TomSito.com - TOM'S BLOG

Question: Why is a bad actor called a ham?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Before Google was a gigantic global internet service, what was a google?
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History for 10/1/2020
Welcome to Month Number 8, Octubrius to the Romans. In 138 AD the Roman Senate wanted to rename month eight Faustina, after the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. But she being a rare modest empress, she declined the honor.

Birthdays: Vladimir Horowitz, Julie Andrews is 85, Walter Matthau, Richard Harris, Phillipe Noiret, James Whitmore, Pres. Jimmy Carter is 96, Everett Sloane, Rod Carew, Stanley Holloway, Tom Bosley, Randy Quaid, Cindy Margolis, Brie Larson, Zack Galifanakis is 51, Brie Larson is 31.

522BC- The Magiophonia, the Massacre of the Magi. When the high priest of the Persian priesthood, the Magi, attempted to usurp the throne, the Great King of Persia Darius killed him and ordered a general massacre of Magi priests. Greek writer Herodotus wrote: 'This day was celebrated each year as the feast of Magophonia or the day of the slaughter of the magi...the Persians observe this day with one accord, and keep it more strictly than any other in the whole year...this day is the greatest holy day that all Persians alike keep.'" By Jesus’ time, the Magi were much more circumspect in their ambitions, and merely stuck to astronomy and spiritual matters.

331BC- BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA or Arbelum - Alexander the Great's victory over the Persian army of King Darius IV. Darius had sought to once and for all destroy this Greek troublemaker by assembling an enormous army from all over his kingdom. But this multinational, polyglot force had no cohesion, and the disciplined Macedonian-Greek veterans knifed through their ranks. Alexander ordered his elite Companion Cavalry to make right for King Darius, since he was the only thing holding his army together. Darius had to run for his life, and so his army broke up soon after seeing him fleeing. The Persian Empire collapsed and Alexander soon captured his capitol and family.

326 A.D. Christian Emperor Constantine banned sentencing criminals to gladiator schools, effectively phasing out gladitorial combat. The Games continued on a little while longer using prisoners of war, but all the fun and professionalism had gone out of it. The last recorded bout in Rome was in 407AD.

Today is the Feast of Saint Bavo of Ghent, who begged one of his former servants to drag him by a chain around his neck because of what a cruel master he was before his conversion to Christianity.

1202- To the sound of massed trumpets and singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, the knights of the Fourth Crusade left by ship from Venice for the Holy Land.

1273- German Electors choose Duke Rudolph of Hapsburg as Holy Roman Emperor. The Hapsburg family was the most successful dynasty in Europe. They remained in power (with one or two interruptions) for 645 years, finally being deposed in 1918. And several Hapsburgs are still around in case Austria gets tired of republican democracy. When a Hapsburg chided Napoleon for having no royalty in his blood, he snapped back" I prefer to be the Rudolph of my race!'

1791- The first day of the French Legislative Assembly, the second French parliamentary body after the Assembly National that had started the French Revolution adjourned itself. In this assembly for the first time the conservatives sat on the right side of the hall, the liberals on the left side and the moderates in the center. This gives us the designation today used around the world for political Leftists and Right Wingers.

1800- By the secret Treaty of San Idelfonso Spain returned Louisiana to France in exchange for the Italian Duchy of Parma. Spain had owned Louisiana for her part in the French and Indian War (Seven Years War) victory. Napoleon needed it back for his planned worldwide colonial challenge to Britain. But when Santo Domingo revolted against French rule and Nelson sank the French navy Napoleon soured on his colonial plans. He decided to sell Louisiana to the one country he knew would annoy the British most, the United States. And Spain never did get Parma.

1810- The first Berkshire Cattle Show.

1857- Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary premiered in magazine installments. Flaubert was tried for pornography because of it, but acquitted.

1880- John Phillip Sousa was named leader of the Marine Corps Band and began his career as the March King.

1903- First World Series of Baseball. The Boston Pilgrims had lost the first game today to the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-3, even though Cy Young was the starting pitcher. But Boston went on to win the series in best of nine games. There was no 1904 World series because the owners couldn't agree on a format.

1908- Ford announces the Model "T" the "Tin Lizzie" the first mass-produced affordable car. It was called the Model T because it took Twenty prototypes to perfect it. The Model T cost $825, paid on installments with as little as $10 down. Its top speed was 45 miles and hour and 15 million were sold. When they asked Henry Ford what color should it be, he replied: "Any color so long as it's black.' The auto goes from being a rich mans plaything to something every home could afford.

1910- A bomb blew up the L.A. Times building, killing 23 people. The Times had a hostility to unions, and two union organizers the McNamara Brothers were arrested.
Despite having Clarence Darrow as a lawyer they were convicted, possibly because halfway through the trial the brothers confessed they did it, and Darrow had to beat a charge of jury tampering. As the MacNamaras were hanged they shouted 'Hurrah for Anarchy!'

