Question: What does it mean to be fecund?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered: What is a scrunchie?
----------------------------------------------------------------
History for 1/20/2022
Birthdays: King Charles III of Spain, Richard Henry Lee- signer of the Declaration of Independence, Frederico Fellini, Patricia O’Neal, Dorothy Provine, Mario Lanza, David Lynch, George Burns, DeForest Kelly, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, Arte Johnson, Lorenzo Lamas, Bill Maher is 66, Rainn Wilson is 56

In the French Revolutionary calendar this is the first day Pluvoise, the Month of Rain.

661AD- Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, was assassinated by a partisan of Muyawiah Ibn Abi Suffian- the founder of the Ummayad Dynasty of Caliphs. Ali’s supporters were called Ali's SHIAH or Ali's Partisans – which became the branch of Islam called Shiite, the rest of Islam is known as Sunni. It grew into a split like the one between Catholics and Protestants in Christianity.

1193- Licensed prostitution began in Japan.

1777- George Washington invited a bright young artillery captain to join his personal staff. Alexander Hamilton’s career began.

1779- The great English actor David Garrick died. Supposedly his last words were when asked “Is it hard to die?” Garrick replied:” Dying is not Hard. Comedy is Hard.”

1783- Britain signed peace treaties with France and Spain, ending their support to the American Revolution. The treaty with America had been finalized three months earlier.

1841- Convention of Chuen Pei-Treaty that ended the Opium Wars. China ceded harbor front land to Britain that would become the city of Hong Kong. The Chinese never smoked opium until it was introduced by British merchants from India.

1908- The Sullivan Ordinance barred women from smoking in public facilities.

1920- The American Civil Liberties Union founded by Roger Baldwin.

1924- WAR ON THE MAFIA- In 1924 the Mafia was almost completely destroyed. By who? Benito Mussolini. His jackbooted regiments marched across the island of Sicily arresting 11, 000 and executing hundreds. Mussolini declared victory and many of the surviving dons fled to America where Prohibition was providing great new opportunities for crooks. During WWII, when the Anglo-American armies liberated Sicily from the Nazis, who to put in charge of the local towns? Can’t be Fascists. Can’t be Communists. Who was left? ( Cue the Godfather music….)

1930-The Matanza Massacre. Authorities in El Salvador kill 30,000 peasants protesting the government refusing to seat peasant ministers who won an election. By the time the army stopped, 4 percent of the population was dead, the Communist Party gone and native Indian dress and languages outlawed. The leader of the peasants Augustin Farabundo Marti later gave his name to the 1980’s guerrilla movement.

1936- King George V of England died. In great pain from incurable cancer, In 1986 a doctor admitted getting instructions from his son The Prince of Wales to euthanize him with a strong shot of cocaine and morphine, called a “Brompton Cocktail”. The doctor timed his offing of the king so the news would be out with the morning newspapers, instead of the trashier afternoon tabloids.
His Majesties last words were reported to be:" How goes the Empire? " He actually winced at the sloppy way the injection was done and said: "Oww, God damn you!"
Another legend says when the King was told if he recovered they would return to the town of Bognor in Sussex for holiday, His Majesties last words were “ Bugger Bognor!”

1937- Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated for his second term after defeating Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas. He is the first president to be inaugurated in January instead of the customary March 4th. The Depression still raged despite all his efforts, he gives the inaugural speech decrying the rampant poverty in the U.S. "I see one third of the nation, ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed, living in conditions far beneath the minimum standards we regard as decent, etc."

1938- Early animation pioneer Emile Cohl died while headed for the Paris premiere of Disney's" Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". Cohl was so poor that the electricity in his flat had been turned off and the candles had ignited his beard. Angry he was never recognized in his time, he once said: "the French prefer their artists with marble and flowers on top."

1942- The Wanasee Conference-Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and other top Nazis have a lunch meeting in a suburb in Berlin. Over cocktails they invented The Final Solution. Zyclon–B gas chambers instead of electrocution or carbon-monoxide. They set a target goal of ten million Jews to be murdered by 1946.

1945- Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn in as U.S. President for a fourth consecutive term, the only person ever to do so.

1949- FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave Shirley Temple a pen that shoots tear gas.

1953- The Birth of Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show drew a larger viewing audience than the televised inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower.

1961- John F. Kennedy gave his famous inaugural speech:” Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Outgoing President Eisenhower disliked JFK personally and was angry that his win over Nixon seemed a repudiation of his policies, so almost nothing was said between them in the limousine during the drive to the ceremony. John Kennedy also went through that day mostly hatless, inaugurating the fashion. Before JFK, a man was not fully dressed without a fedora or cap of some sort.

1964- Sports Illustrated Magazine put out its first Swimsuit Edition. Discovering many men like other things besides sports…

1965- Alan Freed, the disc jockey who coined the term Rock & Roll, died at 43 of uremic blood poisoning. He was broken by the Rock payola scandal and died so poor his friends passed the hat to pay for his funeral.

1966- The Ghost and Mr Chicken, with Don Knotts premiered.

1968- Young U.S. infantryman Ron Kovic was wounded near the Vietnamese demilitarized zone the DMZ. The black soldier who carried him to safety was killed shortly after and Kovic never learned his name. The incident put Kovic in a wheelchair for life and changed his attitude towards the righteousness of the war. He wrote the bestseller " Born on the Fourth of July" and became a passionate antiwar activist.

