Question: On a ship, what does it mean when you have to “go to the head”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: There is the Roman Catholic Church. But what does it mean to use the word catholic, small c, as an adjective?
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HISTORY FOR 11/24/2023
Birthdays: Spinoza, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Scott Joplin, Zachary Taylor, Carrie Nation, Dick Powell, Garson Kanin, Cass Gilbert-the architect of the first skyscraper, Alvan Barkley-Truman’s VP, Forrest J. Ackerman, William F. Buckley, John Lindsay, Dale Carnegie- author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, Steve Yeager, Denise Crosby, Billy Connolly is 82
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800 AD- Charlemagne or Charles the Great, the King of the Franks (France), arrived in Rome to spend the Christmas season with his old pal Pope Leo III. At the Christmas service, Pope Leo would crown him Emperor.

1221- The Mongol horde of Genghis Khan destroyed the Persian army of Shah Jelalladin in the Indus Valley in present northwestern Pakistan.

1326- Hugh Despenser the Younger, onetime gay lover of King Edward II, was executed by order of Eddie’s wife, Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France. Lashed to a high ladder, she ordered his penis and testicles amputated and burned in front of him before he was disemboweled and cut his heart out.

1440- The Black Dinner- Sir Alex Livingston and Sir William Crichton were the regents ruling Scotland in the name of boy King James II Stewart. They were concerned about the loyalty of the Douglas Clan. So this night they had the Earl of Douglas and his brother over to Edinburgh Castle for dinner. At one point during the dinner a black bulls head on a dish was presented. This was the signal to grab the Douglas’s, who were peremptorily tried and beheaded on the spot.

Edinburgh Castle, town and tower,
God grant ye sink for sin;
And that even for The Black Dinner,
Earl Douglas get there-in…

1681- YOU UGLY MUG! The Earl of Shaftesbury acquitted of treason. In the politics of King Charles II’s England the Earl was frequently in opposition to the Kings policy. He started the first political party in loyal opposition, the Green Ribbon Club, later the Whig Party. This was a new idea. Before this, disagreeing openly with the Crown was considered treason. But now after the English Civil War and the Restoration, open political debate was considered acceptable.
Politics at the time was discussed in coffee houses on Fleet St. where only wealthy gentry could afford to dally over a cup of rare Java or hot cocoa imported from the Americas. The Earl of Shaftesbury’s face was printed on coffee mugs by his partisans, as were other images of leading politicians. This is when the word mug also came to mean a face:” I don’t like your mug!”

1688- English King James II was facing an invading army led by his own daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. This morning in his camp, the King awoke to find his own army had run away! In the middle of the night the commander of the royal army, the Duke of Marlborough, and all 40 of his generals deserted and went over to the other side. These defections ensured that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 would be bloodless and not a repeat of the English Civil War of 1642-49.

1789- The first issue of France’s national newspaper Le Moniteur.

1832- THE NULLIFIERS- A controversy had been brewing since the U.S. Constitution was adapted whether the individual states or federal government had the final say on a law. Southern states in particular declared they had the right to “nullify” Federal laws they didn’t agree with. This day South Carolina refused to pay a new tariff imposed by Washington. President Andy Jackson, also a southerner, angrily ordered the army to mobilize. But the crisis was averted by a compromise the following spring. The issue continues to plague U.S. politics to this day.

1859- Charles Darwin published his book on evolution, The Origin of the Species.

1863- THE BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS or Missionary Ridge. Gen. Grant's army had to break through a Confederate Army dug in on a mountaintop above Chattanooga, Tennessee. At first it was the 24th Wisconsin Infantry that was ordered to take the rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. This was intended as a diversion for the two flanking attacks occurring at the same time. When the Wisconsin soldiers swept the pits, they confused their orders and just continued the assault. They felt stopping for cover or retreating on the bare mountain slope was more suicidal than attacking. More units joined in the mad scramble up the mountainside and soon the mistake became a general assault that blew the rebel army off the summit. Grant had a great, if unplanned for victory.
The first soldier to plant the U.S. flag on the summit was Lt. Arthur MacArthur, the father of World War II hero General Douglas MacArthur. Lt. MacArthur picked up the regimental flag after the rest of the officers had been killed and led the charge up the slope, for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. How did Lt. MacArthur inspire his men? He kept yelling "On Wisconsin!" This tradition inspired the Wisconsin football fight song "On Wisconsin" still sung to this day and perennially voted one of the five best fight songs in college football.
In the early 1960s, the Wisconsin assault on Missionary Ridge was the subject of a crayon/pastel painting by a young recruit of the 101st Airborne Division. The painting is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The artist? Jimmy Hendrix.

