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May 12th, 2009 tues
May 12th, 2009

Quiz: What was the name of the character Humphrey Bogart played in his breakout film The Petrified Forrest?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: One or two American Presidents went back to Congress after leaving office. How many British Prime Ministers went back to the benches after their term is over?
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History for 5/12/2009
Birthdays: Dolly Madison, Daniel Rossetti, Frank Stella, Florence Nightingale, Tom Snyder, George Carlin, Wilfred Hyde-White, Emilio Estevez, Howard K. Smith, Ron Zeigler, Farley Mowatt, Ving Rhames, Bruce Boxleitner, Katherine Hepburn, Yogi Berra

1463-B.C.- THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON- Egyptian Pharoah Thutmoses III defeated a coalition of Canaanite princes at an outpost fort named Ha-Megiddo. This fort was the intersection of several roads that led south through the Lebanon mountains into Palestine and so for centuries was known for all the vicious battles and invasions that occurred there. When Saint John wrote of the final battle in Book of the Apocalypse he said it would be as terrible as one fought at Ha-Meggido or Armageddon.

1775- During the American Revolution a New York mob carrying clubs and torches broke onto the campus of King’s College determined to lynch it’s president Miles Cooper, who was an outspoken loyalist. The mob was stopped on the steps of Cooper’s home by student Alexander Hamilton. While Cooper watched from the second story window. Cooper was hard of hearing and he thought the troublemaker Hamilton was the instigator of the mob. So while Hamilton begged the mob not to kill his college President Cooper yelled down:” DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! HE’S A BLOCKHEAD!” Despite this Miles Cooper got away unharmed and Kings College name was changed to Columbia University.

1796- Napoleon's French Republican Army occupied the city of Venice and destroyed the last traces of the independent Venetian Republic 'La Serenissima" The Most Surene Republic. The Last Doge Daniele Manin was forced to abdicate and his Byzantine crown and trappings of office were burned, along with his famous gilded barge, the 'Boucintoro'. Venice, an independent city-state since 976AD was going to be part of Italy whether she liked it or not!

1809- Napoleon’s heavy cannon- called Napoleon’s Daughters- began bombarding the Austrian capitol Vienna. Beethoven hid in a cellar. A cannonball fell near composer Franz Josef Haydn’s house but the octogenarian composer comforted his friends:” Children don’t be frightened; Where Papa Haydn is, no harm can come to you.” When the city was occupied the French officer in charge of the guard on Haydn’s house comforted the old composer by singing an aria from his oratorio The Creation as he entered the room.

1864-BATTLE OF SPOTSYLVANIA- After Lee whips Grant in the Wilderness, instead of retreating Grant wheels around and attacks again. This time winning a draw. The fighting was dreadful, reports of trees so thick you couldn't put your arms around cut down by bullets, and men hit with so many 68 cal.musket balls at one time that their bodies literally would fall apart. One casualty was union general "Uncle John" Sedgewick, shot by rebel snipers. His last words were:" Aw go on men! Them rebs couldn't hit an elephant at this dis......." His great, great granddaughter Edie Sedgwick hung out with Andy Warhol.

1881- Tunisia was made a colonial protectorate of France.

1915- THE BRYCE COMISSION- An English commission to study reports of German atrocities that was really a propaganda machine aimed at getting the United States into the Great War. America had the problem that if she chose the allied side in World War One, several million immigrant citizens of German, Hungarian and Austrian descent were sympathetic to the Kaiser. Add to them millions of English-hating Irish, Jewish Americans who wanted the openly Anti-Semitic Russian Empire beaten and many average Americans who felt the main reason their forefathers crossed the ocean was to get away from the kind of trouble that occurred back in Europe. So you can see it was hard to get everyone up for intervention. The American yellow press printed all the British accounts without ever questioning their accuracy- they horrified the average reader with hair-raising stories of German troops raping and killing Belgian women, chopping the hands off of children and crucifying Canadian prisoners with bayonets through their hands and feet. Even though some atrocities stories were verified, like the needless burning of the medieval Library of Louvain -The German term was Shreiklichkeit- Rule by Fear- today it is acknowledged that most of these accounts were dressed up to get us to Hate the Hun!

1934- Hungarian scientist Dr Leo Szilard took out a secret patent on his concept of a chain reaction, being able to theoretically release energy from uranium on an atomic level. Enrico Fermi proved this and created the first controlled chain reaction in 1939.

1936- John Maynard Keynes most famous work "the General Theory of Money, Interest and Work" was published. Today if a politician advocates government intervention in the business market he is called a "Keynesian".Keynes once said: ' My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne."

1937-After the abdication of Edward VIII to marry Mrs. Simpson, his brother Bertie was crowned today as King George VI at Westminister. King George and Queen Elizabeth were the parents of the current Queen and were the first English monarchs to travel to America and eat hot dogs.

1938- “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia DeHaviland, Claude Rains and Eugene Paulette premiered. The swashbuckling film then cost a whopping $2 million dollars to make!

1948- In Palestine the secret key cabinet meeting of Jewish leaders over whether to declare independence before the British evacuated on May 15th. The UN and even the US was asking for a UN sponsored three month cooling off period but Jewish leaders like David Ben Gurion felt any more delay would be fatal. The decided that even though they would be attacked by five Arab nations simultaneously they would declare independence on May 14th. The last problem was what to call the new country? After Zion, Zionia and Herzelania was suggested, they decided to go with the name of a Kibbutz using an ancient Biblical name- Eretz-Israel or simply Israel.

1950- The comic strip 'Marvin' debuted.

1962- First day shooting on Frederigo Fellini’s film 8 1/2. When screened for American Producer Joe Levine, Levine took the cigar from his mouth and growled-” Frederigo, what da hell did that movie mean? ” Fellini shrugged –“I dunno”.

1971 - Rolling Stone Mick Jagger weds Bianca Macias at St Tropez Town Hall.
They later divorced and Bianca became a famous habitue’ of trendy discos and fashion magazines.

1971- Tor Johnson died of a heart attack at age 68. Swedish wrestler turned actor Tor’s preferred role was the bald eyeless zombie in classics like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster.

1977- A small Westchester radio station WENW hired a thin, gawky, college grad as a DJ- Howard Stern. US radio would never be the same.

1985- Philadelphia Police were trying to break into the headquarters of a militant anarchist group called MOVE. They were barricaded in a row house. Someone had the bright idea of dropping a bomb on the building. The explosion and fire killed 11 including some children and set off a conflagration that engulfed the neighborhood. Some people remember it as noteworthy in that it was the first time an air strike was used on an American city.

1999- The First Scottish Parliament in three hundred years and the first Welsh assembly since Owen Glendower, in 1410 sat in session today.

2008- A powerful earthquake hit Chungdu in Sichuan Province in China.
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Yesterday’s Question: One or two American Presidents went back to Congress after leaving office. How many British Prime Ministers went back to the benches after their term is over?

Answer: Almost all of them. In the British system, the Prime Minister is the head of the party in power, before and after they leave power. So the PM doesn’t have to step down until he/she wants to.


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