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July 8, 2017
July 8th, 2017

Quiz: Has a sitting U.S. President ever been under direct enemy fire?



Yesterday’s question answered below: What does it mean when you get pilloried?

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History for 7/8/2017

B-Dazes: Jean de LaFontaine, John D. Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller, Kathe Kollwitz, Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, Louis Jordan, Billy Eckstine, Steve Lawrence, Percy Grainger, Cynthia Gregory, Phillip Johnson, Kim Darby, Marty Feldman, Roone Arledge, Kevin Bacon is 59, Billy Crudup, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Angelica Huston, Raffi , Jeffrey Tambor is 73



951AD- Happy Birthday Paris! The Roman city of Lutetia- muddy place- was built on the site of a Gaulish village inhabited by a tribe called the Parisi. This date was when the Franks established a castle on the present day site of the Louvre. Despite Viking raids and floods, the city slowly began to grow.



1099- The Crusaders try to storm the walls of Jerusalem but are repulsed. They decided it was God telling them they were unworthy of the Holy City because they were sinful. So they drove out their camp followers and marched barefoot around the walls of Jerusalem praying and chanting. The Egyptian mercenary defenders hadn't really understood yet what this Christian Jihad stuff was all about. So they thought it was all pretty funny. They liked to urinate on the Christian knight's heads from the walls.

Y78

1249- Death of King Alexander II "the Peaceful" of Scotland who strengthened

his throne by marrying into the English royal family –his wife was called Joan MakePeace. during his reign the existing border was established and his heraldic symbol, the Red Lion Rampant on a Yellow field, became the symbol of Scotland..



1386- The Battle of Sembach- Leopold of Austria discovers why you leave the Swiss alone and let them stay neutral. His army of knights were intent on chastising this land of uppity goat herders, but they were destroyed instead. They at first held off the raging Schwyzers with a wall of spears. But then legend has it that great hero and really big schwyzer Arnold von Winkelreid shouted "Brothers! Take care of my wife and children!" and gathered up a dozen enemy spear points and shoved them into his own chest. As he fell he pulled them down with him, that opened a gap in the Austrian line that the Swiss swarmed through to victory. Duke Leopold was found in a ditch with a battleaxe in his face and two more rammed up his butt. It’s theorized the last two were more for insults sake.



1497 - Vasco da Gama departs for his trip to India by way of the Horn of Africa.



1673- William of Orange elected Stadholder of Holland while the country was fighting an Anglo French invasion. In electing him the Dutch chose an aristocratic prince over the republican party of the Great Pensioner Jacob De Witt. William was for no compromise with invaders, while De Witt favored a humiliating peace. De Witt was murdered by a mob. William called for national resistance and the Dutch opened their dykes and flooded the land around Amsterdam to stop the French army. William won and he eventually became King of England as well.



1755-THE BATTLE OF THE MONONGAHELA or BRADDOCKS DEFEAT- The French and Indian War, the North American installment of the greater European conflict known as the Seven Years War began. British General Braddock, marching to surprise French held Ft. Duquesne in western Pennsylvania, was ambushed on the Monongahela River by the French and their Indian allies. Out that far in the wilderness no one was sure if the war between France and England had even been declared, so it certainly was a surprise. Braddock and all the officers were killed except for a young militia captain named George Washington. Daniel Boone was also there as a young scout. After the war Ft. Duquesne became British and renamed it after Prime Minister William Pitt, so it became Pittsburgh.



1758- French general the Marquis de Montcalm with 3,000 men at Ft. Ticonderoga, New York, throw back a British attack of 15,000 under General Abercrombie.



1775- Before the Declaration of Independence was ever conceived, the more conservative members of the American Congress first tried a compromise. They drafted an appeal to the King to resolve America’s differences with London and stay part of the British Empire. They called it the Olive Branch Petition. It was written by John Dickinson and carried to London by William Penn III. But King George’s blood was up with these unruly Yankees. He had just got the reports of his redcoat casualties from the Battle of Bunker Hill. So when this weenie petition came, he brushed it aside.” Our colonists in North American must now decide whether they are our subjects or our enemies.” Still, Dickinson argued against independence up to the final vote.



1776- The new Declaration of Independence was celebrated in Philadelphia with parties and parades. With great solemnity the Royal Coat of Arms was taken down from the State House judges bench and tossed on a bonfire. Congressman John Dickinson, who argued passionately against independence, nevertheless demonstrated his love for America by joining the Continental army fighting in New York.



1801- Touissaint L’Ouverture created a new constitution for the island of French Saint Dominique’, now called Haiti. Even though Haiti became only the second democratic republic in all the Americas, and Americans loudly called on all nations to assert their freedom, the Founding Fathers could not bring themselves to recognize a black republic of rebellious slaves.



1815- The British army occupied Paris after Waterloo. A camp of white tents set up in the Bois du Boulogne. The allied bayonets returned the fat elderly Bourbon king Louis XVIII to the throne in place of Napoleon.



1822- Poet Percy Shelley drowned when a storm sank his yacht the Simon Bolivar off Leghorn, Italy. His body was cremated but his heart was embalmed in lead and presented to his wife Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley. Lord Byron swam offshore during the cremation so they could observe Shelley's spirit rising to Heaven.



1835- The Liberty Bell cracked. It rang for the Declaration of Independence and was being rung for the death of Chief Justice John Marshall.



1838- THE TRAIL OF TEARS- Cherokee Removal Treaty goes into effect. President Andrew Jackson, Indian name: "Sharp Knife", forced the entire Cherokee Nation to evacuate Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. 17,000 people were marched off to Oklahoma. One third died along the way. The token amounts paid for their land could not help their heartbreak at leaving their ancestral home. Warriors would touch or kiss trees as they trudged away to the amusement of the soldiers.