1871- The National Rifle Association formed. For many years it was a benign association of amateur hunting and fishing enthusiasts. In 1991 CEO. Wayne LaPierre began filling its executive board with gun company executives and turning it into a major funder of lobbying for conservative culture war causes.

1874- Cacaobao, the high chief of the Cannibal Isles (modern Fiji) submitted to the British Empire. He figured they were going get it anyway. He sent Queen Victoria his personal war club as a gift.

1874- Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which made it possible to fence in the Great Plains for farming. In 1899 in the Boer War it was the white South African Boers who first came up with the idea of using barbed wire to slow down enemy infantry.
Since then, barbed wire has been used to keep people in or out.

1904- Alfred Steiglitz and Edward Steichen opened 291, the first art gallery dedicated exclusively to the art of photography.

1909- THE UPRISING OF THE TWENTY THOUSAND. Mary 'Mother' Jones led three fifths of the immigrant garment workers of New York out on strike to demand better conditions and recognition of their union, the ILGWU. Several Golden 400 socialites would meet the strikers at the old Water Tower in Greenwich Village to dispense food and day care. One of them was Betsy Morgan, the youngest daughter of J.P. Morgan, who was also involved in a lesbian affair with designer Elzie DeWolfe.

1922- Irish writer Erskine Childers was the writer of the Riddle of the Sands, one of the first true spy novels, but he was also a leader of the IRA, and after Irelands Treaty with Britain he sided with the anti-treaty rebels in the Irish Civil War. This day Erskine Childers was shot by an Irish Army firing squad. His son became President of Ireland in 1973.

1933- The RKO movie Flying Down to Rio released, meant as a starring vehicle for Dolores Del Rio, but what we remember is it is the first pairing of the famous dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

1937- The Andrew Sisters record their Boogie-Woogie version of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon”, an old Yiddish Klezmer song that was updated by Bennie Goodman.

1938- LENI DOES TINSELTOWN -Hitler's top filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl arrived in Hollywood to meet the film community and show off her new documentary 'Olympia". Nazis charges de’ affaires in L.A., Gerhard Gyssling, had bragged to the press that all Hollywood couldn’t wait to meet Reich’s top filmmaker. But Hollywood had different ideas. Sam Goldwyn said,” I’m not going to greet that N*zi bitch!” Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, Fox refused to speak to her and picketers hounded her every step. Well known Conservatives like Louis B. Mayer and Gary Cooper were polite but begged off the bad publicity.
The only studio heads who would meet Leni Reifenstahl were Hal Roach and Walt Disney. Uncle Walt gave her a tour of the studio but begged off running her film, saying the union projectionist would make trouble. ( uh-huh....) Years later Disney said he didn't really know who she was. (uh-huh......) In her 90s, Leni told LA historian Robert Nudleman that she thought Walt met her because his professional curiosity got the better of him. That he wanted to see Olympia, because it was the only film to beat his Snow White at the Venice Film Festival, then the world’s most prestigious film festival.

1941- After suffering a strike and declining revenue because of the war in Europe, Walt Disney’s studio was in trouble. Animator Ward Kimball noted in his diary for this day: “ 100 layoffs announced. Studio personnel from 1600 down to a Hyperion level of 300. Geez, It this the writing on the wall?”

1947- THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST- 50 Hollywood moguls like Harry Cohn, Jack Warner and Dore Shary met at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to formulate a group response to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee anti-commie hearings that were targeting Hollywood. Besides the heat from the feds their stockholders were clamoring for them to get the Reds out! They agreed to enforce an industry-wide blacklisting of anyone refusing to cooperate with the HUAC Committee. Nothing was ever officially written down or published, if you were blacklisted you suddenly were unable to find any work.
Eric Johnston, spokesman for the Motion Pictures Assoc. said on this day: "As long as I live, I will never be party ot anything as unAmerican as a blacklist!”.
Two days later on Nov. 26th he said: " We will forthwith discharge and never again knowingly employ a Communist. Loyalty oaths for the Entertainment Industry are now compulsory." Many Hollywood artists signed Communist Party cards in the 1930's when it was chic' to be lefty, and the Communists were the only open opponents of segregation and Hitler. Writer Bud Schulberg’s excuse was CP parties had the prettiest girls. Out of an estimated 15,000 entertainment workers only around 300 were ever actually proven to be Communists. Famous blacklist victims included Zero Mostel, Lillian Hellman, Lloyd Bridges, Dashell Hammett, Gale Sondergaard, Edward G. Robinson, Howard Da Silva, Ed Wynn, Sterling Hayden & Dalton Trumbo. Sidney Poitier was blacklisted for no other reason than he was friends with black activist-actor Canada Lee; 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' composer Yip Harburg was blacklisted for writing a song: “Happiness is a thing called Joe" which the committee took to mean Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

1948- Hib Johnson, the President of Johnson's Wax had just moved into a home designed for him by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Called Wingspread, it was considered the culmination of Wrights Prairie style. But there was a problem. Johnson called Frank Lloyd Wright to complain that the roof was leaking rainwater onto his Thanksgiving dinner! The water was leaking right on Hib's head as he sat at the head of the table. He refused to budge, and had the phone cord stretched so he could make the
call, and spoke to Wright with the drops splashing off his bald head. What was Frank Lloyd Wright’s response? " So move your table..."

