Quiz: What is the origin of the term “a podunk town”?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Recently news outlets claimed Joe Biden was the first president to ever walk in a union picket line. But there was one other. Who?
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History for 1/29/2024
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Didius Julianus, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Thomas Paine, William Claude Dunkenfeld known as W.C. Fields, Victor Mature, Paddy Chayefsky, Ed Burns, Bill Peet, Greg Louganis, John D Rockefeller Jr., Claudine Longet, John Calcott-Horsley (1817) the inventor of the Christmas Card-1842*, Oprah Winfrey is 70, Tom Selleck is 79, Heather Graham is 54.

*Horsley was a Victorian artist at the Royal Academy in London who refused to draw nudes because it offended his morality. This earned him the nickname- Clothes Horsley.

282BC- Death of Pharoah Ptolomey II Philadelphus. Philadelphus meant Friend of the People.

1728- At this time all the rage in London was Italian Opera based on adaptations of Greek Mythology sung by castrated male sopranos. This day John Gay and Johann Pepusch’s THE BEGGARS OPERA was first produced in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The play was a sensation because it was an opera in English, using popular tunes of the time and told a story not of gods or noble heroes, but highwaymen, bawdy girls and innkeepers. Considered the first true musical.

1774-The COCKPIT, or BEN gets his ASS CHEWED- Benjamin Franklin was postmaster general of the American Colonies and had been feeling pretty good about his ability to represent American interests in London. He successfully argued the American's opposition to the Stamp Tax in the House of Commons. He offered to pay back exporters who lost money from the Boston Tea Party. He considered himself a good Englishman.
On this day he was invited to the Kings Privy Council for what he thought was a private meeting. He was ushered into a room called The Cockpit, where he faced a delegation from The Kings Privy Council. The ministers spent the next 4 hours dressing him down. The Lord Chief Justice finished by shouting in 70 year old Ben’s face:" Spy, Traitor, Rebel, Thief! " He was sacked as postmaster and ordered home to America before they clapped him in prison. Ben Franklin entered the room a loyal subject, and left a committed revolutionary.

1813- Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice first published.

1820- After spending the last ten years of his long reign as a blind insane shut-in, King George III died at age 82. His son the Prince Regent finally became King George IV. Americans remember George III as the tyrant of the Revolution, but Britons truly loved their old monarch and his simple family-man tastes. While his German grandfather George II was barely mourned at all, all the Empire lamented the passing of Old Shopkeeper George.

1834- President Andrew Jackson sent U.S. troops to shoot at striking workers at the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project. It was the first but sadly not the last time Federal troops were used to "settle" a labor strike.

1842- The Republic of Texas authorized the raising of a company of rangers to keep the peace- the Texas Rangers. Stephen Austin had commissioned rangers as early as 1833, but from this date on their regular service began.

1845- Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven first published. Quote the Raven, Nevermore.

1861- Since Kansas Territory was going to be organized as a state slaveholders and union men fought over whether she would be a free or slave state. Ten years later as the Civil War was breaking out Kansas announced statehood- as a free state.

1863- THE BEAR RIVER MASSACRE- The Shoshone Indians along with the Bannocks and Utes had been raiding wagon trains through Utah and Nevada. Col Patrick Connor led 300 US cavalry in subzero cold to attack Chief Bear Hunter’s winter camp in a hot-springs ravine near present day Preston, Idaho. After a daylong battle, 224 warriors were killed. The soldiers went berserk destroying tepees and raping the Indian women. Chief Bear Hunter was shot, beaten, whipped, and when he still would not die, a red-hot bayonet was rammed through his skull via his ear. One soldier called it “A frolic”. The Shoshone, Utes and Bannocks, who a generation earlier had helped Lewis & Clark, now asked for peace.

1886-In Karlsruhe Germany, Dr. Karl Benz patented the internal combustion engine. To prevent gasoline explosions it utilized a fuel distribution system based on a ladies perfume atomizer spray (the carburetor). He called his horseless carriage at first a Motorvagen, but later names it after his partner Gottfried Jellinek’s daughter, Mercedes.
Years later the merged with rival motorworks Daimler.

1891 After the death of King David IV Kalakoua, Liliuokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii. Besides being the last monarch of Hawaii, Liliuokalani composed the song "Aloha-Oi, Aloha-Oi, Until We Meet Again."

1918- The new Bolshevik revolutionary government ordered the immediate demobilization of the Russian Army, preparatory for pulling out of World War I. After Civil War broke out Leon Trotsky began to form a new army of Communist volunteers, the Red Army.

1920- Walt gets a job. Nineteen year old WWI veteran Walt Disney and his buddy Ub Iwerks were hired by a local Kansas City Slide Company to draw ads for newspapers and slides for theaters.

1935- The first inductees to the new Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown announced- Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. Hall of Fame dedication ceremony was on June 12th 1939.

1936- Benito Mussolini dedicated the first stone of Cinecitta’ Movie Studios.

1943- Fredrich Von Paulus was the commander of the German Sixth Army, now totally surrounded at Stalingrad. The few survivors were huddled in basements in the destroyed city, freezing, starving and being wiped out by superior Russian forces. Von Paulus and his men prayed for a miracle to save them. This day he heard via radio that Adolf Hitler had promoted him to Field Marshal, with a suggestion that no German Field Marshal should ever be taken alive…..

1944- DARBY’S RANGERS were an elite American commando unit trained for the toughest assignments, the forerunners of the Green Berets and Delta Forces. On this day the bungling generals of the Anzio beachhead sent them into a suicidal battle at the Italian town of Cisterna. Germans were had anticipated the attack and set a trap. 761 rangers went in, 6 came out. Colonel Darby himself survived the battle, but was killed two days before the World War II ended.

