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July 27th, 2008 sun
July 27th, 2008

Quiz: Who said: First in War, First in Peace, First in the hearts of his countrymen?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: To Berliners, what is Die Mauer?
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History for 7/27/2008
Birthdays: Confucius, Alexander Dumas fils, Enrique Granados, Hillaire Belloc, Norman Lear, Maureen McGovern,, Keenan Wynn, Leo Durocher, Peggy Fleming, Bobby Gentry, Jerry Van Dyke, Vincent Canby, Betty Thomas, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Ilya Salkind, David Swift –director of the Haley Mills Disney films like The Parent Trap

1214- THE BATTLE OF BOUVINES-England loses her lands on continental Europe.
Ever since 1066 there was a technically sticky point of medieval etiquette because the King of England was also Duke of Normandy, thereby a vassal of the King of France. For years nobody pushed the question. Finally weak and paranoid English king John Lackland had his boy nephew Arthur of Brittany castrated and then killed for fear he would try and overthrow him. When King Phillip of France felt strong enough he convened a Feudal grand jury over the murder and as his Feudal Suzerain formally stripped King John of Aquitaine, Gascony, Poitou, Brittany, Vexin, Anjou and hereditary Normandy, the so-called "Angevin Empire". King John naturally didn't go along with this and the issue was decided by battle. After the battle King Phillip was called Phillip Augustus, King John's nickname was changed from John Lack-land to John Softsword. The French victory doubled the size of France and cut England off from the continent of Europe. Although the English Kings tried several more times to get back Calais and Normandy England went on to develop her own unique society instead of being a Norman holding. King John even grew to prefer speaking English over French!

1586- Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco pipe home to England from America.
Columbus had of course brought cigars and other duty-free home years earlier but tobacco was one of the goodies that kept England interested in American colonies after everyone realized there weren’t any more gold-rich Aztec-Inca Empires to plunder. King James I called smoking a filthy and unhealthful habit, but Raleigh persisted. He even paused for a few last puffs before putting his head on the executioners block.

1661- England passes the Navigation Act, spurring shipbuilding, especially in the U.S colonies. The masts of the British Navy were harvested from tall New Hampshire oaks.
g friends letters like “Once Again God has chosen me to be the savior of My Country.” He ran for president against Lincoln in 1864 and was defeated and after the war became Governor of New Jersey.

1880-BATTLE OF MAIWAND: The Afghan leader Ayub Khan's tribesmen destroy a British invasion force. Dr. Watson told Sherlock Holmes he was there . One of the heroes of the battle was a little terrier named Bobbie who was a regimental mascot and was wounded several times . He was brought to London and received a medal from Queen Victoria, but was later run over by a London taxi . I guess Afghanistan was safer.

1900- THE BIRTH OF THE "EVIL HUN"- Kaiser Wilhelm II addresses a contingent of German marines about to embark from Bremerhaven to go to China to help in the international effort to put down the Boxer Rebellion. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, Wilhelm said: "Take no prisoners! Kill all those who fall into your hands! As the deeds of the Huns of Atilla resound through history for their ruthlessness, so like the Huns make the name of Germany live in Chinese annals for a thousand years!" An embarrassed chancellor Von Bulow called it "The worst speech of the year and possibly of the Kaiser's career." He tried to release an edited version to the press but someone leaked the true text. When the Kaiser read the edited speech he said: My dear Bulow! You left out all the good parts!" Germans got the nickname "Huns" for years afterwards.

1914-Austria declared war on Serbia. The first declaration of World War One.

1921- Two Toronto scientists, Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolate the hormone Insulin to treat diabetes.

1921- SHAKESPEARE & CO. opens in Paris. The English language bookshop on the Seine owned by Sylvia Beach was the most famous hangout for the U.S. expatriate intellectuals between the World Wars. Shakespeare & Co. championed writers like James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Carlos Santayanna, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson and more. After the Nazi occupation the shop was liberated personally by Ernest Hemingway who shot snipers off it's roof. After paying his respects to Sylvia, Hemingway and his G.I.buddies went on to liberate the Ritz hotel and it's famous wine celler.

1940- HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUGS BUNNY. Warners short-"A Wild Hare”-There were several earlier prototypes of the famous rabbit, white with a different voice, but this is the short that launched his career. Bugs says “Whats Up Doc?” for the first time, co-opting a line uttered by Clark Gable while chewing a carrot in the Frank Capra film “It Happened One Night”. Interestingly enough Mel Blanc the creator of his voice was terribly allergic to carrots. He found he couldn’t recreate the crisp sound of chewing with any other vegetable. So he kept a bucket next to his microphone to quickly spit out the carrots after chewing.

1946- Writer Gertrude Stein dies. Her last words to Alice B. Toklas were:"What is the Answer?" When Alice said nothing, Gertrude said:" Well then, What's the Question?"

1953- THE KOREAN WAR ENDS- The Treaty of Panmunjom. After170,000 Americans casualties and millions of Koreans & Chinese killed the treaty fixed the border basically where it was when the war started in 1950. The South Korean Government was outraged and considered it a betrayal because it acknowledged the permanent breakup of Korea in to two parts. South Koreans weren’t even allowed at the negotiating table, but America and China were tired of the endless death and stalemate and wanted out. South Korean President Sygmun Ree in a final act of defiance before the treaty went into effect opened all POW camps and let all the North Korean troops who didn’t want to return north run free. South Korea never signed the treaty so is still technically at war with the North. The two Koreas only started to speak to each other in 2000 and North Korea still expects a US attack at any time.

1953- The Tonight Show debuted on NBC. It's first host was Steve Allen.

1965- The U.S. Government forces cigarette companies to print warning labels on the their packages about the hazards of smoking. What nation had warned of the connection of tobacco smoking and cancer as early as 1936?- Nazi Germany.

1977- John Lennon got his green card. Richard Nixon considered him a dangerous radical and several times in 1972 he was under 60 day notice to leave the country.

1986- Gregg Lemond became the first American to win the Tour de France bicycle race. He won the final length by 8 seconds.

1993- IBM announced it would eliminate 35,000 jobs. Downsizing becomes a popular sport in corporate America. The more worker careers ruined the higher your stock rose. The chairman of General Electric Jack Welch, was nicknamed “Neutron Jack” after the neutron bomb that kills off people but leaves buildings intact.

1996- A bomb goes off during Olympic celebrations in Atlanta Georgia. The bomb was in a bag packed with nails and put in a crowded area designed to hurt as many people as possible. One woman was killed and dozens injured. The perpetrator was not known when the mass media decided to focus on an overweight security guard named Richard Jewel. Ironically Jewell was the one who first alerted police to the suspicious package tried to evacuate the area, otherwise more people would have been killed. After weeks of merciless hounding by the world media the FBI announced Jewel was completely innocent. Jewell sued and the television networks had to pay out hefty settlement costs. It wasn’t until 2003 that the police finally caught the real culprit, abortion clinic bomber and backwoods fruitcake Eric Rudolph.

Yesterday’s Quiz: To Berliners, what is Die Mauer?

Answer: The Wall. The Berlin Wall 1961-1989
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