of his new opposition party the Democratic-Republicans. The party that became the Democratic Party was first called the Republicans, the term “democrat” was then seen as an insult. Jefferson called Hamilton’s Federalist party “the Monocrats” because he felt they had royal ambitions.

From now on with few exceptions the U.S. President’s cabinet would not be a coalition of differing viewpoints but all from one party. The modern Republican Party would not be born until Lincoln’s time, 60 years in the future. Washington was appalled that his old friend and fellow Virginia planter Jefferson would take partisanship so far that he would desert him. George Washington thought political parties a bad thing because it encouraged people to put the needs of their party over the needs of their country…. Heh, he should see things now.

1798- Admiral Horatio Nelson sighted Napoleon's fleet anchored in the bay of Aboukir at the mouth of the Nile. Since it was too late that evening to fight, the one-eyed, one armed admiral ordered dinner to be served. Over port he told his captains; "Gentlemen, tomorrow I shall gain either a peerage, or a crypt in Westminster Abbey."

1813- The British invade New York State at Plattsburgh.

1830- The Revolution of the Ten Days- King Charles X of France overthrown and replaced with his cousin Louis Phillipe d'Orleans as a constitutional monarch, The event was remembered by Delacroix in his painting "Liberty Leading the People". The Royal French Army was deliberately held back from suppressing the rebellion by their leaders, they were Napoleon’s old Generals Marmont and Soult. Honore Daumier liked to draw new King Louis Phillipe“ The Bourguois Monarch” as a fat pear in a top hat. Prince Metternich the premier of Austria correctly predicted this uprising would signal a new round of revolutionary ferment throughout Europe:.”When Paris Sneezes, Europe catches the cold.” King Louis Phillipe’s descendants, the D’Orleans branch of the Bourbon family, are the present heirs to the throne, should the French Nation ever desire a monarchy again.

1873- San Francisco's famous cable car system starts up.

1904- Russia completed the Trans-Siberian Railroad, linking the Ural Mountains and European Russia with the Pacific Coast.

1914- Europe spirals down into world war. The Czar of Russia changed his mind one more time and ordered the Russian Army to mobilize. He told his chief of staff ” You may smash your telephone now, for I will not change my mind again.” The French government decided to reject the last minute German warning to keep away from their coming war with Russia and orders general mobilization.

The leader of the French Socialists and best hope for European pacifists, Jean Jaure' was assassinated that night. He was shot through a window while sipping wine in a Paris café’. Jean Jaure’ had helped diffuse a similar crisis the previous year by chairing a last minute international summit in Switzerland. This time someone didn’t want him to spoil the fun. The murderer was never found.

1914- Meanwhile in America the reaction to the war in Europe was THE WALL STREET PANIC OF 1914. American investors feared the war would cut off European markets for their goods and thus be disastrous for business. So many sell orders deluged the exchange that on the advice of Treasury Secretary MacAdoo and J.P. Morgan, Jr. the New York Stock Exchange closed down completely until December.

Brokers began to meet in the street around Wall and Nassau streets and make deals anyway. These 'Gutter-Brokers" were the world's only open functioning stock market for several months. Ironically the war proved a boon to U.S. industry ( stock in Dupont went up 400% ) and caused the U.S. to supplant England as the world's largest creditor nation.

1917-The PASSCHENDALE OFFENSIVE also called the Third Battle of Ypres- Field Marshall Sir Douglas "Whiskey Doug" Haig proved he learned nothing in the last 3 1/2 years of trench war by ordering a massive standing infantry attack right into the German machine guns. Even today the War Office is vague on the losses, but the estimate is tens of thousands of young Britons died to move the front line 1/2 a mile. When hearing of the high casualties Sir Douglas reacted:" Oh dear, have we really lost that many ?"

1922- Ralph Samuelson invented water skis.

1930- Radio mystery show “The Shadow” premiered. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…heh, heh, heh.” Orson Welles did the voice of the crime fighting Shadow for a year in 1937 for $185 a week.

