Nov 26, 2014 Weds November 26th, 2014 |
Question: We all know about when Thanksgiving started with the Pilgrims and all that, but when did it become an official holiday?
Yesterday’s question answered below: What was The Enigma Machine?
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History for 11/26/2016
Birthdays: John Harvard 1607(founder of Harvard University), Bat Masterson, Eugene Ionesco, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, Marian Mercer, Tina Turner, Charles Schulz, Cyril Cusak, Eric Severaid, Rich Little, Wendy Turnbull, Robert Goulet.
311A.D. Saint Peter of Alexandria, was the last saint to be martyred before Roman Emperor Constantine lifted the ban on Christianity in 312.
1539- Fountains Abbey, the largest and richest Cistercian Order Abbey in England, was surrendered to the officers of King Henry VIII.
1716- In Boston, the first African lion ever seen in America was put on exhibit.
1804- Napoleon Bonaparte made public the results of a national referendum held to decide whether the French people wanted him to be crowned emperor. 3.5 million votes for yes, 2,500 for no. Since Napoleon was a dictator who was kicking the butts of most of the nation of Europe, most Frenchmen wouldn’t argue much, and he had been planning his coronation for months anyhow.
1825-Kappa Alpha of Union College NY is established. The first college fraternity house.
1832- In New York the first public transportation began, a streetcar pulled along iron rails by a team of horses. A ticket cost 12 pennies. The last horse car bus stopped in 1926.
1865- Lewis Carroll sent a copy of the completed manuscript of his fantasy Alice in Wonderland to his 12 year old friend and inspiration Alice Liddell. Carroll later published the book with his own money. This is one of the first books written solely to amuse children, and not to educate or discipline them.
1868- At first baseball games were played in a convenient cow pasture. Today the baseball game was played in an enclosed field. It was in San Francisco at Folsom & 25th St..
1896- AA. Stagg of The University of Chicago invented the football huddle.
1913- THE DISAPPEARANCE OF AMBROSE BIERCE- Ambrose Bierce was one of the more popular U.S. writers of the late 19th century. A savage wit and social critic, he pioneered sardonic anti-war fiction long before Kurt Vonnegut. But by 1913 the 71-year-old curmudgeon found himself alone, ill, his creative powers failing and not looking forward to old age. So on November 6th he announced his intention to travel to Mexico at the height of the revolution there and hopefully get killed:
“Ah, to be an old gringo stood up before a Mexican firing squad, now that is Euthanasia!” This day he gave his last known newspaper interview in Laredo Texas, then disappeared forever. A niece claimed he sent her a letter from Chihuahua on Dec. 26th but that letter has never been found. The popular story is that he was executed by Pancho Villa. But Villa and his people never recalled meeting Bierce. Plus Villa was followed around by so many American news correspondents that a person as famous as Ambrose Bierce there was sure to be noticed.
Other theories abound- that he volunteered to spy for the State Dept.; he faked the Mexico story so he could quietly kill himself in the recesses of the Grand Canyon, even that he was carried off by a demon who wanted men named Ambrose, which is why nobody names their boys Ambrose anymore! As he planned, Ambrose Bierce has the last laugh. “I want no one to find my bones!” And no one ever has.
1926- Potato Chips, or Crisps in the UK, were invented in the 1880’s and served in restaurants and fairgrounds. This day Ms Laura Scudder was the first to put potato chips in a bag and sold them as a handy snack food. She sold them out of the back of her pickup truck until the business picked up. She ran her own company until 1959. I remember in Brooklyn the Dugan’s Bakery Truck delivering potato chips in a large tin container.
1939- The first Woody Woodpecker Cartoon, "Knock-Knock.’
1942- Rommel's "Dash to the Wire"- After months of inconclusive melee' in the Libyan desert, Gen. Rommel's German Afrika Korps breaks through the British 8th Army and makes a beeline for the Egyptian border. His goal is to cut the Suez canal, overrun the Middle East oilfields and link up Vichy troops in Lebanon and Syria and Nazi units rolling down from southern Russia into Iraq. But the German army in Russia never got that far and on the road to Egypt Rommel would finally be stopped at a railroad crossing called El Alamein.
1945- Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie recorded KoKo, the first bebop Jazz single. Instead of big bands as was the fashion, they used a smaller quintet. The pianist at the session didn’t have his New York union card so after his solo, Dizzy dropped his trumpet and did the piano backup to Birds’ solo. The term Bop came from an earlier Lionel Hampton hit “Hey-Bop-A-ReBop”. Jazz critic Ira Gitler picked up on the witty interplay between musicians, and began wrote of the new sound as BeBop.
1963- The day after John Kennedy’s funeral at a secret location in Lindenhurst New Jersey a meeting was held of Mafia under bosses to get a briefing on just what the heck happened in Dallas. Jack Ruby, who had shot JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, was a known Mafia hitman used for “clean up jobs”. ‘
Retired Mafia Don Bill Bonano, the son of Joe Bananas, claims he and other crime bosses were told by representatives of Tony Marcello and Santos Traficante that they were behind the JFK shooting and it was all “ a local matter”. Both men were the targets of heavy government racketeering probes pursued by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy. They explained that there were four shooters that day including the patsy.
Dallas officer Tibbet was supposed to take out Oswald the patsy right after the shooting but Oswald had killed him first, so Jimmy Roselli had arranged for Jack Ruby to go fix things. Believe it or not!
1965- France launched its first space rocket, the Dianant-1, into orbit.
1970- During a visit to Manila Pope Paul VI was attacked by a madman wielding a knife. The Pope was unhurt and continued his journey.
1975- Former Charles Manson follower Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme is convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford with a starters pistol.
1976- Sex Pistols Punk single “Anarchy in the UK” released.
1990- Acting on the example of Sony’s purchase of MGM-Columbia studios, Matushita (Panasonic) bought MCA- Universal studios for $6.6 billion. After a few fruitless years they sold it to the Bronfmans group, the distillers of Seagram’s Whiskey.
1998- Tony Blair became the first British Prime Minister to address the Irish Parliament.
He said: We can no longer afford to be the Prisoners of History.”
2001- Conservative columnist William Kristal proclaimed:” The endgame in Afghanistan is in sight!” And today, uh….we’re still there.
2008- Terrorists attacked several top hotels in Mumbai ( Bombay). They focused on trying to capture or kill American and British citizens and they shot up a Orthodox Jewish Chabad charity house, killing a rabbi and his wife. After four days of battle with Indian forces they were all killed.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was The Enigma Machine
Answer: The Enigma Machine was a portable code machine used by the Nazis for their secret military and diplomatic messages. One intact machine was captured by the Polish resistance and another found on a surrendered U-Boat, Both were sent to London. There computer pioneer Alan Turing led the team to break the German secret codes.