Question: Why is the U.S. President’s office called the Oval Office?

Yesterday’s Answer below: What is the difference between Odysseus and Ulysses?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 2/25/2009
Birthdays: Enrico Caruso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Zeppo Marx, St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), Bobby Riggs, Carl Eller, Sir Anthony Burgess, Neil Jordan, Larry Gelbart, Tom Courtenay, Sean Astin is 37, Tea Leoni, John Foster Dulles*

• Dulles was Secretary of State under Eisenhower and architect of the anti-Communist containment policy. Winston Churchill once described meeting with him: -" Dull, Duller, Dulles".

Happy Ash Weds, the first day of Lent.

138AD- Roman Emperor Hadrian officially adopted Antoninus Pius as his heir and successor with the proviso that he would in turn adopt young Marcus Aurelius, the son of his brother in law, as his heir.

799AD- Today is the Feast of Saint Walburga, who with her brother Saint Winebold preached Christianity in the remote forests of Germany. Oddly enough after Walburga’s death the Saint’s remains were removed to a new resting place on the anniversary of a pagan festival and her name stuck to the celebration- April 30th the Walpurgisnacht.

1525- THE BATTLE OF PAVIA. King Francis I of France was besieging this Italian city when he was defeated and captured by Spanish-German Emperor Charles V. This battle was noteworthy as the first battle in which hand held rifles were important. Medieval Gonnes or guns were slow and more dangerous to the holder than the enemy. A good archer could get off ten aimed arrows while a gun man was still loading. But improvements created a more accurate rifle called an arquebuse with a wooden stock and trigger. At Pavia, when the French knights charged, arquebusiers safe behind a wall of spears, shot them out of their saddles. 8,000 casualties and a new era in combat was born. King Francis fought in the van like a knight and didn’t notice his army was losing until he was alone, surrounded by enemies. After his capture wrote his queen: "All was lost save honor - and my skin, which is safe."

1570- Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth of England and absolved all English subjects of their allegiance to her. Since England was very Protestant by now, it didn't mean very much.

1601- The 31 year old Earl of Essex, one time toyboy of Queen Elizabeth, was beheaded for treason. She once gave him a ring and said if he was ever in trouble and needed her help he should send her the ring. One of his last acts was to send the ring to her. Whether she ever got it or she chose to ignore the summons is unknown.

1634-The ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN-Generalissimo of the Catholic armies in the Thirty Years War, which had been raging since 1618 with no end in sight. Duke Albrecht Wallenstein had so sickened of the seemingly endless conflict that he began secret negotiations with the Protestant Swedish generals to make peace in defiance of their kings. The German Emperor couldn't just fire him because his mercenary troops were so devoted to their General they would burn down their own capitol as soon as any enemy one.

So Wallenstein was murdered by a hit squad sent by his own employer. They broke into the Generalissimo’s bedroom and speared him in his bed. As the assassins dragged his perforated body down his grand staircase his head bumped on every step. Just to show how confusing the Thirty Years War was the German Wallenstein was murdered in his castle in the Czech homeland by a troop of Scotsmen led by an Irishman hired by an Austrian through and Italian intermediary named Piccolomini. The only language anybody could speak in common was Italian.

1779- During bone chilling cold American Captain George Rogers Clark and his men stormed the frontier fort Vincennes in Illinois Territory and captured his British nemesis Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton was nicknamed the Hair Buyer for his encouraging local Indians to scalp settlers. Clark and his army of frontiersmen fought like Indians. Part of his surrender ceremony was to make Hamilton watch while Clark personally tomahawked six captive Seneca chiefs. One chief was so tough after Clark imbedded his tomahawk in his skull the chief calmly pulled it out and gave it back to Clark to have another whack. The American Revolution on the Western Frontier effectively ended. Gen. Clark’s kid brother William Clark would be the explorer of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

1815- Princess Pauline Borghese holds a gala dress ball on the Island of Elba to distract the Allied occupation representatives away from Napoleon's secret plot to return to France. Pauline was Napoleon's kid sister and a wild thing. She drove her prudish brother nuts with her many love affairs and posing nude for artists, but when Nappy was down on his luck she was his most loyal sibling.

1836- FIRST COLT REVOLVER. Samuel Colt was given his first gun to play with at age 7. He was inspired by a ships steering wheel to invent a cylindrical gun chamber. They didn’t become popular until the price dropped with the 1860 Navy Colt. His six-shooter was nicknamed : The Great Equalizer","The Peacemaker" the "Confidence Machine" and sometimes the 'Thumbbuster". Gunfighters usually filed off the sight at the end of the barrel because it caught in your clothes during a quickdraw. Wild Bill Hickock for instance didn't wear holsters, he carried his two Navy Colts tucked in a red sash around his waist. Shootists also learned to carry it "5 beans in the wheel', meaning leaving your gun cocked to one empty chamber while you walk around. This so your gun doesn't accidentally go off in your holster, which could be very embarrassing, as Wyatt Earp once found out.