1919- THE FIX IS IN- First game of the 'fixed' world series. The Chicago White Sox had the best team in baseball at the time but Charles Comisky paid them wages lower than most minor league teams. They were nicknamed the Black Sox because Comisky was too cheap to pay for laundering their uniforms. So this year five players accepted bribes from gangster Arnold Rothstein to throw the world series. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who spent much of the previous night sewing $10,000 into the lining of his overcoat, at first threw a perfect fastball strike, then hit the batter in-between the shoulder blades on the next pitch- a signal to the gangsters that "The Fix was In" Cincinnati won this game 9 -1 and eventually the series.
The scheme was uncovered a year later and Baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned all the accused Sox players from ever playing again.

1923- The first football game in the L.A. Coliseum- USC defeated Pomona.

1931- Construction completed on the new Waldorf Astoria Hotel. The original Waldorf Astoria from the XIX Century was demolished to make way for the Empire State Building. The new Waldorf boasted the Waldorf Towers, where kings, presidents and other Hoi-Paloi could enter by a private lobby and stay for weeks at a time. Old president Herbert Hoover was a long time resident. Their restaurant was where The Waldorf Salad was created.

1932- Babe Ruth's "Called" Home Run. Ruth was hitting against a Chicago Cubs pitcher when he pointed with his bat towards right field. He then swung his bat and hit a home run over the right wing bleachers.

1937- After heavy lobbying by millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst the first Federal law banning Marijuana goes into effect. The law was sought chiefly by southwestern states, that wanted to have any excuse to deport Mexican immigrants. Plus Hearst had many powerful paper manufacturers behind him who wanted wood pulp to be the chief source of paper products rather than hemp, which grows, well…. like a weed.

1942-The test flight of America’s first experimental jet aircraft- the XP59A Comet.

1943-THE DANISH MIRACLE- This day the Nazis were to begin deporting Denmark's Jewish population to death camps. The Danish people meanwhile had quietly smuggled the entire Jewish population to the coast and onto ferries to neutral Sweden. The Germans only found a few hundred stragglers. Earlier in a show of defiance when the Nazi authorities ordered all Jews to wear a large yellow Star of David, every Danish citizen including the King wore one.

1944- Nazis doctors in Buchenwald concentration camp began conducting experiments on homosexuals.

1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left the cartoon business to work full time as a screenwriter at Paramount on live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.

1946- NUREMBERG-The verdicts read in the International Military Tribunal Trials of top Nazi war criminals. Herman Goering, Hans Franck, Jodl and 8 others got death sentences, their bodies later to be burned in the very crematoriums they created. Others like Rudolf Hess life prison terms. Admiral Doenitz, the leader of the U-Boats, got a lighter sentence by appealing to US Admiral Nimitz. Nimitz admitted that US submarines sinking the Japanese merchant marine learned their stuff studying the German tactics. Japanese submarines never sunk US cargo ships because sinking other than a war ship was considered dishonorable.
Senator Robert Taft was a leading Republican Senator who pointed out that even though the Nazis were evil and deserved punishment, the Nuremberg trials had no legal precedent and were against the U.S. Constitution's guarantee against ex-post-facto – after the fact, laws. Technically speaking, there were no such laws like Crimes Against Humanity at the time, so how could anybody be convicted of violating them? Intriguing, but not a popular argument. Taft was being considered for a presidential run in 1948 until these statements ruined his career. John F. Kennedy put him in his book Profiles of Courage.

1947-THE BIRTH OF THE BURBS- William Levitt's postwar dream, a planned community of affordable pre-fab homes on the outskirts of New York, called Levittown, is born. Mr. and Mrs. Bladykas moved into the first 2 bedroom house, which cost $7,990 bucks. The first true suburb.

1948- After the Israeli War of Independence the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haij Amin Al Husseini gathered many Arab refugees displaced by the fighting and declared a Palestinian State in the North of Israel, in accordance with the UN Resolution. King Abdallah of Jordan rejected this and declared all Palestinian lands not claimed by Israel including the West Bank were part of Jordan. While Arab states lined up on either side to argue, the Palestinians were kept in refugee camps instead of being allowed to assimilate into the populations of the surrounding Arab countries. This confusion in part explains why Israel and other Western nations for many years had trouble understanding Palestinian nationalism. For years Israeli leaders like Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan felt Jordan was the homeland for resettled Palestinians. King Abdallah was assassinated by a Palestinian.

1949- THE EAST IS RED - Mao declared the Peoples Republic of China. "Now Let the World Tremble! " he said. In China today is a holiday –National Day. Contrary to paranoid conservative American politicians who feared the growing global Communist domination, Russian Soviet dictator Stalin hated Mao, and continued to support Chiang Kai Chek’s nationalist government. During World War II, Mao sent his wife to Moscow for safety. Stalin locked her up in a lunatic asylum just to annoy him.

1952- This Is Your Life TV show hosted by Ralph Edwards premiered.

