Quiz: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama plan a series of regular Weds night cocktail receptions at the White House. Who originated the idea?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: Of these U.S. Presidents, which one was not once a lawyer? Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson?
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HISTORY FOR 2/19/2009
Birthdays: Copernicus, Luigi Boccherini, Smokey Robinson, Andre Breton, Lee Marvin, Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Karen Silkwood, Paul Terry, Paul Krause, Merl Oberon, Amy Tam the author of the Joy Luck Club., John Frankenheimer, Jeff Daniels, Benicio Del Toro is 42, Hilary Duff is 23

Today is the Feast of Saint Wulfstan of Worchester

197AD- General Septimius Severus of the African Legions had seized control of the Roman Empire and had himself declared emperor. This day he defeated his last rival, Albinus ,the Commander of the legions of Gaul. He left Albinus’ dead body in front of his headquarters, where for fun he trampled it repeatedly with his horse. This was before office desk Nerf-basketball was invented. Albinus‘ corpse layed around being torn by dogs and vermin for days until it stank so bad, it was flung into a nearby stream.

1405- Timur Khan, called Timur the Lame or Tamerlane in the west, died at 69 of a fever. Tamerlane wreaked a path of destruction almost as horrible as Genghis Khan two centuries earlier. Raging up and down the Near East and Western China, his personal touch was leaving pyramids of human skulls to show he’d stopped by. But because Genghis had already "been there, done that..." history doesn't really pay much attention to him, proving you can be genocidal as long as you’re not redundant.

1600-In Rome philosopher Giordano Bruno was stripped naked and burned at the stake with a nail hammered through his tongue. The monk was one of the first modern free thinkers and skeptics. He raged against superstition and denied there was any such thing as Hell or Purgatory. But his chief sin that got him burned was his expansion on the Copernicus Theory. He said that not only is the Earth revolving around the sun but that the Universe is Infinite and unfathomable, that God should not be belittled, as being focused on one little people on one rock. He is an Infinite Presence ruling over countless worlds. Later scientists like Galileo and Descartes kept Bruno’s fate in mind when they went too far in bucking Holy Mother Church.

1674- The Second Treaty of Breda settled the Third Dutch War with England. As part of the settlement Holland gave up any chance of getting back her colonies in North America, now renamed by the English New York and New Jersey. Truth be told they weren’t bringing in any income anyway. They were considered of little value.

1725- The first recorded case of someone dying of spontaneous combustion.

1847-“ ARE YOU FROM CALIFORNIA OR ARE YOU FROM HEAVEN?” The Donner Party found at last. The wagon train of settlers had been trapped in the High Sierra mountains of California near Lake Truckee in blizzard conditions with no food since last October 31st. Half the settlers were dead and the rest subsisting on cannibalizing the dead for food. This day a survivor named John Reed who got to safety returned with a rescue party from Sutter’s Fort. Of the 89 original settlers only 45 made it out alive. One opened a restaurant.

1878- Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.

1913- Crackerjacks start putting toy prizes in every box. The name Crackerjack for the caramel corn was named for the reaction of Teddy Roosevelt trying it for the first time- These are Crackerjack!

1915- L.A. Times publisher and land baron Harry Chandler was indicted with 8 other prominent Angeleanos for conspiring to start a new revolution in Mexico. The Mexican government had seized their large land holdings there for land redistribution and this was their quaint little way of getting them back.

1920- THE MYSTERY OF ANASTASIA- This day came the first news reports that a emotionally disturbed young woman who tried to jump into a Berlin canal claimed to be the Archduchess Anastasia Romanov, youngest child of the Czar and Czarina of Russia. She somehow escaped the 1918 murder of her family and tried to prove it by recalling minute details about the Imperial household. She was called Anna Anderson and was the toast of New York and Parisian society for awhile. But unlike the Ingrid Bergman movie the Romanov family in exile never took her seriously and Anna eventually married and settled down. In 1991 extensive laboratory attempts to match her DNA with the Romanovs proved she was not the little archduchess.



1942-PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT signed Executive Order# 9066- The JAPANESE INTERNMENT ACT- All along the Pacific Coast first and second generation Japanese-Americans were uprooted from their homes and property and with what only they could carry were shipped off to camps in the desert. Few Japanese-Americans were interned in Hawaii however, because it would have seriously depleted the population. Many got no restitution for their lost property. America remembered how effective German agents were in the First World War, when bombs going off on Boston and New York waterfront docks was common. Throughout the Second World War no act of Japanese-American sabotage was ever recorded. Apologists would say it was because of the act. Although the F.B.I. kept tabs on German and Italian agents in U.S. and pro-Fascist groups like the American Bund flourished in the 30’s nothing like what happened to Japanese Americans occurred to them. Less than 10,000 were rounded up as opposed to over 100,000 Japanese Americans.

1945- THE INVASION of IWO JIMA-The nine mile square bit of barren beach cost over 50,000 lives. This island and Okinawa were the test cases to judge how fiercely the Japanese would fight for mainland Japan. Iwo Jima was the first island that wasn't conquered territory of some other people but was considered part of the home Japanese Islands, only 700 miles from Tokyo.

1944- Writer John Steinbeck asked that his name be taken off of the credits for the Alfred Hitchcock film version of “Lifeboat”. “In view of the fact that my script for the picture was distorted in production.”

1945- Nazi S.S. leader Heinrich Himmler contacted the neutral Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte to try and open secret peace talks with the Allies behind Hitler's back. Bernadotte asks as a condition that all concentration camps in the Reich be turned over to the International Red Cross. Himmler balks at this but agrees to allow food packages to be delivered to Nordic inmates. When Hitler finds out Himmler was trying to cut his own deal he was extremely upset and Himmler was under house arrest at the end of the war.

1951-Poet philosopher Andre Gide died in Paris. Several things were quoted as his last words, my favorite is " Before you quote me, please make sure I'm conscious."

1954- The prototype Ford Thunderbird auto completed.

1960- Bill Keane's "Family Circus" cartoon strip debuts.

1968- “ It’s a beautiful day in the Neighborhood…” Mister Roger’s Neighborhood debuted on National Education Television, later called PBS. Ordained Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers had been doing children’s shows similar in Pittsburgh and Canada since the 50’s but today was the start of his show that would run unchanged for thirty-five years.

1985 - Mickey Mouse welcomed in China.

1995- Pamela Anderson married rocker Tommy Lee. On their honeymoon they shot that notorious video on Lake Powell.
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Yesterdays’ question: Of these U.S. Presidents, which one was not once a lawyer? Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Richard Nixon, Andrew Johnson?

Answer: James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights.