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August 17, 2021
August 17th, 2021

Quiz: Whats in a name? Who said it first?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below:In ancient Rome, who was the Sibyl?
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History for 8/17/2021
Birthdays: Davy Crocket, Mae West, Marcus Garvey, Sam Goldwyn- born Schmuel Gelbfisz, Harry Hopkins, Monte Wooley, Boog Powell, Belinda Carlisle, Guillermo Vilas, V.S. Naipul, Jim Courier, Donnie Wahlberg, Belinda Carlisle, Maureen O’Hara, Sean Penn is 61, Martha Coolidge is 76, Robert DeNiro is 78

1661- THE PARTY. Nicholas Fouquet, the first minister of Louis XIV (the Sun King), had his coat of arms read "To what heights may I aspire?" He decided to throw the ultimate party for his royal master. Fouquet's chateau Vaux le Vicomte was so lavish, the dinner for 6,000 guests so exquisite, the gardens so beautiful and the entertainment was provided by the playwright Moliere. Everything was so all around superior, that the King wanted Fouquet thrown in a dungeon. It seems King Louis didn't like being upstaged by his servants. But the king’s mother didn’t want to spoil such a nice party. So the King waited two weeks, then sent his chief of musketeers, D’Artagnan, to arrest him. The king's new minister Colbert, was much more discreet in his entertaining.

1676- In Massachusetts, the conflict ended between the Pilgrims and local Indians called King Phillip’s War. This day Pilgrims placed the severed head of Wampanoag Chief Metacomet, or King Phillip, on a pole in front of the Plymouth settlement. Metacomet’s father Massacoit was the one who saved the Pilgrims from starving, and celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

1806- After two years trekking across the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean and back, Lewis and Clark finally returned to their starting point at the mouth of the Missouri. This day they paid off and said goodbye to guide Jean Charbonnau and his wife Sacajewea. That same day Private John Colter asked to be released early from service, because he desired to go back and explore some more. So while Lewis and Clark continued east to Washington City, John Colter went back into the Rocky Mountains to become the first American “Mountain Man”. Colter would discoverer Yellowstone Park. Captain Clark’s black slave York asked for equal wages as the other men because he shared all their labor and dangers. Captain Clark not only refused, he told him to never bring that up again, else he’d sell him.

1870- Battle of Gravellotte-St. Privat- The French and Prussians battle to a draw but the French Marshal Bazaine retreated anyway, to the amazement of the enemy.

1876- Richard Wagner’s 4 hour opera Gotterdamerung- the Twilight of the Gods, premiered.

1877- Billy the Kid killed his first man.

1908- D.W. Griffith signed a contract to begin directing movies for Biograph Pictures. He was paid $50 dollars a week plus royalties.

1908- The premiere of the first fully animated film, Emile Cohl's "Fantasmagorie".

1914- Battle of Tannenburg. The Russian steamroller was stopped by Gen. Paul von Hindenburg in East Prussia. Hindenburg and his brilliant aide Ludendorf divided the Russian army into two pieces separated by a salt marsh and defeated each piece in turn. The fighting was so fierce that German gunners aimed their cannons by looking right through the barrel and firing directly into the thick masses of Russian soldiers. After the battle, Russian comander Gen. Samsonov walked off into the forest and shot himself.

1941- EL GRUPO- Walt Disney and his artists arrive in Rio on a ten week goodwill tour of South America, underwritten by a $70,000 government grant. President Franklin Roosevelt was worried that some South American countries might be sympathetic to the Nazis, forcing the U.S. to worry about her backdoor. So FDR sent Nelson Rockefeller to give the Latin American countries whatever they wanted to keep them out of the world war. One of the things they wanted was Donald Duck. Back in LA the federal mediator Stanley White had worked out with Roy Disney that if they got Walt out of town, they could settle the Disney animators strike. The name comes from hotel footmen in Buenos Aires paging the artists as “ El Grupo Disney! Your bus is here.” The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos result.

1942- Carlson’s Raiders attack Japanese held Makin Island. Before the war, Marine Lt. Colonel Evan Carlson served as an observer of Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist army. He was impressed with General Chu Teh’s development of guerrilla tactics. Carlson became such a fan of their hit & run tactics, he was called “Commie-Carlson”.

1943- General Patton and his Seventh Army won the “Race to Messina” and completed the conquest of Sicily.

1945- This was supposed to be the scheduled date for the Japanese Navy to attack the Panama Canal. The Japanese had built a fleet of new I-400 class long-distance submarines that could carry 3-5 kamikaze bombers each. The crews had to surface and get their planes in the air in 17 minutes. They targeted a key lock in the canal, that once destroyed would paralyze the entire system. But when the Japanese home islands were under threat of invasion, the Imperial High Command canceled the plan.

1945- Upon hearing of the Japanese surrender, Sukarno declared the Independence of Indonesia from Holland.

1954- Walt Disney’s True Life Adventure, “ The Vanishing Prairie”, directed by James Algar, opened in theaters.

1962- The Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr. One of the reason’s they decided on Ringo was that he came with his own car.

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed its chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller had been Walt’s son-in-law and he was he was once a tight end for the LA Rams. Within two years of Michael Eisner taking power Disney was number one.

1985- The Hormel Meat Packing Strike, severely threatening the worlds supply of SPAM.

1986- Pixar short Luxo Jr, premiered at Siggraph ’86 Dallas.

1987-Nazi Rudolph Hess found hanged in his cell by an electric light cord. He was 93 years old and had been in prison for 46 years. His body was burned and his prison Spandau was leveled, to prevent it from being made a shrine by Neo-Nazis

1988- Mohammed Zia Al Haq, the president of Pakistan, died in a plane crash.

1992- Famed film director Woody Allen admitted he was having an affair with Soon Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his long time lover Mia Farrow. He was 60 and she was 21. But as the unrepentant Allen states: “The Heart wants what it wants.” They’ve been together ever since.

1994 The Great Baseball Players Strike- canceled out the season and the 1994 World Series. It was the longest strike in sports history until the NBA lockout of 1998.

1998- President Bill Clinton admitted to a grand jury that he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This is only the second time in history that a sitting President allowed himself to be put under oath. The precedent was set by Ronald Reagan testifying he “couldn’t recall” anything about Iran-Contra. But this session is when Clinton, aka Slick Willy, defended his infidelity with the amazing argument that oral sex was not intercourse in the truest sense, and therefore he did not lie when he said on nationwide television that he did not have sex with Ms. Lewinsky. Part of his legal wriggling was a dissertation on the meaning of the word “is”.

2009- Police arrest Albert Gonzales for hacking into credit card company computers and stealing 134 million credit card numbers! He was an informant for the FBI on credit card crime, and was playing a double agent, still committing crimes.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In ancient Rome, who was the Sibyl?

Answer: The Sibyl of Cumae was a powerful oracle of the god Apollo, who was as important to the Romans as the Oracle of Delphi was to the Greeks. She kept the Sybilline Books of Prophesy, called the History of the Future. She tricked Apollo into letting her live for a thousand years, but Apollos revenge was to let her body age as she lived. Roman comedians made a lot of jokes about “go kiss a Sibyl.” But they took her predictions seriously.


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