1969- Richard Nixon sworn in as President capping one of the most amazing comebacks in political history. After losing to Kennedy in 1960 Nixon lost yet again to Pat Brown for the governorship of California and was considered politically finished. Anybody remember Michael Dukakis, Dan Quayle or Fritz Mondale?
Yet Nixon worked on his image over the years and re-emerged in 1968 as “The New Nixon”. Nixon ran as peace candidate and at his inaugural announced “The era of confrontation is over, the era of negotiation has begun.” It took him five years to get us out of Vietnam, immolating Cambodia, Laos and almost Thailand in the process. When Nixon took office there were 23,000 combat deaths, but when he left there were 58,000 war deaths and 8 US students shot down on their college campuses. So his record remains at best controversial.

1981- As President Reagan was being sworn in, the hostages taken at the United States Embassy in Teheran were released after being held for 444 days. 6 years later it was revealed a deal was negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages in exchange for a ransom of weapons. But at the time, all the American public knew was that all the Old Gipper had to do was show up, to make the Mad Mullah’s hightail-it outta town.

1982- Rock star Ozzie Osbourne was hospitalized in Des Moines Iowa after biting the head off a dead bat thrown on stage during a concert.

1982- SONY introduced the Camcorder, the personal video camera.

1986- The worlds first computer virus, Brain, was sent out over the infant internet.

2001- George W. Bush inaugurated as the 43rd President. He is only the second son of a president to be elected, the other being John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams.

2009- Standing in front of the U.S. Capitol, a building built by black slaves, Barack Obama was inaugurated 44th President of the United States. The first African-American.

2009- While the inaugural balls for President Obama were taking place, leaders of the defeated Republican Party met in a secret conclave at the Capitol Grill. There they formulated the strategy to paralyze all legislation and frustrate all of Pres. Obama’s attempts to heal the economy they had destroyed. Then they would run against his ineffective record. They did paralyze his government with four times more filibusters than any in history, and won in 2016 with a promise to get America moving again.

2016- Cal Tech astronomers announced they discovered signs of a Ninth Planet beyond Pluto. It is 5,000 times larger than earth, and it’s wobbly oblong orbit takes 22,000 years to go completely around the sun, while the Earth takes one year. Named Ultima Thule, the space probe New Horizon reached it in 2019.

=======================================================
Yesterday’s Question: What is a scrunchie?

Answer: A big soft elastic hair tie. Made for women with huge thick, difficult to control hair.

Quiz: What is a scrunchie?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: One person worked on the films Hitchcock’s the Birds (1963), Geoge Pal’s The Time Machine (1960), Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), and the Disney Cartoon 101 Dalmatians (1961). Who is it?
----------------------------------------------------
History for 1/19/2022
Birthdays: James Watt, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert E. Lee, Paul Cezanne', Janis Joplin, Slobodan Milosovic’, radio comedian Ish Kabibble, Dolly Parton, Michael Crawford, Chic Young, Guy Madison, Richard Lester, John H. Johnson publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines, Jean Stapleton, Fritz Weaver, Sean Wayans, Robin MacNeill, Paul Rodriquez, Antoine Fuqua, Drea Di Matteo, and Bart the Bear-1977 Bear who starred in movies like Clan of the Cave Bear, The Bear, White Fang and Legends of the Fall, Tipi Hedren is 92.

Happy Feast of St. Wulfstan, who pulled the devils nose with hot tongs.

375 A.D. Valentinian I was a Roman emperor with strange mood swings. He outlawed the original Biblical method of birth control called exposure; in other words leaving unwanted babies in the forest for the Gods or wolves. Another time he had some stableboys crucified for letting the hounds go too early during a hunt.
When some Quadi Barbarians crossed the Rhine and sacked a few villages Valentinian got his legions together and burned down half of Germany. He only stopped for the winter and was preparing to continue in the spring when on this day a delegation of Quadi chiefs came to ask for peace. They explained that it wasn't their idea to make war, just some of the younger hotheads in the tribe. They said that the Emperor was overreacting.
Valentinian got so enraged by their excuses that he raised his fists, turned purple and before he uttered a word fell over stone dead. His general Theodosius took over as emperor.

1405- Tartar conqueror Tamerlane fell ill and died in Samarkand. He roved the world conquering and murdering like Genghis Khan, but without Genghis’ skill at empire building. His empire fell apart soon after his death, inspiring Shelley to write a poem about transitory glory- Ozimandias.

1523- In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli publishes his 67 Articles attacking the authority of the Pope. This is the first manifesto of the Zurich Reformation.

1547- Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan IV Vasilievich, called Ivan the Terrible, crowned Tsar or Czar- a Russian form for Caesar. His father Grand Duke Ivan III the Great assumed the title and power but it remained for his son to formalize the office. The Russian Princes call themselves the new inheritors of the Eastern Orthodox religion and Roman Empire after Constantinople, once called New Rome, fell to the Ottoman Turks. Czars were crowned with the "Cap of Monomachus", a small skullcap reputedly worn by one of the Greek Byzantine Emperors, Constantine IV Monomachus“ single-combat”. This cap was covered with ermine trim and gold. The Czars boasted: "Two Romes have fallen. The Third Rome –Moscow- shall stand forever!"

