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Sept 20, 2019
September 20th, 2019

Question: Founded in 1900, who belonged to the organization called The White Rats?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Which board game is older? Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Stratego, Candyland.
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History for 9/20/2019
Birthdays: Alexander the Great -357 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy, Pia Lindstrom, Gary Cole, Fran Drescher, George R.R. Martin is 71, animator Nancy Beiman, Sophia Loren is 85

356BC- The Great Temple of Diana of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of a lunatic arsonist from Halicarnassus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by King Croesus the Lydian who had so much wealth the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use. Why had the goddess would allow her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great to keep a watch on her own house.

188AD- Feast of St. Eustachius. Eustachius Placidius was a general under Trajan, who after profession his Christianity, was locked in a bronze bull and roasted to death.

450AD-Battle of Chalons-Attila the Hun is decisively defeated by Theodoric the Visigoth and Aetius, the general of what was left of the dying Roman Empires’ legions. Attila's shaman had predicted a great chief would die that day. Theodoric wound up being the one killed, even as his warriors were winning the battle.

1400- The Welsh under Owen Glendower revolt against English rule. Supposedly the fierce bowmen marched into battle to the sound of harps. Owen had captured English Prince Edwin Mortimer. He not only treated him well but he married Owens daughter creating the Tudor family of British monarchs.

1519- Fernand de Magellan sailed from Seville, Spain. His original mission from King Charles I was to seize the Moluccas from Portugal, now part of Indonesia. Instead his fleet was the first to sail around the world.

1670- English poet John Milton published his last works “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”. He was blind but dictated to a secretary who wrote down his poems. When he felt the inspiration he would call him by saying:” Come. I need to be milked.”

1714- George I of Hanover entered his new capitol of London as King of England. The German George feared his new subjects as treacherous revolutionists who’d overthrown and executed their earlier kings. So he deliberately waited out the huge throngs lining the streets come to welcome him. He slipped into the city in the dead of night, after most had gone home to bed disappointed. George never bothered to learn English.” The English have asked me to rule them, not to speak to them!”

1746- Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped Scotland to France, the Highland Rebellion ended.

1777- No-Flint Grey- In the dead of night British troops surprise attack American colonial forces under Gen Mad Anthony Wayne asleep in their camp at Paoli Tavern. British Commander Charles Grey ordered his men not to waste time loading their muskets, but just go at them silently with the bayonet. To ensure his order was obeyed he collected their musket flints, for which he earned the nickname “No Flint Grey”. Paoli Tavern was called a massacre by the press because the perception was 500 men were stabbed as they slept. Fact is, only 150 casualties were reported, and George Washington had used the same kind of surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton earlier that year.

1792-BATTLE OF VALMY- French revolutionaries (The Sans-cullottes, without breeches- aka rich people pants) mow down the Prussian army, the best soldiers in Europe, who were marching on Paris to suppress their revolution and rescue King Louis XVI. The cool, professional Prussian troops, used to the powdered bewigged, silk stockings type of soldier, had underestimated the passions unleashed by the enraged masses shouting "Aux Armes, Citoyen!"
Another problem the Germans had was an excess of diarrhea among the ranks from eating too many grapes in the Champagne region. The great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe was there as an adviser to his patron the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Although Goethe did not fight, he stood cool under fire. Watching the spectacle Goethe predicted: “From today and from this place begins a new epoch in the History of the World”.

1803- Irish patriot Robert Emmett was executed for leading an abortive uprising against the British. His final words became famous: “ Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, Let my epitaph be written.”

1814- A new poem by Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was first published in the Baltimore Patriot. First called the Defense of Fort McHenry. Keys brother in law Judge Nicholson suggested it sounded good sung to the tune To Anacreon in Heaven’. Soon everyone was singing it as the Star Spangled Banner.

1830-The first National Convention of African-Americans convened.

1839- The steamer British Queen first brought news of the invention of Photography and the Daguerreotype process to the U.S. Soon everyone is happily snapping away.

1853- Elisha Otis revolutionized building construction by demonstrating his elevator that didn’t fall when the cable was cut.

