Quiz: What does it mean when people write, “ We’ll take care of it all in one fell-swoop”? Where did that come from?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Why is the Marianas Trench special?
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History for 1/4/2024
Birthdays: Sir Issac Newton, Emile Cohl, Louis Braille, General Tom Thumb, Jane Wyman, Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh, Francois Rude, Dyan Cannon is 86, Floyd Patterson, Don Shula, Barbara Rush, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julia Ormond is 59

1642- English King Charles I, egged on by his queen Henrietta Maria, attempted to squash his uppity Puritan enemies in Parliament with one stroke. He personally marched troops into the House of Commons and demanded the arrest of five ringleaders, John Pym, Sir Arthur Hazelrig and others. They had already fled. When he ordered the Speaker of the House to identify the men, the speaker bowed and politely refused: "Sire, I have neither eyes to see nor lips to speak say as this House biddeth me".
King Charles and his guards left empty-handed, while Londoners laughed and threw garbage out their windows on him. He traveled north to raise troops. The English Civil War is recorded as beginning that September, but from this moment on King Charles considered no other remedy but force.

1698- The royal palace of Whitehall, built by Henry VIII, was destroyed in a spectacular fire. It burned for 2 days straight.

1725- American colonist Benjamin Franklin first arrived in London.

1821- Elizabeth Ann Seton died in New York. She was declared America’s first native-born Saint in 1979. Mother Cabrini the first American saint was an immigrant from Italy.

1824- Poet Lord Byron arrived in Missolonghi Greece to aid the Greek Independence movement against the Turkish Empire.

1861- As the Civil War was breaking out, Missouri inaugurated Governor Claiborne Jackson. Gov. Jackson in his inaugural speech declared Missouri would stand by her sister slaveholding states in the Confederacy, but the city folk of St. Louis and Kansas City were for the Union. The farming population were pro Dixie. Already wracked by years of violence, Missouri would collapse into an anarchy of roving paramilitary gangs robbing, hanging and shooting the innocent. Bushwhackers vs. Redlegs. Missouri suffered some of the worst losses of any state in the US. One tenth of the population would die or relocate.

1863- James Plimpton of New York patented four-wheeled roller skates.

1881- Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture premiered in Breslau. Johannes Brahms was offered an honorary degree by the University of Breslau. But he learned that in exchange, they expected him to write them a free symphony! Whaat? Brahms responded by sending them an overture to be played at commencement. On being performed, locals recognized several bawdy student drinking songs Brahms had worked into the score. The Academic Festival Overture is the basis for the opening music to National Lampoons Animal House.

1885- The first appendectomy operation.

1896- THE KRUGER TELEGRAM- Kaiser Wilhelm sends a telegram to Boer South African President Kruger congratulating him on defeating a coup attempt by pro-British mercenaries- The Jameson Raid. In the note the Kaiser implied military help for the Boers should Britain ever try anything else. When this note was leaked to the press, it was greeted with outrage in England. A backlash of anger also erupted among the German public.
Even though the Kaiser apologized to his grand-mama Queen Victoria, the incident was seen as the first break between two countries, who throughout history had always been allies. The previous year, Lord Salisbury had said:" Our greatest national threat shall always be France." But the Kruger telegram and Germanys building navy began to change minds. Lord Asquith said:" It's as though a friend at your club you've always chatted and drank whiskey & sodas with suddenly slapped your face!"

1896- After Mormon leader William Woodruff issued a manifesto reforming the Mormon Church’s hold over local government and renouncing polygamy, Utah became a state.

1904- The Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Ricans are not aliens but American citizens. Yet full citizenship was still delayed until 1917.

1904, Thomas Edison's movie crew filmed the electrocution of an elephant. Topsy, was being destroyed by its owners after she killed three men in as many years. (The third was a man who for a joke, fed her a lit cigarette.) The event was a public spectacle to a paying audience of 1,500 people at Coney Island, where the elephant had actually helped build the attraction. Edison was the consultant chosen to arrange the electrocution, after cyanide-laced carrots had failed. He made sure to use Nikolas Tesla’s AC current, to show people how dangerous it was.

1920- Eight teams combine to form the Negro Baseball Leagues. They were active until Major League Baseball finally integrated in 1948.

1932- Casey Stengel returned from the minors to manage the Brooklyn Dodgers, aka the Bums.

1936- Mickey’s Polo Team, directed by Dave Hand.

1943- Josef Stalin named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

1944- Kaj Munk, Danish playwright and poet who preached passive resistance to the Nazi occupation, was arrested by the Gestapo and shot.

1946- Terrytoons "The Talking Magpies" the first Heckle and Jeckle cartoons.

1948- Burma, received her independence from the British Empire.

1951- As Gen, MacArthur’s forces retreated from the Chinese Communist onslaught, Seoul fell into Communist control for the second time. The city, due to it's proximity to the front, changed hands several times during the Korean War.

1954- Young truck driver Elvis Presley went into Sun Records recording studio in Memphis. He plunked down $4 to record two demos for his mothers’ birthday. " Casual Love Affair" and "I’ll Never Stand in your Way". Studio manager Marion Keisker was impressed enough to play the demo for Sun Records boss Sam Phillips, who called Presley back in for an audition.

1954- The Pinky Lee Show premiered on TV. Sponsored by Tootsie Roll.

1956- In the Peanuts comic strip, Charles Schulz made Snoopy first stand up on two legs.

1956- Walt Disney had lunch with his old competitor Max Fleischer, now retired. The meeting was arranged by Max’s son Richard Fleischer, who was working for Disney directing movies like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Although everyone had a nice time, Richard later admitted he found the whole thing depressing. Seeing his dad humbled:” It was like seeing David vanquished by Goliath.”

1957- The Dodgers are the first baseball team to buy an airplane to travel around in.