1957- Patsy Cline recorded "Walkin' After Midnight."

1959- Disney's " SLEEPING BEAUTY "opened. Despite earning the fifth highest box office for that year, it made 1 million less what it cost. The animation staff had swollen to it's largest to finish the production. Meanwhile Disney’s cheap live action films like The Shaggy Dog were raking in profits. The studio’s animation dept had a big layoff, dropping from 551 to just 75. Staff level will not return to these same levels until 1990. Sleeping Beauty was never re-released in Walt’s lifetime, but since then has earned almost $681 Million and is considered one of Walt Disney’s most classic animated movies.

1964- Stanley Kubrick's nuclear comedy "DR STRANGLOVE –OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB." premiered. It's use of handheld camera for action sequences and cutting, inspired by WWII newsreels and the European New Wave, ushered in a new style in Hollywood cinema. So, who was Tracey Reed? She played Miss Scott, George C. Scott’s bikini clad secretary, and the only woman in the entire movie.

1964- Actor Alan Ladd (Shane), accidentally overdosed on tranquilizers and scotch. He was 50.

1975- The radical Weather Underground set off a bomb in the US State Department. They were a violent offshoot of the Student Anti-Vietnam War protest movement,

1977- Comic TV star of "Chico and the Man " Freddy Prinze (23) shot himself. Some said he suffered from a survivor's depression about why he had succeeded in life while all his friends from the Barrio were dead from gang killings or drugs. Family members said that he was just stoned on Quaaludes and was clowning around with a gun.

1979- President Jimmy Carter commuted the jail sentence of Patty Hearst.

1986- The National Geographic Society announced the discovery of the largest fossil find in North America. Estimated 10,000 fossilized remains in Nova Scotia They include penny sized dinosaur footprints, the smallest ever found. Best guess are they are from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary – a time of mass extinction.

2002- THE AXIS OF EVIL- In his State of the Union speech President George W. Bush coined the term " The Axis of Evil". He labeled as members Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Iran is a Shiite religious theocracy, Iraq a Sunnite secular fascist dictatorship and North Korea an atheistic Communist state- all with nothing in common and little mutual contact. The speechwriter originally wrote "Axis of Hate" but the Bush people like the Good vs. Evil thing. They also substituted North Korea for Libya because they wanted a non-Muslim power included they wouldn’t seem prejudiced.
We learned from a retired CIA operative that up till now Iran had actually been cooperating with the USA in rounding up Al Qaeda agents. After 9-11 Iran arrested 16 Al Qaeda operatives. At the request of the US, they handed them over to Saudi Arabia, who promptly let them all go. But after the speech, the Iranians broke off all contact.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Recently news outlets claimed Joe Biden was the first president to ever walk in a union picket line. But there was one other. Who?

Answer: Ronald Reagan was president of SAG in 1960 when the actors union first went on strike in Hollywood. Not sure if any photos exist of his actually picketing. Reagan’s people were very careful to edit out those photos.

Quiz: Recently news outlets claimed Joe Biden was the first president to ever walk in a union picket line. But there was one other. Who?

Yesterday’s quiz answered below: What is a Pharisee?
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History for 1/28/2024
Birthdays: King Henry VII Tudor, Jose Marti, Colette, Jackson Pollack, Claus Oldenburg, Arthur Rubenstein, Ernst Lubitsch, Connie Rasinski, Susan Sontag, Barbie Benton, General George Pickett, William Burroughs (1855) the inventor of the calculator, Mo Rocca, Frank Darabont, Alan Alda is 88, Elijah Wood is 44

1393- DANSE MACABRE- (Bal des Ardents) At a masquerade ball given at the French court King Charles VI and several of his friends dressed up as 'wild men' to amuse the court. They had fur and animal hair attached to their bodies with tar.
While everyone was enjoying the capering of these strange anonymous creatures, a torch touched their tar covered bodies and the group exploded into flame. While the court watched these creatures writhe in agony, The Duchess de Berry screamed" Oh My God! That's the King!" King Charles was saved when that same duchess smothered his flames in her skirts. Another duke saved himself by diving headlong into a vat of Beaujolais, but the others roasted to death.
The common people weren't sympathetic. As you kneeled, one duke liked to step on your neck, sneering 'Down Peasant!". As his barbecued remains were carried through Paris in a solemn procession, people laughed, danced, and cried 'Down M’lord!" Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story called “Hop Frog” about the incident. Roger Corman put it into his 1964 film- Masque of the Red Death.

1547- English Henry VIII died, leaving his ten year-old sickly-son Edward VI "Gods Imp" king. He was 55 years old but his hard living had aged him early. Increasingly suspicious of all around him as he aged, one of his last acts was to have the Earl of Surrey beheaded for changing the coat of arms of his father the Duke of York into something more like a Royal Heir-Apparent. The Duke of York was also scheduled to be executed but was saved when the old king died first.

1596- Sir Francis Drake died at sea off the coast of Nicaragua while trying to mount one more big raid on the Spanish Main. The Devonshire preacher's son had raided there as a young man. But by now, the Spaniards had learned his tricks so they were prepared. The trip was a failure and he died on deck of yellow fever in late middle age.

1782- The Congress called for the use of the Great Seal of the United States, even though no one had designed one yet. But the British had one and so..uh, we had to have one too !

