Question: “ Not my bailiwick”. What is a bailiwick?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why were advertising executives called Mad Men?
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History for 4/1/2021
Welcome to April, named for Aprilis, an Etruscan Goddess of Agriculture and planting, or it may even be a corruption of the name of the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The month was considered by Romans sacred to Venus- Venuralia.

To Ancient Egyptians it was the birthday of the God Het-Heth or Hathor.

Happy April Fool’s Day – The Ancient Romans considered today ALL FOOLS DAY-a day of comedy- For the end of the time sacred to Hilaria, goddess of laughter. They did things backwards, men and women swapped clothes and carried on.
Before the Gregorian reforms some Old Style Calendars had the year begin in late March instead of January. As the new modern calendar became more widely accepted, the people who stubbornly clung to the old practice were made fun of, and called April-Fools.

Birthdays: Big Jim Fisk , Edmund Rostand, Lon Chaney, Sir William Harvey, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Ali McGraw, Toshiro Mifune, Debbie Reynolds, Phil Neikro, Wallace Beery, Jane Powell, Bo Schembechler, Annette O’Toole, Barry Sonnenfeld, Rachel Maddow is 45, Andreas Deja is 63.

1081- Alexius Comnenus Ist, captures Constantinople and establishes the Comnenoi dynasty. He took the city by bribing the Varangian Guards –English, Hun and Viking mercenaries, to open the gates and let his army in. Alexius I was the Byzantine Emperor when the Crusades began. His daughter Anna Comnena described the event in her journal :"Then one day all of Europe decided to get up and walk to our door..."

1488- Ludovico Buonarotti, after going through a lot of trouble to get his son in the wool and draper’s guild, gives up hope that the boy would ever be anything other than an artist. He reluctantly takes him to fresco painter Domenico Ghirlandaio to be his apprentice. Michelangelo's career begins.

1621- The first treaty between English and Indians signed in Massachusetts. Massacoit of the Wampanoags made peace with the newly arrived Pilgrims.

1698- One of the more celebrated April Fool jokes. In London, a newspaper Dawks News Letter, came up with the idea to advertise official looking tickets for sale to see the annual washing of the three Royal Lions at the Tower of London on April 1st. No such ceremony existed. Thousands of people still bought tickets, and were crestfallen when this day they arrived at the Tower, ticket in hand, and were turned away.
They kept printing April 1st “Washing of the Royal Lions” tickets until the late 1800s, and gullible people kept buying them. “I’ve got a lion washing ticket for you” was the 18th and 19th Century equivalent of “I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” 

1747-Georg Frederich Handel premiered his oratorio Judas Maccabeus with the song "Hail, Conquering Hero!", frequently used at royal functions.

1789- The first session of the U.S. House of Representatives. Felix Muhlenburg was the first Speaker of the House.

1793- Unsen Volcano in Japan erupted, killing 53,000 people.

1808- Sir Arthur Wellesley landed with a small British Army to try and defend Portugal from Napoleon. The Peninsular Wars would go on until 1814 and drive the French from Portugal and Spain. For his success, Arthur was made the Duke of Wellington.

1810- Napoleon, having divorced Josephine because she could not provide a son for his dynasty, married Princess Marie-Louise of Austria. Josephine was nicknamed "Our Lady of Victories" and was more beloved by the army, but Marie Louise made up for it in spirit. She liked to smoke cigars and play billiards with Nappy’s officers. She was nearsighted, but too vain to be seen in public wearing spectacles, so when she would dedicate art shows and public works like the Arch De Triomphes, she would smile regally and wave her hand, not knowing what she was looking at. Napoleon banned his kid sister Pauline Bonaparte from court for a time because he caught her in a mirror making faces behind Empress Marie Louise’s back.

1861- As the American Civil War was breaking out, Secretary of State Seward sent Lincoln a memo proposing that the way to keep the South united to the U.S. would be to declare war on Spain or France. Lincoln said thanks for the advice, but no thanks...

1862- Confederate General John Sibley declared the counties of western New Mexico to be the new independent Confederate State called Arizona. Sibley's rebs were driven out but Lincoln kept the idea, setting up Arizona in 1864.

1865- BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS- Grant's Yankee Army closed in on Robert E. Lee's Confederates at Petersburg, Grant's cavalry master Phil Sheridan cut off and destroyed one over extended division of Lee's army under George Pickett, taking 5,000 prisoners. Pickett had won fame as the leader of the famous charge at Gettysburg. But he blew it at Five Forks because while his men were fighting, he was away with some friends at a fish fry. No cell phones or text messages in those days.

1867- Opening of the Paris World Exhibition. This worlds fair was seen as the zenith of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Visitors marveled to exhibits as Dr Lister’s new disinfectant, a new metal alloy called Aluminum, a new butter substitute called margarine, and in the American exhibit, a novel bit of furniture called a Rocking Chair. The Art galleries of the exhibition were filled with Ingres, Courbets and Delacroix. But nothing from Cezanne, Manet, Pizarro or any of the other weirdoes who would one day be called Impressionists.

