Question: The global economic turmoil has been called a Recession. Sunday a former Secretary of the Treasury first used the word Depression. What is the difference between a recession and a depression?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who wrote the music that began the Tod Browning 1931 movie Dracula with Bela Lugosi?
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History for 12/9/2008
Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton, Jean De Brunhoff, Elzie Segar the creator of Popeye, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes, Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Kirk Douglas is 92, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, John Malkovich is 55, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Buck Henry is 78, Felicity Huffman, Judy Dench, Star Trek’s Mr Worff- 2340 AD

536- The legions of Byzantine General Belisarius captured Rome from the Ostrogoths. This was part of Emperor Justinians’ master plan to win back the western half of the old Roman Empire.

1658- Dutch explorers land at the Indian harbor of Quilon, beginning the European interference in India that would last until 1947.

1783- First executions began at Englands Newgate Prison, replacing the traditional public hanging, drawing, quartering, branding, beheading place of Tyburn Hill- approximately where London’s Marble Arch is today.

1803- Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment calling for the President and Vice President to be of the same party and defining the order of succession: President-Vice President, Secretary of State. Speaker of the House, Senate Leader Pro-Tem. In 1945 this system was amended once more to exclude the Secretary of State, who is not an elected official. Before this the system was the Vice President was the loser of the presidential election, thus the people’s second choice. But trying to govern with your political enemy standing next to you proved clumsy. Imagine John Kerry standing behind G. W. Bush instead of Cheney.

1824- Battle of Ayacucho- Simon Bolivar defeated the last Spanish Army in the Americas.

1825- THE LATIN AMERICAN BUBBLE- The London Stock Exchange crashed over rampant stock speculation in the potential wealth in the new emerging Latin American republics. Financier Nathan Rothschild became a national figure when he lent the Bank of England millions to stay solvent. Thanks to new communications and international investment for the first time the London panic reached across national borders and caused the U.S. Stock Exchange and the Paris Bourse to also crash. This kind of speculation in futures caused the South Sea Bubble in France and the Tulip craze a century earlier. We’ve seen it in our own times with the High Tech Stocks crash of 2001 and this current global crash.

1835- First battle of San Antonio de Bexar. Angry Texas citizens forced Mexican General Cos to abandon a post in an old mission called the Alamo and give up a store of valuable cannon. This was the inciting incident that provoked President Santa Anna into attacking the following Spring.

1840- Dr. David Livingstone set sail for Africa to do missionary work. He met Stanley in 1871.

1854- Albert Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" published.

1861- The first ever government oversight committee formed. The Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was created because Congressmen were afraid President Lincoln was a naïve hillbilly lawyer who was ruining the country and losing the Civil War. All they succeeded in doing was give Lincoln more stress and at one point they even accused First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln of being a Confederate spy. Hmm.. a congressional committee investigation during wartime….?

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1899- BLACK WEEK-Battle of Stormberg Junction. A series of small battles in which British forces were unexpectedly shot up by Boer guerrillas in South Africa. German and Dutch descendant South Africans were called Boers which meant farmer, the British South Africans were called Uitlanders or outsiders.
The commanding British general Sir Redvers Buller, was considered so slow moving that one wag suggested they periodically hold a mirror up to his nostrils to check for if he was still breathing. He was replaced with the more energetic Lord Roberts of Kandahar.-“Ol’ Bobs”
The tabloid press back in London played up fears of the defeats from information fed to them by war correspondents like H.G. Wells and young Winston Churchill. This was the era of "jingoisim" or militant national pride.
This term derived from the pub song:
"We don't want a war but by jingo if they do..
" We got the lads, we got the ships, we got the money too..."

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands a soprano with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease the Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York old millionaires like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’ blatant sexuality. They threatened to cut off funding until Sal and her skimpy veils were pulled from the schedule.

1907- the first Christmas Seals go on sale to fight tuberculosis.

1909- Mary Harris a.k.a. Mother Jones speaks at the Thalia Theater in support of the
"The Strike of the 20,000" Immigrant seamstresses in New York's garment district.
"Every strike I have ever been in has been won by women !"

1917- During World War One Field Marshal Allenby and the British army entered Jerusalem while Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab forces headed for Damascus. To promote harmony between Arabs & Jews, Allenby decided to build a huge YMCA in the Old City.

1936- The first cookery show appeared on British television.

1937- In the path of advancing Japanese armies, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his government abandoned the capitol Nanking and moved to Chunking.

1946- Damon Runyon died, the writer whose characters the musical "Guys and Dolls' are based. His philosophy: "All life is six to five against."

1948-Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960-Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964-John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “The Love Supreme”. Late on foggy nights Trane liked to take his sax out onto the middle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and practice by himself.

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour animated t.v. special featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Producer Lee Mendelson had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want?" Vince Guaraldi died a few years later of the various vices jazzmen were prey to, but the t.v. special goes on. A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for over 40 years.

1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to the cops in derogatory terms.

1967- Nicholas Ceaucescu became dictator of Communist Romania.

1992-Britain's Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Prince Charles and Diana of Wales.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed by Robert Stern.

1994- The Surgeon-General of the United States, Dr Jocelyn Elders, was forced to step down after her statements that sex education in primary schools include masturbation outraged many conservatives.

2004-Mia Hamm and the stars of the Womens National Soccer Team played their last game, defeating Mexico 5-0. Mia Hamm became a role model of womens sports in the US. Like hundreds of boys who want to be like Michael Jordan or Joe DiMaggio, now scores of little girls want to be like Mia.

2008- The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested for corruption and trying to sell the senate office of incoming President Barack Obama.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who wrote the music that began the Tod Browning 1931 movie Dracula with Bela Lugosi?

Answer. Tschaikowsky. It’s the beginning to his ballet Swan Lake. It was also used over the credits of Karl Freund's film "The Mummy" (1932) with Boris Karloff and, if you listen carefully, Howard Shore uses the excerpt as a kind of theme for Martin Landau's Bela Lugosi character in the music he composed for Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" (1994).(Thanks Frank G).