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April 19th,08 sat
April 19th, 2008

Congratulations to Sue Kroyer for receiving Women in Animation's Award of Inspiration!


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Quiz- We’ve had the 80’s, the 90’s. Does this decade have a name?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Hey Man! How old is the use of the term Man as a slang interjection?
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History for 4/19/2008
Birthdays: Paulo Verronese, Elliot Ness, Jayne Mansfield, Dudley Moore, Paloma Picasso, Ashley Judd, James Franco, Kate Hudson is 29, Tim Curry is 62, Anna Porchicova is 21

1775- LEXINGTON AND CONCORD- The American Revolution begins.
For years after the French and Indian War the British government tried to save money by getting the North American colonies to defend themselves. The local committees that organized the American colony's militia had slowly been taken over by radical political groups like the "Sons of Liberty". To the British these Minutemen seemed to be training to fight them instead of Indians.
In 1774 a General, Sir Thomas "Old Tom" Gage was appointed Royal Governor of Massachusetts to show the colonists that Mother England was not going to tolerate any more foolishness. Gage pulled his troops out of frontier patrols and concentrated them in Boston harbor. This annoyed citizens further, thinking the only reason they pay taxes now is to have troops watching them instead of protecting them. In early 1775 Gage warned London that the situation was deteriorating fast. Ironically Gage liked America and had a good friend named George Washington. Finally Gage received permission to send out a force to seize a stockpile of illegal weapons and arrest some ringleaders. After awakened by Paul Revere some 70 farmers spent all night at Buckman's Tavern drinking and trying to decide whether to fight or run away. By 4:00 a.m. John Hancock talked them into staying to fight. Then Hancock ran away. The redcoat column was met on Lexington green by the minutemen. "Stand aside, ye dammed Rebels!" Captain Pitcairn shouted. " Stand fast boys, if they want a war, let it start here!" was Captain Parker's reply. The regular troops opened fire, and easily dispersed that group. But by the time the British reached Concord bridge hordes of farmers were shooting at them from bushes and rooftops until they were forced to withdraw to Boston. Lord Percy complained that even 'American women were pointing muskets out of their kitchen windows and firing at us!" One 80 year old man shot down three Englishmen down from his front porch before he was bayoneted. He lived 7 more years. And most of the Yankee muskets were British government-issue Brown Besses.
Americans call Lexington “The Shot Heard Around the World”, but the British Crown regarded this situation at first as little more than mob violence. It barely made the back pages of the London newspapers. But by Bunker Hill they realized they had a real trans-ocean war on their hands. As late as December elements in the Colonial Congress in Philadelphia kept asking London if we could still be friends and talk it over.

1782- Holland became the first nation to officially recognize the United States of America. Ambassador John Adams hung a Stars & Stripes out his hotel room window, calling it the first official American Embassy in Europe.

1881- Former British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli died. When asked if he would like a final visit from Queen Victoria, Disraeli answered:" No, not now, she'd only ask me to take a message to Albert." His political arch-enemy William Gladstone wrote him a moving eulogy ,but he confided in his diary that it gave him diarrhea doing it.

1910- The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

1927- Mae West found guilty of indecent behavior in writing, producing and starring in a Broadway musical entitled “SEX”.

1951- General MacArthur had been fired from his Korean command by President Harry Truman. This day he did his famous speech to Congress” An Old Soldier never Dies, He just Fades Away, and like that old soldier I now close out my military career, and just fade away. An Old Soldier who tried to do his duty, as God showed him the light to do that duty, etc.” Republican Senator Robert Short shouted “We’ve just heard the Voice of God!” President Harry Truman watched the speech on T.V. and labeled it “The biggest bunch of bullshit I ever heard!”

1956-Movie star Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco.

1961-The BAY OF PIGS INVASION DEFEATED The CIA sponsored landing of AntiCastro Cubans failed on the beach of Bahia De Los Cochinos. After sanctioning some initial US Air Force bombing attacks the first day, JFK relented and cut off any further help, including a refusal to evacuate them when trapped. This earned him the everlasting anger of the Miami Cuban community. 200 were killed and 1497 imprisoned. An aide said the day after the surrender Kennedy went alone to a secluded D.C. golf course and spent hours hitting golf balls, moaning:” How could I have been so Stupid!” after each whack.

1970- XEROX PARC – The Xerox Company announced the set up of a research group in Palo Alto Cal. All but ignored by the main company for years this group pioneered the development of the personal computer. They invented the mouse, point and click windows, graphic interface and multi-tasking . Yet Xerox didn’t know what to do with them, they were in the copier business. They launched a personal workstation called the Alto that cost $16,500 each, but the idea bombed. One day in 1979 a group from Apple visited led by Steve Jobs. The group was inspired by their progress, and they went back to Apple and put what they learned into the development of the Mackintosh Computer.

1993- Branch Davidian cultists led by their messianic leader David Koresh immolate themselves in their compound at Waco, Texas during a furious shootout with the F.B.I.

1995-THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING- On the second anniversary of the Waco tragedy, emotionally disturbed Gulf War veterans named Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols wanted revenge against the U.S. Government. So they denoted a bomb at the Murrow Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Among the 156 dead were a dozen pre-school children in a daycare center on the first floor. McVeigh called the children “collateral damage “ He was executed in 2001 and Nichols got life in prison. Nichols brother was acquitted. Today he grows soy beans for tofu in organic restaurants.

2005- Habaemus Papam! We have a Pope. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany elected Pope Benedict XVI. The first German Pope since Hildebrandt in 1077 and the first pope to have been a soldier in the Nazi army. He was drafted in 1945 as a child. Italian writers call him the German Shepherd.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Hey Man! How old is the use of the term Man as a slang interjection?

Answer: The use of the word Man as a sentence interjection goes back from Hippy and Beatnik slang, through black jazz slang of the early XXth Century, to the plantation culture of the XIXth Century. In Spain the term for man Hombre! had been around for centuries. In an account of General Sherman’s March through Georgia in 1864, at one point the General interrogated a runaway slave from a nearby farm. The man told Sherman :” When you Yankees came, man! You shoulda seen my master run!” (Sherman's March, by Jeffrey Wert page..)


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