1918- The British Royal Flying Corps (RAF) formed.

1923- Developers S.H. Woodruff and Canadian William Whitley start advertising lots for sale in Hollywoodland, beneath their giant new Hollywoodland sign. The sign originally was covered with lightbulbs. It collapsed and was repaired in 1939, the 'land' part never restored. The Hollywood Sign was made over again in 1978.

1924- After the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Nazis party leader Adolph Hitler was sentenced by a German court to 5 years in prison. He serves only 8 months in a beautiful lodge in Bavaria named Castle Landsberg and uses the time to write Mein Kampf.

1932- The baby of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home.

1939- Generalissimo Francisco Franco announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, which had been raging since 1936.

1944- Tex Avery's "Screwball Squirrel" Only a few shorts were made. As animator Bob Givens reminisced:" Eventually, everyone found that squirrel just too annoying!"

1945- OKINAWA- The Marines land and the battle began. Because it was not a conquered territory but part of the home Japanese islands, Washington weighed it’s decision to use the atomic bomb by it’s observation of how tough Okinawa was, indicating how tough it would be to land on mainland Japan, only 360 miles away.

The fighting was brutal, hand to hand with bayonets and flame-throwers. Of the 125,000 man Japanese garrison only 7,500 didn’t fight to the death, and many civilians threw themselves off cliffs in mass suicide. A children's class trip visiting from Tokyo who were caught in the battle, were shown by soldiers how to cluster themselves around a single hand grenade, so as to save on the number needed. Today there is a shrine to their memory. The Cave of the Maidens is dedicated to a group of schoolgirls who hid in a cave and when the Americans heard Japanese voices inside and none would answer their calls to come our and surrender, filled the cave with flamethrower fire.

Almost every American soldier who was captured was executed. The U.S. Navy suffered the worst number of ships sunk and men killed since Pearl Harbor. There were 1,900 Kamikaze plane attacks. U.S. casualties were so high the government re-imposed a press blackout.
This battle has the rare distinction like the Plains of Abraham in 1759 where both opposing generals died. US General Simon Bolivar Buckner, who’s father had fought Ulysses Grant in the Civil War, was killed by an artillery round three days before the battles end. Japanese General Usijima committed hari-kiri almost at the same time.

1945- Adolph Hitler moved his headquarters from the Reich Chancellery to a bunker deep below it’s street level.

1949- Zsa Zsa Gabor married George Sanders.

1954- The U.S. Air Force Academy was established at Colorado Springs.

1961- Rev Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker get married.

1970- A symbol of the 70’s, AMC’s compact car the Gremlin introduced.

1972- In a gesture of turnabout-is-fair-play for women, Playgirl Magazine ran its first male nude centerfold- Burt Reynolds.

1976- Two college dropouts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a company named Apple Computers. A third partner small businessman Ron Wayne sold his shares to Jobs & Woz before they filed papers of incorporation. He didn’t want to get stuck with the bill when they failed. He sold his third for $800. In 2011 Apple surpassed Microsoft as the worlds richest company.

1983 – Largest British civilian protests to Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher’s plans to put nuclear cruise missiles at Greenham Common. The Thatcher government requested the missiles after the perceived weak response of Jimmy Carter to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The conservative British and German government felt that the US could not be trusted to risk nuclear war if the Soviet Union invaded with conventional forces- i.e. American would not risk Kansas City for Frankfurt, so they asked for the missiles.

1984- Motown star Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his own father in an argument over plans for the singer's 45th birthday party the next day.

1995- Chasen's restaurant closed. Former actor Frederick Chasen opened his exclusive Beverly Hills Restaurant in 1936. James Stewart and Mickey Rooney were regulars. During the filming of Cleopatra (1963) Elizabeth Taylor had Chasen's chili flown out to her in Rome. Walt Disney met Leopold Stokowski over dinner at Chasens and conceived the film Fantasia, Orson Welles and Joe Mankiewicz got into a fistfight over the script outline of Citizen Kane there, Bogart, Bacall and John Huston discussed how to fight the Hollywood Blacklist there. Today there is a booth from Chasens preserved in the Reagan Presidential Library.

25 years ago 1996- Animation World Network, Toontown’s virtual trade magazine, started up. www.AWN.com

1997- In Israel, honoring a deal made with a ultra right religious party to get into power, the right wing Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu passed a law that the only Jewish conversions that would be recognized under Israeli law would be conversions done by Orthodox rabbis. This law created such a firestorm of protest from Reform and Conservative Jews around the world that the government quickly backpedaled.

1998- Ukrainian serial killer Anatolyi Onoprienko was sentenced to death for the murder of 52 people.

2004- G-Mail invented.
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Yesterday’s Question:Why were advertising executives called Mad Men?

Answer: Because Madison Ave in Manhattan had the home offices of most of the major advertising agencies in the USA.

