Quiz: The famous Westminster bell named Big Ben was actually named for a real person. Who was it?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What is the difference between a lithograph and a serigraph?
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History for 1/9/2024
Birthdays: Richard Nixon, Woody Guthrie, Ray Bolger, William Powell, George Balanchine, Judith Krantz, Bob Denver, Crystal Gayle, Joan Baez, Simone de Beauvoir, Sir Rudolph Bing, Herbert Lom, Gypsy Rose Lee, Joely Richardson, J.K. Simmons is 69.

Festival of Janus, the namesake of January, Roman God of gateways and doors. Not to be confused, of course, with Terminus, God of borders and terminal points, Lemintinus the God of thresholds and stoops. Cardea the Goddess of hinges, or Forculus the God of the door leaves and sectioned doors.

1349- The Jews of Basel Switzerland were locked up in a warehouse and burned to death. Their neighbors accused them of bringing the Black Plague pandemic.

1570- Ivan the Terrible, just getting the suspicion that the city of Novgorod may be plotting a revolt, surrounded the city and massacred 20,000 people. Afterwards he told the survivors: " Forget your wrongs."

1768- Former English cavalry sergeant Phillip Astley combined trick riding in a tight circular ring, with a clown act, some jugglers, a mind-reading horse, his trick rider wife Patty the first Circus Queen, and took it all on the road. The first traveling circus.

1769- Gaspar De Portola and St. Junipero Serra set sail from Mexico to colonize California. They sailed because many thought California was an island. The California coastline had been explored by Juan De Cabrillo 250 years earlier. But since there were no more gold-laden Aztec cities to plunder, they forgot about it. Conquistadors don’t surf. By the 1760s, Spain’s King Charles III was finally moved to order the colonization of California to limit the encroachment of Russian fur traders moving down into Mendocino, and the British claims to the Oregon territory. Portola and Fra Serra established a series of missions that became to centers of the major cities of California.

1793- Aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard and his dog flew by hot air balloon from Philadelphia to Woodbury New Jersey. President George Washington was a spectator.

1806- In London, this day was the great funeral of Admiral Horatio Nelson, killed at the moment of victory in the Battle of Trafalgar. He was interred under the center of Saint Pauls Cathedral in a tomb built for Henry VIII's chancellor Cardinal Woolsey. Woolsey fell from royal favor before he ever got a chance to use it. The huge stone coffin stayed around in storage until a suitable hero popped up. An early example of recycling.

1825- Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams had dinner. The presidential election was deadlocked between Adams and Andrew Jackson with Clay a distant third. Andrew Jackson had won the popular votes, but the electoral votes were tied. Over sherry, Henry Clay offered all his electoral votes to Adams in exchange for the job of Secretary of State. So John Quincy Adams won the presidency with the electoral votes of states like Kentucky where hardly a soul had voted for him. People were furious over King Caucus and called it the stolen election. In the next election cycle Andy Jackson won easily and began major reform of the electoral system.

1847- After a small skirmish near San Gabriel Mission, Commodore Richard Stockton and the U.S. cavalry recaptured the pueblo of Los Angeles and ended resistance by the native population to U.S. control.

1847- First U.S. governor of New Mexico territory Charles Bent is murdered and scalped by angry Indians after the U. S. conquering army had moved on. His trading post- Bent’s Fort, still stands today.

1857- THE LAST BIG ONE. The Fort Tejon earthquake shook Los Angeles. This was the last major quake in Southern Cal of the great San Andreas Fault, an estimated 8.25! Because the area was so lightly populated, only two people were killed. One woman when her house collapsed on her, and an old man who had a heart attack. For the next big San Andreas quake? Stay tuned….

1860- The Star of the West, a ship sent to re-supply Union held Fort Sumter sitting out in Charleston Harbor, was fired on by South Carolina shore batteries on Morris Island and forced to turn around. These are the first hostile shots fired between North & South. But the incident was not enough to trigger the U.S. Civil War.

1914 -John Randolph Bray took out patents on the principles of film animation: cycles, arcs, keys and in-betweens. He even tried to sue Winsor McCay, who had already been using them for years but never thought to patent them.

1924- The breakfast cereal Wheaties invented.

1936- Actor John Gilbert died of a heart attack after years of alcohol abuse. The accepted reason was he was a has-been silent film star whose voice was too thin and squeaky for talking pictures. Actually his voice wasn't too bad, some of it may of had to do with his punching Louis B. Mayer in the mouth when Mayer made a crude remark about Gilbert's relationship with Greta Garbo -something like "Why marry her when you're getting it anyway ?.."-BOP! . Mayer got up and screamed: "I'll ruin you if it costs me millions!"
Gilbert's fading popularity and decline into alcohol as his second wife Virginia Bruce’s film career blossomed, was the inspiration for "A Star is Born".

1938- Walt Disney held a recording session in Culver City with Leopold Stokowski and his orchestra to record music for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Originally designed to be a Mickey short, Walt was so happy with the results he decided to go for it and make the film a concert feature.

