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January 15th, 2009 thur
January 15th, 2009

Quiz: One person worked on the films Hitchcock’s the Birds (1963), The Time Machine (1960), Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), and the Disney Cartoon 101 Dalmatians (1961). Who is it?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In the discussions of Hilary’s Secretary of State hearings, an analyst casually mentioned Clauswitz. He was a long dead German General from Napoleon’s time. What could possibly be relevant?
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History for 1/15/2009
Birthdays: Dr. Martin Luther King would have been 80 today, Moliere, Gamal Abdel Nasser, outlaw Cole Younger, Charro, Matthew Brady, drummer Gene Krupa, Lloyd Bridges, Mario Van Peebles, Josef Broyer the mentor of Sigmund Freud, Margaret O’Brien, Aristotle Onassis, Captain Beefheart, Dr. Edward Teller “father of the H-Bomb”.

1208-THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE- Count Raymond of Tolouse, son in law of King Pedro the Lecher of Aragon, was thought to be sympathetic to a heretical Christian cult called Cathars, from the French region of Albi (so Albigensians).They believed in a Zoroastrian dualism in direct conflict with the Church. When a papal representative named Peter De Castellan was sent from Rome to tell Count Raymond to knuckle under, he was assaulted. So a crusade was declared not against Moslems in the Middle East or the Moors of Spain but against other Christians in the heart of France. The holocaust was terrible, for the first time the answer of how we tell the guilty from the innocent was :”Kill them all and God will recognize his own.” The leader of the crusade Simon de Monfort, had his head flattened by a catapult stone. The Cathar religion disappeared except for cult fans like Alastair Crowley and the author of the DaVinci Code.

1793- The Convention of the French Revolution condemns King Louis XVI (now called simply “citizen Capet”) to death by guillotine. Voters for the death penalty included the artist Jean Jacques David, American Thomas Paine and Louis’ own younger brother the Duc D’Orleans, now ridiculously renamed Phillipe Egalite’. When Phillipe arrived home that night and his family shunned him. He cried aloud:”What else could I do ? ” Phillipe later got guillotined anyway.

1829- The first of two commercial working railroad locomotives arrived in the U.S. from England. Named the Pride of Newscastle back home, it was renamed the America. The Stourbridge Lion followed in May. These two trains began the U.S. Railroad system.
Historian Stephen Ambrose noted that until this time society moved a the speed of a walking horse, that Washington and Jefferson could travel no faster than Socrates or Shakespeare did in their day.

1922- Irish troops led by IRA chief Michael Collins officially take over Dublin Castle and the Irish capitol’s administration from the British. The British commander at first upbraided Collins for being late for the ceremony. Collins said in response:” You’ve been here seven centuries and you can’t wait seven minutes ?” When the Lord Lieutenant Governor shook Collins hand and said “I’m so happy to meet you!” Collins smiled” The hell y’are.”

1929- Most of the nations of the world sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which states that War is a Bad thing. Ten years later World War Two breaks out.

1935-The Tsuni Conference- Chinese Communists elect Mao Tse Tung (or MaoZseDong) as their overall leader.

1936-THE DGA- Several top Hollywood directors including Lewis Milestone, Ruben Mamoulian and William Wellman meet at King Vidor’s house and pledge $100 dollars each to form the Screen Director’s Guild, later the Director’s Guild of America. It was a risky thing to do, previous attempts to form a directors union were broken up with threats by the producers of perpetual blacklisting. Final recognition and contracts were signed by President Frank Capra in 1940. One provision insisted on in the contract was that the director’s credit be the final name in the opening titles before the movie began. And so it remains.

1945- As the Nazi war effort was caving in on all sides Adolph Hitler relocated his headquarters from East Prussia to the Reichchancellory building in Berlin. One SS major cracked up der Fuhrer by joking that “now we can take a street car from the Western Front to the Eastern Front.”

1947-”THE BLACK DAHLIA”- One of the most lurid murder cases in Los Angeles history. A little girl playing in a vacant lot discovered the remains of high priced prostitute Elisabeth Short, 22, who used to work the Biltmore Hotel. She was named the Black Dahlia because of the black pullover sweaters and black lingerie she favored. Her body had been sawed in half and completely drained of blood, and the initials 'BD' carved on her thigh. She showed signs of torture before death. The murderer was never found. The incident was the basis for a movie called “True Confessions” with Robert DeNiro and Robert Duval. The last detective on the case died in 2003.

1951- ILSE, THE SHE-WOLF OF THE SS. Ilse Koch was the wife of the commandant of Buchenwald Concentration Camp and every bit as sadistic as her husband. She participated in torture and experiments on inmates to turn them into soap and their skin into lampshades. This day in her second war crimes trial she was sentenced to life imprisonment. Sixteen years later in 1967 she committed suicide in prison. In the 70’s Roger Corman revived interest in her by creating an S&M porn film about her life.



1967- THE FIRST SUPER BOWL- After a decade of professional football conference title games, the AFL and NFL combined to make a single championship game- Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Super Bowl Game day in the US has become a holy day of obligation and people who don’t care for the sport suddenly find it less crowded at movie theaters and zoos.

1974- Eeehhhhhh-The first episode of Happy Days premiered with Ron Howard as Richie Cuningham and Henry Winkler as Da Fonz.

1983- Meyer Lansky, the elderly retired Mafia boss denied the right to move to Israel, died of a terminal nosebleed.

1998- Investigators from special counsel Kenneth Starr’s office have their first meeting with President Bill Clinton’s tootsie Monica Lewinsky in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel. They tried to pressure the 25 year old to admit her affair. They verbally denigrated her when she asked that her lawyer or her mother be present. But the Bimbo from Beverly Hills High was smart. She held out for 8 months to get the immunity deal she wanted before speaking out about those snapped thongs and well placed cigars.
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Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: : In the discussions of Hilary’s Secretary of State hearings, an analyst casually mentioned Clauswitz. He was a long dead German General from Napoleon’s time. What could possibly be relevant?



Answer: Klaus Von Clausewitz wrote the definitive book on political theory Vom Kreige, On War. In it he theorized that “ war is an extension of foreign policy” That “war is an unnatural state that should only be used when all diplomatic channels fail….war is basically the failure of foreign policy…..and should never be done for it’s own sake….” Yesterday several top Defense Dept officials including Secty Gates have asked that the State Dept be reinforced and rebuilt. Soft Power…..indeed.


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