Feb. 6, 2024 February 6th, 2024 |
Question: What does it mean to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis?
Answer to yesterday’s question below: What is a demitasse?
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History for 2/6/2024
Birthdays: Christopher Marlowe, Eva Braun, Ronald Reagan, Francois Truffaut, Babe Ruth, Elias Disney-Walt’s dad, Bob Marley, Queen Anne I of England, Aaron Burr, Robert Townsend, Mike Farrell, Tom Brokaw, Mike Maltese, Haskell Wexler, Axel Rose, Patrick McKnee- Mr. Steed of the Avengers, Thurl Ravenscroft the voice of Tony the Tiger, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rip Torn, Marty Sklar , Kathy Naijimy is 67
46BC- Julius Caesar defeated the Egyptian army of Cleopatra’s kid brother Ptolomey IX at the Battle of Thapsus. Young Ptolomey’s body was found face down in a swamp.
1481- The first public burnings of heretics by the Spanish Inquisition. Six men and women were marched out to a public square in Seville and burned at the stake. The executions soon took on a pageant like atmosphere and were called an Auto-da-fe’, an Act of Faith.
1671- Young John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, was wounded in a duel with a man named Pfenning. At the time he was the lover of the beautiful Barbera Villars the Duchess of Cleveland, who was also the mistress of King Charles II. One time Churchill had to leap out of Ms. Villars bedroom window when he heard the king at the door. Luckily, his majesty had paused to urinate in a nearby planter.
At the king’s suggestion, Barbara Villars was the model for the woman in the Greek helmet with trident & shield, symbolizing Britannia.
1778- The Kingdom of France signed a formal alliance with the rebellious North American colonies, calling themselves the United States. Queen Marie Antoinette was charmed by the American ambassador Benjamin Franklin, calling him 'Le Ambassadeur d'Electrique'.
In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Lord North had said that he doubted any European monarch would ever ally itself to the rebels: “For it would raise in America a new Empire dedicated to missionary it’s form of radical democracy around the world. “ In Germany, the philosopher Goethe said: “We wish the Americans every success.”
1815- President James Madison granted a complete pardon to Jean Lafitte, Dominique Yue and all the swamp pirates of Barataria who had fought alongside Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans.
Jean Lafitte became a prosperous citizen of New Orleans. But by 1819 had tired of the legit life. He outfitted a new ship and went buccaneering again. A book about pirates written in 1837 claimed Lafitte died fighting a British warship in the Gulf of Mexico in 1829, but no other proof of that exists. General Dominique Yue was a sergeant of artillery for Napoleon before becoming a buccaneer. The title of General seems to be something he made up, He died one of the first citizens of New Orleans. He is buried in tomb #1 in the city’s oldest cemetery.
1847- The Treaty of Waitangi- Britain settled New Zealand from the Maoris. Hobbits to follow….
1857- The first Perforated Postage Stamp.
1865- THE NERO BALL- During the Civil War, as Sherman’s army burned and looted its way up from Georgia through the Carolinas, Sherman’s cavalry leader Judson Kilpatrick came up with newer and more novel acts of cruelty to inflict on the civilian population. This day at the town of Barnwell South Carolina, Kilpatrick invited all the belles of the town to a “Nero Ball” The ladies didn’t understand the meaning until that evening, when he forced them to dance with his officers while his soldiers burned their homes. One of Kilpatricks officers protested:” It was the bitterest satire I ever witnessed”. Many of his own men hated him and called him “Kill-Cavalry”. But Uncle Billy Sherman defended him,”I know he’s a helluva damn fool, but I need him for my cavalry”.
1874- THE ASHANTI RING- The British Army under Sir Garnet Woolsley defeated this West African kingdom, and on this day burn its capitol, Kimesha. Woolsley's inner circle of officers all became generals and were nicknamed the Ashanti Ring.
1904-The Russo-Japanese War began with a surprise attack on the Russian Manchurian base of Port Arthur, just like Pearl Harbor forty years later. Japan's defeat of mighty Russia in a modern war, after being in medieval poverty only 55 years before, amazed the world.
1919- The Great Seattle General Strike. 100,000 people walk off the job and paralyzed the city.
