Quiz: When exercising, what does it mean to be working out your glutes?

Yesterday’s question answered below: You’ve all heard of Dalmatian dogs. Where is the Dalmatian Coast?
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History for 6/22/2022
Birthdays: Captain George Vancouver, Eric Maria Remarque, John Dillinger, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Mike Todd, Billy Wilder, Joe Papp, Bill Blass, Oskar Fischinger, Pistol Pete Maravich, Klaus Maria Brandauer is 79, Ed Bradley, Emmanuelle Seigner, Prunella Scales, Meryl Streep is 73, Konrad Zuse, Kris Kristofferson, Matt Doherty, Floyd Norman is 87.

168BC- The Battle of Pydna- Roman General Lucius Aemelius Paulus defeated the Macedonian army of King Perseus. This victory, besides giving Rome mastery of Greece, ended the fading reputation of the army of Alexander the Great, and announced to the world Roman supremacy. The old tactics of the Greek Phalanx were eclipsed by the Roman Legions.

109AD- The Baths of Trajan first opened to the Roman public.

1342 – According to JRR Tolkeins’ book the Hobbit, this day Bilbo Baggins returned to his home in the Shire, with the one true Ring.

1535- Sir Thomas Moore and Bishop John Fisher were beheaded for refusing to support King Henry VIII's divorce, and the King's assertion that he was head of the English Church. Moore said on the scaffold: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first." The stairs up to the scaffold were rickety. Moore quipped to the guards “ I pray you warden see me safe up. As for the coming down, leave me to shift for myself."
The Vatican made them both saints. The Pope had recently named Bishop Fisher a cardinal. After Fisher’s decapitated head was stuck on a spike on London Bridge, King Henry laughed “Now he can go to Rome and get his Cardinal’s Hat.”

1675 - Royal Greenwich Observatory established in England by Charles II.

1774- THE QUEBEC ACT- We like to remember the American Revolution as our forefathers rebelling against unjust persecution, but the Quebec Act irritated them as much as the Stamp Act, because it ordered Americans to tolerate Roman Catholics!
The Royal Governor of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, seeking to heal the anger between English and French Canadians since the Seven Years War, wrote and shepherded this act through Parliament. It made Quebec one huge province extending to the Ohio River, cutting the Yankee colonies off from western expansion. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois would be part of Canada.
But the tolerance of the practice of the Catholic religion is what really drove the New England Yankees crazy: "Popish, Romish, Heathen Idolatry and Slavery! This is a great threat to American Civil Liberties and the Protestant Religion! We must now learn the Arts of War." Declared Dr. Joseph Warren, who was killed at Bunker Hill. Thomas Jefferson mentioned the Quebec Act in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence.

One year later when the Revolution had broken out and Americans invaded Quebec, even though George Washington had warned his troops not to disrespect the Catholic population, the French Canadians remembered, and would not help "Les Bostonnais".

1876- Gen. Custer and the Seventh Cavalry ride out of Fort Lincoln. Custer was to scout for a larger army under General Terry and not to engage the Sioux when he found them, but wait for the main army to catch up. Custer turned down an offer of two companies of Colorado militia, artillery and Gatling guns, all for fear they would slow him down. Many men upon leaving the fort immediately emptied their canteens, and refilled them with rotgut whiskey bought from peddlers. As Custer rode by Gen. Gibbon called out: "Remember George, save some Indians for us!" Custer laughed: "No I won't!"

1893- British Admiral Sir George Tryon ordered his fleet to accomplish a complex grand maneuver that ended up with his battleships ramming into one other. OOPS!

1894 - Harry Houdini married Bessie Rahner. She remained devoted to him even after his death. Every Halloween for twenty years she held a séance to try and contact him.

1897- THE BRITISH EMPIRE- Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. Now considered the zenith of the British Empire. In Victoria's reign the empire grew ten times its early size, encompassing one quarter of the globe and one third of the world's population. The little queen dressed in her habitual black with a little gray bonnet started the festivities by pushing an electric button that send a congratulatory message around the world simultaneously to Delhi, Capetown, Ottawa and Sydney. Praises poured in from notaries like Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm.

1898- US troops including Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders landed on the Cuban coast near the town of Daiquiri. This is when the mixed drink named Daiquiri was introduced to American drinkers as well as the Cuba-Libre, which we now call a Rum & Coke.

1903- The Williamsburg Bridge opened. The second spanning of New York’s East River after the Brooklyn Bridge was not as celebrated but very functional.

1910- Dr Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet. German scientist Dr Paul Ehrlich announced the definitive cure for syphilis, a disease that had bedeviled mankind since Columbus’ sailors brought it from the New World.

1933- In Germany, the Nazis outlawed all other political parties but theirs.

1933- Max Fleischer promoted Lillian Friedman to be the first woman animator in American commercial animation. She animated a test, drawing Betty Boop and with the connivance of a camera woman, had it filmed without a name slate. Then she had it screened in front of the crew at dailies. Dave Fleischer said "Hire that guy!" "It's a girl", he was told. So, Lillian Friedman (Astor) was hired at 25 dollars a week when the male animators were making up to $125.00. I asked her about this and she said "It was the Depression and I was supporting my husband who was out of work. I wasn't angry then, but I am angry now."

1938- In Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Joe Louis "the Brown Bomber" KO's German Max Schmeling in one round to regain the world heavyweight title. There was joyful celebrations in the streets of Harlem that night. The bout had the heavy ideological overtones of Nazi claims to be a master race. Schmeling ironically was anti-Nazi and had hid Jews from arrest. After the loss, Hitler would have nothing to do with him, and Schmeling joined the army.

1941- THE CURSE OF TAMERLANE- In the 15th century Timur Khan or Tamerlane conquered an empire almost as large as Genghis Khan’s. This day in 1941 Russian archaeologists in Samarkand first broke into his tomb. The grave had an inscription:” Do not disturb my Tomb, ere a Fate Worse than Mine awaits You.” That same day a thousand miles east, the Hitler’s invasion of Russia began.

