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August 26th, 2009 weds
August 26th, 2009

Question: What is the Mystery of the Trinity?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Did you know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall” was based on a real incident?
What was it?
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History for 8/26/2009
Birthdays: Sir Robert Walpole the first British Prime Minister, Albert the Prince Consort, John Wilkes Booth, Guilliame Appollinaire who coined the term Surrealism, General Maxwell Taylor, Christopher Isherwood, McCauley Culkin is 29, Geraldine Ferrarro, Dr. Lee DeForrest, Ben Bradlee, Barbet Schroeder, Branford Marsalis, Chris Pine is 29

480 BC- The Persian Army of Xerxes the Great King marched into Athens. They found an empty city. Athenian leader Themistocles had ordered the population to evacuate to the small island of Salamis. Themistocles defeated Xerxes later at an epic sea battle.

580AD An ancient Chinese inventory of the household of a nobleman makes the first recorded reference to toilet paper. The ancient Romans used a sponge tied to a small stick. You were expected to rinse it out afterwards for use by the next person.

217AD- Today is the Feast of St. Zephyrinus, who didn't die violently but he is still counted as a Martyr because he had a lot of stress. (?) He was supposedly so charitable, that Saint Hippolytus found him annoying.

1346-Battle of Crecy – The English beat the French in the Hundred Years War., The Welsh longbows rained powerful armor piercing arrows on the French knights from long range. The King of France’s friend King John of Bohemia rode into the thick of the battle despite his being elderly and completely blind. His horse’s reins were held by retainers galloping alongside him. When Edward the Black Prince of Wales discovered the king's dead body after the battle, he plucked three white plumes from his helmet and assumed his motto "Ich Dein" or "How's dat, ye blind old bugger !" They became the symbols of the Prince of Wales. Also appearing at this battle for the first time were the big rock throwing fire pipes they called Bombardons, but we call cannon.

1498- Michelangelo gets a job. The big Florentine stone cutter was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI to carve the Pieta, a Mary lamenting over the body of Jesus.

1572- In Paris four days after the Great Saint Batholomew’s Day Massacre, someone noticed the hawthornes were flowering out of season in the little cemetery of the Holy Innocents. The Bishop of Paris thought this was a divine sign and ordered the church bells to ring. But when the dumbass people heard the bells they thought it was a signal to resume the massacre, so everyone ran out and started killing each other again.

1576- Great artist Titian died at age 99. He outlived all the artists of the Renaissance, worked every day of his life and might have gone on, had he not caught the plague.

1648-French peasant uprising known as La Fronde.-The Fronde was a reaction to the king's government being controlled by scheming cardinals like Richielieu and his protege, Cardinal Mazarin. Had the movement more legal structure to their demands, France might have developed an English style representative government. The English were in the middle of their Civil War over the same issues at the same time. But the Fronde was more about blind class revenge, and after it was crushed it left a deep impression on the mind of child King Louis XIV. He concluded that giving the common people any voice or power was a bad idea.

1790- THE KINGDOM OF YAZOO- Before the Louisiana Purchase the area around Spanish Mississippi territory and American Tennessee was a no man’s land of swamps Creek Indians. An Irish adventurer named O’Fanlon with a group of leathershirts and yahoos tried to declare themselves an independent nation -named for the Yazoo River.

1814- After completing their work of burning the American capitol Washington D.C. to the ground , the British redcoats under Admiral Cockburn march out of the ruined city in good order back to their ships. One old grandfather yelled at the British:" If General Washington had been alive you would not have gotten off so easily!" Admiral Cockburn paused his horse and replied graciously:-"Sir, if General Washington had still been President, we should never have thought of coming here."

1838- American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson met English writer Thomas Carlyle.

1846- W.A. Bartlet became first American mayor of Yerba Buena, in 1850 renamed San Francisco.

1868- First practical typewriter patented by Christopher Scholes. The Remington Company who were famous for making firearms took up the typewriter and mass produced it. In 1874 Mark Twain admitted to a friend that he preferred writing on it.

1939- In preparation for the impending war with Germany, the Tower of London was closed to tourists and the English Crown Jewels smuggled out and hidden.

1944- Charles DeGaulle walked in triumph down the Champs Elysee among thousands as Parisians celebrates their liberation after four years of Nazi occupation.
Life Photographer Lee Miller liberated Pablo Picasso the same day

1946 - George Orwell published "Animal Farm". Orwell said he conceived the idea for the novel while watching out his window a small boy driving a huge draft horse. The horse could have easily crushed the boy had it the free will but instead patiently endured the boys taunts and flicks with a small switch.

1958-First day of shooting on the Alfred Hitchcock film North By Northwest. Conceived as a plot that ended in a chase across the stone faces of Mt. Rushmore. The original title of Ernst Lehman’s script was The Man Who Hung From Lincoln’s Nose.

1961- The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto dedicated.

1964-The Tokyo subway system opens.

1967 - Beatles, Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

1971- The New York Giants announced they would move from Yankee Stadium to a new complex being built in the Meadowlands of Rutherford, New Jersey.

1980- Fred "Tex" Avery died after collapsing in the parking lot of Hanna-Barbera. Two weeks before he was asked by a friend why he was working in Hanna & Barbera. Tex laughed:" Hey, Don’t you know? this is where all the elephants come to die!"


1985- The first Yugo economy car arrived in the US.

1997- Special effects house Boss Studios, closed.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Did you know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall” was based on a real incident? What was it?

Answer: During the terrible English Civil War (1642-1649), Parliamentary forces were attacking the Royalist stronghold of Colchester. Part of the city’s defenses was a huge mortar (cannon) nicknamed Humpty Dumpty. During one attack, enemy artillery fire destroyed part of the city wall beneath the huge gun, causing it to have a great fall. Royalist troops tried unsuccessfully to remount the cannon using horse-drawn winches and tackle. But all the Kings Horses and All the Kings Men….The nursery rhyme was first printed in 1810.
Thanks to old Filmation friend Bill Reed for sending this one in to me.


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