QUIZ- In motion pictures, what are Honey Wagons?

The answer to yesterdays question- For Election Day-How many American presidential elections were deadlocked elections? Below

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Birthdays: Francesco Zubaran, Madame Curie, Billy Graham is 89, Leon Trotsky –real name Lev Bronstein, Albert Camus, Al Hurt, Joni Mitchell, Joan Sutherland, Judy Tenuda, Clive Barnes

1805- “Oh Joy of Joys!” explorers Lewis and Clark first see the Pacific.

1820- This day President James Monroe was re-elected after running unopposed for nomination and unopposed for the election. It was the most boring election in US History. One presidential elector refused to vote for him only because he wanted George Washington to go down in history as the only US President ever elected unanimously.

1865- The London Gazette is founded.

1876- THE STOLEN ELECTION- The Presidential election between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes was declared a dead heat. Tilden had actually won an overwhelming majority in the popular vote, but when did that ever matter in Washington politics? The electoral votes were even, so Republicans forced the issue to be decided by the House of Representatives. In the meantime they made a secret deal with former Confederate territories that were not allowed to vote that if they would vote for Hayes they could come back into the Union as States again. The Hayes government also promised to slow down civil rights for African Americans and withdraw occupying troops from the South. On March 3rd 1877 with the aid of the new electoral votes of Louisiana, Georgia and Florida Republican Rutherford Hayes was declared the winner. Republicans chanted: “Hooray for Hayes and Honest Ways!” while Democrats protested: “RutherFRAUD Hayes !”

1917- RED OCTOBER, THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION- As the guns of the battleship Aurora boomed out across Petrograd (St. Petersburg) Lenin's Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace and overthrew the provisional government of A.P. Kerensky ( who died in Queens, New York in 1973.) Two Bolsheviks sent to take over the Petrograd telephone exchange had forgot to bring their weapons but succeeded nonetheless.
In the ten months between the Tsar’s fall and the Communist coup Russia had tried to govern itself with a fragile democracy. But no middle class support base, powerful extremists like elitist officer corps and landless peasants pulling on either side and the disastrous decision to stay in the Great War with Germany doomed the government. It was said Kerensky was a brilliant speaker but he had no serious plans or ideas beyond ebullient oratory. He was making it all up as he went along. Red Army leader Leon Trotsky ( real name Lev Bronstein ) had at one point lived in exile in New York. This day a Bronx newspaper proudly put as it's headline:" Bronx Boy Seizes Power in Russia !"

1944- President Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented Fourth Term as president, even though Democratic party insiders knew he was dying. After FDR the conservative Congress created a constitutional amendment barring anyone else from having more than two terms. Roosevelt joked this night with friends:” You know, the first twelve years are always the hardest. “

1956- Eugene O’Neill’s biographical masterpiece play “Long Days Journey into Night” first premiered.

1962- After losing the California Governor's race to Pat Brown, Richard Nixon bitterly says to assembled newsmen and women:" You boys have been having a lot of fun....well, You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore..". Nixon felt his career in politics was in shambles and a final jab from the Kennedys was the news he was being audited by the IRS. Tricky Dick spent the next few years reinventing himself before making his successful Presidential run in 1968.

1963- The movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” premiered at Hollywood’s new Cinerama Dome theater.

1965- the first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial debuted. ‘Tee-hee-hee!”

1965- Dorothy Kilgallen was a New York socialite who’s witty sparring with Bennett Cerf and other panelists enlivened a CBS quiz show called What’s My Line.
But beyond that role she was an accomplished reporter and columnist who uncovered facts on the famous Dr. Sam Shepard murder case. In mid 1965 she announced publicly that she knew the real facts on the John F Kennedy assassination and she had interviewed Jack Ruby. She would shortly announce her proof of conspiracy in a new book .
This night she had dinner with friends then asked them to drop her off at the Regency Hotel Lobby where she was meeting a new mysterious boyfriend. Next morning police found her dead body in her bed at her Greenwich Village apartment. Pills and liquor were strewn about her night table and a book was in her lap so police assumed she took too many sleeping pills and liquor. But conspiracy buffs point out she never read without her reading glasses which were across the room. Her files were confiscated by the Justice Department and never released.

1980- Rebel actor Steve McQueen died of cancer at age 50.

