QUIZ: Does the song the Twelve Days of Christmas have an ulterior meaning?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: If King Herod was the wicked king who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, why is he also referred to as Herod the Great?
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History for 12/30/2007
Birthdays: Rudyard Kipling, Gen. Hideki Tojo, W. Eugene Smith, Luther Burbank, Anna Magnani, Bo Diddley is 77, Sir Carol Reed, Sandy Koufax, Solomon Guggenheim, Jeanette Nolan -Granny from the Beverly Hillbillys, Jack Lord, Franco Harris, Lynn Swann, Joseph Bologna, Fred Ward, Tracey Ullman. Tiger Woods is 32, Heidi Fleiss, Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary -when Stookey became a Born-Again Christian he changed his name to Number One.

1370- Pope Gregory XI is an example of the rather unconventional path one could take to the Throne of Peter in the Middle Ages. His genial uncle Pope Clement VI had made him a cardinal at age 18. Upon his election as Pope at age 39 someone noticed that he had never taken Holy Orders to become a Priest! So yesterday he was ordained a priest and today became Pope.

1672- Violinist John Bannister and his orchestra held a concert at Whitefriars chapel in London. It’s the oldest known music concert given not to a royalty but to the general paying public.

1816- Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married Frankenstein author Mary Wollenstonecraft Shelley.

1817- Coffee beans first planted on the Kona coast of Hawaii.

1862- During the Civil War the day before the Battle of Stone's River, Tennessee, Union and Confederate armies spent the day quietly facing each other across a creek under an icy rain. A battle of the bands started up. Blue and gray musicians serenaded each other across no-mans land with patriotic songs like Dixie and John Brown's Body, while the men sang along. Finally both bands synched up with a spontaneous rendition of " Be It Ever so Humble, There's No Place Like Home..". Thousands of throats from both sides took up the chorus.

1884- Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in Leipzig.

1894- Suffragette Amelia Jenks Bloomer died; she had gained notoriety for inventing "bloomers" a way for women to ride horses and do other physical actions without cumbersome hoops skirts.

1903 - A fire broke out in the crowded Iroquois Theater in Chicago killing 571. After the tragedy building codes were enforced that public buildings have exit doors that always open outwards and some form of fire fighting equipment on the premises. The Iroquois had a sign over the door that read “Absolutely Fireproof”.

1936- The Great General Motors Strike. The strike was violent and tied up steel, rubber tires and other manufactures for months. United Auto Workers invent the first "sit-down" strike at the Fisher Body Plant in Flint, Mich. "When they tie a can to the Union man-Sit Down, Sit Down! When the Boss won't talk, don't take a walk- Sit Down, Sit Down !"

1940- The Arroyo-Seco, the First L.A. Freeway opened by Mayor Fletchor Bowron, connecting downtown and Pasadena. ( interstate U.S. route 66 is in 1932, and The Imperial Highway opened in 1936., the Ventura freeway in 1958.)

1944- Manhattan project director Gen. Leslie Groves has a private meeting with FDR at the White House. Groves tells the President the two "cosmic bombs" (Atomic Bombs) they are building will end the war. The reason they were making two was one was uranium based and the other was plutonium based. To those who believe the U.S. atomic bombed Japan just out of racism in this meeting President Roosevelt wanted one dropped on Germany immediately to stop the Battle of the Bulge and kill Hitler. But Groves argued the A-bomb hadn’t been tested yet. He worried that if the bomb was a dud, the Germans were smart enough to take it apart and build their own from the fissionable material, which they might shoot in a V-2 at London.

1941- “I Vant to be Alone..” Film Star Greta Garbo announced she was retiring from motion pictures and all public appearances. She made her disappearing act complete and was only seen fleeting on the streets of New York until her death in the 1990s.

1963- T.V. game show "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall premieres.

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Yesterday’s Question: If King Herod was the wicked king who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, why is he also referred to as Herod the Great?

Answer: King Herod (37BC-4BC) established a dynasty and steered the Jewish kingdom through the shifts of Roman politics. He sided first with Caesar, then Brutus & Cassius, then Anthony & Cleopatra and finally Augustus. Even when Cleopatra wanted Marc Anthony to give her Israel as a gift to join back to Egypt, Herod talked him out of it.
Herod was known as a great builder. He rebuilt Solomon’s Temple so it was known as the Temple of Herod. He also constructed the port of Caesarea, great palaces and the fortress of Masada.
But as Herod got older he grew increasingly paranoid of plots to overthrow him. He executed two of his sons, had his brother-in-law the Chief Rabbi drowned. Even Emperor Augustus said:” It’s better to be one of Herod’s dogs than one of his sons.” So when seers told him of a new king of the Jews was born in Bethlehem of the line of David, he ordered all the children killed. He died hated by all, but he left Israel bigger and more prosperous than in all her history.

So who doesn't have a little bump in the road once and awhile?