1945- Truman still at the Potsdam conference issues the orders to use the Super Cosmic Bomb (a-bomb) on Japan but not before Aug 2nd to see if Japanese peace overtures through the Swedish Embassy were sincere. He conferred with General Eisenhower but Ike was against the decision:” It was unnecessary to use that thing on those people.”

1945- Allied authorities find arch-collaborator Pierre Laval hiding in Austria. Laval was the premier and chief organizer of the pro-Nazi Vichy French government. He cooperated in the transporting of thousands of French Jews to Nazi death camps and many others of his countrymen to slave labor camps. After a sensational trial Laval tried to poison himself, but was nursed back to health long enough so he could hang.

1948- President Truman dedicated New York City’s second major airport Idlewild Field. In 1963 it was renamed Kennedy Airport.

1954- Steve Allen married Jayne Meadows.

1966- Birmingham Alabama held a massed rally to burn Beatles records after John Lennon joked that the Beatle had become more popular than Jesus.

1960- Elijah Mohammed set up the African-American movement the Nation of Islam, called by some the Black Muslims.

1962- Malaysian independence.

1971- Apollo 15 astronaut went for a drive on the surface of the moon in their land-rover.

1977- Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz had kept normally unflappable New York City in the grip of fear for one year. This night he killed his last victim. He was caught because of his Volkswagen beetle being illegally parked. When writing the ticket the policeman noticed the 44 cal. pistol sticking out of a paper bag on the seat. Berkowitz was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and today says he is a born-again Christian and he doesn’t like to dwell on the past. ( too bad ). While in Attica he made friends with Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon.

1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and ESPN.

2006- Elderly, ailing, Communist dictator Fidel Castro handed over leadership of Cuba to his brother Raul Castro and went into retirement.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: If the modern Olympics has been going since 1896, what stopped the ancient Olympics?

Answer: In 391AD, Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I moved to stamp out the last official vestiges of the old pagan religions. He closed pagan temples, forbade sacrifices, shut the Oracle of Delphi and stopped the Olympian Games.

Quiz: If the modern Olympics has been going since 1896, what stopped the ancient Olympics?

Yesterday’s Question: Olympic fans, who was Baron de Coubertin?
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History for 7/30/2012
Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte', Casey Stengel*, Vladimir Zworykin who invented the television picture tube, Arnold Schwarzenegger aka the Governator is 65, Ed "Kookie" Byrnes, Peter Bogdanovich is 73, Delta Burke, Henry Moore, Anita Hill, Lawrence Fishburne is 51, Jean Reno is 64, Hilary Swank is 38, Christopher Nolan, Lisa Kudrow is 50

(* Baseball manager who’s memoirs were titled “I managed good, but boy did they play terrible!”)

101 B.C.- Marius of Rome defeats two migrating hordes of German barbarians, the Teutons and Cimbri, at Raudine Plains. Marius built a fortified camp in their path and held them off until he was ready and his men got over their fear of these strange looking wildmen. Warriors taunted the Romans: “Do you have any messages for your wives? For we shall be with them soon !” When one frustrated German warchief marched up to the gates and challenged Marius to single-combat, Marius laughed and sent out a gladiator, "Here, fight him. He loves to fight." When he felt they were at last ready Marius marched out his legions and they made mincemeat of the barbarians. Years later Marius would give the first opportunities to a young kid named Gaius Julius Caesar.

1540- When King Henry VIII broke England away from the Catholic Church he spent some time trying to decide just how Protestant England should be. The confusion was made manifest this day when at Smithfield the Crown burned at the stake three Catholics for not wanting to be Protestant and three Protestants for questioning Catholic doctrine!

1619- The Virginia House of Burgesses formed, the first legislative body in the US.

1700- the British Succession Crisis- The 11 year old Duke of Gloucester, only surviving child of Princess Anne and the grandson of King Charles II, died of smallpox. This left England with no future prince, only a gouty old princess who had 17 miscarriages or dead children and widowed King William III of Orange- childless, asthmatic and tuberculant. The exiled Catholic king James II Stuart was waiting to be recalled and many Whig politicians even wanted to chuck the whole system and make Britain a Republic!

