May 31st, 2009 sun. May 31st, 2009 |
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Quiz: What were LaSalle, DeSoto, Nash, Maxwell and Duesenberg?
Answer to Yesterday’s Quiz Below: For all you WWII experts: if you took a Higgins Boat, where did it drop you off?
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History for 5/31/2009
Birthdays: King Manuel Ist of Portugal –1495, Walt Whitman, Fred Allen, Clint Eastwood, Don Ameche, Prince Ranier, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Ranier Fassbinder, Brooke Shields, Joe Namath, Richie Valens, Tom Berenger, Denholm Elliot, Peter Yarrow, Lea Thompson, John Bonzo Bonham of Led Zepplin, Colin Ferrell
1578- A farmer plowing a vineyard near Rome causes the ground to collapse beneath him revealing the long buried Ancient Roman CATACOMBS. Antonio Bosio studied them and writes in 1632 "Underground Rome".
1793- LA TERREUR- THE REIGN OF TERROR BEGAN- French extreme leftists the Jacobins named for their meeting place, near the monastery of St.Jacob- Danton, Robespierre and Marat take over the French Government. They declare anybody who doesn't agree with them to be counterrevolutionary dead meat. Robsepierre said: “Virtue without Terror is Impotence, Terror without Virtue is Criminal.” Marat said: "If we cut off 10,000 heads today, it saves us having to cut off 100,000 tomorrow!"
For a year they guillotined 17,000 people, including Madame DuBarry, the scientist Lavoisier, poet Andre Chenier and even fellow revolutionaries Danton and Camille Desmoulins. They also drowned hundreds in barges. Napoleon, Josephine, Roget Du Lisle -who wrote Le Marseillaise, even American Thomas Paine barely escape the blade. To their credit they enacted much needed social reforms, For the first time the public could enjoy the Royal art collections like the Louvre and the royal parks like the Luxembourg Gardens.
1837 - Joseph Grimaldi, England’s greatest clown (king of pantomime), died at 57. On stage since the age of 3 at Sadler-Wells, he never appeared in a circus ring. Instead, his act was stage pantomime. In tribute to him English clowns are known as “Joey’.
1873- SCHLEIMANN FOUND TROY. German archaeologist Heinrich Schleimann unearthed the horde of gold known as Priam's Treasure in a mound near Hysarlik Turkey. This proved this site was the Troy of Homer and the Trojan War was not a myth but a real historical event. There were actually 9 Troys on the site- from a Bronze Age village to a Late Roman Empire city. The Troy of the Trojan War was Troy number 4. It showed signs of destruction by fire.
1879- New York’s Madison Square Garden opened. Designed to resemble a Venetian Palazzo.
1884-Happy Birthday Kellogg’s Corn Flakes! Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek Michigan patents "flaked cereal and the process for making same." He felt whole foods like Corn Flakes could help gentle Victorian people curb their urge to sexual excesses. Hmm…should I mud wrestle Jessica Alba or have a bowl of corn flakes? Decisions, decisions.
1889-The Johnstown Flood. The South Fork Dam swollen by heavy rains burst and sent a 35-foot wall of water and debris over the town. 2,295 were killed.
1901-THE BOER WAR ENDS. English troops entered Praetoria; Boer survivors signed the Treaty of Vereeniging. Tranvaal President Kruger "Oom Paul"-Uncle Paul- fled to Holland. When the Queen of Holland appealed for help for the Boers, who were ethnically Dutch-German. The Kaiser was noncommittal. The leader of the second largest population of Germans, President Teddy Roosevelt of the United States, said, "It is right and natural that the larger nations should dominate the smaller."
On a troopship returning from South Africa volunteer doctor Arthur Conan-Doyle was told by a Welsh doctor of a legend of a big ghostly dog that attacked people on the moors of his home estate. Conan-Doyle thought this would be a swell story for his character Sherlock Holmes to solve. The Hound of the Baskervilles was the result.
1911- RMS Titanic launched from the Belfast shipyards. In a strange premonition of her eventual fate, she was never christened.
1916-The BATTLE OF JUTLAND. German and British battleships boom away at each other in the only major naval fleet engagement of World War I. Giant battleships called Dreadnoughts were the nukes of the turn of the century power game. Yet when the first and third largest fleets in the world finally grappled it was a tie. British Admiral Beatty was annoyed with the performance of his fleet: "Blast ! Why are all me bloody battlecruisers sinking?” But the German High Seas fleet went back into Kiel harbor and didn't emerge again for the rest of the war.
1928- The song “ Old Man River “sung by Pail Robeson came out as a single.
1948- The various guerrilla groups fighting for the new state of Israel, the Palmach, Haganna and Irgun, combine to officially become the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force,
1957- Malaya received its independence from Britain.
1958 - Dick Dale invents "surf music" with "Let's Go Trippin"
1962- Israel hanged Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. His body was cremated and the ashes scattered in the sea.
1969-John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace a Chance." It became the theme song of the Anti-Vietnam War movement. Because of this song and Lennon’s support of the Hippie protestors the Nixon White House kept a file on him. Lennon spent most of 1972-73 under a constant threat of 60-day deportation from the US. The Republican who suggested the INS revoke Lennons visa was Sen. Strom Thurmond.
1979- The nation of Rhodesia became the Republic of Zimbabwe.
1984- Martial arts movie star Steven Segal married soap opera star Adrienne LaRussa. But what Adrienne didn’t know was he already had a wife named Miyako Fujetani and two kids waiting for him in Japan. A few months after this he fell for another actress named Kelly LeBrock.
1985- John Sculley was a former exec from Pepsi brought in by Apple Computer companies founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to help run the company. This day his solution to help the company run better was to fire Steve Jobs. Wozniak retired and Sculley eventually moved on. Today Steve Jobs runs the reinvigorated Apple as well as PIXAR and is on the board of the Walt Disney Company.
1989- "Skinhead Day at the Magic Kingdom" Disneyland refused to admit a rally of skinheads, Nazis and Klansmen.
1990- Television sitcom Seinfeld premiered based on a TV special about the standup comedian called the Seinfeld Chronicles. No Soup for You!
1995- A young Mexican-American Tejana singer named Selena was gaining a growing crossover appeal in pop music, and there seemed no limit. This day she was shot and killed by the Yolanda Saldivia, the president of the Selena Fan club.
1996- Despite grief over the assassination of Labor Prime Minister Ytschak Rabin, the Israeli public voted for the right wing Likud today, making Benjamin “Bibi” Netnayahu Prime Minister, and setting back the peace process once again.
2000- The first Survivor show premiered, shepherding in a new deluge of TV Reality shows.
2003- A dove got into the Pentagon and flapped around the Air Force Secretary's office on the 4th floor. Can we say- symbolic?
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Yesterday’s Question:For all you WWII experts: if you took a Higgins Boat, where did it drop you off?
Answer: A Higgins boat was the name for the small landing craft that dropped it's front and dropped you off on beaches like Omaha and Anzio.
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