QUIZ: What was The Borscht Belt?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What does it mean when people write, “We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?
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History for 1/5/2024. Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey, James Stuart Blackton (the first American animator, born in Lincolnshire, England ), W.D. Snodgrass, Jack Norworth who wrote " Take Me out to the Ballgame' , Konrad Adenauer, Astrologist Jean Dixon, Umberto Ecco, Yves Tanguy, Walter Mondale, George Reeves, Roger Spottiswoode, Tissa David, Hayao Miyazaki is 83, Robert Duval is 93, Dianne Keaton is 78, Spanish King Juan Carlos, Marilyn Manson is 56, January Jones is 43, Bradley Cooper is 49.
1463- French poet Francois Villon was kicked out of Paris.
1477- THE BATTLE OF NANCY- The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Rash, dreamed of turning his duchy between France and Germany into one of the great powers of Europe. In the process he managed to annoy just about all his neighbors with his constant wars. This day Charles found out why the Swiss are left alone by everybody. Upon invading Switzerland, his army was cut to pieces. His body was found naked in a ditch with his head stuck fast in a puddle of ice. Two battle axes were rammed up his butt.
The King of France as his feudal suzerain annexed Burgundy to France, but just before his last battle Charles engaged his only daughter to the German Emperor. So, the only thing Charles left to history was the ancient feud between Germany and France over who owned Alsace-Lorraine, which raged until 1945.

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

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

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

1825- Writer Alexander Dumas fought a duel with the Chevalier Saint George, a black duelist from Martinique, who played violin so well he was called Le Mozart Noir. Neither man was seriously hurt and Dumas went on to write The Three Musketeers. Saint George also once fought a duel with Monsieur d¹Eon, a crossdresser who fought his/her duels in a ball gown. The English Prince of Wales was a spectator.

1836- Davy Crocket crossed into Texas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1970- Soap opera “All My Children” premiered.

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

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

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

2017- Outgoing President Obama was briefed by the FBI about proof they had that the Russian hackers had interfered in the 2016 election to ensure Donald Trump would win. After Pres. Trump was inaugurated, the Justice Dept was told not to pursue the investigation any further.

2021- The night before their planned coup to stop President Biden’s election victory, outgoing President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and their cronies worked into the night making arrangements to pressure Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election. They hoped that Pence could with a bang of his gavel stop the certification and throw the election to the House. Mike Pence called former Bush VP Dan Quayle, who told him, “You do not have that power. Your purpose is to do nothing. You preside, like a TV emcee.”
That night after all their meetings wrapped, Trump left open the door to the Oval Office, so he could hear the hateful shouts and chants of the mob outside. When aides asked that he close the door from the January cold, Trump said,” Nah. I love listening to them. They are my people.”
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when people write, “ We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?

Answer: In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macduff describes how his family was murdered all at once. Like when a hawk swoops down and scoops up several animals at once.

Quiz: What does it mean when people write, “ We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Why is the Marianas Trench special?
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History for 1/4/2024
Birthdays: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Francois Rude, Dyan Cannon is 86, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 59

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

1698- The royal palace of Whitehall, built by Henry VIII, was destroyed in a spectacular fire. It burned for 2 days straight.

1725- American colonist Benjamin Franklin first arrived in London.

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

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

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

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

1881- Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture premiered in Breslau. Johannes Brahms was offered an honorary degree by the University of Breslau. But he learned that in exchange, they expected him to write them a free symphony! Whaat? Brahms responded by sending them an overture to be played at commencement. On being performed, locals recognized several bawdy student drinking songs Brahms had worked into the score. The Academic Festival Overture is the basis for the opening music to National Lampoons Animal House.

1885- The first appendectomy operation.

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

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

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

1904, Thomas Edison's movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. (The third was a man who for a joke, fed her a lit cigarette.) The event was a public spectacle to a paying audience of 1,500 people at Coney Island, where the elephant had actually helped build the attraction. Edison was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution, after cyanide-laced carrots had failed. He made sure to use Nikolas Tesla’s AC current, to show people how dangerous it was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1954- The Pinky Lee Show premiered on TV. Sponsored by Tootsie Roll.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1973- President Nixon informs the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in that he refused to yield to them his taped conversations, citing an arcane concept little used since the days of Thomas Jefferson, called "executive privilege.”