1941-BARBAROSSA- The code word “Dortmund” issued to leading Wehrmacht units. Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia begins. Three million steel helmeted troops and three thousand tanks in three huge pincers pierced the Russian heartland.
Hitler called it: “The Final War of Extermination with the World Conspiracy of Jewish-Bolshevism.” Jews found this sadly ironic, because Stalin himself was anti-Semitic.
While 695,000 Americans died in World War II almost all of which were military personnel, 27 million Russians died, 20 million were civilians. More than half the 7 million German casualties in the war, 3 out of every 5, were caused by the Red Army.

1941- Walt Disney assistant animator Bill Hurtz married Mary Whitney, one of Walt Disney’s secretaries. Hurtz later went on to become an award winning director at UPA.

1942- Second Battle of Tobruk. The British holding North African seaport of Tobruk had bedeviled Rommel’s Afrika Corps for weeks. This time Rommel’s attack was much more successful.

1942- A Japanese submarine fired its cannon at Fort Stevens at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon.

1943- British tanks and Indian troops broke the Japanese siege of Imphal. Since March the Japanese 15th Army had attacked from Burma into India in what Japanese troops hoped was “ The Drive on Delhi”. They fought for months with tanks, planes, samurai swords and Gurkhas wielding their Kukhris- the famous boomerang shaped knife.

1944- Congress passed the Rankin-Barden Servicemen’s Adjustment Act, better known as the "GI Bill" giving college and home loans to returning veterans.

1948. Answering the need for manpower in a war-depleted economy the first ship load of immigrants from the Caribbean arrived in England. They had no place to stay so for awhile the government reopened the Clapham Junction WWII bombshelter. This day marked the beginning of the pluralization of British society. .

1966 – The Mike Nichols film "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened. Based on the play by Edward Albee and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. It was the first American movie to use four letter cuss words. Just a year before comedian Lenny Bruce had gone to jail for saying the same words, although everyone including President Johnson swore in everyday parlance.

1969- Singer actress Judy Garland OD’s on sleeping pills. She was 47. Whether it was an accident or a suicide we will never know. A pillhead from early age, she had gotten hooked when MGM chief Louis B. Mayer ordered studio nurses to put her on amphetamines so she would have the energy to finish the Wizard of Oz. Fellow contract actress June Allyson explained- “You didn’t argue when the nurses brought them to you. They told us they were vitamins!”

1970- President Nixon signed the law lowering the voting age in the U.S. from 21 to 18.

1977- Walt Disney’s The Rescuers opened in theaters.

1978 - James Christy's discovery of Pluto's moon Charon announced.

1990- A signal of the end of the Cold War, "Checkpoint Charlie" the main dividing gate between East and West Berlin was dismantled. John Le Carre' and other spy novel writers mourned. There is a replica and a Cold War Museum at the site today.

2012- Pixar’s Brave came out. Written and directed by Brenda Chapman-Lima.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: You’ve all heard of Dalmatian dogs. Where is the Dalmatian Coast?

Answer: It is an antique name for the Croatian coastline.

Question: You’ve all heard of Dalmatian dogs. Where is the Dalmatian Coast?

Yesterday’s Question: ipso-facto.
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History for 6/21/2022
Birthdays: Martha Washington, Alexander Pope, Berkeley Breathed, Al Hirschfeld, Al Martinez, Jean-Paul Sartre, Judy Holliday, Benazir Bhutto, Jane Russell, Mariette Hartley, Bernie Koppel, Rick Sutcliffe, Maureen Stapleton, Joe Flagherty, Juliet Lewis, Tony Scott, Chris Pratt is 43, Prince William the Duke of Cambridge is 40.

217BC- Hannibal defeated a Roman army on the shore of Lake Trasimenio in central Italy.

1527- Political theorist Niccolo' Macchiavelli died at age 58 - His last words were:
"I hope I shall go to Hell, for there I shall meet kings, popes and princes.
In Heaven one can only meet beggars, monks and apostles."

1582- Japanese warlord Nobunaga Oda assassinated. Called the first of Japan’s Unifiers. He was the most pro-western of Japan's feudal lords and in western Japan, a folk hero, sort of a samurai Robin Hood. Under his protection the Catholic missionaries flourished, and Oda liked to parade around in his western-imported suit of armor. His enemy Tokugawa Ieyasu later became Shogun and banned all contact with the outside world.

1789- RATIFICATION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION- New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify the new document giving the majority of two thirds of the states. This despite angry anti-federalist sentiment from critics like Patrick Henry and John Hancock. They felt the new system was too centralized and could be tyrannical. Copies of the constitution were burned by mobs in Albany and Williamsburg. But eventually everyone got behind the system. Benjamin Rush noted: "We are now a Nation."

1791- THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES- After the fall of the Bastille in 1789, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette tried to work things out as constitutional monarchs but moderates like Mirabeau and Lafayette were losing control of the angry people, exploited in medieval poverty for so long. So tonight the royals decided to sneak away and escape across the border.
The escape plot was organized by Count Axel Fersen, a lover of Queen Marie Antoinette. They slipped away in the dead of night and traveled 150 miles to the Belgian border before they were stopped. At Varennes they were recognized and brought back to Paris by the city's fishwives led by Jean-Baptiste Drouet, the postmaster of Ste. Menehould. King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were eventually both guillotined and their son Louis XVII died rotting in prison. Ironically, a troop of loyalist cavalry, who were to meet them on the road and escort them, got lost a quarter mile away.

1791- The first Ledger entry.

1813- Battle of Vittoria- Wellington defeated the French in Spain to end the Peninsular War and Beethoven wrote a really silly overture to celebrate it. The Overture to Wellington's Victory has musical scoring for cannons and musket volleys. It was commissioned by a mechanical calliope inventor named Wilhelm Dietzel. It actually made Beethoven more money than anything else he ever wrote.

1815- Napoleon reached Paris after his defeat at Waterloo. Napoleon had regained power in France with the understanding he would rule as a constitutional monarch. As enemy armies closed in around Paris, the Chamber of Deputies now voted itself in permanent session and began arguing his fate. Royalists and the old Marquis De Lafayette called for his abdication.
Napoleon still had 100,000 men in the field, and the common people were with him. Napoleon’s brother Lucien advised him to ignore the Deputies and rule as a dictator. But curiously enough, despite his reputation as a warmonger, Napoleon never could bring himself to start a civil war. He said “ The fate of one man is not worth drenching Paris in French blood.” Waterloo seemed to have broken his self-confidence and will to go on.

