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April 22,2010 thurs
April 22nd, 2010

Quiz: In Variety-speak, what company is called The Eye?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome really built over the grave of the Apostle Peter?
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History for 4/22/2010
Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael , Alexander Kerensky, Arron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page, Marylin Chambers, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters, Jack Nicholson is 73

Happy 40th Anniversary of Earth Day (see below- 1970)

753 B.C.-Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. The Romans counted time from this foundation date. So A.D. 1 to them was 754 AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae- from the "Founding of the City". So this year 2010 is 2,764 AUC.

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1769- Madame DuBarry officially presented at the French Court. King Louis XV’s earlier mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were women of breeding and culture. But DuBarry was a saucy little trollop who had already schtupped most of the men of the court. When the Duc d’ Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this vulgar new toy His Majesty replied:" She makes me forget that I shall soon be sixty."

1778- THE CONWAY CABAL- During the American Revolution, a conspiracy (or cabal) of colonial officers led by an Irish immigrant Major Conway and former Washington aide Thomas Mifflin plotted behind George Washington's back to get Congress to replace him for being incompetent. Their choice for command of the American army was the victor of Saratoga, General Gage, who's career was undistinguished other than that one battle. The plot was exposed and Conway made to resign. Washington stayed the symbol of the American war effort even though he lost more battles than won.

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate. Lord Byron was on board and called Lord Elgin, the supervisor of this act, "The Spoiler". Today the marbles are still at the British Museum and the Greeks are still mad about it.

1836-GENERAL SANTA ANNA the Dictator of Mexico was captured after the Battle of San Jacinto and brought to Texas Gen. Sam Houston. Santa Anna was disguised in peasants clothes but when brought into the Anglo camp the Mexican prisoners gave him away by cheering El Presidente! Santa Anna was suffering from nervous exhaustion so Houston offered him some of his opium. ( Houston was one of the great alcoholic drug addicts of U.S. History ) As they sat puffing under a tree Santa Anna said to Houston: " Great is the destiny of the man who can defeat the Napoleon of the West!" Everyone (including many Mexicans) wanted to kill the man who massacred the Alamo, but Houston used him as a hostage to draw off the large Mexican armies still in Texas. Not only did Santa Anna get released unhurt, but ten years later the U.S. Government even covertly helped him regain power in Mexico. .

1876- Composer Peter Tschaikowsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1889-At noon on the signal of a cannon shot The Great Oklahoma Land Rush began. The town of Oklahoma City was set up in one day-population 10,000. The settlers who slipped in early were nicknamed Sooners and Oklahoma became known as the Sooner State. This eats up the remains of the land of the Cherokee Nation, who once owned all of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. The Cherokee kept their land in common, which to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was their downfall: "The Cherokee possess many attributes except Greed, which we all know is the basis for Civilization."

1898- Teddy Roosevelt formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry, called the Rough Riders. It was a curious mix of Teddys' personal tastes- Harvard bluebloods and polo champions mixed with rough western cowboys and rodeo stars.

1906- In earthquake destroyed San Francisco, one day after the last of the fires were declared officially out, the Market Street cable car began running once more.

1915- Second Battle of Ypres- First use of poison gas on Western front battlefields. German Jewish Dr. Fritz Hauber and friend of Albert Einstein, was convinced his experiments to create poison gas would win wars. He ran from battlefield to battlefield ensuring it was being used correctly. At this time his wife committed suicide. The Chlorine clouds did cause a huge panic in the British ranks, that opened the way to Paris, but the German generals were too cautious to follow up their surprise and the Canadians fought fiercely to close the gap. Although they had no gas masks, a quick thinking Canadian doctor ordered his men to urinate into their own handkerchiefs, then tie it around their faces. Although exceedingly gross, the ammonia counteracted the gas enabling them to fight on.