1955- The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, Jayne Meadows and Art Carney premiered on TV.

1957- Los Angeles outlaws garbage incineration to try and cut down smog levels. Even though Los Angeles has reduced it's pollution levels by 30% in ten years it still had the worst air in the United States until surpassed by Houston in 1999.

1958- NASA born. The National Aeronautics & Space Agency. The U.S. government takes the space program out of the hands of the military and sets up a civilian space agency to get us into orbit.

1960- The independence of Nigeria.

1962- Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show, after host Jack Paar in a rage walked of the set and resigned. Paar was annoyed at network censors for cutting a comedy sketch that featured the sound of a toilet flushing. At first, people were cool to Carson. Even his own mother in Nebraska wasn’t impressed. But by years end Johnny Carson became the king of late night TV, and ruled it for 32 years.

1963- People who argue that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy take note: It is a fact that this day weeks before the assassination top Mafioso Jimmy Roselli flew from Chicago down to New Orleans to have two secret meetings with Jack Ruby, the man who later shot Oswald. Why would a national crime boss take time to talk with a two-bit strip joint manager?

1964- THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT- It’s hard to believe now, but once upon a time most US universities had strict laws against students holding political protests on campus. It changed when this day on the campus of Berkeley, Cal., Jack Weinberg was arrested by Oakland police for distributing Civil Rights pamphlets. A mob of students surrounded the police car he was handcuffed in and would not let it proceed. The crowd held the car for 32 hours as speakers stood on the roof and made speeches denouncing the ban and other issues. The University lifted the ban on public political rallies and set the stage for the Ant-War protest of the 60’s.

1966- Largest demonstrations in China of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

1968- George Romero's film "Night of the Living Dead' premieres. Despite one film critic describing it as,” A bunch of sick crap”, it went on to become a cult hit.

1982- Disney's EPCOT opens.

1987- The Whittier Earthquake rocks L.A. 5.9 on the Richter Scale, it killed 8 and caused millions in damage.

1992 -The Cartoon Network started.

2009- The Walt Disney Family Museum opened in San Francisco.

2013- The Obamacare sign-up website, Healthcare.gov went on line. It quickly crashed and caused much embarrassment and scoffing from critics of the administration. But eventually it signed up millions of uninsured and slowed the rise of medical costs.

2017- Retired real estate dealer Steven Paddock went to Las Vegas with a car full of legally purchased automatic weapons. From his hotel suite window he sprayed bullets down on the audience of an outdoor rock concert. He shot 480 people, killing 56. Then he killed himself. No motive was ever revealed.
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Yesterday’s Question: Before Google was a gigantic global internet service, what was a google?

Answer: A google is 10 to the 100th power.

Question: Before Google was a gigantic global internet service, what was a google?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who said,” When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.”
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History for 9/30/2020
Birthdays: William Wrigley the Chewing Gum king 1868, Truman Capote, Eli Weisel, Lester Maddox, Buddy Rich, David Oistrach, Deborah Kerr, Angie Dickinson, Marylin McCoo, Len Cariou, Johnny Mathis, Rula Lenska, Eric Stolz, Monica Bellucci is 56, Jenna Elfman is 49, Marion Cotillard is 45, Al Leong (Al KaBong) is 68

331BC- On the night before the Battle of Gaugamela. Alexander the Great made preparations. The Persian Great King had assembled and enormous army of peoples from throughout his vast empire-150,000 Lydians, Scythians, Bactrians, Phoenicians, Ionians, Egyptians, Medes, all to face the Macedonian Greek army of 30,000. Alexander ordered his soothsayer Aristander to offer sacrifices to the God of Fear.

420AD- Today is the feast of Saint Jerome, who first translated all of the Old and New Testaments from Hebrew, Chaldean, Aramaic and Greek into commonly spoken Latin. This is referred to as the Vulgate Edition.

1187- SALADIN CAPTURED JERUSALEM- After destroying the Crusader army at The Horns of Hattin in July, the Sultan of Egypt laid siege to the Holy City. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and Baron Baylin of Ibelin threatened to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque, the Dome of the Rock and other Muslim holy places if Saladin didn't agree to mild treatment of the Christian citizens of the city. Saladin didn't want his name to go down in history with such an infamy, so he agreed. Still, he consoled himself with beheading 3,000 captured Knights Templar (you gotta have some fun). Remember Richard Lionheart had 5,000 Arab people slaughtered just to taunt Saladin. The Queen of Jerusalem, Yolanda DeCourtenay, sister of Baldwin IV 'the Leper King '(deceased), went into exile looking for Western support for more Crusades.

1399- King Richard II abdicated the throne of England for Henry IV Bollingbroke.
He was Henry IV part one, if you're a Shakespeare fan). Henry was the eldest surviving son of John of Gaunt and Richard the son of his brother Edward the Black Prince. The cousins would wage the War of the Roses a generation later. Richard was later murdered at Pontefract Castle. Richard II is remembered for is the invention of the pocket-handkerchief.

