Question: Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, Mahler wrote ten. Who wrote 106 symphonies?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: When Albert Brooks ( Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo) began his acting career, the first thing he had to do was change his name. What was his name at birth?
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History for 11/15/2009
B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Irvin Rommel the "Desert Fox", Avrial Harriman, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Elder, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark

64 AD-THE ROMAN EMPIRE OUTLAWS CHRISTIANITY- It's hard to believe today but the Roman Empire was proud of it's religious toleration. There was a harmony to the pagan world, A Goth knew his god Odin or Wotan was called Jove in Rome and Zeus in Athens and Mithra in Persia. So the Judeo-Christian concept of One God exclusively and everybody else’s gods were demons just didn't quite fit in. The only other religion persecuted as vigorously as Christianity was the Druids, but that was because the Druids preached constant rebellion to Roman rule. The Romans dispersed the Jews as a nation, but Julius Caesar left strict laws about never violating Jewish dietary or Sabbath Laws. Even Caligula backed down from trying to put a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. Anti-Semites claim Messalina the wife of Nero was a Jewish convert and convinced her husband to ban the Christian cult, but the answer goes deeper than that. Secrecy and fear of its’ alien practices bred suspicion that would last 300 years.

1532- After marching his Spanish conquistadors for six months through steaming jungles and over tall mountains Francisco Pizarro reached the border of the mysterious Inca Empire. At the little border town of Cajamarca his 200 men suddenly found themselves face to face with 40,000 Inca warriors. The Imperial Inca Army was outfitted in gold and “they shined like the sun!”

1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral.


1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result.

1860- Shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president a large meteor was seen in the skies over the Eastern U.S. Most took this as a bad omen of troubles to come.

1864- SHERMAN BURNS ATLANTA- Atlanta was the economic center of the South, an enormous depot far from the front with railroad tracks linking all the coastal ports. William Tecumseh Sherman was the first modern general. He understood the Civil War was a war of peoples, outmaneuvering armies for temporary strategic gains wouldn’t decide it. He drove out the civilian population of the city and torched it. He called his tactics 'Hard War" but today we call it 'Total War" Sherman had an army band serenaded him beneath his window playing the "Miserere'" from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", while he observed the burning, impatiently chewing on an unlit cigar. A high strung asthmatic, he had had a nervous breakdown at the start of the war and had once tried to dye his bright red hair but it turned green. The next day Sherman began his epic March to the Sea. Not with green hair.


1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1920- The League of Nations held it’s first meeting in Geneva.

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla starts at Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1937- The U.S. Congress gets air-conditioning.

1941- Edict of Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordering the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all Homosexuals and Gypsies.

1969- THE MORATORIUM- 250,000 people gather in Washington to protest the War in Vietnam. Richard Nixon had run as a peace candidate but once in office escalated the Vietnam conflict to include Cambodia and Laos. President Nixon came to regard the young student protesters as the chief nemesis of his administration. He appealed to the Silent Majority, staged stunts like the Hard Hat Luncheon-an event thrown for conservative construction workers. According to John Dean by 1971 Nixon had a bunker built under the executive offices where aide John Ehrlichman monitored protests from a battery of television monitors. Nixon stalwart G. Gordon Liddy pitched preposterous schemes like infiltrating the students with mercenaries who would at a signal beat up people, and strategic commando style kidnapping of protest leaders. These schemes were never implemented.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. When it opened in Copenhagen, director John Musker and Ron Clements attended a gala and sat next to the Queen of Denmark. They agonized over what would be her reaction to the reworking of the unhappy ending in this great Danish work, but the Queen's reaction was "It's beautiful! Hans Christian Andersen never could write a decent ending..."

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synced to the music.

1995- According to the Starr report, President Clinton had his first sexual tryst with intern Monica Lewinsky. At one point he was on the phone to a member of Congress while doing the nasty with the chubby chick from Beverly Hills High.
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Yesterday’s Question: When Albert Brooks ( Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo) began his acting career, the first thing he had to do was change his name. What was his name at birth?

Answer: Albert Einstein, but that name was already taken.