1939- Top Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin was hired by Walt Disney. He took a pay cut to do it. Tash quit after two fruitless years and wrote a children’s book called the "Bear that Wasn’t" about his experiences. An early vice president of the Cartoonists Guild, he also joined the Mouse House to help unionize the studio. After a stint at Screen Gems, in 1945 Frank Tashlin went to Paramount’s live action division and became the director of the Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis comedies.

1959- The TV series Rawhide debuted, starring a young actor named Clint Eastwood. President Lyndon Johnson and Ladybird were big Rawhide fans. The President and First Lady would eat dinner on aluminum TV trays while watching Rawhide. To quote Ladybird:” Bliss!”

1968- THE BATTLE OF QUE SANH- Que Sanh was a U.S. Marine firebase at the western tip of the Vietnamese DeMilitarized Zone. It was so placed to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This day Firebase Que Sanh was surrounded and attacked by huge North Vietnamese forces. General William Westmorland growled to his corps commanders "This will NOT be the American Dien Bien Phu !" Dien Bien Phu was the 1954 siege that defeated the French. The Battle of Que Sanh lasted until April with the Marines fighting off huge attacks.
The U.S. media at the time portrayed Que Sanh as an epic showdown in the tradition of Gettysburg or Guadalcanal, but to the Vietnamese General Ngyun Vo Giap, it was a feint to distract from the real offensive when the Tet Lunar holiday began....

1972- In a rare press conference by telephone from the Bahamas, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes declared the biography done of him by Clifford Irving was a total fabrication.

1976- First day of shooting in Philadelphia of the movie Rocky. It was the first movie to utilize the Steadicam, a system that balanced hand-held camera shots.

1987- THE OCTOBER SURPRISE- Seven years later, The Ronald Reagan White House released a memorandum from 1980 proving the sale of weapons to Iran did bring about the release of the American Embassy hostages. Ronald Reagan had declared there was no ransom paid. His media spinners encouraged the idea that all the Old Gipper had to do was show up in the White House for the mad mullahs to release our people and hightail it outta’ town! Now the truth was out that Reagan lied, but it was too late, and not enough of a sound bite for a dazed & confused public.

2007- Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. “We didn’t realize we would change the world” a senior manager on the project recalled, “We just wanted to make an iPod that you can make a phone call on.”

2008- After his surprise win in the New Hampshire Primary, Barack Obama electrified the country with his speech:” Yes We Can.”

2021- Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the difference between a lithograph and a serigraph?

Answer: Today’s (printmaking) Answer: Lithograph are drawn and printed using stone plates. Seriographs are silk screened. (Thnks FG)

Question: What is the difference between a lithograph and a serigraph?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: What does it mean by saying “ The fix is in”?
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History for 1/8/2024
Birthdays: Elvis Presley would have been 89, Robert Schumann, Jose Ferrer, Shirley Bassey, Peter Arno, Yvette Mimieux, John Nierhardt, Bruce Sutter, Charles Osgood, Gen. James Longstreet, publisher Frank Doubleday, Saheed Jafray, Soupy Sales- born Milton Supman, David Bowie, Kim Jong Un, Larry Storch, Steven Hawking*

*In 1963, Doctors told 21 year old Steven Hawking he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and he had at most two years to live. He lived 56 more years, dying at age 77.

Today is the Feast day of St. Severinus of Noricum, one of the first missionaries to the pagan Austrians 482 AD.

794AD- The great Christian monastery of Lindisfarne was sacked by Vikings.

871- Battle of Ashdown- English warriors of Wessex defeated a large force of Vikings led by Halfdan the Black, Bascecg and Ivar the Boneless. On the English side under his brother King Ethlered was future king Alfred the Great.

1297- MONACO FORMED- Francois the Cunning was the leader of the Grimaldis, a prominent Genoese clan. On this day he disguised himself as a monk and sneaked into Monaco castle where he stabbed the guards, then opened the gate for his troops. The Grimaldis became Princes of Monaco in 1659. In 1851 Prince Charles III Grimaldi opened the first gambling casino. In gratitude of it's success, the people named the hill town they lived in Mount Charles, or Monte Carlo. The Grimaldi family still rule Monaco today under their present Grimaldi- Prince Albert Raynier II.

1642- Astronomer Galileo Galilei died at 77 of 'slow fever'. After being forced by the Holy Inquisition to recant his support of the theories of Copernicus in 1616, he lived under a loose house arrest the last ten years of his life. He became blind, but he played his lute and still published scientific papers smuggled out to be printed in Holland. Other great thinkers like English poet John Milton could visit him.
The Vatican originally refused to allow him to be buried in consecrated ground but relented in 1727 and he was moved to the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. During the move someone cut off three of his fingers for souvenirs. Two of the fingers were eventually recovered and his middle finger is displayed in the Florentine Museum of Science. It is displayed in the upright position. The Church admitted in 1837 that he may have been right about the Earth going around the Sun.