1630- Pilgrim John Billington became the first American hanged for murder. Known as the “Wickedest Pilgrim Father” criminologists call him the first American crook.

1681- Louis XIV of France seized the city of Strasbourg, a city half-German and half-French. The German Emperor considered Strasbourg one of his imperial cities and the stage was set for future Franco-German rivalry. The city would change hands again and again over the centuries until becoming finally French in 1945.

1789- After adopting the Constitution, setting up the Supreme Court and working with the first President, the First Congress of the United States adjourned.

1791- Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflotte, The Magic Flute" premiered at Emanuel Schiknader's theater in Vienna. One of the theories about Mozart's death was that he put too much FreeMason's secret ritual into the story, so that the Masons did him in for violating their secrecy. The Papageno-Papagena duet when they meet at the end was Schiknader's idea. Mozart gave pyrotechnical trills to the coloratura aria of the Queen of the Night, but privately he laughed at such singing as “Cut Up Noodles”.

1791- The French Assembly Nationale, which had been in session since King Louis XVI chased them into a tennis court and tried to disband them two years earlier, dissolved themselves to make way for a new Legislative Assembly to complete the work of converting France from a feudal kingdom to a democratic republic.

1846- Dr. William Morton first pulled a tooth using ether as an anesthetic.

1868- Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women first published in installments.

1888- Jack the Ripper killed two more prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes

1896- Explorer Robert Peary returned to New York from the Polar ice bringing the Museum of Natural History a large iron meteorite, and two families of Eskimos (Inuit). Peary had tempted the Eskimos with promises of gifts and promised to return them in a year. The Museum housed them in the basement. All but one young boy named Minik died of disease. Minik had been told his father Oiesuk was buried, but in reality the Museum made his skeleton into an exhibit. In 1909 the boy was finally allowed to go home. By then he had wised up. ” I want to leave before you put my brains in a jar, too!”

1919- The Fleischer Brother's first Out of the Inkwell cartoon featuring Koko the Clown. Koko was rotoscoped- meaning traced from live action like Motion Capture does today. Dave Fleischer put on the clown suit and was filmed by his brother Max.

1928- Walt Disney and his crew re-recorded the final soundtrack and music for the first Mickey Mouse short, Steamboat Willie. Walt was unhappy with the sync on first version of the track, and pawned his car for the money to pay for this second session.

1930- Death Valley Days Show premiered on radio, sponsored by Twenty Mule Team Borax powder. When it moved to television in the 50’s the host was Ronald Reagan.

1935- George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess premiered at the Colonial Theater in Boston. It flopped originally, but after some rewrites it became a major hit.

1942-THE STAR OF AFRICA- Just prior to the Battle of El Alamein the top German fighter ace Hans Joachim Marseilles The Star of Africa died when his ME 109F caught fire and his parachute didn’t open. Marseilles had shot down 158 aircraft in one and a half years. He was just 22. His marksmanship over the Sahara desert was so good that his wingman was nicknamed “The Adding Machine”, because his only job seemed to be to watch and tally up the enemy planes that Joachim shot down. Because of the desert heat, this ace fought his battles in shorts and white tennis shoes.

1947- The first World Series Game on Television- New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3. Gillette and Ford paid $65,000 to sponsor the entire series.

1952- This Is Cinerama, showcasing the widescreen film process, opened in theaters.

1955- James Dean (24) was killed when his Porsche 550 Spyder crashed head on into a pickup truck driven by college student Donald Turnipseed on Highway 41 outside of Paso Robles, California. Dean was driving 85 mph at dusk without his headlights on, and two hours earlier had been given a ticket for speeding. Until now the American public had only seen him in one movie- "East of Eden" and some TV work. Giant and Rebel Without a Cause had yet to be released, yet the legend endures to this day. In an eerie coincidence, Dean had just filmed a public service announcement promoting automobile safety. His last lines were:” Remember, the life you save may be mine!”

1960- Hanna & Barbera's "The Flintstones" debuted. For six seasons in prime time the inhabitants of 301 Cobblestone Lane, Bedrock, was one of the most successful TV series ever. Originally going to be named the Flagstones, then Gladstones, before Flintstones. Ed Benedicts' designs with Alan Reed as the voice of Fred, Jean Van Der Pyl the voice of Wilma, Mel Blanc doing Barney and Bea Benaderet doing Betty.
The show was so obviously modeled on the live action comedy The Honeymooners, that Jackie Gleason considered suing, especially when two of his old writers went to work for them. But his people dissuaded him, saying if he did, he’s be hated by every child in America.

