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June 16th, 2008 tues.
June 16th, 2009

Question: what is the Pentateuch..?

Yesterdays Question answered below: True or False, chocolate is an Aztec word.
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History for 6/16/2009
Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga, John Cho is 37

1686 BC- King Hammurabi the Lawgiver died in Babylon. He was succeeded by his son Samsu-iluna.

391 A.D.- Roman Emperor Theodosius Ist sent the Praefect of Egypt orders to close the pagan temples and forbid the any further practice of the worship of Isis, Serapis and Amon-Ra. It was Theodosius' policy to purge the now Christian Empire of the last vestiges of the old pagan religions. Theodosius closed Plato's Academy, silenced the Oracle of Delphi, burned the Sybilline Books and stopped the Olympic Games. Acting on the Imperial nod St. Cyrus of Alexandria whips up a mob of zealots that destroyed the Serapeum and Library of Alexandria, killing the last true Greek philosopher, the lady Hypatia. She was stripped and torn to pieces between the mob's frenzied Hosannas. Theodosius ordered the Senate to stop doing a sacrifice to Mars the Avenger before each session. One bitter Roman historian noted that Rome fell to the Barbarians not twenty years later –410 AD. This ceremony has a descendant -the US Congress always opens it daily session with a religious benediction.

1497- Amerigo Vespucci reached the mainland of South America.

1549- Catherine de Medici entered Paris as the bride of King Henry II of France. Many French noblemen objected to the “That Florentine shopkeepers daughter and her gang of corrupt Italians” but she dominated French politics for decades the way Elizabeth Ist dominated England. She inspired the Saint Batholemew’s Day Massacre which is why there are few French Protestants today. She also brought a brilliant retinue of Italian cooks using new foods like artichokes and parsley. Modern scholars say Catherines influences helped French cuisine break out of the medieval rut of burned meat covered with heavy fruit sauces, and begin it’s ascendancy to Haute Cuisine.

1657- First recorded mention in London of chocolate for sale. Xocoaltl was served to Hernando Cortez by Montezuma in 1517 but it was pretty bitter stuff. The Maya also gave Europeans the first Vanilla beans. They tamed Chocolate with sugar and kept the formula a secret for 100 years. The Dutch figured it out and added milk for Milk Chocolate and Sir John Sloan the British chemist invented a formula as well.

1815-BATTLES OF QUATRE BRAS (Four Corners) & LIGNY- Napoleon's last victory. Napoleon slipped his army into Belgium in between Wellington's and his Prussian (German) allies then split his own army in three. While one part stalled the English, Napoleon defeated the Prussian army and sends it running. The Prussian's recovered and Wellington fell back on a little intersection outside of Brussels called Waterloo.

1857-WAR OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENTS-One of the strangest incidents in law enforcement history. The New York City Police Dept. under Mayor Fernando Wood was so unbelievably corrupt that Governor Samuel Tilden built a second police force called the Metropolitan Police Force and ordered it to take over the city and arrest the Mayor. They were stopped on the steps of City Hall by the original NYPD and a fight broke out. While citizens and criminals alike looked on in amazement as hundreds of blue-coated policemen clubbed, battered and shot each other in the street. Washington D.C. negotiated a settlement that if the state police force would disband Mayor Wood would resign. He ran for mayor again and was elected 5 years later in time to start the New York City Draft Riots of 1863.

1884 - On Coney Island Amusement Pier the Switchback Railway, the first roller coaster began operating.

1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story the Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. When Baum was writing down the stories at point he was stuck for a name for the magical kingdom. He looked down at his desk files that were labeled A-N and O-Z. Eureka!

1903 – The Pepsi Cola company forms.

1903-. As Henry Ford filed papers of incorporation of his Ford Automobile Company the first Ford automobiles go on sale at the Tenvoorde sales lot in Minnesota. The Tenvoorde is the oldest Ford dealership in the world and is still in business today, still run by the Tenvoorde Family.

1904- "Blume's Day" all the actions in James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on this one day in Dublin. This day Dubliners dress up as characters from the book and do readings.

1920- International Telephone and Telegraph incorporates- ITT.

1933-Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Glass-Steagel Act, which orders big banks to separate commercial bond business from private savings and loans. This way big banks that ruined themselves in the Stock Market Crash couldn’t destroy the savings of average people who never saw a stock or bond. A heavy publicity campaign encouraged Americans to rally under the blue eagle symbol of the NRA.

The NRA was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1937 but Glass-Steagel stayed in effect, much to the chagrin of banking corporations.
It was finally rescinded by supposedly liberal President Bill Clinton in 1999, creating the financial collapse we have now.

1939- Bandleader Chick Webb died at age 30. Webb was an unlikely pop star, a hunchbacked, tuberculant dwarf who played drums, but his band the Chick Webb Orchestra pioneered the new Jazz form called Swing Music and inspired the Big Band Sound. One of Webb’s last actions before succumbing to his debilitating health problems was to make a star out of 19-year-old street singer named Ella Fitzgerald.

1943- 54 year old actor Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18 year old Oona O’Neill. In Hollywood Chaplin’s nickname was “Chickenhawk Charlie” for his fondness for dates of barely legal age. Oona did stay his wife until the end of his life in 1971.

1947 –The 1st regular broadcast network news show began-Dumont's "News from Washington".

1952- The CBS television comedy My Little Margie premiered. It starred Gale Storm and Charlie Farrell.

1959- Actor George Reeves, who played the first television Superman, went upstairs during a dinner party and shot himself with a German Luger pistol. Actor Gig Young, who was a friend of Reeves, said the actor 's career was going well and his love life was fine. He never believed the actor would shoot himself. Gig Young shot himself in 1981. Many of Reeves friends also wonder if it was a suicide because Reeves had been dating a socialite named Toni Mannix who’s husband had mob connections. The bullet entrance wound didn’t have the customary powder burns of a suicide and there were other bullet holes in the floor and ceiling. Also the gun in Reeves hands had been wiped clean of fingerprints.

1961- Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho" premiered.

1963- Valentina Tereschkova was the first woman to go into space.

1966-YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT… The Supreme Court handed down the ruling Miranda vs. Arizona, overturning the conviction of an Ernesto Miranda, who was jailed after he was tricked into confessing an assault of a Phoenix woman. This ruling established the famous Miranda Rights, read to every suspect upon arrest. Ernesto Miranda was retired and convicted again and was stabbed in a bar fight in 1972.

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted.

1987- Italian porno star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore she would run for office. This made sense to Italians who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.
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Yesterdays Question: True or False, chocolate is an Aztec word.

Answer: True, perhaps even older. Xocoaltl was served to Hernando Cortez by the Aztec Emperor Montezuma.- see 1657 above.


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