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April 27, 2022
April 27th, 2022

Quiz: Which play was NOT written by Shakespeare? A) As You Like It, B) Dr. Faustus, C) Measure for Measure, D) Much Ado About Nothing.

Yesterday’s Quiz: You heard of Romeo and Juliet, but who were Paulo and Francesca?

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History for 4/27/2022
Birthdays: Ulysses S. Grant, King Edward IV, Samuel Morse, Mary Wollenstonecraft, Edward Gibbon, Anouk Aimee, Sheena Easton, Sandy Dennis, Coretta Scott King, Kasey Kasem, Jack Klugman

1278-Today is the Feast day of Saint Zita of the Magic Beans, the patron saint of domestic servants.

1521- HAPPY LAPU-LAPU DAY! Fernan' De Magellan was the explorer who found a way around the Americas into the Pacific. Although he was ordered by the King of Spain to conquer the Portuguese Moluccas, he paused after his discovery of the Philippines to convert the population to Catholicism. Magellan tried to demonstrate the power of the Spanish to the Lord of Cebu, by attacking a village called Mactan, who was his enemy.

Almost at once everything started to go wrong. First the village was too far inland for his ships cannon. So his men had to wade ashore. In doing so their powder got wet, so their guns were useless. Then while fighting hand-to-hand, a lucky fishbone tipped spear hurled through Magellan's helmet visor and killed him. The Lord of Cebu was unimpressed. The Spanish captains tried to barter for his body, but the tribesmen said such a powerful enemy must stay for dinner, as the main course. The Chief of Mactan who killed Magellan was named Lapu-Lapu, and today he is considered a national hero.

1567- THE DUKE OF ALBA was given by King Phillip II of Spain the job of Governor General of the Netherlands and ordered him to "stamp out all Heresy, Rebellion and Freedom". Alba recruited an army of 10,000 soldiers and two thousand registered prostitutes and set up shop in Antwerp. His "Council of Troubles" prosecuted thousands of Dutch Calvinists, sometimes arresting 1,500 a day. Throughout 1568 alone, The Duke of Alba executed 60 Dutch people per day. The Dutch called it the "Council of Blood". This reign of terror gave Breughel such grim inspiration for his paintings.

1642- The English City of Hull refused to open its gates for King Charles I and his forces when he directly commanded them to. The King’s forces were still too weak to do anything but slink away. This was the first open act of defiance to Royal authority in what would become the English Civil War.

1667- Blind poet John Milton sold his masterpiece "Paradise Lost" to publisher Samuel Simmons for ten pounds. Ten years earlier under Oliver Cromwell’s patronage Milton was getting over a thousand pounds each for his poems

1763- PONTIAC’S REBELLION. After France surrendered Canada to England, the Great Lakes Indian tribes were offended by their treatment from their new British masters. The redcoats ended many of the subsidies and gift-giving the French provided.
This day an Ottawa chief named Pontiac called a secret council on the Ecorse River about ten miles below Detroit. More than 400 chiefs and warriors from the Huron, Sauk, Fox, Pottawatomis, Miamis and Ottawas attended. Chief Pontiac spoke of the words he heard from the mysterious Delaware Prophet. Delaware Prophet said he had traveled up to the Spirit World to meet the Master of Life himself, who said he was sad that the Indian had fallen victim to the White Man. The whites should be driven back across the waters to the lands the Great Spirit had set aside for them and stay there. Pontiac said only by all tribes uniting as one could they drive away the white man.
The assembled Indians pledged to join him on an attack on Fort Detroit and were soon joined by other Great Lakes Tribes. Chief Pontiac organized a simultaneous attack on all thirteen forts in the Great Lakes states, a powerful offensive now known as Pontiac’s War.

1784- Over the protests of King Louis XVI, Pierre de Beaumarchais’ play The Marriage of Figaro premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris. It was the first play to openly criticize the nobility for being no better than anyone else except for being born with money. This concept alone was radical, and it caused a sensation. Napoleon described Figaro as "The Revolution already in action".

1805-THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI- William Eaton led a small group of U.S. Marines and some Greek mercenaries capture Derna, stronghold of the Barbary Pirates and end the War with Tripoli.

1813- In the War of 1812, U.S. troops burn Toronto, then called York. They couldn't hold the territory, and quickly withdrew back into New York State. The American commander Zebulon Pike, for whom Pike's Peak is named, was killed when a slow burning match left by the retreating redcoats blew up the fort's powder magazine.

1861- President Lincoln suspended the Right of Habeas Corpus for the length of the Civil War. The old municipal jail where the modern Supreme Court Building is now began to fill up with critics of the government, pro-southern journalists and suspected spies.

1865- SULTANA DISASTER- Union P.O.W.'s liberated from the horrible prisons of Andersonville and Libby crowd onto a Mississippi steamboat called the Sultana for the ride home. After embarking from Vicksburg, the boat's boiler accidentally exploded, killing 1,700.

1884- The British government declared that Christopher Wrens 1675 observatory at Greenwich would be the central meridian point for calculating time zones. This would aid in calculation of longitudes, which is crucial in navigating the world’s oceans. Starting at Greenwich, they divided the world into 24 time zones each 15 longitudinal degrees apart.

1918- Former race car driver Eddie Rickenbacker, now a fighter pilot in WWI, shot down his first enemy plane. By Nov. he shot down 26 planes and became America’s premiere ace. He won the Medal of Honor, Croix de Guerre, was later a CEO of Eastern Airlines and even wrote a 1935 comic strip about a pilot called Ace Drummond.

1919- In the chaos of postwar Germany leftist and right wing paramilitary groups battled in the streets for political power. This day in Munich, a Communist gang broke into a military barracks to arrest a corporal they heard was a good anti-Communist orator. They took 16 men as hostages, but the corporal fought them off with a pistol and escaped. Later, the hostages were found in a ditch, all murdered. The lucky corporal who escaped was Adolf Hitler.

1940- SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction of a new concentration camp in Poland near Krakow called Auschwitz.

1950- South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, one of the first official acts separating the races and creating the system known as Apartheid.

1958- The Lavender Scare. Pres Eisenhower issued Executive order 10450, banning gays and lesbians from ever holding government jobs. 5,000 govt workers and scientists were fired. The ban was not lifted until 1977.

1964- The John Muir National Wilderness created.

1970- THE FIRST ATM- Automatic bank teller machine, opened at the Surety National Bank in downtown Los Angeles.

1975- The South Vietnamese capitol Saigon was surrounded by North Vietnamese forces.

1975- Monty Python and the Holy Grail opened in US theaters.

1979 -Navajo Indians protest Gulf Oil drilling for uranium on a sacred mountain.

1981- Ringo Starr married Barbera Bach, his costar on the film 'Caveman'. UngaBunga!

2005- Maiden flight of the world's largest passenger plane- the Airbus A-380.

2014- With retired Pope Benedict in attendance, Pope Francis declared previous Popes John XXIII and John Paul II to be saints of the Catholic Church. One liberal and one conservative.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: You heard of Romeo and Juliet, but who were Paulo and Francesca?

Answer: They were another tragic couple in the Renaissance, who died but did not have Shakespeare to write a play about them. They are mentioned in Dante’s Inferno for the sin of lust.


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