1633- Thomas Morton of Merrymount had been twice deported by the Pilgrims for holding “licentious Maypole celebrations” at his Indian trading post. This day he returned to England and at court tried to have the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter revoked. King Charles declined, probably because that might make the whole crowd of buckle-shoed killjoys return home!

1729- British Restoration playwright William Congreve died. He willed all his property to Henrietta, the Duchess of Marlborough. But then the Duchess did something a bit odd. She had a death mask made of Congreve’s face and attached it to a life size mannequin. She ate and conversed with the dummy all day and slept with it at night. She insisted her servants wait upon the dummy and treat it when she felt it was ill. When she died, she was buried with the dummy.

1829- Johann Von Goethe published Faust Part 1.

1840- Explorer Charles Wilkes claimed all of Antarctica for the United States. He was on a scientific expedition to chart the South Seas and Southern polar waters. Captain Wilkes was really good at exploring, but he was such a tyrannical disciplinarian he was court-martialed upon his return. Wilkes’ erratic behavior may have been a model for Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab in his novel Moby Dick.

1853- Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore with the famous Anvil Chorus premiered in Rome.

1869- New York City controller Andrew Green received a petition from 18 of the city’s wealthiest citizens. It called for the establishment of a Museum of Natural History. The famous building was built in 1874.

1915- Two German zeppelins cross the Channel and drop bombs on Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn causing two deaths. The first time England was bombed from the air.

1919- Famed dancer of the Ballet Russe Vaslav Nijinsky danced his last performance at a hotel in San Moritz Switzerland. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he became an incarcerated mental patient for the next 30 years, and underwent numerous extreme shock therapies until his death in 1950.

1924- Lillian Bounds began work at the little Walt Disney studio as an ink and paint artist. She only took the job because it was a short walk from her sister Hazel's house where she was staying, and she didn't want to spend money for bus fare.
She wound up falling in love and marrying Walt Disney, and became a multimillionaire. Before her death in 1997 she financed the creation of Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

1940- The Three Stooges do their impression of Hitler and the top Nazis in the Columbia Pictures short comedy “You Natzy Spy”. Moe Howard was still the best all time Hitler impersonator. “Hail-Hail-Hailstone of Moronica! Waahoo!”

1945- In Poland, the Nazis began the evacuation of the remaining concentration camp inmates in advance of the advancing Soviet army. Tens of thousands were marched out of Auschwitz and Birkenau west in freezing snow and ice. Any who fell behind were shot.

1955- President Eisenhower held the first press conference that was shown on television. It was held in the treaty room of the State Department. Eisenhower was famous for his ability to speak at great length and never say anything of substance. “This day, My Fellow Americans, more than at any other time, ahead of us lies the promise of the Future!”

1961- The first episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show was filmed.

1966- Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Nehru, became prime minister of India.

1977- In one of his last acts as President, Gerald Ford pardoned Tokyo Rose. Iva Toguri D’Aquino was a Japanese American who did propaganda broadcasts for Radio Tokyo urging American GI’s to surrender. She explained she was stranded in Tokyo when the war broke out and was coerced into doing the broadcasts.

1979- Wendy O. Williams, mohawk-haired lead singer of the punk band the Plasmatics was arrested in Milwaukee for masturbating on stage with a sledgehammer.

1983- Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia and extradited to France. Barbie was the Nazi Gestapo chief in France and was called the Butcher of Lyon for his torture and execution of hundreds of French resistance and Jews. After the war Barbie avoided arrested and was briefly hired by the CIA as an anti-soviet spy. He went to South America and applied his skills for the dictators there until his extradition. While other former Nazis like Kurt Waldheim were disingenuously vague about their past, Barbie was loudly unrepentant. It was reported he continually embarrassed the Nazis trying to hide in South America by Sieg-Heil saluting them on the street and singing old stormtrooper songs over his empanadas.

1985- Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA peaked the pop charts at #9.

1989- President Ronald Reagan, in one of his last acts as president, pardoned Yankee Baseball club owner George Steinbrenner for making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon.

1991-Eastern Airlines ceased operations and went out of business. Chairman and former astronaut Frank Borman was philosophical: “Business without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.”

1993- First day of full production at Pixar on their first feature film Toy Story.

2016- JOHN SCOTT- John Scott was a professional NHL Hockey player who had an undistinguished 8 year career. He was best known for brawling on the ice. But when it was time to vote for the NHL All Star Game, a mischievous blogger named Puck Daddy started a Twitter campaign to elect this unlikely bruiser onto the All Star team. He won an overwhelming number of votes and was made Captain of the Pacific League team. Despite NHL owners and leaders trying to exclude him from the game, he played and was named MVP. Carried aloft on the shoulders of his teammates, he later said,” It was unreal. Like I was in a Disney movie, except for real!”

2020- The first case of coronavirus CoVid 19 in the USA reported. Snohomish, Washington. Experts at the White House started to sound alarm bells, but President Trump chose to sit on this information, and ignore their warnings for 6 more weeks, until March. All the while he was quietly warning his personal investor friends. Last week the total US cases reached 68 million.


