Quiz: What is the difference between a missile and a ballistic missile?

Yesterday’s answer below: What is an “eminence grise”.
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History for 8/7/2023
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantius II, Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, Mata Hari, Rassan Rolling Kirk, Dr. Ralphe Bunche, Nicholas Ray, Dr. Richard Leakie, Grandma Moses, Stan Freberg, James Randi, Billy Burke aka Glenda the Good Witch, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Garrison Keillor, Animator Rudy Ising, David Duchovny is 63, Charlize Theron is 48

1485- At Millbank harbor Wales, Henry Tudor landed with an army of knights to challenge King Richard III for the throne. Stepping on English soil, Henry dropped to his knees, raised his arms and exclaimed, “Judge me, oh Lord, on the righteousness of my cause!”

1620- The mother of astronomer Johannes Kepler was arrested for witchcraft.

1683-The Bagel was invented by a Jewish baker in Vienna as a tribute to Polish warrior King Jan III Sobieski, who had saved their city from Turkish attack. Bagel comes from the German word for stirrup, Bügel.

1782- General George Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart. The first U.S. medal.

1815- Prisoner Napoleon Bonaparte was transferred from the HMS Bellerophon to the HMS Northumberland for the voyage to Saint Helena. After his defeat at Waterloo the British public warmed up to Napoleon as an okay chap now down on his luck. While waiting in Plymouth Harbor curious crowds of English people would row out to wave hello at the fallen emperor. One enterprising citizen learned Napoleon’s schedule and from his rowboat would hold up a large sign "BONEY’S OUT ON DECK" to let the crowd know.

1819- Battle of Boyaca'- Simon Bolivar defeats the Royal Spanish army in the New World. He enters Bogota to proclaim the Republic of Columbia.

1834 -Death of Joseph Jacquard, French silk weaver who invented the first loom capable of weaving patterns. The cards used in the looms were the inspiration for the computer punch card, a way of transmitting data, whether pulses of light or lengths of wool.

1880- British Lord Roberts began the famous Retreat to Kandahar from Kabul. The British and Russians used Afghanistan as a political football for most of the 19th century. It was referred to as "The Great Game".

1882- The legendary hillbilly feud in Kentucky between the Hatfields and the McCoys began, supposedly over a prize hog. Ellison Hatfield was stabbed 26 times and shot in the back by Tolbert McCoy. The Hatfields then rounded up three McCoys and shot them. Over the next forty years, over 100 men, women, and children from both families would be killed.

1888- In Philadelphia, Theophilus van Kannel patented the revolving door.

1912 –After serving out murdered President William McKinley’s term, Teddy Roosevelt pledged he would only serve one full term of his own, then his successor Taft became President. TR came to regret this decision, so he ran for president anyway, even though the establishment GOP stayed with Taft. This day the Progressive Bull Moose Party nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. 3rd Party candidate TR’s splitting the presidential ticket not only enabled democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the White House, but the Bull Moose movement drew off the progressive left wing of the Republican Party, causing the Party of Lincoln to drift to more the right.

1914-. This day German forces in Belgium capture the fortress city of Liege. It is the first success of General Eric Von Ludendorff, who drove up in a touring car, and banged on the city gates with his sword pommel.

1914 – The famous poster of Lord Kitchner pointing and saying "Your country needs you," spreads over the UK. James Montgomery Flagg later copied the poster for the American version with Uncle Sam in a similar pose. Lord Asquith commented that by now the elderly soldier Kitchener made "a better poster than a general."

1919- the First Actor’s Equity Strike.

1928- The US Treasury issued a smaller, leaner dollar bill. Before this dollars were two times larger and wider than the ones we now use.

1931 Jazz trumpeter Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke, died at 29 of drink and drugs. Bix along with his idol Louis Armstrong was considered one of the first jazz musicians to popularize the solo-riff, where in the body of a song the soloist would depart from the arrangement and improvise, like a cadenza in classical music. His family in Davenport Iowa were horrified that their son dropped out of school to associate with musicians and black people. Even after Bix was famous, he returned proudly home only to discover his parents had stacked up every record he sent them in a box under the stairs. They had never listened to a single one.

1933-The first "Alley-Oop" comic strip.

1942- GUADALCANAL BEGINS-10, 000 Marines landed on the Japanese held island in the first American offensive of World War II. Americans at home had to learn names like Tulagi, Savo Island, Gaivutu-Tanonbogo, Chesty Puller and Washing Machine Charlie as their loved ones slugged it out for six months in one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific War. The evenly matched Japanese and Americans went at each other with everything from bayonets to battleships. So many ships were sunk in the island’s lagoon that they nicknamed it "Ironbottom Sound".

1942-The first days aerial dogfights over Guadalcanal, Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai won fame for shooting down his 58th, 59th and 60th planes. In this days dogfight his Zero was badly shot up by Gruman F-4 Wildcats. Sakai was paralyzed on his left side and had one eye shattered by a bullet. Yet even in this state he managed to fly his plane 500 miles to home base safely. In the air for 8 1/2 hours, he said he would occasionally thrust a thumb into his eye wound to give himself a shot of pain to keep awake.
Sakai survived, fought at Iwo Jima in 1944, volunteered for Kamikaze duty,

but flew back with honor when he could find no suitable targets. He survived the war and wrote a best selling memoir- Zero Pilot. He died in 2000 at age 84.