1854 -During service in the Baltic in the Crimean War –Ships Mate C D Lucas, Royal Navy, HMS Heraclea, received a new medal called the Victoria Cross, or VC.

1864- FATHER ABRAHAM- President Abraham Lincoln visited General Grant’s Union army attacking Lee in Petersburg, Virginia. One highlight of the tour was when Lincoln was shown the 18th corps, a unit of black soldiers. General Grant complimented their excellent discipline and courage under fire. The black troops broke ranks and cheered wildly for Lincoln, their liberator. Hundreds strained just to touch his coat. One said: Now I know I shall go to Heaven, for I have seen Father Abraham, he that hath struck off my chains, and the Day of Jubilee is nigh!” For Lincoln it was a cathartic moment. Whatever his real motives for freeing the slaves, political expediency or moral obligation, he was deeply moved by the demonstration. Tears flowed freely down his face and for once he was speechless.

1866- First recorded train robbery by Jesse James.

1871- The Los Angeles Star newspaper announced the first trainload of pretzels had reached town!

1877-10 members of the Molly Maguires hanged. Irish immigrants in the Pennsylvania coal mines formed secret societies to combat inhuman working conditions and prejudice. At one point they went on strike to reduce their working day to 13 hours! The Molly Maguires was the name of a supposed terrorist fringe that assassinated company men and informers.

1879 - F W Woolworth opens his 1st five and ten cent store.

1893- The FERRIS WHEEL -George Washington Ferris, Jr. decided that the Columbia Exhibition, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery, needed to surpass the French Eiffel Tower (introduced in 1889 during the centennial celebration of the French Revolution). So he created his wheel so each compartment could hold 12 people plus a butler in a parlor-like atmosphere and rotate them 250 feet in the air. People were afraid they would gasp for oxygen up so high but it was a big hit anyway.

1907 - E W Scripps founded United Press Agency.

1913 - Tiny Broadwick is the 1st woman to parachute from an airplane.

1916- General Blackjack Pershing had violated Mexican territory with US troops to hunt down Pancho Villa. This day the diplomatic mess got worse when Pershing’s troops were attacked by regular Mexican army troops at Carrizal. Pershing never did catch Villa and US troops were withdrawn in Jan 1917 because World War I in Europe beckoned.

1919- After WWI ended, in Scapa Flow, Scotland, German Admiral Von Reuter deliberately sank 21 of his interned battleships rather than turn them over to the Allies. On shore, vacationing Scottish schoolchildren cheered, thinking it was a fireworks display for their benefit.

1939- Eugene O’Neill’s wife Carlotta wrote in her diary- “Gene kept me up all night talking about his outline for a new play about his family”- The Long Days Journey into Night. It took him two years to write, and it almost killed him.

1940- In a theatrical act of revenge Adolph Hitler forced France to sign her surrender in the same railroad car in Compiegne that the Germans surrendered in 1918. They broke into a museum to pry loose the exact same Wagon-Lit train car so it could be moved to the exact spot. The treaty meant half of France was occupied by Germany while the other half was French governed from the mineral water spa town of Vichy by a puppet government led by old Marshal Petain.

1948- THE ATALENA INCIDENT- THE ISRAELI CIVIL WAR- Before the Independence of Israel there were two underground militia groups fighting for a Jewish homeland- the Hagnnah and the more violent Irgun. After the State of Israel was declared, Leader David Ben Gurion ordered both to form the new Israeli Defense Force. But the Irgun resisted assimilation. While a tenuous four-week truce with the Arabs held the Irgun filled a ship, the Atalena, with weapons and fighters in France and this day it arrived off the coast of Tel Aviv. Ben Gurion gave a direct order to turn over the weapons to the Army and assimilate the fighters, but Irgun leader Menachem Begin refused.

When Israeli troops converged on the beached ship to unload it, the Irgun opened fire on them with machine guns. In the gun battle, Jews killed Jews in front of Tel Aviv. Begin screamed he wanted to go down with the ship. The captain replied that that was unlikely since the ship had already stuck on the beach. The ship caught fire and the captain had the cargo of high explosives dumped overboard. When Begin became hysterical the captain had him, too, dumped into the sea. After several deaths, the Irgun surrendered and agreed to cooperate.
Ben Gurion called them all traitors but was compelled to be lenient because of the greater threat of the Arab armies. Menachem Begin was rehabilitated, formed the Likud Party and eventually won the Nobel Peace Prize.

1947- To silence a jeering crowd of racists at a Brooklyn Dodgers-Cincinnati game, Kentucky native PeeWee Reese put his arm around Jackie Robinson.

1948- The Mark I computer, built at the Victoria University of Manchester by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program this day. The first computer that could store a program and re-open it.

1948- The last Japanese holdout defenders surrendered on Okinawa, unaware that the war had been over for three years.

1948- Columbia Records introduced the 33 1/3-rpm long playing record, the LP. Inventor Peter Goldmark was annoyed that he had to change his 78 rpm records several times to hear just one Brahms Symphony. He decided to invent a way to fit all of a symphony on one side of a record. His immediate supervisors told him to stop it because people would not throw away all their 78 rpm records to replace them with his. So Goldmark went over their heads to CBS chief William Paley and Paley loved the idea. RCA and David Sarnoff tried to compete with the 45-rpm record, but all it was good for was singles. The 33 1/3 dominated recording until replaced by the Compact Disc in the 1980’s.

1964- In Mississippi, Ku Klux Klansmen murdered three Civil Rights volunteers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schermer and dumped their bodies in a swamp. The subsequent FBI investigation and trials further pushed the rural south towards desegregation. The mastermind behind the murders, Edgar Ray Killen, was not convicted until 2005.

1965- The Byrds release record Hey Mr. Tambourine Man.

1978 - Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice's musical "Evita," premieres in London.

1982- John Hinkley was found innocent by reason of insanity in the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

1988- Who Framed Roger Rabbit? premiered at Radio City Music Hall. It opened generally three days later.

1989- The Supreme Court rules in the case Texas vs. Johnson that burning a US flag is a form of free speech and is so legally protected under the First Amendment. While more important issues are at hand, the conservative dominated Congress spent the next few years in repeated fruitless attempts to amend the Constitution. This is when modern politicians were criticized for not sporting a flag pin in their lapels. Pundits joked that the next constitutional amendment they would demand would be that cheeseburgers only have American cheese on them.