1860- A little known former congressman from out west named Abraham Lincoln stepped off the Cortlandt St Ferry in New York City. He walked alone carrying a moth-eaten carpet bag suitcase up to the Astor Hotel where he let the press know he was in town to declare himself a candidate for President of these here United States. He then went and traded in his old beaver skin stovepipe hat for a new silk top hat and went to Matthew Brady’s photo parlor to pose for a photo like all genteel-type folks is supposed ta do.

1863- CIVIL WAR PRANKS - Outside the siege lines of Vicksburg, Union admiral David Porter decided to play a practical joke on the rebels. On an old barge he built a dummy ironclad with wooden logs for guns and two burning tar smudge pots nailed to phony smokestacks. The total cost to the government for black paint and wood was 15 dollars.
He then had this contraption pushed into the Mississippi and let it float with the current downstream. When the rebel shore batteries spotted the black monster they let loose a furious barrage. It only increased their panic that the Yankee ship seemed so formidable that it didn't even bother to shoot back! When the Confederate river fleet spotted the black enemy warship they fled in terror. One captain ran his gunboat into a sand bar, abandoned it and blew it up rather than let it be captured. Eventually the dummy barge stuck in some shallows. Finally a rebel sheepishly rowed out to the barge and discovered the joke.

1864- Battle of Buzzards Roost. Sherman’s army attacked Joe Johnston’s defense works in Georgia but were repulsed. Joe Johnston's great, great grandson Joe Johnston IV is a Hollywood director who did films like Honey I Shrunk the Kinds.

1932- TOONTOWN SCANDALS. Former Australian prizefighter Pat Sullivan was the producer of the Felix the Cat cartoons, the first true animation star. Although animator Otto Mesmer actually created him Sullivan's name is the only one on the titles. Felix was one of the top film stars of the 1920s. Lindbergh supposedly had a Felix doll with him in the Spirit of St. Louis and his body shape was the prototype of Mickey Mouse and dozens of other characters.While Mesmer quietly drew pictures Sullivan lived the fast life of a roaring twenties celebrity. Mrs. Marjorie Sullivan had been having an affair with her chauffeur. After a nasty scene when husband confronted wife and the chauffeur fled, Mrs. Sullivan mysteriously fell out of her window to her death.



The scandal was front page news and Sullivan never got over it. He soon drank himself to death which during Prohibition was difficult to do. Sullivan's death and his failure to get Felix into sound cartoons doomed his studio. Otto Mesmer went on to animate the first Broadway light signs but did not receive any recognition for his contributions to animation until he was re-introduced to the public at a Bob Clampett night at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. Kid animators Eric Goldberg and Tom Sito were in the audience.

1932- A minor bit of bookkeeping. Austrian born Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had to officially become a German citizen before he could run for President.

1943- Master animator Bill Tytla resigned from Disney.

1956- THE SECRET SPEECH-In Moscow at a closed session of the 20th Party Congress Premier Nikita Khruschev denounced the crimes of the mass-murderer Josef Stalin. The audience was stunned at such honesty. When someone shouted:" If he was so terrible, why did you say nothing?" Khruschev roared back: " WHO SAID THAT?................(silence)..........................that's why."

1956- Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met at a party in Cambridge England.

1957- Bugs Moran, the gangster who challenged Al Capone for mastery of the Chicago rackets, died in prison of lung cancer. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre ruined Moran’s organization and he finally slipped down to petty thievery when he was nabbed.

1957- Buddy Holly and the Crickets record "That'll Be the Day."

1964- Young Cassius Clay, later renamed Muhammed Ali, defeated Sonny Liston in 2:14 minutes into the 6th round for the heavyweight boxing crown. The odds were on Liston 8-1 but Clay said he would "Float like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee!"When asked to comment about his defeat, Sonny Liston concluded: "Life, a funny thing."

1971- Oh Calcutta, the first play with lots of actors shedding their clothes, premiered on Broadway at the Belasco.

1983- Famous playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead in a New York hotel room. He died when he choked on a nose spray bottle cap that fell into his mouth while he was using the spray. Others say it was a Pepsi bottle cap.

1986- President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines in the face of the People-Power revolution. Former movie star turned first lady Imelda Marcos left behind her amazing shoe collection. She felt that if the poor people saw her living in luxury it would make them feel better- (?)