1953- President Eisenhower granted Ohio statehood retroactively 150 years later. It seems when Ohio joined the union in 1803 Congress screwed up the enabling legislation so Ohio was never officially a state. Local historians were preparing for an anniversary celebration when they uncovered the glitch.

1963- Pres. John F. Kennedy and Jacky Kennedy tried to have one more baby, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, but he was born with a breathing disorder and died two days later.

1964-THE TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION-After the Tonkin Gulf Incident, President Johnson asked for permission to act in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war. Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution 93-2 in the Senate and 410-0 in the House to accelerate the U.S. combat troops role in Vietnam. President Johnson used the hotline to the Kremlin for the first time, to assure Premier Khrushchev that the US did not plan to expand their role in IndoChina- (?) The American commitment went from 30,000 to 450,000, trillions of dollars and eventually destroyed Cambodia and Laos as well. Congressman Mark Hatfield- "I can’t get over the feeling we’re making a big mistake."

1968- James Brown recorded “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”, at the Vox Studios in Los Angeles. The single became a clarion call for the Black Power movement in the U.S.

1970 - Christine McVie joined the band Fleetwood Mac.

1970 – The first computer chess tournament.

1974- French daredevil Phillipe Petit strung a tightrope between the two 110 story towers of NY’s World Trade Center and walked across it. As New Yorkers watched in amazement, Petit kept his concentration by carrying on a conversation with the buildings.

1979- THE RUNAWAY WARS. Hollywood Cartoonist’s Union launched a strike against studios sending their animation jobs overseas.

1981- The Heavy Metal movie opened. Directed by Gerald Potterton.

1998- Simultaneous car bombs explode in front of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. It killed 100 and injured 2,200, many more innocent African bystanders than Americans. The bombs proved to be the work of the Al Qaeda organization.

2007- Leo Montulli, a programmer for Netscape, invented internet cookies. Do you accept them?
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is an “eminence grise”.

Answer: It means the power behind the throne. Someone who does not have an official position in the government yet exerts great influence on the leader. Like Clark Clifford was to Lyndon Johnson or Jared and Ivanka Trump was to Donald. From a friar who served as a scribe for the very powerful French Cardinal Richelieu. While he held no official position other than as a secretary, he had great influence with the Cardinal and was known to be instrumental in many religious and political decisions. Because he was a friar and not of the religious ruling orders, he wore grey robes, thus the nickname Eminence Grise (Grey Eminence). (FG)

Quiz: What is an “eminence grise”.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the medical term rhinorrhea more commonly known as?
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History for 8/6/2023
Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Daniel O'Connell "the Liberator", Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer), Louella Parsons, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Andy Warhol, Hoot Gibson, William B. Williams, Michelle Yeoh is 61, M. Night Shyamalan, Melissa George, Soliel Moon-Frye

1504- Birth of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I and was responsible for formulating the 39 Articles. An apocryphal story is that his long nose and inquisitive nature gave rise to the term, "Nosey Parker ".

1571-During the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Cypus this day its second largest city Famagusta fell after a one-year siege. The Turkish commander was so enraged at all the time and soldiers he lost to capture the city, that he ordered the Venetian commander General MarcAntonio Bragadino skinned alive and his hide nailed to the poop deck of his flagship.
The Bragadino Family later negotiated with Sublime Porte and regained possession of the skin, folded him up nicely and placed behind glass in his monument in the Church of San Giovanni et Paulo. When you enter the church today look to the right up high and you’ll see a bust with something that looks like a brown table napkin behind a glass plate. That’s General Bragadino.

1675- Czar Alexis forbade Russians to wear foreign hairstyles, except the nobility.

1774- Religious leader Ann Lee and a group of followers first arrived in America from England. They called themselves the United Believers in Christ's Second Coming, but were more popularly known as the Shakers.

1806- Napoleon ordered the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. This was a bit of international bookkeeping. The Empire existed if only on paper since 950 A.D. As Voltaire joked “ it wasn't really an Empire, it wasn't Roman (it was mostly German states) and it wasn't really that holy either”. The Austrian Empire and the Confederation of the Rhine States under French dominion took its place. After Waterloo it became Germany and Austria.

1825- Bolivia gained independence from Peru.

1840- NAPOLEON III'S ABORTIVE COUP. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of the first Napoleon and one day he decided since his uncle was a genius he must be a genius also. So he resolved to leave exile in Britain and overthrow the French Republic. In 1814 Napoleon just had to show up for the people to go wild and carry him to the palace on their shoulders.
So, Louis Napoleon appeared on the beach in Boulogne waving his sword and flag. Instead of cheering crowds, a local constable tried to arrest him for carrying an unlicensed firearm.
When the gun went off and hurt the constable, a mob chased Mr. Bonaparte back to his boat booing and laughing. While trying to row away the boat capsized and Napoleon III was picked up by a fishing boat while clinging to a lifebuoy. A minister in Paris said of the affair: "That blockhead! Everything would be easier if he would just drown himself!" Louis Napoleon later ran for office, was elected premier in 1848, then became France's second emperor in 1852.

