Quiz: In illustrations of Dickens A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Jacob Marley is always wearing a bandage around his head lengthwise. Why?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: In Literature, who was Rodion Raskolnikov?
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History for 12/18/2023
Birthdays: Antonio Stradivari, Karl Maria Von Weber, Ty Cobb, George Stevens, Ozzie Davis, Diane Disney-Miller, Anita O’Day, Paul Klee, Betty Grable, Willy Brandt, Keith Richards is 81, Leonard Maltin is 73, Alyssia Sanchez-Vaccario, Ray Liotta, Katie Holmes is 45, Brad Pitt is 59, Steven Spielberg is 77, Billy Ellis is 22.

1679- THE ROSE ALLEY AMBUSCADE- Writer and critic John Dryden was walking in the Rose Alley in Covent Garden when a group of thugs jumped him and beat him up. They had been hired by The Earl of Rochester, because Dryden had published an essay making fun of him. Other writers like Voltaire suffered similar attacks from powerful men who can’t take a joke.

1757- Frederick the Great’s army besieged the Fortress city of Breslau in Silesia (modern name Wroclaw). The Austrian garrison’s commander General Sprecher posted placards throughout the town threatening with death anyone who breathed a word of surrender- then he surrendered.

1783- The American Revolution now over, George Washington appeared before Congress in Philadelphia to resign his army commission and go home to Mount Vernon. This moment was when George Washington parts company with most conquerors like Cromwell, Napoleon and Castro. He had power, and then walked away. In Europe
Kings George III and Louis XVI were amazed when they heard the news: That Washington, the great generalissimo, the most powerful man in the Americas, would give up his office so lightly, to return to his farm like some the legendary Roman –Cincinnatus to be exact. George Washington came out of retirement five years later to be the first U.S. president.

1787- New Jersey named the third state.

1812- NAPOLEON'S RETREAT FROM MOSCOW ENDED -Napoleon reached Paris by sled after racing ahead of his shattered army to prop up the tottering government.
Of Napoleon's 600,000 troops that invaded Russia less than 60,000 frozen wretches came out. Insanely brave Marshal Ney was the last invader to re-cross the border. Alone, with bullets whistling past his ears, he calmly crossed the burning Neiman River bridge stopping to pick up abandoned muskets to fire them back at the pursuing Russians. After he fired a last shot he threw the empty rifle at them.
When Napoleon got to his palace at Saint Cloud he was so filthy from the trip the doormen didn't recognize him, and wouldn't let him in. His first official acts after the public announcement of the disaster was ordering the Paris ballet dancers to dance commando, without tights. While that topic dominated society gossip, his second act was to give the French people a big tax cut. Watching King Louis XVI lose his head gave Nappy a healthy respect for the anger of the common people.

1812- The first volume of stories Children’s and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm came out. The world learns of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

1890-The first electric powered subway train opened in London. This allowed the subways to be built in closed tunnels (or tubes) under buildings. The older steam engine tube trains operating since 1863 needed an open trench for the coal smoke to be let out.

1912- THE PILTDOWN MAN- An announcement was made, of a find, in a peat pit, in England, of the remains of a human ancestor between ape and man, the so-called "Missing Link". The skull had canine teeth like an animal but it had an enlarged cranium like a man and was buried with primitive tools. This find was made at the time Darwin’s Evolutionary theories were being hotly debated. The authenticity of the Piltdown Man was thrown into question in 1949. When modern dating techniques were perfected, by 1953, the Piltdown Man was officially declared a hoax. The remains were too modern to be ancient and the canine teeth had been filed down by tiny files. It is generally believed that a practical joker named Martin Hinton at the British Museum of Natural History may have been the perpetrator.

1916- The terrible Battle of Verdun ended. It had been raging since February. German General Von Falkenhayn wanted to draw France into a meatgrinder battle and 'bleed her white'. After hundreds of thousands of casualties, he had done just as much damage to his own side. He lost his job. The Verdun cemetery contains 100,000 bones of Unknown soldiers. Even today in Verdun there are areas you cannot walk for fear of unexploded shells.

1917- Universum-Film AG (UFA) was founded as a consolidation of private film companies in Berlin.

1919- in France, composer Cole Porter married divorcee Linda Thomas. They stayed together all their long lives even though she knew that he preferred male companions.

1931- Gangster Jacky "Legs" Diamond had a penchant for recovering after being shot repeatedly by pistols and shotguns. It was said he had so much lead in him he could attract a magnet. Today someone finally shot him down and he didn't get up.

1937- Mae West did a comedy routine on national broadcast radio with Don Ameche about Adam & Eve that was considered so suggestive CBS banned her from their network. At the same time she got fined by the networks for joking about ventriloquist puppet Charlie McCarthy:" Hmmm…he’s a yard long and all wood."

1940- Adolf Hitler and his generals promulgate the plans for Directive 21, the invasion of Soviet Russia next June. They name it Barbarossa after a legendary German Emperor, a contemporary of Richard the Lionhearted, who fought back the migrating Eastern Slavs.

1941- Japanese forces overwhelm the island post of Guam. 641 Marines against 5,000.

1944- MOE BERG AND THE NAZI EINSTEIN. Head of the German atomic program, Prof. Werner Heisenberg gave a lecture on S-matrix physics in Zurich, Switzerland. In the audience was Moe Berg, allied spy, amateur physicist and baseball catcher for the Washington Senators (sounds ridiculous but true). Before the war, Berg and Heisenberg were both friends with Danish physicist Niels Bohr, hence his invitation. U.S. intelligence gave Berg a pistol and instructed him to stand up and shoot Heisenberg dead on the spot, if he felt from the talk that the Nazis were close to finishing their Atomic Bomb. Moe Berg listened to the lecture, coolly schmoozed Heisenberg at the reception afterwards, and even walked him home, but did nothing. In the 1950's Berg was a frequent contestant on quiz shows.

1956- Japan was admitted into the UN.

1956- TV Game show To Tell the Truth made its debut. Bud Collyier hosting, and panelists like Kitty Carlisle, Bennett Cerf, Orson Bean and Dorothy Kilgallen as panelists.

1960- A young, eccentric man named Jerry Garcia was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army. He had done things like drive a tank into a field then walking away. He had been AWOL 8 times in one year. After leaving the army, Jerry Garcia became a hippie musician in San Francisco. In 1966 formed the rock band the Grateful Dead.

