Question: What is a denouement?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In a University, what is the Greek System?
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History for 11/3/2021
Birthdays: The Roman writer Lucan 39AD, John Montague the Earl of Sandwich, Jubal Early, Walker Evans, William Cullen Bryant, Stephen Austin, Bronco Nagurski, Andre' Malraux, Vincenzo Bellini, Bob Feller, Karl Baedeker author of the guidebooks, Ken Berry, Michael Dukakis, Gustav Tenngren, Lulu, Osamu Tezuka, Jim Cummings

55 BC- CLEOPATRA MARRIED PTOLOMEY VIII. They were brother and sister. Because the Pharaoh 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 Ptolemy, general of Alexander the Great, would produce descendants like Orestes the Flute Blower.

361AD- JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECAME EMPEROR OF ROME, upon the death of his uncle Constantius II. Julian's life was much like Claudius 300 years earlier, except the Imperial Family's official religion was now Christianity. The family of Constantine 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 must be the problem, and everyone was a lot better off worshiping Jupiter, Hercules, Mars and such like in the good old days. He was slain in battle with the Persians after only a five year reign, before he could affect any real change.

631 AD- Caliph Omar, the conqueror of the Holyland, was assassinated in Medina by Abu-Lulu, a Persian Christian.

1394- the Jews expelled from France by King Charles VI.

1503- MONA LISA- This day 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.”

1529- In England, the Reformation Parliament first met. This was the Parliament that supported King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church, and the adoption of Protestant practices.

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 begin plans for a colony there to be called New Amsterdam. This settlement would eventually become New York City.

1717- Henry Luttrell was a general in the Irish Jacobite army against the forces of William of Orange. At key battles at Aughrim and Limerick, he betrayed his own side, and for that he was richly rewarded by the English. King William even gave him the estates of his own brother, who picked the wrong side. Needless to say, Henry Luttrell was not very well liked at home. This day while riding in a sedan chair through downtown Dublin, someone came up to him and shot him in the face. Luttrell died the next day, and nobody on that street seemed to see or recall seeing who did it….

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 “ Alte Fritz”- Old Fritz, personally led his men into battle and had three horses killed under him. At one point he was actually 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 Germany would have been Vienna or Frankfurt, rather than Berlin.

1836- Southern California ranchero Juan de Alvarado rallied local ranchers to overthrow corrupt territorial Governor Juan de Micheltorena sent from Mexico City. One of his followers was Pio Pico, who would become a general in the Mexican War. The story of Alvarado 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.

1883- The Billy Hicks Massacre- near El Obeid a poorly trained colonial Egyptian Army led by British officers under General William Hicks march right into a trap set by Sudanese rebel leader El Mahdi. He led a messianic movement much like ISIS today.

1883- Outlaw Black Bart held up his last stagecoach. He liked to rob the Wells Fargo strongbox and leave behind poems. “ I’ve labored long and hard for bread, for money and for riches. But too long on my corns you’ve tread, you fine-haired sons of bitches!- Black Bart poe-8.” Eventually Wells Fargo agents tracked him down to man named Charles Bowles and he did 6 years in San Quentin.

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

1918- the Austrians sign a preliminary armistice with Italy to end the Italian Front section of World War I. Soldiers like Benito Mussolini could go home and get into politics.

1930- Amadeo Giannini 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 news correspondent H.B. Kaltenborn.

1956- The 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland, was first broadcast on television. Almost 40 million people tuned in that night. It has been run every year since. Possibly the most viewed on TV single movie ever.

1957- The first living thing sent into orbit, a Russian dog named Laika. She was a stray found on a Moscow street. She never came back but died in space, but she probably was satisfied knowing she 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 real ingredients on the label.

1969- In a speech, President Richard Nixon announced his opposition to young anti-Vietnam War protesters by appealing to the social conservative middle Americans. "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." It was basically a declaration of cultural war against the Rock & Roll Hippy counterculture.

1971- The first UNIX manual released.

1971- Carly Simon married James Taylor.

1974- Hello Kitty created.

1976- Carrie starring Sissy Spacek opened in theaters.

1977- Disney's Pete's Dragon starring Helen Reddy and Red Buttons.

1979- T.V. sitcom Different Strokes premiered.

1990- GM's car line the Saturn announced.

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 an infamous drawing of the Disney characters having sex that was so good, people assumed it was done by a rogue Disney animator. But hard living and deadlines took their toll. Suffering from a stroke, and failing kidneys, Wally Wood put a 44 cal pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger. Today police found his remains.

1986- While American media sat on the story, Lebanese newspaper Al Schirrah first revealed the details of the Reagan Presidency’s illegal sales of weapons to Iran- the Iran Contra Scandal. It embarrassed the final years of Reagan’s presidency. In 1989, Pres. George H.W. Bush gave executive pardons to all involved.
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Yesterday’s Question: In a University, what is the Greek System?

Answer: The university chartered fraternity and sorority houses, distinguished by Greek letters. Alpha, Delta, Omega, etc.

