Quiz: For most of the world, Memorial Day is Nov. 11th, when the Great War ended. But in America it is the last weekend in May. Why?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Who’s foot was the measure for “ the foot”…?
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History for 5/25/2012
Birthdays: Miles Davis, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Josef Broz Tito, Igor Sikorsky, Pontormo, Bennett Cerf, Claude Akins, Leslie Uggams, Bill Bojangles Robinson, Beverly Sills, Anne Heche, Irwin Winkler, Mike Myers is 49, Ian McKellen is 73

1085- King Alfonso VI of Aragon captured Toledo from the Moors.

1521- German Emperor Charles V declared Protestant reformer Martin Luther a heretic and an outlaw. The German states that rallied to Luther’s new teachings fought the emperor in the epic Schmalkalden Wars.

1660-RESTORATION DAY- After Oliver Cromwell executed King Charles Ist, he declared the British Monarchy abolished, and ruled England with a junta of generals as Lord Protector. When Cromwell died of natural causes in 1659 he tried to elevate his son Richard Cromwell in his place. But the son is not the father. The rickety system didn’t work, and Richard earned the nickname “Tumbledown-Dick”. The generals led by General Monck had no other remedy to avoid chaos other than recalling King Charles’ son Charles II from exile in Flanders to be king of England. For many years Restoration Day was a holiday in the UK.

1720- John Copson became the first Insurance Agent in the New World.

1787- First meeting of delegates in Philadelphia to write the U.S. Constitution.
Interestingly enough, nobody really asked them to. They were only summoned by Congress to iron out some bugs in the Articles of Confederation. However James Madison and Alexander Hamilton hatched a plan to chuck the whole system and write a new document. Ben Franklin was carried in on a sedan chair from time to time but at 81 he was so old he didn't offer much beyond moral support.

1810- When Napoleon had conquered Spain, the colonies of Latin America puzzled about who to send taxes to. The French occupation government in Madrid or the Spanish Royal family in exile in Naples? This day Argentina had a better idea. They declared Independence.

1865- Mary Lincoln and her son Tad move out of the White House where she had been holed up in seclusion since the night of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She had been too traumatized to attend the funeral or accompany the body back to Illinois.

1878- Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore premiered at the Savoy in London. “So Stick to your desk and never go to Sea, and You can be the Leader of the Queen’s Naveeee”

1895- Author and playwright Oscar Wilde sentenced to prison for sodomy.
The terrible conditions of his imprisonment in Redding Gaol will break his spirit and health and lead to his early death in exile in 1900. In a 1995 ceremony honoring him in Westminster Abbey it was revealed the laws that sentenced Wilde are still on the books in England.

The Victorian hypocrisy was compounded by the fact that so many great men of the Empire privately acknowledged a preference for their own sex- Gordon of Khartoum, Sir Cecil Rhodes, Lawrence of Arabia, Nicholson the Tiger of the Punjab, and more. Queen Victoria once said after a meeting with Earl Kitchener of Omdurman:”I was told my lord does not prefer the company of women. Still, I found him to be a pleasant speaker.”

1906- Putting on the Ritz! London’s Ritz Hotel opened.

1911-The beginnings of Mexican Revolution forced longtime dictator Gen. Jose Porfirio Diaz into exile. As a young man Diaz had fought the French under Juarez but later seized power for himself. Under his long rule Mexico industrialized and gained railroads and schools. He had once said:" My poor Mexico. Too far from Heaven and too close to the United States."

1911- Thomas Mann visited Venice Italy. On the Lido Beach he was inspired to write A Death in Venice.

1917-In World War One, Germany bombed London for the first time not with zeppelins but with new Gotha biplane bombers.

1923- Britain and France recognize the Hashemite Kingdom of TransJordan ruled by Abdallah Ibn Hussein.

1927- Ford had put America on wheels with the Model T, the most successful car model in history. Today they stop making the Model T after 15 million cars, costing on average $300 each, $26 dollars down with monthly payments.

1932- Flamboyant New York Mayor Jimmy Walker testifies before the Seabury Commission. The corruption scandals of his administration will force him to resign.

1932-Mickey’s Revue, the first Disney cartoon that featured the character that would eventually be called Goofy.

1935- Babe Ruth hits his last home runs. The Bambino was in his last year, working out his contract with the Boston Braves. This day in Pittsburgh the Babe showed his old form when he hit three home runs and a single. His record of 714 home runs held for over sixty years.

1942- First day shooting on the film “ Casablanca”.

1944- Yugoslav partisan leader Marshal Tito escaped a massive German Blitzkreig campaign designed just to kill him.

1950- Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opened in NYC.

1957- Sid Caesar's Your Show of Show's canceled after nearly a decade. The show used future star writers like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen and Neil Simon. The show pioneered the executive strategy of network programmer Pat Weaver to not let the show be owned by an entire sponsor but the network would produce the show and would sell the sponsor commercial time in 30 second chunks. Pat Weaver’s daughter is Sigorney Weaver.

1961- THE SPACE RACE- The United States had been chafing about how far ahead the Soviet Union was in the exploration of space. In an address to Congress this day President John F. Kennedy pledged the wealth and resources of the U.S. to beating Russia to the Moon. "Our pledge is within the next ten years to send a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth… We choose to go to the Moon not because it will be easy but because it is hard!" The Moon landing was achieved in 1969. Today it is acknowledged that without the motivation of the Cold War the conquest of the Moon would have happened much more slowly.

1965- The Saint Louis Gateway Arch dedicated.

1968- The Rolling Stones release the song Jumping Jack Flash.

1969- John Schlesinger’s film Midnight Cowboy premiered. The first X-rated film to ever win the Oscar for Best Film.

1979- Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Alien opened. It featured the exotic designs of Hungarian artist Giger, and John Hurt with a classic case of chest pains!

1980- Evangelist Oral Roberts sees a 900-foot Jesus over his bed.

1983- Return of the Jedi opened. It was originally Revenge of the Jedi, but George Lucas changed the name just a month before.

1986- Hands Across America stunt to help hunger has 7 million people at one time holding hands at noon.

1994- Tim Berners-Lee and CERN held the first international conference on how to implement and unify the World Wide Web.

2000- It was revealed that in 1958 US scientists planned to explode an atomic bomb on the moon. There would be no mushroom cloud because that requires an atmosphere, and the flash would only be visible for a few seconds. What the purpose would be other than to scare the BeeJeezus out of the Russkies no one knew. This idea was soon scrapped.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who’s foot was the measure for “ the foot”…?

Answer: Frankish Emperor Charlemagne.