1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night… a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts.

1962- UPA’s Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol directed by Abe Levitow, premiered on NBC. Songs by Bob Merrill and Jules Styne, who went on to write musicals like Funny Girl.

1964- DePatie-Frelengs The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short.

1966- Chuck Jones 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered.

1970- An atomic leak at a Nevada weapons stockpile caused hundreds to flee.

1972- President Nixon announced that despite all the antiwar street protests he would continue to carpet-bomb North Vietnam and Laos until he got a negotiated settlement.

1975- Rod Stewart announced he was leaving the band Faces, for a solo singing career.

1978- SAG strikes Hollywood again for residuals. (again...)

1983- The film of Jean Shephard’s A Christmas Story opened to tepid reviews and weak box office, but on cable and video sales it became an annual holiday classic.

1984- Christopher Guest married Jamie Lee Curtis at Rob Reiner’s house .

1984- Pixar’s first short The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B released in theaters. Directed by Alvy Ray Smith and animated by John Lasseter.

1997- Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. His last words were to an exhausted prostitute:" Please don’t leave me.” Farley idolized the late John Belushi, who had also died of drugs and hard living at age 31. One writer recalled a drunken Farley once turned to him and asked:" Do you think Belushi is in heaven?"

1988- Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time opened.

1998- Dreamworks The Prince of Egypt”, opened wide in theatres.

2003- Gary Ridgeway, "The Green River Murderer" was sentenced to life in prison. In the 1980’s Ridgeway murdered 48 women in the Seattle area. "I murdered mostly prostitutes, because I figured nobody would miss them."

2009- A massive blizzard buried the U.S. east coast. Washington D.C. got 24 inches, the most December snow since the 1920s.

2015- Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens opened. J.J. Abrams reboot of the old Star Wars franchise became a box office phenomenon. It earned $247 million in its opening weekend and ended way over a billion and a half dollars.

2019- Congress voted to impeach President Donald Trump for attempting to enlist foreign governments like Russia to corrupt the 2016 election. We now know Russian hackers were actively involved in spreading disinformation on line in the 2016 election, but the conservative congress ensured no further investigation was ever made.

2020- “The Unhinged Meeting” The election was over, and electors had already cast their votes as outgoing President Trump called an unscheduled meeting at the Oval Office. Trump hangers-on like Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Sydney Powell and the former CEO of Overstock.com faced off with the regular White House staff and Chief Counsel. They spent the next six hours floating absurd ideas to keep Trump in power like seizing voting machines, declaring martial law and arresting objectors. Eyewitnesses could hear screaming and personal insults through the walls. When they finally left empty-handed, The Chief Counsel had to personally walk Giuliani out of the White House to make sure he didn’t double back in. That night at 1:42AM, outgoing Pres. Trump started tweeting about a rally on the 6th of January, the day the election results were scheduled to be certified in Congress.
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Yesterdays question: In literature, who was Rodion Raskolnikov?

Answer: He was the main character in Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.

Quiz: In literature, who was Rodion Raskolnikov?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What was Beetlejuice before it was a popular Tim Burton movie?
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History for 12/17/2023
Birthdays: Paracelsus (otherwise known as Nicholas Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim) the father of modern medical diagnosis, Antonio Cimmarosa, William Lyon Mackensie-King, Arthur Fiedler, Bob Guccione, William Safire, Cal Ripken Sr., Ford Maddox-Ford, Erskine Caldwell, Tommy Steele, Pope Francis I, Bill Pullman is 70, Eugene Levy is 77, Giovanni Ribisi is 49, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Wes Studi is 76, Sean Patrick Thomas, Mila Jovovich is 49, Bart Simpson is 34.

ROMAN FESTIVAL OF SATURNALIA- Today was the first day of the festival of Saturn, the biggest holiday to the ancient Romans, one of the roots of Christmas. On this holiday no business was conducted, Roman families ate together, masters served their slaves, and gave them a day off. People gave each other gifts in pretty colored wrappings. Romans also decorated the outsides of their houses with wreaths and lights (oil lamps). Christians began using the Saturnalia as the birth festival of Jesus as early as 335AD. It was made official by the Pope in 885 AD. So, at sunset, face towards the setting sun and shout "Io, Io, Saturnalia!", for Hail Saturn!

1596- In a warning of what his son Charles I would face in England, this day Scottish King James VI was chased out of Edinburgh by his pushy Presbyterian Parliament. James responded with an economic blockade of his capitol by withholding royal grants and contracts until by New Years the populace was clamoring for his return.

1777- VALLEY FORGE- When Lord Howe’s British Army called the Christmas Truce and beds down in Philadelphia, George Washington’s army made camp not too far away at Valley Forge. The severe winter and poor conditions made Washington’s Army lose as many men as if there had been a battle. 2,500 out of 10,000 minutemen did not survive to see Spring. Meanwhile the local farmers sold their harvest to the British, who paid better.

1793 -Battle of Toulon begins. The French Revolutionary army tried to retake the Mediterranean seaport whose royalist population had invited in an occupation fleet of English, Spanish and Piedmontese. The commanding French generals were nervous about failure, because to first magistrate Robespierre failure meant the guillotine. So they yielded the initiative to a pushy 23-year-old artillery major with a funny Italian name- Napoleon Bonaparte.

1843- Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story for Christmas" first published. In the 18th century and earlier the Christmas celebration was a more rowdy affair with public drinking, marching around in costumes “mummery” and mayhem more resembling Mardi Gras.
The popularity of Dickens story of Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim did much to help Victorians change the nature of the Christmas celebration to a more intimate observance centered on the family. Charles Dickens said he wrote the book to make money. He had two flops and wanted to capitalize on the new fashion for family Christmas celebrations set by the example of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

1862- GRANT'S GENERAL ORDER #11- When Union army troops occupied large parts of Confederate Tennessee, southerners wondered what kind of retribution the angry U.S. government would wreak upon their heads. They were amazed when the new commander of the Union troops, Ulysses Grant, issued an order expelling all Jews from East Tennessee! His reasoning was that drygoods salesmen and were cheating his men. Abe Lincoln was shocked. "Isn't our country divided enough?!" The order was countermanded by the White House and Grant was ordered to apologize. Grant later admitted the criticism of his hasty order was justified, and he “should not have legislated against any one particular sect.” During the eight years of Grant’s presidency, memories of General Orders No. 11 surfaced repeatedly. Eager to prove that he was above prejudice, Grant appointed more Jews to public office than any of his predecessors. Jewish leader Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise noted at the time, that Grant had “often repented” of his order, and “that even the wise also fail.” ‘

1865- Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (#8) received its world premiere. In 1822 Schubert wrote the first two movements and 8 measures for the 3rd (Scherzo), then forgot about it when he died in 1828. A friend kept the manuscript in a trunk for 43 years.