1654- Hetman of the Ukraine Bogdan Khmelnitsky pledged loyalty to the Russian Czar in Moscow. The wild steppes between the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia, the Tatars of the Crimea and the Turkish Ottoman Empire was a refuge for runaways and fringe folks similar to the American West or the Australian Outback. These Cossacks formed communities adopting Tartar customs and a fierce sense of independence. Khemlnitsky tapped into this independent streak to unite these disparate groups and used them to drive out their Polish Catholic overlords. He ruled the Ukraine like Oliver Cromwell in England. After several major wars maintaining a balance between the Poles, Turks and Russians, Khmelnitsky decided to throw in his lot with Moscow.
After Bogdans’ death, the furious Poles dug up his grave and threw his bones to the dogs, but the deed was done. Despite several major revolts, the Ukraine and the Voivode of Ruthenia (Moldova & Belarus) would stay a part of Russia until 1989. And today we see the strife still between Russia and the Ukraine.

1675- The first American Corporation chartered- The New York Fish Company.

1705- George Fredrich Handel’s first opera Almira opened.

1790- George Washington started a custom of the President delivering an annual speech reporting on the nation's progress in the past year, later known as the State of the Union Address. Because he was the first, Washington had to invent a lot what a President does, as long as it did not look like he acting like was a king. Article II of the Constitution said the President should annually report to Congress how things were doing. So George went to Congress and delivered his report in person in a speech. Tom Jefferson, who disliked public speaking, discontinued the custom and sent his report in writing. It stayed that way until in 1913 Woodrow Wilson revived the custom of a grand address to a joint session of Congress.

1815 "In Eighteen Fifteen we took a little Trip. With Colonel Andy Jackson down the Mighty Missa-sipp" BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. The last engagement of the War of 1812 and the last battle ever fought between Britons and Americans. It was actually fought AFTER the peace agreement had been signed. While the battle was raging, the news of the treaty was still crossing the Atlantic.
When general Andrew Jackson heard of the British Army landing, he roared: "By Eternal God I will not have them sleeping on our soil!" He told the terrified New Orleanaise -still more French than American, that he would defend their city to the last, then burn it all to the ground.
At Chalumette plantation, the redcoats were met by Jackson's ragtag force of regulars, militia, Cherokees, Jean Lafitte's pirates, and slaves, dug-in in a dry canal. Interestingly enough, the slaves proved to be the deadliest shots. Many slave families were denied meat for their diet. One a family were allowed to keep a bird rifle to bring home small game. To them bullets were precious, so they learned to make every shot count. At Chalumette they were given Kentucky long rifles with a range accuracy 300 yds. to the British "Brown Bess" musket 's 150 yds. The British grand assault never got within range before they were cut to pieces. It was all over in half an hour.
Their commander Sir Edward Packenham, was a brother-in-law to the Duke of Wellington. Wellington himself declined the American command as being militarily impractical. Had the Iron Duke accepted he might have beat Jackson but would certainly have missed Waterloo. Sir Edward Packenham caught a bullet between the eyes, legend has it fired by a slave child. His body was shipped back to England sealed in a rum barrel. During the voyage home the barrels were mixed up and Sir Edward’s was tapped for the sailor’s rum rations. Even his officers toasted his memory unknowingly with the same rum. Upon arriving at Portsmouth his lordship had been reduced to brown sludge.

1853- The equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington D.C.

1856- Borax discovered in the California desert by Dr John Veatch. Now where’s that 20 mule team?

1877- Battle of the Tongue River. US Cavalry under General Nelson Miles surprise-attacked Crazy Horse’s winter camp in a Montana snowstorm.

1889- Herman Hollerith received a patent for the electronic counting machine. The machine fed numbers onto punch cards and was used in the U.S. census of 1890. In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company, which later was renamed International Business Machines or IBM.

1904- Pope Pius X banned women wearing low cut dresses in front of clergy.

1916- The British Navy withdrew their forces from the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.

1918- THE FOURTEEN POINTS- President Woodrow Wilson had pondered the reason why the world had torn itself apart in World War I. He had his aide Colonel House chair a committee of top intellectuals and jurists called The Inquiry. They came up with Fourteen Points for lasting world peace. It asked for new ideas like people should be allowed to decide what government controlled them, and freedom of the seas.
Wilson made it the cornerstone of his foreign policy, and airplanes dropped printed leaflets on the Germans. England & France were willing to use the document as propaganda, but were not interested in its ideas. French Premier Clemencau said:" God gave us Ten Commandments, and we broke them. Wilson now gives us Fourteen Points. We will see."

1959- Charles DeGaulle returned to power as President of the Fifth French Republic.

1962- The Mona Lisa traveled to America and went on display today at the National Gallery in Washington. It was loaned in a deal brokered by Jackie Kennedy and French cultural minister Andre Malraux.

1936- Walt Disney was awarded Frances highest medal. The Legion of Honor. “In recognition of Disney’s work in creating a new art form in which good will is spread throughout the world.” -French Consul in LA, Jean-Joseph Viala.

1964- President Lyndon B. Johnson declared his War on Poverty campaign.

1973- Carly Simon got a gold record for "You’re So Vain".

1992- At a state dinner in Tokyo, President George H.W. Bush, suffering from a flu, vomited in the lap of Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone in front of press cameras. There is now a word in Japanese- BUSHURU, meaning to vomit on the person next to you.

