Question: What is the story of The Prodigal Son?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is the Indian city of Bombay called today?

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History for May 19, 2022
Birthdays: Malcolm X- born Malcolm Little, Ho Chi Minh- born Ngyun Tat Tanth- Ho Chi Minh means the Enlightener, Giovanni Della Robbia, John Hopkins, Lord Waldorf Astor, Dame Nelly Melba, Frank Capra, Wilson Mizner, Elena Poniatowska, Jim Lehrer, Nora Ephron, Grace Jones, Peter Mahew, Nancy Kwan, Pete Townshend, Joey Ramone, Andre the Giant, Polly Walker, Tom Sito, aka me, your author.

639, Turkic nobleman Ashina Jieshesuai led an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Chinese Emperor. This led to a campaign to resettle Turkic people north of the great wall and south of the Gobi desert. It was intended as a buffer from the northern threat of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.

988- Today is the Feast of Saint Dunstan, who pulled the Devil’s nose with hot tongs.

1535- Explorer Jacques Cartier sails from France for the New World.

1536- Anne Boleyn-King Henry VIII's second queen, was beheaded not by axe but by a French swordsman with a sort of golf-swing. The king was playing tennis at Hampton Court. He had a relay signal of cannons fired from the Tower of London so he would know the minute he was single again.

1586- Fleeing her rebellious nobles, Mary Queen of Scots crossed the border into England and threw herself upon the mercy of Queen Elizabeth, who promptly locked her up.

1635- Cardinal Richelieu confuses the religious nature of the Thirty Years War by putting Catholic France on the Protestant side. His eminence the Cardinal didn’t care a fig about religious issues, he just wanted to break the power of Catholic Spain.

1643- The separate Anglo-American colonies of Plymouth, Connecticut, New Harbor and Massachusetts Bay form an association called New England.

1649- Oliver Cromwell’s victorious Puritan Parliament declared the British Monarchy extinct. England was to be a Commonwealth. They also ordered that all families who had been for the King in the just-completed Civil War would now be taxed, assessed to one-half the value of their property, no matter how much money they earned or lost that year. This tax drove many cash poor noble families to America -The Washingtons, Lees, Randolphs, Livingstons and Madisons. Most settled in Virginia and the Carolinas, because New England had too many Puritans.
In the US Civil War many southerners called themselves the descendants of the cavaliers, and the Yankees of New England the heirs of the Puritan roundheads.

1652- An English fleet led by Blake attacked the Dutch under Admiral Van Tromp- The First Anglo-Dutch War began.

1749- King George II chartered the Ohio Company to explore the territories west of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This act would bring English settlers into direct conflict with French settlers moving down from Canada and help bring on the French & Indian, or the Seven Years War.

1780- In New England the sky turned to total darkness at noon. No explanation.

1798- Napoleon embarks to invade Egypt, trying to cut off England's easy access to India and if possible conquering his way across Turkey and Persia to join forces with Tippoo Sahib, the Indian Sultan fighting against British rule.

1804- Napoleon designates 14 of his top generals MARSHALS of the EMPIRE. King Louis XVI had a rule that no one could become an officer in the Royal French Army without first proving nobility of birth going back at least four generations. In the British army it was perfectly natural to buy your officer commissions until the World Wars. The French Revolution changed all that. Napoleon's army functioned on the radical new principle of promoting people on merit instead of noble birth or connections. A slogan in the French army was "every drummer boy carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack."

1812- The USA declared War on Great Britain, the War of 1812- The U.S. government tired of having it's shipping harassed by the British and having ambitions of conquering Canada sent off a declaration of war.
Two weeks after their declaration of war sailed away to London, a Royal Navy vessel landed in Baltimore with concessions to most U.S. demands. Doh! John Jacob Astor, the fur exporter, warned all his Canadian subcontractors that We were about to invade them. His message got there before the American general’s orders to invade.
Napoleon, retreating from Moscow when he received the news, calculated that because the American Navy had had success against the British Navy during their Revolution they were the perfect ones to ferry his army across the Channel so he could get at England!
He didn't know that after the Revolution most of the American Navy was scrapped, and the Yankees weren't that thrilled with him anyway.

1857 -William Francis Channing & Moses G Farmer patents electric fire alarm.

1859- Sir John Franklin led a British Navy expedition to find the sea route across the top of Canada, the NorthWest Passage. Not only didn't he make it, but the National Geographic Society is still thawing out his sailors today. The route they looked for was not achieved until a Canadian ice cutter did it in 1958.

1864- The Cherry Creek Flood- wipes out what there is of a little boomtown in silver mining country called Denver.

1864- President Abe Lincoln wrote that the widows and orphans of black union soldiers should get the same death benefits that white soldiers got.

1884 - Ringling Brothers circus premiered.

1886- First performance of Camille Saint Saen's Organ Symphony #3. Saint Saen's had actually written 6 such works but hated them all but three. He liked the third symphony so much he never wrote another. Composer Charles Gounod heard the symphony and exclaimed:" There is now a French Beethoven!"

1891- Rice University founded.

1892 - Charles Brady King invented the pneumatic jackhammer- sleeping city dwellers rejoice.

1895- Patriot leader Jose Martin killed fighting for Cuban independence.

1897- Writer Oscar Wilde was released from prison after doing two years of hard labor. The experience broke his health and he never completely recovered. He did use his experiences to write his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol in 1898.

1898 - Post Office authorizes the use of postcards.