1892- Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” premiered at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. One child dancer playing a candy cane in that first performance was a Georgian boy named Gyorgi Balavadajze- later American choreographer George Balanchine.

1902- THE VENEZUELA CRISIS- Kaiser Wilhelm threatened Venezuela with naval blockade and invasion if she did not pay her international debts. US President Teddy Roosevelt sent Admiral Dewey with 23 battleships to the Caribbean and threatened war. Der Kaiser backed down and war was avoided. This incident was kept secret for seventy years. It’s when Teddy first said:” Speak softly and carry a big stick!”

1903- THE AIRPLANE- Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. For one minute a powered aircraft flew. Orville finished the day with a telegram to their father minding the bicycle shop back in Dayton Ohio: “ Success. Four Flights Thursday Morning against twenty-one mile an hour wind. Inform press home for Christmas.” The news failed to get into most national newspapers.
The Wrights themselves maintained a strict secrecy because they knew rivals like Glen Curtis, the French, and Smithsonian professor William Langley were all close to inventing an airplane as well. The sensation of the airplane didn’t really become widespread until the Wrights demonstrated their plane in France in 1908 and in New York Harbor in 1909. In 1913 Curtis took Langley’s flying machine the Aerodrome out of storage and flew it to prove to the Smithsonian that the Wright Brothers were not the first. The bitter disputes lasted the length of their lives.

1917- Lenin created the first Communist Secret Police, the Cheka, led by Iron Felix Derszhinsky:” My thoughts induce me to be without pity.” In a few months the Cheka executed more people than the Czars’ police the Okrana did in all of the XIX Century. The Cheka in Stalin’s time was called the OGPU, then NKVD, his executioners in the Great Purges. After Stalin, their name was changed to the KGB, the great spy and Secret Police operation set to bedevil their counterparts in the west- the CIA and MI5. The KGB was disbanded in 1991, and today is called the FSB. Russian Premier Vladimir Putin began his career as a KGB agent.

1928- Under orders from Josef Stalin, the Central Committee of the Soviet Union first declared that all rural land belonged to the community. All landowners were enemies of the state. This began The War on the Kulaks- the name for middle class peasants who owned some farmland. The purges of Kulaks, and famine from forced collectivization killed millions.

1934- First test flight of the Donald Douglas' DC-3, the most widely used airplane in aviation history. Unchanged for almost 60 years, the two engine DC-3 was the backbone of most of the world's first passenger airlines and with the military name C-47 (the Gooney Bird) it became the workhorse cargo plane of from World War II until Vietnam. There are still some DC-3's in service in some small countries.

1939- THE GRAF SPEE- The world media in the opening weeks of World War II were dominated by news of an epic sea duel between the British Navy and a German battleship. The British pursued the Graf Spee across the Atlantic into Montevideo Harbor in neutral Uruguay. This day while the sun was setting, radio broadcasters stayed on the air live and 250,000 spectators lined the shoreline to see if the Graf Spee would come out and fight. Instead, the tropical quiet was rent by a huge explosion. Kapitan Zur See Langersdorf had scuttled his own ship.
British intelligence had done a masterful job of fooling Kapitan Langersdorf into believing heavy naval reinforcements including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal were closing in on him, while in actual fact they were nowhere in the vicinity. All there was to try and stop the German battleship were three badly damaged light cruisers. After sinking the Graf Spee, Langersdorf wrapped himself in a German flag and shot himself. Interestingly he didn't use a Nazis swastika flag but wrapped himself in the old German Imperial Navy ensign. He also refused to give the stiff arm Nazis party salute.

1941- As if he hadn’t put his foot in his mouth badly enough already, Charles Lindbergh does it again today. After earlier in the year railing on about the “International Jewish Conspiracy pushing America into war” today in a speech Lucky Lindy denounced the war with Germany:” The only real threat to America is the threat of the Yellow Race. Japan and China are united against the white race. And our only natural ally is Germany”. This even after the public was enraged over Pearl Harbor. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Morgenthau told President Roosevelt: “I am convinced this guy is a Nazi”. Charles Lindbergh lived a long life, but never apologized or recanted his views.

1944- The MALMEDY MASSACRE- The largest documented atrocity committed on U.S. troops in Europe in World War II. During the Battle of the Bulge Nazi Waffen S.S. troops rounded up a large group of U.S. prisoners and machined gunned them all. 87 men of Battery B, 285th Field Artillery died. The atrocity stiffened U.S. resistance to the Nazis advance. The furor over President Reagan's laying a wreath at the Bitburg cemetery in 1985 was that some of the guilty SS of Malmedy were buried there.
One of the leaders of the massacre, Major Otto Wolf, did some prison time after the war and lived quietly until 1967, when he was found shot to death in his burning house, a smoking rifle in his hands like he was defending himself. Obviously, someone had not forgotten.

1944- During the Battle of the Bulge, near Krinkelt Belgium, Sgt. José Mendoza López picked up a heavy machine gun and held off a massed German assault all by himself. An orphan from Oaxaca, Mexico who moved to Texas, he stood up in a snowy foxhole offering no cover and mowed down waves of attacking soldiers, covering the retreat of his buddies. Sgt. Lopez was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and lived to be 94, dying in 2005. He credited his success to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

1944- As the extent of the German offensive in the Ardennes became clear, General Eisenhower declared the Belgian town of Bastogne would be the key. He ordered the 82nd and 101st Airborne to go there and hold the town at all costs.

1944- The U.S. War Department issued Public Proclamation 21, stating that all Americans of Japanese ancestry could leave their internment camps and finally go home.

1955- Carl Perkins awoke in the middle of a bad nights sleep and wrote Blue Suede Shoes, the first song to be a hit in Country, R&B and Rock n’ Roll charts simultaneously, especially when sung by Elvis Presley” Well you can knock me down, step on ma face, etc.”

