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Sept. 2, 2021
September 2nd, 2021

Quiz: What is a Vigilante?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Which one was born in Britain? Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gustav Holst, Bob Hope
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History for 9/2/2021
Birthdays: Hawaiian Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, Yang Tsu Ching leader of the Taiping Rebellion, Cleveland Amory, Alfred Spaulding 1850, founder of Spaulding sports equipment, Martha Mitchell, Mark Harmon is 70, Marge Champion, Terry Bradshaw, Chrysta McAuliffe, Jimmy Connors, Norm Ferguson, Selma Hayek is 54, Keanu Reeves is 57

44BC- In the Roman senate, Marcus Cicero delivered the first of his speeches condemning Mark Anthony. He called them his Philippics, because they were modeled on Demosthenes’ speeches against Phillip of Macedon.

31 BC- The Battle of Actium- Large naval battle near Corfu that decided that Octavian and not Anthony & Cleopatra would be the master of Rome. Legend has it that before a battle the priests spread out sacred chicken feed and could predict victory or defeat based on how the sacred chickens would peck. This time the chicken wouldn't peck. Anthony said:" If the chickens won't peck, then let them drink!" And had them all thrown overboard. He lost the battle. Don't mess with the sacred chickens!

1191-Richard the Lionheart and Sultan Saladin made peace. Contrary to legend and Hollywood movies, Richard and Saladin never met face to face. Saladin couldn't defeat Richard in open battle but knew the English king's time in the Holy Land was limited, because he had to get his lands back from his brother Prince John. Richard knew Saladin was old, his Jihad was spent, and Richard fully expected to return by 1196 and then take Jerusalem. So, he made peace for now. He got for Christians the freedom to worship at the Holy Sepulcher, which they always had before the Crusades anyway. Richard even offered his sister in marriage to Saladin’s brother. Saladin died the following year, but Richard never did return to Palestine. He died in 1199 from a gangrenous arrow-scratch while attacking a castle in France named Chalus.

1415- Czech theologian Jan Hus had traveled to a Church conference in Constance to explain why the Church needed to be reformed. The Church elders burned him as a heretic, despite a promise of safety. This day 500 Czech leaders signed a note to the Vatican stating Hus was a good Catholic, they denounced his burning and declared they would fight to the last drop of blood for his doctrines. The Hussite Wars Began.

1609- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEW YORK CITY. Henry Hudson and his Dutch ship "Halve Maen -Half Moon" entered New York Harbor. Twenty canoes of Indians rowed out to welcome the strange looking craft. The French under Cartier and English under Cabot had cruised by years earlier but did not bother to settle there.
Hudson sailed 100 miles up the Hudson looking for China, but he just found more river and forest. He reported home about this "Great River, not unlike the Rhine and this Great Natural Bay, Wherein a Thousand Ships May Ride Tranquilly in Harbor."

1666- THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON- started in the bakery shop of Thomas Farynor on Pudding Lane. The Lord Mayor was woken up at 3:00AM. At first, he was not impressed, “Tosh, an old woman might piss it out!" Actually, it burned down the city, including Old St. Paul's Cathedral. 200,000 Londoners were left homeless. King Charles and his brother James (James II) pitched in personally as firefighters.
After several days struggle it was finally put out. Samuel Pepys climbed up the steeple of Old St. Brides and recorded his eyewitness account in his diary. It was a tough time to be a Londoner, because shortly before the Great Fire was the Great Plague. But the great architect Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Paul’s and other London monuments into the beautiful images we know today.

1752 - Last Julian or Old-Style calendar day in Britain and her colonies, including the
US and Canada. You went to sleep the evening of Sept. 2nd and awoke on the morning of Sept. 14th. The Gregorian Calendar had been promulgated in Rome in 1582, but it took this long for the Protestant countries to get on board with the new system.

1772- The FIRST PARTITION OF the POLAND. Russia, Austria and Prussia start to digest Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus (then called the Voivode of Ruthenia), Moldova and the Baltic States. These nations disappear in 1794 not to reappear until 1919 (and later until 1991). English statesman William Pitt called it "One of the great political crimes of our Century." This gives folks like Frederic Chopin, Josef Conrad, Madame Curie and Pulaski an opportunity to chalk up a lot of travel miles in exile.

1775- The U.S. Navy is born. George Washington gave a commission to the U.S.S. Hannah. Most of the infant navy were privately funded pirate ships, given the nice label "commissioned privateer". The British refused to give Americans the status of foreign belligerents, so they referred to any sea-going Yankees as Pirates.

1784- Thomas Coke was named the first Bishop of the Methodist rite, by founder John Wesley.

1792- The September Massacres- When the French Revolution seized power the mob locked up pro French royalists, noblemen and priests. They were confused about just how far to go with trying them. But this day after radical publisher Jean Paul Marat called for death to all traitors because they were plotting with the German invaders to destroy the Revolution, mobs broke into the various prisons around Paris. They murdered the inmates by the thousands with swords, clubs and lynching from streetlights. "A’ la Lantern!" meant hang people from a lamppost. The massacres continued until Sept. 6th, but the real Reign of Terror was just getting started.

1795- Happy Birthday Cleveland. A group of Connecticut businessmen buy a tract of land on Lake Erie and lay out a new settlement. Their agent and project supervisor Moses Cleveland names the place for himself.

1814- A landing party from the British warship HMS Hermes visited the Louisiana pirate Jean Lafitte in his lair at Barataria Island in the swamps near the Bayou St. Jean. They offered him a captaincy in the Royal Navy and $30,000 dollars in gold if he would aid the British in capturing New Orleans. Lafitte said he would think about it, then passed on all he heard to the Americans. It was the first warning the Americans had that the British planned to attack in force at the mouth of the Mississippi.

