I'm very excited that I heard that my first book Drawing the Line is going to come out in a second edition. Thank you to all my readers who bought copies of the book. I have collected a little folder of notes and corrections from a number of friends that I hope I can get into this new edition. So if you are, or you ever have been, a communist or socialist, feel free to let me know. I'll let you know when it's out.

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Quiz: Do you know more Supreme Court decisions than Sarah Palin? What is the meaning of the ruling Plessy vs. Ferguson..?

Yesterday’s Answer below: People talk about Brainwashing. Where did that come from?
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History for 4/24/2009
Birthdays: Daniel Defoe, William de Kooning, St. Vincent de Paul, Morgan Earp, Shirley McLaine, Jack E. Leonard, Dame Ethel Smyth, Jill Ireland, Eric Bogosian, Sue Grafton, Robert Penn Warren, Barbera Streisand is 68, Cedric the Entertainer

1184 B.C.(est.)- TROY FALLS TO THE GREEKS- Despite the warnings of Cassandra and Laocoon the Trojans pull Ulysses' great horse into the city and at night the Greeks climb out and open the city gates to destruction. The reason we have any estimated date for this is this was the day the Romans celebrated a festival commemorating this event.
Conventional wisdom was always that Troy was a myth until Heinrich Schleimann found it in the 1800’s. The Romans loved a myth of their own origin that they were descended from the Trojan refugees led to Italy by the hero Aeneas. This seemed way more cool than being a grubby little Latin tribe who got their act together ahead of their neighbors.
They loved this myth so much that in 218 B.C. when the legions of Publius Scipio Asiaticus marched into Turkey to make war on Antipater the king of Syria, they paused first to go to the plains of Illium (the field where Troy once stood).
There the writer Livy states" The grim warriors embraced and wept aloud like babes, for after countless generations, the children of Troy had come home at last."

1584- Japanese Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi ordered the Heii Shrine in Edo (Tokyo) to dedicate a new heraldic design - the red disc Asahi - Rising Sun flag is created.

1833- The Soda Fountain is patented.

1874-Outlaw Jesse James married Miss Zerelda Mimms who he called Z.

1913- The Woolworth Building was dedicated in lower New York. It’s cornices decorated like the campanile of Saint Marks in Venice. At the time it was the tallest skyscraper in the world. President Woodrow Wilson illuminated its electric lights by flipping a switch long distance in the White House.

1933-Ub Iwerk's "Fiddlesticks" the first Flip the Frog cartoon, done in a simple two-color process. Iwerks was the first designer and animator of Mickey Mouse, who had left Walt Disney to open his own studio.

1945- As the Russian Army approached the center of Berlin, Adolf Hitler gathered his remaining staff in his bunker deep under the ReichsChancellery. He told his people that all was lost and that they should escape the city as best they could. Most decided to stay and began discussions on how to commit suicide. The Fuehrer himself lapsed into apathy. His secretary recalled seeing Hitler sitting quietly in a hallway, cradling a puppy in his lap, rocking back and forth, staring off hollow-eyed.

1949- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed.

1948- The Chinese Communists under their leader Mao Zse Tung and their generals Chu Teh and Lin Piao began their final push to conquer all of China.

1954- Handsome English actor Peter Lawford married John F. Kennedy’s sister Patricia Kennedy. This union would give JFK his link to Hollywood, Frank Sinatra and the RatPack.

1961- First day of shooting on the film King of Kings, the Christ story starring Jeffrey Hunter. Called by one critic” I was a Teenage Jesus” . In 1966 Jeffrey Hunter turned down a TV series after doing the pilot episode. His wife worried that he’d be typecast. The role of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, it went instead went to William Shatner.

1967- Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first acknowledged fatality in the conquest of Space, when the parachute of his re-entering capsule got snarled and he fell four miles to Earth.

1980- After months of fruitless negotiations to get the U.S. hostages held in the American Embassy in Teheran freed, President Jimmy Carter tried force. A Delta Force of eight helicopters met at their staging area in the Iranian desert. Once there it was discovered three of the helicopters had mechanical problems and they had fallen badly behind schedule so the mission was scrapped. As they were leaving one of the helicopters crashed into a transport plane killing 8 soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned in protest. No more military adventures were planned and the Iran Hostage Crisis dragged on throughout 1980. The hostages were released in January 1981.