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

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

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

2000- Charles Schulz published the very last Peanuts daily comic strip. It ran continuously since 1950. Schulz refused to allow any one to ghost him or take over the strip. He died a month later of colon cancer, and his last Sunday was printed the next day.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Why is the Marianas Trench special?

Answer: The deep sea trench is the deepest hole into the Earth’s crust.

Quiz: Name an important event that occurred in 1924.

Yesterday: what does it mean to speak in platitudes?
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History for 1/2/2024
Birthdays: Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV-1642, Frederic Opper the cartoonist of Happy Hooligan, Phillip Freneau, Roger Miller, Issac Asimov, Julius LaRosa, Tito Schipa, Renata Tebaldi, Tex Ritter, Dick Huemer, Cuba Gooding Jr, is 56, Tia Carrere, Kate Bosworth is 41

1492- Sultan Abu-Abdallah, called Boabdil, surrendered the Emirate of Grenada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. As Boabdil rode out of the city between the Spanish troops, he paused on a hill for one last look at his beautiful city. The hill is today called El Ultimo Sospiro del Moro- the Last Sigh of the Moor.
This completed the master plan of the Christian Spaniards to regain the whole Iberian Peninsula. Called La ReConquista, it had been raging for 500 years. In Rome Pope Alexander VI Borgia, who was also a Spaniard, celebrated the news by closing off Saint Peter's Square from worshippers to stage a bullfight.
Boabdil's mother, the Sultana Ayeesha, scolded him for weeping while surrendering the city. " I should have smothered you as an infant, rather than watch you live like a degenerate and surrender like a whore...!" Gee, Thanks Mom…

1496- Did Leonardo da Vinci try to fly? Leonardo studied the motor actions of birds and sketched numerous flying machines. In one of his notebooks Leonardo had written:” On the second day of January, I will make the attempt.” Leonardo later noted in his financial records payment to a physician when his apprentice named Antonio broke his leg. It’s been speculated Antonio broke it trying to pilot one of his master’s flying machines.

1522- Adrian VI, a Dutchman was elected Pope. He was the first non-Italian since 1378, and the last until 1978.
Adrian really tried to be a true Christian spiritual guide and agreed with Martin Luther that the church was too corrupt and sinful in its ways. He demanded he and his cardinals live on only one ducat a day, about $12.50, he shuttered the Belvedere Palace and its beautiful collection of ancient Greek & Roman art as pagan idolatry.
Poets, painters and sculptors were furious that this Pope cancelled all their lucrative contracts. The unemployed poet Aretino called the cardinals “miserable rabble that should all be buried alive" for choosing such a lousy pope.
After three months Adrian died. This time the cardinals selected pope a Medici who loved art, music and parties. He said, “God has given us the Papacy, so let us enjoy it.”. The artists of Rome sent flowers to Adrian’s doctor to congratulate him for losing his patient.

1542- The town of Geneva had put themselves under the Protestant theologian John Calvin to reform everybody’s lifestyles. His first move was to create order in their new way of religion. This day his great work the Ecclesiastical Ordinances were approved by the Grand Council and put into law. It created a ministry of deacons, pastors teachers and lay elders based on Biblical Law. Calvin’s new code became the basis of the future churches of Presbyterianism, Huguenots, Puritans and Calvinism and reached as far as England, Scotland and America.

1602- End of the siege of Kinsale. Rebel Earl Hugh O’Neill had invited the Spanish to help him overthrow British rule in Ireland. He lost, and the English domination of Ireland was confirmed.