1963- Americans began to hear on their transistor radios a new sound from a band from England named the Beatles. “I wanna hold your hand” becomes a big hit and heralds the British rock invasion in 1964.

1969- Tiny Tim, the campy, ukulele strumming crooner, married his Miss Vicky, or Victoria Budinger live on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

1969- The US Air Force terminated Operation Blue Book, the investigation of UFO phenomena.

1969- The Walt Disney Studio re-released Fantasia, and it was embraced by hippy stoners who liked to get high during screenings, Disney did a black-lite poster for it. It was the first time the 1940 film had ever made a profit.

1971- After the last Pakistani forces surrendered East Pakistan to invading Indian armies, East Pakistan was declared the independent nation of Bangladesh.

1989- Communist dictator Nicholas Cercescu ordered the Romanian Army to open fire on democratic protesters in Timisoara. Two thousand were killed. This incident pushed elements of the Army to turn their guns on the government. The Romanian Revolution was the most violent of the Communist regime changes of Eastern Europe.

1989- After appearing in interstitial shorts on the variety Tracey Ullman Show, The Simpsons first premiered as a regular TV series. Season 1, Episode 1, Simpsons roasting on an open fire. “

1999- The film Stuart Little premiered. Directed by Rob Minkoff.

2001- Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Haliburton Corporation, was awarded a ten-year no-bid contract to provide the U.S. Army with everything from firefighting to building bases to serving meals. Soldiers won’t dig latrines, because KBR port-o-pottys will be there. A soldier couldn’t wipe his face with a towel that didn’t have a KBR logo on it. Haliburton made $39 billion in the Iraq War. Vice President Cheney was a senior stockholder of Haliburton.

2010- The Arab Spring- Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26 year old peddler in Tunisia, had his pushcart confiscated for being unable to pay a fine. It was his only source of income to feed his family. He protested by standing in front of a police station and setting himself on fire. As Bouazizi died, Tunisians rose in massive protests and overthrew their longtime President Ben Ali. The pro-democracy protests quickly spread to Egypt, then Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Syria and all over the strongman one party states of the Middle East.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was Beetlejuice before it was a popular Tim Burton movie?

Answer: Betelgeus is a red-giant star in our neighboring system Orion. Large enough to be visible to the named eye at night. The dying star is expected to disappear in about 10,000 years. Set your timer!

Quiz: What was Beetlejuice before it was a popular Tim Burton movie?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the correct way to spell Chanukah, err…Hanukkah, um...Chanukkah?

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History for 12/16/2023
Birthdays: Ludwig Van Beethoven, Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII's wife # 1), Marshal Gerbhard von Blucher, Lenoid Brezhnev, Jane Austen, Margaret Mead, Noel Coward, George Santayanna, Caroline Munro. Steve Bochco, Leslie Stahl. Quentin Blake- dean of British illustrators favored by Roald Dahl, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Miranda Otto is 56, Liv Ullmann is 85.

250 Anniv 1773- THE BOSTON TEA PARTY- The British Parliament had angered the colonists of New England by disallowing any tea to be imported except by British vessels and then a heavy tax to the Crown was to be paid on its purchase. As New England women began to develop alternatives from grass and dandelions-what we now call Herbal Teas- the men of Boston threatened violence on any merchant who dared sell English tea.
On Nov 28th the good ship Dartmouth anchored at Griffith's Wharf (today called Independence Wharf), with 144 tons of tea to be cleared of customs by December 17th. A mob gathered at the Old South Meeting House to discuss what to do. The call was made for 'The Mohawks!" In the crowd were Paul Revere and artist Jonathan Trumbull. At 6:00 p.m. this night, men disguised as Indians boarded the Dartmouth overpowered the crew and tossed crates of tea into the harbor.
British Admiral Montague watched the mischief from his warship across the harbor, but didn't take any action "for fear of civilian casualties." He well remembered the political repercussions a few years earlier, when His Majesties troops fired into a snowball throwing crowd and the radical Yankees labelled it the Boston Massacre.
Next morning, all of Boston developed mass amnesia. No one seemed to know who did the deed? One man waited until he was ninety-three years old and the Revolution long over before he said who was there that night.

1777- The Comte’ De Vergennes, the foreign minister of the King of France, informed Ambassador Benjamin Franklin that France was now willing to recognize the United States and help in her war against Britain.
The previous year, British Prime Minister Lord North declared in Parliament that he doubted any crown in Europe would ever support the American rebels. "They would be laying the foundation for an American empire, whose forces would missionary a radical form of democracy around the world."

1796- THE YEAR OF THE FRENCH- Wolf Tone, sort of the Irish Malcolm X, convinced Revolutionary France to send an army of 14,000 troops to help the Irish revolt against Britain. The French fleet that set out was beset with problems from the beginning. The French ships did so many maneuvers to avoid the British Navy that they got lost, their Admiral got mixed up in a fog and some ships struck rocks. Finally the whole expedition gave up and went home within sight of the Irish Coastline. Wolf Tone wrote bitterly:" I could have hit the shoreline with a biscuit!”

1811- First of the New Madrid earthquakes, est 7.5 Richter, hit the Mississippi valley.

1824- PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED! - Was the response of the Duke of Wellington to a Mr. John Stockdale, who wrote him that he intended to publish the reminiscences of one of London's most notorious courtesans named Harriet Wilson. The beautiful Miss Wilson had slept with most of the leading men of London society. She intended to name Wellington as one of her frequent customers during the period 1805-1808, unless of course he chose to have his name removed- for 200 pounds. But such was the Iron Duke's famous answer.

1826- Benjamin Edwards rode into Nacogdoches Texas and tried to declare it the free Republic of Freedonia. None of the other Yankee settlers knew what he was talking about. As soon as regular Mexican troops arrived to arrest him, Edwards fled. He presaged future events in Texas. The only other thing it did was give the Marx Brothers a good name for their fictional country in the 1934 movie Duck Soup.

1835- THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION FORMED- After numerous revolts in Paris streets since 1789, Napoleon’s elderly friend Marshal Soult came up with a novel idea: Take all those street ruffians who made "Le Miserables" so colorful, put them in uniform and send them to the Sahara and hopefully they'll all get killed. The Foreign Legion has fought France’s wars from Madagascar to Mexico. To this day the Legion Étranger' takes anyone from any nation from 16 to 40, no questions asked. Their motto- “Marche ou Creve”, March or Die”.