1950- Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced his "Home by Christmas Offensive" to finish off the North Korean army and end the Korean War. The next day he was attacked by 180,000 Red Chinese. MacArthur was fired, and the war dragged on until 1953.

1950- The musical Guys & Dolls opened. “ I got da horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, I know a jock who tells me Never Fear, Can Do- Can Do..The Jock sez da horse can –do ”

1958- The musical film Gigi opened, music by Lerner & Lowe. Based on the writings of French author Collette, Collette herself had insisted young unknown Dutch actress Audrey Hepburn play the lead.

1958- Comedian Harry Einstein, known as Parkyakarkus, did his bit at the Friars Club. He sat down at amid the laughter and applause, put his head down and died of a heart attack. His son is comedian-filmmaker Albert Brooks.

1963- To complete the surreal drama that shocked America into the Sixties, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot on live nationwide T.V. by smalltime gangster Jack Ruby. He was taken to the same hospital and had the same doctors as Kennedy but still died. Ruby, real name Jacob Rubenstein, always hung around the Dallas police station, so no one thought it was unusual to see him around.

1968- Hey Jude by the Beatles topped the pop charts while Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man headed the Country & Western listing.

1991- Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the rock group Queen, died of AIDS. He was 45.

1988- Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered.

1998- America On Line bought their chief competitor Netscape.

1999- Pixar’s Toy Story 2. in theaters.

2000- Catherine Zeta-Jones married Michael Douglas.

2010- Disney’s Tangled released.
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Yesterday’s Question: There is the Roman Catholic Church. But what does it mean to use the word catholic, small c, as an adjective?

Answer: It means something universal, all-encompassing. So a catholic history would be a general history of all peoples. On a personal level it means having a wide, open perspective, an egalitarian outlook.

Question: What is meant by the Dark Side of the Moon? The moon is round. It has no sides.

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a homunculus?
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History for 11/22/2023
Birthdays: French explorer Sieur de LaSalle, George Elliot- pen name for Mary Anne Evans, Benjamin Britten, Charles DeGaulle, Andre Gide, Wiley Post, Billy Jean King, Boris Becker, Geraldine Page, John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Vaughn, Tom Conti, Mark Ruffalo, Victoria Paris- porn star of such classics like Bimbo Bowlers from Buffalo, Stevie Van Zandt is 72, Jamie Lee Curtis is 65, Terry Gilliam is 83, Scarlett Johanssen is 39

1220- Pope Honorius III crowned Frederick Barbarossa the Holy Roman Emperor.

1622- English poet John Donne ordained the deacon of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The poet had written some of the most erotic poetry in English literature, now he devoted himself just as fervently to religious contemplation.

1739- Georg Fredrich Handel premiered the oratorio Ode to Saint Cecilia’s Day.

1809- Baltimore native Peregrine Williamson was given a patent for a re-usable steel pen. This finally freed the western world from sharpening goose quills and other feathers to write.

1864- The Battle of Griswold. After Sherman’s army had burned Atlanta they began ravaging the Georgia countryside. Except for some horsemen most of the state was defenseless before the Union juggernaut.
This day, a pathetic collection of Georgia state militia led by a drunk pastor accidentally blundered into Sherman’s line of march. The untrained boys and elderly men were angry how the Yankees had burned their farms. So despite the ridiculous odds they attacked- 2,000 charged 34,000. Unlike the Hollywood movies, they were easily mowed down, and Sherman’s men resumed their march.

1880- Actress Lillian Russell made her debut on the New York Stage. Russell exemplified the sex appeal of the era- big figured, big bustle, tiny waist and big caboose.

1886- Melbourne’s Victoria Street Streetcar starts.

1888- According to Edgar Rice Burroughs, this is the birthday of the boy who would become Tarzan.

1903- Franklin Roosevelt proposed to his cousin Eleanor Roosevelt. She was President Teddy Roosevelt’s niece; Franklin was his 5th cousin. Uncle Teddy gave the bride away.

1916- Author Jack London died at 40 in Glen Ellen California of kidney disease. The author of White Fang and Call of the Wild was a lifelong radical socialist and supporter of the labor movement. In 1919 radical Emma Goldman eulogized him in an article in The Masses: “It’s a pity that brother Jack never lived long enough to see the Red Flags of Freedom flying over the Kremlin!”