Question: In a university, what is the Greek System?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does it mean to speak in a desultory manner?
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History for 11/2/2021
Birthdays: Daniel Boone, Pres. James Knox Polk, Jean Chardin, Luchino Visconti, Giusseppi Sinopoli, Burt Lancaster, Pat Buchanan, Steve Ditko, Ray Walston, Stephanie
Powers, k.d. lang, David Schwimmer is 55

Today is the traditional day for Dio de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It derives from the Aztecs, who believed the life you are now living is a dream. When you die, you awake to your real life.

472AD- Next to last Roman Emperor Olybrius died. Put in his place was the boy Romulus Augustulus, while the real power was his general, the barbarian chieftain Odoacer.

1164- Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, fled into exile over his dispute with King Henry II of England.

1483- This day Richard III shows his friend the Duke of Buckingham how much he appreciated his help in becoming king, by cutting his head off.

1541- Archbishop Thomas Cranmer handed King Henry VIII a spy’s report that his hot young wife Queen Catherine Howard was getting-it-on with at least three other men.

1783- The American Revolution now over, General George Washington published his final orders to his disbanding army, congratulating them for their courage and allowing them all to go home now to their farms.

1789- The French Revolution seized all Church property in France.

1789- President George Washington had borrowed two books from the New York City Public Library that were due this day. The Chief Librarian noted that they were still overdue, in April 2010. A total of $4, 577.00 late dues were owed.

1804- Pope Pius VII was brought by French cavalry from Rome on to French soil so he could crown Napoleon emperor at Notre Dame in Paris. Napoleon later had the Pope locked up from 1809 to 1814. His Holiness excommunicated him. Napoleon said, “ Good. Now I will have more followers.”

1830- American Methodist reformers opposed to bishops met in Baltimore to form the Protestant Methodist Church.

1889- North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted into the Union. They argued for twenty years the position of a joint state capitol. Finally they decided to go separately.

1904- London newspaper The Daily Mirror first published.

1915- Battle of Coronel. In World War I, German Admiral Max von Spee’s battle cruiser fleet defeated and sank a British cruiser fleet of the coast of Chile. This was very upsetting back home, since it marked the first British naval defeat in 100 years.

1917- Britain passed the Balfour Declaration, calling for a national home for Jews in Palestine. Sir Arthur Balfour was the British Foreign Secretary under David Lloyd George. Britain once considered Uganda and Argentina for a Jewish homeland before settling on Palestine, then a sleepy border province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

1920- The first US Radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, began the nation’s first broadcasting with news of election results.

1921- On the fourth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration a huge mob of Palestinian Arabs attacked the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem. After the Great War, sporadic violence had been happening since Arab nationalism had arisen as well as increased Jewish immigration from Europe as a result of the Balfour Declaration. But for the first time the rioters were fought off in a pitched battle by an organized Jewish militia called the Hagannah. This force was formed by Av Avram, and made up of Jewish World War I veterans. The leader of the Palestinians, Al Husseini, would be later elected the Grand Mufti of Palestine. This was the first large clash of Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, and sadly, it would not be the last.

1928- The Little Carnegie Theater in New York opened. Until its closing in 1982, it was one of the premiere art-house cinemas.

1930- Ras Tafari crowned Halie Selassie I, Ethiopian Emperor. The Jamaican movement Rastafarians are named for him.

1932- Young star Katherine Hepburn first shines in the film A Bill of Divorcement, co- starring with John Barrymore.

85th Anniv.1936- The School of Industrial Arts founded in New York City. In the 60s it became The High School of Art & Design, a magnet public school for commercial artists. It was my school 1970-1973.

1937- LaGuardia Airport opened. New York City’s first municipal airport.

1944- RAOUL WALLENBURG- The Jewish population of Budapest was driven off to Nazi concentration camps, but not after Swedish envoy Raoul Wallenberg saved thousands by granting Swedish (neutral) passports to them. Wallenberg once walked alongside an SS officer ordered to execute 25 people and pleaded for each person as they were shot. The SS officer finally tired of Wallenburg’s pleas and spared the last two. When Wallenburg’s aide asked him “What good did all that begging do?” He replied: “What Good? We just saved two human lives!” When Hungary was conquered by the Red Army, Raul Wallenburg was arrested and died in one of Stalin's prison camps. This despite being a Swedish national and a diplomat. Russia didn’t officially admit this until 1991.

1947- Howard Hughes pilots his monster wooden airplane, the Hughes H-1 Hercules, known as “The Spruce Goose" for it's only test flight, one minute over Long Beach Harbor. Two hundred tons, Eight engines, a wingspan longer than a football field, it was conceived as an aid to win World War II, but was not ready until long after it ended.

1950- 94 year old writer George Bernard Shaw died of injuries sustained from falling out of an apple tree he was pruning. His last words were:" Oh well, it will be a new experience, anyway."

1963- South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were assassinated by a military coup of ARVN generals. President Kennedy was aware of the coup, and pledged the US would not interfere. Still, he was surprised that Diem was murdered.