2002- Pres George W. Bush Jr. signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law.

2011- Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was holding an informal town hall meeting, when a lunatic named Gerald Loughner pulled out a gun and started firing. He killed six people, including an 8 year old girl, and wounded 13. Rep Giffords, shot in the head, barely survived and had to learn to speak again. It ended her Congressional career. When her astronaut husband Mark Kelly tried to speak out for reasonable gun restrictions, they were declared enemies by the NRA. Kelly was later elected a senator.

2016- According to the movie Blade Runner, this is the day Rutger Hauers character Roy was born (activated) Replicant (M) Des: BATTY (Roy)
NEXUS 6 N6MAA10816
Incept Date: 8 JAN, 2016
Func: Combat, Colonization Defense Prog.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean by saying “ The fix is in”?

Answer: In the 1919 Blacksox Scandal, gangsters rigged the baseball World Series by bribing several key players of the favored team The Chicago White Sox to lose.
The signal to the gamblers was in the first game when pitcher Eddie Cicotte threw a pitch that hit the batter in what should have been an easy out. Gangsters took this signal and sent the message to their friends “The Fix is In”. That they can now safely bet against the White Sox. This phrase came up recently because Donald Trump’s election challenges will be decided by his hand-picked Supreme Court. Many people do not see them as capable of impartiality.

Quiz: What does it mean by saying “ The fix is in”?

Answer: What is meant by Balkanisation? Something being Balknanized?
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History for 1/7/2024
Birthdays: Jacques Montgolfier, Joseph Bonaparte- Napoleons older brother, St. Bernadette of Lourdes, Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam, Francois Poulenc, Charles Addams, Butterfly McQueen, Adolph Zukor, Charles Adams, E.L. Doctorow, Jean Pierre Rampal, Millard Filmore*, Katie Couric, William Peter Blatty the author of Jaws, David Caruso, Nicholas Cage- originally Nicolo Coppola, is 60

• HAPPY MILLARD FILLMORE DAY!! Millard Fillmore is famous, if you could call it that, as America’s dullest president. This day the Millard Filmore Society has a banquet in his birthplace of Buffalo, N.Y. To celebrate, after a meal today say his famous last words," this nourishment is palatable."

1174- Today is the Feast day of Saint Raymond of Pentafort, who sailed to Barcelona on his own coat.

1610- Galileo pointed his telescope into the heavens and first noted the moons around Jupiter- Ganymede, Io and Europa. The first time anyone noticed objects in the heavens other than earth had moons around them too.

1785- Aeronauts Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel in a gas balloon. To keep from crashing before attaining the French coastline they had to jettison most of their equipment, including silk covered oars intended to use to row through the air. Blanchard even threw his trousers overboard to lighten the load.

1789- THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION -Meaning when the electors nominated by the various state legislatures voted. The Electoral College is a remnant of this. Popular elections really didn't catch on until the 1820's. At this time only white, male, landowning, literate, freeborn men could vote, so 160,000 voted, out of a population of 4 million. In England at this time, only 10% of the male population could vote. George Washington won overwhelmingly over John Adams and John Hancock, to both their annoyance. Adams would scoff, ”Big deal. Man on a horse.”.

1839- Frenchman Louis Daguerre announced the invention of Photography (Just three weeks later on the 31st Englishman William Fox Talbot will say he invented photography first). Today was his public announcement. Daguerre’s experiments had been going on since 1835, which is when Talbot said he was doing his. There was also Thomas Wedgewood and Nicephore Niepce’s claims to be first. Despite the dispute, the Daguerreotype photographic process became the popular system worldwide in the nineteenth century. The image of Lincoln on the five-dollar bill is from a daguerreotype.

1894-Edison’s " The Sneeze" The first motion picture film to be copyrighted

1896- The first Fanny Farmer Cookbook published.

1914- the Merrill-Lynch Stock brokerage founded.

1914- The NY Times reported that Mexican general Pancho Villa signed an exclusive deal with Mutual Motion Pictures for coverage of his revolution. Villa would even confer with young movie director Raoul Walsh for when to schedule an attack, to get the best camera angles.

1922- THE IRISH CIVIL WAR. After a furious debate, the Irish Dail’ (parliament) voted by just seven votes to approve the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiated by IRA chief Michael Collins and Sinn Fein leader John Griffiths. This was the take-it-or-war deal offered by David Lloyd George that allowed for an Irish Free State but not a republic and with six counties of Northern Island sliced off to remain part of Britain. Irish President Eamon De Valera angrily took his followers out of the Dail and the street fighting broke out shortly afterwards. Griffiths died of a heart attack and Collins was assassinated. The Irish Republic declared in 1932 but Northern Ireland is still part of the UK.

1924- George Gershwin completed his Rhapsody for Piano and Jazz Orchestra, popularly called the Rhapsody in Blue. Ira Gershwin came up with the name after seeing a museum show of Whistler paintings with names like "Composition in Grey, Nocturne in Green," etc.

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1927- The first private telephone call from America to England.

1929- With the approval of Edgar Rice Burroughs, artist Hal Foster first began drawing the Tarzan comic strip.