1923- President Calvin Coolidge pardoned Lothkar Witzke, a German spy who had set off the Black Tom Pier explosion in New York Harbor in 1916.

1928- Ravel’s Bolero Suite premiered in Paris.

1935- The First Pan Am China Clipper service began from San Francisco to Honolulu and Manila. Captain Edwin Musik took off with 20,000 people waving bon voyage.

1942- Operation Uranus- The German 6th Army surrounded at Stalingrad. As the Russian pincers were closing around him, Gen. Von Paulus wired Hitler for permission to pull back and maneuver. Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal and ordered him not to withdraw one millimeter. The 6th Army was slowly starved, frozen and pounded on all sides. By February, 100,000 surviving German troops surrendered. They were sent to Stalin's gulags in Siberia where most of them died. The bitter Von Paulus became as diehard a communist as he had been a diehard nazi.

1950- The Lowest Scoring Basketball game in NBA history. The Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18. They later became the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers.

1955- Shemp Howard, one of the Three Stooges, died of a heart attack while driving home with friends from a prizefight. No one noticed he was gone until they saw his lit cigar had fallen into his lap. He had just turned 60. Born Samuel Horvitz, he got the name Shemp from his mother attempting to say his name Sam in her thick Yiddish accent.

1957- The Miles Davis Quintet debuted.

1963- ONE DAY IN DALLAS- At 12:30 Local time, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Whether you believe the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, The Military Industrial Complex, Vice President Johnson, the Mafia, Corsican contract killers, The C.I.A., Fidel Castro, Anti-Castro Cubans, space aliens, or all of the above, it remains one of the traumatic moments of US History.
John Kennedy had been warned about all the hateful conservative rhetoric originating in Texas. He said to Jackie about Dallas " We're going to Nut Country." One of the last things President Kennedy heard before the bullets struck him, was the wife of Texas governor John Connolly, who said:” Well Mr. President, now nobody can say they don’t love you in Dallas!”

After the shots, reporter Robin MacNeill ran into the nearest building to phone in the story. He ran into the Texas Book Depository and asked a skinny t-shirted man where the nearest phone was. Two days later when watching TV of the assassin being arrested, he realized he had been talking to Lee Harvey Oswald!

Jackie Kennedy, who after flying to D.C. from Dallas still wearing the blood soaked pink Channel dress “let the people see what they’ve done!” immediately started going over the funeral arrangements. Before retiring she had her staff comb the National Archives for the details of the 1865 Lincoln Funeral.

In 1966 evidence from the Kennedy assassination including the presidents brain disappeared. For years people claiming knowledge of a conspiracy died in strange ways, like karate chops and boating accidents. Much testimony is still under seal. Before she died, Jackie Kennedy left a personal affidavit with her lawyers that is not allowed to be made public until the year 2050. Only 15% of Americans believed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Mafia don Bill Bonnano said in his memoirs:” If you believe Oswald, a rather lackluster Marine, could get off three carefully aimed shots from a bolt action rifle in just six seconds, you have a vivid imagination.”

1963- Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa had been fighting off indictments and racketeering charges pressed by the aggressive Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When Hoffa heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas his first reaction was to laugh:” Now Bobby is just another lawyer!” Hoffa was himself whacked in 1975.

1963- Aldous Huxley died. The author of Brave New World had inoperable cancer so his wife kept him high on LSD,

1965- The musical The Man of La Mancha opened on Broadway. “ To Dream, the Impossible Dreaaammm…”Brings back memories of middle school band practice.

1967- The United Nations passed Resolution# 242 calling upon all the belligerents in the recently ended Arab-Israeli Six Day War to live in peace and trade back conquered territories like the West Bank for permanent peace. But because the resolution is vague on ideas like what exactly is meant by “conquered territories” the nations of the Middle East continue to argue over its meanings.

1974- The United Nations seated the Palestinian Liberation Organization as an unofficial observer group. Yassir Arafat was allowed to address the world body with a noticeable pistol stock sticking out of his belt.

1975- Two days after the death of Generalissimo Franco, Juan Carlos became the first King of Spain since 1936.

1980- Screen goddess Mae West died at 87. He apartment suite at the Ravenswood in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles has been lovingly restored, since the owner claims her ghost nagged him to put her furniture back!

1985- Apple ended a long lawsuit with Microsoft and Hewlett Packard that allowed them to share the visual characteristics of the Macintosh displays in their Windows software.

1986- 20 year old Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to become the youngest Heavyweight Champion of the World.

1990- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of English politics, resigned her offices to successor John Major. After 11 years in power her popularity was low because of her poll tax, and resistance to English cooperation in the European Community.

1993- Sir Anthony Burgess died at age 76. The author of A Clockwork Orange had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he had one year to live, back in 1959, 34 years ago.

