Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a schism?
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History for 7/16/2009
Birthdays: Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman,
Orville Redenbacher, Roald Amundsen, Sunny Tufts, Barbera Stanwyck, Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Phoebe Cates is 46, Will Farrell is 42

1054 –SCHISM- Eastern Greek Orthodox and Latin Roman Catholic Churches split. The Patriarch Of Constantinople Michael I Cerularius and Pope Leo IX mutually excommunicate one another. When Catholic Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1209 they put a prostitute on the Orthodox Patriarch's throne just for laughs. The Greek Patriarch referred to the Vatican as a "Synagogue of Satan!" Historian Ernle Bradford stated that his event marked the moment when Christianity ceased to be a supra-national force for unity in Europe the way Islam was in the Arab world. Europeans would now turn to nationalism as their identifying creed and Christianity would take a backseat. In 1965 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athengoras met. Pope John Paul II and now Benedict want to heal this division.

1099- JERUSALEM CAPTURED BY CRUSADERS-The Christian’s first attack was repulsed from the walls. Crusader chiefs like Geoffrey De Boullion, Tancred and Bohemond decided it was because God thought they were too sunk in sin to be worthy, so the entire army marched barefoot around the walls chanting. On the next attack the Crusaders broke into the city and committed horrible massacres of the population. The rampaging knights even cut down Armenian & Syrian Christians, because they looked dark.

In an ironic twist of history the Jewish population fought shoulder to shoulder with their Arab cousins. When the massacre started they withdrew to a central synagogue where the Christians barred he doors and burned them to death. The Crusaders then declared the Holy City free, and Geoffrey de Boullion declared himself "Protector of the Holy Sepulchre" instead of king since in his opinion :"There is no King here but Christ". After he died his younger brother Baldwin said:” My brother was a knucklehead, I am King of Jerusalem!” I’m uh..paraphrasing slightly here…

1439 - Kissing is banned in England to stop diseases from spreading.

1721- Guilliame DuBois, archbishop of Cambrai was ordained a Cardinal. The Bishop was one of the most sexually promiscuous men in France, out done only by his master Phillipe D’Orleans. Regent for the boy King Louis XV. The memoirist Sainte Simon said His Eminence the Cardinal “had a face like a ferret and was a Cloaca Maxima of depravity” named for Romes largest Sewer.

1769- Fra Junipero Serra founded his first Mission settlement in California- San Diego de Alcala, now present day San Diego. The master plan was to create a string of missions from San Diego to San Francisco one days ride apart- San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel , Los Angeles, etc.

1777- I WILL FIND YOU! -In frontier Kentucky outside of Boonesborugh Jemima Boone and her girlfriend are set upon by a Shawnee Indian warparty and kidnapped. Her daddy Daniel Boone with seven men tracked the warparty and this day after a sharp fight freed the women. Despite killing the son of the Shawnee chief, Boone was later adopted into the tribe in his place. This incident was widely reported in the colonies and was the basis for James Fennimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans.

1918-CZAR NICHOLAS ROMANOV AND FAMILY SHOT. After abdicating the Czar's family was imprisoned in a house in Siberia. The anti-Communist While armies were about to capture the area. So from Moscow Vladimir Lenin sent orders that they all be killed. In the middle of the night commissar Yakov Sverdlov told the Czar they were to be moved and were ordered to wait in a basement room of their house. Outside Red guards revved a truck motor to mask the sound of the guns. Then a group of soldiers came in the room pulled out their pistols. Nicholas’ last word before the guns went off was "Schto? " What the-? They even shot the family doctor, the boys sailor bodyguard and the family dog. The anti-Communist forces captured the area two weeks later and told the world of the crime. Seeing what happened to the Russian Czar may be part of the reason the Kaiser and Austrian Emperor slipped away quietly into exile after losing the Great War. Remains weren't discovered until 1988 and in 1993 DNA testing proved them to be the true remains of the Czar and his family. DNA Testing on the remains of a woman who died in 1984 named Anna Andersen, who claimed to be the child Duchess Anastasia was negative. The reason the children's remains weren't in with the others was because the Bolsheviks first tried destroying their remains with sulfuric acid but found it took too long, so they cremated the rest. Czar Nicholas II and his family were made saints of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994.

1932- Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath. By the second day, the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day.

DeMille always got away with sexy semi-nude scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a moral tale from the Good Book? This story of Jesus opens with an orgy at Mary Magdalene’s house.