1964- CBS television purchased the NY Yankees Baseball club. This is one of the dumber business deals in entertainment history. CBS thought they were buying the world champion Murderers Row team, if they had done their research they would have known most the Yankee top stars including Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra were scheduled to retire. Within a year of the deal the Yankees went from first to last place, and played bad until George Steinbrenner bought them in 1977.

1983- Yielding to nationwide lobbying, President Ronald Reagan created the Martin Luther King holiday in January. Arizona was the last state to officially celebrate the holiday.

Twenty Years Ago 2001- Pixar’s Monsters Inc. opened.

2005- The NY Times revealed the CIA was operating black sites in third countries like Poland and Thailand, where they could take Al Qaeda and Iraqi prisoners and torture them free of any oversight.

2012- Walt Disney’s Wreck it Ralph opened in theaters.

2016- Ending generations of frustration, the Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in ten innings to win one of the more exciting World Series of baseball. The last time the Cubs won a world series was in 1908.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to speak in a desultory manner?

Answer: To speak and meander from topic to topic with no logic or forethought.

Question: What does it mean to speak in a desultory manner?

Question: Where is the Aegean Sea?
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History for 11/1/2021
Welcome to November, Roman Month #9-Novembrius Mensis.

Birthdays: Marie Antoinette, President Warren Harding, Stephen Crane, Marcel Ophuls, Benevenuto Cellini, Larry Flynt, Walter Matthau, Fernando Valenzuela, Lyle Lovett, Willie D, Rick Allen of Def Leppard, Jenny McCarthy is 50, Toni Collette is 50

To the ancient Romans this was the Feast of Pomona or Homona, Goddess of the Harvest. Her offerings were bright apples, a staple of the Roman diet. In the Early Christian Church they changed the name to the Feast of All Saints Day. The custom of bobbing for apples at Halloween comes from a pagan ritual.

333BC – BATTLE OF ISSUS- Alexander the Great’s Macedonian army met the main Persian army of Darius the Great King and defeated it. Alexander declared the Greek cities of Ionia (the western coast of Turkey) liberated. Persian power would not return there for 900 years. Alexander captured Darius’s family and household who he treated courteously. After the battle Darius offered Alexander 300 tons of gold to go away, but little Alex was just getting started.
Alexander’s warriors were the first Europeans to try bananas, but they gave them diarrhea so he told them to throw them away. Alexander’s men also learned the painkilling characteristics of opium, the herbal basis of morphine and heroin. They chewed opium bulbs “The Gift of the Gods” to recover from wounds and surgery.

307BC - Agathocles, Greek Tyrant of Syracuse, ran away abandoning his army and his sons in the middle of the Saharan Desert in front of the Carthaginian army, because things weren't turning out that well for him.

79AD- Erupting since last August and destroying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and burying tens of thousands of people, Mount Vesuvius finally calmed down and went back to sleep.

1290- This was the deadline King Edward I Longshanks set for all Jews to leave England. Many drowned in small boats crossing the Channel. Once in France, the French king told them they had to leave in one year. Jews would not be allowed to resettle in England until Oliver Cromwell’s time in the 1650s.

1478- THE SPANISH INQUISITION- The concept of an inquisition had first been created in 1209 to deal with the Albigensian heretics of southern France. They pretended to be normal Catholics, while practicing their religion in secret. This date, at the request of Spanish King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella, Pope Sixtus IV promulgated a bull setting up the office of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. The royal couple tired of civil infighting among Moslems, Jews, Christians and converts in their country. As they united the land under their one rule, they wanted Spain united under one faith.
The Inquisition, also called La Suprema, dominated life and thought for centuries. Other offices for the Holy Inquisition were set up in Portugal and Brazil. The Inquisition was administered by the Dominican monks and supported by an elite group of nobles called the Santa Hermandad, or the Sacred Brotherhood. In 1709 King Phillip V broke with tradition by refusing to attend an Auto da Fe, a public festival featuring the burning of heretics. The Spanish Inquisition was stopped for awhile by Napoleon’s French invasion of 1808, but restored after liberation. It finally died out in 1819.

1503 –IL PAPA TERRIBLE- Giuliano Della Rovere was elected Pope Julius II. The Holy Father delayed his coronation until his astrologers told him the stars were right. Julius drove out Caesar and Lucrezia Borgia and fought in armor more than he prayed. In his 10 year reign he commissioned the Sistine Ceiling, the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, Michelangelo's Moses, Raphael's "The School of Athens", created the Swiss Guard (uniform designed by Michelangelo), dug up the Laocoon, conquered most of Central Italy and left the Vatican a budget surplus for the first time in years. He was one of the greatest of the Popes, called "Il Papa Terrible'" the Terrible Father.

1512- Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling was open to the public for the first time.

1604- William Shakespeare's play "Othello the Moor of Venice" first performed.