1900- The British Empire annexed the islands of Tonga- once called the Cannibal Isles. The King of Tonga realized the futility of trying to resist the European Imperialists, so he mailed his war club as a symbol of submission to Queen Victoria.

1903- In San Francisco’s exclusive University Club, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson overheard some gentlemen discussing how the new invention the automobile was just a passing fad, and only good for short distances. On the spot Jackson wagered $50 he could drive a motorcar across the entire USA to New York City in 90 days. He set out on May 23 and despite frequent breakdowns, made it to Manhattan in 63 days. For this he was hailed as The Great Automobilist.

1921- The U.S. Congress ended the system of unchecked immigration and sets up a quota system based on nationalities. The act was heavily influenced by experts in the pseudo-science of Eugenics, then very popular. Even today the system heavily favors Europeans.

1929 - General Feng Yu-Xiang, last of the great Chinese warlords, declared war on Chiang Kai-Shek’s Kuomintang Nationalist government. After the Manchu Empire collapsed in 1912, China broke up into small states run by generals with private armies, European protectorates and Communist guerrillas. The Nationalists under Chiang slowly reunified China piece by piece until the Japanese Invasion in 1937.

1934- Mickey Mouse short cartoon Gulliver Mickey.

1935- The National Football League adopts the college draft system.

1935- T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died of injuries after a high-speed motorcycle crash. The motorcycle was a gift from George Bernard Shaw. Some thought he crashed deliberately.

1940- In a closed meeting of the war cabinet, Winston Churchill said it looked like the French were losing the war to Hitler’s Nazis, so he would send no more RAF squadrons across the Channel to help. He said they needed to keep them home for the coming attacks on Britain.

1941- Battle of Amba Alagi. Britain defeated Fascist Italy in Abyssinia.

1945- Two weeks after the end of World War II in Europe, the German U-boat U-234 surfaced in the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They had been sent on a long-distance trip to Japan carrying military secrets, a disassembled jet fighter, and a store of fission quality uranium.
In the mid-Atlantic, the crew heard the announcement of Hitler’s death and Germany’s surrender. An argument broke out among the crew, the captain, and two Japanese liaison officers about what to do. Barring being able to reach Tokyo, the back up plan was to go to a friendly Latin American country. But the crew had enough. Their war was over.
Their final decision was to sail to the first American port and surrender.
When docked, it was discovered the two Japanese officers were missing.
The crew shrugged, “ uh…they decided to walk home".

1956- Cecil B. de Milles film " The Ten Commandments" premiered. Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter and Edward G, Robinson.

1956- The Disney film Pollyana debuted, making a star of Haley Mills.

1958- The film,” The Attack of the 50 Ft Woman” premiered. A drive-in favorite.

1960 - DJ Alan Freed is accused of bribery in the radio payola scandal, the first scandal to hit the new world of Rock & Roll.

1962- Giant birthday party and rally held for President John F. Kennedy in New York's Madison Square Garden -his birthday was actually the following week. What made it memorable was Marilyn Monroe in a dress so tight she had to be sewn into it, singing her sexy version of the Happy Birthday song. 'Happy (exhale) Burth- Day, Mister - Prezz- a -dent (sigh), Happy, etc. "

1967- US B-52’s bomb Hanoi for the first time.

1970- Al Gore married Tipper Gore.

1987- Charles Fleming got a patent for plans for a device that can keep a severed human head alive.

1990- Amy Fisher 16, the "Long Island Lolita" shot the wife of her lover, muffler salesman Joseph Buttafuco. Mary Jo Buttafuco survived the attack and Amy went to jail. This case titillates the sensationalist media of New York City for the next three years, to the amazement of the rest of the U.S.

1991- Willy T. Ribbs became the first African American racecar driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500.

1992- The completion bond company seized Richard Williams unfinished masterpiece Cobbler and the Thief. They had the film’s remaining sequences completed by another studio (Fred Calvert, and one sequence subcontracted to Don Bluth) and released as Arabian Nights.
A year later I asked Dick how he was doing? He replied, “Well, contrary to everyone’s best wishes, I am NOT suicidal.”

1997- Matthew Broderick married Sarah Jessica Parker.

1999- George Lucas’ much anticipated film Star Wars Episode One the Phantom Menace premiered, the first Star Wars sequel in over a decade. It was the first major film premiere to be projected digitally. Only two theaters in New York and two in Hollywood could do digital projection then. It featured Jarr Jarr Binks, a character so annoying, that web sites like www. I Want Jarr-Jarr to Die-Die.com soon racked up tens of thousands of hits.

2000- Walt Disney film Dinosaur opened.

2005- Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith premiered.

2006- Dreamwork’s animated film ‘Over the Hedge’ premiered.
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Yesterday’s question: What is the Indian city of Bombay called today?

Answer: Mumbai.

Quiz: What is the Indian city of Bombay called today?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What was the Judgement of Paris?
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History for 5/18/2022
Birthdays: Pope St. John Paul II, Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Czar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Mad artist Don Martin, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 67, Tina Fey is 52

The ancient Greek festival of Pan.

