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March 3rd, 2008 mon
March 3rd, 2008

Quiz: Why are folks with politically left-leaning opinions called Liberals?

Answer to yesterdays question below: Why do so many English speaking people have the family surname Smith or Jones?
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History for 3/3/2008
B-Dayz: George Pullman of Pullman Railroad cars, General Matthew Ridgeway, Jean Harlow, Diana Barrymore, Akira Ifukube the composer of the music scores to movies like Godzilla, Tone Loc, Jacky Joyner-Kersee, James Doohan, Ronald Searle, Bruno Bozzetto, Will Eisner, Herschel Walker, George Miller, Miranda Richardson is 50

1801- THE MIDNIGHT JUDGES-Outgoing President John Adams was a sore loser. He was outraged that he was not re-elected to a second term as President. He vented his frustrations by spending his last night as President signing dozens of Federal Judgeships and army officer commissions to members of his Federalist party. He then boycotted the inauguration and took his sweet time moving out of the White House, forcing Thomas Jefferson to spend his first night as President in a pub.

1875-Claude Bizet's opera CARMEN debuts. Parisians usually go to see comedies at the Opera Comique and most thought this would be about the adventures of a coquettish Spanish gypsy. Instead they saw one of the great dark dramas of opera, a story of sexual power and obsession. The shocking sight of a slutty gypsy smuggler getting knifed by a burnout soldier driven insane by sex was so upsetting it was booed and howled off the stage. Bizet never got over the fiasco, he died six months later. Carmen is now one of the world's most famous operas.

1875- HOCKEY- The first modern Hockey Game was played at the Victoria skating rink in Montreal Canada. No one is sure just how old hockey is. In the 1700’s Micmac Indians played a game on bone skates using sticks and passed it on to the British garrison of Halifax Nova Scotia. The people of Windsor Nova Scotia claim hockey was invented there at Long Pond in 1844 from the Irish game of Stick & Ball. The first pucks were frozen horse droppings. No one is sure where the word Hockey came from, the nickname of some British officer or local schoolteacher perhaps.

1934- Public Enemy #1 John Dillinger escaped from a Witchita jail by carving a gun out of soap (it was actually wood) and painting it with shoe polish. He said :"The jail hasn't been made that can hold me!"

1950-Paramount's "Quack-a-Doodle-Doo" The first Baby Huey cartoon.

1950-Don Herbert tells millions of kids about science as televisions Mr.Wizard.

1973- THE BAR CODE. An ad-hoc committee of scientists from Proctor & Gamble and Nabisco and such announced the invention of the Universal Product’s Code- The Bar Code, that annoying little set of bars and numbers on everything you own or buy. No longer would stores have to close their doors periodically for inventory counting. But if you are a conspiracy fan its the way the Hidden Government and the guys in the black helicopters keep a record on everything you buy.

1980- Aetna Insurance reported in a newsletter having to pay damages for a man at a delicatessen who had a carp he was ordering jump off the counter and bite him in the leg.

1991- L.A.P.D officers beat up drunk and disorderly driver Rodney King. King had previous convictions and was tazed several times with a an electric shock but still fought back at police, who seemed to go berserk on him with their clubs just as a witness caught the whole incident on videotape. The incident and trials caused a scandal in Los Angeles and later the largest civilian riots in U.S. history. King is no angel and continues to run up arrests. The LAPD is one third the size of the NYPD yet receives three times the civilian complaints.

2001- Despite worldwide protests, the Taliban of Afghanistan began dynamiting their nation's ancient giant Buddha statues, as graven images.
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Yesterdays question: Why do so many English speaking people have the family surname Smith or Jones?

Answer: During the Victorian Era, men wishing to avoid debtors prison or otherwise in trouble with the law took the King’s Shilling- i.e. joined the army or navy. When signing up they changed their names to avoid the local constable. The preferred alias was Smith or Jones. The armies that tramped over India and Africa contained an inordinate amount of Smiths and Jones’. This practice continued with the US Cavalry during the Indian Wars.


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