1958- the TV show Seahunt premiered. It made a star out of Lloyd Bridges, the father of Jeff and Beau.

1960- Writer Albert Camus was killed in a car accident. He was 46.

1964- The Boston Strangler murdered his last victim, 19 year old Mary Sullivan. The family of Albert DeSalvo, the man who confessed and was convicted as the Strangler, still claim today that he was innocent because the pattern of this killing didn’t match the others.

1973- In San Francisco, scientists from several top food companies like Proctor & Gamble, Heinz and Del Monte began work inventing the Universal Product Code, or The Bar Code, now seen on everything you buy. The first product to sport the bar code was Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum.

1973- President Nixon informs the Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in that he refused to yield to them his taped conversations, citing an arcane concept little used since the days of Thomas Jefferson, called "executive privilege.”

1995- Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House of Representatives. In the Washington atmosphere of congenial deal making, Gingrich was the arch-apostle of the scorched earth, no-compromise, us vs. them style of politics. Several times he used a routine approval of the federal budget to stalemate the Clinton Whitehouse to force a complete government shutdown. Even after he stepped down because of ethics violations, his highly polarized style of politics still rules Washington today.

1997- Spoon bending psychic Uri Geller predicted a UFO would land in Tel Aviv. Israelis watched the skies, but in the end, nothing appeared.

2010- Dubai opened the largest office building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. 163 floors.

2000- Charles Schulz published the very last Peanuts daily comic strip. It ran continuously since 1950. Schulz refused to allow any one to ghost him or take over the strip. He died a month later of colon cancer, and his last Sunday was printed the next day.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Why is the Marianas Trench special?

Answer: The deep sea trench is the deepest hole into the Earth’s crust.

Quiz: Name an important event that occurred in 1924.

Yesterday: what does it mean to speak in platitudes?
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History for 1/2/2024
Birthdays: Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV-1642, Frederic Opper the cartoonist of Happy Hooligan, Phillip Freneau, Roger Miller, Issac Asimov, Julius LaRosa, Tito Schipa, Renata Tebaldi, Tex Ritter, Dick Huemer, Cuba Gooding Jr, is 56, Tia Carrere, Kate Bosworth is 41

1492- Sultan Abu-Abdallah, called Boabdil, surrendered the Emirate of Grenada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain to Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. As Boabdil rode out of the city between the Spanish troops, he paused on a hill for one last look at his beautiful city. The hill is today called El Ultimo Sospiro del Moro- the Last Sigh of the Moor.
This completed the master plan of the Christian Spaniards to regain the whole Iberian Peninsula. Called La ReConquista, it had been raging for 500 years. In Rome Pope Alexander VI Borgia, who was also a Spaniard, celebrated the news by closing off Saint Peter's Square from worshippers to stage a bullfight.
Boabdil's mother, the Sultana Ayeesha, scolded him for weeping while surrendering the city. " I should have smothered you as an infant, rather than watch you live like a degenerate and surrender like a whore...!" Gee, Thanks Mom…

1496- Did Leonardo da Vinci try to fly? Leonardo studied the motor actions of birds and sketched numerous flying machines. In one of his notebooks Leonardo had written:” On the second day of January, I will make the attempt.” Leonardo later noted in his financial records payment to a physician when his apprentice named Antonio broke his leg. It’s been speculated Antonio broke it trying to pilot one of his master’s flying machines.

1522- Adrian VI, a Dutchman was elected Pope. He was the first non-Italian since 1378, and the last until 1978.
Adrian really tried to be a true Christian spiritual guide and agreed with Martin Luther that the church was too corrupt and sinful in its ways. He demanded he and his cardinals live on only one ducat a day, about $12.50, he shuttered the Belvedere Palace and its beautiful collection of ancient Greek & Roman art as pagan idolatry.
Poets, painters and sculptors were furious that this Pope cancelled all their lucrative contracts. The unemployed poet Aretino called the cardinals “miserable rabble that should all be buried alive" for choosing such a lousy pope.
After three months Adrian died. This time the cardinals selected pope a Medici who loved art, music and parties. He said, “God has given us the Papacy, so let us enjoy it.”. The artists of Rome sent flowers to Adrian’s doctor to congratulate him for losing his patient.

1542- The town of Geneva had put themselves under the Protestant theologian John Calvin to reform everybody’s lifestyles. His first move was to create order in their new way of religion. This day his great work the Ecclesiastical Ordinances were approved by the Grand Council and put into law. It created a ministry of deacons, pastors teachers and lay elders based on Biblical Law. Calvin’s new code became the basis of the future churches of Presbyterianism, Huguenots, Puritans and Calvinism and reached as far as England, Scotland and America.

1602- End of the siege of Kinsale. Rebel Earl Hugh O’Neill had invited the Spanish to help him overthrow British rule in Ireland. He lost, and the English domination of Ireland was confirmed.

1611-THE BLOOD COUNTESS- Beautiful Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was indicted for the murder of 610 people. She apparently believed that bathing in the blood of virgin girls would keep her skin beautiful. The crimes of the Medieval nobility were often winked at until they become so outrageous, they couldn’t be ignored any longer. When peasant girls kept disappearing around Csejthe Castle word got back to her big uncle King Sigmund Bathory of Poland, the enemy of Ivan the Terrible. When King Sigmund discovered the full horror of her story, he had Elizabeth walled up alive in her chamber. Daily food passed through a slit in the wall. When after a few years the empty dishes stopped being passed through, that slit was bricked up as well.

1688- The great insurance house Lloyd’s of London founded. In the past they’ve insured Betty Grable’s legs, Bruce Springsteen’s lungs and offered a million English pounds to anyone who could prove Elvis Presley was still alive.