1995- Pixar’s Toy Story opened, the first all CG movie, and the first true CG hit.

2005- Microsoft Xbox 360 goes on sale.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a homunculus?

Answer: A small being created through alchemy or other occult science.

Question: What is an EGOT?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What modern country in ancient times was called Luistania?
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History for 11/19/2023
Birthdays: King Charles I of England, President James Garfield, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Roy Campanella, Tommy Dorsey, Ted Turner is 85, Calvin Klein, Indira Ghandi, Dick Cavett, Larry King, Kathleen Quinlan, Alan Young -Mr. Ed’s friend, Ahmad Rashad, Allison Janey is 64, Meg Ryan is 62, Jodie Foster is 61, Terry Farrell

1493- On his second voyage to the New World, this day Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Puerto Rico.

1581- The son of Czar Ivan the Terrible, also named Ivan, came in on his dad beating his pregnant wife. He thought she was wearing clothing too immodest for her station. When young man tried to make him stop, the elder Ivan beat the boys’ brains out with a mace. In this one act of blind rage Ivan extinguished his own dynasty.

1619- A young French student named Renes Descartes had enlisted in the army of Elector Maximillian of Bavaria to fight in the Thirty Years War. Outside of Neuberg one evening he climbed into a stove to keep warm. There he had the first revelation to invent analytical geometry and the mathematical applications of religion. “ Cogito, Ergo Sum.” I think, therefore I am.” Gee. That happens to me every time I climb into a stove, too

1703- The "Man in the Iron Mask" died in Pignerole prison. Louis XIV had him locked up for forty years. He was first mentioned in Voltaire's History of the Age of Louis XIV as having a velvet mask, which writer Alexandre Dumas changed to iron for dramatic effect. No one ever discovered who he was or why his face was covered. Speculation was that he was everyone from an Italian diplomat, to the son of Oliver Cromwell, to a twin brother of King Louis XIV himself. It made for great literature, but he remains a mystery.

1828- Composer Franz Schubert died of complications of venereal gonorrhea at age 31.

1863- THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS-At the dedication of the soldiers cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield, the crowd watched Rev. Edward Everett, a famous abolitionist, deliver a fiery two-hour speech. Then President Abraham Lincoln stood up and in just two minutes delivered the most famous speech in U.S. History. "Forescore and Seven years ago Our Forefathers set Forth....And Government Of the People, By the People and For the People Shall Not Perish from the Earth. "
The crowd was polite but indifferent. The Times of London correspondent thought it "vague and uninspiring". Lincoln himself told his aide: "Lehman, that speech won't scowl." meaning a plow blade that's too dull to cut. But Rev Everett was inspired “Mr. President, you said in two minutes much more than I did in two hours.” Contrary to legend Lincoln didn’t write it quickly on the back of an envelope, he worked long on his speeches and was seen doing corrections up to the last minute. There are three pencil copies of the speech still in existence. The photographer at the scene was still setting up his equipment when the brief speech ended and Lincoln started to sit down. He opened his shutter in time to get a blurry view of Lincoln's head in the crowd.

1903- Suffragette Carrie Nation tried to address the US Senate to plead for women’s voting rights and alcohol prohibition. She was barred admittance.

1915- I DREAMED I SAW JOE HILL LAST NIGHT.... Joe Hill was executed in Utah- Swedish Immigrant Josef Hilstrom was a nationally known charismatic poet and union organizer. Large Utah copper mining companies that found Hill's folk song singing union activism a nuisance had him convicted on trumped up murder charges. He was shot by firing squad despite pleas for clemency from President Wilson, Helen Keller and the Pope. Crowds of 10,000 marched in London and Sydney Australia for mercy for Joe Hill.
Hill's last words were: "I die as I have lived, a rebel. Don't mourn, Organize!" He stipulated in his will that his body be transported over the state line and buried in Colorado because: "I DON'T WANNA BE CAUGHT DEAD IN UTAH!" His body was cremated and the ashes sent in little envelopes to union offices across the nation.

1937- Japanese armies captured the Chinese city of Shouchow and pillage it with great slaughter.

1941- Princess Iron Fan, by Wan Guchan and Wan Laiming, opened . Considered the first Asian animated feature film.

1942-“ THE IVANS ARE COMING!” OPERATION URANUS- The big Russian counter-attack in the Battle of Stalingrad begins. The Battle for the city named for Stalin had stalemated into house to house fighting in cellars and factory rooms the Germans called Ratt Kellerkrieg- Rat Cellar War. Meanwhile Marshal Gyorgi Zhukov had been massing forces on either end of the German 6th Army where weak Axis units of Romanian and Italian troops were holding the line. Luftwaffe commander Freiherr Von Richtofen reported the troop concentrations to army commanders, but HQ remained strangely apathetic.
Today to the sound of thousands of Katyushka rocket launchers, nicknamed Stalin’s Pipe Organs, Marshal Zhukov launched two massive pincer assaults that blew through the German front, and joined up in the rear trapping 100,000 Nazis.