1890- FIRST MAN ELECTROCUTED- Prison officials wanted a more humane way to execute badguys than hanging, after a 300 pound killer named Mad Jack Ketcham made everybody sick when the hangman’s noose ripped his head off. So, they turned to the miracle of the age, electricity. A spirited competition began between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse whether AC or DC current was more lethal. Lots of dogs and cats around their laboratories disappeared for test subjects. Edison wanted to call his device an "Automort" or "Electramort".
When Edison knew he was going to lose the contract he suggested the inventor give his name to it." Joe will be Westinghoused at midnight!"-etc. Finally it was simply the Chair, Sparky, or the Hot Seat. The first man in it, an axe murderer named William Kemmler, took several 17 second jolts to be sent off, his hair and jacket caught fire and his shoes melted and stuck to the floor.

1890- Cy Young pitches and wins his first game.

1914 –The first German zeppelin raid. A Zeppelin bombs the Belgian city of Liege, 9 killed.

1926- Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel.

1926- Warner Brothers Studio premiered its motion picture sound on disk system. The film was Don Juan with John Barrymore the Great Profile. It didn’t really have much impact until they made the "Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson a year later.

1930- Judge Crater disappeared. The New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater had given no indication of any trouble, but he had accrued huge gambling debts and was known to be connected with crooked politicians. The judge had dinner with some friends at the Stork Club and told them he would join them later at the theater. He got into a taxi at 43rd street and vanished forever. It was the media story of the year. One paper called him “ the missingest man in New York.”

1932- Top Broadway singer Libby Hollman "Statue of Libby" had popularized torch songs and strapless gowns. She had married quiet tobacco millionaire Zachary Smith Reynolds of R.J. Reynolds and moved to his North Carolina estate. But life on the farm was boring, so Libby brought her Broadway friends down to party. After one party, she was missing for several hours and came home with grass stains on her knees and a wry smile. The couple quarreled and Smith Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head. Libby and a friend were indicted for murder, but the R. J. Reynolds Family had the charges dropped to avoid a prolonged scandal. It was ruled a suicide or accident. No one was ever charged.

1934- Charles Addams first New Yorker cartoon featuring the Addams Family.

1945- HIROSHIMA- At around 9:15 A.M. Capt. Paul Tibbetts and his B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped one bomb that destroyed an entire city, and sent us into the Atomic Age. The uranium device was called the "Cosmic Bomb" by the scientists and "Little Boy" by the crew. Navy Secretary Admiral Leahy had said:" It's the biggest damn fool thing we've ever done. It'll never go off!"
When it did go off, one crewmember shouted: "Wow! Lookit that sonofabitch go! This war is over!!" The navigator wrote in his journal" My God! What have we done?" The target city of Hiroshima was selected because it was undamaged up until then, and the surrounding hills would concentrate its effect. The A-bomb killed around 130,000 people and continued to kill survivors with radiation and cancer. 50,000 people were vaporized outright leaving only shadows burned into the pavement.
Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's main designer, had built it primarily to stop Hitler -both the Nazis and Japanese had their own unsuccessful atomic weapon programs. He was still horrified by the results. He became a lifelong pacifist and was later persecuted for refusing any more help in developing nuclear weapons.

1959- Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest went into wide release.

1962- Jamaica gained independence from Britain.

1970- THE HIPPIES ATTACKED DISNEYLAND- A nationwide call for civil disobedience at the famous American-establishment tourist spot was called for August 6th. Called "Yippie Day" Yippies were considered more radical than Hippies. 750 long haired, denim clad young teens filtered into park. Once in they quickly massed, then invaded the Wilderness Fort in Frontierland. There they raised the Vietcong flag, passed out marijuana to tourists and chanted "Stop the War! Free Charlie Manson!" They were finally expelled with great difficulty by park security and the Anaheim police. In the 1980’s Disney was almost invaded by Nazi skinheads, but this time they were ready.

1973- Stevie Wonder was involved in car crash. After being in a coma for 4 days he recovered completely.

1984- Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track & field at the Olympic Games in LA.

1991- Tim Berners Lee of CERN announced the world wide web, aka www. Today the first website of the web went online- http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

1998- A White House student intern from LA named Monica Lewinsky testified to a Federal Grand Jury that she had sex with President Bill Clinton in a small room down the hall from the Oval Office. Hey, watch where ya put that cigar!

1999- I see dead people..” The Sixth Sense premiered.

2001- One month before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a study that increased terrorist chatter meant some kind of attack was likely. The report was entitled OSAMA BEN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN CONTINENTAL US. That the terrorists may use hijacked civilian airliners. President Bush thanked them:” Okay, you’ve covered your ass...” then resumed clearing brush on his ranch. CIA chief George Tenant didn’t think it important enough to even show up.
Later in 2003 after the 9-11 attack, National Security adviser Dr. Condoleeza Rice was quoted in hearings " No one could predict terrorists would hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Bush and Cheney said the fault was poor intelligence. CIA intelligence chief Tenant was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

2009- Director John Hughes died of a sudden heart attack at age 59. He had directed hits like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Planes Trains and Automobiles and more.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the medical term rhinorrhea more commonly known as?

Answer: It is the clinical term for a runny nose.

Quiz: What is the medical term rhinorrhea more commonly known as?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the difference between a punch and a sucker punch?
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History for 8/5/2023
Birthdays: Guy de Maupassant, Amboise Thomas, William- first black child born in British America, Neil Armstrong, John Huston, Robert Taylor, Conrad Aiken, Roman Gabriel, Selma Diamond, Patrick Ewing, Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man, Loni Anderson, John Saxon, Jonathan Silverman is 52

Feast of St. Afra, a German prostitute who was burned to death rather than worship idols.” My body hath sinned but my soul is pure.”