1962- Three days of bitter rioting climaxed the BATTLE OF OXFORD MISSISSIPPI. James Meredith wanted to be the first black man to enroll in the segregated University of Miss. Governor Ross Barnett, who Time Magazine called “The Worst Racist in the Nation” vowed to keep him out. President John Kennedy pondered the constitutional ramifications of arresting the sitting governor of a state. When Barnett refused to deploy the states’ National Guard Washington sent in Federal marshals and troops to ensure Mr. Meredith could attend classes.
This night for 14 hours huge crowds of segregationist and Klansmen from around the state waving Confederate flags battled authorities with rocks, bottles, guns and tear gas. Two were killed and scores wounded. One federal marshal said: “ I was more scared there than I was at Pearl Harbor!” One of the marshals that night was the son of writer William Faulkner. Next day James Meredith walked to his classes at Old Miss. In later years Meredith became an aide to former segregationist Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

1966- British Bechuanaland becomes the Republic of Botswana.

1971- The Baseball Washington Senators played their last game in RFK Stadium. Their fans rioted and threw so much trash on to the field that the game was declared a forfeit. The Senators moved to Texas and became the Texas Rangers.

1982- The TV comedy Cheers premiered. The Beacon Street Bar in Boston where everybody knows your name. It made stars of Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Kirstie Alley and Kelsey Grammar.

1990- READ MY LIPS! President George Bush Sr made the cornerstone of his policy the fact that he’d never raise taxes- He declared “Read my lips, no new taxes!” Well today he went back on his word and announced a hefty tax increase of $134 billion. When a spokesman was called on this obvious flip-flop he responded:” The Presidents position has Evolved.” So did the American public’s view of Bush, they voted him out of office.

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Yesterday’s Question: Who said,” When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.”

Answer: Prince Metternich of Austria in 1830. Metternich was a career diplomat who reshaped much of Europe in the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars. When the kings and queens of Europe began to notice the dissatisfaction in their working class citizens, Metternich noted that rebellions that broke out in Paris had a habit to spreading to other European capitols. For instance, after the French revolt of 1848 overthrew their king, similar uprisings broke out in Vienna, Rome, Weimar, Warsaw, Berlin and Budapest.

Question: Who said,” When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.”

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What does it mean when you “ Pull out all the stops.”?
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History for 9/29/2019
Birthdays: Roman general Pompey Magnus, Miguel de Cervantes, Admiral Horatio Nelson, Rudolph Diesel (inventor of the engine), Enrico Fermi, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Autrey, Lech Walesa, Stanley Kramer, Bryant Gumbel, Greer Garson, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ian McShane, Anita Ekberg, Andrew Dice-Clay, cartoonist Russ Heath, Tom Sizemore, Emily Lloyd is 51, Silvio Berlusconi, Stephanie Miller is 59

In the Medieval calendar this was The Feast of Mickelmuss or MichaelMass. In Old London this was the beginning of the winter lighting season when every tenth store had to maintain a candle in a street lamp, and light it after dark, until Lady Day, March 25th.

440 A.D. -Pope Leo the Great consecrated. He was the pope who turned away Attila the Hun from the gates of Rome.

1066-WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR LANDS IN ENGLAND. When King Edward the Confessor died childless, he left the throne up for grabs. Earl Harold son of Godwin promised Duke William of Normandy that he would step aside and let him be king. But later Harold took the crown for himself. So Duke William invaded with 30,000 Norman knights. Duke William was an illegitimate son of Robert the Devil. He was called William the Bastard until the conquest, then he became William the Conqueror.
When William's ship landed at Pevensey Beach near Dover, Duke William leapt out into the surf to be the first to set foot in Britain. However in front of the whole army he stumbled and fell to his knees. Quickly realizing that if he didn't act fast the men would regard this as a dangerously bad omen, he grabbed two fistfuls of muddy sand in his clenched fists, raised them up and declared : "Ah Britain! Now I have you!" His men cheered and he went on to victory at Hastings on Oct. 16th.

1529- Phillip the Landgrave of Hesse got together the great Protestant leaders to try and seek a common ground for the anti-Catholic Reformation. Martin Luther met Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli at this conference. They couldn’t agree on anything and the meeting quickly fell apart. At the departure, Luther even refused to shake Zwingli’s hand. “Your Spirit is not our Spirit.”

1798- At the court of Naples Admiral Horatio Nelson was given a 40th birthday party by his friend and patron, the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton. At this party Nelson first shows the signs of getting seriously turned on by Hamilton's hot young wife Emma. Sir William was 69, Emma was 30. The party was broken up when Nelson's stepson, who was serving as one of his lieutenants, got so drunk he made a scene.
The love affair between Nelson and Mrs. Hamilton in defiance of all social stigmas scandalized even that notorious age. Yet Sir William Hamilton seemed more interested in his ancient Roman pottery. Hamilton got more upset at the news of a shipload of antique vases sinking, than being told that his wife was shivering the admiral’s timbers.