1934 –The First Buck Rogers adventures.

1935- Roger Sherwood’s play the Petrified Forrest opened to smash revues at the Broadhurst Theater on Broadway. Lead Leslie Howard got great notices, but the real find was an obscure hard drinking actor with sad eyes playing the gangster Duke Mantee – Humphrey Bogart. In the audience was Jack Warner of Warner Bros, who decided Mr. Bogart might just make it in motion pictures.

1942- BATAAN- Gen. Homma's Japanese army attacked Gen. Douglas MacArthur's American and Philippine last stand defense line on the Bataan Peninsula. From today until late April, the Filipino-Americans waged a desperate fighting retreat against overwhelming Japanese forces down the Florida-shaped peninsula of Luzon, hoping for reinforcements from America that would never come. They sang:
"We're the battling bastards of Bataan,
No moma, no papa, no Uncle Sam.
No aunts, no uncles, sisters or nieces;
no pills, no planes, no artillery pieces.
We're the battling bastards of Bataan,
And nobody gives a damn.."

1943- Nicholas Tesla died in poverty. The inventor of AC current, rotary field motors and the Tesla coil. In his last years he had been experimenting with telegraphy, and trying to develop a death ray for the US Army.

1943- Walt Disney released the propaganda short The Spirit of ’43, commissioned by the Treasury Dept. Donald Duck explained that the best way to win the war, was to pay your taxes!

1949- Ever since Israel declared itself a state the previous May, it had been fighting off the armies of 5 surrounding Arab countries. After several attempts at a cease fire, this day a permanent U.N. Cease fire ended the Israeli War of Independence.

1961- In Providence Rhode Island a bunch of kids were stopped by police for driving a round a neighborhood store suspiciously carrying guns and masks. One 21 year old who did three days in jail for carrying a concealed weapon later became an actor- Al Pacino.

1966- A hippie rock band from what would become Silicon Valley, called the Grateful Dead, got their first gig playing in a nightclub called the Matrix. They would be one of the most successful rock bands in history, only breaking up after the death of their leader, Jerry Garcia in 1995.

1972- Pulitzer prize winning poet John Berryman went to a Minneapolis bridge over the Mississippi River, took off his glasses, waved at a few people then jumped to his death. He missed the river and hit the bank 110 feet below, but he achieved his initial purpose of killing himself.

1979-The invading Vietnamese Army took over the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and ended the regime of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. During his regime known today as the Killing Fields, he murdered up to a quarter of his Cambodia’s population, over two million people.

2009- Before inauguration day, President George W. Bush set up a working lunch at the White House for President-Elect Obama with all the living ex-Presidents, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Bush told Obama,” We want you to succeed. Whether we’re Democrat or Republican, we care deeply about this country. And to the extent we can look forward to sharing our experiences with you. All of us who have served in this office understands that the office transcends the individual.”

2015- CHARLIE HEBDO- In Paris, Muslim extremists shot up the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for making cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. 12 people were murdered, including the editor, and four of France’s most beloved cartoonists. Their editor in chief Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, when he saw the gun pointed at him, stood and defiantly gave his killer the middle finger before he was shot.

2018- U.S. President Donald Trump declared “I am a very stable genius.”

2020- Brother of the future King of England, Prince Harry, announced that he and his American wife Meaghan Markle, were quitting the Royal Family and moving to America to become normal people.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is meant by Balkanisation? Something being Balknanized?

Answer: The Balkans are the region of small countries of South-Eastern Europe between Austria and Turkey. The modern states were created by the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Balkanization has come to mean when a powerful territory or country is able to divide and take advantage of surrounding territories that are culturally and politically hostile to one another.

Quiz: What is meant by Balkanisation? Something being Balknanized?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was The Borscht Belt?
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History for 1/6/2024
Birthdays: St. Joan of Arc, Khalil Gibran, mountain man Jedediah Smith, Tom Mix, Alexander Scriabin, Gustav Dore', Loretta Young, Earl Skruggs. Carl Sandburg, Danny Thomas, Nancy Lopez, Alan Watts, John Singleton, Anthony Minghella, Rowan Atkinson is 69

Happy Feast of Epiphany or Twelfth Night. Today is the end of the twelve days of Christmas when the Magi, the Three Wise Men, or the three kings- Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, visited the Holy Family. In some countries the Three Kings, not Christmas, is when children get their presents, because that’s when Jesus got his.
The Magi were the priestly caste of ancient Persia. They were believed to predate the Persians and come from the Chaldeans, the people who invented the western branch of the science of astronomy. A lot of the Magi ritual concerned observation of the stars. Chinese astronomers recorded a bright star in the sky around 6 BC, probably a supernova. This could be the fabled Star of Bethlehem.

1066- After the death of Edward the Confessor, Saxon Earl Harold Godwinsson crowned himself King of England, which made Duke William of Normandy reach for his sword.

1522- The Augustinian Monastery of Wittenburg had been the home of reformer Martin Luther. Today, inspired by Luther’s preaching against the Vatican, the monks and nuns voted to disband themselves, move in together and start humping like bunnies. Martin Luther had go back to order them to calm down and get married.

