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Aug 21, 2020
August 21st, 2020

Quiz: Pres. Barack Obama’s Convention speech has been called a Jeremiad to the nation. What is a Jeremiad?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What modern country was originally the French colony of IndoChine (IndoChina)?
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History for 8/21/2020
Birthdays: Christopher Robin Milne-1920, King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie*, Wilt (Wilt the Stilt) Chamberlain, Friz Freleng, Kenny Rogers, Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Vance Gerry, Basil Poliodouris, Steve Hillenberg the creator of Spongebob Squarepants, Peter Weir is 76, Kim Catrall is 64, Carrie Anne Moss is 53

*Count Basie's first name was William. When working in a swing band he'd often get to work late. This would make the band's director ask, “Where is that no-account Basie? “ which in his colloquial slang came out: "Where dat no' Count Basie!?" Hence the nickname.

Consualia- Roman Festival of the first Harvest

1560 –Danish scientist Tycho Brahe wrote that he had become interested in astronomy.

1561- Queen Catherine de Medici attempts to solve the bitter wrangling over Protestants and Catholics dividing France by convening a grand Estates General at Fontainbleau. Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspar Coligny presented the Petition of the Huguenots. By then 20% of the French population were Protestant (Huguenots). They declared loyalty to the crown while asking that all men be allowed to worship as they pleased. It didn’t work. Soon Catholics and Huguenots were killing each other in the streets. Coligny was murdered in the Great Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

1810- After the Swedish Royal family, the Vasas, died out, the Swedish Diet, with major arm twisting by Napoleon, voted to have French General Bernadotte, married to the daughter of one of Nappy's old girlfriends Desiree' Clary, become the new King and Queen. Napoleon saw this move as adding Sweden to his continental empire but Bernadotte later changed sides and gave Napoleon the shaft. At the end of the Napoleonic wars Bernadotte hoped the Russian Czar would reward him with the throne of France but he let him keep Norway to add to his kingdom. Two centuries later Napoleon and the Czar’s families have lost their thrones, but Bernadotte’s descendants still rule Sweden today.

1820- After Argentina and Chile had been liberated from Spain, the army of Jose San Martin embarked from Valparaiso to invade Peru.

1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the congressional seat, but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House, Douglas was his strong supporter.

1863- THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisans. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding Missouri raiders flying black flags into town.
As the wild horsemen galloped up Massachusetts Avenue burning and looting, Quantrill stood up in his saddle and shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill all the n-loving Yankees!” There was no regular army there. They murdered 200 civilians, mostly defenseless old men and boys. A guerrilla named Rev Larkin Skaggs tore down the Stars & Stripes and dragged it behind his horse in the dirt to the laughter of the troops. There were some regular Confederate officers present who were appalled at the carnage. They later showed their unfired weapons to survivors to witness that they did not take part in the crimes.
Rev. Skaggs was shot down by a Delaware Indian as he tried to ride out of town. The citizens dragged his scalped corpse up and down the main street shooting it and pelting it with stones. It was later tossed into a ravine for wild dogs to eat. Many people never recovered from the nightmare. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War, William Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like 17 year old Jesse James, Frank James and Cole Younger.

1878 - American Bar Association was organized at Sarasota, NY.

1887- Mighty (Dan) Casey struck out at his last at bat with the NY Giants. The poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer was written many years later.

1888- William S. Burroughs of St Louis patented the first modern adding machine, not counting the abacus.

1897- Ransom Eli Olds opened the Olds Auto Works in Detroit. The produced a new horseless carriage he called the Oldsmobile.

1911- Café waiter Vincenzo Perugia walked into the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa. After trying to fence it for two years, he tried to ransom it back. He was arrested and the painting recovered.

1912- Arthur Eldred of Oceanside New York became the first Eagle scout.