1994- A Brooklyn born Jewish man named Baruch Goldstein goes berserk in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and shoots 29 innocent Palestinian civilians.

1996- Dr Haing Ngor, the doctor who survived the Cambodian Killing Fields holocaust and won an Academy Award in a movie of the same name, was killed in a robbery attempt outside his Los Angeles home.

2004- Movie star uber-Catholic Mel Gibson’s movie the "The Passion of the Christ" opened in North America. The film was criticized for it’s perceived anti-Semitism, it was the first movie in which Jesus spoke his real language –Aramaic. The film was advertised more in churches than in the press. Pastors bought blocks of tickets for their congregations. The film earned nearly a billion dollars, most of the profit earned by Mel Gibson, who was the films sole investor.
--------------------------------------------
Question: What is the difference between Odysseus and Ulysses?

Answer: They are the same person. Odysseus in Greek, Ulysses in Latin.

Pat and I went to the Oscars the other night.



As our limo wound it's way up Highland Blvd, like Sean Penn mentioned in his speech, the signs waved and the crazies were out. They are there every year, but this year there seemed to be a few extra virulent ones- GO TO HELL, HOLLYWOOD SINNERS! HEATH LEDGER IS IN HELL! GOD HATES AMERICA, GOD HATES OBAMA, and one lone Holocaust denier who had a lot to be pissed off about- The Reader, Defiance,Valkyrie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

click to enlarge.

Well, you can't please everyone. Fortunately they were a tiny, tiny group lost in a sea of excited and happy people, straining to see their favorite celebrities. In all the current gloom, I think we all wanted to forget our troubles for a night and enjoy some old fashioned Hollywood glamor and escapism.

I hope they were as much fun on TV as what we saw on the stage. Hugh Jackman surprised all by being very entertaining , singing, dancing, and joking with the audience during the commercial break in a folksy, Australian way.

Congratulations to Andrew Stanton and the whole WALL-E gang for a job well done. Congrats also to Kunio Kato and his film MAISON DE PETIT CUBES, which I particularly enjoyed. His was my favorite acceptance speech. Domo Arrigato, mister Roboto...Ya gotta love an animator who thanks his pencil..?


Jerry Beck's blog Cartoon Research has hot links to see the film and Kunio's acceptance speech.

Seen with us around the Kodak Center were Animation notables like- Ralph Eggleston, Pete Docter, Max Howard, Bill & Sue Kroyer, Rick Farmiloe, Kevin and Sean Petrilak, Barry Weiss, Barbara Babbitt, Greg Manwaring, Charles Solomon and Scott Johnston, Jay Jackson, Oscar Nominee Jim Reardon and many more.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Question: What is the difference between Odysseus and Ulysses?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Why is a sharpshooter soldier called a sniper?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 2/24/2009
B-Dazes: Roman Emperor Hadrian, Winslow Homer, Arrigo Boito, Wilhelm Grimm (a brother of the brothers Grimm), Honus Wagner- early 1900’s baseball player called the Flying Dutchman, Admiral Chester Nimitz, Abe Vigoda, Edward James Olmos, Barry Bostwick, Michel Legrand, James Farentino, illustrator Zdzislaw Beskinski, Joe Leiberman, Michael Radford, Billy Zane, Steve Jobs is 54

Happy Mardi Gras - Fat Tuesday- The day before Ash Wednesday ushering in the Catholic season of Lent is the cause for wild parties in many cultures- Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Venice, Quebec and other cities. Carne-Vale is Latin for Goodbye to Meat., the Lenten fast. The Mardi Gras custom in America started in Mobile Alabama around 1708 then went to New Orleans. It died out in more somber Victorian times but was renewed after the Civil War- so-' Lesse Le Bon Temps Rolle’! “Let the Good Times Roll!”

495 B.C. Roman Festival REGIFUGIUM in honor of the overthrow of the Tarquins and foundation of the ROMAN REPUBLIC. The king of Rome, Tarquinus Superbus -Tarquin the Proud, Rash, Pain-in-da-Butt, whatever, capping off a history of arrogant rule, raped Lucretia, the daughter of a nobleman named Horatius. She tells her dad and he stabs her to death to save her further shame ( I guess that's 'tough love 'or something). The Roman people lead by the Horatius’ and his brother Marcus Brutus drive out the king and establish a republic. For the next 450 years, Rome is a democracy led by a Senate-from" senates" or elders, electing two Consuls (presidents) a year with the common peoples spokesmen called Tribunes of the Plebs. The motto the Romans would carry to the ends of the earth was S.P.Q.R.- Senatus Populusque Romanum -The Senate and the People of Rome.

