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March 9, 2021
March 9th, 2021

Question: It takes 24 hours for the Earth to rotate on its axis. How long does it take the moon to do the same?

Yesterdays Question answered below: What is Mytacism?
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History for 3/9/2021
Birthdays: Amerigo Vespucci, Eddie Foy., Yuri Gargarin, Samuel Barber, chess master Bobby Fischer, Mickey Spillane, Vita Sackville-West, Raul Julia, Vacheslav Molotov, Juliet Binoche is 57, Linda Fiorentino is 63, Lil’ Bow-Wow is 34

1522- Protestant reformer Martin Luther had inspired the people of Germany to throw off the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. But he soon became alarmed by the excesses he heard of. People were burning churches and stoning priests who refused to change their ways. One bishop fed Holy Communion wafers to his pet parrot.
This day Martin Luther came out of protective hiding and donned his monks robes to give a series of 8 sermons from the pulpit in Wittenberg. He called people back to order and to show mercy to those who still preferred the old religion. Stop the violence he said" had I not freed millions of men from ecclesiastical oppression without lifting more than one pen?"

1566- The Scottish Presbyterian nobles around Mary Queen of Scots disliked her Italian Catholic secretary Antonio Riccio. So today despite the Queens protests, they dragged him off and stabbed him to death.

1796- NAPOLEON & JOSEPHINE'S WEDDING ANNIVERSARY- Legend has it Napoleon was working late at the office planning to attack Italy so arrived two hours late. The minister had dozed off and Napoleon shouted:" Wake up Citizen and Marry Us!" Josephine (34) was about 8 years older than Nappy (26) so to smooth over the difference on the marriage certificate he made himself 18 months older and she took four years off.

1805- YORK -Several times the Lewis & Clark expedition was saved from attack because natives were amazed to see York, Captain Clark's slave. He was the first black man they had ever seen.
This day York was introduced to Mandan Chief One-Eyed Le Bourgne. Le Bourgne first tried to rub the color off with water but when he saw York's dark hair he whooped for joy! The whites were hairy, pale and ugly, but this man was strong and beautiful like a buffalo! A very powerful symbol in Mandan culture.
Chief LeBourgne immediately invited York to make love to two Mandan maidens so a physical record of this great event would remain with the tribe.
York found himself on several more occasions urged to be a sexual diplomat on behalf of the United States.

1822- First patent in the U.S. issued for ceramic false teeth. Before that they were made of a strong oak; George Washington once tried a set made of deer's teeth set in lead that was too heavy for him to close his mouth. He settled for a set carved from a hippopotamus jaw. In Gilbert Stuarts’ painting the bulge seen in his tightly compressed upper lip is his dentures.

1841- After hearing the arguments of former president John Quincy Adams, the US Supreme Court ruled that the African men who overpowered the crew of the Spanish slave ship La Amistad could go home to Africa.

1842- Francisco Lopez discovered gold in Placerita Canyon in Southern California.

1846- With the lavish ceremony before the gates of Lahore, Britain concluded the First Sikh War. One of the tributes handed over was the Koh-in-Noor Diamond, The Mountain of Light, at 800 karats the largest diamond in the world. It is now part of the crown jewels of Britain.

1847- General Winfield Scott began landing the U.S. troops off ships in the harbor of Vera Cruz in landing boats he designed. He hoped to emulate Cortez's march of conquest to Mexico City. It was the first large scale amphibious landings in U.S. Army history.

1858- THE MAILBOX is patented. One legend has it first invented by English writer Anthony Trollope.

1862- THE MONITOR VS. THE MERRIMAC. The first battle between iron warships. The Confederate Merrimac also called the Virginia spent yesterday shooting up the wooden Yankee fleet, it's armor plating laughing off their cannonballs.

She was preparing to finish the job today when the weirdly designed little U.S.S. Monitor chugged into view. The two ironclads fought to a draw, but it saved the remainder of the Union fleet. \They kept bouncing cannonballs off their iron sides all day. At one point the Confederate captain asked his gunnery officer why he had stopped firing. He replied:" Because I'm doing her as much damage as if I snapped my fingers at her every two and a half minutes!" The Merrimac's crew even tried to board the Monitor with pistols and cutlasses, but she was too un-maneuverable to catch her. Finally exhausted, they both drew off for the night.