1757- British redcoats marched into Calcutta. (modern Kolkata)

1785- Austrian Emperor Joseph II ordered the Jews throughout his empire to adopt family surnames. A similar law was passed in Prussia and the rest of Germany ten years later. Most Jews created surnames out of their profession. This was when someone like Yitzhak the diamond dealer became Issac Diamondstein and Yakub the butcher became Jacob Fleischman. If you think that’s funny, what if your name is Taylor, Miller, or Weaver?

1788- Georgia voted to ratify the Constitution.

1800- The free black community in Philadelphia petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. A South Carolina senator denounced the idea as:” This new-fangled French philosophy of Liberty and Equality!”

1815- Lord Byron married Lady Anna Milbanke.

1837- It was the custom at New Years for the Mayor of New York to hold an open house. Average citizens could pay a call, have a glass of sherry and pound cake and express good wishes for the New Year. But Mayor Cornelius Lawrence was a Tammany politician who had been elected with the help of gangs of hooligans from the Bowery and Five Points. When he held an open house this day all these gang toughs stormed in, got drunk, wiped their fingers on the curtains and pocketed the silverware. It quickly became bedlam. Mayor Lawrence had to get militia troops to push the mob out and lock the doors.

1843- Richard Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden.

1863 HELL’S HALF-ACRE- In the American Civil War the battle of Stones River or Murfreesboro resumed after a two days truce for New Years. The Union Army had been surprised attacked New Years Eve and caved in to a tight horseshoe configuration. By now it was now dug in and further fighting seemed fruitless. But Confederate army Commander Baxton Bragg couldn’t bring himself to retreat again as he had at Perryville.
So, over the protests of his subordinates that it was suicide, he ordered a direct frontal attack. One brigade commander named Hanson declared he’d rather kill Bragg than murder his own soldiers. Hanson was killed in action. The Kentucky Orphans Brigade led by Confederate Vice President John Breckinbridge charged into a furious Yankee artillery cross fire and was annihilated. The attack failed and Bragg retreated anyway.

1873- Richard “Slippery-Dick” Connolly becomes the first American to embezzle a million dollars -he actually stole four million. He was the financial controller for the City of New York under Boss Tweed. Together the Tweed ring bilked New York City out of $60 million dollars. This day he fled abroad ahead of the police. Tweed was nabbed and died in jail, but Slippery Dick Connolly lived in Europe happily ever after.

1878- Farmer John Martin thought he saw something shiny flying in the sky above Denizen Texas. He is the first person to describe it as a “flying saucer.”

1882- John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company controlled almost 90% of the U.S. crude oil output but the government seemed poised to hit it with anti-monopoly laws. So anticipating this move he reorganized Standard Oil into a Trust with himself as chief Trustee. Standard Oil later became ESSO (S-O) then EXXON-MOBIL.

1897- Young writer Stephen Crane survived a shipwreck when the good ship SS Commodore went down off the coast of Florida. He went on to write The Open Boat and The Red Badge of Courage.

1904- The Russians surrendered their big Pacific base of Port Arthur to the Japanese after a one-year siege. During the boredom of the siege the game Russian Roulette was invented- of putting a six shooter to your head with one bullet in a spun chamber. When their men kept dying for no reason the Stavka, or High Command, were at a loss how to stop it. When they caught men playing this lethal game they charged them for illegal use of government property- i.e. the bullets.

1909- Aimie Semple MacPherson was given her ordination by the Evangelical community of Chicago. Sister Aimie moved to Los Angeles and became one of the first great broadcast evangelists, entertaining millions with salvation and sin, while keeping toy-boys and popping pills on the side.

1933- The character Nancy first appeared in Ernie Bushmiller’s comic strip Fritzi Ritz.

1937- Hollywood actor Ross Alexander had hit on tough times. He had been in a few movies like Captain Blood and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but his career seemed to be stalled, he was in debt, and his wife committed suicide. This day the 29 year old went into the barn behind his Encino home and shot himself. The Warner Bros. Studio looked around for a replacement to refill their roster of handsome male leads. They replaced Alexander with an Illinois college sportscaster called “Dutch”- Ronald Reagan.

1939- Time Magazine named Adolf Hitler it’s “Man of the Year”.

1942- The Japanese army under General Homma entered Manila. They said they had come to drive out the American Western colonialists and create pan-Asian harmony. But they offended the Filipinos with atrocities like hanging the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court from a flagpole when he refused to be part of the occupation regime. Homma also had the city bombed even after they agreed to surrender.

1958- Maria Callas threw one of the more celebrated temper tantrums in Opera history when she stormed off the stage at La Scala in the middle of Bellini’s Norma with the President of Italy in the audience. La Divina Callas was a Greek-American with a beautiful voice and the slimmest waistline since Lili Pons. She was part of the Jet-Set society culture and her temper was famous.

1960- Young Mass. Senator John F. Kennedy announced he was a candidate for president. When asked why do you want to be president? Kennedy replied:” Because it’s the best job there is.”

1963- The Magic Castle opened in Hollywood. The Academy of Magicians renovated this 1908 mansion and declared it the world’s most unique private club. Even today, you can only get in by being invited by a member.

1965- Soupy Sales hosted one of the more successful kiddie shows on daytime TV. He often improvised his own comedy bits in between showing old cartoons. This say Soupy jokingly asked his kiddie audience to go into mommy’s purse while she was asleep and take out all those green pieces of paper with pictures of presidents on them, and mail them to Soupy Sales, c/o the studio. All that week, Soupy received thousands of dollars in small envelopes. The resultant outcry from parent groups got Soupy suspended.

1971- Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem discovered the 2,000 year old remains of a crucified man. No, they didn’t think it was You-Know-Who. But it did provide the first empirical proof that Romans really used that method of execution.