1700- The War of Spanish Succession began. King Charles VI "The Mad" of Spain died of enteric fever, despite being fed milk with ground-up pearls, freshly killed pigeons placed on his head and the hot entrails of a deer laid on his belly -i.e., the best modern medicine could do. He died leaving daughters and many Catholic countries worked under the tradition known as Salic Law, that women cannot inherit property themselves.
So the King of France claimed the throne of Spain for his son Phillip D'Anjou, and the Emperor of Germany claimed it for his son Maximillian. The English and Portuguese and Dutch all get involved, and they fight it out all over Europe for the next 14 years. The Spanish parliament (Cortes) made it's own choice, but it changed nothing. After all, this is the business of kings, who the heck asked the people to butt in? Even in the remote forests of the New World it was called Queen Anne’s War. Orders came across the Atlantic from Europe so South Carolina and Georgia were ordered to attack Spanish Florida and Massachusetts men fought French Canadians.

1755- THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE-85% of the city destroyed, 50,000 killed, gallows erected around the city to punish looters. The earthquake happened on a Sunday at 9:40AM so most people killed were in Church hearing high Mass when the roof collapsed on them. This irony was seized upon by humanist scholars like Voltaire and Diderot. That an overwhelmingly Catholic city like Lisbon could be devastated in such a manner while Paris, Venice and London went on their heretical, hedonistic ways. This said to them that the great earthquake was not God’s punishment, but a cold, impersonal act of Nature. This notion coupled with Sir Edmund Halley's recent discovery that comets are not a message from God, but just natural phenomena, led to the growing disillusionment with religion we call the Age of Enlightenment.

1776- Mission San Juan De Capistrano founded on the California coast.

1800- President John Adams, moved into the White House, first president to do so. First Lady Abigail Adams had her wash hung in the East Room because the walls weren't in yet, so it had a nice breeze. The first three buildings erected in Pierre L'Enfant's new federal capitol city are the House of Congress, the White House, and Conrad’s Tavern. The first business in Washington City that was not part of the government was a brewery. Pennsylvania Avenue was still dotted with tree stumps. Abigail Adams wrote that Georgetown was “The very dirtiest hole I have ever seen.”

1835- Davey Crockett, after losing his bid for re-election to Congress, told his Tennessee voters, "Y’all can go to Hell, I'm going to Texas!"

1848 -The Boston Female Medical School opened with 12 students. It merged with Boston University in 1874

1858- The British Crown takes direct control of India from the Honorable East India Company. The period known as "The Raj" begins.

1880- Pat Garrett elected sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico Territory. This will bring him into conflict with a troublesome local named Billy the Kid.

1895- Emil and Max Skladowsky set up a Bioscope projector in Berlin's Wintergarden. The Birth of German Cinema.

1911- During a little war between Italy and Turkey over Tripolitania (Libya) a dangerous new precedent was set. An Italian pilot reached out of his cockpit and dropped three small grenades on a Turkish oasis. The first aerial bombing. Guernica, Rotterdam, London, Dresden, Hiroshima, Hanoi and Baghdad to follow.

1913- Notre Dame quarterback Gus Doreias throws the first "Forward Pass" to center Knute Rockne. The forward pass was the solution to a request to the coach of Notre Dame from Teddy Roosevelt to do something to make the game more mobile and less bone crunching. Parents were complaining to him about the injuries to their sons.

1918- The Hungarian subjects of the disintegrating Austro-Hungarian Empire declared themselves to be the new independent nation of Hungary.

1918- The Malbone Street Wreck. Horrific accident on the young NY subway system in Brooklyn. A motormen’s strike made BMT management send office workers to run the trains. An inexperienced motorman took a sharp turn at too fast a speed, and cars jumped the track and smashed into a wall. The wooden train cars disintegrated into splinters. 102 people were killed.

1920- The first issue of American Cinematographer.

1925- Gabriel Leuville, called Max Linder, was the first international movie star. Before the Great War, audiences flocked to see his suave debonair character. Before Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton, Max Linder created the style of cinema slapstick comedy. When WWI broke out, he patriotically enlisted in the army. He survived the war, but the experience left him chronically depressed with PTSD. This day in Austria, Max and his 18 year old wife Corrine committed suicide together, leaving a 16 month old daughter.

1936- Benito Mussolini in a speech coined the term “The Axis” for his new alliance with Hitler’s Germany. “There is now an “axis of mutual interest between Berlin and Rome”

1938- At Pimlico in Maryland, this day was the famous horse race between War Admiral and Sea Biscuit, the two finest thoroughbreds of the age. War Admiral was sleek and aristocratic, sired from the blood of the great champion Man of War. Sea Biscuit by contrast looked ungainly and lame. But in the end The Biscuit won the race by three lengths. The race was heard live on nationwide radio by one in three Americans.

1939- Rockefeller Center in New York City opened.

