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Aug 18, 2022
August 18th, 2022

Quiz: What does it mean to be hoisted on your own petard?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.” What is that from?
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HISTORY FOR 8/18/2022
Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis, Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak, Shelly Winters, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski is 88, Patrick Swayze, Madeleine Stowe, Christian Slater, Edward Norton is 54, Martin Mull, Denis Leary is 65, Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, is 86

325AD. Today is the Feast of Saint Helena. A Roman innkeeper's daughter in Eboracum- modern York England. There she happened to catch the roving eye of General Constantius Chlorus (The Pale). They married and their son Constantine made himself Caesar and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman World. It's debatable exactly when she was baptized, but she undoubtedly had a great influence on her son's decision. She was also instrumental in researching and defining the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. She started the Christian fascination with collecting holy relics.

1503-Pope Alexander VI the Borgia died. Some say he died of malaria, others that he poisoned himself accidentally, while trying to poison someone else. The Borgia's enemies then took over the Vatican drove out Caesar & Lucretzia Borgia. The 72 year old Pope had seven children and at the time was sleeping with 16 year old Giulia Farnese whom he had painted as the Virgin Mary. People said Pope Alexander had sold his soul to the devil, because at his death an ape appeared on his windowsill and water boiled in his mouth. His 300 lb. corpse was so swollen with corruption that it had to be pounded into a coffin with big wooden mallets used for wine-corking. The next Pope Julius II didn’t bother to entomb his enemy Alexander, since he was too busy reconstructing St. Peters. After twenty years, the casket with another Spanish Pope Calixtus were moved to a Spanish church Santa Maria Monserrato outside the Vatican. There it was kept in a cupboard for 300 years, and not given an official tomb until 1889!

1573- In a vain attempt to cement a peace between French Catholics and Protestants, old Queen Mother Catherine De Medici married her youngest daughter Margot to the Protestant leader Henry of Navarre. Paris filled with Protestants and Catholics for the wedding. Street fighting and massacre broke out soon after. Henry survived and eventually became King Henry IV. Surprisingly, although Margot was dazzlingly beautiful and Henry was one of the horniest princes in Christendom, they were never attracted to one another. They kept separate courts and lovers, stayed friends and divorced amicably in 1605.

1587- Virginia Dare was born, the first English child in America. She was in the Roanoke Colony, the fabled "Lost Colony" who all disappeared a year later.

1840 - Organization of American Society of Dental Surgeons founded (NY).

1850- Honore' Balzac died after drinking too much coffee. He was overweight, seldom bathed and picked his nose in public, but women still found him irresistible.

1856. Mr. Gale Borden patented condensed milk. It became popular during the Civil War when it was used by the army, then it spawned the process food industry. When Borden died, he left instructions that his tombstone be shaped like a milk can.

1862- THE DAKOTA WAR, also called the Great Santee Sioux Uprising- Minnesota Sioux tribes called Dakota-Allies, had agreed to sell their land and settle on reservations and learn farming. Once removed from their land, they starved while waiting for food and money held up by corrupt government agents. When Chief Little Crow –Taoyateduta, demanded food he knew was being stockpiled in warehouses, Indian Agent Andrew J. Myrick responded “Let your people eat grass!” This day the Sioux exploded across the prairie from New Ulm to Fort Snelling (Minneapolis)- 200 whites were killed, including Indian Agent Myrick, whose body was found with grass stuffed in his mouth.

1872 - 1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward.

1896- 200 outlaws gather at Hole-In-The-Wall to form the "Wild Bunch".
They never went all to the same heist; it was more like a gunfighter’s guild.

1914- Pres. Woodrow Wilson finally emerged from mourning his first wife, to declare that the United States would remain neutral, and not get involved in new war breaking out in Europe (World War I).

1919- Tennessee becomes the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. The legislature was deadlocked but the tie was broken by one state senator, Harry Burn, who changed his mind. He wanted to please his mother.

1937- The Toyota Automobile Company was established as an offshoot of the Toyoda Motorized Loom Works. They changed the name Toyoda to Toyota because a Shinto priest told them the name would be luckier.

1939- The movie The Wizard of Oz released and made a star of Judy Garland. Frank Morgan, the actor playing the Wizard, needed to wear a shabby old coat so a studio costume designer went through some L.A. thrift stores until she found the good candidate. When Morgan looked in the lining he discovered the coat was previously owned by L. Frank Baum, creator of the Oz stories. Lyricist Yip Harburg (Somewhere over the Rainbow) was later blacklisted as a communist. "And yer little dog, too!!"

1947- Hewlett-Packard file papers to incorporate their electronics company. They began doing business in 1937.

1950- Battle of the Bowling Alley- The US and South Korean Armies pushed up against the Pusan Perimeter score their first victory against North Korean regulars. It got its name because the North Korean tanks bottled up into narrow defiles by the land made excellent targets for waiting anti-tank artillery, bazooka and aircraft. Eyewitnesses said it looked like a “Bowling Alley in Hell.”

1953- The first MacDonalds franchise restaurant opened in Downey California.

1955- Folksinger Pete Seeger appeared before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He refused to cooperate and was blacklisted. But he still managed to have a successful career on the folk scene and appeared on TV in 1967.

1956- Actress Vivien Leigh suffered a mental breakdown after a miscarriage.

1958 - "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published. The novel was rejected by four publishers before Putnam picked it up. It became a best seller and allowed Nabokov to quit teaching and focus on writing.

1958 – The TV Game Show Scandal investigation began. Allegations that popular quiz shows like 21 were rigged turned out to be true.

1962 - Peter, Paul & Mary release their folk song "If I Had a Hammer".

1966- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLURPEE! The Icee was invented by two Dallas engineers for a failing Oklahoma ice cream store. When licensed to 7-Eleven it was changed to Slurpee.

1969- Woody Allen’s first movie “Take the Money and Run”, opened.

1969- The closing day of the Woodstock Rock Concert, Jimmy Hendrix did his famous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Of the original 500,000 attendees, many were already headed home. Only 30,000 stragglers were left to hear him. Originally scheduled instead of Hendrix , was old cowboy Roy Rogers, to sing his signature tune “ Happy Trails to You..” But Roy never made it there.

1974- The Xerox Company decided not to seriously market the Alto, the first personal computer that had a GUI, ethernet and mouse, color graphics, long before anyone else. Xerox decided to stick with copying machines and let go of many of their Palo Alto development team Xerox PARC. Most of their breakthroughs wound up in other computers like Apple’s Lisa, Macintosh and the IBM PC.

1977- The rock band the Police make their debut in a Birmingham nightclub. The lead singer Gordon Sumner started to get the nickname Sting, from the black & yellow striped jumper he habitually wore.

1989- Publishing Tycoon Malcolm Forbes flew 800 guests to Tangiers to celebrate his birthday. His birthday party cost $2 million. The soiree' came to symbolize 1980's wealth excess.

1990- 510 animators pay tribute to Betty Boop creator Grim Natwick on his 100th Birthday. It was the last big gathering of the artists of the Golden Age Hollywood Animation. Chuck Jones, June Foray, Walter Lantz, Disney’s Nine Old Men, Mae Questel, Friz Freleng.

1999- TV psychic Kriswell predicted that day would be the End of the World.

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Yesterday’s Question: “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.” What is that from?

Answer: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.


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