1863-BATTLE OF CHICKAMAGUA- Bloody Civil War battle in Eastern Tennessee. Union General Rosecrans moved some troops to fill an imagined gap in his line and opened up a real gap that Confederate General Bragg exploited to rout the Yankees. The Union army was only saved by the rearguard defense of Gen. George H. Thomas, who earned the name "Rock of Chickamagua". The fighting was unusually vicious, when soldiers ran out of bullets they threw rocks, clubbed and strangled each other.

Lincoln's opinion of the losing commander, Rosecrans:" Old Rosy's acts stunned, like a duck that's been struck on the head." Rosecrans was a devout Catholic and had the habit of crossing himself frequently and sitting with his head in his hands. He had verbally insulted most of the top officers of the U.S. Army, yet despite this his troops loved him.

1870- The Italian Army captured Rome from the Papal guards and allied French troops and completed the unification of Italy. The city was under Napoleon III's protection until he was defeated and overthrown by the Germans in the Franco Prussian War. The status of the Pope in an Italian Rome remained ambiguous until 1927, when Mussolini signed the Concordat (Treaty) creating the Vatican City-state.

1918- Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab army enter Damascus. Lawrence had inspired Prince Faisal's Bedouin tribesmen that they were fighting for their own all-Arab nation. But the British and the French had no intention of honoring that pledge and that knowledge gnawed at Lawrence. Arabia was divided into British and French protectorates (a civil servant named Speeckes created Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia with a stick in the sand) and Lawrence returned to England a spiritually broken, albeit famous, man.

1942- SUPERSNIPER- This day during the terrible Battle of Stalingrad, a young shepherd boy from the Ural Mountains named Vassily Zaitsiev arrived to fight the Nazis. Zaistsiev turned out to be the deadliest sniper since Sgt. York. In ten days he shot forty Germans, mostly officers- one man, one bullet. The Germans got so upset they sent for a top marksman from Bavaria named Major Koenig.
For the next few weeks the two supersnipers waged a private duel in the ruins of the city Stalingrad. In mid-October, Zaitsiev finally got Koenig. Vassily Zaitsev survived the war and his rifle is lovingly preserved in the Volgograd Museum today. The duel was made into a movie called Enemy at the Gates with Jude Law.

1944- Now that the Pacific War was winding down martial law was lifted on the Hawaiian Islands. It had been imposed since Pearl Harbor. One tragic result for the servicemen was that the first thing the restored chief of Honolulu police did was shut down the busy brothels of Waikiki. The area known as Hotel Street was ringed with houses servicing servicemen. One sailor reminisced: I got stewed, screwed and tattooed, all in one night.” The quarters most famous hooker, Chicago-born Jean O’Hara said: “ I think I slept with the entire US Navy.”

1947- Tex Avery’s MGM cartoon Slap Happy Lion.

1952- CBS premiered the Jackie Gleason Show- The Honeymooners".

1955- The Phil Silvers Show, originally entitled You’ll Never Get Rich” debuted on CBS. Silvers played con-man soldier Sgt. Bilko.

1973- Musician Jim Croce (30) died in a charter plane crash near Natchitoches Louisiana.

1977- During the premiere episode of the 5th season of the show Happy Days, Henry Winkler’s Fonzi character water-skis in his trademark black leather jacket and jumps a ramp over a live shark. This caused writer Jon Hein to coin the term Jumping the Shark. It has come to mean pinpointing the moment a quality show or person descends into banal silliness.

1979- The Central African Empire of Boukassa I was overthrown with the aid of 700 French paratroops. Jean Bedel Boukassa was known for repression, and spending one quarter of the gross national income of his nation just on his coronation. He had a golden throne made based on Napoleon Bonaparte’s, but changed it when he saw it wasn’t opulent enough. The Central African Republic was declared.

1984- The Cosby Show premiered.

1989- A Los Angeles court found Richard Ramirez guilty of the Night Stalker crimes- 43 counts including 13 murders, rape, burglary and sodomy. He would draw a Satanic pentagram in the victim’s blood at the scene.

2001- In his first address to congress since the 9-11 attack, President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” that would be war everlasting.

2001- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away released in the US.
The first Japanese anime film to win an Oscar.
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Question: Which board game is older? Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, Stratego, Candyland.

Answer: Monopoly in 1935. Chutes and Ladders -1943, Stratego- the 1960s, Candyland -1949.


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