Question: What does it mean to have a gung-ho attitude?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is an agnostic?
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History for 3/30/2021
Birthdays: Maimonides- Moses Ben Maimon, Anna Sewell (the author of Black Beauty), Vincent Van Gogh, Francisco Goya, John Astin, Peter Marshall, Warren Beatty is 84, Eric Clapton is 76, Arthur Lee Harrington the designer of the first Jeep, Tracey Chapman, Robby Coltrane, Paul Reiser, Celine Dion, Nora Jones is 42, Disney animator Marc Davis

To the Romans this was the Festival of Salus, the God of Public Works.

1282- THE BIRTHDAY OF THE MAFIA- The Sicilian Vespers. Because of the strategic location of the island of Sicily smack dab in the center of the Mediterranean, her people were rarely allowed their own self-government. Sicilians were constantly being conquered by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Crusaders. So while they were under the harsh rule of Franco-Norman knights, they formed secret societies.
This night at the ringing of the evening vesper bells, they all ran out and stabbed every Frenchman they saw. This was the first "hit". Later at the turn of the century Mafia families like "Il Mano Negro (The Black Hand) and La Cosa Nostra (our way) brought their clan structure to the U.S., supplanting the earlier Anglo-Jewish-Irish gangsters.
No one is really sure just what the word Mafia means; "Morte Alla Francia Irredenta Arreghana", the Arab response “Ma Fi”- Don’t Ask Me…or the woman who’s daughter was raped by a French knight and called out MaFilia!- My Daughter!

1492-THE JEWS EXPELLED FROM SPAIN- Shortly after conquering the last Moorish strongholds in Spain their Most Catholic Majesties Ferdinand & Isabella issue an edict giving all Jews three months to convert or leave the country. Jewish people had held exalted positions in the Moorish Emirates of Granada and Cadiz like the philosopher Maimonides, some even became Vezirs or prime ministers. Ferdinand & Isabella’s own personal physician Abraham Senior was Jewish.
Some Jews tried to flee to Portugal, but most went to Moslem countries like Turkey and Morocco where the persecution of the children of Issac was less fierce among the children of Ishmael. Many Jews who live in Bosnia and Kossovo speak Old Spanish- Ladino instead of Yiddish or Hebrew. The Inquisition made any Jewish practice a crime, even people who changed their sheets on a Friday or turned to the wall to die were accused of Jewish Heresy.

1534- The English Parliament passed the Act of Succession declaring King Henry VIII’s divorce from Catharine of Aragon and marriage to Anne Boleyn legal and any criticism of it to be treason. All Englishmen and women were required to take an oath of loyalty to ensure their agreement. This oath was what got Sir Thomas Moore and Bishop Fisher beheaded.

1788- The great French philosopher Francois Voltaire had been exiled to estate at Fernay away from court for decades because of his criticism of the Catholic Church. Now at age 84 and the most famous writer in the world, he returned to Paris to see his last play Irene debut, but in reality to die. This night his passage to the theater became a triumphant procession as his coach was mobbed by cheering people shouting Vive Voltaire! After the play he was too frail to take a bow so a bust of him was placed center stage and adorned with garlands and flowers.

1789- Father of the U.S. Navy John Paul Jones is accused in Russia of having sex with a ten year old minor. He later proved the girl was being pimped around by her mother, but Catherine the Great told him to leave her country anyway. After the American Revolution, Jones had turned mercenary and organized Catherine's Black Sea fleet. He retired to Paris, ill and exhausted. Thomas Carlyle said he looked “like an empty wine skin.” Abigail Adams said “ He was so small I could have wrapped him in wool and kept him in my pocket…” He died in 1817.

1809- First Lady Dolly Madison began the tradition of regular White House receptions in the Drawing Room. Her husband James Madison, despite being the writer of the Bill of Rights, was a timid person and was not good in crowds, and a poor speaker. But the vivacious Dolly dominated these soirees and accomplished more politicking than many of her male counterparts.

1822- FLORIDA ACQUIRED BY THE U.S. During the War of 1812 Spain allowed Britain to use Florida as a base for attacking the U.S. They also provided safe haven for the hostile Seminole Indians. This annoyed American politicians who wanted to have Florida anyway. General Andy Jackson concluded the First Seminole War by invading Florida and throwing the Spanish Governor out of Pensacola in 1818. What Jackson had started roughly, John Quincy Adams concluded diplomatically, with the Adams-Otis Treaty, buying Florida from Spain for $5 million.

1842- Dr. Crawford Long of Georgia uses Ether as an anesthetic in an operation. Before that surgeons had to have good biceps to hold down their patients while sawing on them. Surgery was actually less painful in ancient times because the patient was invited to chew an opium bulb “The Food of the Gods” before operating. In 1846 another doctor named W.T.G. Morton did a public demonstration of the Ether anesthesia process and tried to hog the glory of the invention, refusing to share any prizes with Dr. Long.

1858- The pencil eraser patented. The Eraser, or Rubber outside the U.S., was developed in 1770, but Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia first put it on the top of a pencil.

1856- Tsar Alexander II emancipates the Russian serfs. He's later blown up by terrorists.

1867- Seward’s Folly. Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the deal with Czarist Russia to buy Alaska for $7.2 million or two cents an acre.

