TomSito.com - TOM'S BLOG

Quiz: There are many places in the USA named Washington. Are there any places named George Washington?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a Tromp l’oeil?
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History for 1/6/2021
Birthdays: St. Joan of Arc, Khalil Gibran, Mountain man Jedediah Smith, Tom Mix, Alexander Scriabin, Gustav Dore', Loretta Young, Earl Skruggs. Carl Sandburg, Danny Thomas, Nancy Lopez, John DeLorean, Alan Watts, John Singleton, Anthony Minghella, Rowan Atkinson is 66

Happy Feast of Epiphany or Twelfth Night. Today is the end of the twelve days of Christmas when the Magi, the Three Wise Men, or the three kings- Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, visited the Holy Family. In some countries the Three Kings, not Christmas, is when children get their presents, because that’s when JC got his.
The Magi were the priestly caste of ancient Persia. They were believed to predate the Persians and come from the Chaldeans, the people who invented the western branch of the science of astronomy. A lot of the Magi ritual concerned observation of the stars.

1066- After the death of Edward the Confessor, Saxon Earl Harold Godwinsson crowned himself King of England, which made Duke William of Normandy reach for his sword.

1522- The Augustinian Monastery of Wittenburg had been the home of reformer Martin Luther. Today, inspired by Luther’s preaching against the Vatican, the monks and nuns voted to disband themselves, move in together and start humping like bunnies. Martin Luther had go back to order them to calm down and get married.

1558- English Queen Mary Tudor had been talked by her proxy husband Phillip II into declaring war on France. The war went well for Spain, but this day the French recaptured Calais, the last English stronghold on the continent, which had been English for 211 years. Over the main gate of Calais was a stone image of a donkey that bore the inscription “Calais shall be English until this Donkey eats straw!”

1759- George Washington and Martha Custis married. Washington first loved another woman who refused him, a Sally Fairfax who married a prominent English loyalist plantation owner. They fled to Europe when the Revolution began and never returned. When George married Martha she was a very rich widow, but beyond childbearing years.
This might have been a factor in Washington's decision later not to be King of America, for he would have no direct heirs. Imagine the complications in the young democracy trying to establish this concept of an elective President if there was a George Washington Jr. to contend with? In later years when Washington wanted to be alone, he would ride over to the ruins of the Fairfax Mansion to think.

1842- THE RETREAT FROM KABUL - This day, 15,000 British troops and their dependants march out of Kabul, Afghanistan on the road to Jalalabad. They were attacked by Afghan Ghilzais tribesmen all along the route through the Khyber Pass. Only one man survived, surgeon William Brydon, only because he got lost along the way.

1849- the first cartoon cover of Punch Magazine.

1853- President-elect Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck in Concord Mass. Pierce and the first lady survived but their last surviving child Ben was killed. First Lady Jean Pierce took this as a sign that God was punishing them for wanting the Presidency, and she morosely withdrew from society. Franklin Pierce himself spent most of his administration drunk, or on his knees singing psalms.

1872- Millionaire robber-baron Big Jim Fisk was shot dead by Ned Stokes, his rival for the affections of beautiful actress Josie Mansfield. Fisk once conned President Grant into a business partnership while he tried to corner the gold bullion market.

1912- New Mexico became a state.

1912- Scientist Alfred Wegener presented his paper to the German Geological Society in Frankfurt. In it he theorized that the Earth’s continents are not fixed in place but moving. He named it Continental Drift. Wegener’s theories were all dismissed as cuckoo until after WWII, when submarines charting the ocean floor discovered tectonic plates. Today it is understood that the continents move at the speed with which you grow a fingernail. About 6 feet a century.

1919- Teddy Roosevelt died peacefully in his sleep at Oyster Bay N.Y. at 60. He was never expected to survive childhood asthma, was wounded in Spanish American War, thrown 40 feet in a streetcar wreck, got a dangerous leg abscess while on safari, almost died of malaria in the Amazon, and was shot by an assassin while giving a political speech, which he finished anyway. His daughter Alice said: " The problem with father is at every wedding he wants to be the bride and at every funeral the corpse."

1919- In the social anarchy after the defeat in World War I, German Communists storm the Chancellery in Berlin and try to set up a Bolshevik style Revolution. They are driven out by right wing mobs and more chaos reigns in the streets.