1583 - The HMS Squirrel brought the first English settlement within sight of Newfoundland. After the first rough winter the colony failed. The boat retrieving the colonists sank in a storm and all were drowned. A colony planted in Roanoke Virginia by Raleigh two years later also failed. The first permanent British colony wouldn’t succeed until Jamestown in 1607.

1667- Moliere’s comedy “Tartuffe” first played for the public. The next day the Parliament of Paris ordered the theater closed and its posters ripped down. The Archbishop of Paris threatened excommunication of anyone who saw it or performed it. It seemed the Church didn’t like all the jokes about a con man who steals everything from a family by pretending to be a priest. But King Louis XIV thought it was funny. He overruled the prelates and ordered the play resumed.

1769- Marching up the California coast, Gaspar de Portola discovered the San Fernando Valley. He came down out of the Sepulveda pass, turned west along a trail that would one day be Ventura Blvd. and went over to the Chumash village by a spring. They called it Encino, Spanish for grove of oaks. The original Indian word for this valley was “Valley of Smoke” because of all the brush fires creating a lingering haze.

1775- 1st Spanish ship, the San Carlos, entered San Francisco Bay.

1847 -Author Herman Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne. They went for a hike together in the Berkshires.

1864-“ DAMN THE TORPEDOES!” Admiral David Farragut at Mobile Bay, Alabama. The Union Navy captured one of last Southern deep water ports. As the US warships in a line ran the heavy cannon of the rebel forts, a lead ship exploded from a floating mine called a torpedo. This stacked up the ship traffic under the enemy guns like a shooting gallery.
Admiral Farragut shouted, “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead! “ He pushed his flagship the USS Hartford to the lead and gambled the remaining booby traps would be duds. They were. They also defeated the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, who’s captain Franklin Buchanan had commanded the Merrimac two years earlier. Even though Farragut had closed the port to Confederate ships, the North couldn’t spare troops to capture the city. So the city of Mobile Alabama didn’t surrender until four days after Lee surrendered to Grant in 1865.

1882- On little Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, on top of an old War of 1812 fort, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty set. The statue had arrived in pieces from France. Some assembly required. Donations for the statue’s construction were collected by a national fundraiser organized by newspaper tycoon Josef Pulitzer.

1888- Shortly after her husband Dr Karl Benz invented the internal combustion engine, his wife Bertha Benz took her two children on the first long distance car trip in history. 66 miles in 12 hours. When the wooden brakes wore out too easily, she stopped at a blacksmith and had him create some out of leather. The first brakepads. After her two boys had to push the car up a hill, she suggested to her husband he invent a third gear. He did and kept the brakepads idea too.

1891- the American Express Company introduces Travelers Checks.

1910- The first Traffic Light set up on Euclid and 105th St. in Cleveland.

1921- KDKA Pittsburgh does the 1st radio baseball broadcast Pirates-8, Phillies-0.

1924- Arf, Arf ! the first Little Orphan Annie comic strip drawn by Harold Gray.

1926- Magician Harry Houdini stays in a coffin under water for one hour.

1927- RCA-Victrola record producer Ralph Peer realized there might be a market for “Hillbilly Music”. He set up a makeshift recording studio above a furniture store in Bristol Tennessee, and put an ad in the local papers for talent. In one day, he recorded stars Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, The Carter Family, The Tennessee Mountaineers and Ernest “Pop” Stoneman. This session has been called the “Big Bang of Country Music.”

1940- The Day of the Eagle. The first German raids by the Luftwaffe over England. Mostly to probe defenses and attack coastal radar installations. This was the beginning of the Battle of Britain.

1945- At Tinian airbase The atomic uranium bomb “Little Boy” was loaded onto the B-29 bomber Enola Gay after traveling by ship from Hawaii. The crew will take off at 5:00 am next morning.

1945- THE INDIANAPOLIS The ship that carried the Atomic bombs, the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-168 on the way back from Tinian Island. Because the Indianapolis was under top secret radio silence it took five days for the Navy to realize that she was even missing. By the time rescue planes reached the site most of her sailors had drowned or had been eaten by sharks. Out of 1,100 sailors in the water only 300 were rescued. Survivors recalled how they could feel the sharks noses bumping into the soles of their feet, then another comrade would disappear under water.
This day the plane that discovered them did so by accident. He had spotted the oil slick and assumed it was a submerged Japanese submarine and was closing in to drop a bomb when he saw the men’s heads bobbing in the water. The Navy courtmartialed the ship’s Captain McVay for gross negligence. They even called the commander of the Japanese submarine to testify. McVay never got over the shame and committed suicide in 1968. In the movie Jaws, old salt Robert Shaw recounted the story of the Indianapolis.

1953- The film “From Here to Eternity” opened, starring Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. But the big story was Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning performance as Maggio that signaled the turnaround in his slumping career.

1953- Operation Big Switch- a large exchange of prisoners of war in the Korean conflict. At this time when some American POW’s refused to come home the charge was made of “Brain Washing”, that the Red Chinese used extreme psychological pressure to alter prisoners behavior.