The Supreme Court ruled the harassment of the Cherokee Nation was unconstitutional, but President Jackson ignored them. Jackson said:" Chief Justice has ruled, now let him try to enforce it." One Georgia man later said:" I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered in the thousands, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."



1881- Ed Berners of Wisconsin invented the Ice Cream Sundae.



1889-The Wall Street Journal first published.



1889- The last great bareknuckle championship fight. John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain in Mississippi for a purse of $20,000. After 60 rounds one of Sullivan’s eyes was shut, he was covered with welts, and blood was showing above his shoes. When his manager recommended declaring a draw, Sullivan said:" Hell no. I want to kill him!" He won at sundown, after 75 rounds. Sullivan was one of the first flamboyant prizefighters and the first American fighter to declare himself Champion of the World. He’d travel from town to town building his legend:" I’m John L. Sullivan and I can lick any man in the house!"



1896- William Jennings Bryan" The Son of the Plains", electrifies listeners at the Democratic Convention with a speech denouncing the gold standard: "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" Whether federal currency should be backed by gold or cheaper silver divided Americans along class lines. Modern people only recall Bryan as the attorney Clarence Darrow made look silly in the Scopes "Monkey Trials". But Bryan was a fiery populist orator and strong rogue political force, who made several tries at the Presidency. He was a Bernie Sanders with Pat Robertson and some Ethel Merman thrown in.



1907-The First Ziegfield Follies, staged on the roof of the New York Theater, now called the New Amsterdam Theater.



1911- Burbank incorporated as a city.



1918- A young American ambulance driver serving in Italy during the First World War gets badly wounded by shrapnel fire. His name was Ernest Hemingway. His long recovery and love affair with his nurse he later worked into his novel "A Farewell To Arms".



1922- Horn player Louis Armstrong left his hometown of New Orleans to go to Chicago and play in King Oliver’s Jazz band.



1932- THE DEPRESSION STOCK MARKET HITS ROCK BOTTOM - free falling since the Great Crash of October 1929, and compounded by the Harley-Smoot trade act of 1931, which started a trade war that killed off overseas exports. From a Dow Jones high in the Roaring Twenties of 262, today’s average hit bottom at 58. Only 720,278 shares exchanged. One local club wallpapered the bar with unsold bond certificates. The Bond market lost around ten million in value, Total output of heavy industries like steel production were working at only 12% of capacity. 25% of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, 50% of New York City, 80% of industrial cities like Detroit and Toledo. Top Wall Street securities firms like Morgan and Salomon Brothers encouraged "Apple Days"- one day a week for brokers to go on the street to sell apples to supplement their income. One songwriter wrote a song about the unpopularity of stock traders: " Please Don't Tell Mother I Work on Wall Street, She Thinks I Play Piano in a WhoreHouse. " The just completed Empire State Building was nicknamed the "Empty State Building." because there were no businesses to move into it. Yet President Herbert Hoover could only spout unrealistic slogans like "the economy is fundamentally sound" and "prosperity is just around the corner." Mt. Rushmore sculptor Judson Borglum said: "If you put a flower in Hoover's hand, it would wilt !"



1932- Tod Brownings disturbing movie "Freaks" about a family of circus sideshow performers, premiered. One of Us, One of Us!



1951- The first meeting of American, United Nations, North Korean and Chinese officials to discuss peace terms to end the Korean War. The talks dragged on for months and eventually signed as the Treaty of Panmunjom. At this first meeting the reds and allies noted little psychological victories. The North Koreans drove up in a captured American jeep. When the chief Communist negotiator General Nom Il wanted a smoke he pulled out a Russian cigarette. But after striking 14 Peoples Democratic Chinese matches he still couldn’t get it to light. So he was finally forced to light his cigarette by borrowing from the Americans a good old capitalist Zippo lighter.



1961-YEAH, BABY YEAH!! Upon arriving at Cliveden, Estate of Lord and Lady Astor, Britains Secretary for War Sir John Profumo was introduced to Christine Keilor, a 19 year old party girl swimming nude in the pool. Profumo and Lord Astor chased Christine around the pool trying to pull her towel away while bejeweled guests arrived for a party. It was bad enough that the married Profumo started a hot affair with Christine, but also her manager Stephen Ward was connected to an East German Communist spy ring. The Profumo Scandal brought down the MacMillan Government in 1963.



1969 - Thor Heyerdahl and his raft Ra II landed in Barbados 57 days from Morocco. He was trying to prove ancient mariners could have traveled from Africa to the Americas using a ship made from papyrus reeds. It also may explain the phenomenon that some Egyptian mummies have been found to have traces of tobacco and chocolate in their stomachs.



1978- 100,000 rallied in Washington D.C. in support of the Equal Rights Amendment- the ERA.



1982- Walt Disney's TRON- the first film featuring computer graphics premiered. It only was about 20 minutes of actual CGI, and the computer images were still printed onto traditional animation cells and painted, but it was still a significant achievement. Remember in 1981 there were no off the shelf graphics software. The big deal at the time was that MAGI had just solved the "hidden Line" problem.



1998- An original 1477 William Caxton copy of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales"

became the world's most expensive book when it was sold for £4,621,500 to

billionaire oil heir Paul Getty.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean when you get pilloried?



Answer: A pillory was a device designed so that an offender would be

immobilized by having his/her head and hands locked into it i.e the stocks. Then, as

the pillory was usually located outside, in a very public place, the

local population could gather and taunt the person being punished,

sometime hurling insults, sometimes hurling more (mud, garbage, even

excrement). As the pillory was mostly designed for public humiliation,

it was used for rather minor offenses and the time in the pillory was

limited.



The pillory is not used anymore, but the be pilloried has come to mean

being held up to public ridicule and harassment.


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