1945- First Pepe Le Pew cartoon, "Odorable Kitty". When the Warners producer who replaced Leon Schlesinger, Eddie Selzer, heard the plans to do a short about a skunk he thundered: "Absolutely Not! Nobody will like a cartoon skunk!" Chuck Jones recalled: "As soon as he said no, I knew we just had to do it." Selzer's final opinion:" Nobody'll laugh at that sh*t!" Pepe went on to become one of Warners most beloved characters.

1945- Navy Lt. George H. W. Bush married Barbara Pierce. Despite Barbara’s mother’s opinion of Bush “Singularly Unimpressive”, Poppy Bush made Barbara First Lady, and the mother of another president.

1949- Composer Leonard Bernstein noted in his diary that “JR (Jerome Robbins) called today with a novel idea- a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the slums.” At first the musical was going to be called East Side Story, then GangWay, finally West Side Story.

1956- Prince Rainier of Monaco announced his engagement to movie star Grace Kelly.

1962- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent. This was the animated version of his popular puppet show.“So Long Kids, Wind Up Your Lids, We’ll look for You Real Soooooon.”

1975-“ Ease on Down the Road.-“ The musical The Wiz premiered on Broadway.

1993- Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, the most famous male dancer since Nijinsky, died of HIV/AIDS.

1994- “WHY ME, WHY ME?” Shortly after a practice in a Detroit skating rink, Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by a man trying to smash her knees with a steel pipe. The man Derrick Smith later confessed to the FBI that he was paid $6,500 to do the deed by Jeff Gilhooly, the manager and ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival Tonya Harding. After all the intense media coverage Nancy Kerrigan won one Silver medal, Tonya Harding nothing and the Olympic Gold went to Ukrainian Oksana Baiul, who was later busted for drunk driving.

1995- In another great step for low journalism, CBS anchor Connie Chung gets Kathleen Gingrich, the mother of Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, to call First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton a “bitch”. In an earlier time such gutter utterances would have been politely edited, but this was given national prominence.

1996- In Gaza, Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash, called the Engineer, dialed his cellphone and it blew his head off. It was a remote control bomb set by the Israeli Mossad. 100,000 Palestinians attended Ayyash’s funeral.

2017- In a meeting with the FBI, President-elect Donald Trump was shown top secret evidence that the 2016 US elections were compromised by Russian spies. He ignored it and proceeded to spend the next few years lying about knowing anything about it.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a Tromp l’oeil?

Answer: A style of hyper-realistic painting that is based on creating the illusion of three dimensional objects, often employed to depict architectural structures. For instance, Painting a flat warehouse wall to look like it was an apartment building from a distance. First done by the Romans, to make private rooms appear larger.

QUIZ: What is a Tromp l’oeil?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: The symbol of the USA is Uncle Sam. The symbol of England is John Bull. What country is symbolized by Mariane?

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History for 1/5/2021
Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey, James Stuart Blackton (the first American animator, born in Lincolnshire, England ), W.D. Snodgrass, Jack Norworth -composer of " Take Me out to the Ballgame' , Konrad Adenauer, Astrologist Jean Dixon, Umberto Ecco, Yves Tanguy, Walter Mondale, George Reeves, Roger Spottiswoode, Hiyao Miyazaki is 80, Robert Duval is 90, Dianne Keaton is 75, Spanish King Juan Carlos, Marilyn Manson is 53 January Jones is 40, Bradley Cooper is 46.
1463- French poet Francois Villon was kicked out of Paris.
1477- THE BATTLE OF NANCY- The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Rash, dreamed of turning his duchy between France and Germany into one of the great powers of Europe. In the process he managed to annoy just about all his neighbors with his constant wars. This day Charles found out why the Swiss are left alone by most everybody. Upon invading Switzerland, his army was cut to pieces. His body was found naked in a ditch with his head stuck fast in a puddle of ice. Battle axes were protruding from his butt. These last were for insults sake.

The King of France as his feudal suzerain annexed Burgundy to France, but just before his last battle Charles engaged his only daughter to the German Emperor. So the only thing Charles left to history was the ancient feud between Germany and France over who owned Alsace-Lorraine and the Low Countries, which raged until 1945.

1643- The first divorce granted in North America. Pilgrim Anne Clarke was granted a divorce by the Massachusetts Bay Colony from her deadbeat husband Dennis.