1955- The Screen Actor’s Guild strikes Hollywood for television residuals. Their president was Walter Pidgeon who had played Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.

1956- Chuck Jones short Rocket By Baby premiered. “Mot!”

1957- American Bandstand featuring the eternally teenage Dick Clark debuts on television.

1961- The theme park Six Flags over Texas first opened.

1962- GOODBYE, NORMA JEAN. Marilyn Monroe found nude in bed, dead of barbiturate overdose. She was 36. Whether you think the starlet overdosed by accident, suicide, or was done in by the Mafia, the Kennedys, a Svengali like personal physician, lovesick lesbian physical therapist or space aliens, it is still a mystery. She made a call to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s office in Washington several hours earlier but was rebuffed. Her last call was to her hairdresser Mr. Guilaroff. She left the bulk of her belongings to her drama teacher Lee Strassberg and her funeral was organized by ex-husband, baseball star Joe DiMaggio. Her Westwood cottage had a tile over the doorway which read :"All my troubles end Here."

1963- The US, Britain and USSR sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

1964 - Actress Anne Bancroft & Comedian Mel Brooks wed.

1966- Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino first opened to the public. This was the first of the super-resort casinos, with a total theme park design and three times the space and accommodations of anything yet seen on the Vegas Strip. Its success ushered in an accelerated era of building for Las Vegas casinos.

1966 –It a moment of youthful indiscretion, John Lennon declared his band the Beatles were now more popular than Jesus. This flippant comment provoked a firestorm of nationwide protest among conservative elements in the US. Beatles albums were publicly burned in the streets. Lennon apologized, then followed up by saying he was being crucified over the comment. Paul McCartney rushed up to the mike to insist that wasn't the choice of words they preferred.

1967- Bobby Gentry released “Ode to Billy Jo”.

1980- The Osmond Brothers break up.

1984- Welsh actor Richard Burton died of cerebral hemorrhage at 64. With a tumultuous career and two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor, the hard drinking Burton was the most famous English-speaking actor of his day. But unlike Olivier and Gielgud, he was never knighted. The monarchy objected to their portrayal when Burton starred in a TV miniseries on Winston Churchill. Burton was buried with a copy of Dylan Thomas’ poems in his pocket.

1984- Joan Benoit won the first Women’s Olympic Marathon.

1986 - It's revealed painter Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings & paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf, in Chadds Ford, Pa

1994- JUDGE KENNETH STARR appointed by the Newt Gingrich Congress to be special prosecutor to investigate wrongdoing by President Clinton in his Whitewater financial dealings.
When the Whitewater affair proved a cold lead, he came upon the Travelgate, Paula Jones and the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Yet Starr never garnered much support because the public perceived his probe as just another political vendetta. While many Watergate investigators were fellow Republicans, Judge Starr was an openly declared enemy of Bill Clinton. And his blunt tactics brought up disturbing memories of McCarthyism- like his ordering the arrest of a D.C. bookshop owner who refused to hand over his receipts and berating jurors who deadlocked over two counts against Clinton’s law partners.
After $54 million tax dollars spent, Congress voted impeachment of the President for lying under oath. But that effort was defeated and Clinton served out his term. Judge Starr became president of Baylor University in Texas. In 2016 was forced to resign due to his cover up of a teacher-student sex scandal.

1995- The infamous SIGGRAPH party at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. Titled Nailed: An Evening on the Cultural Frontier. When the very conservative Nixon Library was approached about the party, they heard it was a limited invitation event sponsored by ILM and Silicon Graphics. What could go wrong? What they got was 3,000 drunken, pot smoking hippies and computer nerds. The grounds were festooned with scantily clad Brazilian Carnival dancers, snake charmers, sword swallowers, Japanese Taiko drummers, and the bands Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone. LSD guru Timothy Leary held a mock exorcism over Nixon’s grave. SIGGRAPH Orlando chapter president said” It was wonderful! I doubt Richard Nixon would have appreciated any of this!”

2001- In a throwback to the long dead Communist era, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il visited Moscow to meet with Russian leaders. Flanked by goose stepping soldiers he laid a wreath at the tomb of Lenin. Russian President Putin let him sleep in a Kremlin suite his father Kim Il Sung slept in 50 years earlier, as the guest of Stalin. Terrified of flying, Kim made the 6,000 mile trip from Pyongyang by train, pausing to visit a tank factory. The only reaction was annoyance from Moscow workers. Kim’s private train had jammed up their morning commute.
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Yesterdays’ Quiz: What is the difference between a punch and a sucker punch?

Answer: It means to suddenly strike someone when they were not expecting it.

Quiz: What is the difference between a punch and a sucker punch?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What famous military general also composed classical music that is still played today?
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History for 8/4/2023
Birthdays: Percy Shelley, Hans Christian Andersen, Nicholas Conte' 1755-inventor of the modern pencil and the conte'-crayon, Louis Armstrong, William Pater, Dr. Alexander Schure, Richard Belzer, Franco Corelli, Elizabeth-England's late Queen Mum, Roger Clemens, runner Mary Decker-Slaney, Billy-Bob Thornton is 69, former President Barack Obama is 62

1181- Arab astronomers noted a supernova in the constellation Cassiopia.