1918- Thomas Edison sold his studio and got out of the movie business. He fired W.K.L. Dickson, inventor of the movie studio set, Edwin Porter the inventor of the narrative film, and J. Stuart Blackton, the inventor of cartoon animation, for annoying him too much about filmmaking. Edison was more interested then in finding a way to extract iron ore from rocks using magnets.

1968- In New York City’s Bowery district two children find the dead body of a homeless drug addict. He is later identified as Bobby Driscoll, 31, Walt Disney child star, and the voice of Peter Pan.

1981- PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN SHOT. After only few weeks in office President Ronald Reagan is shot by lunatic John Hinckley. Hinckley was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster. Reagan recovers. Jodie Foster was unimpressed. John Hinckley was a Republican.
In a bit of bizarre theater during the confusion Presidential Security advisor General Alexander Haig went to the media and announced he was in control: “ I am minding the store.” This is in direct conflict with the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which states plainly the line of succession goes from the President to the Vice President the Speaker of the House to the Senate Leader Pro-Tem. Fortunately, nobody took Haig seriously.
Presidential press secretary James Brady was shot in the head, which left him permanently brain damaged. He and his family later sponsored the Brady Handgun Bill, which was passed by President Clinton, but not renewed by Pres. George W. Bush.
Ironically, one of the reason Ronald Reagan’s life was saved was because Secret Service agents rushed him to the nearest emergency room, which was a Washington DC ghetto hospital with much too much experience with gunshot wounds. Reagan quipped to the doctors working on his collapsed lung- ”Hey, you guys aren’t Democrats, are you?”

2000- Dreamworks animated feature the Road to El Dorado premiered.

2007- Disney’s Meet the Robinsons.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is an agnostic?

Answer: An agnostic is a person who practices no formal religion, yet will not say there is no such thing as a divine being (atheist).

Quiz: What is an agnostic?



Yesterday’s Question:What is a subaltern?

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HISTORY FOR 3/29/2021

Birthdays: President John Tyler, Sir William Walton, Eric Idle is 79, former English P.M. John Major, Bud Cort is 72, LaToya Jackson, Eugene McCarthy, Jennifer Capriati, M.C. Hammer, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Cy Young, Christopher Lambert is 66, Jimmy Dodd, Disney animator Jack Kinney, Brendan Gleeson is 66, Lucy Lawless, Elle MacPherson, Amy Sedaris is 58



327AD- St. Jonah was squished to death in a wine press.



1461- Battle of Towdon. Edward IV Yorkist army defeated the last organized Lancastrian forces, ending the War of the Roses.



1519- Pope Leo X sent uppity monk Martin Luther an invitation to come to Rome and explain his curious opinions. Luther quickly understood his chances- once in the Vatican’s hands, at best he would be assigned to some obscure Italian monastery to live out his days in a vow of silence. At worst he would burn at the stake over a slow fire, with a nail hammered through his tongue, like earlier Vatican critics Jan Hus, Giordano Bruno and Savonarola. Martin Luther decided to tell Rome thanks, but no thanks, he’d stay in Germany where it was safe.



1638- The first Swedish colonists arrive in America. Remember at this time Sweden was just as big a kickass military power in Europe as England or France. In Delaware they built a settlement they call Fort Christina. Twenty years later the Dutch under Peter Stuyvesant captured the fort and drove them out. Despite their short stay, the Swedes left a lasting impression on the New World. They brought with them plans for steam baths and invented the Log Cabin.



1697- FRONTIER LIFE- French allied Abanaki Indians raided the cabins of Haverhill Massachusetts. The Indians carried off Mrs. Hannah Dustin and her maid. When Mrs. Dustins baby began to cry the Indians killed it, then being Catholic converts they paused to say a Rosary over him. But the mother was not in a forgiving mood.

This night when the warriors who guarded them slept, Mrs. Dustin and her maid quietly rose, grabbed tomahawks and murdered all the Abanakis. Then being aware of the Massachusetts bounty on Indian scalps she paused before fleeing to scalp all the bodies. She made it back home and earned 25 English pounds in prize money.

Rev. Cotton Mather included her story in his 1697 book Humiliations Follow’d with Deliverances, an early American best seller.



1814- As Russian, Swedish, Austrian and Prussian armies closed in around Paris Napoleons court led by Empress Marie Louise fled the city. Napoleon himself was at Troyes with his army. He rushed but arrived too late to save the city.



1886- COCA-COLA invented. Atlanta Pharmacist and liver pill salesman John Pemberton developed the carbonated drink, originally with Cocaine in it. His bookkeeper Francis Robinson penned the famous script logo, still in use today. Advertising for the drink claimed it cured everything from hysteria, cholic and the common cold.

The formula is still a secret. During World War II the Nazis openly worried how a break with the United States would effect their supply of Coca Cola, so Dr Goebbels arrested Coke execs in Germany and forced them to develop Fanta Cola.



