Question: When Julius Caesar was warned, Beware the Ides of March, what does Ides mean?.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who were King Vidor, Howard Hawks, Rouben Mamoulian and Wild Bill Wellman?
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History for 3/14/2010
Birthdays: Georg Phillip Telemann, Johann Strauss Sr., Albert Einstein, Casey Jones, Quincy Jones is 78, astronaut Frank Borman, Les Brown, Hank Ketcham, Wolfgang Petersen, Diane Arbus, Chris Klein, Michael Cain born Maurice Mickelwhite is 77, Billy Crystal is 62

Happy Pi Day (Einstein's b-day) 3-14 geek stuff.

44BC –The night before their planned assassination of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius met with the other conspirators. They had heard that tomorrow at the opening of the senate, outgoing consul Lucius Cotta planned to declare Caesar a king. The senators resolved to kill him, then debated whether they should then kill more of Caesars followers like Marc Anthony and Octavian. Marcus Brutus successfully argued that if they killed all their political enemies, then this gesture would just look like another partisan brawl. They would strike down one man, the dictator Caesar, in the name of Liberty and all would respect the purity of their motives. It turned out this was a big mistake, because the men whose lives they spared, were the ones who hunted them down.

44BC- This same night Julius Caesar held a dinner party. Guests remembered at one point the conversation went to the topic-What is the best kind of Death? Caesar answered: " That which is quick and unexpected."

1757- THE ADMIRAL WAS SHOT AT NOON- English Admiral of the Blue John Byng was shot by firing squad on the poopdeck of his own flagship, the HMS Monarch. He had lost a battle off Minorca to the French fleet so was court-martialed. The admiral was seen as a scapegoat for London's slow response to the enemy threat to Minorca. Byng had already been absolved by court martial of cowardice and treason, he himself wondered just why he was being shot. Pleas for mercy even came from his French enemy the Marquis De Gallissoniere. Years later whenever the Duke of Wellington or Lord Nelson was going through a bad time they would wonder: " If I fail, I'll probably be shot like Byng..."
The writer Voltaire has his comic hero Candide entering Portsmouth Harbor, witnessing an admiral being shot. When he asks why, his English guide replies "It is good idea to shoot an admiral from time to time..."

1794- Eli Whitney patented the Cotton "Gin" short for engine. Some folks call this simple machine the beginning of American Industry. However it also revitalized the institution of Slavery, which had been dying out economically the way it had in Europe and the northern states. Suddenly huge fields needed hundreds of laborers to pick cotton.

1883- Karl Marx died in London. Marx's last words were:" Get out of Here!
Last words are for fools who haven't said enough already!"

1885- Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado premiered in London.

1923- President Warren Harding became the first President to file an Income Tax Return..

1932-Inventor GEORGE EASTMAN shot himself- The inventor of the Roll-film camera, who named his celluloid strips 'film' and founded Eastman/Kodak. He had been suffering from a long illness and left the note: " To my friends: The End is near, why wait? "

1941- Xavier Cugat and his orchestra recorded "Babalu".

1943- Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" premieres. George Szell conducting. Young Leonard Bernstein once asked Copland how he could write more "American" sounding music. The maestro answered:" Lenny, just shuttup and write. You're American. It's all going to sound that way anyway!"

1967- Nine executives of the German pharmaceutical firm Grunethal were indicted over the Thalidomide scandal. Thalidomide was prescribed as a sedative for pregnant women , but the drug caused thousands of children to be born with deformed limbs.

1986- The IPO or initial public offering of stock of a new company called Microsoft. Twenty-seven dollars a share.

1991- Lyricist Howard Ashman ( Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) passed away of HIV/AIDS.

1998- The epic disaster movie Titanic surpassed Star Wars and Jurassic Park as the greatest money earning film ever. It cost over $200 million to make but it earned at least $1 billion in box office alone. Quote director James Cameron: I’m King of the World!!
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Quiz: Who were King Vidor, Howard Hawks, Rouben Mamoulian and Wild Bill Wellman?

Answer: Hollywood movie directors during the 1930s.