1942-“ GUERILLA MOUSEKIS. Since the previous August, The Battle of Stalingrad had stalled into urban house to house street fighting. Meanwhile the Nazi panzer tanks had to sit quiet in fields outside the city.
This day, when the big Russian counteroffensive began, the Nazis rushed to start up their tanks. But soon their engines began to overheat and stall.
During the long weeks of waiting, field mice had crawled into their engines and ate their radiator hoses and electrical insulation. 68 of 100 tanks immediately broke down. All thanks to the actions of enemy mice.

1942- In a concentration camp in Poland, author-artist Bruno Schulz was executed. The author of “Street of Crocodiles” last act was being forced by a Gestapo officer to paint images from Brothers Grimm fairytales on his son’s bedroom wall before he was shot.

1945- Trying to complete the plan of social services created by Franklin Roosevelt, President Harry Truman called for National Health Insurance. It was defeated in Congress after intense lobbying by the powerful insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It would also be blocked when reintroduced later by Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. Until Pres. Obama created the ACA, the U.S. was the only nation in the front rank of developed nations to have no form of national health insurance.

1959- Jay Ward's television show 'The Adventures of Rocky and his Friends' debuts.

1961- Michael Rockefeller, the son of tycoon Nelson Rockefeller, disappeared in the jungles of New Guinea. It’s assumed he was killed by aboriginal people.

1969- The great soccer champion Pele scored his 1,000 goal.

1998- Film Director Alan J. Pakula was one of the Hollywood community who preferred living in New York City. This day he was driving on the Long Island Expressway when he was killed in a freak accident. A large truck kicked up in its tires a discarded piece of steel pipe. It flipped it through Pakula’s windshield, killing him instantly.

2002- HOMELAND SECURITY. Reacting to the 9-11 attack Congress approved President Bush’s plan for a cabinet level position called the Department of Homeland Security. This branch would concentrate the activities of US Customs & Immigration, FEMA, The Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies.
Despite insisting this new organization was all that stood between us and future 9-11 attacks, the Bush White House stubbornly refused to sign any bill that did not first bar it’s employees from joining the Gov’t Employees Service Union like the rest of Washington D.C.
By 2006 Homeland Security had botched up the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and it’s fourth ranking executive was arrested by Polk County Fla police for soliciting sex from a 14 year old girl with leukemia.
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Yesterday’s Question: What modern country in ancient times was called Lusitania?

Answer: Portugal.

Question: What modern country in ancient times was called Lusitania?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is a detective called “A Private Eye”?
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History for 11/18/2023
Birthdays: Armelita Galli-Curci, Karl Maria Von Weber, W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Mercer,
Astronaut Alan Shepard, Louis Daguerre, Brenda Vaccarro, Eugene Ormandy, George Gallup, Warren Moon, Pam Dawber, Rocket Ishmail, Delroy Lindo, Kevin Nealon, Owen Wilson is 56, Chloe Servigny is 50

500 A.D.- Today is the Feast day of the Irish Saint Mawes, who was born in a barrel floating in the sea.

It’s hand drawn animation day! See below- 1928.

1421- In Holland a dyke holding back the Zuyder Zee River gave way and the ensuing flood killed 10,000.

1602- In Transylvania, 22 year old English soldier of fortune John Smith killed three Turkish warriors in single combat. Such single bouts were normal before large armies clashed. The Duke of Transylvania, Sigmund Bathory, granted the commoner Smith his own coat of arms, three Turkish heads. This is the same John Smith who will go to Virginia and meet Pocahontas in 1607.

1718- Francois Voltaire’s first play Oedipe, premiered in Paris.

1812- The Battle of Krasnoe-Napoleon's frozen army retreating from Moscow, fights it's way out of three encircling Russian armies trying to trap it. One of the armies was commanded by an admiral Tchitchagoff who's 20th century descendant would be the artist Erte'. Another general was the grandfather of writer Leo Tolstoy. General Tolstoy was an eccentric, who rode into battle in a chauffeured carriage with a trained bear sitting next to him he'd taught to drink champagne.

1863- Abraham Lincoln boarded a train to Gettysburg to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” to dedicate the new national cemetery there.

1865 Mark Twain's first story "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' published.

1883- THE DAY WITH TWO NOONS. Congress adopted William Allen’s plan to divide the United States into standardized time zones, corresponding to timetables set by the transcontinental railroads. At noon in New York City, the bells of Saint Paul’s Church tolled. Ten minutes later, several blocks away, the bells of Trinity Church on Wall St. tolled noon Eastern Standard Time, 11:00AM Central Time, 10:00AM Mountain Time and 9:00AM Pacific Time. And so it has been ever since.