1981- Small companies like Apple and Commodore had dominated the personal computer market while giants like IBM stuck with large business systems. Now IBM weighed in with The IBM PC –personal computer, with basic software language DOS provided by Microsoft. It soon came to dominate the market.

1983- THE HITLER DIARIES HOAX- Gerd Heideman, a top correspondent for Germany’s top magazine Die Stern was contacted by a mysterious Professor Fischer that he had in his possession the long lost personal diary of Adolph Hitler. Heidemann was an eccentric who collected fascist memorabilia like Herman Goerings yacht and a pair of Idi Amin’s underwear! Fischer sold him the Hitler diary manuscripts for $4 million.
After Heidemann got British Historian Sir Hugh Trevor Roper and several handwriting analysts to declare them genuine, the Hitler Diaries went public in Die Stern and Rupert Murdoch’s London Times. When Sir Hugh began to express doubts over the authenticity of the diary, Times mogul Rupert Murdoch reacted in typical fashion: ”F**k him. I’m in the entertainment business!” This day a Bonn laboratory declared the diaries high quality but completely phony. Professor Fischer was actually an art forger named Konrad Kujau who knew suckers when he saw them. He had an expensive girlfriend and wife to keep so he was writing the diaries in his garage on 1940’s vintage paper and ink. Careers were ruined and everyone looked pretty stupid. Even when they were all in jail, Gerd Heidemann refused to believe the truth. Konrad Kujau sent him a letter in Hitler’s handwriting admitting he did the forgery.

1984- David Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert Kennedy, was found dead in his hotel room of a drug overdose. As a child he had watched his father assassinated on live television and had never recovered. He was a drug addict by 15 and dead at 28.

1990-The Hubble Space Telescope was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Challenger.
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Yesterday’s Question: People talk about Brainwashing. Where did that come from? Have you ever been brainwashed..?

Answer: During the Korean War 1950-1953, Americans wondered why Chinese soldiers were so dedicated to Mao and Communism . They also wondered why some American POWs were confessing to crimes and opting to stay in China. The Chinese term for coerced suggestive therapy in their re-education camps was the Mandarin for “ Wash Brain “. The term Brainwashing became all the rage in the 1950s.


April 23rd, 2009 thurs
April 23rd, 2009

Question: People talk about Brainwashing. Where did that come from? Have you ever been brainwashed..?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who were Murray the K and Cousin Brucie?
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History for 4/23/2009
Birthdays: William Shakespeare, President James Buchanan, Sergei Prokoviev, J.M.W. Turner, Vladimir Nabokov, Senator Stephen Douglas the Little Giant, Shirley Temple is 80, Roy Orbison, Halston, Sandra Dee,Valerie Bertinelli, Lee Majors is 69, Judy Davis, Simone Simon, Michael Sporn, Tony Esposito, Michael Moore is 55, Herve Villechaise- da plane ! da plane!

This was the ancient Roman Feast of the Vinalia, the feast of the first grapevine plantings.

This is the Feast of St. George.- George of Nicomedia was a native of Illyria (Croatia) who went up to the Emperor Diocletian’s palace and tore up his edict banning Christianity. Then Diocletian had George torn up. In the old tradition of borrowing from pagan myths, the Coptic Christian monks took from the Ancient Egyptian religion the famous battle between Horus and his evil uncle Seth, God of Sandstorms, often represented in temple art as a weird dragon-like animal.

1014- BATTLE OF CLONTARF- Irish High King Brian Boru defeated the Vikings and drove them from Ireland. Boru himself was too elderly to fight, so he was praying in a church when a renegade group of Danes surrounded the church and set it on fire.
Oh well, at least he won...

1348- The Order of the Garter created in England.

1374- The King of England grants the writer Geoffrey Chaucer a pot of wine daily for the rest of his life. What more could a writer ask for !

1500- Explorer Pedro Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal.

1538- Protestant theologian John Calvin was asked to leave his ministry in Geneva for being, uhh, well.. too Puritan. Geneva went party wild. Two years later the city fathers called Calvin back to clean up the town.