1975- In a letter to MITS, college kids Bill Gates and Paul Allen offered their computer language adaptation of BASIC for the new Altair personal computer. They named themselves Microsoft.

1984- The Zenith Corporation announced it would stop selling video recorders in Betamax format and go over wholly to VHS. Other electronics giants followed suit and VHS won out over the higher quality Beta system.

1995- Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was inaugurated for a second term after winning re-election, despite his conviction for smoking crack. Comedian Chris Rock said: “Who ran against him? Who was such a bad choice that people said- I’d rather vote for a crackhead? “

2000- Internet developers Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, had a conversation about writing data entries for collaborative websites called wikis. Saunders conceived of an open on-line encyclopedia encompassing all world knowledge. He called it Wikipedia.

2019- The Chinese space probe, the Chang’ 4 became the first man made object to successfully land on the Dark side of the Moon.
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Yesterday’s Question: what does it mean to speak in platitudes?

Answer:
I don’t want to talk your ear off but I really need to get this off my chest and keep you in the loop. It is right on the tip of my tongue anyway, so even if you want to take my 2¢ with a grain of salt, to make a long story short and just to make sure we’re speaking the same language and singing from the same hymnal, I’ll put all my eggs in one basket, come right to the point and let the cat out of the bag.

Actually, maybe I have my head in the clouds, or perhaps I’m a little at sea about this but, while I hate going back to the drawing board and we both know this is not rocket science and that the answer is in the eye of the beholder, I am at sixes and sevens and can’t get my act together. The long and the short of it is I am not prepared to spill the beans, so I'm putting the ball in your court. Just keep in mind, all the world’s a stage, so break a leg, hit the nail on the head, separate the wheat from the chaff, give it 110% and get it all out in the open. It’ll be a piece of cake. Just take the bull by the horns, make a clean breast of it...and watch those platitudes! ( Thanks FG)

QUIZ: What is the new year in Roman numerals?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: Sometimes you’ll notice your coffee comes from the Kona coast. Where is the Kona coast located?
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History for New Years Eve 12/31/2023
Birthdays: Henri Matisse, General George C. Marshall, Odetta (real name Holmes Felicious Gordon), Simon Weisenthal, Virginia Davis, Pola Negri, Jules Styne, Sarah Miles, Donna Summer, Patti Smith, Elizabeth Arden, Tim Matheson, John Denver, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Psy, Ben Kingsley-born Khrishna Banji is 80, Anthony Hopkins is 86, Val Kilmer is 64, Gong Li is 58

192-193 A.D.- The Roman Emperor Commodus was assassinated. The natural son of the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius turned out to be just another sicko tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. This night during a wild New Years Party, he drunkenly challenged a top wrestler named Narcissus. Narcissus had been bribed by Commodus's Praetorian Prefect Laetus and head of the Imperial Household Eclectus. So instead of just pinning him down, Narcissus broke Commodus’ neck. Made for a great party.

314 AD-This was the Feast Day of Saint Sylvester, the Pope who baptized the Roman Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Legend is Sylvester miraculously cured Constantine of leprosy, and in reward Constantine gave the Roman Pontiff dominion over all the world. This Donation of Constantine was the philosophical reason the Pope in Rome became the supreme head of the Christian Church over any other bishop. In the 1440’s Italian scholar Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation story was a myth forged in the 700s by a Vatican clerk named Christophorous.

406AD- Huge hordes of Goths and allied German tribes, Seuvi, Alemanii, and Teutons, with all their families and belongings trudged across the frozen Rhine River and entered the frontier line of the Roman territory. This mass migration of barbarians was the signal of the beginning of the Fall of the Roman Empire. They reached the city of Rome four years later in 410, and the last emperor abdicated in 476. They later called it the Volkervanderung- The Wandering of the People.

1502- Renaissance Prince Caesar Borgia was besieging the Adriatic town of Senigalia. Caesar invited the enemy leaders Vitelli and Oliverotto to a conference with him at the Governors Palace. After dinner and drinks, Caesar had them garroted and their bodies dumped in the river. Machiavelli praised Caesar Borgia for ‘a most lovely ruse”.

1600- England starts thinking about India... Queen Elizabeth granted a charter for exploration to the Honorable East India Company.

1711- Queen Anne of England dismissed the Duke of Marlborough from command of the British Army and from all his cabinet and government posts. John Churchill the Duke of Marlborough was one of the greatest English soldiers, ranked with Wellington and Henry V. Yet, by now Queen Anne found him and his pushy wife Sarah annoying.

1772-3 THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. STRUENSEE-The King of Denmark, Christian VII was slowly devolving into insanity from syphilis. In 1770 he hired a doctor named Johann Freidrich Struensee to try to alleviate his pain. The good Doctor became more and more influential at the Danish Court as the king withdrew into seclusion. Struensee was made a count, and to top it all off he became the lover of the Queen!
Soon Count Dr. Struensee was ruling Denmark. In the name of Queen Caroline, he passed 1,000 acts of enlightened reform, updating the Danish civil service and outlawed torture. Finally the Royal Court couldn't stand being dictated to by a low born doctor anymore. At a New Years ball Struensee was arrested by order of the Queen Mother Juliana Maria. He was quickly tried and beheaded. The King's care devolved to several regents until his son took over after his death.
Queen Mum Juliana Maria said one of the greatest pleasures of her old age was looking out her window and watching the birds peck at the skull of Doctor Struensee.

1862- Battle of Stones River or Murfreesboro - Yankees and Confederates battle it out in the thick forests below Nashville. They then declare a days truce to celebrate New Years. Then they resume killing one another on Jan. 2nd.

1862- The U.S.S. Monitor, the little ship that fought the Merrimac in the first great duel of iron warships, sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras. Her inventor John Ericsson had boasted, 'the waves shall pass over her and she shall ride the sea like a duck', but in rough seas she sank like a rock. Twenty years ago the Monitor was found on the ocean floor. Bits have been brought up since 2002 and the entire turret is currently was reconstructed.