1996- Walt Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame released generally.

1998- Paleontologists in Canada announced the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus turd ever found. The search intensified for a T-Rex with a relaxed look on his face.

2004- The first flight in the privatization of Space, Bert Routans’ company financed by Microsoft head, Paul Allen, sent SpaceShip 1 up to the edge of the atmosphere. Test pilot Mike Nelvil was the first civilian astronaut.
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Yesterday’s Question: ipso-facto.

Answer: Ipso-facto is Latin for “by the very fact”, which is used to mean that something is a fact by its very nature. For example, Saturn is a planet that revolves around the same sun as Earth, so, ipso-facto, Saturn is a planet in our solar system.

Question: ipso-facto.

Yesterdays Question answered below: Name the Three Musketeers.
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History for 6/20/2022
Birthdays: Wolf Tone, Jacques Offenbach, Lillian Hellman, Errol Flynn, Audie Murphy,
Andre Watts, Cyndee Lauper, Bob Vila, Chet Atkins, Stephen Frears, Brian Wilson, Robert Rodriquez, John Goodman, Martin Landau, John Mahoney, Nicole Kidman is 54


1389 -Battle of Kosovo Polje, where a coalition of Serbs, Croats, Bulgars and
Albanians under Prince Lazar I of Serbia were annihilated by the Ottoman Turkish army under young Sultan Bajazet, called Ilderim- Lightning. The Sultan was presented with King Lazar’s head on a spear. The Ottoman Turkish Empire would rule in the Balkans for 500 years.

1397- The Union of Kalmar unites Sweden, Norway and Denmark under one crown.

1605-The False Dmitri invaded Russia. A defrocked Lithuanian priest named Grishka declared himself the dead infant son of Czar Ivan the Terrible grown up and convinced a powerful Polish noble family, The Mniszechs, to back him. Historians wrongly call this a Polish-Russian War but in actuality it was a privately run freelance invasion.
Dmitri succeeded in toppling Czar Boris Gudunov and occupying Moscow. When the Polish Army went home the Russians killed him, burned his body, mixed the ashes with gunpowder, stuffed it in a cannon and fired it back in the direction of Poland.

1747- Persian King Nadir Shah had seized the throne and led armies across Central Asia in a march of conquest not seen since the days of Tamerlane. He conquered Iraq, Uzbekizatan, Afghanistan, Northern India and Yerevan. He forced the Indian Moguls to give him the fabulous Peacock Throne. But as he grew older he got increasingly paranoid, blinding his eldest son and executing hundreds. Finally, this day, his own bodyguards stabbed him, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

1756- THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA- Bengal Rajah Siraj ud Daula stuffed 146 captured British officers in a tiny cell. Most died of asphyxiation by morning. Only 23 survived.

1782- The American Revolution now over, and the peace treaties being signed, Angry Continental soldiers, who had not been paid for months, surrounded the U.S. Congress at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. They pounded their muskets on the locked doors and threatened violence if they weren’t paid. Congressmen ran out the back door to Trenton to reconvene. Shortly before they ran away, Congress approved the final design of the Great Seal of the United States, choosing the Bald Eagle over the Wild Turkey as the symbol of America, to the annoyance of Ben Franklin.

1789- THE TENNIS COURT OATH- French King Louis XVI got annoyed with his parliament or Estates General for constantly asking for permanent power and the right to rule by laws. On this day he told them to disband. Of the Estates three divisions the First Estate- Nobility and the Second Estate – Clergy quietly obey and go home. But the Third Estate -the common folk- refused and when they were turned out of their meeting hall by the guards they reconvened in the Royal tennis court. There the members pledged not to disband until Liberty was established. "Go tell your master that here the People rule!"- Said Mirabeau to the royal herald.

1790- THE US CAPITOL CONCEIVED- In the then American capitol, New York City, Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, went over to have dinner with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Senator James Madison. There were no real American political parties yet, but Jefferson had been leading the opposition to Hamilton’s plan for the US Government to assume all the debt incurred by the individual states in the Revolution. This act would strengthen the central government at the expense of the states. Everyone knew Jefferson worked through Madison but he presented this dinner as his arbitrating a peace between Madison and Hamilton!
No one recorded what was said at the meal or if they sang any Broadway songs, but it is assumed Hamilton proposed a deal in exchange for the debt assumption- to move the American capitol south. This night they agreed to move the planned US capitol to a new site on land suggested by President Washington near his Mount Vernon estate. Midway between North and South. It would become Washington, DC. It was also possibly the last time Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison ever agreed on anything ever again.

1815- NATHAN ROTHSCHILD'S BIG SCORE. -When The Battle of Waterloo happened in Belgium no one in England knew who had won for 72 anxious hours. The House of Rothschild Bank had a Dutch agent at the battlefield who galloped to Ostend then crossed the Channel to tell Rothschild before the official news arrived. This morning, Nathan Rothschild walked into the London Stock Exchange and took his usual stance by his favorite pillar.
Everyone was sure Rothschild knew something. He said nothing himself but his agents started to sell off Government bonds. Day traders took this as a sign that the Napoleon had won, so the price of Government securities plummeted in panic sales. When the prices had fallen low enough Rothschild gave the signal to start buying. By the time the real news that Wellington had beaten Napoleon arrived, Nathan Rothschild had made a fortune. He later became the first of the Jewish faith to enter the House of Lords.

1819- The first steam powered ship successfully crossed the Atlantic. The SS Savannah made it to Liverpool after a trip of 27 days.

1837- QUEEN VICTORIA-Upon the death of her uncle King William IV, little 19 year old Princess Victoria becomes Queen of the British Empire. She will rule 64 years, until 1901 and give her name to the era, Victorian.
She came to the throne when veterans of the American Revolution and Waterloo were still alive, and she lived long enough to use electric lights, telephones and watch a movie. Before Victoria, the British Royals were never considered examples of morality. It was said her grandfather George III was insane, her Uncle George IV a bigamist, her other uncle, William IV, a glutton and her mother the Duchess of Kent was living openly with an Irish adventurer named James Conroy. If you wanted to meet the great men of the nation you had to look in the gambling houses or brothels. Victoria changed all that.
She and her husband Prince Albert made the pursuit of Morality and Family the highest standard of polite society. Also Christmas trees, white bridal gowns and tuxedos.