1829- BURKE & HARE- In the early nineteenth century scientific experiments on cadavers were outlawed as desecration of the dead. So doctors secretly hired grave robbers to get them specimens to experiment on. Burke & Hare were the most infamous of Edinburgh's "resurrectionists" because they didn't always wait for the subject to die, but murdered them in their boardinghouse. To Burke someone became slang for suffocating them. Doctors and later police became suspicious of the freshness of their specimens and Hare finked on Burke to save himself.
On this day Burke was hanged before a crowd of thousands and his body later medically dissected. The notoriety of this case helped pass laws allowing doctors more legal use of mortal remains. Their story was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Body Snatcher."

1863- Ulysses Grant arrived at Vicksburg to begin the epic campaign that would end on July 4th with the capture of the 'Gibraltar of the Confederacy'.

1878- First commercial telephone switchboard.

1884- A British relief force reached the city of Khartoum just two days too late. After a one-year siege, the Sudanese Dervishes had sacked the city and massacred all the inhabitants including General Gordon. The desert relief force was held up until all their supplies were complete, including 20,000 black umbrellas, apricot jam, and cricket bats. Mad Dogs and Englishmen….

1902- Andrew Carnegie was a rough crude tycoon with a ruthless streak that saw him ruin his competitors and pay vigilantes to murder his striking employees. But after all the rough and tumble of the Gilded Age business world, he showed a new side of his character in retirement. He set up the Carnegie Institute in Washington and resolved to give away the bulk of his $350 million dollar fortune in philanthropic causes. The reason why so many colleges, hospitals and concert halls in America today are named Carnegie. Carnegie declared “A man who dies rich, dies disgraced!”

1915- The U.S. Coast Guard born, combining the Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Cutter patrol. In 2002 the Coast Guard was folded into the Cabinet office Department of Homeland Security.

1916- President Woodrow Wilson nominated Judge Lewis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Brandeis was the first Jewish American to be so honored.

1917- After 11 months fruitlessly chasing Pancho Villa through Mexico and skirmishing with the Mexican army, Pres. Wilson ordered General John Pershing’s army home.

1918- In Germany, one million industrial workers, fed up with the endless carnage of World War I, went on strike, paralyzing factories nationwide.

1926- Composer Kurt Weill married his Pirate Jenny- Lotte Lenya.

1930- Warner Bros Cartoons Born. Leon Schlesinger, the head of Pacific Art and Title, signed a deal with several unemployed Disney animators who had left Walt to form their own studio to draw Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, but had been stiffed by their contacts. Schlesinger had connections with Warner Bros. since he helped them get funding for the 'Jazz Singer'. They created Leon Schlesinger's Studio Looney Tunes, in imitation of Disney's Silly Symphonies. Their first character was Bosko, but eventually they would create Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and more. Schlesinger sold his company to WB outright in 1944 when he retired.

1949- The Admiral Broadway Review premiered on television. The one and a half hour comedy review starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. The show was so popular Admiral was swamped for orders for new televisions and ironically was forced to cancel the show to focus on their production needs. The show was revived as Your Show of Shows, one of the great shows of early television.

1956- Young singer Elvis Presley first appeared to television audiences on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show.

1958- Brooklyn Dodger catcher Roy Campanella paralyzed in an auto wreck. He spent the rest of his life as a spokesman for the rights of the handicapped.

1978- At the Golden Globe Awards John Williams won for his score for Star Wars (IV: A New Hope), beating out Irving Kostal’s score for Pete’s Dragon.

1978- Hanna-Barbera's the Three Robonic Stooges.

1982- Danny DeVito married Rhea Perlman.

1986- THE CHALLENGER DISASTER- As the world watched, the Space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after takeoff killing all twelve crew members. They included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christie McAuliffe who had won the space ride in a contest. It was blamed on defective O-rings in the rocket booster.

2003- President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address said that he had proof that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had sent agents to the African nation of Niger to buy uranium yellowcake, a component to make atomic bombs. It is one of the major excuses for the war with Iraq. This was later proved to be a complete lie. Bush blamed the intelligence service, after giving the head of the CIA George Tenent the Medal of Freedom. When special CIA envoy Joseph Wilson, who knew Niger, tried to point out the falsehood, the Bush White House destroyed his career and outed the cover of his CIA wife, Valerie Plame. She had been working on exposing the Iranian nuclear program.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a Pharisee?

Answer: A Pharisee was a member of one of the three main Jewish sects, Pharisees (interpretive, separatist) Sadducees (aristocratic, assimilatory) and Essenes (mystic) during a century or two before the time of Christ until the destruction of the second temple and the continued escalation of the Jewish diaspora. (thnks FG)

QUIZ: What is a Pharisee?

Yesterdays question answered below: What is meant by transmigration of souls?
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History for Jan. 27, 2024
Birthdays-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Charles Dodgson-better known as Lewis Carroll, Eduard Lalo, William Randolph Hearst, Samuel Gompers, Jerome Kern, Skitch Henderson, Donna Reed, Bridgette Fonda, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kate Wolf, Ross Bagdasarian a.k.a. David Seville- creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, James Cromwell is 83, Mimi Rogers, Keith Olbermann, Frank Miller is 66, Patton Oswalt is 54

98AD- Roman General Trajan was serving on the German frontier. This day his aide Hadrian came with the news that the Emperor Nerva had died and had designated him as the next Emperor of Rome. Trajan was such a tough, no–nonsense soldier that he delayed several months in Germany to settle the affairs of the province before traveling down to Italy.

1307- Dante Alighieri got kicked out of Florence. Being exiled from politics left his mind free to concentrate on his poetry, like writing the Divine Comedy.