1558- English Queen Mary Tudor had been talked by her proxy husband Phillip II into declaring war on France. The war went well for Spain, but this day the French recaptured Calais, the last English stronghold on the continent, which had been English for 211 years. Over the main gate of Calais was a stone relief of a donkey that bore the inscription “Calais shall be English until this Donkey eats straw!”

1759- George Washington and Martha Custis married. Washington first loved another woman named Sally Fairfax, who refused him. She married a prominent English loyalist plantation owner. They fled to Europe when the Revolution began and never returned. When George married Martha she was a very rich widow, but beyond childbearing years.
This might have been a factor in Washington's decision later not to be King of America, for he would have no direct heirs. Imagine the complications in the young democracy trying to establish this concept of an elective President if there was a George Washington Jr. to contend with? In later years when Washington wanted to be alone, he would ride over to the ruins of the Fairfax Mansion to think.

1842- THE RETREAT FROM KABUL - This day, 15,000 British troops and their dependants march out of Kabul, Afghanistan on the road to Jalalabad. They were attacked by Afghan Ghilzais tribesmen all along the route through the Khyber Pass. Only one man survived, surgeon William Brydon, only because he got lost along the way.

1849- the first cartoon cover of Punch Magazine.

1853- President-elect Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck in Concord Mass. Pierce and the first lady survived, but their last surviving child Ben was killed. First Lady Jean Pierce took this as a sign that God was punishing them for wanting the Presidency, and she morosely withdrew from society. Franklin Pierce himself spent most of his administration drunk, or on his knees singing psalms.

1872- Millionaire robber-baron Big Jim Fisk was shot dead by Ned Stokes, his rival for the affections of beautiful actress Josie Mansfield. Fisk once conned President Grant into a business partnership while he tried to corner the gold bullion market.

1912- New Mexico became a state.

1912- Scientist Alfred Wegener presented his paper to the German Geological Society in Frankfurt. In it he theorized that the Earth’s continents are not fixed in place but moving. He named it Continental Drift. Wegener’s theories were all dismissed as cuckoo until after WWII, when submarines charting the ocean floor discovered the tectonic plates. Today it is understood that the continents move at the speed with which you grow a fingernail. About 6 feet a century.

1919- Teddy Roosevelt died peacefully in his sleep at Oyster Bay N.Y. at 60. He was never expected to survive childhood asthma, was wounded in Spanish American War, thrown 40 feet in a streetcar wreck, got a dangerous leg abscess while on safari, almost died of malaria in the Amazon, and was shot by an assassin while giving a political speech, which he finished anyway. His daughter Alice said: " The problem with father is at every wedding he wants to be the bride and at every funeral the corpse."

1919- In the social anarchy after the defeat in World War I, German Communists storm the Chancellery in Berlin and try to set up a Bolshevik style Revolution. They are driven out by right wing mobs and more chaos reigns in the streets.

1945- First Pepe Le Pew cartoon, "Odorable Kitty". When Eddie Selzer, the Warners producer who replaced Leon Schlesinger, heard the plans to do a short about a skunk he thundered: "Absolutely Not! Nobody will go see a cartoon skunk!" Chuck Jones recalled: "As soon as he said no, I knew we just had to do it." Selzer's final opinion:" Nobody'll laugh at that sh*t!" Pepe went on to become one of Warners most beloved characters.

1945- Navy Lt. George H. W. Bush married Barbara Pierce. Despite Barbara’s mother’s opinion of Bush “Singularly Unimpressive”, Poppy Bush made Barbara First Lady, and the mother of another president.

1949- Composer Leonard Bernstein noted in his diary that “JR (Jerome Robbins) called today with a novel idea- a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in the slums.” At first the musical was going to be called East Side Story, then GangWay, finally West Side Story.

1956- Prince Rainier of Monaco announced his engagement to movie star Grace Kelly.

1962- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent. This was the animated version of his popular puppet show.“So Long Kids, Wind Up Your Lids, We’ll look for You Real Soooooon.”

1975-“Ease on Down the Road.-“ The musical The Wiz premiered on Broadway.

1993- Ballet star Rudolf Nureyev, the most famous male dancer since Nijinsky, died of HIV/AIDS.

1994- “WHY ME, WHY ME?” Shortly after a practice in a Detroit skating rink, Olympic hopeful Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by a man trying to break her knees with a steel pipe. The man Derrick Smith later confessed to the FBI that he was paid $6,500 to do the deed by Jeff Gilhooly, the manager and ex-husband of Kerrigan’s rival Tonya Harding. After all the intense media coverage Nancy Kerrigan won one Silver medal, Tonya Harding nothing and the Olympic Gold went to Ukrainian Oksana Baiul, who was later busted for drunk driving.

1995- In another great step for low journalism, CBS anchor Connie Chung got Kathleen Gingrich, the mother of Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, to call First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton a “bitch”. In an earlier time such gutter utterances would have been politely edited, but this was given national prominence.