================================================

Yesterday’s Quiz: One person worked on the films Hitchcock’s the Birds (1963), The Time Machine (1960), Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), and the Disney cartoon 101 Dalmatians (1961). Who is it?

Answer: Australian actor Rod Taylor. In 101 Dalmatians he was the voice of Pongo.

Yesterday’s Quiz: One person worked on the films Hitchcock’s the Birds (1963), Geoge Pal’s The Time Machine (1960), Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970), and the Disney Cartoon 101 Dalmatians (1961). Who is it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase- No Strings Attached?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY FOR 1/18/2022
Birthdays: Daniel Webster, A.A. Milne, Joseph Glidden, Oliver Hardy, Cary Grant- born Archie Leech, Danny Kaye, Emmanuel Chabrier, Bobby Goldsboro, Pierre Roget (Roget’s Thesaurus), Ray Dolby (Dolby sound), John Boorman, Kevin Costner is 66, Jason Segel is 41

1486- King Henry VII Tudor married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of the dowager queen in the just concluded War of the Roses. This further confirmed his legitimacy as king, ending a long period of dynastic instability. His symbol, the Tudor Rose, was a combination of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York.

1535- Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded the city of Lima Peru.

1630- The Great Conde’, French general and uncle of the king, is imprisoned by order of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of Cardinal Richelieu. Conde’ escaped, and for the next thirty years would lead Spanish and German armies against France. Still, this was not seen as a bad thing because nobody had invented nationalism yet, so the king forgave him in 1660.

1701- For services rendered in stopping French King Louis XIV from invading the Rhineland, The German Emperor gave permission to the Margrave/Elector Frederick of Brandenburg to reorganize his realm as a kingdom, the new Kingdom of Prussia. From his capitol of Berlin, the Prussians set out to become a world power. In 1870 they unified the German speaking nations into the country we now called Germany. See below.

1777- San Jose, California founded.

1778- Captain Cook landed at Waimea Bay in Kauai and "discovered" Hawaii. He named the place the Sandwich Islands after his boss John Montague the First Lord of the Admiralty the Earl of Sandwich. The King of Hawaii Kamehameha III didn't think this was the spirit of Aloha, and after numerous squabbles between the sailors and natives Captain Cook was killed. The ensign who rallied the shore party and got them safely home was the future Capt. Bligh.

1817- Jose San Martin led an army of Latin American rebels over the Andes Mountains in an epic march to free them from Spain.

1854- THE KINGDOM OF WALKER- Soldier of Fortune William Walker declared himself president of the Republic of Lower California-a new country formed out of the Mexican state of Sonora and Baja California. It didn’t stick and he had to run for it. A few years later Walker and a gang of U.S. mercenaries actually succeeded in overthrowing the government of Nicaragua and making himself a king. But soon after the Nicaraguans put him up before a firing squad.

1865- This was a target date John Wilkes Booth had to spring his plan to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln out of his box at Ford’s Theater and exchange him for thousands of Confederate POW’S to continue the South’s war effort. That the young actor naively planned to physically overcome and truss up the 6’5" president who although in ill health was an ex-wrestler, then sling him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, jump 12 feet to the stage and carry him off in front of an audience, is a strange plan to say the least. Lincoln did attend the theater that night but Booth canceled the plan, because he had to prepare to do Romeo the day after tomorrow. His real job superseded his hobby as a conspirator.

1871- GERMAN UNIFICATION- Wilhelm of Prussia crowned first Kaiser of Germany in a ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. At one time Germans lived in 38 little princedoms that were great for operettas but lousy as a political entity. Germans formed a symbolic parliament in Frankfurt and formed nationalist societies called Tugenbund to work for unification. But Prussian Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck said "unity would not be won by parliaments and papers, but by Blood and Iron!" Bismarck had first defeated Austria to ensure Germans would look to Berlin and not Vienna for leadership, then he picked a war with France to unite all the German peoples against their old enemy. So the crowning was two-fold the highpoint of victory over France and the symbol of unification. Sulky Wilhelm I didn’t want to be an emperor and was happy as king of Prussia, but Bismarck pushed him into it.

1903- President Teddy Roosevelt and King Edward VII exchanged the first wireless messages long distance between Washington and London. The system was invented by Gugielmo Marconi.

1908- Frederic Delius orchestral tone poem Brigg Fair premiered.

1910- The birth of the aircraft carrier. In San Francisco Bay, aviator Eugene Ely became the first to take off and land his plane on a ship. The first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, was a converted coal tender.

1912- Capt. Robert Falcon Scott, "Scott of the Antarctic" reached the South Pole to discover the Norwegian flag of Pier Ammundsen, who got there first.

1919- American Society of Cinematographers formed (ASC).

1919- The Bentley Motorcar Company formed.

1943- The Red Army broke the 900 day Nazi siege of Leningrad.

1943- As part of the war effort, the US government ordered the sale of sliced bread be stopped for the duration. The phrase “ The greatest thing since sliced bread” entered the slang vocabulary.

1945- After weeks of bitter street fighting, Nazi forces surrendered Budapest to the Red Army. Major Otto Skorzeny, the Nazi commando who rescued Mussolini and organized American speaking infiltrators for the Battle of the Bulge, now shifted his efforts to organizing the Nazi escape route pipeline to the sympathetic countries in South America.