1835- The Great Fire of New York City. A fire started at 9:00PM in a small shop on Merchant St. Because of the cold, fire hydrants and hoses froze and the rival volunteer fire departments argued over who got there first. The fire quickly grew out of control. It raged for four days- consumed 700 buildings over thirteen acres. Four hundred Philadelphia firemen had to come to the rescue.

1838- THE BATTLE OF BLOOD RIVER- Dutch-German Boers of South Africa had piled into their laager wagons and embarked north on the Great Trekk to get away from British authority in Capetown. When they crossed into the territory of the Zulu king Dingane their leaders went to make a pact with him to settle in his territory. Dingane welcomed the Vortrekker leaders into his camp, then killed them and pounded wooden stakes into their eyes. On this day the Boers exacted a terrible vengeance on the Zulu, shooting up their tribe and burning their abandoned capitol. They found the remains of their dead leader Piet Restiv with the signed covenant still in his bag. For years afterwards White Afrikaners celebrated this day as Covenant Day, or Dingane Day.

1863- The first of the Union wounded from the battle of Fredericksburg began to trickle into Washington DC. The organizer of the hospital suppliers, then called the Sanitary Commission was Frederick Law Olmstead the designer of New York’s Central Park. Writers Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman volunteered and served as nurses for the sick. Whitman had tried several odd jobs and had just published a thin quarto of poems entitled the Leaves of Grass, which polite society considered vulgar.

1871- BOSS TWEED INDICTED- William Marcy Tweed as New York City Commissioner of Public Works was behind one of the most corrupt city governments in U.S. history. Tweed mobilized poor and immigrant voters into political power and bought and sold city building projects. The cost overruns to build a simple courthouse cost more than the total cost to build the British Parliament in London- $13 million dollars. For example he once billed the city $14,000 for 11 thermometers.
The press tried to expose him, but it was really Thomas Nast’s cartoons in Harper’s Weekly who helped bring the Tweed Ring down. Boss Tweed said: "I don’t mind the newspaper articles since most of my voters can’t read, but those damn pictures!" Tweed once offered Nast half a million dollars to go to Europe and "study art". Nast refused. Boss Tweed ended his life in the Ludlow Street Jail, which he himself built.

1900 -EARLY ANIMATED FILM "ENCHANTED DRAWINGS', James Stuart Blackton was a New York World cartoonist who used to do a lightning-drawing act on the vaudeville circuit. He came to do an article on Thomas Edison, then Edison engaged him to make a film of his act. He created this and several other trickfilms. It doesn’t move much more than his vaudeville act. His 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is considered the first animated cartoon.

1905- Variety magazine born.

1907- THE WHITE FLEET- Pres. Teddy Roosevelt sent a big badass fleet of US Navy battleships all painted white on a round-the-world cruise. It was billed as a goodwill tour, but in an age when battleships were the viewed like nukes are today, the message to other world powers was obvious. That the USA would now be a serious player in world affairs. Teddy exulted” Doesn’t the sight of those big battleships get your pulse racing?”

1913- When his lead actor quit, Max Sennett recalled a young English music hall actor he saw with Fred Karno’s troupe back east. He wrote, “I think his name was Carson, or Caslon, or Chaplin?” This day Charlie Chaplin signed a contract at Sennett’s Keystone Studios in Hollywood. $150 a week. In his first film he would play a villain.

1935- Hollywood movie star Thelma Todd found dead in her car in her garage in Malibu She was 30. She was a sexy comedienne who could hold her own with Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers. She loved to party so much she was nicknamed "Hot Toddy". She dated New York gangster Lucky Lucciano. Was she done in by the mob, her jealous director boyfriend, was it a suicide or did she just pass out drunk in her car garage with the motor running? The mystery’s never been answered.

1944- THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE- In his last gamble, Adolf Hitler scraped together his remaining army reserves armed with new King Tiger tanks and launched them in an attack through the center of the allied armies. The Nazis panzers were spearheaded by a group of commandos in G.I. uniforms trained in American slang and baseball scores to confuse communications. They calculated to launch their offensive during a heavy snowstorm when the superior Allied air forces would have to be grounded.
After chasing the Germans across France to the Rhine, the Americans had come to consider the Krauts a defeated enemy. So, they were taken completely by surprise. One US POW noted as he was brought to the rear, seeing hundreds or Germans in fresh uniforms and new tanks. General Eisenhower had just gotten his fifth general's star and was attending the wedding of his orderly Rickie in Versailles when he got the news. Rickie’s bride was Pearlie.
The German attack was so successful that Franklin Roosevelt wanted to drop the first atomic bomb on Berlin. The offensive eventually stalled and was beaten back at the cost of 70,000 U.S. casualties; the most Americans killed and wounded in any single battle in history.

1948- A top Truman Presidential aide named Alger Hiss was indicted for perjury for lying to a Federal Grand Jury about passing secrets to a Communist turncoat agent named Whittaker Chambers. Chambers told so many lies that he was discredited as a witness, but Hiss was convicted on circumstantial evidence like microfilm found concealed in a pumpkin- The Pumpkin Papers.
The case of such a high ranking US official being a spy stoked the anti-commie paranoia of the 1950’s. Even decades later with the principle players dead, Communist Russia gone and the KGB files opened, the scholars continue to argue.

1966- New York Police raid the offices of Bernard Spindle, a freelance surveillance expert who bugged the phones of the rich and powerful. They carted off all his tapes and records; including tapes he claimed proved Marilyn Monroe’s sexual hijinks with President John Kennedy. He was later informed all his tapes were lost. Spindle’s career was the inspiration for the movies The Conversation and the Enemy of the State.

1966- The Jimi Hendrix Experience released the song ‘Hey Joe’.

1966- Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti western, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly premiered in Rome. The last of the Man with No Name trilogy. Clint Eastwood never worked with Leone again.

1971- Don McClean released the long version of the song ‘American Pie’.

1973- O.J. Simpson became the first NFL player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season.

1978- The Disney short The Small One, directed by Don Bluth.

1980- Colonel Harland Sanders, the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder, died.

1988- Shockjock Howard Stern is fined $100,000 by the FCC for having on his radio show a man who could play the piano with his penis.