1903- THE BIRTH OF THE DRIVE IN RESTAURANT? New York tycoon CKG Billings wanted to celebrate his new racing stables in Washington Park. So he invited 50 of the top New York financial society to a formal black tie dinner at Sherry’s Restaurant, except the entire dinner would be eaten on horseback. The horses were kept in a circle and a canvas painting of the English countryside provided the backdrop to the room. The moguls ate from solid silver trays and sipped champagne from straws in their saddlebags. The Horseback Dinner was one of the more outrageous examples of Gilded Age wealth and excess .



1936- Republic Pictures formed.



1939- Moviestars Clark Gable and Carole Lombard marry. They had a happy marriage until Lombard was killed in a plane crash in 1942. It’s been said the first California King Size mattress, slightly larger than normal king size, was ordered custom made for Gable and Lombard for their rather exuberant assignations at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.



1951- 'The King and I' debuts on Broadway with Gertrude Lawrence and Yul Brynner, who shaved his head for the first time for the role.



1952- President Harry Truman announced he would not seek reelection.



1962-THE BILLY SOL ESTES AFFAIR- Estes was the "fertilizer king" and considered an insider in the Kennedy White House. His arrest by the F.B.I. for selling $30 million dollars in fraudulent fertilizer tanks implicated several heads of the agriculture department. It became the only major scandal of John F. Kennedy’s administration. Before his career in fertilizer, Estes tried running a funeral parlor but went out of business, ran for local office but was defeated by a write-in candidate. He became a campaign manager for the failed 1956 Presidential bid of Adlai Stevenson. As campaign manager he paid for large quantities of parakeets to be dropped by plane over major American cities and chant in unison "Vote for Adlai!"



1971- First day of shooting on the film The Godfather. Francis Coppola wanted young actor Al Pacino for the Michael Corleone role, but Pacino had signed with Fox to do a different film- The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Producer Robert Evans begged and pleaded with Fox exec James Aubrey aka "The Smiling Barracuda", to get Pacino released from his contract. Finally Aubrey replaced him with Jerry Ohrbach. He called Evans and said:" Alright, you can have the midget." The scene was Michael and Kaye coming out of Best & Co. Dept. Store while Christmas shopping.



1973- Last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam. President Nixon announced that night " We have Peace with Honor". Communists conquered South Vietnam two years later.



1974- Mariner 10 was the first satellite to reach the planet Mercury.



1974- A Chinese farmer digging a well discovered the huge buried terracotta army of Chinas’ first emperor at XIAN.



1975- The Communist North Vietnamese capture DaNang, South Vietnam’s second largest city, signaling the beginning of the final drive on Saigon to end the Vietnam War.



1979- The House Committee Investigation into Assassinations, published their conclusions. They concluded that "President John F. Kennedy was in all probability killed by a conspiracy " but just who and why and what to do about it, they didn’t know.



1989- As part of one of the silliest Oscar telecasts in history, actor Rob Lowe had to dance and sing 'Proud Mary" with Las Vegas showgirl Eileen Bowman dressed as Disney’s Snow White. Rob Lowe had just been embarrassed by the publication of a videotape shot in a hotel room of him having sex with two teenage girls. The Walt Disney Company immediately threatened a lawsuit. The Academy apologized and replaced director Alan Carr with Gilbert Cates.



1989- At that same Oscar ceremony Pixar’s short Tin Toy became the first CG animation to ever win an Oscar.



1992- Presidential candidate Bill Clinton uttered the legendary American phrase:" I smoked pot- but I didn’t inhale!"



1993- At the 65th Academy Awards, Disney’s Aladdin won two Academy Awards for Best Song and Best Track. Best Animated Short was Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase by Joan Gratz.



2018- A Buzzfeed article detailed how animator John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren & Stimpy, preyed on underage girls, promising them careers at his studio.

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Yesterday’s Quiz:What is a subaltern?



Answer: A British commissioned office below the rank of Captain. A synonym for low rank.

Quiz: What is an Ack-Ack gun?



Yesterday’s Question Answered below:In a symphony orchestra, what instrument traditionally gives out the tuning note “A” that all the other instruments tune from?

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History for 3/26/2021

B-Days: Robert Frost, Chico Marx, Conde Nast, Tennessee Williams, Alfred Houseman, Joseph Campbell, General William Westmorland, Erica Jong, Duncan Hines, Bob Woodward, Leonard Nimoy, Alan Arkin, James Caan is 82, Diana Ross is 78, Sandra Day-O’Connor, Martin Short, Bob Elliot of Bob & Ray, T. Hee, Michael Imperioli is 56, Keira Knightley is 37



1199- While attacking a small castle in Limousin named Chalus, English King Richard Lionheart was wounded by an arrow. Although the arrow wound wasn't very deep, blood poisoning set in and he died on April 6th. He was 42. Since he shunned the company of women and never made a direct heir, his brother evil Prince John became king anyway.



1351- The Combat of the Thirty. (Combat des Trente), During the Hundred Years War, 30 English knights challenged 30 Breton/French knights to a single combat. Called one of the most famous “deed of arms” of the Middle Ages. The struggle was quite intense. Geoffroy du Bois said to his wounded leader, who was asking for water: "Drink thy blood, Beaumanoir; thy thirst will pass" The Breton side eventually won.