1945- OPERATION OLYMPIC- If the atomic bombs had failed to end the war this was the planned date for the U.S. Invasion of Japan. Based on the casualty figures to take Okinawa and Iwo Jima, Gen. MacArthur estimated 100,000 U.S. soldiers would be killed or wounded to land on the beaches of Kyushu, another 50,000 to take Tokyo and a guerrilla war in the mountains possibly lasting until 1948. The Japanese had all that was left of their armies waiting on the beaches, stockpiled 2,200 kamikaze planes in mountain bunkers and had mobilized the civilian population to fight with spears. The Soviets were already in the Kurile Islands and had timed their mainland invasion for July. So the resulting actions would probably divide the island into a North Japan, South Japan situation. But things turned out differently...

1946- THE FIRST NBA BASKETBALL GAME- The first professional game was the New York Knicks 68, the Toronto Huskies 66. The first basket was scored by Ozzie Sheckmann.

1950- Two Puerto Rican nationalists, Oscar Coralzo and Griselo Torresola, tried to shoot their way to President Truman. Truman was staying at Blair House while the White House was being renovated. The two assassins were shot down by the Secret Service in a furious gun battle at the foot of his stairs. Secret serviceman Leslie Coffelt shot Collazo as he himself was killed. President Truman was awoken from a nap and went to the window to see what the noise was all about. The agents shouted at him, "Get down! Ya G-ddamn fool!"

1951- As part of their training, US soldiers were made to witness an atomic bomb test at Desert Rock Nevada, then marched into the radioactive field.

1952- The first U.S. Hydrogen Bomb vaporized the island of Elugelab. Once called the Super-bomb project, Dr. Edward Teller's brainchild was nicknamed-"Mike".

1954- Algeria began its uprising for independence. A French colony since 1832, the insurgency would be France’s version of the Vietnam War and last until 1962.

1959- Hockey goalie Jacques LaPlante became the first to wear a face mask during play. Before this many young hockey goalies were missing their front teeth.

1968- To replace the outmoded Hays Commission Production Code, the Motion Picture Ratings System was introduced-"G, M, R, and X"- Later PG, PG-13, R and NC-17".

1972- John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company, who owned the Esso brand of gasoline, changed their name to the Exxon Corporation. Esso- S-O, Standard Oil, get it?

1976- The NY Times first ran a profile about a handsome young real estate entrepreneur named Donald J. Trump. That year Trump claimed he was worth over, $200 million, although papers revealed in 2018 that same year of 1976 he claimed in tax forms he made only $24,000.

1978- The movie version of the book “Watership Down” premiered. Martin Rosen and John Hubley directing. John Hubley died after only doing the first ten minutes of the film.

1988- Jeff Goldblum married Gena Davis. They divorced several years later. They are both over 6 feet tall.

2001- Because of Watergate, The Presidential Records Act of 1978 ordered that all Presidential records be made public after 12 years. But not for Bush and Cheney. This day President George W. Bush signed an executive order that declared that the President and Vice President could keep their secret records sealed in perpetuity!

2003- Walt Disney’s feature Brother Bear opened in theaters.
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Question: Where is the Aegean Sea?

Answer: The Aegean is the section of the Mediterranean that separates the east coast of Italy and the western coasts of Greece and Croatia.

Question: Where is the Aegean Sea?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What city resides in a state/region called the Lazio ?
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History for 10/31/2021 Halloween
Birthdays: Jan Vermeer, John Keats, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Gen. Chiang Kai Shek, John Candy, Dale Evans, Jane Pauley, David Ogden Stiers, Dan Rather, Lee Grant, Ethel Waters, Juliet Low-founder of the American Girl Scouts, Ollie Johnston, Vanilla Ice, Stephen Rea, Rob Schneider, Animator Randy Cartwright, Peter Jackson is 60.

HAPPY ALL HALLOWS EVE- The night before the Feast of All Saints, beginning the Christian season of Advent, was confused in Medieval custom with one of the four Druid fire festivals, All Hallows. In Ireland it was called Samhein. At this time, all hearth fires in the land are extinguished then re-lit from the fire at the Druids sacred grove. Add to this the early Church's attempt to eradicate the pagan custom of giving food to departed spirits -Greek Anthesterion in Feb., Roman Feralia and Lemuria in May- by moving the date to honor the dead to the Feast of All Souls on November 2st. It was considered a good day for pagans to be baptized. Many cultures had customs of putting food offerings on doorsteps so the spirits would leave you in peace. So today is the last night for the devil and other ghosties to romp before the Holiday Season (Advent) begins.

1517- THE REFORMATION BEGAN- Augustine monk and theology professor Martin Luther had had enough of the growing corruption of the Church. Pope Leo X the party-animal Pope who had succeeded Pope Julius II the Warrior Pope, who succeeded Pope Alexander VI Borgia the “totally-out-of-control” pope, ordered a new sale of Indulgences throughout Europe to pay off a loan on St. Peter's construction to the Augsberg banker Jacob Fugger. An indulgence was sort of " after-life insurance" absolving you of sin. When Wilhelm Tetzel, the local Bishop selling indulgences showed up in his area Luther blew his cork. On a wagon Tetzel had a big barrel that had written on it: "For every Coin tinkles in my Well, another Soul is spared from Hell."
Luther nailed 95 theses or arguments against Roman primacy in religion to the door of the Palace Church, in effect challenging Tetzel to debate, the customary university challenge. He picked today to do it because he knew tomorrow being the Feast of All Saints there would be a large crowd to read it. But Martin Luther wasn't made into toast like Jan Hus or Wycliff, because was he was protected by German princes like Frederick the Wise of Saxony. They were tired of sending as much as a third of their GNP to Italy, called the Peter’s Pence. This is the official start date for the Protestant Reformation.