1431- German King Louis of Bavaria entered Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. It had been custom since Charlemagne for the German Emperor to be called King of the Romans, until the Pope crowned him. But Louis was arguing with the Pope in Avignon over several issues so rather than wait Louis expected the people of Rome to declare him Emperor. The German electors later reserved that right for themselves in Frankfurt. By successfully challenging the right of the Pope over him Louis of Bavaria was unwittingly aiding the coming of the Reformation seventy years in the future.

1535- Today is the Feast of Saint Angela Merci, founder of the Ursuline Nuns.

1649- King Charles I of England was convicted by trial in Parliament and sentenced to be beheaded.

1671- Buccaneer Henry Morgan and his pirates cross the Isthmus of Darien and attacked Panama City by land. Morgan the Pirate looted the city, despite the Spaniards stampeding a herd of bulls at him. However the attack wasn't much of a surprise and most of the population had already fled with their valuables. I guess a coupla' hundred Englishmen with peg legs and patch eyes growling "Arrr Mateys!" isn't a common sight in the Equatorial rainforest.

1775- In London, Secretary of State for the Americas Lord Dartmouth sent the Lord Governor of the colony of Massachusetts General Thomas Gage explicit orders to stop shilly-shallying with these uppity Yankees. He should clap the lot of them in prison and confiscate any illegal weapons. General Gage would get his instructions two months later -that how long it took news to cross the Atlantic by sailing ship. It will cause his redcoats in April to march on Lexington and Concord, which ignited the American Revolution. Ironically Old Tom Gage liked America and had a good friend in Virginia named George Washington.


1888- The first magazine published of the National Geographic Society.

1900- In the Grand Hotel de Milan Opera composer Guiseppi Verdi died. He was 87. On his explicit instructions, no music was played at his funeral.

1910- Plumber Thomas Crapper died, the inventor of the indoor flush toilet. Besides making going more comfortable, his systems of valves and vents prevented waste odors and germs from re-entering the home. This did a lot to combat disease in the 19th century. When American troops were in Britain during WWI, they kept seeing his name on all the toilets, so they started calling them The Crapper.

1918- Warner Bros. Pictures incorporated. The Brothers Warner (originally Wonkolasser)- Sam Albert, Harry and Jack were the sons of Jewish immigrants who had moved from Poland in 1882 and after some time in Canada, set up a bicycle repair shop in Ohio. In 1903 Albert and Harry bought a movie theater and began showing flickers. After their move to Hollywood, their first movie was Five Years in Germany. Throughout the 1920’s their little studio survived making pictures with dog star Rin Tin Tin. They called him Their Little Mortgage Lifter, because the profits from his pictures paid their bills. Later they bought Vitagraph from animator James Stewart Blackton, and gambled on the new Sound technology. When they made The Jazz Singer with Jolson, Warner Bros became a major studio.

1918- The first Tarzan movie premiered. A silent film, the first Tarzan was named Elmo Lincoln.

1925- IDITEROD- THE SERUM RUN BEGAN- At this time Nome Alaska was totally depended on supplies brought by sled dog teams. When a serious outbreak of diphtheria threatened to become a major epidemic, Alaska had only two airplanes, and they were boxed up for the winter. Governor Scott C. Bone decided to get the vaccination serum to Nome by a relay of twenty mushers in the depth of winter, temperatures averaging around -40 degrees Fahrenheit. This day the serum arrived by train at Nenana sealed in a metal cylinder wrapped in furs, and was loaded onto the first dog sled. Wild Bill Shannon called out to his malamutes and mushed down the frozen Tanana River into history. The lead dog was named Balto. It normally took a dog sled 20 days to cover the 650 miles, but these men did it in 5 days, 7 hours, limiting the epidemic to only 5 deaths.
The Iditarod dog race runs in memory of this.

1926- Scotsman John Logie Baird demonstrated his televiser system- the first true television image. The image was small, and resolution too weak and fuzzy to yet be more than a scientific curiosity. More potential was seen in American Philo Farnsworth’s system of radio-transmitted scan line images.

1927- Charlie Chaplin’s short comedy The Circus premiered.

1932- The Mukden Incident- Japanese troops rigged up a provocation at a railway junction so they could invade Manchuria. If you are counting, this little railway junction is the real beginning of World War II, which would rage until 1945.

1943- US 8th Air Force conducted its’ first daylight bombing raid on Germany, attacking Wilhelmshaven. The air-Battle of Germany would continue to until May 1945.

1944- The Red Army breaks through to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and lifts the 800 day Nazi siege.

1944- WAS WALT A RED? Walt Disney donated money and may have attended a tribute to cartoonist Art Young in New York who had died three weeks before. Art Young was a political lefty and a close friend of John Reed and Louise Bryant, founders of the American Communist Party. The F.B.I. noted the memorial to Young was sponsored by the socialist newspaper The New Masses and other attendees included progressives like Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg.
Walt was already a founding member of the Hollywood Society for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group of conservative Hollywood celebrities meant to counteract the rampant Hollywood Liberals. Disney later became an F.B.I. informant, but like Reagan, it may have been after the F.B.I. reminded him of his attendance at this little soiree'....

1945- The Soviet Red Army finally liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The first soldier to reach the camp was a Mongolian scout on a horse. This led one Jewish survivor to wonder if the Nazis now had intended to hand them over to the Japanese! The Russians hanged Auschwitz commandant Rudolph Hoess in front of the villa in camp he and his family lived in. His last words were “Sieg Heil!” He was not the Rudolph Hess who flew to London in 1941 and died in Spandau Prison. Russian soldiers also lined up the guards and gave loaded pistols to the inmates, inviting them to “ Enjoy yourselves.” Rescued survivors include the future Nobel Laureate Primo Levi, and the founder of Commodore Computers, Jack Tramiel.