1948- Mahatma Gandhi broke a 121 hour fast that halted Hindu-Moslem rioting.

1949- Look Magazine published a photo essay called "Prizefighter". The photographer was a young kid from the Bronx named Stanley Kubrick. Mr. Kubrick said he now wanted to try filmmaking.

1952-The Hollywood Animation Guild chartered. Originally the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Local 839, signatories included Disney legends Milt Kahl, Les Clark, John Hench and Ken Anderson.

1962- The US Army in Vietnam began an experiment with spraying the jungle with chemical defoliants to get at hidden Vietcong guerrillas. The chemical Agent Orange defoliated jungles but also sickened thousands of American serviceman and Vietnamese civilians who continue to die from cancers decades after.

1962- THE FRENCH CONNECTION- NYPD cracked a drug ring smuggling heroin from South East Asia into New York via Marseilles. The French Connection bust nabbed $3.5 million in dope and made heroes out of the two detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grazzo. Egan joked to Grazzo:" I’ll betchya Paul Newman will play me and Ben Gazzara you!" Actually Gene Hackman played Egan and Roy Scheider Grazzo in the Oscar winning 1971 film. Both cops retired from the force to make careers in show biz. Ironically while the film was being made, the real heroin from the case disappeared from the NYPD evidence lockup and was replaced with bags of corn starch. It was never recovered.

1964- Plans are revealed for building New York City’s World Trade Center towers.

1977- The cult documentary PUMPING IRON premiered. Filmmakers George Butler and Rob Fiore maxed out his American Express card to the tune of $35,000 to bring this look at the little known world of professional bodybuilding to the screen. The film first brought to the public a charmingly confident Austrian body builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said he wanted to try acting someday. Also Lou Ferrigno who would also star in movies and as the TV Hulk. Many years later, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to buy the rights to the film so he could edit out the scenes of him smoking a joint.

1978- In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, rock star Frank Zappa described most rock journalism as " People who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read."

1987- National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition premiered.

1990- In a room at the Vista International Hotel in Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry was videotaped by the FBI toking on a crack pipe with his mistress Rasheeda. He served time in jail, but was re-elected mayor anyway.

1990- Rusty Hamer, who played Danny Thomas’ son in the TV show Make Room for Daddy, put a 357 Magnum to his head and pulled the trigger. He was 42.

1991- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein started firing Soviet SCUD missiles at Israel. By a prearranged agreement, even though they were under attack, Israel did not retaliate with their own air force, but left it to US & coalition forces to neutralize the missiles.

1993- The CIA admitted that it paid Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega $300,000 to be an operative.

2004- The I HAVE A SCREAM SPEECH. Democratic presidential challenger Howard Dean gave an address after losing the New Hampshire primary. Known for his energy, at one point he got so carried away he let out a jubilant yelp above the cheering throng. The media picked this up and played it to death. Soon it would be impossible to think of Dean as a serious candidate. Republican strategist Karl Rove later admitted it would have been harder to defeat Howard Dean than John Kerry, but then there was that scream.
========================================
Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase- No Strings Attached?

Answer: In the 18th Century when expensive cloths like silk were imported to Europe the merchant would mark a flaw in the weave by tying a small string at the bottom. Even today when a London tailor wants some yards of flawless cloth, he would ask for cloth “with no strings attached.”
.

Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase- No Strings Attached?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: When dining in a wealthy Victorian home, what did you get when you were served terrapin?
--------------------------------------------------------
History for January 17, 2022
Birthdays: Benjamin Franklin, Max Sennett-1880, Al Capone, Ethan G. Hodell 1883- the inventor of the Tow-Truck, Constantin Stanislavsky, Moira Shearer, Shari Lewis, Vidal Sassoon, Claude Coats, Denny Doyle, Kevin Reynolds, Muhammad Ali, Jim Carrey is 60, Michelle Obama is 58, Zooey Deschanel is 42, James Earl Jones is 91, animator Genndy Tartakovsky, Betty White would have been 100 today.

50 BC- Julius Caesar’s chief rival for power in Rome was Pompey Magnus. Pompey was as famous a general as Caesar and he controlled the Roman Senate. Pompey bragged that if Caesar tried to start a civil war, all he had to do was stamp his foot, and soldiers would spring up everywhere.
But when Caesar invaded Italy, Pompey stamped his foot and nothing happened. Pompey’s troops were still in Spain and Greece. The only legions in the area were loyal to Caesar. This day Pompey and the Senate abandoned Rome and fled south to the heel of the Italian boot.

38BC- Augustus and Livia’s wedding anniversary!

395AD- Death of Theodosius I, the last Emperor to rule over the all the Roman Empire from Scotland to Iraq, Denmark to the Sahara. After his death the Roman Empire divided permanently between East and West. One son Honorius became Emperor of the West, and another Arcadius became Emperor of the East in Constantinople. A few years later in 401, The provinces of Britain in the West, and Armenia in the East, were abandoned by withdrawing legions.

1775- Sheridan's Restoration comedy The Rivals premiered at Covent Garden Theater, London.