1829- BOBBIES- Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had been complaining for years that the city of London needed it's own regular police force instead of relying on irregular militia like the Bow Street Runners or the Horse Guards to do with urban maintenance. At this time sections of North London were so tough they were labeled on maps “No-Go”. On this day London's reorganized police force, The Greater Metropolitan Police Force based at Scotland Yard, went on duty. The constables, because they were formed by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, were nicknamed "Bobbie's Boys" or "Bobbies". They’re also nicknamed Old Bill. Some called them Peelers.

1862- THE GENERAL DISTURBANCE- The Yankee army in Tennessee had a morale problem among its senior officers. Major General Bull Nelson got into an argument with Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis -no relation to the President of the Confederacy. In a hotel lobby Davis confronted the 6' 5", 300 pound Nelson and flung a business card in his face. Nelson bellowed "Get outta my way you puppy!" and slapped him so hard he flew across the room. Whereupon General Davis drew a pistol and shot General Nelson in the chest." Tom, he's murdered me!" Bull Nelson cried as he died. Amazingly Gen. Davis was never tried or court-martialed because he was needed on the battlefield. I guess arguments between nations take precedence. Davis was finally cashiered out of the army when during Sherman's March through Georgia he was accused of destroying a bridge before a crowd of runaway slave families could cross, knowing they would be left at the mercy of the pursuing Confederates.

1913-Rudolph Diesel, inventor of the Diesel engine, celebrated his 55th birthday by jumping off his yacht into the English Channel and drowning himself.

1918- German ally Bulgaria requested an armistice with Britain and France to get out of World War One.

1925- Colonel Billy Mitchell testified to Congress that America needed a large independent Air Force, because the current army and navy heads were too incompetent to grasp its future significance. For these remarks, he was court-martialed and suspended for 5 years. He quit the army in disgust. In Germany, German ace Ernst Udet studied Mitchell’s tactics to develop the dive-bombing. In 1942, when it was obvious that World War II was being decided by air power, Billy Mitchell was reinstated a major general- posthumously. The US Air Force became a separate branch of the military in 1945.

1929- After a summer of fierce rioting between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem, Nablus, Hebron and Bethlehem, Palestinian leader Oudah Mousah Pashah met with the British Mandate Governor. He warned that if something wasn’t done to curb Jewish desires for nationhood in Palestine, more violence would occur.

1930-Ninety year old writer George Bernard Shaw turned down the offer of a Peerage.

1930- First day of shooting on the Tod Browning horror classic Dracula. Hungarian actor and morphine addict Bela Lugosi played the lead role he had already made famous on stage. Lugosi was identified with the character Dracula for the rest of his life. When he died, he was buried in the Dracula cape.

1933- The movie A Bill of Divorcement introduced the star Katherine Hepburn.

1936- Leaders of the Spanish Fascist Phalange forces vote Gen. Francisco Franco "Il Caudillo- the Leopard", their overall leader, or Generalissimo.

1938- THE MUNICH AGREEMENT- Hitler duped war weary England & France that if he ate Czechoslovakia he would be satisfied. Prime Minister Chamberlain proclaims back home :"Peace in our Time." At the conference at Bertchesgarden the British and French prime ministers never conferred, never even had lunch with each other. And no one would give a hearing to Czech Premier Benes, who’s country after all was being dissolved.
In Germany a conspiracy of top generals lead by an Admiral Canaris were poised to topple Hitler in a coup the moment the news of Britain and France had declared war came from Munich. Instead the news of Hitler bluffing his way peacefully to victory caused the conspiracy to crumble. Around this time American CBS correspondent in Berlin William Shirer reported that those close to Hitler said he had a curious ritual to cope with stress. When the Fuhrer would fly into a rage he would calm himself by dropping to the floor and chewing on the corners of his carpet.

1941- Babi Yar. The Nazis drive the Jewish population of Kiev outside city and murder them in a ravine. Thirty thousand were killed in one day. The Ukrainian population had welcomed the Nazis as liberators from the tyranny of Stalin. For years afterwards the Soviet KGB denied Babi Yar's existence until poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko made the site famous with his poem of the same name.

1953- The television show “Make Room for Daddy” premiered, making a star out of big nosed nightclub entertainer Danny Thomas. The Lebanese Thomas had tried to break into films with no luck. He burst into tears after Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn suggested he get a nose job and forget about it. Danny Thomas at one time was the richest man in Beverly Hills.

1957- A nuclear reactor explosion in Chyrbtsk Russia released more deadly radiation than Chernobyl, but it was all kept secret until recently.

1959- Hanna Barbera's "Quick Draw McGraw" TV show. Baba Louie and El Kabong!

1961- Russian ballet star Rudolph Nureyev, acclaimed as the greatest dancer of his age, defected to the west in Paris and was granted asylum.

1962- Because of the Independence of Algeria the French Foreign Legion quits their home base at Siddi Abbes forever. They took with them relics like the glass casket containing the wooden hand of Capt. Jean Danjou, killed at Camarone Mexico fighting the Juaristas one hundred years earlier.

1967- The cult TV series The Prisoner premiered.