1660- Since the death of the dictator Oliver Cromwell, the military government ruling Britain was breaking down. This day the exiled Prince Charles II Stuart in Holland received a message from Puritan General Monck inviting him to return to England to be king.



1791- The French politician Mirabeau had guided the French Revolution from the Bastille towards creating a constitutional monarchy on the English model. But being now the most famous man in France, Mirabeau lived and played hard. This night he “entertained” several female dancers all night, and woke up with violent intestinal cramps. He was dead by April 2nd. Without Mirabeau the French Revolution spun out of control into the Reign of Terror, then the dictatorship of General Napoleon.



1796- Napoleon Bonaparte takes command of the French Army in Italy. His promotion came mainly because new bride Josephine urged her old boyfriend Barras who was head of the French government to grant the little general with the Italian accent the assignment.



1811- Poet Percy Shelley was expelled from Oxford for writing a pamphlet that argued that God didn¹t exist.



1827- Ludwig van Beethoven died at age 56. Six people visited him while he was sick, 20,000 attended his funeral in Vienna. Romantic legend says he died at the violent peak of a thunderstorm raising his fists skyward in a last act of defiance to God himself, but in actual fact he died peacefully in his sleep.

He lived in an abandoned monastery given him as public housing by the Austrian government along with a small pension. He constantly complained about his poverty so that the Philharmonic Society of London sent him 1,500 gold English pounds from a benefit concert. After his death they found around 20,000 gold pieces hidden in cupboards and pots.



1830- Vermonter Joseph Smith, 24, first published "The Book of Mormon." Smith said the archangel Moroni in a dream aided his discovery of a later testament of Jesus written on golden plates in Reformed Egyptian, which Smith was able to translate with the aid of the "Urim & Thummim" stones.



1832- Artist George Catlin began his first trip to the West. He traveled up the Missouri River on the American Fur Trading steamer The Yellowstone. Catlin’s portrait paintings of Plains Indians became famous.



1860- The tip of the Kowloon peninsula and Stonecutter¹s Island ceded by China to Great Britain. This would become the site of Hong Kong. A British diplomat called it "The notch by which the tree will be eventually felled.." meaning that like India, all China would one day become part of the British Empire.



1865- At City Point Virginia, the Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander Stephens had a secret meeting with Abraham Lincoln to discuss peace terms to end the Civil War. But they couldn¹t agree on anything- Even at this late date Lincoln was offered a cash compensation of $4 million for the loss of slaves but Stephens said the deal breaker was Southerners would not admit they were wrong and ask for pardons. Alexander Stephens went back to Richmond empty handed and the war went on.



1883-To inaugurate her opulent new 5th Ave. mansion Mrs. Cornelia Vanderbilt held one of the most lavish costume balls in New York City history. She and Mrs. Astor had formed the Social Register, also called the Golden 400, the ranking of the top families in polite society. If you weren¹t on their list, then darling, you simply weren’t anybody.



The mansion stood where Bergdorf Goodman¹s faces the Plaza Hotel today. The party set new standards for the conspicuous wealth and excess of the Gilded Age. Many guests dressed as Venetian nobility.

Mrs. J.P. Morgan dressed as “Electric Light: The Wonder of the Age.”



1900- The Happy Hooligan comic strip.



1909- The U.S. Board of Censorship created.



1920- This Side of Paradise, the first novel published by a young Minnesota writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a descendant of Francis Scott Key, writer of the Star Spangled Banner.



1937- A statue of Popeye the Sailor unveiled at the Crystal City Texas Spinach Festival.



1942- The first trainload of Jewish people arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp.



1943- Just outside of Chicago, gangster Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti took a walk down a railroad track, took a swig of bourbon, put a 32mm pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. He first waved to get the attention of some track workers so they could witness that he was taking his own life and was not the victim of another gangster. The successor to Al Capone was going to be indicted the next day on Federal charges of racketeering, and he knew they had enough from stoolies to put him away for a long time.



1953-The Salk Vaccine for Polio announced.



1953- President Dwight Eisenhower increased US aid to the French fighting the Vietnamese in Indochina, but refused outright military intervention.



1955- The song The Ballad of Davey Crockett, went to number 1 in the pop charts.



1958- The Mau-Mau Rebellion in colonial Kenya. It's debatable just how extensive or violent the Mau-Maus were. Many Kenyan resistance did not call themselves Mau Mau, but the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army (KLFA). but the British colonial authorities used fear of the Mau Mau as the excuse to arrest real nationalists like Njomo Kenyatta.



1959- Writer Dashell Hammett died.



1960- THE MOULIN ROUGE AGREEMENT- Las Vegas gambling casinos finally integrate. Before this stars like Sammy Davis Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald could headline in the clubs but had to exit via the kitchens and sleep across town in the colored section. Singer Nat King Cole was requested to keep his eyes on his piano keys for fear if he looked up he would seduce young white girls. Frank Sinatra played a big part in lobbying the Vegas Mob guys to change with the times. Marlene Dietrich grabbed Lena Horne by the arm and stormed into a casino bar defying any reaction. None came. The Moulin Rouge was the first completely integrated casino.



