Question: Political pundits are saying this about Hillary & Barack’s tactics: “ It’s time to go to the mattresses!" What does that mean? Wrestling?

Quiz: Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show Countdown uses some devices that are an homage to older, more famous, news shows. Olbermann’s theme song, the opening notes of the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, was once the theme song of an older news program. What was it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
history for 3/5/2008
Birthdays: King Henry III of England, Gionanni Batista Tiepolo, Explorer Le Sieur de Cadillac the founder of Detroit, Hector Villa-Lobos, Howard Pyle, William Oughtred 1574- inventor of the Slide Rule," Red Rosa" Luxemburg, Rex Harrison, Dean Stockwell, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Andy Gibb, Samantha Eggar, Andrej Wajda, Fred Williamson, Penn Gillette, Eva Mendes

1534- Famed Renaissance painter Correggio died,when after an argument in the cathedral of Parma with his patrons,they paid him with sacks of pennies. He grew overheated carrying them all home and died of a fever at age 45.

1616- The Holy Office of the Inquisition published its verdict on the new scientific ideas of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. It read:"The idea that the Earth goes around the Sun is Foolish, Philosophically Erroneous and Heretical since it contradicts Holy Scripture. The idea that the Earth revolves on its axis is also Ridiculous and Heretical." Galileo’s writings were not removed from the Index of Banned Books until 1835.

1717- Giovanni Tiepolo joined the Guild of Saint Lawrence, the artists union in Rome.

1759- Francois Voltaire’s most famous satire on religion and hypocrisy- Candide- was published. It was immediately ordered publicly burned by the regional parliaments of Geneva and Paris. This only increased its popularity. To stay out of trouble Voltaire first refused to admit he was the author:" People must have lost their senses to attribute to me that pack of nonsense! I have, Thanks God, better occupations."

1770- THE BOSTON MASSACRE- A snowball fight near some British sentries turned into an ugly anti-British riot that made the redcoats open fire on the crowd. African American Crispus Attucks among several others were killed. Radical publisher Sam Adams inflated the incident into the Boston Massacre. The British authorities were accommodating enough to allow the soldiers put on trial in a colonial civilian court. The soldiers were defended by a young Boston lawyer named John Adams. They were all acquitted.

1836- At the Alamo, as the Mexican army of Santa Anna prepared for their final attack, legend has it Colonel Travis gathered the remaining defenders. He drew a line in the sand with his sword and asked all who wished to stay and fight to the bitter end to cross it. All crossed except an elderly Frenchman named Louis Rose, who slipped out through the lines to safety. Rose was a veteran of Napoleon's army and had fought at Moscow and Waterloo. I guess he felt he had made enough history for one lifetime. At dusk 16 year old rider James Allen slipped out of the Alamo to bring the doomed mens last message to the outside world.

1853- Harry Steinway & Sons began their piano making company.

1863- The U.S. Army finally admits having the men do their own cooking was bad for morale, as well as their digestion. The first field kitchens with real cooks set up.

1868- Englishman C.H. Gould patented the first stapler!

1877- Rutherford Hayes inaugurated. Hayes was a Republican who became president while the Democrat Samuel Tilden really won the popular vote. His wife, Lemonade Lucy, banned hard liquor from the White House.

1922- F.W. Murnau’s eerie film Nosferatu premiered in Berlin.

1933- The day after his inauguration President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders a nationwide "Bank Holiday", a nice way of saying shut the whole darn system down to stop the panic and slide. One third of all U.S. banks had already collapsed. Roosevelt moved so fast, throwing program after program to combat the Great Depression, that his first 100 days in office became legendary, and now the media use it as a litmus to measure other presidents against.

1937- SPITFIRE. The first flight of Britain’s most famous fighter plane, the Supermarine Spitfire Mark II. Designer B.J.Mitchell fought red tape and outdated thinking on the army’s requisition board. He died of exhaustion and heart failure at 42, never knowing that his Spitfire would be the decisive tool in winning the air war over Britain and saving his country from Nazi invasion.

1963- Country singer Patsy Cline died in plane crash near Camden Tenn.(not Allegheny) Also killed were Country stars Cowboy Copas and Hacksaw Hawkins.

1973, New York Yankee pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson make a stunning declaration. The left-handers announce that they have traded wives, children, houses, even their family dogs.

1982-31 year old Comedian John Belushi dies of a drug overdose at Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Strip. He had done twenty heroin-cocaine speedballs in just 24 hours. A woman named Cathy Smith was charged with administering to him the fatal dose. Robin Williams was with him that night partying also but left early. Someone scrawled on Belushi’s tombstone :"You could have given us more laughs.....But NNNNOOOOOOOOOO !!"

1995- Vivian Stanstall, lead singer for the Bonzo Dog Band died in a fire in his London flat. He had been smoking in bed.

2004- Communist China changes its constitution to say that private property is OK.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show Countdown uses some devices that are an homage to older more famous news shows. Olbermann’s theme song, the opening notes of the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, was once the theme song of an older news program. What was it?

Answer: The Huntley-Brinkley Report. NBC’s top evening news program from 1956-1970. When Keith Olbermann ends his program by turning his head away from camera, he is emulating legendary news reporter Edward R. Murrow.