1993- Producer Aaron Spelling fired star Shannon Dougherty off the TV soap Beverly Hills 90210.

1998- The premiere of Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt.

1999- Julie Andrews, star of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, sued New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital for destroying her singing voice during a routine throat operation.

2009- Roy E. Disney died, the Walt Disney nephew who oversaw the great animation resurgence of the 1990s.

2016- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story opened in theaters.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the correct way to spell Chanukah, err…Hanukkah, um...Chanukkah?

Answer: According to our friend the Rabbi Gladestone: Generally, the word starts with H or Ch, the second consonant is nn or n, the third consonant is kk or k and ends with ends with ah or a. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there are currently 24 correct spellings of the holiday. (I wonder if that includes the Hebrew חֲנֻכָּה.)

Question: What kind of music is Zydeco Music?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: True or False: Jingle Bells was not written to be a Christmas Carol.
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History for 12/14/2023
Birthdays: 1553-King Henry IV of Navarre*, Tycho Brahe, Nostradamus -Michel de Notre Dame-1503, English King George VI- 1895, Spike Jones the bandleader, Morey Amsterdam, Charlie Rich, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Lee Remick, Patty Duke, Adult film star Ginger Lynn, Clark Terry- trumpeter. Cecil Pay, Saxophonist, Jane Birkin "Je t'aime moi non plus" is 76.

*Henry of Navarre 1555-1610 was one of Frances most beloved kings. When he was born his father Duke Antoine du Bourbon rubbed garlic on his lips and gave him wine to be strong. One of Frances horniest kings, even as an infant, his suckling dried up 8 wet nurses!

Welcome to the first day of what is referred to as the HALCYON DAYS. (Hal-see-on). The seven days prior to and after the Winter Solstice, a time of tranquility and peace. Supposedly, no storms happen. In 1867 Walt Whitman wrote a poem about the Halycon Days in "Leaves of Grass", using it as a metaphor for the time in the winter of one's life, when contentment replaces the "turbulent passions" of younger years.

1575- The Parliament of the Polish Commonwealth had a unusual system of electing foreign princes to be their king. This day they invited Transylvanian Duke Stefan Bathory to come be king. Bathory turned out to be an okay king. He defeated Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible’ armies in battle, frustrating his efforts to gain an outlet to Western trade. But his niece Elizabeth Bathory was a bit strange. Called The Blood Countess.

1776- After chasing George Washington's miserable little rebel army from New York to Philadelphia, British General Lord William Howe announced the customary Christmas truce, and beds his army down for the winter. His subordinate Lord Percy wrote home:” It’s just about over with those people. We shall be home shortly.” Back in occupied New York City, Lord Howe took as a mistress Betsy Loring, the wife of his Boston superintendent of prisons. Mr. Loring grew rich on army contracts so he did not mind. A rebel poem of the time said: "Sir William He, snug as a Flea, lay in his bed a Snorring. Nor thought of Harm, as he lay Warm, in bed with Mrs......"

1782- British troops evacuated Charleston South Carolina, in preparation for the final peace treaty ending the American Revolution.

1798- David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a machine that made the new fangled inventions- metal screws, nuts and bolts.

1799- GEORGE WASHINGTON DIED. Washington had retired to Mount Vernon after his last presidential term in 1796. On Dec. 12th he went riding five hours during a sleet storm and caught the flu. Another theory was a viral infection of the epiglottis.
He might still have survived had it not been for modern medicine. Doctors bled him of four pints of blood, while applying leeches, mustard sulfur packs and laxatives to purge him of the ill humors. He developed pneumonia and died swiftly. Because coma was so little understood, people had a dread of premature burial. Washington left instructions that his body be left out several days to make sure he was dead before being sealed in a tomb. After assurances put his mind at ease his last words were:" Tis well." No priests or religious last rites were performed. Washington turned away a minister who offered. He was 67 years old, and always predicted he would not live very long.

The US government wanted to place his tomb at the center of the planned dome in the capitol building, but Washington’s wish was to be in a simple tomb in Mt. Vernon. He also freed all his 137 slaves and sent them each off with a pension.

1819- Alabama was separated out from Mississippi territory and made a new state. Under Spanish rule Alabama was known as West Florida.

1861- Albert the Prince Consort, husband of Queen Victoria, died at 42. Even though he died of typhoid fever, which was common in those times, Victoria blamed her son Bertie (Edward VII)'s sexual escapades as causing her beloved husband's heartbreak. One of Albert’s last acts was to tone down the diplomatic response to the Trent Affair, which avoided war with the United States.
Victoria wore mourning for the rest of her long life. She withdrew from formal politics for 12 years. She had Albert's rooms at Balmoral and Osborne kept like he was still there. Every single night for 40 years the servants would lay out his clothes and a basin of warm water like for some invisible user.
She kept the cast of his hand on her night table at night so she could reach out to touch it for reassurance. When she died in 1901 after reigning 64 years her last words were "Albert..."

1863- Battle of Bean’s Station. Confederates in Tennessee defeated Yankees.

1871- Verdi's opera "Aida" debuts in Cairo.

1894- Socialist union leader Eugene Debs was sentenced to six months in jail for organizing sympathy actions for the railroad workers striking the Pullman company. Debs young lawyer handling his first case was Clarence Darrow.

1901- The first Ping-Pong tournament held in London.

1911- Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and four others first reached the South Pole, winning the race against Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

1918- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter Marcella, by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing, friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.

1924- Ottorino Respighi ‘s rhapsody The Pines of Rome premiered.

1927- Charles Lindbergh does one last flight with his famous monoplane the Spirit of Saint Louis, from Washington to Mexico City. This is at the request of American Ambassador Dwight Murrow who wanted to improve Mexican-American relations. Lindbergh would not only improve relations, but also marry Murrow's daughter Anne. To make the flight a challenge Lindbergh took off at night in a rainstorm to prove air travel was safe. The President of Mexico and 150,000 people greeted him in Mexico City.

When flying he noticed many Mexican towns had signs named 'Caballeros' in their railroad stations. He reasoned Caballeros must be a popular name for a town.

1934- March of the Wooden Soldiers, the Hal Roach version of Babes in Toyland with Laurel & Hardy opened. Walt Disney had been trying hard to get the rights to Babes in Toyland for his first animated feature but lost out. Despite that, Walt and Hal Roach were good friends, and Walt allowed him to put a Mickey-looking mouse character in the film.