1265- Battle of Evesham –Young Prince Edward Longshanks defeated the rebellious barons holding his father King Henry III of England captive. The leader of the rebel barons, Simon de Monfort had forced the King to acknowledge his creation of a House of Commons in Parliament. For that act old DeMonfort was so hated by the King's men that even after he was slain in battle they continued to chop his body to bits in a blind rage. But it was too late. Nothing could end the institution of a parliament of common men, curbing the capricious power of kings.

1578- Battle of Alcazar El Kebhir- King Sebastien of Portugal’s attempt to restart the long defunct Crusades, this time in Morocco, ended when he was defeated and killed.

1693- “Come quickly Martin, I am tasting stars!” monk Dom Perignon invented champagne. Others say this is baloney, Benedictine monk Pierre Perignon was indeed involved in the development of the Method Champagnoise, but the quote was invented for an advertisement in the 1880s.

1735- N.Y. newspaper editor John Peter Zenger had been writing articles criticizing the Royal Governor for corruption. Past governors of New York, Maryland and North Carolina were known to be fences for pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard. This day German born Zenger's newspaper was shut down, and he was arrested for 'Seditious Libel". His trial and acquittal were seen as the first great victory in America for Freedom of the Press.

1753- George Washington became a Master Mason in the Freemason Lodge #4 of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The first Masonic lodge in America was founded in 1730 by Benjamin Franklin. Some think Freemasons akin to Fred Flintstone’s Waterbuffalo Lodge, but in the 1700’s, Freemasonry had strong political anti-clerical ramifications. Most European intellectuals –Voltaire, Mozart, Casanova, Lafayette, and Goethe were masons. Most U.S. Presidents were freemasons.

1776- The nice printed up Declaration of Independence we all recognize was officially signed. The declaration approved on July 2nd and published on July 4th was the rough draft. This day John Hancock signed that big flowing signature "So old King George won't need his spectacles". Today a nickname for a signature is a John Hancock. It was a gutsy thing to do, the signatures would be their death warrants if the rebellion had failed.
During the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington D.C. the Declaration was hidden under a doorstep in Baltimore. For 30 years the Declaration hung in a window of the government patents office so people on the street could admire it. After few decades, the sun bleached the words almost to invisibility. Today millions are being spent on restoration efforts, like encasing it in pure helium.

1782- In Vienna’s St Stephen Cathedral, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber, the aunt of composer Karl Maria von Weber. Mozart had first proposed to Constanze's sister, but she chose another. They had several children, but only two survived to adulthood. They both died childless.

1789- The French Revolutionary Assembly abolished forever all rights of the nobility in France. The French aristocracy made up less than 1% of the population yet were given over 20% of the nation’s budget to play with, and they paid no taxes on their lands. The Revolutionaries also abolished the system of High-Law and Low-Law. In other words if some randy old Duke took a fancy to your wife or sister, you could do nothing but smile and hope he gave her some money for her trouble. These things more than the “Let Them Eat Cake” quote made people dance around the guillotine.

1821- 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post -published until 1969.

1855 - John Bartlett publishes his first book of "Familiar Quotations"

1874- Methodist clergyman John Vincent and Ohio businessman Lewis Miller began the Chautauqua Assembly in Northwestern New York. Under large summer tents lectures and training were given to Sunday school teachers and other church workers. The Chautauqua Movement grew into a national movement for religious revival and became a conservative rural force in turn of the century national politics.

1892-" Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when he saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.", etc. In Fall River Mass, Andrew and Abbie Borden were found brutally murdered and their daughter Elisabeth was accused. Ms. Borden pleaded innocence and cited a long history of abuse from her parents. She was acquitted but the murderer was never found. When Lizzie died peacefully in 1927 she left $30,000 to the ASPCA.

1914- WWI- grey clad spiked helmeted armies begin crossing into Belgian territory to deliver their knockout blow against France- aka the Schefflein Plan. This strategy violated the neutrality of Belgium which had been agreed to by treaty since 1839. When this was protested, German minister Bethman-Holveig bragged "we shall not be held by a scrap of paper!" This outrage brought England into the war against Germany and made handsome young King Albert of the Belgians into an international celebrity. Ironically, professional diplomat Betthman-Holveig had worked tirelessly for the last three weeks to try and prevent the war, but by now he was reduced to a mere a mouthpiece for the army.

1918- Young corporal Adolf Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, for bravery. He was quite proud of it and wore it on his uniform for the rest of his life. The German officer who recommended Hitler, and pinned his medal on him, Captain Hugo Gutmann, was a Jew.

1921 The Motion Picture Fund created.

1922- In honor of the passing of Alexander Graham Bell, all 13 million telephones in the United States observed three minutes of silence.

1925- Conrad Hilton opened the first Hilton Hotel in Dallas Texas.

1940- The Mayor of Montreal was arrested for telling French-Canadian citizens to resist the military draft to fight for Britain in World War II.

1942- The Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire-Marjorie Reynolds film the Holiday Inn released. The film featured Irving Berlin hit songs like White Christmas and Easter Parade, but is hardly ever shown anymore because the Lincoln’s Birthday skit featured the cast in embarrassing minstrel blackface, singing “ ‘bout Massa Lincoln”.

1944- British pilot T.D. “Dixie” Dean used his new Gloster Meteor jet plane to bump the wing of a German V-1 buzz bomb, causing it to flip over off course.