1784- Alexander Hamilton established the Bank of New York, the second oldest private bank in North America. At first the Mayor Clinton refused to grant the bank a charter. He said “corporations are sinister plots aimed at the average citizen…”

1836- As Mexican cannon pounded the Alamo, Jim Bowie took ill and was invalid to the fort’s hospital where he stayed till the end. Historians dispute whether he developed a fever or something venereal. Col William Travis now assumed overall command. He had a message slipped out past Mexican lines-“ To the People of Texas and all Americans in the World” He appealed for aid and ended his message with a bold “Victory or Death!” The message was reprinted in newspapers throughout the US. The Alamo received no help, but the fiery message assured that the little doomed outpost would hold the attention of the everyone in North America.

1848- THE FRENCH SECOND REPUBLIC IS DECLARED. King Louis Phillipe whom Daumier caricatured as a fat pear in a frock coat and top hat, was overthrown. Austrian diplomat Baron Metternich predicted: When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold. “ Sure enough, inspired by the French example, urban working class revolts break out all over Europe. Berliners,Viennese, Romans,Venetians, Hungarians, Saxons and Poles fight in the streets with the forces of their autocratic rulers. 1848 is remembered as the "Year of Revolutions". Karl Marx and Frederich Engels had trouble publishing their Communist Manifesto because of all the darn revolutions sprouting up! New York jewelry dealer Charles Tiffany was vacationing in Paris, when French aristocrats fleeing the revolution sold him their family diamonds at cut rate prices to raise ready cash. This unexpected opportunity became the basis of the Tiffany jewelry trade.

1852- Russian writer and hypochondriac Nicolai Gogol burns the second half of his masterpiece DEAD SOULS on advice of a religious mystic to atone for his sins. He died two weeks later of "brain fever".

1868- The U.S. House of Representatives voted 11 articles of Impeachment against President Andrew Johnson. Of the 11 charges only one made any legal sense, that was Johnson’s ignoring the Tenure of Office Act and firing his own Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. This act was later overturned as unconstitutional. The other charges were things like “He made such speeches wherein he spoke disparagingly of this Congress.” etc. Johnson said:” Impeach and Be Damned!” He was acquitted in the senate by only one vote.

1928- Frenchman Nicholas Landru, called BLUEBEARD was executed by guillotine. Landru married ten times, bringing the ladies up to his home, murdering them, and burning them in his furnace. He'd then live off their estates and sell their furniture. When the prosecutor said :"So, you made a career out of the suffering and swindling of others !" Landru replied:" No monsieur, I am not a lawyer."

1987- US Robotics sold the first 56k modems.

1988- The US Supreme Court defended the right of public figures to be satirized by throwing out a lawsuit Rev Jerry Fallwell brought against Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt. Flynt published a drawing describing Rev Fallwells having sex with his mother in an outhouse. The Court ruled a public figure can be lampooned, so long as it is not portrayed as factual.

1989- According to the David Lynch television series Twin Peaks, this is the day Laura Palmer’s body was found and F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper came to town to investigate.

1997- The announcement of the first successful cloning of a mammal embryo, a sheep named Dolly in Scotland. To prove even though they're research scientists 'boys will be boys', They used cells from a mammary gland to do the cloning, so they named their creation after busty singer Dolly Parton. After a series of illnesses, the animal was put down in 2003, living half the life span of a normal sheep, but she mated and had babies normally. The drive to develop cloning continues. In 2002 the a successful cloning of a cat was claimed by a California company called Commercial Savings & Clone.

2003- State Farm Insurance Company announced that they would add a clause into future car insurance policies that Nuclear Explosions and Terrorist Biological Agents would not be classified as Road Hazards and so not covered. Yep, if a Hydrogen Bomb goes off in my neighborhood, my first concern will be about my insurance premiums.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterdays’ Question: Why is a sharpshooter soldier called a sniper?

Answer: In British held India, hunting a small bird called a Snipe was a challenge to the sharp-eyed. The British Army soon realized that hunters who went for Snipe made better sharpshooters. By World War One the name stuck.

Quiz: Why is a sharpshooter soldier called a sniper?

Answer to yesterdays question below: Why is the Presidential retreat called Camp David?
-----------------------------------------------------
history for 2/23/2009
Birthdays: George Fredrich Handel, Samuel Pepys (pronounced 'peeps'), Mayer Amschel Rothschild-1743- founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Victor Fleming, W.E.B. DuBois, Johnny Winter, Peter Fonda is 69, William Shirer, Allan MacLeod Cormack-inventor of the CAT Scan, Kelly MacDonald, Tom Bodet, Neal McDonough, Kristin Davis is 44, Dakota Fanning is 15.

