Feb 29, 2024 February 29th, 2024 |
Question: Suffering succotash! What exactly IS succotash?
Yesterday’s Question Answered below: In Greek mythology, who slew the gorgon Medusa?
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History for 2/29/2024 Leap Year Day
46 BC-We have a Greek thinker named Sosigenes to thank for today. He was commissioned by Julius Caesar to reform the calendar. The Roman Calendar was a system of ten months made of three weeks each consisting of ten days each. The system was so rickety that the Roman curia (government) actually had a department who’s only purpose was to tell you what day it was!
January and February didn’t exist, but when they were created they were originally between March and April, until moved to their present location. February in the original plan had 30 days but Augustus’ family was angry that August only had 30 days while July had 31, so they borrowed a day from February. This Julian calendar was changed again by Pope Gregory in 1582 to the modern western calendar.
Birthdays: Giacomo Rossini -Who liked to joke he was 16 years old when he was actually 67, Balthus, Jimmy Dorsey, William “ Wild Bill” Wellman, Alex Rocco, Arthur Franz, Phyllis French, Mother Ann Lee the founder of the Shakers, Dinah Shore, author Tim Powers (1952); his surreal stories often have characters with unusual birthdays.
Today in Anglo-Irish custom is the only day it is considered appropriate for a woman to propose to a man.
1504- Christopher Columbus, shipwrecked on Jamaica by a hurricane, scares natives into giving him food by accurately predicting a solar eclipse.
1528- Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake for preaching the reformed faith in Scotland.
1692- The first indictments of the notorious Salem Witch trials. Tituba, a black-Caribe servant cook of the town’s preacher, who liked to entertain his children with ghost stories of the Caribbean was arrested for witchcraft with Sarah Osbourne, an elderly deaf woman who, well... just looked like an old and spooky witch. In all 22 people were executed. Salem kept up the hysteria until the Governor of Massachusetts stopped it after his own daughter was accused.
1704- The settlement of Deerfield Massachusetts massacred and burned by French & Indians as part of Queen Anne’s War.
1776- French writer and spy Pierre D’ Beaumarchais wrote a letter to King Louis XVI advising France should support the American colonies revolution against England. Beaumarchais, who later wrote the Barber of Seville, set up spy operations and under the name of a Rodrique Hortalez & Company, to ship guns, gunpowder and uniforms to George Washington’s beleaguered army.
1796- JAY’S TREATY- One of the first foreign treaties negotiated by the infant American republic was a settlement of issues left over from the Revolution. The British agreed to settle the border between Canada and Vermont, and abandoned Ft. Oswego, New York. And the Americans gave up some territory and agreed not to use the St. Lawrence trade route for 25 years. This treaty was very controversial in it’s day but its effects were temporary.
1804- According to Napoleon's plans this was supposed to be the day he scheduled to cross the Channel and invade England after his navy gave beat Admiral Nelson. His Grande Army was camped all along the beach at Boulonge waiting to board transport barges. But they never got to make the trip. Nelson destroyed Nappy's fleet at Cape Trafalgar.
1908- Former Sheriff Pat Garrett, the killer of Billy the Kid, was himself gunned down while stepping off a buckboard to urinate. The assailant was in a lawsuit with Garret over a promise to remove some goats from his property.
1960- Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club, this one in Chicago. The restaurant –nightclub succeeded on a gimmick of members-only keys and the famous Playboy Bunny waitresses. One Bunny said of her job,“I served London Broil in a bathing suit and heels and made more money than anyone in my family!”
1960- An earthquake killed 12,000 in Agadir Morocco.
1968- Dr. Jocelyn Burnell of Cambridge announced the discovery of the pulsar star.
1968- The Beatles win four Grammy awards for their Sgt. Pepper album.
1960- FBI agent Melvin Purvis shot himself with the gun he used to kill John Dillinger. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover would tolerate no competitors for the title of America’s most famous cop. When Purvis' fame began to overshadow Hoovers the Director hounded him out of his job. Purvis's widow commented bitterly that the F.B.I. didn't even send a card or flowers to note the passing of their single most famous field agent. J. Edgar also ruined treasury agent Elliot Ness’ career, although some contend that the accounts of his exploits in his book "The Untouchables" were more fiction than fact.
1984- Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced his retirement after 15 years in power.
1992- Bosnian Moslems and Croats vote on a referendum on independence for Bosnia-Herzegovina. The vote was boycotted by the Bosnian-Serbs. This was seen as the start of the Bosnian Civil War.
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Yesterday’s Question: In Greek mythology, who slew the gorgon Medusa?
Answer: Perseus.