1616-After a night out partying with Ben Johnson, John Draydon and other old buddies from Ye Old Mermaid Tavern, William Shakespeare caught a fever and died on his fifty second birthday.

1784- Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s plan to extend government to territories west of the Appalachian Mountains but reject his suggestion that ten states be organized with classical names like Metropotamia and Polypotamia. Some of his suggestions for Indian names like Michigania and Illinoia sounded better however.

1789- President-elect George Washington and Martha move in to their temporary U.S. capitol of New York City. Traveling from Virginia up to New York every town he passed through greeted him with huge parades and celebrations. When moving through Philadelphia the artist John Singleton Copley had designed a triumphal arch that as Washington moved under it sprang a strange mechanical device that plopped a gold laurel wreath on his head. Annoyed, the startled statesman tore it off.
Once set up as President, Washington realized that the first Presidential residence Franklin House had no furniture, and Congress was broke. He had to pay out of his own pocket for all the furnishings and dinnerware, large enough for state dinners of thirty or more. When he left office in 1796 he offered to John Adams to sell him his furniture. When the frugal New Englander balked at the price, Washington left the new President of the United States an empty mansion with a few candle sticks and one crystal punch bowl.

1867- William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, an optical toy predating motion pictures..

1896-THE FIRST PROJECTED MOVIES IN THE U.S.- The first projection of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Armat’s Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 28th street and Broadway in New York City.. Edison had to be nagged into this by his engineer W.K.L. Dickson. Edison thought projecting movies like the Lumiere Brothers were doing in Europe would never catch on and the future of film was nickelodeon machines. The movie show featured the sultry Annabella the Dancer and a boxing match, but the real hit of the evening was footage of Waves Hitting the Rocks on Shore, which made people instinctively duck to keep from getting wet.

1900- A celebration held in Russian Georgia was addressed by a young revolutionary who had been expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary where he was studying to become a priest. Josef Dzugashvili was later encouraged by other revolutionaries to change his name so the Czar’s police wouldn’t pick up his family. He changed his name to Man of Steel- Josef Stalin.

1903- The first game of the New York Highlanders (later Yankees) baseball team. They defeated the Washington Senators, 7-2.

1945- As the Red Army was battling in the suburbs of Berlin S.S. Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler quietly contacted Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte and requests peace terms with the Allies. From his hiding place in Bavaria Hermann Goring was also trying to make peace as well. When Hitler found out from Martin Bormann, he was furious and ordered both of them under house arrest.

1951 -Comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for a stunt where he dressed as a priest and solicited funds in a leper colony.

1971- Vietnam veterans protest the continued U.S. presence in the war by ceremoniously tossing their service medals over the White House fence. One angry soldier who tossed his medals was future Democratic Senator John Kerry. Meanwhile Lt. George W. Bush was in the Texas Air Guard, tossing his cookies.

1985- Coca Cola introduces New Coke. It's reception by the public is so overwhelmingly bad that the company returned to the original formula 90 days later. The chairman of rival Pepsi Cola exulted: " We've been eye to eye for decades and I think the other guy's just blinked ! New Coke became a symbol for large scale executive incompetence, well…uh… until this year.

1998- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introduced Windows 98 to a 4,000 industry leaders. When he ceremonially opened the first window, the system immediately crashed-.Doh!

2003- Boston area Catholic priests began to get busted for child molestation and the coverup by the Archdiocese was exposed. One priest, a Father Shayne was a registered member of the Man-Boy Love Society (NAMBLA). Outraged parishioners demanded the eventual resignation of Cardinal Law of Boston. Instead Cardinal Law was recalled to Rome were he was made pastor of the Church of Maria Maggiore. Pope Benedict XVI in America in 2008 apologized for the scandal and met with the victims.
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Yesterday’s question answered below: Who were Murray the K and Cousin Brucie?

Answer: Murray Kaufman and Bruce Morrow were local New York City radio DJ’s who filled the vacuum when Alan Fried fell from grace in the Payola Scandal. Murray the K gained a national audience when he was the first American to get exclusive interviews with the British phenomenon the Beatles, when they landed in NY for their first tour. Cousin Brucie introduced them at their first concert, and was close to Elvis Presley. Tom Woolf called Murray the K the “original loud crazy rock & roll DJ”. ( Maybe in NY, but out in- LA Wolfman Jack might dispute that..) Murray the K coined terms like “ A Blast from the Past”.