331 B.C. ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIED IN BABYLON. By age 31 he had conquered most of the known world and was planning a campaign to Arabia and western Europe when he fell ill. When asked "To whom do you leave your empire? He replied- "Hoti to Kratisto- To the Strongest". Some historians speculate he actually meant: "Hoti to Kratero" to Craterus, one of his trusted companions, but the generals in the room had their own ideas and didn't want to hear that.
They carved up Alexanders empire into their own kingdoms-Ptolemy became Pharoah of Egypt, Seleucus king of Syria, and Antigonus One-Eye & Cassander divided up Greece. They started fighting with each other almost immediately. Alexander grimly joked: "There will be great games at my funeral". The Successor kings even fought over his corpse, carrying it around with the army in a huge rolling shrine, until Ptolemy brought it to Alexandria and embalmed it in a solid block of honey. Caesar and Marc Anthony were able to gaze upon Alexander’s face three hundred years later. (imagine today, being able to look at the undecayed face of George Washington!) The final fate of the honey-pickled corpse is unknown.

323BC- Diogenes the Cynic died his 90s. He once met Alexander the Great. Alexander came up to him seated upon the ground, stood over him and said "I am Alexander the King of Macedon". Diogenes countered:" And I am Diogenes the Dog". Alexander said:" If there is anything in the world you desire of me, just ask!" Diogenes replied:" Yes. You’re blocking my light."

257AD.- Today is the Feast of Saint Venantius. Little is known of him except his endurance record for being martyred. His persecutors flogged him, burned him with torches, hanged him upside down over a fire, knocked his teeth out, broke his jaw, and threw him to the lions, who merely licked his feet. Then they threw him off a cliff, and finally cut his head off.

1291- The Last Christian stronghold in Middle East, St. Jean D'Acre, fell to the Egyptian Mamelukes of Al Khalil. Considered the official end of the Crusades.

1512- IRON HAND- German knight Gotz von Berlichingen spent his 81 years fighting and raiding throughout Germany. When his hand was blown off by a cannonball he had a mechanical one built for him out of metal. This day Gotz and one legged Hans von Selbitz raided 55 Nuremburg merchants and carried off their gold. Goethe and other German writers made Gotz into a Robin Hood type folk hero.
In answering a challenge to personal combat, Iron Hand was credited with uttering the famous epithet "Er aber sag seinem Herren, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Go tell your master he can kiss my ass!"

1565- THE SIEGE OF MALTA BEGINS. Turkish Sultan Suleimann the Magnificent attacked the island stronghold of the Knights of St.John. The knights had formed in Jerusalem during the Crusades and ran a hospital when not chopping people, so they were called Hospitalers. Later after their victory they became the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, four barbed arrowheads forming a cross is called the Maltese Cross. Today they still run a medical service called St. John's Ambulance.

1642- Huron village of Hochelaga was rededicated as the city of Montreal.

1778-THE MESCHIANZA- Before the British Army evacuated the rebel capitol of Philadelphia they threw a grand farewell masque ball. American loyalist girls and young redcoat officers danced the night away under a spectacle of fireworks. There was a waterborne parade, medieval tournament and a huge dinner.
Nothing this lavish had ever been staged in the American Colonies. One of the belles was Peggy Shippen, who would marry General Benedict Arnold and turn him from the American patriot cause. That night her dance partner was Major John Andre’, who art directed and designed the event. He even designed Peggy’s costume. The men had costumes as Knights and the women as Turkish damsels, symbolizing the civilizing influence of Art on barbaric peoples.
The next day the British began their withdrawal to New York, and abandoning Philadelphia to Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Two years later George Washington hanged Major Andre as a spy.

1781- Inca resistance to the Spaniards didn't end when Pizarro left. They abandoned Cuzco and fled deeper into the Andes and continued to struggle for another 150 years. This day the last fighting Inca emperor, Tupu Amuru II, was executed by the Spanish conquistadors. They tried to pull him apart with horses, but he was too pliable so they cut him up.
The Inca believed the world periodically is overthrown and another takes its place, so the European invasion was seen as a part of this cycle. The Inca word for earthquake also means revolution. In the 1980s the rebels fighting the Peruvian government forces called themselves the Tupu-Amaru Liberation front.

1795- Col. Robert Rogers died in poverty in London. During the French and Indian War Rogers’ colonial militia called Roger’s Rangers was the most daring unit fighting for England. But by the American Revolution, George Washington didn’t trust his loyalty, especially after he ratted out Nathan Hale. He formed a Tory unit but it was undistinguished. Despite the obscurity of his death, Rogers wrote down a manual of his tactics that are considered the basis of all Special Ops -Move Fast, Hit Hard.

1804- French senate votes Napoleon the title of Emperor of the French. This act disappointed many European liberals like Beethoven who had seen Napoleon as the strong wind of reform blowing through the dusty corridors of Monarchy.

1832- CLIMAX OF THE MAY DAYS- The closest England ever came to a full French style working class Revolution. The Whig party under Lord John Russell and Lord Grey ( Earl Grey Tea ) had introduced three bills in Parliament asking for voting rights to be extended to the middle classes and parliamentary allocations reformed to better represent the large city populations like Manchester and Birmingham. This would forever break the tight hold on power possessed by the gentry. Naturally the conservatives like King William IV (Victoria's uncle) fought it tooth and nail. Every time the bill passed in the House of Commons it was defeated in the House of Lords. The Commons in retaliation refused to let the Tories form a government.

Starting with the bills third defeat on May 7th England was convulsed by rioting, looting, general strikes and boycotts. The King was hit in the face with a stone, the Horse Guards were called out and the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had so many rocks thrown at his house in Hyde Park he had steel shutters installed on the ground floor. On this day Lord Grey told the King if he didn't sign the reform act and create a dozen new liberal peers to the Lords, anarchy and revolution would result! Lord Lionel Rothschild reported the economy was at the point of collapse.