1916- THE IRISH EASTER SUNDAY UPRISING -Patrick Pearse, Richard Connolly, Michael Collins, Eamon De Valera and followers seize the O'Connell Street post office in downtown Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic. After furious gunbattles with British troops diverted from the World War I battlefields the rebellion is put down. All the ringleaders were executed, Connolly was so badly wounded that they had to prop up his stretcher before the firing squad and pinch his cheeks so he'd be awake for his death. Future Irish President Eamon De Valera pleaded his U.S. citizenship to escape execution. The Irish people in the majority hadn't wholly supported the futile rising, but ironically the fierce police crackdown had the effect of arousing sympathy for their cause and sparked the major IRA campaigns in the 20's and eventual liberty.

1922- Albert the Duke of York married Scottish socialite Lady Elizabeth Beaux-Lyons. Bertie was shy and had a speech impediment and it took him three proposals before she said yes. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to allow a live radio broadcast of the marriage ceremony for fear it would be broadcast in pubs where uncouth men would not doff their hats. What Bertie and Elizabeth couldn’t know would be in 1936 Berties older brother Edward VIII would abdicate and they become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. After her husband died in 1952 and her daughter Elizabeth ascended the throne the Queen Mum lived on, finally dying at age 101 in 2002.

1934- In Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in Wisconsin Public Enemy No.1 John Dillinger shot his way out of a FBI ambush. The FBI not only failed to stop Dillinger, they shot an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

1940- Writer Ernest Hemingway cabled his editor Max Perkins from Havana about a new novel he was writing.-" Title is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from passage John Donne Oxford Book of English bottom page seventy one STOP Please register immediately."

1945- While the Red Army was attacking the outskirts of Berlin, Adolph Hitler sent away to the south his personal belongings and files in a final Luftwaffe flight of ten planes. One plane was shot down carried some of his most private possessions. Hitler called it a catastrophe. What was in that plane that he valued so much? See April 24th about the infamous Hitler Diary 1983 hoax. It’s a mystery to this day.

1954- THE ARMY–McCARTHY HEARINGS began. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee chasing communists in the government had finally bit off more than it could chew when it took on the U.S. Army. Sparked by the drafting of Private G. David Shine, a young crony (and possibly lover ) of chief counsel Roy Cohn, a hearing was held to investigate Senator’s McCarthy’s charges that the Secretary of the Army and several other top Pentagon officers were in reality Russian spies. After a short time the hearing evolved from an indictment of the army into a probe of Senator McCarthy’s red baiting tactics. It lasted for three months and spellbound the nation on live t.v. At one point Senator McCarthy submitted a note that the television cameras be turned off for a minute so he could wipe his nose. After one heated session Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy had to be separated or they would’ve come to blows. Finally under the withering voice of Joseph Walsh "Senator, have you no shred of decency?!" McCarthy was finished as a political force.

1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a Teach-In to bring attention to environmental issues.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born.

1996- Christopher Robin Milne dies at age 75. The young boy who’s fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

2000- The estranged wife of Mr Juan Gonzales of Cuba had grabbed their son Elian and tried to escape by boat to the United States. The wife and her lover drowned in the attempt but little 6 year old Elian survived and became a cause–celebre of the Cuban exile community in Miami. But Mr. Gonzales had come from Havanna to get his son back. Back in Havana Fidel Castro had a ball making political hay out of the Yankee Imperialistas stealing children from their parents. Finally after months of media circus US marshals under orders of Attorney General Janet Reno raid forcibly grabbed Elian Gonzales from his uncles home and gave him back to his father. His father pledged:" I want no one to ever stick a camera in my son’s face again!"

2004- Pat Tillman was a football star who gave up a lucrative future in the NFL to fight for his country. This day Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. The Pentagon played up his heroism, while lying to his grieving family and burning his diary.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Is Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome really built over the grave of the Apostle Peter??

Answer: In the 1960s there were excavations in the basilica’s sub basement that uncovered an ancient Roman cemetery. One sepulcher had an inscription that read “ THIS IS SIMON-PETER”. But we had to wait a few years for the news, because the Jesuit Priest who found the inscription chiseled it off and kept it on his bookshelf as a souvenir.


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