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Jan 17, 2018
January 17th, 2018

Quiz: What modern nation was referred to by Medieval Europeans as the magical Kingdom of Cathay?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What nation did Americans once refer to as “ Perfidious Albion”?
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History for January 17, 2018
Birthdays: Benjamin Franklin, Max Sennett-1880, Al Capone, Ethan G. Hodell 1883- the inventor of the Tow-Truck, Constantin Stanislavsky, Moira Shearer, Shari Lewis, Vidal Sassoon, Claude Coats, Denny Doyle, Kevin Reynolds, Muhammad Ali, Jim Carrey is 56, Michelle Obama is 54, Zooey Deschanel is 38, James Earl Jones is 88, animator Gendy Tartakovsky, Betty White is 96!

50 BC- Julius Caesar’s chief rival for power in Rome was Pompey Magnus. Pompey was as famous a general as Caesar and he controlled the Roman Senate. Pompey bragged that if Caesar started a civil war all he had to do would be to stamp his foot and soldiers would spring up everywhere to defend Rome.
But when Caesar invaded Italy, Pompey stamped his foot and nothing happened. Pompey’s troops were still in Spain and Greece. The only legions in the area were loyal to Caesar. This day Pompey and the Senate abandoned Rome and fled south to the heel of the Italian boot.

38BC- Augustus and Livia’s wedding anniversary!

395AD- Death of Theodosius I, the last Emperor to rule over the all the Roman Empire from Scotland to Iran. After his death the Roman Empire divided permanently between East and West. One son Honorius became Emperor of the West, and another Arcadius became Emperor of the Eastin Constantinople. A few years later in 401, The provinces of Britain and Armenia were abandoned by withdrawing legions.

1775-Sheridan's Restoration comedy The Rivals premiered at Covent Garden Theater, London.

1781- BATTLE OF HANNAH’S COWPENS- Dan Morgan "the old wagoneer" and his mountainmen shot up a pro-British American army in the Carolinas. The American Loyalists in the South were led by Col. Banastre Tarleton, a dragoon officer unusual for his ruthlessness. After one battle he made his men go over the field and bayonet any rebels who might still be alive. This atrocity filled Morgan¹s ranks with rage, because many were the mountain kinfolk of the slain. This night the cry in the Yankee camp was:" Heads up boys! Bennie's Coming!"

1794- SCANDAL!! ANDY JACKSON MARRIED RACHEL DONELSON FOR THE SECOND TIME. Mrs. Rachel D. Robards was married to an abusive older man, when she fell in love with the dashing young officer in the Tennessee wilderness. Separated from Mr. Robards, she and Jackson were in Natchez, Mississippi at her sister¹s, when they heard word that Robards had filed for a divorce back in Nashville.
Jackson and Rachael then married and lived together for a year but then discovered that the divorce report was false and worse, Mississippi where they were married was still Spanish territory that didn't recognize Protestant marriages as legal. Rachel finally got her divorce from Robards, and they married again. Still, the social stigma of 'living in sin' stuck.

Rachel became morose in later years when Jackson's political enemies used the charge of adultery to attack him. Jackson fought duels and killed men over his wife's honor. By the time Jackson was elected President, Rachel Jackson was too ill to go to Washington. She died just before the Inauguration. The widower President lived long, but never got over his love for his Rachel.

1800- Thomas Jefferson welcomed French businessman Etienne Irenee¹ Du Pont de Nemours to America. Monsieur Dupont had decided to move his business from revolution ravaged France and become an American. He founded the Dupont Chemical Corporation that today makes plastics and housepaints, but back then what was most important was he made gunpowder. During the American Revolution gunpowder was a precious commodity. Colonial women saved pigeon droppings and their own urine to concoct saltpeter. Almost all the high quality gunpowder had to be imported from Europe. The Dupont family continued to control America’s petrochemical destiny way into the twentieth century and invented Nylon. And ladies could dispose of their urine in more sanitary ways.

1836- Texas General Sam Houston orders Jim Bowie to go to the Alamo and blow it up. Then bring the soldiers and the valuable cannon back to the main army to fight Santa Anna. But once there, Bowie was convinced by William Travis to disobey orders and defend the Alamo to the bitter end.

1874- Chang and Eng Bunker were the original Siamese Twins joined at the chest and sharing one liver. Since leaving Thailand they traveled the world with P.T. Barnum showing off their unique physique to paying crowds. They married two sisters and produced 21 offspring. As they aged, they made a deal that they wouldn’t be physically separated until one of them died. This day Eng awoke to discover his brother Chang had died. He cried “ Then, I am going as well!” They frantically called for the doctor to come and separate them. But the doctor was late, and when he arrived Eng had died as well. They were 62.

1884- The Battle of Abu Kleer. British forces attempting to save Gordon of Khartoum are furiously attacked by the Dervish army of El Mahdi. At one point the Dervishes broke up a British infantry square, something Napoleon had trouble doing at Waterloo. Kipling wrote a poem in praise of the bravery of the long haired black Sudannese tribemen called “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” ­”Though we sloshed them with Martinis an it wasn¹t ‘ardly fair, with the odds against you Fuzzy-Wuzzy, you broke the British square.” A Martini-Henry was a rapid firing rifle used at the time.