The king backed down, reform went through and real two-party voting resulted, although the working classes would have to wait 86 more years until they could vote. King William IV has come down to us called William the Reformer, although it sounds like a title he would have liked to do without....

1896- The US Supreme Court in the decision Plessy Vs Ferguson upheld the concept of Separate-But-Equal facilities and laws. This racial separation called Segregation or Jim Crow, was not reversed until the 1960’s, and many say are still trying to come back today.

1904- In Paris 12 nations sign an international agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. The United States did not sign.

1905- MORROCCAN CRISIS OF 1905- A Moroccan desert sherif, El Raisuli, kidnapped a small Greek-American businessman named George Pedicaris. He did this for ransom, and because he wanted someone new to play chess with. Pedicaris was ransomed, but not before the incident became a major international incident between with Germany, Britain, France and the U.S. Marines. The incident was romanticized in the John Milius film "The Wind and the Lion", with Raisuli played by Sean Connery and Pedicaris turned into the beautiful Candice Bergen.

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond their ninth symphony. On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1926- L.A. evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was the Billy Graham of her time. This day she shocked the nation when she mysteriously disappeared on a beach near Venice Cal. After an exhaustive search involving ships and planes, she turned up a month later with a lame story of being kidnapped. Truth, was she ran off with her boyfriend Kenneth Ormiston for a romantic week in Monterrey. Hallelujah!
1927- Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood opened. The first show was the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings. Ushers and doormen were dressed in imported Mandarin robes, and wall hangings were painted by young artist/actor Key Luke. Sid Grauman was the showman who also invented the Hollywood premiere with spotlights and limo's pulling up to red carpets, etc.

1931- Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara attempted to be the first pilot to fly alone across the Pacific Ocean. But he crashed and was rescued by a passing ship.

1933- President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA created massive public works bringing electric power to much of the Appalachians and deep South.

1940- John Halas & Joy Batchelor founded Halas & Batchelor, for many years the preeminent animation studio in England.

1943- Battle of Monte Cassino. A Ninth Century mountaintop abbey filled with German troops held back the allied armies advancing up from Naples. In order to capture the fortress, the allies had to heavily bomb it from the air, destroying many priceless paintings by Piero della Francesca and Giotto. This day the monastery was finally captured by Polish troops attached to the British Army.

1944- Stalin's revenge- millions of Crimean Tartar people were herded up and shipped into exile in Central Asia because Stalin felt they collaborated with the Nazis. In the 1990s some were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland. But this is the reason when Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea back into Russia in 2014, a majority of the population were now ethnic Russians.

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rode out the storm cooking pasta, smoking pot and listening to records of La Boheme.

1980- Mt. St. Helens explodes in Washington State. The volcano was always thought to be safely extinct but Mother Nature had other plans. I was in Toronto thousands of miles away and noticed volcanic ash floating in Lake Ontario. The eruption and earthquake killed 57 people and destroyed 24 square miles around the mountain.
A lone eccentric named Harry Truman refused to be evacuated and stayed in his home. He was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other programs. After the explosion Truman disappeared and is assumed killed.

1995- Elizabeth Montgomery, the star of Bewitched, died of colon cancer at age 62.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the big comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!

2003 Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was the Judgement of Paris?

Answer: Zeus was holding a banquet in Olympus for the wedding of the parents of Achilles. The goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite were attending. Eris the Goddess of Discord was not invited, because she was such a buzzkill. She responded by hurling down a golden apple to be awarded only to the most beautiful one. Zeus did not want to be seen giving such a judgement, so he got Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy to make the choice. Paris chose Aphrodite, and she in gratitude gave him the love of the most beautiful mortal woman, Helen. Only she was already married. Uh-oh…

Quiz: What was the Judgement of Paris?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: A margherita is a drink, but why is a plain pizza called a Margherita?
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History for 5/17/2022
Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Howard Ashman, Craig Ferguson, Bill Paxton, Ralph Wright- the original voice of Eeyore, Alan Kay-inventor of the laptop computer, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 61- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1204- The Fourth Crusade captured the city of Constantinople (Istanbul). The Western Crusaders decided to blame the Byzantine Greeks for their failure to keep Jerusalem, so they sent a crusade just to get them. This Crusade was backed by the growing merchant naval powers like Venice, Genoa and Pisa who saw the Byzantines as a commercial competitor.
They stormed the unconquerable city and killed the Emperor Constantine VIII Paleologus called Mourzufle "Fuzzy", by hurling him off a high column.
The Republic of Venice plundered many treasures to adorn their Cathedral of San Marco back home, including the four bronze horses that had adorned the Hippodrome. In the weeks of destruction and pillage that followed many priceless works of art were lost, including only remaining copies of a dozen plays of Sophocles, leaving only the four we have now.
The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo had a horror of dying in bed. So, he was in the first wave to attack the city's walls even though he was 81 and blind. He survived the arrows, spears; catapult stones and boiling oil, and died in bed anyway.

1488- Vasco DeGama reached India from sailing around the horn of Africa.
This fulfilled the master plan of Prince Henry the Navigator to outflank the Muslim world, providing an alternative to the ancient Silk Road land route that connected the world’s trade. Ironically, legend has it that DeGama’s navigator was an Arab.
It was the beginning of the Age of Exploration and the rise of Western Europe. Both Columbus and Magellan learned their stuff studying in Prince Henry’s Portugal. A previous Portuguese navigator named Diaz had actually rounded the African continent before DeGama but his men were so freaked out that they mutinied and made him go home, so he got no credit.

