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January 14, 2023
January 14th, 2023

Quiz: The island of Guadalcanal is today part of what nation?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is bakelite?
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History for 1/14/2023
Birthdays: Marc Anthony 82 BC, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Benedict Arnold, Hal Roach, Richard F. Outcault, Cecil Beaton, John Dos Passos, Lawrence Kasdan, Guy Williams- born Armando Catalano, Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Steven Soderbergh is 60, LL Cool J, Faye Dunaway is 82, Emily Watson is 56

350AD. The feast day of Saint Hilary of Poitiers- Saint Hilary was the father of church music. In exile in Phyrgia, he noticed pagans sang hymns to their gods, so he composed the first Christian music. The Halleluiah Chorus, Ave Maria, Silent Night, and “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Life” would follow in due course.

1604- King James I of England thought he could be like Roman Emperor Constantine, and use his royal prestige to resolve the theological disputes dividing Christianity. This day he convened at Hampton Court a grand synod of Anglican Bishops, Presbyterians, Baptists, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and Puritans to try and settle their differences. Nothing was really solved, but the only positive step was a motion was made to create a standardized translation of the Bible into English- The King James Edition.

1639- The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the first constitution for a colony, is established. The Connecticut territory was a disputed area between the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and the English New Englanders until the English conquest of 1661. The personal intervention of the Duke of York prevented Long Island from being made part of Connecticut.

1699- The Pilgrims of Salem hold a day of fasting and prayer to atone for any people they may have unjustly executed as witches.

1797- Battle of Rivoli. Napoleon defeats the Austrians in Italy.

1831- Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame first published.

1858- Italian terrorists throw three bombs at French Emperor Napoleon III’s carriage outside the Paris Opera. 8 killed and 158 wounded, but not the emperor or his family.

1900- Giacomo Puccini's opera "Tosca" premiered in Rome.

1914- Henry Ford's assembly line process for building cars accelerates car production, thanks to a new chain system pulling the chassis along as they are worked on. As the system got faster and faster, the older, slower workers were replaced by younger ones. Hair dye sold at a premium in Detroit.

1943- Churchill and Roosevelt hold a summit meeting in Casablanca in North Africa. The Casablanca Declaration bound the allies to never negotiate less than a total surrender out of the Axis powers. It was felt that one of the reason Germany resorted to war only twenty years after The Great War was their denial that they were ever defeated.
At one point Churchill made a number of American diplomats and staff climb a high tower in the Casbah because he thought the setting sun would make a smashing good watercolor.

1952-The NBC "Today" show debuts with Dave Garroway, Jim Fleming and J. Fred Muggs the chimp.

1954- Marilyn Monroe married baseball star Joe DiMaggio.

1957- British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned, citing ill health, but more likely because he bungled The Suez Crisis.

1957- Humphrey Bogart died of esophageal cancer at age 57. When he was buried at Forrest Lawn, wife Lauren Bacall put in with his ashes a solid gold whistle inscribed with the famous line from "To Have and To Have Not"- 'If you ever need me, just whistle.' The group of friends around Bogie and Bacall were nicknamed ‘The Rat Pack”.
After Bogart’s death Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin adopted the name and made the Rat Pack famous.

1964- Hanna- Barbera's ' The Magilla Gorilla' cartoon show.

1967- HIPPIES The first “ Human Be-In” in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. The Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead performed. Allan Ginsburg, Ram Dass and Timothy Leary spoke. LSD was laced into turkey sandwiches, and soon the crowd of 30,000 was high. The national media played up the event, and the rest of America first saw the power of the Hippy youth culture, and heard the word like “psychedelic” and Timothy Leary saying “ Tune in, Turn on, Drop out.” It was the prelude to the Summer of Love.

1969- At the Academy Awards, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day won best animated short. It is the last award credited to Walt Disney. Although he had died at the end of 1966, he had greenlit it and worked on it. Woolie Reitherman accepted the award.

1972- Norman Lear’s hit TV comedy series Sanford & Son premiered. Starring Red Fox, it was based on the English show Steptoe & Son.

1974- Sylvia Holland, British born story/concept artist at Disney on Fantasia/ Make Mine Music, died at age 74.

2004- Trying to channel JFK, President George W. Bush declared in his State of the Union speech his intention to return America to the Moon by 2020 and make a manned landing on Mars by 2030. To do this he gave NASA only one billion dollars more than their regular budget, while at the same time allocating $1.5 billion to fight gay marriage initiatives. In 2017 President Trump made a similar pledge to go to Mars.

2005- The Cassini-Huygens Probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan.

2016- Actor Alan Rickman passed away at age 69 of pancreatic cancer.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is bakelite?

Answer: It was an early form of plastic used since the 1930s in many common items like telephones and costume jewelry.


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