1991- “Even Me”-Los Angeles Laker Basketball star Irvin “Magic” Johnson admitted to the world that he was HIV –positive. He said he got it from casual sex and was retiring from the NBA. Coming soon after the death of movie star Rock Hudson , Magic Johnson’s example brought home to the world that HIV/AIDS wasn’t merely a “gay plague” but that straight people could get it too. His life is also an example that an HIV positive person can still lead a full productive life.

1997- Someone published a stolen home video of Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and rock star Tommy Lee having graphic sex on their honeymoon, not to mention Tommy steering his boat with his John-Thomas. The Pamela-Tommy video became the most downloaded file on the Internet and rented video in history. In 1998 Pamela Anderson Lee was the subject of 1% of the Total Traffic on the entire World Wide Web!

2000-THE DEADLOCKED ELECTION- Al Gore and George W. Bush electoral votes came to a statistical dead heat. In 1960 with a population of 150 million Kennedy beat Nixon by 60,000 votes. In 2000 with over 250 million Gore and Bush were separated by 140 votes! With nothing in the Constitution about a European style second round of voting. the decision was made in courts and precincts of Palm Beach Florida. Americans learned to study chads and dimples on punchcard butterfly ballots. Katherine Harris the Attorney General of Florida who validated the election for Bush was also the Republican campaign chair in that area. In 2004 an outraged Florida voter drove his Cadillac up onto the sidewalk and tried to run her over. Finally after 36 days the Supreme Court ended all recounts and declared Bush the winner. Other highlights of the election included Hilary Rodham Clinton became the first former First Lady to win an election to the US Senate, Alabama became the last state to rescind it’s laws barring interracial marriage and Missouri elected a dead man senator over an incumbent. The incumbent, John Ashroft, was made by President GW Bush attorney general.

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QUESTION:
For Election Day-How many American presidential elections were deadlocked elections?

ANSWER: The first election that was decided in the House of Representatives was the election of 1800- Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Charles Pinckney all vied for high office. After 46 deadlocked votes Jefferson won. In 1824 John Quincy Adams juggled the electors due to King Caucus and wrested the presidency from Andrew Jackson, who won it back in 1828. And you see above the results of the elections of 1876 and 2000, so the answer is four elections were contested.

The WRITER'S STRIKE, that we all expected, has finally started. Good luck to them and all creative people who seek to better their conditions in this corporate heavy world.
courtesy of brilliantbutcancelled.com

Sounds like the producers were preparing for this showdown for awhile, so it is likely to be long.

Animation people are only partially effected, since only a portion of the people who write for animation do so under a WGA contact. Most work under the Animation Guild 839 contract, which is not up until next year, including it's no strike-clause. But our hearts go out to our brother and sister artists in their time of trial.

As animators, look at this example when you see powerful members of your profession going out to support their union. Tina Fey, Jay Leno, John Stewart. That's what makes the WGA and the Actors and Directors' Guilds so powerful in Hollywood. You're as strong as you are willing to stand up for your friends. The bosses love when we all think only about ourselves. We are much more easily controlled then. For people who think unions are only for auto-workers, what is a more solitary and creative job than being a writer? Yet there they are. Think of all the good we could do if all animators supported each other this way.

In the next weeks, expect to hear a lot of nasty stuff in the media about the spoiled-rich-Hollywood writers who make millions. That we should be sensitive to the problems of multinational corporate CEOs. Duh-? Remember these "news" stories are produced by the same corporate media who spin Iraq and politics and get us so frustrated. It's all about how the message if delivered to you. The fact is 46% of the WGA is unemployed, most of the big studios are an annex of some giant multinational companies and they are all making a killing in DVD and download profits. They won't give anything up without a fight.

People think the good money and cushy life of a Hollywood film person was created out of the ether like the seasons turning. Don't be naive. No company head wakes up and says" I feel so good today I think I'll give all my people a raise!" The fact is, all those better conditions were wrung out of the companies by struggle. According to that lefty rag Business Week, 25 years ago, for every dollar you and I made, our employer made $29. Today the ratio is $456 to our one!

So if you come upon a WGA picketline, You're all welcome to show support,shoulder a sign for awhile, and even a kind word or a cheer as you pass by. I've been on picket lines often, and it's no fun to see cold angry stares of strangers passing by, and even an occasional expletive shouted from a moving car.
So the good wishes really count.

courtesy of my pal,writer Earl Kress, www.mynameisearlkress.com



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QUIZ- How many American presidential elections were deadlocked elections?