1948- The Wireway Company announced the first tape recorder for sale using the new magnetic tape. It cost $150.

1951- Test Ranger Abel. Because atomic tests in the Pacific were getting expensive, the US Air Force starts using the Nevada Test Site to drop their nuclear bombs.

1961- The TV show Sing-a-Long with Mitch, premiered. Mitch Miller was a classical musician who had once played in the orchestra that premiered Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Here he created a hit show where he encouraged people to sing with the TV as it was playing. He was famous for saying rock & roll was a passing fad and would soon be gone.

1961- The Twilight Zone episode, “The Invaders” Agnes Moorhead played an old recluse tormented by little aliens, who turn out to be American astronauts from Earth. Their flying saucer was the one from the 1954 movie Forbidden Planet recycled.

1967- Three Apollo I astronauts Gus Grissom (pilot of the third Gemini flight), Ed Young and Roger Chafee died in a flash fire in their capsule. In those days the hatchways were literally screwed on from the outside and there was no way to open it from the inside. The fire occurred during a routine rehearsal probably from static electricity igniting an atmosphere of pure oxygen and feeding on velcro. The three men burned to death while engineers frantically struggled with the hatch. After this episode the future Apollo capsules were fitted with a hatch with exploding bolts. Grissom had once said: “If we die people must accept it. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.”

1973- Henry Kissinger and Li Duc To signed the Paris Peace Accords ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. President Nixon hailed the agreement as Peace with Honor, but the defeat traumatized a generation of Americans and confused the public as to just what the American role in the world really was. Kissinger and Li Duc To won the Nobel Peace Prize for that year. Li Duc refused to accept it because his country was still at war. “if there's no peace, it would be hypocritical to receive a prize for it!" Henry the K didn’t have a problem accepting it and went to Oslo. North Vietnam overran South Vietnam two years later. Kissinger just died two months ago at age 100.

1984- HELP ME TITO! During the filming of a Pepsi commercial at LA’s Shrine Auditorium, a magnesium flash ignited singer Michael Jackson’s Jeri curl hair gel causing him 3rd degree burns on his scalp.

1992- Presidential candidate Bill Clinton was denounced by a woman named Jennifer Flowers of having a 12 year extramarital affair with her when governor of Arkansas. He goes on 60 Minutes with Hillary and called her a liar. Of course we now know they did have an affair, but hey, that’s politics.

1994- The very first Marc Davis Lecture given at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. Marc and Alice established a fund to sponsor an annual talk about the art and development of animation. Marc gave this first talk himself.

1997- First day shooting on the Cohen Bros. film The Big Lebowski- The Dude Abides.
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Yesterday’s question: What is meant by transmigration of souls?

Answer: Some faiths believe after death your soul goes to heaven, another dimension, Elysium, whatever. Other faiths believe your soul enters a newborn and you do it all over again. Another form is reincarnation, where you come back as a bird or fern or something.

Quiz: What does it mean when you call knowledge arcane?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What was the Gang of Four?

History for 1/25/2024
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Birthdays: Genghis Khan, Byzantine Emperor Leo IV the Khazar, Robert Burns, Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, Vice Pres Charles “Goodtime Charlie” Curtis, Edwin Newman, Jean Image, Dean Jones, Ava Gardner, Etta James, Corazon Aquino, Anita Pallenberg, Disney Animator John Sibley, Tobe Hooper

Happy National Bubble Wrap Day.
36 AD (est?) THE CONVERSION of ST PAUL. There was a Jewish Pharisee named Saul who on the road to Damascus had a blinding vision. He changed his name to Paul and became the most zealous of Christians. Scholars speculate that Paul may had studied philosophical disciplines like Greek Stoicism and the Jewish Essene movement, because elements of these faiths seem to influence Paul's structuring of his new religion.
Paul is responsible for things like ladies keep their heads covered, men's heads uncovered in Church, etc. He made a point of going to Athens to preach the new religion in Plato's Philosophical Academy. He was also instrumental in bringing Gentiles into the religion, causing an early split in the faithful, when James the brother of Jesus felt that they should stay a reform movement within Judaism. That group eventually died out.

49AD- Claudius declared emperor of Rome.

1077- HENRY AT CANOSSA- One of the hottest arguments of the Middle Ages was whether Kings could boss around Popes or visa-versa. Ever since Pope Leo had crowned Charlemagne in 800, Popes declared that no monarch in Europe could rule legitimately without the Church’s official blessing.
In 1077 German Emperor Henry IV told Pope Gregory VII, the Fiery Hildebrandt, that he could appoint or fire German bishops with or without Rome’s permission. The feud grew as Gregory excommunicated Henry and released all his subjects from allegiance to him; Henry declared Gregory “a licentious false monk” and appointed another Pope.
But the superstitious fear of the common people and the ambition of rebellious German nobles brought Henry’s kingdom to a standstill. This day witnessed one of the most dramatic scenes in Medieval History: At the Italian town of Canossa, Emperor Henry in hairshirt and barefoot stood in the snow waiting at the locked door of the Pope to beg forgiveness. Gregory forgave him, but a year later they were at it again, and Henry chased Gregory out of Rome with an army and Gregory excommunicated him again.
Luigi Pirandello wrote a play about Henry IV in the 1920s.

1327- Edward III, the Great Plantagenet, became King of England.

1483- Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition Peter de Arbules was beaten to death while at prayers at the Cathedral of Saragossa. Tradition states that years later the blood on the spot of his death stayed wet. He was made a saint in 1867. 1533- Henry VIII secretly married Lady Anne Boleyn, already pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was later called a sorceress because she had six fingers on one hand. Lusty King Henry had also slept with Anne’s mother and her older sister Mary Boleyn.

