Quiz: I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried??
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History for 4/21/2009
Birthdays: Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Iggy Pop, Charles Grodin, Anna Mangnani. Andie MacDowell, Tony Danza, Elaine May, Queen Elizabeth II is 83

1526-The First Battle of Panipat. Mogul Emperor Babur defeated the Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi and took Delhi. This established the Moghul Empire in India. Babur’s army fought with Mongol bows, elephants and he introduced cannon to India.

1847- The 4th rescue team removed the last survivors of the Donner Party wagon train from their snowed in camp on Lake Truckee in the Sierras down to the settlement on the Sacramento River. A furious winter trapped the Donners in the mountains last Oct 31st with almost no food and all their oxen dead. Of 86 pioneers 41 died and the others ate the dead to survive. Louis Keyesburg, the only settler who spoke openly of eating human flesh and was called a ghoul, moved to Sacramento and opened a restaurant. Don’t ask what’s in those home fries!

1865- UNCLE BILLY’S POLITICAL LESSON. In North Carolina, General William T. Sherman had offered Confederate Joe Johnston’s army the same terms for surrender that Grant had given Robert E Lee. But Johnston handed Sherman new terms rewritten by crafty Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It asked for political and property amnesty for all Confederate leaders; that the US Government would leave all Southern state officials at their posts. This went much further than one army surrendering to another, it was in effect a treaty that no one would be punished for the Civil War. But Billy Sherman didn’t seem to see the fine print. He thought that’s what old Abe Lincoln had wanted before he was killed. So he signed it and passed it on to Washington. When President Andrew Johnson read the terms they were thunderstruck. He ordered Sherman to tear that treaty up and offer nothing but unconditional surrender. Hotheaded Secretary of War Stanton denounced Sherman in the newspapers as a traitor. Sherman the Hero of Atlanta was furious at being made a fool of. He resolved the rest of his life to have nothing more to do with politics, which is why we never had a President William T. Sherman.

1865- President Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington DC for the long trip back to Springfield Ill.

1911- LENIN WANTS A LIBRARY CARD. Russian communist revolutionary Nikolai Lenin was living in exile in London. In a letter dated this day he applied to the British Museum Library collection to study it's documents. His letter was in perfect English and he signed his name under the pseudonym Jacob Richter.

1910- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. He once wrote: " When arriving in Heaven feel free to ask all the questions you want of Saint Peter. You may ask for his autograph however don’t take any Kodak photos or bring your dog. Admittance to Heaven is based on favor, not merit, else the dog would be allowed to go in and you kept out."

1915- THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES- The Ottoman Turkish Empire had always been a amalgamation of ethnic peoples held together by force. As the Empire aged and became the 'Sick Man of Europe', one by one these subject peoples-Greeks, Serbs, Egyptians asserted their independence and broke away. So when the Armenians also demanded autonomy the Sultan Abdul Hamid IV came up with a bloodthirsty solution. On this day the first 200 Armenian elders of a village were shot, signaling a general nationwide pogrom that would eventually kill one million people. The first person first brought the massacre story to the world was a German doctor on the scene who complained to the Kaiser. In the 1930s when someone had the courage to warn Adolph Hitler that his plans for the Jews would bring down upon them the wrath of the world, Hitler replied:" And who remembers the Armenians?"

1915- THE FIRST GALLIPOLI LANDINGS- This was young First Sea Lord Winston Churchill's idea to knock Turkey out of World War One. A British-Anzac force amphibiously landed on the beaches south of Constantinople to capture the enemy capitol. It turned into one of the biggest British fiascos of the war and knocked Churchill into resignation. The army of Gen. Ian Hamilton did surprise the Turks but then they sat on the beaches for weeks while reinforcements were brought up by a dynamic young Turkish General named Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, who would later become President of Turkey.

1918-THE RED BARON SHOT DOWN- In the wild duels in the air above the World War One trenches Baron Manfred Von Richtofen was the best of the best. The Red Knight had shot down more planes than anyone -80 confirmed. When other squadrons were disguising their planes with the new camouflage paints ("cubism gone to war"-Picasso), Richtofen had his men paint their planes bright colors to show their contempt of the enemy, hence the name-"the Flying Circus". On this day over Vaux Sur Somme, Richtofen got onto the tail of one plane and was about to add #81, when Canadian Roy Brown got behind him and filled the back of his plane with machinegun bullets. Mortally wounded, The baron still managed to land his red fokker triplane before slumping over dead. His last words over heard was " Kaput!"





Baron von Richtofen was 26. The plane was later torn to pieces by Australian soldiers seeking souvenirs. Recent scholarship argues he was killed by Australian ground fire, but Brown got the credit.. Roy Brown couldn't handle his celebrity status and committed suicide after the war. For the remainder of the war, Baron von Richtofen's staffel (squadron) was led by a young pilot named Herman Goring.

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1933- The Nazis ban kosher meat processing in Germany.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1961- Two groups of British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1969- Beat Generation author of On the Road- Jacques Kerouac died of alcoholism, bitter about how his call for youth rebellion had been reinterpreted by the 60's generation as hippies and flower power. When he came upon a gathering of kids at an anti-war rally distributing American flags to burn Kerouac collected them all and folded them neatly.

1989- George W. Bush became part of a ownership consortium that bought the last place baseball team the Texas Rangers." As soon as I knew they were for sale I went after them like a pit bull on a pants leg….It doesn’t get much better than this…"

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral. The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.

2000- Scientists discovered the fossilized heart of a dinosaur in South Dakota. It had four chambers and an aorta like a mammal. This all but proved that dinosaurs were not reptiles but warm blooded. Later it was proven that all they found was an oddly shaped rock.
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Yesterday’s Question: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried?

Answer: He was buried in France. Richard lies near to his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine at the abbey of Fontrevault in the Loire Valley, close to the castle of Chinon. His Lions heart was removed and buried in the Cathedral of Rouen.