Claimants from as far as Savoy in Italy offered to be king of England. Zounds!

Parliament solved the crisis with the Act of Settlement of 1701- That Anne would reign as Queen after William of Orange died and then the Protestant family of her cousin the German elector of Hanover, George Ist would reign. It also reinforced the law that a Catholic could never again rule England.

1729- The City of Baltimore founded. Named for Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore.

1733- The first lodge of Freemasons in the US opened in Boston.

1810- Father Miquel Hidalgo, who began the Mexican revolution against Spain, was shot by firing squad. But the revolt continued until Mexico achieved independence in 1823.

1847 - Queen Victoria noted in her diary today she took a swim in the ocean for the first time. She entered a cottage on wheels called a bathing house and while she changed into her fully covered bathing costume the cottage was rolled into the water by means of cranks and pulleys. Another time she was at the beach at Ostend, Holland she noticed the curious habit there of women swimming with their hair loose," down to their hips, like penitents."

1864- Confederate raiders led by Jubal Early looted and burned the Northern town of Chambersburg Pennsylvania, in retribution for Yankee depredations down south.

1864- THE CRATER- One of the strangest battles of the Civil War. A Pennsylvania coal mine engineer convinced General Grant to dig a tunnel under Robert E. Lee's army and fill it with 8 million of pounds of gunpowder. The massive explosion blew 4,500 troops and guns into the air and created the first man-made mushroom cloud. It created a crater 30 feet deep and 200 yards wide.

No one had ever seen anything so terrible. However the follow up Union attack was so badly bungled the rebels had time to recover from the shock and fight back. Instead of using a highly trained fresh black regiment, Grant instead sent in two exhausted frontline regiments who were told they were going to a rest area. He didn’t want to be accused of racism. The Union troops were supposed to attack around the rim of the crater, Instead they crowded down into it through a bottleneck and were massacred by the rebs from above as they tried to climb up the steep 30 foot walls. Troops bayoneted each other trying to get out of the slaughter pen.

Another golden chance to end the war early was ruined. Grant sacked the commander, a General Ledlie, who spent the battle drinking brandy in the rear. "The generals dismissal was a great loss to the enemy" one officer wrote. It all accomplished nothing. One soldier said:"I hope we never make war like that again".

1867- After the Civil War the conquered states of the South were divided up into districts of military occupation. On this day General Phil Sheridan was reassigned from the military governorship of Texas and Louisiana. During his two years in charge Sheridan sacked the Governors of Texas and Louisiana, as well as the mayors of New Orleans, Shreveport and Galveston. He hated Texans as unreconstructed rebels - "If I owned both Hell and Texas and was forced to choose I'd sell Texas and live in Hell !"

1889- Start of the Sherlock Holmes mystery, the Naval Treaty.

1916-The Black Tom Pier Explosion- Throughout World War One German spies and saboteurs were active on American waterfronts. On this day German agents Kurt Jahnke and Lothar Witzkhe detonated two million pounds of explosive destined for the European battlefields on a New Jersey pier behind the Statue of Liberty. It caused 45 million dollars in damage, windows on Wall Street shattered and the Statue's arm was knocked slightly askew. In later years the park service would forbid tourists from climbing up to the torch. The success of German agents in America in World War One was a reason why in World War Two-army intelligence struck a deal with the Mafia to keep peace on the waterfront.

1917- Republican Senator and future President Warren G. Harding was caught by two New York hotel detectives in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with $20 each. "I thought I wouldn't get off for under a thousand!" he told a friend. Later as President he always kept a guard at the door...

1929 -The Hollywood Bowl musicians go on strike.

1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.

1932- The first Los Angeles hosting of the Olympic Games in their spanking new Coliseum. Gold medallist in swimming Larry Buster Crabbe later became a movie star. Another medalist, the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, began to teach the Californians about a new sport- surfing!