1862-3 - SLAVERY ENDED IN THE UNITED STATES- In a service at Boston's Music Hall Abolitionist leaders Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubmann, Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison sang 'Battle Hymn of the Republic" and celebrated midnight when the Emancipation Proclamation would officially take effect.

1879- Thomas Edison did a public demonstration of his new invention the Light Bulb. Special commuter trains brought people to Menlo Park New Jersey for the show.

1881- Los Angeles became the first U.S. city to be lit entirely by electricity.

1890- The new immigration facility on Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened.

1901-Los Angeles Angel's Flight cable tram opened. It closed down in the 1980's but was restored in 1996, then broke down a few years later.

1906-07- THE FIRST BALL DROPPING CEREMONY- Since the 1700s Newspaper services like Reuters and the London Times would post important headlines and on large signboard in front of their offices for businessmen on the street to see. Sometimes they would mark an important event like the death of a monarch by raising a flag, ringing a bell, or firing a cannon. Lowering a lantern was something ships in harbor did to synchronize their time keeping. The old Western Union building used to drop a ball at precisely noon for the same reason.
In 1905 The New York Times hosted a giant news years party from their new office tower at #1 Longacre Square, now renamed in their honor Times Square. Midnight was signaled to the crowd by the lowering of a lantern on its roof.
In 1907 an ironworker created a large ball covered with electric light bulbs that was lowered from a flagpole. The Ball-dropping ceremony was only interrupted twice in 1942 and 1943 for World War II blackouts. The Times Building was later sold and renamed the Allied Chemical Building, the Sony Building, Time/Warner, the Newsday building, and now One Time Square.

1911-12 Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected first President of the Republic of China, replacing the 256 year reign of the Manchu Dynasty. One of his first acts was to abolish the Chinese calendar and go on the western one for 1912. He then went to the Shrine of the Ming Emperors to tell their spirits that their enemies the Manchu had fallen. Dr Sen was a Methodist who no longer followed Chinese religious beliefs, but he was honoring a pledge to political allies.

1917- EUROPE DISCOVERED JAZZ- As the first American units entered Paris to help in World War I, the New York 15th Colored Regiment serenaded the city. The band of the 15th was made up of top Harlem jazz musicians led by bandleader James Europe. The French were amazed as the band performed ragtime riffs that only gradually they recognized as La Marseillaise and Le Marche Sambre et Meuse. Local musicians accused the Harlemites of using trick instruments since no one could make sounds like that. Lieutenant James Europe went on tour with the band and Europe the continent embraced the modern new sound.

1923-24-BBC overseas radio service first broadcast the Chimes of Big Ben around the world.

1929- New York's "21" Club opened as a speakeasy. Barkeep Jack Kramer opened the hangout at 21 west 52nd street. With a wine cellar hidden behind a two-foot thick stone wall door. The feds raided 21 once and found nothing after hours of searching. When they went back outside all their cars had been towed away by NYPD traffic cops. It seems the Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker was having dinner in the wine cellar with his mistress and was annoyed by the intrusion. In subsequent years it was normal to see movie stars, Lucky Lucciano, J. Edgar Hoover and John F. Kennedy eating side by side. Richard Nixon loved their tater-tots. 21 closed in 2021 due to covid.

1929- Guy Lombardo and his big band the Royal Canadians first played Auld Lang Syne at midnight for New Years. Lombardo and his band became synonymous with New Years until his death in the 1980s.

1931- NY gangster Larry Fay was a business partner of speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan and Cotton Club co-owner Big Frenchy DeMange. But the Depression was hitting everyone hard. This day Larry cut the salary of the doorman of his club. He responded by shooting Larry in the back as he walked by.

1940-41- Avant Garde artists John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp broke into the Washington Square Arch and declared Greenwich Village the Republic of New Bohemia. Like coool, daddy.

1941- A Warner Bros memo dated this day from producer Hal Wallis office announced that the movie to be made from a play by Murray Bennett called “Everybody Goes to Rick’s” has been renamed “Casablanca”. This was to capitalize on an already popular film title “Algiers” with Charles Boyer “come with me to ze Casbah” etc.. Humphrey Bogart got the lead after George Raft first turned it down.

1942- Chrome was outlawed on American cars for the duration of World War II.

1943-44- In occupied Europe U.S. Navy frogmen sneak over to the future Normandy beachhead and take sand samplings to analyze if the beach could take the weight of heavy tanks and ordnance. The samples were sent to Detroit so companies could design customized tank-tread teeth. As the frogmen swam back to their midget submarine they could hear the Germans celebrating in their bunkers. One frogman yelled out "HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

1943- Four hundred policemen are called out to control frenzied crowds of bobbysoxers as Frank Sinatra played the Paramount Theater in Times Square. It was his debut as a solo performer. OOHH FRANKIE!!

1946- The first Pismo Beach Clam Festival.

1947- Roy Rogers married Dale Evans.

1952- At the Cosmopolitan Club in East St. Louis, bandleader Johnny Johnson had a problem. Scheduled to play his regular gig at New Years, one of his trio suffered a stroke. Johnson looked around for a substitute musician and settled on a young construction worker trying to break in show business named Chuck Berry. Johnson played Boogie-Woogie piano, and Chuck Berry listened to country western on the radio and invented his own up-tempo variations. The two of them collaborating evolved a distinctly new sound we now recognize as Rock & Roll.

1955- Chuck Jone's 'One Froggy Evening' premiered. Director Steven Spielberg called it the "Citizen Kane of Cartoons." If you wonder why you never heard the old time ditty 'The Michigan Rag' anywhere else but here, was because Chuck Jones & Mike Maltese wrote it specifically for the cartoon.