1663- THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON- English writer Samuel Pepys noted in his famous diary: “The plague is much in Amsterdam and we in fears of it here”. The plague took another year to reach London but when it did it decimated the population for most of 1665 and 1666 until burned out by the Great Fire. Pepys noted in his diary his annoyance with brash young men who flaunted the wearing of masks.

1776- For the first time since the Declaration of Independence was signed, King George III mentioned the American rebellion in his speech from the throne. Describing the signers of the declaration, he said “for daring and desperate is the spirit of those leaders, whose object has always been dominion and power, that they have now openly renounced all allegiance to the crown, and all political connection with this country." The King praised Lord Howe for defeating Washington’s army and capturing New York, but acknowledged another campaign would be necessary next year to bring these rebels to heel.

1820- PAPA HAYDN’S HEAD. Famous composer Franz Josef Haydn had died in 1809. The powerful Ezterhazy Family, who were great patrons of classical music, built a beautiful new tomb for him in 1820. There was only one problem. When they exhumed Haydn’s coffin it was found that his head was missing! It seems the Ezterhazy attorney Rosenbaum was a fan of the new science of Phrenology, studying the human behavior by measuring bumps on the skull. He ordered Haydn’s head secretly removed three days after the burial for study. When Austrian police questioned Rosenbaum he hid Haydn’s skull under his wifes’ hoop skirts. (Honey, would you please do me a favor..?) The head bounced around several Viennese musical societies until it was Re-Capitated, i.e. returned to Papa Haydn’s tomb 120 years after his death in 1939.

1846- THE DONNER PARTY MADE CAMP- A wagon train of families, pinned down by an early autumn blizzard in the High Sierra Donner Pass made camp at Lake Truckee only 150 miles from help. They took this route because it was advertised back east by a charlatan named Lansford Hastings as an easy short cut. All their oxen were dead and their food almost gone, and it was the worst winter for a generation.
The hapless pioneers weren't rescued until the following April! In the meantime they starved, ate tree bark and dogs, and finally resorted to cannibalism of their dead. Interestingly enough, their Indian guides were the only ones who refused to join in the cannibalistic feast, they ran off. The Donner men caught up with the Indians, killed them and ate them too. So much for calling them savages. Of 86 pioneers, 41 died.....Oh, and the guy who sold them the map was eventually shot dead by one of the pioneer’s angry relatives.

1864- Nevada statehood. Abe Lincoln had rushed the application of Nevada territory into the union because he needed the new states extra votes to guarantee passage of his anti-slavery and civil rights amendments into the Constitution.

1887- Charles Goodyear takes out the first patent for a rubber tire.

1892- Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle gathered all his Holmes mystery stories into its first collection to be published in book form- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was said to be the only book King Edward VII ever read all the way through.

1914- In World War I during the First Battle of Ypres, a British counterattack mauled the Second Bavarian Reserve division, holding out in a small French chateau. Less than a third of the Bavarians made it out alive, but one of the survivors was private Adolf Hitler.

1916- Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses, died of a heart attack on a train in Texas. He had predicted the Second Coming of Christ would happen in 1874 but no one would be aware of it, and the world would end October 2, 1914. He had asked to be buried in a Roman toga so his followers wrapped him in his Pullman car sheets.

1922- Communist leader Lenin was getting sicker from his many strokes and would not last long. Russians wondered who would rule Russia next. Then people began to notice something curious. Everyone party undersecretary Josef Stalin didn’t like seemed to wind up dead. Felix Frunze, a top Bolshevik leader close to Lenin, went in for surgery of an ulcer. He had a strong constitution and felt healthy, but Comrade Stalin insisted he take precautions and have surgery. And wouldn’t ya know! While in surgery a doctor overdid Frunze’s chloroform and he died. Hmph, accidents will happen.

1925- Albert the Duke of York, gave a broadcast speech to close the British Empire Exposition at London’s Wembly Stadium. It is when the world became aware of Bertie’s secret, that he had a bad stutter. The speech was a disaster. Shortly after, Albert engaged the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, who would help him when he became King George VI.

1926 –The great magician Harry Houdini died. His real name was Eric Weiss but he had seen a French magician named Houdin who had inspired him. Some college boys in Detroit asked the great magician if it was true he could withstand any punch. When he said yes while reading his mail, a large student unexpectedly started punched him hard in the abdomen, rupturing his already aggrieved appendix. Peritonitis set in and he died on this day. No antibiotics yet. Houdini was 52. He was buried in a coffin he had used for his escape acts. He promised his wife if there really was an afterlife, he would contact her somehow. She held a seance on every Halloween hoping for a message, but none ever came. She gave up after ten years.