1669- THE SECRET TREATY OF DOVER- King Charles II had at last gotten the British throne back from Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans, but he ruled over a kingdom bankrupt and ravaged by civil war. So on this day Charles signed a secret treaty with the richest country in Europe- Louis XIV's France. In it King Charles pledged to return England to the Roman Catholic Faith, and himself convert to Catholicism, in return for heavy subsidies of French gold.
Charles lived in a grand baroque style and may have converted on his deathbed, but said nothing in public, so England stayed Anglican. His brother James II who was openly Catholic was overthrown and exiled. The British parliament then passed a law that a Catholic can never again be King of Great Britain.

1755- The King of France appointed the Marquis de Montcalm to command all French forces facing the British in North America.

1814- France invaded by five separate armies, Napoleon said goodbye to his wife Marie Louise and his three-year old son. He would never see either of them ever again. After Waterloo, his father-in-law the Austrian Emperor Francis II kept Marie Louise from joining Napoleon in exile and gave her a handsome Austrian duke as a lover. Napoleon’s son was renamed the Duke du Reichstadt and raised as an Austrian, until he died of tuberculosis at age 21.
1858- Queen Victoria & Prince Albert's eldest child, Victoria the Princess Royal (Vicky), married Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia (Fritzy) in a lavish ceremony. At this wedding, for the first time the "Bridal Chorus "Treulich geführt") from the 1850 opera Lohengrin by composer Richard Wagner was used as a processional. Like everything Victoria and Albert did, it soon became a custom, known in English was “Here Comes the Bride, All Dressed in White.” Queen Victoria in her own wedding started the custom of brides wearing all white. Frederick and Vicky’s first child was the future Kaiser Wilhelm II.
1863- Lincoln fired his army commander Ambrose Burnside and replaced him with General Fighting Joe Hooker. Burnside, whose mutton chop whiskers named the style "sideburns" was a military hard luck case. He lost the battle of Fredericksburg so badly that even the enemy was embarrassed. His replacement "Fighting Joe" Hooker was so fond of "ladies of the evening" that he brought them on campaign in their own tent and cavalry escort. They were called "Hooker's Girls" hence the term-"hookers".
1890- Newspaper reporter Nelly Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) of the New York World was welcomed home after traveling around the world in 72 days. The stunt was inspired by the Jules Verne story Around the World in 80 days, which had become a hit stage play.

1900- In the Boer War the Boers had surrounded a British garrison in the town of Ladysmith. After many attacks the siege of Ladysmith was broken by a relief force that had in its’ ranks a young officer named Winston Churchill.

1924- The first Winter Olympics held in Charmonix, France. Winter sports were celebrated as early as 1901 as the Nordic Games in Scandinavia. Trying to hedge their bets the International Olympic Committee originally styled the Charmonix games the Winter Sports Week. It was so successful that in 1928 the IOC designed the games at St. Moritz the Second Winter Olympiad. These games did a lot to raise the public interest in the sport of ski running, now simply called skiing.

1925- In Prague, Karel Capek’s futuristic play R.U.R. opened. It featured electronic mechanical men replacing people, called by the Czech word for workers, “ roboti”, so robots.

1938- Walt Disney attempted to head off the rising tide of unionizing workers in Hollywood by forming a dummy company union called the Federation of Screen Cartoonists. No other artists but Disney employees joined, and Disney's chief attorney Gunther Lessing could veto any resolution passed that Walt did not like. Art Babbit agreed to be its first president, but after it seemed obvious management was calling all the shots, he resigned.

1939- President Franklin Roosevelt designated the fossil rich Badlands area of South Dakota a National Monument. 1945- The Rock Creek Report recommends mass additives of fluoride into American drinking water supplies. Tooth decay dropped by 50%, however many rightwing fringe groups like the John Birch Society saw fluoridation as an insidious Commie-Jewish plot.

1947- Mobster Al Capone died in seclusion at his home in Biscayne Bay Florida at age 48. He was released from Alcatraz Prison early because of ill health, his mind was slowly destroyed by untreated syphilis. When another gangster was asked if Capone would resume leadership of the Chicago rackets, he replied:” Big Al is nuttier than a fruitcake.”

1949- The first Emmy Awards ceremony was held at the LA Athletic Club. Five awards were given out for shows like Mabel’s Fables, and Treasures of Literature. Rudy Vallee hosted. Tickets were $5 each. Mayor Fletcher Bowron declared it “ TV Day” in LA.
1959- Propeller planes had been crisscrossing America since the 1920s. This day American Airlines set up the first jetliner passenger service across the U.S. 1959- VATICAN II- Pope John XXIII called for the creation of a Second Vatican Council to initiate reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. This was called Vatican II and it’s sweeping ideas changed the Church forever. Latin Masses replaced with native language, the priest does the Eucharist ceremony facing you instead of with his back to you, Folk Masses with guitars, etc.

1960- Actress Diana Barrymore, the daughter of John Barrymore, overdosed on sleeping pills. The Barrymore family that had dominated the American theater since the 1850’s had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Ancestor after ancestor drank themselves to death. Current leader of the family Drew Barrymore recovered after rehab at age 12. 1961- John F. Kennedy has his first televised Presidential press conference.

1961- Walt Disney’s 101 Dalmatians premiered.

1970- Robert Altman’s movie M*A*S*H premiered.

1971- Charles Manson and his followers convicted of 27 counts of murder. They were all sentenced to the Gas Chamber, but the death penalty had just been abolished in California.