1889- Richard Strauss completed his orchestral tone poem Tod und Verklarung, Death and Transfiguration. The 29 year old created a musical illustration of what it felt like to die and your soul ascend to glory. Fifty-nine years later in 1949, as 85 year old Richard Strauss lay dying, he said to his wife, “Yes! It is exactly the way I saw it…”

1902- THE TEDDY BEAR BORN-The Washington Evening Star published a story of how President Teddy Roosevelt while hunting couldn't bring himself to shoot a grizzly bear cub. Cartoonist Cliff Berryman illustrated the incident with one of his signature “dingbat” bear cubs in a gesture of “oh no!” Brooklyn toymaker Morris Mitchcolm sewed a doll from the illustration in the newspaper and sent the first one to the White House. Mitchcolm did so well with the sale of Teddy Bears he founded the Ideal Toy Company.

1903- The Hay-Buneau-Varilla Treaty signed, giving the U.S. permission to dig a canal in Panama. When Colombia wanted too much money for the canal zone, President Roosevelt backed a revolution that created the nation of Panama. Such a deal!

1914- SABOTAGE - A secret message was sent out by Imperial German Naval Command to all diplomatic embassies to begin sabotage operations of war material being readied in America and Canada for shipment to England.
Bombs exploding in cargo ships and warehouses in New York, Boston and Baltimore became common. One incident called the “Black Tom” pier explosion detonated two million pounds of explosive on a Jersey City wharf. The blast cracked windows on Wall St. and damaged the arm of the Statue of Liberty.
The success of German spies in the U.S. before America's entry into World War I sparked the buildup of a little known government office called the F.B.I. and the strict domestic counterintelligence work done in World War II.

1928- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE- At Universal’s Colony Theater in New York, Walt Disney’s cartoon "Steamboat Willie" debuted before a movie called Gang War. The first major sound cartoon success and the official birth of Mickey Mouse. Two earlier silent Mickey's were being completed, but when Walt saw Al Jolson speak in The Jazz Singer, he held those two shorts back so the sound experiment could go ahead. At this time Walt Disney had just 11 employees.

1942- OPERATION FLIPPER, The KEYES RAID- The British army in North Africa had had enough of their German adversary Rommel the Desert Fox, so they sent Australian-Scottish commandos on a suicide raid to the Afrika Korps HQ just to kill him. Desert warfare was so porous the front lines were virtually non-existent. Unfortunately, Rommel was far away in Rome the night 50 commandos shot up his office. Only 2 made it out, 3 were killed and the rest captured.

1953- Singer Frank Sinatra had been having trouble with his sputtering career and his crumbling marriage to screen sex goddess Ava Gardner. This day songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen claimed he found Old Blue Eyes on his bathroom floor with his wrists slashed. Heusen bound his wounds then called his agent rather than the police. Sinatra recovered and soon his career revived and he had a new marriage.

1963-The first push button telephones go into service. By 1980 they pretty much replaced the rotary dial phones.

1964- In a public statement to the press, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called Dr. Martin Luther King “The most notorious liar in the country!” This in response to the criticism Dr. King made that the FBI wasn’t trying hard enough to track down the murderers of civil rights workers. The elderly Hoover always believed Dr. King and the whole NAACP were commie agents of Moscow.

1968- Mattel introduced Hot Wheels toy cars in stores.

1970- At the Lakeside School in Seattle, a young kid named Bill Gates was first shown computer programming.

1978- JONESTOWN- After visiting U.S. congressman Leo Ryan and his party were murdered, 912 American members of the Rev. Jim Jones cult in Jonestown Guiana commit suicide, many drinking from tubs of Kool Aid, spiked with cyanide.

1985- Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin & Hobbs debuted.

1988- Disney’s Oliver & Company released.

1988- Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time was released.
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Question: Why is a detective called “ A Private Eye”?

Answer: Scotsman Allan Pinkerton was in law enforcement and served as a bodyguard to President Lincoln. After the assassination he set up a private detective agency, who’s logo was a large open eye, with the motto, “We Never Sleep”. It was an ad featured in all the newspapers. This gave rise to the name a Private Eye for an investigator for hire.

Question: Why is a detective called “ A Private Eye”?

Question:What is a palladin?
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History for 11/17/2023
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Moebius-1790 the inventor of the Moebius Strip. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, Rock Hudson- real name Roy Sherer, Walt Peregoy, Peter Cook, Isamu Noguchi, Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Les Clark, Lee Strasberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Martin Scorcese is 81, Lorne Michaels is 79, Danny deVito is 79

395- Death of the Roman Emperor Valentinian.