1969- The TV series Love American Style premiered.

1969- Country singer Merle Haggard released the song “I’m Proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee”. It was a huge hit on the country charts, but more than that, it was a conservative declaration of cultural war of against the urban-hippy, rock & roll counterculture that dominated American media at the time. It crystalized rural anger into an already polarized American public.

1975- The legendary R&B singer Jackie Wilson, collapsed of a heart attack while performing on stage for Dick Clark’s ‘Good Ol’ Rock and Roll Revue’ at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, N.J. He lingered in an out of a coma for 8 years, dying in 1984. He was only 49. All the time he was comatose, Dick Clark covered all his medical bills, and kept it a secret. This wasn’t revealed until Clark himself died in 2012.

1976- At his birthday party musician Jerry Lee Lewis accidentally shot his bass player Norman Owens in the chest with his 357 magnum. He said he was using the gun to try and open a soft drink bottle and it accidentally went off. Owens survived and sued Lewis.

1982- Tylenol recalled hundreds of thousands of bottles of capsules after a lunatic laced some with cyanide, killing seven. The killer or killers were never found.

1996- The first Nintendo 64 bit game system, The NES, debuted in the US. It sold 500,000 the first day.

2008- When the Conservative US Congress failed to pass a bail-out bill for the economy wracked by the Great Recession and high gas prices, Wall Street dropped 700 points, at the time the most ever at once.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when you “ Pull out all the stops.”?

Answer: On a pipe organ, a stop is a thing that restricts air flow through the pipes and controls volume. When you “pull out all the stops” on a pipe organ, it means opening all of the pipes, allowing the sound to emanate with all tonalities at full force. The term has come to mean approaching an endeavor with everything at hand, a supreme, and sometime reckless effort.

Question: What does it mean when you “ Pull out all the stops.”?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: When people say,” It was Colonel Mustard, in the Study, with the candlestick.” What are they referencing?
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History for 9/28/2020
Birthdays: Michel Caravaggio, Georges Clemenceau, Al Kapp, William Paley, Max Schmelling, Bridgette Bardot is 85, Frederic Engels, Marcello Mastroianni, Moon Unit Zappa, Ed Sullivan, Sylvia Kristel, John Sayles, Arnold Stang, J.T. Walsh, Seymour Cray, Janeane Garofalo is 56, Mira Sorvino is 53, Hillary Duff is 33, Naomi Watts is 52

48 B.C.- Pompey the Great, fleeing Julius Caesar after he was defeated by him, was assassinated by the Egyptians just as he landed on their shore. A hired Roman officer named Septimius did the murder. The Egyptians thought it would please Caesar to present him with his enemies head. When one of Pompey's supporters was approaching the coast by ship and saw a Roman-style funeral pyre, he knew their cause was lost. He sighed:" Even thou, Pompeius Magnus?"

855AD- The Frankish Empire of Charlemagne had covered Europe from Hungary to the Pyrenees, Denmark to Sicily. This day Frankish Emperor Lothar died, and according to custom his kingdom is divided among his sons. Lothar had fought against his brothers Charles the Bald and Louis the German unsuccessfully to keep the empire together. By the Treaty of Verdun, Louis and Charles acknowledged the fact that Charlemagne’s Empire was just too big to manage. They broke it up, creating the kingdoms of France, Germany, and Austrasia,- later Austria and Italy.

1043- Battle of Lyrskog Heath (Hede). Viking King Magnus the Good defeated a Baltic tribe called the Wends. Magnus psyched out the enemy by taking off his armor, and put on a loud red shirt. He then ran ahead of his charging warriors swinging a large double bladed axe (named Hel) over his head in wide circles, until he crashed into the foe.

1216- CORONATION OF KING HENRY III- English King John I, aka John the Bad, John Lackland, John SoftSword, John the Total Loser, etc. was killed when an evil monk poured poisonous toad venom in his ear. His son Henry was left a situation that didn't make for a good coronation. The country was racked by civil war and invasion because of the dispute over the Magna Charter, the great document that granted broad ranging civil rights. Henry couldn't have his coronation at Westminster because London was occupied by a French army. He couldn't have the Archbishop of Canterbury preside over the ceremony because he was under house arrest in the Vatican. And to top it all off his father had lost the Iron Crown of Alfred the Great at the beach. Boy, what a downer of a party! Henry III would reign for 56 years and demand extravagance at all subsequent royal functions.

1542- The European Discovery of California- Juan de Cabrillo sailing up from Mexico stepped ashore at Cabrillo Point in San Diego Harbor. He had hoped that San Diego Bay would be the Straights of Anian, a mythical sea route back to the Atlantic that would be safer than Magellan’s Straights. All through the 1500’s conventional thinking was that America was just one big island with sea routes all around it. California was supposed to be the Kingdom of Califa, the Brown Amazons who wield Golden Swords.