1611-THE BLOOD COUNTESS- Beautiful Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was indicted for the murder of 610 people. She apparently believed that bathing in the blood of virgin girls would keep her skin beautiful. The crimes of the Medieval nobility were often winked at until they become so outrageous, they couldn’t be ignored any longer. When peasant girls kept disappearing around Csejthe Castle word got back to her big uncle King Sigmund Bathory of Poland, the enemy of Ivan the Terrible. When King Sigmund discovered the full horror of her story, he had Elizabeth walled up alive in her chamber. Daily food passed through a slit in the wall. When after a few years the empty dishes stopped being passed through, that slit was bricked up as well.

1688- The great insurance house Lloyd’s of London founded. In the past they’ve insured Betty Grable’s legs, Bruce Springsteen’s lungs and offered a million English pounds to anyone who could prove Elvis Presley was still alive.

1757- British redcoats marched into Calcutta. (modern Kolkata)

1785- Austrian Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews throughout his empire to adopt family surnames. A similar law was passed in Prussia and the rest of Germany ten years later. Most Jews created surnames out of their profession. This was when someone like Yitzhak the diamond dealer became Issac Diamondstein and Yakub the butcher became Jacob Fleischman. If you think that’s funny, what if your name is Taylor, Miller, or Weaver?

1788- Georgia voted to ratify the Constitution.

1800- The free black community in Philadelphia petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. A South Carolina senator denounced the idea as:” This new-fangled French philosophy of Liberty and Equality!”

1815- Lord Byron married Lady Anna Milbanke.

1837- It was the custom at New Years for the Mayor of New York to hold an open house. Average citizens could pay a call, have a glass of sherry and pound cake and express good wishes for the New Year. But Mayor Cornelius Lawrence was a Tammany politician who had been elected with the help of gangs of hooligans from the Bowery and Five Points. When he held an open house this day all these gang toughs stormed in, got drunk, wiped their fingers on the curtains and pocketed the silverware. It quickly became bedlam. Mayor Lawrence had to get militia troops to push the mob out and lock the doors.

1843- Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden.

1863 HELL’S HALF-ACRE- In the American Civil War the battle of Stones River or Murfreesboro resumed after a two days truce for New Years. The Union Army had been surprised attacked New Years Eve and caved in to a tight horseshoe configuration. By now it was now dug in and further fighting seemed fruitless. But Confederate army Commander Baxton Bragg couldn’t bring himself to retreat again as he had at Perryville.
So, over the protests of his subordinates that it was suicide, he ordered a direct frontal attack. One brigade commander named Hanson declared he’d rather kill Bragg than murder his own soldiers. Hanson was killed in action. The Kentucky Orphans Brigade led by Confederate Vice President John Breckinbridge charged into a furious Yankee artillery cross fire and was annihilated. The attack failed and Bragg retreated anyway.

1873- Richard “Slippery-Dick” Connolly becomes the first American to embezzle a million dollars -he actually stole four million. He was the financial controller for the City of New York under Boss Tweed. Together the Tweed ring bilked New York City out of $60 million dollars. This day he fled abroad ahead of the police. Tweed was nabbed and died in jail, but Slippery Dick Connolly lived in Europe happily ever after.

1878- Farmer John Martin thought he saw something shiny flying in the sky above Denizen Texas. He is the first person to describe it as a “flying saucer.”

1882- John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company controlled almost 90% of the U.S. crude oil output but the government seemed poised to hit it with anti-monopoly laws. So anticipating this move he reorganized Standard Oil into a Trust with himself as chief Trustee. Standard Oil later became ESSO (S-O) then EXXON-MOBIL.

1897- Young writer Stephen Crane survived a shipwreck when the good ship SS Commodore went down off the coast of Florida. He went on to write The Open Boat and The Red Badge of Courage.

1904- The Russians surrendered their big Pacific base of Port Arthur to the Japanese after a one-year siege. During the boredom of the siege the game Russian Roulette was invented- of putting a six shooter to your head with one bullet in a spun chamber. When their men kept dying for no reason the Stavka, or High Command, were at a loss how to stop it. When they caught men playing this lethal game they charged them for illegal use of government property- i.e. the bullets.

1909- Aimie Semple MacPherson was given her ordination by the Evangelical community of Chicago. Sister Aimie moved to Los Angeles and became one of the first great broadcast evangelists, entertaining millions with salvation and sin, while keeping toy-boys and popping pills on the side.