The answer to yesterdays question- what is marinara sauce? Below.
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History for 11/6/2007
Birthdays: Sophocles 495BC, Joanna La Loca (the Mad- 1479), John Phillip Sousa, Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormons, Ignacz Paderewski, Charles Dow of Dow Jones, Adolphus Sax inventor of the Saxophone, James Naismith the inventor of Basketball, Mike Nichols, Edsel Ford, animator Eddie Rehberg, Sally Field is 62, Ray Coniff, John Olsen of the comedy duo Olsen & Johnson, Harold Ross the founder of the New Yorker magazine, Maria Shriver is 53, Ethan Hawke is 27, Rebecca Romjin

Today is the Feast of Saint Leonard of Noblac, the Patron Saint of Women in Labor and Prisoners of War. -is there a connection there..?

1528-Conquistador Alva Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked on the coast of Texas. The first European to set foot in Texas. Cabeza de Vaca means Head of a Cow.

1566-Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe got his nose cut off in a duel. Thereafter he wore a gold cup over the scar, held in place by a string .

1730- King Frederick William Ist of Prussia has General Von Katte, the gay lover of his son Crown Prince Frederick, beheaded by saber. He even made his horrified son to watch the execution from a window. Young Frederick was never that fond of his dad after this. When the old sadist died, he became King Frederick the Great and slept with whomever he liked. Frederick William Ist was the originator of mechanically strict Prussian discipline that made the German Army famous. He was so feared by his subjects that they used to run away when he arrived. The king caught one wretch in a doorway and drubbed in the face with his cane, shouting: "WHY ARE YOU AFRAID? YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME-YOU SCUM!"

1806- The news reached London of the great naval victory of Trafalgar and the death of Admiral Nelson. The news was brought by a small ship named the HMS Pickle. Englishmen great and small fell into extreme grief over the death of their greatest naval hero. Samuel Coleridge wrote: 'When Nelson died, it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another, for all were made acquaintances in the rites of a common anguish."

1812- On this day during Napoleons Retreat from Moscow, it began to snow.

1860- Abraham Lincoln of Illinois won the presidency of the United States. The first Republican to win an election. Back then, almost no one in the South voted Republican.

1869- Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in the first college football game.

1916- The elderly cowboy showman Buffalo Bill made one of his last public appearances in El Paso Texas. El Paso had been as wild and bloody a frontier town as Deadwood or Tombstone, but now it was a quiet modern city. Telephone and electricity wires crisscrossed overhead and streetcars clattered down the streets where gunfighters once shot it out. Buffalo Bills parade seemed to make plain to all the final passing of the Old West. The cheers brought tears running down the old scout's long white mustache. He died of prostate cancer a few weeks later.

1941- In an evening nationwide radio broadcast Comrade Josef Stalin told the Soviet Union that although Russian losses were heavy, the Germans had already lost 4.5 million men and were on the run. It was all pure fiction. In reality Leningrad was surrounded, Moscow was threatened and almost 40% of Russia’s population was under Nazi occupation.

1947- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization- NATO created.

1962- Ted Kennedy first elected to the Senate from Mass.

1966- A great flood hits the City of Venice. An international effort is mounted to save her priceless artifacts. Venice never suffered floods until the end of the nineteenth century when a deep channel was dug in the Venetian lagoon to accommodate modern heavy shipping to the new harbor of La Spezia. This imbalance messed up the natural flood cycle from the Adriatic. Added to that the whole darn city is resting on thousands of wooden pilings pounded into a sand bar when Attila the Hun was still running around. Venice is still sinking a few inches each century.

1975- First appearance of the band the Sex Pistols.

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ANSWER TO YESTERDAYS QUIZ-

Question: What is Marinara Sauce?

Answer: In the 16th century the Spanish introduced the tomato from America. Italian women who were married to fishermen used the new thing to make a quick, inexpensive sauce which could sit around all day for them to return from the sea. It was known as Mariners’ Sauce, La Marinara. Ironically, it has no fish ingredients of any kind in it.

