Feb. 3, 2024 February 3rd, 2024 |
Quiz: What was the studio that created Baby Huey and Little Audrey cartoons?
Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: What is a “nom de plume”?
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History for 2/3/2024
Birthdays- French King Charles VI the Mad –1380, Felix Mendelson-Bartoldy, Horace Greely, Gideon Mantell 1790-pioneer British fossil hunter that named the Iguanadon, Pretty Boy Floyd, Gertrude Stein, Norman Rockwell, James A. Michener, Joey Bishop, Shelley Berman, Bob Griese, Fran Tarkenton, John Fiedler the voice of Piglet, Victor Buono, Blythe Danner is 81, Morgan Fairchild is 74, Nathan Lane is 68
Today is the Feast of St. Blaise, patron saint of sore throats and sick cattle.
1238- The Mongol horde under Genghis’ grandson Batu Khan burned the Russian city of Vladimir-Suzdal. He later also destroyed Kyiv.
1134- Robert Curthose (little bandy legs) was the eldest son of William Conqueror. He should have been king but he was outmaneuvered first by his middle brother William II Rufus, then his youngest brother Henry I. Henry had his brother imprisoned in Cardiff Castle for thirty years, until this day he died in his 80s.
1547- Czar Ivan the Terrible married Anastasia Romanova. Her young death may have pushed his sanity over the edge.
1637- TULIPMANIA- Dutch merchants went so wild over the importation of tulip bulbs from Turkey, that they drove up the market price in tulips to absurd lengths. It was the birth of Futures Markets, investing in crops that haven’t even been planted yet. Today the first consignment of bulbs failed to sell, and caused panic selling. It caused the first international stock market collapse.
1690- The first paper money issued in the New World, by the Massachusetts Colony.
1780- THE FIRST AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER- For those who think this kind of crime is a symptom of our modern Secular-Humanist society: In New Milford Connecticut, Revolutionary War veteran Barnett Davenport was rooming at the farm of Mr. Caleb Mallory. This day for no apparent reason, possible ptsd, Davenport murdered Mallory, his wife, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, using his musket and farm tools. He then set the house on fire with their bodies inside.
He was soon captured, and his confession ran to 14 pages. He was sentenced by Declaration of Independence signer Judge Roger Sherman to 70 lashes, then hanged. The incident was widely reported in the young nations press.
1781- After declaring war on Holland over their support for the Revolutionary War, Admiral Rodney with a British fleet captured the Dutch Caribbean island of Saint Eustachius (now the Virgin Islands). The island was a major trading center of covert military aid to the Yankee rebels. Rodney looted the city and flew the Dutch flag over the harbor for several more weeks to surprise incoming Dutch and American ships. But while he made neat headlines in the Caribbean, he and his fleet would have been far more useful rescuing Lord Cornwallis whose army was surrounded at Yorktown Virginia.
1783- The Kingdom of Spain recognized the independence of the United States.
1846- The US Army captured the pueblo town of Taos New Mexico from hostile locals and Indians by shelling the town with cannon fire. Lt. Sterling Price then hanged the native chiefs for treason, even though no one had told them they were now part of America.
1862- President Lincoln received a message from the King of Siam (Thailand) offering him Siamese war elephants to help him win the Civil War. He politely passed on the offer.
1863- MARK TWAIN- It was a long custom in American newspapers for columnists and critics to publish under pseudonyms. Abe Lincoln loved humor columns written by Charles Farrar Brown under the name Artemus Ward. Aurore Dupin published as George Sand. When riverboat pilot Samuel Clemens became a writer he first considered names like Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, and W. Epaminondas Adrastus Blab. Today he borrowed from another riverboat pilot the idea for the pseudonym for which he would become famous. This day in the Virginia City Nevada Territorial Register newspaper was an article authored by someone calling himself - 'Mark Twain'. Mark Twain was the Mississippi River pilot's term for when a steamboat is in two fathoms of water or more, in other words, safely enough away from shallows to proceed at full speed.
1865- The Confederate government made the first overtures to Washington for peace talks to end the Civil War. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens secretly met with Abe Lincoln on board a riverboat in the James River to discuss terms. However no agreement was reached. One point that became a deal-breaker was the Lincoln’s offer of pardons and amnesties to Rebels who retook the Oath of Allegiance to the US. Stephens angrily replied that the South had a legal right to secede so had committed no crimes needing any pardons. So, the Civil War continued for two more bloody months.
Alexander Stephens nickname is where we get the term “Smart Alec.”