Murray the K died in 1982, but Cousin Brucie still is on the air on Radio XM.

More info from reader P.A.-

Anyone who spent a day in New York in the late 1950s and into the '60s knew those two. Murray was the top rated rock jock on the airwaves (and, ultimately, the top DJ in all formats, toppling John Gambling on WOR-AM). When WINS sold out to Group W in 1965 and went all-news-all-the-time, Murray pioneered the first FM rock station on WOR-FM, working as both the prime time evening DJ and program director and bringing Scott Muni and Rosko to the roster.

Bruce, who was the first to succeed Alan Freed at WINS, was quickly replaced in that slot by Murray and moved to WABC, where he ruled as the top jockey for a predominantly white, middle class demographic. Bruce also took over the Palisades Park rock shows that Murray had hosted in the '50s, often parading around in leopard print suits that were, well... not flattering. Yet the man has incredible staying power and even "appeared" in such unlikely places as Dirty Dancing as the voice on the radio.

In his 1958-1967 heyday, Murray held vaudeville-style rock 'n' roll extravaganzas three or four times a year at the Brooklyn Paramount (with Clay Cole) and the Academy of Music on 14th Street in Manhattan before settling in for six years at the Brooklyn Fox. Often running from 10 am to midnight, those six or seven-show-a-day bills featured the top performers on the charts... and introduced acts that Murray discovered before they got national notice, including Wayne Newton, the Lovin' Spoonful, and his one-time band leader, Bobby Vinton. When he moved to the RKO 58th Street theater in Manhattan for his last show, the roster featured the Who and Cream (in their first US performances) along with Simon and Garfunkel, Mitch Ryder, Wilson Pickett, and more.

Murray died in 1982, but his work reappears from time to time in clips from his groundbreaking 1965 CBS special It's What's Happening, Baby which was the pre-cursor to MTV -- fifteen years before MTV.


April 22, 2009 weds
April 22nd, 2009

Quiz: Who were Murray the K and Cousin Brucie?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: : I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels ?
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History for 4/22/2008
Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael , Alexander Kerensky, Arron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page, Marylin Chambers, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters, Jack Nicholson is 72

Happy Earth Day (since 1970)

753 B.C.-Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. The Romans counted time from this foundation date. So A.D. 1 to them was 754 AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae- from the "Founding of the City". So this year 2006 is 2,760 AUC.

1370-Beginning of construction on the castle/prison in Paris called La Bastille.

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1769- Madame DuBarry officially presented at the French Court. King Louis XV’s earlier mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were women of breeding and culture. But DuBarry was a saucy little trollop who had already schtupped most of the men of the court. When the Duc d’ Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this vulgar new toy, His Majesty replied:" She makes me forget that I shall soon be sixty."

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate. Lord Byron was on board and called Lord Elgin, the supervisor of this act, "The Spoiler". Today the marbles are still at the British Museum and the Greeks are still mad about it.

1876- Composer Peter Tschaikowsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1889-At noon on the signal of a cannon shot The Great Oklahoma Land Rush began. The town of Oklahoma City was set up in one day-population 10,000. The settlers who slipped in early were nicknamed Sooners and Oklahoma became known as the Sooner State. This eats up the remains of the land of the Cherokee Nation, who once owned all of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. The Cherokee kept their land in common, which to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was their downfall: "The Cherokee possess many attributes except Greed, which we all know is the basis for Civilization."

1898- Teddy Roosevelt formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry, called the Rough Riders. It was a curious mix of Teddys' personal tastes- Harvard bluebloods and polo champions mixed with rough western cowboys and rodeo stars.

1906- In earthquake destroyed San Francisco, one day after the last of the fires were declared officially out, the Market Street cable car began running once more.