1936- The Disney short The Country Cousin released. Directed by Dave Hand, Art Babbitt’s animation of the drunk country mouse was a standout performance. It won an Oscar at the 9th Academy Awards..

1936- NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena call today Nativity Day, because it commemorates the first firing of a liquid fuel rocket under the Galcit program ( Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory California Institute of Technology ) later renamed the Jet Propulsion Lab in 1944.

1938- In a speech this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned of big corporate tycoons who try to use their money to influence American politics. “ Organized Money is as great a threat to American democracy as organized crime!”

1941-the sculpture group of U.S. Presidents on Mount Rushmore completed. Instead of just their heads artist–designer Judson Borglum wanted the sculpture to go down to the figures waists but he died in early 1941, and with war on the horizon, his son and chief engineer rushed to complete the heads as is.

1945- The "War of Hollywood" Ends. The CSU union strike, the film business's longest and ugliest, falls apart and many of the former members drift into IATSE locals.

1945- The first ever Conference on Computer Technique was held at MIT.

1964- Barbara Streisand single “People, People who need People..” goes to number one.

1964- Today in a taped phone conversation, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave President Lyndon Johnson tips on how to spot a homosexual: “It’s a thing you just can’t tell sometimes…There are some people who walk kinda funny. That you might think are a little bit off, or kinda queer..” FBI director Hoover was gay himself.

1984- India's Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards Beant Singh and Satwant Singh in revenge for her ordering the military storming of the Golden Temple of Amritsar earlier that year. While she lay dying her staff argued over who had the right to donate blood first.

1993- Young movie star River Phoenix overdosed and died on the street in front of the Viper Room night club in LA after partying with Johnny Depp and Alicia Silverstone. The club was owned by movie star Depp. It was once the Melody Room owned by mobster Bugsy Siegel. Ironically, as Phoenix was thrashing spasmodically, people walked by unconcerned, because it’s a common enough occurrence on the Sunset Strip.

2000- The first working crew blasted off from Kazakhstan to occupy the International Space Station. A NASA spokesman said ‘If all goes well today will mark the first day of Mans permanent colonization of Space. Yesterday was the last day that the cosmos would be completely devoid of human beings.”

2001- The acting Governor of Massachusetts officially overturned the convictions of the last six people executed in the Salem Witch Trials 300 years ago in 1692.
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Yesterday’s Question: What city resides in a state/region called the Lazio?

Answer: Rome.

Question: What city resides in a state/region called the Lazio ?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was Pantone and Letraset?
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History for 10/30/2021
Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan,
Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry Winkler is 74, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon,
Claude Lelouche, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona, Ivanka Trump is 40

1270- The Pope declared the 8th Crusade to try to save the city of St Jean D’Acre, the last Crusader hold in Palestine. Acre surrendered to the Saracens two years later.

1501-THE BALLET OF THE CHESTNUTS, or His Holiness throws an orgy.
One of the most notorious incidents in PreReformation Rome. Pope Alexander VI Borgia, with his children Cesare and Lucretia Borgia, throw a party of parties at the Vatican. The wild revelry was highlighted by a race of nude prostitutes on hands and knees through an obstacle course of silver candlesticks, gobbling up
chestnuts. The pope later gave prizes to the courtiers and ladies who demonstrated the greatest sexual stamina. This was the kind of holy hedonism that drove the Protestant reformers nuts and caused the final rift in the Christian world.
One participant in these revelries was the chef of the French ambassador. He was intrigued to see the pope’s guests not wasting time to be served dinner, but just getting their own plates of food from large tubs set in a row along the wall. He thought this was a neat way to serve food. His name was Pierre Buffet.

1628- The French City of LaRochelle had been acting as the capitol of an independent
Huguenot nation- electing officers and collecting taxes independent of Catholic
Paris. But France was now in the hands of the wily Cardinal Richelieu. Although a Catholic priest, Richelieu really didn’t care a figgy about Protestants, but that independence thing had to go. The Cardinal had LaRochelle under siege for months.
When the starving citizens finally surrendered it was the Cardinal who entered the city in armor on a white charger. But rather than sack the city, and burn heretics, Richelieu
had his men distribute bread and medicine. He granted freedom of worship to all.

1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published.

1864- Gold miners founded the boomtown of Helena Montana.

1891- Henri Boulanger, a French general who dreamed of Napoleonic power before falling into disgrace, shot himself over his mistress’s grave.

1905- THE OCTOBER MANIFESTO- Trying to calm his rebellious subjects, Czar Nicholas II issues an imperial ukase (edict) transforming Russia from a completely autocratic state to a semi-constitutional monarchy. He created the Duma, Russia's elected
parliament. However all didn't go well. When the elected representatives called
for more freedom, release of political prisoners and dismissal of all government
officials not approved by the Duma, Nicholas shut it all down.