1958-59- As Fidel Castro's guerrillas closed in on Havana, Cuban dictator Fulgensio Batista slipped out of a New Year's Party and boarded a plane for Miami, all arranged by the CIA. Fredo, ya broke my heart…

1962- Romanoff’s closed. Once one of the premier hot spots on the Sunset Strip, it was a preferred hangout of Humphrey Bogart, who liked to play chess in the afternoon with Nick Romanoff when he was between films.

1967- The Ice Bowl- Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 for the NFL championship ( the Superbowl had not been invented yet). It was nicknamed the Ice Bowl because the game was played in Green Bay in the out doors in below zero weather, with a wind chill of 40 below zero. Referees’ whistles froze to their lips.

1969- United Auto Worker's President Joseph 'Jock' Yablonsky was murdered with his wife and daughter. The gangland style hit is later tied to his successor Tony Boyle who went to jail. 20,000 miners called a wildcat strike Jan. 5th to protest the murder.

1973- Israel held its first election after the Yom Kippur War. The Labor Party held on to its majority although Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan resigned after a report accused them of being unprepared for the Arab surprise attack. The big news of this election was how former General Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin had welded the various right wing parties into a new coalition called the Likud. They quickly became a major force in politics.

1977- President Jimmy Carter in Teheran toasted Iran under the Shah as “ An Island of Stability in a Troubled Middle East. ” Within a year the Shah was overthrown.

1985- Singer Ricky Nelson died when his band's converted old DC-9 airplane crashed near DeKalb, Texas. Nelson had been living on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and Snickers bars.

1995- The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip by Bill Waterston. He just decided one day to end it, before it became stale.

1997- Will Smith married Jada Pinkett.

1999- Boris Yeltsin surprised everybody in the Russian Federation when he suddenly announced he would resign as president of Russia after an 8 year rule. He spent that time administering the break up of the Soviet Union and the establishment of democracy and capitalism in Russia. He named his successor, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

1999-2000 - The Y2K MANIA. While the world prepared to celebrate the new century and the Third Millennium, the American tabloid media whipped up fear over a theory that the change from 1999-2000 would cause most computers to crash. Planes would fall out of the sky, nuclear missiles would launch themselves, and marauders would rule the streets like something out of Mad Max. The US Government spent $65 million to prepare for the crisis. But at midnight absolutely nothing happened. Even older less sophisticated computers were unaffected, and everything ran normally. Meanwhile many of the US public shivered at home and watched the rest of the world have fun on television.

2001-2002- The European Union currency exchange went into effect. Adieu, Adios and Ciao to the French Franc, Belgian Franc, Italian Lire, German Deutschmark, Austrian Schilling, Dutch Gulden, Greek Drachma, Irish Pound, Portuguese Escudo and Spanish Peseta. Welcome the Euro.

2006- Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hanged.

2008- Dedication in Baghdad of the Killing Saddam Museum.

2019-The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a world-wide warning about the threat from the coming Coronavirus CoVid 19. American President Trump chose to ignore this, then inexplicably cut funding to the WHO.

2020- Because of the global covid pandemic, many world capitols cancelled their large public New Years celebrations, or held them virtually, like Times Square.
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Yesterday’s question: Sometimes you’ll notice your coffee comes from the Kona coast. Where is the Kona coast located?

Answer: Hawaii.
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**THANK YOU FOR READING MY LITTLE HISTORIES. I HOPE YOU HAVE AS MUCH FUN READING THEM AS I DO WRITING THEM.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!
- TOM SITO

Quiz: Sometimes you’ll notice your coffee comes from the Kona coast. Where is the Kona coast located?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who coined the catchphrase “ By Any Means Necessary”?
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History for 12/30/2023
Birthdays: Rudyard Kipling, Gen. Hideki Tojo, W. Eugene Smith, Luther Burbank, Anna Magnani, Bo Diddley, Sir Carol Reed, Sandy Koufax, Solomon Guggenheim, Jeanette Nolan, Jack Lord, Franco Harris, Joseph Bologna, Fred Ward, Tracey Ullman, Russ Tamblyn, Tiger Woods is 47, Heidi Fleiss, Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary, Douglas Engelbart the inventor of the computer mouse, Lebron James is 39, Eliza Dushku is 43

1370- Pope Gregory XI is an example of the rather unconventional path one could take to the Papacy in the Middle Ages. His genial uncle Pope Clement VI had made him a cardinal at age 18. Upon his election as Pope at age 39 someone noticed that he had never taken Holy Orders to become a Priest! So yesterday he was ordained a priest and today became Pope.

1672- Violinist John Bannister and his orchestra held a concert at Whitefriars chapel in London. It’s the oldest known music concert given not to royalty, or a rich patron, but to the general public.

1689- The opera Dido & Aeneas by Henry Purcell premiered in London.

1816- Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley married Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary wrote Frankenstein two years later.

1817- Coffee beans first planted on the Kona coast of Hawaii.

1853- The Gadsen Purchase- After the Mexican-American War the U.S. bought an additional 45,000 square miles from Mexico and finally settled the US border at the Rio Grande. The deal was brokered by U.S. Secretary of War and later President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.

1862- During the Civil War, the day before the Battle of Stone's River Tennessee, Union and Confederate armies spent the day quietly facing each other across a creek under an icy rain. A battle of the bands started up. Blue and gray musicians serenaded each other across no-mans land with patriotic songs like Dixie and John Brown's Body, while the men sang along. Finally both bands synched up with a spontaneous rendition of " Be It Ever so Humble, There's No Place Like Home..." Thousands of throats from both sides took up the chorus.

1884- Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony premiered in Leipzig.