1996- In Gaza, Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash, called the Engineer, dialed his cellphone and it blew his head off. It was a remote control bomb set by the Israeli Mossad. 100,000 Palestinians attended Ayyash’s funeral.

2017- In a meeting with the FBI President-elect Donald Trump was shown top secret evidence that the 2016 US elections had been compromised by Russian hackers. He ignored it and spent the next four years lying about ever knowing anything about it.

2021-THE JANUARY 6TH INSURRECTION. Pres. Donald Trump knew he lost re-election, but he refused to concede. A Master of Social Media, he summoned a mob of 126,000 supporters ginned up on baseless lies of voter fraud. This day he sent them to attack the U.S. Capitol. Pipe bombs were planted in key positions around Washington and similar smaller violent demonstrations broke out in several state capitols. Trump was prevented by the Secret Service from leading the rioters himself. He wanted metal detectors removed because his knew his fans were bringing weapons like guns and grenades. Black Lives Matter protests the previous August were met with massive police response, but this day protection for the national capitol was deliberately kept to just a few capitol police. Despite pleas for help, the National Guard was withheld for four hours, no reason ever given. Congressmen, many senior citizens, and Vice President Pence had to run for their lives. Capitol Policeman Eugene Goodman successfully distracted the mob just 30 feet from fleeing senators. 6 people were killed, 80 injured, and millions wasted in the worse destruction to the U.S. Capitol since the British invasion over 200 years ago. A rioter carried a Confederate flag into the capitol, something Robert E. Lee was never able to accomplish. It took President Trump over three hours to issue a statement. Even his daughter Ivanka begged him to call them off. He finally told his followers to “Go home. We love you. You are Beautiful.” Vice President Pence and Congresspeople reconvened at 2:00AM and certified the election anyway.

2022- On the one year anniversary of the Capitol Hill Insurrection, a federal judge turned down the request of convicted rioter Anthony Williams for ten days off to meet his fiancé’s family vacationing in Jamaica.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was The Borscht Belt?

Answer: In the mountains of Pennsylvania and New York State people spent the summer at beautiful mountain resorts in the fresh mountain air. Like many things in the early Twentieth Century these resorts did not allow Jews to stay there. So, in the 1940s and 50s Jewish people built their own resorts where the food and culture were geared towards the Yiddish culture of East Europe. It was known in showbiz term as The Borscht Belt or the Jewish Alps. The most famous resorts were Grossingers and The Hideaway. They had nightclub entertainment, and many famous comedians learn their craft playing the Borscht Belt like Alan King, Jackie Mason, Toadie Fields and Phyllis Diller.

QUIZ: What was The Borscht Belt?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What does it mean when people write, “We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?
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History for 1/5/2024. Birthdays: Zebulon Pike, Stephen Decatur, Alven Ailey, James Stuart Blackton (the first American animator, born in Lincolnshire, England ), W.D. Snodgrass, Jack Norworth who wrote " Take Me out to the Ballgame' , Konrad Adenauer, Astrologist Jean Dixon, Umberto Ecco, Yves Tanguy, Walter Mondale, George Reeves, Roger Spottiswoode, Tissa David, Hayao Miyazaki is 83, Robert Duval is 93, Dianne Keaton is 78, Spanish King Juan Carlos, Marilyn Manson is 56, January Jones is 43, Bradley Cooper is 49.
1463- French poet Francois Villon was kicked out of Paris.
1477- THE BATTLE OF NANCY- The Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Rash, dreamed of turning his duchy between France and Germany into one of the great powers of Europe. In the process he managed to annoy just about all his neighbors with his constant wars. This day Charles found out why the Swiss are left alone by everybody. Upon invading Switzerland, his army was cut to pieces. His body was found naked in a ditch with his head stuck fast in a puddle of ice. Two battle axes were rammed up his butt.
The King of France as his feudal suzerain annexed Burgundy to France, but just before his last battle Charles engaged his only daughter to the German Emperor. So, the only thing Charles left to history was the ancient feud between Germany and France over who owned Alsace-Lorraine, which raged until 1945.

1643- The first divorce granted in North America. Pilgrim Anne Clarke was granted a divorce by the Massachusetts Bay Colony from her deadbeat husband Dennis.

1757- A man named Robert Damiens attacked French King Louis XV and stabbed him. It was a flesh wound that Voltaire described as a pin-prick. The king survived and the court sentenced Damiens to the most horrible death they could think of, the medieval punishment for regicides.
Nobody had done it for generations so the court executioner, Charles Samson, had to consult the library. Hmm...Drawing and quartering....cut off assailants hands and stick his bleeding wrist-stumps into a pan of burning sulfur...uh-huh..got it! The execution was so ghastly that eyewitnesses vomited and fled, Samson passed out from exhaustion, so his assistants had to finish the job. Robert Damiens believed he was doing it for the people, but unfortunately he was 32 years too early for the French Revolution.