1933- The character Nancy first appeared in Ernie Bushmiller’s comic strip Fritzi Ritz.

1937- Hollywood actor Ross Alexander had hit on tough times. He had been in a few movies like Captain Blood and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but his career seemed to be stalled, he was in debt, and his wife committed suicide. This day the 29 year old went into the barn behind his Encino home and shot himself. The Warner Bros. Studio looked around for a replacement to refill their roster of handsome male leads. They replaced Alexander with an Illinois college sportscaster called “Dutch”- Ronald Reagan.

1939- Time Magazine named Adolf Hitler it’s “Man of the Year”.

1942- The Japanese army under General Homma entered Manila. They said they had come to drive out the American Western colonialists and create pan-Asian harmony. But they offended the Filipinos with atrocities like hanging the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court from a flagpole when he refused to be part of the occupation regime. Homma also had the city bombed even after they agreed to surrender.

1958- Maria Callas threw one of the more celebrated temper tantrums in Opera history when she stormed off the stage at La Scala in the middle of Bellini’s Norma with the President of Italy in the audience. La Divina Callas was a Greek-American with a beautiful voice and the slimmest waistline since Lili Pons. She was part of the Jet-Set society culture and her temper was famous.

1960- Young Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy announced he was a candidate for president. When asked why do you want to be president? Kennedy replied:” Because it’s the best job there is.”

1963- The Magic Castle opened in Hollywood. The Academy of Magicians renovated this 1908 mansion and declared it the world’s most unique private club. Even today, you can only get in by being invited by a member.

1965- Soupy Sales hosted one of the more successful kiddie shows on daytime TV. He often improvised his own comedy bits in between showing old cartoons. This say Soupy jokingly asked his kiddie audience to go into mommy’s purse while she was asleep and take out all those green pieces of paper with pictures of presidents on them, and mail them to Soupy Sales, c/o the studio. All that week, Soupy received thousands of dollars in small envelopes. The resultant outcry from parent groups got Soupy suspended.

1971- Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem discovered the 2,000 year old remains of a crucified man. No, they didn’t think it was You-Know-Who. But it did provide the first empirical proof that Romans really used that method of execution.

1975- In a letter to MITS, college kids Bill Gates and Paul Allen offered their computer language adaptation of BASIC for the new Altair personal computer. They named themselves Microsoft.

1984- The Zenith Corporation announced it would stop selling video recorders in Betamax format and go over wholly to VHS. Other electronics giants followed suit and VHS won out over the higher quality Beta system.

1995- Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was inaugurated for a second term after winning re-election, despite his conviction for smoking crack. Comedian Chris Rock said: “Who ran against him? Who was such a bad choice that people said- I’d rather vote for a crackhead? “

2000- Internet developers Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, had a conversation about writing data entries for collaborative websites called wikis. Saunders conceived of an open on-line encyclopedia encompassing all world knowledge. He called it Wikipedia.

2019- The Chinese space probe, the Chang’ 4 became the first man made object to successfully land on the Dark side of the Moon.
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Yesterday’s Question: what does it mean to speak in platitudes?

Answer:
I don’t want to talk your ear off but I really need to get this off my chest and keep you in the loop. It is right on the tip of my tongue anyway, so even if you want to take my 2¢ with a grain of salt, to make a long story short and just to make sure we’re speaking the same language and singing from the same hymnal, I’ll put all my eggs in one basket, come right to the point and let the cat out of the bag.

Actually, maybe I have my head in the clouds, or perhaps I’m a little at sea about this but, while I hate going back to the drawing board and we both know this is not rocket science and that the answer is in the eye of the beholder, I am at sixes and sevens and can’t get my act together. The long and the short of it is I am not prepared to spill the beans, so I'm putting the ball in your court. Just keep in mind, all the world’s a stage, so break a leg, hit the nail on the head, separate the wheat from the chaff, give it 110% and get it all out in the open. It’ll be a piece of cake. Just take the bull by the horns, make a clean breast of it...and watch those platitudes! ( Thanks FG)