1971- Idi Amin seized power in Uganda.

1984- The widow of Mao Zedong, Chiang Ching, was sentenced to death for conspiring against the Chinese state. Her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Madam Chiang was one of the leaders of The Cultural Revolution and her accomplices were known as The Gang of Four.

1990- Movie star Ava Gardner died in her London apartment. She was 67.

1995- Moscow radar detected a nuclear missile launch from Norway headed right for them. Russian President Boris Yeltsin had five minutes to decide if this was a mistake, or the dreaded First Strike, warranting a full retaliatory launching of all Russian nukes at the USA. He decided it was a mistake, and it turned out the missile was only a Norwegian weather satellite being shot into orbit. Similar nail-biting false alarms happened to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and off the US coast in 1986.

1996- Composer-playwright Jonathan Larson spent years waiting tables and living in a cold water loft in lower New York hoping for his big break. This morning after a night of bar-hopping his roommate returned to find him dead on their kitchen floor. Larson had died of a sudden aortic aneurism at age 35. Just three months after his death Larson’s musical Rent opened and became a major Broadway hit, earning $250 million dollars, Tony awards and a Pulitzer Prize. It ran for 12 years.

2011- The Arab Spring pro-democracy protests that began in Tunisia spread to Egypt, the world’s largest Arab country. Huge protests began in Cairo against long time president Hosni Mubarak. Eventually they forced his overthrow.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was the Gang of Four?

Answer: They were four Chinese Communist party leaders, one of them being Mao Zedong’s last wife (aka:”Madame Mao”). They were active during the Cultural Revolution but, after Mao’s death, were blamed for the revolution's devastation, were later arrested, tried for treason, and sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison. Madame Mao committed suicide. (Thanks FG)

See above, 1984.

Quiz: Where precisely is Washington Irving country?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is meant by The Fourth Estate?
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History for 1/22/2024
St. Vincents Day- "If Vincents Day be Rainy Weather, shall rain then 30 days together.”

Birthdays: Sir Francis Bacon, D.W. Griffith, Lord Byron, August Strindberg, Andre Marie Ampere (electric Amps), 1960’s UN Secretary General U-Thant, Ann Southern, Sam Cooke, Bill Bixby, John Hurt, George McManus, Joseph Waumbaugh, J.J. Johnson, Seymour Cassell, Jim Jarmusch is 70, Linda Blair is 65, Piper Laurie is 91, Diane Lane is 58

1503- Pope Alexander VI Borgia has his enemy Cardinal Orsini poisoned while imprisoned in the Vatican.

1506- THE SWISS GUARDS. Many European monarchs hired foreign mercenaries to be their personal bodyguards. They were often more trustworthy than their own subjects. The most famous were the Swiss. While the Swiss home cantons stayed at peace, her hardy mountaineers hired out as mercenary troops all over Europe. The Swiss had a reputation as incorruptible and tough fighters. This day the warrior Pope Julius II hired a troop of Swiss and had Michelangelo design their uniforms. The Swiss Guards still guard the Vatican today and are still recruited from the non-commissioned officers of the Swiss Army.

1522- Andreas Carstadt, an early follower of Martin Luther, set a new precedent by being a priest who openly got married. He was forty, she was fifteen.

1552- Because Henry VIII’s child was only ten at the time of the old king’s death Edward Seymour the Duke of Somerset ruled England as regent-administrator. But Somerset’s rule was troubled with corruption and religious friction between Catholics and Protestants. His own brother Thomas Seymour the Lord High Admiral was executed for trying to become king. Somerset soon fell and was replaced by the Duke of Northumberland. He charged Somerset with treason based on evidence given by Sir Thomas Palmer. Today Somerset’s head was cut off. Later Northumberland and Palmer lost their heads too. They confessed on the scaffold that they had fabricated the charges against Somerset.

1555- THE FIRES OF SMITHFIELD. When Mary the Catholic daughter of Henry VIII became queen she at first tried to be lenient towards her Protestant subjects. But continuous plots by Protestant nobility, and her own desire to restore England to the old faith hardened her heart. This day she began the mass trials and executions of those accused of Protestant heresy. Six clergymen including the Bishop of Gloucester were sentenced and burned at the stake. Hundreds more would follow. Even Spanish King Philip II urged Mary to calm down. Mary had an observation tower built nearby so she could watch and enjoy the screams while she ate lunch.
Mary’s executioners added a new twist to the old system of burning at the stake. Before lighting the bonfire, if they liked you, a bag of gunpowder was stuffed between your legs, so you went out quick with a bang. Bloody Mary and her cruelty in the name of Roman Catholicism all but convinced the English people to stay Anglican.

1787- 17 year old French cadet named Napoleon Bonaparte, on furlough in Paris, wrote in his diary that after exhausting negotiations with a streetwalker he "…sampled the joys of Woman for the first time.." Today he’d probably do an Tick-Tock post.

1840- The first English colonists reach New Zealand.

1863- THE MUD MARCH- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the fashion for "side-burns") tried to avenge his humiliating defeat at Fredericksburg by a winter march up the Rappahannock River to maneuver around Robert E. Lee. In so doing he discovered why all pre-industrial age armies took the winter off. Burnsides army was pelted by blinding sleet storms and bogged down in oceans of gooey mud. When Burnside finally called it quits he had as many casualties from sickness as if had he fought a battle. A bitter army joke based on a children’s prayer went:
"Now I lay me down to Sleep, In mud that’s eighteen fathoms Deep."
"If you can’t see me when we Awake, please dig me up with an oyster Rake."