1862- in the middle of a Civil War, The U.S. Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act, allowing funds for the transcontinental railroad.

1863- Several Virginia counties whose people opposed the Confederacy and slavery re-entered the Union as the new state of West Virginia.

1900- THE BOXER REBELLION- In Beijing, the Boxer Rebellion trapped the foreign diplomatic corps in their compound in the Forbidden City. The Chinese mobs were led by martial arts societies like the I Ho Chu Huan- The Righteous and Harmonius Fists. They wanted to drive out the hated foreigners who were ruining China the way they had carved up Africa and India.
The German ambassador Baron Von Kettler, who liked to shoot at Chinese children from his balcony for fun, was murdered in the street, and the Japanese ambassador was pulled out of his sedan chair and beheaded. Women in western clothing were doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The Chinese Manchu Dowager Empress Cixi ordered the Chinese Army to support the Boxers.
At first the besieged delegations didn't get along well, the British and Japanese didn't trust the Russians, the Germans were cut off from their big new brewery in Tsing-Tao. And nobody liked the Americans with their constant preaching that they weren't out to annex new colonies, while their gunboats and Marines prowled the Yangtze. But under the leadership of British attache’, Sir Archibald MacDonald, the diplomats soon learned to work together. They held out until an international force rescued them- the "55 days in Peking".

1910- Longtime President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, unsuccessfully tried to stop the Revolution breaking out by declaring martial law and arresting hundreds.

1927- THE RED TENT- Italian polar explorer, General Nobile, had reached the North Pole in his zeppelin, the Norge, the year before. He was the hero of Mussolini’s Italy and the world. But in his second expedition, his zeppelin, the Italia, crashed and the men were stranded on the arctic ice. They dyed their shelter tent red to be seen.

An international rescue effort was launched to try to save them and the great Norwegian polar explorer, Roald Amundsen, died in the attempt. On this day, a Swedish plane reached the Red Tent. There was not room on the plane for everyone so Nobile went aboard to safety before the rest. He said he did so to better organize the saving of his men. But because he didn’t stay behind until all were saved Nobile was branded a coward. Remember this was just a few weeks after Lindbergh, so ‘hero’ standards were pretty high. Mussolini and the rest of the world would have nothing more to do with him. General Nobile spent the rest of his long life regretting he ever left the Red Tent.

1936- Mickey short Moving Day premiered.

1940- Thirty thousand people gather at the Hollywood Bowl for an America First rally. There they listened to isolationist celebrities like Lillian Gish and Charles Lindbergh protest President Franklin Roosevelt’s plans to aid Britain.” It is obvious that Britain will lose the war…. It is not freedom when one fifth the country can drag four fifths into a war it does not want!” Students like future President Gerald Ford were in the audience.
When former President Trump addressed the G-7, he referenced America First.

1940- Peruvian Artist Alberto Vargas signed a contract with Esquire Magazine to paint the ‘Vargas Girls’ pin ups that made the magazine famous. He replaced artist George Petty who was demanding $1,500 a week. Vargas was paid $75 a week. When Esquire cut him loose, Hugh Hefner put him on salary at Playboy until he retired in 1978. Today an original Vargas goes for $350,000.

1941- Two days before Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Richard Zorga, a Russian spy in the German Embassy in Tokyo, sent home to Moscow microfilm with complete information on the attack. He even revealed its codename- Operation Barbarossa. A Russian agent in Hungary, code-named “Lucy”, and the Chinese agents of Mao Zedong confirmed the information. Yet despite all these warnings, Soviet leader Josef Stalin refused to believe it. On June 22, the Nazis attacked, and Stalin was taken completely by surprise.

1941-Walt Disney's "the Reluctant Dragon" premiered, with cartoonist's pickets around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Police actually have to close part of Hollywood Blvd. out of concern for what the rampaging animators might do. Future UPA producer Steve Bosustow drove up in a limo and picketed in tuxedo and top hat. His chauffeur was Maurice Noble, the designer of the Road Runner cartoons. Ironically the movie was part documentary about how wonderful life was working at the Disney studio.

1943- Martial law was declared in Detroit when race riots killed 28. New Sherman tanks just completed in the auto plants of Dearborn, were driven into town to help restore order.

1947- Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, the gangster creator of modern Las Vegas, was murdered while reading his evening paper in his Beverly Hills home. He had bought the mansion from opera singer George London for his girlfriend actress Virginia Hill. The order to whack Bugsy was probably given by his old friend Mayer Lansky. The Mob was fed up with Bugsy’s cost overruns to build Las Vegas. The second owner of his Flamingo casino, Gus Greenbaum, had his throat cut with a butcher knife. Despite all, The Flamingo and the Las Vegas Strip went on to become a great success.

1948- The TV show "Toast of the Town" later to be “the Ed Sullivan Show” premiered. Sullivan's show was the showcase that brought new acts like Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Senor Wences and the Rolling Stones into the average American living room. Prior to this, Ed Sullivan was a columnist and radio show personality.

1972- In the first reaction to the news of the Watergate Break in, Nixon Presidential spokesman Ron Zeigler dismissed it: “It is not for the White House to comment on the investigation of a third-rate burglary”. The Third-Rate Burglary drove Richard Nixon from office in 1974.

1972- THE SMOKING GUN- All through the Watergate scandal the big question was how involved was President Richard Nixon? A conversation in the Oval office was taped this day between Nixon and his aide H.R. Haldeman. Whatever was said on this tape it took two years of lawsuits and a Supreme Court ruling to get Nixon to surrender it. This tape for June 20th had 18 missing minutes.
Experts say five separate manual erasures caused the gap. After a feeble attempt to blame it on the fumble fingers of Nixon’s secretary, Rosemary Woods, it’s generally believed, although never admitted, that Nixon himself probably erased the incriminating parts of the tape. It was called the “smoking gun”. Three days after the tape was made public in 1974, President Nixon resigned. If Nixon had simply popped this tape into the White House incinerator, he may have completed his presidency.

1974- Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown opened.

1975- Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws opened, bringing back the monster-hit summer event movie. Universal called that summer, “ The Summer of the Shark.”

1977- The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline began flowing.
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Yesterdays’ Question: Name the Three Musketeers.