1673- French Explorers Father Marquette and Joliet set out from Green Bay, Wisconsin to explore the Mississippi. The missionary made only one baptism but he said that alone made the trip worthwhile.

1792- In New York, twenty-four investors met under a buttonwood tree on the street where the old city wall once stood, and formed The New York Stock Exchange. Then they all went to the Merchant’s Coffee House for lunch.

1802- Meriwether Lewis went to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush to get advice for his Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the most famous doctor in America. Dr. Rush gave Lewis a list of questions he had about the West, such as asking the Plains Indians if they practiced the religion of the Hebrews? Were the Sioux or Cheyenne the Lost Tribes of Israel? If you think that’s silly Thomas Jefferson told Lewis to look for living Mastodons.
When Lewis asked what medical supplies were needed, Rush said unhesitatingly that he should lay in a good supply of Rush’s Purgative Pills, nicknamed ‘thunderclappers’ for the effect they had on your system.

1826- Artist-Naturalist John James Audubon departed for England” in deep sorrow” because he could find no publisher in America for his masterpiece the “Birds of North America”.

1845 - Rubber bands were patented by Stephen Perry of Mssrs Perry & Co, vulcanized rubber manufacturers of London.

1847- The American Medical Association- the AMA formed.

1860- At the second presidential convention of the Republican Party former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln is nominated on the second ballot, beating out William Seward and John Freemont, aka the Pathfinder.

1861- The California State Legislature passed a resolution declaring the states loyalty to the Union and against slavery and secession.

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

1881- Emily Roebling, the engineer wife of engineer Washington Roebling, became the first person to cross the newly completed Brooklyn Bridge. The largest and tallest suspension bridge in the world. Emily oversaw the completion of the bridge after Washington became too ill from caisson-sickness to continue. She crossed the bridge in a carriage, with a rooster on her lap for good luck. The Brooklyn Bridge was opened to the public the following week.

1885- Geronimo went on the warpath for the second time. His Chiricahua Apache were the last independent Indian tribe still fighting the U.S. and Mexico.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic newspaper, published in London.

1905 - After having been given to Sweden by Denmark back in 1814, Norway finally regained its independence.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain buys Metro Pictures and combines them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studio to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Last year Amazon bought MGM for $8 billion.

1931- Dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Howard Hawk’s film The Public Enemy debuted. “I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

1940- In World War I the German army tried for four years to reach Brussels. Here in World War 2 they captured the Belgian capitol in just 6 days.

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tried to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relented and signed a contract with the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1943- The B-17 bomber Memphis Belle flew it’s last of 25 successful missions over Germany. Today the Belle is in a museum, in Memphis, appropriately enough.

1954-" Brown vs. Board of Ed" Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal. Future justice Thurgood Marshal was the successful attorney.

1965- At a hotel in lower Manhattan, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shook hands and agreed to write a sci-fi movie, with an accompanying novel.
First called How the Solar System was Won, because How the West Was Won was a popular film then. Then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title finally became- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1967 – Bob Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as film "Don't Look Back"

1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Atlantic on reed boat Ra, proving the ancient Egyptians could have reached South America.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical Godspell premiered off-Broadway.

1973 - Stevie Wonder released "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

1973- the Senate Watergate Committee convenes.

1974- The LAPD attacked the LA stronghold of the Symbionnese Liberation Army extremists, then holding heiress Patty Hearst. In a furious shootout most SLA members including their leader Donald DeFreeze were killed, but Miss Hearst remained missing for a few more weeks.

1977- In Israeli general elections, the right-wing Likud party under Menachem Begin won a majority. Labor lost power for the first time since independence in 1948. It also marked the religious conservative groups having a bigger say in Israeli politics over the earlier socialist-humanist reformists that built Israel. One-eyed Moshe Dayan startled his friends by changing parties and becoming foreign minister in the new government.

2004- Massachusetts became the first US State to legalize gay marriage.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: A Margherita is a drink, but why is a plain pizza called a Margherita?

Answer: It is named for the first Queen of Italy. Shortly after unification, Queen Margaret the consort of Victor Emmanuel, went on a tour of her new kingdom. When she got to Naples, the locals greeted her with a regional dish, the pizza, decorated with the colors of the Italian Flag. Tomato sauce for red, mozzarella cheese for white, and basil for green.

Quiz: A margherita is a drink, but why is a plain pizza called a Margherita?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: What is a seraglio?
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History for 5/16/2022
Birthdays: Tamara de Lempicka, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable little Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 68, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Ivan Sutherland is 84, Danny Trejo is 68, Pierce Brosnan is 68.

218 A.D. Elagabalus hailed Roman Emperor by the Eastern Legions. During the long succession of Roman emperors many usurpers and generals would try and prove a tenuous family link to Julius Caesar for legitimacy. Elagabalus was the son of senator Sextus Varius Marcellus and an Egyptian prostitute (later claimed to be a Syrian noble woman). So he declared himself divinely conceived by the Sun god, Helios -hence Helio-gabulus.

1571- By his own calculations, Astronomer Johannes Kepler was conceived at 4:37 AM.

1648- Battle of Zolty Wody (sweet water) The Cossack rebel army of Ukrainian leader Bogdhan Chmeilnitski defeated the royal Polish army of King Jan II Kazmiersz.