1757- A man named Robert Damiens attacked French King Louis XV and stabbed him. It was a flesh wound that Voltaire described as a pin-prick. The king survived and the court sentenced Damiens to the most horrible death they could think of, the medieval punishment for regicides.
Nobody had done it for generations so the court executioner, Charles Samson, had to consult the library. Hmm...Drawing and quartering....cut off assailants hands and stick his bleeding wrist-stumps into a pan of burning sulfur...uh-huh..got it! The execution was so ghastly that eyewitnesses vomited and fled, Samson passed out from exhaustion, so his assistants had to finish the job. Robert Damiens believed he was doing it for the people, but unfortunately he was 32 years too early for the French Revolution.

1762- The Seven Years War in Europe was a war of three powerful women against one gay man. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Madame la Pompadour the favorite of Louis XV of France and Czarina Elizabeth of Russia. They all waged war on King Frederick the Great of Prussia, the country that eventually became Germany. Frederick called them the Three Petticoats. But after 6 years of war with his country overrun with foreign armies, and his treasury bankrupt, Frederick needed a miracle to survive.
His miracle came this day, when Czarina Elizabeth died. She was succeeded by her eccentric son Peter III. The new Czar idolized Frederick. He immediately changed sides and donned a Prussian uniform to serve “My Master”. Frederick thought Czar Peter a bit odd, but he welcomed the help nonetheless.

1825- Writer Alexander Dumas fought a duel with the Chevalier Saint George, a black duelist from Martinique, who played violin so well he helped Beethoven write his only violin concerto. Neither man was seriously hurt and Dumas went on to write the Three Musketeers. Saint George also once fought a duel with Monsieur d¹Eon, a transgender who fought his duels in a woman’s ball gown.

1836- Davy Crocket crossed into Texas.

1895- Today was the famous scene of after Captain Albert Dreyfus was framed for espionage he was publicly humiliated in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire in Paris. He was stripped of his insignia and his sword broken. As he was marched off to prison he continually shouted aloud “Citizens of France, I am Innocent!”

1896- A Vienna newspaper announced the invention by Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen of Wurzburg, of a machine that produces "X-Rays" to see inside the body. In England, Lord Kelvin, who invented the Celsius temperature scales, declared x-rays a "ridiculous hoax "

1896- Josef Pulitzers’ New York World began printing the Sunday Yellow Kid comic strip with a yellow color on his shirt. The strip gave the name to the sensationalist tabloid press 'Yellow Journalism".

1914- The Ford Motor Company shocked the leaders of American Industry by raising it¹s wage rates for work shift from $2.40 a day to $5.00 a day and voluntarily adopting the new 8 hour work day. Henry Ford’s idea was “When workers have more money they buy cars”. The idea worked and sales of cars quadrupled, and the economic climate of Detroit boomed.

1921- Famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was preparing one more expedition to the South Pole. This day on his ship anchored in South Georgian Island Bay, he complained he felt ill. He said to his doctor “Oh, what do you want me to give up now?” then he fell over dead of a heart attack. He was 47.

1924- William Chrysler introduced his first automobile featuring an all steel chassis frame instead of wood. He created it for the failing Maxwell Car Company and in 1925 changed the name to the Chrysler Car Company.

1925- Nellie Taylor Ross was inaugurated as the Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to hold such an office.

1933- First day of construction on San Francisco¹s Golden Gate Bridge.

1933- Former Pres. Calvin Coolidge died peacefully. The laconic Coolidge was so low key and stand offish that he was a favorite target for political writers. H.L. Mencken said "Being fanatical for Coolidge is like being fanatical for double entry bookkeeping" Dorothy Parker had the final word. When told that Coolidge had died, she replied:" How could you tell?"

1934- Both the American and National Baseball Leagues agreed upon a standard size for a baseball.

1953- Samuel Beckett¹s play Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot) first premiered in Paris.

1959- Buddy Holly released his last single, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.

1959- The first Bozo the Clown TV show premiered on TV. Larry Harmon played the famous children’s clown.

1961- “Hello Wilbur” Mr Ed the Talking Horse appeared on TV for the first time.

1962- After a holiday break, shooting resumed on Cleopatra. This was the first time stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton worked together, and the first signs of their love affair. Their tempestuous relationship was one of the great affairs of 1960s Hollywood.