1904- Chekov's The Cherry Orchard opened in St. Petersburg.

1908- Thousands of women march on Downing Street in London demanding women be given the vote. The broke windows and shouted “It will be bombs next time!” Among the suffragettes arrested and imprisoned was 23 year old Alice Paul from New Jersey. She was honored in 1996 by a US postage stamp.

1917- The U.S. bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $21 million.

1926- FATS WALLER KIDNAPPED-Harlem Jazz great Fats Waller was in Chicago for a gig. On the street several gunmen grabbed him and dragged him into their limo and sped off to the lair of mob boss Scarface Al Capone. When he arrived there the terrified Waller was reassured by Capone that as it was Big Al¹s birthday all he wanted was for Waller to perform at his party. The bash lasted three days and the joint was really jumpin! Waller left unharmed, and with a very fat paycheck as well, but resolved to stay in Harlem where it was safe.

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1929- Elzie Segar was drawing a comic strip for Hearst’s NY Journal called The Thimble Theatre. It featured Olive Oyl, her brother Castor Oyl, and her boyfriend Ham Gravy. In this day’s strip Ham meets an odd-looking sailor named Popeye. Popeye the Sailor was born.

1935- In an address to Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed national unemployment insurance. It had been an issue demanded by workers since Coxey's Army in 1895.

1942- Right after the Pearl Harbor attack British Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped across U-boat infested Atlantic waters and arrived in Washington for strategy planning meetings with President Roosevelt. Today he flew back to London without incident, although over London itself his plane was almost mistaken for the Luftwaffe and shot down.

1949- The first Volkswagen beetles arrived in North America.

1949- The Goldbergs, a radio comedy show about a Jewish family in the Bronx, moved to television and became the first true sitcom. The show ended when Mrs. Goldberg was accused by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of being a Communist.

1950- THE BRINKS JOB- Several small time hoods wearing Halloween masks entered a Brinks Armored Car office in Boston and stole $1,2 million in cash and 1.5 in securities. By 1953 one crook broke down and confessed just eleven days before the statute of limitations would run out.

1957- The first non-stop jet flight around the world. Three U.S. B-52 bombers took off from Edwards Air force base in California and by flying at supersonic speed and refueling in mid air circumnavigated the globe in a little over 48 hours. The mission was not intended to set a record or for any scientific value as to demonstrate that the U.S. could now go anywhere on the earth and drop a nuke on you. They cemented this idea by dropping a dummy bomb after passing over Malaya.

1961- Frank Sinatra’s Ratpack had campaigned hard for their friend John F. Kennedy for president. Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. had worked particularly hard to help Kennedy win the African American vote. But Sammy had a preference for blond white actresses and had married one, May Britt in 1960. To fend off negative publicity, this day JFK had his secretary Mrs. Lincoln telephone Sammy Davis and un-invite him to the President¹s Inaugural Ball. We’re Liberal, but not that liberal. And uhh.. thanks for the help. Dean Martin was so angry at this insult to his friend that he canceled his appearance at the inaugural.
In 1968 Sammy Davis angered the black community when he embraced republican Richard Nixon.

1961- President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech to the nation. He warned against the growing influence of the “Military Industrial Complex”.

1961- Patrice Lamumba, nationalist leader and the first democratically elected president of the Congo, was executed by firing squad. Lamumbas’ pan-African nationalism earned him the enmity of the US state dept. and many believe the CIA might have been involved in his death.

1964- The first Porsche Carrera sports cars arrived in L.A.

1977- Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah for murdering an elderly couple. They pinned a paper on his chest with a heart drawn on it so marksmen could aim straight. Norman Mailor wrote the book “Executioners’ Song” about the event.

1989- A lunatic murdered 5 schoolchildren with an AK-47 assault rifle in Stockton California. Less than two months later Republican President George H. W. Bush Sr banned assault weapons and high capacity magazines by executive order. That ban was allowed to lapse by his son in 2004, and we’re still arguing and counting our dead today.

1994-The Great Northridge Earthquake rocked Los Angeles. 72 deaths and 20 billion dollars in damage. It was officially listed as 6.8 on the Richter Scale, although many persist that in some areas it was as high as 7.2. The epicenter was in the San Fernando Valley, so the valleys two major industries, animated cartoons and pornography, were temporarily disrupted.

1995- One year to the day after the Los Angeles earthquake, a massive earthquake struck Kobe Japan. The Japanese place great resources and time in earthquake preparedness, yet this 7.2 quake toppled whole freeways, killed 5,000 and left 1 1/2 million people homeless. It was the worst natural disaster in Japan since the 1923 Tokyo quake.

2000-A Complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was offered for sale on E-Bay.
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Yesterday’s Question: What nation did Americans once refer to as “Perfidious Albion”?

Answer: Thomas Jefferson coined the derogatory term about England. Albion being one of the islands name in antiquity.


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