1918- The Empire of Turkey signed an armistice at Modras with Britain, France and
America to get out of World War I.

1918- While the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl desperately tried to hold his
disintegrating empire together, today even his German speaking subjects declared
themselves to be the new Federal Republic of Austria.

1918- Kaiser Wilhelm moved his staff from riot-ravaged Berlin to Spa on the Belgian
frontier to prepare for the armistice to end the Great War. Socialist leader Franz
Ebert told Chancellor Prince Max of Baden the Kaiser had to abdicate to avoid civil
war. But Wilhelm still imagined that after making peace with the Allies, he could
turn the German army around and put down his own rebellious subjects. But after
four years and two and a half million dead, all the German army wanted to do was
go home. Whole regiments were throwing away their weapons and walking away.

1931- first day shooting on the movie Tarzan the Ape Man, starring former Olympic Gold Medal swimming champ Johnny Weissmuller.

1936- London publishers George Allen & Unwin had received a manuscript from an Oxford ancient languages professor named J.R.R. Tolkein. The publisher gave it to his ten-year old son Raynar Unwin, to read. Raynar read it and made a report, “This book will be a very good read for children from ages 5-7.” For his troubles, the young lad was paid a shilling. Based on his recommendation, they published “The Hobbit”.

1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast on CBS a radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, one million people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New Jersey.
In Hollywood, famed actor John Barrymore, very drunk, went over to his
kennel of prize winning racing greyhounds and open their cage doors, saying: "Fend
for yourselves!" Interestingly enough, the broadcast was only #2 in the ratings. More people listened to the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show.

In 1949 Ecuador, and 1969 Buffalo NY, radio stations did updated versions of the broadcast, and they also started panics.

1941-The REUBEN JAMES INCIDENT-Five weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack, the neutral U.S. destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat, drowning dozens of American sailors. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill thought this would be the incident to anger Americans enough into getting into World War II like the Lusitania did a generation earlier. Woody Guthrie sang: "Oh tell me what were
their names, tell me what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good old
Reuben James?" However Adolf Hitler apologized and offered immediate monetary
reparations. Popular anger cooled. Roosevelt told his cabinet:" I think I can keep us out of this war for one more year unless Germany or Japan does something stupid."

1947- Bertoldt Brecht, the playwright of Mother Courage and The Threepenny Opera,
testified to the Hollywood HUAC committee. He smoked a large cigar through the whole
session. Next day, as he had once fled Hitler’s Germany, he now fled the U.S. and resettled in East Germany.

1961- Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev has his old boss Stalin’s body removed from
its glass case pickled next to Lenin, and has it buried in a simple grave in the back.

1963- The first Lamborghini 350GTV went on sale.

1966- An inventory done at the National Archives revealed that medical evidence
of John F. Kennedy's assassination autopsy were missing. This included JFK’s brain.
They have never been found. Kennedy’s brother Robert was still attorney general
at the time. Some historians think he hid evidence of conspiracy to hide his
brothers mob connections, and so preserve the purity of the Camelot myth.

1973- The Carlin Case- Radical radio station WBAI in New York broadcast hippy comedian George Carlin’s routine about the “Seven Deadly Words” the naughty words you can’t say on the air. I can’t write them because Facebook would put me in jail, but you all know what they are anyway. The FCC slapped a heavy fine and WBAI sued for free speech and the case made it to the Supreme Court. Today the High Court found for the FCC and those 7 deadly words remain banned from airwaves today. Aw, Sh*t!

1975- After the death of the dictator Franco, King Juan Carlos assumed the throne in the restored monarchy of Spain.

1991- Middle East Peace Conference began in Madrid Spain. These first days about
the only thing the Arabs and Israelis could agree upon was to politely refuse the
lunch the Spaniards had set out for them- ham sandwiches.

1992- QUANTRILL’S FUNERAL- William Quantrill’s Raiders were infamous during the Civil War for their depredations in Kansas and Missouri. A vicious racist and killer, fter being shot dead in 1865, an admirer dug up his bones and kept them. For the next 150 years the bones passed through several hands. They were put up for sale, displayed in a glass case and even used by Ohio State fraternities for their initiation rituals. Quantrill’s skull was finally discovered in a refrigerator behind the tuna sandwiches and Coke in the Dover Historical Society. A forensics student was putting clay on it to see what he looked like in life. This day the reassembled remains were finally laid to rest in his birthplace of Dover Ohio.

2002- Rap star of Run-DMC Jam Master Jay was shot dead in the lounge of his recording studio in Queens NY. The killer was never found.

2005- Disney feature Chicken Little premiered.

2012- The Walt Disney Company announced it was buying out George Lucas holdings (including the Star Wars franchise) for $4.05 billion.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was Pantone and Letraset?

Answer: In pre-computer commercial art, pantone was color-pattern swatches and Letraset was preprinted letters in plastic that can be pasted down in an ad.