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Feb 18, 2024
February 18th, 2024

Quiz: What is a chimera?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: Where is Sumatra?
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History for 2/18/24
Birthdays: Queen Mary I Tudor -Bloody Mary, Pietro Guarnieri the violin maker, Harry Grover-Seeley one of the founders of Paleontology, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Andre Segovia, Wendell Wilkie, Billy de Wolfe, Enzo Ferrari, Adolphe Menjou, Jack Palance, Milos Forman, Bobby Bachman of the Bachman Turner Overdrive, Gahan Wilson, Johnny Hart, John Hughes, Cybil Shepherd is 74, Matt Dillon is 60, John Travolta is 70, John Hughes, Dr. Dre, Yoko Ono is 91, Disney animator Tony Anselmo.

Today is the feast day of Saint Simon, Jesus’ first cousin, who is often confused with Simon Zealots, one of the apostles. He was executed in the reign of the Emperor Trajan.

1386- IOGAILA WYTAUTAS also called Wladyslaw Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania and grandson of Mendog the Terrible, married Jadwiga of Poland and became King of Poland-Lithuania, Hetman of the Ukraine, Voivode of Ruthenia (modern Moldova) and so on and so on.
When Jadwiga heard the news of who she was marrying, her first reaction was to chop away at her door with an axe. But later she accepted patriotically. Poland-Lithuania becomes the second largest power in Europe, and the Lithuanians are the final people in Europe to renounce animist paganism for Christianity.

1564- Michelangelo Buonarotti died just 6 days before his 89th birthday. He was carving yet another Pieta a few days before his death.

1814- Napoleon with his little army of 15 year old conscripts stop an invading Russian army at the Battle of Montereau.

1842- Two hundred of New York City’s high society held a banquet in honor of the visiting English author Charles Dickens. Dickens spent the evening depressing everyone talking about his tour of the cities prisons, slums and poorhouses.

1854- McSorley’s Ale House opened on 7th St in New York City. And it is still open, the oldest bar in the city. Abe Lincoln went for a beer there after declaring himself a candidate for president.

1856- The KNOW NOTHING PARTY held their first, and only, presidential convention. Officially called the American Party, but known for responding to reporter’s questions as “they knew nothing” This 3rd party was formed over anger at growing immigration. They sought to curb the influx of immigrants, especially Roman Catholics from Ireland and Italy. They nominated ex-President Millard Filmore for re-election, but their ranks were broken up over disagreement over slavery, so their movement sputtered out.

1878- THE LINCOLN COUNTY WARS- John Tunstall, a Scotsman who gave a number of young cowboys work on his ranch in New Mexico, was bushwhacked and killed while his bodyguards were away hunting wild turkeys. Tunstall was buried in his clan tartan kilt. This murder sparked a running gun battle between Tunstall's group led by his attorney John McSweeny, and a town merchant named Murphy, rancher John Chisum and most of the county. One of Tunstall's hired hands turned this range war into a personal vendetta that would make his name famous- Billy the Kid.

1885- Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' published.

1888- The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego Cal. opened for guests. It remains one of the largest remaining wood structures in the U.S. Several presidents stayed there, the Duke of Windsor met Wallis Simpson there, and L. Frank Baum wrote three of his Wizard of Oz books there. Films like the Marilyn Monroe film Some Like it Hot and The Stuntman were shot there. The script for the movie Blade Runner was written there.

1930- The planet Pluto discovered- in 1909 Scientist Lord Percival Lowell had detected signs of a planet at the edge of our Solar System beyond Neptune but could not definitely confirm or identify it. They named it for the time being 'Planet X'. The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona had searched in vain for decades until Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, a 24 year old amateur astronomer who was allowed to occasionally use Lowell’s telescope to justify the public grants they got. Lord Lowell had just passed away before the discovery he had dedicated his life to.
When the New Horizons spacecraft flew to Pluto in 2015, it carried a capsule of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes.

1950- The first Mr. Magoo cartoon "Ragtime Bear".

1953- The first 3-D stereoscopic movie, "B'wana Devil" starring Robert Stack.

1964- Death of Jean-Armand Bombadier, inventor of the snowmobile.

1970- The Chicago 7, Yippie leaders of the anti-war rioting in front of the Democratic presidential convention of 1968 were found innocent of all charges. David Dillinger, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, John Froines and Rene Davis. One of their offenses was trying to get a 250 pound pig onto the floor of the Convention so they could get it nominated for President.

1972- President Richard Nixon and Pat Nixon land in China.

1973- Richard Petty the Stock Car King won his first Daytona 500 race. He would go on to win 6 more and prove that NASCAR racing was one of America’s favorite though most underreported sports.

2001- Dale Earnhardt Sr, the reigning NASCAR racing car champion, died in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. His eldest son Dale Jr. placed second.

2021- During a bad winter ice storm, the Texas electric power grid broke down and plunged millions unto frigid cold with no running water. Texas conservatives had removed Texas from the national power grid that would have enabled them to borrow power from another state. Today it was revealed while this emergency was happening one of those conservatives, Senator Ted Cruz, had secretly taken his family on a vacation in Cancun Mexico. He was humiliated in public and had to return. Speaking to reporters after his arrival home, he conceded that the trip was “obviously a mistake”
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Yesterday’s Question: Where is Sumatra?

Answer: It is an Indonesian island just off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.


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