Question: Why is dark rye bread called pumpernickel?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Speaking of Wall Street Crashes, in the 1929 Stock Market Collapse, which person made out okay? 1-Charles Dupont Chairman of General Motors, 2-Groucho Marx comedian, 3-Al Capone Chicago Gangster, 4-Irving Berlin composer.
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History for 10/26/2008
Birthdays: Danton, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir “Bill” Tytla - Disney animator who gave life to Dumbo, Grumpy and the Devil from Bald Mountain, Francois Mitterand, Domenico Scarlatti, Charles W. Post of Post Cereals, Bob Hoskins, The last Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Mahalia Jackson, Clive Barker, Bootsie Collins, Marla Maples, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Jaclyn Smith, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Pat Sito

901 AD- English King Alfred the Great the died. He actually wasn’t King of England because there was no united England yet, he was King of Wessex. He is the only English king ever called The Great.

1440- French nobleman Giles De Rais beheaded. If the concept of "medieval justice" always seemed like an oxymoron, the case of Giles De Rais is a notable exception.
Giles was a powerful warlord of Joan of Arc who went bizarrely wrong in later years. He was so paranoid about losing his fortune, he listened to a sorcerer who told him the Devil would help if Giles sacrificed some children to him. When children began disappearing in large numbers from around his castle even the Royal court and aristocracy couldn't ignore the outcry. The knight was tried, beheaded and his remains burned without Christian rites. His castle Chevrenault outside Tours was leveled, so no memory of the horrible episode would remain. Giles De Rais is sometimes called Bluebeard, a name also given to the insurance murderer Nicholas Landru in 1928.

1825-THE ERIE CANAL COMPLETED, on budget and ahead of schedule. Governor Dewitt Clinton poured a ceremonial bucket of Great Lakes water into the Hudson River. Once called Clinton’s Big Ditch, even old Thomas Jefferson thought the plan was madness. The 350 mile Erie canal tied the Midwest interior of America to it’s Atlantic coast and makes New York the economic capitol of the nation. It also set off a boom in canal boat building. Remember at this time trains weren’t invented yet and roads were so poor it took Jefferson two weeks to travel from Washington to Charlottesville Virgina, a distance today driven in two hours!

1858- The rotary drum washing machine patented by H. E. Smith of Philadelphia.

1863- The English Football Association formed to standardize the rules for soccer.

1863- We all know the Transcontinental Railroad was completed when the Golden Spike was driven in ,on May 10,1867. Well today the first nails of that four year, 800 mile track were hammered in ceremonies in Missouri on the East and Sacramento on the West.

1881-The GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL- The grudgefight between the Earp Brothers and the Clantons only lasted about two minutes but remains one the most famous fight of the Old West. The fight may have actually happened in front of McFly's Photo-Parlour, but the Tombstone Gazzette decided the OK Corral a block away sounded more macho. Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp ,who died in 1929 a Los Angeles real estate speculator, told so many different versions of what happened that he's totally discredited as a witness today. Before the encounter, Morgan Earp had been discussing with his brothers whether there was a life after death. As Morgan lay dying, he looked up at his brothers and said:" I guess you're right Wyatt, I can't see a damn thing!"

1918- As the German war effort in the Great War was falling apart, the Kaiser’s government had asked for secret talks to get a ceasefire. Everyone knew this meant defeat and German General Erich Ludendorf was having none of it. He denounced liberal Chancellor Prince Max of Baden’s peace efforts and vowed to fight on. Prince Max went to the Kaiser and said" He’s got to go. It’s Ludendorf or me!" The Kaiser convened a meeting of his war council and ordered Ludendorf to submit his resignation. Ludendorf refused a limousine; he walked alone to his house and sat silent in his parlor chair for several hours. Finally he emerged from his meditation and said to his wife:" In a fortnight we shall have no more Empire and no more Emperor. You will see." He was right to the day. Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated November 9th.

1929- Henry Ford invited President Herbert Hoover out for a picnic at Greenfield Michigan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of Electricity. Greenfield was a theme park recreation of a pre-industrial American farm town Ford's innovations had done so much to change forever. Other guests include Thomas Edison, William Dupont, Henry Firestone and Madame Curie. During their picnic the President gets ominous news of a growing crisis on Wall St.

1947-HOLLYWOOD FIGHTS BACK.- Members of Hollywood's progressive elite tried to answer the McCarthy hearings and the blacklist with a nationwide radio broadcast "Hollywood Fights Back' -Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, John Huston, Gene Kelly and Edward G. Robinson.
The event was a public relations fiasco. Nobel laureate Thomas Mann used his air time to launch into a longwinded intellectual defense of Communism. When word reached them that some of the Hollywood writers they were defending really were communists Bogart and Bacall felt they had been hoodwinked. "As politicians we stink!" quote Bogie.

1951- Despite being past his prime famed heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis The Brown Bomber came out of retirement to attempt a comeback and pay off back taxes . This day he was knocked out and finally retired by young champ Rocky Marciano. Growing up Marciano had idolized Louis and afterwards apologized to him.

1952- David Wolper’s documentary Victory at Sea with it’s majestic score by Richard Rogers first premiered.

1955- The Greenwich Village Voice, later called simply The Voice, first published.

1965- The rock band the Beatles received MBEs ( most excellent Member of the British Empire ) medals at Buckingham Palace. John Lennon later returned his as a protest.

1970- Doonesbury born. Yale law graduate Gary Trudeau was convinced by Jim Andrews his classmate now an editor at Universal Press syndicate, to recreate his funny comic he did in the campus newspaper. It's original name was 'Bull Tales".

1984-" I’LL BE BACK…" James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller THE TERMINATOR first released. Governor elect Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered a Hollywod joke before this film made him a major star. An interesting what-if was that before Arnold was cast in the role of the cyborg assassin, the producers were first considering O.J. Simpson.

2028- Asteroid 1977 FX11 will pass within 600,000 miles of the Earth. In 1998 The Smithsonian announced the asteroid would hit the planet or maybe pass closer than the moon's orbit 30,000 miles, causing global meteorlogical convulsions. The following day the Jet Propulsion Lab and Mount Palomar Observatory announced a correction of the calculations to prove it will miss us by a wide distance. Stick around, we're gonna find out.
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Yesterday’s Question: Speaking of Wall Street Crashes, in the 1929 Stock Market Collapse, which person made out okay? 1-Charles Dupont Chairman of General Motors, 2-Groucho Marx comedian, 3-Al Capone Chicago Gangster, 4-Irving Berlin composer.

Answer: 3- Scarface Al Capone never invested in the Stock Market, so when the Stock Market collapsed, he was okay. The rest were financially wiped out. Quote Big Al about Wall St.-“ Dem's guys iz all crooks.”