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November 12, 2009 thurs
November 12th, 2009

Question: What is the snack food called Crisps in England, known as in the USA..?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who was the crazy king who stood in the surf, and tried to command the tide to turn back?
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History for 11/12/2009
Birthdays: Auguste Rodin, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Bahi-ullah 1817 founder of the Bahii faith, Elizabeth Cadie -Stanton, Cecil B. DeMille, Grace Kelly, Edward G. Robinson, Jack Oakie, Kim Hunter, Shamus Culhane, Charles Manson, Neil Young, Edvard Munch, Nadia Comenici, Tanya Harding, Dave Brain, Megan Mullally is 51, Anne Hathaway is 27

1035- Canute the Great died. He was the Viking King of Denmark and England simultaneously. It was Canute who once tried to command the ocean tide to go out.
He got his feet wet.

1792- The Revolutionary French Republic issued a declaration that any other European kingdom that wants to overthrow their king and chop his head off, is welcome to come join the fun and France will help.

1859- The first trapeze act was demonstrated at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris. The act caused such a sensation that the daredevil was immortalized by his tights becoming a fashion named in his honor- Jules Leotard.

1861- THE CURRAUGH CAMP AFFAIR- When 20 year old Edward the Prince of Wales went to Oxford he was kept on a short leash by his worried parents Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They expected his college life to be- well, Victorian. He was to reside off campus, limited his diet to bland foods and seltzer water and absolutely no smoking or carousing with women! This draconian regimen only stiffened Bertie’s rebellious nature. When allowed to attend maneuvers in Ireland and bunk with a company of hard drinking cavalry officers he was at last free to go wild. By unfortunate coincidence the gossip about the Prince’s all night drinking binges and bedding actresses reached his father just as Albert was showing the first signs of the typhoid fever that would kill him. For years afterwards Queen Victoria blamed her son for contributing to his father's death by breaking his heart. In his adult years King Edward VII was never without a cigar in his teeth, a girl on his lap and a drink in his hand.

1912- SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC- in the Antarctic this day the frozen bodies of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott and his men were found. He had lost his race to find the South Pole to Norwegian Piers Ammundsen then was stranded by a blizzard only 30 miles from his base camp on the Ross Ice Shelf. His last diary entry ( March 29th ) said "We are showing that Englishmen can still have a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end. This diary and our dead bodies will be the proof. I should like to write more but I haven't the strength..."

1920- In the wake of the "Black Sox" Baseball scandal, the first rigged World Series, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was elected first Commissioner of Baseball. He ordered all those involved in the scandal including Shoeless Joe Jackson permanently banned from baseball even though they had been acquitted in a civil trial.

1927- The Holland Tunnel completed. It runs under the Hudson River connecting New York and New Jersey. It’s not named for the Netherlands, but for the engineer Clifford Holland, who died shortly before it’s completion.

1933- Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company takes the first photographs of what he claimed was a monster in Loch Ness. He would be the first of many to have claimed to have seen Nessie.

1946- Disney's "Song of the South" with William Baskett as Uncle Remus. Zippity-Doo-Dah

1948- After World War Two, Japanese leaders were sentenced for war crimes by a world court like the top Nazis leaders were at Nuremberg. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, Generals Homma and Yamashita and 900 others were executed and imprisoned for crimes against humanity and genocide. Interestingly enough whereas the verdicts in Germany caused bitterness and riots among Germans, the news caused no bad feelings in Japan. According to the Warriors code Bushido it was understood that the victors could execute the vanquished, and they would have done to Allied leaders had they won.

1955- This is the date Marty McFly returns to in the film Back to the Future and Back to the Future II.

1975- Portland Oregon had a large dead gray whale on it’s beach. It decided it would be easier to dispose if they blew it up. As an audience watched they stuffed it with half a ton of dynamite. The explosion drew cheers from the audience, then everyone ran for cover as they were showered by chunks of smelly blubber and guts.

1981- The Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for the second time. First reusable spacecraft.

1990- Akihito became Emperor of Japan.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was the crazy king who stood in the surf, and tried to command the tide to turn back?

Answer: Canute the Great. See above 1035


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