1944- Hollywood starlet Lupe Velez, the "Mexican Spitfire' committed suicide. She had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and laid herself out in a beautiful negligee of her own design to be found radiant in repose. But instead of dying immediately, the pills made her sick and she was found dead with her head in the toilet. In her prime she counted Gary Cooper, Anthony Quinn and Johnny Weissmuller among her lovers. When Weissmuller was filming Tarzan the studio complained to her that their lovemaking was so...err.. exhuberant?....that she was leaving fingernail scratch marks all over his back. The makeup department complained of all the effort to cover them.

1944- The film National Velvet premiered, making a star out of 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.

1945- Nazis camp guard Josef Brodsky “The Beast of Belsen”, was hanged.

1947- The National Association of Stock Car Racing or NASCAR formed.

1953- Young pitcher Sandy Koufax was signed by the Dodgers. He became one of their most famous pitchers of all time.

1957- Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon "Ruff and Ready" premiered.

1962- Mariner II reached the planet Venus. The first manmade probe to reach another planet. Although it stopped working, it’s still up there in orbit between Venus and Mercury.

1967- Greek generals overthrow King Constantine II and rule by junta led by General George Papadapolos.

1970- George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord went gold.

1972- THE LAST MAN LEAVES THE MOON. Apollo 17 blasts off. We all remember the first man on the moon, but do you remember the last? Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt. President Nixon annoyed NASA by saying he doubted that men would return to the moon in the remainder of the Twentieth Century, but he was right.

1974- Irwin Allen’s disaster film The Towering Inferno, opened.

1977- DISCO! The movie Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees make the Disco dancing scene a national craze.

1979- STUDIO 54 RAIDED- The Internal Revenue Service busted the worlds most famous disco club. Formerly the hangout of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and other “Beautiful People”, now the Feds were on to them. The IRS seized doctored account books, cocaine and undeclared cash, landing the owners in jail and bringing the celebrity playlands days to an end.

1983- Disney Studio released the short film Frankenweenie, by a weird young artist named Tim Burton. He was promptly fired upon its completion for wasting company resources. Later in 2012, when he was THE Tim Burton, he remade Frankenweenie as a full length stop-motion film.

1984- David Lynch’s version of Dune, with Kyle McClanahan.

2012- SANDY HOOK. Emotionally disturbed man Adam Lanza shot up a kindergarten school in Newtown Conn, killing 27 including his mother and 20 little children. Twenty years later nothing has changed.

2015- Hollywood premiere for J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars the Force Awakens.

2017- Rupert Murdoch sold off much of the Twentieth Century Fox Studio to Walt Disney for $66 billion. He kept his FoxNews division.
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Yesterday’s Question: True or False: Jingle Bells was not written to be a Christmas Carol.

Answer: True. Minister had moved from Boston to Savannah Georgia, but he missed New England winters. So he wrote a song about what fun it is ride in one-horse open sleigh.

Question: True or False: Jingle Bells was not written to be a Christmas Carol.

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Ingmar Bergman’s famous movie was The Seventh Seal. What does the Seventh Seal mean? Where did it come from?
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History for 12/13/2023
Birthdays: Heinrich Heine, Mary Todd Lincoln, Mike Mosley, Darryl Zanuck Jr., George Schulz, Christopher Plummer, Steve Buscemi is 67, Jamie Fox is 54, Lynn Holly Johnson, Wendy Malick, Taylor Swift is 34, Dick Van Dyke is 98

305AD -Today is the Feast of Saint Lucy, who was ordered by the Romans to be raped in a brothel, set on fire, stabbed to death, and to stop men saying how beautiful her eyes were, she ripped them out and handed them over on a plate. But they miraculously grew back. St. Lucy is the patron saint of opticians.

863- Duke Baldwin Iron Arm married Lady Judith du Kales.

1250 -Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II "Stupor Mundi" the Wonder of the World, his spirit broken by endless quarrels with the Pope and rebellious Italian city states, expired at age 52. Frederick had tried to re-form back the old Roman Empire but only succeeded in making Italy and Germany more divided than ever. Meanwhile France, England and Spain were developing into centralized nation states. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation or the 1st Reich, was never as powerful again.

1264- THE HOUSE OF COMMONS- Victorious rebel English Earl Simon de Monfort called for a meeting in Westminster of a Parliament of all nobles, clergy and common folk of the realm. It's probably the first time since the ancient Roman republic anybody had asked the common people their opinion about anything.
King Henry III and Prince Edward Longshanks couldn't argue because Simon had them locked up in the Tower. To make sure Earl Simon had bishops pronounce the most fearful oaths of excommunication on anyone who dared undo his creation. So even after Longshanks escaped and had DeMonfort chopped into mincemeat, the institution of the House of Commons remained.

1543- THE COUNCIL OF TRENT convened- Officially called the XIX Ecumenical Council, this conference launched the Catholic Counter-Reformation against the Protestant reformation.

1577- Francis Drake on his ship The Golden Hind weighed anchor and set sail from Plymouth. His crew thought they were on a quiet diplomatic mission to the Mediterranean, but once out to sea he told them they were really going to sail around South America and raid the Spanish treasure ships on the Pacific side. They circumnavigated the globe, not returning for three years. They even found a strange new place called California!

1642- Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the Pacific came upon a big island near Australia and named it for the Dutch province of Zeeland, so New Zealand. He also explored Fiji and Tonga and found another island and called it Van Deiman’s Land, but it was later named in his honor as Tasmania.

1672- Polish King Jan Casimir died a monk in Paris. He was king during a period of terrible wars with Russia, the Cossacks of the Ukraine, Turkey and Sweden. But he was pacific by nature. One saying was “the only battles Jan Casimir ever saw were woven in his Dutch carpets!”

1769- Dartmouth College founded.

1775- the U.S. National Guard formed.

1862- BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the men’s fashion-"sideburns") made his men attempt a frontal attack uphill on a Confederate position of concentrated fire that " a chicken couldn't live through."
The massed regiments of bluecoats were mowed down wave after wave in one of the worst disasters in U.S. Army history. The New York Fighting 69th, the all Irish brigade, fell dead in even rows shielding their eyes from the bullets as though they were rain. They shouted “Faugh au Ballagh!” Gaelic for “Clear the Way!” They left 53% of their men dead on the field. In all 13,000 Yankees died to a mere handful of confederates.
One rebel general, sickened by the stupidity of it all, said: "This ain't war, it's just plain murder." After the defeat, Burnside rode past some of his men, a kissass major tried shouting "Three cheers for the General!" and was met with stony silence.

