Quiz: People today say politics have never been so nasty, and so little respect shown the president. Well, here are some of the things the American presidents have been called in the past. Try and match the man to his insult.

Names: 1. Honest Ape the Original Gorilla, 2. King Andrew the Adulterer, 3. Tricky Dick, 4. Slick Willy, 5. Colonel Corpone, 6. The Joe Stalin of America, 7.The Dalai Lama of America, 8. The Smirking Chimp, 9. The Crazy Cowboy, 10. Little Miss Nancy, 11. Old Bubblehead.

Presidents: a. George W. Bush, b. Bill Clinton, c.Richard Nixon, d. Teddy Roosevelt, e. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, f. Abraham Lincoln, g. Dwight Eisenhower, h. Lyndon B. Johnson, i. Andrew Jackson, j. James Buchanan, k. George Washington.

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Who said :” Go tell the Spartans?”

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History for 1/30/2008
Birthdays: Barbara Tuchman, Gene Hackman is 78, Walt “Moose” Dropo, Olaf Palme, Vanessa Redgrave is 71, Dick Martin, Louis S. Rukeyser, Dorothy Malone, Boris Spassky, John Ireland, Phil Collins, Christian Bale, VP Dick Cheney is 67

1649- KING CHARLES I of ENGLAND BEHEADED-The Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell condemns the King "That man of Blood" and abolished the English monarchy. As Charles laid his head upon the block he said:" I go from a corruptible crown to one which is Incorruptible." -Splat! The Government worried that if the identity of the headsman was ever found out avengers may harm his family. They kept the secret so well that his name for a time was lost to history. His name was Richard Brandon. In Alexander Dumas' sequel to “The Three Musketeers”, he makes the executioner to be the son of Madame DeWinter and the Duc de Rochefort.

1661-HAVE YOU SEEN OLIVER CROMWELL'S HEAD? English dictator General Oliver Cromwell died of natural causes in 1659. After the restoration of the British monarchy a mob celebrated by breaking into Cromwells’ tomb and bouncing the corpse around, taking the head and putting it on London Bridge where criminals are usually exhibited. After the head fell off it's spike and rolled around on the ground a priest took it home and later sold it to a travelling circus.( It was a very popular attraction during the French Revolution: “Speaking of Heads! I just happen to have.....”)
Eventually it was donated to Cambridge University, to whom Cromwell had been a benefactor. The college interred it but will not divulge where.

1835- THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL ASSASINATION ATTEMPT -A lunatic named Richard Lawrence emerged from a crowd in the lobby of the House of Representatives and fired two pistols at President Andrew Jackson. They both miss. Jackson, an old army man who carried around two lead bullets in his body from Indian fights and duels, was so outraged that he grabbed Lawrence and started drubbing him on the head with his silver tipped cane. He beat him so badly that the Washington police had the strange task of saving the assassin from his intended victim.

1894-Charles King of Detroit patented the pneumatic jackhammer.

1917- The German General Staff gambled that resuming unrestricted U-Boat warfare would economically destroy England and win the Great War even if it angered the United States enough to declare war. Admiral Keppel told the Kaiser that even if the United States did enter the war they would never get enough soldiers across the ocean past his U-Boats to accomplish anything. “The threat from America is less than nothing. Nothing!”

1931- Hollywood Premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Later at a dance at the Biltmore Hotel writer Herman Mankewicz (Citizen Kane, Duck Soup) got into a drunken fistfight with producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind, Rebecca). You’ll never eat turtle-soup in this town again!

1933- HI-YO SILVER!! The Lone Ranger debuts on Radio. The Masked man was invented by the WXYZ station owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker with absolutely no experience of cowboys or Indians. They just wanted a hero like Zorro with a strict moral code. He was later voiced by actor William Conrad who did the Rocky & Bullwinkle narration and the tv series Cannon.

1934- Artist Salvador Dali married Gala.

1933- ADOLF HITLER TAKES POWER. After a general election President Von Hindenberg was forced to appoint the Nazi Party leader Chancellor. Hindenberg had earlier growled” Chancellor? I’ll make him a postmaster so he could lick stamps with my face on it!” But he was forced to give in. Germans were fed up with skyrocketing inflation and political anarchy so they voted for the little man with the Charlie Chaplin mustache. The Nazis didn’t win by a landslide vote, it was a 37-42% majority, with the rest divided among splinter parties. The German Army at first didn’t cooperate with the Nazis. Their real power came when Hitler made a bargain with the major German corporations like Krupp, Seimans, Bayer and Daimler to take the ‘socialist” out of National Socialists and arrest all communists, unions and other bad-for-business types. All this was applauded by big business in the US like JP Morgan, Chase and Hearst who loaned money to German firms. With their new corporate clout and money the Nazis quickly called a new election to gain an overwhelming parliamentary majority in the Reichstag. After ancient President Hindenberg died in 1934 the Reichstag voted dictatorial powers to Hitler making him Der Fuehrer.

1945- As the Red Army pushed the borders of the Third Reich back into Germany the German populations of isolated Baltic cities like Memel, Riga and Konigsberg tried to escape by sea. It was a Nazi Dunkirk, evacuations with ships full of people being bombed and strafed from the air. This day a large ship named the Wilhelm Gustoff was torpedoed by a Russian submarine. 1,500 people died on the Titanic, 7,700 people drowned in the frigid waters from the Wilhelm Gustoff- the most deaths ever in one sea disaster.

1946- The first US dimes with Franklin Roosevelt on the head were issued.

1948- 78 year old Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi the Mahatma, was shot and killed by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse while walking to morning prayers.

1956- Elvis Presley recorded Blue Suede Shoes.

1960- STRAVINSKY SPEAKS OUT. For years after the making of Fantasia, critics had pondered Igor Stravinsky's cryptic reaction to Disney's portrayal of his "Rite if Spring".
Disney p.r. said he was "speechless with admiration!" In a Saturday Review article of this date Stravinsky said Stokowski's editing of his music was 'execrable' and the visuals "an unresisting imbecility". His opinion still didn't stop him from selling the studio film rights to several other of his pieces including "The Firebird' in 1942. He needed the cash.

1961-H-B's the Yogi Bear Show.

1969- The rock band the Beatles last public appearance as a group. They tried to do a free concert in the London streets but were banned by police for fear of congestion and noise complaints. So they withdrew to a rooftop above their recording studio and played anyway. John Lennon ended the concert by saying: ‘Thank you very much on behalf of the band and myself and I hope we passed the audition.”

1976- George Bush Sr. became head of the CIA. Poppy Bush revived the organization which had been wracked by scandal after the Frank Church Congressional Committee revealed details of the Alende coup in Chile, overseas assassination, illegal surveillance of Americans and schemes to put chemicals in Fidel Castro’s food to make his beard fall out.

2002- President George W. Bush Jr salutes his Vice President Dick Cheney on his birthday by saying “You are the best Vice President this country has ever had!” He may have forgotten that his own father George Bush Sr was also once a vice president. I’m sure his mom reminded him later.

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Yesterday’s Question: Who said :” Go tell the Spartans?”

Answer: It was said of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, not for having the hottest pects and abdomen, but for their spotless dedication and sacrifice. After their epic last stand at Thermopylae, a tombstone was erected over their bones with the inscription:
GO TELL THE SPARTANS, OH STRANGER PASSING BY, THAT TRUE TO THEIR COMMAND, HERE WE LIE – it rhymes better in ancient Greek.