July 25, 2023 July 25th, 2023 |
Quiz: Was George Washington the first president to sit in the Oval Office?
Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to say, my name is mud?.
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History for 7/25/2023
Birthdays: Bishop Theitmar of Merseberg- 975AD, Arthur Balfour, Thomas Eakins, Maxfield Parrish, Stuart K. Hine 1899 missionary who wrote the hymn "How Great Thou Art", Woody Strode, Walter Payton, Walter Brennan, David Belasco, Adnan Khashoggi, Imam, Jack Gilford, Illena Douglas, Estelle Getty, Matt LeBlanc, Louise Brown the first "test-tube" baby-conceived by invitro-fertilization is 45
Today is the Feast of Saint James, called San Diego or Santiago de Compostela in Spanish.
325 A.D. The Council of Nicea- The Roman Emperor Constantine called all the bishops of Christianity to answer the questions posed by the Arian (Gnostic) Christian sect. The Arrians asked: "If Jesus was God on Earth, then who was minding the store upstairs? And how can you kill God? Maybe he was just pretending to be dead..." They came up with the Nicene Creed (The Apostles Creed) and the Mystery of the Trinity, "One In Being with the Father" If you can't figure this out, a nun would be happy to rap your knuckles for asking.
1554- Queen Mary I of England "Bloody Mary" married King Philip II of Spain in Winchester Cathedral. Phillip didn’t linger long in England and Mary was much older than him, and beyond child bearing years.
1570- Czar Ivan IV demonstrated why his got the name Ivan the Terrible by ordering mass executions of his supposed enemies in Moscow. This day he had Boyar Prince Viskavati hanged from a gallows and slowly sliced up with knives, allowing him to live just long enough to watch Ivan rape his wife and daughter.
1593- After a bloody religious-civil war, Henry IV made himself King of all of France. But his capitol Paris was still holding out. When he asked why they were so stubborn in their resistance, they said it was because he was a Protestant. "Well then," the King said, ”Paris is well worth a Mass!”. So, he converted back to Catholicism. Henry’s family, the Bourbons, became the royal dynasty of France, and today is still on the throne of Spain. Recently the remains of Henry IV were found, a pierced ear for a pearl earring.
1788- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony #40 in G minor.
1792- THE BRUNSWICK MANIFESTO- The Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia sent armies invading France to help their brother-king Louis XVI put down the unruly French Revolution. This day the military commander of the invasion, Charles William, the Duke of Brunswick, issued a proclamation to the French people that if they didn’t knuckle under to their King like all good little peasants do he was going to kick their butts! He especially threatened Paris with “a memorable-vengeance". This arrogant threat enraged the French people and all but decided King Louis and Marie-Antoinette be executed. Danton and Marat called for a rising of the French nation, a levee en masse. So many men signed up to fight, recruiters ran out of ink. One future general Augureau, poked the pen into his vein and signed up in his own blood. The Duke of Brunswick was defeated by rampaging Frenchmen shouting Aux Armes-Citoyens!
1814- Battle of Lundy’s Lane. American forces defeated a British invasion force coming from Canada near Niagara Falls.
1822- General Augustin Iturbide has himself crowned Emperor of Mexico.
1846 -The Spanish-Californios residents of pueblo Los Angeles chase the U.S. occupying force out of town a second time.
1871- Samuel Colt patented his first revolver in 1836. Today he patented the "peacemaker", his most iconic Western sixgun. Gunfighters filed off the barrel sight so it wouldn't catch on your clothes during a quickdraw, and carried it “5 beans in the wheel" meaning while walking they kept it set at the one empty chamber, so it doesn't accidentally go off in the holster and shoot you in the foot, which was embarrassing. Most gunfighters carried it in their belts or a waist high holster. Wild Bill Hickock carried his 1860 Navy Colts backwards in a red sash. The familiar low-on-the-hip two gun holsters didn't become common until cowboys saw them in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in the 1880’s.