1969- The western movie 100 Rifles premiered. It broke taboos, because it featured sexy Raquel Welch making love to sexy black hero Jim Brown. And Burt Reynolds as the bandito Yaqui Joe Hererra.



1969- On this day a frustrated young writer named John Kennedy Toole committed suicide. When his mother went through his things she found the manuscript of a novel in an old shoebox. Seven years she mother forced the manuscript upon novelist Walker Percy to read. He was teaching at Loyola University in New Orleans. He was stunned with what he read. That lead to it being published by Louisiana State University Press. The book the"Confederacy of Dunces” went on to be a critically acclaimed bestseller and win a Pulitzer Prize.



1970- Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary admitted to having sex with a 14 year old girl.



1973- The Young and the Restless soap opera premiered.



1975 - The Who¹s rock opera "Tommy" premiered in London.



1976- USC sophomore Levar Burton screen tested for the role of Kunta Kinte in the landmark TV miniseries Roots. The role made him a star.



1976 - Wings release "Wings at the Speed of Sound" album .



1977 - Elvis Costello releases his first record "Less Than Zero"



1978- The skull of Swedish scientist-philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg auctioned at Sotheby¹s for $3,200. Swedenborg's family had found it in an antique shop and kept it until the auction. They said they needed the money.



1979- Camp David Peace Accords signed between Israel and Egypt. Israel¹s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt¹s leader Anwar Sadat at one point were so uncooperative President Carter had to walk from cabin to cabin because they wouldn¹t meet in the same room.

Menachem Begin liked to mess with people’s minds. At one point to cut the tension Presidential advisor Zbignew Brezshinski invited Begin to play chess. As they sat Begin said softly “ I haven’t played chess in 40 years. Not since the day the Nazis kicked in my door and dragged me and my family off to Auschwitz.”

While Brezshinski was thinking about the enormity of that statement, Mrs. Begin came in and said: “Oh, I see you¹re playing chess, it¹s Menachem¹s favorite. He never stops playing!”



1982 - Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder release "Ebony & Ivory" in the UK



1982- In Washington DC, groundbreaking for the Vietnam War Memorial. aka The Wall.



1989- The first free elections in Russia made Boris Yeltsin President.



1992- Heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson was convicted of rape.



1997- Turner Animation's film 'Cat's Don't Dance", featuring the last movie work of Gene Kelly. He was a consultant on the dance sequences.



2008- Arnold Schwarzenegger fired Clint Eastwood. No, its’ not a movie plot line. The former actor, turned Republican Governor, objected to a position the actor/director and former Republican mayor took on the California State Parks Commission.



2228 - According to Star Fleet records- James T. Kirk, captain of Federation Star Ship Enterprise (Star Trek) was born.

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Yesterday’s Question:In a symphony orchestra, what instrument traditionally gives out the tuning note “A” that all the other instruments tune from?



Answer: The oboe.

Question: Movies based on Marvel characters are very popular. Who was the first Marvel character to get their own movie?



Yesterdays’ question answered below:In what country is the mountain called Ben Nevis?

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History for 3/23/2021

Birthdays: US Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Akira Kurosawa, Joan Crawford, Dr. Werner Von Braun, Juan Gris, Chaka Khan, Paul Grimault, Sidney Hillman, Jack Ruby, Joan Collins, Eric Fromm, Fanny Farmer, Catherine Keener is 62, Hope Davis is 57



In ancient Rome today was the Tubilustrum, the Festival of the Sacred Trumpets of Minerva. Yes, the word is the origin of the word Tuba, although the modern tuba wasn’t invented until 1835.



Today is the Feast day of the Irish Saint Gwinear. Gwinear loved animals so much that once when he was thirsty he struck the ground with his staff to make a clear pool appear, then again to make another one for his dog and horse.



1721- Johann Sebastian Bach sent the first copy of his Brandenburg Concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg. When the Margrave died, an inventory was made of his holdings in Berlin, the value placed on each concerto was six groschen, or about $5 each.



1775- During the debate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry

said the only way to deal with England was :"I KNOW NOT WHAT COURSE OTHERS MAY FOLLOW, BUT FOR ME -GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH !" Henry became Gov. of Virginia, but later he was forgotten in the formation of the new nation, especially after he declared publicly that the Constitution was a big mistake, and Tom Jefferson was an incompetent coward.



1806-After exploring the Pacific coast around the mouth of the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark start back for home.



1857- Stewart's department store in New York installs the first of Mr. Elisha Otis's new invention, the elevator. There were earlier steam elevators, but the danger of falling frightened off customers. Mr. Otis’ system of brakes and cut offs in the event of a cable failure made elevators popular and the age of skyscrapers possible.



1877- Mormon elder John D. Lee was convicted of the murder of 120 settlers when he ordered his men to attack a pioneer wagon train as it passed through Utah in 1857, the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre. On this day John D. Lee was marched to the massacre site, stood beside his own coffin and shot by firing squad.



1877- the first telephones installed in the White House.