1717- A Lettre du Cachet was issued to arrest young writer Voltaire. They locked him up in the Bastille for writing satires critical of the King’s government. He was not allowed to take anything but his clothes. Once in the slammer, he learned his mistress Suzanne De Livry, consoled herself by promptly jumping into bed with his best friend.
Philosopher Voltaire was philosophical: ” One must put up with these bagatelles.”

1763- James Boswell was drinking tea in Samuel Davis’ London bookshop when he first met Dr. Samuel Johnson. The two great men of letters became lifelong friends and Boswell’s biography of Dr. Johnson became a literary classic.

1770- Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were married. Louis was 15 and Marie was 14. Louis was just Duc' du Berry and never expected to become king until both his father and older brother died before grandpa King Louis XV. Louis was unable to consummate their marriage because of an obstruction in his foreskin. It took seven years and a painful operation before they could create any children. During that time the vivacious but undoubtedly frustrated Marie-Antoinette would put her dull husband to bed early and party all night with others.

1777- Button Gwinnett died from wounds incurred in a duel. Button Gwinnett of Georgia has the fame of being the most obscure signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1861- The State of Kentucky declared its neutrality in the Civil War. For that it became a battle ground for both armies for most of the following year.

1863- THE LONG CHANCE- In Richmond at a meeting of the Confederate Cabinet plans were discussed for helping relieve the fortress city of Vicksburg. If Yankee General Grant captured the city he would cut the Confederacy in half and choke off the Mississippi. Then it would only be a matter of time. Gen. Pierre Beauregard proposed drawing regiments from west and east to launch a grand assault into Ohio and Indiana. This would force Grant away from Vicksburg to defend the Yankee heartland.
But Gen. Robert E. Lee countered with his idea for the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee proposed an invasion north through Pennsylvania to menace Philadelphia and descend upon Baltimore and Washington, in effect, gambling everything that he could knock out the U.S. Army with one giant blow. Some strategists agreed with Beauregard's plan, but President Jefferson Davis disliked Beauregard personally and just couldn't say no to the invincible Bobby Lee. Of all the Confederate cabinet only postmaster general John Reagan had the nerve to openly disagree. He was outvoted. 15-1. Lee was defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell to Grant.

1866- Congress authorized the creation of a new 5 cent coin, which because of it’s metal content people called the Nickel.

1868-The IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT -President Andrew Johnson survived a Senate vote of Impeachment by one vote. The pro-union governor of rebel Tennessee was made Vice President, then became president because of Abe Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson was filling out Lincoln's term and was despised by Washington circles for being too quick to forgive the defeated Confederacy and restrict the new rights of the freed slaves. His campaign slogan was “This Nation was made for the White Man.”
He was continually at odds with the members of Lincoln's cabinet who wanted to control him, especially Secretary of War William Stanton. When Johnson tried to fire Stanton, the bewhiskered secretary not only barricaded himself into his office but he instigated impeachment proceedings in Congress. He even accused President Johnson of treason and of complicity in the plot to kill Lincoln! Senate leader pro-tem Benjamin Wade was so sure he was going to be president he had already announced his cabinet.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for impeachment and the Senate was only one vote short of the 2/3 majority required. The one vote that kept Johnson in office was a Senator Edmund Ross. Ross deliberately voted no because he didn’t want to be famous as the man who impeached a President. Ross’ career was ruined- “He will die in the street!” thundered one-legged N.Y. Senator Dan Sickles. A century later John F. Kennedy included Ross's story in his book 'Profiles in Courage'.
Andrew Johnson for the rest of his life bitterly resented the questioning of his patriotism when he had sacrificed friends and family to stay loyal to the U.S. When he died he left instructions that his body be wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and a copy of the U.S. Constitution put under his head.

1879- Dvoraks’ Slavonic Dances premiered.

1900- MAFEKING. During the Boer War in South Africa the besieged city of Mafeking was rescued by the British Army. When the first combat units fought their way into the beleaguered city the first Englishman they saw was a droll gentleman seating on a porch sipping lemonade, who calmly stated:" Ah, so there you are. We'd heard you chaps had been knocking about. " The public in London went wild with the news and a huge spontaneous street party breaks out, forever called a"Mafeking Night".
The British commander at Mafeking was Sir Robert Baden-Powell "Good Old B.P." After the war he would form the Boy Scouts. The scout uniform with the ranger hat and neckerchief was based on his own uniform in the Boer war. The slogan 'Be Prepared' was an abbreviation of the dramatic order B.P. gave at the height of the Mafeking battle, “Be Prepared to Die for your Country! “

1913- President Woodrow Wilson held a crisis cabinet meeting over a potential war with Japan. The Japanese Government was shocked and insulted by the State Legislature of California passing a law forbidding Japanese immigrants the rights of citizenship or to own property. Wilson’s own policy advocated state’s rights, but he didn’t want to needlessly offend Tokyo any further. The crisis was averted by January when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was sent to negotiate milder treaty language, not with the Japanese, but with the State of California!

1918- During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson created the Wartime Committee of Public Information- a propaganda board headed by journalist George Creel and psychologist Edmund Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud. After the war they would ply their skills in mass persuasion for the private sector- Bernays advertising equating cigarette smoking with women's equality hooked millions of women. He labels cigarettes “freedom sticks” and even engineered a change in ladies fashion to a taste for green to help sagging sales of a cigarette in a green pack. He also engineered a campaign to make all Americans believe the only real American breakfast is bacon & eggs.