1894- Suffragette Amelia Jenks Bloomer died; she had gained notoriety for inventing "bloomers" a way for women to ride horses and do other physical actions without cumbersome hoops skirts.

1903 - A fire broke out in the crowded Iroquois Theater in Chicago killing 571. After the tragedy building codes were enforced that public buildings have exit doors that always open outwards, and some form of fire fighting equipment always be on the premises. The Iroquois had a sign over the door that read “Absolutely Fireproof”.

1905- Idaho governor Frank Steunberg killed by a bomb set by union supporters.

1916- RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK KILLED- Several Russian noblemen resolve to rid their country of this Siberian peasant mystic who held such power over the Czar and his family that he could dismiss government ministers at will. He once had an entire Russian army offensive redirected because he was negotiating to buy the real estate they planned to fight over.
A first cousin of the Czar, Count Felix Yusupov invited Rasputin to a late night party. He had a record player with Yankee Doodle playing in another room to convince the monk that a party indeed was in progress. Yusupov gave Rasputin a glass of cyanide laced vodka. Rasputin drank it and finished the bottle. Then the conspirators rushed out, emptied a revolver into him, beat him with chains and heavy silver candlesticks, rolled him up in a rug and stuffed him into the ice clogged Neva River.
The official coroner's report said he had drowned. Shortly before his death, Rasputin wrote a letter to the Czar saying that 'if the peasants, my brothers, kill me, then you, Czar of Russia, have nothing to fear. But if your relatives kill me, not you nor any one of your family will remain alive longer than two years." Rasputin's prediction was off by just four months. Nicholas II, and his 400 year old dynasty fell ten weeks later. The Czar and his family were murdered in July 1918.
In 1965 CBS produced a TV movie The Murder of Rasputin, where they theorized that Yusupov murdered the monk because he seduced his wife. Imagine their surprise when elderly Count Yusupov showed up in NY and sued them. He won $800,000 and died in 1967.

1933- In Romania liberal premier Ion Duca was assassinated by the pro-fascist Iron Guard. In 1940 the Iron Guards leader General Ion Antonescu deposed King Carol II and established a dictatorship allied to Hitler.

1936- The Great General Motors Strike. The strike was violent and tied up steel, rubber tires and other manufactures for months. United Auto Workers invent the first "sit-down" strike at the Fisher Body Plant in Flint, Mich. "When they tie a can to the Union man-Sit Down, Sit Down! When the Boss won't talk, don't take a walk- Sit Down, Sit Down !"

1940- The Arroyo-Seco, the first L.A. Freeway, opened by Mayor Fletchor Bowron, connecting downtown and Pasadena. Today called the Pasadena Freeway 110. (interstate U.S. route 66 was in 1932, and The Imperial Highway opened in 1936.)

1944- Manhattan Project director Gen. Leslie Groves had a secret meeting with FDR at the White House. Groves told the President the two "cosmic super bombs" (Atom Bombs) they were building would end the war. The reason they were making two was one was uranium based, and the other was plutonium based, and they weren’t sure which one would work.
Franklin Roosevelt asked Groves that one immediately be dropped on Berlin to stop the Battle of the Bulge and kill Hitler. But Groves argued these A-bombs hadn’t been tested yet. He worried that if the bomb was a dud, the Germans were smart enough to take it apart and build their own from the fissionable material, which they might shoot in a V-2 at London. The atomic bomb wasn’t tested until July 1945. By then, Hitler was dead, and the war in Europe was over.

1941- “I Vant to be Alone..” Film Star Greta Garbo announced she was retiring from motion pictures and all public appearances. "When I was just a little child, as early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds … don't like many people." She made her disappearing act complete and was only seen fleeting on the streets of her New York neighborhood until her death in 1990. Friends said she watched a lot of television and loved The Flintstones, and Hollywood Squares.

1947- Under the eye of the occupying Soviet Army, King Michael of Romania abdicated and a Communist government was voted into power.

1963- T.V. game show "Let's Make a Deal" with Monty Hall premieres.

1965- Ferdinand Marcos became president of the Philippines.

1971- Daniel Ellsberg was indicted for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press.

1988- Col. Oliver North, on trial for the Iran Contra Scandal, subpoenaed former President Ronald Reagan and President-elect George H. W. Bush. President Bush declined and Reagan testified on videotape.

1988- the Pixar short Tin Toy released in theaters. The first CG short to win an Oscar. (Luxo Jr. was nominated but did not win.) Pixar’s first feature film Toy Story initially began as an attempt to capitalize on the success of Tin Toy, as a TV special. Tinny’s Xmas.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who coined the catchphrase “By Any Means Necessary”?

Answer: Malcolm X.

Quiz: Who coined the catchphrase “ By Any Means Necessary”?

Yesterday’s question answered below: In Dicken’s Christmas Carol, how many ghosts appear to Scrooge?
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History for 12/29/2023
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Flavius Titus, Pablo Casals, Madame de Pompadour, Andrew Johnson, Charles Goodyear, Gelsey Kirkland, Dina Merrill, Tom Bradley, Mary Tyler Moore, Ray Nitschke, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Flanders, Ted Danson is 76, Marianne Faithful is 77, Paula Poundstone, Jon Voight is 85, Jude Law is 51, Patricia Clarkson, Animator Duncan Marjoribanks is 70.

1172- ST. THOMAS BECKET murdered. A debate that raged throughout the Europe in the Middle Ages was whether the Church could boss around Kings or visa-versa.
In England when a vacancy opened up for Archbishop of Canterbury, King Henry II arranged to get his old drinking bud, Sir Thomas Beckett elected. However Beckett took his new job so seriously he became the English Church’ strongest champion.
On this night, King Henry was so fed up with Beckett that he shouted at his court:" Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Two of Henry's dumber knights took this as a hint and went over to Canterbury and stabbed the Archbishop while at prayers. The Pope excommunicated Henry and placed England under the Writ of Interdict, which meant no English priest could administer baptism, marriage or last rites to anyone. They even took down the church bells so you didn’t know what time it was. King Henry apologized and did penance, even allowing himself to be whipped, and Beckett was made a Saint.