Answer: Athos, Porthos, Aramis.

Question: Name the Three Musketeers.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: XIX Century romantics talked about a legendary figure named Mazeppa. Byron wrote a poem about him, Tchaikovsky wrote a ballet. Who was this Mazeppa?
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History for 6/19/2022
Birthdays: Euclid, Blaise Pascal, King James I Stuart, Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor, Moe Howard, Lou Gehrig, Guy Lombardo, Mildred Natwick, Charles Coburn, Pat Butram, Louis Jourdan, Pauline Kael, Salman Rushdie, Dame Mae Whitty, Lucie Sloane, Ang Sung Soo Chi, Kathleen Turner, Paula Abdul is 60, Zoe Saldana is 44, Gena Rowlands

240 BC- Greek mathematician, Eratosthenes, measuring the cast shadows made by sticks placed in the ground, first calculated the total circumference of the Earth. He was only off by a few miles.

1312- Piers Gaveston- royal courtier and openly gay paramour of English king Edward II, was executed by angry barons. The King then went on to another boy-toy named Hugh Despenser. The memory of Piers Gaveston is preserved as the name of a men’s fraternity at Oxford University.

1389- At Kosovo, the huge Ottoman Turkish army of Sultan Murad I, faced the Balkan warriors of Serb Prince Lazar I. A Serb knight named Milosh Obilic’ got an interview in the Sultan’s tent by claiming to be a deserter with vital information. Once there, he sprang upon Sultan and stabbed him. Obilic’ was hacked to pieces by the Sultans’ guards. This should have been decisive, but unfortunately for the Serbs, Murad’s son, Bajazet, turned out to be an even better general than his dad. The next day the Turkish army destroyed the Serb Army.

1588- The Spanish Armada sailed from Cadiz and Lisbon to invade England.

1619- THE OLD GLOBE THEATER FIRE. During a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, a prop cannon fired a salute that set afire the straw thatch on the roof. Soon the blaze consumed the old theater. Shakespeare, as a partner in the company that owned the Globe, paid to rebuild it. He soon retired home to Stratford. Fifty years later, during Cromwell’s Puritan rule, the Globe was pulled down because the Puritans frowned on theatrical entertainment as ungodly.

1754- Six American colonies and three Iroquois Indian tribes sent delegates to a meeting in Albany, New York to discuss how to work together more closely. Ben Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson submit plans to form a congress of all the Anglo colonies except Georgia and Nova Scotia (remember Canada was still New France at this time), with a President-General appointed by the King. But London rejected the whole plan.

1803- Captain Meriwether Lewis sent a letter inviting Captain William Clark to come join him and explore the route from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. Lewis had a backup in mind in case Clark said no, a Lt. Moses Hook. But Clark said yes, so today we remember Lewis & Clark, not Lewis & Hook.

1815- The day after the Battle of Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna published their final declarations. The Congress was a grand summit- England, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Naples, Portugal, Holland, Turkey and Royalist France spent the better part of a year redistributing the lands disturbed by Napoleon’s conquests. They mostly reaffirmed hereditary rights of the old monarchs, but published a joint ban on the African slave trade, and chose not to dispute America’s purchase of Louisiana. This conference set the stage for European politics for the rest of the XIX century.

1846-THE EARLIEST RECORDED BASEBALL GAME- The famous legend is that Abner Doubleday invented the game but that's been mostly disproved. The sport evolved out of an Old English game called Rounders. No one is sure of the exact date the game was invented, but, on this day, a New York newspaper ran a notice of a "base-ball" game played by the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club and the New York Nines Cricket Club at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The cricketeers won 23-1. This was the first game played under Cartwright’s Rules.
Alexander Cartwright created a finite system of three outs and nine innings.
Baseball spread nationwide because of the Civil War. When men of all the states would spend time in army camps, they learned to play “The Boston-New York Game”. After the conflict, they went to their homes in the various states and took the game with them.

1863- In one of the most famous ship-to-ship duels of the American Civil War, the USS Kearsarge fought and sunk the Confederate raider CSS Alabama in the harbor of Cherbourg, France. Young Impressionist painter Claude Monet was watching from the shore and later made a painting of the event.
Confederate raiders hunted US shipping around the sea-lanes of the world, which is why today you can find Confederate grave markers from Capetown, South Africa to the Bering Sea in Alaska.

1865- HAPPY JUNETEETH- Although Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had declared all slaves free in 1863, and the Confederacy surrendered that past April, it took this long for the entire country to admit it. Texans simply preferred not to tell any of their slaves about it. After the surrender, the Southern States were occupied and put under military rule. 12 weeks after Lee surrendered to Grant, Yankee Gen. Gordon Granger assumed command of the Dept. of Texas, and this day published GENERAL ORDER #3, that all slaves were finally, unconditionally, free. Black Texans celebrated this day every year as Juneteenth-Jubilee Day. White Texans refused to acknowledge the holiday until 1979. In 2021 Juneteeth became a National Holiday, 14 conservative congressmen still voting against it.

1867-The Emperor of Mexico, Maximillian Hapsburg, was shot by firing squad. Maximillian distributed bribes to the riflemen asking them not to aim for his head, but one hit him there anyway. Mexican President Benito Juarez felt this drastic gesture had to be taken to discourage any future European adventurers. And Maximillian routinely ordered the execution of any Juaristas who fell into his hands.

1867- The first Belmont Stakes horse race. The winner was Ruthless.

1889- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, the Man with the Twisted Lip.

1893 - Lizzie Borden acquitted of the axe murders of her abusive parents. The murderers were never found. She lived alone peaceably and when she died she left all her money to the ASPCA.

1910 - Father's Day celebrated for 1st time. It was organized by the Spokane, Washington members of the local YMCA and Spokane Ministerial Assoc.

1917- During World War I, King George V ordered members of the British royal family to dispense with German titles & surnames. Before that the official name of Queen Victoria’s family was the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It now became the House of Windsor. Prince Louis Von Battenberg became Lord Louis Mountbatten.
In Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm, who spoke English fluently, joked, “Maybe now Herr Shakespeare will rename his play The Merry Wives of Von Saxe-Coburg Gotha…”

1921- Distributer Amadee van Beuren announced production of a new series of "Aesop’s Fables" cartoons to be done by former Bray director Paul Terry. Terrytoons studio is born.