1922- The White Star Line’s ocean liner Majestic, a sister ship to the Titanic, made its maiden voyage with no problems at all.

1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel. They gave out two best picture winners. One was to William Wellman’s “Wings”. The second for “unique and artistic merit” went to F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise. The Academy originally wanted to give the Best Actor Oscar to the dog Rin Tin Tin, but the reconsidered when reminded about what kind of message that would send. So they gave it to Emil Jannings. Janet Gaynor got the first Best Actress. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. About 270 attendees who paid $5 each. The ceremony then took about 15 minutes.

1934- 35,000 Pacific longshoremen go on strike and paralyze ports from Seattle to San Diego.

1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.

1957- in a town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just completed the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Roaring Twenties Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.

1963- Gordo Cooper orbited the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.

1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's later known as Spaghettios.

1969- PEOPLE’S PARK- The escalating tension between anti-war counter-culture and "the Establishment" picked an unusual item to fight over. A group of activists in Berkeley took over a 2 acre plot of land scheduled for development by the college. They planted grass and flowers and called it a "people’s park". Conservative Governor Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to tolerate any more tomfoolery and after officers and a chain link fence failed to keep out the squatters, he sent in the National Guard. This day the confrontation between the bayonet wielding troops and hippies broke out into violence. One man was killed and another was blinded by riot gas. The college decided to yield the land for the park, and it stays so today.

1972- Hollywood Cartoonists local 839 voted to expel Business Agent Larry Kilty for misappropriation of funds. The called him Guilty-Kilty.

1975- Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to climb Mt. Everest.

1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK

1979- Shooting wraps on Steven Spielberg’s movie 1941.

1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapses on stage with hepatitis.

1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album.

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed:” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.

1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.

1986 – the film "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered.

1990- Jim Henson died of viral pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He was 53.

1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On Dallas, Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season had only been a bad dream.

2001-THE SECRET ENERGY SUMMIT- Traditionally the job of U.S. vice presidents is to attend state funerals and wait for the president to cough. Shortly after the inauguration of George W. Bush, VP Dick Cheney convened a secret summit of top energy execs. This day their plan was announced- A heavily one-sided partisan document that emphasized increased drilling for oil and nuclear power, regardless of the environmental impact. Even today it is a top secret just who was at that summit, and Cheney had all their records and transcripts destroyed.

2009- The Sri Lankan military declared victory over the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels and killed their leader Vellilpurai Prahabkaran. The civil war had been raging since 1983.

2009- Pixar’s film UP premiered.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a seraglio?

Answer: It a Turkish harem, where the wives and concubines of the Sultan were kept.

Quiz: What is a seraglio?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What was former President Donald Trump’s religion?
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History for 5/15/2022
Birthdays: Lyman Frank Baum, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Avedon, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, George Brett, Jasper Johns, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jean Renoir, Richard Daley Sr., Trini Lopez, Charles Lamont, director of Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, country singer Eddy Arnold, Chaz Palmintieri is 69, Lainie Kazan, Joe Grant

The Mercuralia, the Roman Festival of Mercury, God of business, profit, and professional sports. Businessmen and athletes would go to the sacred well of Mercury on the Aventine Hill, and sprinkle sacred water on themselves to ensure good luck.

392A.D.- Roman Emperor Valentinian got so angry at a bunch of barbarians that he burst a blood vessel and fell over dead. Accession of Theodosius I.

756- Abdel Rahman I became Moorish Emir of Cordoba, Spain.

1248- Bishop Otto Von Hochstaden laid the cornerstone for the great DOM Cathedral of Cologne (Koln)

1577- The Orgy of Chenonceaux. Wild party at the French Royal Palace gardens with nude ladies cavorting with cross dressing knights and all such goings on.
Historians like Barbara Tuchman speculated that queen mother Catherine de Medici threw this party for her son King Henry III because the monarch showed no interest in his Queen, but hung around with his male courtiers, his "mignons"-darlings. She figured by placing scores of scantily clad damsels around the palace grounds perhaps the King would see that girls were fun too, and he should try some and make some heirs to his throne.
If this was the reason for the party it didn't work. The king spent the evening trying on dresses, and there were no royal princes at the time of the king's death. This allowed the Bourbon dynasty to succeed to the throne.

1602 - Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.

1648- Treaty of Muenster- After 125 years of conflict, Spain finally recognized the independence of Holland.

1703- Charles Perrault died. Perrault 1628-1703 was a retired minister to French King Louis XIV, who wrote stories for children under the pseudonym Mother Goose. He created Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Puss in Boots.

1776- The Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted that the American Colonies would refuse to obey any further orders from England and would from now govern themselves. Yet they still shrank from the obvious step of declaring full on independence.

1800-At a performance at London's Old Drury Lane Theatre, a lunatic named Hadfield rose from the audience and fired two pistols at King George III. They both miss and the assassin was dragged off. Old King George not only insisted that the show go on, but even dosed off during the second act.

1863- Edouard Manet first displayed his Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) at the Salon des Refuses in Paris. It was his modern interpretation of Rafael’s Judgement of Paris done during the Renaissance. The painting is of two modern clothed men having a picnic with two nude women by a river bank. The women aren’t mythical goddesses or muses, but just bare, naked ladies. This shocked Paris society. Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugene called it “Immodest and obscene”. It heralded the rise of Impressionism and had been called the first masterpiece of modern art.