1879- Battle of ISHANDLWANA- The worst defeat ever inflicted by native peoples on a modern army. The British thought they were brushing out of the way just another spear throwing tribe when they attacked the Zulu Empire. They were unconcerned that the Zulu marched in regiments -impis, had generals -indunas, and practiced strategy and tactics. A Zulu impi was trained to run in tight formation for 20 miles barefoot then fight a battle. Lord Chelmsford had invaded Zululand searching for the Zulu army when he was tricked by a simple diversion into dividing his forces. The Zulu then flanked Chelmsford’s force in a maneuver Napoleon would have admired, fell on his camp and wiped out two regiments of the 24th Welsh Fusiliers. It was a massacre similar to Custer at the Little Big Horn.
Lord Chelmsford and his staff were eating lunch several miles away when an aide noticed in his telescope flashing and running around the base camp. Lord Chelmsford dismissed it as nothing but sent a courier to investigate. The courier at first saw men in red coats and white pith helmets walking amongst the tents. As he got closer he noticed that they all had black faces.

1901- Queen Victoria died after a reign of 64 years, the longest for a British monarch until Elizabeth II. When she assumed the throne at age 19 in 1837 there were still many alive who remembered the Battle of Waterloo and white periwigs. She died in a world of electric lights, telephones, autos and motion pictures. She was buried with some tokens of her husband Prince Albert. Correspondence of Victoria’s daughter recently revealed that by Queen Victoria’s instruction she also be buried with tokens of her equerry Mr. John Brown, including his pocket watch.

1912- The first bridgeway connecting Key West and the Florida Keys opened.

1912- U.S. Marines occupied the Chinese city of Tientsin to "protect American commercial interests".

1918- A Manitoba judge tries to outlaw movie comedies, because they tend to make the public "too frivolous".

1923- The day after Ub Iwerks quit Walt Disney, music director Carl Stalling quit as well. When work at Iwerks new studio didn’t pan out, he ended up at Warner Bros. scoring the Looney Tunes.

1930- Work began on the foundation of the Empire State Building in New York.

1938- On a bare stage, Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town premiered.

1939- At Columbia University for the first time scientists split a uranium atom.

1944- Argentine Colonel Juan Peron first met radio actress Eva Duarte or Evita.

1944- ANZIO- The Allied armies advancing up the Italian boot had been fought to a standstill by fierce German resistance around Monte Cassino north of Naples -the Gustav Line. So the decision was made to amphibiously land a large invasion force in the rear of the German army with the intention of taking Rome. They completely surprised the enemy and their scouts reported the road into Rome was wide open. But the American commander General Lucas hesitated.
In the meantime the Germans recovered and rushed up elite SS divisions that turned the battle into a bloody stalemate. Churchill said: "I thought we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a beached whale!" Instead of two days, the allies didn’t take Rome until June 4th, five months later.

1947- Hollywood first commercial television station KTLA went on the air for regular broadcasting. At the time in all of Los Angeles there were only 350 TV sets.

1949- Mao Zedong and the Communist People’s Liberation Army captured Peking (Beijing).

1949- Tex Avery’s cartoon "Bad Luck Blackie".

1950- Preston Tucker tried to compete with the big auto giants like Ford and Chrysler with his revolutionary designed Tucker Automobile. But the giants bogged him down in court with charges of fraud. This day he was acquitted of all charges, but the legal expenses ruined him. Only 40 Tuckers were ever made. Francis Ford Coppola made a movie about his life.

1951- During winter baseball tryouts, a promising young left-handed pitcher from Cuba was scouted by the New York Yankees. But after losing a game for the Washington Senators and getting dropped from their roster, he gave up on sports to pursue a career in politics- Fidel Castro.

1954- The Los Angeles Fire Department is ordered by federal courts to integrate.

1968-T.V. comedy review show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In premiered. It launched the careers of Lilly Tomlin, Goldie Hawn and Eileen Brennan. You bet your sweet Bippy!

1972- In an interview with Melody Maker magazine, rocker David Bowie outed himself and said he was gay. Technically he would be bi-sexual since his wife Angela did catch him in bed with Bianca Jagger. Others called him a closet-heterosexual.

1973- While President Richard Nixon celebrated his second inaugural with a concert, Leonard Bernstein conducted a Concert for Peace at the Washington Cathedral. While Nixon’s orchestra played his favorite classical piece Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812 with real cannons, Bernstein played Haydn’s Mass in a Time of War to 15,000 people against the War in Vietnam.

1973- The Roe Vs. Wade Supreme Court Decision 7-2 legalizing abortion. Before 1880 most abortion practices were legal, they were referred to as "quickening". The first prohibitions were more about banning dangerous quack drugs used in the process. Far Right politicians spent years slowly getting like-minded judges on to the Supreme Court. Finally in 2022 In the Dodd Decision, the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

1975- Hollywood agents Ron Meyer and Michael Ovitz leave William Morris and form the Creative Artists Agency, or CAA.

1977- The day after his inauguration President Jimmy Carter was shown the first pictures from the KH-11, the first imaging orbital spy satellite. An American mole sold the technology to the Russian KGB a year later and soon France, Britain and Israel also had spy satellites in orbit.

1984- Amazon Indians attack an oil drilling crew with blowguns.

1984- Apple released the Macintosh I personal computer.

2020- When asked about the first cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., Pres. Trump replied: “We have it totally under control. ... It’s going to be just fine.”

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Yesterday’s Question: What is meant by The Fourth Estate?

Answer: The Fourth Estate meant The Press. As opposed to the First Estate-Nobility, the Second Estate-the clergy, the Third Estate- The common people.