Quiz: in World War II, what class of Navy warship was nicknamed a Tin Can?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Ever smell a stench that was so bad it stuck in your nostrils long after? What is the tip perfume chemists recommend for clearing your nose?
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History for 8/21/2009
Birthdays: King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie, Wilt (Wilt the Stilt) Chamberlain, Isadore "Friz" Freleng, Kenny Rogers, British Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Peter Weir is 65, Kim Catrall is 53. Dr. Joan Dominick, Carrie Anne Moss is 42

1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the election but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House Douglas was his strong supporter.

1863-THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisan Jayhawkers. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding raiders flying black flags into town. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like Jesse James and Cole Younger. As the wild horsemen galloped up Massachusetts Avenue shooting and burning, Quantrill stood up in his saddle and shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill all the n*gger-loving Yankees!”

There was no regular army there. They murdered 200 civilians, mostly defenseless old men and boys. A guerrilla named Rev Larkin Skaggs tore down the Stars & Stripes and dragged it behind his horse in the dirt and dung to the laughter of the troops. There were some regular Confederate officers present who were appalled at the carnage. They later showed their unfired weapons to survivors to witness that they did not take part in the crimes. Rev. Skaggs was shot down by a Delaware Indian as he tried to ride out of town. The citizens dragged his scalped corpse up and down the main street shooting it and pelting it with stones. It was later tossed into a ravine for wild dogs to eat. Many people never recovered from the nightmare. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War, William Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets. The priest officiating at his funeral suggested people defecate on his grave.

1887- Mighty (Dan) Casey struck out at his last at bat with the NY Giants. The poem was written many years later.

1911- Café waiter Vincenzo Perruggia walked into the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa. After trying to fence it for two years, he tried to ransom it back. In 1913 he was arrested and the painting recovered.

1922 - Curly Lambeau & Green Bay Football Club formed in 1919 was granted an NFL franchise. Foreigners have pondered the Great American Mystery: Why are the Packers the only US football team not situated near a major American City? That is because at a time when professional football was in it’s infancy a Green Bay meat packing company paid for the teams uniforms.

1929-Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo marry.

1930- Pardon Us, the first feature film starring Laurel & Hardy. In 1926, Hal Roach director Leo McCarey noticed the Briton Stan Laurel and Georgia born singer Oliver Hardy looked funny together, and put them in a series of shorts. Laurel & Hardy became one of the greatest comedy teams in film history.


1935- Big band leader Benny Goodman was having a tough time. His band lost its radio gig when the show Let’s Dance was cancelled. So he and his musicians drove across the country in a small caravan of cars playing various venues on the road. They were told in small towns to stop playing that newfangled Swing music and stick to old standards. One manager in Denver told him:” Don’t you guys know any waltzes? ” By the time they arrived in Los Angeles this day they were thoroughly demoralized. But when they set up in the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood the crowd was immense! And these kids wanted to jitterbug to the new Swing music! So hit it, Jackson, Awl Reet, Awl Reet!

1944- Moviestar James Cagney, star of Yankee Doodle Dandy, cleared of charges of Communism. The accusations probably had less to do with Cagney's politics and more to do with his Actor’s union activism and his fighting in court the restrictive personal contracts studios put their stars under.

1959- Hawaii became the 50th state.

1967 –New York Mets second baseman Ken Harrelson became the first free agent.

1968- RUSSIAN TANKS CRUSH THE "PRAGUE SPRING' -Soviet forces destroy Alexander Dubchek's experiment of "Socialism with a Human Face." 650.000 Warsaw Pact troops moved into the small country from all sides. Some of the Red Army soldiers moving into Prague were from Asian Siberia and had never seen a western city before. Carlos Casteneda, who was there for a socialist progressive conference, recalled seeing a Soviet tank crash right through a department store glass window. The driver had never seen a glass window that large and didn't think anything was there. A Czech put a sign over the window frame : "NOTHING CAN STOP THE INVINCIBLE RED ARMY !"

1989- The Voyager II satellite spaceprobe flew by the planet Neptune. It was discovered Neptune had a faint ring like Saturn and rotated on it’s side- south-north instead of west to east. Scientists speculated the atmosphereic pressure to be so great that it could actually rain diamonds.

2003- A two week heatwave in Europe killed 10,000 in France alone. Most were elderly people sitting in their locked apartments without air conditioning while their families went on their august holidays. President Jacques Chirac was on holiday in Canada.

2017 - Next total solar eclipse visible from North America.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Ever smell a stench that was so bad it stuck in your nostrils long after? What is the tip perfume chemists recommend for clearing your nose?

Answer: Break open a bag of fresh ground coffee and breathe deeply from the bag. It neutralizes all the lingering scents in your nostrils. Professional Perfume blenders keep a dish of ground coffee on their work table to cleanse their palate between scents.