1774- At the First Continental Congress Pennsylvanian Joseph Galloway proposed that the solution to America’s grievances with England was to ask the mother country for dominion status:” since the colonies hold in abhorrence the idea of being independent communities.” The Dominion Plan was defeated by only one vote.

1781- Washington and Rochambeau’s troops entered the siege trenches around Yorktown. They were amazed at the British army’s lack of activity. Lord Cornwallis knew he was being surrounded by land and sea for two weeks, yet he did nothing to break out of the trap. He decided to wait until his superior General Clinton would arrive with a rescue force. But Clinton was busy in New York entertaining King George’s younger son the Duke of York who was visiting America to buck up the troops morale. Clinton’s relief force showed up to Yorktown two weeks late for Cornwallis’ defeat.

1794- France’s Ecole Polytechnique first opened.

1850- Congress abolished flogging on US Naval vessels. Captains came up with other clever means of discipline like hanging a seaman from his thumbs.

1857- Wall Street collapsed and the ensuing panic created recession and unemployment.

1864- CENTRALIA RAID- Confederate Guerilla "Bloody-Bill" Anderson stops a train of 150 disarmed Union recruits and has them all killed and scalped. Because of the chaos of civil war, nobody noticed that this guy was a complete psychopath. He hung human hair from his saddle and galloped into battle weeping aloud as he fired his pistols. He would put a knot in the sash around his waist for every time he killed a Yankee. By the time Bloody Bill was finally gunned down his sash was full of knots.

1864- THE FIRST INTERNATIONALE opens. European and American trade unions held a mass meeting in London, with the goal of attempting to centralize the struggle for labor rights. The meeting became sidetracked by radical and anarchist politics, and soon disbanded. The Second and Third Internationales were more about communist politics. One positive accomplishment was Frenchman Pierre de Guyter wrote a melody for the meeting that became the song of revolution, "The Internationale".

1904- A woman is arrested on New York’s Fifth Ave for openly smoking a cigarette. Look how far we’ve come. Today, almost anyone now can be arrested for smoking a cigarette!

1918- At Imperial German headquarters, master strategist General Erich Ludendorff monitored the reports of his armies being driven back from their final defensive lines. Ludendorff dismissed his staff, gently closed his office door, and went into a fit of hysterics- screaming that the Kaiser, the Reichstag, and the Liberals had ruined everything. Then, after regaining his composure, he calmly walked downstairs to a meeting with General Von Hindenberg and Kaiser Wilhelm. There he told them that hopes for winning World War I were now kaput. The German army was defeated, the people demand peace. Negotiations need to begin immediately.

1924 -the first airplane flight around the world landed back at it's point of departure. Commander Leslie Arnold took off from Seattle with 5 converted torpedo bomber seaplanes. One crashed, another sank but the remaining three circumnavigated the globe.

1928- For his birthday, William Paley, son of a cigar manufacturer, was given control of a little radio company called the Columbia Broadcasting System. He turned CBS into a corporate broadcasting giant, and threw his support behind developing television and long playing records.

1950- In a media rich ceremony, General Douglas MacArthur restored South Korean President Sygmun Rhee to the presidential palace in liberated Seoul. The Marines complained that though they had done the bulk of the house-to-house fighting, they were left out of the ceremony by old regular Army man MacArthur. Colonel Chesty Puller looked at all the crisp Army MP’s standing guard and growled to a correspondent “ Today my First Marines took 25 combat casualties, while these little cookies were still flying out from Tokyo!”

1960- Ted Williams hit a home run at his last at-bat. Number 521.

1961- Richard Chamberlain made a name for himself by playing the handsome Dr. Kildare on TV, Raymond Massey co-starred.

1961-The Hazel TV show with Shirley Booth premiered.

1967- Speed Racer premiered in the U.S.

1970 - After spending three days making peace between King Hussein of Jordan and Yassir Arafat of the PLO, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died of heart failure. Five million people in the streets of Cairo attended the funeral and took over the coffin draped in the Egyptian flag and passed it above their heads across the city to the intended mausoleum. Nasser had been the first native leader of Egypt since the last Pharaoh Nectanebo, was driven out by Persian King Cyrus in the fourth century BC.

1976- Stevie Wonder released his album Songs in the Key of Life.

1978- Pope John Paul I dies after only 34 days in office. The rumor was some sort of pills were found by his bedside. The Vatican refused any autopsy, fueling many conspiracy theories.

1994- Michael Eisner cancelled plans for a theme park called Disney’s America in Northern Virginia. The idea was dropped after much resistance from local homeowners in Northern Virgina, many of whom were retired Washington power brokers.

1996- The Ambiguously Gay Duo premiered on the Dana Carvey Show. Created by SNL writer Robert Smigel. J.J. Sedelmier created the animation, Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert did the voices.

2015- Scientists discover liquid water on the planet Mars.
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Yesterday’s Question: When people say,” It was Colonel Mustard, in the Study, with the candlestick.” What are they referencing?

Answer: The board game Clue.