Roman Festival Terminalia, god of borders and boundaries. Not to be confused of course with Janus god of portals and doorways and Forculus god of doors.

303 A.D. -DIOCLETIAN RENEWS THE BAN ON CHRISTIANITY. The Roman Empire recognized a cult as ‘religo’ ( officially sanctioned ) or “supersticio” ( banned ). It's a paradox that those men history called good Roman emperors were big Christian killers while the evil tyrants like Caligula ignored Christians, probably because they were too busy abusing their own subjects to focus on a minor Eastern cult. After Nero's death the pattern of Christian persecution raised and lowered with each emperor, at one time so mild that two bishops of the outlawed religion even asked the emperor Aurelian to arbitrate a dispute! When Diocletian became emperor he made it his mission to stop the Roman Empire's decline. So if weirdo cults like Christianity were considered part of the problem then it had to be stamped out. While Nero tortured people only in Rome Diocletian demanded a systematic quota of arrests and executions in every province of the Empire. A lot of saints date their martyrdom’s around 295-305 AD.

1539- The Viceroy of New Spain organized an expedition under Don Francisco de Coronado to march north from Vera Cruz and find El Dorado, the fabulous Seven Cities of Cibola. Coronado wandered the American Southwest for the next two years discovering marvels like the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert, but found no cities of gold. When he returned to Spain he was arrested for wasting government funds.

1568- Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great stormed the great Rajput fortress of Chitoor. His warriors fought with Mongol composite bows, cannon, matchlock rifles and armored war elephants, trained to squish enemies.

1819- The CATO STREET CONSPIRACY- English radicals led by Sir Roger Thistlewood plot to murder the entire British cabinet including the Duke of Wellington as they supped after the opening of Parliament. Then would institute a French Revolutionary style republic in Jolly-Old England ! Ods Bodkins! But fear not, an informer disclosed the plan to the government and on this night constables raided the nefarious plotters at their Cato-Street hideout and nabbed the whole bunch! By Godfrey, Britain was safe once more!

1821- In a house in Rome’s Piazza de Espagna 25 year old English poet John Keats died of tuberculosis. As he was dying he joked: ” I can feel daisies growing over me”. He instructed that his grave marker bear only the self deprecating message” Here lies one who’s Fame was Written in Water.”

1836- Santa Anna's Mexican army of 4,000 surrounds the mission called the Alamo, which had 185 Texas defenders. Santa Anna ordered the buglers to call to parley. Col. Travis answered with a cannon shot which Jim Bowie thought was rather rash. Santa Anna then called for the raising of a red flag from a church steeple in San Antonio de Bejar and his trumpeters sounded the Deguello, signifying that he intended to take no prisoners.

1886-the Johnson Wax Company formed.

1892- Rudolph Diesel patented the Diesel Engine.

1915- In Berlin a secret pact was concluded between the German government and Irish nationalist leader Sir Roger Casement. In it Germany pledged to supply Casement with guns, artillery and even German officers to aid the Irish people to revolt against Britain. The Irish never got more than a shipload of rifles but the Easter Sunday Uprising of 1916 was the result. Casement was arrested on the beach by the British trying to stop the rebellion from breaking out.

1917-In St. Petersburg it is International Women Workers Day. Demonstrating women throw rocks at factory windows to get the men to come out and join them. Soon the Tsar's capitol is in a general strike. Tsar Nicholas was at the front and the Tsarina is enclosed with her icons praying over the recently murdered monk Rasputin. The anti-government demonstrations would go on day and night joined by policemen and soldiers until the Tsar himself abdicated on March 2nd.

1926- President Calvin Coolidge said he was against the creation of a large US Airforce because it “would be a menace to world peace.” And Coolidge was a Republican!

1935- Walt Disney Mickey & Donald cartoon "The Band Concert". This was the first color Mickey Mouse cartoon.

1940-Woody Guthrie had just arrived in New York City and was staying in a fleabag hotel in Manhattan. He overheard on the radio Kate Smith singing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and was annoyed because he felt it was overtly patriotic and corny. It was everything he hated about Tin Pan Alley, a rose-colored tune denying the class injustice and suffering of the Great Depression. So Woody took out some paper and his guitar and composed six stanzas he originally called God Blessed America, but he later changed to 'This Land is Your Land". It became the song he’s best remembered for and today it’s considered just as patriotic as God Bless America.