QUIZ: What makes Italian Marinara Sauce, well…marinara sauce? Fish?
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History for 11/5/2007
Birthdays: Gen Benjamin "Spoons" Butler, Eugene V. Debs, Art Garfunkel, Roy Rogers, Tatum O'Neill, Elke Sommer, Ike Turner, Vivien Leigh, Will Durant, Joel McCrea, Sam Shepard, Bill Walton, John Berger

In Jolly Old England it is

HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY! in -1605 Sir Guy Fawkes, a Catholic nobleman, was caught digging a tunnel under the English Parliament and filling it with gunpowder. His goal was no less than blowing up the King and the entire blinkin' government! Sir Roger Catesby was actually the mastermind of the plot, but Sir Guy gets the fame.
Modern day Brits commemorate this as a kind of April Fools Day with bonfires and merrymaking. Children go from door to door asking :"A penny for Sir Guy, please." But in olden times it was also a let's have a good laugh on the Roman Catholics day.
This is why George Washington was against transplanting the holiday in America. Pope Day was celebrated in some American colonies but it died out after the Revolution. In 1775 Washington called it-A ridiculous and childish festival, burning effigies of the Pope." Many English folks I know told me they celebrate the day they tried to blow up the government because wouldn't things have been lovely if he had succeeded !

1805- The Royal Spanish Governor of New Mexico, Joaquin del Real Alencaster, dispatches a cavalry troop under Don Pedro Vial on a secret mission. On this day Vial's force is attacked by hostile Indians on the Arkansas River. Vial drives off the Indians but his command is too battered by the fight to continue and has to return, their mission aborted. What was their mission? To kill or capture the American explorers Lewis and Clark. The Spanish government in Madrid knew full well the object in the American President Jefferson’s mind in sending this "scientific" expedition to find a land route to the Pacific, over territory Spain still claimed as her own despite the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark, at this point in the Columbia River Gorge, were unaware of the drama around them.

1820- Old British sea dog Lord Thomas Cochrane had joined the Latin American cause trying to gain independence from Spain. This night he decided the best way to do that was to capture the flagship of the Spanish Pacific fleet, the 44 gun Esmerelda. Cochrance with 80 Chilean sailors dressed in white rowed up to the frigate and captured her after a brief but violent hand to hand struggle. As they rowed silently past the neutral USS Mendocino they were almost given away by the American sailors cheering for them.

1895- Invention of the Car Clutch.

1940- President Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected to an unprecedented 3rd term. His defeated Republican opponent- Wendell Wilkie, became the butt of jokes in many Looney Tunes.

1954- THE WRONG DOOR RAID- Baseball great Joe DiMaggio was stewing over the collapse of his marriage to sexy movie star Marilyn Monroe. He was especially sensitive to the rumors that she was seeing other men. This night Joltin Joe was having dinner with Frank Sinatra and a few friends when a detective brought him a report that Monroe’s car was spotted parked in front of an apartment complex on Kilkea Dr.. Enraged, he drove out to the building and kicked in the back door hoping to catch her en-flagrante. But Marilyn was staying in a girlfriend’s apartment upstairs. This was the home of a terrified old lady named Mrs Florence Klotz. We don’t know what she thought about her door suddenly kicked in by Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra and the RatPack but the tabloids had a field day.

1975- Logger Travis Walton was abducted by aliens and experimented on for five days, then returned to his Snowflake Arizona home. Walsh published a bestseller Fire in the Sky.

1977- George W. Bush married Laura Welsh. Laura was a Democrat who campaigned for lefty George McGovern in 1972.

1979- National Public Radio’s news show Morning Edition started.

1994- Retired President Ronald Reagan gave his last public speech. He confirmed he had Alzheimers Disease.

1999- A man was arrested in Minneapolis for stealing and keeping 150 shopping carts in his apartment.

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ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION-

QUESTION: Why is German dark rye bread called Pumpernickel?

ANSWER: Referred to in writing since 1746, the Oxford English Dictionary is uncertain as to the origin of the name. One theory is the name means Pumper- German for Fart, and Nickel, for Old Nick, another nickname for Satan. So Devil’s Fart Bread.

My favorite version is Oxford historian Katharine MacDonnough related the story of Napoleon marching his army in triumph into Berlin in 1806. He was riding a young colt named Nicole for the occasion. Part of the ceremony of submission, the Berlin city fathers present the conqueror with the keys of the city and a platter of the local delicacies to eat. Napoleon sampled the dark bread, and allegedly said:” Ech! Give that bread to my horse!- C’est pain pour Nicole!”
feh!

QUIZ: Why is dark German rye bread called Pumpernickel?
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history for 11/4/2007
Birthdays: Will Rogers, Walter Cronkite, Art Carney, Loretta Swit, Martin Balsam, Gig Young, Darla Hood, Joe Neikro, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ralph Maccio,Andrea McArdle, Matthew McConnaghey, First Lady Laura Bush

1530- Cardinal Wolsey had been the chief minister of King Henry VIII and dominated English politics for a decade. He was a European power broker and fancied himself a future Pope. But he lost favor with the King over his inability to get him a divorce from his first wife and his alliances on the continent lost them Calais, the last English stronghold on the continent. This day the King’s men arrested Cardinal Wolsey for treason. But being old and infirm he died on the way to the Tower.