1935- The first parking meter set up in Oklahoma City.

1936 - 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY

1945-THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODED at Alamagordo New Mexico (site code name was "Trinity'). Called at first the Super Cosmic Bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget". The Manhattan Project scientists weren't sure that once you started the chain reaction detonating particles of light when it would stop, if ever. Physicists Richard Fenyman and Enrico Fermi wagered a case of beer that they would incinerate the state of New Mexico.(funny guys). They were led by General Leslie Groves, a by-the-book army engineer who supervised the construction of the Pentagon, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Berkeley radical who read Sanskrit to relax. When he saw the force of the blast Oppenheimer recalled the Hindu verse: "Now have I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."


1951-J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1956 –The Last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent.

1963-Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6.

1964 Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until the late 1980's.

1964- Conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was nominated to run against Lyndon Johnson for president. Goldwater set the tone by his speech:" Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." LBJ’s campaign portrayed him as a dangerous warmonger and he lost in a landslide. In later years Goldwater’s conservative views were eclipsed by the even more conservative Reagan and Bush, and his being ignored by them, annoyed him.

1966- Mao Tse Tung takes a swim in the Yangtzse River and gives permission for his young Red Guards to start the Cultural Revolution.

1969- Passed this day Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

1973- WHO HAS THE TAPES ! Presidential attorney Alexander Butterfield admitted to the Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had bugged the Oval Office and had recorded tapes of all of his conversations. The tape system was actually installed by Lyndon Johnson. When Nixon took office he was going to have it all removed. But his aides convinced him to keep the system to document his place in history. Why Nixon never destroyed these tapes that brought him down remains one of the mysteries of history.

1994- Comet Schoendacher-Levy 6 impacted with the Planet Jupiter, giving scientists a spectacular ringside seat to the processes of the creation of the Universe.

1999- JOHN-JOHN -Thirty years after the death of his father and uncle 38 year old John Kennedy Jr. fell victim to the Kennedy curse when his small plane crashed on the way to a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard. His wife had delayed to have a pedicure, so he had to take off at dusk. He was too inexperienced to fly on instruments at dusk in fog and he lost his bearings, hitting the water at 150 miles per hour. The Kennedy’s have a history of bad luck with planes- Kathleen Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy’s parents and JFK’s older brother Joe Kennedy all died in small plane crashes. Senator Ted Kennedy barely survived a crash. Teddy refused to ever fly with John Jr.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a schism?

Answer: Pronounced sskizim. A formal separation between two churches. See above- 1054.

We saw a wonderful show at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills last night.
image courtesy of the AMPAAS

Called THE ASTRONAUT AS FILMMAKER

They had the Shuttle Crew who in May went up to fix the Hubbell Space Telescope and take IMAX footage. They were interviewed by John Dykstra of Star Wars and Caleb Deschanel, who did the camerawork on The Right Stuff. Toni Myers, who created the IMAX spectacular The Dream is Alive, was there too.

The Shuttle crewmembers were very witty and the footage was fantastic. In think they were as excited to see the Academy audience as we were to see them. They had hi-def cameras in the Shuttle and strapped to their helmets as they space walked.

When you see a show like this, you realize that economic booms and busts happen, as do wars and other cycles. But Man's real purpose it to go into Space. We are temporary, but the mission of the Human Race is to keep striving to move out into the Cosmos. Every new bit of information, broadens our own horizons and keeps us moving forward.

Congratulations to all Andy, Tad and all the Academy for a helluva good show.

My personal highlight was stepping into the Men's Room and seeing a lineup of four astronauts in blue jumpsuits at the urinal. I wish I brought my camera!

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Quiz: What is a schism?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below- What national anthem contains the lines:" We will water our fields with impious blood (of the invader who intends to slit the throats of our wives and children)"..?
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History for 7/15/2009
Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Sir Thomas Bullfinch, Mother Cabrini, Clemont Moore, Julian Bream, Linda Rondstadt, Alex Karras, Jan Michael Vincent, The Sultan of Brunei, Lola Davidovich, Forrest Whitaker, Brigette Neilsen, Jesse Ventura

Feast of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

765 A.D.- Mayan Scientists hold a conference at Copan to discuss astronomy and adjust their calendar. By 1492 the Mayan civilization was already 2,000 years old. Their calendar was so perfect, the difference between it and our modern atomic clocks calculation of a lunar month is just 24 seconds! They used hieroglyphic writing but also a system of numbers including zero, which the Greeks and Romans never figured out. Among their surviving documents are calculations on the orbit of Venus. Tikal, one of their cities, covered 23 square miles ( Rome of the Caesars covered 8 ) and had a temple that was the tallest structure in America until the completion of the U.S. Capitol dome in 1863.

