QUIZ: What US State has a larger population than the nation of Canada?

Answer to yesterdays question below. Arr Mateys, what was the island of Hispaniola?
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History for 1/12/2011
Birthdays: Pilgrim leader John Winthrop, John Hancock, Edmund Burke, John Singer Sargent, Jack London , Charles Perrault (Mother Goose), James Farmer the founder of CORE, Herman Goering, "Smokin' Joe" Frazier, Tex Ritter, Martin Agronsky, Howard Stern is 56, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver Platt, Wayne Wang, Tiffany, Kirstie Alley is 55, John Lasseter is 54

1519-Vasco Nunez de Balboa, discoverer of the Pacific, was convicted of treason and mistreatment of Indians and beheaded.

1669- Buccaneer Henry Morgan convened a meeting of the Captains of the Coast, a council of pirates on board his frigate the Oxford. In their meeting they resolved to attack Cartagena Columbia, a rich Spanish port and staging area for treasure galleons. During the drunken celebrations someone fired a gun off in the Oxford’s powder magazine and the ensuing explosion killed 200. Arrrg..!

1809- A group of Viennese businessmen convinced Ludwig Van Beethoven not to move to another city by paying him a yearly allowance. Beethoven continually worried about money and pleaded poverty, yet after his death people found thousands of silver coins hidden in little pots and cupboards throughout his home. He used to charge people three marks to come and look at him through his window while he composed.

1812- The first Mississippi steamboat brought a cargo of cotton bales from Natchez to New Orleans to be loaded onto a transatlantic ship. This is the beginning of the riverboat trade Mark Twain made famous.

1898- Nationalist riots broke out in the Spanish colony of Cuba. U.S. President McKinley sends the battleship Maine to Havana harbor to protect American interests. Americans have coveted Cuba since James Madison's time.

1928- Police raid the prestigious women’s college Radcliffe Hall and seize 800 copies of the novel “The Well of Loneliness” because it was considered to promote lesbianism.

1928- Henry Grey and Ruth Snyder are electrocuted in Sing-Sing Prison for the murder of Mrs. Snyder's husband. The love triangle was the inspiration for the films 'Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice' and 'Body Heat". Press photographer Thomas Howard taped a small camera to his ankle and snapped a photo of Mrs Snyder frying in the chair. The New York Daily News published the photo on its front page.

1942- Operation Drumroll. Nazi submarine U-123 torpedoes an American tanker, the S.S. Norness, off the southern coast of Long Island just outside the entrance to New York Harbor. In 1942 alone 277 cargo ships were sunk by German submarines off the coast from Miami to Nova Scotia The New York Museum of Natural History even moved it’s skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex to Pittsburgh to save it from potential Nazis attack.

1960-” The Scent of Mystery”- the first film in Smell-O-Vision.

1962- President John F. Kennedy signed Executive order 10988, mandating federal workers had the right to join unions and bargain collectively. In 2001 in the trauma over 9-11, President George W. Bush demanded his new 50,000 member Department of Homeland Security be forbidden to unionize.

1966- Holy Cult Classic ! The TV show "Batman" with Adam West and Burt Ward premiered.

1969- Super Bowl III, Broadway Joe Namath and the underdog NY Jets upset the Baltimore Colts led by the legendary Johnny Unitas.

1970- The Boeing 747 makes it’s first flight.

1970- The Biafran Civil War ended.

1971- “ ALL IN THE FAMILY” Norman Lear's TV sitcom about racism and the 60's,debuted. Based on a successful British show, it broke new ground for American sitcoms by frankly discussing prejudice, menopause, rape and other taboo subjects. It’s first show featured the sound of a toilet flushing. The networks were so worried about its explosive content ABC rejected the show twice, and CBS ran the first episodes with a long apologetic disclaimer. Carrol O’Connor, the actor who played Archie Bunker was so convinced the show would flop, he demanded as part of his contract a round trip plane ticket home. The show ran for 13 years, a bushel of Emmy Awards and made Archie Bunker a folk-hero.

1971- Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, nun Sister Elizabeth McAllister and several others were indicted in Federal court for conspiracy. The Catholic clerics were trying to bring an end to the Vietnam War through non-violent acts of civil disobedience. After handcuffing themselves to missiles and the gates of army bases the government alleged their scheme was to kidnap top Nixon diplomat Henry Kissinger and sabotage the State Department heating systems in the dead of winter. All charges were eventually overturned.

1992-According to Arthur C. Clarkes 1968 book "2001, a Space Odyssey", the HAL-9000 computer was booted up today.

1987-No mystery, Agatha Christie dies at 88 of natural causes.

1995- Steven Speilberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announced the name of their new partnership would be 'Dreamworks SKG'. Someone in Florida immediately bought the domain name “Dreamworks.com” and waited for their buyout offer. I heard it was $5,000

1998-The LEWINSKY SCANDAL- Former White House staffer Linda Tripp was frustrated her career in the Bill Clinton Administration was going nowhere. This day she appeared in the office of independent special prosecutor Kenneth Starr with tape recordings she secretly made of her friend Monica Lewinsky. On them she admitted to a sexual affair with the President. Conservative Judge Starr had been investigating Slick-Willie Clinton for years. After spending $54 million tax dollars, he hadn’t found much. So he immediately leaped at this opportunity, and asked the Attorney General for an extension of his mandate.

Ms. Lewinsky had meant to keep her affair a secret, despite her telling 11 friends. By autumn the resultant scandal brought Washington to a standstill and only the second presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. President Clinton admitted to the affair, but was acquitted and served out his term anyway. Then Linda Tripp asked the public for donations for her legal defense fund for her violating federal wiretap laws “I am one of you...a David against a Goliath...Even $1,000 dollars would do..” She took the money and got a facelift.

2002-The Refusenik Movement began in Israel when 53 Israeli Army officers announced they refused to enforce the Likud Government’s policy in the West Bank & Gaza.
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Yesterdays’ Question: Arr Mateys, what was the island of Hispaniola?

Answer: The big island named La Espaniola by Columbus became the nations of Haiti and The Dominican Republic.