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July 30, 2023
July 30th, 2023

Question: In Britain, when one asks for two guineas, how much is that in modern money?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is an Arriviste?
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History for 7/30/2023
Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte', Casey Stengel, Roy Williams, Vladimir Zworykin, Arnold Schwarzenegger is 76, Ed "Kookie" Byrnes, Peter Bogdanovich, Delta Burke, Henry Moore, Anita Hill, Lawrence Fishburne is 62, Jean Reno is 74, Hilary Swank is 49, Christopher Nolan, Lisa Kudrow is 60

101 B.C.- Marius of Rome defeated two migrating hordes of German barbarians, the Teutons and Cimbri, at Raudine Plains. Marius built a fortified camp in their path and held them off until he was ready and his men got over their fear of these strange looking wildmen. Warriors taunted the Romans: “Do you have any messages for your wives? For we shall be with them soon!” When one frustrated German warchief marched up to the gates and challenged Marius to single-combat, Marius laughed and sent out a gladiator, "Here, fight him. He loves to fight." When he felt they were at last ready Marius marched out his legions and they defeated the barbarians.

1540- When King Henry VIII broke England away from the Catholic Church, he spent some time trying to decide just how Protestant England should be. The confusion was made manifest this day when at Smithfield, he burned at the stake three Catholics for not wanting to be Protestant, then three Protestants for questioning Catholic doctrine.

1619- The Virginia House of Burgesses formed, the first legislative body in the US.

1700- The British Succession Crisis- The 11year old Duke of Gloucester, only surviving child of Princess Anne and the grandson of King James, died of smallpox. This left England with no future prince, only a gouty old princess who had 17 miscarriages or dead children, and widowed King William III of Orange- childless, and tuberculate. The exiled Catholic king James II Stuart was living in Rome, waiting to be recalled. Many Whig politicians even wanted to chuck the whole system and make Britain a Republic! Odds Fish! Parliament solved the crisis with the Act of Settlement of 1701- That Anne would reign as Queen after William of Orange died, and then the Protestant family of her cousin the German elector of Hanover, George I would reign. This act reinforced the law that a Catholic could never again rule England.

1729- The City of Baltimore founded. Named for Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore.

1733- The first lodge of Freemasons in the US opened in Boston.

1792- LE MARSEILLAISE- During the French Revolution, an officer named Rouget de Lisle wrote a song called Chant for the Army of the Rhine.
A young volunteer from Montpellier called François Mireur sang it at a patriotic gathering in Marseille. The local national guard liked it so much they adopted it as their marching song. By the time The Marseilles guards made their entrance into Paris the fame of their song had spread. Le Marseillaise quickly became the clarion call of the Revolution and the national anthem.
In the 1970s The first lady of France Mitterand, caused a furor when she suggested changing some of the more bloodthirsty lyrics of the song. Like “ We’ll water our fields with the blood of our enemies.”

1810- Father Miquel Hidalgo, who began the Mexican revolution against Spain, was shot by firing squad. But the revolt continued until Mexico achieved independence in 1823.

1847 - Queen Victoria noted in her diary today she took a swim in the ocean for the first time. She entered a cottage on wheels called a bathing house and while she changed into her fully covered bathing costume the cottage was rolled into the water by means of cranks and pulleys. Another time she was at the beach at Ostend, Belgium, she noticed the curious habit there of women swimming with their hair loose " down to their hips, like penitents."

1864- Confederate raiders led by Jubal Early looted and burned the Northern town of Chambersburg Pennsylvania, in retribution for Yankee depredations down south.

1864- THE CRATER- One of the strangest battles of the Civil War. A Pennsylvania coal mine engineer convinced General Grant to dig a tunnel under Robert E. Lee's army and fill it with 8 million pounds of gunpowder. The massive explosion blew 4,500 troops into the air and created the first man-made mushroom cloud. It created a crater 30 feet deep and 200 yards wide. No one had ever seen anything so terrible. However the follow up Union attack was so badly bungled the rebels had time to recover from their shock and fight back. Instead of using a highly trained fresh black regiment, Grant instead sent in two exhausted frontline regiments who were told they were going to a rest area. He didn’t want to be accused of racism. The Union troops were supposed to attack around the rim of the crater, Instead they went down into it through a bottleneck and were massacred by the rebs from above as they tried to climb up the steep 30 foot walls. Troops bayoneted each other trying to get out of the slaughter pen. Another chance to end the war early was ruined. Grant sacked the commander, a General Ledlie, who spent the battle drinking brandy in the rear. "The generals dismissal was a great loss to the enemy" one officer wrote. It all accomplished nothing. One soldier said: "I hope we never make war like that again".