1944- Acting on a tip from a neighbor, the Gestapo discovered and arrested 16 year old Anne Frank and her family in their hiding place in an Amsterdam warehouse. All were sent to Auschwitz. Only her father Otto survived.

1955 –President Eisenhower authorized $46 million for construction of CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia.

1956- Elvis Presley released his version of the Big Mama Mabel Thornton song, "You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog".

1964- The TONKIN GULF INCIDENT. The incident that began the U.S. phase of the Vietnam War. North Vietnamese gunboats attacked the USS Maddox and the Turner Joy patrolling off their coast. The US claimed they were in international waters but the Pentagon Papers revealed that the Maddox was deliberately sent close in to the shore to provoke the Vietnamese to attack. The Maddox's captain testified he was 30 miles offshore when in reality he was 3 miles. For months the CIA had been conducting hit and run naval raids on the Vietnamese coast, but that was all still top secret. Although the U.S. already had advisers in the Vietnam for years this incident provided Pearl-Harbor style pretext President Lyndon Johnson needed to escalate U.S. involvement up to 450,000 combat troops and trillions of dollars.
Johnson had told his press attache' Bill Moyers:" Bill, if this Vietnam thing comes off I'll go down as one of the great presidents of this century, if not I'll be the goat.".....

1964- Rand Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg’s first day working at the Pentagon. Ellsberg would be the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

1984- Actor Johnny Depp opened his own club on the Sunset Strip called the Viper Room. The original club on that site had once been owned by mobster Bugsy Siegel.

1993- Japan admitted that during World War II they forced 200,000 Korean and Chinese women to become “comfort women”- i.e., prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers. The army organized this policy after in 1937 the massed rapes of Chinese women in Nanking made them look bad in the world press.

1995-“Babe” a charming movie about a little talking pig written and directed by George Miller and Chris Noonan.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What famous military general also composed classical music that is still played today?

Answer: Frederick the Great, King of Prussia in the 1750s. When not fighting wars, he was friends with Bach and is sons, and practiced his flute four times a day. His flute concertos are pretty good.

Quiz: What famous military general also composed classical music that is still played today?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: There is painting, and there is plien-air painting. What is the difference?
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History for 8/3/2023
Birthdays: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Elisha Otis inventor of the elevator, John T. Scopes- the teacher accused in the Monkey Trial, Habib Bourguiba, Ernie Pyle, Gene Kelly, Lenny Bruce, John Landis, Jay North, Dolores Del Rio, Leon Uris, Ann Klein, Martha Stewart, Corey Burton, Tony Bennett, Martin Sheen is 83, John C. McGinley is 64

Happy National Mustard Day

216 B.C. THE BATTLE OF CANNAE. Hannibal's defeat of a much larger Roman army in Italy is one of the great pieces of strategy still studied today. This victory annihilated the top Roman leaders and left nothing between Hannibal and the gates of Rome. Yet Hannibal uncharacteristically hesitated. His cavalry commander Mago snarled:" You know how to win battles, but not a war." The Romans recovered, eventually drawing him off to Africa to protect his home city Carthage, where he was ultimately defeated by Scipio Africanis.

48 B.C.-Battle of Pharsalia- Julius Caesar decisively defeated his rival Pompey Magnus in northern Greece to become undisputed leader of Rome.

1305- Scots warrior William Wallace was betrayed to the English and captured while visiting the Glasgow house of a man named Robert Roe.

1347- THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS- When King Edward III attacked France to press his claim for its throne, the first city he attacked was the port city of Calais. After a long vicious siege, the leaders of Calais agreed to surrender. England held Calais for 250 years. King Edward wanted to hang the burghers (city leaders) because of their stubborn resistance, but they were spared after pleas of mercy from Edward’s Queen. August Rodin created a beautiful statuary group the Burghers of Calais. The six men loaded down with chains and ropes around their necks, defiance still radiating in their faces, became a symbol of resistance for all oppressed peoples.

1460- Scottish King James II “Fire Face” had a thing for cannon. He imported a number of the newfangled things from Flanders to blow holes in his enemy’s castles. This day, he was besieging the castle of Roxburgh, when a cannon he was firing blew up in his face and killed him. Ouch!

1492- One half hour before dawn, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. This was the first of four voyages west in search of the Indies. He took a linguist fluent in Turkish, Sanskrit and Hebrew to speak to any natives they might encounter.

1529- The Ladies Peace of Cambrai- The King Francis I of France and German Emperor Charles V fought a series of bloody wars over who controlled Italy. Their hatred was so extreme that they even considered a personal duel. Nothing seemed to solve this feud, and Europe was being wrecked. Finally, Francis’ mother Louise of Savoy and Charles’ aunt Margaret of Austria, met without their permission and concluded a peace treaty without them.

1553- Mary Tudor the eldest daughter of the late King Henry VIII entered London in triumph. The schemes and corruption of the Duke of Somerset regency had been such a mess that even Protestant London was glad to have a real queen, even if she was Catholic. People brought out tables of food, danced and celebrated all night.

1610 - Englishman Henry Hudson with the Dutch fleet discovered a great bay on the Northeast coast of Canada and named it for himself- Hudson’s Bay.