1915- Second Battle of Ypres- First use of poison gas on Western front battlefields. German Jewish Dr. Fritz Hauber and friend of Albert Einstein, was convinced his experiments to create poison gas would win wars. He ran from battlefield to battlefield ensuring it was being used correctly. At this time his wife committed suicide. The Chlorine clouds did cause a huge panic in the British ranks, that opened the way to Paris, but the German generals were too cautious to follow up their surprise and the Canadians fought fiercely to close the gap. Although they had no gas masks, a quick thinking Canadian doctor ordered his men to urinate into their own handkerchiefs, then tie it around their faces. Although exceedingly gross, the ammonia counteracted the gas enabling them to fight on.

1916- THE IRISH EASTER SUNDAY UPRISING -Patrick Pearse, Richard Connolly, Michael Collins, Eamon De Valera and followers seize the O'Connell Street post office in downtown Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic. After furious gunbattles with British troops diverted from the World War I battlefields the rebellion is put down. All the ringleaders were executed, Connolly was so badly wounded that they had to prop up his stretcher before the firing squad and pinch his cheeks so he'd be awake for his death. Future Irish President Eamon De Valera pleaded his U.S. citizenship to escape execution. The Irish people in the majority hadn't wholly supported the futile rising, but ironically the fierce police crackdown had the effect of arousing sympathy for their cause and sparked the major IRA campaigns in the 20's and eventual liberty. One young boy running errands aiding the British Black & tans would eventually grow up to be Lord Haw-Haw, the British traitor voice of Nazi radio

1934- In Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in Wisconsin Public Enemy No.1 John Dillinger shot his way out of a FBI ambush. The FBI not only failed to stop Dillinger, they shot an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

1940- Writer Ernest Hemingway cabled his editor Max Perkins from Havana about a new novel he was writing.-" Title is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from passage John Donne Oxford Book of English bottom page seventy one STOP Please register immediately."

1945- While the Red Army was attacking the outskirts of Berlin, Adolph Hitler sent away to the south his personal belongings and files in a final Luftwaffe flight of ten planes. One plane was shot down carried some of his most private possessions. Hitler called it a catastrophe. What was in that plane that he valued so much? See April 24th about the infamous Hitler Diary 1983 hoax. It’s a mystery to this day.

1952- The first nuclear bomb test shown on network TV -Tommy Turtle says duck and cover!

1954- THE ARMY–McCARTHY HEARINGS began. Conservative Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee chasing communists in the government had finally bit off more than it could chew when it took on the U.S. Army. Sparked by the drafting of Private G. David Shine, a young crony (and possibly lover ) of chief counsel Roy Cohn, a hearing was held to investigate Senator’s McCarthy’s charges that the Secretary of the Army and several other top Pentagon officers were in reality Russian spies. After a short time the hearing evolved from an indictment of the army into a probe of Senator McCarthy’s red baiting tactics. It lasted for three months and spellbound the nation on live t.v. At one point Senator McCarthy submitted a note that the television cameras be turned off for a minute so he could wipe his nose. After one heated session Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy had to be separated or they would’ve come to blows. Finally under the withering voice of Joseph Walsh "Senator, have you no shred of decency?!" McCarthy was finished as a political force.

1954- The U.S. Congress added the phrase "In God We Trust" on to US currency

1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a Teach-In to bring attention to environmental issues.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born.

1996- Christopher Robin Milne dies at age 75. The young boy who’s fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

2000- The estranged wife of Mr Juan Gonzales of Cuba had grabbed their son Elian and tried to escape by boat to the United States. The wife and her lover drowned in the attempt but little 6 year old Elian survived and became a cause–celebre of the Cuban exile community in Miami. But Mr. Gonzales had come from Havanna to get his son back. Back in Havana Fidel Castro had a ball making political hay out of the Yankee Imperialistas stealing children from their parents. Finally after months of media circus US marshals under orders of Attorney General Janet Reno raid forcibly grabbed Elian Gonzales from his uncles home and gave him back to his father. His father pledged:" I want no one to ever stick a camera in my son’s face again!"

2004- Pat Tillman was a football star who gave up a lucrative future in the NFL to fight for his country. This day was killed in battle in Afghanistan. The Pentagon played up his heroism while lying to his grieving family and burning his diary. Turns out he was accidentally shot by his own men.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: : I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels?

Answer: There were four- Col. James Monroe, Col. John Tyler, Col. William McKinley, and Col. Teddy Roosevelt.