1942- In the dead of night a Japanese submarine surfaced off the California coast and fired it's cannon at lights it thinks is a city. In reality it's an oil refinery near Goleta just north of Santa Barbera. The brief bombardment caused $150 dollars in damage. The sub breaks radio silence to report to Tokyo that " Enemy coast sighted. Los Angeles is in Flames." The incident fueled the panic that Californians had that the West Coast was ripe for enemy invasion. The incident was lampooned in the Steven Spielberg comedy "1941."

1960 - The Day Brooklyn Cried'- After the Dodgers move to Los Angeles, Flatbushs’ Ebbets Field baseball stadium went under the wrecking ball and became a low income housing project.

1981- The Moscardo Coup. Disgruntled Spanish Fascists missed the good old days under dictator Francisco Franco. This day 200 members of the Guardia Civil police attacked the Spanish Parliament and held the lawmakers hostage. A Colonel Moscardo yelled threats on television and waved a pistol in the air. The coup was crushed after 18 hours thanks in no small part to King Juan Carlos, who appeared in nationwide television in uniform and called upon the people to defend the democracy.

1991-The Ground War to liberate Kuwait begins. The US Army was led by Gen. Colin Powell, who was originally from the South Bronx and among the Americans in the spearhead column was the French Foreign Legion, then recruited from unemployed Liverpool and Manchester soccer hooligans. Scary bunch.

1994- The Russian Mir space station had been in space since 1986 but was starting to show it’s age. A booster ship sent with supplies collided with Mir during a bad docking maneuver. This day an oxygen fire fills the Mir Space Station with smoke. The fire is put out but it’s just the beginning of 6 months of privation, accidents and hair-raising close-calls for the joint Russian-German crew and lone American astronaut Jerry Leninger.
Mir was retired in 2002 and fell back to Earth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Why is the Presidential retreat called Camp David?

Answer: The Caitochin military base in the mountains of Frederick County Maryland, was converted into a Presidential retreat by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. He called it ShangriLa. In the 1950s President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it after his newly born grandson David.

Quiz: Why is the Presidential retreat called Camp David?

Yesterday’s question answered below: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 2/22/2009
Birthdays: Hungarian King Ladislas the Posthumous-1440, Shah Tahmasp Ist-1514, George Washington, Frederic Chopin, Edward St. Vincent Millay, John Mills, Edward Gorey, Luis Bunuel, Ted Kennedy, Dr. J- Julius Erving, Dwight Frye- Renfield in Dracula,Sheldon Leonard,Nicky Lauda, Don Pardo the voice of Saturday Night Live is 91!,Jonathan Demme, Jeri Ryan, Kyle McLachlan is 50, Rachael Dratch, Steve Erwin, Drew Barrymore is 34

Happy Birthday! Actor James Hong is 80

David Morse rocked the house with an amazing GW impression in the HBO special John Adams.

1732-GEORGE WASHINGTON born- Until 1969 Washington’s Birthday was a national holiday in the USA. Despite his immense reputation George Washington is still quite an enigmatic figure. You can remember great sayings of Kennedy -"Ask not what your country can do for you..") and Lincoln "Government by the people, for the people, etc." but can you recall anything of Washington's? That's because he was a stuffy, by-the-book type who used XVIII Century prose." Conscript Fathers, it would behoove me greatly if you wouldst see fit to provide victuals whereof..".Alexander Hamilton, called him "Talented but Dull". Thomas Paine's opinion: "A compleate hippocryte". John Adams came to call him “Old Muttonhead” that he’d rather strike leadership poses than actually lead, But Thomas Jefferson called him the" Indispensable Man" who assured that this strange new system of elected president would not lapse into a dictatorship or royalty.
SO HERE’S TO a General who lost more battles than won them,
-Who donated much of his personal fortune to the Revolution, accepted no pay, yet ended the war with a profit;
-who had a whiskey still behind Mt.Vernon and grew hemp -for rope;
-Who had few close friends and despised people touching him;
-Who’s first real ambition was to be an officer in the British Army.
-Who much preferred conversation about methods of raising squash to discussing his military campaigns.
-Who never went to college.
- Who was turned down for a bank loan the day he was elected President.
-Who went to Church every Sunday but never used the word God or quoted the Bible in any of his letters, and refused Last Rites at his deathbed...
- And without whom the U.S. would not be the same. Happy Birthday G.W. !..

1774- The English House of Lords announced that authors do not have a perpetual copyright on their works but it must be periodically renewed.

1775- The first IPO- the American Manufactuary of Woolins, Linens & Cottons became the first U.S. company to offer stock to the public- ten English pounds a share.