1781- BATTLE OF HANNAH’S COWPENS- Dan Morgan "the old wagoneer" and his mountainmen shot up a pro-British American army in the Carolinas. The American Loyalists in the South were led by Col. Banastre Tarleton, a dragoon officer unusual for his ruthlessness. After one battle he made his men go over the field and bayonet any rebels who might still be alive. This atrocity filled Morgan¹s ranks with rage, because many were the mountain kinfolk of the slain. This night the cry in the Yankee camp was:" Heads up boys! Bennie's Coming!"

1794- SCANDAL!! ANDY JACKSON MARRIED RACHEL DONELSON FOR THE SECOND TIME. Mrs. Rachel D. Robards was married to an abusive older man, when she fell in love with the dashing young officer in the Tennessee wilderness. Separated from Mr. Robards, she and Jackson were in Natchez, Mississippi at her sister¹s, when they heard word that Robards had filed for a divorce back in Nashville.
Jackson and Rachael then married and lived together for a year but then discovered that the divorce report was false and worse, Mississippi where they were married was still Spanish territory that didn't recognize Protestant marriages as legal. Rachel finally got her divorce from Robards, and they married again. Still, the social stigma of 'living in sin' stuck.
Rachel became morose in later years when Jackson's political enemies used the charge of adultery to attack him. Jackson fought duels and killed men over his wife's honor. By the time Jackson was elected President, Rachel Jackson was too ill to go to Washington. She died just before the Inauguration. The widower President lived long, but never got over his love for his Rachel.

1800- Thomas Jefferson welcomed French businessman Etienne Irenee¹ Du Pont de Nemours to America. Monsieur Dupont had decided to move his business from revolution ravaged France and become an American. He founded the Dupont Chemical Corporation that today makes plastics and housepaints, but back then what was most important was he made gunpowder. During the American Revolution gunpowder was a precious commodity. Colonial women saved up pigeon droppings and their own urine to concoct saltpeter. Almost all the high quality gunpowder had to be imported from Europe. The Dupont family continued to control America’s petrochemical destiny way into the twentieth century and invented Nylon. And ladies could dispose of their urine in more sanitary ways.

1836- Texas General Sam Houston ordered Jim Bowie to go to the Alamo and blow it up. Then bring the soldiers and the valuable cannon back to the main army. But once there, Bowie was convinced by William Travis to disobey these orders and defend the Alamo to the bitter end.

1874- Chang and Eng Bunker were the original Siamese Twins, joined at the chest and sharing one liver. Since leaving Thailand they traveled the world with P.T. Barnum showing off their unique physique to paying crowds. They married two sisters and produced 21 offspring. As they aged, they made a deal that they wouldn’t be physically separated until one of them died. This day Eng awoke to discover his brother Chang had died of heart failure during the night. He cried “Then, I am going as well!” He frantically called for a doctor to come and separate them. But the doctor arrived too late, and Eng died too. They were 62.

1884- The Battle of Abu Kleer. British forces attempting to save Gordon of Khartoum are furiously attacked by the Dervish army of El Mahdi. At one point the Dervishes broke up a British infantry square, something Napoleon had trouble doing at Waterloo. Kipling wrote a poem in praise of the bravery of the long haired black Sudannese tribemen called “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” ­”Though we sloshed them with Martinis, an it wasn¹t ‘ardly fair, with the odds against you Fuzzy-Wuzzy, you broke the British square.” A Martini-Henry was a rapid firing rifle used at the time.

1904- Chekov's The Cherry Orchard opened in St. Petersburg.

1908- Thousands of women march on Downing Street in London demanding women be given the vote. The broke windows and shouted “It will be bombs next time!” Among the suffragettes arrested and imprisoned was 23 year old Alice Paul from New Jersey. She was honored in 1996 by a US postage stamp.

1917- The U.S. bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $21 million.

1926- FATS WALLER KIDNAPPED- Harlem Jazz great Fats Waller was in Chicago for a gig. Suddenly several gunmen grabbed him off the street, shoved him into their limo, and drove to the lair of mob boss Al Capone. When they arrived there, the terrified Waller was reassured that it was Big Al’s birthday. All he wanted was for Fats to perform at his party. The bash went on for three days and the joint was really jumpin! After a song Big Al would stuff another $100 bill into a beer mug on his piano. Fats Waller left unharmed, and with a very fat wallet as well, but resolved to go back to Harlem where it was safe.

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1929- Elzie Segar was drawing a comic strip for Hearst’s NY Journal called The Thimble Theatre. It featured Olive Oyl, her brother Castor Oyl, and her boyfriend Ham Gravy. In this day’s strip, Ham meets an odd-looking sailor. He based on a neighbor of Segar’s, Frank Fiegel, a funny little man who liked to get into fights. Popeye the Sailor was born.

1935- In an address to Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed national unemployment insurance. It had been an issue demanded by workers since Coxey's Army in 1895.

1942- Right after the Pearl Harbor attack British Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped across U-boat infested Atlantic waters and arrived in Washington for strategy planning meetings with President Roosevelt. Today he flew back to London without incident, although over London itself his plane was almost mistaken for the Luftwaffe and shot down.

1949- The first Volkswagen beetle automobiles arrived in North America.

1949- The Goldbergs, a radio comedy show about a Jewish family in the Bronx, moved to television and became the first true sitcom. The show ended when Mrs. Goldberg was accused by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of being a Communist.