1640- THE LONG PARLIAMENT- British King Charles Ist didn’t like parliaments. He found them pushy, always demanding rights for the common man and such. It had been 11 years since is last parliament and he had dismissed that one after three weeks. It was called "the Short Parliament”. But he needed money to put down rebels in Scotland. So Charles I reluctantly convened the Long Parliament. This one stayed in session for the rest of Charles' life and defeated and beheaded him in the English Civil War. The Long Parliament was finally disbanded by Cromwell and his army in 1652 and after Charles II ‘s restoration, the English parliament stayed more or less in regular sessions.

1646- The Massachusetts Bay Colony started to feel threatened by all the Quakers, Shakers, Anabaptists and other weirdoes coming in by the boatload from Europe. So they announced that the crime of Heresy was punishable by death. And of course heresy was anything the Massachusetts Bay Colony didn’t care to believe in. After hanging two Quaker preachers and driving others outside the walls to death at the hand of hostile Indians the heresy statutes were revoked by King Charles II.

1677- William III and Mary of Orange are married at St. James Palace.

1791- ST. CLAIRS DEFEAT- When President Washington sent General Arthur St. Clair to put down the Indian raids on the Ohio Frontier he advised him” Trust not the Indians, beware of surprise”. St. Clair, who had a rather lackluster military career in the Revolution, must have forgotten Washington’s advice because this day near what would be Celina Ohio St. Clair’s camp was surprise-attacked at dawn by thousands of Shawnee, Creek and Miami warriors. 900 American casualties including General Richard Butler. The spectacular defeat and massacre was led by Chief Little Turtle, who although he killed more US soldiers than died at Custers Last Stand, is barely remembered today. After the peace treaty in 1795 St. Clair finished life running a tavern and Little Turtle became a guest of George Washington. His grandson graduated from West Point.

1804- LEWIS & CLARK MET SACAJEWEA- The American explorers were spending the winter in a friendly Mandan village when a French Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau offered his services as a guide. He had two wives who were Shoshone (Snake) women. Sacajewea was then 15 and pregnant. Charbonneau won his wives in a bet with some Hidatsa warriors. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau not because he would be useful as much as Sacajewea, because she spoke the languages of the western tribes beyond the Rocky Mountians. Sacajewea would speak to Shoshone and Nez Perce in their language, then translate into Hidatsa to Charbonneau. He would translate it into French to another trapper named Driar who would speak English to Lewis and Clark.
Despite the clumsiness this system worked. Sacajewea with her baby on her back braved every hardship the expedition faced to the Pacific and back. One scholar said the European conquest of the America’s could not have been done without the help of three women:
Pocahontas, Malinche’ the Aztec Princess and Sacajewea.

1842- Abe Lincoln, 33, and Mary Todd, 23, marry. Mary Lincoln came from a pro Southern Kentucky family and was always at odds with Washington society. At one point Congress even held a hearing on whether the First Lady was a Confederate spy.
Mary was as volatile as Abe was laid back and they would have marital fights right in front of officers and dignitaries causing everyone to hang their heads in embarrassment. Most of her children had died by the time Lincoln was shot and the grief broke her sanity causing her surviving son Robert Lincoln to lock her up for her remaining years.

1854- THE LADY WITH THE LAMP- English nurse Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari Turkey to care for English wounded from the Crimean War. The English Army medical system then was a disaster of outmoded bureaucracy. Hundreds of sick and dying men were piled up bed to bed in a hospital 4 miles square without basic sanitary conditions- no blankets, fresh clothes or fresh food. Rich English aristocrat Florence Nightingale brought her own finances to clothe, feed and care for the sick. Even just doing laundry saved lives because men had clean linens to sleep on. She told her volunteers “The strongest women must stand with me at the washtub!” She had no official status or commission from the government, but she revolutionized the military hospital system and the nursing profession, often fighting stodgy old generals who saw her as a troublemaker. Chief surgeon Sir John Hall growled:” The woman insists on grotesque excess and luxury- after all, what does a soldier want with a toothbrush?”

1861- University of Washington founded in Seattle.