1566- Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe got into an argument with another scientist named Manderup Parsbjerg and they reached for their swords. During the duel, Tycho got his nose cut off. He thereafter he wore a gold cup over the scar, held in place with glue. He eventually reconciled with Parsbjerg, to whom he was distantly related.

1776- George Washington marched his minutemen back to the old Trenton battlefield, scene of their victory of four days before. There he praised them, then begged, pleaded and cajoled them not to go home now that their enlistments were up. Washington announced to the press that all his men had rejoined the colors, but in a private letter to Congress he admitted only about half were staying.

1837- THE CAROLINE INCIDENT. A minor rebellion against England had broken out in Canada led by William Lyon Mackenzie. This day on the American side of the Niagara river a ship full of supplies destined for the rebels called the Caroline was attacked by Canadian loyalist militia. They set fire to the Caroline and pushed it over Niagara Falls. The incident caused tensions between the U.S. and British governments. Mackenzie’s Rising was put down, and his grandson became Canadian Prime Minister.

1845- Texas became a U.S. state.

1851- In 1844 the Young Men’s Christian Association or YMCA opened in London. An American named Thomas Sullivan was inspired by this idea and brought it home to Boston. This day the first American YMCA meeting was held in the Old South Church. The idea soon spread across the United States..

1851- Lola Montez dances on tour in America. Lola Montez was originally an Irish lass named Betty James who re-invented herself as an Argentine flamenco dancer. She was famous for her “Tarantula Dance”. Lola became mistress to King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the second largest kingdom in Germany. Officially he claimed all they did was read the Bible together. Privately he admitted she was exceedingly talented with her…uh,.. muscles.
King Ludwig was so besotted with Lola Montez that he bankrupted his kingdom for her. Anybody who dared criticize her was horsewhipped. Finally, Ludwig was overthrown and Lola fled the country. She did dancing and lecture tours to support herself, and even published books on beauty secrets. She died a social worker in New York in 1861, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Her ghost is sometimes seen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

1890- WOUNDED KNEE- The last battle of the Indian Wars. The US government reacted violently to the Ghost Dance Movement then sweeping Sioux reservations. But the Ghost Dance was not calling for an actual rebellion against the US. Ghost dancers believed if they danced with the spirits of their ancestors the white man would go away.
But to the US Department of the Interior even a metaphysical rebellion is rebellion enough. Sitting Bull was arrested and killed. The army was sent to Wounded Knee reservation to demand a disarming of a few braves. When shooting broke out, the army opened up with modern rapid firing cannon and rifles. To 30 US casualties 300 Sioux, mostly women and children were killed. Reports abound of troops shooting the survivors. They left the bodies where they fell until after Jan. 1. Ironically the army unit was from the Seventh Cavalry, and soldiers considered it the revenge of Custer.

1913- Cecil B. DeMille had been sent to the West by his New York partners to scout out a possible place to move to escape Edison's Patents Trust.
After scouting several cities with year round sunshine, this day C.B. telegraphed his partners back in New York:” Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent a barn in a place called Hollywood for $75 a month.” His partner Sam Goldwyn cabled back: “ Rent barn on month to month basis. Do not make long commitment.” DeMille began shooting the Squaw Man, the first official Hollywood Film.

1916-James Joyce’s novel “the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” published.

1939- Scientist William Shockley first noted in his laboratory notebook that it should be possible to replace vacuum tubes with something called a semi-conductor. Eight years later he led the team that developed the transistor.

1940- After a one week truce for Christmas, this night the Luftwaffe did one of their biggest raids of the Blitz. They firebombed London, causing 1500 fires. At one point they hit St. Paul's Cathedral. CBS correspondent Edgar R. Murrow achieved fame by standing on a rooftop and reporting live on the radio, even as the bombs exploded around him.

1941- Disney animator Bill Tytla told Time Magazine in an interview about creating "Dumbo": "I don't know a damn thing about elephants!"

1946- Milt Caniff published his last Terry and the Pirates comic strip. Caniff moved on to begin his Steve Canyon strip, which he had better ownership of.

1950- Congress passed the Celler-Kefhauver Act, which sought to reign in global companies mega-mergers. It was the last major piece of legislation to try and regulate corporate monopolies in the U.S.

1964- The first transistorized hearing aid.

1964 – To create the first pilot of the TV series Star Trek, the original model of the U.S.S. Enterprise was delivered by model maker Rick Datin, Jr, based on the design created by Star Trek production artist Walter “Matt” Jefferies. The “miniature” was 11 feet long!

1965- First day shooting on Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was an indoor set at Elstree Studios in England, and the first setup was the inspection of the excavation of the Monolith in the moon crater Tycho.

1967- The Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles first aired.

1968- Animator Bill Tytla died at age 64, from complications of a stroke. He had several strokes over the previous six years.

1972- LIFE Magazine ended publication.

1974- While staying at the Polynesian Village in Disneyworld Florida, John Lennon signed the last papers dissolving the Beatles. The band had broken up in 1970, but it took four more years to unravel all of their vast financial holdings. The other three members had already signed.

1975- Euell Gibbons, early natural foods advocate, died of a stomach ailment.
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Yesterday’s Question: In Dicken’s Christmas Carol, how many ghosts appear to Scrooge?

Answer: There are the four who speak to him and show him his life, and the many outside his window who are damned souls, and the shades of everyone he sees in his past vision. The Four guide ghosts were his former partner Jacob Marley, The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. (Thanks NB)