1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts.

1934- The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, created.

1941 - Cheerios Cereal invented. Originally called Cheery-Oats, it was changed to Cheerios in 1945.

1944-" The Marianas Turkey Shoot"- the Japanese tried to defeat a landing on the strategic island of Saipan by sending a task force of 9 carriers and 400 aircraft, many new generation Zeroes nicknamed Judys. But most of Japan’s veteran combat pilots were gone and the planes were manned by inexperienced novices rushed through training. In this last big carrier to carrier battle US forces shot down 346 Japanese planes and sank three carriers to a loss of only 30 American aircraft.

1951- Devil May Hare, short by Bob McKimson, introduced the Tasmanian Devil.

1953- THE ROSENBERGS GO TO THE CHAIR- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, "The Atomic Spies", were electrocuted at Sing Sing for spying for the Soviet Union. When the Russians detonated their first nuclear weapon no one in America thought they could do it without spies giving them our secrets.
We now know, in 1945, Manhattan project physicists Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall had given Moscow the plans to the Nagasaki bomb. According to KGB archives from 1989, Julius Rosenberg was on their payroll, but just what and how much he did is controversial. Its assumed he was a low level go-between. Dr. Fuchs gave away much more vital information, yet he only got a moderate prison term. Ted Hall was never discovered until he wrote a book in 1997.

Only hours before the execution, a young lawyer had found a clause in the law statutes that execution of spies could not take place except in time of war, but the judge who could have stopped it refused because he was Jewish and he feared an even greater anti-Semitic backlash if he saved them. The executions were moved up a day so they would not be killed on a Friday, the Jewish Sabbath.

Housewife Ethel Rosenberg probably didn’t do anything and died horribly, screaming when the current was turned on. It took three jolts for two full minutes to kill her. To conservatives the Rosenbergs were dangerous traitors; to progressives they were innocent martyrs of the red hysteria of the times and of anti-Semitism, even though their prosecutor Roy Cohn was also Jewish. Roy Cohn became one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS, and was a mentor to Donald Trump.

1952 - "I've Got A Secret" debuts on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host.

1956- The comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis announced their breakup.

1960- Freedomland amusement park opened in the north Bronx, New York. Several of its designers like Harper Goff had worked on Walt Disney’s Disneyland.

1963- The Ray Harryhausen fantasy film Jason and the Argonauts premiered.

1963- The Canadian Football Hall of Fame formed.

1964- THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT passed the Senate after a 54 day filibuster by Southern conservatives.

1964- While flying home to Massachusetts, Senator Ted Kennedy was almost killed in a small plane crash. He broke several vertebrae but survived. Years later whenever his nephew John Kennedy Jr would offer to take Ted on his small plane, Ted always refused.

1964- The Condor Club of San Francisco became the first modern club to offer topless dancers. Carol Doda became the first topless waitress, and a mainstay of San Francisco’s nightclub scene. She augmented her already ample bosom to 44 inches with silicon implants. She joked: "I dunno, I guess I just expanded in the heat!"

1973- The Rocky Horror Show stage show opened in London. The film version became a midnight cult classic. Writer Richard O’Brien himself played the doorman Riff-Raff. Let’s do the Time Warp Again.

1975- Mobster Sam "Momo" Giancana was murdered while frying sausages. He was scheduled to testify the next day about what he knew of Pres. John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the Frank Church Committee’s Senatorial Inquiry on Assassinations. The following year Jimmy Roselli, a Giancana hit man who always claimed he was the second gunman in Dallas, was found dismembered in an oil drum floating in Florida’s Biscayne Bay.

1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appeared as a comic strip.

1983- Don Bluth’s video arcade game Dragons Lair debuted.

1987 - Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia announce a new Ice Cream flavor, Cherry Garcia. Jerry is gone, but Cherry Garcia rocks on.

1987 –David Geffen Records signed their 1st artist -Donna Summer.

1998- Disney’s Mulan went into wide release.

2012- Wikileaks leader Julien Assange fled into the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to seek asylum for outstanding arrest warrants. He stayed there until 2019. Originally considered a champion of press freedom, he lost much sympathy after it was revealed he was a willing enabler for Russian intelligence to infiltrate American media on behalf of the Republican Party.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: XIX Century romantics talked about a legendary figure named Mazeppa. Byron wrote a poem about him, Tchaikovsky wrote a ballet. Who was this Mazeppa?

Answer: Mazeppa was a Ukrainian Cossack chief. Legend has it when he was young he made love to the young wife of an old Polish Count. The angry fellow had him bound nude on the back of a wild horse and sent off across the steppes. He survived this punishment and led his people in resistance to Peter the Great.

Quiz: XIX Century romantics talked about a legendary figure named Mazeppa. Byron wrote a poem about him, Tchaikovsky wrote a ballet. Who was this Mazeppa?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a portcullis?
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History for 6/18/2022
Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser, William Lassell 1799- English astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton, Richard Boone, Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn, The Quay Brothers, Paul McCartney is 80

1178- According to the chronicler Gervase of Canterbury, on this evening five monks sitting near the town witnessed a "flaming torch" spring up from the upper horn of the crescent moon. In 1976 it has been theorized that this was a lunar meteor impact that created the Giordano Bruno Crater. Others think it was an exploding comet in our atmosphere aligning with the moon.

1574- Henry III de Valois was the younger son of the King of France. Being third in line for the succession, he accepted the throne of Poland as better than nothing. In Krakow after his coronation and betrothal to a Polish princess, he learned his two older brothers had died and he was now King of France! Without pausing to consider the strategic advantages of a dual monarchy on either side of Germany, the spoiled young man demanded to go home immediately. He abandoned the Polish throne and galloped for the border with his court, and fiancé’ in hot pursuit.

1583 - Richard Martin of London takes out the first life insurance policy on his friend William Gibbons. The premium was 383 pounds.

1682 – Quaker leader William Penn founded Philadelphia.

1757- Battle of Koln- A rare time when Frederick the Great was defeated in battle by the Austrian army under Archduke Daun. Frederick in frustration shouted at his fleeing troops- " What? Do you want to live forever?"