1862- Richard J. Gatling patented the machine gun. “It is to the pistol as the sewing machine is to the simple sewing needle.” Gatling’s idea was to invent machines to make war too terrible to be waged any longer. What he succeeded in doing was to indeed make war more terrible.

1879- James Ritty of Dayton Ohio patented the cash register, invented as a way to keep employees from pocketing receipts.

1913- William Mulholland's great aqueduct starts bringing water 200 miles from Northern California to L.A. by the force of gravity alone. Without the extra water L.A. would never have grown any larger than 140,000 people.by L.A. Times estimate.

1918- Wilfred Owen, one of the greatest English poets of the age, died in combat in World War One only days from the final armistice cease fire.

1927- HOWARD CARTER OPENED THE TOMB OF KING TUT-ANKH-AMON ( King Tut ). Other royal tombs had been opened before but they had always been cleaned out centuries ago by grave robbers. King Tut’s was the first unspoiled Pharoah’s tomb to be discovered in modern times. The site was discovered under a house built for workers excavating the tomb of King Ramses IV. There was King Tut's Curse guarding the door, and a few folks like Lord Carnaervon did go to an early grave: allegedly from scratching a zit and getting blood poisoning, legend has it the same zit was found on King Tut’s mummy. But Howard Carter, the man who broke the seal, rifled the tomb and did everything but stick his fingers in Tut’s ears, lived to a merry old age and even pocketed a few artifacts he didn't feel like sharing with the British Museum. They were recently returned by an embarrassed family descendant.

1928- Arnold Rothstein, top New York gangster who got vaudeville dancer Jimmy Walker elected mayor and rigged the 1919 World Series, is shot in the groin during a poker game. It took him hours to die. When asked by the police who shot him Rothstein replied before losing consciousness: "If I live, I'll take care of it..."

1931-One of the pioneering trumpet innovators of the new music called Jazz was Buddy Bollen. He was one of the first soloists to improvise within the body of a song and so doing paved the way for the greats like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. But by 1931 Bollen was forgotten and died broke in the Louisiana Home for the Insane. His family couldn’t even afford a Dixieland Band to play at his funeral.

1939- President Roosevelt signs the Neutrality Act, declaring the U.S. would not get involved in the growing war between Hitler and Britain and France.

1939- Packard introduced the first air-conditioned automobile.

1952- UNIVAC, the first electronic business computer, accurately predicted Dwight Eisenhower would win in a landslide. The first computer projected results for an election.

1955- In Arizona Willie Bioff, former IATSE union official, who tried to hijack the Hollywood unions (Including the Disney cartoonists) for Frank Nitti's gang, turns the key in his Ford pickup and explodes. He had turned informer and was in the Wittness Protection plan. He had changed his name to Bill Nelson and was a friend of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater.

1956- The Soviets crush the Hungarian Revolt led by Imre Nagy.

1958- Angelo Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII. John 23rd was one of the best loved popes of the twentieth century. He liberalized the Church through his council Vatican II, changed the Latin Mass into common language, encouraged folk masses and other reforms. Pope John Paul II has made more saints than any other Pope but withheld final sainthood for John XXIII because he was too liberal for his tastes.

1963- The Beatles are part of the Queens Royal Command performance in London. John Lennon tells the audience: “ Will the people in the cheap seats clap their hands?, and if the rest of you would just rattle your jewelry..”

1968- the first issue of Screw Magazine. Former reporter Jim Buckley and former industrial spy for the Bendix Corporation Al Goldstein named their magazine Screw after trying Hump, Love and being told they couldn't name it F**k.

1979- THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS- Iranian militants with the approval of the Iranian revolutionary government and the Ayatollah Khomeni attack the U.S. embassy in Teheran and take most of the 90 staff hostage for 444 days. The event infuriated US opinion and there were loud calls to nuke the Mad Mullahs. Truth be told, without condoning such an outrage the US public remained blissfully ignorant of how our CIA helped the overthrow of the democratic regime of Mossadegh in 1953 that established the Shah’s autocratic regime and that the coup was directed from within the US embassy, but hey, that’s just details. The crisis seemed to paralyze the Jimmy Carter administration and probably helped elect Ronald Reagan. The incident also proved that the Cold War East-West way of judging world politics was now outdated since the Ayatollah declared both America and Russia “Great Satans”!

1980- Yomiuri Giants baseball great Saduharu Oh retired after hitting 868 homeruns in his 22 year career. Apologists for American home run records like Aaron and Bonds claim it is not the same, since Japanese baseball fields are smaller than American. (?)