1836- Texans defending the Alamo held a big fiesta in San Antonio to celebrate Washington’s Birthday. Dancing, tequila and corn whisky flowed. Davey Cockett played his fiddle. But the party was interrupted when scouts brought word that the first elements of General Santa Anna’s huge Mexican Army were coming, only 8 miles away.

1848- John Quincy Adams had a stroke on the floor of Congress and died shortly after. He was the son of John Adams and was one of the only U.S. presidents to go back to being a congressman after losing his re-election bid. I believe the only other was Andrew Johnson re-entered the Senate. Quincy Adams got his stroke speaking out on a bill to award Mexican War officers a ceremonial sword -he was anti-war.

1879- Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Five & Ten Cent-store in Utica, New York.

1909- The White Fleet returned to Norfolk Virginia after circumnavigating the world. At a time when battleships were the nukes of international policy the US sending this fleet around was making the statement that the U.S planned to be a world player.

1912-”MY HAT IS IN THE RING!” Teddy Roosevelt announced his intention to challenge for the Republican Presidential nomination against his own hand picked successor William Howard Taft. Roosevelt and Taft were once close friends but now Teddy called Taft a “Puzzlewit” and “Fathead”. The Taft -Roosevelt feud split the Republican party and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to defeat them both. Roosevelt also split the progressive left wing off the Republicans that completed the process began in the Gilded Age of turning the radical party of Lincoln into America’s Tory conservatives. When Theodore Roosevelt was buried in 1919 the last mourner to linger weeping over his grave was William Howard Taft.

1924- President Coolidge becomes first president to address the nation over the radio.

1946- THE KENNAN REPORT- U. S. charges des affaires in Moscow George Kennan sent a long telegram to Washington in which he analyzed Soviet foreign policy. "Soviet Power is impervious to the logic of Reason, but responds to Force, and when confronted by sufficient force and determination it usually backs down." Kennan's report created the US strategic policy to confront global Communism with direct force. It gave philosophical justification to the client wars in Greece, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam , as well as the support of Spain’s Franco, Indonesia’s Suharto, Pinochet’s Chile and Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlevi because of their anti-Communist stances.

1980-Underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated Soviet team 4-3 for the gold medal. The summer games in Moscow were boycotted, not the winter. The two teams did not meet again until the 2002 games in Utah where they skated to a 2-2 tie.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s question below: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?

Answer: If they die before baptism, they go to Limbo, where virtuous pagans who lived before knowing Christ like Socrates, reside. Limbo was considered the ante-room to hell, but according to a recent Vatican encyclical, not all that bad, really.

Quiz: According to the Catholic Church, where do unbaptized babies go if they die?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: : In live action movies, why do you strike a set, when you take it down?
-------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY for 2/21/2009
Birthdays: Leopold Delibes, C. Brancusi, Anais Ninn, W.H. Auden, Hubert de Givenchy, Era Bombeck, Sam Peckinpah, Nina Simone, Robert Mugabe, Joe Oriolo, David Geffen, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kelsey Grammar is 54, Jennifer Love Hewitt is 30, Alan Rickman is 63, Ellen Page is 22

1719- A London weekly announced “Mr Handel, a Famous Master of Music, is gone beyond the sea, by order of His Majesty , to collect a company of the choicest singers in Europe for the Opera in the Haymarket.” The London Opera is born. On his recruiting trip George Frederich Handel passed through his hometown of Halle. A few hours after he was gone another musician came to town having walked 25 miles to meet this great German who had conquered England. He was Johann Sebastian Bach. But he was too late. The two giants of classical music would never meet.

1814- LONG BEFORE BERNIE MADDOW- This day Captain De Berenger, a French exile aristocrat in the British Army, arrived in London with amazing news from the Continent- that Napoleon had been defeated in battle and had been killed by Russian Cossacks. The war was over! London went wild with celebrations and exiled King Louis XVIII held a celebratory ball. But the news was false. Napoleon was alive and would wage war for two more years. De Berenger was part of an elaborate stock fraud. His partners Andrew Butt, Richard Cochrane-Johnstone and Thomas Cobbett waited until the London Stock Market boomed with the news, then sold their shares at top price. When the truth came out and the market crashed, they had made a fortune. Soon a stock fraud investigation was convened and all the conspirators rounded up.
The only good thing from this was for America. Cochrane-Johnstones cousin Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane was also implicated in the scheme and this prevented him from sailing to America with the British fleet. Cochrane-The Sea Wolf” was one of the best fighting admirals since Nelson and the model for fictional salts like Horatio Hornblower and Lucky Jack Aubrey. He would not be at Baltimore when the “Rockets Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air..”etc.