Colonel Colt got very rich from his invention and had an annoying habit of shooting his guns off in courtrooms and restaurants like Yosemite Sam. Yee-Hah!
1871- The electric carousel was patented by Wilhelm Schneider, Davenport, Iowa
1894- The Sino Japanese War. The Japanese surprise attacked the Korean peninsula amphibiously at the Bay of Inchon, giving Douglas MacArthur the same idea 57 years later.
1897- Young writer Jack London went to the Klondike to look for gold. He didn’t find much gold, but did get material for a lot of good stories.
1898- The US Army invaded Puerto Rico. Spain had granted the island home rule but America took possession of it in the treaty ending the Spanish American War. It’s been a US commonwealth ever since. Puerto Ricans were given full US citizenship in 1917 and self government in 1942.
1909-THE WRISTWATCH- Frenchman Louis Bleriot flew the English Channel. Early pilots had no fuel gauge in their planes. They knew the rate that their plane burned fuel, so they kept a clock in the cockpit to mark the time. But a problem was the engine vibrations would rattle the clock to uselessness. Aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont asked his friend, Charles Cartier the jeweler, to make him a reliable timepiece free from vibrations. Cartier created a small watch that you could strap to your wrist with the clock face showing, the Wristwatch. By World War I wristwatches supplanted pocket watches as the standard male accessory.
1918- In Russia the anti-Communist White Guards entered Ykaterinburg one week too late to prevent the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family. They discovered the bullet ridden blood soaked room and after capturing one of the Bolshevik agents involved in the murder spread the news of the crime to the world. Soviet apologists for years maintained that the murder of the Imperial Family was done upon the initiative of the local Soviet council under Commissar Yakovlev. But documents discovered in 1989 revealed the murders were a direct order from Lenin.
1920- The French Army occupied Damascus after Lawrence of Arabia and Faisal's All-Arab Congress government failed. Faisal's son was given the Kingdom of Mesopotamia (Iraq) after his claims to the Hejaz region were trumped by Saudi King Ibn Saud. The French would hold Syria as a colony until after World War II, which is why the Syrians have never been very pro-western since.
1927- The Tanaka Memorial- Japanese statesman Baron Tanaka spelled out for the Japanese government a strategy of conquest for the next twenty years, calling for Japan to achieve economic dominance by creating a Greater East Asian Economic Sphere from Korea to Australia. This document was considered by Anglo-American strategists the "Mein Kampf " of the Japanese militarists.
1934- Nazi agents assassinated the Austrian Chancellor Englebert Dolfuss for resisting Fascist encroachment and having a very silly name.
1936- Orchard Beach opened in the North Bronx.
1940- In Nazi occupied Paris, a Gestapo agent walked into the French offices of MGM studios and confiscated the six prints of "Gone With The Wind" sent from America. They were taken to Berlin for a screening for top Nazi officials. Gone with the Wind was one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite movies. For the entire period of the Occupation, Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française, hid a surviving print of Gone With The Wind under his bed. The day Paris was liberated, the Cinémathèque was reopened with the first public screening.
1943 - Benito Mussolini was overthrown as leader of Italy and imprisoned, while the Italian government tried to open negotiations with the allies. Hitler responded by sending commandos to rescue Mussolini, and militarily occupying Italy.
1944- Operation Cobra- The Allies break out of the Normandy beachheads and unleash Patton's fresh Third army into the French interior countryside. Between now and the Battle of the Bulge, the German Army can do little more than fall back to the Rhine.
1946- MARTIN & LEWIS- Singer Dean Martin had met young comedian Jerry Lewis the year before at a club in New York City. This day in Atlantic City’s 500 Club they debuted as a team when Lewis suggested to the club owner that Martin would be a good replacement for a singer who called in sick. They became a major sensation, with movies, records and TV shows. They hired young writer Norman Lear and Ed Simmons to write for them.
1951- CBS conducted the first television broadcast in color. NBC made color TV popular in the mid 1960's.
