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Oct.10, 2019
October 10th, 2019

Quiz: You all heard of Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, and Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck, Jack Mercer was Popeye. But who was Pinto Colvig?

Yesterday’s question answered below: My mom used to say to me,” You keep doing all that reading and drawing you’re gonna be cockeyed!” What is the origin of cockeyed?
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History for 10/10/2019
Birthdays: Martin Luther, Giuseppe Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, Early female animator LaVerne Harding, Boer leader Paul Kruger, Ed Wood Jr., Alberto Giacometti, Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson the Little Mermaid, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 61, Sharon Osbourne is 67

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo da Vinci and Massaccio, but for a monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Filipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492- According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost broke out into open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice, and encouraging moderation to all.

The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California, a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising was put down and the Church responded with a period of forced baptisms.

1794- Battle of Mazowzse - Thaddeus Kosciuszko's attempt to bring what he learned from the American Revolution home to Poland, doesn't work against the Czar’s army.

1800- The Gabriel Prosser Slave Revolt. Gabriel Prosser was a Virginia slave who planned an organized uprising in the Richmond area. He was described by a contemporary as “a fellow of courage and intellect above his rank in life.”
His plan was to set fire to the downtown wharves as a distraction then seize guns from the armory and negotiate from strength for his followers freedom. His plan had specific instructions about who was friend or foe. He wrote: “Once armed Kill Everyone except Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen.” Informers betrayed his plan before he could put it into action, and this day Prosser and his men were all hanged.

1842- King Frederich Wilhelm IV issued a new style of headgear to the Prussian Army, a pressed leather and metal helmet with a distinctive spike on top. The spiked helmet became famous and was called the Pickelhaube, or Pickle Sticker. It lasted until World War One in 1918.

1845- The US Naval Academy at Annapolis opened.

1846- Neptune’s moon Triton discovered by William Lassell.

1886- The first Tuxedo worn by Pierre Lorrilard at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1911- Ten-Ten National Day- Chinese demanding a republic seize the city of Wuhan and begin to march to Beijing. Their leader Dr. Sun Yat Sen was at this time in Denver soliciting funds for their cause. The Wuhan Uprising is the beginning of the final overthrow of the Manchu Emperors. One of the revolutionaries first recruits was a young Hunan man named Mao Zedong.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their TV screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V.

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company owned by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.

1957- President Eisenhower had to apologize to Komla Gbdemah, a diplomat from Ghana, after he was refused service at a segregated restaurant in Dover, Delaware.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1968- Jane Fonda does her zero-gravity striptease and runs into a kinky organist Duran-Duran, the film Barbarella premiered.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country, not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc. Lyndon Johnson had said of Jerry Ford: "Jerry's a good senator, but sometimes I think he played too much football with his helmet off."

1979-The Panama Canal Zone returned to Panamanian sovereignty.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taay !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- Intimidated into believing Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons, and fear in the general population of another 9-11 style terrorist attack, the U.S. Congress voted overwhelming war-making powers to President George W. Bush. He pledged to us to use them only as a last resort, although we now know his team had been secretly drawing up Iraq invasion plans for months. The U.S. invasion of Iraq began the following March. And we are still there.

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Yesterday’s Question: My mom used to say to me,” You keep doing all that reading and drawing you’re gonna be cockeyed!” What is the origin of cockeyed?

Answer: “cockeyed” From the Irish and Gaelic word “caog,” meaning “wink,” especially in the compound “caogshuileach,” meaning “squint-eyed.” Originally meaning someone whose eyes are out of sync or otherwise irregular, later meaning an idea which it rash, ill-considered or wildly irregular. (Thanks, DP)


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