Our official CarTalk Show website,CLICK & CLACK'S AS THE WRENCH TURNS, is now fully operational. It features lots of goodies, games and a production blog written by Yours Truly, with interviews of a lot of our crew.

http://www.pbs.org/wrenchturns


Pat and I with Tom & Ray Magliozzi, the Tappet Brothers, at their recording studio at WBUR/Boston


Check it out!
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Quiz: Who is the current Prime Minister of Great Britain?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Which one of these was NOT named for a British Prime Minister? 1-Melbourne Australia, 2-Pittsburgh, 3- Earl Grey tea, 4-Vancouver, British Columbia.
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History for 6/18/2008
Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser, Richard Boone, Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn, ,Sir Paul McCartney is 66

1682 – Quaker leader William Penn founded Philadelphia.

1815- WATERLOO- One of the battles that changed history. 145,000 men in brightly colored uniforms with 400 cannons blew each other to pieces for 9 hours at a road intersection about three miles square. Many factors affected Wellington's defeat of Napoleon: The previous nights rains delayed the battle until 11:00 A.M. Napoleon had a bout of stomach cramps (he had bleeding ulcers, cystitis, piles and hypertension) and while he rested his subordinates wasted troops in fruitless assaults. The Prussian army everyone thought was running to Berlin boiled into the French right just when it seemed that the French were winning. Wellington in private admitted, "It had been a very close run thing."

-My favorite anecdote is about General Cambronne, leader of the French elite' Old Guard. He formed up an infantry square to take a last stand to cover the French retreat. His small band is surrounded by the victorious Anglo-Dutch German army and called upon to surrender. Cambronne had time for a one word reply before all the guns go off-" MERDE!" This is a favorite French epithete meaning "sh*t!" The writer Chateaubriand later said that he cried" The Guard dies but never Surrenders!" But we all know what he really said. To this day in France if you’re too polite to use an expletive you can say: A' la mode de Cambronne!"

1817- With the Iron Duke (Wellington), himself in attendance London opened a new bridge across the Thames, named the Waterloo Bridge. Later the guests sat down at the traditional Waterloo banquet and were served- you guessed it.....Beef Wellington. No crème napoleons for desert, through.

1900- The Dowager Empress of China Zhou Zshi calls for the killing of all foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. She commits the Chinese government to the expulsion of all the European colonialist powers. Empress Zhou Chi was the first person westerners called the Dragon Lady, later used by Milt Caniff in his comic strip Terry & the Pirates.

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

1916- German Max Immelman, the first true air fighter ace, died when the synchronizing mechanism that enabled his machine gun to fire through his propeller blades failed and he shot his own propeller off. Ach, Himmel! To take your plane in a large loop-de-loop around someone else is still called an Immelman Turn.

1931- The Metropolitan Museum of NY had in it’s collection a little blue statue of a Hippo from the tomb of the Egyptian Steward Senbi from the Twelfth Dynasty. People nicknamed it Willie. This day an article about it with a color picture appeared in Punch Magazine. Soon museum craftsmen made little replicas of Willie that they gave as gifts to donors and eventually started selling to the public. The massive retail business in museum reproductions and merchandise began with little Willie the Hippo.



1959 - 1st telecast transmitted from England to US. It used the satellite Tellstar.

1967- At the Monterey Pop Rock festival Jimi Hendrix electrified the audience then finished his set by burning and smashing his guitar on stage. Until then musicians didn’t behave in such a way towards their instruments. Ravi Shankar was particularly shocked.

1980 –"We are on a mission from God." John Landis movie of " The Blues Brothers" with Dan Ackroyd & John Belushi premiered.

1983- Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in Space.
Russian Valentina Tereshkova had gone up in 1963.

2002- President George W. Bush said:” When we talk about war, we are really talking about peace.” Uh...huuh.
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Yesterday’s Question: Which one of these was NOT named for a British Prime Minister? 1-Melbourne Australia, 2-Pittsburgh, 3- Earl Grey tea, 4-Vancouver, British Columbia.

Answer: #4 Vancouver is named for English explorer Captain Vancouver. He originally called the settlement Granville, after the PM in his time, Lord Granville, but they changed the name later.