Quiz: Since The Bernie Madoff scandal has made it relevant recently, I’ll bring back a question I once asked. Who and what is a Ponzi Scheme?

Yesterday’s QUIZ answered below: Which TV Christmas Special was first? A)A Charlie Brown Christmas, B) Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol, C) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, D) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
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History for 12/19/2008
Birthdays: King Phillip V of Spain (1683), Edwin Stanton, Thomas 'Tip' O'Neil, Edith Piaf, Cicely Tyson, Sir Ralph Richardson, Robert Urich, Jennifer Beals, David Susskind, Fritz Reiner, Darryl Hannah, Alyssa Milano, Bronwen Barry, Jake Gyllenhaal

1154- Coronation of King Henry II of England. He was the son of Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou and Empress Matilda, the daughter of William the Conqueror. His coronation settled a period of dynastic civil wars in England between the Conqueror’s children known as the 'Wars of Stephen and Matilda". Henry and his sons Richard Lionheart and John Lackland are also called the Angevin dynasty, because of the part of France (Anjou) their family came from and also because medieval scholars like to overcomplicate things.

1686- According to Daniel Defoe, this was the day Robinson Crusoe was rescued from his deserted island.

1732- The Pennsylvania Gazette announced the publication of a new enterprise by Dr. Benjamin Franklin writing under the penname Richard Saunders. The work was Poor Richard’s Almanac, an international best seller that made Franklin famous.

1783- William Pitt the Younger became Prime Minister of Great Britain at only 24 years old." A sight to make the Nations stare, A Kingdom trusted to a Schoolboy's care."

1914- Earl Hurd patented animation 'cels' (celluloids) and backgrounds. Before this cartoonists tried drawing the background settings over and over again hundreds of times or slashed the paper around the character and tried not to have it walk in front of anything. By the late 1990’s, most cels & cel paint had been replaced by digital imaging.

1918- Robert Ripley began his "Believe It Or Not" column in the New York Globe.

1926- The U.S. government passed a law that women authors can only legally copyright their works under their husband's names.

1932- BBC Overseas Service Radio broadcasts begin.

1941- THE FLYING TIGERS debut in the skies over China, surprising and shooting down 9 out of 10 in a Japanese bomber squadron flying from Hanoi. General Claire Chennault had come to China as an advisor to organize the Chinese Air Force and stayed on to coordinate U.S. efforts in Mainland China after Pearl Harbor. His men were all volunteer adventurers who flew their P-40's with the tiger teeth insignia against overwhelming odds. They were awarded a bounty of $500 for every Japanese plane downed. Eventually they were incorporated into the regular U.S. Air Force.
Chennault argued frequently with Washington, MacArthur and his army partner in China General 'Vinegar Joe' Stillwell. Just before the final victory in 1945 Chennault was forcibly retired and resumed his post as advisor to Chiang Kai Shek. He was the U.S. general most times under hostile fire. He flew combat missions and personally had 60 kills, which made him an Ace. Yet Chennault was deliberately not invited to the Grand Surrender Ceremony on the Missouri in Sept ‘45.

1957- The musical ‘The Music Man’ starring Robert Preston first debuted. "Seventy Six Trom-bones in the Big Parade.."

1959- Confederate General Walter Williams, who claimed to be the last living veteran of the Civil War, died at age 117. The claim was later proved false, but it was a good story.

1971- Stanley Kubrick’s ‘A Clockwork Orange’ premiered based on a novel by Anthony Burgess. In America the film received an X Rating, more for sexual situations than violence. Kubrick later cut some naughty scenes to get the rating down to R. The sensation over the film caused so many incidents of urban violence that it was banned in England for three decades.

1974- The first personal computer went on sale. The Altair 8800, named for the planet in the 1955 sci-fi movie classic Forbidden Planet. The computer came in a kit that you had to build and it cost $397. The next year two kids at Harvard named Bill Gates and Paul Allen created a programming language for it called BASIC.



1997- MTV dropped airing the rap song Smack My Bitch Up, by Prodigy.

1998-IMPEACHMENT- The Republican dominated House of Representatives voted two articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewsinsky. The vote was along strict party lines and most of the Democrats stormed out in protest afterwards. Despite the impeachment President "Slick Willy" Clinton was acquitted by trial in the Senate in February and Clinton completed his second term. To complete the circus-like atmosphere pornography publisher Larry Flynt announced he had proof that incoming Republican Speaker of the House Bob Livingston, a descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, had had at least six affairs while a congressman including one of his staff and a lobbyist. Livingston resigned before his hand could touch the gavel.

2001- Peter Jackson’s film ‘The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring’ first opened.
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Yesterday’s QUIZ: Which TV Christmas Special was first? A)A Charlie Brown Christmas, B) Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol, C) The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, D) Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.



Answer: B) UPA’s Magoo’s Christmas Carol, directed by Abe Levitow came out in 1962. Rudolph came out in 1964, Charlie Brown in 65 and Grinch in 66.