1205- Pope Innocent III lays down the law, that because they have rejected Christ, the Jewish people must be subjected to perpetual servitude and subjugation, It took several more centuries of oppression and holocaust for the Vatican to officially "forgive" Judaism in 1947. Pope John Paul II apologized in 2000.

1410-Battle of Grunwald, King Casimir Jagiello of Poland, Witold Wytautas of Lithuania and their Tartar allies defeated the German Teutonic Knights under Grand Master Ulrich Von Junnigen. The big statue in New York's Central Park of a polish king crossing two swords over his head, is of Jagiello (pronounced Ya-gew-wo).

1780- American Colonial General Benedict Arnold sneaked a coded message to British General Sir Henry Clinton. In it, he offered to betray the fortress of West Point to the British for 20,000 English pounds. Arnold wasn’t even West Point’s commander yet, but he expected Gen. George Washington to confirm him in the job any day. The only person who warned that Gen. Arnold might be up to something, was a female spy planted in British Headquarters in occupied New York. Her cover was kept so complete, that her name is lost to history. We only know her as agent “355”.

1795 - "Le Marseillaise" became officially the French national anthem.

1815- Napoleon boards HMS Bellerophon for the trip to St.Helena. On the trip he teaches himself English and makes friends with the British sailors to such an extent that they are reprimanded by their officers for being too friendly with him. He says to his Irish doctor O'Meara:" So you are a doctor and I am a general. How many men have you killed? I'll wager more than me!"


1863- Union leaders were so frustrated by the actions of Confederate guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas that they resorted to a controversial solution. They arrested the wives, sisters and girlfriends of the guerrillas and lodged them in Kansas City. They hoped to ship them to rebel held Arkansas, thinking this would draw off their menfolk. But on this day an unforeseen tragedy struck. The old Grand St Hotel they were in collapsed, killing many of the innocent women. The country was shocked and the rebels vowed revenge. Cole Younger lost his mother and two sisters. He never believed the collapse was an accident. Bloody Bill Anderson rode into battle tearfully shouting his baby sisters name.

1882- In Springfield Illinois, “The Crazy Old Lady” who lived alone in the big house with the curtains always drawn, finally died. Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of Abraham Lincoln had always been high strung and a little paranoid. Now, her spirit broken by her husbands and all her children dying. All except her eldest son Robert. And he kept trying to get her committed to a lunatic asylum before she spent all of the family fortune. Mary Todd Lincoln wore nothing but black, constantly wept, packed and unpacked trunks all day and lived on chloral hydrate, opium and other narcotics. This day she finally got her wish, to join her husband and family.

1915- A Secret Service agent was presented with a suitcase left by a German diplomat on a New York City subway seat. In the satchel was a complete list of known German spies and saboteurs working in the U.S., a nation still officially neutral in the war between Britain, France and Germany.

1938- Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The funny little character later gave it’s name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1953- The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered starring Marylyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, to be directed by newcomer Ralph Bakshi.

1979- THE OIL CRISIS. In a nationwide address, President Jimmy Carter laid out the oil/gas crisis. He stated flatly that the U.S. and the world would be trapped in a dependence on diminishing stocks of foreign oil unless we moved fast to develop solar and other alternative fuels immediately. The next President, Ronald Reagan, ignored Carter’s initiatives and tore off the solar panels from the White House. And things have been fine since then, eh, boys & girls?

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well.( duh..?)

1997- Famed clothing designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami mansion by a deranged serial killer on a spree since leaving Minnesota. The killer, Andrew Cunanan, was later found in a houseboat with a self inflicted bullet in his head.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What national anthem contains the lines:" We will water our fields with impious blood (of the invader who intends to slit the throats of our wives and children)"..?

Answer: Yep, it's the Marseillaise. For the Bicentennial in 1989 First Lady Danielle Mitterand tried to have the song rewritten to change some of the more bloodthirsty parts, but no one would go for it. Tradition is too deep.