1953- Chuck Jones’ "Duck Dodgers in the 24 and 1/2 Century".
1953- New York City subway fares rise from 10 cents to 15 cents. Subway tokens were issued for the first time.
1956- Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed for the last time as a duo at NY’s Copacabana. Exactly ten years from their first appearance.
1958- Jack Warner cheated his two surviving brothers Harry and Al out of their share of Warner Bros Studios. The three had agreed to all retire together and sell to an investor group led by a man named Sememenko. But by a pre-arranged deal with Sememenko, Jack then bought him out and named himself President of Warner Bros. When brother Harry read the news in Variety the next day, it gave him a heart attack. He lingered for a week then died this day. The family never spoke to their brother Jack again. His wife Rhea said “He didn’t die. Jack killed him.”
1959-"The Kitchen Debates" Vice President Richard Nixon traded catty comments with Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev at the American kitchen of the future exhibit in a Moscow Trade Show.
1965- Folk Music star Bob Dylan was booed off stage at the Newport Folk Festival for using an electric guitar. Alan Lomax, the great Smithsonian Folk Music historian got into a fistfight over it, and Pete Seeger threatened to pull the electric plugs.
1968- Pope Paul VI published the encyclical Humane Vitae, which set the Church policy against all forms of birth control other than The Rhythm Method. No to the Pill, condoms, and other contraception. This made the Pope a real drag to the Swinging Sixties.
1969 – Senator Edward Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident a week after the Chappaquiddick car accident that killed his campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne.
1972- The story was broken of the Tuskegee Experiments- that in the late 1940’s and 50’s the US Government did medical experiments on unwilling humans, mostly African American men, injecting with them with syphilis and other diseases to study their effects. One went mad and jumped out of a window. President Clinton officially apologized to the survivors in 1993.
1975 - "A Chorus Line," longest-running Broadway show (6,137), premiered.
1984- Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became 1st woman to walk in space.
1984- The groundbreaking CGI film The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B premiered at the Siggraph convention in Minneapolis. Directed by Alvy Ray Amith and the computer designers who would eventually form Pixar. They were aided by new hire John Lasseter, who brought his traditional Disney animation skills to forming credible character animation on computer.
1985- Movie star Rock Hudson publicly acknowledged that he had AIDS. He had collapsed in France and he made the announcement while being treated at a French clinic. He was the first major public figure to acknowledge he had the mysterious new disease. People then were so afraid of this mysterious disease and how it was transferred, everyone’s initial response was to shun the sufferer. The French-American hospital insisted Hudson leave, so he called his friends Pres. Ronald and Nancy Reagan for an airlift to a U.S. military hospital. They ignored him. Rock Hudson had to pay out of his own pocket to hire a 747 airliner to fly him directly home to LA.
1990 - Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem at a San Diego Padre game. As a joke she impersonated ball players by spitting, grabbing her crotch and screeching during her rendition. It didn’t go over well with the more patriotically minded in that very conservative town.
2000- An Air France Concord supersonic jetliner exploded on takeoff, killing everyone on board. The investigation proved a piece of metal debris that fell off the previous Continental jetliner exploded one of the Concords tires and the resultant wreckage was sucked into the plane’s engine. Both Britain and France suspended SST flights for over a year and in 2003 discontinued them forever as being too expensive.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to say, my name is mud?
Answer: Dr. Samuel Mudd was local Virginia doctor that treated John Wilkes Booth’s broken ankle after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Mudd claimed to know nothing about the assassination and said he simply set the leg of a man who came to his house early one morning. There were enough inconsistencies in his story to connect him to the murder and, conversely, enough to surmise that he was innocent of the assassination plot. He was found guilty in the military court that tried all of the people accused of the murder plot and was sentenced to life in prison. He was spared, by one vote of being hanged. After four years in prison in Dry Tortugas, the American version of Devils Island, Dr. Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson.
Since then, to say “My name is Mudd” is a way of saying I am really screwed now.