April 21, 2009 tues.
April 21st, 2009

Quiz: I had mentioned that out of 44 U.S. Presidents, 7 had been generals. Were there any who had been Colonels ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried??
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History for 4/21/2009
Birthdays: Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Iggy Pop, Charles Grodin, Anna Mangnani. Andie MacDowell, Tony Danza, Elaine May, Queen Elizabeth II is 83

1526-The First Battle of Panipat. Mogul Emperor Babur defeated the Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi and took Delhi. This established the Moghul Empire in India. Babur’s army fought with Mongol bows, elephants and he introduced cannon to India.

1847- The 4th rescue team removed the last survivors of the Donner Party wagon train from their snowed in camp on Lake Truckee in the Sierras down to the settlement on the Sacramento River. A furious winter trapped the Donners in the mountains last Oct 31st with almost no food and all their oxen dead. Of 86 pioneers 41 died and the others ate the dead to survive. Louis Keyesburg, the only settler who spoke openly of eating human flesh and was called a ghoul, moved to Sacramento and opened a restaurant. Don’t ask what’s in those home fries!

1865- UNCLE BILLY’S POLITICAL LESSON. In North Carolina, General William T. Sherman had offered Confederate Joe Johnston’s army the same terms for surrender that Grant had given Robert E Lee. But Johnston handed Sherman new terms rewritten by crafty Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It asked for political and property amnesty for all Confederate leaders; that the US Government would leave all Southern state officials at their posts. This went much further than one army surrendering to another, it was in effect a treaty that no one would be punished for the Civil War. But Billy Sherman didn’t seem to see the fine print. He thought that’s what old Abe Lincoln had wanted before he was killed. So he signed it and passed it on to Washington. When President Andrew Johnson read the terms they were thunderstruck. He ordered Sherman to tear that treaty up and offer nothing but unconditional surrender. Hotheaded Secretary of War Stanton denounced Sherman in the newspapers as a traitor. Sherman the Hero of Atlanta was furious at being made a fool of. He resolved the rest of his life to have nothing more to do with politics, which is why we never had a President William T. Sherman.

1865- President Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington DC for the long trip back to Springfield Ill.

1911- LENIN WANTS A LIBRARY CARD. Russian communist revolutionary Nikolai Lenin was living in exile in London. In a letter dated this day he applied to the British Museum Library collection to study it's documents. His letter was in perfect English and he signed his name under the pseudonym Jacob Richter.

1910- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. He once wrote: " When arriving in Heaven feel free to ask all the questions you want of Saint Peter. You may ask for his autograph however don’t take any Kodak photos or bring your dog. Admittance to Heaven is based on favor, not merit, else the dog would be allowed to go in and you kept out."

1915- THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES- The Ottoman Turkish Empire had always been a amalgamation of ethnic peoples held together by force. As the Empire aged and became the 'Sick Man of Europe', one by one these subject peoples-Greeks, Serbs, Egyptians asserted their independence and broke away. So when the Armenians also demanded autonomy the Sultan Abdul Hamid IV came up with a bloodthirsty solution. On this day the first 200 Armenian elders of a village were shot, signaling a general nationwide pogrom that would eventually kill one million people. The first person first brought the massacre story to the world was a German doctor on the scene who complained to the Kaiser. In the 1930s when someone had the courage to warn Adolph Hitler that his plans for the Jews would bring down upon them the wrath of the world, Hitler replied:" And who remembers the Armenians?"

1915- THE FIRST GALLIPOLI LANDINGS- This was young First Sea Lord Winston Churchill's idea to knock Turkey out of World War One. A British-Anzac force amphibiously landed on the beaches south of Constantinople to capture the enemy capitol. It turned into one of the biggest British fiascos of the war and knocked Churchill into resignation. The army of Gen. Ian Hamilton did surprise the Turks but then they sat on the beaches for weeks while reinforcements were brought up by a dynamic young Turkish General named Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, who would later become President of Turkey.