Pat and I were in Paris in 1979, during a big protest against the government. You don't realize how powerful a song that is, until you hear it sung with passion by hundreds of thousands of throats in the streets. Makes you want to punch someone or break a window.

We restrained ourselves, being guests, of course.

Quiz: What national anthem contains the lines:" We will water our fields with impious blood (of the invader who intends to slit the throats of our wives and children)"..?

Yesterday’s Quiz: What is chiarroscurro?
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History for 7/14/2009
Birthdays: Issac Bashevis Singer, Mr. Maytag, inventor of the electronic washing machine-1857, Emiline Pankhurst, Woody Guthrie, Gerald Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Scott Rudin, Rosie Grier, Harry Dean Stanton is 83, Polly Bergen, Gustav Klimt, Terry Thomas, Jimmy Hoffa, Dave Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Walt Stanchfield, Joel Silver producer of the Matrix movies. Vincent Pastore

1415-Joanna II, Queen of Naples called Joanna la Loca (Crazy Joanie), allows the prostitutes of Avignon to form their own guild. Solidarity Forever.

1756- In the opening moves of the French and Indian War, the French cross Lake Ontario and captured Fort Oswego. The French commander Vaudreuil wrote: The cries and howlings of our Canadians and Indians soon made the defenders decide to surrender."
Gee, howling Canadians scare me too.

1789-BASTILLE DAY-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In France the anger of the common people over economic hardship and arrogant indifference of the King and nobility finally exploded in mass violence. The focus of the people’s hate was the Bastille, a huge fortress- prison that towered over Paris rooftops, her cannon aimed at the people in the streets. The Parisians got guns and stormed the prison. Ironically, the royal prefect was intending to phase out the prison anyway. When the gates were opened only a handful of petty thieves came out, including a lunatic who shouted:" I am God! " But the symbolism was what counted.

Miles away at Versailles, King Louis XVI had just written in his diary- July 14th 1789-" Nothing" when he heard the commotion. He said:" What is that? A revolt?" The Duke de la Rochfoucauld said:" No Sire, a revolution!"

1790- On the first anniversary of the French Revolution, the U.S. Congress voted a celebration in solidarity with a fellow republic.

1793- Charlotte Corday stabs French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat in his bathtub. Marat had to receive callers in his tub because of a skin affliction. He was known for sayings like "If we cut off a thousand heads today, it saves us cutting off ten thousand tomorrow!" and:"We'll strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest!" Corday was the daughter of one of his victims, a moderate politician called a Girondist. Young artist Madame Tussaud was allowed to make a death mask of Marat while still in the tub and David's painting shows him expiring with a Christ-like calm.


1849-BLACK SHIP DAY-Commodore Perry sailed into Yedo Bay and convinced the Japanese to open trade by threatening to bombard Yokohama. This ended Japan's 300 year old isolation from the outside world. The Shogun's envoys receive the Americans by laying straw mattes under their feet and talking to them in a special pavilion. The Yankees thought this was special treatment but actually after they left the mattes and building were burned so they could say the foreigner's feet never polluted Japanese soil.

1850 - 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration.

1862- Every old sailors worst nightmare came true. This day the US Navy did away with the sailors daily rum ration.

1881-BILLY THE KID SHOT- Fort Sumner New Mexico sheriff Pat Garrett hid in a closet in the Kid's hotel room and shot him in the back as he was taking his boots off. Billy's last words were:" Who's there?" Backshooting was how Billy killed most of his victims. He was 21. After firing off his guns Pat Garret panicked and rushed out into the street without waiting to see their effect. Billy had such a lethal reputation that a small crowd stood in fear outside his room for nearly an hour until they were sure the Kid wasn't just playing possum but was really dead. Even though Garret was practically illiterate he wrote several best selling books on the incident, heavily exaggerated by pulp ghostwriter Ned Buntine. Eventually Pat Garret too was backshot, this time in an argument over some goats on his ranch.

1921-Sacco & Vancetti convicted. These men were Italian immigrants and socialists who were accused of the murder of a Massachusetts storeowner. The evidence was slight but hey, they were foreigners and espoused lefty politics. Despite protests around the world from folks like Picasso, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller they were electrocuted. Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote a dozen ballads in tribute to Sacco & Vancetti." Let me sing you a ballad of Sacco-Vancetti, pour me some wine and eat some spaghetti..."