1894- Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan-Doyle was in Davo Switzerland helping his wife recover from tuberculosis at a spa in the Alps. While there, the Swiss introduced him to a new sport that he quickly took to. This day he wrote to London enthusiastically about Ski-Running, or Skiing. Conan-Doyle predicted in the Strand Magazine “Within a generation, thousands of English people will be coming to the Alps to ski.” Today there are is a statue of Sir Arthur in Davo, Switzerland.



1903- Orville and Wilbur Wright kept looking for someone to build them a motor light enough to power their airplane design. Finding no taker, they built the thing themselves, and the propeller and this day took out an U.S. patent on the Airplane. They didn’t actually fly in it until nine months later.



1909- Two weeks after leaving the presidency, Teddy Roosevelt disembarked from New York, bound for a big game hunt in Africa. Banker J.P. Morgan said,” Every American hopes the African lions will do their duty.”



1918- In a final attempt to break French defenses during World War I, the Germans begin firing their giant "Big Bertha" cannon at Paris. The shells fly 77 miles and took three minutes to reach their targets. The first shell hit Place De La Republique. A gunner said the discharge of the cannon sounded like, “an enormous vomiting dachshund'.



1919- Benito Mussolini founded the Parti Fasci di Combatimento or Fascist Party in Italy. He started his career as a socialist union leader but swung to the other side later (better benefits?) He named his ultra-right group after the wrapped bundle of sticks with an axe sticking out that was carried before ancient Roman consuls, the fasces, it symbolized Roman power. In a previous generation Garabaldi's men were called Red-Shirts so Mussolini adopted the Black-Shirts. Later Hitler made his storm troopers Brown-Shirts.



1936- Ollie Johnston got his first job at the Walt Disney Studio, as Fred Moore’s assistant.



1945- THE FIRST JET FIGHTER ATTACK- In a last-ditch attempt to stop the allied armies entering Germany, the Luftwaffe mounted an attack on two captured Rhine river bridges by fifty jet fighters. The Messerschmidt ME-262 Schwalbe (Swallows).

Half never get off the ground, others get lost and the rest don't accomplish anything. The Luftwaffe aces like Adolph Galland thought the jets were ideal for shooting down big B-17 bombers, but Hitler insisted they carried bomb loads, which slowed them down enough for propeller planes to hit them. The experimental jet fuel was so unstable that it had to be mixed by a chemist as it was being poured into the gas tank. If the mixing was done improperly the whole thing could explode on the runway.



1945- Later that day General George Patton led a group of journalists and photographers out to the center of the Rhine bridgehead. One journalist asked his thoughts now that he was breaching Hitler’s vaunted Siegfried Line and daring to go where no foreign soldier had stepped since Napoleon.

As cameras clicked the Patton undid his fly and took a long healthy whiz in the Rhine River. “I waited all morning to do that! Yessir, the pause that refreshes!” My father remembered signal corps photo lab assistants made a brisk business selling copies of the famous incident on left over scraps of enlargement paper. That photo was taken by Tech Sgt. Paul Dougherty of the 737 Tank Battallion.



1957- Art Clokey's Gumby Show. Clokey created the green clay fellow for his USC college thesis film Gumbasia.



1971- US Congress lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.



1973-White House attorney John Dean tells President Nixon:" There's a cancer on the Presidency...."



1976- Panamanian middleweight Roberto Duran was being honored in Havana. Fidel Castro casually remarked to Duran “Hey, what do you think would happen if my fighter Teofilo Stevenson met Muhammad Ali?” Duran laughed, ” Him? Ali would kill him!” Duran was suddenly on a plane home that night.



1977- The first Richard Nixon-David Frost interview.



1983- STAR WARS- President Ronald Reagan announced in a nationwide speech the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed the Star Wars Program. He said US scientists were going to create a protective umbrella of laser satellites in orbit that would shoot down hostile nuclear missiles.

This program would cost trillions and even if it worked it could never stop all the missiles launched in a Soviet first strike. Conservative apologists said that the re-escalation of the cold war arms race drove the Soviets crazy and their inability to keep up with arms spending sped their economic collapse. Star Wars wasted billions of U.S taxpayer dollars before it was stopped.

On the day of the 9-11 World Trade Center Attack National Security Advisor Dr Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to make a major speech announcing the Bush White House resuming of the Star Wars program.



1987- After meeting creator Matt Groening, animators David Silverman, Wes Archer and Bill Kopp began animating the very first Simpson’s short for the Tracy Ullmann Show.



1989- COLD FUSION- Two physicists named Ponds & Fleischman make incredible claims that they had discovered a way to make electric power from Cold Fusion. This would mean limitless cheap power that left little waste. It could even use nuclear waste as a fuel. After a lot of excitement, upon closer scrutiny it was discovered their formula didn’t work. Oh well.



1990- President George Bush Sr. banned broccoli from the White House.

He joked; "Read My Lips ! I hate Broccoli !"



2003- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, Beating out Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet.

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Yesterday’s Question:In what country is the mountain called Ben Nevis?



Answer: Scotland.