1762- The Seven Years War in Europe was a war of three powerful women against one gay man. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Madame la Pompadour the favorite of Louis XV of France and Czarina Elizabeth of Russia. They all waged war on King Frederick the Great of Prussia, the country that eventually became Germany. Frederick called them the Three Petticoats. But after 6 years of war with his country overrun with foreign armies, and his treasury bankrupt, Frederick needed a miracle to survive.
His miracle came this day, when Czarina Elizabeth died. She was succeeded by her eccentric son Peter III. The new Czar idolized Frederick. He immediately changed sides and donned a Prussian uniform to serve “My Master”. Frederick thought Czar Peter a bit odd, but he welcomed his help, nonetheless. He was later assassinated by his wife, who then ruled as Catherine the Great.

1825- Writer Alexander Dumas fought a duel with the Chevalier Saint George, a black duelist from Martinique, who played violin so well he was called Le Mozart Noir. Neither man was seriously hurt and Dumas went on to write The Three Musketeers. Saint George also once fought a duel with Monsieur d¹Eon, a crossdresser who fought his/her duels in a ball gown. The English Prince of Wales was a spectator.

1836- Davy Crocket crossed into Texas.

1895- Today was the famous scene of after Captain Albert Dreyfus was framed for espionage he was publicly humiliated in the courtyard of the Ecole Militaire in Paris. He was stripped of his insignia and his sword broken. As he was marched off to prison he continually shouted aloud “Citizens of France, I am Innocent!”

1896- A Vienna newspaper announced the invention by Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen of Wurzburg, of a machine that produces "X-Rays" to painlessly see inside the body. In England, Lord Kelvin, who invented the Celsius temperature scales, declared x-rays a "ridiculous hoax "

1896- Josef Pulitzers’ New York World began printing the Sunday Yellow Kid comic strip with a yellow color on his shirt. The strip gave the name to the sensationalist tabloid press 'Yellow Journalism".

1914- The Ford Motor Company shocked the leaders of American Industry by raising it¹s wage rates for work shift from $2.40 a day to $5.00 a day and voluntarily adopting the new 8 hour work day. Henry Ford’s idea was “When workers have more money, they buy cars”. The idea worked, and sales of cars quadrupled, and the economic climate of Detroit boomed.

1921- Famous Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton was preparing one more expedition to the South Pole. This day on his ship anchored in South Georgian Island Bay, he complained he felt ill. He said to his doctor “Oh, what do you want me to give up now?” then fell over dead of a heart attack. He was 47.

1924- William Chrysler introduced his first automobile featuring an all steel chassis frame instead of wood. He created it for the failing Maxwell Car Company and in 1925 changed the name to the Chrysler Car Company.

1925- Nellie Taylor Ross was inaugurated as the Governor of Wyoming, the first woman to hold such an office.

1933- First day of construction on San Francisco¹s Golden Gate Bridge.

1933- Former Pres. Calvin Coolidge died peacefully. Silent Cal’ Coolidge was so low key that he was a favorite target for political writers. H.L. Mencken said "Being fanatical for Coolidge is like being fanatical for double entry bookkeeping" Dorothy Parker had the final word. When told that Coolidge had died, she replied:" How could you tell?"

1934- Both the American and National Baseball Leagues agreed upon a standard size for a baseball.

1953- Samuel Beckett¹s play Waiting for Godot (En attendant Godot) first premiered in Paris.

1959- Buddy Holly released his last single, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.

1959- The first Bozo the Clown TV show premiered on TV. Larry Harmon played the famous children’s clown.

1961- “Hello Wilbur” Mr Ed the Talking Horse appeared on TV for the first time.

1962- After a holiday break, shooting resumed on Cleopatra. This was the first time stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton worked together, and the first signs of their love affair. Their tempestuous relationship was one of the great affairs of 1960s Hollywood.

1968- A Boston grand jury indicted famous baby doctor Benjamin Spock for conspiring to abet violation of draft laws. The great scientist had come out as a vocal opponent of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. "I helped them be born. I'm not going to abandon them now."

1970- Soap opera “All My Children” premiered.

1979- EMI Records ended their contracts with the punk band the Sex Pistols. They felt their outrageous behavior had gone just too far.

1980- The first Hewlett Packard Personal Computer, or PC, goes on the market.

1998-At the Heavenly Valley Ski Resort, former pop singer turned Republican Congressman Sonny Bono died when he skied headlong into a tree.

2017- Outgoing President Obama was briefed by the FBI about proof they had that the Russian hackers had interfered in the 2016 election to ensure Donald Trump would win. After Pres. Trump was inaugurated, the Justice Dept was told not to pursue the investigation any further.

2021- The night before their planned coup to stop President Biden’s election victory, outgoing President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and their cronies worked into the night making arrangements to pressure Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the election. They hoped that Pence could with a bang of his gavel stop the certification and throw the election to the House. Mike Pence called former Bush VP Dan Quayle, who told him, “You do not have that power. Your purpose is to do nothing. You preside, like a TV emcee.”
That night after all their meetings wrapped, Trump left open the door to the Oval Office, so he could hear the hateful shouts and chants of the mob outside. When aides asked that he close the door from the January cold, Trump said,” Nah. I love listening to them. They are my people.”
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when people write, “ We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?

Answer: In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macduff describes how his family was murdered all at once. Like when a hawk swoops down and scoops up several animals at once.