1918-THE RED BARON SHOT DOWN- In the wild duels in the air above the World War One trenches Baron Manfred Von Richtofen was the best of the best. The Red Knight had shot down more planes than anyone -80 confirmed. When other squadrons were disguising their planes with the new camouflage paints ("cubism gone to war"-Picasso), Richtofen had his men paint their planes bright colors to show their contempt of the enemy, hence the name-"the Flying Circus". On this day over Vaux Sur Somme, Richtofen got onto the tail of one plane and was about to add #81, when Canadian Roy Brown got behind him and filled the back of his plane with machinegun bullets. Mortally wounded, The baron still managed to land his red fokker triplane before slumping over dead. His last words over heard was " Kaput!"





Baron von Richtofen was 26. The plane was later torn to pieces by Australian soldiers seeking souvenirs. Recent scholarship argues he was killed by Australian ground fire, but Brown got the credit.. Roy Brown couldn't handle his celebrity status and committed suicide after the war. For the remainder of the war, Baron von Richtofen's staffel (squadron) was led by a young pilot named Herman Goring.

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1933- The Nazis ban kosher meat processing in Germany.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1961- Two groups of British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1969- Beat Generation author of On the Road- Jacques Kerouac died of alcoholism, bitter about how his call for youth rebellion had been reinterpreted by the 60's generation as hippies and flower power. When he came upon a gathering of kids at an anti-war rally distributing American flags to burn Kerouac collected them all and folded them neatly.

1989- George W. Bush became part of a ownership consortium that bought the last place baseball team the Texas Rangers." As soon as I knew they were for sale I went after them like a pit bull on a pants leg….It doesn’t get much better than this…"

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral. The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.

2000- Scientists discovered the fossilized heart of a dinosaur in South Dakota. It had four chambers and an aorta like a mammal. This all but proved that dinosaurs were not reptiles but warm blooded. Later it was proven that all they found was an oddly shaped rock.
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Yesterday’s Question: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried?

Answer: He was buried in France. Richard lies near to his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine at the abbey of Fontrevault in the Loire Valley, close to the castle of Chinon. His Lions heart was removed and buried in the Cathedral of Rouen.


April 20th, 2009 mon.
April 20th, 2009

Quiz: What part of England is Richard the Lionhearted buried?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: - Of 44 American Presidents, seven had been generals- Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield and Eisenhower. How many British Prime Ministers were generals?
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History for 4/20/2009
Birthdays: Harold Lloyd, Juan Miro', Adolph Hitler, Tito Puente, Nina Foch, Gregroy Ratoff, Ryan O'Neal, Daniel Day Lewis, Jessica Lange, Luther Vandross, Don Matingly, Rosalyn Summers, Keys Verwey, Crispin Glover, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, George Takei, Carmen Electra is 37, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, Andy Serkis the Gollum, Bob Kurtz

1605- King James I granted charters to the Virginia Company to found colonies in the New World. Jamestown and Plymouth are the result.

1653- After the English Civil War beheaded King Charles Ist, General Oliver Cromwell sat listening to the English Barebones Parliament arguing over trivial issues. He had already arrested everyone who disagreed with him and those who were left were too afraid to discuss anything but trivia. Finally, Oliver rose and exploded in rage:” Drunkards! Whoremasters! You are no Parliament! “He ordered his troops to run them all out. England would remain under Cromwell’s military dictatorship until his death in 1659. A note was tacked onto the locked doors of the House of Commons-“ This House to Let, Unfurnished.”

1759- Composer George Friedrich Handel died after collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the Messiah. He was 74, blind and suffering from a number of illnesses.

1814- Napoleon sent to Elba, a little island off the coast of France. He quoted the famous palindrome "Able was I ere I saw Elba." he had been learning English.

1859- " It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times..." Charles Dicken's novel "A Tale of Two Cities" began to be published in magazine form.

1902- Pierre and Marie Curie discover radium.

1903- THE KISHNIEV POGROM- The word Russian Jews feared most was Pogrom. It meant the Czars police agreed to stand back and do nothing while mobs of Anti-Semites were encouraged to murder and violate the homes of Jews. This day in the city of Kishniev, mobs killed 43 Jews and mutilated their bodies, and several hundred Jewish women were raped. There were protests around the world about the Kishniev massacre but nothing official was ever done. When Jewish leaders went to the Czar to protest, they were rebuffed and answered with another pogrom in Gomel. Czar Nicholas II would refer to his Jewish subjects with the word Zhijdt- the equivalent of N*gg*r. Back in America Mark Twain donated money to groups advocating the Czars overthrow. Twain said:” If it takes dynamite to overthrow that regime well then thank God for Dynamite!”