1933- "Well Blow Me Down"- Max Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. Vaudvillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who was the voice ever after.

1946 - Dr Ben Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published.

1955-The Kaarman Ghia debuted. Volkswagen wanted an "image car" to compete with the sleek American designs like the Corvette and Thunderbird. So they subcontracted the Kaarman motorbus company who engaged an Italian design firm named Ghia and the distinctive little coupe was born.

1967 - The new band called the Who began a US tour as the opening act for Herman’s Hermits.

1980- The Republican Presidential Convention nominated former California Governor, actor and SAG president Ronald Reagan. The GOP under Robert Strauss & Lee Atwater completed restructuring itself after the disaster of Watergate by creating a new-conservative alliance of Sunbelt Evangelicals and Southern Dixiecrats. Regular Republican stalwarts who disagreed with the ultra conservative agenda- Rockefeller,Goldwater, Nixon were out. At 69 Reagan was the oldest man to ever run for the presidency. Reagan said of the convention:" It’s the first time in a long while I saw myself on television in prime time." Someone asked old Hollywood mogul Jack Warner "what do you think of Ronald Reagan for President?" Warner replied:" Nah, Jimmy Stewart for President. Ronald Reagan for his best friend!"
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is chiarroscurro?

Answer: It means dark-to-light. The Renaissance technique of starting with a layer of burnt umber on the canvas, or in the case of a drawing, a coating of dark charcoal, then working up to lighter colors. Rembrandt and Caravaggio used that technique.

Quiz: What is chiarroscurro?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Question: Where is the Isthmus of Darien?
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History for 7/13/2009
Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka, Dave Garroway, Jack Kemp, Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 68, Harrison Ford is 66, Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob is 47

1704- BLENHEIM-the great battle in Bavaria where the Duke of Marlborough destroyed the French army of Louis XIV. In the three centuries since Agincourt the reputation of English arms had faded in Continental Europe, preoccupied as they were by their internal Wars of the Roses and English Civil Wars. While the British Navy's reputation was growing, on land King William III trusted his Dutch generals more than his British. Blenheim changed all that.

In one day Britain became the dominant powerbroker in Europe. John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough was the great ancestor of Winston Churchill.

1787-THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE PASSED- This unprecedented plan masterminded by Tom Jefferson stipulated that as new territory passed into the United States, their populations could organize their own government and enter the union as a state, an equal partner of the original older states. So Utah would have as much political power as Pennsylvania. Nothing like this had ever been imagined much less implemented. Before The Northwest Ordinance the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania were claiming all the land west of them to the Mississippi as their territory. Virginia even claimed the jurisdiction of Bermuda and Nassau in the Caribbean!

1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.

1832- Geologist Henry Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.

1865- P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barnum rebuilt but after that one burned as well, he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum , more a sitting menagerie and sideshow than a museum as we know it, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees.

1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists.

1930- Six thousand people in formal evening wear crowded into London’s Albert Hall to hear a special message from Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. It was extra special because everyone knew Conan-Doyle had died just five days ago. Arthur Conan-Doyle was an advocate of spiritualism. He declared if anyone could get a message through from beyond the grave, he would. An empty chair was placed on stage in hopes of his apparition would take a seat. Hymns were sung and after long embarrassing silences, a clairvoyant medium claimed she could see Sir Arthur. Others saw nothing and thought it was all a big humbug.


1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times that " The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long.

1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.

1949- Hollywood Studio exec David O. Selznick left his first wife Esther, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, to marry actress Jennifer Jones.

1960- Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nominated for President by the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The day continued with rounds of fierce backroom deals to decide the running mate. Although the Kennedys wanted Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri it finally was decided to go with Lyndon Johnson. He was the powerful Senate leader from Texas. Johnson had asked his Texas mentor Cactus Jack Garner if he should accept the job. Cactus Jack was Franklin Roosevelt’s Veep for his first two terms. The 90 year old Garner said:” Lyndon, the Vice Presidency ain’t worth a bucket a warm spit!” Bobby Kennedy considered offering Lyndon the Vice Presidency a token gesture to mollify his anger at losing the nomination. But he was surprised when Johnson accepted. Before going to Ciro’s with Frank Sinatra to celebrate the nomination, Presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled JFK making the best of it:” The Vice Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m forty three and I don’t plan to die in office….”