1935- THE FIRST PAPERBACK BOOK- Andre Maurois 'Ariel, a Life of Shelley', published in this new form by Penguin Books of London.

1936- Producer David O. Selznick buys the movie rights to the best selling book “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thallberg. The "boy genius" Thallberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would prove to be a massive flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison." Doh!

1938- Adolf Hitler awarded the Third Reich’s highest civilian medal to American industrialist Henry Ford. He admired Ford’s anti-Semitic views. Ford paid for copies of the racist book Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be placed in American libraries. Writer William Shirer noted when interviewing Hitler that he had translations of Ford’s own newspaper the Dearborn Independent on his desk. The Chairman of the US Chamber of Commerce also got a medal from Der Fuehrer in recognition the international corporate support of the Nazi regime. They admired the way Hitler suppressed unions, the 8 Hour Work Day and other bad-for-business items.

1948 - Professional wrestling premieres on prime-time network TV ( DuMont )

1954 - Elvis Presley joins Local 71, the Memphis Federation of Musicians. “Uhh.Thankyuh..thankyuh…uhh, solidarity foh-eiveah!”

1956 - US motto "In God We Trust" put on coins. This was around the same time "under
God" was also added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

1962-Italy adopts a total ban on cigarette advertising. Consumption of cigarettes doubled.

1963 –Escaped British spy Kim Philby was found living in Moscow. 1965- President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare Act and issues the first medicare card (#00001) to former president Harry Truman.

1974- President Richard Nixon turned over his White House tapes on Watergate after being forced to by the Supreme Court. That same day the House Judiciary Committee voted three acts of impeachment against the President.

1975- Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared while on the way to a lunch meeting with Teamster officials at a small Detroit restaurant. He once said: "Bodyguards? Who needs bodyguards?" He hated Bobby Kennedy so much that when he learned of his assassination he ordered the half masted flag at his union office run back up to the top and spent the day at the track celebrating. Rumor has it he currently resides under the goalposts at Giants Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Another story is that he was strangled by a Mafia hit man named Sal Briguglio, then his body was taken to an auto fender factory, cut up and the pieces thrown into vats of boiling zinc. Briguglio was himself whacked in 1978.

1988- The last Playboy Club in America closed. It was in Lansing, Mich. In 2006 Hugh Hefner opened a Playboy Club themed casino in Las Vegas.
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Yesterday’s Question: Olympic fans, who was Baron de Coubertin?

Answer: Baron Pierre de Coubertin is considered the father of the modern Olympics. He founded and was first president of the International Olympic Committee, and helped start the first games of the modern era in 1896.

Question: Olympic fans, who was Baron de Coubertin?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Queen Elizabeth just declared the Games Of The XXX Olympiad open. This is actually the second time she has been present to open the Olympic Games. When was the first time?
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History for 7/29/2012
Birthdays: Alex de Tocqueville, Benito Mussolini,, Clara Bow, Natalie Wood, Paul Taylor, Sig Romberg, Dag Hammarskjold, Peter Jennings, Michael Spinks, Ken Burns is 59, Booth Tarkington, Professor Irwin Corey, David Warner is 71, Steven Dorff,

1014- Battle of Bala Thistau- Byzantine Emperor Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer defeated an entire Bulgar horde and has all the thousands of captured warriors blinded, leaving every one man in one hundred with one eye to lead them all home. When the Bulgar Khan Samuel beheld his mutilated army, he supposedly dropped dead of grief.

1030- Battle of Stiklestaad- One of the largest Viking battles ever- King Olaf the White went down fighting the still pagan Norsemen of Demmark and Sweden and became St. Olaf the Martyr. Olaf's method of converting Vikings to Christianity was similar to his uncle King Olaf Tryggvason, which was to sail a big fleet of dragon ships up and down the coast and slay anybody who didn't want to be baptized.