1796- Russian Czarina Catherine the Great died at 67 years old of a stroke on the toilet, not crushed trying to have sex with a horse, as some scandalous rumors alleged.

1800- The idea to create Washington DC was to create a new city, not beholden to any particular state, between north and south. And indeed, at first it was in the middle of nowhere. Following President Adams from their cozy homes in Philadelphia, this day Congress sulkily convened for the first time in the half-finished capitol city. Titled The Federal City, it was already being called Washington City. It was still mostly a Virginia swamp. Wooden pegs in the mud showed where streets would be one day. The only buildings up in operation were Congress, the Presidents Mansion, and Conrad’s Tavern.
Many complained that city planners Pierre L’Enfant and Benjamin Banocker had made the main avenues too big, that there will never be enough carriages and wagons to fill these roads. This first Congressional session couldn’t accomplish much, because there were not enough members present to make a quorum.

1839- Oberto premiered, an opera written by a new composer named Guisseppi Verdi. ( Joe Green). The great composer would go on to write Rigoletto, Aida and La Traviata.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver.

1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years.

1875- Russian psychic Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott found the American Theosophical Society.

1876- Peter Tchaikovsky’s musical rhapsody the Marche Slav premiered.

1882- The Chinese Exclusion Treaty signed in Peking between the United States and the Chinese Empress Zhaou Zsi. This was the first of a series of pacts attempting to limit Asian immigration to the U.S. In cities on the Pacific coast during the depression of the 1870’s violence against Chinese workers was sadly common. So many died building the Southern Pacific Railroad that the term “You Don’t Have a Chinaman’s Chance” was coined to mean the odds were against you. San Francisco writer Ambrose Bierce acerbically observed: A Chinese woman was recently found murdered on a street in San Francisco. She had done no crime but was merely the victim of Galloping Christianity. Barbaric acts like these mar the fine American tradition of Religious Intolerance.”

1891- Polish pianist Ignaz Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski created the cliché image of the temperamental classical musician with long flowing hair. Classical music became known as longhair music.

1926- The Chicago Black Hawks played their first game,
beating the Toronto St. Pats 4-1.

90th Anniv. 1933- The Marx Bros classic Duck Soup premiered.

1934- LBJ marries LadyBird. For you born after the 60's, President Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor whom he nicknamed LadyBird Johnson. Their daughters were LucyBird and LindaBird, so everyone in the family had the initials LBJ.

1941- Ernst Udet was a top World War I flying ace who was persuaded by Goring to build the Nazi Luftwaffe. Udet was responsible for developing the Stuka dive bomber and it’s screaming vertical attack. But his conscience was troubled. One of the WWI Knights of the Air, he grew depressed by the terror bombing of civilians and genocide his inventions were being used for. Sinking into drink and drugs. This night at dinner, Udet spoke of his time as a young ace with Von Richtofen the Red Baron, adding “Ahh, but we were decent men then…” He then went up to his bedroom, and shot himself.

1941- US ambassador to Tokyo, Joseph Grew, cabled Washington that he had heard disturbing rumors that the Japanese military was planning to attack Pearl Harbor.

1959- The DeBeers mining company of South Africa announced the invention of synthetic diamonds.

1965- Battle of Ia Drang ends. The first large battle fought between North Vietnamese regulars and U.S. combat troops. The first battle fought with helicopters. Although the Vietnamese forces were defeated, it told their generals that their system was working of moving down the Ho Chi Minh trail through neutral Laos and Cambodia then crossing into South Vietnam.

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So, to this day on television, no matter how boring a football game is, it is seen to its very end.

1973- In a televised press conference about the expanding Watergate Scandal held at Walt Disney World, President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase:” People want to know if their president is a crook, well, I am not a crook!”

1978- This night, our world was rocked by a disturbance in The Force more powerful than the destruction of Alderon, It was "The Star Wars Holiday Special", a two-hour comedy variety show on CBS, with Harrison Ford, Beatrice Arthur and Nelvana’s animated cartoon. To this day, even Mark Hamill jokes about how dumb it was.

1988- Benazir Bhutto elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven premiered.

1993- US Congress voted for the free trade, bill called NAFTA.

1994- The Sony Corporation posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss from its first year owning a Hollywood movie studio. Yet despite a lot of industry jokes ( “What’s the difference between Sony Pictures and the Titanic?-answer: The Titanic had entertainment.”) By 1996 the studio was on top with blockbusters like “Men in Black”

2002- Premiere of Disney’s Treasure Planet.

2019- The first reported case of CoVid 19 was reported in Wuhan China. It grew to become a global pandemic not unlike the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. So far it has killed 6.6 million people around the world, 1,120,000 in the USA.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a palladin?

Answer: The loyal knights around the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne were called his Palladins. Similar to King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.