The CSS Merrimac was later blown up when it's home base at Norfolk was captured by Union forces and the USS Monitor sank in a storm. But both sides began to build more iron warships.

1888- While strolling through his garden, writer Jules Verne was shot by an emotional deranged nephew. He recovered, but walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

1907-Former Edison animator J. Stuart Blackton started "Moving Picture World" an early movie fanzine.

1913- Virginia Woolf completed her first novel The Voyage Out.

1916- Pancho Villa and his Mexican Revolutionaries- Los Dorados, crossed into Texas and New Mexico and at the town of Columbus killed 17 Americans and burned the town. Villa was angry that the Yankees had intervened in the Mexican revolution several times and allowed American railroads to transport the troops of his enemy General Carranza. Pancho Villa was pursued by U.S. troops under Blackjack Pershing, leading men who would one day command Americas armies, like Lieutenant George Patton and Captain Douglas MacArthur.

1917- During the air battles over the Western Front this day a red German Fokker Albatross biplane was forced down over his own lines. Friendly troops carried the pilot to safety, stunned but okay. When they asked him how many planes he shot down, he murmured "24". The men thought he was a liar until they undid the scarf around his neck and saw his Blue Max medal. The pilot was Von Richtofen, the Red Baron. Baron von Richtofen would recover and go back into combat, scoring 80 kills until he was finally killed himself in April 1918.

1932-New York born Eamon DeValera elected first President of the Republic of Ireland.

1932- China’s last Manchu emperor Henry Pu Yi was declared by the Japanese Army emperor of their conquered territory in Manchuria called Manchukuo.

1945- U.S. B-29s drop massive amounts of incendiary bombs on Tokyo, killing 120,000 people, more than Hiroshima (90,000). USAF General Curtis LeMay told his assistant Robert MacNamara that "If the Japanese had won the war, we would’ve been prosecuted as war criminals."

1954- Edgar R. Murrow does his "See It Now" television broadcast detailing the life of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the commie-chaser. The obvious contradictions and gross opportunism in McCarthy's record when laid out before a nationwide audience, destroyed his career and took the steam out of the "Red Scare" of the 50's. It is probably television journalism's finest moment. For the lowest? Well, what's on tonight?

1955- Actor James Dean’s film, East of Eden, premiered today,

1959-The first "Clutch Cargo" show.

1974- Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda came out of the Philippine jungle and surrendered, at last made to understand that World War II had been over for thirty years. Even after he captured a transistor radio, he thought the broadcast news of American troops in Vietnam and Korea was just propaganda. Onoda was finally convinced when Japanese researchers produced his elderly retired Major, who was driven through the jungle while reading over a bullhorn the surrender orders he first gave in 1945. Lt. Onoda returned to Japan a popular, if confused, hero. Onoda died in 2012 at age 94.

1984- Roy E. Disney Jr., Walt’s nephew, resigned from the central board of the Walt Disney Company, setting in motion a series of takeover bids and maneuvering that by August would wrest control of the company from Ron Miller, Walt’s son-in-law.

1984- Touchstone pictures Splash premiered, featuring Tom Hanks, John Candy and a tastefully topless Daryl Hannah.

1989- Artist-photographer Robert Maplethorpe died of AIDS.

1997- Gangsta-rap singer Christopher Wallace, who was known as the Notorious B.I.G. and also called Biggie Smalls, was shot and killed by a gangsta-style drive by. His last album was entitled Life After Death. Notorious BIG could never shake the accusation that he was involved in the similar murder of singer Tupac Shakur.
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Yesterdays Question: What is Mytacism?

Answer: A: Mytacism is a too recurrent use of the letter m in speech or writing. For instance, when people say "ok" by adding an m-sound at the start so it is pronounced "mmmmkay," or when they say "bye" by doing the same and so pronouncing the word as "mmmmbye."


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