Oct. 30, 2018 October 30th, 2018 |
Question: What is a difference between an acronym and an anagram?
Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is a short walk for exercise called a Constitutional?
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History for 10/30/2018
Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan,
Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry Winkler is 71, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon,
Claude Lelouche, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona, Ivanka Trump is 37
1270- The Pope declared the 8th Crusade to try to save the city of St Jean D’Acre, the last Christian bastion in Palestine. Acre surrendered to the Saracens two years later.
1501-THE BALLET OF THE CHESTNUTS, or His Holiness throws an orgy.
One of the most notorious incidents in PreReformation Rome. Pope Alexander VI Borgia, with his children Cesare and Lucretia Borgia throw a party of parties at the Vatican. The wild revelry was highlighted by a race of nude prostitutes on hands and knees through an obstacle course of silver candlesticks, gobbling up
chestnuts. The pope later gave prizes to the courtiers and ladies who demonstrated the greatest sexual stamina. This was the kind of holy hedonism that drove the Protestant reformers nuts and caused the final rift in the Christian world.
One participant in these revelries was the chef of the French ambassador. He was intrigued to see the pope’s guests not wasting time to be served dinner, but just getting their own plates of food from large tubs set in a row along the wall. He thought this was a neat way to serve food. His name was Pierre Buffet.
1628- The French City of LaRochelle had been acting as the capitol of an independent
Huguenot nation- electing officers and collecting taxes independent of Catholic
Paris. But France was now in the hands of the wily Cardinal Richelieu. Although a Catholic priest, Richelieu really didn’t care a figgy about Protestants, but this independence thing had to go. The Cardinal had LaRochelle under siege for months.
When the starving citizens finally surrendered it was the Cardinal who entered the city in armor on a white charger. But rather than sack the city, and burn heretics, Richelieu
had his men distribute bread and medicine. He granted freedom of worship to all
Huguenots.
1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published.
1864- Gold miners founded the boomtown of Helena Montana.
1891- Henri Boulanger, a French general who dreamed of Napoleonic power before falling into disgrace, shot himself over his mistress’s grave.
1905- THE OCTOBER MANIFESTO- Trying to calm his rebellious subjects, Czar Nicholas II issues an imperial ukase (edict) transforming Russia from a completely autocratic state to a semi-constitutional monarchy. He created the Duma, Russia's elected
parliament. However all didn't go well. When the elected representatives called
for more freedom, release of political prisoners and dismissal of all government
officials not approved by the Duma, Nicholas shut it all down.
1918- The Empire of Turkey signed an armistice at Modras with Britain, France and
America to get out of World War I.
1918- While the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl desperately tried to hold his
disintegrating empire together, today even his German speaking subjects declared
themselves to be the new Federal Republic of Austria.
1918- Kaiser Wilhelm moved his staff from riot-ravaged Berlin to Spa on the Belgian
frontier to prepare for the armistice to end the Great War. Socialist leader Franz
Ebert told Chancellor Prince Max of Baden the Kaiser had to abdicate to avoid civil
war. But Wilhelm still imagined that after making peace with the Allies, he could
turn the German army around and put down his own rebellious subjects. But after
four years and two and a half million dead, all the German army wanted to do was
go home. Whole regiments were throwing down their weapons and walking away.
1931- first day shooting on the movie Tarzan the Ape Man, starring former Olympic Gold Medal swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller.
1936- London publishers George Allen & Unwin had received a manuscript from an Oxford ancient languages professor named J.R.R. Tolkein. Raynar Unwin, the ten year old son of the publisher, read it and made a report, “ This book will be a very good read for children from ages 5-7.” For his troubles, the young lad was paid a shilling.
So they published “The Hobbit”.
1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast on CBS a radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, one million people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New Jersey.
In Hollywood, famed actor John Barrymore, drunk as usual, went over to his
kennel of prize winning racing greyhounds and open their cage doors, saying: "Fend
for yourselves!" Interestingly enough, the broadcast was only #2 in the ratings. More people listened to the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show.
In 1949 Ecuador and 1969 Buffalo NY, radio stations did updated versions of the broadcast, and they also started panics.
1941-The REUBEN JAMES INCIDENT-Five weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack the neutral U.S. destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat, drowning dozens of American sailors. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill thought this would be the incident to anger Americans enough into getting into World War II like the Lusitania did a generation earlier. Woody Guthrie sang: "Oh tell me what were
their names, tell me what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good old
Reuben James?" However Adolf Hitler apologized and offered immediate monetary
reparations. Popular anger cooled. Roosevelt told his cabinet:" I think I can keep us out of this war for one more year unless Germany or Japan does something stupid."
1947- Bertholt Brecht, the playwright of Mother Courage and The Threepenny Opera,
testified to the Hollywood HUAC committee. He smoked a large cigar through the whole
session. Next day, as he had once fled Hitler’s Germany, he now fled the U.S. and settled
in East Germany.
1961- Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev has his old boss Stalin’s body removed from
its glass case pickled next to Lenin, and has it buried in a simple grave in the back.
1963- The first Lamborghini 350GTV went on sale.
1966- An inventory done at the National Archives revealed that medical evidence
of John F. Kennedy's assassination autopsy were missing. This included JFK’s brain.
They have never been found. Kennedy’s brother Robert was still attorney general
at the time. Some historians think he hid evidence of conspiracy to hide his
brothers mob connections, and so preserve the purity of the Camelot myth.
1973- The Carlin Case- Radical radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air. I can’t write them because children read this column but you all know what they are anyway. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!
1975- King Juan Carlos assumed the throne in the restored monarchy of Spain.
1991- Middle East Peace Conference began in Madrid Spain. These first days about
the only thing the Arabs and Israeli’s could agree upon was to politely refuse the
lunch the Spaniards had set out for them- ham sandwiches.
1992- QUANTRILL’S FUNERAL- William Quantrill’s Raiders were infamous during the Civil War for their depredations in Kansas and Missouri. After being shot down in 1865, an admirer dug up his remains and kept them. Passing through several hands the bones were put up for sale, displayed in a glass case and even used by Ohio State fraternities for their initiation rituals. Billy Quantrill’s skull was discovered in a refrigerator behind the tuna sandwiches and Coke in the Dover Historical Society. This day the remains were finally laid to rest in his birthplace of Dover Ohio.
2002- Rap star of Run-DMC Jam Master Jay was shot dead in the lounge of his recording studio in Queens NY. The killer was never found.
2005- Disney feature Chicken Little premiered.
2012- The Walt Disney Company announced it was buying out George Lucas holdings (including the Star Wars franchise) for $4.05 billion.
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Yesterday’s Question: Why is a short walk for exercise called a Constitutional?
Answer: King Charles II of England (1660-1685) was a fitness fan, and he liked to go for a morning walk in Hyde Park across Constitution Hill. So, such a therapeutic walk became known as a Constitutional.