But while Tryggvason's death in battle at Svoldr spawned some great epic poems and music by Edvard Grieg, Olaf the Saint's death spawned miracles and shrines and he was canonized a year later. Anxious Vikings who wanted to fence-sit in this struggle over religio,n took to wearing an amulet that turned one side resembled the Cross, while turned over became the Hammer of Thor.

1527- King Charles of Spain informed his ambassador in England that he would advise the Pope to refuse a divorce for King Henry VIII and his wife Catharine of Aragon. And since King Charles had the Pope in prison, I would say that about settled the matter.

1565 - Mary Queen of Scots married her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley.

1567-The ten month old baby James VI, the offspring of Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots was named King of Scotland in Edinburgh. It’s the last James would ever see of his mother. His father was murdered and his mom beheaded by Queen Elizabeth, but after a number of guardians James had the last laugh. Eventually he become King of both Scotland and England.

1588- The SPANISH ARMADA DEFEATED. The great armada was sent originally to ferry the Prince of Parma's army from Holland over to England. Elizabeth didn't have much in the way of militia so the crack Spanish troops once landed probably could have taken London without too much difficulty. The admiral in charge of the fleet, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia was a replacement for the late famous captain Don John of Austria and the equally late Marquis of Santa Cruz, and he admitted he knew nothing about ships. This day was the BATTLE OF GRAVELINES, largest engagement of the Armada and the English navy under Francis Drake. They pounded one another and after Medina Sidonia discovered he could not pick up Parma’s army he resolved to sail home. The bulk of the Armada was destroyed by a North Sea storm off Ireland. When Medina-Sidonia appeared before King Phillip II, he replied: “I told Your Majesty I knew nothing about ships!”Among the Spanish sailors was famed poet and playwrght Lope De Vega.
Although this great victory of the British Navy saved England, Queen Elizabeth's budget for them was amazingly stingy. More British sailors died from rancid food than Spanish gunfire. The English fleet had to break off it's attack when they ran out of their meager supply of cannonballs. Spain sent other armadas at England over the next few years but this was the most famous.

1693- Battle of Neerwinden- With the command “En Advance!” the French under Marshal Turrenne attack William of Orange with these newfangled "bayonets", combining the power of a pike or spear with a musket. One of the French leaders was Pierre Montesqiou Comte D'Artagnan, the model for the hero of Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers.

1792- Maximillien Robsepierre stood up in the National Assembly and for the first time openly called for the dethronement of their King Louis XVI.

1813- General Junot, veteran of a dozen battles suffers a nervous breakdown and jumped out of a window to his death. It was said he went mad but could it possibly have been an early example of post-traumatic stress? Junot was a boyhood friend of Bonaparte yet he couldn’t rise above the rank of general because he just didn’t have the ability. Ironically there was a costume ball that night and he jumped in his costume.

1848- The Tipperarry Revolt. At the height of the great potato famine William Smith O’Brien and his Young Ireland Movement try to declare Independence. After a skirmish with police in a cabbage patch they are all arrested and exiled to Tasmania New Zealand.

1890- Near the Chateau de Auvers Vincent Van Gogh went behind a hay bale and shot himself. He managed to miss any thing important but died of infection.

1900- King Umberto Ist of Italy was shot and killed by anarchists. The assassin was Angelo Bresci, a silk merchant from Patterson New Jersey who had returned to the old country to rid her of monarchs. Umberto’s Queen Margherita is the person for whom the basic pizza pie is named for –Pizza Margherita. While traveling through Naples local chefs wanted to present her with a dish with the colors of the Italy’s flag on it. So the pizza is tomatoes-red, mozzarella cheese-white and oregano- green.

1914- Czar Nicholas of Russia changed his mind about mobilizing his army, writes his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany in English, their common tongue, and warns rising pressures were forcing him to declare war. "Could not the Austro-Serbian dispute be settled by the Hague Conference? Your Loving Nicky".
Wilhelm scrawled in the margin "Rubbish". Later Wilhelm too had second thoughts about blowing up Europe and went up to his Bavarian hunting lodge to sulk about it. The German army chief of staff Von Moltke talked him out of his funk." How could you let down all those wonderful guys working long hours at the general staff by declaring peace?"