1921- On his first birthday, Christopher Robin Milne was given a Farrell teddy bear from Harrods. His parents first called it Edward, but when he could speak Christopher Robin named it Winnie, after Winnipeg, his favorite bear he saw at the zoo. The child would also mention the name of a swan there he liked named Pooh. This gave his dad A.A. Milne a neat idea for a new book.

1929- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo marry.

1931- Pardon Us, the first feature length film starring Laurel & Hardy. In 1926, Hal Roach director Leo McCarey noticed the Briton Stan Laurel and Georgia born singer Oliver Hardy looked funny together, and put them in a series of shorts. Laurel & Hardy became one of the greatest comedy teams in film history.

1935- Big band leader Benny Goodman was having a tough time. His band lost its radio gig when the show Let’s Dance was canceled. So he and his musicians drove across the country in a small caravan of cars playing various venues on the road. They were told in small towns to stop playing that newfangled Swing music and stick to old standards. One manager in Denver told him:” Don’t you guys know any waltzes? ” By the time they arrived in Los Angeles this day they were thoroughly demoralized. But today when they set up in the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood the crowd was immense! And these kids wanted to jitterbug to the new Swing music! So hit it, Jackson, Awl Reet, Awl Reet!

1941- Nazi forces cut off the supplies and began the 800 day Siege of Leningrad. A directive from Berlin announced “The Fuehrer has decided to have St. Petersburg wiped off the face of the earth.” The epic siege would earn Leningrad the title of Hero-City. Dmitri Shostakovitch wrote and debuted his Leningrad symphony (#7) even as the Nazi Stukas reigned bombs down from above. He would have to take periodic breaks from composing to serve in the city fire brigade. Leningrad’s stand probably saved Moscow because it tied down troops the Germans needed for the final drive on the Russian Capitol. After Communism’s fall in 1991 Leningrad regained its original name of St. Petersburg.

1944- Moviestar James Cagney, star of Yankee Doodle Dandy, was cleared of charges of Communism. The accusations probably had less to do with Cagney's politics and more to do with his actor’s union activism, and his fighting in court the restrictive personal contracts studios put their stars under.

1959- Hawaii became the 50th state.

1961- The British colonial authorities release Kenyan nationalist leader Njomo Kenyatta from prison.

1967 –New York Mets second baseman Ken Harrelson became the first free agent.

1968- RUSSIAN TANKS CRUSH THE "PRAGUE SPRING' -Soviet forces destroyed Alexander Dubchek's experiment of "Socialism with a Human Face." 650.000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops moved on the small country from three sides. Some of the Red Army soldiers marching into Prague were from Siberia and had never seen a western city before. Carlos Casteneda, who was there for a socialist progressive conference, recalled seeing a Soviet tank crash right through a department store glass window. The driver had never seen a glass window that large and didn't think anything was there. A Czech put a sign over the window frame: "NOTHING CAN STOP THE INVINCIBLE RED ARMY !"

1972 - Grace Slick was sprayed with mace by police after one of her band called the cops pigs.

1983- Benino Aquino, chief political opponent of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, was promised no reprisals if he returned from exile in Hawaii. Stepping off the plane in Manila an assassin immediately shot him dead. His wife Cory Aquino took over, and led the "people power" revolution that toppled Marcos.

1987- The movie Dirty Dancing opened.

1989- The Voyager II space probe flew by the planet Neptune. It was discovered Neptune had a faint ring like Saturn and rotated on its side- south-north instead of west to east. Scientists speculated the atmospheric pressure to be so great that it could actually rain diamonds.

1995- Bill Gates announced Microsoft Windows 95.

2003- A two-week heatwave in Europe killed 17,000 in France. 13,000 people dead in Germany, Italy 12,000. Most were elderly people sitting in their locked apartments without air conditioning while their families went on their august holidays. It is probably the largest heat wave death in modern times, since it took place in only a few days.

2011- Anti Khaddafi rebels push into the Libyan capitol Tripoli, completing the dictator’s overthrow.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What modern country was originally the French colony of IndoChine (IndoChina)?

Answer: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.


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