1950- THE BRINKS JOB- Several small time hoods wearing Halloween masks entered a Brinks Armored Car office in Boston and stole $1,2 million in cash and 1.5 in securities. By 1953 one crook broke down and confessed just eleven days before the statute of limitations would run out.

1957- The first non-stop jet flight around the world. Three U.S. B-52 bombers took off from Edwards Air force base in California, and by flying at supersonic speed, and refueling in mid-air, circumnavigated the globe in a little over 48 hours. The mission was not intended for any scientific value, as much as to demonstrate that the U.S. could now go anywhere on the earth and drop a nuke on you. They cemented this idea by dropping a dummy bomb after passing over Malaya.

1961- Frank Sinatra’s Ratpack had campaigned hard for their friend John F. Kennedy for president. Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. had worked particularly hard to help Kennedy win the African American vote. But Sammy had a preference for blond white actresses and had married one, May Britt in 1960. To fend off negative publicity, this day JFK had his secretary Mrs. Lincoln telephone Sammy Davis and un-invite him to the President¹s Inaugural Ball. We’re Liberal, but not THAT liberal. And uhh.. thanks for the help. Dean Martin was so angry at this insult to his friend that he canceled his appearance at the inaugural. In 1968 Sammy Davis angered the black community when he publically embraced republican Richard Nixon.

1961- President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech to the nation. He warned against the growing influence of the “Military Industrial Complex”.

1961- Patrice Lamumba, nationalist leader and the first democratically elected president of the Congo, was executed by firing squad. Lamumbas’ pan-African nationalism earned him the enmity of the US state dept. and many believe the CIA might have been involved in his death.

1964- The first Porsche Carrera sports cars arrived in L.A.

1977- Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah for murdering an elderly couple. They pinned a paper on his chest with a heart drawn on it in pencil so marksmen could aim straight. Norman Mailor wrote the book, “Executioners’ Song”, about the event.

1989- A lunatic murdered 5 schoolchildren with an AK-47 assault rifle in Stockton California. Less than two months later Republican President George H. W. Bush. banned assault weapons and high capacity magazines by executive order. That ban was allowed to lapse by his son George W. Bush in 2004, and we’re still arguing, and counting our dead from school shootings today.

1994-The Great Northridge Earthquake rocked Los Angeles. 72 deaths and 20 billion dollars in damage. It was officially listed as 6.8 on the Richter Scale, although many persist that in some areas it was as high as 7.2. The epicenter was in the San Fernando Valley, so the valleys two major industries, animated cartoons and pornography, were temporarily disrupted.

1995- One year to the day after the Los Angeles earthquake, a massive earthquake struck Kobe Japan. The Japanese place great resources and time in earthquake preparedness, yet this 7.2 quake toppled whole freeways, killed 5,000 and left 1 1/2 million people homeless. It was the worst natural disaster in Japan since the 1923 Tokyo quake.

2000- A Complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was offered for sale on E-Bay.
=========================================================----------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: When dining in a wealthy Victorian home, what did you get when you were served terrapin?

Answer: turtle soup.

Question: When dining in a wealthy Victorian home, what did you get when you were served terrapin?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Which nation is older? Belgium, Greece, Saudi Arabia or the U.S.A.?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 1/16/2022
Birthdays: Yukon poet Robert Service, The inventor of the pneumatic tire- Andre Michelin 1853, Ethel Merman, Dizzy Dean, Peter Ustinov, Henry Mancini, A.J. Foyt, Marilyn Horne, Sade, Michael Wilding, Eartha Kitt, Debbie Allen is 72, John Carpenter, Diane Fossey, Kate Moss is 48, Tsianina Joelson, Animator Raul Garcia

1761- The British capture Pondicherry, the last French outpost in India.

1786- The Virginia Legislature passed the Ordinance of Religious Freedom, which stated that no man could be forced to join or support any church he didn’t want to. The Ordinance became the basis for the First Amendment to the Constitution.

1865- After resting his army in Savannah, for Christmas, Yankee General William Tecumseh Sherman started moving his blue columns north towards South Carolina.

1883- Moved to act by the assassination of President James Garfield by a demented civil servant, Congress passed the Pendleton Act, creating rigid merit standards for government jobs and creating the Civil Service Commission. Before this, things ran as the "Spoils System"- after every election hundreds of government jobs were given by the President and his party to party hacks and amateurs as payment for favors. Much uhh…as things are run today.

1891- Three weeks after the Wounded Knee massacre, the last independent warrior bands of Sioux Indians came in and surrendered to the U.S. Cavalry at the Pine Ridge Reservation.

1917-THE ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM- The reason other than the Lusitania that the U.S. entered World War I. The Kaiser's generals fretted that the unrestricted U-Boat sinkings were strangling Britain, but they may force America into joining the Allies. So they concocted a scheme to keep the Yankees busy on their own side of the world.

On this day, British intelligence handed President Woodrow Wilson an intercepted message from Baron Zimmerman, the German charge d' affaire in New York to the German Ambassador in Mexico City. It relayed an offer from Berlin of an alliance, if Mexico would please invade Texas! The Kaiser promised President Huerta return of the entire U.S. southwest. The Mexican president wasn't enamored with the U.S. lately, but he still declined the offer.
Instead of checking U.S. participation in World War I, the incident all but decided it. Wilson had run for re-election as an anti-war candidate, but after this he was convinced Germany had to be defeated.