1968- A Boston grand jury indicted famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock for conspiring to abet violation of draft laws. The great scientist had come out as a vocal opponent of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. "I helped them be born. I'm not going to abandon them now."

1970- Soap opera “All My Children” premiered.

1979- EMI Records ended their contracts with the punk band the Sex Pistols. They felt their outrageous behavior had gone just too far.

1980- The first Hewlett Packard Personal Computer, or PC, goes on the market.

1998-At the Heavenly Valley Ski Resort, former pop singer turned Republican Congressman Sonny Bono died, when he skied headlong into a tree.

2017- Outgoing President Obama was briefed by the FBI about the proof they had that the Russian government had indeed interfered in the 2016 election to ensure Donald Trump would win.
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Yesterday’s Question: The symbol of the USA is Uncle Sam. The symbol of England is John Bull. What country is symbolized by Mariane?

Answer: France.

Quiz: The symbol of the USA is Uncle Sam. The symbol of England is John Bull. What country is symbolized by Mariane?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: What is a faux-pas?
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History for 1/4/2021
Birthdays: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Francois Rude, Dyan Cannon is 84, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 56

1642- English King Charles I, egged on by his queen Henrietta Maria, attempted to squash his uppity Puritan enemies in Parliament with one stroke. He personally marched troops into the House of Commons and demanded the arrest of five ringleaders, John Pym, Sir Arthur Hazelrig and others. They had already fled. When he ordered the Speaker of the House to identify the men, the speaker bowed and politely refused: "Sire, I have neither eyes to see nor lips to speak say as this House biddeth me".
King Charles and his guards left empty-handed, while Londoners laughed and threw garbage out their windows on him. He traveled north to raise troops. The English Civil War is recorded as beginning that September, but from this moment on King Charles considered no other remedy but force.

1725- American colonist Benjamin Franklin first arrived in London.

1821- Elizabeth Ann Seton died in New York. She was declared America’s first native-born Saint in 1979. Mother Cabrini the first American saint was an immigrant from Italy.

1824- Poet Lord Byron arrived in Missolonghi Greece to aid the Greek Independence movement against the Turkish Empire.

1861- As the Civil War was breaking out, Missouri inaugurated Governor Claiborne Jackson. Gov. Jackson in his inaugural speech declared Missouri would stand by her sister slaveholding states in the Confederacy, but the city folk of St Louis and Kansas City were for the Union. The farming population were pro Dixie. Already wracked by years of violence, Missouri would collapse into an anarchy of roving paramilitary gangs robbing, hanging and shooting the innocent. Bushwhackers vs. Redlegs. Missouri suffered some of the worst of any state in the US. One tenth of the population would die or relocate.

1863- James Plimpton of New York patented the four-wheeled roller skates.

1881- Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture premiered in Breslau. Johannes Brahms was offered an honorary degree by the University of Breslau. But he learned that in exchange, they wanted him to write them a free symphony! Brahms responded by sending them an overture to be played at commencement. On being performed, locals recognized several naughty student drinking songs Brahms had worked into the score.

1885- The first appendectomy operation.

1896- THE KRUGER TELEGRAM- Kaiser Wilhelm sends a telegram to Boer South African President Kruger congratulating him on defeating a coup attempt by pro-British mercenaries- The Jameson Raid. In the note the Kaiser implied military help for the Boers should Britain ever try anything else. When this note was leaked to the press, it was greeted with outrage in England. A backlash of anger also erupted among the German public.
Even though the Kaiser apologized to his grand-mama Queen Victoria, the incident was seen as the first break between two countries, who throughout history had always been allies. The previous year, Lord Salisbury had said:" Our greatest national threat shall always be France." But the Kruger telegram and Germanys building navy began to change minds. Lord Asquith said:" It's as though a friend at your club you've always chatted and drank whiskey & sodas with suddenly slapped your face!"

1896- After Mormon leader William Woodruff issued a manifesto reforming the Mormon Church’s hold over local government and renouncing polygamy, Utah became a state.

1904- The Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans are not aliens but American citizens. Yet full citizenship was still delayed until 1917.

1904, Thomas Edison's movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. (The third was a man who for a joke, fed her a lit cigarette.) The event was a public spectacle to a paying audience of 1500 people at Coney Island, where the elephant had actually helped build the attraction. Edison was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution, after cyanide-laced carrots had failed. He made sure to use Nikolas Tesla’s AC current, to show how dangerous it was.