1872- The town council of Abilene, Kansas fired Wild Bill Hickok as sheriff. They said he was more violent than most of the criminals he arrested.

1895- Gustav Mahlers 2nd Symphony “Resurrection” premiered.

1928- Leopold Damrosch conducted the premiere of George Gershwin's -"An American in Paris."

1936- At the urging of New Yorker editor Harold Ross to find a better line of work, actor Dave Chasen opened Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills, which catered to Hollywood stars for 60 years. It is the restaurant where Leopold Stokowski was introduced to Walt Disney and as a result they conceived "Fantasia". Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Lauren Bacall met upstairs to discuss the Blacklist of 1947. The Shirley Temple cocktail was invented there so little Shirley Temple could hang with the big boys after work. Elizabeth Taylor ordered Chasen’s chili flown out to Rome so she could eat it on the set of Cleopatra. The restaurant closed in 1995 because the Chasen family wanted to cash in on the choice real estate. Today it is a supermarket. They keep one booth intact as a display.

1937- THE RAPE OF NANKING- The Japanese army captured the Nationalist capitol of China. The Japanese generals let their soldiers run amok for three weeks, raping and murdering civilians by the thousands. Japanese who refused to kill the innocent were punished by their officers. Typical was two officers who held a contest to see who could behead more Chinese with their samurai swords. The winner killed 106 and the contest was reported in Tokyo newspapers on their sports pages.
When their commanding General Matsui returned from convalescent leave, he was horrified and ordered a stop. That got him recalled home in disgrace. The unprecedented brutality shocked the world, remember the full horrors of World War II were still years in the future.

1937-THE GOOD NAZI- During the Rape of Nanking, in an ironic twist, the women and children of the foreign delegations were protected from the rampaging Japanese soldiers by a German businessman Johann Rabe, who guarded the door in his Nazi party uniform and swastika armband. He took in desperate Chinese civilians and saved thousands. Rabe had been born to a family of foreign merchants and lived his entire life in China, so when it was suggested to him, he joined the Nazi party not knowing anything about it. He just thought it would be good for his business connections. After Nanking, Rabe went home to Berlin and tried lodge a complaint with Adolf Hitler! The Gestapo threatened him with arrest if he didn’t shut up. Then after World War II, Johan Rabe was arrested by Allied authorities for being a Nazi party member! By 1947 he and his family were reduced to eating soup made from nettles and grass to survive. Then a huge package was delivered of food and money. It was a subscription from the People of Nanking, to express their thanks for his humanity.

1939- Battle of the River Platte- The German pocket battleship Graff Spee battled with several British cruisers near the Argentine coastline. The German then put into the neutral port of Montevideo for repairs.

1940- Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" The character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

1942- Ukrainian Tanya Chernova was an attractive blonde ballerina. But when the invading Nazis executed her family, she became a guerrilla, and was trained to be a sniper by supersniper Vasily Zaistzev. This day in the streets of Stalingrad she was making her way to Nazi headquarters with instructions to assassinate their commander Field Marshal von Paulus. But on the way a comrade stepped on a mine and the explosion tore through her abdomen. Tanya survived, but her active duty days were over. She called the Nazis she shot “Broken Sticks.” By the time she turned 20 years old, Tanya Chernova had 80 broken sticks to her record. She died in 2015.

1951- One of the legendary Hollywood producers was Walter Wanger- starting in 1921 his films included The Sheik, Stagecoach, Queen Christina, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Silk Stockings and Cleopatra. His wife was beautiful starlet Joan Bennett, but at this time she was having an affair with her agent Jennings Lang. On this day Wanger surprised Hollywood by pulling out a gun and shooting Lang in the nuts right in the MCA studio parking lot.
In true Hollywood fashion Wanger got off, sentenced to just a few months in an honor ranchero compound and was soon back to work. Contributors to pay his legal fees included the Jack Warner, Walt Disney and Sam Goldwyn. Jennings Lang recovered and later produced House Calls and High Plains Drifter. After all, who needs balls to be a producer?

1961- Jimmy Dean’s folk ballad Big Bad John went to #1 of the country charts. Later Dean had his own TV variety show featuring the Muppets, and started Jimmy Dean’s Pure Pork Sausage Company.

1969- Arlo Guthrie’s hit song Alice’s Restaurant released.

1971- Disney’s film Bedknobs and Broom Sticks opened.

1978- The US tried to introduce silver dollar coins. The first Susan B. Anthony dollars issued. They looked too much like quarters so they didn’t catch on.

1981- Communist Polish Gov't under General Jaruszelski declared martial law and outlaws Solidarity, the Polish Labor Organization. The secret police, the ZOMO's started arresting all the ringleaders. Jaruszelski later claimed the liberal political climate was getting so out of hand that he had to crack down, or the Soviet Union would invade like they did to Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Hungary in 1956. People showed their quiet resistance by wearing a small transistor (i.e. resistor) on their lapel. Also popular was a button that from a distance looked like the graphic "Solidarity" Logo but up close spelled out: "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"

1996- In Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi apocalypse epic the Plague of the 12 Monkeys was unleashed today, a virus pandemic that killed 4/5ths of the world’s population and drove the remainder underground.

2002- Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in disgrace. The Primate of Boston, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States. Cardinal Law had spent years covering for priests who molested children. He even shielded a priest who was registered in the Man-Boy Love Society. Cardinal Law was the highest ranking Catholic to step down from popular pressure. He was recalled to Rome by Pope John Paul, who made him prior of Santa Maria Maggiore, the second largest cathedral in Rome.

2003- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hiding hole and captured by U.S. forces near his hometown of Tikrit. He was later hanged.
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Yesterday’s Question: Ingmar Bergman’s famous movie was The Seventh Seal. What does the Seventh Seal mean? Where did it come from?

Answer: The Seventh Seal is the harbinger of Judgement Day. In the Book of Revelations, it is the culmination of opening the first Six Seals, leading up to the Apocalypse and the Second Coming.