1919- In Argentina it was the end of the Sanglante- the Bloody Week. The government crushed a general nationwide strike – 700 killed.

1920- The League of Nations held its first meeting in Paris.

1935- “Ya better come out! We got you surrounded!” Kate Barker, called Ma Barker, died in furious shootout with the FBI at Ocklawaha, Florida. Legend has it they found Ma's body with the smoking tommy gun still cradled in her lap. Others say she was only an ignorant hillbilly lady traveling with her boys gang as a cover.
Only one of Ma Barker's sons (Fred) was killed with her. Herman Barker committed suicide at Wichita, Kansas, August 29, 1927, after being blinded by police bullets in a gun battle in which he killed a policeman. Arthur "Doc" Barker was captured by the FBI in Chicago eight days before the shootout that killed Ma and Fred. He was killed attempting to escape from Alcatraz on January 13, 1939. Lloyd "Red" Barker was released from Leavenworth in 1939 after serving seventeen years of a 25-year sentence for mail robbery. He was murdered by his wife at their suburban-Denver home on March 18, 1949.

1936- the first racetrack photo-finish camera installed.

1936- Albert Fish, the Moon Maniac was executed at Sing Sing Prison. The 66 year old Fish had killed ten children and cannibalized their remains. He even went as far as to send a letter to the mother of his last victim describing how he had turned her daughter into a stew. The letter was traced back to him and he was arrested. He almost shorted out the electric chair because he kept his underpants filled with metal sewing needles. As he went to his death he told guards he was looking forward to the electric chair. "it is a thrill I never tried."

1938- Benny Goodman brought the new Swing Music to staid old Carnegie Hall. Count Basie and Harry James joined in to get the tuxedoed crowd dancing in the aisles, then afterwards they all went uptown to the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem to watch Count Basies band square off against the legendary Chick Webb. After this triumph, Benny Goodmans’ band would never be the same- Lionel Hampton, Harry James and Gene Krupa all split off to form their own orchestras." That band I had the night I played Carnegie Hall was the best I think I ever had." Goodman said later.

1938- Nylon invented by the Dupont Company.

1939- Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr announced the successful fission of uranium. They asked that it be used for peaceful purposes only. One of their colleagues Dr. Leo Szilard immediately warned the U.S. that they better start a nuclear bomb program, because another friend of Bohr's, Dr. Rudolph Heisenberg, planned to build one for Hitler.

1940- Lee Francis, then Hollywood’s top madam, was busted for prostitution.

1942-Actress Carol Lombard and her mother died in a plane crash at Mt. Potosi Nevada, outside of Las Vegas, while returning from a war bond drive. She was 33. Her husband, movie king Clark Cable was so disconsolate that he volunteered for air force combat squadron instead of doing USO work, and went on dangerous missions trying to get killed.

1942- Japanese armies attacked Burma.

1945- Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg last seen. The diplomat had been covertly smuggling hundreds of Jews out of Nazi occupied Austria by giving them neutral Swedish passports. When the Soviets overran Vienna, Wallenberg disappeared. In 1991 The Russian government admitted that Wallenberg died in Leningrad’s Lubyanka Prison.

1954- THE WAR ON COMICS- Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee chaired the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. They concluded that one of the contributing factors to adolescent moral decay was four-color comic books! The media called comics “The Ten Cent Plague”.
The probe was sparked by a book called The Seduction of the Innocent by psychiatrist Frederic Wertham. He charged among other things that Batman & Robin were gay because when not fighting crime, Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson lounged around all day in silk pajamas, with no women! That Superman was a fascist, and Wonder Woman’s strength and independence made her a lesbian!
Despite public testimony by Walt Kelly, Milt Caniff, Al Capp and Bill Gaines, 350 comic book companies including the EC "Tales from the Crypt" label were driven out of business. The strict comics-code was established. The comic book industry, which had been selling one million books a month, never regained that level of prosperity in the US again.

1962-First day of shooting on the film Dr No with a young actor named Sean Connery in the role of James Bond. Ian Fleming thought the casting of Connery would be a disaster, he had wanted Cary Grant or David Niven.

1970- Col. Mohammar Khaddafyi became premier of Libya, a job he kept until 2011.

1974- Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws first published.

1979- The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlevi, fled Teheran in the face of the Ayatollah’s fundamentalist revolution.

1980-The silver market collapses, making the Hunt Brothers from two of the richest men in America to two of the poorest.

1991- GULF WAR I - U.S. French, British and Arab air forces began attacking Iraqi-held Kuwait. Sadam, Wild Weazels, Gen Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, Republican Guards, Scuds, Smart Bombs and CNN's Peter Arnett hanging a mike out the window of his Baghdad office as the bombs rained down.
=======================================
Yesterday’s Quiz: Which nation is older? Belgium, Greece, Saudi Arabia or the U.S.A.?

Answer: The USA- 1776. The Greek people obviously go back to the migrations of Dorians and Ionians in the 800s BC. They called themselves Hellenes. But the modern nation of Greece was born in 1827. The Arabs of Medina and the Hejaz also go back to ancient times, but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began in 1948. Flanders and the Spanish Netherlands broke away from Holland in 1832 and became the Belgium.