1920- Eight teams combine to form the Negro Baseball Leagues. They were active until Major League Baseball finally integrated in 1948.

1932- Casey Stengel returned from the minors to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers, aka the Bums.

1936- Mickey’s Polo Team, directed by Dave Hand.

1943- Josef Stalin named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

1944- Kaj Munk, Danish playwright and poet who preached passive resistance to the Nazi occupation, was arrested by the Gestapo and executed.

1946- Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckyl cartoons.

1948- Burma, received her independence from the British Empire.

1951- As Gen, MacArthur’s forces retreated from the Chinese Communist onslaught, Seoul fell into Communist control for the second time. The city, due to it's proximity to the front, changed hands several times during the Korean War.

1954- Young truck driver Elvis Presley went into Sun Records recording studio in Memphis. He plunked down $4 to record two demos for his mothers’ birthday. " Casual Love Affair" and "I’ll Never Stand in your Way". A studio technician was impressed enough to play the demo for his manager, who called back Presley for an audition.

1956- In the Peanuts comic strip, Charles Schulz made Snoopy first stand up on two legs.

1956- Walt Disney had lunch with his old nemesis Max Fleischer, now retired. The meeting was arranged by Max’s son Richard Fleischer, who was working for Disney directing Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Although everyone had a nice time, Richard later admitted he found the whole thing depressing. Seeing his dad humbled:” It was like seeing David vanquished by Goliath.”

1957- The Dodgers are the first baseball team to buy an airplane to travel around in.

1958- the TV show Seahunt premiered. It made a star out of Lloyd Bridges, the father of Jeff and Beau.

1960- Writer Albert Camus was killed in a car accident. He was 46.

1964- The Boston Strangler murdered his last victim, 19 year old Mary Sullivan. The family of Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed and was convicted as the Strangler, still claim today that he was innocent because the pattern of this killing didn’t match the others.

1973- In San Francisco, scientists from several top food companies like Proctor & Gamble, Heinz and Del Monte began work inventing the Universal Product Code, or the Bar Code now seen on everything you buy. The first product to sport the bar code was Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum.

1973- President Nixon informs the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in that he refused to yield to them his taped conversations, citing an arcane concept not used since the days of Thomas Jefferson, called "executive privilege.”

1995- Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the Washington atmosphere of congenial deal making, Gingrich was the arch-apostle of the scorched earth, no-compromise, us vs. them style of politics. Several times he used a routine approval of the federal budget to stalemate the Clinton Whitehouse to a government shutdown. Even after he stepped down because of ethics violations, his highly philosophy style still rules Washington today.

1997- Spoon bending psychic Uri Geller predicted a UFO would land in Tel Aviv. Israelis watched the skies, but in the end, nothing appeared.

2010- Dubai opened the largest office building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. 163 floors.

2000- Charles Schulz published the very last Peanuts daily comic strip. It ran continuously since 1950. Schulz refused to allow any one to ghost him or take over the strip.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a faux-pas?

Answer: It is French for a false step. That first presenting yourself at court, if you did not bow and curtsey correctly according to protocol, it could hurt your standing in society. Today it has come to mean a clumsy mistake done in public.

Quiz: What is a faux-pas?

Yesterdays question answered below: What does it mean to be circumspect?
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History for 1/3/2021
Birthdays: Marcus Tullius Cicero, John Paul Jones, Victor Borge, Zasu Pitts, Sergio Leone, Hank Stramm, Bobby Hull, Robert Loggia, Maxine Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Ray Milland, Anna Mae Wong, Steven Stills, J.R.R. Tolkein, Victoria Principal is 71, Dabney Coleman, Mel Gibson is 65. Thelma Schoonmaker is 81

1521- Pope Leo X excommunicated former monk turned Protestant leader Martin Luther. In Wurttemberg this day Germany former Luther responded by tearing up and burning the Pope’s decree, as well as the canon of Roman law.

1777- BATTLE OF PRINCETON- After his Christmas victory at Trenton, George Washington’s little army gave the main British army the slip, wheeled around behind them and surprise attacked another redcoat regiment at Princeton New Jersey.
As a young student Alexander Hamilton had failed the entrance requirements to study at Princeton University. Instead he went to Kings College, later renamed Columbia. Now, as Major Hamilton of artillery, he had a pleasure rare among rejected college applicants- he got to fire a few cannon rounds into Princeton admission’s building.

