Today’s Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase “Keep the Ball Rolling?”


Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Did Vikings ever wear horned helmets?
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Birthdays: Frank Sinatra, Edvard Munch, Gustav Flaubert, Auguste Rodin, Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie, John Jay, Edward G. Robinson-born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt-the Black Knight of Germany, former NY Mayor Ed Koch, Zack Mosley –the cartoonist who drew “Smilin' Jack", Connie Francis, Dionne Warwick, Bob Barker , Cathy Rigby, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Connelly is 37

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

1793-WASHINGTON THE SLAVEMASTER- The most concrete evidence we have that George Washington was morally disturbed about owning slaves. This day George Washington wrote a friend in England about a scheme he formulated to carve up his Mt. Vernon estate into small lots and rent them out to immigrant English tenant farmers so he could liberate his slaves. He asked his British correspondent to keep his plan a secret and destroy this note after reading it. He never went ahead with his plan but after he and Martha were both dead Washington’s will freed all 137 of his slaves and sent each off with a cash pension. Compare that to Thomas Jefferson, who freed 6 out of 300 when he died and James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, who freed none.

1897-The Katzemjammer Kids comic strip by Rudolph Dirks appears. The adventures of Hans & Fritz was so popular a rival Hearst newpaper started an imitation called the Captain and the Kids, leading to the first artistic plagiarism lawsuit. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas had a problem whenever they bought the American newspapers for their Paris salon, because Picasso and Fernand Oliver would fight over who got to read the comics first.

1899- George Grant of Boston invented the Golf Tee.

1901-First transatlantic wireless signal received by Guglielmo Marconi. This finally ended the frustrating hoopla over laying transatlantic telegraph cables and have them break down almost constantly since the 1850s. The pioneers of radio broadcasting like Armstrong, Lee Deforrest and David Sarnoff got their start working for the Marconi Wireless Company.

1922-Vladimir Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes that left him too sick to work. He ruled Soviet Russia for one more year as a figurehead while his true state of health was concealed from the public. Top Communist officials like Trotsky and Stalin now fought for power. When Lenin died in Jan.1924 doctors examining his brain said the blood clots were as solid as small stones. The only words he could mumble from his paralyzed mouth was “That’s it. That’s it.”

1925- The world’s first Motel opened. Arthur Heinman opened the Milestone Motel in San Luis Obispo California. Motel was a contraction of Motor-Hotel.

1925- Cossack officer Rezah Pahlavi deposed the last Qajar Shah and becomes Shah of Persia, which would shortly change its name to Iran.

1952- The first Screen Actors Guild Strike. President Walter Pidgeon -Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet- had the movie stars hit the bricks to win television and commercial residuals. The final deals were settled by then SAG president Ronald Reagan in 1960. Ronnie compromised with the studio heads (who later backed his bid for the governorship of California) that only residuals for films after 1955 would be paid. The studios made it known to the membership that if you didn’t vote for Reagan you can forget about your residuals. So the deal was struck. Actors who made their big hits in the 30's and 40s like Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, The Little Rascals and Mickey Rooney were left out. Mickey Rooney, who was the highest paid actor of the mid-1940's, put it mildly: "Reagan screwed me !!"
solidarity, Robbie!"

1980- The song “Whip It” by Devo won a gold record.

1991-Actor Richard Gere married supermodel Cindy Crawford.

2000- THE SUPREME COURT PICKED THE PRESIDENT. In the tightest presidential election since 1877, The Supreme Court ruled on the case Bush Vs Gore. The High Court decided George W. Bush won over Vice President Al Gore. They stated that although there may have been irregularities in the vote counting in the decisive state of Florida, it was too late and pointless to continue the recount so they were suspending all further appeals. Al Gore and the Democrats quickly caved in and squelched attempts by African-American congressmen to point out vote discrimination. In 1960 the difference between Nixon and Kennedy was around 100,000 votes in a population of 150 million people- in 2000 Bush’s lead was down to a mere 140 votes in several states out of a population of 350 million.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Did Vikings wear horned helmets? All the archaeological information unearthed have proved that the Vikings never wore helmets adorned with horns. No one is quite sure why they are portrayed that way. In the early 19th Century the poems of the Icelandic Poet Snorri Sturlason became popular. He was the first man to write down the ancient Viking stories like the Elder Edda and the Sagas. In the Viking period they were carried on by oral tradition. One professor of viking poetry was J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the XIX Century Sturlason’s translations of the Volsung Saga of Siegfried and Brunhilde the Valkyrie inspired Richard Wagner to write his Ring Cycle of operas. Edvard Grieg also wrote music about Viking sea kings like Olaf Tryggvason and Smetana about Earl Haakon-Jarl. When illustrating these stories, artists put the distinctive horns and birds wings on the Viking helmets. They were portrayed that way on the opera stage where the tales first reached the general public.