1859- THE CARRINGTON EVENT. One of the largest geomagnetic solar storms ever recorded struck the Earth. The Aurora Borealis was seen as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed. In the Pacific Northwest, the aurora was so bright that people could read a newspaper at night by its light. According to calculations by insurers Lloyd's of London and risk assessor AER, if a storm of the same magnitude struck the Earth now, it would cause up to $2.6 trillion worth of damage. The storm is known as the Carrington event after the British astronomer, Richard Carrington, who recorded the storm's genesis as a sunspot on 28 August.

1864- "Luki Lock the Door! The Yankees are coming!" Sherman’s army entered Atlanta.

1897 – McCalls magazine first published.

1898-BATTLE OF OMDURMAN Lord Herbert Kitchener the Sirdar turned heavy cannon and machine guns on attacking Sudannese tribesmen. Kitchener later revealed his cruel side by refusing any medical aid for the enemy wounded and letting hundreds of them die slowly where they fell. 20,000 Sudanese fell to 48 British casualties. Standing in the field of corpses Kitchener said he had given the enemy a "Thoroughly Good Dusting." Kipling writes some neat poems, young Winston Churchill gets decorated and Kitchener breaks open the tomb of the Dervish religious messiah El Mahdi and had, his skull made into a drinking cup. Prime Minister Gladestone told him this is not a terribly civilized thing to do, so he got rid of it.

1901- In a speech Teddy Roosevelt said the U.S. should " Speak softly and carry a big stick!"

1909- On the three hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery New York City held a grand birthday party. Hundreds of ships and public spectacles capped off with Wilbur Wright flying his new aeroplane around the Statue of Liberty. Thomas Edison illuminating the entire skyline with the new electric bulbs- the first time a city was illuminated at night by electricity.

1917- Baron von Richtofen the Red Baron took to the sky with with his new all red Fokker triplane. In it, he forced down an English Sopwith Camel fighter plane intact. The rotary engine Fokker had a design flaw that made it buck sharply to the right whenever you let up on the rudder bar. Richtofen would let an enemy get behind him, then he would lift his foot from the bar. The plane would jerk quickly to the right and he would zip behind his opponent. Then with a cheerful wave he'd shoot them down.

1922 -Weimar President Fritz Ebert declares "Deutschland uber Alles" as the German national anthem . The song was written in the 1770’s by Franz Josef Haydn, who had heard God Save the King while touring in London and decided his Kaiser needed an anthem. It was originally named Gott Enhalte Kaiser Franz.

1924- Harold Lloyd’s comedy short "Why Worry?" released.

1925- French and Spanish troops attacked the Moroccan coastline under Abdl el Krim to re-establish their colonial interests. The first Spanish troops landing at Alhucemas Bay were led by a Colonel Francisco Franco, later dictator of Spain.

1930 - 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US –only 37 hrs.

1931-Young new singer Bing Crosby sang for the first time on CBS radio.

1935- A huge hurricane submerged the Florida Keys, killing 443. They did not give them names yet.

1942- At the Changi POW Camp in Malaysia, Japanese authorities were having difficulty convincing their British prisoners to be slave labor to build the Bridge on the River Quai. At Selarang Barracks they herded 15,000 prisoners into a building only meant to house 1,000. In the morning the surviving prisoners agreed to work. Artist Ronald Searle survived and was there to record the incident.

1945- WORLD WAR II OFFICIALLY ENDED. The Grand Surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on board the U.S.S. Missouri. The Imperial Japanese forces signed the surrender documents before the representatives of the great powers. General Douglas MacArthur presided. His normally pompous speaking style seemed appropriate for this dramatic moment:" These proceedings are now concluded. The most tragic era in human history has drawn to a close. We hope that future generations will not resort to war to resolve their problems."
The only glitch in the ceremony was the Canadian representative signed the surrender in the space reserved for the Japanese ambassador, and MacArthur brought his own pens which he then took back for souvenirs. General Claire Chennault, the leader of the Flying Tigers had an ego almost as big as MacArthur's. He was the American general most under enemy fire, but he was not invited to the ceremony because the top brass considered him a pain in the ass.

1946- "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O’Neill premiered at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway.

1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes. CBS names a new reporter to star in their broadcast with the title "news anchor"- Walter Cronkite.

1964- Ten months after his brother’s assassination, Robert Kennedy resigned his post as attorney general of the United States to run for Senator of New York. Bobbie Kennedy and new president Lyndon Johnson hated one another. Johnson said he felt snubbed by that "Pipsqueak and his Massachusetts Mafia." Bobbie Kennedy referred to the President and First Lady as "Colonel Cornpone and the Little Piggy". Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968 in part was because he felt he would have to put his popularity up against Bobby Kennedy.

1969- The first ATM opened at a branch of Chemical Bank at Rockville Center, NY.

1973- J.R.R. Tolkein died at age 81. He once said of his trilogy The Lord of the Rings- “I should have written more.”

1985- A team of French and American oceanographers led by Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the final resting place of the HMS Titanic, which sank in 1912.
Ballard would go on to discover the German battleship Bismarck, the WWII carrier Yorktown and JFK’s torpedo boat, the P.T. 109. Recently Dr. Ballard announced he was hunting for Amelia Earhart’s airplane.
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Yesterday’s Quiz:Which one was born in Britain? Oscar Wilde, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gustav Holst, Bob Hope

Answer: Bob Hope, but also Gustav Holst. His parents were Norwegian immigrants, but he was born in the UK. Wilde was born in Ireland, Tolkein born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.


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