1778- The British army evacuated the American capitol of Philadelphia. The reason General Clinton pulled back his redcoats was because of his learning of the French entry into the war. London didn’t want him to be stranded in the American interior should the French fleet attack the coast. Clinton offered protection to any Philadelphia loyalists who were afraid of Yankee revenge. Six thousand American loyalists abandoned the city with the troops, many pulling their furniture-laden wagons by hand because of the scarcity of horses and oxen.
By 3:00PM the British columns were gone. Then the first elements of the U.S. Army marched into the silent city down Second St. to William Penn’s mansion. They were led by the newly appointed military governor- General Benedict Arnold.

1815- WATERLOO- One of the battles that changed history. 145,000 men in brightly colored uniforms with 400 cannons blew each other to pieces for 9 hours at a road intersection about three miles square. Many factors affected Wellington's defeat of Napoleon: The previous nights rains delayed the battle until 11:00 A.M. Napoleon had a bout of stomach cramps (he had bleeding ulcers, cystitis, piles and hypertension) and while he rested, his subordinates wasted troops in fruitless assaults. The Prussian army everyone thought was running to Berlin boiled into the French right just when it seemed that the French were winning. Later in private, Wellington admitted "It had been a very close run thing." Suffice to say the world would have been a much different place. Napoleon said: "If I lose England will dominate the world for the next 100 years." Individual stories abound.
-Towards the end of the battle the Earl of Uxbridge was struck by a cannonball while seated next to Wellington. The Earl noticed: "My God Sir, I do believe I’ve lost my leg." Wellington looked down, then replied: "My God Sir, I do believe you’re right." Uxbridge had eloped with Wellington's younger sister so he didn't like him that much anyway.

My favorite anecdote is about General Cambronne, leader of the French elite' Old Guard. He formed up an infantry square to take a last stand to cover the French retreat. His small band is surrounded by the victorious Anglo-Dutch German army and called upon to surrender. Cambronne had time for a one word reply before all the guns go off-" MERDE!" This is a favorite French epithet meaning "sh*t!" The writer Chateaubriand later said that he cried"The Guard dies but never Surrenders!" But we all know what he really said. To this day in France if you’re too polite to use an expletive you can say: A' la mode de Cambronne!"

-Wellington didn't have any dinner until 11 p.m. He ate alone because his personal staff were all dead or wounded.
- In later years writer Victor Hugo lived at Waterloo for awhile and was influential in making the old battlefield field a shrine. When I visited I saw across from Hugo's statue the "Victor Hugo's Private Men's Club" with "New Hostesses!"

1817- With the Iron Duke (Wellington), himself in attendance London opened a new bridge across the Thames, named the Waterloo Bridge. Later the guests sat down at the traditional Waterloo banquet and were served a new dish- you guessed it.....Beef Wellington. No crème napoleons for desert, through.

1879 - W H Richardson, an African American inventor, patents the baby buggy or perambulator.

1892 - Macadamia nuts first planted in Hawaii.

1898 - 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, NJ

1900- The Dowager Empress of China Xiao Chin Xi (Cixi) calls for the killing of all foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. She committed the Chinese Imperial Army to the expulsion of all the European colonialist powers. Empress Xiao Chin Xi was the first-person westerners called the Dragon Lady, later used by Milt Caniff in his comic strip Terry & the Pirates.

1903 - 1st transcontinental auto trip begins in SF; arrives NY 3-mo later

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

1916- German Max Immelman, the first true fighter ace, died when the synchronizing mechanism that enabled his machine gun to fire through his propeller blades failed and he shot his own propeller off. Ach, Himmel! To take your plane in a large loop around someone else is still called an Immelman Turn.

1923- The first Checker Cab was manufactured in Chicago. The big, boxy, durable Checkers were the most famous American city taxicabs until dying out in the 1980s.

1927- The last radio transmission of the flying boat carrying famous arctic explorer Roald Ammundsen to the arctic circle. Norwegian Ammundsen had conquered the South Pole and flew over the North Pole. He was now called out of retirement to lead an international effort to save Italian Polar explorer General Nobile, who’s zeppelin had crashed on the arctic ice. Ironically Ammundsen disliked Nobile personally. Nobile and his men were rescued, but Ammundsen and his plane were never found.

1931- The Metropolitan Museum of NY had in its collection a little blue statue of a Hippo from the tomb of the Egyptian Steward Senbi from the Twelfth Dynasty. People nicknamed it Willie and this day an article about it with a color picture appeared in Punch Magazine. Soon museum craftsmen made little replicas of Willie that they gave as gifts to donors and eventually started s elling to the public. The massive retail business in museum reproductions and merchandise we have today, all began with little Willie the Hippo.

1940- As the shattered French armies fall back from the Nazis onslaught, Marshal Petain telephoned the German High Command and requested an armistice. Meanwhile across the Channel an obscure French colonel made a dramatic radio broadcast from London calling for Free French Resistance. Charles DeGaulle's political career began.

1945- During the battle raging for Okinawa the US Army commander General Simon Bolivar Buckner went up to the front to see better, and was killed by a Japanese tank shell. At the same time the Japanese commander committed hari-kari. Okinawa was one of those rare battles like Quebec in 1759 where both commanding generals died. General Buckner’s father was a Confederate General in the Civil War who had fought Gen Douglas MacArthur's father.

1953- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. married Coretta Scott.

1959 - 1st TV telecast transmitted from England to US.

1959- Earl Long the Governor of Louisiana was ordered confined to a State Mental Hospital for his erratic behavior. Earl’s response was to arrange for the director of the hospital to be fired and replaced with another who declared him perfectly sane.

1967- At the Monterey Pop Rock festival Jimi Hendrix electrified the audience then finished his set by burning and smashing his guitar on stage. Until then musicians didn’t behave in such a way towards their instruments. Ravi Shankar was particularly shocked.

1969- Sam Peckinpah’s film “ The Wild Bunch” opened. With William Holden, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan and Ernest Borgnine.

1980 –"We are on a mission from God." John Landis movie " The Blues Brothers" with Dan Ackroyd & John Belushi premiered.

1983- Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in Space. Russian Valentina Tereshkova had gone up in 1963.

2002- President George W. Bush said:” When we talk about war, we are really talking about peace.”
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Yesterday’s Question:What is a portcullis?

Answer:In a Medieval Castle, a portcullis is the large iron gate that is raised and dropped behind the drawbridge..