1834- Tejano leader Stephen Austin traveled to Mexico City to put forward the grievances of his community to the Mexican government. Texians disliked that President Santa Anna had revoked the liberal Constitution of 1826 that had invited Anglo settlers to populate remote Texas. And they wanted Texas to be a separate state from the Mexican state of Coahiula. Stephen Austin suppressed all talk of independence in order to work with the new regime in Mexico City. Santa Anna responded to Austins petitions by throwing him in prison. He was released a year later, and returned to Texas, hot for independence.

1868- the MEIJI RESTORATION- the Tokugawa family had ruled as Shoguns since winning Japans’ civil wars in 1603, keeping the Emperor as a figurehead. On this date a revolution occurred when radical samurai seized Kyoto Palace and overthrew the last shogun Yoshinobu Tokugawa. Japan would be under the direct control of the Emperor and form a parliament. Japan would end her enforced isolation, and modernize her society. The Emperor Meiji would also move the capitol from Kyoto to Yedo, already being called Tokyo.

1871- Henry Bradley patents Oleomargerine in the U.S. It had been demonstrated in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 as a butter that didn't spoil, so Emperor Napoleon III thought it was useful to his armies in the field.

1899- An editorial in the New York Times refers to the horseless carriage as an “Automobile”. This is the earliest known use of the word.

1925- Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini suspended democracy and his black shirted followers declared him Il Duce, or the leader. He became dictator of Italy.

1926- General Motors introduced the Pontiac brand of automobile.

1933- MGM Louis B. Mayer hired his son-in-law David O. Selznick to produce movies. At the same time he was begging his filmworkers to take 20% paycuts because of the Depression, Mayer set Selznick’s salary at $4,000 a week. Newspapers joked “ The Son-In-Law Also Rises”

1946- Lord Haw-Haw, William Joyce, the English voice of Nazi radio propaganda broadcast from Berlin, was hanged for treason. English Fascist Joyce was actually born in Brooklyn but moved to England at an early age. He was nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw because of his stuffy upper class accent.

1952- The T.V. series DRAGNET premiered today. “The story you have seen is true, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Star Jack Webb produced and wrote most of the scripts and oversaw the deadpan acting style.” Just the facts, Mam..”

1958- Howard Rushmore was the editor of Confidential, one of the most ruthless scandal magazines in show business. This day for reasons never explained Rushmore murdered his wife, then shot himself in the back of a NYC taxicab.

1959- Alaska became the 49th state.

1967- Jack Ruby, real name Jacob Rubenstein, the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, died of lung cancer in prison. To the end he was refused a meeting with Congress where he claimed he could discuss his patriotic motives for killing Oswald. Retired Mafia don Bill Bonano said Ruby being Jewish and not Sicilian, was the type of hood the mob used for clean-up jobs. That he was a soldier for Chicago boss Sam Giancana. Others say Ruby was just a two-bit loser who claimed he was more important than he actually was.

1973- Boatbuilding tycoon and George Steinbrenner led a group that bought the last place New York Yankees baseball club from CBS. "The Boss" becomes one of the more colorful baseball owners and propelled the Yankees into a new era of championship contention. Steinbrenner bought the Yankees for $10 million, and today they are worth several billion.

1977- Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne file papers to form the Apple Computer Company. Within two weeks Ron Wayne sold his share of the company to Jobs and Woz for $800. The only real businessman of the group, he felt these kids would stick him with the bills when their little business went belly up.

2004- Following the success of the Mars Pathfinder Rover in 1997, Two more advanced ones Spirit and Opportunity were launched. This day Spirit landed safely on Mars and began transmitting. The JPL mission leader announced "We're Back...We're on Mars.." Only supposed to last 90 days, Spirit transmitted for 6 years.

2004- After partying New Years in Las Vegas, 22 year old pop star Britney Spears woke up and realized she had just married her friend Jay Alexander while drunk. Today she annulled it. Alexander, who listed himself as unemployed, was soon seen driving around rural Louisiana in a $90,000 BMW.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be circumspect?

Answer: To be discreet or guarded in expressing your opinions