1963- Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was shot and killed in front of his home. His murderer Byron Daley Beckwith was not convicted until 1995.

1966- In Chicago psycho killer Richard Speck broke into a woman’s dormitory hotel where he raped and murdered 8 nurses as they came home from work. He spent the rest of his life in prison. Richard Speck became a posterboy for the death penalty. On a smuggled video recorder he bragged about how much fun he was having in prison at public expense, getting all the sex and drugs he wanted. Just before his death in 1999 he was asked if he had any remorse about the horrible things he did to those nurses. All he would say was “I guess it wasn’t their night.”

1977- The Great New York City Blackout of '77. For the second time in 20 years the whole darn East Coast power grid breaks down. Unlike the 1964 Blackout it was much longer, much hotter, and there was no full moon to illuminate the city. My wife Pat remembers being in the Bronx on the phone to her boyfriend in Hoboken, when her lights went out. She told him and he raced to the Jersey shore just in time to see the Skyline of Manhattan blacking out a section at a time like a huge set of dominoes. The next day posh Eastside clubs had guys drive to Jersey for ice so they could offer a cold cocktail on the sidewalk for $25 each. There was some looting and other civil disturbances and at the same time the lunatic serial killer the Son of Sam was on the prowl. No wonder they called it Fun City!

1985- A cancerous growth was removed from President Ronald Reagan’s colon. Comic Paul Rodriguez said:” Reagan is amazing: He got cancer in his nose, he got cancer in his butt, he got shot full of bullets- he’s like the Terminator President..”
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Yesterday’s Question: Where is the Isthmus of Darien?

Answer: It is the old name for part of Panama that is narrowest in between the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean.

Question: Where is the Isthmus of Darien?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What is this symbol “ &” called?
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History for 7/12/2009
Birthdays: Gaius Julius Caesar is 2,109 years old, Henry David Thoreau, Oscar Hammerstein, Kirsten Flagstad, Andrew Wyeth, Pablo Neruda, George Eastman, Milton Berle, Cheryl Ladd, Van Cliburn, Buckminster Fuller, George Washington Carver, Josiah Wedgewood- of Wedgewood china and pottery, Michelle Rodriguez, Richard Simmons, Krysty Yamaguchi, Bill Cosby is 72, Ben Burtt- the sound effects guru for George Lucas who created the sounds of Darth Vader and R2D2, ET and WALL-E is 61.

1174- King Henry II of England does public penance on his knees and allowed him self to be whipped for the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Thomas Beckett.

1290 - Jews were expelled from England by order of King Edward I Longshanks. Although some lived on in British society- Queen Elizabeth’s doctor Rodrigo Lopez was Jewish, They would not officially be allowed back until Oliver Cromwell lifted the ban in the 1650’s.

1690-THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE: William of Orange's English defeated his father-in-law James II Stuart's Irish army. Even though James mainly wanted his English crown back, this battle is seen as the last organized Irish resistance to British rule until the IRA campaigns of the twentieth century. Protestant Irish Orangemen see it as the victory that confirmed British rule in Ulster. It seems there were French Protestant (Huguenots) exiles among the English and French Catholic allies sent by Louis XIV among the Irish. These Frenchmen kept stubbornly fighting each other into the night long after the English and Irish had driven each other off the field.

1776- During the American Revolution the British 44 gun warships HMS Phoenix and HMS Rose showed how little they thought of George Washington’s puny rebel defenses, by boldly sailing right up to New York City, and indiscriminately shelling the town.

1789- At the Palais Royale in Paris radical lawyer Camille DesMoulins climbed up on a table in front of the Café du Foy to address a crowd. The people of Paris had been angry since the king had brought Swiss and German mercenary regiments into the city to restore order. DesMoulin alleged that the true object of the King's foreign troops were to kill all Frenchmen who wanted freedom. For the first time the Parisian streets rang with the cry: "Aux Armes, Citoyens!" -to arms, citizens! A mob marched to the Place Vendomme where they showered the troops with rocks and bottles until a volley from their guns dispersed them. The French Revolution would begin in two more days.

1817- For the first time in many years America wasn’t at war with anyone and political feuding had died down. James Monroe was elected President in what was considered a decidedly low-key election. A Boston newspaper named the Columbian Sentinel described the climate of the times as “The Era of Good Feeling”. The name stuck.