1909- Mary Pickford, the first Movie Star, goes in front of a camera for the first time.

1914- Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago Cubs opened. Commuters on the “El” could see how their cubbies were doing by looking for the W or L flag flying.

1914- THE LUDLOW MASSACRE- In Colorado a violent strike was being waged between coal miners and the Stnadard Oil Company of John D. Rockefeller. This night militia, Pinkerton detectives and strikebreakers attacked a tent camp of striking miners and their families in the dead of night. They poured kerosene on their tents while they were sleeping, set them alight and shot down all those who ran out for safety. 20 died, half were women and children. As in most labor murders, no one was ever tried or convicted despite public outrage. President Woodrow Wilson sent federal troops to occupy Colorado and restore order. Even then Rockefeller refused to mediation until the strike was broken.

1916-Mauser Day- A German U-Boat surfaces off the coast of Ireland and lands two IRA leaders, Sir Roger Casement and Patrick Pearse, and a ton of rifles and ammunition.
Casement was picked arrested by authorities while still on the beach but the rifles are used to start the Easter Sunday Rebellion.

1925-The Warner Bros. Moving Picture company merged with Vitagraph and begin experimenting with fixing sound on to film.

1931- LA MAFIA- Charles “Lucky” Lucciano became a top crime figure in New York after he murdered Joey the Boss Masseria. Lucciano and Masseria were having dinner in Coney Island when Lucciano excused himself to go to the lavatory. Once gone four gunmen burst in and filled Masseria with bullets. Lucciano re-entered the room after the gunnmen had left. Lucciano later hit the other top capo of New York, Salvatore Maranzano. Maranzano and Masseria were the last of the “Mustache Petes” the old guard Sicilian immigrants still pursuing feuds brought over from the old country. After this the Mafia became more American than Sicilian and Luciano organized his gangs along a corporate model. Lucky’s young gunmen- Joey Adonis, Al Anastasia, Vito Genovese and Bugsy Seigel, all became important gang bosses in the years to come.

1935- Radio program “Your Hit Parade” premiered.

1938- On Hitler’s birthday was the Berlin premiere of Leni Reifenstahl’s film Olympia, about the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1939- RCA president David Sarnoff dedicates RCA pavilion at World's Fair.
First U.S. news event filmed on television (the Nazis televised the Berlin Olympics in 1936) Sarnoff predicted that one day everyone would have a television in their home!

1940- RCA labs demonstrated the first Electron Microscope.

1942- The' Bataan Death March' ends and the prison camps at Butan and Palayu. Half the captive 16,000 Phillipino and 10,000 American troops died.( there was two animators there who I later worked with at Filmation- Don Schloat and Len Rogers..)

1968- Pierre Elliot Trudeau sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada. Trudeau became one of Canada’s more colorful leaders with his flower-child wife Margaret.

1970- San Rafael California started a tradition of smoking marijuana en masse at 4:20, supposedly the police code for a drug bust. The Greatful Dead took up the tradition and now everyone lights up at 4:20

1974 - Paul McCartney and Wings releases "Band on the Run"

1976 - George Harrison sang the Lumberjack Song with the Monty Python comedy troop.

1977- Woody Allen & Diane Keaton starred in his award winning film “Annie Hall”.

1980-the Mariel Boat Lift. Fidel Castro made a mockery of President Jimmy Carter's policy of admitting seaborne political refugees from Cuba by opening his prisons and creating a flood of boat people including many hardened criminals.

1999-COLUMBINE- Two teenagers Ryan Harris and Dylan Kleibold enter their Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado and shoot their classmates with machine guns. 15 died including the two gunmen and 26 were hurt. Despite making videotapes in which they bragged about their intentions, and leaving shotguns and ammunition around their rooms, their parents never thought anything was unusual.
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Yesterday’s Question: - Of 44 American Presidents, seven had been generals- Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant, Garfield and Eisenhower. How many British Prime Ministers were generals?

Answer: One. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was Prime Minister in 1828.


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