1745- Bonnie Prince Charlie stepped on the soil of Scotland- at Arisca in the Hebrides. When a frightened Scottish lord asked him to go home, Charles Stuart replied:” But I am home.” The English Parliament offered a reward of 30,000 pounds for his arrest. So began the Great Highland Uprising, the last great campaign on British Soil.

1769- Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola made the first-ever recorded mention of the La Brea "tar pits" in Los Angeles: "The 3rd, we proceeded for three hours on a good road; to the right of it were extensive swamps of bitumen which is called chapapote. We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes.”

1807- Former Vice President Aaron Burr went on trial for treason. Burr had been organizing a private army in Louisiana territory to conquer Texas. President Jefferson accused him of plotting to use that army to make himself dictator of the United States.

1823- English Poet Lord Byron arrived in Greece, burning with a desire to help the Greeks attain independence.

1852- The first Harvard-Yale boat race.

1858- British explorer John Speeckes discovered Lake Victoria Nyanza, the source of the Nile River. The question of the Nile's origins had become a cause celebre among British explorers and debate raged fiercely. Speeckes was traveling with famed Orientalist Richard Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights stories, but Burton absented himself from the last leg of the journey because he was weak with malaria. He regretted this decision for the rest of his life and grew to hate Speeckes. Speeckes and Burton began a feud that may or may not have contributed to Speeckes accidental suicide in 1864.

1882- Congress passed the first Immigration Act, trying to restrict what had been an open door policy since the Pilgrims. But the act had a heavy European bias. Chinese immigrants were banned for ten years.

1916- Sir Roger Casement was hanged for treason. Casement was an Anglo-Irish patriot who arranged with Germany to smuggle guns to Dublin for the Irish Easter Sunday Uprising. He also exposed human rites violations done by the Belgians in the Congo and against Indigenous tribes in Peru. He had been called the “Father of Twentieth Century Human Rights Investigators.” After his conviction, many leading English intellectuals like Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and George Bernard Shaw urged mercy for Casement. But the government published his “black diaries” taken from his home that proved he was gay. All the bad publicity silenced the mercy movement, and Sir Roger went to the gallows.

1921- The first aerial crop dusting in Troy, Ohio to kill caterpillars.

1933- The first Mickey Mouse watches go on sale. For $2.95 each.

1935- Mickey’s Fire Brigade, directed by Ben Sharpsteen.

1936- Jesse Owen’s won gold in the 100m dash at the Berlin Olympics.

1943- In Sicily, Gen. George Patton while touring a field hospital encountered a Pvt. Herman Kuhl. Private Kuhl wasn't physically wounded, but suffering from dysentery, malaria and PTSD. But all he could say to the general was he was nervous. Patton angrily accused him of cowardice and slapped him down. Then he kicked him out of the tent. Allied High Command ordered Patton to apologize to Kuhl and the entire army, then recalled him to England. He would have no part in military actions until after D-Day, to the amazement of the Nazi generals. They thought it was some kind of allied trick to fool them.

1948- Now that Baseball was finally integrated, Satchel Page, genius of the Negro Leagues, makes his belated Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians. A 45 year old rookie. Page once said:" Don't look back, something may be gaining on you."

1948- Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers publicly denounced a top Truman presidential aide Alger Hiss of being a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a protégé of both Franklin Roosevelt and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Hiss investigation eventually convicted Hiss of espionage based on the 'pumpkin papers', incriminating documents on microfilm Chambers said were found hidden in a pumpkin. The senate investigation shot to national prominence a new young congressman named Richard Nixon.

1949 -The National Basketball League is founded.

1958 – USN nuclear submarine Nautilus crossed the North Pole under the icecap.

1961- The first airline hijacked to Cuba.

1963 –Unemployed television producer Alan Sherman used to make friends laugh with songs he improved at the piano. They encouraged him to publish an album. Called “My Son the Folksinger” it contained the hit “Sarah Backman, Sarah Backman, Hows By You?” A song from his third album, My Son the Nut, “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, Here I am at, Camp Granada” and became a sensation.

1966- While celebrating his 40th birthday, Comedian Lenny Bruce died of a herion overdose. The groundbreaking raunchy comedian who coined the term “T & A” was arrested in 1964 and charged with obscenity for using the "F" word in his act. President Johnson and his opponent Senator Barry Goldwater would swear frequently in private, but comedians were only supposed to make mother-in-law jokes.
.Lenny Bruce did six months in jail, and left broken physically and financially. No club would dare hire him. Phil Spector said: “Lenny died of an overdose of cops”. Today he is the patron-saint for all modern stand-up comedy.

1975- The Louisiana Superdome stadium was dedicated. The first dome stadium. Some football coaches like Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears were skeptical:” Football is meant to be played in snow and mud. Dome stadiums are for Roller Derby!”

1981- U.S. Air traffic controllers (PATCO) go on strike despite Pres. Reagan's warning they would be fired. Reagan was once president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Ironically the only U.S. President who has ever been a labor leader, was the most union-busting president of all time.

1996- The Macarena, by Los Del Rio, becomes the #1 hit worldwide dance craze.

2012- At the London Olympics, swimmer Michael Phelps won his final race. That made his total earning 22 Olympic medals, 17 of them gold.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: There is painting, and there is plien-air painting. What is the difference?

Answer: "Plein-air" means painting outside, in the "open air,” rather than in a studio. It emphasizes the natural palette and effects of natural light. (thanks FG)