1861- The McCandles Massacre, the most famous Western shootout until the OK Corral. James Hickock earns his nickname Wild Bill by killing ten desperadoes in a free for all with sixguns and bowie knives. Interviewed by Harpers Weekly Mr. Hickock said :”I was wild and I struck savage blows.”


1863-The NEW YORK CITY DRAFT RIOTS- Arguably the largest civil disturbance in American History. Poor immigrant laborers, sick of the Civil War and being forced into the army while rich men bought their way out, ran wild in the streets in three days of looting. The riot was sparked by the opening of a new draft office on 46th St & 3rd Ave. They began calling names while by coincidence the first lists of the dead from the Battle of Gettysburg were being published. A mob of 15,000 attacked and burned the Draft Board offices and overwhelmed the police. Writer Herman Melville watching the flames from a rooftop said: “The Rats have taken over the City.” Newspaperman Horace Greely defended his New York World office with a small cannon in his lobby. The New York Times posted Gatling Guns on it’s roof and Wall St. banks boiled oil to drop from the rooftops like something out of the Middle Ages.

Labor history mentions that most of these laborers worked a 12-14 hour day, seven days a week. So fighting slavery seemed a moot point to them. The mob attacked well dressed men “There goes a three hundred-dollar man!” Modern apologists for the rich rather to focus on the racism of the mob. Indeed the Irish poor, targets of racism themselves, singled out black people as the cause of all their misfortunes and hanged many from lampposts. They even torched a black little girl’s orphanage. The children had to be escorted by bayonet wielding militia to a barge in the East River for safety.
N.Y. Governor Horatio Seymour, who’s own public contempt for Lincoln's policies help encourage the riots, had to borrow Union Army regiments from the battlefields to restore order in New York City.

1863- After the defeat at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee's retreating army was pinned for awhile against the rain flooded Potomac River. As the surrounding Union army prepared to attack, a local minister went up to Yankee General Meade and protested fighting a battle on a Sunday. When Meade tried to reason with him, the minister replied:" As God's emissary I denounce the defiling of His day! Look ye to the heavens!" Almost as if on command a rainstorm burst out over their heads. Meade cancelled the attack.

1864- Jubal Early's Confederates tried to attack Washington D.C. Early didn’t think he could hold Washington but he was determined to loot and burn it and maybe in so doing draw Grant away from Richmond. Rebel skirmishers got as close as Georgetown, they said they could see the gleaming white dome of the US Capitol. Despite Union forces in the area being pathetically unprepared, Quartermaster General Meigs had to arm his accountants, and they bussed out hospital invalids with guns, they still managed to turn Early away. President Lincoln went out to Fort Stevens near present day Walter Reade Medical Center to watch the fight. During the shooting Col. Oliver Wendell Holmes called out to the man in the 8 dollar stovepipe hat peering over the parapet:" Get down ya damn fool! You’re drawing fire. You wanna get us all killed?!" The last time a sitting U.S. President was under enemy fire.

1870- Celluloid film patented. The inventor had been trying to find a substitute for ivory billiard balls. Inventor George Eastman later perfected the sprocket and hole system of roll film for cameras, replacing the large glass plates.

1876- Gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock arrived in Deadwood South Dakota to prospect for gold, see some old friends like Calamity Jane, and play a little poker.

1962 – The Rolling Stones 1st performance at the Marquee Club, London. One band member named Elmo Lewis, changed his name to Brian Jones.

1979- Carmine "The Cigar" Galante, boss of the Gambino Mafia family, was blown away over coffee and spumoni at a small Brooklyn restaurant called Joe & Marys. He was finished off with a 45 cal. slug through the eye, his cigar still in his lips. The hit was ordered by Paul Castellano. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post set a new journalistic low when a reporter shimmied up a drainpipe and got a photo of the Don's bullet riddled body before the cops could throw a sheet over it.

The Post put it in color on the front page.

1979- Disco Demolition Night. Chicago Fans could get into Comisky Park for 98 cents if they each brought a Disco record to burn. Thousands of records were thrown at the players like Frisbees while they were trying to play, so Chicago was forced to forfeit the game. “I love the Nightlife, I love the Nightlife…”

1990- TV series Northern Exposure premiered.
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Yesterday’s question: What is this symbol “ &” called?

Answer: Its an ampersand. In Britain an epersand from Et Per Se, meaning and.
Like Barnes & Noble, Pork & Beans, etc.