1838- The first telegraph message sent by Samuel Morse "What hath God wrought?" He strung electric cables up and down several floors of his art studio using wood stretchers normally used for oil paintings. Morse was an artist and never wanted to be an inventor, he just did it to finance his painting.

1848- THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO- In Brussels Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their revolutionary work the Communist Manifesto, redefining history in terms of economic class warfare and creating the terms communist and communism. Interestingly enough they picked Brussels to publish because that year 1848 there were revolutions happening in most of the other cities in Europe. In the 1998 to celebrate it’s anniversary an international publishing conglomerate issued a deluxe designer edition complete with trendy graphics and gilt cover. What would Marx have thought?

1885- The completed Washington Monument was dedicated by Pres Chester Allan Arthur. Plans for the obelisk were first drawn up in 1792 by Pierre L’Enfant and the cornerstone laid in 1840 but construction was constantly suspended. For a time because of the Civil War, another time because strict Presbyterian workers refused to handle Italian marble blocks donated by the Vatican.

1901- Yankee outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with prostitute Hedda Place, sometimes called Mrs. Sundance, left New York City by ship for Latin America and hopefully a new life. They built a ranch in the Patagonian foothills of Argentina, but 4 years later took up their outlaw ways again, eventually fleeing to Bolivia. Hedda Place returned to the US and disappeared from history.

1916-VERDUN began- One of the most horrible battles in world history. World War One German commander Eric Von Falkynhen had planned to draw France into a battle that would ‘bleed her white”, but he wound up bleeding his German Army just as badly. German and French troops battled over some stone fortresses for ten months. Hundreds of thousands of men died in one battle. Names like Petain, Rommel, DeGaulle, the Red Baron, even Bavarian Lance-Corporal Adolf Hitler were all there. The French fired 1 1/2 million shells in this thirty mile square area and the Germans even more. Regiments would be marched into the trenches, blown to bits, then another marched in. One whole French regiment was buried alive by shellfire. Today in a shrine you can see their bayonets sticking out of the soil, still in a straight line waiting to attack.

In the fortresses like Donaumont and Vaux men fought underground in 12 foot high concrete tunnels in total darkness with grenades and flamethrowers, their ears bleeding from the concussions and choking on the fumes and stench of rotting corpses. The French commander of Douamount went mad after the war and shot himself. The surrounding countryside was turned into a shellhole pocked lunar hell. Frenchmen are still digging up unexploded bombs 90 years later. It is said even birds would not fly over Verdun and nothing could grow there. Even their monument by Rodin is macabre. The Verdun Tourist Office was trying to emphasize the positive sites of the city, like they are the birthplace of those candy-covered almonds you get at weddings.

1942- After the port of Darwin was bombed by the Japanese, President Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur, trapped on Corregidor, not to go down fighting but escape and organize the defense of Australia.
Generals Eisenhower and George Marshal, who knew MacArthur, really didn't mind the idea of him dying in battle, but Roosevelt felt it would be too big a propaganda victory for the Japanese. MacArthur slipped away in the dead of night by PT boat with his wife and four year old son. He vowed to the Philippine people:"I Shall Return !" The army press liaison tried to change the press release to We Shall Return, but MacArthur insisted it remain as is.

1945-During the Battle of Iwo Jima the Marines raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi. Associate Press photographer Joe Rosenthal takes the most famous image of the war. It's now the Marine monument at Arlington Cemetery. Actually, he photographed the second flag raising. The first was a small flag stuck on a piece of pipe to get the artillery below to stop shelling and to give the Marines pinned down on the beach some hope. The second larger flag raising was done for the press. It was still plenty dangerous, two of the six flag raisers were later killed in battle that same day. Rosenthal almost missed the shot because he turned around momentarily to see if he was in the way of another cameraman.

.

1965- MALCOLM X was assassinated at the Audubon Meeting Hall in Washington Heights Manhattan. His last words were trying to quiet the crowd he was about to address-"Brothers, be cool." Three men then stood up and fired pistols and a shotgun killing him instantly. It has never been proven who ordered the killing. Popular sentiment says it was his enemies in the Black Muslim movement like leader the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, with whom he had broken.

1988- Televangelist Jimmy Swaggert tearfully confessed to his Baton Rouge congregation “Ah Have Sinned!!”. He had been busted for soliciting a prostitute. They forgave him, A year later he was busted again for the same reason but continues to preach morality on t.v. today.
----------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: : In live action movies, why do you strike a set, when you take it down?

Answer: Circus tent handlers used to work early movies when the big top was in winter quarters. The term goes back even further to Elizabethan sailors. To strike the sails, means to undo the ropes and lower them. So also to strike the tents means to undo the ropes and lower them, Likewise to strike the sets.