1903- While on a tour of Yosemite, President Teddy Roosevelt slipped away from his entourage to camp out alone under the stars with naturalist John Muir.

1905- From a public auction of railroad land, the town of Las Vegas Nevada founded.

1917- During World War I, this day Germany tried offering Russia an immediate peace so she could concentrate on the Western Front before the Americans could arrive in force. The Russian Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky refused. This was a key moment for history. Part of the reason parliamentary democracy was overthrown by the Communists under Lenin was Kerensky’s refusal to stop the war, which was very unpopular with average Russians. If he had agreed, Russia might have been spared Lenin, Stalin. Purges and the Cold War. But World War I might have turned out differently.

1927- The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened for business. Named in honor of Teddy Roosevelt.

1928- Walt Disney held a private sneak preview screening of his completed cartoon Plane Crazy, featuring his new star Mickey Mouse, imitating hero Charles Lindbergh. But it was a silent cartoon, and Walt had recently been impressed by the new Talking Pictures. So, he decided to hold back the release of this cartoon and push ahead with his first sound cartoon Steamboat Willie. After the wild success of Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy was refitted with a soundtrack and released as the 4th Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1929.

1930- Miss Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess on a flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne Wyoming. Originally called SkyGirls, stewardesses had to be registered nurses in case of any health emergencies.

1935- Japanese Prime Minister Inokai was assassinated in his official residence by several young army officers because he tried to cut the military budget. Several top Japanese statesmen who tried to stop the military taking over the government wound up lying in the street full of bullets. Inokai was replaced as Prime Minister by Admiral Hokoku Saito. The war party now silenced all political opposition in Japan.

1935- The Moscow Subway system opens.

1940- Nazis panzer tanks pierce the French Maginot line near Sedan with little trouble.

1940- The first Nylon stockings go on sale in the US.

1941- Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio had been in a dry spell hitting lately. This day he got a safe hit and began a hitting streak that ran for 56 straight games, an unparalleled feat. He became America’s most famous baseball player since Babe Ruth. He was variously nicknamed Joltin’Joe, the Yankee Clipper but his teammates called him affectionately the Big Dago.

1942- The U.S. initiated a program of wartime gas rationing. Slogans like “Is this Trip Really Necessary?” and a system of ratings vehicles with A, B & C cards pop up in a lot of gas stations for the duration. C meant a war-essential worker and you went to the head of the line to get gas. A cards was the lowest status.

1946- The first Tommy’s Burger stand opened in Los Angeles.

1947- Future President George Bush Sr. was initiated into the elite secret society at Yale University called Skull & Bones. It’s so named because initiates pledge to remain loyal until “I die and nothing remains but skull and bones.” His sponsor-Charles Whitehouse later became big in the CIA. So many Bonesmen went into the CIA that they nicknamed the agency, “ The Front Office.”

1948- The ISRAELI WAR OF INDEPENDENCE- The day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the Jewish State was attacked simultaneously by the armies of Iraq, Syria, TransJordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv, and destroyed what Israeli airforce there was, leaving two Piper cub planes. Many Jewish fighters were veterans of WWII who were given guns and rushed into battle almost as soon as they stepped off their immigrant boat. The UN Mandate also called for the creation of a Palestinian homeland state but that seemed to be forgotten in all the fighting. Jordan and Syria both felt the territory of Palestine should be part of their country.

1949- Hungary voted in a communist government. Since the country was overrun with the Russian Red Army and there was only one candidate to check on the ballot, the result was hardly surprising. The Communist regime lasted until 1991.

1953- Rocky Marciano defeated Jersey Joe Walcott for the Heavyweight Championship.

1955- The Cuban dictator Fulgensio Batista ordered a partial freeing of political prisoners. One of those freed from prison was a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. Castro goes into exile, but returned a year later with trained guerrillas to start an insurgency.

1963 - Peter, Paul & Mary won their first Grammy for, “If I Had a Hammer”.

1967- Paul McCartney first met his first wife Linda Eastman.

1968 - Paul McCartney & John Lennon appear on the Johnny Carson Show to promote
Apple records, Joe Garagiola is substitute host.

1970- As at Kent State two weeks earlier, National Guard units again fire into a crowd of anti-war protesters. This time at Jackson State, Mississippi, slaying two students.

1970 – A month after their breakup, The Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," is released in US.

1972- Alabama governor and rogue third party Presidential candidate George Wallace was shot five times by Arthur Bremer. Wallace survived but spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair in great pain.
An Ultra Conservative, Wallace always thought he’d be killed by some hippy black-panther liberal outraged by his extremist political views. But in the end he was shot by a lonely little loser who wanted his picture in the newspapers. Arthur Bremer had contemplated shooting President Nixon before he focused on Wallace. In all the excitement Bremer forgot to say the words he wanted to be quoted for on TV,” Penny for your Thoughts…”.
The Nixon Whitehouse in their unique way immediately focused upon how they could turn this tragedy to their own political use. There was a scheme to plant Democratic campaign material in Bremers’ apartment, but unfortunately for Tricky Dick’s people the FBI had already sealed it off.

1991- Socialist leader Edith Cresson became France’ first female Premier. She lasted only a year in office. For a nation renown for diplomacy, she said some pretty undiplomatic things- such as England was a nation of homosexuals, and when you negotiate with the Japanese, it is like ants crawling all over you.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was Former President Donald Trump’s religion?

Answer: After many conflicting stories, Trump now claims he is non-denominational. He was raised Presbyterian, and his sons were baptized Episcopalian.