1920 - 1st transcontinental airmail flight from NY to SF

1927-Dr Phillip Drinker and Dr Louis Shaw installed the first Iron Lung breathing apparatus at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

1931- George Bernard Shaw traveled to Moscow and met Josef Stalin.

1936 - RCA shows 1st real TV program: dancing, a film on locomotives, a Bonwit
Teller fashion show & monologue from the Tobacco Road radio comedy show.

1938- Three Missing Links- a Three Stooges comedy with the boys as cave men and Ray Crash Corrigan in a gorilla suit.

1942- Orson Welles leaves Rio De Janiero after RKO fires him and stops production of "It's All True". They also have “the Magnificent Ambersons” re-cut to a more acceptable 90 minutes.

1944-THE WARSAW UPRSING-As the Red Army under Marshall Voroshilov approached the eastern Praga suburbs of Warsaw, Radio Moscow broadcast a cryptic message to Poles inside their occupied capitol to “resist the occupying forces”. The Polish underground resistance the Home Army or the AK took this as the signal to rise and take the city the way the French had risen in Paris. But Stalin tricked them. He had no intention of cooperating after the war with an independent Polish force. He let the AK battle the Nazis for weeks alone and the Red Army didn’t move into downtown Warsaw until they were all dead.

1946- In Los Angeles, Jazz great Charlie Parker had learned of the death of his baby daughter back in New York. He showed up for a recording session so drunk and high his producer had to hold him up in front of the mike. Later that night he fell completely apart, ran naked down the street, set fire to his hotel room smoking in bed. The cops had to shake him violently to wake him, he fought with them and they beat him up and threw him in jail. He was committed to the Camarillo Mental Hospital.

1948- Former Disney animation assistant Hank Ketcham’s comic strip "Dennis the Menace," 1st appeared.

1952 - 1st nonstop transpacific flight by a jet.

1957-Happy Birthday NASA! President Eisenhower signed the bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, or NASA to oversee the space program, separate from the military.

1962- The film “Dr No” premiered, introducing the world to the suave spy James Bond 007. They considered Cary Grant, David Niven and Patrick McGoohan, James Mason turned them down. So the producers picked young Scots actor Sean Connery.

1965 - Beatles movie "Help" premiered, Queen Elizabeth attends.

1972- Mamas and the Papa's chubby singer Mama Cass Eliot dies of a stroke, not as was widely believed from choking on a sandwich.

1976 -SON OF SAM- Demented postman David Berkowitz committed his first murder in the Bronx. Berkowitz believed his neighbor’s dog Sam was Satan and was telling him to go out and kill. He would point his 44 cal. gun at random at a young couple on the street or in a car and shoot them. As the year went on and he was undetected he wrote letters taunting the police and New York newspaper columnist Pete Hamill. See next entry.

1977- THE DAY OF HATE- Son of Sam Killer David Berkowitz announced in the press that he would kill again on the one year anniversary of his first shooting- the Day of Hate. By now New York City was thoroughly in a panic. The seeming randomness of the killings got under the skin of the usually blasé’ New Yorkers. Nightclubs and discos closed ,women clipped and dyed their hair because Sam liked to shoot long haired brunettes. Even the Godfather John Gotti pledged the services of the Mafia to catch the lunatic. After a tense night nothing happened. Berkowitz was caught two days later.

1981- Prince Charles of England married Lady Diana Spencer. The ill fated fairy tale wedding was seen around the world on live television. Unknown to Di at the time was Prince Charles was already romantically involved with Mrs. Camilla Parker-Bowles.

1987- Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry announce the flavor Cherry Garcia, named for rock singer Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.
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Yesterday’s Question: Queen Elizabeth just declared the Games Of The XXX Olympiad open. This is actually the second time she has been present to open the Olympic Games. When was the first time?

Answer: She presided over the dedication of the Montreal Olympics of 1976 as Queen of Canada. During the London Games of 1948, she was only a little princess.