1993- The Topanga-Malibu fires., Huge brush fires burn expensive homes in Malibu. The fires reached from the Santa Monica Mountains down to the ocean. Eyewitnesses said the 200 foot flames were reflected in the sky and water turning everything orange and the landscape looked more like Mars than Malibu. In 2007 more fires ravaged the Malibu.
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QUIZ: How many wars has the US fought with France?

ANSWER: None. The United States fought two wars against Great Britain, We invaded Canada at least four times, two wars against Germany, one against Japan, Mexico, Korea, Spain, Vietnam, Afghanistan and two against Iraq. Americans fought the French as British subjects in the French and Indian War, had an almost war in 1804 and exchanged shots with pro-facist Vichy forces in North Africa for one day in 1942, But otherwise…no.

France helped America win our revolution against Britain. George Washington’s army were supplied by French money, wore uniforms made in France, fired guns with French gunpowder. The French fleet drove off the British navy trying to save Lord Cornwallis, making the final victory at Yorktown possible. The French selling Louisiana doubled the size of the US overnight and made the eventual expansion to the Pacific possible.

So what is the origin of this Francophobia? Perhaps it was when DeGaulle annoyed Kennedy by refusing to cooperate in the Cold War rivalry with Russia? Or the innate insecurity of parochial Americans when confronted with good cooking? We may never know.

QUIZ- Some Americans have a habitual anger towards the French. To try to understand this attitude, answer a question: How many wars have we fought against France?

Some Americans and Brits hate the French, but the French love Screwy Squirrel. So they can't be All bad!

I’ve been so busy with my recording sessions for Car Talk in New York and Boston, Pat reminded me I forgot to answer the question I posed in the Oct 31st Quiz: What is meant by three square meals a day?

Answer to yesterdays and Oct 31st quiz below.
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History for 11/3/2007
Birthdays: The Roman writer Lucan 39AD, John Montague the Earl of Sandwich and inventor of the same, Walker Evans, William Cullen Bryant, Stephen Austin, Bronco Nagurski, Andre' Malraux, Vincenzo Bellini, Bob Feller, Karl Baedeker author of the Baedeker guidebooks, Ken Berry, Lulu, Roseanne Barr, Astroboy creator Osamu Tezuka, Terry Gilliam

55 B.C. CLEOPATRA MARRIED PTOLOMEY VIII. They were brother and sister. Because the Pharoah was a god, he couldn't mate with a mortal, and the only available goddesses were in the immediate family. This curious inbreeding in the Royal line insured that the mighty family of Ptolomey, general of Alexander the Great, would produce descendants like Orestes the Flute Blower. No wonder Julius Caesar was more fun.

361AD- JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECAME EMPEROR OF ROME, upon the death of is uncle Constantius II. Julian's life was much like Claudius 300 years earlier, except the Imperial Family's official religion was now Christianity. The children of Constantine the Great fought, intrigued, seduced and poisoned each other with great gusto, then went to Church. This had a funny effect on bookish young Julian, and he decided Christianity was the mistake and everyone was a lot better off worshiping Jupiter, Hercules, bulls and such like the good old days. He just couldn't command it so, because Rome had been Christian for 50 years and would just kill him rather than switch. So he had to move cautiously. He was slain in battle with the Persians after only a five year reign, before he could affect any real change, but if he had reigned as long as Constantine did ( 30 years) the world might've looked different. When he went on campaign against Persia he sacrificed 5,000 bulls to Mars. One Christian joked: " If it was 5,000 bulls just to start, if Caesar Julian wins any battles I fear for the market price of beef!"

1503- MONA LISA- Leonardo Da Vinci was hired by a Florentine senator Francesco del Giocondo to paint a portrait of his third wife Madonna Elizabetha or Lisa. He fussed over the painting for four years and never gave it to Francesco, he said it was still unfinished and kept it for himself. Eventually he needed money so he sold it to the King of France and today it sits in the Louvre. Was her enigmatic smile because she had lost a child earlier that year and Leonardo was trying to cheer her up? He used to have musicians playing in the room when she posed. Or is she emblematic of Woman smiling at all the foibles of Men? One historian called Mona Lisa “ the Face that Launched a Thousand Reams Upon a Sea of Ink.”

1623- The Dutch government in the Hague decided Henry Hudson had discovered something interesting in America after all and ordered the Dutch West India Company to prepare plans for the building of a colony to be called New Amsterdam. This colony would eventually become New York City.

