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November 20th, 2008 thurs
November 20th, 2008

Question: Where does the term come from “ to pull out all the stops”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is the little plate under your teacup called a saucer?
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History for 11/20/2008
Birthdays: Robert F. Kennedy, Maya Plisetskaya, Gene Tierney, Dick Smothers, Bo Derek is 52, Sean Young is 42, Richard Dawson, Estelle Parsons, Barbera Hendricks, Duane Allman, Joe Walsh, Chester Gould the creator of Dick Tracy, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis the first baseball commissioner, Alastair Cooke, Senator Robert Byrd is 91, Ming Na, Joe Biden is 66

1601-THE GOLDEN SPEECH- Elderly Queen Elizabeth Ist had ruled England for 42 years, a time of unparalleled prosperity and peace. This day the old queen gave her farewell speech to parliament: "Though God has raised Us to the Throne the Glory of Our reign was ruling with the love of my people…… You may have had and may yet have mightier and wiser princes in this seat, but you will never have one who loved you more than I do." Elizabeth died two years later.

1620- Shortly before coming ashore in the New World, The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed by the 24 male Pilgrim settlers "To covenant and combine ourselves into a civile body-politick". Governor John Winthrop wrote: "We shall be a bright City upon a Hill."

1718- " Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest, Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum! Even though he knew the British Navy was going to attack him tomorrow, violent buccaneer Blackbeard spent this night drinking and partying with his crew. Someone asked Blackbeard that if he died did his wife know where he had buried his treasure? Blackbeard laughed" No one but me and the Devil himself knows where it is, and the longest liver can have it all !"

Blackbeard actually enjoyed being a pirate. In the thickest of hand-to-hand fighting, amidst the blood, screams and mayhem, he could be seen smiling. Ultimate job satisfaction. Another time he made his officers sit with him in a locked cabin with smoldering pots of choking, sulphurous brimstone. He told them as they were all going to Hell anyway, it was time they got used to it.

1777- In an amazing speech in the House of Lords elderly William Pitt the Elder, Lord Chatham denounced the governments policy of trying to put down the American Revolution with military mercenaries bought in Germany."My Lords, you cannot conquer America! If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while foreign troops were landed on my soil I would never lay down my arms- never, never, never!"

1783-In Paris Benjamin Franklin is in the crowd watching the first humans go aloft in a balloon designed by the Montgolfier Brothers. For 25 minutes Piastre de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arland flew 500 feet over the Seine, sipping champagne.

1895- Beethoven’s opera Fidelio premiered. He rewrote the overture four times and still wasn’t happy with it. So he rewrote it once more and published the other four as the Leonora Overtures.

1820- In the Pacific Ocean the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was sunk by an enraged sperm whale. The whale's nickname was Mocha-Dick. Only six men survived floating on driftwood for ninety days, resorting to cannibalism before being rescued. This incident is thought to have been one of the inspirations for Herman Melville to write his novel Moby Dick.

1870- "YES , I AM A FREE LOVER!" In a speech in Steinway Hall to 3,000 people feminist Victoria Woodhull shocked polite society by declaring openly her right to her sexual freedom unfettered by law or social custom. That women had the right to own their own bodies. " To Love is a right higher than Constitution or laws!" Woodhull had made great strides by being the first woman to testify to Congress, the first to own a Wall Street Brokerage and she even ran for President in with Frederick Douglas as her running mate. But her frankness shocked polite Victorian society, especially the mainstream Suffragette parties. They distanced themselves from her. Harriet Beecher Stowe lampooned her as Mrs. Avaricious Dangereyes, Thomas Nast drew her as Mrs. Satan.

1912- Carl Warr walked into Los Angeles City Hall with 60 sticks of dynamite strapped to him. Police grab him he sets off his detonator but nothing happened. He then begged police to kill him. Warr was sensationalized in the press as The Mad Bomber.

1945- The Nuremburg War Crimes Trial convened. An international court judged 21 top Nazis including Hermann Goring, Albert Speer Joachim Von Ribbentropp and Rudolf Hess. For the first time the world learned of the methodical workings of the Holocaust.

1947-Princess Elizabeth the future Queen Elizabeth II married her cousin Prince Phillip Mountbatten of the exiled royal family of Greece.

1947- The longest running television show in history- Meet the Press, premiered. And it is still on today.

1963- two days before his assassination the House of Representatives passed a preliminary version of John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights bill. The following year his successor Lyndon Johnson pressed for complete adoption.

1963- Attorney General Robert Kennedy had a birthday party up at his house Washington D.C. suburbs called Hillsborough. There his brother President John F. Kennedy and he discussed the coming 1964 election. The President said he was looking forward to doing a campaign swing through Dallas Texas that weekend. When he left the house that night it was the last time Bobby Kennedy would ever see his brother alive.

1969- The U.S. Dept of Agriculture bans the use of the insecticide DDT.

1975- Spanish Fascist dictator Francisco Franco died at age 89, despite sleeping with the mummified arm of St. Theresa of Avila for a cure. Patriotic Spaniards start partying. Stores sold out of champagne by 10 a.m. As planned King Juan Carlos takes over and Spain converts to a constitutional monarchy.

1990- In the city of Rostov Russian police arrest Andre Chikotila, who since 1982 had raped and killed 53 women and children. Soviet police had actually picked him up in 1984 but let him go. The Communist insistence that crime was an American problem, unknown in the Soviet Union, discouraged local police from pursuing the case. This allowed Chikotila to go about his business unmolested. Chikotila confessed and was shot in 1994. In Oct.1999 a man in Columbia admitted to killing 143 children.

1994- Rock & Roll star David Crosby received a new liver.

1995- During and interview on a BBC television show Panorama Diana Princess of Wales admitted to having an affair with an army officer named James Hewitt. This was after Prince Charles admitted to his long affair with Lady Camilla Parker-Bowles. After the Princesses death Hewitt sold a juicy tell-all story to the London tabloids for half a million pounds.

1998- Several state governments and the US tobacco industry reach a landmark settlement arising from lawsuits over smoking illnesses. The trial also killed off once and for all ads featuring The Marlboro Cowboy and Joe Camel, a cartoon character that at one point was as recognizable to children as Donald Duck.
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Yesterday’s Question: Why is the little plate under your teacup called a saucer?

Answer: In the Middle Ages, your dishes consisted of a common platter full of burnt meats and small dishes called saucers. They were called that because they were filled with fruit sauces to dip in, so you wouldn’t taste how bad the meat was. You didn’t have your own plate, but a large slice of bread called a trencher to catch the drippings. Afterwards you gave it to the dogs or the poor.


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