1889-THE BANDIT QUEEN- In Oklahoma, outlaw Belle Starr was shotgunned out of her saddle by an old boyfriend. She usually shot them first. Originally named Myra Belle Shirley, she pursued a career as an outlaw and had two children, one by Cole Younger, another by a member of the James Gang. Rustler, gunfighter, prostitute, sideshow performer, she said: "Let's just say I'm a woman who's seen a lot of the world."
1912- The rules governing U.S. football are revised. The playing field was shortened to 100 yards; a touchdown counted as six points instead of five; four downs are allowed instead of three and the kickoff point was moved from midfield to the 40 yd. line.
1913- Federal Income Tax Amendment ratified.
1916- The original Canadian Parliament building burned down.
1917- After a German U-Boat sank the U.S.S. Housatonic, President Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.
1920- The play Beyond the Horizon premiered. The first hit of a young man who tried to drink himself to death, but instead became a playwright- Eugene O’Neill.
1930- Roy Disney signed a deal with M. George Borgfeldt Co. of New York to sell figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney merchandising is born!
1943- Four Chaplains Day. This day a German U-Boat torpedoed the troopship USS Dorchester, with the loss of 600 lives. Four army chaplains gave their life jackets to others to be saved, and so drowned in the icy Atlantic. Congress declared Feb 3rd thereafter Four Chaplains Day.
1945- General MacArthur began the battle to liberate Manila. The fighting lasted a month, fierce fighting house to house with some Japanese troops killing Philippine civilians as they withdrew.
1945- Walt Disney’s The Three Caballeros opened in the USA. It had premiered first in Mexico City last Dec.
1948- The first Cadillac’s with big rear tail fins were produced.
1953- Jacques Cousteau, inventor of the Aqua Lung, published The Silent World, and later made a film version of the book with Louis Malle.
1959 "The Day the Music Died" The first Rock & Roll tragedy. Top pop stars Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson died in plane crash. They were on tour and Holly chartered the small plane so they could get to Fargo, North Dakota in time to get his shirts cleaned. Waylon Jennings was supposed to join them but he gave up his seat to Richardson because Richardson was running a fever and didn’t want a long cold bus ride. As they left Richardson teased Jennings:” Hope your bus doesn’t freeze.” And Jennings joked:” Hope your plane doesn’t crash.” The plane was called the American Pie, which inspired a Don McClean’s hit song “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.”
1962- John F. Kennedy signed the trade embargo act against Cuba, banning all trade with Fidel Castro’s regime. White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger recalled how the night before JFK had him go around Washington DC and buy up all the Havana cigars (Monte Cristos) he could for the White House humidor. The embargo lasted until partially lifted by President Obama in 2015. Then it was reinstated by Pres. Trump.
1966- Russia soft landed a probe on the Moon- Lunik-7. The Soviets took the first photos of the Dark Side of the Moon with Lunik–2 as part of their Space Race with the US.
1973- Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law.
1986- After three months of negotiations, Steve Jobs signed papers to acquire the Lucas Film Graphics Division, now under their new name- Pixar Inc.
1989- Swiss firm L'Oreal/Nestle bought LA animation studio Filmation (HeMan, SheRa) from Westinghouse, and shut it down laying off 229 artists the day before a new federal regulation requiring a company give it's employees 60 day notice before closing went into effect.
1998- Near Trento Italy a low flying Marine jet on maneuvers tangled snapped a cable on a ski tram, sending 20 people 300 feet down to their deaths.
1998- Murderer Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection at Huntsville State Prison, Texas. She had chopped up two people with an axe in 1983.
2003-Legendary rock and roll producer Phil Spector killed his girlfriend B-movie actress Lana Clarkson at his LA mansion. Spector had created the Wall of Sound concert technique and produced for the Beatles, Diana Ross, The Ronnettes, and Lenny Bruce, among many others.
The few days before, Phil Spector said to the British Daily Telegraph, “. I would say I'm probably relatively insane, to an extent. I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic. I have a bipolar personality, which is strange.”
Phil Spector died in prison of covid in 2021.
2013- American super-sniper Chris Kyle spent his time back from the Iraq War helping men suffering from PTSD by taking them hunting. The Clint Eastwood film American Sniper was based on him. Today he took a vet named Edie-Rae Routh to a shooting range. At one point, Routh turned his weapon on Kyle and killed him. Shortly before he was shot, Kyle texted a friend about Routh “ This guy is straight-up nuts.”
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a nom de plume?
Answer: A pen name. It was the fashion in the late XVIII early XIX century to publish under a pseudonym. See above-1863.
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