1867- After the Civil War the conquered states of the South were divided up into districts of military occupation. On this day General Phil Sheridan was removed from the military governorship of Texas and Louisiana for being too harsh. During his two years in charge, Sheridan sacked the Governors of Texas and Louisiana, as well as the mayors of New Orleans, Shreveport and Galveston. He hated Texans as unreconstructed rebels that should have gotten what Atlanta got. "If I owned both Hell and Texas and was forced to choose, I'd sell Texas and live in Hell!"

1889- Start of the Sherlock Holmes mystery, the Naval Treaty.

1915- WWI, At the Battle of Hooge, the Germans first introduced hand-held flamethrowers as a weapon.

1916- The Black Tom Pier Explosion- Throughout World War I German spies and saboteurs were active on American waterfronts. On this day German agents Kurt Jahnke and Lothar Witzkhe detonated two million pounds of explosive destined for the European battlefields on a New Jersey pier behind the Statue of Liberty. It caused 45 million dollars in damage, windows on Wall Street shattered and the Statue's arm was knocked slightly loose. In later years the park service would forbid tourists from climbing up to the torch. The success of German agents in America in World War I was a reason why in World War II-army intelligence struck a deal with the Mafia to keep peace on the waterfront.

1917- Two New York hotel detectives caught Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with $20 each. "I thought I wouldn't get off for under a thousand!" he told a friend. Later as President, Harding always kept a guard at the door.

1929 -The Hollywood Bowl musicians go on strike.

1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Dr. Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.

1932- The first Los Angeles hosting of the Olympic Games in their spanking new Coliseum. Gold medalists in swimming Larry Buster Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller later became movie stars. Another medalist, the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, began to teach the Californians about a new sport- surfing!

1935- The first paperback book. Andre Maurois 'Ariel, a Life of Shelley', published in this new form by Penguin Books of London.

1936- Producer David O. Selznick bought the movie rights to the best-selling novel “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thalberg. The "boy genius" Thalberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would prove to be a massive flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison."

1938- Adolf Hitler awarded the Third Reich’s highest civilian medal to American industrialist Henry Ford. He admired Ford’s anti-Semitic views. Ford paid for copies of the racist book Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be placed in American libraries. CBS reporter William Shirer noted when interviewing Hitler, that he had translations of Ford’s own newspaper the Dearborn Independent on his desk. The Chairman of the US Chamber of Commerce also got a medal from Der Fuehrer in recognition the international corporate support of the Nazi regime. They admired the way Hitler suppressed unions, the 8 Hour Work Day and other bad-for-business items.

1948 - Professional wrestling premieres on prime-time network TV (DuMont)

1954 - Elvis Presley joins Local 71, the Memphis Federation of Musicians.

1955 – Pres. Eisenhower signed the bill declaring "In God We Trust" to be the official motto of the USA replacing E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). It had been on coins since 1864. This was around the same time "under God" was also added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

1959- Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor patented the integrated circuit.

1962- Italy adopts a total ban on cigarette advertising. Consumption of cigarettes doubled.

1963 –Escaped British spy Kim Philby was found living in Moscow.

1965- President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare Act and issues the first medicare card (#00001) to former president Harry Truman.

1966 - BATMAN: THE MOVIE, and based on the 1966 BATMAN television series, opened. Directed by Leslie H. Martinson and starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin,

1972- John Boorman’s thriller Deliverance, with Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty.

1974- President Richard Nixon turned over his White House tapes on Watergate after being forced to by the Supreme Court. That same day the House Judiciary Committee voted three acts of impeachment against the President.

1975- Teamster union boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared while on the way to a lunch meeting with Teamster officials at a small Detroit restaurant. He once said: "Bodyguards? Who needs bodyguards?" He hated Bobby Kennedy so much that when he learned of his assassination, he ordered the half-masted flag at his union office run back up to the top and spent the day at the track celebrating. Rumor has it he currently resides under the goalposts at Giants Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Another story is that he was strangled by a Mafia hit man named Sal Briguglio, then his body was taken to an auto fender factory, cut up and the pieces thrown into vats of boiling zinc. Briguglio was himself whacked in 1978.

1986- Walt Disney released “Flight of the Navigator”, directed by Randal Kleiser, featuring early photo-real CG VFX done by Canadian studio Omnibus.

1988- The last Playboy Club in America closed. It was in Lansing, Mich. In 2006 Hugh Hefner opened a Playboy Club themed casino in Las Vegas.

1999- The Blair Witch Project opened in theaters. The low-budget indy became a huge hit due to an on-line grass roots campaign claiming that the footage of teenager encountering the supernatural was genuine.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is an Arriviste?

Answer: A ruthlessly ambitious person, especially one who has recently acquired wealth or social status. An unscrupulous social-climber.


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