1919- Because defeated Berlin was awash in communist and rightwing paramilitary mobs fighting in the streets, the German government moved to Weimar to write its democratic constitution. Germany in between the wars was called the Weimar Republic.
1916- Oliver Hardy tried once to be a dancer in a minstrel show, but wound up managing a movie theater in his hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia. He watched the comics on screen and thought" I’m better than those guys." He moved to Hollywood, and this day signed a contract with the Hal Roach Studios to appear in short comedies, usually as a villain. The following year director Leo McCarey teamed the rotund Hardy with a skinny English music hall comedian Stan Laurel, and the legendary team was born- Laurel & Hardy. Interesting Note: Laurel & Hardy were both over 6 feet tall.
1929- Introduction to Photoplay magazine, the first lecture of the first university film degree course ever in the USA was given at The University of Southern California.
1932- Charles Addams published his first macabre cartoon in The New Yorker.
1935- The board game Monopoly is introduced by Parker Brothers. The prototype of the monopoly board was on a round oilcloth and had street names from Atlantic City NJ.
1935- Boxers or briefs? Arthur Kneibler patented men’s underwear brief. He got the idea looking at Frenchmen’s bathing suits on the Riviera and called them Jockeys.
1937- John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” published. In a result Mr Steinbeck probably didn’t anticipate, was the stereotype image of a mildly autistic man as the big sidekick Lenny, cartoonists used so often. “Duh, tell me about da rabbits, George.”
1938- The first automatic donut making machine invented in Dubuque, Iowa.
1943- “GET ME GEISLER!” Actor Errol Flynn was acquitted of two counts of sex with adolescents, which even if it was consensual is still considered statutory rape. The two women who brought the charges had actually tried this shakedown with other celebrities. They weren't exactly adolescents, despite testifying in court with pigtails and a lollypop. Flynn hired lawyer to the stars Jerry Geisler and he slowly took the women story apart. Geisler discovered one had a prior conviction for 'public lewdness, and the other had an abortion, which then was illegal. So Flynn got off- literally.
Flynn had just completed a film called "Gentleman Jim. At the finale of the film, when he says to Alexis Smith: "I never said I was a Gentleman." Peals of knowing laughter rang out from audiences. This is also the time the slang term for living it up was coined- to be “In Like Flynn”. Errol Flynn’s car had the license plate- RU18?
1943- Walt Disney’s Saludos Amigos went into general release.
1948- In Paris’ Cherche-Midi jail, Nazi General Von Stuelpnagel, the former commandant of occupied France, shot himself rather than face trail for war crimes. Stuelpnagel was part of the Valkyrie Plot to overthrow Hitler, but he also executed many members of the French Resistance and shipped French Jews to concentration camps.
1956- Invasion of the Body Snatchers opened in theaters.
1974- John Boorman’s sci-fi cult classic Zardoz premiered. Sean Connery in his red jock-strap.
1985- Steve Wozniak, the young engineer who started Apple Computer with Steve Jobs in his garage, retired from running the company. He’d rather work as an engineer and teach children. He also returned to Berkeley to complete his undergraduate degree, under the name Rocky Clark. Rocky was the name of his dog.
2007- PSYCHO ASTRONAUT- Lisa Nowak, Space Shuttle commander, and mother of three, nicknamed RoboChick by the other astronauts, was fell in love with another astronaut on the program, William “Billy-O” Oefelein. This day Lisa Nowak drove non-stop 900 miles from Texas to Orlando to threaten the life of her boyfriend’s new girl. She wore a wig, a Huggies diaper to prevent having to pull over to use the restroom and was carrying handcuffs and duct tape. She was arrested before she could execute her strange plan. The incident spawned dozens of jokes- The Astro-Nut, Lust in Space, The 150 Mile High Club, etc.
2018- First launch of the Space X Falcon Heavy, the first privately owned reusable rocket, capable of taking people to the Moon or Mars. This rocket took into orbit entrepreneur Elon Musk’s personal red sports car with a dummy astronaut in the driver’s seat, with the music playing David Bowie’s Space Oddity in an endless loop. Also, the words from Hitchhiker’s Guide “Don’t Panic” in a panel in the dashboard.
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QUESTION: What is a demitasse?
ANSWER: Demitasse comes from French for half-cup for coffee, usually expresso. A demitasse set is a complete set of expresso cups and coffee pot.