1755- The Massachusetts Colony offered a bounty of 20 English pounds each for scalps of Indian children under the age of 12. Warrior scalps fetched a higher bounty, about 30 pounds.

1761- Battle of Torgau- Frederick the Great had his last big victory over the invading Austrian army. Frederick “Die Alte Fritz”- Old Fritz, personally led his men into battle and had three horses killed under him. At one point he was struck in the chest with a cannonball but it had been fired at such a great distance that it had lost velocity and merely knocked the wind out of him.” It’s nothing,” he said, and returned to the battle. If he had been killed then the Prussian kingdom would have collapsed and the future capitol of united Germany would have been Vienna or Frankfurt than Berlin.

1836- California ranchero Juan de Alvarado rallies local ranchers to overthrow Governor Juan de Michaltorena sent from Mexico City. This story may have been an early inspiration for Zorro.

1849-THE PNEUMATIC TRAIN- Alfred E. Beech, the publisher of Scientific American Magazine, first proposed an underground railway be built under New York City to ease traffic snarls. He had invented the pneumatic tube system of delivering messages in tubes pulled through buildings by means of suction and compressed air. He now proposed to build tube shaped railroad cars that would carry people along via suction like a big straw. In 1868 he spent $350,000 to build a Pneumatic train under Broadway that could go one block. Beecher eventually gave up the idea and his tunnel was sealed but the New York City Subway system was inaugurated in 1904.

1888- Jack the Ripper killed his last victim, a prostitute named Mary Reilly.

1930- Amadeo Gianini changed the name of his San Francisco based Bank of Italy to the Bank of America.

1948 -The Chicago Daily Tribune prints the famous premature headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” based on early poll returns. Truman himself was so sure he’d lost the election he went to bed early. When he awoke he discovered he had won and he had a ball mocking the newspapers and doing nasal imitations of hostile correspondent H.B. Kaltenborn.


1957- the first living thing sent into orbit, a Russian dog named Laika. He never came back down but he probably was satisfied knowing he made history- woof.

1963- THE FIRST ALL COSMONAUT WEDDING- Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in Space, marries cosmonaut Andrisyan Nikolayev.

1966- President Lyndon Johnson signed the Truth in Packaging Act, which required all packaged foods to print their ingredients on the label.

1969- In a speech President Richard Nixon announced his opposition to young anti- Vietnam War protestors by appealing to what he called the Silent Majority.

1971- The first UNIX manual released. And I still can’t make heads or tails of them.

1971- Carly Simon married James Taylor.

1977- Disney's Pete's Dragon starring Helen Reddy and Red Buttons. “Passamaquody, Passamaquody..”

1979- T.V. sitcom Different Strokes premiered, featuring 2003 gubernatorial candidate Gary Coleman..

1990- GM's new car line the Saturn announced. The last Saturn was made in Oct. 2006.

1981- WALLY WOOD was one of the most influential cartoonists of the 1950’s and 60’s. His amazing versatility enabled him to draw everything from superhero comics to very cartoony to playfully naughty girls like Sally Forth. He drew EC Comics, the Mars Attacks series, Mad Magazine, Weird Science, THUNDER Agents and much more. He had done a famous drawing of the Disney characters having sex that brought down upon him the wrath of the Disney legal dept. But hard living and deadlines took their toll. Suffering from a stroke, failing kidneys and on dialysis, this day Wally Wood put a 44 cal pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger. Police say the bullet passed through his head and was lodged in the pillow.

1986- A Lebanese newspaper Ash Schirra revealed the details of the Reagan Presidency’s illegal sales of weapons to Iran- the Iran Contra Scandal.

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Answer to yesterdays quiz-

Question: In British slang, what is the meaning of “ Bob’s yer uncle?”

Answer: at the turn of the Twentieth Century British politician Sir Arthur Balfour was the nephew of the powerful Prime Minister Lord Robert Salisbury. No matter how Arthur screwed up at anything, he wound up being promoted because of his connections. The explanation was “ I know, Bob’s yer uncle..” So Bob’s yer uncle became another term for having friends in high places.

Oct 31st Quiz: What is meant by three square meals a day?

Answer: The British Royal Navy in the time of Admiral Nelson offered little for
a new sailor: flogging, two years away from family, scurvy and wounds. But it did
promise wages and three regular meals a day, served on square wooden plates. So,
three square meals a day.

argh Mateys! At least I get me three square a day!